Last night I was browsing the “Featured” tab on the App Store on my iPhone and came across an interesting new app called “Viggle,” which promised to reward me with fabulous prizes for watching TV. Now, I watch my fair share of TV, so naturally this proposition intrigued me.

Basically, the service asks you to “check in” when you are watching a TV show, similar to GetGlue or IntoNow. The difference is that with Viggle, you get 2 points every minute that you’re “watching” TV. When you’ve collected enough rewards points, you can redeem them for things like Amazon, Best Buy, Sephora gift cards or a month of Hulu Plus service.

Sounds too good to be true, right? Yes and no. The “prices” of the rewards are high enough that you can’t really quit your day job and watch TV all day. A $5 gift card to Starbucks or Best Buy costs 7,500 points, which equates to 62.5 hours of TV watching. There are other ways to gain points, the most significant of which is by checking into “Featured” shows. Being checked into Glee nets you an extra 325 points, for example. You can also get scattered bonus points here and there for setting reminders to watch shows, answering trivia questions, or watching video advertisements. Many people have already reported redemption of the rewards, so at least Viggle is coming through on their end of the bargain as of now.

The biggest problem I had with the service is that the audio detection simply doesn’t work. I tried sticking my phone next to both my TV speakers for an episode of Family guy and next to my iPad streaming an episode of 30 Rock and neither would register on Viggle in four attempts. After two failed attempts, Viggle will give you the option of manually checking into a show. The catch is that you can only manually check into programming that is currently on “live” TV. (Viggle asks you for your cable provider in order to offer you options) I managed to “check in” to Jimmy Fallon’s show even though I wasn’t watching.

This got my gaming mind thinking. Since there’s a cap of 120 points per hour (you don’t get extra points for channel flipping), your best bet at points generation is to make sure you are always checked into a show. You can do this even if you aren’t near a TV by failing the app into letting you check into something manually. It’s a pretty silly busywork task to have to open an app on your phone and do some taps every hour or so to generate points, but it’s really no different than checking in to harvest your plants in FarmVille or opening a new floor in your Tiny Tower. To take the freemium game analogy further, earning bonus points by “watching” a video advertisement is basically the same thing as watching a progress bar as your Sim goes poop. There’s even rewards for opening Viggle at the right time (bonus points for checking into a featured show).

Granted, having a random list of checked in shows may not be as appealing an end result as a flourishing TinyZoo with Panda Bears, but I’d wager that getting gift cards to real stores is probably a good piece of compensation for that. I think that if I’m ever feeling bored enough to want to do some tapping on my phone, getting some more Viggle points may be in my future.

Since Viggle’s website has nothing but a link to their iTunes page, if you want more details on the service, checking out their Twitter feed is probably your best bet. The service says they are working on both Android and iPad versions of their app for release “soon.”

Download Viggle on iOS

Last fall, Microsoft and 343 Studios released a “remastered” version of the original Halo with online coop play, achievements, a smattering of Kinect-enabled voice commands, and a complete graphical overhaul. It’s somewhat of a transition title for the franchise as the baton of Halo development has been passed from Bungie to 343 Studios starting with the upcoming Halo 4. As a longtime Halo fan, I hope that this “Anniversary” edition of Halo isn’t any indicator of what the future of the franchise will be like because it’s an absolute turd bomb.

Why? Because the online co-op is completely broken. Here are three reasons why:

1) You can’t save and quit your progress mid-level.

That’s right. For some unfathomable reason, 343 has or could not implement saving your game when you’re playing online cooperatively. The game does record when you complete a level, so if you’ve managed to completely finish a level, you can start there the next time you start a session. However, that’s little solace in situations when you invest a good 2 and a half hours inching your way through 80% of a level on Legendary difficulty and your coop partner has to stop playing. At that point, the game flashes text on the screen taunting you for wasting the last 2 and a half hours of your life and teabags your face.

Ok it doesn’t really do that, but it may as well. I had to resort to some late 80′s console playing tactics by having my buddy leave his Xbox on while I completed the level solo just so we wouldn’t have to find another 3 hour time slot to redo the level. But that wasn’t the only danger in our quest to achieve game progress. We also had to live constantly in fear of 343′s next failure:

2) Random disconnections and stuttering connections.

Halo: CEA can’t handle cooperative gameplay when there are too many enemies on screen. How do I know this? The game lags and stutters when there are more than 6 enemies on the screen or whenever there is an encounter with the Flood. Making matters worse, these things happened to me as the game host. I could only imagine what unholy slideshow my poor coop buddy was experiencing on the other end.

The game also can’t handle achievement unlocking elegantly either. You know you’ve unlocked an achievement because you experience a 5-10 second game freeze as the game experiences a stroke because it can’t believe you actually accomplished anything within it. As heart-palpitating as a game freeze is for the host, it’s an even greater disaster for your remote friend, because they see a flickering “connection lost” error message. In other modern multiplayer games, this would most likely be a minor annoyance at best because you would just try reconnecting to the game at the next save point. But in the high stakes world of Halo: CEA, a disconnect means an abrupt end of the game for everyone involved. An unceremonious dump to the menu screen also means, you guessed it, a loss of all progress you’ve made in a level because the game is incapable of saving.

3) Kinect Voice Commands are Wonky

I’ll keep this one short and sweet. Halo: CEA’s voice recognition feature kept randomly tossing grenades at the ground because it kept thinking I was yelling “Grenade!” in normal conversation. Game, I can assure you that I do not want to toss grenades when I am telling my friend about the poop that I took this morning. At least this one is an easy fix, as you can turn off Kinect voice commands through an option setting.

