Saturday 31 October 2009

War, huh, yeah, what is it good for?


Pulling the eye out of a Cyclops apparently!

Some initial impressions of the E3 God of War 3 demo:

- More blood and guts than a night out in Barnsley
- Bit of a button masher, but using the block and roll buttons means you can at least pretend to know what you are doing
- Massive sense of scale, it does feel like you are in a believable world even though the paths are linear
- Some nice mini-boss battles that mix action and Quicktime events.
- Brooding music and sound effects
- Impressive graphics, love the way the title screen transitions into the first level seemlessly
- Amusing ways to dispatch civilians

Now I can't confess to being a massive fan of the franchise (got about half way through the 2nd game before I took the plunge and bought a PS3) but I did enjoy the half an hour or so with the demo. Granted it doesn't do anything to reinvent the wheel and lacks the warmth, humour and character development of something like Uncharted 2, but as a polished, action orientated blockbuster it certainly delivers a visceral experience. I'm sure the many millions of fans of the series will lap it up, but for me, I'll have to give it a few more play throughs to decide whether it joins FF13, GT5 & Resonance of Fate on the preorder queue.

Get round pablo's house if you fancy a go!


Visit Crowd DNA Gamer Panel

[pabloamigo]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpqAsY7I_ it does look pretty cool. [mobiletone]

F.A.G.S!


Borderlands gets patched today.

Here are the PS3 fixes, from the Gearbox official forums.

• Load times have been improved
• Lilith's Phase Strike ability now works as intended
• The introductory quests with CL4P-TP should now always progress properly
• Fixed a bug that caused the digger elevator to be unusable after completing the Find Tannis mission
• Weapon mapping to the D-pad should no longer reverse left and right
• Fixed a crash when ejecting the disc during the autosave warning splash screen
• Players in a lobby should no longer experience long loading when starting a game after one player leaves
• A bug which caused players and other things in the world to appear incorrectly on clients in networked games has been fixed
• Fixed a bug in which players gibbed in arena combat disappeared
• Changed how space required for saves is calculated
• Fixed a bug which caused the dollars counter to spin continuously
• Various localization and other text and tooltip corrections

i wonder what they've changed about the Phase Strike, seemed to be working to me, i had the Shock Elemental rigged to mine. hmmmm, better play a few more hours of it just to make sure the patch is working :D

also "Fixed a crash when ejecting the disc during the autosave" what kind of total spanner do you have to be to do that!?!? is the rotating icon on screen and the warning pre-game not to do that not enough for you?

[mobiletone] Lv24 CATALYST Siren and owner of a bright pink rocket turreted SaltRunner

borderlands - lilith and mordakai
Mordacai suddenly realises he'd shot a kid in a Skag Halloween costume.

Friday 30 October 2009

And The Winners Are...

The 27th annual Golden Joystick Winners were announced in London today, with Fallout 3 being crowned the "Ultimate Game of the Year.". Not surprisingly KillZone2 won the PS3 game of the year and Left4Dead won online game of the year.. HOW? i guess there must be some rabid L4D fanboys out there rigging the voting :) anyways, how did your votes go, what do you think of the winners?


I think Fallout 3 got the recognition it deserved, it truly is a very well crafted game that totally sucks you in to the Wastelands I have to admit to playing that game more than anything else in the last year and only put my gaming on hold as i'd played through the main story 3 times and crafted my character up to the level caps, well, except my uberevil character who cares not for levels and is on a mission to destroy every living person on the map :) but now the Fallout3 GoTY edition is here along with the complete DLC collection i think it won't be long before i'm standing in the ruins of DC laughing like a crazy person again. That's if i can kick my Borderlands habit i guess.

Check out the full list of awards and their winners below.

Family Game of the Year: LittleBigPlanet (yay)

Bliss Handheld Game of the Year: Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars (sweet)

Retailer of the Year: GAME (srsly?)

Mobile Game of the Year: Metal Gear Solid Touch (indeed)

Nintendo Game of the Year: Call of Duty: World at War (pew pew pew)

MSN Multiplayer Game of the Year: Call Of Duty: World At War (nazi zombies!)

The Rampage Soundtrack of the Year: Guitar Hero World Tour (rawk)

Xbox Game of the Year: Gears of War 2 (i guess it deserves it)

PC Game of the Year: Fallout 3 (totally)

Amiqus Games UK Developer of the Year: Jagex (who!? Codemasters should have won that)

PlayStation Game of the Year: Killzone 2 (stop spawning the f--king turrets!)

Publisher of the Year: Activision Blizzard (meh)

Online Game of the Year: Left4Dead (yeah, right)

ShortList One to Watch: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (how cliche)

Ultimate Game of the Year, together with Zavvi.co.uk: Fallout 3 (*does a happy dance*)

Best New Alternative Gaming Blog: Unoffical ThreeSpeech (why thank you *bows* -haha-)

[mobiletone]

I want my GoW Threeeee

SCEE are handing out codes for downloading the God of War III demo! They're teasing us on the EU blog again, and by that I mean telling people to check their inbox this weekend as the codes will be sent out to random PSN members. Last week you may recall I got all excited about the possibility of receiving a code for the Planet Minigolf beta. Well I never got a code for that so this week SCEE has a chance to redeem themselves and send me a flippin' code for GoW III! (send it! send it!).

If anyone else is lucky enough to receive a code this weekend please post your thought on the game in the comments.
[reakt]

There's hardcore, and HARDCORE!


Speaking at the London Games Conference yesterday, Sony's director of PlayStation Home in Europe said the virtual world accrues users who spend money and stick around for long stretches, but Home is nonetheless "not a priority right now."

[mobiletone]

ubuntu-9.10-desktop-i386.iso ready to be burned.

for a bonus point: did you spot the mistake with that tattoo?

