Tokyo Game Show - Part.... Last

Now that TGS is finally over, let us finish up with a few stories that did not quite make it into the other two posts.

Halo 3, do I really need to describe it? Some of you should be playing it at this very moment. But the real news is that Halo 3 garnered really big crowds... in Japan. Gamers could not get enough of it, interesting since the Japanese stay away from senseless-violence American games, like Halo. However, it made a pretty huge impact, but will it be enough to raise the popularity of the 360 in that country as well?

The popular Soul Caliber series will soon have its fourth installment on the 360 and PS3. Not only are we getting the the crisper graphics and more "enhancements" to the fighters (just look at Ivy), there will also be an updated ring out system to make it more difficult for both sides to get off an easy win, with the use of barriers and breakable walls.

Capcom's pride and joy, Devil May Cry 4, had two new trailers and some playable demos on the show floor, and it is still impressing. Running at a smooth 60 fps at 720p on both a 360 and PS3, people only had good things to say as the action was fast and the controls were responsive. You will be able to find out the story between Nero and Dante in early 2008, with a PC version coming soon after.

For all the Katamari fans with a PS3, don't feel bad that Beautiful Katamari is Xbox only, since Jun Morikawa, game director of the series, has confirmed to 1up.com that a PS3 katamari game will be coming sometime in the future.

Again, there was so much at TGS to talk about, this is what caught our attention. The show is finally over, and we have enough to salivate over for the next year, no matter what platform(s) you own.

Tokyo Game Show Madness Part 2

In this post we will cover some of the key games that caught our attention so far. Now it is almost impossible to list everything in blog format, so we will just stick with games that caught our attention the most, and that is pretty popular coming from TGS.

Microsoft is trying to gain respect of the JRPG market with yet another product from those that brought you Blue Dragon. This one is now called Lost Odyssey for the Xbox 360, and should arrive in the US by February 2008. While the game looks beautiful, and will contain about 40-50 hours of gameplay, some are saying it looks a little too much like Final Fantasy. Still, with an interesting combat ring system, we'll see if the game can get distinguished enough.

NiGHTS for the Wii is a remake of the original SEGA classic too few played. Now you can relive it with updated visuals, and cool motion controls that just seem to fit so well.

Ninja Gaiden is making a return, this time actually in new games. This first is Ninja Gaiden II for the Xbox 360, and while only a trailer was shown so far, it seems to be as beautiful and bloody as ever, and is trying to be "the world's premier action game." The other one is Ninja Gaiden Dragon Sword for the DS, so you can hack and slash with a stylus now, and have an incredible time doing it wherever you are.

Metal Gear Solid 4 is making quite a splash, since it is the first time people are getting hands on with it. The graphics are beautiful, the gameplay is hot, and the story is crazy, what more do you want. Also, keep an eye out for Metal Gear Online if you want to take the action online with 16 player battles.

A new trailer for the mysterious PS3 game Afrika was shown, giving us an update on the progress of the game, this time with some more scenes of a couple in a jeep and walking around with a camera. Could it be the next Pokemon Snap... we'll just have to wait and see.

Playstation Network games are really starting to impress alot of people, with their emphasis on trying to be different and innovative yet still fun. Take Echochrome, a basic black and white puzzle game where you live in a world that seems to be dreamed up by M.C. Esher. You even have fl0wer, a sequel to the popular fl0w, that is still leaving some people scratching their heads.


Do you want to stay fit yet still play video games? The Wii should be your platform of choice, since not only are you getting WiiFit, but also similar fitness offerings from both Konami and Namco. Hopefully these will burn enough calories so you don't feel so bad drinking all that soda when playing Super Smash Brothers.

Stay tuned to Devicing for more updates.... if we still have the strength.

Images from IGN.com

Tokyo Game Show Madness Part 1

Yet another big video game event is upon us, this time in Japan, where most of the major game companies are showing off their latest products for their fans, and not just for the Japanese, but for everyone.

Sony seems to be heading the show with most of the news in some way or another applying to them. First to the general system news. The rumours that rumble will be finally brought back to the Sixaxis are indeed true, with the new and unoriginal name of DualShock 3. The controller still includes the motion controls, but now has vibration features similar to the DualShock 2.

Unfortunately, this is not the amazing "vibration for each button" controller we have heard about, but at least the basic feature is back, which Sony still says required a bit of work to coinside with the motion sensors. Almost all games from here on out will support it, and other games already out may include the feature with an update. Some bad news is that this new controller is only coming to the US and Europe in Spring 2008, while Japan gets it in November of this year.

Remote play between the PSP and PS3 is also hot news, where not only can you stream games and media stored on your PS3 to your PSP anywhere you go (as long as there is wi-fi), you can also turn the PS3 on and off remotely to save power when not using the feature. Definitely something to look out for.

