Trying to get a more vintage fighting game experience on your Android? Are you riddled with Google Play clones of your favorite fighters of yester-year? Or maybe you’re in a moral battle with yourself as consider installing the emulator for SegaPlayTendoBox-360. Well, SNK Playmore just threw their most recent current-gen fighter, KOF XIII, straight into the smartphone fray.

The game sports a slimmed but not anorexic roster, a handful of game modes, unlockable KOF artwork, and the same unique art style from the last two KOF releases. (In case you want some background on KOF XIII, you can get some from my review here.) The frame-rate closely matches that of the console version; I was playing on my HTC EVO 3D, a phone with respectable specs. This kept the pace of gameplay exactly where it should be to keep a fighting game enjoyable. In fact, the entire move list for all the 20 characters that are in this release remains intact. The game even uses the same fighting engine of KOF XIII, and if you can get a handle of the on-screen touch controls, you may even pull of that 20-hit combo you spent hours trying to impress yourself with.

Given the pace of the actually fights, it’s important to mention such controls. Your “buttons” include: Punch (P), Kick (K), Evade (E) for your rolling, Special (S) in case you wanted some ease Special Move usage, 8-Direction D-Pad and the character’s picture. Sounds silly? It’s really not when you consider how to pull off those exaggerated NEO MAX moves on a touch screen. Fill up 3 bars of “super” and one bar of “Hyper Drive” to pull off your character’s best move by simply tapping their face. If you frequently play fighting games, you will definitely feel a sort of relief whilst you show off for those on-lookers on the train. You have the option to rearrange the button layout to your liking; Everyone’s phone is different after all.

As for the nooks and crannies, this port brings along the fun character specific dialogue in the Arcade Mode. Arcade Mode itself breaks off into the now standard fighting game features such as: Team Battle (KOF’s historical norm), Single Battle, Training, Challenge, and Endless (aka “Survival”). Each Arcade Mode victory even gives you the option to save a recording of the match, of course to replay it for that Subway on-looker that is still looking over your shoulder… (Seriously, what stop does this guy get off of anyway?)

All in all, this game is an excellent port for any Andriod-owning fighting game fan. Action remains fast-paced, the fighting engine is respectable, and the game is just plain fun. You can even stop play at any time, go as far as to shut off your phone, and resume play where you left off anytime you are ready to jump back into it. It is definitely worth keeping an eye out for the game’s release on Google Play, hopefully sooner rather than later.

This calls for an award of some sort. I say we substitute “Dumb-Ass” for “Franson”.

• Your buddy trips over the bit of torn carpet you told him to watch out for… “Stupid Franson.”
• Your girlfriend doesn’t know how long it will take to travel 80 miles when driving 80 miles per hour… “What a Franson.”
• You get nailed talking on your cell while at a police check point… “Jeez, I’m such a Franson.”

Rep. Mary Franson infuriated by Earth Day, calls it “Pagan holiday”
For more: click here

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Halo 4 is shaping up nicely, don’t you think?

Microsoft and 343 Industries announced today that “contemporary music icon Neil Davidge of Massive Attack fame to compose the score for Halo 4“. Don’t know who Massive Attack is? Well, do you remember the theme to House?

Check out the video below for a sneak peek on Neil’s approach to Halo 4′s soundtrack…

 
Be sure to visit the Halo Waypoint blog to read a blog post by Tojima about his collaboration with Davidge, listen to and download an exclusive sample track, and see the new behind-the-scenes video and photos of the recording sessions.

Launching worldwide exclusively on Xbox 360 this holiday, “Halo 4” is the next blockbuster installment of the iconic franchise that has shaped entertainment history and defined a generation of gamers. Developed by 343 Industries, “Halo 4” continues the story of the series’ iconic hero Master Chief as he returns to confront his destiny and face an ancient evil that threatens the fate of the entire universe. “Halo 4” takes the series in a bold new direction by delivering its most epic and explorative campaign yet, alongside an emotionally resonant story and a groundbreaking multiplayer offering unlike anything before it – setting the stage for an epic new sci-fi saga.

It’s True!
Stephanie K and I will being traveling to Boston MA for this year’s PAX East on April 6th to April 8th to bring you all the cool stuff from the event.

