You see, no matter what hilariously unlikely idea I seem to think up, it turns out fact is stranger than ficton.  For instance, efforts to mock up a bicycle controller turned out to be true, much to my chagrin, along with replica machine guns.  Hell, even a galaxy far, far away has managed to churn out a few space sidearms for our peripheral crazy consumers.

So it’s been a little challenging to find something new to patent, so I moved on to a long list of non-mainstream “sports” for inspiration.  After a little aimless browsing, I managed to hit pay dirt … or so I thought.  Read on for the latest installment in our Wii controller patent applications, and then join my lament!

Model# DRT-003: Wii-mote Lawn Darts Starter Kit

Wii-Pint of Wii-Guiness sold seperately

The Wii-mote Lawn Darts Starter Kit is an incredible innovation in how we enjoy our outdoor activities.  Lawn darts, often the final resort of that “have-to-play-outside-but-I-need-danger-to-have-fun” child mentality, is dragging itself into the 21st century.  The starter pack contains two special Lawn Dart silicon attachments for the Wii-mote, along with a sophisticated distance gauge (or “target nub”, see Fig. 1) that will measure a player’s accuracy when it comes to throwing objects into the floor on the other side of the room.

Players simply boot up the provided title, activate the target, and then proceed to throw their newly protected controllers with abandon around the room.  The floor-bound sensor tracks how close a controller (or “Wii-dart”) lands to the target, and awards points accordingly (see Fig. 2).  Players take turns throwing and retrieving their “Wii-dart” until a round is completely finished, at which point the most accurate player is procounced the winner.

The Starter Kit should be a hit with parents, as real life lawn darts can be a dangerous passtime for young children.  The silicon encasement is soft and flexible (shown Fig. 3), thus allowing for the occasional friendly-fire “accident” to be medical emergency free.  It also does a winning job of protecting the controller from damage, saving everyone money avoiding potential replacements.  That said, parents looking to buy the Wii-mote Lawn Darts Starter Kit should take note that in several consumer test simulations children took the trouble to self-test exactly how much force could be applied to the silicon case before damage could occur (see Fig. 4).

That's a dart in his/her mouth, no funny business!

The Starter Kit comes bundled with Wii Lawn Darts, starring the delightfully semi-canon (and yes, probably also semi-cannon) Nintendo character Birdo.  Kids of all ages love/don’t remember Birdo, who joined the Mario series during Super Mario Bros. 2 as a sub-boss who spat eggs through his/her mouth/nose.  Well, eggs completely forgotten, Birdo now spits lawn darts, and acts as the primary competition during the single-player mode of the game.

Although Wii Lawn Darts is a family game, it was unfortunately initally awarded a PG rating due to the slightly phallic nature of it’s Nintendo guest star.  The game was resubmitted shortly afterward and was reclassified as G (or E for Everyone).  Due to the alterations, concerned adults can now choose to disable Birdo if they find the sight of objects flying out of what is essentially a big, fleshy orifice inappropriate.

Now some of you may still be wondering when I was going to get around to the lamenting section of this application, and given that this would usually be the point where I discuss the release date plans, this is probably the appropriate time to begin.  For you see, reality has bested me once again, and an item similar to the one mentioned here is already on the market.

You see how tough it is, taking the piss on this issue sometimes?

So while I’m quite certain that the Wii-mote Lawn Darts Starter Kit would be a technologically superior product to this cheap knock-off, I’m afraid the patent office would never have a bar with it.  So until our new enemies at PEGA declare bankrupcy, our very own patent will have to sit on the shelves … waiting.

Note: This peripheral will be Wii Vitality Sensor compatible (especially by the time we’re actually allowed to produce it)

< See the previous patent application | See the next patent application >

This week’s new controller patent, developed by “top scientific minds”, continues this lesser known tradition in housework simulation. Care to get in touch with your inner maid?

Model# KLN-446: Wii-mote “Household Chore” Expansion Kit

Toilet Brush, "Weegee" Squeegee and Bleach Bottle extensions sold seperately

Ever since early childhood, gamers have battled with household duties. It’s tough to run a clean house AND make it through the pedicopter levels of Alex Kidd. Both are such a drain of time and effort that it’s always been a case of “do one or the other”.

