1
Mar
2010
Stop Bitching about the PS3 Glitch
This is getting truly out of hand. The PSN has been glitching for less than 24 hours and people are saying that this is comparable to the RROD devastation that afflicted early chipsets of the Xbox 360s. How fickle are people that they can’t remember history and what has happened not even a year and half ago now.
*Flashback to December 31st, 2008.*
All was well as children around the world were preparing to watch the new year’s eve celebration as the clock struck midnight. However, fate had a different sort of new years resolution for little Jimmy and the 12 other people around the planet that bought 30gb Microsoft Zunes. Because as the clock stuck midnight, every single 30gb Zune on the entire planet bricked simultaneously. Consequently the tech community freaked out, dubbing the event as the ‘Red Ring of Zune’. It turned out that this was only an internal clock issue and after 24 hours all of the Zunes (all 13 of them worldwide) returned to normal.
Now back to present day. How is this so dissimilar from what is occurring right now with the ‘fat’ PS3s? We’re lucky that our systems didn’t brick. They’re still playable for non-trophy games: ie Valkyria Chronicles, Metal Gear Solid 4, Resistance: Fall of Man, Heavenly Sword. This is the perfect opportunity to go back and play those games. Or better yet, use your system as a blu-ray player, since it is arguably the best one of those on the market. Moral of the story is that people are overreacting about this entirely situation which will more than likely auto-correct itself within a matter of hours.
What’s your take on this ‘ApocalyPS3’ (it pains me to even type that phrase). Is it just fuel for the trolls to go to town on? That’s my own personal opinion. What’s yours? Comment below.
Sony’s official advice on the situation.
UPDATE!
The PS3 is now working again. There are no patches, just turn on your PS3 and it works!
17
Nov
2009
PSN is Down? (11-17-09)
Trying to log into the PSN today I got this strange error message. Maybe the Firmware v.3.10 update that was detailed on the PS Blog yesterday is coming sooner than expected! Who knows, only time will tell.
If that is the case, Sony is trying to combat the Fall Xbox Live update that incorporates Twitter and Facebook by updating their own Firmware on the same day. Looks like the PSN is no longer playing catchup to Xbox Live, but they are rather releasing the same quality updates simultaneously.
26
Sep
2009
Retailers Struggle to Keep Up with PS3 Slim Demand
With the Holiday season creeping up ever so frequently, the question on everyone’s mind is who is going to come out on top in sales between the three current generation consoles. All three consoles have implemented price cuts recently to try to jumpstart the industry in a lagging worldwide economy. It seems to have worked, especially for the newly remodeled Playstation 3. This console managed to sell over 1.2 million units in its first 3 weeks of being on the market, more than it managed to sell all of last quarter combined!
As a safeguard measure to protect their own inventory stock from depleting too rapidly as the Holidays approach, Amazon.com has begun to limit customers to only purchasing ONE console per household. They are even reflecting this on their banner adds that can be found around the internet. Here is the text taken directly off the PS3 Slim’s product page.
PlayStation 3 120 GB purchase limit policy
As you may know, the PlayStation 3 120 GB is in great demand. In an effort to provide as many customers as possible with the opportunity to purchase PlayStation 3 120 GB, we are limiting the total number of PlayStation 3 120 GB units that can be purchased. As a result, each household may only purchase one PlayStation 3 120 GB unit. See additional policy details here.
This is most likely the first of many retailers to start to impose these restrictions. But this just comes as a shock because of the timing. It is only September, and the Holidays are still 3 months away. However with exclusive titles that the PS3 is launching such as Uncharted 2: Among Thieves and Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2, the sales are being propelled earlier than usual this 2009 Holiday!
Please leave your questions and comments below!
23
Sep
2009
Playstation Reality Show “The Tester” Starts Making Cuts
Just to recap, Playstation announced their own reality show they were going to product called The Tester. In this contest, gamers would be pitted against each other in battles of both skill and knowledge competing for a grand prize of a job testing games for Sony. Applicants were asked to submit a video explaining why they wanted to be on this show.
After all of the entries were submitted and run through, Sony has made their first cuts in an effort to narrow down the pool of talent. Starting today producers of this show have begun to call individuals whose videos caught their eye in order to schedule them for followup interviews. If you submitted a video application, cross your fingers in hopes that you will be receiving a call in the next day or so. Good luck, and may the best gamer win!
