After seeing the magazine clipping of the song list in Japanese, I translated them for all you Katamari Damacy fans. There's lots of returning artists but tackling different songs and lots of remixes of old songs as well as a few new songs too. I added lots of links to the bads' websites and some videos but Gamespot takes out all formatting so you will have to see my original here for those.

atomTM - Everlasting Love (atomTM remix)
AFRA - Katamari On The Rocks (5cm Price Remix)
Takuya Ohashi (from Sukima Switch) - Katamari On the Wings
KiKi Kirinji - Houston （Re-Arranged by KIRINJI）
GUIRO - Bluff Spirit （Refreshed by GUIRO）
Saigenji - Katamari Sword Song
SEXY-SYNTHESIZER - Katamari On The Swing （SEXY-SYNTHESIZER ALL ABOUT namco Mix）
Señor Coconut - Katamari On The Funk （Señor Coconut's Katamambo remix）
SOFT - You are Smart （RAAGINIA SOFT MIX）
Hardfloor - Nana-Nan Damacy (Hardfloor Alternative-Remix)
Buffalo Daughter - Galactic S-O-U-L
Beautiful Hummingbird - Cherry Blossom Season （fanfare mix）
Horikoshi Wind Ensemble - Sunbaked Savannah High School
Shigeru Matsuzaki - SHADOW AND LIGHT
Kimitaka Matsumae - The Royal Academy Of Katamari （Kimitaka Matsumae Remix）
Micazo - Sayonara Rolling Star （Yuri's Mixx）
Yuusama & Natsukodachi - Lonely Rolling Star No More
Leah Dizon - EverLasting Love ＋ You
Rei Harakami - Do Re Mi Ka Ta Ma Ri Do* （-rh rehabikitation re-arrange-）
Leopaldon - The Moon And The Prince （Leopaldon Mix）
YMCK - A Crimson Rose and a Gin & Tonic （YMCK 8bit Mix）

*A pun using the syllables of Katamari in the Solfeggio system of singing i.e. Do Re Mi Fa So La Ti like in Sound of Music.

I love that there'll be a hardcore chiptune version of Nananan Damacy by Hardfloor and that my favourites YMCK are doing a cover of A Crimson Rose and a Gin & Tonic from the first game.

... can kiss my grits. I bought the game, grinded through its repetitive gameplay to reach the end and was greeted with no ending at all. Now they charge $12 for some more tapping X to make Elika orgasm out some grass and presumably an actual ending. I think I'm going to sell my copy of the game and watch the proper ending I thought I'd paid for on Youtube, thanks.

It's like if you bought the boxset of the last season of The Sopranos.....




and charged you again to see the last episode!




Oh... wait... forget that example...

Excellent RPG action and Rosie is the best feisty red-head of this year, pushing out Etna for the first time. :)

I got this emblem for being a finalist in the competition. ^_^ Sony have not given me my sackboy plushie or the other prizes yet, they're meanies! :) What's even meaner is that LBP is out in the UK nearly 2 weeks after in the USA even though it's a British game, so I won't be able to play with you all just yet. Oh well, at least now you guys will be showing me where all the secret costumes and level parts are instead of the reverse for a change hehehe :)

edit:

There's also one for having watched the LBP gameplay marathon back on the 17th... I haven't got it because I didn't know. I don't think it was even advertised... way to go guys xD

Another bolt-on wonderboy looking to get smoked?

I don't usually like racing games at all, they have to have something else to them for me to like them. Here are the 4 racing games I like, in no particular order:

Super Mario Kart, Wipeout 3, Mario Kart DS, Wipeout HD

But a 5th game comes to the fold, one that has actual cars and no weapons. Burnout Paradise. I have no real idea why I like it. Perhaps that it is basically Grand Theft Auto without those annoying on foot bits and no story that is like The Sopranos written by a 14 year old. Perhaps it's because when I see a list of things to do that needs ticking, I just can't help myself. Most likely though, is that when you're not in a race, changing the viewpoint to first person and just driving at high speeds with no consequences around an exciting and intriguing city is a lot of fun.

