SNES

Japanese games giant Nintendo is launching a new-look version of its popular DS handheld games console.

	Nintendo unveils the new portable video game console, the DSi, equipped with a 3.25-inch LCD display and 300,000-pixel digital camera

The console, called the Nintendo DSi, can be used to take photos, download games and play music.

The DSi will go on sale in Japan on Nov 1, and will be available to European gamers in spring 2009.

“We want to change the DS from something that’s in every household to something that’s for every person,” said Nintendo’s president, Satoru Iwata.

He said that the new console could be the very first toy camera for a child, as well as tool for social communication and networking.

The DSi has two 0.3-megapixel cameras, and a slightly larger screen than its predecessor, along with a thinner form factor.

It will feature a memory card slot, so that gamers can play music saved on a SD card through the device. However, Nintendo has removed the GameBoy Advance cartridge slot on the DSi that made previous versions of the DS backwards-compatible with GameBoy games.

Mr Iwata said that gamers would be able to change the speed at which sound or music is played, meaning, for example, that they could slow down a foreign language lesson, or speed up and distort songs.

Nintendo said it had sold more than 77.5 million DS consoles worldwide since the device first went on sale in 2004.

In 2006, Nintendo revamped the DS, introducing a touchscreen version, the DS Lite. The Japanese games company has been credited with bringing a new audience to the world of gaming.

Women and young girls love the puzzle and brain-training games available on the DS, as well as its ease of use, while the Nintendo Wii, which uses wireless motion-sensitive controllers, has proved a big hit with families.

Although the DS continues to sell strongly in the UK, sales have been declining in Japan, with Sony’s handheld games console, the PSP, outpacing sales of the DS in Japan for the last five months. The DSi will cost YEN18,900 (£100) when it goes on sale.

Nintendo’s decision to release an updated version of the DS is seen in part as a response to the threat posed by Apple, whose iPhone and iPod touch music players feature motion-sensing technology and can also be used to play computer games on the go.

Title: Harvest Moon: Tree of Tranquility
Players: 1 - 4 (Offline)
Platform: Wii
Developer: Marvelous Interactive
Publisher: Natsume
Price: $49.99
Release Date: September 30th, 2008
Website:www.Natsume.com

More than 20 different Harvest Moon games have been made and you have to wonder, will these games ever evolve? Well, Harvest Moon: Tree of Tranquility looks to take the evolutionary step that some fans have been waiting for since the original on the SNES. Wii-mote controlled farming, more choices for getting married, and more interaction with the townsfolk are just a few of the things present in Harvest Moon: Tree of Tranquility.

The game starts with players taking a boat to the main island, in which the story takes place. It’s during this time that players choose their gender, and then begin a tutorial by spending a few days at an inn. Afterward, it’s on to the farming! Like any previous Harvest Moon game players will milk the cows, shave the sheep and plant crops. The major change with the general farming comes in the form of using the Wii-mote. So now, instead of just pressing buttons, players can actually re-enact the movements of hoeing, raking, fishing, cutting down trees or destroying rocks. There’s an alternative to this…I think it’s called real-life farming. Some of you might actually be interested in trying it out. Really.

As mentioned, many of the livestock care-taking features have been upgraded. But there’s also new animals to adopt, some of which include boars, pandas, penguins, turtles, cats, weasels, rabbits, squirrels, baby bears, dogs and monkeys. Players will have to be friendly to the wild animals in order to adopt them, including bringing them their favorite treats. It’s a little like Tamagotchi, except without the deformed evolution, or uncontrollable bowel- movements.

Another popular returning feature is the marriage candidates. Both male and female characters receive eight potential mates, each. Some of these candidates require special attention to acquire their affection, and hence, players will have to try to win over a selective mate by carrying out various side-quests (viz., Think GTA without the “hot coffee”). The neat part about the open-ended aspects of the game is that after getting married and having a kid, players can choose to start over as their child with their acquired items and money.

