DS Zookeeper

Editor: Ignition Entertainment
Out: 11mar05
Match 3 identical animals or more by moving them with the stylus to make them disappear. Direct transposition of Bejewelled, you can’t stop playing it !
- Funny designs
- Full use of touch screen
- Very addictive, so it’s value for money
The -
- Repetitive music you’ll switch off after a short while
- Very addictive, your eyes will dry out and your social life will suffer

Welcome to the universe of zookeeper. Around Christmas last year, I was hesitating buying a DS, or a PSP, or… nothing. Then I saw a demo of Zookeeper on the telly. It’s Bejewelled with fun animals, and the touch screen is used here to its full potential. So I bought a DS… and the game. And the addiction started… day, night, again and again…. There is no rational reason to play the game, you just have to do it.

PSP: no girls allowed?

Let’s discuss the new Sony ad for the PSP.


“Easily more affordable than a girlfriend, Dude, get your own”.
Hum, this is a dangerous motto…. Funny, but dangerous. It makes me think of the very first ads for PS1. Provocative. But restrictive.
If we look at the market, at the moment, boys 13 onwards buy a PSP, girls and little boys have a Nintendo DS. The new ad is aimed at the population already buying the console !!!
I think it would be nice to have a second ad for girls. “More fun and easy going than a boyfriend”, it could fit too.

I feel left out, but then I wouldn’t buy a second PSP. I prefer my PSP to my DS. I don’t like Mario, and I don’t care how old my brain is. I want to move around Locos and kill insects with Daxter. I just regret there aren’t more women playing PSP.

So I hope next time Sony will think of its fangirls…

Why do you hate my PSP?

I’ve only been in contact with female gamers for a week end, but it was full of teachings:
- there are loads of females playing video games
- there are blogs out there, and communities, etc…
- most of them are feminist
- most of them play WW and/or DS.
- they think Sony and PSP are evil

And that’s where I start my rant…. I bite my tongue on forums and communities out of respect for others, but here it’s my place, so I will say what I really feel.

I thought that the pro-Nintendo was a French speciality. Growing up with the SNES, they fear the PSP would eat the DS alive like PS1 did to Sega. But I have over looked the fact that the DS and the Wii were aimed at children and women, even the non-gamers. Then apparently they listened to the medias, and became anti-Sony.

I’m pro-Sony. Sony has always been nothing but good to me, since my first walkman 12 years ago that is still working. I don’t listen to ads. Every Sony apparatus I owned was good quality and long lasting. So I just don’t understand why people are so anti-Sony.

I hear the same arguments again and again: UMDs suck, loading times are huge, controls are bad, screen is faulty, etc… All these things are false, just like the PS3 isn’t overheating.

Ok, the PSP hasn’t been well advertised. A multimedia console like that could have been targeted to a wide audience, and attract non-gamers too.

There’s a misconception that the PSP doesn’t have any games. But if you count the releases, you have more PSP games /month than the DS (20 vs 10 approximatively), and anyway, people always buy the same DS games over and over, so there is no point in releasing new games on DS.

They say DS games are better than PSPs. Once again, misconception. On PSP you have the same games as the DS, plus FPS, 3d platform, etc… all that is missing is the touch screen, and let’s face it, it is dangerously underused in most DS games.

Problem is, because of all the media bad publicity, shops doesn’t have all PSP games. They prefer to show 20 copies of Mario Kart than new PSP releases.

I don’t really care for all that, except it means it’s going to be hard to find a like minded individual who likes playing PSP…. And I feel left out if discussions between female gamers turn around how great Nintendo is. What would be the point of telling them that they are only playing old games ported onto DS and Wii, and the so called innovation of the touch screen and wii mote are only an illusion, as most games don’t exploit them? They like their consoles, and to discuss how great they are. I’m a busy person, I have no time and energy to try to convince them of the contrary, and anyway, they wouldn’t listen.

Conclusion, I’m still feeling alone in the big video gaming world…

PSP LocoRoco

Editor: Sony

Out: 23jun06

Plateform game where you are a yellow ball exploring different worlds.

The player is moving the world with the L and R buttons, and gravity does the rest !!


The +
- Cute funny characters and universes
- jpop for the ambiance
- Original gameplay with L and R

The -
- The worlds and musics become quickly repetitive after a while
- Some bonuses are very very hard to find, not to say impossible
- The songs words are just non sense

DBF was trying to convince me to buy a PSP last July. And one of his arguments were “look, there’s a game for you ! Loco Roco, cute and all !!!”
At first I didn’t listen. A few days later, I went to Game to buy a PSP. DBF automatically gave me Loco Roco as game to buy (a console without games is a bit useless). As I wasn’t too inspired by the other PSP games. I took it.