Thursday 29 October 2009

Gonna Be a Geeky O/S Installing Weekend

It's October 2009 which means something very special for Linux fans: a 9.10 release of Ubuntu. Today we see the launch of "Karmic Koala" featuring a faster graphical boot sequence (no more scary text scrolls), a revamped audio framework that improves sound control across multiple applications, and a new Software Center that visually simplifies the Add/Remove Applications tool. These are just a few of the user-centric improvements meant to have a "transformative effect" on the OS experience and help bring "the world of open source closer to the user." It's available in desktop, server, and netbook editions now so get to it, before you know it you'll be updating to Lucid Lynx.


I installed Ubuntu on my PS3 waaaay back now it seems and even though the rest of the world went mad for Yellow Dog i though it was lacking in the user friendly stakes and installed another version of Linux, i will admit to being shit scared trying to dump that on my PS3 in case it all went FUBAR but i got there and it was a great O/S. After i upgraded my Hard Drive i neglected to re-install it and then i got too much content to bother reformatting the drive, so it stayed off. But this weekend i'll be ripping my power monster (1.4Ghz + 1Gb RAM) Ugly PC tower down to the roots and building it up with a spanky new O/S.

[mobiletone] http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download
Don't forget that you can create more copies and pass the CD to as many people as you like.

also:- Zero Punctuation: Brutal Legend, hating it for the same reason i did.

Tuesday 27 October 2009

Vincent19 is at it again.

The gamer who tried to sue Sony after he was banned from the PSN for persistently using racist/homophobic language, is to mount an appeal against a federal court's outright dismissal of his case

In addition, Erik Estavillo’s filed a further suit against Sony, this time claiming a whopping $180,000 in damages. It’s unclear what makes Estavillo, who chooses not to be represented by a lawyer, think that his new case is any less likely to be dismissed or why the amount he's claiming for has more than trebled, but he has announced plans to cite the mute feature included in most Network games as evidence that his ban was unlawful.

His argument is that if anyone doesn’t want to hear him spouting racial and homophobic abuse then they can simply mute him. It’s an incredibly weak argument in two respects. First, by the time someone’s muted him, they’ve already been subjected to his crap. Second, it completely disregards the reason his first case was thrown out – that the PSN is a privately owned platform where the constitutional right to freedom of speech does not apply. We know some of the things he was banned for saying. We’re not going to repeat them but trust us, Sony was absolutely right.

If Estavillo’s cases do go to court, which we’re pretty confident they won’t, he plans to wear a bright purple suit in honour of his favourite character from Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe, The Joker. We’ll keep you posted as and when this story gets even sillier…

news is he has finally fucked off to XBL on the XBOX360 where i'm sure he'll feel right at home.

Aint No Rest For The (ThreeSpeech) Wicked


Say any different and i'll phasewalk your ass into next Wednesday

thanks go to SamuelMcCloud (of the clan McCloud) for the video, leader of [Wolf Clan]

Monday 26 October 2009

Rage Against the Machinarium

Loving the work of Czech studio Amanita Design. Their latest offering is point & click adventure Machinarium, which I am currently working my way through in between bouts of Uncharted 2 and Lumines.



The ambience, in particular the sound design, is outrageously good. You get the soundtrack free when you download the game from the Amanita website. As a piece of work on its own the brooding electronica is stirring stuff - but coupled with the great art direction and thoughtful puzzles it adds up to a strangely powerful and moving experience. (And I'm not usually a fan of point & clickers).

My favourite thing? Leave your character alone for a few minutes and he starts to daydream about his child/robothood. Amanita manage to cram more emotion and thought-provoking into these short 15-20 second segments than most devs manage over their entire careers!

Come on threespeechers - support these guys and download the game from their website. Works out at about £13 (you get the soundtrack too) and is available in WinDo'hs, Mac and Linux flavours.

[pabloamigo]

SONY - sign them up for some PSN goodness!! Do it!

Sunday 25 October 2009

Borderlands: the forgot to reset the clock update

Up way too early this morning. Anyways, got Borderlands fired up yesterday and i'm currently rocking a Lv13 Siren Elemental with Lv03 handguns, SMG and sniper, plus other class perks. my elemental powers are cool, handy to have in a melee! i like to get up close and personal in shooty games, probably why i die so much usually :)

Now, first off, the shooting, this has to be stated that IT IS NOT LIKE FALLOUT3, got that? good, no running up to someone with a shotgun shooting them in the face at pointblank and missing! the feel of the running and gunning is more Call of Duty than anything, and once i dialed the sensitivity down a couple of notches felt very natural. you shoot someone, they take damage, you headshot, they take critical. the factors to damage being round type and range i guess and your level perks.

Secondly, leveling up. you kill, you explore, you get XP, more XP = higher levels, higher levels = more perks, i call them perks as that what they feel like, you have 3 skill areas per character to spend your points in and they add to your overall abilities, like a +5% damage on small arms, +40% on stun during melee, +10% shield recovery it works nicely.

Thirdly, the 'it's not cel-shaded' graphic style, damn, if ever a game made you feel like you were gaming inside a graphic novel then this has it nailed down tight. a mix of water colours, pen art, black lines make the whole thing feel and look like nothing else on the Playstation, unique looking it most definitely is.

Forthly? Missions, you have the main story line which you pick up from chatting to various NPC characters, these range from storming bandits hideouts to finding lost false legs! the AI is pretty good and weird! as in what the hell is that lunatic doing running right at me!? ah shit, it's a suicide bomber!! Other missions can be picked up on notice boards in various settlements and are good for boosting your XP, much like going on Skag hunting trips with a fire elemental sniper rifle, much LULz!