If you’re keeping score so far, out of all the new features promised in this Halo repackaging, 343 has failed (in one way or another) at implementing online cooperative play, achievement unlocking, and voice activated Kinect controls. That leaves the new graphics overhaul. Surprisingly, they pulled that off more or less.

The new graphics engine bring it on par with Halo Reach’s campaign graphics level, which is to say, “good enough” for a modern shooter. The frame rate slows down at times, but overall it adds a lot to the visual presentation of the original Halo, especially in large outdoor set pieces like the beginning of the second level, “Halo.” 343 didn’t clean up any of the original AI, though, as Covenant move around awkwardly. At times, it feels almost like playing a brand new Halo campaign, especially with the addition of 10 “terminal” cutscenes that flesh out the game’s story.

In fairness, the single player game works as advertised, which shouldn’t come as a surprise since the original Halo had a robust checkpoint system and the ability to save and quit at any of those. The adversarial multiplayer content is handled competently, with remakes of old favorites like “Hang ‘em High.” However, playing these maps launches the multiplayer portion of Halo Reach, so Halo: CEA’s “multiplayer” essentially amounts to a map pack for Halo Reach. It’s probably for the best, as I can’t imagine Slayer being very much fun with constant disconnects and abrupt boots into the main menu.

When you think about how 343 was just simply tasked to add modern Xbox 360 features like achievements and online coop to an existing design completed game, it’s pretty appalling to see the results. Add in the challenges of actually designing new levels, story, and balancing new weapons, and I have a tough time believing these guys are going to make Halo 4 anything short of a disaster.

Another year, another Spike Video Game Awards show to suffer watch through. It’s got to be having some sort of success, or else they wouldn’t be putting it on every year, right? That, or the sponsorship money they’re getting from the games publishers and Kraft Macaroni and Cheese is enough to keep the show afloat.

Overall, the show was roughly the same as it was last year, maybe slightly better. Jason Scherier had a finely crafted open letter about the Spike VGAs that eloquently states why actual game enthusiasts have been so frustrated with the production each and every year. Honestly, there’s some elements the show nails, like the augmented reality elements and the actual awards themselves. Spike is wise to leave the nominations and selections of the awards themselves to people who know about the games themselves. That’s why the show hasn’t devolved into complete dreck – because the core of what they’re trying to accomplish is actually solid. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the occasional potty-humor bit and I’m sure others do too. But we also know when that line is crossed into cringe-worthy unfunny. I don’t know, maybe Spike should hire Louis CK as a consultant? That guy gets how to incorporate crude humor in a way that is funny without insulting its audience.

Anyway, as long as the show stays awkward, I’ll have fun with these running diaries. Again, this year’s awards were on a Saturday night, so what follows is a retro-liveblog off my DVR.

8:01 – Our host this year is Zachary Levi of Chuck fame. It’s actually a huge step up from last year’s Dane Cook who has about as much video gamer credibility as Kim Kardashian has life credibility. (Update: It turns out that Neil Patrick Harris was the host last year. I don’t know why I thought Dane Cook hosted it. NPH is a nice guy and talented, but Levi is a better fit for the audience.)

8:03 – Hmmm, a intro montage where the show’s host is placed inside the different titles that are nominated for awards. Kudos to the Spike production team for trying something no other awards show has done before.

8:05 – Unrealistic Modern Warfare 3 bit – he would have been dead, teabagged, and called a fag by now.

8:07 – Our musical guests tonight are going to be will.i.am, deadmau5, and the Black Keys. Wow, I actually like two out of those three artists! What, they couldn’t get LMFAO and Bush this year?

8:09 – No. Way. Our host is actually getting teabagged by a real guy in a camo outfit. I have no words.

8:11 – will.i.am says he knows games. Sure, just like he knows how to write meaningful lyrics and compose rich, layered music that will be remembered for generations to come.

8:15 – Debut trailer for Naughty Dog’s new game, The Last of Us. Is it just me, or does the little girl look a lot like Ellen Page? Anyway, even though the trailer is all CGI, I still dig that it’s an original IP. Could do for survival horror what Uncharted did for action.

8:16 – Batman: Arkham City wins best action-adventure game and 2 or 3 other awards at the same time! Who cares, Hulkster’s in the house!!

8:17 – We’re promised a deadmau5 performance and get about 15 seconds of Moar Ghosts ‘n Stuff before it cuts to commercial. Guess musical acts are as marginalized as the actual awards on this show too.

8:23 – As Zachary gives his “rant” on online gaming etiquette, we cut to Brooklyn Decker looking completely lost. Me too, honey, me too.

8:25 – LL Cool J introducing Mass Effect 3 just makes so much sense!

8:28 – No way, the worm that sank cities in Gears of War 2 will be in Mass Effect 3? Earth is fuuuuuuucked.

8:30 – World premiere of Bioware’s new project: Command and Conquer Generals 2. What? Are they bringing the conversation wheel to cheesily acted FMVs? I would actually want to play that.

8:32 – Felicia Day is dressed in a Spider-Man costume and has to jump on a wall with a Jonas Brother to touch numbers for donations to the Child’s Play charity. WHY.

8:40 –Jonas Brother introduces Rainbow Six Patriots trailer footage. Again, it’s all cutscene footage. This show is supposed to be aimed at people who play games, right? So why can’t we see actual gameplay footage?

