28
Mar
2010
Sony E3 2010: Year of the MMO
Console MMO’s? There is a ton a skepticism surrounding this genre, especially since there truly hasn’t been a successful one yet, barring Final Fantasy XI. However with the continued explosive adoption of highspeed internet worldwide, and with current generation console sales eclipsing 33 million for Sony’s PS3 (VGCharz.com), now seems like the perfect time to test the waters once again. And Sony looks to be planning to do this in a big way!
28
Dec
2009
The Last Guardian’s sales: Destined for Mediocrity
It pains me to write this article, but there is a purpose behind writing it. Hopefully if I can illuminate this issue, then more people can be aware of it and correct it in this third iteration of the “series” by Team ICO.
Let’s start from the beginning. Fumito Ueda and the rest of Team ICO released ICO for the PS2 in 2001. Despite being an incredibly innovative game in the sense of gameplay, musical scores, graphics, and story, the game largely fell under the radar for the mainstream market. The real shame of the situation is that the game is even to this day still hailed as one of the best exclusives for the PS2 system with a Metacritic average score of 90/100, however the overall sales worldwide hover right around ONLY 700,000 for the lifetime of the game.
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.
19
Oct
2009
God Of War Collection Release Delayed
A mass email was just sent out to everyone who pre-ordered the God Of War Collection via Amazon.com detailing a delay of the product’s release. Here is the text from the email.
Hello from Amazon.com.
We have received new release date information related to your pre-ordered video game in the order you placed on XXX 2009 (Order# XXXX). The release date for the video game listed below has been changed by the publisher, and we want to provide you with a new delivery estimate based on the new release date:
“God of War: Collection”
Release date: November 17 2009
-
Apparently there has been cause to push the titile’s release back another week. Personally it does not bother me, it will simply give me more time to play other titles that I’m backlogged in. But it is a shame, because this is another week longer that I won’t be able to play the God of War 3 demo voucher that is included with the disc! Apparently no one want to release the same week as Infinity Ward’s Modern Warfare 2. Can you blame them really?
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!
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.
14
Jul
2009
Upset about PSP: Go Pricing? Don’t Blame Sony!
Disclaimer: This is an editorial based on opinions that may or may not be rooted in fact.
The announcement of the PSP: Go (worst kept secret of E3) was met with mixed reception by consumers. The main deterring factor was that despite the exclusion of a UMD drive, this new PSP model is set to retail for $80 more than the core PSP-3000 SKU is selling for currently. Granted, this new system is lighter, slimmer, and altogether sexier, but when the only added feature is Bluetooth connectivity, how can that pricetag be justified. The answer is simple: Sony’s not making the money on it. Because there isn’t a major difference in the actual innards of the system from its predecessor, the manufacturing cost cannot be that much higher.
With a console that is strictly dependant on digital distribution, retailers would be reluctant to stock such an item unless they were actually making a good deal of profit on it. Remember the articles about European retailers refusing to carry the PSP: Go? Well, despite Sony refusing to admit that there was ground to theses claims, it leads me to think that retailers are getting compensated with their cut from the console sales since these purchases won’t lead to further game sales from their retail location. Essentially, gamers and their wallets are being punished because Sony is trying to make portable gaming more accessible to everyone, since they are trying to bypass the middleman in the process.
So, keep this in mind on October 1st when you’re staring at a $249 price tag on a PSP: Go! Your hard earned money isn’t going to end up in the hands of Sony, but the retailers that are getting a bigger cut of the profits just so that won’t be tempted to refuse to carry the stock.
Please leave your comments and thoughts below!
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!