Fithly -huh- Vehicles.. hmmm, all i can suggest is you get a SouthPaw on your team to do the driving, for some weird reason they have mapped the steering to the right stick and throttle to the left, this just feels wrong and even after some practice results in stupidly uncalled for crashing. i have yet to check the actual southpaw pad settings to see if they are switched, if so it may be worth a look if you want to do a lot of driving.

that'll do for now. one issue i have noticed though is sound breaks during hard drive access over my optical cable. this can be annoying at times. i have it set to dual audio output and switched over to tv volume 'on' and noticed no sound breaks at all from it. i run HDMI to my tv and Optical to my amp, the amps display shows a loss of signal everytime it happens and it happens every time my hardrive access light comes on. another game that used to do that was Saints Row2 but that was fixed after a patch.

"Gearbox has stated that they are looking into finding and fixing the issue. It's usually more frequent for people who use a digital optical cable for 5.1 surround, switching to A/V or HDMI will output sound without issues."

typical, my set-up again. *rolls eyes*

Friday 23 October 2009

This ones for PabloAmigo!

Is Dave Mustaine the in-game Lars Halford? The similarities are obvious.

Something from the web:

“Schafer also credits a Megadeth roadie named Tony he once met as having given him the idea to make a game about a roadie”

Technical Difficulties


As some of the regulars, weird, pigeon shouting mad folk and general passers by may or may not have noticed the Unofficial ThreeSpeech servers imploded early this morning vanishing in a singularity up their own T1000 Ethernet cable. This of cause has nothing to do with the arrival of the latest member of the U3S team, i am talking of Kai, cable specialist and stealth ninja, you should have all got the memo in your inbox, if you didn't read it -meh-

let me restate, Kai's arrival and the imploding server. not connected.

So, as i was busy with various things yesterday - what did you get off the PSN Store, what floated your boat? have you stopped playing Uncharted 2 yet? are you getting Windows 7? will you see me at any time during the next week after i load Borderlands? why the hell did my feedreader load everything twice?

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

"I'm asking for a quick invite, to drop you some loot," said the voice message at 1 p.m. "You were on my list; I have to cross you off." It was Mikey Neumann, the Gearbox Software creative director.

Neumann, you might recall, promised three weeks ago to "play BLs with you and give you loot" if you preordered Borderlands and showed him proof. I and somewhere north of 200 people took him up on the offer. Thursday, Neumann found me - just a level 7 hunter out trying to retrieve some guy's missing fake leg in Skag Gully - and proceeded to deliver on his commitment to all Borderlands day-one buyers, myself included.

"Here you go, dude," said Neumann, who plays as a Level 50 Hunter - the maximum. And suddenly the Pandoran's Guns & Ammo fantasy came to life at my feet. The DVL Pearl Sniper (Level 28); an LB U Blast Wrath sniper rifle (level 25). Plus a Ranger class mod that I can't use until I hit level 22. Right now I'm wondering whether to sell or hoard them. They do carry a serious price tag.

"Nah, don't worry," Neumann said when I shamefacedly asked if there was anything I could offer in return. "I have so much stuff. I've got like $1.5 million in cash already. It costs me $220,000 at the New U station when I respawn."

Wednesday 21 October 2009

Spammers of the world, unite and take over!

I have a couple of people on my PSN Friends List (luckily I can't remember who they are off the top of my head) who insist on sending around spam emails.

Two recent examples include:

1. Getting onto the Modern Warfare 2 Beta (which I am fairly sure was never announced and probably doesn't even exist) by sending x amount of messages to your mates. Sony mods are monitoring these messages and if enough are sent you will be entered into the beta.

2. Sony are going to start charging for the PSN, but if we manage to send x amount of messages saying 'Please Don't Sony Overlords' they will change their minds.

I mean really, who believes this shite?!!

Leave the spamming to the professional blue pill popping girth-boosters please!

[pabloamigo]

Planet Minigolf closed beta

As mentioned on the official EU Blog, there's a closed beta for this game and they're now registering participants. A link to the developer's website is provided but what wasn't obvious to me was how to sign up for the flippin' beta! Anyway, to save you hunting, waiting for the page to refresh and so on, here's the direct link.

This is a game from the guys who brought you Zen Pinball (which I remember 'Tone liked). Apparently we can expect an exciting new standard in golf action combining stunning 3D graphics and smart play with true-to-life physics, including precisely calculated ball dynamics. That sounds like "crazy golf" to me!

Good luck getting into the beta and wish me luck too! Oh, and we're not supposed to talk about the game here on the blog once we get in (yeah, right! :))
[reakt]

Rockstar *hearts* PSN Store

PSP’s entire Grand Theft Auto series coming to Sony’s digital storefront

Influential publisher Rockstar is to throw its weight behind Sony’s growing PlayStation Store by releasing its entire PSP catalogue on the service – as well as rolling out a self-branded storefront.

Already available to buy on the service are the likes of Manhunt 2, Midnight Club: L.A. Remix and Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition.

Now 1UP reports that October 22nd will see the arrival of the Rockstar Store, which along with its existing offering will also include the PSP’s entire Grand Theft Auto range – Liberty City Stories, Vice City Stories and the upcoming Chinatown Wars.

Also included will be The Warriors and Beaterator.

/// Be interesting to see what they charge for Beaterator as that looks like a damn fine toy to be messing around with. I was a great fan of Music and Music2000 back in the day. Nothing better than sitting there working on some backing beats while the rest of the guys played their 'real' instruments, hey, i could play the one string bass if i had too :)

[mobiletone]

Tuesday 20 October 2009

Ben Heck Mods the PS3 Slim

What looks like a chunky laptop at first glance is actually a mod masterpiece of sorts: Ben Heck transformed a PS3 Slim combined with a 17" Gateway 1775W screen into an on-the-go gaming laptop.

