Late last year, I had the good fortune to interview Ed Rotberg, creator, among other things, of the groundbreaking Battlezone. This vector graphics tank simulator was the first truly immersive 3D environment in videogames, and probably the first 3D update of a 2D classic, what with it being heavily based on Kee/Atari’s various overhead Tank games.

The current issue of Retro Gamer, 59, includes portions of the interview in ‘The Making of Battlezone’, and the game is featured on the cover as a beautifully rendered faux-vector scene.

This seems to have been good timing by Retro Gamer, since all kinds of Battlezone-related things seem to be cropping up right now. First, there’s Vector Tanks, a heavily Battlezone-inspired blaster for iPhone, written by the supremely talented Peter Hirschberg. Secondly, Wade Shooter’s video for Fujiya & Miyagi’s Sore Thumb dresses the band and instruments in vector ekoskeletons, occasionally cutting to scenes of vector tank warfare.

Game turns child into evil swearing little shitbag

As part of its long-standing quest to vilify every videogame ever produced (in fact, everything fun ever created), righteous hatemonger ‘newspaper’ the Daily Mail earlier this week published a story about a mother’s fury over a Nintendo DS Scrabble game that taught her son “vile swear words”. (And in the Daily Mail’s usual sterling reporting, it’s amusing to note that the game in question is Scrabble 2007—there’s nothing like getting the scoop on a new product, and this article is nothing like getting a scoop on a new product.)

Of course, it’s implausible that Mrs Carrington’s eight-year-old could have discovered these words by any other means. Although it’s not mentioned in the article, it’s safe to assume that he’ll now need life-long counselling having been exposed to ‘toke’, ‘tits’ and ‘shit’. (Choice quote: “Shit had come up as well. I was absolutely mortified.” I’ll bet. You don’t want shit coming up when you’re playing a videogame—it can really knock you off your stride.)

Following Britain’s typical dive into knee-jerk reactionism, the mother has now banned her son from playing the virtual wordgame, which has been linked to people becoming slightly more educated, and is therefore reprehensible and evil. Publisher Ubisoft’s response about the ‘junior’ option that removes naughty words was met by a typically Daily Mail-style retort from Carrington: “I read the booklet that came with it, and there was no mention of a junior version. It should be made much clearer.” This is fair enough—after all, it’s really hard to spot the ‘Junior mode’ checkbox that’s directly under the player’s name when you’re picking a profile on first launching the game.

Translation: “I can’t be arsed to play real Scrabble with my son, so I threw this game at him, without actually bothering to in any way check it first. And now my little baby is surrounded by tits and shit, and the only way to deal with this is to get those true bastions of public decency and morality involved—the Daily Mail”.

My opinion: it’s a fucking disgrace. (Now, had she moaned at length about Scrabble 2007’s lack of single-console multiplayer support, I’d have been right behind her. IN A NON-OFFENSIVE MANNER.)

Decidedly Sound investment or Dreary Stupid idea?

Yesterday evening in Japan-o-time, Nintendo announced the DSi, the next iteration of the Nintendo DS. With the DS being the console that changed the gaming landscape, paving the way for the family-friendly Wii, and having sold in huge numbers, any change is clearly dangerous.

Nintendo runs the risk of a drop-off in sales with people waiting for the DSi, or people being underwhelmed by the hardware specification, and therefore getting tempted by something more powerful, or more open (like the Pandora).

There’s no word regarding whether the DSi will support non-stupid router security, but here are my thoughts on the announced features, in patented* ‘hurrah’ (good) and ‘hurroo’ (not good) format:

* Not patented.

Bigger screens

The screens are apparently 17 per cent bigger than the ones on the DS Lite, meaning 17 per cent less squinting, but they appear to be the same resolution, retaining compatibility. Although some muppets are reporting both screens are now touchscreens, they aren’t—only the bottom one is, but again this is good from a compatibility standpoint. Hurrah!

No GBA slot

We all knew this was coming, surely? However, this presents a double-whammy, and a triple whammy if you go ‘yarrrr’ a lot. No GBA slot means no GBA games (which means no Rhythm Tengoku), but it also means games that utilise the GBA slot for expansions are scuppered. This also means anyone making use of a 3-in-1 for playing loads of naughty GBA titles on their DS is stuffed. Hurroo.

In fact, no GBA at all

With the GBA slot gone, so is the GBA hardware, bringing to an end the original Game Boy line entirely. This makes us sad. Not as sad as if our puppy died, but about as sad as if our PVR missed off the last three minutes of QI. Hurroo.

SD slot

This sort of replaces the GBA slot. And there are all sorts of exciting things you can do with an SD card, right? (Spoiler: ‘yes’ is the right answer—see below). Hurrah!

Built-in cameras

The big black dot on the front of the DSi isn’t a skin condition (sorry, beauty spot)—it’s a magical camera hole! This would have enabled your DS to take the place of a digital camera, if only Nintendo hadn’t kicked itself in the face with the resolution. Think iPhone’s camera’s bad? Wait until you get a load of the DSi cameras, both of which are 640 by 480 resolution (0.3 megapixel). Yes, that’s not a typo—the DSi’s cameras will be on a par with those from a really rubbish mobile phone.

