Results tagged “video games”

I install quite a lot of games on my iPhone. Some come, some go. After a little cleanup yesterday, here are the ones I decided to keep.

Of those, I'd say I've played Plants vs Zombies the most, closely followed by Doodle Jump, and Orbital. The two newest games are Leap Sheep - which is hellishly addictive and The Incident.

Do you game on your phone? Which are your current faves?

I was a huge huge fan of arcades when I was a kid. I remember going down to the seaside and there would be arcades as far as the eye could see down by the seafront. They'd have the pretty flashing lights, music, and noise. I'd be drawn to them in some kind of zombie like fugue. I dread to think how much money I conned asked my parents for over the years.

I think kids these days are missing out in a way. It's different now. Sure you can play someone halfway round the world and hear them trash talk you. But that's easy. Anyone with an ego can be a cocky little shit over the internet, you're still anonymous.

Back in my day there was no anonymous. You had the cocky kids up close, face to face. I suppose there was an aspect of bravery about challenging someone else. They were a little older, a little bigger, a little more likely to punch harder than you. You had no internet connection to hide behind.

I remember playing Kung-Fu Master one year in Spain at the hotel our family was staying in. There were a lot of older kids who hung around that machine as cocky as can be. It took me a while to get the nerve to brush past them, put my 25 Peseta coin in the slot, and play while they tried to intimidate. But as it turned out I wasn't actually half bad at that game and ended up beating the top score. I dunno, I think I got their respect after that.

But the whole thing was nerve wracking. Kids today are missing out on the whole crapping your pants factor that was part and parcel of arcade gaming back then. Kids today don't know how easy they've got it. And I wish they'd bloody get off my lawn.

Oh, and I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that I was never a cocky little shit myself as I got a little older.

Well, I must really live in a cave as I had no idea another Ghostbusters movie was even being considered. Not only is it being considered, it's being made. With Ivan Reitman at the helm once again.

I loved the first two movies so much and I was even completely addicted to the Commodore 64 Ghostbusters game as a kid. That was the one when you pressed the spacebar on the home screen, the little C-64 speech engine happily shouted "Ghostbusters". Which at the time was the coolest thing ever invented.

I might, er, even have a couple of Ghostbusters t-shirts in my closet. Maybe. Or not. Anyway, the more exciting news, is that Reitman isn't the only one returning; all the old cast are back.

With this news it looks like what was once assumed to be Ghostbusters for a new generation is instead a reunion for the principals involved with the first two films. Reitman, of course, produced and directed both the 1984 original and it's 1989 sequel, so it's comforting to know that he is now returning over twenty years later for the new film. Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis and Sigourney Weaver are all, barring some kind of cataclysmic, joy-hating turn of events, returning as well (I haven't seen confirmation on Ernie Hudson). And if that's not good enough news, even Rick Moranis is said to be willing to leave retirement to reprise his role as their accountant, Louis Tully!

Of course, as with all remakes & sequels of late, I'm muttering please don't suck, please don't suck.

Last week we added another gadget to our collection.

But it's not all pure mindless entertainment. Oh no. In a word, exercise. Sure, you could go outside to run or go down to your local gym to workout. But where's the fun in that? What you want is a Wii Fit Plus.

Good lord am I sore. Seeing as I've never done Yoga or Kung Fu in my life, I'm apparently using muscles I didn't even know I had.

I must admit I was initially very skeptical of the Wii Fit when it first came out. After all, this is a video game console, how much exercise could you really get? Let me assure you, the answer is you get a lot of exercise. And it's so much fun.

Blimey, buying a Wii means at one point or another I've now owned every Nintendo game console since the NES.

I've had my iPhone 3GS for about a week now and not surprisingly, I like it. I like it a lot. Then again, I am hopelessly late to the smartphone party and anything remotely better than my old Razr is going to feel like I swapped my Commodore 64 for a MacBook Pro. The 3GS is a great phone. It's fast and for the most part just bloody works.

My old phone contract expired a couple of months ago and since then I've been pondering which phone to get next. I spent some time playing with a Palm Pre, a Blackberry Storm, and a Motorola Droid. Of those, only the Droid seemed like it was almost good enough to own. Almost.

So, my one week in "far too soon to be giving this kind of writeup, but doing it anyway", er, writeup.

The Apps

One week in doesn't give anyone enough time to compile a decent app review so I won't even try. But what I have found that I like so far, and shown on my home screen are the following:

Google Earth
Evernote (iPhone port of my fave note taking, organizing desktop app)
AroundMe (finds businesses, er, around me)
TweetDeck (iPhone port of my fave desktop Twitter client)
Flixster (movie showtimes, information, and theater locator)
Shazam (music identifier)
Wikipanion (better than navigating Wikipedia in Safari)
Reader (mobile Google Reader)
Flickit (all round mobile Flickr gadget & uploader)
Last.fm (for listening to music streams)
IMDb (for movie junkies everywhere)

Most importantly, I replaced the Apple Mail client with the mobile version of Gmail. Which you must do immediately.

The Keyboard

The keyboard really isn't that bad. I thought that my big chubby digits would be a problem and to a certain degree they are, but the auto-correction is scarily accurate and I've found myself typing emails & texting at quite a good pace.

The Camera

The cameras in phones suck. All of them. The question then becomes, how much does it suck and can you live with it? Surprisingly, for a phone, the camera is not entirely made of fail.

Obviously it's no DSLR, but it's no slouch either. So that coupled with the rather spiffy Flickit app to upload directly to Flickr makes for a rather nice 'on the go' pic taking experience.

The Games

I haven't spent much time trying out various games because I really haven't gotten much further than Orbital. I'm hopelessly addicted and it might just be the finest $0.99 I ever spent.

Check me out with a high score of 40. Ahem. I didn't say I was any good at it.

Stop Waffling

Ok, it's fast, it works, I'm happy with it. Can't really say any more than that.

[Moozik: VNV Nation - Solitary]

When I was younger I played an enormous amount of video games. I dread to think how much money I managed to con out of my parents to go to arcades to play Gorf, Bubble Bobble, Star Wars, Galaga, 1942. You name it, I played it.

At home I grew up with the Commodore 64 before eventually migrating to the SNES some ten years later. It was there that my addiction to all things Mario Bros truly began. I played every Mario game for every Nintendo console thereafter. If it involved that plumber bloke, I owned it.

So, fast forward to today, I got all excited to see the new Mario game for the Wii.

Drooling much? I can't wait. Now, first obstacle to overcome is the fact that we don't actually own a Wii. A minor inconvenience I feel. That will be remedied forthwith.