Spring Beta keeps its beta tag because thats what web 2.0 stuff does. And this style- should at least I hope, be quite web 2.0- or least closer to it then my past designs.

Still quite blocky and doesn’t feature many curves (yet- I might go crazy with an update to this later…) this new design is quite the simplistic, stylish thing- umm yeah.

Navigation isn’t finalized, and neither are a few other things- I guess you can say this design is still quite betaish- but at the end of the day, it wont be “finalized” for quite some time.

Nothing major has been changed.

Heres a list!

• - Background Image - of the image which is in the banner with a few extra things. It’s been set to strech to 100% using CSS3, but threat not IE users, I’ve made it so it repeats itself, so in IE it has a similar effect, even though its not upscaled.
• - Header sections updated! I’ve given them a werid style using the dotted border, which makes it look like a jigsaw- okay maybe not.

I think thats it, oh and the project page has been updated with a few random updates such as the inclusion of a “dud” section, which basically has ideas which never quite made it. Including some new ones, like the Australian Gaming site I wanted to start, something about a 3DS website, and many more stupid ideas!

Of late has been E3 2010, in which I have written and published a few news posts from DS-X2, which has been the place I’ve been writing reviews and the occasional feature article.

Which speaking of which- is what we have to show today.

Part of a series written by me about early 2010 was a 3 part feature article series which got berried under the amount of other content to be published on the site.

Introducing What Gaming Has Taught Us.

Part 1: Sharing

Part 2: Economics

Part 3: Hobbies

The theme has a few issues- but overall its a nice fresh start and addresses the problems of the previous theme becoming bloaty and unwanted.

Here is a youtube video of me creating the layout- various little snaps.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9qSns1rPkU

The banner for this layout is inspired by the Survival Kids (GBC) games, it is a great homage to the game- as well as still been a unique and interesting style.

There are a few errors which I’ll slowly fix or improve- and as well as elements such as the header tags which are quite ugly- so they will also be fixed (they are temp ones to get the design up and running!)

While I’m on my site updating it with paganistic articles and odd options, I decided time to do another web round up.

Review: Pokemon: Soul Silver (DS)

Pokemon was reviewed ahead of the game where I depicted the fanboy inside me about returning back to the best in the series so far- Gen II- remodled into Gen IVish. Oh well.

Introduction: The second generation of Pokemon was something special, lots of ideas where in the game which should have been carried on from it. Such as the multiple regions, interesting storylines and “good” looking Pokemon, it’s what any fan wants- but is it comparable to the newer generations of Pokemon? Or should Nintendo go back to the drawing board and stop rehashing what has already been done?

Written for DS-X2, check the review out if you wish to read more! Also check out Chris’s Heart Gold review which in some ways is more detailed then my Soul Silver one :/

Review: Again (DS)

Again is one of CING’s final works- while its possibly unlikely we will see Last Window in English as ever passing day goes by, it is possible to play Again- CING and Tecmo’s love child.

The question as I reviewed the title is does it do right, to past CING titles- as well as is it worth it?

Introduction: CING went defunct in 2010 after a steady stream of interesting emotional video games for Nintendo platforms. They had partnered with Tecmo to produce Again (originally known as Again: Eye of Providence) and after a while it was finally released. The question on everyone’s minds, is CINGs latest title one of their golden hits? Or does it fail to live up to the standards gamers have for the company?

Check out my DS-X2 review for Again.

DS-x2 wise, in the coming month to look forward too from me will be my review for Pokemon: Soul Silver and my review for one of CiNG’s final games Again.

While not that far from a web roundup, the project which I was working on The Chip Behind The Idea has been “canceled” in my mind- though I might work on it in the future, for now its not been made by me- and if someone takes the idea which I have currently done and does a good job at it, then good for them- but otherwise screw them. You can check out the article I made about what I was doing in its final moments. I might go back to it in the future, but for now all my design related “bitches” are here on trinest.com. Also don’t forget to check out my twitter account.

