• Midway stock faces delisting from NYSE
• Unreal Engine 3: at fault for Midway Games' losses?
  

• Midway stock faces delisting from NYSE
• Unreal Engine 3: at fault for Midway Games' losses?
  

• Midway stock faces delisting from NYSE
• Unreal Engine 3: at fault for Midway Games' losses?
  

Last week I offloaded my heavy Dell Latitude notebook computer to a relative and snapped up a ridiculously cheap Asus EeePC.

The idea of switching to an ultra portable "netbook" was that I would be more eager and able to carry it around much more regularly and tap away in locations that have previously proved too difficult with my cumbersome notebook.

But naturally, the first thing I did after installing some essential office applications was to put some games like Peggle, Bookworm Adventures and World of Goo on the machine for when I'd rather have some light entertainment than do more work.

Industry analysts are predicting that the boom in highly portable netbooks will have a significant impact on the future of gaming.

This author at iStockAnalyst believes it will be massively multiplayer online games and casual gaming portals that will benefit most from the shift to devices that are always connected but have little storage space and less processor grunt than typical PCs.

I'm not sure it's a particularly welcome scenario for most of the PC Gaming Alliance, who earlier this year banded together to try to improve PC gaming's reputation and address some of the common grumbles that are causing the PC to lose its lustre as a cutting-edge gaming platform.

Clearly one of the big problems for proponents of PC gaming is that most consumers do not need high-end CPUs or video cards for anything else except games, which makes investing in a top-shelf PC difficult to financially justify when consoles are more affordable and offer increasingly diverse software libraries.

Today I'm keen to hear whether you have also bought a cheap netbook (or a similarly under-powered computer) or if you plan to buy one in future. And if so, do you think it affect your gaming habits?

The ones that own a NES that still functions can probably make a hefty profit if they sell it 30 years from now (or 150 years if we’re able to stay alive for that long in the future). However, not many could have guessed that you could make a profit from selling your Nintendo Wii on eBay on a Black Friday. The shopping day following Thanksgiving in the US, 3,171 Wiis were sold in 24 hours. The average price was $349 — $100 above the recommended retail price.

The situation sounds quite strange to me. Nintendo doesn’t get five stars for their range of consoles compared to the demand, but the situation isn’t all that bad compared to a year ago. From eBay, you’re possibly getting a used console and the cash/product exchange is rather slow. All that turkey and jelly must really have got people’s cravings going for sitting down on the couch and playing de Blob.

By the way, the Wii and Wii Fit are the most searched for products across eBay in all categories. That basically means that Nintendo is losing a lot of money because they can’t keep up with what the consumers want.

I’ve finally gotten around to playing Fallout 3, and my god is the game amazing. It just does so many things right, and while it has some flaws, it overall feels just so complete. It’s smart, keeps you guessing, and has a great sense of exploration and wonder.

I mostly avoided Fallout hype pre-launch, in part because of my ultimate disappointment with Oblivion (great setup and concept, but the world leveling with you, and it’s too open-endedness, just killed the game for me) and because I’m not a huge fan of shooters. The idea of a great RPG franchise being placed into a shooter game really turned me off. Having only a vague concept of what the game was all about, and not having any hype about what the game SHOULD be like, really set me up to be pleasantly surprised and awed. One would think this would teach me to avoid future hype about games, but that’s not how gamers really operate…

As mentioned, my major concern with Fallout was the FPS gameplay. I did not want to be frustrated in an RPG by the fact that my twitch skills were not up to par, yet somehow Fallout is not affected by this. Combat is certainly difficult, and near-impossible if you stumble into the wrong area at the wrong time, but never feels ‘cheap’ like some FPS do. You don’t face that impossible to hit, always hitting you NPC that is clearly set to overpowered. Some situations will be difficult due to the setup, like facing 5+ enemies who are heavily fortified and packing serious heat, while others will be difficult due to the nature of the enemy, like mutant bears that run at you fast, and strike you incredibly hard. Luckily saving is super quick, as is reloading, and the range of weapons you posses generally means you can bring out the big stuff and deal with a problem if needed.

Another aspect of the combat I really enjoy is the variety of weapons and the tactics related to them. From simple stuff like melee weapons and pistols, to assault rifles and shotguns, to the big stuff like miniguns and missile launchers, each weapon brings something different. The hunting rifle, for example, packs a good punch with each shot, but the need to reload after each shot, and a longer reload after five, means it’s less than ideal for close combat, but great for long range sniping. In direct contrast, the sub-machine gun is a close combat beast, with a large ammo clip and quick reload. Its accuracy however is very poor at long range, limiting its use to indoor areas or specific situations. Luckily switching weapons and armor is very quick in Fallout, allowing you to adopt as a situation progresses. As I said before, I’m not huge into the FPS genre, yet the combat in Fallout has been really enjoyable, and does a great job keeping you alert and always watching your back as well as listening for enemy movement.

The story, be it the main quest chain or a side quest, is always great. You very quickly learn that everything in Fallout has two sides, and very rarely is anything black and white. The challenge is having that information before you make a decision, and that usually requires some creative exploring and searching. For example, (incoming spoiler, skip to the next paragraph if you have yet to play) one quest starts in a small town under attack by a group called “The Family”, and it seems the attacks have recently gotten worse, with one family being murdered and their son taken. The leader of the town asks you to find the gangs base and bring back the boy. Once you find the gangs hideout, you learn that they are basically vampires, yet the leader is trying to teach them to control it and not kill humans. You also learn that the boy you are rescuing is the one who killed his family. You only learn this information if you hack a computer terminal, and without it you might be less tolerant towards the vampire leader. You have the option of either getting the boy out using force, or making a deal with the leader, one that could actually be beneficial to the town. That’s just one example, but most situations in Fallout follow a similar setup of choices and consequences.

Finally I wanted to mention the setting, because despite the generic setup (post nuclear), it feels incredibly rich and real in Fallout. You can actually imaging what the world looked like before the nuclear bombs fell, and how people lived. You also get a great sense of how the world is coping with the disaster now, with everyone having a different set of problems and methods of dealing with them. The world does not give off that ‘just a game’ feel, with weapons being placed in odd situations and such. Everything really feels natural and works.

I’m a good 20 hours into the game, trying to follow the good karma path. I’m sure I’ll have more to say once I finish the main quest, and replay the game as a more evil character. So far though, it’s tough to stop playing, which is as good a compliment as you can give for a game.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from working on this site, it’s this: college kids have way more time on their hands these days than I ever did. Case in point (er, pun not intended): students at the University of Fraser Valley took it upon themselves to create this mosaic of Super Mario 3 using a board and over 17,000 push pins. The project took three revisions and around two and a half semesters to complete. The final board now resides in the Student Computing Center, presumably where future students will find it and say, “Why are we wasting our time studying when we could be making stuff like this?” That or the whole thing will be ruined the minute someone needs to post fliers for the next Volleyball Night or something.

You can check out more images of th mosaic at this Flickr page.

---
Related Articles at Gaming Today:

• Video Game Mosaics: Taking Over Cities One Tile at a Time
• Nintendo Challenges Players to Mario Kart Wii Tournaments Worldwide
• Mario Kart Wii Will Not Be Released for Christmas
• EA Releases Battlestations: Midway Theme
• China Gets Limited Edition DS Lite Featuring Super Mario 64 DS

Gallery: Taiko no Tatsujin Wii

Watch children enjoy Taiko no Tatsujin Wii originally appeared on Nintendo Wii Fanboy on Mon, 01 Dec 2008 12:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Ads by Google