8:50 – Four bros from some Comedy Central show I’ve never heard of are here to talk about Alan Wake. One of them likened the game to something “written by Steve King and directed by Albert Hitchcock.” Then, another goes “heh, heh, you said ‘cock.’” I couldn’t make this up if you asked me to.

8:52 – I actually liked Alan Wake, so I’m excited to see that they’re continuing the series with Alan Wake’s American Nightmare. If you haven’t played it yet, I recommend trying it. It’s like playing a game written by Stephen King and directed by Alfred Hitchcock.

8:54 – I can’t believe they got Shigeru Miyamoto to actually fly out for this. Someone should fire his translator for not telling him that a Spike award is not as honorable as a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Oscars.

8:56 – Felicia Day is now parading around in a ninja costume now hacking at fruit being thrown at her with a katana. Like many other viewers, I tune into the Spike VGAs because I expect to see Double Dare-like stunts, rather than actual awards being given out.

9:00 – One hour into the awards show and there’s been exactly one award in a category presented.

9:03 – Hey, everyone! It’s the ghost of Tony Hawk. He looks as broken and beaten as Sgt. Brody from Homeland. Poor guy had his gaming franchise cancelled and now has to shill Activision’s other franchises.

9:05 – The Amazing Spider-Man world premiere trailer actually looks like there’s some gameplay in it! At the very least, it’s done with the in-game engine so viewers have at least an inkling what the game will look like in motion.

9:06 – I love how Hulk Hugan still addresses crowds as “maniacs.” It’s ok, Hulkster, you can still call us Hulkamaniacs. We’re still with you.

9:07 – I lost count, but I think we just had about 8 awards given out in a 60 second clip. Jeez, there must be some a lot of important stuff coming up this hour to have to rush through the awards like that.

9:08 – Whew, I was right. Having Felicia Day and Brooklyn Decker pick up cupcakes off a conveyer belt with only their mouths was definitely worth rushing through all those awards.

9:10 – “deadmau5, from the upcoming Soundshapes for Playstation Vita” should be how every deadmau5 appearance should be announced from now on.

9:15 – The Black Keys perform their latest single, Lonely Boy. All of a sudden it makes sense why this is on the Spike Video Game Awards. (Come on, Spike VGA writers! That joke wrote itself pretty much, can’t believe you guys dropped the ball on that.)

9:19 – “The Black Baron” expresses his displeasure with last year’s Spike VGAs via a video calling the show bullshit for having an award dedicated to movie actors in games. Wow! That’s actually very perceptive of Spike. Too bad the bit’s authenticity was invalidated seconds later by “The Black Baron” being appeased with Skyward Sword receiving an award this year.

9:22 – I don’t get it, Stacy Kiebler has a crush on Optimus Prime, but wanted to drive around in Bumblebee? I just want to drive around in Stacy Kiebler.

9:25 – Even though this Transformers: Fall of Cyberton trailer has no actual gameplay (or any words spoken or written for that matter), it’s amazingly well cut. Those two minutes resonated with my childhood memories better than all 7 and half hours of three Michael Bay Transformers movies did. Yes, I actually got goosebumps for a trailer for Transformers video game.

9:32 – Charlie Sheen is here to present an award for which he has no idea. And the crowd goes wild. Thanks, games industry audience, for extending your credibility.

9:33 – Oh, it was for Best Shooter. How could it go to anything else but Modern Warfare 3? Chuck did mention that Activision was all sitting in the front row at the beginning of the show. At least some game developer gets the forum to talk.

9:34 – Oops spoke too soon, turns out the longer “speech” was just a set up for the teabagging gag again. Yup, a game developer got real-life teabagged for winning an award in his industry on a televised show. I don’t think the AVNs are this degrading to its industry members.

9:36 – Wait, why is Jerry Rice here? Oh, he’s just here to shill EA’s NFL Blitz, nothing to see here move along.

9:37 – Really awkward bit with Chuck and a live cow, referencing Farmville. At least it was shorter than last year’s real life Angry Birds debacle.

9:38 – CliffyB announces Epic’s new game, Fortnite. It’s cartoony and looks nothing like a testosterone-pumped Unreal Engine game. Love that it’s a new IP and a complete departure from what they’ve been doing the last 15 years or so. Unfortunately, no gameplay footage is shown again so we don’t know how it plays.

9:39 – Hey, remember all three awards we gave out tonight? Kraft Macaroni and Cheese does. That’s why we’re reliving all 15 seconds of those highlights again.

9:45 – Wow, Jason Biggs and Sean William Scott are still among the living! Come on, back when American Pie came out, would you have bet on the band camp girl and the guy who played Finch having the most relevant acting careers 12 years later?

9:49 – Blizzard wins an award for existing. Sure, why not. At least this Diablo 3 intro cinematic looks pretty cool.

9:50 – Zachary Levi goes through another awkward “real life gaming” bit filling up his “health bar” by eating a turkey leg, drinking a blue potion, and rubbing a med pack all over himself. If he does a real life enactment of the God of War sex QTEs next, I’m officially quitting life.

9:52 – The Bioshock Infinite trailer combines both in game footage and elements of a good movie trailer. I think we finally have a winner, folks! Seriously, that wasn’t so hard, was it? Show us the game while also making it engaging enough for people who don’t normally game. Everyone wins.

