My 8 year old son is very keen to purchase either a PSP or Nintendo DSi …however his parents have no idea which is the better option – if there is one? We would appreciate any information you can give us – even if it is just a website where we can compare the two machines. Thanks for your help.

And so I beseech you, check carefully if your son has a preference for one brand over another. If you choose not to heed this warning, you may risk unleashing the wrath of a fanboy scorned. One possible way to check for a preference is to casually drop the name of some “exclusives”: games and characters that exist on one brand of console, and not others. Here is a handy list:

• Nintendo DS(i): Mario, Zelda, Pokemon Diamond/Pearl/Platinum
• Sony PSP: Final Fantasy, Metal Gear Solid, Grand Tourismo
• Microsoft (who don’t have a portable console): Halo, Master Chief, Forza Motorsport

If you get a rousing Huzzah! regarding one of these “exclusives”, you may have solved your question there and then. If on the other hand all options raise equal (dis)interest, then you have a hard road to travel. In this case, to help you (and perhaps your son) I’m going to try to outline the general ‘vibe’ of each console below, and add a spanner into the works too, just to make life hard.

Sony PSP

The PSP is unquestionably the graphics powerhouse in the current crop of handheld consoles. The 3D graphics look about as good as a previous-generation full-sized console, which is rather amazing given the size of it. The button layout (incuding analog joystick), coupled with the graphics tend to point the PSP towards more “action” oriented gamers. Think car racing games (e.g. Need for Speed, Ridge Racer) and first- or third-person action/adventure games (Tomb Raider, Final Fantasy, Metal Gear Solid).

With this great processing power, the PSP tends to be a little more heavy on battery usage, but not so much that you’d really worry about it. The PSP can browse the internet, play music from a memory stick, and play movies that may be available on its proprietary UMD format.

• Sony PSP best-selling games (which confusingly also includes UMD movies)
  
• CNet PSP Review
• Price: $329

Nintendo DSi

Compared to the PSP, the DSi could be explained as more “cute” than “powerhouse”. This is not to say that it can’t play some quite nice action 3D games. However, you will find the combination dual screens, touch sensitivity, and built in cameras, coupled with Nintendo’s more “casual” approach to games, results in a tendency towards fun, unique games over games that are all action and bling.

The DSi’s media and internet capabilities have had an upgrade over the previous DS model. The options for playing around with sounds, voices and images are pretty neat, and I imagine might result in some pretty intense giggle-fests when a couple of 8 year olds take photos of each other then morph them into crazy hall-o-mirrors shapes.

• Nintendo DS best selling games
• CNet DS review
• Price: $399

Apple iPod Touch (the spanner)

I’d be remiss not to include the iPod touch here too. Judging by the success of the iPod and iPhone as gaming platforms, they are probably putting a spanner in both Nintendo and Sony’s works, not just your decision making. Even the earliest games on the iPod were producing graphics up there with the PSP, and the latest ones are blowing my mind. The iPod completely blows the PSP and DSi out of the water when it comes to internet and media capability. The main downside however, is the lack of physical controls. You’ll notice from those videos that most control comes in the form of tilting the device and touching the screen.

When you consider that some of the best games on the iPod are all of $10 (and some brilliant ones are much cheaper), while Nintendo wants $90 for theirs, it starts to become a pretty difficult call. In fact one of the downsides of the iPod is how easy it is to buy hundreds of $2 games just because they are so cheap (don’t worry, you can put a password on the iTunes account to stop your 8 year old from going wild). Admittedly, you won’t get the same giant exclusives on the iPod, but as the installed base grows, large game studios will be more and more tempted to create true blockbuster games for the iPod.

As it stands, I spend more time playing games on my iPod than I have on any other portable gaming device. But I’m 30mumble years old, so am probably not the best indicator of the portable gaming zeitgeist.

• I’d like to link to the top 100 games for the iPod, but you need iTunes installed to view it. Try this.
• Price: from $389

Conclusion

So there you have it. You asked me to tell you which of two consoles to choose, and I’ve outlined three options. I’m nothing if not helpful right? I think you hinted at it in the original question regarding the better option “if there is one”? I honestly don’t think there is one right option.

