I don’t normally spend much time playing iPhone games, I use my iPhone much more for business than pelasure. However I was at SXSWi 2011 and stumbled across the Traveller-AR iPhone MMORPG. This amazing game is going to bring a true (WoW) style space MMORPG to the iPhone, which in itself is an amazing feat, however there is a lot more to this game than first meets the eye.

The first thing is Traveller-AR is based on the pen and paper roleplaying game from the 1970′s.  Since then it has had four decades worth of time spent being fine tuned by geeks around the world. That in itself is a huge amount of brain power behind the gameplay in Traveller-AR, and it has been well represented and supported in this iPhone MMO.

One surprising thing about Traveller-AR is that they have not blanched at the challenge of recreating the Traveller universe.  Just to put this in to perspective, Traveller-AR contains over 40,000 systems and over 350,000 objects which can be interacted with.  This expansive universe can be explored, traded with and/or attacked to your hearts content, but make sure you get a ship that is up to the challenge first!

The great thing about Traveller-AR is that it is a truly flexible iPhone MMORPG.  You can do exactly what you want to do, are you an avid trader, do you love to explore new systems in your lightweight scoutship, or fight off hordes of enemy ships in a heavily armoured fighter ship?

With this great iphone game you will quickly become immersed in the action.  Even better though, the deep depth of gameplay will make this game compelling for years to come.

While Traveller-AR has not yet been released, look out for it’s release date in the near future (Expected Summer 2011)

DSi XL Review

The DSi XL is the latest DS console to hit the market, and while it does provide a 93% bigger screen, some people are asking why Nintendo didn’t give us all just a little bit more.

But first off, the DSi XL is compatible with all DS Games and DSi Games. This means that it can play a huge number of games already, and on it’s larger screen size.

This stretched display of games can make many of them seem a little bit blocky and pixilated, however the DSi’s larger screen comes in extremely useful for text based DS Games.

Unfortunately beyond the larger screen, and larger DS case, the DSi XL really doesn’t bring much new to the table, except of course for an additional, larger, pen sized stylus.

It would have been nice if they had considered putting even a little extra storage or ram in here, but it all seems to be exactly the same. Of course the bigger screen has also cut down  on the DSi XL’s portability, which is kind of a big downside for something that is meant to be a portable gaming console.

All in all the larger screen size is quite nice, however the extra cost, and lack of benefits make the buying decision a difficult one. If you have trouble viewing the DSi screen then this could be a good upgrade for you, otherwise, it might be worth waiting for the DSi XL2!

First off, Sony revised their larger screen approach, dropping it’s widescreen size from 4.3 inches to 3.8 inches.  This screen size change may make the device more portable, but some worry that it will affect it’s video viewing capability.

The new PSP is much smaller, and 43% lighter than it’s previous incantations.  This makes the device much more portable, yet it holds a new inbuilt 16Gb of flash memory. If this is not enough for your portable pleasures then it also has a memory slot to extend your storage requirements.

While the controls of the PSP Go closely resemble that of the PSP standard, it may seem a little cramped for some people, infact the smaller form of the new PSP Go make it more awkward in many ways.  In some ways it feels like the Sony PSP Go is not so much the next generation PSP, rather a competitor to the iPod touch, without the touch screen.

The PSP Go has all the previous wireless capability of the PSP, with inbuilt WiFi.  on top of this though the PSP Go has bluetooth capability, for wireless headsets and the like.  This does also however mean that you can hook the device up to a 3G enabled phone, or a PS3 controller. However how you would see the PSP Go screen while holding a PS3 controller is yet to be explained!

Sony have been developing new title for the PSP Go from many of its most popular brands, including Metal Gear Solid and Gran Turismo.  These are showing some great promise, but if these fail to disappoint then you can get many titles over the PSP Download service (Via WiFi).

While the PSP Go has several interesting features, people do have some questions over why Sony have not integrated any telephony or even voip features to give it a chance to compete with the iPhone.

This film came out in 1978, over 30 years ago, and yet Nintendo have announced that they will be releasing Grease the Game for Nintendo Wii’s the world over.

While they have not released any demo’s to us yet, we have been told it will be a musical, dancing spectacular.

With Grease you will be able to sing along, while being stood next to the stars of the film.  The on screen you will be managed by the Wii’s movement detection system and a possible microphone/movement sensor combo.

So if you are a fan of this classic film, get your Wii geared towards this now!

Apple however have today announced that the popular Brothers in Arms series have released a 3D World War 2 First Person Shooter game for the iPhone and iPod touch!

This fantastic World war 2 FPS gives the users a huge range of weapons, several vehicles you can steal and control, 13 missions and intuative controls to give you a great gaming experience on the move and it can be downloaded from the Apple Apps Store!

It seems that the new Xbox 360 price drop could be a real danger to Sony’s dominance brought in by the Playstation 2, unfortunately it seems Sony have not learnt from previous success, and Microsoft has learnt from their failure.