21
Sep
2009
The Effect of Next-Gen Re-Releases on the Gaming Industry
Because of the issue of backwards compatibility only being available in select PS3 SKU’s and it being limited among select X-Box games on the 360, a new phenomenon has started to arrive on the scene: Next-Gen Re-Releases. This has been something that has been present for a while in the form of Downloadable Content (DLC), some of the more recent and bigger names of the titles span from Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 which received a graphics update as well as online compatibility, all the way to the recent release of TMNT: Turtles in Time Re-shelled.
The market is obviously there for these past titles to be re-released and consumers are demanding them. But more recently Sony’s Santa Monica offices are trying a new approach by releasing the God of War collection on a Blu-ray disk for the PS3. This package will include the original two titles in the series completely remastered from their PS2 states to run in native 720p HD graphics at 60 frames per second. Not only this, but unlike other classic games that are just offered through the various online marketplaces: PSN, XBLA, and Wii-ware, this God of War bundle will come with full trophy support, adding a new twist to two classic games. But really, the icing on the cake is that despite all of this work in remastering and adding new code to existing games, the release price for this bundle will only be 2/3 of what a standard new game retails at. $40 for next-gen updates to classic titles may just be the sweet spot.
But, why would a company spend all of this time and effort on games that have been out for years? Well, the developers surveyed the fans (Source) and simply asked them what they wanted done. This comes at a great time, because it will lead hype and anticipation for the March 2010 release of the sequel God of War III on the Playstation 3. Obviously it pays to listen to your fans, because as of now, a month and a half before the release of this new collection, it is in the Top 5 sales of all PS3 games on Amazon.com. (Source)
Now the question really is, knowing all of this, what effect will this have on the industry? If developers are focusing all of their resources on remastering classic games, then there will never be any forward progress made in the way of new IPs. There has to be a balance, and I do think that God of War has struck that balance. The way they are handling this timeline, they are allowing 4-5 months of play on the release of their classics collection in order to build the anticipation for the release of the next iteration in the series. In this you have the best of both worlds.
People that never got the chance to experience the original games (because they lived under a rock on in inner Siberia) will be able to play them in their remastered HD glory, but even more important, fans of the series will be able to wet their appetite on 720p Kratos months earlier than they expected to. This God of War collection really is an experiment as to how well the public will receive remastered games in disk form rather than just as Downloadable titles. Depending on the success of this title, we could potentially see lots more “collections” rolling out. Possibly a remastered Team ICO collection (ICO and Shadow of the Colossus)? It’s important to keep in mind that one of the most highly demanded titles is a remastered version of Final Fantasy VII.
In the end, the best part about this scenario is that everyone benefits from it. As long as developers don’t become complacent by ONLY remastering their classic titles, then gamers, developers, and the entire industry will all reap the rewards from seeing the most demanded games resurface in this generation.
Please leave questions or comments at the end!
9
Aug
2009
Fat Princess Review
Overview
Fat Princess is a $15 game developed by Titan Studios and it’s a PS3 exclusive. The game first shown on E3 2008 and since then there have been a lot of hype and anticipation surrounding the title and it was well deserved.
Controls
The control scheme in Fat Princess is really simple and that’s one of the things that make the game so fun, to perform your basic attack on any class you hit the square button, hit the triangle button and you will change weapons. Also you can lock on your enemies with the L1 button; this is pretty useful, especially when you are using the ranger. With every class you can charge your attacks by holding the square button, this increase the power of your attack.
Graphics
The art style of this game is wonderful, with awesome cel-shaded graphics that make the game look incredible. There are a lot of things happening on the screen and the frame rate will stay very steady. The game is very colorful and looks very nice, and when you see it you think is a kid’s game but suddenly a Warrior comes and kills you and a huge amount blood comes out, this is pretty funny. I must say that this is one of the best looking games on the PSN.
Gameplay
You can find a lot of different modes on Fat Princess, and the single player aspect of the game works like a tutorial showing you all of them. One of the modes is the Snatch n’ Grab, the objective in this mode is kidnapping the enemy’s princess from their castle and carry her to your castle, this process needs to be done 3 times to win the game; an awesome thing that I found on this game was the fact that if you are the top scoring player on the game when the match ends you will turn yourself into “The Death” and be practically invincible and extremely powerful, so you will be able to kill all the remaining enemies with ease.
There are five different classes in the game:
First, we have the worker, this guy needs to collect resources like wood and take them to the base; this resources are used to upgrade the castle or build doors or bridges. Using the worker sounds a little boring because the only thing that you do is collect and build but actually is really fun and important to win the match.
The warrior is the most powerful class in the game, you will be carrying a sword and a shield and will have a lot of health. Basically the warrior is used to kill some enemies or to breach into the enemy castle.
