At first glance, it looks like your average Mario platformer. The box shows Mario jumping over to some Bricks, while avoiding a Goomba with a Tandooki tail. But then you put the game cart into the 3DS, and this is where it shines. This review will be seperated into “Graphics”, “Gameplay”, “Audio” and then a summary of the game in general.

Graphics
Well, since New Super Mario Bros in 2006 was a disappointment (ie. it was 2.5D (some 3D elements while everything else was 2D tiles/sprites) instead of pushing the DS to it’s visual limit with a 3D rendered level), I personally can say that this is like a pocket Mario Galaxy. Sure, you won’t be getting all the sexy visuals that Mario Galaxy on the Wii provides; but it gets pretty damn close to it without becoming a dogs breakfast in the process.

When playing in traditional mode without 3D effects, on-screen visuals are crisp, clean and sharp. You can clearly see what’s lying ahead, either something to help you, or hinder your progress. However, Mario 3D Land excels in the 3D visuals department. Sit back, knock that 3D slider to the max, and watch objects become realistic. It’s almost like that object is sitting in front of you. On some levels, I found having 3D visuals enabled made the game almost bursting out of the 3DS screen. Pretty damn cool.

I’ve yet to see any rendering issues, but I have seen a little bit of clipping at times. Nothing serious, but sometimes some clipping will suddenly appear, then disappear. While most objects have been recycled from Mario Galaxy, some new enemies and objects appear in-game, which is always welcome in a Mario game because it breathes some new life into the game, rather than the traditional host of Goombas, Koopas, and you know the rest.

Gameplay
Nintendo has taken Mario Galaxy’s engine, pulled all that planet gravity jazz out of it, thrown in some new abilities for Mario, and made it feel like like Mario 64. And that’s a good thing, since Mario Sunshine’s engine was utter trash. If you’ve played Mario Galaxy, then that is a bonus, newcomers will need to spend time playing around with the control system. Sadly, no switchable controls like the ones in Mario 64 DS. The only gripe is that I found the levels too easy, and I’ve already cleared half the game on the same day I bought it!

Unlike how each world section (ie. World 1, World 2, etc) in older Mario games were theme-related (ie. Grasslands, Water, etc), each “World” in Mario 3D Land may have elements of the “theme”, but not all of it. For example, you might find a water level in a snow world, or a desert in a completely random world. It’s things like this that make it less of “Oh yeah, another boring level ahead”, and more “Oh wow, that level was good, this one looks even better!”.

Another cool feature is the item hold system, if you get a better powerup, it switches like it does in Super Mario World – for example, if you have a Tandooki Mario suit on, and get a Fire flower, you’ll turn into Fire Mario with your Tandooki suit in reserve. Makes switching back and forth between powers quite easy.

So, what’s the plot? Yes, it’s the tranditional setup. Bowser kidnaps the Princess, again for the umpeeth time. No cake involved though. There’s also some rather amusing cutscenes in the mix, I got a laugh out of the World 4 beginning cutscene.

Audio
Most music has been recycled from Mario Galaxy series (note to self: stop saying “Mario Galaxy”!) but there is some welcome additions to the party, either remixes of classics or completely original tracks. Sounds also have been recycled, but there are some remastered ones (ie. tandooki tail, etc) and power up/take damage sounds. Mario himself makes the traditional sounds he usually makes, but there’s a few new ones in the mix.

Either way, Mario 3D Land in the music department isn’t earcancer and provides a nice balance between classic and recent Mario title music.

Overall Verdict
Hands down, this is a solid Mario title. I like it a lot, and if you’re looking for something to test out the 3D functions of the 3DS, give this game a shot. Despite the game being a little too easy at times, it’s a winner for any Mario veteran. Don’t just dismiss the game as being another rehash of a exsting game – play the game first before you judge.

Coburn’s verdict? Well, I’d award this game 2.75 out of 3 stars. That missing 0.25 of a star is just that it’s a little too easy (in certain parts) and sometimes the controls can be a little annoying, but with those gripes aside, it’s a winner.

Did your iPhone recently get stolen or lost? Well, beware. The latest security issue on iOS devices is that iMessage, one of the core iOS features will still send you messages to stolen iPhones, even after you’ve decided to nuke your data using “Remote Wipe”.

As quoted from Gizmodo:

Beware: if your iPhone gets stolen, it will keep receiving messages sent via iMessage even after a remote wipe out and deactivation. The thief—or whoever buys the stolen terminal—would be able to read whatever is written to you.

