Mario and Sonic will hit the Wii with their new game on the 20th November (US). Play as your Mii character, or the characters from either Mario or Sonic’s worlds and try to earn the gold medal. Comepete in events including speed rally table tennis, 10,000m diving, hammer throwing and dueling. The environments include real stadiums that will be used in the 2008 Beijing Games.

There is still much unrealesed information about this game, but we do know of 3 modes so far. A single player mode, a circuit mode, and a mission mode that challenges you against a series of competitors. Personally i think this game looks great and would get boring quickly if it wasn’t for the various events and characters.

The MySims look is very different from previous sims games, very similar to animal crossing. But the plot of the game much reminded me of The Sims 2 on DS. As this game has a new cute look, it will appeal to more of a younger generation of fun-loving DS players.

The game drops you into the role as the town hero, as you’ll have to get this ruined town back on its feet. Like the Sims 2, you have to work for the mayor and improve the towns rank. It lacks a creative side though, as it only involves dressing your character and furnishing your new home.

Players have a map of the town, showing the villagers living there. Its very similar to animal crossing in that respect, as you have to introduce yourself to villagers, and save up for things. Overall, i can’t wait to buy it for myself. But it does sound like a game i could quickly get bored of!

I’m pretty sure that I’m not the only person that’s had to send their Xbox away for repairs and it’s a frustrating experience, you know, not being able to play your favorite games and all. So, here are some tips to help keep your Xbox from overheating.

• Keep your Xbox on an open shelf, or other open area (DUH!)

This allows for air to flow and for heat to escape which is essential to your Xbox not cooking itself.

• Don’t put your Xbox on carpet, a couch or other similar surface (Again, DUH!)

Refraining from doing the above helps with air flow and the reason to not use those surfaces is that they cover the vents and other openings more, which is already bad enough but what’s even worse is that they trap heat. Yep. It’ll just be sitting there, festering near your console which isn’t good for it.

• If console is horizontal, use a cooling rack for cookies

This allows for better airflow underneath which also contains plenty of air holes. This should help your 360 get better air circulation and decrease chances of a certain dry solder from breaking and causing you to get the dreaded three red lights, AKA the “Red Ring of Death” and you won’t get mad.

I hope this helps increase the longevity of your Xbox 360 console so that you can experience many late nights chainsawing, shooting, tackling and just plain beating your opponents in your favorite Xbox games.

Comments are encouraged

-Unstable

Graphics: 8.5/10

Ah…nothing like blood splahed all over a grown man wearing little kids clothes, women’s slippers and a MegaMan helmet and you get what my character looks like. The character models look amazing, that includes the zombies.

Audio: 9/10

I never thought that zombies moaning as a lawnmower runs over them could ever sound so great, but, this game does a great job of making that happen. The voices and other, non-zombie related sounds are great as well.

Controls: 7/10

They just take a few minutes of getting used to and then…they’re still a little awkward. Don’t let this deter you though!

General Gameplay: 8/10

The gameplay is fun. Shooting, impaling, stabbing, smacking and kicking zombies never gets old. Especially in a large environment with other hazards about and plenty of characters to interact with ranging from a survivor (who will be talking about their trip to the mall with therapists for years to come) to a maniacal, chainsaw-weilding clown who won’t let kids get off of a roller coaster that’s easily going 60+ miles per hour. Challenging, yet forgiving, this game will provide hours of fun.

Overall: 8/10

If you ever find yourself looking at a shelf of videogames wondering what to get, this game definitely deserves a second look.

Comments are encouraged.

-Unstable

N00bz has stepped up the plate and nailed one again, with their release of “Pandora’s Battery”. An unbricker for all PSP’s.

Anyway - make sure to read the readme.txt in this release for how to use it, but in brief it works like this:

1. You run a program on a homebrew-enabled PSP that will convert a standard PSP battery into a jigkick battery. Note that you can’t then use that battery normally - so you should use a spare one.
2. You run a program to generate the unbricker memory stick image, built from the v1.5 update EBOOT (note that this, and the custom IPL, means the release is completely free of Sony copyright materials).
3. You run some programs on a PC to install the image to your memory stick.

Now, you have a battery/memory stick pair that works just like the famous jigkick combination (but better) - just insert them into any PSP (even a brick) and the PSP will be reinstalled with the v1.5 firmware. As far as we know, this will continue to work for all future firmwares.

-Noobz

Thank these guys for their great work,

In alphabetical order:

Adrahil, Booster, Cswindle, Dark_AleX, Ditlew, Fanjita, Joek2100, Jim, Mathieulh, Nem, Psp250, Skylark, TyRaNiD.

They can explain the rest of the story behind it themselves,

Click Here

“The PlayStation Eye, in essence, is a digital camera attachable to the PS3. It can recognize visual patterns, as exhibited with the game Eye of Judgement, and can sense movements and distance in a 3D space. That, according to Sony, gives it more potential than a Wiimote.”

-QJ.net

Visuals: What was good on the GC is buffed up and lovely on the Wii. Contribute greatly to the atmosphere. 8/10.

Gameplay: Best shooting on the Wii, good varied bosses and plenty of puzzles and frights. 9.3/10

Lifespan: As I said, many unlockables and very re-playable, bare minimum 40 hours. 8.9/10.

Best Bit: Although the game is a string of best bits, getting your head sawed off your shoulders definitely stands out.

Worst Bit: Regenerators. One of the scariest and toughest baddies ever.

Overall: 9.2/10. Long, intense game that you’ll see through to the end. Essential Wii software.

Microsoft showed off thier black XBOX360 Elite, which includes a 120GB hard drive and comes bundled with a controller and headset for £329.99. The Elite was released in April in the US, has a 24th August release planned in Europe and 11 October in Japan.

A Halo 3 version of this will be available with no technical improvments but a nice cosmetic change.

Sony told us about the PSP “Slim” which is 33% lighter than the original and 19% thinner. It will be able to charge via USB and connections to TVs can be made to view content.

Nintendo didn’t announce any new hardware, but two new peripherals were mentioned: The Wii Zapper and the WiiFit Board.

Owners of Microsoft’s XBox 360 and Sony’s PlayStation 3 will have to wait for the much-anticipated Grand Theft Auto IV release. According to GameSpot.com, it’s being postponed until the second quarter of the 2008 fiscal-year which begins at the first of February. If you’re as disappointed as I am, post your comments.

-Unstable

As previously announced Animal Crossing is coming to the Wii, the only question missing is, when? Currently, we don’t quite know. The very popular title is going to have a sequel though on the Wii.
In a one-on-one interview Shigeru Miyamoto about the future of Animal Crossing he stated that ,

“The Animal Crossing team has been very busy working on a variety of different projects. Actually, the Mii Channel was put together by the director of the most recent Animal Crossing game. His name is Mr. Nogami. Recently he said he really wants to get back to work on Animal Crossing again, so hopefully we’ll be able to show something to people before too long.”