The ranger carries a bow, so it is able to shoot arrows, you can use fire to light up your arrows which will increase the damage done to the enemy. When this class is upgraded you will carry a very powerful shotgun that causes a lot of damage to the nearby enemies.
Now, we have the mage, this class wields a staff that can throw fireballs, also you can charge up your attack holding the square button inflicting damage on the enemies that are near you. If the mage is upgraded you will get a secondary ice attack which slows downs the enemies making them easier to kill.
Finally we have the priest; this class is a support class so you can only heal your enemies recharging their health. If this class is upgraded you will turn into a dark priest, which is the exact opposite of the pries, because you will drain the life of your enemies.
The Bottom Line
9.5/10
In the end Fat Princess is an incredibly fun game, with a very deep gameplay and amazing visuals, very fun to play offline and online with your friends, making it one of the best and most fun games available on the PlayStation Network.
16
Jul
2009
Droplitz Review
Overview
Droplitz is a game developed by Blitz Arcade and published by Atlus. The game is $9.99 and is out now on the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC. I have to say that Droplitz took me by surprise! After browsing through the marketplace, I stumbled upon this game. Once I noticed that the publisher was Atlus, I was immediately interested and went to watch some gameplay videos. It seemed like an extremely addictively puzzler, and true me, it doesn’t disappoint.
Controls
The path making process consists of rotating circular pieces that have paths inside them. Once you align them with each other they connect to make a larger pathway. You need to plan ahead how you are going to rotate this dials because if one of the Droplitz hits a dead end you will immediately lose. There are different types of dials; they have various shapes so you need to plan which dial to rotate to be able to create the path for the Droplitz. The way the game controls is fairly intuative, you use one button to rotate the dials to the right and another button to rotate them to the left. So, not too complicated.
Graphics
Visually, Droplitz is nothing that will blow you away. This is kind of obvious considering it is a puzzle game, but the graphics are very clean and do their job making the game presentable and visually appealing. When you are making your way through the game you will see that the themes of the puzzles are constantly changing, this is pretty good because the backgrounds and the music evolve similarly to how Lumines created backgrounds and moods set to music in various stages.
Gameplay
For a 10 dollars game, Droplitz offers a lot of content. You can find four different game modes, each with different boards to play in. These different levels are made available as unlockable content that is obtained through achieving certain high scores. While the first goal is fairly easily attained, as you progress through this downloadable title, the high scores seem harder and harder to reach. The first mode is the Classic Mode, in here you only need to create paths and get a good score, as simple as that. (Well, it’s called “classic” for a reason, right?)
The second mode that you can find in Droplitz is the Zendurance Mode. This mode challenges you to last as long as you can while playing the game, and while doing so you will have to keep creating paths in order to keep your “life” meter up. When you select this mode you will be able to choose between the different themes that you have unlocked while playing the Classic game. These themes have different music and a different kind of background attributed to each of them.
The third mode is the Power-Up mode. Like the name indicates, in this mode you will get a variety of power ups that modify the gameplay. Example of these are a power up that slows down everything and help you to create the paths with more time, another type of power up is one that destroys the area where you place it, you can use these with certain dials that make your work easier.
The fourth and last mode available in Droplitz is the Infection Mode. In this mode the dials will get “infected”, and when this happens they will be harder to rotate because they slow their rotation speed down making the path-making process more difficult. You will also have the power ups at your disposal in this mode, so you have to think about how you are going to use them to keep things flowing.
The Bottom Line
8.5/10
In the end Droplitz is an incredible game, extremely addictive and fun. With a very simple gameplay mechanic, this title will steal a lot of hours from your life. If you are a puzzle fan or you only want a game to spend some time with I extremely recommend you to look into this title.
12
Jul
2009
Battlefield 1943 Review
Overview
Battlefield 1943 is the latest entry on the classic Battlefield franchise, this time developer DICE have decided to take a different approach and make a download only title for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC.
Controls
The controls in BF1943 are the same as other shooters on the consoles like Battlefield: Bad Company and Call of Duty, you aim and shoot with the triggers. You can also take control of different vehicles like jeeps, tanks and airplanes, in here the controls also feel very solid but you will have a hard time maneuvering your bomber.
Graphics
Considering that this game is a downloadable title the graphics are great, the maps are very detailed, the water looks awesome and the explosions on vehicles and airplanes also looks very good. The Frostbite Engine makes a good job to keep the frame rate solid while a lot of action is happening on the screen. Also the character models look good with great animations and very detailed uniforms. Another thing that I liked from the overall presentation of the game is the menus; they are very stylish and work really well.
