Hijinks Inc.

Author: Fred Smith

  • What I’m Playing: eBay Edition.

    After selling eleven of my games on eBay this week I spent some quality time with an old standby: namely Crisis Core. Zack and company have taken up the bulk of my time, along with some browser based goodness in the form of Travian.
    Nintendo DS

    Super Mario 64 DS. I’m up to 12 stars, and I beat Bowser for the first time. And now I can play Mario without trying to find his hat on some goomba. I’m still enjoying the game, granted my playtime has been severely limited.

    PSP

    Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII. Once I beat God of War: Chains of Olympus I jumped right back into Crisis Core and I’ve been sucked into it ever since. I’ve been powering through every mission I can possibly beat. It’s gotten to the point where the enemies are so far above me if they hit me once I die. I like it, its more exciting this way.

    WoW Logo

    World of Warcraft. Nil playtime this week. The WoW subscription is hovering on the edge of cancelation.

  • Travian

    So I was talking to an buddy on Facebook’s new chat client the other day. We were reminiscing about our days being single and playing World of Warcraft way to much, and he told me about his current MMO habit. A browser based MMO/RTS set at the height of the Roman empire called Travian.

    Travian boasts over eighty-nine thousand active members over their 6 different servers, which an average of fifteen hundred online per server at any given time. Gameplay revolves around collect four different resources (Wood, clay, iron, and wheat) to build and upgrade you village and surrounding land. To say that the gameplay is slow would be an understatement, but for those who like to micromanage and don’t mind leaving another tab open while they work, Travian is a great way to waste time that could be spent working.

    Check it out at www.travian.us.

  • Hijinks Reviews: Tris

    Pros: Touch screen controls actually improve this game. Closest to a perfect Tetris port if we ever saw one.

    Cons: While easy to use, at the very high levels the touch controls aren’t quite as fast as the old D-pad.

    Developer: Noah Witherspoon (Two Finger Play)

    Version Reviewed: 0.6

    Platform: iPhone and iPod Touch

    Ever since the days of playing Tetris on my old black and white Gameboy I’ve held a special place in my heart for blocks falling from the sky. And interestedly enough, I haven’t seen anyone make improvements to that D-Pad and A and B buttons I used all those years ago. I can honestly say that I didn’t expect to see a good Tetris port on the iPhone/Touch. Not that I didn’t expect to see Tetris, but I thought they would try to overlay buttons on the screen (a’la Yeti3D) and things would just get awkward. Thankfully, they didn’t. Full review after the jump. (more…)

  • Zero Puncuation beats the crap out of Super Smash Bros. Brawl.

    For the sad few of you who haven’t heard of Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw, this is an excellent primer in why he is…well…excellent. Consider that Super Smash Bros. Brawl sold a metric crap-ton the first minute it was released in America. Then consider this review.

    (Features professional British cussing. Not as much in this video, but more in his archives. You’ve been warned.)

    Zero Punctuation reviews SSMB

  • UFO Central: What We All Expected Has Finally Arrived.

    That’s right, our benevolent alien overlords have arrived (or maybe the Autobots. We can only hope). And we were worrying about the upcoming presidential election. Pshaw.

    Drudge has a headline right now that reads: “Mystery Lights Over Florida, Arizona; Residents Spooked.”

    Along with this picture.

    Strange Lights

    Taken from this video.

    Residents in Florida and Arizona reported seeing a strange pattern of lights last night (Monday, April 21, 2008), and a few got some fuzzy video for us to peruse.

    What does it all mean? Probably nothing. We’re probably going to get a very vague statement from the government Sector 7 stating that they were running test maneuvers of some kind and the whole thing will fade away. Still, flashbacks to Independence Day anyone?

    More photos and videos after the jump.

    (more…)