Earning cash and rewards will still play a big part in gaining wealth in Harvest Moon: Tree of Tranquility. Aside from making money on the farm, players can partake in a number of contests and festivities. These will work as mini-games to keep players on their toes, in-between trying to attain a spouse and running the farm. On the bonus end of things there’s also unlockable mini-games that support up to four-players, ranging from horse racing to stone skipping. I guess when the developer tosses in something like that you can’t complain too much.

Harvest Moon: Tree of Tranquility is due out on September 30th, exclusively for the Wii. You can check back in with Blend Games for more info and news regarding the latest games. Also, be sure to drop by the Blend Games Forum for the latest discussions on hot gaming topics.

While it might seem like a pretty arbitrary question for an editorial, I think it’s valid because 1) Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past is currently out now for the Virtual Console, and 2) Chrono Trigger, arguably Squaresoft’s (now Square Enix), greatest game ever (Final Fantasy IV and VI, notwithstanding) is coming soon to the DS on November 25th. Oh, and 3) I’ve actually been playing A Link to the Past lately and forgot how doggone good it is.

Now, I know the issue is debatable, especially when the SNES had so many boss games— Super Mario World, Actraiser, and (okay, I’ll admit it), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time— but there’s just something about Link to the Past and CT that elevates them beyond being just great SNES games. They’re in a category all on their own and easily qualify as occupants for best game ever territory.

But let’s count the many ways I love thee, shall we? Link to the Past was a revolutionary milestone at the time that took the concept of light and dark and made it into a feature long before Samus would start meddling with all that nonsense in Metroid Prime 2: Echoes. Traveling back and forth through the light and dark realms, Link would find his precious Hyrule in a different state of turmoil whenever he would leap into the Dark World. My favorite moment of the game actually occurs early on when you first fall into the alternate universe and you come out a pink bunny, signifying that Link is good wherever he is, even in a world that’s supposed to bring out the worst in you.

What I really love about the game, though, is the fact that it’s so damn fun to play. Link has gone through some really interesting dungeons in the past (The water dungeon in particular if you’ve ever played The Ocarina of Time), but none were nearly as fun and, more importantly, as consistently fun, as they were in ALTTP. Every single one is short and easy to figure out if you just try out all your available options, which is something that wasn’t always true in some of the later games in the series (Again, I’m looking at you, water dungeon).

It was the kind of milestone of a game that makes you pay attention to Nintendo, more so than even Super Mario World. World was grand in its scope but wasn’t a masterpiece that made you feel like turning it off was like turning off a part of fun you could never attain again unless you turned it back on. I even want to play Link to the Past right now. Screw this editorial! Bah!

But then, there’s Chrono Trigger, a game that poses so many moral questions that it has about ten or twelve different endings just to answer them all. CT is like no other game you’ve ever played, even making its superb sequel, Chrono Cross look weak in comparison. I actually remember the first time I played CT and remember how blown away I was by the music. In my opinion, and in the opinions of many others, CT has the best music of any video game ever. Every song by Yasunori Mitsuda and legendary Final Fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu is perfect, utterly perfect, and they match the heroic adventure that even with 16-bits still looks spellbinding, even today.

And the characters can’t be beat. Frog, Lucca, Magus(!), and the others each complete heart-breaking personal quests in the midst of the amazing main storyline. Seriously, no RPG has ever matched the splendor of CT, and no RPG probably ever will. We fanboys are hard to impress with new things, and no new thing has ever come close to being as good as CT, that’s just how good it is.

So, which one is better? Well, as surprising as this may be, I’m going to have to go with Link to the Past. While the Chrono storyline is comparable to none and has way more replay value, Link to the Past, just has more heart, more gumption to it. From its achievement music to the way the combat system just works on so many levels, Link to the Past is the greatest SNES game in history, and I’m sticking by it. Chrono Trigger fans, who wants some?