Japan, the country born by the gods who stuck a sword in the ocean, has a lot of culture going around. The ikebana, the origami, the tea ceremony and not the last, the manga succeeded in giving it an exotic look.
<-300x250 Medium Rectangle - center->
A short story of manga and anime industry

Manga is a comic book initially made by a fusion of traditional woodblock (ukiyo-e) printing and Western art. It took the current form shortly after World War II,  influencing the television and thus creating the anime. In 1958, studio Toei screened the first anime feature film, "The Tale of the White Serpent", which marked the beginning of the animation industry. Then, in 1962, the first anime TV show was screened by studio Otogi. It concerned historical cartoons in black and white. One year after that, Osamu Tezuka, "The God of Manga" has founded the Mushi productions and released his first anime series, "Tetsuwan Atom". This was the start of an anime boom, that occurred in 1963. Between1987-1992, The wings of Honneamise was released, making anime officially an art form. This kind of animation became popular in the entire world. From here to video games it was just a small step.

Naruto, the cursed boy

Naruto Uzumaki is the main character of Naruto Series. He's the first character to be created by Kishimoto during the initial conceptions of the series, being designed to have a whole lot of features of other shonen creations, including Son Goku of "Dragon Ball Z". Naruto is a ninja affiliated with the Konoha village, dreaming of becoming a Hokage, or the leader of the village. Due to the fact that the Nine Tales Fox is being trapped in his body, he's being ostracized by the other villagers. He makes up to this with the help of his personality and, during the series, he manages to make friends among other ninjas from his village and other ones, as well. He has a very strong bondage with his ninja colleague, Sasuke Uchiha, treating him like a brother.

Testing ninja abilities online games

Because this anime presents a story of a young boy who wishes to be the best ninja, the online Naruto games focus on this detail. They try to catch the player's attention by putting him to make the same exercises Naruto and his team used to do in the beginning, like climbing a tree, to see how great their "Chakra" is , guessing which one is the real ninja Zabuza from the Village of the Hidden Mist, among him and his clones or even escorting Tazuna safely to his home in the Land of Waves.



Of course, there are a lot  of Naruto online games which involve the dodging of the knives, to test the team's abilities, and even fighting, but I've also found a... dressing up Naruto game! Although the game is loading pretty hard, the amusement of seeing Sakura, Naruto and Sasuke as little children and having to dress them up is great. Plus, if you wait long enough, the three characters start showing their special powers: Sakura shows her other personality, Naruto - his power of controlling the Nine Tales Fox and Sasuke, his Sharingan eye and his curse.

Needless to say, the dating online games couldn't miss from here! For example, there's Sakura, the girl Naruto has a crush on, and she must train herself to be more charming and brainy. That's why you have to take her to study, to increase her "Chakra", to buy flowers, for increasing her charm, to complete quests, etc. She can also have small discussions with Naruto, Sasuke or Lee, the guy with one eyebrow. According to her answers, she can either flirt or upset them. If she has trained long enough, she can fight one of the three guys or go on a date with the person whom she very cordially spoke  to.

The Naruto online games are designed  in flash, thus they don't catch the eye by design. They're basically designed to be played by fans who either don't care about the looks, are just nostalgic or really want to take Naruto on a date with Sakura!

I was looking on the App Store the other day, and realized that the latest launched games are the simple and funny ones. No first person shooter or other adult games. The question remaining is why the developers would not release any more action / violent games. This is even stranger, because the latest version of iPod touch and iPhone include better processors and RAM memory to run better the 3D games. Even so, it might just be a coincidence, meaning it is nothing to worry about, or maybe is just something planned by Apple. Remember, that all the applications must first go through Apple before appearing on App Store. Therefore, could something be wrong with the 3^rd generation of iPod touch?
<-300x250 Medium Rectangle - center->
First we saw the lack of video camera, and no less first person shooter games. Even so, until further development of the situation, you can still find interesting games to play. One of them involves music, and a rock band. I think you already know what I am talking about. On October 15, 2009, Electronic Arts released the first version of "Rock Band", one of the best music games for your Apple device. You can currently find this application on App Store under the Games category, with the latest version, 1.0.0, available for purchase and download for $9.99 price tag. This game was developed for the third generation operating system for iPhone mobile platform (3.0 or later).