This is where the Wiimote Household Chore Expansion Kit comes into play. Comissioned by a coalition of wives, housemates and mothers of gamers across the world, this expansion kit allows players to gain valuable practice by simulating real-life chores.

The kit bundles together a collection of Wiimote extenders, including the Broom Extender, Vacuum Extender, Mop and Bucket Extender, along with a couple more (see Fig. 2). Players are presented with a customisable messy house, and awarded points depending on the speed with which they clean it up. By switching the Wiimote’s extender, players can swap what cleaning implement currently in use by their avatar.

The plan to gently introduce cleaning up as a game could backfire catastrophically however, when expectant cohabitors return home to find the gamer’s virtual room clean as a whistle while the actual house remains neglected (see Fig. 1)

Tom Hanks is like *this* close to legal action

The “Household Chore” Expansion Kit will be initially sold as a stand-alone accessory pack (see Fig. 3), with hopeful partners and OCD sufferers having to purchase the standard title WiiClean seperately. For those looking to splash a little more cash however, a premium title will also be released for the HCEK. The premium title, Mario Bachelor Party, sees up to eight players co-operatively cleaning Princess Peach’s castle of any incriminating evidence of the previous night’s celebrations.

In a style similar to the original Home Alone games for PC, players are given a short amount of time to prepare as much of the castle as possible before Peach’s return, and then must clean around the unsuspecting Peach until the castle is completely sanitised. Each round one player is rotated into the role of Mario. It’s Mario’s job to divert Peach from dirtier areas of the castle, perpetuate hilariously unlikely reasons for the random noises of other players, and all while chewing enough mints to keep the smell of Fire Flower off his breath.

The Wiimote Household Chore Expansion Kit will hit shelves in the first quarter of 2010, only to soon be made redundant by the Wiimote Swivel Sweeper Extender (at the low, low price of only seven installments of $49.95!).

Note: This peripheral is Wii Vitality Sensor compatible

< See the previous patent application | See the next patent application >

Since the dawn of technology, human beings have been looking for a way to make their hands redundant.  For example, before the invention of the wheel it’s widely accepted ^{[citation needed]} that man walked on his hands, giving him terrible callouses.  Similarly, it’s known that a lot of human beings begin life deaf, but later chose to hear because sign language is such a terrible strain on the wrists.  Well in that vein, this controller extender means that you may never need your hands to talk again.

Model# ERU-014: The Wiimote Hands Fr-ii Headset

You can't actually see in Fig. 2, but dinner is on the stove just outside the image frame

The Wiimote Hands Fr-ii Headset sets the gaming-inclined buisness person at ease, by allowing them to deliver additional commands to their game using the power of voice.  Multi-tasking is so important these days, and not everybody has the time available to play all the games that they want.  To this end, the Hands Fr-ii Headset allows the gamer to play between one to four games at the same time, saving the precious minutes that otherwise wouldn’t be available to check the stock market.

The Hands Fr-ii Headset itself clips securely into the extender port of the Wiimote, and utilises an overhanging non-intrusive earpiece that fits snugly over the user’s ear (see Fig. 1).  After installing a new update to the Wii console’s firmware, players can then choose a combination of up to four games to play simultaneously using their voice.  The Wiimote controls help co-ordinate the action currently on screen, while the motion sensor is used to change the game that is currently on screen.  With a simple shake to the left or right, you can quickly flick between the games currently loaded.

While gaming, also feel free to use your Blackberry or equivalent device to give Stevens in accounts a motivational bollocking via email (see Fig. 2).

Luigi can't talk right now Mario, he's on the phone

Because simplistic games work the easiest with voice commands, the Wiimote Hands Fr-ii Headset comes bundled with a 40+ Classic Games disc, including games like Tetris, Space Invaders, Frogger, etc.  However, to coincide with the Hands Fr-ii’s release, you can also buy yourself an updated copy of Mario Kart Wii, now titled Mario Kart Wii: Cellphone Edition.  This updated edition allows you to drive all the regular courses included in the latest Mario Kart installment, but while playing you’re expected to keep a conversation going with your fellow drivers.  Periodically, you’ll be forced to swerve around unexpected groups of school children, or jump hard on the brakes when the Cloud Koopa reinstates the red light at the start line.