Will there be New games, News, Cosplay and a cool logo I whipped up for the occasion? You bet!
All that and what will no doubt be the largest concentration of Nintendo3DS street passes the world has ever seen. so far

Check back then for all the awesome to come!

Here’s what I will say about kung fu movies: Not necessarily appealing. Some people here in the west see a kung fu movie and it’s a revelation, they instantly connect with it and they are hooked as kung fu fans for life. But others of us are like “Ehh.”

I was an “Ehh.” I had tried to watch kung fu movies and they never quite grabbed me.

I say these words because I am about to eat them. I opened up Infinite Kung Fu and thought there is really no way I am going to like this. I’ll get a few pages in and it will be all kung fu-ey and I’ll lose interest.

That absolutely did not happen. I don’t know whether the author Kagan McLeod would really like this description but — Infinite Kung Fu is a kung fu epic for people who don’t buy into the kung fu cult.

But you don’t need to hear this from me — you can go to Top Shelf 2.0 and read a good deal of it for FREE.

Also enjoy this, posted this week — Kagan McLeod doing an Infinite Kung Fu illustration in time-lapse goodness. Nice.

Nintendo continues to revisit successful classics on the 3DS with the newly numbered, Mario Kart 7. This hot title continues the Mario Kart legacy with new courses, 3D graphics and new air and water gameplay. But, does it hold up to the stellar record of past games in the series, or will it get slammed with a blue turtle shell 10 feet short of the finish line?

Like past Mario Karts, seven makes no attempt on a story or plot and instead focuses on the racing and getting you started as quickly as possible. New to the series is customizing your kart with variant components to tweak the look and performance of your vehicle with new tires, bodies and air control. More components are unlocked when you collect coins during races for a maximum of 10 per course. The custom karts are a welcomed addition that adds another layer of controlling how you play as well as expanding the replayablity.

Most of the game should seem very familiar to anyone who has played a Mario Kart game, there are 3 motor classes, 4 new cups, 4 retro cups each featuring 4 course and the battle mode. The new courses are the best in series history, really highlighting the best of the game and the 3DS hardware with sprawling graphics and great 3D effects. That being said; the revisted retro tracks are also well chosen and have been tweaked to fit right in with the new features of the game. These two new gameplay components I keep speaking of is the air and water control, one works really well and the other falls short of expectations.

Air controls in Mario Kart 7 activate by catching huge air through a ramp or cannon. When you are in the air, you control your pitch and roll of your kart to either speed back down to the ground or lose speed and stay in the air to reach a risky shortcut or skip a turn or obstacles. You can even pitch up and use a mushroom to launch yourself higher and stay in the air longer. In short, the air controls add a much needed layer of skill, strategy, and real risk in a game that is known to lean heavily on luck. The underwater controls on the other hand only serve to slow the race. It is basically there to either slow all the racers down uniformly allowing for players with mushrooms to cut ahead much faster than usual, or to act as a punishment for missing or messing up a shortcut. It wouldn’t feel so limiting if your kart didn’t sink to the bottom like a stone and instead handled like a submarine giving you a level of vertical control. The fact is, underwater just doesn’t add to the fun like flying through the air or on the road. The Mario Kart Wii additions also make a return providing  the option to perform timed tricks for boost (which can be combined with the flying) whenever you catch air and tweaked drift controls that eliminate snaking (via IGN) for better or worse.  The improved variety in the races overall adds a new shine to a old game that Nintendo could have just as easily phoned and cashed in.

The final new element to Mario Kart 7 is the community features online. It is easy to form and join kart communities, get into races with friends and play ghost trials. This all makes Mario Kart 7 Nintendo‘s best online offering yet! If only Nintendo would offer DLC track (since every DS has internal memory, it should be easy) and offer item settings like super smash bros (no serious gamer likes the blue shell Nintendo!) I would dare say that the online offering would be perfect. Even without all that, this fantastic suite of online features will keep you racing your karts months for months on in.

As you could probably guess, I enjoyed my time with Mario Kart 7, its a full featured game with smart design, welcomed customization, and the best tracks in the series. Retro Studios has done a great job adding to a winning formula and making a worthy successor to the stellar Mario Kart DS. This is the must have racing game for every 3DS owner.

