This weekend I was browsing the Web as part of my ongoing quest to learn EVERYTHING and I stumbled across Etsy.com. This is a site where a number of different people/companies offer their handmade creations. I must admit, there is a reporter from Moses Lake, Washington who calls her creative endeavor Digital Soaps and makes some very interesting (wait for it…) soap. If you need some form of incentive to get your kid off the console and into the tub, or if your spouse would get a kick out of such a novelty, I have to say that these are pretty neat. Click below to see even more of these creations!

Click on the Pictures to take you to the appropriate page if you’re interested.

Keep it clean…for Mario’s sake!

Wanna bet that the cat is a big Metal Gear Solid fan?

Stackable soap, how do I love thee…let me count the lines.

No Halo in the tub!

“Bustin’ makes me feel good…” and clean!

Fun in the tub? Wii!!!

And finally, for the comprehensive evolution of gaming cleanliness…

IGN recently named the Nintendo Entertainment System (affectionately known by many as the “NES”) the greatest console of all time. (You can see their countdown HERE.) They followed this announcement with their list of the top 100 NES games of all time. You can see this list HERE. Unlike a number of top lists, these hit home with a parent who grew up with video games as a child. One of the most important things about many of these titles is that they are FUN!

In fact, many of them are so much fun that you can still purchase them and enjoy them via GBA cartridge adaptations and as downloads for the Wii. In fact, over 80 NES titles are available on the Wii’s Virtual Console.

For those of you who may not be convinced, I encourage you to take a look at PlayNES.net. This site allows you to play practically any original Nintendo Entertainment System game online via a web-hosted Flash emulator.

For those of you who know me, I can wax philosophic about the major impact that the NES had on the gaming industry having single-handedly resurrected the video game market after the North American Video Game Crash of the 80s caused by a glut of bad games for the most successful previous system, the Atari VCS (or 2600 as many know it). However, I will spare you my usual litany and, instead, encourage you to just have some fun. What’s more, almost all of these games are very kid-friendly and some even have multiplayer options!

Enjoy!

Have you ever wondered any of the following…

Why did the American titles jump from Final Fantasy III to Final Fantasy VII?
How can there be more than one Final Fantasy?
What is a Chocobo?

If so, then I have an article for you. Check out IGN Presents the History of Final Fantasy. Spanning from the roots of the franchise on the Famicom through development for the current PS3 titles, this retrospective offers some good background to those who may not be as familiar with the rise of the console-based RPG in American culture. It’s a great read and a good chance to gain some insight to the genre. And it explains where they got the name!

According to Sony’s Official PlayStation Blog, The PlayStation Network has provided a venue through which Sierra Online could resurrect an old franchise of theirs. (Read the details HERE.) To say that the gameplay is addictive is an understatement for those who enjoy a simplified flight sim fighter. In fact, I am shaking my fist (much like Snoopy did in Charles Shultz’s comics) as a testament to that.

Having got that out of the way, Red Baron Arcade is not as involved as the original series on the PCs from the 90s, but it sure is fun. I believe that it falls somewhere between the Sierra Online franchise and the original Atari arcade game. For those of you unfamiliar with the original vector arcade game, you can see some footage of a sit-down cabinet that we observed at an auction in Game Apparent TV Episode 2. The Red Baron cabinet makes a short but memorable 15-20 second appearance starting at 6 minutes and 4 seconds into the video. Also, for those of you who are interested in seeing the original in action, Atari actually has a playable version on their website RIGHT HERE!

In fact, this feels a little like a simplified version of Crimson Skies or the Xbox version Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge. I logged many an hour on the last one. When it comes down to it, one of the most important things about the old Red Baron franchise, the newest version, and the Crimson Skies titles has been the multi-player capability. The games are fun, but playing them against human opponents and shooting them down in the heat of battle is a real treat. Having spent an hour last night playing the demo for Red Baron Arcade, I can say that the multi-player is there and the fun-factor is intact.

One thing unique to the PS3 incarnation of this title is that it utilizes the motion detection functionality of the controller (and fairly well). Instead of using the joystick on the controller, I opted for the motion control function and the controller could be configured to interact with the game like an actual airplane’s yoke. I found this very immersive and quite natural.

For those with PCs interested in the Red Baron 3D experience, a community website is still sponsored HERE for the game and it is available for free download on that page. Otherwise, PS3 owners will find the $9.99 pricetag hard to beat for some online fun for their families.

