Take a look at this sleek leather case for the DS. Certainly looks very nice and professional. Too bad it only has two cartridge slots. Ah well, nice if you want to impress your friends who think gaming is for kids.

Noreve DS Page

source: gba.n64euro

Check out this cool dungeon crawler, Fate. It certainly has a Diablo-esque feel and you even have a dog or cat. You can also basically hack away forever, as the levels are randomly generated. Very cool.

Fate Site

source: Edge

Mario Kart DS will have a Retro cup contain some of the favorite classic tracks from previous games. Im not sure if the picture shows the full list, but I love the idea. I wish the SNES beach track was in there though. That was my fav.

source: gba.n64euro

A simple version of Windows (created from the GBA WinS) has been adapted for the DS. Some of the features include:

100% Touch Screen Integration which means:
o Drag-able and Resize-able Windows
o On-Screen vKb (virtual Keyboard) for easy text editing
o Clickable Buttons and other Controls
Cool new Application Lunching system – Icons
On-Screen Real-Time-Clock
Can hold ANY GBA WinS application

As with all homebrew things, this will take a bit of work to get it running on your DS, but it might be worth it. It already can run Paint, a calculator, and a puzzle game. In the future is should be able to run a web browser, instant messanger, and document viewers. Check it out:

DS WinS Info

Remember that french video where players could interact with the real world with the virtual car? Well, now you can interact with the real world to BE Pac-Man. All you have to do is don a headset and start muching those pellets.

Pac Life

A new site for the second Brain Training game for the DS has opened. This one is ‘intended to loosen your brain and explore other ways of thinking.’ Looks pretty fun.

Brain Training 2 Site

Gamestop has put up a listing for Winning Eleven Soccer for the DS. They also have a tenative release date of 3/1/06. Oh, I cant wait for this game! Especially if it has Wifi support.

Gamestop Page

Check out this new trailer for the new Marvel fighting game. To a new Marvel fighting game I say…hell yes! To EA making the game I say…please be good. Looks like its going to play like Def Jam with super heroes.

Marvel Rise of the Imperfects Trailer

Splinter Cell Chaos Theory DS has gone gold and will ship to retailers on June 28th. This completely 3D version looks great and, if anything like the N-Gage version (it might even be a port, Im not sure) it should play great too.

Splinter Cell DS Dated

You cant slow down the DS in Nintendo’s homeland. With a little help from some cute pups, the DS is outselling not only the PSP, but even the PS2.

DS Smokin In Japan

The official site for Kirby Canvas Curse has launched. Its a mini-site inside of the regular Kirby site, but you should have no trouble finding it. Go check it out:

KirbyKirbyKirby

Check out this site with a ton of nice wallpapers.

RippedWallpaper

Check out this great new trailer for Chibi Robo

Chibi Robo Vid

The XBox 360 sure is getting a lot of media coverage. I dont think Ive ever seen any console get as much mainstream press as the 360 is getting. I imagine its for a few reasons.

First, as we have been discussing recently, gaming is getting larger and become more ingrained in society. Secondly…Bill Gates. Not only does the man makes news all over the world, but he is the pinnacle of the American business man. Third, Microsoft is agressively reaching out the more mainstream media sources, like Time and MTV.

We will have to wait and see how much influence this has over sales of the 360, but it certainly isnt a bad move. Personally, Im not sure that the 360 is going to be that succesful though. Now, over the last year the Xbox has really taken off, mostly by word of mouth. With this swell of support and the media worthy-ness of all things Microsoft, the 360 will certainly get a decent spotlight. Not only that, but J Allard is really a media darling…well, as far as video games go, personally I cant stand the guy.

However, it seems that most of the excitement of the console from the hardcore community has withered after the E3 showing. Sure, early adopters and the extremely hardcore will get it, but it just doesnt feel like there is enough of a jump from the original Xbox to the 360 to warrant a purchase.

But anyway, this certainly isnt a diatribe about the 360. I think its cool that gaming is getting more mainstream press. Its also nice to see that, with more emphasis on gaming, the mainstream media is doing a better job of research and fact checking. While the 360 article reads like a infomercial for the console (do companys pay for coverage like this?), its at least a well informed infomercial.

That being said, check out this little chart they had called ‘From Geek to Chic in 33 Years.’ Hmm, 33 years of gaming and Nintendo gets one mention for having a Super Mario Bros movie in 93? Are we sure this isnt a paid advertisment?

Time Mag Chart

The other day I made a visit to an awesome newpaper stand type of coffee shop called Joe Muggs. The pretty much have every magazine you could ever want. While poking around I noticed this Game Developer Magazine.

Less about gaming and more about game development (duh) its a really interesting read. They have developer interviews, talk about development tools and have advertisments for game company hirings.

