Wednesday, November 30, 2005

Review: Mario Kart DS (DS)

Format: Nintendo DS
Publisher: Nintendo
Producer: In-House
Genre: Racing
Price: £29.99
Origin: Japan
Reviewer: Sideath

So, it's finally arrived. The fifth installment of Mario Kart, for Nintendo's current-gen console, the Nintendo DS. This game seems to be at the peak of the series, and has all the good qualities of the previous Mario Karts, but also more besides.

You want substance? Mario Kart DS has enough to keep you (and your friends) busy for years to come. With 32 tracks to choose from (which are then mirrored, meaning you really get 64 tracks), you are kept constantly busy on the racetrack, and if you're feeling nostalgic, half of those tracks are from previous Mario Karts - four from each console. The GameCube Double Dash tracks are the weakest of the four (although they look the best), as the style of play varies the most from other consoles, but nevertheless all the Retro tracks are excellent. But still, the new tracks stand firmly on their own as excellent examples of what Mario Kart can offer, especially the ones influenced by tracks from various other Nintendo games (wait till you get your hands on the new Bowser's Castle and the track influenced by Mario64's Tick Tock Clock! Gaming at it's best!). But the substance doesn't stop there. New features include a new Mission mode, which, although relished and consumed quite quickly, introduces you to the finer points of Mario Kart DS's tracks and handling; a new, advanced Time Trial mode, with influenced bottom screen help; and also CPU Battle modes, which of course allows you to take advantage to the CPU to full effect. You want substance? Mario Kart has substance.

You want style? Let me say this - Mario Kart DS is the most battle-oriented Mario Kart game to date. To many (including myself), this is a good thing, not only does this mean that you see shells flying everywhere, but also races are much closer, even on 2-player versus mode (beating Sam 14 to 12 currently). The tracks and battle maps also reflect on this style of play, and some of the Retro tracks have been changed slightly to suit this style, which is a good thing, trust me. You want style? Mario Kart has style.

You want cool multiplayer? This is the aspect of Mario Kart which really does shine. Multiplayer is now CPU supported, so you can have 8 players on the track whatever number of human players there are. I'm also really looking forward to playing Mario Kart online, via the Nintendo WiFi Online Connection, and apparently there is very low lag, and races are as smooth as if your opponents are standing in the next room. However, since I have not played online yet, I cannot speak for this entirely. And of course, the games themselves You want cool multiplayer? Mario Kart has cool multiplayer.

Currently it seems that my review is going towards the way of a press release or a game advertisement, so now it would seem wise to say some of its cons. The gratest disadvantage Mario Kart has on it's opponents (eg. Wipeout Pure, Ridge Racers) is graphics - the weapons themselves look 2-D, and people will complain about it's lack of animation for various weapons compared to games such as Double Dash, per-say. But then, graphics wasn't the reason you bought a DS, surely? Also, sometimes the game will seem strangly unfair, for example getting hit by two blue shells meters before the finish line, but then this can be explained with the ferocity of ZangbandTK: after all, it was your fault for being first wasn't it? ;-)

But anyway, problems aside, Mario Kart DS is one hell of a game, and I would recommend it to anyone with a DS, or any Mario Kart fan.

nine out of ten
Recommended Award

Thursday, November 24, 2005

Film Review - Trainspotting (Explicit Content)

"Choose life. Choose a joab. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a f**king big television. Choose washing machines, cars, etc."
Although this film is actually 9 years old, I have just recently watched it. For the fifth time.

To start even thinking about watching this film, one has to throw all convention out the window. A Clockwork Orange, Pulp Fiction and other films do not compare in the un-convention of this film. Just as a side recommendation, I would also read the novel by Irvine Welsh by the same name.

The film starts off with the main character, Mark Renton (Ewan McGregor), running away from a few police officers. Over the top of the mid-80's rave music is the quote above. Renton eventually runs into a car, and gives his very nice, toothless, Heroin - addict's smile.