Here, how about this: If I imagine my 5 year old as an 8 year old, I’d probably be tempted to get him a Nintendo DSi, because it’s just plain fun, and I have a soft place in my heart for the old-school Nintendo Game & Watch, after my Dad brought back an original flip-out Donkey Kong from Japan for my brother and I when we were probably about that age. The frugal “Current Economic Situation” guy in me would baulk at the game prices though.

The console is almost indistinguishable from the previous model (click on the image to see a comparison). By removing the Gameboy Advance game slot, Nintendo has been able to slim the console down by a barely noticeable 13%. The coating is now matte instead of gloss, and the colour options are black and white. When you flip it open, you’ll only notice the bigger, brighter screens if you’re a long-time DS user. From a distance, the only noticeable difference might be the black spot on the cover that belies the revolutionary nature of the DSi.

The black spot covers the lens for one of the two built in cameras. The 3 megapixel external camera is never going to out-shoot your regular digital camera, but it’s more than enough to capture silly memories. The 0.3mp internal camera will no doubt spawn some interesting new games, with at least one Wario title already announced: you leave the DSi on a flat surface, then wave your body around in front of the camera to play. The included camera software is great fun, but doubles as a nice, usable photo archive too, with a calendar to show you when the photos were taken.

I personally prefer to use dedicated devices for photos, music, and gaming, but I’m sure a large number of DSi buyers will appreciate its ability to store and play music files. The downside is the DSi doesn’t support normal MP3 files: you’ll need to convert music to AAC. I have absolutely no idea why consumer electronics companies do this to us. Just stick with the de-facto standards please!

Despite the horrifically bad name (DSiWare? It makes my teeth ache!), Nintendo have stepped up their online game with DSiWare: an online shop that you can use to browse and purchase games and add-ons right on the console (assuming you have access to a Wifi network). If you’ve used the Nintendo store on the Wii console, you’ll be familiar with the approach. Early downloads include a web browser and ebook reader. Unfortunately I can’t test these out yet, because Nintendo have locked the store away until after the April 2 release date. I’ll update once I’ve had a play.

Of course you can also play all your old DS games on the DSi. The removal of the GBA slot means you won’t be playing any old GameBoy games, but there is a huge back catalog of DS games available.

Overall I’m a bit more impressed with the DSi than I ever was with the DS. I’m a little less sure whether it deserves the NZ$150 price premium, but I’m hoping the DSiWare shop and the cameras will bring us some fun times.

• Price: $399
• Nintendo DS best selling games
• CNet DS review

Update: I’ve had a bit of a play with the DSiWare shop. The process is almost identical to the WiiWare shop. I tried downloading and installing the web browser, and it was painless. The available games were rather pathetic, but I presume that will improve in time.

Having said that, I do imagine my 5 year old son will be begging me to play it once he has seen the movie. That is the appeal of these games I guess: they extend the pleasure for the kids.

Conclusion: harmless, pointless fun. Hard to see why you’d spend close to $100 on the game unless you have a hard-core King Julian fan in the house.

I’m part-way through writing up full reviews for the games that featured on my segment on TVNZ Breakfast this morning, but in the meantime you can find these ones:

• Star Wars: Force Unleashed
• Rock Band

The reviews for the other games will be appearing smartly, but do feel free to ask any questions by adding a comment below. You can also find a place to buy any of the games by hitting up these links:

• Madagascar 2
• Star Wars: Force Unleashed
• Rock Band
• Gears of War 2
• LittleBigPlanet

Also don’t forget you can win an XBox 360 plus two games at TVNZ’s website.

Having said that, I do enjoy a good bit of lightsabering and Sith mayhem, which is exactly what Star Wars: Force Unleashed offers up.

The game starts in an admirable fashion. No namby-pamby cutscenes here. You?re dropped straight into the game as none other than Darth Vader. Starting as Lord Vader gives you an opportunity to see the potential of the game, with virtually limitless ?Force? power, you can throw opponents across the screen, push them off bridges, collapse trees and structures, and just generally wreak mayhem.