This on-the-go "gaming laptop" comes with enough storage space for a power cord, a front slot loading Blu-ray drive for you to insert your game discs and Blu-ray movies, and a fan grill to make sure the whole thing doesn't overheat and brick.

WANT!

Why play casual shooters like Halo or Call of Duty?


Randy Pitchford PWNS all of us, we are not worthy!!!

Monday 19 October 2009

Xbox Live Gold Subscription to Double

According to financial experts Wedbush Morgan, the price of an Xbox Live Gold subscription could double within a couple of years.

The US firm’s gaming research analyst Michael Pachter made his prediction on a recent episode of Gametrailers.com’s Bonus Round discussion show. Speaking about Microsoft’s ambitions for the future of the 360 and Xbox Live, Pachter said: “[Microsoft] wants to hook every gamer who has a 360 to play everything multiplayer, and pay 50 bucks a year; and then in a couple of years it’s 100 bucks. [The price] is going up, we all know that.”

At the moment, a UK Gold 12-month subscription card costs around £35-£40; this would rise to £70-£80 if Pachter’s forecast is proven correct. Xbox Live is a key component of Microsoft’s strategy for the Xbox 360, with Gold membership a necessity for gamers who want to play online. A free Silver membership allows messaging and other non-game functions. This May, Microsoft announced that Xbox Live had hit the 20 million users mark.

The service receives regular updates, and later this year will add Twitter, Facebook and Last.fm to its homepage. UK Gold subscribers will also be able to access Sky TV via their 360 as of October 27.

Microsoft is the only one of the three major console manufacturers to charge for online gaming, with Sony and Nintendo offering a completely free service on PlayStation 3, PSP, Wii and DS / DSi.

Sunday 18 October 2009

Nixie Pixel: do not give her coffee, EVER! :)


And in sad news today the overlords at GamePro have stopped writing the cheques to keep GameGirl running. I'd like to think of them as our female counterparts in the gaming blog world, i hope a few of the girls decided to start new projects in the future, who knows, maybe they'll do an Unoffical GameGirl blog :) it's a shame to see them go and a sad day for them after 2 years of bringing a smile to our faces.

GamePro has decided to focus their attention on the main site: GamePro.com. This sadly means as of today they are closing all their blogfaction sites, GameGirl included. We can't thank you the readers enough. You are the reason we wrote, who we wrote for. Thank you so much.
- GameGirl

Game Over.

Borderlands DLC.. yeah, i know!!

Zombie Island of Dr. Ned (Flanders?)... Despite the lack of any Simpsons cameo parts the news is we already have DLC announce for a game that's not even out yet. The good news, it haz teh zombies, bad news - are they just trying to fleece us for a few more quid seeing as the DLC is apparently ready to go right now!

Tasked with keeping the workers of Jakobs Cove alive, Dr. Ned (who is not related to Dr. Zed from Fyrestone) does his job a little too well, creating zombies and other abominations that now run rampant in this region. Players will have to work alongside Dr. Ned as they embark on a quest to cure the inhabitants of Jakobs Cove in this full-fledged expansion filled with new enemies, new quests and rare loot drops. - Gearbox.

Not sure of how much extra gameplay this pack involves or the size of the map, but it's being touted at $10, so i guess that'll work out at £7.99 to us Brit's. It should be dropping 'later this year' or as soon as sales of the original game start to dip i guess.

Canceled my pre-order with amazon, damn postal strike due this week (Thurs+Fri) and re-ordered it from my local Blockbuster with the promise of a £5 rental voucher. pretty sure i lost the last voucher they gave me too. What real world shop do you use for your gaming needs?

[mobiletone] One of many zeros, Kicked around bored.

Thursday 15 October 2009

Chris Cunningham + Demoscene = .detuned



Proper awesome demoscene-esque game/music app .detuned now available on the Store for a mere £2.39.

Just had 15 minutes of warping the fuck out of 'Rob' whilst listening to Boards of Canada. Off to try some Aphex next.

pablo's top tip: turn those damn sounds effects off in the menu.

[pabloamigo]

Uncharted 2: Give Us Your Thoughts


http://weareallgayfordrakeonps3.tk/

Wednesday 14 October 2009

gotta say thanks elcell.co.uk

Because these guys have hooked me up with a set of psp slim grips and a component a/v cable so i can run my psp in 480p 60Hz on my HDTV. The grips are well worth the money at a penny under five quid, no more hand cramping and spider fingers! just like holding a fat joypad, and hook the a/v lead to it (a bargain £6 of a lead) and the little handheld steps into a new realm.
OK, so the psp output doesn't fill the screen on my 32" when running a game, but does equal about 22" i'd guess and the image quality is pretty sweet. Had to turn the sharpness down to smooth out the low-res (480p) jaggies but apart from that it's all gravy. In menu XMB mode it does run full screen, odd.
i used to have a psp dock that output in yellow composite and the image was rough compared to the seperate red/green/blue output i now have, plus on a composite it refuses to run games.

About E-CELL: (not E-ROLE) "We are a British company that designs and manufactures innovative and cutting edge equipment for your digital lifestyle. All Ecell products offer you innovation, quality and increased freedom."

They do free postage to the UK too and have a shop on ebay where you may be able to pick up a end of line bargain etc.

And because it's Wednesday - Zero Punctuation: Wet
i don't care what the reviewers think, it's still on my must own list. i own Stranglehold too.

Also announced was the introduction finally of the PSN Store pre-paid cards for people too ghetto to own a debit or credit card i guess, or they could make for great gifts, if my parents/loved ones are reading this [hinthint], and as usual we bring you a bargain of a find, ZAVVI are selling the £20 cards for £15.95 with free delivery, that's like giving you nearly a fiver in your hand for nothing, can't argue with that.