The photos will be editable using the stylus, presumably dumpable on to the SD card, and high-res would have been somewhat tricky to deal with, but I can’t help but feel a little short-changed here. Hurroo.

DSiWare

This one’s the biggie. The DS is currently the odd console out, lacking downloadable games content, but that’s all about to change. DSiWare will bring to the DSi a range of titles between no money and about seven quid in cost terms.

What these games will be is unclear, but I suspect Game Boy releases are on the cards. However, emulation software for the DS via the naughty internet shows that while the GBA is out of reach, the system can definitely run NES, Spectrum, 8-bit Sega and even Neo-Geo titles without stumbling, and so here’s hoping for some serious variety. Hurrah!

Opera

The browser’s now built in to the firmware (which we just bet also has some nifty way of blocking R4s and similar cards), and so it’s free. That is all! Hurrah! (Apart from the R4 speculation, obv.)

Release date

The Japanese will get their hands on the DSi, priced at about 100 quid, in under a month. November the 1st is the happy-time date. With us being a worldwide economy, that means a simultaneous worldwide release, right? Wrong. Nintendo has set their Mug-o-tron to ‘high’, and will milk the UK for one last Christmas, before unleashing the DSi in Europe next year. “We’re aiming to launch DSi in Europe in Spring 2009,” said Nintendo. Translation: “We’re aiming to get idiots to buy a DS this Christmas, and then a DSi in March. Mwahahahahaha!”

Don’t be an idiot, readers. Make Nintendo suffer for taking the piss out of you. Not so much a ‘hurroo’ as a MAJOR FAIL.

Overall, this announcement rates fairly highly on the game-o-scale. It’s not a Rhythm Tengoku of goodness, but more like a Zoo Keeper where you’re forced to play Quest Mode against your wishes every 40 minutes.

Hop to it!

As if bomb squads don’t have a hard enough time, Jumpman is tasked in this platform game with defusing bombs in Jupiter Headquarters, a place that clearly needs a serious heath and safety check. Precarious platforms and all manner of hazards await our athletic chum in this dated, playable and frequently frustrating platform game.

With Jumpman originally arriving on 8-bit computers in the early 1980s, it’s not much to look at, and the sound is guff, but designer Randy Glover had a wicked sense of humour and a real sense for level design. Therefore, each of the 30 levels brings its own set of dangers, such as ledges that vanish once you defuse a bomb, UFOs that dart around the screen, and manic robots hell-bent on killing you in the face. Also, when you inevitably come a cropper and tumble down the platforms to your untimely demise (and a jolly, slightly sarcastic rendition of the death march), you still defuse bombs that you bump into and can therefore sometimes complete a level during your dying moments, which is a nice touch.

Aside from poor aesthetics, niggles with Jumpman largely relate to some screens being absurdly difficult and controls being twitchy on the faster levels. However, if you can put yourself in the mind of a 1980s gamer—it was a time when gamers were real men: hardcore, but with mullets—you’ll find Jumpman a compelling, challenging, and occasionally maddening game.

Jumpman is available now for 500 Wii points (about £3.50). It’s tough, so wimpy gamers need not apply. Mullets, however, are optional.

It rocks. It’s diamond. Etc.

In the early 1980s, Peter Liepa was tasked by First Star Software to rescue a project that was, at the time, a canned and barely playable clone of obscure arcade game The Pit. Rather than fudge a solution on his Atari, he instead deconstructed the 1981 Centuri title, playing with its component parts of digging through earth, avoiding monsters and collecting jewels. What evolved was a game that in every way bettered its arcade-based inspiration and provided the cash cow that First Star subsequently milked to exhaustion over the next 24 years.

The core of Boulder Dash is simple: guide Rockford (who, depending on various artistic interpretations, is either a prospector or a cave mite with a penchant for munching diamonds) around various underground caves, tunnelling through dirt, avoiding deadly monsters, grabbing diamonds and seeking out the exit once a set number of gems has been pilfered. Tight time limits, varying speeds, excellent level design and occasional new foes ensure that Boulder Dash never lets up, and once you’ve conquered its 16 caves and four intermission screens, you’re plonked back on a harder Cave A, with a different layout and an increase in enemy numbers.

An almost perfect combination of frenetic arcade gaming and thoughtful (but quickfire) puzzling and strategy, Boulder Dash is one of the very few games from the early 1980s that is a true classic. And although the C64 version on Wii Virtual Console doesn’t quite match the Atari 800 original, it comes close. Sadly, the majority of subsequent Boulder Dash games (including the recent—and dire—DS Boulder Dash Rocks) never managed to capture the magic inherent in Liepa’s original, and so here’s hoping this rerelease enables a whole new generation of gamers to fully embrace and enjoy the game, and long-time gamers to fall in love with it all over again.

Few games truly stand the test of time, but Boulder Dash is a rare example of one that will still be worth playing in 2028, let alone today. Essential.

Boulder Dash is available now for 500 Wii points (about £3.50). If you like videogames and don’t buy this, you’re an idiot. Oh, and no the NES version wasn’t better, Nintendo fans.