The Brooklyn Inductive Power Station and more

While wandering around the business section at Gamescom, the team stumbled upon what appeared to be an interesting device for charging gaming controllers, and all of a sudden, we were invited into the booth for an impromptu interview with a representative from Vidis.

The charger is called the Inductive Power Station, and it only requires you to lie your controller (with rechargeable battery attached) on top of the device, which looks like a large iPhone, and it will immediately begin charging. A light on the bottom of the device will be red while the battery is not fully charged, and will turn to green when it is.

The nice thing about the power station is that it has three places where a battery can be placed, so you can charge three Wii remotes at the same time on one power station. What’s even better is that it can charge Wii, Xbox, PS3, iPhone, DS and Blackberry batteries all at the same time, so you can even toss your iPhone onto it next to your Wii remote and Xbox battery, and have all your devices charging at the same time.

The charger itself sells for about 30 euros, and each battery is 15, but a pack is going to be released soon which packages two Wii batteries and the charger for 50 euros; the price seems more than reasonable for what the device is capable of. Below is a short video demonstrating how the device works.

http://i56.photobucket.com/albums/g175/nisute/Powerstation_english_mail.swf

Also shown was a pair of mini Wii remotes with nunchucks, which are perfect for children to hold comfortably, and even felt fine in an adult’s hands. It’s super light as well, so when playing with a mini Wii remote, you can pretend you’ve got no controller in hand and that you’re playing using Kinect (eat that, Microsoft). The remotes are compatible with the motion plus accessory, but there are plans to ship ones in the near future with motion plus built in.

Finally, we were shown an extender for your Playstation 3, which makes it about as big an an extra large pizza box, but houses two charging docks for two PS3 controllers to be hidden away in the device, and on the outside contains extra USB ports, SD card reader and more.

All these devices are definitely reassuring in an industry which has quickly become over saturated with plastic tennis rackets to put on your Wii remote and thousands of console-specific charging docks. Hopefully we can see more quality products like these in the future.

Sengoku Basara: Samurai Heroes hands-on

Sengoku Basara Samurai Heroes is a sequel to Sengoku Basara 2 and was already released on July the 29th in Japan, but is now coming to Europe on the 12th of October and for North America on the 15th of October. It will be released on both PS3 and Wii.

The game will give players the opportunity to play through Japanese history as they fight their way against key historical figures. The game features a “Heroes Story” mode that allows players to make decisions that can change the story or influence who your enemies and friends are and in the end decide the fate of Japan.

Just like in the previous game players will be facing hundreds of enemies in each level, however the pace is faster and the controls are slightly different. Levels are very linear and have mini and main bosses. You can also choose to fight your way through the levels with offline co-op mode.

There are sixteen characters you can play, and each one has it’s own moves and you can change the storyline so the game has a very high replay value. The character that we played in the demo had a chain connected to a very heavy ball as his weapon. I was able to swing the ball around, throw it or kick it so it became more of a ranged attack.
At a certain moment we encountered a lot of enemies at once and I swung the ball around; when you keep pressing the attack button the attack will grow stronger and stronger which created a tornado in the end and it was very fun to kill off more than twenty enemies in one large attack.

All characters have their own combos and over the top special moves. You can also upgrade your weapons to improve or add special abilities.

We played the PS3 version of game, but the graphics gave us the impression it was on a Wii; the game art was clearly made for the Wii and just ported to the PS3, which was a bit of a shame.

The game is very popular in Japan so we will see what it does in the western world. If you like Japanese hack and slash then this title is the one you need.

Nintendo’s Post E3 Event in Zaandam

On the 29th of July, NiSuTe reporter and columnist Chi Wong and myself had the opportunity to travel to Zaandam in the Netherlands to visit the Nintendo Post E3 Event. This was the first time that Nintendo’s E3 demos and hardware had been shown in all of Europe, so we were quite lucky to have had the chance to check it out.

The obvious focus of the event was showing off Nintendo’s recently unveiled 3DS handheld which has the ability to provide a 3D effect similar to that seen in recent films, but without the use of any 3D glasses. Though it may sound farfetched, I can guarantee you that it works, and it looks amazing.

The event was held in a beautiful building, and looked as professional as ever. There were staff members to guide the groups around to all the different rooms, and there was coffee, brownies, muffins and other assorted goodies to enjoy while taking a look at all the awesome demos. The staff was friendly, the atmosphere was lovely and all in all the event was an awesome experience.

A lot of games were played, and the Nindendo 3DS was thoroughly investigated and enjoyed.

