It’s a bit of an annoyance with current HDTVs, caught in limbo between SD and HD as they are, that they have a host of legacy connections which are useful for running old stuff but look like crap, and only one HDMI, one component, one VGA, etc. How I’m going to manage when I have an HD STB, Xbox 360, PS3, Revolution, and HD-DVD player I’ll never know…

I went looking for a component switchbox after having to rummage behind the set to switch between my PS2 and 360 one too many times, but found the prices so high that I’d have preferred to wait a year or so and spend £700 on a decent AV receiver that I can just plug everything into. Then I happened to be browsing Lik-Sang and came across the YPbPr Power Box, a switchbox for three component connections for only £10. Bargain.

Like a lot of the cheap Hong Kong brands that Lik-Sang sells it looks a bit gaudy next to the black and silver of most of my system, but I really can’t fault it for the price. I’m running my PS2 at 480i/480p and my Xbox 360 at 720p through my one component connection with no quality loss, and flicking between them involves nudging a switch which is infinitely preferable to taking a mining lamp and canary behind the TV. If you have an HDTV and are suffering the same problem this definitely gets the thumbs up from me and is cheaper even than getting a VGA cable for one of the consoles. You can’t go wrong for a tenner.

Plus how can you say no with box art that attractive?

I just picked up the import of the latest Katamari Damacy game, Boku no Watashi no Katamari Damacy (to be called Me and My Katamari for the US release) on the PSP. The game is basically the same as when I played it at the Tokyo Game Show but as I got one of the first batch I got it with a limited edition PSP case in the shape of the Prince’s head:

I doubt the US box art will be that cool either, considering the hack job they did with the We Love Katamari artwork.

The game itself is typical Katamari, this time with you having to create islands after the King wipes them out by accidentally causing a tsunami. It’s another excuse for another quirky little adventure as you roll balls of random objects, starting with coins and pins before moving up to skyscrapers and…uh…dinosaurs? Suffice it to say that it’s great fun.

The main hurdle for the PSP version is the controls, since the PS2 games used both analogue sticks to full effect. Here it uses the D-pad with the face buttons functioning as a second pad and the shoulder buttons used to aid turning. It’s not an ideal system but it’s definitely workable, even if my hands ached after a while. That could be down to the fact that they’ve become used to the Micro over the last few days, but we’ll see.

It should also be noted that although graphically it’s a faithful version of the PS2 games, the caveat is that it occasionally has framerate issues. Nothing that affects the game too much thankfully, but I saw it slow down on some complex levels and during some of the flashier effects.

A great little game then, and a possible collectible for the future since the cases only came with the first Japanese batch and are unlikely to turn up again anywhere else. Worth a look.

I’ve spent a few hours over the last couple of days playing Final Fantasy IV Advance and I’m actually surprised by how much I like it. I’ve barely touched any of the pre-FFVI games because I’m definitely not a fan of high fantasy and found the later modern and, in the case of VI, steampunk settings far more interesting. Incidentally, I loved FFIX which renders my complaints about fantasy kind of irrelevant.

Anyway, while the game isn’t particularly pretty (it’s a port from 1991, after all) and since it can’t compensate with flashy FMV like the PSX ports newcomers will have to make do with character portraits and a new translation, designed to be more true to the original Japanese script. It therefore relies on the gameplay and story to sustain it, and since the FF games really haven’t changed the basic gameplay all that much it’s the story and characters that differentiate them.

High fantasy or not, the story is strong so far, with an elite knight stripped of his power for questioning the authority of his king when forced to kill innocent people, and then tricked into carrying out a catastrophic attack on a village of innocent summoners, somehow leaving one survivor, a young girl with the handy ability to summon monsters. I’m sure you can guess where it starts going from there.

The real test will be whether or not I bother to finish it during the wait for FFVI Advance, having never finished a single Final Fantasy. We’ll have to see on that one…

The Animal Crossing series is a strange one. There’s essentially three versions of the same game, released on three platforms (the N64 version never made it outside of Japan), and all receive the same critical acclaim coupled with bemusement over what exactly makes these such compelling titles. I’ve got the same bug, but on a portable format it’s far more palatable.

I imported Animal Crossing for the GameCube, played it daily for a few weeks, loved it for that time, and then flogged it on eBay when it was announced that it wasn’t coming out here for two years, making a nice profit in the process (life imitating art simulating life?). At that time I can clearly remember enjoying messing around in the game immensely but just thinking that it would make a much better handheld game, as having to be at home in reach of the GameCube made playing beyond a certain point when other console games came along a hassle.

So here we are, three years later with a pretty faithful handheld version with a few tricks of its own. There are already plenty of reviews if you don’t know the basics, but I’ll just say that this is probably my favourite version. It looks as good as the N64 version (the GameCube one is much smoother, but it has no effect on the game), it controls decently whether you use the touch screen or the buttons (touch screen is slightly faster when navigating menus), and the gameplay just lends itself better to a handheld format so that you can jump in and out as and when without having to be tied to the GameCube.

The online mode seems pretty throwaway to me, emasculated by Nintendo’s over-protective attitude to online play, so it’s not the killer feature that it could have been. Otherwise this is a great version of one of the most charming games on the market, and one that probably won’t convert those who didn’t like it on the Cube, but should win plenty of new fans. If you want something for the kids to play I’d easily recommend this over fucking Nintendogs.