There is some more bad news unfortunately. The "Xbox Live killer" Sony is working on, Home, is also delayed to Spring 2008. Also, there is still no talk of that infamous 2.00 firmware update to include XMB support in-game. Hopefully more will be announced soon.

It would seem the other big news from the show floor would be the plethora of new Kingdom Hearts games for multiple platforms. The DS has KH 358 / 2 Days, the PSP has KH Birth by Sleep, and Mobile platforms have KH Coded. All these games are different and seem to have different stories and gameplay elements.

Lastly, there is just too much buzz around Konami to not mention them today. During their press conference, they seemed to put a lot of concentration on their new Wii fitness game, and some interesting titles for portable platforms. They of coarse also continued to talk about Silent Hill 5, Winning Eleven 2008, and the big daddy of them all, Metal Gear Solid 4, which had yet another amazing trailer.

Devicing will cover the major games of the show in a later post, since more news is coming in each day. Stay tuned!

Pictures from Kotaku.com and IGN.com

I don't know which one to choose!

There are a few of us possibly considering dual-booting maybe Windows XP and one of the Linux variants for fun. Or maybe you're still trying to find a way to boot Windows and Mac OSX on the same computer.

Well, there is one person who is far ahead of us in terms of sheer numbers. Saikee, a member of the JustLinux forums, is boasting 137 operating systems on the same machine. The numbers include 3 versions of DOS (oldie but a goodie apparently), 5 versions of Windows (including 3.11!!!), and 145 different versions of Linux (dayum thats a lot).







I'm pretty sure you would be waiting for a 2 hour boot-up time while your machine finds all the operating systems it can boot up, but just to say you have all those OS's to choose from I'm sure would be fun.

HDMI vs. Component Video

A very interesting article done by Tom's Guide has analyzed the strong and weak points of using HDMI or Component Cables for your HD set-ups. The fact is that once you take away all of the bias about digital vs. analog, according to the article, you're not getting that much of a difference.

It states that HDMI cables, while having the convenience of carrying both high-def video and audio in one easy cable, is much more prone to have signal quality degrade over time. The problem is that most of the cables out there do not go under a strict quality assurance check to keep the cost down.

Component cables, while being analog, also have slight problems since a video signal needs to be converted from digital to analog and back to digital, which could cause a decrease of signal quality. However, since it is running on cheap analog technology, these cables can last a long time and run at longer distances then HDMI, while offering nearly identical picture quality.

The conclusion the article offers is that while we may be tempted to go with the newer technology, HDMI, it is not an absolute necessity since component offers nearly identical video quality, and most of the time it is cheaper as well.

Deal of the Day: SAPPHIRE Radeon X1950GT AGP

If your still hanging on to that AGP video card slot PC for whatever reason, and sick of playing Bioshock at 800x600 resolution, maybe a slight upgrade of your video card will keep you alive and kicking until your next build.

The unfortunate thing is, since hardly anyone uses AGP anymore, upper level cards are sometimes much more expensive then their PCI-Express counterparts. However, occasionally a good deal does come along, like this Sapphire Radeon X1950GT.

This card has 256MB 256-bit GDDR3, is HDCP ready, and can run most of today's games at close to max. All this for around $140 from Newegg, which is a little bit cheaper then my BFGTech Geforce 7800 GS OC AGP which was $150 after rebate a few months ago.

Whether you need it or not is up to you, it still won't give you Crysis on max settings, but as an intermediate card to hold you through till there are some more DX10 options, it may not be a bad investment if you can wait a bit more to upgrade. Just make sure you take extra power and cooling into consideration, and of coarse do all the necessary research before you buy.

Link to the card on Newegg.

Free Software: Miro Video Player

If you are a big fan of podcasts and internet provided video such as me, then you need a good and easy way to organize all of that content. I was sick of using standard RSS feeds that forced me to click on links and download all the videos manually.

That is where Miro comes in. Miro is an open-source video player that not only organizes your local media, but also handles podcast subscriptions, browsing youtube, bittorrent downloads, and handles all the formats you need, such as wmv, quicktime, h.264, avi, mpeg, divx, and xvid, and in full HD if available.

Podcasts are probably one of the most useful features of this program. It stores all of your subscriptions and list them by category. It will automatically download new episodes if you choose, and you can play it right there in the program. Once your done watching them, feel free to store them, or delete them right away with those options right in the UI.

I've been using Miro, previously Democracy Player, for a good number of months, and while it is still in beta, they are slowly fixing the bugs and making it better with each release. If you need a bit of organization, and iTunes is not your thing, then try this program out and see how easy it is.

Click here for the official site.