It seems that a company called Warp Pipe, may be in a partnership with Nintento that is intent on bringing an online component to the DS?!?!

Oh the possibilities.

Here is a nice little summary of the link:

What You Now Should Know

The Warp Pipe Team is working on a new project for the Nintendo DS that’ll enhance the social aspect of online multiplayer.
The DS is capable of producing multiplayer signals well beyond the 30-100 feet range, or even the nationwide Wi-Fi.
Nintendo, whether this is related to the existing Warp Pipe project or not, is interested in creating a system by which DS users can download new content, updates, and more.
The DS has the ability to “link” to other DS’s in a large-scale area by utilizing hot-spots, though it is not known if this ability will be utilized via this project. In other words, 10 players in the 30-100 feet range can find 10 more in the vicinity of, say, an entire college campus.
The Warp Pipe service will launch later this year.
Several publishers and developers are amongst the select few “in the know”.
N-Sider will break the news (at least in part) by mid-October, following an NDA that was signed, with the full blown announcement scheduled to debut a bit later.

What Remains To Be Confirmed

Is there a connection between Chad’s team and the Nintendo corporation?
Is Warp Pipe Technologies now an officially licensed software developer?
Who will support this new feature, aside from the aforementioned third parties?
Will the new feature come embedded with the DS, or will it function via an external peripheral of sorts?
Will similar technologies come implmented into Nintendo’s Revolution to offer a revolutionary, *free* online service? Remember, Nintendo never wanted to go online this generation to avoid having to charge extra for services, ala Sony and Microsoft. Iwata said they were researching ways to go online without having to do so. Could this be the answer? Will a social, new online experience come straight out of the box?

Call of Duty was a phenominal game. It came on the heels of Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, which, I an say, blew all of our minds with its immersion. Well, CoD took MoH.. lined it up in its crosshairs, reloaded its Thompson, and called in an airstrike on it. Who can forget the scenes of the parachute drop into Brecourt.. or the boat crossing and later deathfield crossing of Stalingrad. Call of Duty put you in the middle of the battlefield, and it did so with blinding realism.

Well CoD is back.. and its packing some serious heat. To begin with, the game starts out with more of the crazy battle you loved in the original. Starting at the battle of the bulge, it grips you with a great story line. You get to do the usual missions, and you even get behind the gun of a few choice vehicles (including a bomber’s guns!).

The missions are again VERY immersive. For example: In the battle of the bulge.. while you are whailing away with a machine gun, trying to keep the germans from overrunning you position, sending in all manner of tank and halftrack to mess with you, you can see wayy off in the distance, your cohorts trying to hold their own stretch of the line. You never feel alone. And you ALWAYS feel like fate’s fickle finger will strike you down with an errant bullet.

As if getting more awesome missions wasn’t enough, the multiplayer, which IMHO was one the best WWII multiplayer shooter to date, has had some improvements on a massive scale.

First, they included vehicles. They do feel similar to say BF1942, but somehow there is a bit more realism. They seem to handle more like I imagine they might have in the real world. Also, they never overpower the rest of the game. Inf are still the bread and butter of the multiplayer maps.

And speaking of maps.. there are a slew of new ones. One , called Rhine Valley, is like Bergesgaden (sp?) the castle like structure that was high on a hill overlooking a town and the fortress home of hitler. Its obviously been played with, but having this fort on the hill overlooking a town that you can go down and fight in rules. The angles are steep, and the fighting is frenzied. A couple of statioary 88’s provide fixed protection against tanks.

Lastly are the improvements to the infantry. There is now a machine gunner. Who haas to be deployed to fire, but if he gets deployed, can cause some serious havoc. Next there is a few new other guns. one of note is the German gewehr 43 automatic rifle. Which acts alot like the allies M1 Garand. It adds a much needed balance to the rifles in the game. And my personal favorite addition… SMOKE GRENADES! The smoke adds to the chaos, as when you just can’t seem to get by a defneder’s area… you and your pals, can pour smoke on an area and rush it. VERY COOL.

All in all, this game is more Call of Duty, with multiplayer enhancements that will knock your socks off.

Russell gives it :

Firing Squad 91% out of 100%

Gamespot 8.9 ediors / 9.3 overall out of 10

GameSpy 3.5 Stars out of 5

WorthPlaying 9.5 out of 10

Avault 4.5 Stars out of 5

Imagine being 10 years old, having a nintendo DS - and playing some weird hunt and seek game with the DS. Imagine.