Fructel showcased their bluetooth controller geared specifically for smartphones and tablets. The device is compatible with Android devices running Android 2.1.1 Éclair or later, Apple iPads running iOS 3.2 or later and iPhones supporting iOS 4.0 or later. Once the device is paired with a phone or tablet, it automatically connects once powered on. It has the traditional Super Nintendo 6-button gamepad layout (D-pad with 6 front facing buttons, 2 of them being your start and select, and two additional trigger buttons). It is compact, supports a 9 hr battery life, and charges via a standard micro USB port on the bottom of the pad.

Now all of that is well and good… now for the eye-grabber… The controller itself sports a strong spring-loaded grip that can grasp seemingly any phone. Another convention-goer put the clamp to the test with his galaxy nexus which was surrounded by a rubber brick of a case. The phone wedged right in and stayed in place. Now all that talk about using your smart phones as hand-held gaming peripherals will now hold true with your hardcore gamers. Remember, the device is connected via bluetooth, so if you do not necessarily need the phone in the grip in case the unit feels top-heavy. But where’s the fun in that?

Right now the controller is currently being sold in the UK for about £49.99 via Amazon. Until Fructel makes their move to the US, you can always venture into overseas purchasing on Amazon UK. I’ll definitely be looking out for it.

Want to learn more about it? You can check out their website: www.gametelcontroller.com

In July 2009, Valve head and all around awesome guy Gabe Newell said the following:

“What I think would be much better would be if the community could finance the games. In other words, ‘Hey, I really like this idea you have. I’ll be an early investor in that and, as a result, at a later point I may make a return on that product, but I’ll also get a copy of that game.’”

Incredibly, as if Valve was foreshadowing something big to come, Minecraft had already began development at that time and was allowing people to do this very thing  starting a month earlier. Over the next few years, the public could not only watched this game grow and develop in ways few could expect, they could take part in it’s very creation and what it has become today is a direct result of the contributions of it’s fans. Is this a great game or a failed experiment?

Minecraft… is a sandbox game.
No, it’s not like Skyrim or Grand Theft Auto, it’s a sandbox in the same way a real sandbox actually is. It’s a game without objectives, where you make your own fun and do whatever you want.

When you start a game, you choose a game mode and given a randomly created block world, your new world is infinite in every direction and can have everything from rolling hills, to towering snow covered mountains, hidden dungeons and vast deep oceans.  At it’s most basic level, you can remove and place block like legos, and create new blocks and tools through the games crafting system. At night during the survial mode, exploding creepers, zombies and spiders come out that can kill you, so you have to take shelter to protect yourself through the night.

It may sound simple, but as you wrap your head around the powerful tools, your fortifications will take shape and become your own. You’ll also need to eat which means creating a farm and ranching animals, you need to find iron and other new resources to create new items, and before you know it, you have a whole complex or town that is unique to you.  It can be easy to drain hours tending, defending and tweaking your space, but the game shines best when you decide to adventure into the world beyond your walls with your newly made weapons and armor (Don’t forget, this world is literally infinite in size).  You can create a portal to another world call the nether, a dangerous world with its own wealth of discovery and fortifications, in the normal world there are abandoned mines and dungeons, there is even another mysterious world beyond that you can discover after collecting items from the game’s most deadly creatures and uncovering its deepest secrets. The game even offers an online mode so that you can build and explore with your friends and share your creations.

