Chumby One Makes Gaming And Applications Accessible

The Chumby One was announced today. It's an adorable little computer that can play games, music, movies, and do internet stuff! Think of it as an iPod Touch that takes up the amount of space as a small radio. It has 15,000 apps pre-made for it, but it's also open source and you can unscrew the back and take out it's SD memory for hacking--which is encouraged by the manufacturer!

But the real market for the Chumby One is old people and young people--basically anyone who doesn't know how to fully utilize a computer. It's a device that can be set up by a techy person to be convenient for a non-techy person. So if you're looking for a way to ease your significant other, parent or kids into gaming it's a good place to start. Find out more about the Chumby One at the official website.

Phoenix Wright Trilogy Coming To WiiWare

The Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney trilogy is coming to WiiWare! The first game will be released on December 15, with Justice for All coming on January 26 and Trials and Tribulations on February 23 for 900 Wii Points each. These dates are for Japan, obviously, North American release dates are as of yet unknown.

If you haven't played Phoenix Wright on the DS you should give it a shot this time around. You'd think the premise would be limiting but it never is--each chapter of each game pushes your expectations of where you think the story could possibly go next and what you think you know about the characters. One of the most impressive feats of Justice for All and Trials and Tribulations is that they take Phoenix Wright, a character who is originally sort of a white label hero, and flesh him out into one of the most interesting and subtle video game characters of all time. At first glance many of the Ace Attorney characters feel like one dimensional pun-based Clue suspects, but there is so much thought behind making them feel like believable human beings that by the end of the story you'll miss them as if they were real people.

If you want to give the DS versions a shot now, the original game is for sale on Amazon for over $100! Yikes! You can try look for them used on eBay where they sell for around $20 to $30. Or you can just wait for a US release on WiiWare and pay $9 for each.

NSMBW Already Has TWO Level Editors

Super Mario Bros. level editors are nothing new, but NEW Super Mario Bros. Wii level editors are. Even though the game has been out internationally for only about two weeks there are already two competing level editors.

Pictured is "Reggie!" a WYSIWYG level editor that's not yet 'released to the public' but was used to make this remake of World 1-1 from the original Super Mario Bros. game for NES. Reggie is not yet release but you can find out more about it at this forum thread. The other level editor, called Tanooki, is available here and demonstrated in this video. Tanooki, unlike Reggie, does not visualize the level as you edit it and involves poking hex values into certain X/Y coordinates on the map, which may be confusing to most people.

But don't get too excited. These hacks only work on Wii emulators which most of us don't have access to and are probably illegal. I guess all that this really means for us is that we can look forward to fancier looking Mario hack YouTube videos. The future is here!

Hackers Create Dueling New Super Mario Bros Wii Level Editors [Joystiq]

Review: My Life As A Dark Lord

A free demo of Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life As A Darklord popped up on the WiiWare service today, and I urge you all to check it out. Considering that you have access to a free demo, and considering that the full game game is relatively short and simple, this review will be also be relatively short... At least compared to my other reviews! Lali-ho!

Gameplay
The core gameplay in My Life As A Darklord is pretty much like any other tower defense game: There is a constant flow of opposing units, and you can stop time at any point to spend resources on placing defending units along a map. If the opposing units get through your defenses you get a game over. What makes My Life As A Darklord somewhat unique is that you don't just place units on the map, you also build the map. A lot of the most crucial decisions you make in the game are about whether or not you want to buy more units to attack at full force, or buy more floors of your tower to keep the opposition spread thin.

There are also tons of tiny fiddling statistics and the game sort of expects you to not care about them; you can cruise through the first half of the game ignoring things like status effects, element types and attack/defense stats, but you'll pick up on them naturally by the time they're required of you. Even by the end of the game I didn't fully understand what was going on. I just recognized patterns that lead to success and patterns that lead to failure and tried to guide my situation in the right direction.

HOLD IT! Play A Flash Demo Of Ace Attorney Investigations Right Now!

We are currently hosting a Flash demo of Ace Attorney Investigations! You're still reading this article? You should be playing it! The demo goes through the first few scenes of the first cast of Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth, and demonstrates how 'rebuttals' work (basically cross examinations that happen in the field) and how 'logic' works (basically combining evidence to make new evidence at the risk of losing HP).