9:58 – A couple of MMA fighters struggle through the teleprompter to present Character of the Year to the Joker, who teases “Arkham World.” I hope that really isn’t the title of the next game in the series.

9:59 – And we’re at Game of the Year already! Uh oh, looks like my DVR cut off at the two hour mark right before Zachary announced the winner. *looks up who won on the web* Skyrim takes home the prize. I just hope they didn’t have Felicia Day take an arrow to the knee in Double Dare for this one.

Full disclosure: I’m a huge comic book and video game geek and have loved the Marvel vs. Capcom series ever since I was a kid. I’d buy each and every release, even if they only add new characters and come up less than a year after the last one. It’s a really fun fight experience and I find the ridiculous speed and combos a nice change of pace from the more methodical Street Fighter or Tekken series.

That being said, I really wish Capcom would include a nice tutorial mode or something to make it easier for newcomers to get into the game. It’s a blast to play and there’s definitely a larger audience for this stuff now that Marvel’s successfully launched so many high profile films.

You can find my full review of the game on ComicsAlliance. I’d feel honored if you read the whole thing, but I’ll admit it’s a bit detailed for you impatient types out there.

If you’re one of those people, here are some tl;dr points:

If you skipped out on the original Marvel vs. Capcom 3 and love the characters and/or just love a good brawling game, then picking up Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 is a no-brainer. It’s strictly superior to the previous version in virtually every way. Even if you’re not normally a fighting game person, you may want to at least rent the game once just to experience your beloved characters brought to full interactive life (LifeTip for overworked readers: I’ve found that setting the game to an easy difficulty and breezing through arcade mode is a wonderful stress reliever).

As for those who own the first version, whether or not you’ll find the right value in UMvC3 depends on how often you play with others — either online or on the couch together. This is a game meant to be played competitively. Things will get very tiresome on your own once you’re done experimenting with the new characters. Feel free to skip UMvC3 if you got the idea the first go-around and have no desire to see the new characters. It doesn’t bring a whole lot new to the table.

Read the full review: ‘Ultimate Marvel Vs. Capcom 3′ review on ComicsAlliance.

I never thought there would come a day when I would prefer playing a particular game title on my phone rather than a “real” portable game console from Sony or Nintendo.

Well, that day is here.

Developer 5th Cell’s port of its “indie” Nintendo DS hit, Scribblenauts Remix is an absolute joy to play on the iPhone and iPad and is one of the few iOS releases that had me hooked enough to want to complete the game in one day.

(To be fair, I also never thought that there would come a day where there would actually be a good licensed superhero video game. What can I say? We live in magical times.)

For those who are unfamiliar with the franchise, Scribblenauts is a puzzle/platforming game based on one core mechanic — your imagination. You see, you can bring in almost any object or living thing into the game world by simply typing it into Max’s notebook. It’s a very “wow”-inducing mechanic when you experience it for the first time because we’re so used to being limited to the constraints of what game designers have set for us.

The goal in each level is for Max to obtain a Starite by following the hints on screen. The first level’s Starite is dangling on a tree that is just out of reach. There’s many ways to solve the puzzle, depending on your level of creativity. Some might opt for the straightforward solution of creating a ladder for Max to climb. Me? My first inclination was to give Max a large chainsaw to cut down the tree, letting the Starite fall down to me, because I’m a f’in boss. You could also give Max a jetpack and have him float up there to reach it as well. Or maybe you could make a giant yellow beaver to gnaw down the tree.  I’m sure you get the idea by now.

The game has a portly database of over 20,000 words so chances are that the game will have a better chance of stumping you rather than the other way around. Unfortunately, this doesn’t include proper nouns or places (for obvious reasons) or vulgar terms. Believe me, I was disappointed that I could not make a flaming pile of poop, but hey, what’s that really going to help you do?

All of the levels are fairly straightforward, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The danger with a game that provides so much freedom is in overwhelming the player with too many choices and possibilities. At no point in Scribblenauts Remix did I feel “lost.” The difficulty curve was nice and easy – almost too easy, in fact. Some of the more interesting levels have several “phases” involved, and I expected the levels to get more and more epic the further I progressed. Sadly, many levels remained very superficial in their goals. Fortunately, for those who want a more free form sandbox to play in, there’s a “Playground Mode” where you can just create objects and things and have them interact with each other.

One of the most exciting features about the game is that it supports iCloud for game saves. For people who own both an iPad and an iPhone, this feature is a godsend. I tend to play mobile games on my phone when I’m not home, but if I’m just lounging around, I’d rather use that larger screen real estate. Previously, you were essentially locked into choosing either the iPhone or iPad version to play, even if the game was a universal build. Sure, you could switch over, but you’d lose all of your gameplay progress to do so. And who would want to do that, other than shortsighted marketing folks who only look at features as checklist fodder?

There’s 50 levels included within the $4.99 universal iPhone/iPad release of Scribblenauts Remix. 40 of which are culled from the previous two Scribblenauts releases on the Nintendo DS. The remaining 10 are “exclusive” to the iOS version of the game. In full disclosure, I never finished the original game on the Nintendo DS because, quite honestly, I was annoyed by the controls in having to tap each word individually with my stylus on the onscreen keyboard. However, on iOS, inputting words is a joy because it’s a natural function of the device – just like writing a text message. A control pad isn’t necessary for this game since there’s no precision platforming to be done. Add it all up and you have a title that feels much more at home on a touch screen than on a portable game console.