In the original PS2 vs Xbox war Sony won by having a huge array of games available on a relatively cheap console. This time however Microsoft was prepared as it brought out a cheaper console, earlier and with more games. Sony on the other hand brought out the PlayStation 3 6 months later, it was expensive and there was a disappointing number of games,

Now however with the Latest XBox 360 Price Cut it seems Sony will be sent off licking its wounds, as the price of the Xbox 360 console drops well below the price of a mobile phone.

While the xBox 360 price cut has not yet been confirmed by Microsoft officially it seems many people who normally have the inside scoop are well are of the fact and have staked their reputations on it. All I can say is Wehey! Bring on the cheaper console!!

Sony have announced today that they will be releasing a new hardware upgrade v2.40 for the Playstation 3 to keep up with this, pretty good, idea.  Patch 2.4 is primarily allowing access to a PlayStation 3 online database of player information, friends lists custom game settings and game rankings.  The full list of released upgrades is as follows,

• Friend category
• View, send, receive messages via your Playstation 3
• Manage downloads
• Set the vibration feature of the PS3 controller
• Sign in to PlayStation Network
• Register friends
• Manage Bluetooth devices
• Terminate the game
• Music category
• Use the system BGM
• Work the system BGM operation panel
• Settings category
• Assign PS3 controllers
• View profiles
• Game category
• Set audio devices
• Use the voice changer

While these may not seem like massive changes it is pretty good news for all the PS3 gamers out there who have been dieing to prove their skills ona  league table against other PS3 players!

The update is music to gamers ears as it takes a users stats and stores them remotely, allowing people to goto any location, be it an internet cafe or a friends house and play with their own profile and settings.

Valve was initially condemed by gamers due to its copywrite management systems implimented to prevent piracy.  However after a rocky start, and with the help of the half life 2 realease, Valves Steam system proved to be a huge success, allowing the fast efficient downloading of games across the internet.

The newest update is a great addition to an already fantastic program.  By integrating a fantastic game management service and including stats, and roaming profile, the new system is something that thousands of gamers are eagerly awaiting.

This seems to be a specific stab at Intel when they announced an integrated graphics/processor chip, something that could increase PC Performance but may damage competition.

Nvidia recently slammed Intel for the move in an interview with their CEO, and it now seems like AMD (Owners of ATI) are also readying to defend themselves against Intel’s latest stab at controlling both markets.

The ‘AMD Game’ certifacte will be in two levels for two standards of quality, these are

AMD Game! – Minimum requirements are an AMD Athlon 5600+ X2 processor, ATI Radeon HD 3650 graphics, and an AMD 770 chipset or Nvidia nForce 500 series chipset.

AMD Game Ultra – Minimum requirements are a Phenom X4 9650 processor, ATI Radeon HD 3870 graphics, and an AMD 770 chipset.

Such specific marketing that excludes Intel products will be a clear move against the manufacturer.  Already several major Gaming PC makers have aligned to the standard, this includes Alienware, a huge name in the PC gaming market.

But this post is not about CD DRM nor MP3 DRM.  It is about PC Games and Their Digital Rights Management Systems and WHY they are wrong.

Yesterday for instance I felt aq little nostalgic and went to play Rise of Legends.  I inserted the CD, pressed play and for my troubles was greeted with… nothing.

Three hours of browing support forums later I found that there was a fairly simple solution to my problem.  I merely had to reinstall windows and refrain from using any anti-virus software.  And the worst part is that the error I received was not caused by any part of the game itself, merely by its anti piracy measures.

And I am not the only person suffering, nor am is it the only game causing problems.  A Huge amount of Microsoft and Electronic Arts (EA) have become so obsessed with combating piracy that they are causing serious problems for gamers, causing a huge amount of them to boycott The games made by these manufacturers (I too am boycotting them, especially when they announced that two of EAs latest games would require you to insert the DVD every ten days and do an online authorisation or your account would be disabled, the fact they have even considered this is enough to make me stop buying their products)

So why do computer game manufacturers use these methods?

They think they are combating piracy.

To any computer games manufacturer out there let me point out several things.

Firstly, Anti-Piracy measures, inconvenience and annoy your regular gamer, in fact your CUSTOMER who you should be trying to please.

Secondly, Despite all your claims anti piracy measures are cracked within days of game release, so those that you are trying to prevent are actually suffering from less inconvenience than your customers.

Thirdly, As much as you like to, including money spent on DRM (USually tens of millions) should not be counted in the lost profits due to piracy scenarios.

Let me sum it up for you guys, more people are being driven to piracy by your measures than are drawn to it.  Hell the only way to get your games working sometimes is to download NO CD cracks, and once someone is introduced to this then downloading games is only a stones throw away.

Online Authorization for games is a mere inconvenience to gamers and easily circumnavigated by crackers.  It was something first used wide scale by Microsoft and was touted as making Windows XP uncrackable.  I think we all know how that turned out for them, Cracked before release i think the headlines stated.  Genius.

So what is my point?

I think DRM and anti piracy measures should be removed.

They hurt the customer base.

They cause next to no problems for Software Pirates.

They cause huge amounts of game errors.

They give companies huge amounts of bad publicity.
Sorry for the ramble but I am ever so slightly annoyed because I still want to play Rise of Legends but still cant due to a windows re-install and getting all my old programs back likely to take around one week.