Once the initial level is over, you are back to a more mundane character, albeit still with a good deal of Force powers and plenty of lightsaber skill. From there you progress as per most modern games, unlocking skills and powers as you work through multiple levels, meeting ?boss? characters at the end of each one.

The beauty of Force Unleashed is not in the storyline (although this is adequate), but in the gameplay. The visceral fun of flinging boxes, crates, bombs, and characters around the environment is palpable. I find myself using Force powers more than the lightsaber, purely for the fun of it. A few levels offer a platform or puzzle segment where you must use your ?Force Grip? to move objects or parts of the level in order to progress.

I haven?t completed the game, so I don?t know the length of it, but at the moment I?m having so much fun playing the game that I hope it never ends.

In the ultimate face-off, I scraped up a ragtag bunch of misfits and rock heroes (huge thanks to those that helped out) to thrash the two games over the space of a sunny afternoon. They ranged from your typical 13 year old freak of nature (playing on Hard difficulty after picking up the game 2 months ago), to complete newbies.

After swapping between games for a couple of hours, it dawned on me that Rock Band’s gameplay was better suited to rocking – as a band. World Tour on the other hand feels like a quickly thrown together hash on Guitar Hero III, with a drum controller. I’m sure the developers would say otherwise, with the addition of vocals, more input options on the guitar, and the custom track creator being a significant step up from Guitar Hero III. The truth is, additional features and content just don’t come into it if the core gameplay is limp.

It’s hard to put a finger (let alone four fast moving fingers!) on the problem, but several people commented that it was just much harder to get immersed in World Tour compared to Rock Band. Perhaps it’s the graphics? World Tour feels very ‘2D’, right down to the animated flames when you hit the notes. The ‘hit’ animations in Rock Band are real 3D particle effects, whereas in World Tour they are just simple 2D sprites. Surely that couldn’t be it? The music? I was just using the speakers in the TV  because my surround amp has packed a sad, but both games were equally hobbled by the audio output. Even so, World Tour’s music did feel a bit more tinny and less rockful. Perhaps they have more separation between instrument tracks, and it does appear that missing a few notes has more of an impact on the music than it does in Rock Band.

So it really does come down to the gameplay. In Rock Band each player has their own reserve of ‘Rock Power’ and each instrument has unique features that change the way the ‘tracks’ appear, and change the way you score. On bass for example you can get into a ‘Bass Groove’ by getting a good run of notes – this improves your multiplier and turns your track blue. With drums, perhaps the most amusing instrument, you have your freeform drum fills to activate Rock Power. Smash away like a gorilla for a couple of seconds, finishing with a big cymbal clash, and you activate Rock Power. Lead guitar has the guitar break bonus score, and vocals have freeform sections and mic-tapping sections. All of this makes you feel like a unique part of the band using your own talent to add to the overall rockification.

In other words, the rocking feeling you get in Rock Band when all four tracks are rocking with rock juice is 100% pure ROCK.

Compare this to World Tour: each instrument’s track looks identical, and everyone has the same option to activate one shared reserve of Star Power. Basically you’re playing notes, or you’re playing notes on a sparkling blue track. Where’s the fun in that if I’m a bass player? I feel like I’m playing a standard Guitar Hero track with less notes. It just feels like the Guitar Hero developers haven’t done their research into flow and game psychology.

If there is one redeeming feature for World Tour, it’s the hardware. The drum kit has softer pads and a nicer ‘feel’ than the Rock Band set, albeit at the cost of feedback ‘ sometimes you’re unsure if your hits have registered. The guitar is also more substantial and – to my mind – has more direct feedback. Key point here: there is not a lot stopping you using the World Tour instruments on Rock Band, especially if you are playing on XBox 360 or PS3.

I feel like Ron Jeremy or something, but I’ll say it anyway: it’s not the quality of your hardware that matters, it’s the way you play with it.