The demo features Miles Edgeworth and hunky Dick Gumshoe as well as making references to multiple other recurring Ace Attorney characters, even going so far as making one of them a suspect at the end of the demo. Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth comes out on February 16th.

Hotel Dusk Sequel

The Court Records, a Phoenix Wright fan site, has gathered evidence pointing to a Hotel Dusk sequel on the docket. The sequel will be called "Last Window: Midnight Promise" in Japan, and is set in Los Angeles 1980 and is rumored to be released in January 14th. No North American localization is confirmed, but considering the original was reprinted as part of the Touch Generations collection, localization is likely.

Hotel Dusk is an interactive mystery novel and point and click adventure game for the Nintendo DS. The original featured stylized black and white pencil-sketched graphics (though the sequel appears to be in color) and was developed by CiNG who is also working on a similar game called Again: Eyes of Providence. For more information on the original check out our own NaviFairy's loveletter to Hotel Dusk.

Live Actionish Murder Mystery Game, "Again", Dated

The upcoming DS murder mystery, Again: Eye of Providence, has been given a March 2010 release date by it's developers, Cing (Hotel Dusk, Trace Memory) and Tecmo (Fatal Frame, Ninja Gaiden). "Again" is a pretty odd bird. For starters, it's a gritty point and click murder mystery on the DS that's played in the "held like a book" style. It's presentation is a strange hodgepodge of live action video, still photographs, and mixed media GUI. Though it seems to be set in a realistic world (not the semi-cartoony murder-filled worlds of say, Phoenix Wright) it also has a supernatural twist: The protagonist can see flashes into the past, giving him hints on how crimes were committed. For more details about Again, check out our TGS coverage.

Tecmo Dates Again, Dusts Off Monster Ranger DS [Joystiq]

ToeJam & Earl 4 DS Can't Find Publisher

The ToeJam & Earl franchise is pretty near and dear to me, I grew up playing it and was more than a little obsessed with the characters and universe. I actually wrote fan fiction on my DOS computer about the denizens of Funkatron, before I even knew what fan fiction was or had ever used the Internet. I never managed to beat either game but they would always be the go-to co-op game when friends were over. Everyone loved them! But now that I'm an adult with an Internet connection it saddens me to find out that the ToeJam & Earl franchise was apparently never actually that successful and that the only reason it's not still around today is because no publisher will dare back it.

Joystiq recently talked with Greg Johnson, the creator and sole rights-holder of the ToeJam & Earl franchise. Johnson talks about multiple instances of Sega mistakenly claiming the rights to TJ&E, realizing they don't own the rights, and then offering him a tiny amount of money (and a painful exclusivity contract) to use the characters. After ToeJam & Earl III: Mission to Earth released to mediocre sales and reviews in 2002, Johnson had been pursuing making a fourth TJ&E game for the DS. So far he has been unable to find a publisher, and half-jokingly asks if any private investors want to help fund the project. So go forth GayGamer.net readers/millionaires, you know what you have to do.

Check out Joystiq's original article for a gallery of concept art for TJ&E4.

Minesweeper Adventure Game

OneBigGame, a charity game developer recently announced it's next project, an adventure game based on the freeware puzzle game Minesweeper. The Minesweeper adventure game is being developed at Revolution Software by Charles Cecil. OneBigGame co-founder Martin de Ronde said, "He's [Cecil] come up with a back story for as to why the mines are there, he's come up with characters... It's turning out to be a really, really cool game in terms of mechanics and also in terms of the setting and the universe..."

This makes a lot of sense in my opinion. I actually remember wishing that Minesweeper would allow me to navigate the map with an avatar because I was sick of playing Chip's Challenge and nothing else on the old timey computer could came close enough to satisfy my Zelda needs. The core gameplay mechanic of Minesweeper has a lot of potential for exploration, I just hope Charles Cecil implements it right. Best of luck, hopefully it'll be cool guy shades all around.

If all of this talk of Minesweeper is bringing up old cravings, you can always play the original in your browser.