Since I didn’t play the previous titles, I can’t say whether the “right” levels were picked or if the 10 new levels are worth the admission price for those who have already played the game on the DS. At $4.99, though, no one’s going to laugh at you for paying 50 cents a “new” level, especially since it’s quite apparent that 5th Cell will be adding additional level packs to the game as time goes on. For anyone who hasn’t played the DS games though, oh ho-ho are you going to have fun. Unless you don’t like words. In which case, I’ll direct you to this app instead.

The highest praise I can give to Scribblenauts Remix is that I was so enamored with the game that I wanted to not only complete the levels, but also obtain all the achievements as well. Think about it – how many games do you have on your phone? And how many do you actually want to finish, let alone get all the achievements on?

Scribblenauts Remix is available now as a universal iPhone/iPad build on the iTunes App Store.

Sony’s finally begun the process of rolling out reparations for its millions of consumers that were affected by the Great PlayStation Network Hack Of 2011. Whether or not you’re happy with Sony’s response to the whole fiasco, they’re still offering up free stuff, so you may as well take advantage of it. Before we get to the fun stuff, be sure to enroll in the AllClear ID PLUS identity theft protection that Sony is paying for all PSN users. If you’re a PS3 user, you get to pick two out of the following titles: (We’ve included a quick one line description of each game)

• Dead Nation – 2D twin stick action shooter kind of like Robotron or Geometry Wars with zombies
• inFAMOUS – Third-Person open world action game. Think Grand Theft Auto if you were the only super hero in town.
• LittleBigPlanet – A 2D platforming game (Think Super Mario Bros.) with up to 4 player cooperative play. You can design your own levels and play ones designed by other players.
• Super Stardust HD – Traditional 2D twin stick action shooter in space with lasers and powerups.
• Wipeout HD + Fury – A fast paced futuristic racer with weapons. Think Mario Kart meets F-Zero with even more speed.

All things being equal, we would pick up the titles in this order:

1. LittleBigPlanet
2. inFAMOUS
3. WipeoutHD + Fury
4. Super Stardust HD
5. Dead Nation

For what it’s worth, inFAMOUS and LittleBigPlanet were originally $60 retail titles, while the other titles were downloadable games ranging  from $9.99 to $19.99. Despite that, all of the games Sony offers are all quite good and hit a wide variety of genres. At the end of the day, you can’t really go wrong with any of the titles – they’re all good games in their respective genres. If you’re in the mood for a racer, definitely pick up WipeoutHD because it’s quite possibly still the most thrilling racer on any video game system. If you’re looking for something to play with your kids or someone who doesn’t play video games all that often, be sure to pick up LittleBigPlanet because it’s essentially a cute 4-player Mario-like platforming game. PSP owners can choose from two of the following games:

• LittleBigPlanet (PSP) – A portable version of the PS3 game – it’s got completely different levels if you were worried about getting both LittleBigPlanet titles.
• ModNation Racers – A GoKart racer (Think Mario Kart), but with the ability to create and share your own racetracks like LittleBigPlanet levels.
• Pursuit Force – An arcade combat-racer where you’re a rookie cop chasing criminals.
• Killzone Liberation – A top-down isometric view action title with cover-based gameplay similar to Gears of War.

In full disclosure, of the available PSP titles, we’ve only played Killzone Liberation. However we can wholeheartedly recommend that title if you’re an action fan — it’s surprisingly provides similar gratification to playing a third-person shooter on a console. We’ve also read up on reviews for the other titles and if it were up to us we’d rank them in this order:

1. LittleBigPlanet
2. Killzone Liberation
3. ModNation Racers
4. Pursuit Force

Again, feel free to pick by your desired genre, though we think there may be a marked quality difference between the first two titles and the last two ones. Other than the games, Sony is also offering a package that includes the following:

• A selection of “On Us” rental movie titles will be available to PlayStation Network customers over one weekend, where Video Service is available. Those titles will be announced soon.
• 30 days free PlayStation Plus membership for non PlayStation Plus subscribers.
• Existing PlayStation Plus subscribers will receive an additional 60 days of free subscription.
• Existing Music Unlimited Premium Trial subscription members will receive an additional 30 days of free premium subscription.
• Additional 30 days + time lost for existing members of Music Unlimited Premium/Basic subscription free of charge for existing Premium/Basic members.
• To welcome users Home, PlayStation Home will be offering 100 free virtual items. Additional free content will be released soon, including the next addition to the Home Mansion personal space, and Ooblag’s Alien Casino, an exclusive game.

Since Sony hasn’t announced which movies will be available through the “On Us” program, we can’t really give any recommendations on that front. We can, however, still say that PlayStation Home is still a complete waste of time.

Last night during their Playstation Meeting 2011 event in Tokyo, Sony announced their next portable gaming device, the PSP2 “Next Generation Portable” (NGP).

This baby’s got almost every gaming and technological innovation from the past 5 years, including dual touchpads, dual analog sticks, dual cameras, six-axis motion sensing, a high resolution OLED display, 3G and WiFi connectivity, and heck why not throw in that built in GPS. There’s a laundry list of features so we’re going to windmill slam that spec sheet right in front of you here:

BAM! For those of you who are into hardware, that’s two quad-core processors powering this beast. Sony says the graphics quality is almost Playstation 3 level and they wouldn’t be too far off that mark, especially with the 960×544 resolution OLED screen (That’s almost the iPhone 4′s resolution, folks). Sony also says that the six-axis motion sensors in the NGP are the same ones that power the recently released Playstation Move motion controller. And we can’t even begin to sing the praises of having two “real” analog sticks to play with, rather than that unseemly “nub” of the original PSP.

