Jackreyes' Gaming Blog

After looking for something new to review, I decided upon DS Flash Cards.

These are essentially media reading cards for the DS. With the right software, you can watch videos, view pictures, read text files and even read Comics. This sounds pretty much like the new, just released in Japan, licensed by Nintendo, DS Vision right?

Well there is one big difference: the DS Vision doesn’t allow you to play backups of the DS games you own, which as far as I know is legal, but then the problem is with others downloading games that others have backed up which is illegal.

Also the DS Vision doesn’t let you play homebrew applications. Homebrew applications are either games or useful tools made for the DS and are available for free -usually- though some people request donations.

Disclaimer: Any backups that I test, are backups of games I own, such as Pokemon Diamond, New Super Mario Bros, Nanostray and many others. If you would like me to prove that I own the game by taking a photo of the original case and game with a piece of paper saying Jackreyes on it next to the items then please feel free to ask, I do not condone piracy and will not give anyone

Coming up tomorrow:

Acekard 2 Review, Review sample provided by the kind people at Acekard.com. So a special thanks to them.

My Pokemon Ranch was one of the few Wiiware titles that interested me, having clocked up a lot of hours of playtime on Diamond I thought this game might be able to get me those last few fun hours from Pokemon Diamond.

Gameplay: None. None whatsoever, import Pokemon, watch them run around your Mii all looking pretty much the same. Occasionaly you get asked to find a certain Pokemon that you haven’t caught yet, so you whip out Diamond and go find it. Whilst this is a pretty good feature (even if it is the only one) its not actually My Pokemon Ranch which offers the gameplay. Instead My Pokemon Ranch acts as more of an alarm clock, useful, but kind of a one trick pony. When you have Pokemon and Miis in the Ranch, you can take pictures and post on the message board to send to friends so you can show them how much time you’ve wasted, or just advertise the game. Either way it can’t be a good thing.

So you’re depositing your Pokemon through Diamond and every so often Hayley the Ranch owner as it were brings some Pokémon. Then when you fill your Ranch the size of the Ranch increases, however you either have to wait 1 day, or skip the day on the Wii settings, this game isn’t really worth it.

Controls: At the beginning this game is hopeless to navigate. You just get a panel down each side with buttons. In that sense its a bit like the Mii channel. To see a pokemon closer you have to hover over them and press A, which isn’t the easiest when you can’t control the camera. Just as they’re doing something funny they’ll walk off the screen. However later on you get free mode which allows you to control the camera, move Pokemon and… well, thats about it.

Graphics: All the Pokemon are the same size… The graphics are… decent at best. They’re really nothing special at all. They’re quite bad actually as you’ll see from the pictures of my Ranch that I’ll post soon.

Ratings:

Graphics: 4/10

Gameplay: 6/10

Controls: 5/10

Overall: 5/10

54%

Pictures:

N for the PC is a flash game released in March 2004. So why am I reviewing it?

The answer is because N+, a sort of sequel to the game is coming to the DS and PSP shortly and it has already been released on the Xbox Live Arcade.

N is a game in which you are a ninja and the aim is to complete the level in the time given. You usually have to get a key for the door and then go through the door to complete the level whilst collecting Yellow squares on your way each giving you plus 1 second to complete the level in and avoiding mines, falling from great heights and things that look like they want you dead.

Screenshot:

Controls:

Left and Right arrows to move and Shift to jump. Nothing special. Average controls, but easy to use and work well with the game.

Graphics:

They’re… nothing special, in fact they’re not that good on the flash version and I imagine they’ll be pretty much the same on the PSP and DS, but the Xbox graphics are supposed to be next-gen.

Download Link:

http://www.thewayoftheninja.org/n_downloads.html

Ratings:

Gameplay: 9/10 – Very enjoyable.

Graphics: 6/10 – Below Par, but you can’t expect too much for a free flash game. Though they do work with the game.

Controls: 8/10 – Work well enough, nothing fancy, nothing bad.

Overall: 7/10

76%

Today, I discovered the NaNoWriMo (or The National Novel Writing Month). I showed my friend Jamie (Gazok) and we agreed it might be fun to enter. Until we realised it was all one big scam. The quality of this ‘novel’ wasn’t marked, it was purely based on the quantity, that being 50,000 words.

So these so called 50,000 words, they could pretty much be any words which put Jamie and I off this competition. I won’t give an example because right now Jamie and I are busy trying to think of a name for our Writing Competition.

Because it will take a long time to organise a fully-fledged Writing Competition (based on the QUALITY), I have a small writing competition for you now.

We need a name for the Competition.

We have a maybe list at the minute;

The Finxi Awards (Finxi sounds like a dogs name)

The Final Draft Awards

The Antagonist Awards

The New Age Writing Awards

Neither of us are content with the current suggestions and are looking further afield. So yeah, any suggestions would be much appreciated.

- Jackreyes

I’m sure that if you’re a fan of the DS then you’ll probably know that Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars was announced at E3.

So far we’re pretty clueless about the game. No screenshots, no gameplay footage and not even a good description.

However, they’ve now got their website set up, and it does at the bottom of the page have a Wi-Fi logo.

http://www.rockstargames.com/chinatownwars/

Now this may just be there temporarily and they may decide to take it out later into development, but usually, any Wi-Fi is better than no Wi-Fi.

- Jackreyes