Before Christmas, the Nintendo DS was released in Japan. Not just another handheld, it represents a real evolution in the way in which people will play games; the first genuine game-changer since the original Gameboy.

Here is a product that has been designed to give users a significantly new experience, by providing them with new toys in hardware from the eponymous dual screen, to the touch screen and stylus, to the microphone, and the wireless hardware. Already people are coming up with innovate uses for these. Band Brothers turns any nearby systems into instruments for mini jam sessions (only one copy of the game is needed, the rest are suppled wirelessly). The new Wario Ware game is as mad as ever, mixing candle-blowing games (through the mic) with snow-boarding (touch screen), and getting progressively sillier. Metroid: Hunters, although the controls are being re-jigged, should be using the touch screen for first person aiming, beating mice for accuracy.

The hardware and software deliver a revolutionary experience. The price point is right. Support is coming from all corners. Know what? It doesn’t matter a bit.

The Sony PSP is coming. It doesn’t do anything particularly new in terms of gaming. It plays games, it has wireless, it has memory cards, and it has a very nice screen (you need to see one of these in action to understand just how nice). It’s not better, it doesn’t do anything significantly new, but it will win.

When Sony breached the mass-market for gaming a few years ago, they guaranteed themselves years of success. Each new machine is hailed as magnificent, whether it looks like a black heater or not. It doesn’t matter if it’s notoriously hard to develop for, or the controller is really quite poor and not up to scratch compared to a competitor’s previous generation. They can make it kill the battery in 2-3 hours and people will still clamour for it (as is the case with several prominent PSP launch titles). Until Sony shoot themselves in the foot through bad marketing (unlikely) or being stupidly restrictive with licensing (Nintendo’s own folly, but certainly more likely), they will own it.

Sadly, the masses equate Sony with cool and Nintendo with kids. No amount of revolution will take the crown.

Yes, this series is moving on far slower than I said it would. I blame university. Anyway, today I’m going to link to a series of very different games.

• Game And Watch Emulators – Several slices of classic twitch gaming. I thoroughly recommend Donkey Kong Jr., a game which gave me hours of pleasure as a child. Incidentally, I still have the originals of most of these. These are, unfortunately, Windows only executables.
• Puzzle Bobble – Or Bust A Move if you prefer the non-European title. A flawless recreation of Taito’s fast moving, precision puzzler that spawned a dozen clones (Flash).
• Grid Game – Pretty, simple, frustratingly addictive; all signs of a good puzzle game. On my first go, I managed a chain of 1407. I’ve yet to beat it and it’s annoying me enough to keep trying. Actually, I take that back: just as I was writing this post I managed 2364. Eat that, Derek.
• Prince Of Persia: Special Edition – A new adventure in the vein of the original Prince Of Persia. Shame that it has a time limit. The controls are as shite as ever.

Enjoy. Next up: handhelds.

(Editorial note: yes, I spacked up the title. It should be part 2 and a constraint in my CMS stops me from changing it immediately. It will remain as it is anyway, for permalink consistency).

Twelve years ago or so, Christmas morning, little Johnny excitedly rips through his presents. Among them, a shining bastion of a console: the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, or SNES to its friends. Super Mario World was the game to playing, and play it he did. Here was a game that was a truly a step beyond what had gone before. Not because of its richer graphics (although the sadder among us no doubt remember the mode 7 rotation and dozens of background layers) did it stand above previous titles.

No, it stood out because it brought a rich new set of toys to play with: yoshi, spinning worlds, the ghost houses and lots more. The whole generation of games was full of innovation (see Pilotwings and F-Zero for examples).

Eight years ago or so, another generation was under way. This time Johnny thought Super Mario 64 was the most revolutionary game. It represented a real step forward in so many areas. Worlds seemed to be real for the first time, various skills allowed exploration in small steps, and Johnny felt more involved than ever. Mario was a genuine avatar.

A few years ago, we got another generation. This time, however, there was no major upheaval. Sure, there were great games, but nothing substantially different. More solid lighting, certainly. Better effects. A huge increase in the number of polygons on screen. None of that really mattered though, it wasn’t all that different. Somewhere in the transition between hardware periods revolution had been killed in the pursuit of realism.

The pursuit of realism had long been a goal, and an admirable one at that. An obvious argument is that the more we recognise the worlds we see in games the easier they are to empathise with and enjoy. Are games necessarily about that though? Does it really matter if we immediately recognise the game world as being similar to our own? Simply put, no.

As far back as games have existed, there have always been large levels of abstraction graphically that were profoundly easy to cope with. Pong, Pac Man, Centipede. Hell, games have been around for centuries that have one foot in reality but are marvellously abstract. Checkers, Go, Chess. We don’t need things to be completely familiar to enjoy them.

That this pursuit of realism has all but killed innovation graphically (with the exception of a few rare titles) is not important though. More consistent rules and better toys (the gravity gun from Half Life 2), tiny graphical details (being able to see the weave on clothing, for example), opponents who better realise their role; immersion is the new revolution.

Where Mario World gave us a few wooden trains to play with, Grand Theft Auto gave us the complete Hornby back catalogue (and enough explosives to destroy it). Wolfenstein might have left us shoot monsters, it’s Halo 2 which lets us play with them. While Johnny might not remember this generation as being all that different from the last superficially, it is. He just needs to immerse himself.

Games have never been a major topic on Solitude, save links to flash games and the odd comment about how something has been eating up my time. Given that I’ve been playing games a lot longer than I’ve been interested in web design, computing, music and the other things I’ve been writing about of late, this is a somewhat odd state of affairs.

While the amount of time I spend playing games has been heavily marginalised (very low priority after all), I still like to follow what’s going on and understand significant issues in the gaming world. (Yes, I am an Edge reader).

So, the next series of posts are going to focus on several gaming related issues. Expect focus to be thrown on the current handheld battles, the pursuit of realism, net gaming (yes, more flash), and possibly some other non-video game topics in the wider world of gaming (of which I have almost no interest).

Non-gamers: switch off for a week.

There has been a lot on the yourcodenameis:milo front this month. They announced the details of their new EP, Rapt. Dept, which appeared on the 31st January with superb artwork by Storm Thorgerson (who has done Mars Volta artwork), as well as their forthcoming album, Ignoto. The album (due March) will feature one of the finest song titles of all time, “Unfinished Drawing Of Cats”, as a UK bonus track. As well as this, the video for Rapt. Dept appeared and is fantastic, fitting the song like so few videos beforehand. Moody rock picked apart by heavenly imagery, breaking down into a bizarre ethereal spookiness. Incredibly good stuff on both the audio and visual front.

Bands who split: Mclusky have ended it, after 3 great albums, and Ikara Colt split on the 16th. Both shall be missed.

Idlewild released the video from new single, “Love Steal Us From Loneliness”. Very loose storyline involving two people who are alone, even when together. A playful enough video, but lacks depth. Idlewild played 5 acoustic shows across the country this month, followed by a full electric tour in April/May.

And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead… released their new album, “Worlds Apart”, on the final day of the month. Very heavily hyped, and sounding superb. Trail Of Dead albums have been masterpieces in the past, but this is the one that might live on as seminal.