BitRabbit’s Yukiko now in Ireland, the UK
At the beginning of the year, Games Toaster reported that ‘Yukiko’, the first game by Dublin based mobile developer BitRabbit, was finished and released, just not in Ireland.
For about a month now, Yukiko has been available for Series 60 mobile phones vie jamster.ie, or jamster.co.uk.
For the slightly hidden option of ’single purchase’, jamster.ie gave us
a price of 4 euro, while the UK site quoted £4.50 (UKP), both not
including operator charges.
In addition, the two Jamster sites, which also sell the ‘Crazy Frog’
ring tone, offered the option of saving “up to 80% with the Jamster!
club”, however when the Office of the Director of Consumer Affairs
joint the club recently their experience, like many consumers, wasn’t the best.
The Yukiko is also available in the Carphone Warehouse preinstalled
on a 128Mb Multimedia Card (MMC) for £19.95, with two other games (by
other developers), Marble Revolution, and Sky Force.
Link: Ireland’s game dev potential, courses
DemonWare founders, Sean Blanchfield, CTO, and Dylan Collins, CEO.
Ireland-based tech website,
SiliconRepublic.com, has published an article under the title ‘Ireland
The piece focuses on the words of Dylan
Collins, CEO and co-founder of the Dublin games middleware
company, DemonWare. “People don’t realise the job opportunities that exist in
the games industry. Up until now the only games jobs were overseas. What’s
happening now is there is an opportunity for people interested in the games
industry to work at home in Ireland“,
Collins told SiliconRepublic.com. DemonWare recently got approval from Sony,
and Microsoft, to develop versions of their network-play middleware for the PS3,
and Xbox 360, respectfully.
Early this month, SiliconRepublic.com also ran a story on the rising numbers of collage and university courses for computer games development,
a list of such courses can be found on GameDeveopers.ie.
Small Claims Court rules against Smyth’s in case of broken down “PlayStation”
Judgement, and Director of Consumer Affairs
opinion, goes against what consumers are often faced with when complaining to
many shops about broken down consoles.
newspaper, the ‘Western People‘, it was reported that Margaret Noonan, of Cloondroon,
Milltown, Tuam, original bought a new “PlayStation” console from ‘Smyth’s’ at
the price of 199 euro in December 2002, but after it broke down in June 2003
she brought it back to the store where she was given a “re-conditioned PlayStation”.
“Ms Noonan was told this was a PlayStation which was as good as new”, reads the
Western, however this “re-conditioned” console subsequently broken down in February
of this year.
console to Smyth’s, she was told that the warranty only covered it for three
months, and that it would cost her 87 euro for second ‘re-conditioned’ console,
or 169 euro for a new console.
the Director of Consumer Affairs (ODCA), and in the newspaper’s own words, she was
told, “that when she returned to the shop in June 2003, it was not a question
of warranty but the Sale of Goods Act and she should have received a replacement
or a refund”.
Noonan get a full refund of 199 euro, Smyth’s were not represented in court.
says the Irish Government’s information website www.oasis.gov.ie “is to provide
an inexpensive, fast, and easy way for consumers to resolve disputes without
the need to employ a solicitor. The Small Claims service is provided in your
local District Court office”. [Further reading: Small Claims Court explained].
here.
2, not the original PlayStation, was priced at 199 euro. However, as we can
only re-report what the Western People have published about the case, we have confined naming
the console to quoting the newspaper.]
GT4 Champion of Ireland winner
A winner was found, but one apparent runner up claims the event
was the “most badly run event in the history of this country”,
reports Cian Ginty.
On
Monday the 6th, the bank holiday, David Cooney, from Glanmire, Co Cork,
fought it out in the finals of the Sony Computer Entertainment
Ireland’s GT4 Champion of Ireland competition to come out as the
all-Ireland winner.
Sony tells us over 1000 people entered the competition by summiting
their times on a specific track in the game to a website, the top 16
entries were gathered at the Nissan Ireland Head Office in Dublin for
the knock out based finals. With a top prize of a Nissan 350z Gran
Turismo Edition sports car worth over 60,000 euro, and not 55,000 euro as we were told before.
