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New Signal Process introduces BreakOut Stereo and Stomp for the most serious of iOS musicians
If your iPad or iPhone is set to play a starring role at your next, sold-out concert, you may want to check out two new, iOS-friendly interfaces from New Signal Process. Pictured above is NSP's BreakOut Stomp -- a die cast aluminum-encased pedal that promises to transmit guitar signals to and from your iDevice, without any unwanted distortions or detection interference. All you have to do is slide the stompbox into your pedal board, hook it up to your iPhone's headphone jack and fire up your favorite recording or mixing apps. Whereas the stomp was designed with guitarists in mind, the recently unveiled BreakOut Stereo is geared more toward the DJ demographic. The device offers essentially the same iOS-interfacing capabilities of its pedal-based counterpart, serving as a portable conduit between an iPad and an amp or tabletop unit. Boasting two mono output jacks, this little guy can also be used with guitars, mics or mixing boards and is durable enough to survive the rough and tumble of your next world tour. As far as prices go, the BreakOut Stomp is selling for $155, whereas the Stereo will set you back $135. Groove past the break to see an image of the latter, or hit the source link to find out how to order one.
Steampunk Arduino Watch tells time, plays Breakout, thrills the world
We've seen no shortage of homegrown watches in our lifetime, and the quantity of Arduino-based gadgetry that graces the web each day might just outnumber the quantity of humans incensed by BP right now. But so far as we can tell, this is the first instance we've seen of the two combining in holy matrimony. The delicately crafted Arduino Watch: Steampunk Edition actually lives up to its name, providing augmented sensing of temperature and range, a 16-bit color drawing program, Breakout game and the ability to display time in digital, analog or binary. Best of all, the creator asserts that various other sensors and programs can be added on a whim, which is something your $4,000 Sea-dweller most certainly cannot say for itself. Speaking of cost, we're told that the whole shebang can be crafted for around $250, but considering that you'll be a local hero should you actually duplicate the effort here, you owe it to yourself to give those source links a long, hard look.
Freescale partners with Savannah school for some leg-stretching tablet concepts, makes a nice use case for Light Peak
Normally when you've got industrial design students going wild on computer concepts, you get a lot of wild, unrealistic computer concepts. There's plenty of that here, but this 10 week collaboration between Freescale, some of its top partners, and Savannah College of Art and Design students is yielding a bit of fruit. We particularly like this docking tablet that can slot into different docks depending on use case -- the two primary ones shown being a home entertainment setup and a pro audio breakout. Sure, it's still not the most realistic way to use a tablet -- we'd much rather have solid support for 3rd party USB devices in the near term -- but with a bit of Light Peak and some as-ye-unseen pricing, this could make for some pretty slick use cases.
Students program Human Tetris into 8-bit microcontroller, give away schematics for free (video)
Sure, Project Natal is the hotness and a little bird tells us PlayStation Move is pretty bodacious, but you don't have to buy a fancy game console to sooth your motion-tracking blues. When students at Cornell University wanted to play Human Tetris (and ace a final project to boot), they taught a 20Mhz, 8-bit microcontroller how to follow their moves. Combined with an NTSC camera, the resulting system can display a 39 x 60 pixel space at 24 frames per second, apparently enough to slot your body into some grooves -- and as you'll see in videos after the break, it plays a mean game of Breakout, too. Full codebase and plans to build your own at the source link. Eat your heart out, geeks.
Nintendo UK announces Reflect Missile for DSiWare, releases it
Ready for some fairly unsurprising news? Nintendo UK recently revealed what we all expected yesterday following the OFLC rating of a Q-Games project titled Reflect Missile -- the game is designed for the DSiWare platform, and features Breakout-esque gameplay with strategy elements. You have to use a special set of missiles to help you clear out the aforementioned bricks, but you've only got a limited number, so ballistic conservation is key. Ready for some completely flabbergasting news? According to the same Nintendo listing, the game is out right now in the UK. Like, this second, now. You can own it, provided you live in the UK, and have access to the fungible assets required to purchase 500 DSi Points. We've contacted Q-Games to find out when Reflect Missile will be fired at North America.
BreakQuest delivering PSP Mini-sized Arkanoid clone
The world currently faces a crisis of epic proportions -- a global shortage of Breakout-esque games. Without competition, the few entries in this brick-smashing genre have monopolized the market, leading to a lack of competition, which will lead to another gaming industry crash, which will lead to complete economic collapse, which will lead to the nuclear apocalypse. Fortunately for us, indie developer Beatshapers will try to save our world this October with a ball-and-paddle PSP Mini titled BreakQuest. Okay, the demand for Arkanoid clones is considerably lower than the previous paragraph may have indicated, but we admit -- BreakQuest looks pretty stylish. Well, as stylish as an under-100MB Breakout title on the PSP could look. Check out the gallery below for a fresh batch of screenshots. [Via IGN] %Gallery-73940%
New Shatter trailer brings the beats, busts a buncha blocks
There's a lot of buzz surrounding Sidhe's Shatter, the block-breaking PSN title set for release next week. Heck, a lot of that buzz comes directly from us, and if you've been wondering what the fuss is all about, you need only look to the trailer above. Seriously, drink it in with your eyes. This is the stuff made of legends (and maybe a few gigglebits).