I’m not alone in my opinion of the games either. Metacritic user ratings for World Tour and Rock Band provide just one of dozens of comparable views. This is not even mentioning that fact that Harmonix have already released a more refined Rock Band 2 to the North American market, which by all accounts is an improvement on the original. Unfortunately I can only assume we’ll be waiting a year for that down here too.

– For those about to rock, we salute you.

If you look back through the news, you’ll see PS3 sales and XBox sales leapfrogging one another on an almost monthly basis. I won’t even mention the Wii because it is so completely dominating the overall current-gen console ware.

Outside of Japan, PS3 and 360 sales are effectively neck-and-neck, with the 360 holding a 6 million unit head-start. You can see this pretty clearly by the parallel green and blue lines in the TGDaily graph below:

Even within Japan, the 360 is getting the occasional boost from new releases and console price drops. While tiny, these victories to Microsoft would have been completely unheard of with the previous generation consoles.

Overall, I think Sony has a hard road ahead if they want to overtake the XBox 360 in worldwide sales. The 360 has just had another price drop, and is nearing a likely hardware refresh. Sony, on the other hand, is reluctant to lower PS3 prices – probably pointing to the lack of cashflow they are seeing from lower than expected game sales. If they (as you might expect) forecast console and game sales on the meteoric trajectory of the PS2, I’d imagine there are some pretty long faces around Sony boardroom tables.

Cesar at ZuneInsider adds some clarity:

Here’s an important point of clarification: The announcements at GDC
are about the new XNA Game Studio tools, which allow developers to
create games that run on Zune devices. These added XNA capabilities are
the first step toward offering developers the opportunity to design
games that could be played on Zune devices, but Zune is a
wireless music and video player first and foremost.

I own a first-gen Zune, so I’m outta luck. I never turn the Wifi on, because I’ve tried syncing several times but it seems impossible everywhere but within about 6 foot of my wireless access point. Same with the FM radio. The RF reception on the Zune is horrible at best, probably because they’ve shielded the buggery out of it so you don’t get any RF noise through the headphones.

Super Mario Galaxy seems different. Time will tell, but so far (after several hours of play), it is turning out to be an absolutely stunning game.  The combination of the inimitable Mario style, the crazy-yet-intuitive gravity system, and incredible level design make for a completely new style of game.  Yes it’s a platform game, but not as you know it.  On one level you might be doing the standard jump’n’spin on boxes, but then you’ll find yourself playing Wipeout… 

…on a track of suspended water…

…riding on a stingray. 

I couldn’t suppress my wide grin as I discovered more and more play modes.  I flew off to the “Rolling Green” galaxy, presuming it to be a nice walk in the grass.  Seconds later I’m holding the Wiimote like a joystick, balancing Mario on a shiny ball and rolling around some zany Mario cross between mini golf and marble madness.  Back in the “Space Junk” galaxy I’m forced to defeat a comically evil spider by sticking Mario to the spider’s elastic web and using the Wiimote to pull on the web and fire Mario off like a slingshot.  And I haven’t even mentioned flying a bee-suited Mario around the Honeybee galaxy.

Then there are the tiny touches.  Like the way Mario flies between galaxies and planets like a cartoonish tie-fighter.  Or the hungry Lumas: feed them enough star bits and they’ll swell up and explode into a new bonus galaxy or sling star.  And I love the tranquil Comet Observatory, your place of quite tangible respite between galaxies.

Great game.  I have absolutely no idea when Nintendo will deign to release it officially to those of us in the Third World (aka PAL territories), but there are other ways to get your fix.

I made the call yesterday. Was on hold to Aussie for 10 minutes, then pretty much had to spell out my complete name and address because of a combination of a bad line and my kiwi accent.

Name?
Ben.
Bin?
No, Ben. B. E. N.
B. E. M?
No! Bravo Echo November.
Icho?

You get the idea…

Anyway, the nice Australian lady told me that jackets will be shipped after the 9th of October, so I’m guessing quite a while after that if they are sending a batch to the NZ distributor (Softprint) who will then on-ship them.