Anyone Out There Love "Solty Rei" As Much As I Did? Let me start this news page with an anecdote, about one of my favorite entertainment moments this week. Here's the thing: it's a Japanese import that was first shown in 2006(!), only to be released in bits & pieces in the States, until last month, when Solty Rei: The Boxed Set was finally released on DVD. Personally; I really didn't hear much about this one, which is suprising, because even the most obscure anime offering gets an accolade or two from the hundreds of anime fan sites out there. So; I put in this barely-promoted, one-season anime series in my DVD player, and...well, let me just say it: what an underappreciated gem this is! Solty Rei begins as a simple, cute tale about an android wanting to be human. The catch is: this android looks like any little girl, and without a father, she decides to choose one herself. In an amusing piece of inspired storytelling, she chooses the most unlikely candidate: a bounty hunter named Roy Ravant, who is a lot like Harrison Ford's Decker character in Blade Runner. Can you imagine if a character that gritty suddenly had this super-powered android girl following him everywhere, thinking he was her dad? It sounded like a cute story to me, and it was. Then by episode 12...WOW. The story takes a complete 180 and delves into a darker yet highly gripping last half of the story, with plot twists galore, with all the story's mysteries answered and resolved (are you listening, ABC's "Lost"?), and best of all: the most spectacular ending anyone could've wanted. Why haven't enough people promoted this series? Probably because they stopped watching soon after the ending of episode 13, which is admittedly sad, though if someone out there is too much of a baby to keep watching unless they know the truth of this scene, let me just tell you in an invisible spoiler (highlight to read): Rose's death is faked. Happy now? KEEP WATCHING the story! I'm just saying: everyone should see this cool series. I just posted my review of this one on the DVD Review Page, along with handy dandy links to the admittedly pricey DVD set, and the much more affordable VOD episodes, online. Check this one out. You'll love it!

Ghostbusters Game Site Is Now Live. To be candid, this is a game that sounds cool yet I'm a bit apprehensive about it. The original Ghostbusters game was ported to every game and computer console at the time, with mixed results. I'd say its problems stemmed from a force-fed "strategy" element to the game where you had to catch ghosts and use the money to "buy" more traps and stronger ghost-busting equipment. Why not make it a simple quest to zap ghosts? But I digress. The upcoming "re-imagining" of sorts of Ghostbusters: The Video Game looks pretty good graphically speaking, and now its official website is online, which looks cool too. So maybe I'll cave in and buy this game anyway. Just don't expect us all to pay for ghost traps this time, okay?

Cute Photo Alert, Via Go Nintendo. Hey; it's a slow news week and most of the gaming readership is probably on Spring Break somewhere. So let's take a news byte to enjoy the simpler things in life, like this thumbnail of a cute photo that was available at sites such as Go Nintendo and Kotaku this  week, of a large "Mario" seemingly flagging down an apparent fan of Princess Peach, during a publicity event in Dublin Ireland for Mario Kart on the Wii. Hey; maybe I'm just impartial because I have a niece that loves everything Nintendo, though this photo is cool. Thanks for the heads up, to all those who alerted Techtite to it!

Nintendo DS...3? The latest news from sources like GamePro is that the upcoming E3 will unveil a new Nintendo DS. They get this rumor from the head of a Japanese gaming magazine called Famitsu. It's important to admit, however, that Famitsu's Hirokazu Hamamura does not claim to have any insider knowledge, so this is mostly just a guess. It's a pretty grandiose guess though. Does it seem like yesterday to anyone else that the Nintendo DS Lite was released? On the other hand: the new PSP has a video out port which would be pretty cool on a DS. Even if the dual screens were shown one on top of the other on a TV, they still would be seen much larger, right? Okay; enough conjecture. We'll all see for ourselves what is unveiled at the E3.

Fanboys Already Camping Out For GTA4. Here's a short and sweet news byte aimed towards all those American fans of Grand Theft Auto IV: it appears some Swedes have you beat! They're already camping out for the game...at least, according to photos posted here. On the one hand: it's not like they're going to be waiting too long, and they certainly chose a very large and neat looking tent to camp in. On the other hand: this is what happens when so many supposed "pre-orders" these days are not guaranteed by the stores that offer them.

Larger iPod Coming. A British technology site reports that with upcoming storage technology, new PS3 players will be able to hold enormously more data. The largest capacity iPod, for example, can store around 40,000 songs, while estimates of the new storage technology might increase that number to as many as 500,000 songs. While this sounds enormous; it's the video capacity I'm happy about. Digital downloads are the new music download (I love my collection of MTV music video classics!), along with movie rentals online and so forth. All I can say is: to those people at Apple who gave the iPod Touch such a small storage capacity, you should check this technology out.

Final News Byte This Week: The PS3 Laptop? Ben Heck just created an amusing, fully functional PS3 laptop, and while it is quite possibly one of a kind; with the right cash, you can grab it. Engadget has the imaginative portable system for Sony Playstation 3 fans, which they intend to auction off for charity. In short it is a 60GB PS3, remodeled to resemble a large laptop PC, with 720p display, built in keyboard, and all the features needed for portability (USB ports, headphone jack, internal stereo speakers).

-------------------------------

 News I missed...?

Be your own reporter at Techtite's Letters page!