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.

It’s official. As of THIS PRESS RELEASE The Beatles Rock Band has a release date of September 9th. For those of you who love numerology, that’s 09-09-09! For those of you who are old Beatles fans, you may remember Revolution 9 off of The White Album. Any way you look at it, mid September will be an opportunity for Beatles fans and their families.

Harmonix has created a teaser site HERE and we expect that it will become more realized as the release date approaches.

According to the press release, this is the expected availability and pricing for September 9th:

• The Beatles: Rock Band Software:
- Xbox 360, PLAYSTATION 3, Wii: $59.99 MSRP
• The Beatles: Rock Band Standalone Guitars:
- Xbox 360, PLAYSTATION 3, Wii: $99.99 MSRP
• The Beatles: Rock Band Limited Edition Premium Bundle:
- Xbox 360, PLAYSTATION 3, Wii: $249.99 MSRP

Limited edition instruments will be available that represent the Liverpool lads’ choices over the years, so I’d expect (minimally) Paul’s Höfner bass, John’s Rickenbacker, and George’s Gretsch among others. Also, the game is supposed to be compatible with existing Rock Band hardware.

For more information, you can also read THIS ANNOUNCEMENT on MTV’s site too. Come September, you may get to enjoy reliving classic Beatles moments with a little help from your friends!

Well, well, well… Three holes in the ground and all have been created for Guinness World Records Gamer’s Edition. Thanks to THIS ARTICLE from our friends at Kotaku, we are aware of the Guinness top 50 most influential games of all time.

In all honesty, this is not an easy list to create due to the very subjective nature of the medium. I believe that they attempted to avoid the natural shortfall of trying to choose the 50 “best” games of all time. However, if you are going to claim a criteria, you should adhere to it and I don’t believe that they did. Defining something as influential should be more easily proven than deciding whether or not something is good. If a game is influential, its impact should be observed by how it has changed the industry. I question whether or not many of these titles have had enough time to become influential. Furthermore, some of these more recent titles have been included at the expense of others which I believe have proven their influence.

Before I go any further, let us look at the list:

1. Super Mario Kart
2. Tetris
3. Grand Theft Auto
4. Super Mario World
5. Zelda Ocarina of Time
6. Halo
7. Resident Evil IV
8. Final Fantasy XII
9. Street Fighter II
10. GoldenEye
11. Super Mario 64
12. Tomb Raider
13. Metal Gear Solid
14. Call of Duty 4
15. Sonic the Hedgehog 2
16. GTA San Andreas
17. Super Mario Bros
18. Zelda: A Link to the Past
19. Gran Turismo
20. Final Fantasy VII
21. Pro Evolution Soccer 4
22. The Orange Box
23. Lego Star Wars Complete Saga
24. Tekken 2
25. Wii Sports
26. Pokemon Red/Blue
27. Guitar Hero
28. Project Gotham Racing 4
29. Super Mario Galaxy
30. Resident Evil
31. Ico
32. Chrono Trigger
33. Gunstar Heroes
34. Soul Calibur
35. Advance Wars
36. Ridge Racer
37. Super Metroid
38. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
39. GTA Vice City
40. BioShock
41. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
42. The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening
43. God of War
44. Sega Rally Championship
45. Starfox 64
46. Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
47. WarioWare Inc
48. Saturn Bomberman
49. Crash Bandicoot
50. Outrun 2

Now I won’t argue whether or not any of these games are good. Most of them, if not all, are exceptional games in one way or another. What I am most concerned about is the title of “influential.” In order to know whether or not something is influential one must have enough time to measure its impact on its environment. Now Chris and I both agreed that Super Mario Galaxy was a great game back in Game Apparent Episode 3 and our 2007 Holiday Recommendations. However, we have not yet witnessed the way it has shaped a generation and inspired other developers and artists to change their point of view. In contrast, I was saddened to see a true lack of historical perspective with the absence of titles like Donkey Kong, Pong, Zork, and Space Invaders.

Now our friend Josh suggested that this list could have been for console titles only. That would fit considering the lack of any arcade titles or games that were released only on computers. However, doesn’t that seem to contradict the very nature of the premise? If the list is supposed to document what games have had the most influence, why would one include GoldenEye and Halo without even a nod to the title that created the first-person-shooter genre – Wolfenstein 3D? As for The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, it’s hard to consider the latest installment of an influential franchise without reflecting upon its own roots and originally The Elder Scrolls titles (Arena and Daggerfall) were both PC-based.

