That’s right. I went there. If only there was as controversial as I made it sound.

Snapshots has been around for a while, and I liked it, so I’ve decided to smack it on this blog. Anything that’s internally linked (as in, stays on 4str4stam.net) will not be snapshotted, but anything outside will be, allowing you to have a quick look at what the content is. It also has fancy integration with videos, music, RSS feeds and such, and is great for looking at my Youtube favourites, as you can view it without even going on to the Youtube page. However, there might be a little conflict of code between it and the lightbox plugin, so I will test that in a moment and see whether it works or not.

Like so.

If you don’t like it, click the Options icon in the top right-hand corner of the snapshot window and Opt out either for this site, or for all sites that have it enabled. I might disable the little Window-y icon next to them as well if it becomes that problematic.

EDIT: Works just fine. The Window-y icon gives the preview, while the link itself activates the lightbox.

New Feature. Well, this whole site is a new feature. So call it a new mini-feature. Mineature, if you will.

1. Gran Turismo 5: Prologue (PS3)
2. Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 (360)
3. Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games (Wii)
4. Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 (PS3)
5. Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 (Wii)
6. Dr. Kawashima’s Brain Training (DS)
7. Wii Play (Wii)
8. Carnival: Funfair Games (Wii)
9. Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games (DS)
10. Sega Superstars Tennis (Wii)

So, on a breakdown, let’s take a look.

• Gran Turismo 5: Prologue is just a glorified Demo/Beta of GT5, so why are so many people buying the damn thing? Are they really that needy for a decent PS3 game? I know MGS4 is going to absolutely nail itself to the number 1 spot for a few weeks, but is the PS3 games market really this weak?
• Rainbow 6 takes up two of the spots on the chart, at 2 and 4 for the 360 and PS3 respectively. If you compare the amount of 360 owners to that of PS3, once again it looks like the PS3 games pool must be pretty weak to get so many people to buy one game (which has been publicised to be buggy as a beehive on several sites. See here).
• Five of the games (M&S at China, Kawa’s BT, Wii Play [Seriously, how can that even be considered a game anymore? It’s just a cheap Wiimote + Disc] and Funfair Games) are Minigame collections. Two generations ago, this would’ve been seen as nothing short of a travesty of gaming. But because these games are all on the Wii/DS, the new demographic isn’t gamers anymore. Nintendo can get away with it, because the expectations of said demographic are so low, compared to that of previous generations.

Four fully fledged games are up there, and two of them are just for different systems. That’s depressing.

Having a quick look at the surprises:

• 16/19. CoD4 (down 11 for the PS3/down 15 for the 360): Quite a steep drop for a game that constantly tussles with Halo3 for the top Live game
• 20. God of War: Chains of Olympus (New Entry): I would’ve thought it would’ve made more of an impact than that. I hope they gear up the ad campaign and sell some more.

All in all, I’m not really sure I wanted to take a look at this in retrospect. If we removed the DS and Wii games, we wouldn’t have games like Metroid Prime, HotD and Mario Strikers in at all, but including them in the charts removes the whole ‘gaming’ thing. Because each of these minigame collections is basically one of those cheap, tacky 101 in 1 games machines you buy on holiday to keep your child quiet (after removing the speaker), in cartridge form.

Tags: gamingcharts, chart-track

Now I’m not one to get all rushed up about something, but the thought of a portable Dreamcast-esque console is definitely one that demands my full attention. Despite Dreamcast being sent down, and Sega’s hardware along with it, it created many of the standards that we now expect today. It had online play before everyone else, and for 200Mhz, it REALLY pushed the boundaries.

But hey, I’m not going to be a copypasta guy. Read it there.

Tags: dreamcast, portable, sega, handheld, gameonyou