Cooney walked away as the only owner of a GT edition Nissan 350z in
Ireland, and an invite to Le Mans as the Ireland representative in the
European Final of Sony’s worldwide GT4 competition.
However, for at least one competitor, “Gaid1n”, a user on the Irish discussion site boards.ie,
says the event wasn’t so good. Although he says he “Had fun”, the
poster claims the event was marred with what he saw as technical
inaccuracies such as starting with gaming pods with two TVs, but each
TV, he says, screened a split screen displaying both drivers’ cars.
‘Gaid1n’ also claimed on his assigned pod “Player 2 had to listen to
the other persons TV”, citing the problem that they were “both
driving the same car which is hard enough to distinguish your engine
from the other guy, never mind having to listen to the one beside
you”, he states Sony “insisted” that sound was coming from both
TVs, although he admits “After the first races, they moved over to
the 2 main pods which had its sound hooked up to the PA system which
wasn’t too bad”.
Ireland Halo 2 tournament winner named, world-final to be played over Xbox Live
Microsoft
has named James Barrett ‘TheBar0n’, from Dublin, as the winner of
the Ireland leg of their Halo 2 tournament, he will go on to play in
the world championship over the Xbox’s ‘Live’ multiplayer
service.
The finals will take place next Friday, June 10. Winners from 24
regions will be split intro six groups, the ten minutes matches will be
played on the new ‘Warlock’ Halo 2 map. The overall winner will get
a 50′ Samsung flat screen DLP HDTV, Samsung HD DVD player, the
equivalent of $1,500, and a trophy with a 24 karat gold Halo 2 game
disc. [to hell with Blu-ray, right?]
The winners worldwide so-far are as follows: Australia: Cabel,
Austria: Billykater, Belgium: Project BE, Canada: I DaMan I, Denmark:
GermanFreak, Finland: Iw1K1LL, France: I theos I, Germany: Pr0gamer,
Hong Kong: Runningboy. Ireland: TheBar0n (James Barrett, Dublin),
Italy: N3LucifeRLS, Japan: To be crowned, Korea: Oddwing, Mexico:
MexLoco, Netherlands: King Tuur, New Zealand: Bob69er nz, Norway:
ZpiKey, Singapore: tidusSG, Spain: IlopsI, Sweden: Shellman,
Switzerland: Otcho Boy, Taiwan: I Kobegod I, United Kingdom:
o0Lethal0o, United States: To be crowned.
REVIEW: Pariah
Developer: Digital Extremes | Publisher: Hip | Format: Xbox (PC)
Reviewer: Craig Gallagher There’s
an over abundance of quality first person shooters available. From Halo
to Riddick, game shop shelves are full of great FPS demanding your time
and money. So, is Pariah worth your time or money?
Like last years XIII, Pariah is being sold on a story driven plot.
The story is the basic generic science fiction plot #23; your transport
ship carrying an infected prisoner is shot down over a prison-colony
planet. Your character, Dr. Jack Mason and the prisoner Karina survive
the impact. And soon you are traversing the landscape, shooting people
and, continuously crossing paths with Karina as you search for an
escape.
The Karina character is supposed to act as an emotional focal point
to the gameplay but ends up getting lost in the muddle narrative which
doesn’t really expand on the initial premise.
While the story may not be very interesting the gameplay sure is.
The action is fast, furious and a hell of a lot of fun. Unlike some FPS
ammo conservation is never an issue. There’s an over abundance of it
scattered around the landscape, allowing you to blow the shit into
everything that moves and some things that don’t.
Pariah is one of the most beautifully crafted environments this
reviewer has ever seen in a game. You will at spend time doing nothing
more than trying to get to higher view points just so that you can take
in the environment.
Over all Pariah is a worthy addition to any gaming collection, but
it just misses out on classic status. Next time the developers should
spend more time on the story and a little less time on hyping the game.
[Hype, isn't that not caused by PRs and journalists? - ed]