[mobiletone] *going off to drool over his PSP and collect more cars again*

Tuesday 13 October 2009

Dualshock3 Limp Trigger Fix

Feeling a Little Flaccid? I know i have been lately, or to be more exact, my trusty old joypad triggers have. Not surprising after the best part of 30 months trashing around circuits and pew pew pewing people in the face in any number of FPS games the feeling finally went out of my right trigger leaving it hanging and limp and impotent.

Now not wanting to shell out for yet another Joypad i decided to figure out a cost effective solution, so i pulled the pad apart using a nice fine point mini screwdriver to see whats what. Once deep inside the problem was obvious, the small spring that returns the trigger had broken, cue much wailing and gnashing of teeth, but lucky for me i'm the sort of guy who likes to pull stuff apart for shits and giggles and after a bit of thought went to one of my trusty boxes of misc stuff to see what i could find.

As you have probably guessed i found the answer in an old floppy disk, this spring is almost a perfect replacement to the original Sony part and will fit straight in around the bar the broken spring was attached to with no modifications, though i guess if you were being all anal about it you could trim a few mill's off each end of the floppy disk spring, but that's really not worth the bother.

Once i got the Dualshock3 back together i gave the floppy springs a test drive using DiRT2 and i have to say i am impressed, they feel tougher for a start and the trigger return is excelent, not sure how long they will last but i'm guessing from the feel of them they're not going to be snaping anytime soon. If this info helps just one person i have done my job.

[mobiletone]

ps: do not google images 'flaccid' with safe search off!!

Not Quite a PSP Phone, the SONY AINO

The Sony Ericsson Aino is a slide phone with a touchscreen for touch navigation. The Aino features an 8.1 Megapixel camera loaded with extras such as face detection, red-eye reduction and autofocus, plus the new Touch focus feature which utilises the touchscreen and lets you touch areas on the display for the camera to focus.


With Remote Play, the Sony Aino is also fully compatible with your Playstation 3 letting you control and access media content from your phone using the built in HSDPA or Wi-Fi. The Sony Ericsson Aino also features a built in music player and expandable memory.

The Sony Ericsson Aino is a stylish 3G handset. It comes with a 3 inch touch screen for easy navigation and also slides open to reveal the keypad. The Aino has 55MB of internal memory which can be expanded further using the memory card slot.

One of the main features is the 8.1 megapixel camera which comes with useful features such as face detection, red-eye reduction and autofocus. Search Google Maps via the GPS navigation system wherever you are. Other features includes Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, FM radio, music player and much more.

pick up a free Aino {here} subject to taking out a contract..

[mobiletone] selling his soul for a nugget of gold, hey i need a new phone! c'mon Sony.

Bullet In Your Head - OFP2 Dragon Rising


Spent a bit of time with the new military shooter from Codies, Operation Flashpoint 2: Dragon Rising, yesterday - so here are a few initial thoughts.

Presentation
Slick presentation as you would expect from Codemasters. Brings to mind games like GRID but with a more military style and a great piece of music playing in the background. Stats are displayed on loading screens (as is the norm) and you can view tons and tons of different stats for your campaign in the Extras menu.

Graphics & Animation
Almost everything in the enviroments is a shade of Green, Brown or Grey, but the draw distance is good, textures look decent up-close and the whole thing zips along quite smoothly. Guns are rendered very well and smoke/bullet effects look excellent.

The animation of teammates and enemy soldiers in the first two missions I played through seemed well mo-capped. Not up to the standards of Uncharted but some nice touches. Sun glare and other weather effects add quite a bit of atmosphere. I particularly liked the way the sun seemed to rise in Mission 2. You start off with your Night Vision Goggles equipped, but after a few minutes you'll be able to spot the enemy without them.

Sound
Superb throughout, whether it is menu music, gun sounds or just ambient environment noise. If you have a surround sound/expensive set up I can imagine this to be one of the best sounding games ever. As it is, it still sounds ace coming through the tiny speakers on my Regza.

AI
A mixed bag so far, but decent on the whole. Your teammates usually behave with intelligence and react well to changing and challenging situations. You can generally leave them alone and they won't do much wrong (they will die though - especially if you give them crap orders like me!).

Enemy AI is where I've noticed the game fall down a little. On the one hand, when sweeping forward down a hill to defend a SAM site for example (which is where I currently am), they are organised and deadly. It doesn't help that I've only got about 7 bullets left (you have to steal from dead enemies if you run dry) but they take up some great positions and constantly move around, trying to flank you and taking cover.

By way of contrast - At the end of the first mission I managed to get my hands on a rocket lanucher. Slowly creeping towards the helicopter pickup point, my squadmates spied some enemies guarding the position. 'No problem' I thought - bit of swift bazooka action and the heli will be able to land; except that after killing one guy with a rocket, his mates, stood less than 10metres away, decided to carry on looking in a different direction!

Thankfully I've not come across too many of these AI glitches for it to spoil the immersion and atmosphere that the rest of the game creates.

Controls
Mapped slightly differently than most will be used to with the default settings. They work well though, but be warned, there are quite a few different menus (one for orders, one for support like airstrikes, one for equipment, one for ammo type) mapped to different buttons and you won't find out how to use them all into well into the frst mission. You can always read the manual though.

Gameplay
In a word; Hard. You aren't given much of a tutorial (just some basic commands and controls during Mission 1). Within 3 minutes of my first go I was dead - shot repeatedly as I tried to take out a missle site without properly scouting the area. Lots of variety in mission objectives so far and the shooting mechanics seem solid and well realised. I've been invloved in several good firefights already and as already mentioned, I really enjoyed the fights at dawn on Mission 2.

