My PSPgo up and died the other day.  The battery simply gave up the ghost.  It would power on as long as it was tethered to the nearest power outlet but the orange indicator light which would normally indicate recharging in progress was no where to be seen, and as soon as you removed the electric life line the PSPgo would shut down quicker than an Icelandic financial institution.  I knew the battery was the culprit and not the cable, because, using the same cable I had no trouble powering my 2nd PSPgo (don’t ask…someone has to take up the slack…we PSPgo early adopters are a rare breed).

Now here’s the kicker.  There are two ways to recharge a PSPgo – either directly into the power socket, or via your PC’s USB port.  When your battery has enough charge to power the unit up, then your PC will be perfectly happy to both trickle charge the battery and let you synch your data, game saves, games and other media to your heart’s content.  However if you are unlucky enough to find yourself in my shoes with a battery that’s all out of juice, then your PC USB sockets won’t be capable of jump starting your handheld into life.

If you’re the kind of person who backs up his data on a regular basis, then you’ll be fine, but if you’re not ‘that guy’ (so  pretty much everyone else on the planet) then your in deep doggy doo.  Read on, and hopefully you won’t make the same mistake.

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No…not your old typewriters, we need you.  No, not you, the one who didn’t recognize the image to the left.  We need you…yes you, the one with a passion for video games.  Actually our requirements are a little more exacting.  We need you, yes you, the one in the back row with an opinion and an original thought, the one with something worthwhile to say that hasn’t been said a million times before.

I know, we’ve raised the bar quite high.  The bar.  If you can’t see it, you might have to look up.  Yes there it is…hovering above you all shiny and menacing.  Think you can pass over it?  Then we’d like to hear from you.  Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve just spent a few minutes in Bright Falls.  Actually it may well have been longer. To tell the truth I lost track of the time.

Can’t tell you a great deal about the town.  It was night for much of the time, an inky dark that had me reaching to adjust the brightness and contrast settings on my television.

Word on the street is that Bright Falls resembles Twin Peaks without the pie.   Certainly the fare being served in the diner looked less than appetising.  Which brings us to why we’ve ventured here in the first place.  We’re hungry for news of upcoming Xbox360 exclusive Alan Wake, and Microsoft and game developer Remedy are happy to whet our appetites, serving up a six episode prequel (the aforementioned Bright Falls) between now and the game’s release on May 20.

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The paint’s almost dry on our fifth Toy Stories Challenge.  If you’ve been paying attention (our web traffic would indicate you have), then you know that we’ve been inspired by the James May documentary series Toy Stories,  to reconnect with the toys of our childhood.  The cynical among you might have thought we were merely trying to occupy the minds of Incomplete Gamer junior during the school holidays and you’d be partly right.  James May himself wanted to know if the toys and hobbies of years past could still hold the attention of the young kids bought up on a steady diet of video games with a side serve of video games.  To answer that  question ourselves, we’ve asked incomplete Gamer Junior to tackle all six of the Toy Stories Challenges.  Today we’ve sent him to the lab with an Airfix model of the Republic P-47D Thunderbolt.  Just how well did he micro manage his latest micro challenge you’ll just have to read on.

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Challenge #4 of the Toy Stories Challenge is done and dusted.  For those not keeping score, here at the Incomplete Gamer we’ve been inspired to spend some quality time with some iconic toys and hobbies after watching James May’s Toy Stories TV show.  His show’s a tribute to the toys of yesteryear including Britain’s best loved slot cars – Scalextric.   The premise of James May’s doco is not simply to pay tribute to the toys and hobbies but find a way of capturing the attention and imagination of a younger generation more at home on the couch with a video game controller in one hand and a TV remote in the other.

Consider us captured.  Since watching the show, we’ve set Incomplete Gamer Junior at total of four challenges, building a remote control Meccano car, making plasticine flowers (and assorted fruits), recreating an iconic video game scene out of Lego, and our latest project – an outdoor Scalextric circuit.  Hit the jump to see how Incomplete Gamer Junior fared.

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By now you know the drill.  Inspired by James May’s Toy Stories, Incomplete Gamer Junior has been tackling various projects using the toys and hobbies featured in the TV Show.