Want a visual demonstration? Check out this video from the Playstation Meeting 2011. (Feel free to cue the video to 4:30 to start at the game demonstrations. Be warned that the rest of the video is in Japanese.)

If you know anything about games, you’ll immediately notice some heavy hitting first-party Sony franchises shown there, including Killzone, Hot Shots Golf, Wipeout, Resistance, and Uncharted. They may not have as rich a history as Nintendo’s franchises, but they still are great games in their own right. You can see some of the more innovative uses for the hardware like the augmented reality-like feel of Hot Shots Golf with the NGP’s camera or the back side touchpad in manipulating the environment of Little Deviants.

In addition to Sony’s game franchises, the usual suspects of 3rd party developers also showed their support. These included Capcom, Konami, Koei, and even American developers Epic Games and Activision, who promised that the Call of Duty franchise will be come to the NGP(shocker). Konami’s presentation was especially impressive in that they showed an in game cutscene from Metal Gear Solid 4, a Playstation 3 game, running on the NGP.

Having two touchpads will be interesting as it adds another level of control for games. One of the annoying things about front-facing touchscreens is that your finger or stylus is invariably going to block some of the screen for you. Sony’s found an interesting way around this while also keeping the front touch screen for traditional touch screen gaming along with UI navigation. Time will tell if the back side touchpad ends up being utilized smartly, but at least it’s something no one’s done before in a gaming device.

Just how promising is the NGP’s software development platform? John Carmack, the programming mastermind behind Doom/Quake and hobbyist rocket scientist, tweeted this earlier:

Low level APIs will allow the Sony NGP to perform about a generation beyond smart phones with comparable specs.

There you go, The Carmack hath spoken. However, it sounds like Sony will need this leg up as the NGP is scheduled for release in Japan in 10 months with a North American/European release date not disclosed yet.

We’re going to be real here and say that we’re way more excited about the NGP than the Nintendo 3DS. Other than the 3D effect, the graphics fidelity of the NGP blow the 3DS out of the water. In fact, on almost every other technological feature, the NGS wins out here. Dual analog sticks, two touchpads, full 3G/Wifi connectivity, you name it. If Sony can manage to find a way to have halfway decent battery life along with a reasonable price point for the NGP, they’ll definitely be in the drivers seat in the battle with Nintendo’s 3DS.

Press photo gallery:

Yesterday, Nintendo announced that their latest handheld console, the 3DS, will be available on March 27th for $249.99. We’ve got the quick and dirty rundown of what you need to know about the system and also our take on whether you need to buy one.

The facts:

• It takes 3D photos and videos with a front facing camera and two outward facing ones. You can only view your media on the 3DS, though, for obvious reasons.
• It comes with a collapsible stylus and a 2GB SD card.
• There’s now an analog pad on the left side of the device.
• It has a pedometer built in that games can use to give you coins and rewards based on how much you move with it.
• It supports multitasking with the new “home” button. e.g. You can pause your game to go out and take a picture, then come back.
• There’s an accelerometer and gyroscope built in for motion gaming.
• It’s got a slider for adjusting the 3D effect. You can turn it completely off if you want.
• It’s fully backwards compatible – You can play all of your old DS games on it.
• Most of the games you’ve bought from Nintendo’s DSi store will transfer over to your 3DS account as well.
• There will be an online store that sells some old school Gameboy/Gameboy Color games, sort of like the Wii Virtual Console.
• Only one friend code per system will be needed – You won’t have to input a separate code for each game anymore.
• It will have support for augmented reality – Games can utilize the cameras to let you interact with the real world.
• It will come with a Mii Maker that uses your picture to help you create a better Mii avatar.
• Spot Pass – Wifi features that will allow new content from Nintendo and other content partners to push data to your 3DS even while it is asleep.
• Street Pass – Similar to Spot Pass, except instead of content providers, it will allow individual 3DS owners to exchange Miis and other game data by being in proximity to one another.
• It will have some sort of region protection – You probably should hold off importing a Japanese system for now.
• 3-5 (!) hours battery life in 3D, 5-8 hours for playing older DS titles in 2D.
• A complete list of games in development can be found here.

Our take:

What makes this a big deal? Well, for starters, its going to be the first mainstream device with a 3D display that doesn’t require any glasses.  If 3D ends up being the “next big thing” in consumer electronics, Nintendo will have the only device in town that doesn’t require glasses for awhile. I had a chance to play with the system at E3 a few months ago and can safely attest that it “works.” The 3D looks very nice and didn’t give me any headaches. However, you do have to view the screen nearly dead on to get the full 3D effect. People looking over your shoulder probably won’t have as good a viewing experience.

That being said, I haven’t seen any use of 3D technology yet that demonstrates a gaming experience that would have not been possible before. Even though some people may consider touch or motion control gaming as “gimmicky,” it’s still led to the creation of games that could not have been made before. So far, it just looks like 3D games are just prettier.

Why is this a concern for us? Well, we’re still not sold on 3D being for everyone. Some people just find it annoying or headache-inducing. Nintendo made the right move in allowing the level of 3D to be adjusted or even turned off, but once you turn off the 3D, you turn off the biggest innovation of the new device. At that point you start to wonder, “Why bother with the new device? I can just stick with my old DS”

Fortunately, the 3DS has some other things going for it like a new analog stick, full motion and touch controls, and the pedometer. Using some or all of these features in concert, developers could potentially make some very unique titles for the 3DS. If nothing else, Nintendo has proven time and time again that its own games are worth the price of admission to any new console they put out.