Players are rated not only on their track times, but also their reaction speeds to the various new obstacles.  Bystander fatalaties lower your score, and are muliplied by the number of whiplash insurance claims from your opponents.

The Wiimote Hands Fr-ii Headset is currently undergoing a licencing review, but we’re confident it will be released by the first quarter of 2010.

Note: This peripheral is Wii Vitality Sensor compatible

< See the previous patent application | See the next patent application >

This week, other Wii controller developers have been targeting the music game genre, but we’ve taken a different tack.

People love sports games, right? EA have proven this to us time and time again. But people also like a sense of danger to make things that little bit more exciting, right? Well that’s what we’re aiming aim with this new patent application:

Model# ILI-026: The Wiimote Jai Alai Xistera

Say goodbye to your loved ones!

The game of Pelota can trace it’s origins back to 13th century Greece, but it is these days better known as Jai Alai. This high velocity wall-and-ball game is most recognisable for it’s scoop-shaped racquet, or “xistera”. A typical xistera can propel a ball anywhere up to 300kmp/h, meaning the aim of Jai Alai is just as often about not getting brained as it is about scoring a point.

Well we’re bringing this exciting, fast-paced and dangerous sport indoors where (theoretically at least) it’s safe. A MotionPlus enabled Wiimote is clamped to the back of the Wiimote Jai Alai Xistera’s wristguard (see Fig. 1), where it can keep track of the full range of motion. Players are served an in-game ball which they must catch and fling as hard a possible. They then use the clamped Wiimote’s D-Pad to move their player around the court. Failure to catch a ball on it’s rebound loses you a point, failure to dodge a rebounding ball results in a game ending trip to Wii-hospital.

Because of the range of motion required from a typical Jai Alai throw (see Fig. 2), use of the Wiimote Jai Alai Xistera has been refused for people in the following situations:

• People aged under 11
• People aged over 55
• People with freely mobile toddlers
• People with freely mobile or habitat specific pets, ie; dogs, cats, fish, ferrets, budgies, parrots, venemous snakes, frogs, etc…
• People who live in apartments
• People who rent
• People under the influence of alcohol
• People under the influence of sugar
• People who are currently without contents insurance

Because saftey is our paramount concern, the Wiimote Jai Alai Xistera’s wristguard comes bundled with the Nintendo Wii Wriststrap+ Leather Bracer, to help reduce the chance of serious personal injury … slightly.

Waluigi is a sporting prodigy

The controller comes bundled with the newly released Super Mario: Waluigi’s Castle Brix Breaker, the first title in the Mario canon to be based primarily on Luigi’s evil counterpart. In the game, described by developers as “the spiritual successor to Mario Tennis and Arkanoid“, players control Waluigi as he hurls bombs into the walls of Princess Peach’s castle. By progressively breaking down walls, Waluigi can capture the Six Random Valuable Items (which are presumed to be terribly important, and yet no-one has ever heard of them before).

Bonus rounds pit Waluigi against the Princess’ castle moats, timing how long it takes to scoop out enough water to cross safely. While these sections of the game were, typically, added as an afterthought in the hope of adding variation to an otherwise one-action controller, they do still manage to be just as dangerous to bystanders.

The Wiimote Jai Alai Xistera was slated for release in the first quarter of the new year, but has since been postponed to the second quarter of 2010.

Note: This peripheral is Wii Vitality Sensor compatible … mostly so emergency services can discover at what time you suffered the accident that ended your life.

< See the previous patent application | See the next patent application >

It’s frustrating, isn’t it, the way not only does Nintendo seem to feel the need to package every game with a new piece of plastic, but that sometimes they can even make those pieces of plastic obsolete?

Well luckily we only research and develop the most sensible controller ideas, and we’re sure you’re going to love this week’s submission. It caters to the potential green-thumb in all of us. Care to take a look?

Model #MST-602: The Wiimote Moisture Sensor

*Wii-Dirt Sold Seperately

I guess we’ve all been there, in our heart of hearts. Budding horticulturalists, eager for our moment in the sun. But with house prices rising, and the cost of gaming continuing to drain players’ hip-pockets, more and more gamers are being forced to live in aparments. Reaping the richness of Mother Earth’s bounty can be quite difficult when all you have is ten meters square in which to fit your bed, a fridge, your TV and at least five consoles. This is where the Nintendo Wii-mote Moisture Sensor comes in!