Gameplay
This aspect of the game doesn’t come with any surprises, it is classic battlefield gameplay so everything that you liked (and hated) of older Battlefield titles is still present in this game; this is not something bad at all, you will still have loads of fun playing this title. Initially there are 3 maps on the game, I say “initially” because DICE added a community challenge where the objective is to reach 43 million kills between all the people that are playing the game, when this happens a new map named Coral Sea will unlock for everyone. The game features 3 different classes (Rifleman, Infantry and Scout) each with different guns, explosives and melee weapons. DICE has managed to balance the whole game adding weaknesses to all the vehicles and the classes.
The Bottom Line
9.0/10
Battlefield 1943 is one of the best titles that have been released on the PSN and the XBLA, it blends great graphics with extremely fun gameplay, resulting in a package that every shooter fan should get.
17
Jun
2009
Sucker Punch Delivers a Knock-Out: inFAMOUS Review
Sucker Punch 2009 for the PS3
Overview
Sony has found their new posterboy in this new multi-faceted main character, Cole. inFAMOUS is altogether a really well thought through, great game from beginning to end. This is the kind of title that you play for hours, and when you finally turn it off, you can’t help but keep thinking about it. Not that there’s anything extraordinary about the storyline that sucks you in more than any other game, but there is just so much freedom to manipulate the world however you choose, that the game becoming strangely addictive.
Controls
I have to congratulate the team that developed the controls for this game. Being able to control a super-hero’s every move with a small-handheld controller, yet still have all of the inputs be intuitive is no small feat. They somehow managed to pull it off though. With everything from being able to scale any building on the map, to using your powers to “fly”, the player actually feels really in-tune with the character, because of how easily they can manipulate him to perform the most complicated moves. My only critique is that that radius around objects that you essentially “snap to” as if you were going to climb them when you fly by is entirely too large. Just because I may be flying near an object doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m going to want to cling onto it and climb it instead of continuing on my current flightpath. But, since everything else is done so well, this minor detail is negligible.
Graphics
Sucker Punch did a great job of creating a nextgen game without losing the stylistic flare they were trying to achieve this game. The graphic novel cutscenes are a nice change of pace compared to graphics heavy cinematics of say: MGS4. Not to say that anything is wrong with having movie quality graphics incorporated between gameplay, however the graphic novel approach seemed to work well with the feeling of this particular game. One thing that was done particularly well was the distance that was rendered in the open world map. You could take your character to the top of the highest building, then use the zoom-in ability, and you could still see details for nearly as far as the eye could see. However, the character models felt slightly unfinished as a whole. Specifically towards the very beginning of the game when there is a lot of dialogue, it’s really evident that the production was rushed to meet a deadline, and they simply didn’t get around to polishing off all of the edges of the character models and talking animations. The good part about this though, it that is has absolutely no effect on the gameplay whatsoever!
Gameplay and Story
I cannot brag enough about how much fun this game was to play. I was looking forward to this title for multiple reasons, but once I got my hands on the controls, I forgot all of them and just got sucked into how much plain fun it was to run through Empire City as a “walking sparkplug”. What makes this game stand out is the engine it is running on. There is ZERO lag for the game no matter how many explosions are onscreen at the same time, or how many dozens of enemies you are fending off. That’s the beauty of an engine that is specifically made for a game, rather than a game that is designed to work around the capabilities of a specific engine. All in all, the storyline and gameplay were captivating and addictive, what more can you ask for from a new IP?
The Bottom Line
9.4/10
Despite the fact that I’ve already beaten the game completely through twice, and gotten the platinum trophy, I don’t see this game collecting dust on my shelf for long. Even after you beat the game, there is so much fun to be had simply rampaging through the streets and abusing your superpowers against “exploding pedestrians”. This is one of the best titles yet to be released on the PlayStation 3 platform, and I would go far enough to say that no self-respecting PS3 owner’s game collection would be complete without this game among the others on the shelf! If you haven’t bought this game already, I don’t know what you’re waiting for, if you have then you’re probably going to do the same thing I am after writing this, go back to playing more inFAMOUS!
13
Jun
2009
New Reviews Incoming!
I am writing the first installment of a new series of reviews that I’m going to call: “I’ve got the platinum, so I know what I’m talking about.” For those of you who don’t know, I’m a huge trophy/achievement collector and have over 1500 trophies now. So, just because I’m limiting these reviews to games that I have platinums for, it won’t really restrict me since I have 19 of those already. Keep checking back, because this inFAMOUS review will be coming soon!