There’s some non-gaming features of the 3DS that might be of note as well. Being able to take 3D pictures and video sounds kinda cool, but obviously you’ll need a 3D display to view them in 3D, which means you’ll have to have your 3DS around to share them with people. It’s disappointing for those of us who want to recreate the movie Jackass 3D and share that content on all of our social networks.

Nintendo’s also planning on getting into the 3D movies and video content distribution game as well. We’re a bit skeptical on the practicality of that option given the meager 2GB storage available and also how compelling the act of watching a feature length film on your handheld gaming console is going to be, especially with 3-5 hours of battery life in 3D.

Nevertheless, we’re not worried about the $249.99 asking price for the device. It’s a bit higher than Nintendo’s previous handheld system launches, but it’s on par with Sony’s PSP launches the past couple of go-arounds. The real concern is with the games available at launch. This list doesn’t exactly have games make us go “WOW! I MUST HAVE THIS NOW.” Nintendo’s confirmed launch titles feel a bit “meh” to us honestly. I mean, I love playing with virtual pets as much as the next guy, but for $300, I’d probably be better off getting a real pet if that was my main desire.

So let’s be real here and say that the only people who really need a Nintendo 3DS on launch day are either:

a) Gadget addicts who need the latest and greatest at all times.

b) People who are buying into the system’s potential with future titles. If you’ve got the money now and know you’re going to get one eventually, you might as well play on launch day.

c) Scalpers who want to make a quick buck knowing that almost every Nintendo console release lately has led to shortages and high demand.

If you don’t fall into one of these categories, we’d probably recommend waiting until you start seeing some truly great software before buying one yourself. Unless, of course, you have lots of disposable funds. In which case you should totally buy one. And one for us too.

Seriously though, of you do want one, we recommend pre-ordering one soon, as Nintendo’s devices do have somewhat of an Apple effect, where people engage in feeding frenzies during hardware launches. The 3DS will be available in two colors, “Cosmo Black” and “Aqua Blue”. Amazon has their pre-orders for both colors up here.

Here’s a video overview from Nintendo:

When I think of my experience with Fable 3, there’s one description that keeps coming to mind: My First RPG.

Everything from the combat to the storyline to the character advancement system just screams out n00b. It’s not necessarily a bad thing depending on your level of RPG game experience, but as someone expecting a game with a decent amount of substance, I came out of Fable 3 feeling a bit hollow.

The game’s story has an epic foundation with a tale of tyranny and revolution, but felt rushed and predictable enough that I never had the opportunity to feel any sort of connection with any of the characters or situations. At least in Fable 2, I actually cared enough about my dog companion throughout the ordeal that when some tough decisions had to be made, I at least was given pause. Not so in Tres.

It’s a shame, because the entire last act of the game actually hinges on you making some “tough” decisions. If the developers had gotten me more invested into the citizens and characters of Albion, the game would have been drastically changed. Maybe I’ve just been spoiled by the maestros at Betheseda or Bioware, having played all of the Elder Scrolls, Mass Effect, and KOTOR games.

Combat is enjoyable enough by virtue of being laughably easy and simplistic. You have the customary Fable arsenal of melee, ranged, and magical attacks that correspond to each of the face buttons on the controller. It’s fitting that the only attacks you can do are with the buttons on top of the controller because you could just as well put your face on it and roll from side to side and still come out victorious. Enemies die in a couple of hits and rarely require anything but mashing the button harder to kill. I ended up finishing the game without dying a single time and it wasn’t for lack of trying.

All of the battle situations in the game feel artificial and shallow. There’s no memorable encounters or boss battles to speak of. The game doesn’t even mix up enemy types for you! I could count on one and half hands the number of different enemy types in the game. If the criteria was different enemy behavior, well lets just say that might just be counted on three fingers. It’s like the game designers went “Ok, here’s the skeletons encounter! Let’s just spawn 20 skeletons and have them go at it. Now over here is the mercenary fight. What makes mercenaries different from the skeleton warriors? Well they have skin and hair on them, DUH.”

Many of the quests in Fable 3 feel like they were designed in 2004. There’s way too many generic “FedEx this package to another villager,” “kill x number of bats,” and “escort this dude to here” quests. Again, these are the basic foundations for RPG questing, but after playing through three of these games I was hoping for more. That being said, there were a couple of interesting situations in the game. One involved a deranged talking treasure chest wanting to play chess with you in a haunted house. Another was an almost meta-game take on playing a traditional board game RPG in a medieval setting.

It took me almost two months after Fable 3‘s release to play through it. Why? Because that’s how long it took Lionhead/Microsoft to release a patch for the game fixing critical issues like freezing and crashing. To their credit, I didn’t come across any show-stopping issues during my playthrough. Still, it’s really appalling that broken games are rushed to stores just to make a holiday shopping deadline.

Would I recommend Fable 3? If you’re a veteran of the RPG genre with games like Fallout 3 or Oblivion or even World of Warcraft under your belt, I’d skip this. Even if you’re a fan of the Fable series, there’s really not much fulfillment in terms of story or gameplay to be had here. Your time would be better spent elsewhere. However, if you’ve never played a “serious” RPG video game before or want to introduce someone to the genre, Fable 3 would act as a good set of training wheels. It’s still a solidly executed title at it’s core.

