Mad Moxxi gets the last word.

Moxxi makes it clear you - and some old friends - are her playthings.
Have a Happy Xmas/Holidays peeps, see you all in the 10's

[mobiletone]

Tis The Season.. To Get New Games

Well as Jebus celebrates his 2009th birthday this week we can all look back on the last year and reflect on the important things in life, family, beer and gaming! For without these things our lives would be truly hollow and meaningless.

2009 was a great year for gaming starting off with the ThreeSpeechRegulars going on a massive run of death and humiliation (ours usually) in the great Killzone 2 online, it sure as hell lived up to the hype before all the whiney COD players knackered the controls online! I tend to play bot matchs or local LAN on it these days. Then came the sadness of the death of the semi-official ThreeSpeech and with it, a plucky young commentor decided to knock up his own tribute out of old cereal boxes and stickytape which was to become what you read today, this launch was overshadowed by Sony finally getting it's arse in gear and launched the Eeeew.blog much to the delite of forum fanboys and the prepubesent.

Sometime during the summer i finally stopped playing Fallout 3 after knocking up over 200hrs of gameplay on it, if that doesn't rate it as an Epic i don't know what will. I remember those first faltering steps out of the Vault101 and gazing across the bleakest most desolate hell hole i have every seen in a game armed only with a boilersuit and a bb gun. little did i know the great and wonderful adventure i would go on to have, the weird folks i'd meet scraping a living from the radiated earth and all the stuff i'd steal from them. My house in Megaton ended up filled with junk and a pile of old money that was beyond counting. good times indeed my friends.

i guess those were the two biggies for me out of the many i bought and played, other great titles were the reworked DiRT2 for letting beat the pants off a guy in a Subaru Impretza in my Mk2 Escort online, Red Faction for the obscene levels of destruction, inFAMOUS because how could shooting lighting from your fingers not PWN! Condemned 2 for it's weird take on the horror gene and letting me beat homeless people to death with lengths of lead pipe. i guess there are others but those are the ones that come to mind first.

so what did you think of 2009? what games are you getting/playing this season?

[mobiletone]

Enhance Sunday

[mobiletone] is bored and fed up of the snow already *hugs his kittin tighter*
to the people who aren't reprographics monkeys, our jobs really are this sexy
*ahemcoffcoffspluttercoff* yeah :)

This is How i Roll :)

Modnation Racers Public Beta Codes!

Thanks to all the fans who have registered for a chance to win an Online Beta Voucher Code! Randomly selected registrants will be emailed their voucher codes on December 17th*.

The Online Beta begins December 18, 2009 and runs through January 10, 2010. (If you registered before 12/3/2009 you are automatically in!) See below for other ways you can get on the Online Beta!

*NORTH AMERICAN BETA ONLY. Participation in the Beta is only available to North American PSN account holders. No Purchase Necessary. Void Where Prohibited. Must be 13 years+ to enter.

Be one of the lucky few to get an early test-drive of ModNation Racers for the PS3™ system. How can you score an Online Beta Voucher?

- Check out the PlayStation.Blog on December 18th for an announcement!

- Visit the PlayStation®Home Movie Theater on December 18th to see a special offer!

- Vouchers included in specially
marked copies of LittleBigPlanet™: Game of the Year Edition

- Be a current Qore subscriber or subscribe on
or before December 15th and get a Voucher!

[mobiletone]

Blu-ray 3D spec's, your PS3 is ready

In case plans by AMD and a slew of other tech vendors planning to showcase 3D Blu-ray compatible products at CES wasn't a tip-off, the updated specifications are done. The key details? First, that the Blu-ray Disc Association has chosen the Multiview Video Coding (MVC) codec to store 3D, so that even though it is now providing a full 1080p frame for each eye, it will only require about 50% more storage space compared to the 2D version, and all discs will be fully backwards compatible, in 2D, on existing players. Better than backwards compatibility, the PlayStation 3 will be forwards compatible with the new discs -- a new HDTV setup (the spec promises to work with plasmas, LCDs or projectors equally well) with IR emitters and glasses will still be necessary. According to the PR we can expect Blu-ray 3D-stickered products in 2010.