The enemies are deadly, so if you don't scout out areas properly, or think you can stand on a rock and pick enemies off one-by-one, you'll swiftly find yourself in the morgue.

Checkpoints are well placed and you'll need them. Thankfully on normal your teammates will respawn whenever you pass through one. On hardcore mode you don't get the luxury of checkpoints or respawning teammates (or visual markers, or an ammo count!).

Co-op
Reviews and reports say that this is the way to play the game. Not had chance to try it yet, but if I spy any other threespeechers playing the game I'll tap you up.

Overall
As you will probably have guessed, anyone expecting Unreal Tourney will be disappointed. Each mission requires a bit of brainpower and planning, and even then you'll still get suprised or ambushed and end up with your head blown off (yes you can target limbs, although this is fairly tricky to do usually as close quarters combat is so tense you'll just pull the trigger and hope).

Despite the AI glitches and long sections on foot as you progress to objectives, OFP2 is fun and challenging. It won't be everyone's cup to tea, but I have enjoyed it so far and have a feeling that Co-op will be a blast. For anyone wondering, I got mine for about £28 from Shopto.net.

[pabloamigo]

Monday 12 October 2009

Another Gamer Goes Mental

An 18-year-old StarCraft player has been committed to psychiatric care for repeatedly stabbing a 15-year-old girl after his internet connection dropped while he was in the middle of a game.

The teenager, from Sweden, was apparently driven into a homicidal rage when his internet connection went down during a hot-and-heavy game of StarCraft. Rather than calling his ISP or troubleshooting his hardware, he decided that the appropriate course of action would be to grab a kitchen knife and go for a late-night walk.

While strolling through his neighborhood, he came upon the victim, who was returning home from a party with a friend. Fortunately, despite being stabbed multiple times, none of the girl's injuries were life-threatening. The perpetrator was arrested after his father discovered the knife, with blood on it, in the house. {more}

/// now, i've never stabbed anyone to death over a game but i once gave my little brother a swift beating after he pulled the plug from the wall during a major high scoring session on JetPac (Ultimate: Play The Game) and i'm pretty sure i'm not the only one to have ruined a perfectly good controller or two in my time either thanks to system lock-ups or some other (to normal people) trivial gaming problem. so, what have you done in the heat of the moment?

PSP Go, Another Sony Classic Launch

PSP Go launch has become a nightmare for gamers, Sony

Managing a download-only console may prove harder than Sony first imagined. If you are a European customer who purchased a PSP Go, you were given a voucher for your choice of three games. The problem is that many gamers use their PlayStation 3 to download PSP content, and Sony locked the downloads down to whatever system customers use to grab the content. That means that if you used your PlayStation 3 to download the games, you're out of luck. This isn't the only issue to hinder the PSP Go's momentum.

Gamers are complaining about this issue on the official PlayStation boards, and Sony released a statement about the problem. The solution? There isn't one. A community team member had this to say, "If you download your games to your PS3 first and then attempt to copy the game across to your PSPgo via USB cable you will receive [an] error. We're still investigating this error, so for the moment if you have not yet redeemed your voucher, please redeem and download your games via your PSPgo only. We're still coming up with a solution for those who have redeemed the voucher and are now receiving the error message, and we'll update you as soon as we have a solution for you."

Saturday 10 October 2009

GT ad-hoc mode, just me then.

now, i don't know if it's the time of day or the fact most Urpian gamers haven't got the Ad-Hoc utility, or have actually managed to figure it out (learn some japanese people) but i was the only one in all the servers a while ago. i did accidentally bump into 2 other people in server 'J' but they vanished pretty quickly before i figured out how to open a msg window, maybe they had heard of my l33t driver abilities.

excuse the usb lead jacked in, i was just trying to save battery power (i'm sporting my new psp grips too). but there we have it anyway, GTpsp running in ad-hoc with the ps3 screen in the background, and me, poor lonely me sitting on the server twiddling my virtual thumbs, there is some small power vibe though from having ALL the servers to yourself.

the Ad-Hoc utility seems to be a nice bit of kit, easy to use, nicely laid out, with a clean old school greenness to it, i did spend a few minutes chewing my knuckles until i realised i hadn't turned my psp's wi-fi on d'oh!! but after that it was trial and error to find out what buttons did what.

think i'll log into my Japanese account in a mo' and see what goes down.

[mobiletone]

How Fucking Metal is BORDERLANDS?

Borderlands has finally gone gold, gold is metal too!

Metal is a lot of things. Metal is ripping off a chimera’s head and spitting down its spine hole. Metal is the swagger of a cool protagonist as he walks out of a bar full of corpses he created. Metal is a tone or a plot. Metal is an f--king feeling.

For the Borderlands crew, metal takes some serious space to describe.

“How f--cking metal is Borderlands,” game creative director Mikey Neumann asks me in response to my question. “Well, I can’t really give you the full answer in such a truncated space, but I can show you an excerpt from our upcoming book How F--cking Metal is Borderlands.”

And show me an excerpt he did. Taken from the middle of the fifth chapter of the upcoming best seller, the bit of the book deals with a meeting of sorts between members of the Borderlands
crew and an unassuming teenager at a local Denny’s.

“This is taken from the middle of chapter 5 entitled: ‘The Steel-clad Chi of Being Fucking Metal All the Time and How to Interact with Everyone Else,’ “ Neumann tells me, finishing his thoughts on how to describe metal in such a truncated space.

