Wii Fit Plus to Debut at E3

Wii Fit is one of the best-selling video games of all time, with over 18 million copies sold in a little under a year on the market. Crazy? Yes. Depressing? Well, that's a matter of opinion. Not even Nintendo is going to leave such a successful product with no follow-up and we're starting to see signs of what the Wii Fit sequel might be. Last month it appears Nintendo registered both a trademark and logo with the Japanese trademark office for something called Wii Fit Plus. A similar registration happened in the European trademark offices at around the same time. Analyst group Macquarie Research has announced that they expect to see Wii Fit Plus officially announced at this year's E3.

The firm states that they expect the product to be sold separately from the Balance Board but also "in a bundle," which makes it sound like the potential Wii Fit sequel may have some sort of new peripheral all its own. Of course, analysts like Macquarie are wrong about their game industry predictions all the time. Even the existence of the logo you see above doesn't mean that something called Wii Fit Plus is necessarily going to be announced at E3 or will ever exist at all. Still, Wii Fit Plus is looking possible enough that we'll have our eyes peeled for it at the show this year.

Best Classical iPod Game Ever : Zuma

Now here is a game that really does lend itself well to the iPod!

For those of you that might not be familiar with Zuma the aim of the game is to prevent a series of different coloured balls from reaching the skull. This is done by shooting the different coloured balls from the mouth of a frog. Get three balls the same colour in a row and the balls disappear. Simple concept, great game play.

CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE ZUMA FOR JUST $2.99!

I have played Zuma previously on my laptop and whilst I found that the game was really addictive, progress was slightly hampered by the use of a mouse and so using the clickwheel to control the 360 degree motion made all the difference.

Graphics are good and the music adds to the Aztec ambience of the game.

Prince Of Persia 2008 Review

In many modern games, you rain death upon your enemies; how refreshing, then, that your main task in Prince of Persia is to breathe life into a darkening world. That doesn't mean that the forces of evil aren't on your tail in this open-world platformer, but the most indelible moments of this enchanting journey are uplifting, rather than destructive. Similarly, the latest iteration in this long-running franchise is a rejuvenation for the series, and it's an ambitious one, offering up a new titular prince and casting certain game traditions aside in favor of player immersion. And for the most part it succeeds, eliminating illusion-breaking mechanics like game-over screens and long loading times in the process. This re-imagining comes with a few caveats, however, and if you're a longtime series fan, you'll quickly discover--and possibly resent--that Prince of Persia is, far and away, the easiest game in the series. But if you can clear your mind and let the game's magic wash over you, its easygoing joy and visual beauty will charm you into forgiving a sprinkling of flaws.

This relationship enriches the very core of the experience, given that Elika is not your standard game sidekick. She isn't just a helpless companion, but an important part of a number of gameplay mechanics. As the prince, you will pull off moves familiar to franchise fans: jumping, climbing, scaling, and wallrunning among them. There are also a few new acrobatics to play with, such as the aptly named roofrun, where the prince scuttles along the roof in a vaguely simian manner. But if the moves are familiar, Elika's presence enriches and enhances them. She will jump on your back as you scale across vines, reach for your helping hand as you climb, and perform an elegant pas de deux with you when you need to pass her on a narrow beam. In some ways, this relationship recalls that of Ico and Yorda in 2001's ICO.

While in ICO Yorda was totally dependent on her companion, here Elika is far more helpful to the prince than he is to her. She is, in fact, your constant savior, because she will not, and cannot, allow you to die. Should you fall, Elika will grab you by the wrist and whisk you to safety--meaning the last checkpoint. There is a checkpoint at almost every platform, so aside from possibly having to repeat a few seconds of gameplay, there is absolutely no penalty for plummeting to your doom. You will never see the words "game over," and you won't need to save and reload before difficult sequences. Nor will you need to ever puzzle over how to make it from point A to point B: Elika can fire off a magical homing orb that will show you the precise way of getting to your destination. Combined with simple platforming controls that require a minimum of key or button presses, these facets make Prince of Persia one of the easiest games you'll play all year.

Crysis Cheats

Head to the difficulty files in your Crysis folder (for example: C:\Program Files\Electronic Arts\Crytek\Crysis\Game\Config). The four files you're looking for are titled diff_easy.cfg, diff_normal.cfg, diff_hard.cfg and diff_bauer.cfg. Open the file (using Notepad) of the difficulty level you are currently playing or wish to edit. Add the following line to the end of the file and save it:

• God Mode - g_godMode = 1
• No Target - ai_IgnorePlayer = 1
• No Weapon Limit - i_noweaponlimit = 1
• Unlimited Ammo - i_unlimitedammo = 1

You can also modify your suit stats. For example:

• g_playerHealthValue = 400.0
• g_playerSuitArmorModeHealthRegenTime = 0
• g_playerSuitArmorModeHealthRegenTimeMoving = 0
• g_playerSuitEnergyRechargeDelay = 0
• g_playerSuitEnergyRechargeTimeArmor = 0
• g_playerSuitEnergyRechargeTimeArmorMoving = 0
• g_playerSuitEnergyRechargeTime = 0
• g_playerSuitHealthRegenDelay = 0
• g_playerSuitHealthRegenTime = 0
• g_playerSuitHealthRegenTimeMoving = 0
• g_suitArmorHealthValue = 400.0
• g_suitCloakEnergyDrainAdjuster = 0
• g_suitRecoilEnergyCost = 0
• g_suitSpeedEnergyConsumption = 0
• g_suitSpeedMult = 2

After making all of your edits, save the file, load up a new game and see what you've edited!