Even after playing the game for so long, I still occasionally encounter experiences similar to my first time playing.
Recently, I used the nether as a sort slingshot by building a new portal in the nether a distance away from the one I arrived in, this teleported me into an abandoned mine filled with gold, diamonds and monsters. I’m an experienced player who as been playing since summer 2010 so I came prepared expecting the unknown. I gathered as much as I could carry, fought the monster backs and in my careless wandering, found myself incredibly lost.  I set to dig my way out, being very careful not to have gravel or sand collapse on me so I can survive with my prizes. Then as I climb, suddenly sand and water poured through my ceiling. I swam up and out not knowing where I even was at, and nearly drowned, but made it. At the surface, I found myself  just off the coast of an unexplored island. I swam to shore and quickly try to find a high peak to see if I could visually find my way back.  I scaled a near by mountain but I could see no sign of my or anyone else’s settlement (I was playing online for all this). Worse still,the night was starting to fall and it wouldn’t be wise to wander the night and risk dying and losing everything I have worked for at this point. I quickly cut down a near by tree and threw together a quick shelter out of cobblestone, just before night fell, with that I was able to make a workbench and furnace safely where I took some of the iron ore and redstone I found in the mines to make a compass pointing to my home (compasses in this game are set to the last place you slept) and waited for night to pass. Once daybreak arrived, I take off running in the direction the compass, eventually leading me to a vast ocean. I then whipped up a boat with the last of my wood and took sail (sort of, there are no sails on the boat). As I continued following my compass on this vast ocean, night was starting to fall again and just as it was about to get dark, I see a tower… It was one of my friend’s building, I had made it!
I didn’t need the compass anymore, I knew exactly where I was now and was able to make it to my village with all my treasures.  The best thing about all of this was that it was completely unscripted, the stakes were real, and I overcame the challenge. Experiences like that are rewarding in a way that I have never seen in any other game, it’s kinda hard to explain really. The best part of that adventure, I was able to take all of those resources and make an automated mine cart system that connected my village with my friends’ right through the desert.

So is Minecraft a great game? Yes.
It also stands as one of gaming’s greatest achievements, as a grassroots game that challenges how games can be produced, proves that someone can make a website with a game and a buy it now button without the help of a publisher and inspires the imagination in ways no modern big budget console games can ever do.

Simply put, Minecraft is the first steps towards proving that gaming can be something special beyond the scope of what movies, music and book can ever be, both creatively and commercially.

NOTE: This review reflects the PC version of the game, the XBLA was not available during the time of review, should there be any major differences once it is release, the review will be revisited. Until then, consider this our comprehensive review.

One of the most anticipated and talked about games for 2011 is no doubt Battlefield 3.  The beta goes live for the world on September 29th, but for cool people like myself, as well as people who bought last year’s Medal of Honor, who may themselves also be cool people, get to dive into the game early. For the rest of the world, this preview of the beta will have to do.

The beta build features the Operation Metro Rush map where players are tasked to attack/defend 2 advancing points through a city park, underground subway and  into the city streets to the target objective. Like the Bad Company games, the attackers in rush mode have limited respawn tickets that resets when two objectives have been taken, and the defenders have infinite respawn tickets that requires them to outlast their attackers and prevent them from taking a point and advancing. Many people will no doubt be disappointment to learn that the beta does not include a deathmatch, hardcore mode or any vehicles to drive, so those who were hoping to fly a fighter jet in multiplayer will have to wait a bit longer.

Like many other betas, this game does suffer from some bugs and issues (which is kinda part of the beta experience). The most common issues I found on the Xbox 360 version are some clipping issues when in the prone position, strange lighting quirks outdoors, and some unstable connections that cause your character to backpedal and have trouble jumping over cover and hurdles. They don’t really hurt the game’s overall feel, but they’re there and it can be frustrating when they manifest and cost you a kill.  It’s a good thing then that your stats in the beta will not carry over to the final game.

Another thing returning from the Bad Company games is environmental damage, both cosmetic and dramatic. This damage system works in the games favor on a number of levels, It creates satisfying feedback when you fire your weapons, create a the opportunity for strategic destruction, and generates a sense of mayhem and chaos on the battlefield that changes the face of the level as the game progresses. This mechanic is unmatched by rival games like Call of Duty and is the most obvious feature in the beta that sets this game apart from the rest.

So the big question will no doubt be, “Does this beta tell me why I should or shouldn’t choose Battlefield 3 over Call of Duty MW3?” and for those people, I really don’t have an answer.   This is very clearly an unfinished game, and a public beta like this usually represents the most stable build of the game, never the latest or most recent, this can mean that you could be playing a version of the Battlefield 3 that can be as much as 2 or 3 months old.  Try the game for yourself and decide, it’s a lot of fun regardless. The Battlefield 3 beta goes live to the public September 29th and ends October 10th.