There are other clear issues with the list. For example, three different Grand Theft Auto games? As much as I appreciate the franchise, I don’t think that it deserves three separate entries. Heck, there’s only one Metroid title, one Castlevania title, and no entries for Megaman or Contra – yet they give three slots to GTA. And as much as I enjoy the Lego Star Wars franchise, I don’t know if I’d place it on this list. That’s more of an example of how influential Star Wars has been on our culture.

Please, forgive the rant. I am just concerned how easy it is to re-write history and the more people repeat something, the more credible others perceive it to be. Like any art or entertainment form, one must remember the “classics” in order to appreciate context and the evolution of the medium. Whether studying literature, music, and sculpture or film, comics, and videogames, our most recent expressions are built upon the insights, ideas, and innovations of those who have passed before. To lose perspective of what has been “influential” to a medium discredits the accomplishments of the true visionaries who paved the way for others to follow.

Now that I’ve said my piece, feel free to comment.

First – DISCLAIMER – The two titles that I’ll be talking about here are both rated M by the ESRB and are not intended for individuals under the age of 17 years. (You should be able to see the “M” pretty clearly on the covers above!) Having said this, these two Capcom titles are really quite impressive for the older members of your family. They are not recent releases, but they’re currently available new at GameStop for $9.99 each!

Resident Evil 4 (available HERE for $9.99) was originally developed for the Gamecube and was released subsequently for the PS2 and the Wii. Many believe that upon it’s release, RE4 was the most impressive entry to this survival horror franchise and all versions are something to behold. The PS2 version even offers 16:9 480p support for those of you with component cables on your PS2s or backward compatible PS3s. If you’re (not so) patiently waiting for the next installment for the Xbox 360 and PS3, this could keep you creeped out until RE5 hits the store shelves on March 13th.

If you prefer your gaming to be steeped in action rather than horror, you’ll find Devil May Cry 3 (available HERE for $9.99) a treat. This release offers a form of redemption to the franchise. Though the original Devil May Cry was an instant classic on the PS2, the sequel fell a bit flat and lost the sense of style and over-the-top action that had made the first release so compelling. However, DMC 3 brought the thrill back and abandoned the less creative level design and redundancy that plagued the second incarnation. Furthermore, the “Greatest Hits” version of this PS2 title provides even more content. It is a “Special Edition” complete with the ability to play the game as Dante’s brother Vergil, a more forgiving “continue” system, and a less strenuous difficulty overall. The one complaint that many had about the original release of DMC 3 was that it was just too hard. For better or worse, this is no longer the case.

As I said before, these titles are not for the younger ones in the household. But if you have an older teen, or if you yourself are looking for a reason to dust off the PS2 and you missed these when they first released, both titles are an undeniable bargain at this price.

The frugal dad strikes again! Enjoy!

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…

Of the current systems, the PlayStation brand has the longest history of using disc-based media. The original PlayStation used a CD to house the game content. The PlayStation 2 used both CDs (for smaller games) and DVDs (for larger titles). And the PlayStation 3 uses Blu-ray (or digital download from the PlayStation Store) for title distribution. The PlayStation 2 was backward compatible with the original PlayStation. The PlayStation 3 is also backward compatible with the PlayStation. However, only a handful of PS3 systems are backward compatible with the PS2 library. Through their communication Sony has conveyed that they believe that backward-compatibility was more of a transition tool for early adopters to make sure that they could play games on the new system until the PlayStation 3 library became viable in and of itself.

The original two PS3 systems (the 20Gb and the 60Gb) had built-in hardware compatibility with PS2 games. They included the emotion engine chipset which ran the games themselves. Though there were some initial challenges in the way the new upscaling video chipset handled the older content, these problems were resolved with subsequent firmware upgrades and now these first generation PS3s are coveted. Since these launch systems, the 80Gb system is the only other PS3 that can play PS2 games and it handles this via software emulation. This fact begs the question, “Why can’t Sony make a downloadable emulator for the current PS3 systems to enable them to play PS2 games?” Until they wake up and smell the opportunity to increase their market share, we’ll have to hit Ebay and used game stores to find the older systems.

