What intelligent, self respecting man wants to get their hands dirty with mining when he can create a robot to suffer for him? No one, that’s who! Dr. Digertz, your creator and mentor throughout the game, seems to want to collect as many elements as possible, destroying various habitats, and earth in general, for a get rich quick scheme, or even to take over the world; whatever it is scientists with too much time do these days.

As a mining robot, naturally, it falls to you to mine everything on the screen, using your 3 different mining tools to break down and transport precious elements back to the factory on the surface. The tools are simple enough: the Dirt Digger, Rock Driller, and Stone Grinder. As their names suggest – they specialise on one type of material. Digging faster when in home ground, if you will.

As you may have guessed, by the title of the game, there  is digging and rigging to be done. Once you have dug 20 fathoms down, you do have the small problem of getting the minerals and elements back to the surface and to the all important factory. Yes, this is the “Rig” part of the game. You will need to use conveyer belts and scooper pieces to drag all the precious elements back to the surface, and to your ‘daddy’.

However, while this all sounds quite boring on paper, I must assure you that it’s not. Some sections do feel repetitive; there is a long section of just digging. However, this is broken up, and the game revitalised, by the sudden appearance of mineral eating moles. This adds a new dimension to the game and keeps you on your toes, so to speak.

All the elements you collect are used as a currency in game, which you can trade in with Dr. Digertz for various items and upgrades to your internal systems. What you can spend them on is left entirely up to you; choose a jetpack or extra WiFi strength so you can dig down further. This is not to mention the plentiful items that will help you make an utter mess of planet earth herself, such as health packs and the beautiful-yet-deadly Mega Bomb. I will leave you to guess what that last item can do.

This is all presented under the clever guise of an old school 8-bit game with bright and vibrant colours throwing themselves against your retina. I do have to comment on the lack of a full screen option; with it, this game would be so much easier to play. However as it stands, the text is quite hard to read when playing and does often leave you desiring nothing more than a nap after squinting at the screen from  a session of mining to the earth’s core.

Continuing with the retro styling, the music and sound effects follow the general rule in 8 bit games of being simple yet addictive to listen too. It’s not an overpowering music, which so many retro styled games fall into the trap of, instead it’s in the background – tickling your ear buds with the right mix of background music and positive mental feedback from the bleeps and bloops.

You can easily see the heart and soul that has been poured into this game; I cannot really fault anything except the lack of a widescreen option. Simplicity is often the way forward – while you can have fun with games as complex as Skyrim or Battlefield 3, this game goes to prove all you need is an objective and a means of getting there and you wil have fun.

The graphics aren’t exactly modern, but they are what they are meant to be, channelling across a unique mining and exploration theme that will also take you back to your roots in gaming as a child. I highly recommend looking at this title.

Gameplay – 8
Sound – 9
Graphics – 8

Overall – 8

Despite the growth of mobile gaming, there remains a strong market for traditional handhelds, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has said. And it seems he is right!

“Last summer, when the sales pace of the Nintendo 3DS was slow, there were extreme remarks saying, ‘With the penetration of smartphones, will there still be a market for handheld hardware?’ which was almost equal to ‘Handheld hardware is not necessary anymore’” he told investors.

“I believe we proved that such opinions are incorrect.”

The 3DS was quite an expensive console in it’s launch, with a sales slump, Iwata had been forced to cut the price of the 3DS in order to pull the system out of its spiralling decent, Nintendo has been making a loss on each system sold, but this won’t be the case for much longer.

“In the first half of the next fiscal term (starting April), we are now anticipating to get out of the situation that we sell the hardware below cost,” confirmed Iwata.

Could this possibly lead to more, and better, game support for the system and maybe even a price cut? Do let us know what you think in the comments section below.

The Resistance trilogy is one of the Playstation 3′s biggest standalone and exclusive IP’s. It seems hard to imagine why they would want to stop a series with such a good footing. Insomniac head Ted Price has offered an explanation as to why the studio will no longer be working on the Resistance franchise.

In a video statement Price said he and the team had achieved what it wanted to with the franchise, and is now looking forward to its other projects such as OverStrike.

“I did want to confirm it, face to face, that we are not moving on with the Resistance franchise,” said Ted Price.

“We believe that Resistance has reached its logical conclusion in terms of the story that we wanted to tell. However, that doesn’t mean the Resistance franchise isn’t continuing; it’s already in the capable hands of Nihilistic, and Sony’s shepherding. We know that it will continue to live on and expand. And we’re excited, as fanboys, to see where it goes.”

Ted also went on to thank series’ fans for their enthusiasm, comments and constructive criticism, before looking forward to the studio’s next IP, OverStrike.

He finished simply: “We’re very much looking forward to having you with us as we move onto other games such as Overstrike. So, thank you very much for your support.”

It’s as simple as that, Insomniac have run their course and passed the baton over to another developer under Sony’s ever so watchful eye. Will we see another Resistance title? Possibly. Will it be how we remember the first three? We can only hope!

OverStrike is the studio’s first multiplatform game and will be released by EA for Xbox 360 and PS3.

Nintendo has announced that the Coral Pink and Ice White Nintendo 3DS consoles will be available to buy as individual units from February the 10th in the UK.

Previously these two coloured units had only been available to buy in a bundle with either Nintendogs + Cats or Super Mario 3D land. The pink handheld coming with Nintendogs and the White with Mario.

Now this has changed, the two colours are available to pre-order from GAME priced £139.99.

Personally, I don’t think this is a massive change, however we may see a rise in sales of 3DS’ just because a, technically, new SKU has been released. We have seen plenty of times before, where small variations in such things as colour has increased sales buy a large margin.

The holidays have really helped Microsoft in their Entertainment and Devices division,  posted record quarter two. Read on to find how much and where the money was made.

Sales of $4.2 billion were announced by Microsoft for the 2nd financial quarter. Over the second quarter, which included the holiday season, sales were up 15 per cent over the same period in 2010, but profits were actually down 28 per cent to $530 million. Which, by my account, is still a serious amount of money.

Much of the sales were thanks to a massive 8.2 million shipped Xbox 360 consoles, up from the 6.3 million units shipped in Q2 2010. Revenue from Xbox grew by nine per cent to $322m. However, it was other areas where Microsoft where lacking in the entertainment division, which also includes the Windows Phone and Skype.

As Microsoft has previously reported, life to date sales for Xbox 360 stand at 66 million units, with 18 million Kinect units.