Friday 26 February 2010

Think you're good at video games?

You're not as good as this guy...

One of my favourite games of all time, Ikaruga, pwnd by some ambidextrous dood.



When oh when will Treasure bring this to the PSN? :(

[pabloamigo]

Intro Movie to General Knoxx DLC


invasion stockpile!? *does a small sex wee*

Thursday 25 February 2010

Broken Game?

Players across multiple regions are reporting technical issues with their copies of Heavy Rain, with word of out-of-sync audio, full-on freezes, and unloadable auto-saves filling the official forums, giving players an ironic taste of the depression the game explores.

Despite having to download a rather substantial patch on launch day, or perhaps because of it, players in North America and Europe are experiencing glitches with Heavy Rain.

Some users are experiencing more severe issues. Reports of the game locking up at various points are common, and an issue with auto-saves not loading and players having to go back hours in the game to find a working restart point.

Players on the U.S. PlayStation forums have been very vocal about their complaints, particularly in one topic simply titled "Problems with Heavy Rain!".

Wednesday 24 February 2010

Nearly Time to Kick Arse


Spent a few hours last night in the dusty town of New Haven tweeking my weapon loadout and selling off a few unneeded items at the gun shop, i'm currently walking around equiped with $2,000,000 worth of uber rare gear. I paid a trip to the bank in the Underdome too and deposited 36 rare gold weapons, i have no idea what that lot's worth, but no raiding the bank, i'll hunt you down and it will be very very hurty!

Later on i decided to spend some R+R time hunting skaggs in Skagg Gully and took on not one, not two, but 3 Lv51 badass Skaggs at once, silly silly skaggs -haha- look at them burn, burn you evil glowy eyed bitey things burn! for that i picked up 2 elemental power globes that i equiped which took my ignite and corrode effect up to level 6, maxed. I did bump into Ninetoes on the way home and remembered him from the Underdome matches a while back, he got killed to death in a hellstorm of incendary SMG rounds, poor chap, but he did start it! and it turns out he was carrying quite the stash of cash, so i guess he had been doing alright for himself in the arena matches lately, that'll buy me some nice new sexy knickers!

Sandbox games, nothing better than making up your own stories as you go along.

[mobiletone]

Tuesday 23 February 2010

Borderlands DLC. Thursday.


With a raised level cap, tweaked enemy AI, and new villains, weapons, and vehicles, The Secret Armory of General Knoxx is Borderlands' biggest dose of downloadable content yet, and it's due out Thursday.

Developer Gearbox wasn't kidding when they said this would be the largest Borderlands DLC yet. For starters, the level cap is being raised from 50 to 61.

Then there are all the new additions. Players should be pleased with the addition of ultra-rare, super-powerful weapons, new vehicles, including one all four players can ride at once, and nearly 30 new villains to kill in creative ways. Be warned, however, that Gearbox has also tweaked the enemy AI, so don't expect these new guys to be pushovers.

All of this is wrapped inside a storyline that picks up where the original game left off, tucked inside of an update nearly twice the size of The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned.

It's going to be a very busy week for Borderlands players.

Monday 22 February 2010

Cabela's Dangerous Adventures

This is no Hello Kitty Safari Adventure! in fact this game has no right to be any good at all, it's american, it's based on a rugged man sport, and it's by a dev i've never heard of... but on loading it up the intro movie is of a man being chased by a massive psycotic looking bear through some woods, shortly before getting his face eaten off. Good start i say.

Imagine if you can a world that is a cross between FarCry and Afrika, except in this world you don't shoot the animals with a camera, you just shoot them while shouting 'It's Comnig Right For Us'. The graphics are very passable infact whether you're sneeking through the grass of the African plains or hunting bears in Alaska and locations inbetween. You have a large range of customisable weapons and kit and the guns are chunky and good to shoot., but seeing as this is a hunting game there are no' full auto jobs in thebox :)

A bullet point on the box mentions 'hand to claw combat' and this does put the willies up you, but it is little more than a few QTE flicks of the pad and you'll soon be smashing your rifle butt into a hyena's face or stabbing coogars in the neck with your hunting knife, good times! i wonder how PETA feels about that though?

The shooting them in the face side of things works and if you pull off a great shot it goes into bullet time and you see the projectile whipping through the air and slamming home into your target before a stat' card pops up on the screen with your score on. you can use downed gazelles as lion bait too.

