When I was growing up, the most reliable toys were the ones you could make yourself: paper airplanes. It didn't matter how much money you had in your pocket, because all you needed was a sheet of paper to have a few minutes of amateur flying fun. There were books you could buy that featured sleek, complex designs from engineers who wanted to take the paper plane to higher levels, but anyone who had basic paper-folding skills could produce at least one type of paper plane to throw around until it became to damaged to go anywhere. Of course, if you wanted a battery-powered flying toy, paper planes just couldn't compete ... until now.
Meet Power Up Toys. A while back, Power Up was selling "Electric Paper Airplane Conversion Kits" that consisted of a durable, lightweight and rechargeable propeller that you could attach to a paper plane to make it fly for longer distances. I've seen the first two versions of this kit for sale on a number of sites, and I've also seen video footage of Power Up modified paper planes posted on YouTube. However, with the success of the previous conversion kits, Power Up Toys is taking it to the next level with the Power Up 3.0 kit, the kit that will allow you to convert a paper plane that can be controlled remotely through a smartphone.
The Power Up 3.0 kit started as a Kickstarter campaign that reached its initial funding goal of $50,000 within hours of its initial launch. With its baseline goal met, the Kickstarter campaign continues to this day to fund more options that can be added to Power Up 3.0's main remote control feature. These options include:
Remote controller software for multiple smartphone platforms;
Multi-control 3.0 kits that will allow you to mount more than one 3.0 kit to a paper plane but control all of them simultaneously with just one smartphone controller;
A "dogfight" feature that will allow users to have a mid-air battle between two 3.0 modified planes; and
A pin camera attached to the 3.0 battery/Bluetooth receiver that can record footage of flights.
As someone who spent his youth wishing for paper planes that could fly greater distances, I think that Power Up 3.0 looks like hours of fun. Go to the official Power Up Toys site and the Power Up 3.0 Kickstarter page for more information about putting more power into your paper planes. See the Power Up 3.0 kit promo video in the window below.
While I consider myself to be a gamer, I only play video games that fit within my disposable income budget, a budget that has been quite modest as of late. Thus, I have only been gaming within my financial means, playing discount or used games on a Nintendo Wii console that I bought a few years ago and playing older games on my PC. I've tried to play newer PC games, but my computer has an integrated graphics card that causes newer games to stutter; thus, I can’t play new PC titles until I can afford a new PC, and that won’t be for a while.
With my current financial limitations, I can only watch what’s currently happening in the video game industry from the sidelines. Nintendo’s latest system, the Wii U, isn't selling nearly as well as its predecessor, and the upcoming next generation consoles from Sony and Microsoft are causing concern among the gaming community due to their new restrictive features. For example, Microsoft’s upcoming Xbox One will require an Internet connection and a user account to play games--even single player games--which will limit the opportunities for gamers to share titles with their friends.
Another tidbit I've read is that the development costs for high-end titles for the game consoles are skyrocketing, while development costs for video games that are available for cell phones and tablets are cheaper and in turn are earning more revenue. In fact, the reason I've heard as to why the Wii U offered so few launch titles is that Nintendo management underestimated the cost and resources involved to make games for its new system and thus had to focus what it had available on the production of a handful of titles just to meet the scheduled launch date. The general consensus among many writers who cover the game industry is that the newer consoles are aiming to offer more than just games (e.g., Blu-ray disc playback capabilities and high-def TV viewing features) in order to convince consumers to buy them; in other words, in order to keep up with the new digital entertainment landscape, gaming consoles have to be more than just gaming consoles.
Being a gamer whose first home console was an Atari 2600, this has been fascinating to watch. In previous console wars, competing console companies only had to worry about each other because no other devices could do what their consoles could. Now, consoles have competition coming from the Internet, cell phones and digital tablets, mediums that can provide entertaining and addictive games at a fraction of the cost for a home console game. If this trend continues, home consoles could disappear altogether and high-end video games that are based on expansive virtual worlds and complicated game play mechanics could become limited to PCs and PC-based gaming services such as Steam. This reminds me of what happened to home video rental businesses such as Blockbuster in recent years: What used to be brick-and-mortar businesses have been replaced by online services and vending machines, venues that are cheaper to provide and sustain.