I played the game for a little bit earlier on in the year as a rental, way before all the updates and extra trinkets and didn't think that much of it. Later on, with the promise of extra content, trophies and being on offer at 20 dollars, I gave the game another chance. After 10 hours of playing on and off for the last month (now with a total reset for trophies), here is a list of what I like and dislike about the game.

Dislikes (getting these off my chest is cathartic, sorry):

1. No ability to restart an event when you've finished or failed or just know that you've fluffed it. You have to drive half way across the map to try again.

2. No ability to restart an event when you've finished or failed or just know that you've fluffed it. You have to drive half way across the map to try again.

3. You're doing well. You're doing really well! You're going to win this extremely complicated and stressful 5 minute race!
It's the final corner, you look at the map to check the turn.
You turn.
You go over the finish line as seen on the map and you whoop with delight!
Nothing is happening...
Your position ticks down to 4th, 6th, 8th.
You realise that you've gone down the road 1 pixel down from the finish line or the road above or below it.
Tears well up in your eyes with sheer frustration and...

4. ...you have the indignity of driving around to correct yourself and find the finish line because the game will not let you do anything else until you've finished, even if you're in last place. And then...

5. ... DJ Atomica pipes up with some ridiculously patronising patois. You can't turn him off, ever.

6. Now see points 1 and 2.

7. You can replace 'turning the wrong corner' with clipping a bollard or corner without triggering the crash sequence and just getting stuck there while you painfully slowly reverse and drive around to get back on track with great loss to maneuverability and end up 'fluffing' the race i.e. have no chance, but still have to finish the race to continue.

Beep beep! Mr Lakitu, where are you? I has coins, put me back on the track pls!

8. The in-game GPS and the flashing road signs that go #noing noing noing# completely lie half of the time, the latter sometimes leads you way way off track. I have to rely on the beacon on the compass and trial and error.

9. The in-game GPS does not rotate the map, making it very confusing. Trying to concentrate on that, the beacon and the road constitutes half my crashes.

10. The other half are from citizens that never read the chapter in the driving theory book about Right Of Way at a crossing.

11. The bike pack constitutes 109 mind numbing events that are up to 10 minutes each and still adhere to points 1 and 2 despite their complexity and length. It wouldn't bother me as it's free and optional content, but not doing them (as I have decided to do) means you miss out on 30% of the trophies, making them and the platinum trophy pointless.

11. Pile hard into an enemy car, #BOOOSHHHHHH! kwah kwah kwah!# they die in a spectacular way and you go unscathed. Even slightly clip a pedestrian car... #BOOOSHHHHHH! kwah kwah kwah!# your car freaks out and flips 30 foot in the air spinning and bits flying off in slow motion, while the pedestrian car drives on like nothing happened.

Like:

1. The trophy objectives are fun and rewarding.

2. The city itself is really exciting and pretty, especially now that there is a day to night cycle. It's very atmospheric, especially when you have all music off at night-time with just the powerful roar of one of the sports cars.

3. Driving around like a maniac doing stunts for points in bizarre and well designed industrial areas is utterly excellent.

4. You can turn off the god-awful EA-Trax and put your own soundtrack on. Side-swiping another car at 130 miles an hour while Utada Hikaru earnestly sings #My darling, Stay Gold. Please smile innodently forever..# is a work of ultimate dark humour.

5. The events that are not ruined by Dislike points 1-8 becoming a great inconvenience are very satisfying and make you feel like you're living those driving sequences in The Blues Brothers.

6. Destroying that cock that drives around like an idiot while listening to techno or drum and bass too loud when you're not in an event never gets old.

The likes outweigh the dislikes on this game as long as I avoid them, so this game gets a thumbs up for me. This is especially impressive seeing as this simply isn't my genre.