You can track animals too, set up ground blind hides, just wander around enjoying the scenary.. shortly before getting bit in the leg by an angry snake you've just troddden on or stung by hornets! As a hunter you are obviously equiped with a 'solid eye' system, well, a cheaper version off and activating you 'hunter vision' you can bring up HUD info about the animals you're slaking or highlight tracks etc, odd but it works and you don't have to us it.

Overall, if you like sneeking around and killing furry animals and occasionally getting mauled to death by a pack of wild dogs this game will do you.

[mobiletone]

Saturday 20 February 2010

M.A.G.s lost little Brother?


Like playing in teams? like objective based gameplay? like open battle field environmnets? have a natural distrust of games reviewers? got a spare £10 and a local gamestore trade-in bin near by?

if you answered yes to any of those questions you can do worse than the long forgotten ET: Quake Wars. OK, so it's not the greatest looking game in the world, but it is fun! and who doesn't have a warm fluffy spot for play as the Strogg? or stomping around the battlefield in a killer mech'?

what games do you have that got panned in the reviews but decided to take a chance on and still hold dear to your hearts?

[mobiletone]

Friday 19 February 2010

*Takes off glasses, shakes out hair*

New IT Support Barbie was unveiled at the recent New York Toy Fair, and looks set to bring women's toys bang up to the... 1970s. Boasting a predictably pink mini laptop (looks like something from Asus), glasses (nice bit of geek stereotyping) and a bluetooth headset, Barbie is now all set to... work in a low-level call centre role. It's what all modern girls should aspire to.

According to the BBC, new Hot Geek Barbie came into being thanks to an online internet poll to decide which career path the nipple-free bimbo should take next, with the position of "Computer Engineer" eventually winning out. She's even got a watch. It's digital, because she finds ones with hands a bit hard.

Thursday 18 February 2010

Track Days: Day 200

Ok grease monkeys, i have pulled into the pit lane on day 200 of my GTpsp racing career to take a breather and let you know how it's going. first off i have won 243 races, own 79 cars, have an S18 A3 B6 C4 Ai driver skill level (think GT4 'B' spec but for online racing) i've earned 19,396,757Cr and have 2,093,487Cr left in the bank. hey it costs cash if you Gotta Catch 'em All.

comparing GT:PSP, GT4 and GT5:P i notice that GT4 is actually the tougher of the 3 to drive, it may be down to the lack of progressive throttle/brake but also it doesn't flash up gear hints either making you actually learn the braking points yourself rather than rely on the game to tell you when to brake, GT:PSP feels like GT4 to drive using the X and square buttons and the D-pad to steer. when i went back to race in GT4 i was shocked at how it felt, the handling was much more raw than the finely tweeked machine of GT5:P, but i looked at all the gold trophies and figured i must have been able to drive the hell out of GT4 once, and after an hour of practice i was back into the groove of it again. it's surprising just how far the graphics have progressed in these last 5 years and just how tuned the physics model is.

i guess i finally got fed up of waiting for GT5 after the notice that we won't be getting it until September (latest OPM) so i figured i'd load GT4 into my PS3 and play that again instead. it does look nice and solid running in 1080p and having 5.1 Audio, i wonder if GT5 will have the syncronised playback feature? i think they should also include the Challenge mode from Tourist Trophy to get some of the more specialised vehicles, in that you went to the dealerships and picked a bike, but instead of paying for it you had to complete a racing challenge with it, usually just beating a similar spec bike in a race, before you could own it. that makes much more sense to me that just spamming an easy race for the Cr and buying up all the most powerfull cars that you can't actually drive properly.

[mobiletone]

A bit of light reading!

Collectors Editions eh!?!



Limited edition consoles, crappy 'art' cards or a soundtrack featuring Leona Lewis! What depths will publishers sink to next...getting us to buy limited edition strategy guides?

Oh, well ok then, I'll take one.

Just hope it turns up on the same day as the game now. In a moment of sheer, brilliant coincidence, I am off work THE DAY FF13 IS RELEASED & THE DAY AFTER. Thank you window-fitting gods!

11 hours into my warmup (cough***Star Ocean***) but may need to pick up the pace a little as I'm not even at the second boss yet! Still, tis an enjoyable romp so far and recommended if you've got a spare 30-40 gaming hours before 9th March.