It should also be noted that many of the video games that are being offered in the alternate venues of the Internet, cell phones and tablets are following the design aesthetic of video games that used to populate the video game arcades of the 80s: simple, colorful and addictive instead of complex, detailed and immersive. I remember a time when arcade video games provided the quality standard that the home consoles aimed to emulate; now, the home consoles are being beaten by games that would have fit perfectly in an 80s-era arcade.
While video games will never go away as long as digital entertainment remains a profitable industry, I am disappointed to see the gaming consoles disappear. I am very satisfied with the gaming experiences I've had with the Wii and its motion-based controls such as the Wiimote and the Balance Board. Sure, many Wii games failed to creatively utilize the console's unique controls and instead only provided the notoriously irritating “Wii waggle” as a control system, and Nintendo itself provided limited support for its upgraded MotionPlus feature. Nevertheless, when Wii titles did something genuinely innovative with the hardware provided--titles such as Wii Sports Resort and Red Steel 2--the experience was rewarding and memorable. The Wii’s unique control system breathed new life into older games such as Bully, Resident Evil 4 and Okami, and it provided opportunities for video gaming to enter the realm of physical fitness with titles such as Wii Fit.
I’m convinced that devising new and creative ways to play games are just as vital to the video gaming experience as the production of quality titles, and I don’t see how anything other than a dedicated game console can provide new systems of play. Likewise, I’m hoping that Nintendo can turn things around with the Wii U and turn it into something other than a larger version of its handheld 3DS system. Yet while I would hate to see console-based attempts to make video gaming something more than just sitting in front of a screen with a controller go by the wayside, I don’t know how this can be avoided until game production and sales costs go down.
For those of you who are still reeling from the disappointment of Gearbox’s Aliens: Colonial Marines, here’s something to assuage your frustration for the time being: Angry Mob Games has just released Alien vs. Predator: Evolution for the iOS and Android platforms.
AvP: Evolution is a third-person action melee game, where gamers can play as either an Alien or a Predator. Unlike most previous AvP games, Evolution does not have a human campaign, although it looks like there will be plenty of humans around to slaughter anyway. Evolution is also the first AvP game to include the Super Predators, the leaner, meaner space hunting clan from the 2010 sequel Predators. I don't know the game's plot in detail, but it appears to borrow a few ideas from Dark Horse's Aliens vs. Predator: Three World War comic book miniseries.
The game footage looks impressive, but I’ve read from some who have already bought the game that it’s best to play it on higher-end portable devices; playing the game on lower-end devices results in many glitches that frequently interfere with the gaming experience. Go to the Angry Mob Games site for more information about AvP: Evolution, and watch the launch trailer below.
Way back in 2010, I published a post about hand-held and tabletop video games from the 1970s and 80s. Part of that post discussed a series of tabletop games released by Coleco that emulated popular arcade games and looked like much smaller versions of arcade cabinets. At the time I joked, "Given the advancements in micro-computing and compact, high-definition video screens, a really devoted fan could probably gut one of the Coleco emulators and convert it into a tabletop unit--in other words, convert a plastic shell that was originally designed to house a VFD emulation of Donkey Kong into something that could house an actual, playable arcade version of Donkey Kong." Apparently, someone at ThinkGeek either read my post or thinks exactly the same way that I do:
Meet the "Arcadie iPhone and iPod Desktop Arcade". According to ThinkGeek, "The Arcadie Desktop Arcade is designed especially for iPhone and iPod Touch. Slide your device into the wee cabinet, pop it in the 30-pin connector dock, load up an Arcadie-supported app, and you're ready to play. More apps are being added every day, but for now there are games like Blasteroids, Alien Invaders, Ping, Stacker, and more. The 8-way joystick and two buttons will have you pew pew pew-ing the afternoon away, feeling like a jolly geek giant."