I’m just going to go ahead and say it:

Infinity Blade is the best gaming experience I’ve had on the iPhone.

Seriously. You can take your Angry Birds, Fruit Ninja, and all of your lame tower defense game clones and shove them in your favorite orifice because this game makes those look like amateur hour. From the time I downloaded Infinity Blade on my phone last Thursday, all I’ve wanted to do is play it nonstop.

To put this in perspective, you’re talking a guy who has all of the video game consoles, a gaming-ready PC, a Kindle, a Blu-Ray player, Netflix, a backlogged DVR of TV shows, and a sports fan. Needless to say, I’ve got a lot of entertainment that I could/should have been plowing through instead.

Nope, I had to max out my Infinity Blade character first.

The first thing you’ll notice upon booting up Infinity Blade is that it uses the same Unreal graphics engine that AAA game titles like Gears of War utilize. Except for the tiny detail that it’s on your fucking phone. Its jaw-dropping graphics will make you reevaluate your standard for visuals in a mobile game. In fact, if the game were just a non-interactive tech demo (ala Epic Citadel), I’m sure it would sell a lot of copies just based on the visuals alone.

Fortunately, the game isn’t just a fancy tech demo. It’s actually brilliantly tailored for the iOS platform. Rare is the game on the iPhone that isn’t either a) a futile attempt at porting an existing console game to the mobile touch screen, b) a simplistic casual game that would otherwise be a decent browser-based Flash game, or c) a tower defense clone. Infinity Blade is none of those things. It’s one of the first original titles on the iPhone that truly stands up in quality to a PSP, DS, or even a console game. I also couldn’t see it done as well on any other platform, save the DS or Kinect.

Infinity Blade‘s gameplay combines the visceral action of Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! if Little Mac used swords and magic with the addictive character advancement mechanics of a loot-based RPG game like Diablo. (Or for you game historians out there – a little Die By The Sword mixed in as well.) There’s a bevy of items to collect and buy within the game. Whenever you defeat an enemy you will gain experience, but only until a certain point. See, each item you equip has a certain amount of experience that you can draw from. Once you “Master” an item, you’ll have to equip another one or else you won’t gain any more experience for your character. It’s a devious mechanic that gets you constantly swapping out different items.

Swiping on the screen will swing your weapon in that direction. The game isn’t all about swipe spamming like Fruit Ninja, though. Most of the time you won’t be able to hurt your opponent as they will block most of your moves. You’ll have to either block, dodge, or parry a few of the enemy’s attacks in a row before an opening comes up that you can take advantage of.

Blocking is the easiest defense to initiate as all you have to do is hold down the shield icon on the bottom of the screen. You will only have a limited amount of blocks before your shield breaks, though. At higher levels of gameplay, dodging becomes the avoidance method of choice. In order to dodge, you will have to tap either the left or right side of the screen, depending on where the opponent is swinging from. If you really want to get fancy, you can parry attacks by swinging your weapon in the opposite direction that the enemy does. I can tell you that it’s supremely satisfying to parry a series of attacks. It sort of feels like a lite-version of pulling this off.

The last component of combat consists of two abilities that are on a cooldown period. The first is a “special” attack that basically interrupts whatever your opponent is doing, stuns them, and gives you the opportunity to wail on him for a few seconds. It’s awesome. The other is a magic system that depends on what kind of equipment you’re wearing. You tap on the “magic” icon when it’s ready and draw on the screen the spell you want to cast. They’re your typical adventure spell fare: fire, ice, lightning, heal, etc. Luckily, all of the spell symbols are simple and don’t require lifting your finger from the screen.

The game is essentially a series of 1 on 1 battles that never take more than a couple of minutes to complete. It’s perfect, because if you’re gaming on the go, you want something that isn’t going to be a massive time investment. On the other hand, you wouldn’t mind having a bit more at stake in the game than just a high score in a self contained level. Infinity Blade has a limited amount of game environment that you can explore, but it cleverly incorporates a multi-generational bloodline component that keeps continuity going with some changes in enemies and treasure. Without spoiling too much, in other words, your sons and grandsons will be exploring the same castle that you did.

There’s a couple of things that annoyed me regarding the controls. Sometimes I’d feel that my commands weren’t registering properly on the touch screen. It could either be the game or user error on the part of my finger. But there’s definitely moments where I knew exactly what I wanted to do, but could not execute it on the game. Another annoyance I had was actually with the extremely detailed graphics. A few of the enemies have such gigantic models and animations that it can be hard to tell what exactly is going on screen. Neither of these are dealbreaking shortcomings, but they do exist.

Infinity Blade retails for $5.99 on the App Store and is a combination iPhone/iPad app. If you have an iPhone 4, you’ll probably want to play the game on it over the iPad because the graphic textures will look a bit more high resolution on the Retina Display. Unfortunately, the game requires at least an iPhone 3GS or an iPod Touch 3rd generation to run properly. Even if it did, you’d probably gouge your eyes out at how choppy the game would run on the older hardware.

I can’t recommend this game enough if you’ve got an iOS device. Chair Entertainment and Epic are planning regular free updates with more items, enemies, and areas to explore. The first one is slated to be pushed out next week, while the others will roll out in the coming months. They even have a tantalizing Multiplayer mode addition in the works. Awesome original game and great developer support – what more can these guys do right?