So there are no “off trinest.com” projects rattling in my head at this stage. Besides the content I do for DS-x2.

Which speaking of which, now time to run down the content and a few bits of things I wouldn’t of said in the review (or if I did- then I must of been drunk when writing it, because no-one wants to hear that shit).

Game: Super Princess Peach

Platform: Nintendo DS  - Type of Content: Review

I won Super Princess Peach, and while it was unexpected and when I first saw it I thought it would be a bastardized version of Mario- as well as been well, very girl-e I decided to give it a go.

I quite enjoyed the concept and the direction of the game, and while in some parts it was pretty easy, in others it was as hard as Mario- which was a good change.

It’s not something anyone would go out and buy- but its a pretty good platformer so koodos to Nintendo.

Check it Out!

Game: Super Fruit Fall

Platform: Wii – Type of Content: Review

Buying a game because its $15 when shopping with your parents because you where bored isn’t really the best way to get a good game.

In the end I did give it a good “thrashing” and while it defiantly would belong more at home on something like WiiWare and DSiWare- the overall concept was pretty A- okay, cept the execution was a pile of crap.

Check it Out!

Game: Monopoly/Battleship/Yahtzee/Boggle DS 4 in One

Platform: DS - Type of Content: Review

Another game I bought on the cheap? Maybe I can’t remember, but for what it is, I did enjoy the Monopoly part heaps, though it wasn’t as good as I hopped it to be in overall execution and solidness.

Check it Out!

Quick and Easy Overview:

• DS-x2 Super Princess Peach Review
• DS-x2 Super Fruit Fall Wii Review
• DS-x2 Monopoly/Battleship/Yahtzee/Boggle DS 4 in One Review

Past Four Previous Around the Web roundups:

• Around the Web in 20 Seconds – Feb 18th 2010
• Around the Web in 13 days – Feb 6th 2010
• Latest from Around the Trinest – Dec 20th 2009
• Latest from Around the Trinest – Dec 8th 2009

For those who might need their memories refreshed, or for them to exist in the first place- the above is the previous design which was on the website.

I decided to return the background to its lighter version instead of the – possibly intrusive full color version (I know on some screens I’ve viewed the design in, that lime green really is lime- which might be a bad thing).

So I decided instead of making a 500px layout or a 800px layout- I’ve made the design more fluid. Which means that the design now flows regardless of what resolution your computer is at- which means that all the content and images in the content area will shrink down depending on the size of your computer screen, or enlarge depending on how you like it.

I also ditched the font shrinker and inlarger buttons- though no doubt the javascript is still hidden in the header.php file :/

Overall it continues with the same colours as the past few months, which means a constant evolution until I go crazy and change it!

Update:

A few changes here, and there, and the design was changed from what is above to something a little more eye pleasing.

But because I also had a few geocities accounts (and since the service is long gone I don’t think I can check) such as HM Swamp, Swamp Island, Harvest Trinest and possibly even more combinations along those lines- then I think the first website I ran was much much ealier then that.

While not a year ealier- the year is much easier to tack on then working out the fintite details, also for example I do belive I posted the original DS press release on my site, and I think that came around Feb or March, also my site had long since started because it used one of the many designs I made using Mircosoft Publisher of all things.

Which means there would be at least a few extra months tacked on from that- also I’m pretty sure it was more about November or something the year before.

Essencialy I don’t even know, so lets just use this date I found and say its 7 years instead of what it should be 6 leading onto 7. You know the crazy stuff like that.

This week- possibly leading more onto the week after, depending on how bored I get- I’ll be posting articles on the past sites I’ve worked on etc, I’ve done this before- but I’m trying to post more about them before I forget and have hassles like this stupid date thing.

Last Window- only scraped 31k- Again 1k….

We all like reading GAF? You know the site all for those numbers, status and horrible fans for video games raving each game they like is “totally the better one”, but for me I go there pretty much all the time for the information I wouldn’t find anywhere else.