Gratuitous use of the C-word and f**k are among the main staples if this film, and without them, it would honestly wreck the whole authentic "Scottish" feel of the film. After seeing Ewan McGregor's penis, one would think that it couldn't get worse. Hell, if Lisa Minnelli couldn't get worse, think again. Well, it does in fact (surprisingly) get worse. But it does so in such an amazing fashion, seamless one might say, that it beats all other film-making styles, and makes the viewer feel at is in the chaotic world of lower-class Edinburgh.

The film, from the point of view of a stylistic critic, does not really compare to Lawrence of Arabia, or Das Boot. But the way in which it pushes the sociological boundries of filmaking, makes it an absolute must-see.

Nine out of Ten

Update v.1.3

A few changes this week:

*The biggest change is probably the title - As this webpage is probably now the only Chimpware Webpage still running, so now it has become the Chimpware HQ
*Unfortunaly, Google Adsense has caught a whiff of our blog and thus are putting ads on it - this may be a good thing as I might (very unlikely, but might) get paid ;-)
*Added a hit counter

Next update possibilities

*Chimpware Podcast
*Chimpware Forum
*Chimpware Newsletter

Thursday, November 17, 2005

Combat Mission Anthology

Today folks, I present to you, something a little bit different.

Major Howard has landed with some units of D Company, 6th Airborne just off the orne river. I pan up, ahead I see the town of Benouville, just in front however is a problem, a German Pillbox and a stone one at that. I don't think my PIAT's are going to be enough, and worse I know the Germans are being reinforced with armour later.

What would you do in this situation? Panic? Rush? Fall back? Combat Mission gave me another option, I didn't actually have to nock the pillbox out, all I have to do is capture the bridge it's defending. My solution? Easy I order a private to wing a smoke grenade in front of the 'box, his field of view is broken, if he can't see me he can't fire at me.

Combat Mission is a turn based ww2 strategy with a clunky, ugly engine, long load times and ferociously difficult AI; but it does have it's bad points. I first came across this game when I read a review of the second in the series, my purchase was sealed when the anthology (conatining all 3) was on sale in my local gamestation for a fiver. Bloody bargain.

The pillbox eliminated Howard and his men are on a thin strip of land between two rivers, his orders are to take the bridge on each river, the only problem is he hasn't many more men. His men are ordered to fan out, into the trees to shelter from the MG34's which just opened up on them, bullets wizz around the battlefield; my men should be dying but somehow their still firing back.

One of Combat Mission's unique points is the way it handles combat. Essentially it is much more realistic then it's rts brethren. Instead of the usual "your men fire at their men but their men have more health so your's always die" of strategy combat CM takes the approach of "your men fire at their men, they fire back, but both of your blokes miss becasue their just raw recruits but then your bloke gets lucky and hits the enemy, who then hits the deck and runs off towards that building over there". Battles in CM can take hours, and frankly you don't need to kill enemies, you can capture them, make them run, or simply force them to ground where they can make no impact on the battle.

I've got more men now, another glider full of troops has landed on th other side of the bank, I don't see the glider the engine can't really handle that but my men take the far bridge anyway without a shot being fired. My first group have set up a vickers and have got the germans heads down, even taken a few prisoners. It's time to rush the bridge, I need to capture it before those German tanks arrive and my men are running low on ammo. I bunch them by the pillbox to take cover before ordering a full on charge, the Germans open up and my first few men drop like flies, dammit this won't be as easy as I thought.

CM has an excellent interface, just right click on the unit you want and a list of possible actions appear, walk, run, set fire/cover arc, creep, go prone. Whatever you wan't to do you can probably do, using tanks to shelter troops on the back is one of CM's guilty little pleasures.

The men on the bridge are panicking, worse the smoke has cleared and that bunker has opened fire on the fresh troops on the far bridge, they leg it, some to the trees and others into a trench, my mortars are down, altough I've captured this bridge the men on it won't be able to help the others on the other bank. Damn. A few mouse click take me to the soldiers height level, skimming over to my men dieing in the field of view the ground shakes as an 88 targets a group of them, they hold fast though, their battle experince and training paying off. However, I sit there unable to save them, even to order them around.