Users in Apple support board are reporting this problem which has no solution for now. The iMessages will arrive both your new iPhone and the old one. One of the users says that the only way to solve the problem is by canceling the old Apple ID and creating a new one.

So, yeah. iOS user, be aware…

Here’s a video of the K-ON! themes in use

Watch this video on YouTube.

(Source Video)

The image gallery that we promised we’d upload is now available for viewing at this link.

The collection of 20 screenshots show a quick view of some of the builds’ features, and also some new additions.

Feel free to leave your comments below.

Coburn’s Domain has its hot little hands on a build of Windows 8 Post-Milestone 3, with the build number of 7989. This build is the starting point of the evolution into the next version of Windows, called Windows 8.

Most Windows 7 Ultimate features still exist in build 7989, however, there are some new features and apps that can be seen in the the screenshot gallery and run-down coming within a few hours.

Due to legal reasons, we aren’t allowed to provide direct download links, but google is your friend.

Mozilla, the creator of the web browser, Firefox, are trigger happy with the release gun, and have released a beta of Firefox 6. This is the 2nd time Mozilla has push another version of major version of their web-browser this year.

Here at Coburn’s Domain, the geeks are testing this new update out, and what we’ve noticed is that so far that the “cold boot” of Firefox 6 is faster than Firefox 5, however, subquent loads of Firefox after it’s first run load much quicker – we like anything that’s faster than it’s older sister.

On the other side of the computing field, Mac users of Firefox 4 & 5 that switch to Firefox 6 won’t notice much of a difference, since it’s mainly some hardcore tweaks under the bonnet. Users coming from Firefox 3.6 to 6.0 will notice a very sleek UI update.

You can try out Firefox 6 Beta 1 via this link. Simply click on the OS that you’re running, and you’ll have the latest (beta) version of Firefox on your computer.

While Firefox 3.6 is considered obsolete, Firefox 4 will be slowly phased out in favor for Firefox 5. Startup times are still not as fast as Google Chrome or Opera, but Firefox 5 is faster to start up after the initial “First Run”, but the browser also seems snappier.

The rendering engine has been improved for better support of HTML5 elements and also has numerous under the bonnet tweaks. Firefox 5 better utilizes computer hardware for rendering acceleration, which allows your GPU (and it’s available processing power, like nVidia CUDA) to help render webpages.

You can download the new version of the browser from the Firefox website.

Apple’s Big Three with release dates:

1. Mac OS X 10.7 “Lion” – July 2011
2. iOS 5.0 – Fall/Autumn ’11 (Northern Hemispere)
3. iCloud – Fall/Autumn ’11 (Northern Hemispere)

So, what can we expect from each of the offerings that might very well improve our current devices? Well, we can say this:

Mac OS X 10.7 “Lion”: Over 250+ new features (10 of which were shown at WWDC)
iOS 5.0: 200+ new features (including some tweaks) (10 of which were shown at WWDC)
iCloud: An apple service which allows users to store data such as music files and automatically sync between multiple devices between iPhones, iPods, iPads, and personal computers. It also replaces MobileMe, acting as a server for email, contacts, calendars and other data. The best thing about this offering that it’s free.

Mac OS X Lion will have a features allowing a single application to become full screen, and also auto-save open Documents and the Desktop setup when you restart the Mac.

iOS 5 will have a new notification system allowing you to continue playing your game or composing a text to your friends while iOS lets you know about it at the top of the screen. It’s a piece of cake to get to the notification screen: Swipe a finger down from the top to the bottom of the screen. We can’t help but notice it’s a take on Android’s notification system.

To find out more about the details of the 3 items visit the Apple website.

The Nintendo 3DS Hacking Wiki is a wiki deciated to portable freedom on the recently released Nintendo 3DS. By portable freedom, we mean, custom software (also known as homebrew) running on the 3DS, such as console emulation, movie players, system software mods and 3DS Linux, just to name a few.

The 3DS Hacking Wiki can be found here, at http://3ds.coburndomain.net. Of course, it’ll be a slow start, but if we all pitch in and help out, before we know it, we’ll have homebrew running on our 3DS consoles. See you there!

The Mozilla team have continued their efforts to improve the Firefox Web browser once again, with the Firefox 5.0 beta. This release aims to compete with Microsoft Internet Explorer 9 that had been released a couple of months ago.

Mozilla encourages people who wish to take the plunge and test drive Firefox 5 to do so at the Firefox Beta download page. Please note that some addons will not work until the authors release Firefox 5-compatible versions of them.

Will Firefox 5 be faster than the current Firefox 4? With promising features and under-the-bonnet tweaks, it seems like it may be so.