Once at home… the shock. I fell in love with the game. Cute music I even put in my mp3 player, cute characters, and fun gameplay !!!



I was also inspired to make a stitching design…

So if you are looking for an original game, with cute look and fun, give Loco Roco a try !

A life in games?

The reason I started this blog was a to find other gamer women. Saerching them on the web didn’t give any result, so I wanted to send a message in a bottle. But then yesterday I found the girl-gamers community on LiveJournal, and from there… I reached the promised land.
Unfortunatly I arrived on the day they were swamped with new arrivals from the LJ Spotlight, and things aren’t that easy, from there I discovered Iris, a forum and links to blogs. I’ll have to find time to explore it all.

Also, I had forgotten that when you start a blog,you have loads to say, but you basically talk in nothingness. Luckily Chiamata is there, thanks for your comments !!!! So I suppose I should start a promotion campain as well

Yesterday I mostly played Guitar Hero 2. I fell in the loop of “just another song”, and in the end my vision got weird, like curtains lifting themselves up and such. But it was very temporary.

A week ago I wrote to PSP Fanboy who was having a “Friday art” feature and requested submission. As I didn’t get any email back, I kind of forgot about it. But guess whoat? I checked this morning and my little PSP felt mascot is the friday feature of the week ! youhou !!!! Apparently they love it…

I paid a little visit to Game. I live in a small town, and salepersons in there are more or less the same each time I go. And I suppose they noticed my visits as the guy said “See you later” after I bought Guitar Hero and Diner Dash. In the UK, and especially in that shop, there are many women buying videogames, visibly for themselves. It’s a nice change from “do you want a gift wrap” I get in France

If Guitar Hero is great, Diner Dash isn’t working on my PSP, so I’m a bit depressed by that. Oh well, DBF will help with that…

I guess I will have to get into Children of Mana first…

The guitar hero adventures, part 1

After trying Donkey congas in ToyRus last year or so, I became a fan and had to buy a game cube just to play the game for hours and hours. Of course at that time the console plus congas and extra game were only 70 pounds. A bargain.But then I played less and less… hitting congas ends up hurting hands (especially the hand clapping) and the moving background of Donkey Congas 2 made me dizzy.
So when guitar hero came along, I thought it was a bit childish of me to buy it. I even bought a real guitar to learn how to play the real thing (ok, it was a long time dream to learn how to play guitar, so why not?).

But last Monday we went to friends house where they have guitar hero on xbox 360. I played a long time, at least 10 songs says DBF, who took pictures and even a mini video on my camera !
So that was settled: I needed Guitar hero for my PS2. First estimation on GamePlay was 39.99 pounds for Guitar hero II and the guitar controller. In Game they dare asking 44.99 for a preowned for the same thing.

The only thing was that I wasn’t so keen on having such a big box delivered at home (working full time, it means I’m never there when the postman calls, and I have to go to the post office early morning to avoid parking problems, etc… the whole process can be a hassle), but GamePlay are usually good and quick on delivery, so I ordered it yesterday, hoping for a Saturday delivery.

Now this is when fate stroke. Today I went home for lunch. And at 1pm, the delivery guy knocked on the door, and gave me a big box ! I’m ecstatic. I’ve used GamePlay before, and they continue to provide great service. Imagine this, last time I preordered Okami (PS2) and got it in my mailbox the day before it was out in the shops! Cheaper games, free delivery and all !Now I know what I will be doing on this 3 days week end…

Lego Star Wars, or the bricks addiction

Lego were my favourite game as a child. I would build space stations and space crafts for hours, out of the classic bricks. I was born too early for the fancy trademark kits, but it was all good fun.For a long time I was unable to play the first game, because I didn’t have the right console (PS2). Doh ! But then I had the original trilogy on PSP, where DBF insisted we play in coop.Just imagine us 2 in the middle a forest, sitting on a blanket by a tree on a sunny day, trying to keep the connection alive… To tell you the truth, it’s hard to play that game with 2 players, you get blocked in places if you go too far apart !

I wasn’t impressed with the experience. I really got into it when I bought the first game on PS2. This is the first game I played every night, and I am now in the last stage….To be totally Lego Star Wars crazy, I also played the original trilogy on PSP in parallel. You can imagine how long it takes to play all that ! ;)So, why the addiction? I love Star wars. I love Lego. And the games are a mix of agility, finding clues and trying stuff, with also a lot of humour. In a word, it’s just plain fun.
So if you haven’t tried already, now might be the time…