See more of PSN's Shatter in motion
OK, before you watch the video after the break: Imagine if someone traveled into the future, killed all the guys in that Yatta! video and used their blood sacrifice to revive a recently murdered Daft Punk. If they made a game about that, it would be Shatter. Now, you may watch.We weren't cool enough to hear about Shatter on the E3 show floor, so we, much like yourselves, are just now climbing on the bus. And what a freaked out, Breakout-esque bus it is too.
Atlona AT-HD570 breaks lossless audio out of its HDMI shell
In its apparent quest to build up a product cutsheet on par with Gefen's, Atlona has added the audio-splitting AT-HD570 to its lineup. This gadget should be music (ahem) to those who want to hold on to their older receivers/processors, but are itching to get the new lossless audio codecs on Blu-ray discs. Send in a HDMI signal with audio in either LPCM or bitstream format (up to Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD MA), and this little box will break out the audio on SPDIF optical and 7.1-channel analog; those interested in the lossless codecs will want to grab those analog outputs. Meanwhile, the video signal stays on that HDMI cable, ready to go along its merry way to your video gear. The $219 price point might get you to consider picking up a Blu-ray deck with analog outputs instead, but definitely useful for cases where you're forced to deal with HDMI-less components.
Shatter breaks onto PSN later this year
Move over, Magic Ball. PlayStation Network is getting yet another twist on the classic brick-breaking genre courtesy of Sidhe, "New Zealand's largest game studio." You'll know how to play Shatter just by looking at the trailer: use a paddle to bounce an object back and destroy bricks. However, this isn't your father's Breakout. Expect a variety of power-ups, special attacks and, yes, boss battles.You can check out the debut trailer, after the break.
Studio Arkedo taking on Wii for their next game
Studio Arkedo, the French developer behind Nervous Brickdown and the upcoming Big Bang Mini on DS is branching out to Wii, according to a Cubed3 interview. While talking about the upcoming Nintendo Channel demo of Big Bang Mini, Camille Guermonprez offers the fairly unambiguous hint "Our next project in on the Wii, by the way *grins*".This could mean a Wii version of Big Bang Mini, as Guermonprez states earlier in the interview that "We would love to do Big Bang Mini with its addictive blending on a bigger screen.." Or it could mean a new project. What it probably won't be is a WiiWare game: "WE WANT BOXED GAMES *grins*", Guermonprez said. Whatever it turns out to be, expect color.
Virtually Overlooked: Arkanoid
With the 30th anniversary celebration of Space Invaders (probably) coming to a close, celebrated most recently by the release of Space Invaders Get Even on WiiWare, I find myself brimming with happy feelings about anything that falls in the category of "classic Taito." Arkanoid is a perfect companion piece to Space Invaders, sharing the same basic layout as the shooter: a player character on the bottom of the screen, moving left and right and aiming projectiles at obstacles arranged on the top half of the screen.DS updates of both games were released simultaneously, and while Space Invaders Extreme turned out to be one of the best games of the year, Arkanoid DS proved to be merely a pretty good Arkanoid-type game. Arkanoid deserves a lot better than that, and while rereleasing the NES game without the paddle controller isn't ideal, it would at least allow new gamers to familiarize themselves with real Arkanoid.
Born for Wii: Cosmic Smash
When you read "Cosmic Smash", does your mind instantly wander to brutal, over-the-top space battles full of massive explosions, flaming spaceships and blazing arcs of deadly plasma? Okay, so maybe that's just me -- but when I first heard of the name Cosmic Smash, the real thing wasn't exactly what I had pictured. Fortunately for my overly-active imagination, the actual game is almost as awesome as its name implies.Cosmic Smash was originally released in Japanese arcades in 2001, and Sega soon followed up with a Japan-only Dreamcast release later that year. But what is Cosmic Smash? A futuristic, electronica-infused amalgamation of racquetball and Breakout. With a visual style that will instantly feel at home to anyone who's played Rez, Cosmic Smash keeps things simple with pristine environments and a pseudo-wireframe character. Cosmic Smash is like Wii Sports Tennis on steroids and LSD, and anything that meets that description is Born for Wii. #ninbutton { border-style: solid; border-color: #000; border-width: 2px; background-color: #BBB; color: #000; text-decoration: none; width: 100px; text-align: center; padding: 2px 2px 2px 2px; margin: 2px 2px 2px 2px; } .buttontext { color: #000; text-decoration: none; font: bold 14pt Helvetica; } #ninbutton:hover { text-decoration: none; color: #BBB; background-color: #000; } NEXT >> %Gallery-34337% Every week, Born for Wii digs into gaming's sordid past to unearth a new treasure fit for revival on the Nintendo Wii. Be sure to check out last week's entry in the series, Klonoa 2: Lunatea's Veil, and for more great titles that deserve your attention, take a look at Virtually Overlooked.