Revolutionising the pointy-bit-of-metal-in-some-dirt industry forever, the Wii-mote Moisture Sensor can accurately and consistently measure base humidity to the closest g/kg. Using this data, it can accurately recreate the act of watering a plant, and utilising it’s flora database, display for the player if their Wii-plant is flourishing or withering.

Gamers simply clamp the Wii-mote Moisture Sensor over the Wii-mote, and connect it through the extender port. The entire controller is then inserted into an air-tight plastic skin to avoid any water coming in contact with the remote itself (as seen in Fig.1). The player then navigates the menu to select what plant variety they wish to simu-grow. Decision made, players then stick the Moisture Sensor point-first into a bucket of dirt. The Sensor then proceeds to update the gamer on the dirt’s current level of wetness, and displays the required level on screen (displayed Fig.2).

If a player can keep the moisture at the correct level, within just a few short weeks they should see progress from their on-screen plant. With this joyous emergence of new simulated life, they will feel pride, accomplishment and acute pain when their power bill arrives at the end of the month.

Whee! Logging!

While the Moisture Sensor’s applications are as wide-ranging as any good Assmann psychrometer, it will initally come bundled with the basic Moisture Sensor Wii-Grow game, and the far more popular Donkey Kong Country 3: Palm Tree Panic game. In DKC3: PTP, players will have to grow a palm tree for Donkey Kong to inhabit, and keep the palm tree so well nourished that it can actively withstand the destructive forces of land-clearing miners, mass logging in the hope of finding rich coltan sources to be used in today’s modern mobile devices.

Players are only given four short weeks in which to grow a large enough palm tree to protect Donkey and his cousin Diddy. Failure to grow a large enough tree results in their execution by a Siemens-contracted Wario.

It should be noted that for the most accurate results, neither the Wii system, nor the Wiimote Moisture Sensor should be powered down at any point. This just goes to show that while Nintendo abhors coltan mining, they do actually support electricity generating coal mining. A controller recharge cable can be purchased seperately, to make sure your “tomato” crop doesn’t fail.

The Wiimote Moisture Sensor is slated for release in the first quarter of 2010.

Note: This peripheral is Wii Vitality Sensor compatible.

< See the previous patent application | See the next patent application >

While we’re all kind of getting used to the idea of having a controller add-on for every single game released on the Wii, some of the most recent have just been getting plain old stupid. Here for example is the patent application for the Wii-mote Squishy Football controller. Even crazier, here’s the application for the Inflateable Wiimote Saddle controller.

But why stop there? There are just so many other things that we can slot a Wiimote into, and to this end I proudly present part one in a continuing series: New Nintendo Controller Patent Applications! Fancy a chilling look into the future?

Model #CHG-011: The Wiimote Household Cup

Inside me beats the heart of an engineering illustrator...

This controller add-on represents the bleeding edge of hyper-refreshment simulation technology.  The Wiimote Household Cup allows the player to insert their standard Wiimote (MotionPlus compatible) into the Cup peripheral and accurately track the motion of drinking from a cup. Fig. 1 displays the add-on’s proportions. The Wiimote is clasped onto the side of the Cup, allowing for players to use a standard wrist strap to secure the controller. The cup is hollow, so players who want an extra edge of realism can fill it and “drink” along with their favourite characters. Fig. 2 shows an example of the Household Cup in use. By raising the Cup, corresponding data from the Wiimote’s Y-axis moves the simulated cup to mimmick the action. In this way, players can have their character drink a cup of liquid with almost breathtaking reality.

It’s important to note here that although the Cup only comes in a standard cup model, the simulated cup can be anything from a tall glass to a porcelain stein. The possibilities are endless, and can really only be constrained by a given developing team’s imagination.  No liquid holding container is beyond it’s sphere.

Try not to wonder what the '+' represents

The Wiimote Household Cup comes pre-packaged with a new title by Nintendo, Yoshi’s Super Fruit Smoothie Drinker Plus. Players get to select a combination of fruits and vegetables for Yoshi to combine into a nutritious health drink. Then depending on the health rating of the drink, Yoshi changes colour … or some shit, who the fuck knows really, no-one ever bothered to play that far.