Four Grand, FOUR GRAND! out of Five.

Hi everyone!

I made it into the final of the Gamespot UK LBP level building competition!

My level (click to enlarge):



The competition:

http://uk.gamespot.com/special_feature/littlebigplanet-contest/index.html?tag=topslot;img;1

I really don't stand a chance against level 13 who not only has the ability to draw extremely well on the computer (something I lack) but also made a much better level. I'm just proud that I got this far :)

'Nintendo has taken the wraps off its new DS system, the DSi, during a press conference in Tokyo today.

The handheld will be priced at JPY 18,900 (USD 179 / EUR 129 / GBP 101) and will be launched on November 1.

The DSi features a built-in web browser, enabling users to download games and store them on the console.

An online DSi Shop will allow users to purchase DSiWare priced between 200 and 800 points, with customers getting 1000 points free until March 2010.

The handheld boasts a three megapixel camera, and better audio capabilities including the ability to adjust pitch and playback.

With a slot for SD memory cards, users are able to take photographs on the DSi and transfer them to the Wii home console.

The new model has slightly larger screens at 3.25 inches and is 12 per cent thinner, but the slot for Game Boy Advance cartridges has been removed.

The new model will come in black and white colours.'

Nintendo DSi

I'm not quite sure what the point of this new console iteration is. It's all very neat and the price is only $180, but the more there is to a console the more can go wrong. Also, I see the price almost doubling in Europe. It's interesting to see that it has internet capabilities and [Edit] two measly 0.3 megapixel cameras, but what will be done with that? Probably just 1 Wario game where you poke your own face with the stylus. The internal SD card capacity is just asking for more piracy, the camera is asking for DSes to be banned on trains (think about it). A console of this magnitude will not be able to avoid stuff like that.
I'm pretty sure it's asking too much of the DSi's software that you could take a photo, record a videos, write a blog and attach the photo and video and edit and upload it all, but that's the only use I can see for all this stuff.

Another -Ware channel? I think that might be a mistake considering how badly the Wiiware channel is doing, both in sales and critically. Will this one highlight the existence of the Wii one?

Official website:
http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ds/dsi.html

Source:

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/nintendo-unveils-new-dsi-console

Wipeout HD, Time Hollow, Disgaea DS, Wario: Shake Dimension, Samba De Amigo, Sonic Chronicles, Megaman 9, De Blob, Pure, A Vampyre Story and Colonization are all out this week, not to mention a few other big releases that I'm not interested in. Is it Christmas already? ^_^

I already have Megaman 9 and my import Disgaea 3 is still wrapped up but now it's super tempting to get something else as well.

Are you buying a new game this week? If not, what are you currently playing? Me, I will get past the rain section of the Tornado Man stage, I will!

That's not Greg Kasavin!

This is Greg Kasavin.





Hang on... let me get my Item Mix Kit.


+

=

Woah! Interesting. Let's do one more.


+

=

Ah! Just one more thing, Lydia. Why so serious?

Although I appreciate the sentiment I have to say I'm not impressed with Gamespot Wide.

To start with, it's called Gamespot Wide. Wide either means fat or... wide. Wide as in widescreen? Is there finally support for widescreen monitors? No, I don't think so.



The site options and navigation are mixed along the top and down the side. Some are repeated, some are not. Some options are even hidden one or two layers into the navigation. It just makes things more confusing than accessable, even after you get used to it. Sometimes sidebars can be neat, but only when you can minimise, move, customise or remove them, like you can do at BBC, Yahoo and others. When sidebars stuck and not useful to the user, it makes things cluttered and claustrophobic. Far from wide, the new layout seems squished.



There's even less space than before, if you have a widescreen monitor it seems even worse as 50% is blank, 25% is sidebars and only 25% for the actual text you're reading.

I'm sure the site will evolve to include customisation but at the moment, I'm not liking it one bit. Are there new features that soften the blow? Maybe, I don't see a list anywhere though -_-