Red Dead Redemption: Gameplay

GT5 Demo Bruummmmmmm

Someone's managed to get their hands on the time trail demo before Thursday. Here's what to expect...



[pabloamigo]

what "Resident Tone" would be like?

Borderlands: Life is a Cabaret

Gearbox has today confirmed the second DLC pack for Borderlands in the shape of Mad Moxxi's Underdome Riot. The new pack will be available on December 29 on the PlayStation Network. The pack will also be available for the PC, but no specific details have been released yet.

According to the official release on the subject;

Mad Moxxi's Underdome Riot is an intense single-player or cooperative experience that expands the mayhem by adding three new Riot Mode arenas where players will endure an onslaught of Pandora's baddest enemies. Working together, players will fend off the masses as they fight for fame, honor, and more importantly, loot. Mad Moxxi's Underdome Riot also adds a new bank feature, which allows players extra storage capacity for when they encounter one of the more than 16 million weapons that Borderlands has to offer; and the ability to acquire two additional skill points as quest rewards, making their characters even more powerful than before.

Riot mode, according to Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford, is "like Smash TV in coop FPS, but in the Borderlands". Sounds good to us, and if you're too young for Smash TV, think Halo 3's Firefight mode... i think i just did a small sex wee.

[mobiletone]

ps: http://futureradio.co.uk/ now has a new radio player. listen, and browse you dogs! they just dropped our linkage on teh air, we are mediastars! -haha-

The Saboteur - Pandemic's swansong

What an amazing game idea: Steal cars from the French, and then run them over. OR climb tall buildings, and drop on the passing French people. Or even shoot them! Why did no-one ever think of this before? Oh, and once in a while you have to shoot a Nazi or two, or rescue someone or something trivial.

Following the initial 7 minute install, I decided (for the sake of testing) to use the nudity patch. Lots of effort, as downloading it didn't work properly - I believe it is now on the PSN store instead. Makes no difference to the game, and not really much of a difference anyway.

The game itself...

You play the part of an Irishman in occupied Paris. The city is in black and white, with Nazi propaganda being a very vivid red. As you gradually go through missions, the area you are helping comes alive by regaining some of its colour. Initially, there are Nazis everywhere, and the French people cower before them. This changes too, as the number of patrolling Nazis shrinks, and the French openly complain about the Nazis - kill a Nazi during this time, and the French will often stick the boot in too. It's fun watching an old woman kick the dead soldier, muttering "bastard" as she does.

As well as the main missions there are side objectives - shown as white dots on the maps you can purchase. These involve destroying Nazi AA guns, sentry-posts, fuel depots and stuff. Destroying these gets to be very addictive ("I'll just get one more").

Graphically, it is very impressive. Pandemic appear to have used the SPUs very well to handle most of the graphics processing (as can be read here: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-saboteur-aa-blog-entry). I'd even put it on a par with the Uncharted games for quality.

The AI is somewhat lacking, unfortunately. When you are driving around, the NPCs will often walk in front of the car, especially when you turn a corner. If you steal a car, and then drive off, the previous driver frequently gets in the way, and ends up dying.

The hand to hand combat is a bit flat, not feeling very well implemented. That might be down to me just button mashing when I melee the Nazis though! Melee a Nazi to death, and you can then steal their uniform, enabling you to enter restricted areas. The disguise part works well, and has you studying the area to make sure no enemies get close enough to see through it.

Climbing buildings works well, and your character seems to be as athletic as any assassin, no matter their creed!

Overall, in my opinion, it's a good fun game. Yes, there are flaws, but most can be overlooked. I'd rate it a comfortable 8/10, though you might want to rent it to see if you like it too.

IT may not be on a par with Borderlands (is anything?), but it definitely keeps me going back for more.

[mugglemind]

PixelJunk Shooter is here!

I've been waiting for this one. Played for an hour or so and it doesn't disappoint so far. In fact it's extremely good - maybe even PixelJunk Monsters-good! Will post some more thoughts on it when I've had more chance to play. In the meantime check out the video to see me opening a can of whoop-ass on the first stage :) Are you guys playing it too? What do you think so far?