Tuesday 16 February 2010

90 minutes of free Gaming

Darksiders turned out to be quite a polarizing game, with people loving or hating it. Now you can decide which camp you're in when a chunky demo of the game hits later this month.

The 90-minute demo, which hits the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 on Feb. 25, contains the Twilight Cathedral, the entire first level of the campaign. The level includes puzzles, equipment to find and even two boss battles.

"We are really pumped to be bringing a playable demo for Darksiders to Xbox 360 and PlayStation3," said David Adams, General Manager of Vigil Games. "We really wanted to give gamers a true idea of the variety of gameplay that the game offers and so rather than just making a standard 20-minute demo version of the first few levels, we decided to give away this massive level and reveal the true essence of the game."

Monday 15 February 2010

FirstPlay, Coming soon


Future Publishing has today announced FirstPlay, a digital Playstation Network magazine for the UK in a similar style to America’s Qore.

The weekly magazine will cost just 99p per episode, or £8.99 for a 3 monthly subscription, and is being developed by the team behind Official Playstation Magazine UK.

“Future has an outstanding track record in producing content for gamers that is informed, impartial, relevant and with the right production values, so we see them as a natural partner to work with as we move to on-console media development,” said SCE UK boss Ray Maguire.

“FirstPlay is a ground breaking development, not just for gamers, but for the media industry, and we are delighted to be partnering with Sony on this pioneering project,” added Rob Price, Chief Execuitve of Future.

You can find out more on FirstPlay’s website. This certainly sounds interesting, we look forward to watching it develop.

http://www.firstplay.co.uk/

Sunday 14 February 2010

Confessions of a YLOD sufferer

10 days ago my original 60GB PS3 caught a YLOD, to all PS3 owners, heed the warnings herein...

I did a load of Googling and came to the conclusion my baby was barely worth repairing, either through Sony or third party peoples, as there are loads of reports of repairs only lasting a few months, and with pricing from £80 to £120, it just doesn't seem worth it...

...especially when you can attempt a self repair fairly easily, as long as you take your time and act carefully. There are two really good video walkthroughs here and here. I'm pretty handy at such stuff, no professional, but I was REALLY careful and had a grand total of four attempts, now warning #1:

Over my four attempts I got braver with the heating sequence, at first I was really light with it, no effect, round two my YLOD reduces to a no power up (bit worse), round three and the ribbon to my power buttons deteriorated, needing a bodge to keep going, round four and it's completely dead. That's right U3S, I totally killed my beautiful shiny baby.

In retrospect, I now wish I did just pay someone with skillz to fix-up, mainly for warning #2:

No data recovery. The last backup of my PS3 was March, so nearly a year of data loss. A few facts you might not know about:

  • moving a PS3 HD to another PS3 requires a format - you WILL not be able to recover anything

  • connecting a PS3 HD to a PC is not readable, there is a chap who managed to use a Linux distro to backup a HD, restore to a larger HD (moving the sectors and then resizing), but this only worked for the same PS3 - they are totally tied to the one PS3 and encrypted

  • On restoring my very old backup, because its restored to another PS3, no games were restored, just a bunch of accounts and game saves.
So, now I've got a PS3 slim (I think it's like an ugly skinny cousin compared to the original) with my 320GB from my original, totally wiped and ready for new games. Some of my Platinum dreams are crushed, but there is a wonderful saving grace:

MW2 - the online multiplayer servers immediately gave me back my Level32 and all weapon unlocks, so that game still feels all warm and fuzzy, mmmm, Killcams are back :)

the moral: GET A BLEEDING GREAT BIG EXTERNAL HARD DISK AND BACKUP YOUR PS3 ONCE A MONTH - AND DON'T BE A HERO WITH SELF REPAIRS!

[MrJimmy]

Saturday 13 February 2010

You Wanna Touch It


Happy Valentines weekend peoples, i hope you all get some good lovin', me, i'm off to the health clinic to refill my perscription of brain drugs and get checked over. mad, they call me maaaaaaaaaaaaaaad *drools* muhahahahhaa....

ps: Mr Sketch, video contains robot overlord. caution :)

Friday 12 February 2010

It's Grim up North

HP has found a clever way to keep its data centre servers cold - site them in the north-east of England. The company's recently completed Wynyard data facility, which is conveniently located equidistant between Hartlepool and Sunderland, may be a PR disaster for the north-east region, but it's an "eco" win for HP - which claims it'll save millions every year from cheaper cooling costs thanks to the cold, windswept nature of Wynyard.

