There’s something entrancing about the pixel. Square and elegant and when pushed by the right people they can form beautiful art, stunning animations and gorgeously crisp text.

But as resolution and pixel density increase these building blocks of the screen become smaller and individually insignificant especially as the dpi of displays hits 220+ppi. What once was a building block of art and design becomes nothing more than a indistinct element in a photo-realistic image or a glint in a faux-texture supporting a skeuomorphism.

Harmonix are taking submissions of ideas for songs in Rock Band. I thought I’d go one stage further and put together an entire dream list using the following criteria:

So here it is…

My friends and I have been very much enjoying Guitar Hero II on the Xbox 360 released earlier this month.

Despite reservations we’ve found ourselves jumping around performing a variety of silly stances, head bops and special moves whilst we attempt to strum ‘n chord in time to the tricky yet rewarding tracks available. Once we got a second guitar and hit the co-operative (one bass, one lead) and VS modes (turns each or both together) then out-performing the other player off-screen as well as on became an integral part of the game.

I really enjoy my Xbox 360 — surprising considering I held the opinion my Xbox 1 was an ugly waste of space and that my PlayStation 2 satisfied my needs.

Microsoft have done many things right with this machine (Online, XNA, dashboard, media center, high-def). Sure, the hard disk should have been bigger especially now they are selling movies but my real complaint is that there STILL aren’t enough titles I want to play on it.

I enjoyed the original LEGO Star Wars back on the PlayStation 2 some time ago. The co-operative play element, the LEGO world combined with the Star Wars world (obviously) and a healthy dose of comedy slapstick that surprised me giving LucasArt’s strict control of the Star Wars universe. But then they let Spaced burn a pile of Star Wars merchandise to official music so maybe they’re not all humorless droids.

The original game covered Episodes I-III and so when Steve reminded me LEGO Star Wars II was coming out and would be covering Episodes IV-VI (A New Hope, Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi) I knew I had to have it. The only question was which format and in the end I bit the bullet and went with the 360 version at £29.99 — a whopping 50% more than the PC version. Thanks Microsoft.

As the power of next generation systems increases so does the complexity and realism they can portray.

For some time now consumers have been unhappy with the rising prices of computer games whilst publishers are citing spiraling production costs as the excuse for sticking with “tried and tested” formulas and franchises.

I was very fortunate to receive a Nintendo DS Lite for my birthday and a voucher for a couple of games — I’d wanted one for a while but put it off being that I already a couple of hand-held gaming systems.

The DS Lite is tricky to compare to the PSP being that they take such different approaches. Sony has tried to make the PSP a portable multimedia station supporting UMD movies, video and music on memory sticks and it’s reasonably large wide-screen display as well as playing games.

Last night I went home with Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion for the Xbox 360, wired up to the projector producing 720p high definition imagery that dominates the darkened room.

You start off with an incredibly comprehensive character generation where you can choose race, sex, hair color, eye color, age… and a bewildering number of options to customs your face. So many options in fact it’s quite difficult to come up with something you like. Hitting the random option until you see a good starting point is probably the easiest way to progress.

Okay, so I’ve been living with my 360 for a little while now and was able to pick-up a hard disk and a headset from Kmart while in the USA (they’re a little scarce here in the UK at the moment).

Now I have a hard-disk I can play my old Xbox games (it died a while back). I gave Buffy: Chaos Bleeds a shot and it seemed okay apart from the unexplained slow-downs in some parts. Alas it seems about half my collection isn’t supported -Outrun 2, Shenmue 2, Buffy (original), Soul Calibur 2 and Headhunter: Redemption. I can however play KOTOR, NFSU2 and Fable apparently.

As previously blogged I got my hands on a Xbox 360 Core package just before Christmas — and yes I know the Premium is better and if one of those was available at the time I would have brought one. For now this must suffice…

The 360 core is packaged in a surprisingly heavy bright green box that draws enough attention at airports and towns when not serving as a make-shift seat. Inside are the curvy 360, the chunky power supply, a wired controller, a basic composite-video only cable with separate SCART converter and a couple of manuals. Surprisingly no demo disk is included and the box handle can detach rather easily when not digging into your skin. 7/107/10

My little brother just decided he’d like to merge his November birthday present and his Christmas presents in the hope I’d get him a Sony PlayStation Portable (PSP).

I decided to beat the seasonal rush and get one now and checked out my usual on-line suppliers of merchandise… Amazon, out of stock despite their Google advert claiming otherwise, Play and MX2 out of stock (Play now have it back in stock for £179.99 including Donnie Darko UMD). A few other stores I’d not used were also out of stock or rather vague on the whole issue.

It’s been quiet here of late and while I did want to post I didn’t have anything ready nor did I want some whining apology with no content.

For the last few weeks I’ve been a recluse getting my Open University TM427 project wrapped up and delivered and now that’s out the way I’ve been kicking back and relaxing with a few games and a bit of retro computing.