[reakt]

Team ThreeSpeech builds a PS3 Portable

and if you'd like to check out some other videos we have [Escort Mission : Foamy The Squirrel] in which Germaine rants about pointless missions in gaming (contains sweary words!) and also Yahtzee does a double header this week in [Zero Punctuation: Left 4 Dead 2 & New Super Mario Bros Wii] So i guess there's a lil' something something for everybody today.

[mobiletone]

Avatar: The Final Words

DIRECTOR James Cameron last night insisted his trillion-dollar epic Avatar 'will set a new standard for films with colourful cat people made by computers'.

Cameron defended the project amid growing concerns he has spunked the GDP of a medium-sized country on a three-hour animated version of a progressive rock album cover.

Cameron said: "Avatar is a visual feast for anyone who likes blue pretend cat people in suede loincloths, alien foliage and a quasi-political allegory that doesn't make sense. And that's everyone, right? Right? Right?"

He added: "You can't tell me it looks shit. But please tell me it doesn't look shit. Because it doesn't, does it?

"Oh God. Blue cat people. What have I done? No, it's fine, it's fine. Breathe deeply, Jim. Go to your safe place."

Film critic Roy Hobbs said: "Cameron's been through this before with Titanic, which everyone said looked like it was going to be shit. And to be fair, it was shit.

"But that didn't stop all of you pond scum going to see it and cooing at the pretty shapes and colours as you shovelled floating-dead-person-flavoured popcorn into your drooling maws with your stupid, spade-like hands."

Hobbs added: "However, the previews suggest that Avatar does not include even a nanosecond of Winslet nipple, which could be where it comes unstuck. There's probably some cat person nips, but that's not really the same."

Office worker Tom Logan, who watched the trailer for Avatar during his lunch break, said: "Despite a lifetime of cultural conditioning to believe that massively expensive things are inherently good, I can honestly say the thought of spending three hours watching glorified Thundercats lobbing stones at robots makes me want to pull my foreskin up over my head and bark like a dog.

"That said, I'll probably still go and see it."

Wipeout running in 3D on a PS3 Slim

AMD and CyberLink, which recently integrated SENSIO 3D technology into its PowerDVD player, are already touting a 2010 CES demo promising to show off their implementation of "the forthcoming Blu-ray stereoscopic 3D standard." While the world continues to wait for an announcement on what the 3D Blu-ray standard will actually entail (backwards compatible 2D combo discs, and Full HD stereoscopic technology are definitely on the list) AMD is ready to leverage its position as a contributing member of the Blu-ray Disc Association and make sure that when discs hit the market -- likely around the time Avatar is released at home -- it has compatible software and hardware available.

We're prepped and ready for the glasses-required trials that promise to be featured at many booths during next months Las Vegas experience, so a note to potential exhibitors: sports and videogames are the best bet for an impressive 3D showing, bring Space Harrier 3D for extra bonus points.

[mobiletone]

Happy 15th Birthday Playstation

even though we didn't get it until nearly a year later in Sept 1995... typical.

Man Finishes World of Warcraft, Needs a Life!

A Taiwanese man has been named as the first player to 'finish' World of Warcraft.

'Little Gray', as his character's known, is the first to successfully complete all of the MMO's 986 achievements listed in the armory, reports MMO Champion.

To reach the milestone the Taiwanese power-player killed 390,895 creatures, accumulated 7,255,538,878 points of damage, completed 5,906 quests (that's 14.62 quests per day, apparently), raided 405 dungeons and hugged 11 players.

The achievement hasn't arrived without some controversy though; WoW-heads point out that technically he's still missing one illusive, event-tied achievement (called "BB King"), but he's managed to dodge it via a glitch awarding one extra, false achievement point.

We say he's not a man until he tracks down and gets that last achievement legitimately.

blagged by [mobiletone] from CVG.com

suddenly i don't feel so bad about my Borderlands addiction :D

AVATAR: gameplay footage

well, what do you think then now you've seen it in action?

In The Na'vi You Can...

ah fuck it, i was going to write a full feature about James Camerons Avatar here seeing as JC himself has emphasised the closeness between his CGI 3D wankfest of a film and the accompanying game, pinpointing the sharing of computer-generated assets and the game's role in fleshing out Avatar's back-story.