Assassin's Creed Review

Assassin's Creed features one of the most unique gameworlds ever created: beautiful, memorable, and alive. Every crack and crevasse is filled with gorgeous, subtle details, from astounding visual flourishes to overheard cries for help. But it's more than just a world--it's a fun and exciting action game with a ton of stuff to do and places to explore, rounded out with a complex story that will slowly grab you the more you play. The PC version has a few more issues than its console counterparts, and the keyboard-and-mouse controls strip away some of the smooth magic of exploration. Nevertheless, if you don't mind plugging in a gamepad and have a system that exceeds the system requirements, you'll find the same free-form travels and atmospheric game world that console owners enjoyed last year.

Not enough can be said about the living, breathing universe that you'll inhabit in Assassin's Creed. As assassin extraordinaire Altair, you'll explore three major cities of the Holy Land in the 12th century: Jerusalem, Damascus, and Acre. Each city is beautifully rendered from top to bottom and features meticulously crafted towers that reach for the sky, bustling market squares, and quiet corners where citizens converse and drunks lie in wait to accost you. As you wander the streets (and rooftops), you'll push your way through crowds of women carrying jars on their heads, hear orators shout political and religious wisdom, and watch town guards harass innocent victims. Altair has a profound effect on this world, but the cities are entities all their own, with their own flows and personalities.

The visual design has a lot to do with how believably organic everything feels. The cities are absolutely huge, and though you don't get full exploration privileges in the first few chapters, they eventually open up to let you travel seamlessly from one side to another. Everything is beautifully lit with just the right amount of bloom effect, and almost everything casts a shadow, from tall pillars to Altair's cloak. In fact, sometimes the shadows get to be a bit much and may make you think for a moment that there is artifacting on your screen, when in fact it's a character's head casting a shadow on his or her own neck. Every object, from scaffolds to pottery, is textured so finely that you'll feel as if you could reach out and touch it. Animations are almost as equally well done. Altair scales walls, leaps majestically from towers, and engages in swashbuckling swordfights that would make Errol Flynn proud. And he does it all with fluid ease, generally moving from one pose to another without a hitch. Minor characters move with less aplomb, but that's easy to forgive, considering that the cities are populated with thousands and thousands of individuals.

On a high-powered PC, these elements look even more stunning than they did on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, but the splendor comes with a price: The minimum requirements to play Assassin's Creed are surprisingly high, particularly where the CPU is concerned (a dual-core processor is mandatory). On one test PC that runs Crysis at a respectable frame rate on medium settings, Assassin's Creed slowed to a crawl at lower settings. A high-end test machine ran the game with much better results, though with some occasional slowdown.

The story that binds it all together rises to the occasion. Actually, there are two related stories in play. The unfolding drama of Crusades-era Palestine is a mere memory, forcibly pulled from a modern-day bartender named Desmond by a resolute researcher using a machine called an animus. The memories aren't Desmond's own--they are Altair's, stored safely in the hapless subject's genetic code. We follow Altair as he assassinates nine public figures at the command of his master, and as the common thread that ties these men comes into focus, so does the true identity of Desmond's captors. There are no cutscenes in the traditional sense; every bit of story exposition and dialogue flows smoothly from the gameplay and takes place entirely within the game engine. The ending is confusing and blatantly leaves open the possibility of a sequel, but this is a small blemish on an otherwise stirring tale. Altair's world is not one of absolutes. His assassination targets aren't always evil, and Altair isn't always likable. As he is fond of reminding us, "Nothing is true. Everything is permitted." Of course, such an authentic world would be meaningless without a lot of fun things to do in it. Thankfully, Assassin's Creed is endlessly entertaining in that it features a fine mix of stealthy exploration, tight platforming, and exciting combat. To discover the whereabouts of your assassination targets, you must first follow up on possible leads. There are several different mission types in this regard. In some cases, you sit on a bench and listen in on secret conversations. At other times, you will closely follow someone carrying an important letter that you'll pickpocket. Alternately, you can beat the information out of your target. There are also some tasks specific to this version of the game. Oddly, some of these new missions feel more contrived than the others, such as timed sprints and escort tasks in which guards execute scripted attacks as you move to your destination. Since the game's greatest strengths lie in its unscripted events, these additional tasks feel less organic than the others. On the other hand, missions that let you silently assassinate rooftop archers and fling guards into market stands are more interesting and fit better into the game's sandbox world.