This is the excerpt:

I remember a time when none of us at Gearbox were really sure just how metal would could make a game. A specific conversation comes to mind from mid-2006; I believe somewhere around October. I was sitting at a table in the back of a Denny's with Randy Pitchford and Jason Reiss. We were discussing just how metal a game can be before you really start gambling with upsetting the balance of the universe and potentially destroying existence entirely. You know, waffle talk. Borderlands was in such a shy infancy at the time; the elements were being assembled but no one had any idea what we were in store for. So we start shooting the metaphorical shit, and if I remember correctly, it was Jason who posited, "Well, what if we just make a game so freakin' metal (swearing gives him nightmares,) that any game that dares come later will seem about as metal as an episode of Laverne and Shirley." I stroked the cursive L on my chest as I pondered his sentiment.

If we do that, won't that preclude us from making any follow up material? Shouldn't we leave ourselves some space to outdo ourselves should a later need arrive?" Randy suavely said to the two of us. Clever Pitchford, clever. The man had a solid point. If we concentrated on making our game too metal, it would leave us no room to come back and rock the world a second, or god-surviving, a third time. So, the obvious solution was to make a game that was 99% of the way to total, blood-soaked, guitar solo written by the tears of the devil, mayhem.

I proposed a possible solution. What if I were to test our mettle (that is a classic pun, I expect my award is already in the mail) on a random passer-by (in my story, Denny's is a high traffic area, hush.) They had understandable trepidation with the danger of this plan. It could backfire, and no one likes going down on a murder one beef. But I seized an opportunity while they nursed their vaginas back to health quietly at the table. A skinny teenager, probably around sixteen years old, walked past our table holding a delicious looking Grand Slam breakfast. I asked him politely if he would like to see something "cool."

He shot back, "how cool?"

My eyebrow went up as I paused to find the best way to lure him in. If I explained the true nature of my experiment he would surely cower in terror. I said, "Spin Doctors cool, broseph" (that's how teenagers talk to each other. When you encounter them in the wild, you have to speak their native tongue.) He obliged and walked closer, but did not set down his plate. Randy then proceeded to explain the entire game to him. From start to finish. Every detail, every nuance, every midget punted off the planet into low-level orbit around Pandora ... all of it. When Randy had finished there was a long silence where the kid said nothing. He just stood there, trembling.

Which is when he turned into an eighteen foot tall, three headed serpent sporting 26 guitars all playing in perfect 26-part, face-melting, harmony. It was a single song lasting forty seven minutes before ending in a pyrotechnics display worthy of a Steven Seagal straight-to-DVD masterpiece. This left most of the patrons in the establishment charred and dying, albeit cheering loudly until their vocal chords were burnt out of their throats. When the serpent had finished his solo, he withered and fell to the ground before turning into a dry white ash and perishing in our presence.

"Yeah, that was pretty metal" Jason said as he casually poured more raspberry syrup over his waffle."



“It does go on from there,” Neumann teases me, “but obviously I want you guys to check out the book when it comes out. The serpent does resurrect itself later in the chapter and play a second zombie-laden set with three encores.”

Notice how much fucking metal is involved in the latter sentence. Neumann is a metal machine, a regular fucking monster of metal. He continues. “You guys can check out the game and judge for yourselves until your mom grounds you for transforming into a living demon with excellent eye-hand coordination.“

“Oct 23rd, bitches,” Neumann finishes. [Brad Nicholson]

[mobiletone] totally condones swearing and metal, dudes, party on! how metal am i though, i'll show you. i'm soo metal daleks are my friends, oh grud, postign pictures of myself on teh intarwebs, i might get groomed by 360 owners, damn i'ma sexeh bastard -haha-

Thursday 8 October 2009

Out Of Our Comfort Zone


i have this afternoon off, if GTpsp is not delivered by the kindly postman i shall kill some kittens in my coffee maker. as far as work is concerned i have a doctors appointment *shhhhhhhhh* nobody tell ok! :) sorry about posting a Ninty DS game review.. i shall go flagellate myself now.

when was the last time you hooked a day/time off because of a game? does that mean we are the uber dedicated hardcorez gamerz, sorry, GMAERSS!!1!! or just a bit sad. admittedly standing there in the rain waiting for the shop to open on PS3 launch day kinda lost it's l33tness once the wet had worked it's way through to my skin. a great day all the same though.

*lurks behind filing cabinets glaring at the clock*

Wednesday 7 October 2009

Can Drake Save The PS3?

As any regular readers will know, I’m a big fan of the PS3. It has some cracking games available for it, many of which are exclusive to the Sony console. However, almost without exception, the big titles that were meant to sell by the bucketload and to sell the console have failed to deliver. After the disappointment of both LittleBigPlanet and Killzone 2, can Uncharted 2 finally manage to do what it’s being hyped to do?

The Playstation 3 is a great console. It was lumbered with poor launch titles and a hefty price tag which meant it got off to a slow start. But things have improved ever since, especially in terms of the games. Unfortunately, even the biggest exclusive titles have failed to really sell in the numbers that were expected and arguably deserved.

I’m thinking first of LittleBigPlanet. Here is a game that couldn’t fail to delight anyone who played it, and the review scores proved this was generally the case. It was one of the best games released in 2008 and yet it failed to really sell in the quantities Sony would have liked it to. Also, maybe even more importantly, it failed to sell the console.

Then there was Killzone 2. Here is a first-person shooter, a genre always guaranteed to invoke interest and a considerable amount of publicity. And so it proved, much of which was positive to the point of hyperbole. And yet Killzone 2’s sales fell off rather sharply after the initial rush to buy. And again, crucially, the game failed to sell the console.

And so we come to Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. This is the latest PS3 exclusive to have been hyped as the game which will sell to everyone and finally persuade people that the PS3 is a console worth owning, even if they already have an Xbox 360.

The game looks absolutely fantastic, and the reviews which are still coming in thick and fast show that the title, despite a few minor flaws, is even blowing the minds of hardened reviewers. But is that going to be enough to make people dip their hand in their pocket and buy the game, and possibly a PS3 to go with it? Especially in the middle of a recession and with a host of other great titles also releasing this side of Christmas.

