Drop into the cockpit of a Formula One racer and experience the thrill of rocketing across an asphalt track against the backdrop of the Formula One 2006 season. As competitors muscle for rank, maneuver your vehicle with minute tugs of the Dual Shock controller to do your own muscling. When flying through a course, the buzz of the Formula One racers sound like a nest of angry hornets as everyone throttles their engines. Similar to the recent MotorStorm, cars may collide and break up with impressive effects as tires, chassis, and hulls ricochet off the track and into the cages that lines the stands or in the general vicinity of area impact.
The illusion of speed is well done and more so when trees dot the sides of the track. Watch as they blow past in rapid-fire fashion. The game features 18 courses and 22 drivers such as Michael Schumacher, Juan Pablo Montoya, Nico Rosberg, and more. Formula One CE works fine on USA PS3 consoles and is fairly import friendly. Most of the menus, drivers names, and onscreen information are in English.
The PSP looked good in lacquered black and looked even better in ceramic white. According to one of our ceramic-white-buying customers, he described himself as "big pimpin' for real" and we couldn't disagree. Since the dawn of ceramic white, Sony has also released pink and silver PSP color variants in rapid fire sequence. The latest color variant is a tint dubbed Metallic Blue which looks pretty good but we're still partial to the Silver PSP and waiting on the Gold color variant which is inevitable.
The February 2007 issue of Famitsu Wave DVD features coverage of the following games:
» X360 Lost Planet: Extreme Condition
» X360 The IdolM@ster
» X360 Winning Eleven X
» PS2 Shining Force EXA
» PS2 Kenka Banchou 2
» PS2 Neosphere of the Deep Blue Sky
» PS2 Wild Arms Vth Vanguard
» PS2 Soul Cradle
» PS2 Destroy All Humans
» PSP Powerstone Portable
and the usual assortment of game challenges, interviews, on-the-street coverage, and Famitsu tomfoolery.
Revisit the world of Dragon Quest with a new 3D adventure where players take control of a silver-maned lad. Since Akira Toriyama designed the character, the hero sports a hairstyle that is reminiscent of DBZ fighters. At the outset of the game, the first monster obtained is a chubby Dracky (it looks like a fat demon with bat wings and a tail) but additional monsters may be recruited into your party during encounters. The hero starts off with 150G and the mission is to enter the Joker Grand Prix with a troupe of monsters to become the top dog of the tournament. In the early part of the adventure, blue slimes are the most common enemies and they'll gleefully bound towards you to attack. As your Dracky levels up however, they'll turn tail and run when they spot your crew.
Slot your NDS Lite into the protective confines of Hori's Dragon Quest Monsters Joker Protector and it's instantly shielded from the elements, dust, and other airborne motes. As an added bonus, the red-line artwork of the DQM main character looks nifty. The DQM Joker Protector consists of two shells which clamp onto the top lid and the bottom portion of the NDS Lite. Installation is fairly simple but an illustrated guide is included to make sure you're affixing it properly.
If you drop your NDS Lite while encased in the DQM Protector, it might not break apart into a thousand pieces but there is no guarantee that the NDS Lite will survive a 6 foot plunge. As such, keep a sturdy grip on your gear.
Students learning kanji have a friend in D3 Publisher's Doko Demo Kanji Quiz which features 10,000 questions that test proficiency and character recognition. Input is made on the touch screen where kanji is written on specified retainers. The software is capable of interpreting most chicken scratches as long as the character is written with the proper strokes without overlap or errant criss-crossing.
Three levels of kanji testing are featured in the software for beginners, mid-level students, and seasoned pros. In addition to the standard drills and exams, a total of 20 enjoyable mini-games may be played to test one's kanji skills with a little bit of fun. The mini-games test memory retention, interpretation, fast-paced character recognition, and more.