According to PC World, the site is ideal thanks to the outside temperature in blustery Wynyard only rising above 24 degrees for around 20 hours a year, so the outside air simply has to be wafted in with some big fans. There's a backup air conditioning system to cover Wynyard's rare 20-hour heatwave.

Star Ocean 4 International Extended Trailer


go go Edge Maverick!! it's on the shelves today. shame i have to choose to eat for the next week instead of picking this up, ahhhhhh well, i guess i can wait for a week. *waits*

Monday 8 February 2010

This was my wife just now....

My phone rang, it's my missus:

"Jim, I'm in Toys R Us, they've got the PS3 120GB for 229, shall I get it for you..."

YEAH GEDDIT!

"OK babes see you in a bit"

Happy days! She knows what GB are!

[MrJimmy, happily married with a beautiful 9 year old gamer daughter]

Sunday 7 February 2010

We're In The Pipe 5x5


To celebrate nuking Moxies Underdome challenges in a beer and kebab fueled LAN session we give you probably the best Aliens video on the interwebs.

Friday 5 February 2010

Play the Heavy Rain demo early!

Just read over on Kotaku that it's possible to get the demo for Heavy Rain early. It involves playing a website based game - the one Sony advertised over on the eww blog. Anyway if you solve the puzzle (and the solution is provided for your convenience) then you're rewarded with a PSN code to download the demo at your leisure. By the way it's not available on the US store. That means that a whole nation of yankee doodle "hell yeah" sayers are right now stealing our bandwidth and it's a race against time people so go, go, go!

http://kotaku.com/5464839/want-the-heavy-rain-demo-right-now-heres-how

[reakt]

YLOD

Yep, me too, last night my Launch Day purchased upgraded full fat 60GB baby switched off when watching a video on it - I knew I'd be looking at a yellow LED after two presses of the power switch - gutted.

Sulked. My missus said "you can't afford a new one". Ignored. I could sell the car, a kidney or something, but hadn't Googled yet. Sulked some more, poured a nice glass of rum out.

Went to bed and dreamt of controlling a flying robot frog, work that one out. The tongue action was pretty cool, to catch the fly you had to anticipate.

Very busy day, loads of work to do, started in front of Outlook at 9:00, it's 10:37 now and guess what I've been Googling..

Phillips & Torx drivers, check. Heat Gun - I've got a paint stripper, no heat control - scary. Thermal Grease - hmmm Maplins must have that. More Googling..

Chap in Aus sells videos showing how to fix it with toothpaste - WTF? Less risk though. Realise haven't brushed my teeth yet, this happens when you work from home.

U3S homies - pointers please! I've gotta put this out of my head and get on with my work - I'll see what you've got for me this eve - I know you won't let me down.

[Mr Jimmy]



Wednesday 3 February 2010

GT5, Sometime before Xmas!? The Bastards!

Gran Turismo 5 looks like being delayed once more according to the latest from Sony. Word is it won’t now be arriving until this autumn.

Sony Entertainment Portugal CEO James Armstrong told Canarias Al Dia (via GT Planet) that the long-awaited-many-times-delayed racer looks like arriving this “fall”, though Sony has “not yet decided.”

By “not yet decided” it appears that Sony’s planning to give it the best chance of doing well by releasing it at a later date. The translation (below) is a little sketchy, mind.

“GT 5 is a great hope for Sony, a very important game for the company, which generates much income. We would have wanted him out before but we think the priority we are giving it our best,” he said adding that he hopes it’ll give the PS3 fresh momentum.

“I’m very confident in this game that we launch this year and help us consolidate PS3 as the console that is large.” He must not have the PS3 Slim yet. :)

[mobiletone]

i'll also mention OPM is running a massive GT5 review of the full game this month, hits the shelves 16th Feb... 'Full Game, Driven To Distruction' that tells me it's finished and ready to roll and Sony are just jerking our fucking chains by delaying it.

