July 08, 2005, 1:42 PM PDT
It's getting crowded in Persia
Posted by: Robert Dubbin

Man, they are just churning out Prince of Persias (Princes of Persia?) these days. Kotaku's got a few new screenshots from the third installment of the reborn ninth-century adventure franchise--they look gorgeous, of course, and promise great things, as all screenshots do, but...well, what happened to delayed gratification? Wasn't there a new one of these just last November? And the November before that? I have an uncle like this--one day we turned around and he had three kids, all roughly the same age. Which makes Ubisoft's three-in-three-years accomplishment all the more staggering since, from what I understand, children don't have to undergo a substantial debugging process. Ubisoft's Splinter Cell and Rainbow Six properties are on the same blistering schedule: there have been three Splinter Cells in three years and at least one Rainbow Six on one platform or another since the series hit the current generation of consoles in 2003.

Times were, the only games to have a new edition every year were sports games, and even then, you'd just get some minor graphical touch-ups and a few updated rosters. But, of course, this is a new age, a utopian era in which developers gratefully work their tails off in exchange for commensurate pay and overtime compensation.

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July 08, 2005, 9:09 AM PDT
Maybe he should have let me win
Posted by: Robert Dubbin

I had a nice visit with the folks from Majesco yesterday and got a hands-on look at some of their upcoming handheld titles. The two standouts, arbitrarily listed in descending order by number of gore-spattering zombie explosions, were Infected for the PSP and Bust-A-Move DS. We covered Infected at E3, and the demo I saw yesterday is the same one they had on the show floor, albeit without the accompanying lines of impatient, unshowered attendees.

The best part of Infected's deathmatch, which I tried out against one of the game's principal developers, was an innovative combo system that rewarded me for taking out large numbers of enemies at once (it's not just you versus your human opponents--there are also zombies). The worst part of the deathmatch was that this dude totally hosed me. It wasn't even close.

Which got me thinking: developers spend literally thousands of hours coding--and more importantly, testing--their game. Plus, Infected isn't out yet, so this guy was also one of the few Earth humans to have played it for any length of time, at all. Which means that there's a very, very good chance that he's currently the best player in the entire world. Put in terms that any deathmatch veteran can understand: he knows where the rocket launcher is, and I'm trying to remember which button lets me cower.

That said, I've played my fair share of Bust-A-Move. And I put up a pretty good fight before that producer took two games out of three.

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July 08, 2005, 7:56 AM PDT
(Not the*) first 1080p DVD player
Posted by: David Katzmaier

*Update: Thanks to a vigilant reader and the fine folks at avsforum, I stand corrected. Apparently the $225 NeuNeo HVD2081 can output 1080p via component-video, and more than just those high-end Mitsubishis can accept it. One example is the Samsung LTP468W, according to the company's website.

I'm sure the capability to output 1080p resolution will be available next year in a $99 CyberHome DVD player from Wal-Mart, but one of today's only players that can do so costs $6,500. The Classè CDP-300 upconverts DVD's 480p resolution to numerous others, including that holy grail of res, 1080p. Before you rush out to buy three of them, remember that it does 1080p only via the HDMI output and that no current or announced 1080p-capable HDTV can even accept a 1080p signal via HDMI. (In case you're wondering, the only next-gen 1080p microdisplays I know of that can handle 1080p at all are the Mitsubishi WD-62927/73927, available next September, and they take 1080p via VGA only.) Also, while upconversion to higher resolutions inside the DVD player is generally a good thing (the Sony DVP-NS975V review has details), it's no substitute for true HD resolution at the source. To get that from a 5-inch disc, you'll have to wait for Blu-ray/HD-DVD.

"What's up with the little TV on the front?" you ask? It's an LCD touch screen that conjures up the major controls as well as offering a video preview, so users don't have to turn on their 65-inch plasmas to navigate DVD-Audio (or video) discs. Thanks to the high cost of LCD touch screens, those same users can rest assured that next year's CyberHome won't have a screen.

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