This raised hopes that Avatar (the game) could strike a blow against the poor esteem in which games-of-films are held. The reality, although not without merit, is ultimately faintly disappointing. Like having Ant'n'Dec come over and wanting to play nothing but Ninty DS games instead of shooting the faces off zombies with your Lv43 SMG in Borderlands.

so here's Yahtzee with his take on Modern Warfare 2 for you all.

Helper Kittin Iz Helpings

Thank you for writing us in regards to your audio issue with Borderlands [5.1 output over optical] on the PS3 platform and for providing the workaround steps! We are aware of the issue and have good news - a fix has been discovered for the problem and is pending deployment in future update! [SCEE QA no doubt!]

Regards,
Gearbox Software Support

/// now don't let anyone say we don't do anything constructive on this site :)

One Minute Mr. Kaz-san, One Question Please

After tracking Mr. Kaz-san down to Polyphony Digital's secret UK head quarters, which as it turns out is a large shed on an allotment just outside of the Brentford Triangle guarded by several hundred cyber ninja robot squirrels, we managed to jump him as he made his way across the freshly manured sprout patch and upon threats of keying his shiny GT-R we had this to say:

Do you think it could be said you've made a game that looks better than reality?

"Better than reality?" - yeah, that's one way of putting it. In a way,it's kind of a given that it's going to look better than reality. The thing about reality is that the criteria for looking 'real' is actually a lot stricter and volatile than you'd expect. The way the sun shines, reflects off something, the way it lights scenery - we seldom have the opportunity to see what we consider 'reality' under the best and most pleasing conditions.

Every time we go out to the circuit and take photos of cars we get that same impression again. When you see a race on TV, compared to a race in a game, you realise that the reality isn't as shiny or pleasant as the game. However, these 'best conditions' do exist. They happen every once in a while. Maybe, once a year, you'll be watching a race on TV, or you'll be outside, and a cloud will move in an ideal direction, and the sun will shine down at a perfect angle, and maybe just for a moment you'll have this beautiful scene in front of you.

Games... like Gran Turismo, have something of a duty to present the player with the best and most beautiful parts of reality. So our game looks 'realistic' only if you consider reality to only ever look this beautiful for short periods of time. We work hard to represent these rare conditions in our games. So, yes, in short, it should look 'better than reality'.

[mobiletone]

Read it and Weep Boyz

Technically i have enough XP for Lv51 now and have gone up a level or so on my small arms and SMG skills too. Even though the $ counter has maxed out at 9,999,999 any dosh you collect goes somewhere, i bought myself a new SMG to mark hitting the big 5-0 and it cost me just north of 1.5 million and it didn't even dent my cash balance, totally worth it though, gonna be ripping some Zombies a new one once i get around to playing The Island of Dr Ned.

I have come to the conclusion that 4 player co-op is full of win.

Currently upgrading the HardDrive in my friends PS3 to 250Gb, installing the back-up as i type, about an hour or so to go.. fingers crossed it all goes to plan as we had to load the Firmware from a USB drive this time, i don't remember having to do that on my PS3, odd, but then again i did format my drive before i nailed it in the consoles casing. i did try to get him to let me load FW1.6 just for shits and giggles but he didn't want to play. boo hiss! :) we could have upgrade afterwards still.

[mobiletone]

The Goose, the Goose is on Fire!

Revvin' up your engine
(Like Top Gun?)
Listen to her howlin' roar
(and...Atferburner?)
Metal under tension
(Do you like teh HDz shiny shiny?)
Beggin' you to touch and go
(Need a reason to break out the waggle, waggle joystick?)

Even if you don't, Afterburner Climax is coming to the PSN if the Australian & Korean Classification Databases are to be believed...

Highway to the Danger Zone


Ride into the Danger Zone

Kenny Loggins, you can be my wingman anytime!

[pabloamigo]

Happy Birthday World of Warcraft!

Erik Estavillo is suing Activision Blizzard over World of Warcraft. Erik Estavillo is also a funny guy. That or he's crazy. It could go either way.

Estavillo claims the company "continues to maintain a harmful virtual environment to many of its customers by forcing them to follow [World of Warcraft's] sneaky and deceitful practices".