So imagine my surprise when I click from reading the Off Topic section to the Gaming Discussion and scan the list of topics to find “CING files for bankruptcy”.

I think it kind of clicked that “hey thats why Cing’s website was down when I wanted to link to it for the preview on Again”.

So what kind of numbers are we talking about? Well they are up for about ¥256 million yen (around $2.83 million).

Back to the GAF thread, moderator duckroll had posted some Japanese sale numbers check this out:

2003 -- Glass Rose (Capcom) -- 6k
2005 -- Another Code (Nintendo) -- 105k
2007 -- Wish Room (Nintendo) -- 212k
2009 -- Another Code R (Nintendo) -- 10k
2009 -- Little King’s Story (Marvelous) -- 6k
2009 -- Again (Tecmo) -- 1k
2010 -- Last Window (Nintendo) -- 31k

and then lets compare that to say Capcom’s Phoenix Wright series:

Full price titles:
2001 -- Phoenix Wright (GBA) -- 62k
2002 -- Phoenix Wright 2 (GBA) -- 116k
2004 -- Phoenix Wright 3 (GBA) -- 161k
2005 -- Phoenix Wright (DS) -- 117k
2007 -- Phoenix Wright 4 (DS) -- 515k
2009 -- Miles Edgeworth (DS) -- 303k

Budget re-releases:
2002 -- Phoenix Wright (GBA) -- 66k
2003 -- Phoenix Wright 2 (GBA) -- 54k
2006 -- Phoenix Wright (DS) -- 254k
2006 -- Phoenix Wright 2 (DS) -- 214k
2007 -- Phoenix Wright 3 (DS) -- 195k
2008 -- Phoenix Wright (DS) -- 96k
2008 -- Phoenix Wright 2 (DS) -- 74k
2008 -- Phoenix Wright 3 (DS) -- 80k

Basicly the point here is they sold and Cing’s titles just petered out.

But that means that they are not bad titles- that just means they are well, unwanted by the general public- as sad as it is to say.

Some predictions are either Nintendo buys them for developer assets and closes the company (which if the company does close then I would assume a few developers would jump to Nintendo anyway), Nintendo buys them for the developer and uses them as a 2nd party for their bidding. Well thats basically it- fanboy wise, otherwise nothings most likely going to happen, but on the same token, it might disappear it might go off with a bang, maybe who knows.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODsIxIPiTBA

Again sold only 1k in Japan, and is still set it come out in America this month

Oh and there was a fake video made by some GameSpot member awhile ago for Last Window- I’m going over to their forums now to see if the news has reached there and if their tribale ways have backfired for the person who made the video.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gf8A14ptsPU

Fake American Trailer which shows what Last Window could or will be?

On that same token regarding Last Window, it is trademarked in Europe, but not in America. An Another Code: R release in both America and Australia is unlikely as well as Last Window- expecialy now. If it does get release in my opinion it would be in Europe and Japan only (Last window was released in Japan, and so is Again).

There will be more discussion on Cing in my following articles about past websites I’ve made etc.

But anyway some further reading if my explanation is just horrible (which it is):

• Tiny Cartridge Article
• NeoGAF Thread -- “CING FILES FOR BANKRUPTCY”

Possibly is the answer, but otherwise it looks like a layout which has one design attached to the other- which its not, so I decided to remove some stuff which didn’t make since since I “re-skinned” the layout. Most notably, the “social” bar which was to the left.

So with that I added more black then the usual well- light gray, so it kind of looks off- but I also gave the background the original (meaning it isn’t lightened) to give it a tad more boldness.

But yeah! Overall it seems I’ve fucked the design up- which in some ways is good, as that means I now need to make a new design! yay! I mean wtf.

Anyway March 10th is the 7 years of “trinest”, meaning 7 years of personal sites, video game sites, etc. So a banner was put up as well to “honor” that I guess you could say.