Nintendo’s family friendly image prevents it from including any games that would encourage the act of drinking alcohol to it’s younger audience, so the other games slated for use with this controller have had to be scaled back a tad.  Available soon after it’s release will also be Pirates of the Carribean: Jack Sparrow’s Lemonade Swilling Contest and From Russia With Love: Warm Soup Sipper.

The Wiimote Household Cup is slated for release in the first quarter of 2010.

Note: This peripheral is Wii Vitality Sensor compatible.

| See the next patent application >

Even Letterman is getting tired of these

So it’s a slow news week.  Everyone in the upper echelons of gaming (with maybe the exception of already afflicted Jim Sterling) has currently come down with a case of swine flu after attending Penny Arcade Expo.  On top of this, overwhelming popularity has seen The Beatles: Rock Band sell out of almost every major video game outlet before poor little old me could snag a copy.

So I was wondering, what does everyone else resort to when they’ve run out of creativity for any given week.  Content tables need to be filled, we can’t just let our readers go back to actually playing games, can we?

Then it hit me.  LIST ARTICLES.  I can’t believe it took me so long to remember what you’re supposed to do when you start scraping the bottom of the barrel.

Now, gentle friends, don’t get me wrong, there are many fine examples of list articles done well.  You may even notice that for all my bitchy sarcasm I’m guilty of writing them myself (inb4 “hypocrite!”).  But I’ll give you a quick example of what my main beef is.  Open up a new tab for me, and wander along to http://digg.com/gaming.  Scroll down, and I can almost guarantee you that at least half of the articles stuck to the front page are “Top Ten x We All y” or “8 Reasons x y‘s z With a Candlestick in the Dining Room”.

So rather than just keep recycling the same old topics, let’s try this one: Gaming’s Top Ten Kinds of Overused “Top 10″ Lists.

Shall we proceed?

Number Ten: Top Ten Filler Topic We Loosely Related To Gaming

Pfft, it'll never catch on

When it comes down to it, gamers are a diverse bunch.  While we all identify ourselves as gamers, for most of us the similarities end there.  Some of us are RPG grinders, others FPS nuts, and some of us just enjoy a quick game of Wii Tennis.

To this extent, our tastes outside our gaming can be fairly wide ranging, which is where these lists usually come in.  Things like “The Best Eight Pieces of Furniture To Game In” and “Top Ten Cola Drinks to Play Games With”.  It’s not important that no-one likes the same things.  In fact, it’s better that they don’t, because by putting a beanbag or LA Ice Cola at the top of the list, you’re inviting people to bicker and argue, which only keeps them in your comment field and generating hits.

These lists usually only attract the most morbidly curious readers, who are just wondering where on Earth you’re going with whatever odd topic you’ve chosen.

Number Nine: Ten Reasons Gaming Beats Reality

So every now and again we all wish we could jetpack our way around, or teleport ourselves to far off destinations.  Or failing that, that as soon as we turn fourteen we find out that we happpen to be the most powerful swordsman ever and get to ride around on cute oversized chickens.  Fantasy novels have been doing this for kids for a long time now, and games carry on the tradition of creating these worlds for us to entertain our “what if” glands.  But wouldn’t it be good if we could do this in real life?  Brilliant thinking, there’s ONE WHOLE ARTICLE RIGHT THERE.

Unfortunately these are usually the most predictable of lists, because the number one is always “1: LOL, EXTRA LIVES”.  Of course a lot of the writers of these kind of articles can be forgiven for thinking people actually want to read this stuff, considering it’s apparently the basis of a “successful” web-comic.

Number Eight: Top Ten Gaming Pictures We Just Captioned!

Not even always for humorous effect, these articles are typically about one-hundred words in total, with 9meg of images to accompany them.  Probably for the days when all the senior writers are absent, and all you have is this bunch of screenshots.  “Ten Most Classic SNES Characters” and “Nine Game Things That Don’t Look Like Real Things” would be prime examples of a good old fashioned Gallery List.