Since not every game plays flawlessly on the PS3, Sony created THIS PAGE that searches a database and lists any potential problems with certain titles on backward compatible systems.

As for emulation, this was the Microsoft approach from day one. Though they announced that the Xbox 360 would be backward compatible with the original Xbox before launch, it wasn’t until the system arrived that we understood what they meant. In fact, as frustrated as many have been with Sony’s approach, the Microsoft backward compatibility plan can be even more disappointing. On the plus side, if you have an Xbox game that you want to play on your 360, it won’t matter which version of the 360 you own. However, you may find that the game you want to play is not supported at all. For example, if you want to play the Xbox version of Beyond Good and Evil (one of my favorite titles from the last generation) you better find an original Xbox. In fact, before you assume that something will play on your 360, you should check THIS LIST. Also, just because a game makes the list doesn’t mean that it is without it’s own glitches. Check out THIS LIST for possible problems.

What I find particularly disappointing about Microsoft’s lack of proper backward compatibility is that the original Xbox was arguably the most advanced console of the previous generation and many of the titles that were released on all platforms looked best on the Xbox. For example, the Xbox version of Soul Calibur II is the only incarnation that runs at 720p. Fortunately, this is one of the titles that is supported on the 360. Unfortunately, the controller vibration does not function.

Then we come to the Wii. Lately Nintendo has made some very wise decisions and this console has quite a bit going for it. First, the Wii’s backward compatibility is the best of the current generation of consoles. This is even better than it sounds because there are a number of brilliant titles that came out on the Gamecube that were never fully appreciated because the system didn’t compete as well with the Xbox and PS2. Also, many of these titles were designed to take advantage of 480p resolution (although the Gamecube component cable that allowed players to experience this was downright elusive). This means that in many cases, they look every bit as good as the current generation Wii games. To take backward compatibility even one step further, the Wii is the only current generation system that can use it’s predecessor’s controllers. In fact, I heartily recommend hunting down a used Wavebird over the current Classic Controller any day of the week.

On the portable front, Nintendo has always understood the value of backward compatibility. However, their most recent handheld has cut the cord with some of the ongoing legacy support. The original GameBoy line had an impressive history of building a living library for the system. Games for the GameBoy worked on the GameBoy Pocket, GameBoy Color, and even the GameBoy Advance. As for the Nintendo DS, Nintendo made it clear that this was not a “GameBoy” product. However, the system included a second slot so that it could still play GameBoy Advance titles. Considering the robust library for that system alone, this is a worthwhile addition.

However, unlike the original DS and the DS Lite, Nintendo is on the verge of releasing a new incarnation of the DS called the DSi. It has some benefits including a built-in camera and larger screens. However, they are removing the GBA slot, thus eliminating the backward compatibility of the system. (Oh, so close!)

In Conclusion
It appears that most of the current console manufacturers see backward compatibility as a less-crucial feature on their systems that can be eliminated once they have a large enough library available on their current platform. (I hope that Nintendo doesn’t release a version of the Wii that follows in the footsteps of the DSi.) As players we recognize the value of our investment in our libraries. As parents, we know how much we’ve spent on games for our kids over the years and the ability for our kids to still enjoy them years later has value. (I still recommend the Gamecube version of Mario Kart!)

At the same time, we have to recognize that the manufacturers are in the business of making money. They don’t make much if we spend more time playing older games or buying used copies of Halo 1 and 2. Furthermore, with the virtual marketplaces that the big three have for their current consoles, it’s obvious that they are recognizing the opportunity to re-sell older titles through new channels. It’s harder for Sony to sell a downloadable version of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night if you can just buy the original disc from a friend and pop it in the PS3. I only hope that we can find a balance in this situation. As gaming parents, I want us all to be able to enjoy these older titles with our families, but not at the expense of destroying the business model of the companies who create these systems in the first place.

Retro-gaming Sheik at it’s best…and it’s functional! My wife wouldn’t want it in the living room, but in a family room or game room this is quite an appealing option. Especially when you consider that this coffee table is actually a trunk that can hold assorted videogame paraphernalia.

Oh, and did I mention that it’s a fully functional NES controller?!?! Check out Kyle Downes’ blog HERE to see the details including a video that shows it in action. For some reason I keep picturing those large chess boards where people have to carry the pieces around.