Nintendo DS wireless hub trick up its sleeve? - Engadget - www.engadget.com: “A recent flurry of rumors and pictures has handheld gamers going nuts with speculation over the thought that Nintendo still has a huge trump card up its sleeve. A batch of pictures featuring creepy marionettes with the words “Find(s)me” along with a shot of a lone boy in a forest using a DS as some sort of navigation device seem to point to the possibility of a massive DS wireless network that’s bigger and badder than we previously thought.”

Today IGN has a post about their hands-on impressions of Conker’s. This game is essentially a remake of Nintendo 64’s Conker’s Bad Fur Day, but with what looks to be a ginormous graphics overhaul. IGN “left with the reassurance that this continues to be one of the best-looking games on the (Xbox)”.

From the get go the game targeted a mature raiting. Conker drops f-bombs and laughs mennacingly as he guns down the entire mechanical teddy bear army. Imagine evil fluffy bears with rocket launchers. Headshots not only produce a plume of 3D blood, but sometimes leave half the head intact from the jaw down.

This title is all about gore, trash-talk swearing and kicking the sh** out of fluffy teddy bears. If that doesn’t pique your interest, maybe this E3 trailer will - a must watch if you’re looking for a mature third person shooter (that’s not Max Payne). It’s also on the Fable DVD if you haven’t popped that in already.

The game is scheduled to ship on December 7th.

Strategy gamers are going absolutley ga-ga over RTW right now.

If this is your first game in the Total War series you might find the RTW a wee bit daunting. I played the hell out of Medieval Total War and I’m still finding theres a lot to learn in RTW.

So many little things you can control in your empire.. but don’t get overwhelmed! all those little things are what makes the game such a joy to play.

Unlike most deep strategy games you can chose to ignore a lot of depth in RTW as you chug through turns learning to play. That’s a sign of a strong game - allow control only if the player wants to take it.

But if you want to speed up the learning process by reading at work, Gamespy is taking a few days to post their RTW Strategy Guide.

It’s good. Enjoy.

Ok, unless I’ve just never read them all, this Naming Policy from the World of Warcraft, has got to be the most comprehensive and extensive (is that redundant) I have ever seen.

Some of my favorite sections include the name can’t:

Contain “Leet” or “Dudespeak”

This category includes names which:

• Consist of language existent only in online communication
• Examples: “Roflcopter”, “xxnewbxx”, “Roxxoryou”

I for one am quite disappointed that I will not be able to name any character “Rolfcopter.” Enjoy the read.

Yesterday/Today (Japan is funny like that) at the Tokyo Game Show Sony announced a December 14th release date for Gran Turismo IV. This fourth installment of the racing franchise has been highly anticipated and drooled over for years by PS2 fans. I almost bought a PS2 just to play it.

Almost. It seems they’ve recently made an executive decision to strip-out the online component of the game, only to stick it into a FUTURE release of another Gran Turismo product. Holy jerk-move.

Couple that with the fact that there’s NO damage modeling in the game, at all, and they’ve just lost a customer. Hey, thanks for saving me some cash Sony!

Well Its been a very busy time for me, but Rome:Total War has arrived! Im not sure how I’ll be able to squeeze it in between the WoW beta, Star Wars on DVD, Fable, Burnout3, and Starwars Battlefront… but somehow I’ll find the time!

Ill be giving you my thoughts on what is sure to be one of the greatest games this year in the coming days. *joy*

My Xbox has been complaining of dirty game discs with increasing frequency. I pop the tray open to find a completely clean disc. Only sometimes will just putting the disc back in clear up the problems - more often than not I have to take in’n'out three times before the xbox recognizes it. Reminds me of the old Nintendo problems.

I found this nugget of knowledge in the Ars Technica gaming forum while reading my football league thread:

The drive was slowly dieing with “Dirty Disc” errors.

I replaced it with a new Thompson drive I purchased off of ebay for under $32 shipped. Service was great, and I received the drive in about 3 days. (not bad considering it was shipped from Canada to the US) Its not that difficult to install if you have ever put your own computer together, but you do need some torx screwdrivers or bits to open the Xbox.

These are the people I bought my drive from:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=20385&item=8131907576&rd=1

http://www.llamma.com/xbox/ has some good info on opening and replacing the DVD drive on the Xbox.

I figure $33 and 30 mins of your time is cheaper than $150+tax for a new Xbox. Smile (Not to mention having problems transfering all of your saved games and data to the new Xbox)

I’ll probably end up doing this sooner or later. If it’s as easy as it sounds, I’ll let you know.

Check your spam filters ’cause Blizzard may be contacting you with a beta invitation. Theres’ no new signup — only those who signed up way-back-when at the initial offering will be in the list of those chosen.

But still I’m sure a few of you are on that list.

If you do get in, Russ and I are on the PvP server playing as Alliance.