I don't have an iPhone or an iPod, but it amuses me to no end that someone remembers the video game arcade era so fondly that he/she is willing to make a teeny tiny version of an arcade cabinet interface for cell phones--even at the risk a causing some crippling new form of carpal tunnel syndrome--so that nostalgic geeks everywhere can relive the glory days of coin-op gaming. Now all they need to do is come out with Arcadie Desktop Arcade units that have marble-sized trackball controllers and action figure-sized light guns so that gamers can also play Centipede and House of the Dead knockoffs.
Of the many Wii horror games in which I have been indulging as of late, the hardest one to locate and purchase was Calling, which was developed by Hudson Soft exclusively for the Wii and released in the U.S. in 2010. Despite its status as a Wii exclusive, the game didn't receive much publicity and its distribution was very limited. I can understand somewhat why this happened, since Calling is not a typical video game. Calling is less of a standard survival horror game and more of a multiple-perspective ghost story that is told through a series of three-dimensional, interactive environments; hence, I noticed that many reviewers had no idea what to make of it, even to the point of despising the game for its obtuse approach to horror gaming.
Calling has a few problems, but I found the overall gaming experience to be very rewarding and I could appreciate what the developers were trying to accomplish in making such a unique and unusual horror game. Read on for my complete review. Calling centers on "The Black Page", an Internet chat room that, according to urban legend, allows users to communicate with the dead. During the game, you play from the perspective of four characters who find themselves stranded in various dark, abandoned locations after using The Black Page. The characters include Shin Suzutani, a teenager who is interested in anime and the occult; Chiyo Kishibe, an elderly woman who accessed The Black Page to communicate with her deceased husband; Rin Kagura, a college student who was drawn to The Black Page in the hope of finding someone who vanished six years ago; and Makoto Shirae, a journalist who is looking to solve the mystery surrounding a colleague who died while investigating The Black Page. The stories of each of these characters overlap as you play through the game, piecing together clues about The Black Page, its true purpose, and how it connects to the locations in which you are isolated and the ghosts that haunt them.
The game's format alternates between first-person perspective interactions with environments and lengthy cut scenes. You use the Wiimote to aim your flashlight, interact with objects, and fend off attacking ghost; the Wiimote also serves as a cell phone, which plays an important role in how you navigate between locations, receive messages from other characters, and decipher bursts of static that contain hidden clues.
For starters, Calling is a very Japanese game: the locations, details and customs that are depicted in the game all stem from Japanese culture, which may or may not impact how American gamers will feel about this particular gaming experience. In fact, many of the concepts and themes in Calling reminded me of Japanese horror movies such as Ringu (1998), Kairo (2001), Ju-on (2002) and Chakushin ari (2003); if you're a fan of any or all of these movies, then I strongly recommend that you add this game to your Wii collection. Along those lines, the game presents you with both an English audio track and a Japanese audio track with English subtitles; given the uneven quality of the voice acting in English track, I recommend that you choose the Japanese track before starting the game.
The best parts about Calling are its multi-layered story and the amount of details that have been incorporated into its locations, which include a hospital, a school, and a beauty salon. Indeed, the locations themselves are the creepiest and bleakest aspect of the game. Hallways appear to stretch forever into immeasurable darkness, and the constant reverberation of echoes emphasizes how alone you are no matter where you go. Even though glowing, blurry ghosts attack from time to time, you will more often be startled by an occasional shadow that dashes in front of you or a distant background noise (the breaking of glass, the thudding of a fallen object) emitted from some unseen source.