With two Toy Stories Challenges under his belt, and the end of the School Holidays looming, Incomplete Gamer Junior turned his attention to Denmark’s most famous export, the Lego brick. Make the jump to see how Incomplete Gamer Junior fares with Toy Stories Challenge #3.

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One down and five to go.  Inspired by James May’s Toy Stories TV show, Incomplete Gamer Junior is tackling six toy projects, using the six toys that starred in the James May series; Lego, Meccano, Plasticine, Hornby trains, Scalextric slot cars and Airfix models.  James May’s show isn’t just a celebration of Britain’s best loved toys of yesteryear but a genuine attempt to introduce the toys and hobbies to a new generation.Yesterday we put our Meccano building skills to the test in the Incomplete Gamer laboratory.  You can see for yourself how we fared.

Today it’s the turn of Plasticine.  In the TV show, James May set himself the task of entering a garden made entirely of plasticine into the Royal Chelsea Flower Show.  Our ambitions are a little less lofty…we’d settle for a small arrangement of flowers. Read on to see how Incomplete Gamer Junior and two enthusiastic assistants, more accustomed to building levels on Little Big Planet, fared moulding soft coloured clay.

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The Incomplete Gamer is feeling inspired.  We’ve just finished watching James May’s Toy Stories.  The cynic inside us struggling to get out might have suspected this BBC series was just one long advertisement for Hornby – the British toymaker that now owns the iconic brands Scalextric, Airfix and Hornby Trains – three of the six toys featured in the show.  Certainly the toys and companies featured must surely have seen a bump in their quarterly sales figures as a result of the show – the premise of which was to showcase a world of toys and entertainment long ago left behind in the dust by the current generation of children and adults too busy pressing buttons on game controllers, to be bothered actually getting their hands dirty and their minds engaged constructing fiddly plastic models.

In Toy Stories, James May doesn’t just get the toys out of the cupboard and give then a bit of a dust.  It’s going to take more than that to reel in the youngsters.  His hook is to ‘supersize’ the toys with projects which include building a full scale Lego house and a full size replica of the old Brooklands racetrack, constructed on the actual site out of Scalextric track.

To transform the ambitious dreams into the large scale reality, James enlists the help of project managers, architects, engineers, Scalextric geeks, and model railway nerds, school kids (many who seem to have never even heard of the toys in question) and the local community.

In as much as we, here at the Incomplete Gamer have been inspired to bring our own toys out of storage, and replicate James May’s series (albeit on a much smaller scale) we’re calling the show a ‘great success’.   But the real test is to see whether 12 year old Incomplete Gamer Junior can be inspired to put down the controller and follow May’s lead.  Sure, he loved watching the show, but will Incomplete Gamer Junior be inspired to tackle the mini ‘Toy Stories’ inspired projects we’ve lined up for him.

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Was The Wire the best show on television? In the words of the Wire’s corrupt Senator Clay Davis, “Sheeeeeeeeet, yes”.

Having just devoured all five series on DVD, I’m inclined to agree with Clay and the critics. Simply put, this HBO drama is compelling. It’s as addictive as the G packs* being pushed on the Baltimore corners. Corners that I’ve spent more hours on (albeit from the comfort of my lounge) these past few weeks than I care to admit.

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I’m always open to an idea that can potentially make me money, and while I won’t be sending any more money to Nigeria any time soon (I only ever make the same mistake three times), I did get excited when I read a report on CNBC about making money from my favourite past time. CNBC, is of course the cable channel dedicated to all things business, finance and money related. These guys live and breathe money and know what they’re talking about. So when I see an article on the CNBC site titled How to Make Money Playing Videogames I sit up and take notice.

Turns out this isn’t about the elite players wearing garish t-shirts and bandannas, playing in big professional leagues for big money; the guys with unpronounceable gamer tags with more ‘z’s than vowels. In fact you don’t need to be the best of the best or even the best of the worst to be in with a chance to make money doing what you love. The article charts the emergence of companies that allow you to play family, friends or strangers online, matching you up with players as good or as hopeless as you and letting you win as little as $1 or thousands of dollars in the process.

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