Even the turn based combat is uncoventional, instead of doing it in an Advance Wars style CDV (that's the blokes who made it lads) have taken a less empowering approach. You set you men orders, tell them where to move, to fire and then hit "go". You then have to watch a minute of combat which you can not influence; you just watch the men carry out your orders. Or at least try to carry out your orders, these men is clever. The number of times I've been screaming at my moniter as my soviet tank hunters have got caught in crossfire and instead of throwing their molotov's at the Panzer have instead decided that discretion is the better part of valour and legged it.

Saved! A group of commando's arrive with their Churchill tank fresh from Sword beach, it's armour is to think for these puny Nazi weapons, BOOM! The 88 is on fire and it's occupants are fleeing from my machine gun fire, rallying, the men on the bridge try one last desperate rush. The commando's tip the ballance and the bridge is mine, those Germans who survived are fleeing back into the town. I took the bridge before the German tanks arrived and I've won the day, the pillbox is easily taken down with my Churchill's massive armamament.

Armoured combat is modeled similarly to infantry, except that hull thikness and even shape are taken into account, CM pulls no punches with the realism, every type of tank from every army that fought in the west (and Russia) is there in every possible composition, even those which seem pointless. Apart from nothing's pointless, that little wasp flamethrower carrier may have no armour or ranged protection but give it enough protection and it'll easily take down a Tiger, easily triple it's own points value. Not much is as satifying as the look of horror on your freinds face during your hotseat match when his puny Pak anti tank gun get the "Ricochet" on your advancing T 34s because their hull repels hollow charged projectiles.

BUT THAT DAMN ENGINE. It's the real downer here, if you can't stand ugly grapgics then don't even bother here, no particle effects, no shadows, no simple way of managing more then one unit at a time making convoys damnably tricky.

nine out of ten

If you can look past the clunky engine you get the best strategy money can buy, and battles are real stories with real emotion invested in your men. Only the best military minds need apply.

[Review] Razer Viper

Item Type: Mouse
Brand: Razer
Model: Viper
Link: http://www.razerzone.com/





The Good The Viper is a very nice mouse to look at, hansomly resembling it's namesake, and the casing is designed so that the led glows eerily through the mouse giving it a nice look. The buttons are nice and big, and it has handy non slip "rails" running down the side making the whole thing easier to hold. It is also very comfortable to use. First and formost this a gaming mouse, so expect lightning fast reactions, 1000 dpi (dots per inch), thats 200 more then say, the MX led series offers. So during a game it handles beautifully, tracking all of your movements smoothly, allowing you to get very precise aim, or to spin round really, really fast. For a laugh I set the Vipers sensitivity on full (using the handy software icluded) and CS: S sens on full to then just moved my hand from one side of my mousemat to the other, the result: lots of comedy spinning, and eventually my game crashing. The clincher? it was £30 when i bought it and must be considerably cheaper now. Plus the usb bit is gold. Anything gold reeks of quality, and bling.

The Bad it's a bit small, really small. Even my baby like hands dwarf this little beast so I suppose this could be a serious problem for the larger handed individual. Also the mouse whell is rubbish, it clicks annoyingly and doesn't always respond to being used as a middle click button; and while we're on the subject of buttons, there are only three, if that's a real problem for you (yes YOU you MX user).

The Skinny A small, sleek mouse, with a few problems but a lot more good points, in fact I'd positively recommend it to all those speed freaks out there. Also the gold.

Chimp says :

nine out of ten

Miyamoto turns 53!

CWN would like to wish a very happy birthday to the genius behind Mario and Zelda, Shigeru Miyamoto, who turns 53 today!

Source: 4colorrebellion

Miyamoto Wiki
Miyamoto Shrine ;-)

Lateral Thinking - Reserve or Release

This article was originally written for Sideath's blog. Republished by authour for CWN.

Are reservations a sign of weakness?