And what could those "sneaky and deceitful practices" be? Walking is one of them, as he feels it takes too long to get from one point to the other in the game world. Because you can only speed up through extended play or buy purchasing an expansion pack, that qualifies as "deceitful".

He also believes that, because of a litany of health problems he suffers from (including OCD, agoraphobia, depression and Crohn's Disease), he's at risk of sharing the fate of Shawn Woolley, an Everquest player who committed suicide in 2001.

The best part follows: to back up his claims, Estavillo has subpoenaed Winona Ryder (who would presumably be able to "explain the significance of alienation in Catcher in the Rye") and Martin Lee Gore, of Depeche Mode ("he himself has been known to be sad, lonely, and alienated as can be seen in the songs he writes").

Best of luck, Erik.

Will You Pay For The PSN?

PlayStation boss Kaz Hirai has confirmed that, at some point in 2010, the PlayStation Network will get subscription-based “premium level” content. Unfortunately, Kaz declined to tell the world just what that content will be.

One huge advantage that Sony’s PlayStation Network has over the rival Xbox Live service is that it doesn’t charge gamers to play online against each other – but don’t fret, PS3 and PSP owners, because that’s not changing. Probably. Hirai’s statement suggested that the subscription model would run alongside the existing free services.

Microsoft’s Xbox Live is a two-tiered service, with the free Silver edition offering downloads of videos and demos, while the Gold service allows gamers to play online, plus access certain exclusive content (including the Twitter, Last.fm and Facebook apps recently launched) and special offers.

If Sony does keep online play totally free, it’ll be interesting to see what it can offer to keep PlayStation Network users shelling out a subscription over a period of time: could it be a movie service offering a certain number of film downloads per month? Or perhaps exclusive access to prerelease beta versions of games? We’ll have to wait and see.

[mobiletone]

Playstation 4 NOT Cell Powered

IBM's Cell processor may have helped break a few records and find its way into everything from video game consoles to TVs at the same time, but it looks like things could be about to change in a fairly big way for Big Blue's groundbreaking chip.

According to Heise Online, IBM Vice President of Deep Computing David Turek has confirmed that the company's current PowerXCell-8i processor will be the last of its kind, and that there will not be a successor with dual PowerPC processors and 32 SPEs as originally planned.

Slightly less clear, however, is the future of the Cell program in general, which will apparently live on in "another form" -- to which Turek reportedly added, somewhat vaguely, "the future is hybrid," although we're fairly certain he's not talking about cars.

[mobiletone]

Guess Who's Suing Microsoft?

Erik Estavillo, the Resistance: Fall of Man gamer who sued Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA) over being banned from the PlayStation Network has targeted the remaining two major console makers in a new lawsuit.

Microsoft Corporation and Nintendo of America are defendants in a federal complaint, which was filed November 18 in the U.S. District Court, Northern District of California.

Microsoft is being sued for a “red ring of death” affecting the plaintiff’s Xbox 360 console. Estavillo notes that as he is disabled, he cannot afford to pay the “well over $100” fee to fix the console, nor can he afford to purchase a new one. He feels “that Microsoft should have to bear the burden that is now put on the shoulders of this disabled plaintiff.”

Estavillo is seeking $75,000 from Microsoft, due to the “undue stress” he has undergone since the 360 broke and the “sadness he will have in the mean time of finding one he can afford.”


The same complaint targets Nintendo over a Wii system update. Estavillo claims that update 4.3 disabled his Homebrew Channel, which he used to unlock characters in Mario Kart Wii. Plaintiff states that the only way to unlock characters in Mario Kart Wii is to purchase Super Mario Galaxy, which will unlock a single character in the former title. “In essence, Nintendo is forcing customers to buy another game to unlock one character in a different game.”

Damages to the tune of $5,000 are sought from Nintendo, for interfering in plaintiff’s “pursuit of happiness.” An injunction is also being sought to prohibit Nintendo from “deleting, blocking or prohibiting the Homebrew Channel and Ocarina applications.”

Estavillo says he suffers from depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, panic disorder, agoraphobia and Crohn’s disease, all of which lead to his leaning on videogames “heavily” for happiness.

