Mobile Gaming

Despite the DS outselling its Sony rival and even the big consoles on a regular basis, Nintendo are determined to get one into every gamer’s (and their relative’s) hands. With the children's market sorted they’re going for the grownups in force.

Handheld console manufacturers just can’t help but fiddle around. With both the DS and PSP getting numerous make-overs over the last few years getting bigger, smaller, slidier but rarely cheaper.

So it’s surprising to say that this is one upgrade that looks pretty good. Adding all the extra functions of the still recent DSi and supersizing the console to fit in adult hands and give them a screen big enough to make all the extra features worthwhile for once. While still not exactly cheap, the console will retail at £150 which is only £10 more than the smaller DSi.

So what does it do that we haven’t seen before on the DSi? Well not much to be honest. No Nintendo, new colours don’t count. There are only two colours available at launch, Wine Red and Dark Brown. It would seem Nintendo believe this the best strategy to attract the more ‘mature’ gamer, assuming they all like merlot and dirt.

Visit any amusement arcade, bowling alley or anywhere with video arcade machines in the late 90's and you'll remember that one of the most popular games was the then newly released Silent Scope. For anyone thats been living in a cave in the Outer Hebrides, Silent Scope,made by Konami, was innovative in that you used a rather cool chunky looking gun with a telescopic sight to play the game. It was new, fresh and very original. Ok , the gun aspect wasn't as the excellent Operation Wolf had brought us that a few years previously but the new bonus of using a scope to pick out your targets from a distance made the game so much more different and exciting
 
Well this year Silent Scope makes a return on a somewhat unexpected format on the iPhone from Apple. Thats right, you as the worlds top marksman are back to save President of the USA and his family who have been abducted, yet again, by bad guy terrorists. Boo etc. So its time to dust off the sniper rifle and head back out to the rooftops of Chicago and start popping heads.
 
The multi touch technology of the iPhone is central to the gameplay of Silent Scope with players tapping the screen to fire. The game boasts different levels of difficulty, various modes of gameplay with both an arcade and training mode where players can perfect their sniper skills before hitting the arcade mode and tackling the game proper.
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The little white box of the Nintendo Wii doesn't have too much to look at, but it still pulls in a crowd. Ball-IT, a Finnish company, is hoping to compete with the Wii using the same tactics. They have produced a small, little squeezable ball, filled with sensors that can interact with TV screens, computers and mobile phones which they hope will revolutionize the way we play video games.
 
Established in 2005, the Finnish company Ball-IT "aims to become a global leader in the development and production of motion controlled gaming solutions. These solutions include enabling devices and modules as well as core software components for implementing consumer-level User interfaces."
 
Although many other companies are also trying to come up with the next Wiimote-like controller, none have a product like Ball-it. "Ball-it wants to become the non-keyboard standard for remote communication with your screen." By using Bluetooth the golf-ball sized peripheral can interact with most other Bluetooth capable devices. The ball has wireless sensors built in and can sense geomagnetic fields, orientation, direction, speed, air pressure and acceleration, something that no other competitor has been able to do.
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