A couple of years ago as we were approaching the Holiday 2007 Season, Chris and I shared THIS POST highlighting the parental controls for the three major home consoles. We didn’t list instructions for the Nintendo DS because the system doesn’t have any. The reason is that for the most part, there weren’t any ESRB M-Rated North American NDS releases. Since then, a few have crept into the pool. Considering that there are close to 1000 titles domestically available, the dozen or so M-Rated titles have been of little issue. However, Rockstar North has changed that.
With the release of Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars, the DS has a Mature title that many will want to play (even though some probably shouldn’t). In fact, Rockstar Games’ site highlights THIS LINK to MetaCritic as proof that Chinatown Wars is “the best game to ever hit the Nintendo DS™.” I have clocked-in about 4 hours with the title at this point and I must say that their boast is not unfounded. This game is quite an extraordinary experience for the DS.
To give you a little taste, here’s the trailer for the game:
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There are two important messages that we want to drive home here:
GTA Chinatown Wars is a great game.
GTA Chinatown Wars is not a great game for everyone.
As an adult, I enjoyed the wry sense of humor and typical violence for which the Grand Theft Auto franchise is known. Within the first hour of gameplay, the writers had incorporated the “f-bomb” repeatedly, the protagonist had his masculinity questioned on an “exotic film” set, and the experience included hot-wiring cars, buying/selling drugs, and killing a dozen or so characters. And the use of the touch screen on the DS for creating Molotov cocktails felt like WarioWare gone really bad.
I can heartily recommend this title for those old enough in your family to know the difference between right and wrong and want to have a little fun without hurting anyone. However, keep in mind that if you have younger ones with access to the DS, this title cannot be locked out with parental controls. The DS doesn’t provide that feature.
As Chris mentioned in his last post, we’re always on the lookout for game deals as part of our mission of sharing valuable information with fellow parents. Well, I stumbled across some price drops at GameStop this week that I thought would be of interest including these PSP titles at $9.99 (new):
In addition to these thrifty options, I am delighted to say that it appears that the PSP title God of War: Chains of Olympus (ESRB-M) has dropped to $19.99! (For more information about this gem, feel free to read our article HERE.) GameStop also appears to have dropped the price of Chrono Trigger (ESRB-T) for the NDS to $29.99.
Motivated by my rant about what an “influential” game is, I went looking online to see if anyone had a playable version of Space Invaders. There were many, but I was impressed by this clone and the fact that the designer (Paul Neave) posted his embeddable code so that anyone could include it on their site. If you get a chance, you should check out his site in general RIGHT HERE. He has an inspired sense of design and his interface maintains elegance while being quite modern. (Nice work Paul!)
To begin, click on “Yes, I understand” in the box below and then click on “Play Space Invaders” from the following screen.
← moves your ship left
→ moves your ship right
[SPACEBAR] fires the missile
This version is a little easier than the arcade original, but you get the idea. Without further ado, take a look at the state of the art of videogaming from 30 years ago!
Also, if you’re interested in playing the game full screen, just click HERE.
As an ending note, I believe that there has been a playable version of Space Invaders in every generation of consoles and on almost every platform made. There have been evolutionary steps as well as attempts to simply preserve the classic experience. If there is any question as to whether or not Space Invaders has evolved or been influential, check out the trailer below for the most recent incarnation of the series for the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP.
There’s nothing like hearing your son sing, “I’m Going Faaaast!” only to hear his friend echo the same thing about a major third higher. I got to appreciate this aria this afternoon as my son and his friend enjoyed the Pod Race sequence from Episode I in Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga.
My parents took me to see the original Star Wars (now known as Episode IV: A New Hope) in the summer of 1977. I’ve been a die hard fan of the franchise ever since. As far as the new trilogy (Episodes I-III), one scene has been the source of more videogame content than any other. The Pod Race sequence from Episode I. I own the original Star Wars Episode I Racer for the Nintendo 64, Dreamcast, and Star Wars Racer Revenge for the PlayStation 2. I even own Star Wars Super Bombad Racing thanks to a friend who was working at LucasArts during the development of the title. Though each of these is a fairly kid-friendly title based on this part of the film, Lego Star Wars offers a simplified, yet fun re-interpretation.
