Wednesday 31 March 2010

In Memorandum: 23rd March 2007 - 1st April 2010


Do i keep Ubuntu or decide to give up the PSN? it's not an easy choice to have to make.

25hrs in Panau

Chaos Score: 223380. Got right stuck into this over the weekend seeing as i couldn't fix the Sat' dish, but i sprayed and built up the new bike for work, and my cat has teh cold so if sniffing and sneezing all over my gaming stuff. cheers cat.

BUT, Just Cause 2, it's a blumming huge sandbox, i measured it out at being 35kms by 35kms as the slightly battle damaged helicopter flies. ok, so about 1/3 of that area is water but it doesn't matter. There are 3 factions and the miltary to deal with, plus you do your own missions for the agency, at the moment yellow is the big colour on my map as i've done a few missions for the Ular Boys, gonna sort that out as i don't like any one faction getting too big. This game feels more like Mercenaries 2 than Mercenaries 2 did, it does what the original Merc's did and just made everything bigger and better, the whole factions thing for a start feels much like the PS2 game, didn't play the first JC so can't compare, but i do know what running around in a sandbox causing mayhem should feel like, and when it feels this right it has to be good.

apart from the dubious voice acting, so bad it's great, the missions seem standard fair, go here kill him, blow that up, find this, escort that, the usual fodder for such a title as this, then you have the side missions which include races, taking over areas, finding boxes, more killing, and all done in the best possible taste! this is a dream for ADHD and OCD sufferers alike, yesterday i spent a good while making sure an island had all the faction collectable items cleared off it because the icons made it look messy :) You can duel wield different weapons, use grenades and planted explosives and run around causing chaos, which is the whole point of the game after the main storyline.

the vehicles handle well, guns go boom, people panic and scream, the sky diving is truely something else, i got a milehigh club trophy for base jumping over 1000m in one drop and a trophy for standing on the highest point on the map. i have been a happy exploring dude'

if you like sandbox games and dicking around, this is top fodder.

[mobiletone]

ps: Amazon.co.uk can suck my balls for not giving me the special pre-order edition with the dlc codes in the box, still waiting to hear back from both them and Edios about the situation.





pps: FirstPlay.. worth 99p? probably not.

Monday 29 March 2010

"Other OS" goes the way of Backwards Compatibility


Remember the "Other OS" feature on the PS3? Well SCE are removing it from your console via the next firmware update (released on April 1st). You can read all about it over on the PlayStation blog. For those that use the feature, they can choose not to update their console to the latest firmware, however without the new firmware it's not possible to play online, access the store, etc, etc. Sony have said that the feature is removed due to security concerns. I understand that it left the gameOS more vulnerable to exploits, and might one day allow shady characters to play *ahem* "backups" on their console (which links me nicely to the reason I posted that pic - honest :)). Come on Sony - just keep patching it to keep it secure! If you don't then the pirates have already won!

How do you guys feel about this? I know a couple of you have installed Linux on your PS3 at some point. It's something I've been meaning to do myself but just never gotten around to it! So this latest announcement doesn't affect me much. However, if Sony can take such a drastic step at the drop of a hat, what's to stop them removing other features in firmware in future updates?

[reakt]

Saturday 27 March 2010

The 13th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards


Claptrap steal... err, "accepts" an AIAS award. Why did he have to steal it you ask, well, seeing as there is NO justice in the world (of gaming) it seems that little robot and the rest of the crew won NOTHING. Seems the world likes some bloke called Drake and a cape wearing clown botherer more. For shame, for shame on all of you.The first ever award 13 years ago was won with GoldenEye 007 by RARE.

To uncelebrate the Y2K and Gearbox nonaward i went out yesterday and single handedly killed Crawmerax The Invincible on both playthrough one and two, i also burnt some midgets as a sacraficial offering to the game voting gods too. mmmm, crispy midget taste soo good with a slice of skagg meat.

Hopefully postie delivers my copy of Just Cause 2 today...

[mobiletone]

a couple of vid's from Panau. it's an interesting place

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Db841e-WB0A

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0mjP0uCGVU

Friday 19 March 2010

SCEE Causes DLC Delay

Sony PS3 and PC users waiting with bated breath for GTA IV's expansion packs to hit the UK will have to wait that little bit longer after it was announced that they will no longer be out in March.

Changes to the game's music has meant that the DLC has been put back a fortnight, with Rockstar apologetic about the delay.

"Due to a last minute game submission request from Sony Computer Entertainment Europe to edit some of the in-game Liberty City radio station, television, and internet content - we are forced to delay the worldwide release of Grand Theft Auto: Episodes From Liberty City for both PlayStation 3 and PC for an extra two weeks," explained Rockstar on its blog.