Estavillo plans to file a lawsuit in state court as well, which he wrote will “pretty much” be identical to the federal suit.

Assassin's Creed 2 Reviewed

Battlefield Moments Part 2

Really liking the look of Battlefield Bad Company 2. Too bad EA/DICE are being a bit stingy with the beta keys for Europe. Sort it out chaps.

Check out the latest Battlefield Moments video below...in particular, listen out the frankly awesome sound design.



[pabloamigo]

Gravity Crash on Tuesday

Facebook? Erm, not bothered.

Gravity Crash available for £6.29 on Tuesday? Oh yeah :)

Sixth Axis have a great preview and more news tomorrow, linkage:

http://www.thesixthaxis.com/2009/11/19/gravity-crash-gets-release-date/

Sorry I've not been about much folks, v busy, but this one I've been looking forward to so badly I have made time, yus-yus.

[MrJimmy]

Uplay beta is rolling dudes

Anybody who saw the Assassin’s Creed 2 demo during E3 earlier this year probably remembers Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot talking all about “confluence”, and how you’d have a separate system that rewards you for playing Ubisoft games, called UPlay. UPlay is, apparently, being rolled out along with the release of AC2.

I signed in this morning and it all looks very nice offering rewards for completing certain in-game tasks which you can then spend on downloadables or unlockable stuff. various stuff was on offer from premium themes to outfits to wear in-game. The premise is, you play a Ubi game and get certain trophies, these convert to Units, units can be spent on what you like on their site. simples?

The first big title to use the Uplay system is Assassins Creed 2.
http://uplay.uk.ubi.com/

[mobiletone]

Firmware 3.10

Facebook! [sad smiley face]


no sign of being able to resize your icons or fonts or get rid of those boxes dumped on your friends list.

Sony are 'listening to customer feedback' apparently. yeah, right.

read more on the Eeeew.blog [here]

There's Jammy and Then There's...

RING RING BUZZ BUZZ

Hi Guys and gals,

As one or two of the Threespeech guys may know, is that I'll be creating my own mini, one off ( online )gaming magazine. I originally had it pencilled in for release around now, but due to starting a new exciting job, I haven’t had time to go forward with it.

So I’m looking for some articles, something that you’ve wanted to get off your chest for a long time, be it a review, interview or article about something you are passionate about.

So please get in touch with any article ideas pronto so I can get to work on something ready for either December or New Year!


E-ROLE

Final Fantasy 13 Announcement - ETA 4 mins

The countdown on the Square Enix website runs out in a little less than 3 minutes....

update: less than 2 minutes to go...

update: less than a minute, woooooo, the thrill of live reporting...

update: special announcement appears a trailer with some guy talking a lot. Seeing as I am at work, I can't really tell you what it's about.

/fail

update: 9th March 2010 release date

update: some sort of Leona Lewis pap to be the theme song...

[pabloamigo]

Bikes! Bikes! Bikes!

In an interview with IGN, the Polyphony Digital boss was asked about the possibility of bikes making their way into the game, to which he responded "If that's what users really want in the game, I think that's a possibility. Or we could consider making a Tourist Trophy 2 as well."

Oh please great and merciful Grud make this happen! I still play TT and to this day it is still the best looking bike game to play on the PS3, yeah, you heard me Moto GP and SBK! It should be a pretty simple task once GT5 drops as the orginal TT used GT4s tracks, used most of the same Events, and had a great challenge mode for gaining new bikes, you see, you'd look through the dealerships and pick the one you wanted, then you had to race against a few other bikes in the same class so to speak and win, if you couldn't handle the bike (punage!) it wouldn't let you have it. brilliant and simples!

me hooning around in Tourist Trophy, a few weeks before the PS3 arrived

[mobiletone]

For All You Drake Fanboys

Abandon All Hope Ye Noobs

Call of Duty fans new to the multiplayer landscape of Modern Warfare 2 may want to find some skilled, friendly teammates to play with. Public multiplayer matches can be a bloodbath for the low-ranking noob, a frustrating, sharp learning curve that's made more punishing by some of the game's killstreak rewards and higher-level unlocks. Spending much of a round being liquefied by AC-130 rounds, Predator missiles or Pave Low fire from above is not uncommon, something that may sour one's enjoyment while playing online. Players may be rightfully concerned about the balance of the game's killstreaks, which, if you're not well-versed in Modern Warfare multiplayer, can be intimidating. Fortunately, options for setting up private matches that disable killstreaks and perks, are easy to access. New users may find it similarly frustrating to not have total access to all of the game's multiplayer modes from the get-go.