I’m not convinced. I think we’ll have to wait until Gran Turismo 5 comes along until the PS3 gets a true system seller.

stolen and posted by [mobiletone]

ps: my copy of GT on UMD got shipped last night. updated firmware to 6.01

Uncharted 2 screen shots

With the impending release of Uncharted 2 only just over a week away, I'm sure many of you have been checking the reviews and impressions from the media.
I'm sure many of you are also not surprised to hear that Uncharted's Meta score is at a 97 average, something that's rare to say the least.



Personally, I don’t know what makes Uncharted 2 so good to warrant this incredible score; unfortunately I've only had the chance to play the beta. But from what I can tell from just the beta, is that Uncharted 2 is a very polished game with some nifty multiplayer options. Co-op seems to hook me straight away with each team relying on every individual player.





I'm overly excited for this game, sure it's hyped to hell, but for once this is a game that can stand up to that hype.



See you online!
Check out a review of Uncharted 2 right -here-
[E-ROLE]

Tuesday 6 October 2009

Gotta Catch 'em All


The Pokemon series is coming to the PSP.. no, it's not, i lie. But there is one other great collectible game out there - Gran Turismo PSP, yepp, that's right, after my concerns over playing GT on a handheld i have decided to bite the bullet (suck the exhaust?) and order myself a copy from my favorite rainforest retailer at a princely 17.95 beer tokens (how much is the Store charging?).

I have to say Sony really need to sort out their Store prices before i start buying anything from there, OK, little bitesized games will be cool, but full price gear comes on a UMD!

Why did i finally decided to get GT? i like car games, plus i want a garage full of junk if/when we finally get the full grown up version on our PS3s. The lack of a career mode means it has that 'pick up and play' aspect so you don't need to enter full tournies to advance, you just pick your car, head to a track and race, win some cash, buy more cars, race more.

Like grinding much? because that's what you'll be doing, nothing else, and like some crazed OCD sufferer i have no doubt my garage will be a vast and wonderful thing at some point in the future.

anyway. it's ordered and should be here Wednesday. i need to go poop now.

[mobiletone] huffing petrol fumes and brake dust since 1984.

Sunday 4 October 2009

today, Nixie sings.


"I was thinking that it would be really sweet, If we used foam weapons, when we PVP"

*hides thermobaric rocket launcher/tries to look innocent/fails a bit*
[mobiletone]

Saturday 3 October 2009

transcending history, a tale of balls and fanboys eternally retold

Fifa or Pro evo? Where's your money going? or are you saying screw this and playing uncharted 2 instead!?

Friday 2 October 2009

KazMan - GT damage is gonna be perfect!


Yes, we all know it looks crap at the minute, but GT creator Kazunori Yamauchi has stated that the final GT5 damage model (for Rally & NASCARS at least) will be almost perfect:

Linkage

Maybe the overwhelming negative reaction to the current damage model is the reason why a game that is "finished" is not being released until March 2010.

Come on Kaz, pull't finger out yoof!

[pabloamigo]

Uncharted 2 gets Reel

Those lucky Americans...

Not only do they get everything PS3-related cheaper & earlier, they also get the chance to play Uncharted 2 on a CINEMA screen next week.

Hopefully you don't have to sit on the front row.

Here's some famous Americans enjoying the big screen experience.



[pabloamigo]

£££ PSP minis £££

Let's look at the equation (rounding up pennies)

Manhunt 2 for PSP - £10. Seems pretty fair, might go for that....

minis - £2.50 to £4. Umm, let me see now...

I can't get excited about any of the minis, if there were at least a couple for £2 tops, I might have bought them for the hell of it. Outside the impulse purchase bracket for me. If I happen to hear one is worthwhile, sure I may get it, but at the moment - nope.

As a total diehard Sony gamer since PS1, the PSP has never really woken up for me, I still have the original PSP1000, half a dozen UMDs and no download purchases. Sure it would be different if I took a train to work, but I'm just not there.

I've bought more games for myself on my daughters' ninty DS and more for her Wii (yes, there is a Wii in the MrJimmy household. And an Amiga A500)

Sony seem to have FINALLY found their proper sales and marketing stride with the PS3 slim, everyones talking about it - but for me, PSP is still trailing. Am I right or an idiot?

[MrJimmy]

Idiot Gamer Goes To Court

Remember that clown (PSN:Vincint19) who sued Sony because they banned him from PlayStation Network? Some B.S. about it abridging his First Amendment rights? Yeah, a federal judged tossed that suit in a hot minute.

Earlier this year, Erik Estavillo got thumbed for being a turd while playing Resistance: Fall of Man. So he sued Sony, alleging the ban constituted theft in the form of depriving him of services for which he had paid. Estavillo also said something about being an agoraphobic, which means his fear of large crowds left him only with venues such as PSN for being able to safely interact with others. He also had the fantastic smarts to represent himself, no doubt contributing to the speedy judgment of his complaint.

Estavillo's $55,000 claim was thrown out by Judge Ronald M. Whyte in federal court for the Northern District of California. He ruled there was no plausible First Amendment claim in the case. Sony all along maintained that First Amendment protections have no relevance to the PSN, which is a private accommodation.

Shame the Judge didn't award Sony costs against him, i would have laughed my arse off for weeks over that one.

Thursday 1 October 2009

The Great Trade-In Rip-Off


and for those that missed 'Gameswipe' on Tues, you can watch it [here]
ps: Brutal Legend and NFS: Shift demos on the Amerkin Store today! wonder what we get?
pps: our favorite ex-pat does Zero Punctuation: Darkest of Days, yeah i thought 'whut?' too.