A few days ago, Nathalie was profiled as a citizen journalist over at Digital Journal and we saw a modest (and quite frankly comfortable) spike in traffic.

Last night around midnight, I posted a trailer for the PlayStation 3 game Afrika that I found on the Japanese PlayStation Store while waiting for our North American store to update.

The trailer alone has seen well over 11000 hits in the last 10 hours. It's pushed out more than 150 GB in traffic, and I saw almost 2000 people bookmark us. We managed to survive getting posted at Kotaku, the GameSpot Forums and even over at the official PlayStation Forums.

Part of me is happy to see the site get so much exposure. The rest of me is happy the site's still up. I'll definitely be renewing my contract with Host Gator next year.

Here

GameSpot Version

The Able Gamer Version

As far back as I can remember I've had to adapt myself to video game controllers. In the 1980s it was arcade machines and the Atari 2600 joystick. I'd have to play with my arms crossed so that I could use my good hand on the control stick.

Later on, the N64 controller almost made me cry. It was so awkward to hold, had so many buttons and that darn analog stick to deal with. Watching Mario or Link die every time my friend handed me the controller was almost enough to make me quit gaming altogether.

Then one day I realized that GoldenEye effectively let me play "left-handed" by using my good hand on the control stick and trigger. I was able to get through the single player campaign and compete with my friends in multiplayer games. That title single-handedly saved gaming for me. Rare still holds a special place in my heart for having mapped button functions to the controller's d-pad.

I eventually trained my "bad" hand to use an analog control stick, though the PlayStation's dual shoulder button layout still gave me a very hard time, and to this day I have difficulty using more than one function on the left side of a controller at once. I had to skip the entire Metroid Prime series because it requires using the GameCube's L-trigger and control stick at the same time to aim.

It was during that console generation that life changing complications arose from my condition. I was born with Spastic Hemiparesis, a mild Cerebral Palsy that makes the muscles on the left side of my body both weak and stiff at the same time.

For the first 25 or so years of my life, I vastly ignored my palsy. I was always a bit smaller and slower than my peers, but it never bothered me that much at all. Aside from a slight limp, and some embarassing drooling incidents, I was pretty normal.

As I got older though, I found it tougher to deal with the constant crushing pressure my body was putting on itself. Over the years, I developed back problems, arthritic pain and major neck issues. Reluctantly, I had to quit working, as the pain became so overwhelming I could barely get out of bed.

After this, I gradually turned to video games to pass the days while my loving and supportive partner was at work. I also started spending a lot more time reading about gaming news around the Web. I found myself becoming increasingly analytical of what I was playing and decided to write reviews. Seeing that people were actually reading them and giving me positive feedback, I realized I had found my new calling.

I started The Able Gamer because in all the time that I spent reading gaming coverage, I never saw coverage that would take people with disabilities or medical conditions into account. I also encountered more than a few gamers in my message board rounds that "thought they were the only ones" gaming with a disability.

My main goal is to provide daily news, rumours, previews and reviews from the gaming world. What I hope will set The Able Gamer apart from other gaming sites is that I will always keep disabilities and medical conditions in mind when reporting news or reviewing hardware. I'll let you know whether a game requires two fully working hands, is likely to induce a seizure or has small text that may be difficult to read.

I also plan to cover and review games & stories generally ignored by the mainstream media. Casual and family-friendly games are becoming a large part industry, yet they are often dismissed as "shovelware" without a second glance, let alone a review from larger media outlets. The fact is that these titles are competing for your money as hard as the latest blockbuster shooting game, and consumers leaning towards games they can play with their child or grandmother have a right to be informed.

Hopefully gamers with disabilities or medical conditions, their families and friends will find The Able Gamer to be a useful resource. If even one dad can find a game to play with his autistic son, a deaf gamer can find a title that really is fully subtitled, a physically disabled gamer can find someone of a similar skill level to play with online, or someone suffering from depression can find someone to reach out to, then all my time and efforts put into this project will be worth while.

My name is Brian, and I am The Able Gamer.

Yeah, cancelled my subscription. I never really liked Jeff, but he was a good writer here and locking a guy out of his office is lower than crap on a worm.