"The new release date for Episodes from Liberty City - and the two downloadable episodes The Lost And Damned and The Ballad Of Gay Tony - on those platforms is now April 13th in North America and April 16th in Europe."

Wednesday 17 March 2010

Heavy Punctuation

PSP: Bollocking Useless?

Gavin Cheshire, who is a vice president of Codemasters, told Edge that “Well, speaking as a person who bought a PSP, the problem was that I always thought, because it was a better screen than iPod's, that I'd be doing more with it. But it was such a bollocking useless waste of space; just getting stuff on it was ridiculous. That was its downfall.”

Apparently, the PSP problems at Codemasters extend to the new Go version, which has no removable battery and no UMD drive, with one vice president needing assistance from the customer support department immediately after he bought the handheld.

/// To be honest i bought mine on the promise of the fact i'd be able to use it with my PS3, that turned out to be fail generally thanks to Remote Play being next to useless over public wi-fi. And what happened to using it with PS3 games too, i don't mean as a method to unlock new content but as an extention of the game itself in real time, an example would be using the PSP as a live Pipboy while playing Fallout. The only thing i use it for is playing GT:PSP before that was the Sega Collection. What do you use your PSP for, if anything?

[mobiletone]

Friday 12 March 2010

Depressed and marginalised? There's an app for that

Thanks to Apple it's now a little bit cooler to be on the scrap heap by 34 - courtesy of the UK's Job Centre Plus, which has launched an iPhone app to help people find minimum wage employment in various meat production facilities across the country.

The government announcement says the app lets users search for jobs by location, and will soon be enhanced to automatically notify you when a meat-separating opportunity that matches your search criteria and skillset becomes available.

The BBC, quoting Employment Minister Jim Knight, says the job-seeking app is currently being ported to other mobile phone systems, so if you managed to keep hold of your company BlackBerry when they made you redundant last year, your luck will soon be in.

http://www.techradar.com/

Sony's New Controller...

3D TV Prices, SRSLY!!??

Electronics giant Sony is expected to release its first commercially available 3DTVs in the UK market this June – but as is the case with all early adopters, those wishing to take the plunge early on face a hefty outlay.

Sony’s first 3D sets will include in the box two sets of active shutter specs and a 3D emitter. However, households where more than two people are expected to watch the TV at any one time face an additional fee of £90 per pair – at least, that’s a direct translation of the Japanese price.

In addition, sets not boasting an in-built emitter will need an external one, the price of which being £33.

This, of course, comes on top of the high price the first 3DTVs will retail for. Japanese launch prices for Sony’s LX900 translate to around £4,325 for the 60” model and £2,130 for the smaller 40” unit.

The entry level 40" HX800 set will see prices starting from £1,630( KDL-40HX800), though both an emitter and specs will have to be bought separately to watch 3D footage on these units.

Tuesday 9 March 2010

PS3 Slim Getting Slimmer

A retailer is reporting today that Sony will be giving the PlayStation 3 a slight weight reduction from its current 3.2kg to 3.0kg. This will be accompanied by a change in model number from CECH-2000A to CECH-2100A.

It's presumable that, aside from just the weight, something else has changed inside the system. Sony often makes minor hardware adjustments, changing the model number in the process.

The retailer expects Sony's PS3 shipments to switch to the new version in March.

This retailer also reports that Sony will be ending shipments on its Bright Yellow PSP-3000 model. The retailer notes that this was the least popular of the PSP-3000 systems at his shop.

As always, you should probably treat these types of random retail reports as rumors. Although, they usually end up being correct, so if you want a yellow PSP, you should probably act quick

[babelfished source]

WooooHooooo broke the 500 Barrier

If Video Game Characters Were Real pt5435

link to Google Maps/Street View [here]

Sunday 7 March 2010

Final Fantasy is for Porn


Been on a RPG tip this weekend after getting right into Star Ocean, saved a kitty called Mr Franklin last night who got lost in the forest. cute. The combat system, while looking mad as a bag of badgers is really quite easy to use to pull off impressive attacks with a little practice, and it's all real time too. hack hack hack dodge link combo dead. think i've put in around 10hrs or so to date. All the usual JRPG stuff is in there too, item creation, tactics fiddling, collecting usless stuff. Just a bit concerned as i have Just Cause 2 and Episodes From Liberty City arriving the end of this month, that's 2 sandboxers vs a JRPG, think i'm gonna be set up for gaming for a long time to come.

[mobiletone]

Thursday 4 March 2010

Happy 10th Birthday PS2


I remember the day just like it was.. 10yrs ago actually.. well, not really as we in Urpland had to wait to get our mitts on one, but what i do remember is that when i got enough cash together i got myself a PS2 and a copy of Oni, i had it on my Mac previously and rather enjoyed it.

here'e the definitive list of all launch titles, what did you own?