Number Seven: Ten Nostalgic Items That Look Silly Now

Fuck, we get it, the Nintendo Game Glove was nowhere near practical, and the Virtual Boy just sucked, please just try and move on.

Number Six: Greatest x Of All Time

Greatest FPS Evar!1!

Again, lists like these are typically argument starters for hits sake.  For instance, let’s just say that we decide we’d like to post about “The Greatest Roleplay Games Ever Of All Time Period”.

So you’ll need to include all your well-worn classics.  Final Fantasy 7, Chrono Trigger, Legend of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time.  But when it comes to number one, make sure you’ve got the most obscure game you could think of on hand … in this case let’s say Golden Axe Warrior.

While a small minority will appreciate the fact that you’ve picked a minority opinion, most of your readers will proceed to bombast you will comments claiming Golden Axe Warrior was a Zelda clone, and your editor is happy because it’s brand new opinion.  Either way, a lot of ad views get generated, so if you run out of insults to hurl at the writer, at least you can bet there will be another list of the same ilk on the way soon.

Number Five: Top Five Things We Couldn’t Think Of Any More Of

Kind of a downer most of the time, because these are the lists that typically have interesting topics.  The problem being, the topic is so focused (or so obscure) that there isn’t actually that much to be written about.  “Top 3 Physically Challenged Game Heros” for example, or “Five Things The Gaming Industry Can Learn From Star Wars: Episode One Racer“.  Oh well, at least three well considered items are better than fifteen throw-away ones. … Probably.

Number Four: Top Ten Things We Barely Researched Before Shoving This Article Out

For when even a trip to Wikipedia seems like a lot of hard work! Lists like these are usually found on mainstream sites to satisfy their “gaming/tech” quota.  Whatever the topic, you’ll spot these easily, because the most elementary of mistakes seems to make it past proof-reading.  Referring to Link as Zelda is one of those things that should set alarm bells ringing.

For sake of example, here’s one I read recently:

With the MegaDrive slowly but surely making its exit from the console market, the Dreamcast took an innovative step by becoming the first console to offer online gaming.

OK, so we know the Sega Saturn wasn’t exactly the success it could have been, but it certainly did exist BETWEEN the MegaDrive and the Dreamcast.  These lists mostly go un-noticed, however, as most gamers like to feel superior to somebody.

Number Three: Top Ten Widely Accepted Facts No-one Can Argue With

Some sites like to play nicely with everyone, so they shy away from any list that might cause controversy.  The list’s boring subject material is offset by the fact that everyone can find something they agree with.  The lists themselves are usually based around general topics, ie; “Top Ten Facts About Gamers” or “Ten Ways The Gaming World Was Shaped”.  The wide nature of the list topic allows it to cater to every fanboy at once, thus allowing it to be marketed across as many platforms as humanly possible.

Among the cutting edge opinions will be things like: “Super Mario Kart 64 is the best go-carting game”, “The DreamCast was ahead of it’s time, shall be missed, it’s a pity” and the recently popular “Xbox Live might be the superior online service, but PSN could overtake it very soon”.  As long as you’ve ticked all your demographic boxes, you’ve done your site’s hit counter proud.

Number Two: Top Ten Reasons All On Seperate Pages

For More Of Our Greatest RTS Game List, See The Next Page! ->

It doesn’t matter what the topic, it doesn’t matter how good or how vapid the content is, as long <continued over> as you <continued over> load about fifty <continued over> of our site’s ads <continued over> by the time you reach number one.  While quite a few articles like these can actually be well written pieces, the decision by a content manager to butcher it up into individual pages only serves to alienate the reader and breed discontent with a site’s advertising strategies.

More often than not, articles like these end up getting reposted in full in Digg or Stumble comment fields, just for the pleasure of thwarting a page-view hungry site of it’s aim.  Of course by this time said site has already logged 15,000 ad displays from twenty visitors, so they probably aren’t worried too much.

Number One: Top Ten HOTTEST Gaming Ladies

How can we forget the irresistable combination of gaming and boobs at the same time?  For some reason, although the median age of gamers continues to rise, we gaming sites never seem to stop running these fucking lists.

Here’s a picture of Seamus with her armour off, thanks for increasing our Alexa rating!