READ THIS

I picked up a new PSP Slim & Lite a couple weeks ago, and immediately fell in love with it. The screen's better, it's far lighter and best of all I can now play games using my TV as the display. Being a person with a physical disability 99% of my gaming is done at home, so this is a feature I really appreciate. Mainly, I appreciate it because I can finally share some really great gaming experiences with my wife and friends. Even though the output resolution is fairly low and the black borders around the game play are pretty huge, a simple hardware revision effectively turned the PSP into a home console. I can finally get people to help me with tough sections of games like Pursuit Force or Killzone: Liberation, or share an extended Jeanne D'Arc session with my wife who loves watching me play strategy RPGs. Not to mention the fact that the PSP also plays UMD movies. Since the format has essentially failed, it's been easy to find them dirt cheap at places like Wal-Mart (seriously, 2/$10). I had no idea that UMD discs were at the same resolution as DVD movies and thanks to the wonder that is h.264 encoding, a lot of times they actually look better.

I never though in a million years that Sony would be the first to offer such functionality in this generation of hardware, if at all. What surprised me even more was that you didn't need to have a PlayStation 3 to make it happen

Nintendo was giving gamers the option of playing their handheld titles on "the big screen" almost 15 years ago with the Super Game Boy attachment for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, which not only allowed you to play Tetris and Metroid II on your TV, but could add colour to the games as well. Although it was not released, they also had a similar device for Nintendo 64. This is also the company that came up with the Transfer Pak, GBA connectivity (Animal Crossing, Zelda, Pokemon) and the device that's arguably keeping GameCubes hooked up and working, the Game Boy Player. This iteration not only played the current generation of handheld games from Nintendo's Game Boy Advance, but of it's predecessors as well. A function that the DS doesn't even have.

Even before Wii was released, I assumed Nintendo would have similar functionality between it and the DS thanks to the Wi-Fi capabilities of both systems. Here we are almost a year into Wii's life cycle, and still not a peep from them on a feature that a lot of people expected to be there. Nintendo could add such functionality to Wii using a firmware update, or extra channel that you could download, even though most people's Wii's 256MB of usable storage is filled with overpriced Virtual Console ROMs, but I digress...that's for another rant. Even if they went thier traditional route and released some kind of hardware adapter, I'd happily buy into it like a good sheep for the privilege of playing Advance Wars, Ouendan and Zelda on my TV and turning a usually solitary experience into one I can share with others.

The only thing I can see holding back such functionality is crossover sales. Would people buy Cooking Mama Wii if they can play Cooking Mama DS on thier TV? I know I wouldn't. At the same time though it may encourage companies, including Nintendo themselves to stop simply rehashing DS games for Wii and come up with some great new game ideas.

Man, I get so excited everytime these come out, cause I know it means one hell of a fun weekend with friends.

SingStar '80s

SingStar Amped

PSN downloads are terribly slow. Even through a wired connection. Seriously, why is this such an issue for Sony? When it's working, it works great.

The problem is that it downloads stop for what seems like 10-30 minutes sometimes, then trickle in like I'm using the dial-up connection I had in 1994.

On my PC, a 300 MB file takes roughly 3-5 minutes to download via the web.

I just downloaded a ~350 MB demo of Spider-Man: Friend or Foe from Xbox Live! Marketplace in less than 10 minutes. Even at busy times like demo releases, I've never had a download stall on me, or use less than the maximum bandwidth available to it.

By contrast, the 291 MB LocoRoco: Cocoreccho has been keeping my PlayStation 3 on, wasting power for almost three hours at this point. Apparently it only takes about two hours to play through this glorified screensaver.

People usually say two things about PSN: "It's free." and "Give it time."

Well it's been almost a year now with little improvement, and personally I'd rather pay a monthly/yearly fee similar to Xbox Live! to ensure a reliabnle infrastructure than to wait hours and hours for my downloads to complete.

I've been asked about this a few times, so I decided to finally take a picture:

Display: Envision 32" LCD (HDMI, 720p/1080i)

Audio: Samsung HT-Q40 (5.1, DTS, PLII)

TV Receiver: Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8300HD PVR (HDTV, HDMI, 80GB)

PlayStation 3 (60GB)

Xbox 360 (20GB)

Wii

PSP

DS Lite

Also pictured: Philips 4X component switch box, Super 9" fan (to blow away hot air)

Not Pictured: 700+ software titles, DS, GameCube, speakers.

Just got this sent from Rockstar. Now you can be a part of the fun! Looks like a poke at Fox News to me:

Check out the site for more details.