iBreakout hurls balls at iBrick in the iWall
While the jury hasn't even begun to assemble to decide if gaming on the iPhone is going to set records and become an extremely viable platform, we already know some those time-wasting casual games are addictive and fun.Zecil Software is jumping into the fray with iBreakout, now available for $4.99 in the iPhone App Store, and it promises "75 meticulously crafted levels, with striking graphics, featuring 50 different backgrounds!" Striking graphics? Well, if by striking they mean you can make the ball hit the bricks, then okay. However, you can submit your high scores to leaderboard right from your phone, which is fairly nifty. Try breaking out of it at your own risk.%Gallery-28825%
D3's Simple series becomes even simpler on WiiWare
It may not shatter the earth as Dead Rising did, but the latest Famitsu has interesting news for fans of D3 Publisher's Simple series. Joining the Simple Wii and Simple 2000 Wii series is another new line, the @Simple games, a line of 500-point WiiWare games.The first two games in the lineup, @Simple Wii Vol. 1 THE Block Kuzushi Neo and Vol. 2 THE Number Puzzle Neo, are the usual early Simple stuff (Breakout and sudoku), but for five bucks! Download services are where this series belongs, in our estimation. The low budgets can be matched with even lower prices (and even less commitment from the customers).
First Look: Chimps Ahoy!
%Gallery-27560% Griptonite Games' Chimps Ahoy! is a silly, fun breakout game. I'm not a huge breakout fan (to be fair, I'd rather clean my house and do my taxes) but Chimps' beautiful graphics and silly music won my heart. It's a graphic design tour de force. You play by throwing a coconut between a pair of monkeys, chipping away at inner barriers. Control the monkeys by sliding your thumbs up and down the sides of the screen. The introductory material made me think that game play was going to be a lot more complicated than it was (game play is quite easy) and there's no accelerometer support. Plus it's a breakout game -- but there's no getting around that part. But if you enjoy breakout games, Chimps Ahoy!'s multiple levels and bright inviting screens offer a nice twist on the genre. Given their high design standards, I can't wait to see what other products Griptonite delivers at App Store. Chimps Ahoy! costs $9.99 and can be played on the iPhone and iPod touch.
Apogee Duet: BREAKOUT box simplifies connections
Generally speaking, folks who sprung for Apogee's Duet have been pleased with the performance, but as we learn each and every week, there's nothing that can't be improved upon. Take the Duet's factory breakout cable, for instance. Sure, it provides a plethora of connection options, but it also creates a rat's nest in no time flat. Thankfully, a few engineering souls decided to take matters into their own hands, create a much better alternative, and then offer the thing up for sale for the lazy folks (read: us) on the outside. The duet:BREAKOUT box provides one simple box-to-Duet connection, after which you can run XLR / 1/4" cables straight to the ultra-rugged accessory. Get yours now with 1/4" or RCA outputs for $100 apiece.
The strangest Arkanoid video you'll ever see
One thing we've learned while playing Arkanoid DS -- it's difficult to break blocks and eat at the same time. The man in the video above seems to have it all figured out, though. While this still might not be as fun as playing with the imported paddle, at least you'll have an easier time multitasking. File this one under "another crazy video from Japan."[Via GoNintendo]
DS Fanboy Review: Arkanoid DS
I love Arkanoid. I purchased the NES game, with its included paddle controller, as soon as it came out in 1987. I still play it. It's still really hard, and I still think level 3 -- level 3! -- is one of the most devious and challenging video game levels ever devised. When Taito revealed that they were updating Arkanoid for the DS, I was beyond thrilled. I have been waiting for the American release of this game since last year. While I thought Space Invaders Extreme looked like a more creative update of its source material, Arkanoid DS had Arkanoid as its source material. It's pretty good. It fails to hold up perfectly to the original, but it's pretty good.
Friday Video: Yes, it has a story
The Arkanoid series appears to be fairly abstract. The paddle and blocks can't be anything other than gameplay elements, right? The Tetris blocks don't represent animals or anything, and Arkanoid is the same kind of non-narrative puzzle-action experience.Except it isn't. One of the things that elevates Arkanoid beyond other Breakout clones is its ridiculous sci-fi storyline, which pits a cylindrical spaceship called the Vaus against barriers put up by the evil Doh, who is a giant moai. The Vaus's primary weapon is ... a giant ball that the crew bounces off of the ship's own body. The spacefaring backdrop makes the game a lot more enjoyable -- especially once you realize that your every action jostles the crew of a spaceship as if they were in a giant cocktail shaker.For an example of the kind of epic narrative featured in the series (which, to an extent, is also found in Arkanoid DS), we've chosen to present the ending from the Super NES Arkanoid: Doh it Again.
