Points visits My Famicase Exhibition a exposition of Famicom cart labels from fictional games created by different artists and we get a glimpse of last year Fami-mode, an all night party with some sweet chiptune music.

http://points-tv.com
http://super-meteor.com
Fami-com 08

I’m back from my extended vacation, the site should come back alive slowly from this point. I’ve been working on a lot of projects, so there’s some good stuff coming up in the near future. Along with the usual type of posts you should look forward to more papercrafts of course, but also some PSP themes and maybe a improved design for the site. I’m happy to start working on More Prime again and I will work hard to make a good site out of this.

(right click and “Save Link As”)

The Prince
Car
Cat part 1, cat part 2
Giraffe Hat (for The Prince)
House
Prince Face

No More Heroes is the new game from Suda51 the director of the cult classic Killer7. I have to admit I have yet to finish Killer7, I’m about haft way through but it’s a special game with a lot of style and originality not only in the visuals but in the story and characters. I think it’s a good game that tried something different and if you are a serious video game enthusiast you should play it at least once. No More Heroes is already out in Japan, the release date for North America is February 5th. Don’t miss this one, it’s going to be crazy.

I’ve been regularly voting on the Everybody Votes Channel on the Wii since the release of the channel. I don’t think I’ve missed any vote yet. My total of votes (with results) is now 150, which gives me a prediction accuracy ratio of 70.6% with 106 wins and 44 losses. The rest of the stats are a bit confusing since you can’t know for sure what is taken in consideration to produce them, but it seems I am not in tune with my surroundings and my experience. It also seem that I am 88 meters away from popular opinion, I guess I have often voted for the loosing options. I’ll report again when the count reaches 200. Oh and did you know Japan believes in ghosts and Australia doesn’t?

PSP firmware is now v3.80, the main feature of this update is the addition of two internet radio players for the PSP. Player I works with SHOUTcast and Player II with Icecast2, the files downloaded to your PSP for each player are around 12kb and you will of course need to have access to a wireless connection in order to listen to the stations.

After updating the firmware, navigate to the Network tab in the XMB where you should be able to see the new “Internet Radio” option. Select “About Internet Radio” and just follow the instructions to download the players. Once that’s done, Player I and Player II will be available in the same location.

Both radios work the same way but they each offer different stations, though SHOUTcast seems to have a bigger selection.

I have to admit I don’t use my PSP very often, but it’s slowly winning me over by adding features like this. Internet radio is a great way to discover new music and there’s so much variety everyone is sure to find something they like. It takes almost no space at all on the Memory Sticks so make sure to download them. You’ll have access to tones of music anywhere you can get a wireless connection.

Quick Tips

• Press down on the d-pad to see all the genres and the options.
• The four buttons at the bottom turn on and off different sound effects that make the player sound like an analog radio, I suggest to at least turn off the last one to remove the static sound.
• The four circles labeled C, B and P display the quality and consistency of the stream.
• Click on the name of the station to open a new browser tab to their website.
• Click the small lit windows to change stations or click the “other stations” arrows.
• Sometimes a station will have more than one stream for different bit rates, see the tip above.
• Press on START to mute the player and press it again to resume.

Here’s pictures of thowmps people made. I’d like to thank, Nate, Patrick and Anonymous for sending these in. If you made one using my plans, feel free to send me a picture of yours at: prime[at]moreprime.com

I’m currently working on two new models, one is video game related and the other is an original more designer-like. I will post them on the site along with the plans when they’re done. Two more pictures of thwomps after the jump.

Team Fortress 2 is probably my favorite multiplayer game of the year. The last online first person shooter that captivated me to this extend was the original Enemy Territory, so it’s been a long time but TF2 brought me back and reminded me why I enjoy team based games so much.

I’ve been playing Team Fortress 2 regularly since the beta, and it doesn’t seem like I’m going to get bored playing the same six maps anytime soon. Although My stats say Engineer is the class I clocked the most time with, Spy is what I been mostly playing these past weeks. I change to other classes depending on what the team needs and if we’re on offense or defense and which map is currently been played, but Spy is my new favorite class. It seems there’s no middle ground of Spy though, you either suck real bad or everyone on the other team wish you were dead. When you play Soldier for example, even if you’re having a bad night you still end up scoring points and are of some usefulness, but the bad nights with spy are really depressing. Your lifespan is very short, it seems everyone is out to get you and you start making more mistakes. Spy must be the most rewarding class but also the one with the most risk involved.