It's not just the major details that make Calling worthwhile; it also has some extra features to reward gamers who pay attention and make the extra effort. For example, each location includes a plush black cat doll. You can use the doll to save your game when it glows blue, but when a spooky event is about to happen the doll will stop glowing and slowly close its eyes until the event passes. The game will also add eerie items to your Wii message board depending on what you do in the game. If you die and restart the game at certain places, a grimy, battered envelop that contains a ghastly picture will appear on the board. If you happen to glimpse of a particular ghost that looks like a woman wearing a red dress (a.k.a. "the Woman in Red"), a red envelope that contains an ominous message will appear on the board. (Even though she never attacks, I thought that the Woman in Red was the most unnerving ghost in the game.)
Because it is a story-driven game, Calling requires you to find the right items and be at the right places at the right times to trigger the cut scenes that are necessary to progress through and complete each chapter. Unfortunately, the game is not too intuitive in guiding you to where all of the necessary items and locations are and in which sequence you need to find them, which means you could be searching for a long, long time in the larger environments just to make it to the next chapter. This problem permeates the game, which means that you should use a walkthrough guide to help you navigate through the game (I used the one posted on GameFAQs) to get your time and money's worth.
Even though there are four playable characters in Calling, the story largely focuses on Rin and Makoto. To complete the game's entire story, you have to play through it twice: the first time centering on Rin, and the second time centering on Makoto. Playing as Makoto adds extra details to the game that enriches the story that you've already seen through Rin's eyes, enough so that the ending of the game changes when you finish playing it the second time. This is a clever idea that I really enjoyed, but the problem with it comes when the game encourages you replay some of Rin's chapters again in between Makoto's chapters. I thought that this was needlessly repetitive; replaying Rin's chapters reminded me of certain details that I didn't think to connect to each other earlier, but it really wasn't necessary and I think that the developers should've dropped this option.
In spite of its shortcomings, I think that Calling is one of the best and most unique horror games available for the Wii. I was impressed with how the developers weaved the game's story into the characters, locations and items so that the player has to piece the whole story together as if it were a puzzle. Furthermore, the story itself is as poignant as it is chilling, and having two different endings (three endings, if you count the one for Chiyo) enhances the game's pathos.
If you're looking for a survival horror game that involves plenty of high-intensity action, Calling is not for you. However, if you love Japanese horror movies and enjoy games that are narrative-driven and feature a strong element of mystery, then Calling is a game that you should play while copies are still available.
Oh, cell phones...what can't they do? In addition to their telephone and text messaging duties, they also serve as a portable media player, a portable Internet browser, and a portable gaming system. I've used my cell phone for all of the other functions I just listed, but I never really caught on to the idea of using a cell phone to play video games. Of the handful that I've played, none of them were able to overcome the problem of having poor controllers. Cell phones weren't built primarily to play games, so naturally there aren't many buttons available to control whatever game you are playing.
Yet there is one game that I found that effectively utilizes my cell phone's limitations and provides a trip down nostalgia lane for those of us who remember when video game arcades were in every shopping mall and Atari ruled the world of home gaming consoles. The game is called Radiant, and it was produced by Hexage. Read on for my complete review. In short, Radiant is what happens when classic arcade games such as Asteroids, Galaga and Space Invaders are combined into an addictive 2D top-down scrolling shooter that's tailor made for touchscreen cell phones. The game's plot is simple: You vaporize wave after wave of colorful alien ships as they fly in patterns across the screen, with occasional power-up purchases, asteroid fields and boss battles shaking things up to keep the game from getting repetitive. The graphics are colorful and smooth, and the touchscreen controls are very responsive and easy to understand.
You can choose from three levels of difficulty: Casual, Survival, and Hardcore. The Casual level is pretty easy and it allows you to save your progress so you can play through the entire game. The other two levels are for more dedicated players, with the advanced difficulty challenging you to figure out the best strategies (such as which power-ups to use and which alien ships to target first) that will get you the highest score and keep you alive for the longest amount of time. I originally thought that I would just stop after completing the Casual level since it allowed me to see the entire game. However, I've since found myself addicted and trying to make it through the other two levels of difficulty, in between watching an occasional movie or TV show on my cell phone.