Below you will find a list of all the hands-on articles that have been written about everything seen at the event.

. . . . .

The Nindendo 3DS

Metroid: Other M

The Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword

Kirby’s Epic Yarn

Donkey Kong Country Returns

Wii Party

GoldenEye

Golden Sun Dark Dawn

Assorted DS and DSi titles

. . . . .

Gods vs. Humans ingame teaser

Publisher Zallag and french developer Artefact studio released the first ingame teaser trailer for their upcoming title “Gods vs Humans”.

In the game you play as Gods from well known ancient civilizations such as Scandivians, Egyptians, Creco-Roman and Japanese, and it is your task to rule the humans. They decided, however, to build a tower to enter your domain, and you have to stop them. You’ll have to be careful not to hurt them though, otherwise they’ll stop believing in you.

The teaser shows some quick gameplay shots and the game is covered in a nice stylized coating.

The game will be available for WiiWare somewhere in the near future.

The Legend of Zelda – Skyward Sword: Hands on

Who hasn’t seen the Nintendo kick-off with the announcement of a new Legend of Zelda game during E3? Who hasn’t seen the furious Shigeru Miyamoto wondering why the Wiimote failed to response to his actions in-game? The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword should’ve been the top game of Nintendo at E3, and you know that by heart, but because of the small incident people had some concerns whether or not the game is a winner, or a big letdown. Chris and I had a chance to playtest the game during the Nintendo Post E3 event, and we can assure you that Skyward Sword is a fun game. I even played the game for a second time!
Read more

Metroid Other M: Hands on

When Other M was first shown during E3 2009, I totally fell in love with the Metroid series. Before seeing Other M, I had only played the newer games such as Metroid Prime Hunters for the Nintendo DS and Metroid Prime on the Gamecube, but Other M grasped me on a different level… the game is more story driven now, and there is a history going on about the main character Samus Aran. The story will be about who she was, and how she ended up as a bounty hunter. I immediately played older games for the SNES and Gameboy Advance. I noticed the 2D platformer type of gameplay and I really liked that, it’s fast-paced and very different from the 3D shooters.
Read more

The rise of Unity

A couple of years ago, when I got the idea to create games, I was looking around for interesting engines I could use. I stumbled upon a very new engine under the name Unity 3D, it had a very small community but some of their demos on the website were very promising, showing millions of polygons and beautiful landscapes right in my browser.
Read more

Wii Party: Hands on

At the post E3 event in Zaandam, I had the chance to play Nintendo’s upcoming title Wii Party.

I have to admit, when the title wasannounced at E3, I rolled my eyes and urged Nintendo to move on to the next game. Another wagglefest of a game did not interest me one bit.

While walking around the event in Zaandam I thought, what the heck, I’m here to play the games after all, so I guess I can give it a go. And I’m really glad I did.
Read more

GoldenEye: Hands off

I was one of many who found the announcement this E3 of a GoldenEye remake on the Wii an awsome and exciting turn of events. That is, until I got the chance to play the game at the post E3 event in Zandaam.

For a game which is a remake of an older title, you would expect the graphics to be overhauled. This is not the case for GoldenEye. The original didn’t look very good (at its time it did, though), we must admit, but for a game made in 2010, the new GoldenEye looks very outdated. Even on the Gamecube, this game would be old looking. If the original game were to have been simply ported onto the Wii with the Wii controls, the old graphics would have been acceptable because they’re the old graphics we all knew and loved. This feels more like a middle finger to all the fans, saying, “We’re going to remake your favorite game, but we’re gonna be sloppy about it and not really try to make it something spectacular. We know you’ll buy it anyway.”

Now, graphics aside, who decided it was a good idea to make Daniel Craig Bond in this? The original was Brosnan, we know Brosnan and we want Brosnan.
Read more

Donkey Kong Country Returns: Hands on

Back when we were covering E3 2010, we gave you our first impressions of the new Donkey Kong Country game coming to the Nintendo Wii later this year. Now, at the post E3 event in Zandaam, Chi and I had a chance to play the game and give you a more informed impression of the game.

We were allowed to play co-op – as the game should be played. There were four levels for us to test out: two standard levels, one rollercoaster minecart level, and one boss battle. The two characters, Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong have different strengths and abilities, which do take a bit of time to figure out and understand. In comparison to Kirby’s Epic Yarn, this game isn’t necessarily the easiest to get the hang of straight from the get-go, but, also in comparison to Kirby, Donkey Kong Country Returns actually does pose a challenge; a pretty heavy challenge at that.
Read more

Next Page »