Valve recently published a big load of statistics for Team Fortress 2. If you’re a serious TF2 player make sure to check them out, it’s really interesting.
http://steampowered.com/status/tf2/tf2_stats.php

Here are some more of my stats. I have all the achievements except for one, play with 7 people on your friends list, the other ones you unlock them naturally during the course of the game, 7 people takes some planning or a clan.

Being conditioned by the Japanese school of role playing games, it always seemed like a game would fall in the RPG genre by having experience points, hit points, and a save-the-world story, but playing Mass Effect opened my mind to a whole new aspect of these type of games, the actual role playing.

On my first play through, I imagined myself being the character that I had created so each choice taken was something that reflected my own personality. During the time spend in the game I became the main character, Commander Shepard, and I was the one deciding where to go, what to say and who to save or kill. The end result was a space born soldier with a 75% paragon (noble, cooperative, self-sacrificing) and 25% renegade (ruthless, aggressive, selfish) personality. You can’t turn completely evil and become one of the bad guys, but you can be rude and threatening in order to get to your goal.

The principal mechanic that enables you to really feel engaged in the story and in the interaction between characters is the choice-based dialogue. Every time Shepard speaks, you get to choose the overall tone of the reply by selecting one of the multiples abridged versions of the possible answers. What you select is not exactly what’s going to be said but the emotion you want to convey. It’s in this mechanic that you notice how great the writing is in Mass Effect, I might not be really good with words but the choices I took always sounded well coming out of my character mouth. This helps to keep the conversations interesting, since you don’t just re-hear your answer, the dialogue stays seamless and in context of the scene, you even come to wonder how Shepard is possibly going to react or say while making your choice.

This isn’t the only reason why you actually feel you’re role playing in Mass Effect. The way the story is structured and delivered, the fact that your decisions have a real immediate impact and the options you’re given aren’t just A-1 and A-2, but actually A and B, give you the sense that you’re making your own story. Furthermore, the order in which you choose to talk to people (in quests or in the main story), in what order you complete the missions and who you take along with you all affect how the story will unfolds before you. Using your charm or intimidation (requires allowing ability points in the respective skill) often result in avoiding combat or even resolving impossible situations. Of course the end of the path is somewhat the same for everyone, but the character development you’ll get and who’s going to end up dead or alive will be different for everyone.

Although the story isn’t the most original as a whole, the last two hours are really well crafted and deliver on all aspects. The zones you go through as the game comes to a end are some of the most impressive and memorable environments I’ve seen these past years. You’ll have to make tough decisions and the drama will climb up, but by the time the credits roll you’re not only going to want to see what happens next to your character, you’re also going to want to start a new game. Which is a great feat, considering how many games are asking to be played this time of the year.

If you keep yourself in the main track of Mass Effect it’s going to be a fun ride, but not everything is as great in the Milky Way galaxy. The fact that you don’t have to “grind” (the game will always adapt to your level), is a great thing and I really like it, but you come to wonder if the items you equip have any importance. The gear you’ll find in the abundance of crates and containers is usually as good, and in most cases even better than what the shops offer which in reaction makes the money you get almost useless. The game will always throw at you better gear for free. All that, added to the many types of ammo you’ll get which are probably only useful in the higher difficulty settings, coupled with a unintuitive inventory system make that particular part of the game unpleasant.

The other thing that I wasn’t much impressed with, is the uncharted-worlds side quests. Most of the time all you get as a reward, except for the usual exp and money, is just a window with text. Some of the bigger ones, like the character specific ones also reward you with text, a few cut scenes would had been enough to make them good. You’re also going to be running in deja vu all the time, every base, bunker, cave or spaceship you’ll explore is the same, the crates and containers are laid out differently but the architecture of the zones are identical. I recommend only doing the one named Rogue VI since it actually rewards you with something useful, but unless you’re willing to invent and imagine your own stories or want see the whole content of the disk you’ll prefer to stay on the main path.

Mass Effect is one of my favorite titles this year, and thinking that it’s just the first installment of a trilogy gives me high expectations for the next games. If they can take what they already made in this first episode, perfect it and build upon it, we’re in for something epic. So make sure you don’t miss out on this game, it should please both fans or 3rd person shooters and RPGs. I hope you’ll discover and enjoy the actual role playing as much as I did.

This is my King Of Games Zelda 20th Anniversary shirt. It came in this nice little box, with some K.O.G stickers and a postcard in bonus! More pictures and a video interview from GameVideos with the designer after the jump.

You can see the evolution of Link’s shield from the first Legend Of Zelda, Link To The Past, Ocarina Of Time and The Wind Waker. The print has some velvety-like texture and you can read “20th Anniversary” in Hyrulian on the front side and 1986-2006 on the back.

The King Of Games Store