If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

darkside

We love a shoot-em-up at GadgetHeat and, in a nostalgic moment, I’ve been thinking about getting myself a good scrolling space blast-em-up for a while. DarkSide came to my rescue and it’s a blast from the past with a great modern day twist.

Think of your favourite scrolling space blaster from back in the day (Asteroids springs to mind), pimp it out to the max and you get ‘DarkSide - ArcLight 2′. It’s made by Pieyegames, an independent video games maker with a great reputation for making classic games (two of their games made the top 10 independent games of 2007).

DarkSide is a SciFi 3D shoot-em-up that takes you through 100’s of varied levels of strategy and blast-em-up glory (yes I said hundreds!). The variation in the gameplay plus the gorgeous graphics is what makes this such a blast. Pilot your ship through the solar system as you battle the Krainian Empire in a fight to gain independence for your people. There are three game modes including full-on Arcade mode which really brings back the 80’s heyday of space blast-em ups but in an even bigger and brighter way.

This game is freaking awesome to look at in 3D and with lifetime updates is a steal at $20 from Pieyegames. You can also download the demo to see what we mean by freaking awesome!! by the way, the Smart Bomns will make you wet your pants…

Ok I want a Wii but I don’t want to piss my money away (boom boom). Carphone warehouse are offering a free Nintendo Wii with any new contract on selected phones. Personally i would love a Wii but i’m not too keen on taking out yet another phone contract to pay for it especially when on average they are asking for £45 per month when these days the standard is £35 (unless you’re an iPhone slave / customer).

Still, I know there are ways the consumer can win if they are not too fussed about the phone they get when they initially take out the contract.

They take out the contract, then sell the handset offline to discount some of the term of the contract then keep the Nintendo Wii free and the sim they received with the contract in their old phone (assuming that their old phone is unlocked for the relevant network). There are some decent phones available so if you pick the right one you can get a good price for it on ebay or the like.

For example, the Sony Ericsson W910i is going for about £185 on eBay, Carphone Warehouse is offering the phone free at £45 per month for 18 months plus a free Wii. That’s £810 over the term of the contract minus the £185 you got for flogging the phone so you have £625 to pay off over the 18 months which works out at aroud £35.

A better deal would be to take out the BlackBerry Pearl 8120 which is going for about £250 - £300 on eBay. Carphone Warehouse is offering this at the same £45 per month over 18 months whicch means you can reduce your overall bill to £530 if you manage to get £280 for the BlackBerry Peal on ebay. This reduces your monthly cost for the contract over 18 months to around £30.

It all depends on how much you want a Wii really and whether or not you think getting a new mobile contract is worth it. Carphone Warehouse state that if you order by the 6th you’ll get it before christmas but even if you get it afterwards a Wii si still a Wii. Added to this is the fact that Nintendo are only intending to produce 1.8 million of these hot cakes per month for the whole world which is ludicrous.