Even though this game is light years ahead of the early hand-held video games and is easier to control than many other cell phone-based games, Radiant's neon pastel-colored heart belongs to the early 80s. If you find yourself suffering from arcade coin-op withdrawal, Radiant is the cure for you. Click here to learn more about Radiant and other cell phone games at the Hexage site.
Friends and family keep asking me if I have gotten one of those huge flat screen TVs yet, but it hasn't happened so far. This is mostly because the Mrs. and I don't have the money for it right now and probably won't for some time to come. However, it is also due to the fact that when it comes to video playback equipment, I don't think big these days--instead, I think portable.
You see, I spend a lot of time on public transportation every day as part of my job, and it's been this way for the last few years. So when I heard a while back that software was available to compress video files from DVDs into smaller files that could be played back on my cell phone, I immediately picked up the software and started shrinking movies to pass the time while I travel. This was years before DVD and Blu-ray sets included smaller "Digital Copies" of movies, and before cell phone content providers started offering downloadable movie and TV shows. However, even with those options, many obstacles still exist: Pre-compressed downloadable video files only exist for certain phone brands such as iPhone and Windows Mobile devices--leaving other cell phones and compact video devices with nothing--and I’ve found the Digital Copies to be too weighed down with burdensome access control technologies to be usable for the cell phones I’ve had.
While compressed video content might become more available for a wider variety of small playback devices as time goes on, I'm still quite content with the set up I have had going for over five years now. Read on to see what I've learned about meeting the movie and TV needs for horror/sci-fi geeks on the go. The video compression software package that has worked best for me is called DVD Catalyst 4. DVD Catalyst was first released in 2004 under the name Pocket DVD, and it has been modified regularly ever since to keep up with the latest cell phone technology and user needs. Such devotion to detail shows in the finished product: It's very flexible in terms of cell phone compatibility, and it has worked with just about every cell phone and cell phone-based video file playback software package I've had. As long as I have a set of headphones handy and a well-charged phone battery, I usually have something to watch no matter where I go. When I was just a wee lad, I would often fantasize about having a portable TV set with me to pass the time on long car trips. At such a young age, I couldn't have imagined anything like the portable video player that I have now; such a capability has made my cell phones the best toys I've ever owned.
Of course, this kind of a portable video playback format has its own particular set of requirements. After you get DVD Catalyst set up on your PC, each DVD you shrink requires time for the compression process to happen. I usually insert a DVD into my computer, set up DVD Catalyst, and then leave to do something else while the computer compresses the video file(s). Unfortunately, some video file formats (such as Amazon and iTunes movie downloads) include digital rights management (DRM) technology. Such formats require activation, which prevents them from use on non-supported devices and conversion with software such as DVD Catalyst.
The good news, though, is that DVD Catalyst allows you to shrink your movie and TV DVDs, as well as many kinds of digital video file formats such as DIVX and MKV. While some portable content providers only provide new and popular movies and TV shows, DVD Catalyst allows you to make just about any video that's available on DVD ready for portable viewing, including the extra features videos that are found on many deluxe DVD sets. I’ve found that very few things are too obscure or too old for DVD Catalyst: It works well with the many titles I’ve rented from Netflix, and I’ve even used it to compress video that I recorded from TV onto a recordable DVD. For any difficulties that I’ve encountered, DVD Catalyst’s customer support has always been very responsive to every question that I have sent to them so I’m never stuck with an unusable compressed video file.
Being a film buff with limited free time, this kind of portable viewing option has been a real treasure. It's the only way that I've been able to stay on top of the latest DVD releases and to see movies and TV shows that I missed during their initial run. In fact, many of the movies and TV shows that I've mentioned on this blog were those that I first saw (or saw for the second or third time) on my cell phone.
Click here to learn more about the DVD Catalyst software package and which options are right for you. Enjoy!
