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Review: Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep

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Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep (image: square-enix.com)

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If kids grow up fast, videogame franchises grow up slow. I hadn’t really settled down to a Kingdom Hearts game since our second child arrived, which I realized today was a good five years. It’s been that long since the last console iteration.

The other portable editions like Chain of Memories and 358/2 Days felt more like spin offs to me that a genuine attempt to move things forward. Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep happily makes good on some old promises. What’s more, my now five year old son is more than happy to watch me play the game – although there are one or two scenes where he needs a cushion to hide behind.

I don’t know about you, but I’m offer a little wary of letting my kids watch me play games, particularly if they have an older ESRB rating. But a little time with Birth by Sleep and my son was enough to realize this was a game well suited to family gaming.

Having been waiting for a new Kingdom Hearts since before he was around, it was special to finally get one I could share with him. It’s diminutive nature, and Disney setting means that although some scenes are a little ‘full-contact’ I was happily able to share the experience.

I had expected only the console release of Kingdom Hearts 3 to be able to scratch my Disney Fantasy itch, but Birth by Sleep has shown just how much can be accomplished on a handheld.

We’re still having a good time as we work through the game story, and our breakfast combination often drifts into particular nuances about how the three plots interact with each other.

Three apprentices are on offer to play, and you can tackle each in any order as they follow distinct interconnected stories. These combine to make Birth by Sleep something of a long game (around 24 hours in total) but there is enough of a story here to keep my son interested – and asking detailed plot line questions.

If you’ve not spent time with a Kingdom Hearts game before this is a good place to start.

I know first time you come across the strange combination of Final Fantasy and Disney worlds it seems rather odd. But it’s the sort of ill-advised mash-up that videogames excel at. What results is a more light hearted – although no less complex – rendering of a Final Fantasy style adventure. It’s a cross over that is perfectly pitched for families.

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Review: Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep

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Review: Amulet Grabs Hold and Doesnâ€™t Let Go

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Author: Brittany Turner

The first three books in the Amulet series

Way back at the end of 2007, Mike “Gabe” Krahulik of Penny Arcade mentioned that he’d read Amulet and said, “if you are a fan of comics I suggest you do the same.” He called Kazu Kibuishi “one of the most talented individuals working in comics today.” And then moved onto the subject of Dickerdoodle cookies. That’s Penny Arcade for you. I decided at that time to go ahead and order Book One: The Stonekeeper for myself, not knowing what to expectâ€”like I said, Gabe didn’t really say much about the book itself. I’d seen some of Kibuishi’s comics in the Flight anthologies that he edits but that’s about all I knew of his work.

I read it and enjoyed it, but then forgot to look for the next book until this spring when I happened to see Book Two: The Stonekeeper’s Curse at a bookstore and picked it up. By this time, though, my six-year-old daughter had learned to read and was starting to get into comics. As I was reading Book Two she kept looking over my shoulder. I said, “Hey, this isn’t the beginning of the story. You should go read the first book, and then you can read this one.” She read both books that afternoon, and then asked me where the next book was. I said: “You’ll have to wait.” Well, Book Three: The Cloud Searchers is finally out this month. I got an uncorrected proof from the publisher to preview (and had to fight my daughter for a chance to read it), and now we’re both eagerly awaiting the next one!

Here’s the story: after Emily’s father dies in a car accident, her mother moves them (with little brother Navin) to her great-grandfather’s old house. Pretty soon they discover some odd things about the house, including a mysterious amulet which begins to speak to Emily after she puts it on. When their mom is snatched away by a tentacled creature (see that thing on the cover?) Emily and Navin set off in pursuit, and find themselves in a parallel world, filled with monsters, unfriendly elves, and a house full of robot helpers left behind by great-grandfather Silas.

Kibuishi has created a world with a lot of depth, and it really draws the reader in. The amulet Emily finds grants her amazing powers but also demands her allegiance, which she is hesitant to give. You’re never entirely sure who to trustâ€”there aren’t always clear-cut bad guys and good guys. Sure, the anthropomorphic fox guy looks friendly but is he hiding something? And even the treacherous-looking elf (he’s got sharp teeth, for cryin’ out loud!) might turn out to be an ally. Since Emily and Navin are just kids, they have to decide who to trust and where to go on their own.

The artwork is dazzling, clearly influenced by anime but with Kibuishi’s own style. Every so often you get an establishing shot on a full-page spread and it’s like a scene from a movie. One of my favorite scenes comes at the end of the first book, when you discover a secret about Silas’ house … but I don’t want to give it away. But it’s a scene that made me want to stand up and cheer. There’s plenty of action throughout, but not so much that there’s not time to develop the characters, either.

Amulet is targeted at middle readersâ€”it’s listed as ages 9-12â€”but I think younger kids could enjoy it as well, as my daughter did. Just be sure to preview it, since there are some parts that are a little more frightening. And it’s certainly one that older kids and adults will love, too. I don’t know how many books are projected in the series, but wherever Kibuishi takes us, we’re happy to go along for the ride. Click here to read the prologue from the first book, and then get started with Book One. Heck, buy all three now and save yourself the wait later!