Armored Core 2 (Agetec, Action)
DOA2: Hardcore (Tecmo, Fighting)
Dynasty Warriors 2 (Koei, Action)
ESPN International Track and Field (Konami, Sports)
ESPN X-Games Snowboarding (Konami, Sports)
Eternal Ring (Agetec, RPG)
Evergrace (Agetec, RPG)
FantaVision (SCEI, Puzzle)
Gun Griffon Blaze (Working Designs, Action)
Kessen (EA, Adventure)
Madden NFL 2001 (EA, Sports)
Midnight Club (Rockstar, Racing)
Moto GP (Namco, Racing)
NHL 2001 (EA, Sports)
Orphen (Activision, RPG)
Q-Ball Billiards Master (Take-Two Interactive, Simulation)
Ready 2 Rumble Boxing: Round 2 (Midway, Sports)
Ridge Racer V (Namco, Racing)
Silent Scope (Konami, Shooter)
Smuggler's Run (Rockstar, Racing-Adventure)
SSX (EA, Sports)
Street Fighter EX3 (Capcom, Fighting)
Summoner (THQ, RPG)
Swing Away (Paradise Golf in Japan) (EA, Sports)
Tekken Tag Tournament (Namco, fighting)
TimeSplitters (Eidos, First-Person Shooter)
Unreal Tournament (Infogrames, First-Person Shooter)
Wild Wild Racing (Interplay, Racing)
X-Squad (EA, Action)

Wednesday 3 March 2010

PS3 OWNERS SEEK URGENT NEWS FROM ASGHAROTH

NETWORK problems with the PS3 console have left thousands of level three wizard-knights desperately seeking news from the sacred sky lands of Asgharoth.

Many have pleaded with Xbox owners to forward messages to their made-up loved ones in the fantasy world as Sony engineers work to restore access to their only form of social interaction.

Game moderators have described the mood in the Asgharoth as 'tense, but stable' with only minor instances of unrest and looting amongst the troll community.

Balruzul the Considerable, also known as Martin Bishop from Grantham, said: "The fortress of Benshazar is unguarded, the Qalziel Spider Gem remains lost and the forces of The Shadow Horn mass in my absence. I can't play FIFA online, either.

"I have invested most of my life in becoming a reputable and feared figure in the local Warlock community and without access to the Crystal Sword of Kalrazamel all will be undone, probably by some 12-year-old Korean child with over-developed thumbs."

IT expert Tom Logan said: "There's a problem with the internal clock in some machines which has made them think it's actually 1999, meaning most of the games now look like confusing Eastern European cartoons recreated in Lego.

"Unfortunately this time shift does mean the consoles will have to repeat the Bush presidency and Britney Spears' entire career. And at some point in 2013 they are going to start getting very boring about The Wire."

Balruzul the Considerable added: "This impasse has also got me wondering what my Asgharothian achievements mean in the wider context of the all-too brief spark of consciousness mankind is given on this glittering jewel of a planet.

"Suffice to say it's not going to help with my self-esteem related Pringle bingeing."

[blagged from TheDailyMash]

Heavy Se7en


What's in the Box? is it JohnSketch's Dismembered PS3? very cool video.

Now that the ApocalyPS3 is over i can play Star Ocean, 2hrs in, i'm lost already. That'll teach me for wandering so far away from my downed spaceship to go hunting cave slimes :D

Monday 1 March 2010

DJBurn1987: ERROR RANT


don't play loud at work, funny insane playstation error ranting. much lolz!

[mobiletone] *sat on his laptop listening to Nicky Horne on Planet Rock*
They're playing 'i surrender' very apt i feel.

I remember, seems like a lifetime, can't believe it's a matter of days, since you left I'm near to heartbreak, I want you so bad don't turn away, what does it take to stay by my side, you know I'll do what you want me to, don't take away this feeling inside, I'm still in love with you, I surrender, I surrender...

[EDIT 2-3-10 7.30AM]

"We are aware that the internal clock functionality in the PS3 units other than the slim model, recognized the year 2010 as a leap year. Having the internal clock date change from February 29 to March 1 (both GMT), we have verified that the symptoms are now resolved and that users are able to use their PS3 normally.

If the time displayed on the XMB is still incorrect, users are able to adjust time settings manually or via the internet. If we have new information, we will update you through the PlayStation.Blog or PlayStation.com."

- pATRICK sEABOLD

Global Network Lockdown



Kotaku has got loads of comments on this issue

Sony are also 'aware that many of you are having difficulty'


[EDIT 6:00PM] Official line from Sony, DO NOT USE YOUR PS3 PHATTY!

"We hope to resolve this problem within the next 24 hours. In the meantime, if you have a model other than the new slim PS3, we advise that you do not use your PS3 system, as doing so may result in errors in some functionality, such as recording obtained trophies, and not being able to restore certain data."