There’s no question that if you’re looking for more advanced gameplay and a more strategic experience, the Dreamcast and PlayStation 2 incarnations of Racer offer much more depth. However, for a kid-friendly dose of speed-based-fun, the simplified version offered in Lego Star Wars is sublime. And keep in mind that it is one level of a larger adventure. Often children can get a little bored with repetitive gameplay (as offered in the racer games themselves). The variation in these comes from unlocking different tracks and characters, but the primary experience is the same: go as fast as you can and avoid all obstacles. The Lego Star Wars games offer platforming, shooting, simplified puzzle-solving, and flying sequences in addition to the Pod Racing. So there’s less of a chance for your child to get bored with one aspect of the game. And even if he/she does, plenty of genres are represented for other gameplay options.
I have two more friends who have added PS3s to their household as of this holiday season and, in both cases, they were shocked that they cannot enjoy any titles from their PS2 libraries on their new consoles.
Granted, if we step back a few years backward compatibility was never a given. We couldn’t play original NES cartridges on our Super Nintendo systems. And neither of those would fit our N64s. In the case of Sega’s Genesis, we had the option to buy a Power Base Converter to play Sega Master System Games. And in spite of the popularity of the original Atari 2600, it wasn’t the follow-up 5200, but the eventual release of the 7800 that finally allowed the player to enjoy backward compatibility with their old VCS cartridges.
The two big obstacles in providing backward compatibility are cost and size. In the case of these older cartridge-based systems, creating a separate port into which one can plug a cartridge is both expensive and drastically increases the size of the system. Selling an adapter (like the Power Base Converter) provides an option that lets the end user pay for the additional hardware and keeps the access through a single slot.
However, these days our current generation of consoles no longer use cartridges. They use a standard disc format. If we take a cue from the evolution of the media disc, we see backward compatibility as a standard. For example, a DVD player can play audio CDs. A Blu-ray player can play DVDs and audio CDs. Heck, the now-abandoned HD-DVD format went so far as to put standard DVD content on one side of a disc while putting the HD-DVD content on the other. As media consumers, we build libraries and we don’t want our investments to appear worthless. With this in mind, let’s look at the current generation of consoles…
Lego Star Wars is nothing new. In fact, the complete Saga (first and second trilogy) is nothing new either. However, for parents who are looking for a kid-friendly title after the holidays, it’s hard to beat this one for sheer fun and replay value. And speaking of value, the current $19.99 price (PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, and NDS) makes this title hard to resist!
I picked this up at a local GameStop this past weekend and my son and I played through the first three chapters of Episode I. I couldn’t tell who enjoyed it more – him or me! The version that we played (PS3) has co-op 2-player local and online. This is great for a parent/child team-up. It gives your kids a chance to explore a little while you try to protect them (kinda like our daily job as parents). Another great thing about the game is that even though it provides a bit of a visceral experience (light sabers and blasters), all of the characters in the game are made of Lego. This keeps the violence toned down and when a character is down for the count, he or she simply turns into a pile of Lego bricks. No blood. No guts.
The title has quite a bit of variety too. You play different chapters as different characters and while the default mode of the game is 3-D action platforming and exploration, there are flying and combat levels too. Also, the sense of humor in this title is really quite clever. Many of the jokes were lost on my son who has yet to see the films. However, as a lifelong fan, I was chuckling the whole time. Check out the clip from GameTrailers for an idea of the experience:
The game can be played in single-player mode and characters can be switched on-the-fly to use special skills, but the real fun comes from playing with a teammate. I know that my son hopes to put in more time this coming weekend. (Between you and me, I do too!)