Fumito Ueda Discusses Last Guardian

We haven't heard much about The Last Guardian since the Tokyo Game Show. But that all changed today as Famitsu published a short interview in which director Fumito Ueda spilled a few additional precious details on the game and its development process.
At present, the development staff is pouring its efforts on the eagle-like creature that serves as the centerpiece of the game. This is because giving the creature a feeling of life and actual existence is of the utmost importance, explained Ueda.
In addition to the eagle, Ueda asked that players pay attention to the movements of the little boy you control. They've tied the character in greatly to the game's physics engine, allowing for in-depth motion.
Famitsu asked Ueda if, as with past games, he's working on the story board and such artistic areas of the game himself. The answer is yes. However, the amount of work has decreased compared to ICO and Shadow of the Colossus. One of the reasons for this is due to an increase in capable staff who can be left to handle the work to a degree. Additionally, with the advance to PS3 level, there are many areas of expression that can be handled by the hardware. An example of this is that darn physics engine again (every Last Guardian interview seems to mention this). The physics engine actually ties in well with the game's realistic direction, said Ueda.
Once again, Ueda managed to do an interview without getting into the details of how Guardian will play. Asked about the game content, he simply said that he can't say too much at present, but that he'd like to share additional information this year. They've yet to decide on whether this information will come at E3 or at the Tokyo Game Show.
Ueda closed off his interview with a brief statement about release time frame. "We're at the stage where we're looking into the time frame. Once the time frame has been decided upon, it won't be long until release. With Last Guardian, we're working intently with the aim of making a game that offers a kind of fun that cannot be experienced elsewhere, so I'd like everyone to wait just a bit more."
Elsewhere in the interview, Ueda reflected upon the year 2009 (this interview was actually part of a feature in which Japan's biggest game designers shared their thoughts on the past year). The game industry as a whole did not leave much of an impression on Ueda in 2009, partly because he was working away at Guardian. While there were titles that game fans did look forward to, he feels that there wasn't a game that did the unexpected. He joked that this could be because he's getting old.
Famitsu asked Ueda for his opinion on foreign games, noting that Japanese players have become more accepting of overseas titles of late. Ueda admitted that he personally likes many foreign games and he's happy that other users are starting to accept those titles. He was actually wondering why they weren't being accepted. Sadly, he did not name names.
Of course, for Ueda, 2009 was the year that Last Guardian was announced, first at E3, followed by a video showing at the Tokyo Game Show. Ueda said that he was shocked to see such a big reaction from players. He was also happy with the strong reaction from overseas players. However, he's trying to ignore the reactions because he wants to avoid feeling too much pressure.
It's not just fan reactions that make him feel pressure. Explained Ueda, compared to ICO and Shadow of the Colossus, the development staff is getting greater backup this time around, further increasing the feeling of pressure.
[additional reporting by Ryan Winterhalter]

Tuesday 2 February 2010

Official 500Gb External PS3 Drive, costs more.

 

PC hardware maker Buffalo is about to take new steps in official PlayStation licensing. The company announced today two external hard drives that have been granted official recognition from Sony. According to Buffalo, this is the first time Sony has granted licensing to hard drive peripherals, a move that comes in anticipation of March's release of PS3's "Torne" digital video recorder kit.
Both drives have 500GB capacity and connect to the PS3 via an included USB 2.0 cable. The ¥14,800 (£100)  Piano Black HD-AV500U2/SC sits horizontally and has a meter on its front showing remaining space. The ¥11,800 (£80) Black HD-CL500U2/SC stands vertically but lacks the meter.

Does that sound fair to you seeing as you can grab a 500Gb from Tesco Direct for a gnats cock under £50? i wouldn't mind that casing though, looks pretty sexy.
[mobiletone]

The Reality is far from Pretty

Monday 1 February 2010

Reality TV Invades Our Consoles

Sony have announced that their new gaming-related reality series, "The Tester," is coming to the PlayStation Network very soon. The first episode will be available on the PSN Store on February 18th.

The show boasts several celebrity judges, including EatSleepPlay's David Jaffe, and God of War's John Hight.

The Tester is an original competitive reality series that PlayStation fans can really get into. Produced in partnership with one of the biggest names in reality TV (51 Minds), this is a program for gamers, about gamers who are competing to win a job as a game tester on PlayStation’s first party development team – the team that has introduced history-making franchises such as God of War, UNCHARTED, LittleBigPlanet and Gran Turismo.

PS3 and PSP owners can download The Tester from PlayStation Store starting February 18th for FREE. PlayStation Home users will also be able to watch the series with other PS3 owners in the PlayStation Home Theatre

But do we really care?