Music sims are much better with tabletop consoles. The Guitar Hero pack for the Nintendo DS was a pretty decent attempt and Rock Revolution and Ultimate Band made good use of the touch pad but they can’t get any better than playing Guitar Hero or Rock Band on a Wii/PS2/Xbox.

Anyway, for DS gamers, you might be content with existing titles but those who have been lucky enough to be forced by parents to take piano lessons might be looking for a piano twist. Well, Namco Bandai is remedying that with the Easy Piano. It’s a music sim that uses mini-keyboard that slots in you DS’ GBA slot (a la Guitar Hero). Heck, even Rock Band doesn’t have a keyboard in its ensemble.

A pretty neat concept but given the size of that thing? Might be better of playing with those Casio mini-keyboards.

If you think that Maxis and EA have neglected Nintendo platforms for their Spore game lineup, fret not. Maxis has announced details about Spore Hero and Spore Hero Arena – two games that will be developed exclusively for the Wii and DS platforms.

Exclusive releases are always a good thing since they do tend to maximize the platforms unique technologies. For the Wii and the DS, expect the games to exploit the interactivity factors of both games. Ported games usually just provide token use of controls which aren’t usually as fun and that’s what these new Spore titles will try to evade.

Spore Hero will be the exclusive title for the Wii. It will be a story driven game where the Hero embarks onn an epic quest to save the world. Storyline might be cliche but hey, this is Maxis and the Wii controls will surely account for something really fun. For the Wii, Spore Hero Arena will feature an arena-based combat featuring a Spore gladiator Hero.

Via: AWN

I still can’t afford getting an HD monitor and an XBox 360 or a PS3 so as far as any Grand Theft Auto action, the last time I got some was playing San Andreas. Since I opted to get myself a Nintendo DS over a PSP, I wasn’t able to touch the Stories games. But all of that will change soon as they have decided a GTA game exclusive for the DS.

Dubbed GTA: Chinatown Wars, the game will be set in Liberty City and would involve a Chinese triad-related storyline. The game is supposed to take advantage of the stylus-driven gameplay of DS games though, to break tradition, this new GTA will use a behind-the-player 3D view instead of the top-down style of the GTA games published on Nintendo platforms.

Word has it that it is to come out next year but some rumors say that it might be as soon as this Christmas to be in time for the game-buying rush.

Image Source: UGO Game Blog

I guess it’s time to dish out some more magic into this thing. Sheesh, crappy average blog postings per month and we’re supposed to be committed to bring you nothing but the best in everything sugoi.

For those of you who don’t know who Stephen Fry is, stop watching Pinoy Dream Academy and those other brainless Pinoy TV and start watching some British TV. (Yey! Pelt me with stones for being unpatriotic. Come on, PDA and PBB are all brainless shows. Piff!) He’s that genius of a Brit who happens to be a writer, director, actor, blah, blah… You might also know him as the other half of the Fry and Laurie comedy tandem. Laurie as in Hugh Laurie – that British bloke who plays Greg House in House MD.

Anyway, Stephen Fry has just started blogging and he’s also writing about games and gaming. Here’s what he has to say about his pink DS Lite.

My DS Lite is pink. There was so much demand earlier this year that they couldn’t be had for bribes, sexual favours or worse. Unless you accepted girly pink. The moment you open it, you are taken back to the old Game & Watch days but can see why the DS has succeeded so well with the middle class, the middle-aged and the Hello Kitty/My Little Strawberry Shortcake Pony set. You set up in a twinkle and then play on two screens, one of which accepts stylus input and touches.

He goes on into comparing it with the unimaginative PSP, and boy do I agree. It was a toss coin thing for me on how to spend a good month’s pay and I took the DS over the PSP. Never mind if I could actually watch hi-def pr0n on a PSP. Handheld pr0n is for wankers anyway. Can’t wait for his take on the Wii.