Wired: Heroic kids, a mysterious talking amulet, a mechanical rabbit named Miskit, Leon Redbeard the fox-man, need I go on?

Tired: Okay, yeah, not everyone likes talking animals, but the story hints that there’s actually a reason for their existence.

Disclosure: I received an advance proof of Book Three for review purposes.

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Review: Amulet Grabs Hold and Doesnâ€™t Let Go

Review: Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter

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Author: Brian McKinnell

I like video games; I just don’t play them much. I was the kid who went to the arcade in the mall and watched other kids feed quarters into the slots, mashing the buttons on Street Fighter or trying to time their moves on Dragon’s Lair. I didn’t have the money, which meant I didn’t get the practice and never really got the skills. When a lot of my friends had moved on to the Sega Genesis or Super Nintendo, we were still borrowing old NES cartridges. Even now, I’m behind the curve: I have an Xbox (which I bought used, years ago) but again the next generation has passed me by. In fact, I’m pretty close to being two generations behind.

This explains why, of all the video games Tom Bissell writes about in his recent book, Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter, I’ve only played two or three, and none of those to completion. Despite that, I found myself completely drawn in to the world Bissell described, and I can only imagine how much greater the impact of his stories would be for somebody who knows their video games.

Extra Lives is sort of a memoir, sort of a collection of essays. Bissell is not intending the book to be video game criticism, or a history of the gaming industry, or a technical assessment of anything. Rather, as he puts it:

I wrote this book as a writer who plays a lot of games, and in these pages you will find one man’s opinions and thoughts on what playing games feels like, why he plays them, and the questions they make him think about.

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Review: Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter

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IPhone 3G Left Out of Appleâ€™s Game Center

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Author: jos

If you’re planning on showing off your awesome gaming skills with Apple’s new Game Center, you’d better have a nice new iOS device to play on. Apple has released compatibility details for the fancy high-score table, and you’ll need to have an iPhone 3GS or 4, and second-gen iPod Touch or better.

People who have the second-generation iPhone 3G can run iOS 4.1 (including HDR and bug fixes), but won’t get the Game Center. (Also, as with iOS 4.0, it won’t get the multitasking features newer phones have.) If you’re still rocking the original iPhone, you can’t have iOS 4.x at all — but you knew that already, and clearly you don’t care, you pathetic Luddite.

Game Center was demoed by Steve Jobs at last week’s iPod event. It’s kind of a social network for gaming, allowing you to compete against your friends and compare results on the leader-board, and even invite people to play multiplayer games head-to-head. Right now the most common way to taunt your friends is to share your results via Twitter or Facebook, but that requires a log-in for each and every game.

Of course, that old iPod might not have the guts to actually play some of the more demanding games available, but at least you can excuse yourself when you limp in at the bottom of the league-table by blaming your old, weak iPod’s stuttering frame-rate.

Game Center [Apple]

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IPhone 3G Left Out of Appleâ€™s Game Center

Modular iPad Case Lets You Tweet From Your Kegerator

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Author: Brian McKinnell

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The guys behind the new modulR line of iPad cases have a clever idea: Let one case take on multiple identities through a variety of add-ons.

The basic case is a hard plastic shell that protects the iPad in use. Its rubberized edges grip the tablet securely, while little “nubs” on the back give your hand something more to grip onto than the iPad’s normally slick exterior. They also help raise the device off the table so it’s a little easier to pick up.

When traveling, you can clip on a hard plastic face plate that protects the iPad’s screen.

At your desk? Slide the case into an L-shaped metal bracket, which has slots that the case’s rear nubs lock into.

Those same slots appear on modulR’s “slim case,” which lets you mount your iPad on the wall — or, with the addition of a handful of powerful neodymium magnets, a refrigerator. In fact, this is the first refrigerator mount we’ve seen for the iPad in the Gadget Lab. It works with most old-school fridges, but if you’ve got a fancier wood-paneled or stainless steel refrigerator, you’re out of luck. (Stainless steel isn’t magnetic.)

We used it to display our favorite websites and recent tweets on the face of Beer Robot, our office kegerator.

You might be nervous about the effect of those powerful magnets on the iPad’s internals. While modulR couldn’t offer us a blanket assurance, they did say that they expected no problems — and we saw none during our tests. Perhaps if the iPad had a spinning disk inside instead of solid state storage, the proximity of magnets might be a bigger problem.

One down side is weight. The case is substantial, which provides protection, but it also adds 5.8 ounces to the iPad’s weight (10.2 ounces with the cover on). That may not sound like much, but it’s a noticeable addition to a gadget that weighs just 1.5 pounds to begin with.

The other is price: modulR sells a bundle that includes the case, cover, stand, and the slim mount for $100. The case and cover alone are $60.

Still, it’s a substantial, solid case and the only one we know of that allows fridge mounting. If that’s what you’re looking for, the modulR case is a good choice.

modulR iPad Case (product website)

Photos: Jon Snyder / Wired.com

Follow us for real-time tech news: Dylan Tweney and Gadget Lab on Twitter.

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Modular iPad Case Lets You Tweet From Your Kegerator

Modular iPad Case Lets You Tweet From Your Kegerator

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Author: Anthony Kristo

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