Gamestation recently have stopped taking Xbox 360 reservations. My branch are getting about 35 and all have beeen reserved - a full month before the launch date! Anyone who wants an Xbox 360 before Christmas has three choices - eBay, kill for it, or go to ASDA.

My local branch of ASDA will recieve 5 Pro Packs of the Xbox 360 when they are released. They're not taking reservations. I'm willing to bet that if I walked into ASDA on the 25 November before noon then there is a perfectly good chance of getting my grubby mitts on one. It would be amusing to see the queues of people outside GAME, ePlay et al while I simply stroll into ASDA and pick up my Xbox 360 - not that I will of course, if the price/timeline of the Xbox is anything to go by.

But still, what of Reservations? Of course, I admit, I did reserve the Nintendo DS, and the due fact that I did not reserve my Sony PSP meant that I had to wait for a month before I could get one - however, surely a reservation would mean that you need an item (ie. as a drug or tobacco effect) rather than simply desiring it? After all, no-one reserves a new screwdriver or the lastest printer out on the market, do they? Why does this phenomena occur for the videogame market? Why this constant obsession? Do we blame the videogame industry for not making a great enough supply to meet demand, or do we blame ourselves and our constant addiction to videogaming?

Wednesday, November 16, 2005

Review: The Gorillaz - Demon Days

Good morning to all present. I have recently been added by Sideath to this little blogspot here. I thought that for my first little post, I would speak about an album I just aquired.

The Gorillaz - Demon Days.

Starting off, I would just like to state that normally, I would not allow myself the thorough discomfort of listening to a rap album. But in this case, along with the recommendations of my friends, I thought I should give these primates a chance.
It certainly payed off. Although there are a few tracks on the record that are not as clear, and may I say, interesting as others on it, overall the album is worth its money.

In classic old-style record, D2 chose to start the album off with a little introductory song, with a few musical themes from Dawn of The Dead. I will not go into depth on the subject of DOTD, because frankly, it sucks.
Anyway, the album continues on with a few more tracks, which are all quite good, although a little repetitive until you come to track five, where the repetitiveness ends. This is were D2 chose to introduce his first guest rapper. The name of the track is called Dirty Harry, and along with a mix of excellent poetic rap, great bass quitar riffs, and a little of a children's choir, this song is weird enough to be quite amazing.
We go on to track eight (after tracks 6 and 7, obviously). This song is my only criticism of the album. I think that if there could be a song that should be cut from the record, it's number eight. It's repetitive as your grandmother, and it has no point whatsoever. Moving on, we seven more amazing tracks, which end with the title song Demon Days. This track is perfect to end an album with, because it combines themes from earlier in the album, and introducing newer, more experimental (if that's possible) music.

So, I would just like to declare that never have I been interested in rap. Ever. But this has certainly broadened my tastes a little. If you're into fusion rock/choral/rap/everything, you should certainly check out The Gorillaz - Demon Days. I give it an:

eight out of ten

Changes to CWN (v.1.2)

Due to the huge amount of spam in the Comment section, I have been forced to make the following changes:

*Comments can now be posted only by blog members - to become a member, please contact me on freeyourmindsqw@hotmail.com
*Comments are now shown in a popup window
*Posts shown has been raised to 25
*Time Zone changed to UTC+00:00 Europe/London

I am also thinking about changes to the description of CWN (ie apart from 'Free Your Mind') underneath the main heading. Any suggestions please email at freeyourmindsqw@hotmail.com

Also see Mike (Fomoria's) excllent review below!

Friday, November 11, 2005

Chimpware Reportage Archive

Chimpware Twenty Questions Archive

Every so often, Chimpware will release Twenty Questions about a specific subject, anything from Custard to Nintendo. Difficulty will range from pretty difficult to so difficult you have to look it up... and still you may not find the answer! I'll be genuinely surprised if someone gets the right answer to all twenty questions.

[Twenty Questions]
Nintendo 2003-2005

Chimpware Events Archive

Events, events... etc. A bright point in the dull sky...

CWg 2005 Summer Awards