No, We're Not Kidding: Someone Is Making A Minesweeper Adventure Game [g4tv.com]

Video: New Spirit Tracks Trailer (Also Zelda's A Ghost)

Just in case you weren't already excited for The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks, Nintendo's marketing department is ready to release a calculated delayed tidbit of information just for you, exactly one month before the game's release: The game's sidekick is Zelda, and she's kind of dead! Interestingly, when I played an earlier build of the game, places where Zelda's ghostly apparitions 'should' have appeared (as indicated by this trailer) were 'edited out' and replaced with slightly different animations. I had mentioned in my preview that you're sidekick's dialog has more of a "laid back and modern" tone of voice rather than a "stoic and reserved" tone. That dialog must've actually belonged to Princess Zelda whose personality in this game seems more similar to her spunky Wind Waker personality than her uptight Twilight Princess personality.

If you watch the trailer it pretty clearly spells out Zelda's transformation from Princess to ghost Princess to giant suit of armor. It seems pretty similar to Full Metal Alchemist's Alphonse's situation. Actually now that I think about it, Gonzo also looks pretty similar to a State Alchemist in this trailer. Observant players will remember Gonzo from Tetra's pirate crew and from a painting in Hyrule Castle of Princess Zelda's care takers, implying that Gonzo (and the rest of the pirates) are repeatedly reincarnated as guardians of Princess Zelda, which is a role he seems to be playing in this scene too. You'll also see an old lady who looks similar to Impaz in some kind of wheelchair and she's apparently suggests that Zelda accompany Link on his journey.

The trailer also shows an evil train that looks remarkably like a hybrid of Ganondorf and Thomas the Tank Engine, which may be the primary antagonist of the game. You'll also see the train tracks magically vanish causing Link's train to skid off road. This makes sense, considering that you're allowed to lay your own tracks later in the game.

There are also scenes of the Zelda-controlled Phantom in action. You see the Phantom shriek like a '60s sitcom actress at the sight of a mouse and falling limp to the ground when Zelda's spirit pops out to talk to Link. Having Zelda as both a playable character and a speaking sidekick for an entire game will probably bring a lot to her character. The imagery of her flying alongside the train is also pretty cool. Now I'me even more excited for this game! Are you excited?

Captain N, Sonic Underground, Zelda, Mario, and Pole Position Are Online

In the late 80s and early 90s there were a lot of cartoons based on video games. Few of them lasted more than a season and even fewer of them could be described as successful adaptations. And some of them were recently put on a website called Jaroo. You can go there right now to watch Captain N, Sonic Underground, Pole Position, Super Mario Bros, and The Legend of Zelda. Most of them only have the first few episodes up right now, but probably more than enough to get a sense of these shows.

I have to admit that I've never seen Sonic Underground before today and the opening sequence alone left me speechless. As a kid I was obsessed with the 'Planet Mobius' version of Sonic and as an adult I'm obsessed with amazing television, so I can't believe I haven't seen this until now. Apparently Sonic Underground is about Sonic and his brother Manic and sister Sonica, all three of which are voiced by Jaleel White, who is most famous for his role as Steve Urkle. In case you didn't catch that, this show contains a Urkle doing a female version of his Urkle voice as a primary character. It's pretty incredible. I plan on watching every single episode they have on Jaroo, for reasons I could not begin to explain.

Also, if you haven't seen the Mario, Zelda, or Captain N shows they're all worth watching. Zelda is probably only worth watching to get a sense of context for the infamous "Excuse me, Princess!" catchphrase. The Mario show might be worth watching if only for the weird live action sitcom-esque interludes where Mario is portrayed by Captain Lou. The Captain N show, the cornerstone of my childhood fantasies (I had several recurring dreams about the Eggplant Wizard) is worth watching if only for the intense emotional turmoil you're likely to experience reconciling the show's actual quality with its potential.

Welcome to Videoland [The Mega Man Network]

Braid Coming To PS3

After 15 months of being suspended in time, Braid is finally coming to the PS3. The port will still cost $15, just like it's Xbox 360 counterpart. The Hothead games-developed port will be available in North America on November 12th, and in Europe eventually. Now PS3 owners can also experience the brilliantly tragic story and gameplay of Braid and the infuriating hidden stars.