There were two articles that I really enjoyed. The first was a talk with the creators of Alien Hominid (by the way, did you guys hear the rumor that it may be coming to the GBA?). It basically runs through all the steps and hoops the development team had to go through to make the game and get it published.

The other cool article was one called ‘Pushing Buttons’ which was all about the way players use controllers. It talks about how one player may move smoothly from the X button to the Y button, while another player will mash his thumb down and get the A button on his way. It was very analytical and very interesting. It also helped me better understand the layout of controllers and why the Gamecube works so well for keeping certain button presses deliberate.

Anyway, the mag costs $5.95 a month. You can learn more at:

GDMag.com

One of the surprise titles of E3 was the GBA game Screw Breaker. Game Freak, aka the house of Pokemon, is responsible for this interesting looking title.

Its nice to see Game Freak venturing out (or is it being allowed to?) from just Pokemon. Personally, I think the game looks cool. It looks very fun and like the kind of action puzzlers I always enjoy.

Anyway, the official site has launched. Nothing but a funny little trailer with the main character busting through a Pokemon poster. Also check out the E3 video of the game.

Screw Break Site

Nintendo.com Screw Breaker Media

source: gba.n64.euro

Lunar-Net just released some new info and the final name for the new Lunar DS game. Lunar: Dragon Song, yet another title have DS in it’s title

Here is the info from the site:

From the original creators of Lunar: The Silver Star comes the next installment in a classic series, exclusively for the Nintendo DS!

Battle through an original adventure as three new heroes – Jian, Lucia, and Gabriel – to convert the Forces of Darkness into Beings of Light. Collect Battle Cards to strengthen the skills, spells and battle attacks of your entire team. Use your wireless connection to share rare and unique items with friends.

More…

Alright, lets talk about 4cr for a minute. As Im sure youve all noticed, the site has been going down a lot lately. In fact, it seems like its down more than its working. I originally thought the problem was WordPress. Now, I dont think so. I also thought the problem was my database, but now I dont think so.

I think the real problem is that someone is crawling the site and killing it. Up until about 2 weeks ago, even with huge spikes in traffic I never had a problem with the load on my database. Now its happening almost daily.

The most recent outage was simply a weird problem with my server…they decided to change my database password. Thanks guys.

Anyway, if anyone knows anything about mySQL databases, php functions and/or WordPress and would be willing to help out, please let me know. I love this site and all my readers and I dont want to upset people, lose people or go insane because of this.

NOA vice president George Harrison confirmed that downloading classic NES, SNES and N64 titles on the Revolution will be free.

I dont understand the reasoning behind this…but I cant say Im complaining. I love free stuff. That said though, I know that many people, myself included, would pay a small fee for each game. Nintendo will also have to be careful as to how many games they are offering so that people dont simply play old games and not buy any new Revolution software.

Games Radar Article

EDIT: There are concerns that this info may not be true and that Games Radar may have just been making an assumption. Ill try to find out the truth as soon as possible and let you know.

Here is exactly what was said. Take from this what you will:

Gamespot: Do you plan on having like a per-download pricing model along the lines of the microtransactions that will be used in the next-gen Xbox marketplace?

George Harrison: Well, we can use it in a variety of ways. We’ve used some of the older games already as little bonuses, either as bonus gifts or hidden in levels of games. Certainly for the first-party titles we’ll be making some of those available. We haven’t really talked about whether we would sell them. The third parties can make their own decision whether they want to sell them, or maybe they will add it on as sort of a free benefit when you buy a current version of the game.

source: Joystiq

[Contest Ends June 18th]

Alright, its time for another 4cr Giveaway. This time we have two really cool shirts. The ‘Touching Is Good’ jersey is a Large. The ‘Nice Bongos’ tshirt is an Extra Large.

Nintendo Shirts - Front
Nintendo Shirts - Back

This time Im going to make you work a little harder to win. I have included a link to a blank t-shirt template. Using any means you want, create a cool Nintendo themed shirt. You can use photos, mspaint, lightwave…whatever gets the job done.

You have two weeks to send in your entry. There will be two winners, one for each shirt. Please say which one you would like in your entry. Either send them to me by email ( nick[at]4colorrebellion.com) , or post a link to the shirt in this thread. I will take all of the photos and upload them onto this post for everyone to see.

Blank T-Shirt Template

This should be interesting. Have fun and once again, thanks to The Mysterious Benefactor for the goodies.

UPDATE: Here are a few more rules for clarification:

- Anyone from any nation can enter.
- Only one entry per person. Pick your best.
- You can however, make slight modifications if you need to. Just send me the updated file. If you come up with a better one, I can post that one, just let me know which one you are entering.
- You dont have to post anything on the Forums. You can if you want, but the contest will be on this post.

More…