As long as game developers continue to include eye-candy female characters for the boys to ogle, then we’ll continue to see these lists.  Why Lara Croft would ever waste her time raiding tombs, saving treasures and defending herself against ravenous wolves is beyond me.  It would seem that all she really needs to do is copyright her own image, get a decent lawyer, and then just start trawling AAA sites for lawsuits.  Until that day however, you can rest assured that there will always be plenty of cookie-cutter “HOT GAME LADY” lists out there to read, with a bag of Dead Or Alive Beach Volleyball screenshots at the ready.

And probably a photo of a buxom girl half-clad in an unconvincing Pokemon costume.

Feel free to Digg this article for the delicious irony!

So for a while now BioWare have been teasing their Twitter followers with cryptic updates on ME2‘s development. I figured “Why wait for them to tell us about it, when we all know what it’s going to be?” Read on, for the comic!

25/08/09 – Spoiling some Mass Effect 2 features

(click to enlarge!)

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Just a little post-script on this one:  The inspiration behind this comic, the hint dropping Christina Norman (otherwise known as @truffle on Twitter), enjoyed this comic so much she decided to re-tweet it into the Mass Effect feeds.

Wondering what the super secret tech feature for #masseffect2 is? [link]

So hopefully now we’ll all be getting our own robo-space ponies when the game comes out!

The new Xbox 360i. It's six times the slim of "another leading brand"!

A very interesting article on Industry Gamers has taken a bit of a vox pop with leading video game analysts to ask them “What are the chances of seeing an Xbox 360 Slim?“.  Now that the PS3 Slim has been confirmed, and everyone has decided to fire up MS Paint to make “confirmed” concept images of a slimmer Xbox 360 instead, it’s nice to hear some thoughtful and interesting opinions on the topic.  Here’s a quick excerpt:

Any reduction in the physical size of a console certainly adds a lot of financial benefits to the manufacturer. A reduced size decreases shipping costs, packaging material, and increases retail shelve space. There are costs, however, such as the cost to re-engineer a new console as well as the cost to modifying the manufacturing process. If the distribution benefits outweigh the costs, Microsoft should (and likely will) one day release a smaller Xbox 360 unit.

-Jesse Divnich from EEDAR

Now while advice and opinions from experts is always a good start for a discussion on any particular topic, we all know what we’re talking about the evolution of here.  Yes, it’s the Xbox 360i™ Lite VX (promotional shot top left).

Sony’s announcement of the PlayStation 3 Slim has started another skirmish in the theatre of console war.  A proverbial “Battle of the Bulge” if you will (not a literal one, obviously, the Ardennes have seen enough bloodshed). While at the beginning of this generation of consoles the race was presumably between technology and computing power, it has recently turned to size, and as the old adage goes: it’s not how big your console is, it’s how you use it.

Some may argue that no-one looks at the entertainment unit while they’re stoking the fire.  Others that a PSOne in the hand is worth a PS2 in the bush.  An even more vocal majority would quip that if it ain’t broken, Microsoft didn’t build it.

And that last adage (I promise!) is kind of the point.  While I’m sure all us narcissistic Xbox consolers would just love a tighter, curvier and slimmer version of our beloved entertainment unit, has anyone stopped to quickly consider the consequences of such cosmetic undertaking?  If the Xbox 360 has an assumed fail rate of around 40% (I’m being generous, I know) at present, with all of the air-venting, bulky fans and heat sinks, what chance would it stand if we crammed it all into a unit the size of your average VHS cassette?

So while we’d all like to think of a brighter future that includes the Xbox 360i™ Lite Limited Edition (Now with Septuple-xCore™ technology!), please don’t forget that you should check the batteries in your smoke alarms at the beginning of both the financial AND calendar year!

In less longwinded fashion, do take a look at the original article, it has actual sane opinions on the matter.

I told you I have one surprise left up my sleeve, content-wise, and today’s the day to show it off.  Say hello to “Armchair Diplomat Comics“, a series of webcomics written by me and Mark, and created by the reprobate Rembrandt behind out beautiful avatars, T-Bone (or Tristan, if you want to get technical).  We’re looking to publish one of these a month, so I hope you enjoy the first.  Just click “Read More” to check it out!

19/07/09 – The Xbox Mannequin Controller

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