Maybe you missed it…Platinum Sudoku

Platinum Sudoku is the most complete Sudoku game I have ever played on the Nintendo DS.

It successfully borrows the excellent control scheme found in the Brain Training version of sudoku and combines it with a huge number of sudoku puzzles (20 million!), kakuro puzzles and some other highly entertaining mini-puzzles. The control scheme works like a charm and makes it a dream to play. The little mini-puzzles also add plenty to the package, with the pairs match game being especially fun. The kakuro puzzles are a welcome addition, providing a great alternative to the sudoku. There is even the option of making your own sudoku grids. The only negative is the lack of single card multiplayer.

Living with a casual gamer

Casual gamers are often accused of being the death of the video game industry. Most hardcore gamers are happy to believe our casual gaming friends are destroying real gaming by just buying any old crap that is put on the shelves. Merely mentioning the the name Carnival Games on video game message boards is enough to guarantee that someone will claim casual gamers will buy anything that features mini-games or has a Z at the end of its title. But is this necessarily true?

Well, my experience has so far shown me that this is completely inaccurate. In fact, I have found that casual gamers are far more difficult to please than any hardcore gamer will ever be. Getting a casual gamer to even try a game is difficult, but finding one that they enjoy is even harder.

How do I know this? Well, I live with a stereotypical casual gamer and it is almost impossible to find a game that she wants to play. For the sake of anonymity I shall call this person EB. EB is a 30 year old female (she still claims 21), who has her own DS and access to the household Wii. She plays games to relax, kill time and for mental stimulation. EB will only go into gaming shops/sections if I drag her in, kicking and screaming, and she has absolutely no interest in the gaming industry. All of her information about games comes from a game’s packaging, television advertising or from me. Despite all this, EB plays games on a daily basis, clocking up more hours in front of the DS than I manage on the DS and Wii combined.

While I can find any number of DS and Wii games that I know I will like, finding a game for EB can be frustratingly difficult. My game library is filled with plenty of games that I was sure EB would like, but sadly, it turned out that she just didn’t find them all that entertaining. The good news is that once EB finds a game that she likes, she will spend hundreds of hours playing it, to the point that hearing the music or sound effects again and again can drive me insane.

The Living with a Casual Gamer series will examine which games EB likes, and more importantly, the common elements that link these games together. Hopefully, it will help us harcore gamers understand the casual crowd a little more too and help anyone having trouble finding suitable games for the casual gamer in their lives.

February US sales figures

The latest sales NPD sales figures for the US have been released and as usual it is great news for Nintendo all round.

Hardware

• Wii 753 000
• Nintendo DS 588 000
• Xbox 360 391 000
• PlayStation 3 276 000
• PSP 199 000
• PlayStation 2 131 000

What’s wrong with…Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars?

I just got Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars and I am not happy.

While I am enjoying the game, I am a little frustrated that, in  such a high profile game, there are technical glitches which cause freezes and game issues.

Playing now…Dragon Quest: The Chapters of the Chosen

Status: Playing now

I recently started playing Dragon Quest: The Chapters of the Chosen. Having never played a Dragon Quest game before, I was eager to see why Japanese gamers go so crazy over the series.

Read on for my impressions of the game (spoilers too).

No game left behind…Wii Fit (updated)

In August last year, David Gosen, vice president for strategic marketing at Microsoft Europe and former Nintendo employee, claimed that research found up to 60 per cent of Wii Fit owners ‘play it once and don’t play it again’. That’s more than eight million people who spent AU$150 on a game that they used only once!

An alarming statistic and one that seemed hard to believe considering Wii Fit is one of the biggest hits on the Wii.

Fast forward six months and I have to reluctantly admit that I have been one of those eight million. I played Wii Fit once and didn’t touch it again. Well, that was until recently when I decided that it was time to get the balance board out and start using it on a regular basis

Wii Preview – Family Ski and Snowboard

A new batch of screenshots and a trailer for the upcoming Wii title Family Ski and Snowboard have been released and the game is looking mighty fine indeed.

The game features two exceptionally beautiful mountain environments with 7000 vertical metres to explore; day, afternoon and night riding modes; a comprehensive catalogue of tricks, jumps and flips; and most importantly Mii and Balance Board support.

The game has enough depth to appeal to the hardcore gamers and has a clean and simple look and interface that should appeal to casual gamers. Hopefully it will find players of both types willing to shell out and reward NamcoBandai for investing the time and money required to develop a good third party title on the Wii.

Due for release in Australia on 27 February 2009, Family Ski and Snowboard is surely one to watch.

Click through for the latest screenshots and a link to the trailer.

What’s wrong with…Mario Party

Even after eight console and two handheld versions, Mario Party is still one of Nintendo’s most popular franchises. It is also one of their most maligned, especially among hardcore gamers.

The reason for much of the hate is that the pick-up-and-play mini-game action of Mario Party has changed little over the past 10 years. What was initially seen as an innovative new intellectual property (IP) is now seen as a tired and rehashed bore-fest. This lack of innovation has turned off many and provides endless fodder for fanboys to use when criticising Nintendo and their so-called unwillingness to invest in new IP.

Whether you agree with the hate or not, most gamers assumed that with the move to the Wii, Mario Party 8 would be the game that would show off some of the big new ideas that the series desperately needs. Unfortunately, the eighth iteration was again just more of the same, this time with some motion controls thrown in to replace button presses.

Interestingly, Mario Party 8 came out in the middle of 2007. With no announcement so far of a ninth version, it will have been at least two years between version eight and nine. Surely this must signal a serious return to the drawing board for the series? Well at least I hope it does.

Playing now…Final Fantasy IV DS (updated)

Status: Abandoned

The last few weeks I have been playing Final Fantasy IV on the DS. Keep reading to find out what I thought of the game at various intervals throughout.

Impressions after the jump. (spoilers too)

What’s wrong with…XBox Live?

As a Nintendo-only gamer I am constantly reminded that I should be envious of all those XBox 360 owners who are enjoying the “fantastic” XBox Live online gaming service.

But when it comes to things like this story posted by NeoGAF member speculawyer, I am glad Nintendo has taken such a conservative approach to online gaming.

I’ll let speculawyer speak for himself:

I was trying to help my sister set up her xbox so I created an open UNO game and was trying to show her how to play an online game. I had my xbox 360 camera on and I could be seen sitting on my couch with my 3 year-old daughter on my lap.

Then some guy joins the game, puts porn on a PC, and then points his camera at the porn and leaves it there.

Really now. Is that necessary? My daughter is plainly sitting there on my lap and yet he puts the porn on anyway?