"Rock Band" is compatible with both iPod touch and iPhone (any generation as long as it sports the proper operating system). The story line is not really that complex; you have to play alone or with your friends pre-determined songs. The game play is another story; the best way to play this game is in multiplayer mode. Just play with two or four friends, using the live Bluetooth multiplayer mode. You get three difficulty levels, easy, medium and difficult. When you play solo you can easily chose to play at guitar, bass, vocals, or drums. Even more, you can choose to play with complete strangers, or friends that are located all around the world when using a stable internet connection. You can send messages to your band members by using the in game feature.

You can choose to play between 20 songs, legendary by now, released and performed by legendary bands like The Beastie Boys, Foo Fighters, and others. Basically you and your band members will have to start from nobodies and successfully became a true rock band. For this to happen you have to play all the songs as best as you can. Also since you only get 20 songs, the developed added great replay value.

Therefore, don't just stop playing when you finish the game. Even more, you can choose to buy additional songs to play in the song. However, this is not the best feature ever embedded into a game since the price tag will rise from $9.99 to a higher price, depending on how many songs you choose to buy. Overall, "Rock Band" is a good music game. It will provide great fun for you and your friends as long as you like to spend hours in playing a band's songs.

Electronic Arts is an international developer, publisher and distributor of video games, founded on May 28, 1982 by Trip Hawkins. Currently, Electronic Arts most successful products are sports games released under the Electronic Arts Sports label. On September 3, 2009 Electronic Arts released a brand new game for the iPhone OS 3.0 (version 1.0.0); MADDEN NFL 10 by EA SPORTS.
<-300x250 Medium Rectangle - center->
You can understand from the first look that this game is impressive. It has 102 MB and costs $7.99. You can be assured that you are not paying for the brand but mostly for an excellent sport game. The experience you have by playing this game is unreal; it feels so real, you will not going to put away your iPod touch or iPhone. MADDEN NFL 10 by EA SPORTS gives you the true NFL experience. The graphics are incredible and the sound is astounding. It doesn't have all the features as the console version, but it's very close. Before writing all the excellent features this game has I will first right some of the drawbacks.

Even if you never played any MADDEN Football before you will find this game easy. The commentaries are repetitive. If you don't like to live in a repetitive sensation than don't buy this game, it will probably drive you insane. The game is too expensive at the price point of $8.00 you can buy not one sports game, but three sports games (with the same graphic experience to offer and the same intuitive control). If your kid is an iPod touch fan than he will enjoy this game better then you will. Good features like real teams, players, and real stadiums make up for the few drawbacks presented above. There are 32 NFL teams and 32 unique fields around the league, from landmark Lambeau to the new Cowboys Stadium.

The game play is relatively good considering there are no real buttons for all the control you actually have. You will have up to 300 plays and you will have to dominate with dives, jukes, sprints and spins. In order to do so you will have to use a special feature (Action Control) that will enable slow motion giving you enough time to choose your best move. The slow time feature is essential for better control of everything. The game is pretty customizable, giving you the opportunity to manage rosters packed with nearly 2000 players from all 32 NFL teams.

You can also use intuitive touch screen controls to draw up your very own passing routes on screen. Changing routes at the line is actually more powerful then the console version. You can manage however you like the charts, trades and free-agents. This is not a multi level game but the action does build up. Therefore you will play an entire season (full stat tracking, player awards) until you will reach the Super Bowl. In future versions other features like multiplayer mode will make this game even greater.



The interface is pretty clean and it looks good. It's easy to navigate through all the game options. Overall if you like MADDEN and you like football, then you will enjoy this application. A plus for the football fans is the real life implementation to this game. Not only the stadiums, the players or the locations are real but also the season mode which will bring the actual 2009-2010 season for you to play.

And as a luxury feature the commentaries are made by experts like legendary John Madden, Tom Hammond and Chris Collinsworth. The MADDEN NFL 10 by EA Sports is a great game and it reaches the quality of products released by Electronic Arts in general not only in sports label.