Ultra-Realistic Modern Warfare Game Features Awaiting Orders, Repairing Trucks

and i think i've found teh bestest MW2 deal of the day:- [MAKROS!] £20 all in, but as of writing this they only have 5 copies left in stock in the whole of the UK, X360 owners are good for a copy though.

[mobiletone]

GT5's Creator Kaz Yamauchi Interviewed

We met with Gran Turismo creator and godfather Kazunori Yamauchi at SEMA and asked him the usual phalanx of questions--most importantly, when the heck is the game coming out? We're dying here, man, dying!!!!!

When will you release GT5?

Yamauchi: We will release it in March in Japan but for other regions, it has not been decided yet.

What's holding it up?

That's more depending on SCEA (Sony Computer Entertainment America) marketing decisions.

Have you spoken with those guys?

My job is to create the product, not sell it.

What's taking so long with the product, then?

From our perspective, it doesn't seem like that long a time. To make Gran Turismo 5, we threw away the legacy code from GT4 and started from scratch. It's been five years from [the release of] GT4, and that's the same amount of time it took to develop the first GT4. To create a game from scratch, that's the amount of time it takes to get it right.

You're at the SEMA show, what do you think?

Every time I come to SEMA, I can feel the passion of the car owners who bring their cars here. The SEMA show is different from what you see at a typical motor show. There is more passion here.

Will any SEMA cars ever be in GT5?

It is possible.

How many cars will be on GT5?

I have never actually counted all the cars. I don't have a policy to count them all. We are aiming for 1,000 cars in GT5.

Will those be on the disc when you buy the game or will we have to download them from other sources?

They will all be on the disc.

How do you chose which cars get in the game?

There will be three types: cars we want, the cars the users would like to see in the game and then cars the manufacturers want in it.

Have any manufacturers paid to put their cars in the game?

There have been cases where they've shown that interest [in paying to play], but I don't think we've ever shown interest in [accepting money to include certain cars].

Wouldn't that be a profitable venture for you?

A lot of times it develops into a relationship where we collaborate to raise the level of the game.

How many racetracks do you have in GT5?

There are 20 different environments and around 70 different track layouts.

Which tracks?

We haven't made any announcements. The demo [playing next to us in the interview room] is of Route 246, which runs through the middle of Tokyo.

That must be ripe for wrecking cars. Does GT5 include damage to the cars?

Yes, and the demo has it.

Is it difficult to include that feature?

It is not very hard, though it was not in previous Gran Turismos.

Is GT5 more for the advanced player or can beginners play too?

We do have a setting for people who are just learning how to drive. The other setting is very strict, where even an F1 driver can learn new tricks from the system. However, a lot of driver's aids will be included, such as driving lines, ABS, automatic braking, you can reverse your game and record your laps and share them with others. All those things. They were not that difficult to implement.

What other features will GT5 have?

There will be 400,000 polygons per car, 100 times more than were present on GT4. GT4 had 4,000 polygons per car. You can customize and tune the cars, too.

You have NASCAR and WRC in the game. Does this include the complete list of all tracks in those series?

The NASCAR series is so large it would be impossible to put everything in the game. We will have select courses and select cars in the game. You will also be able to race the stock cars on a number of tracks not found on the NASCAR calendar. In speaking with NASCAR, they said they'd like to see their cars able to race on other tracks, and you can do that [in GT5].

Will you have F1, ALMS or FIA GT?

We had a Ferrari F1 car in the game. For FIA GT and ALMS, we won't have that in the series yet. But we will have a lot of cars that race at Le Mans, so in that sense, there will be cars from ALMS.

Have you played Forza Motorsport 3?

I was watching the guys at our company trying it out in the office. I tried it a little bit. It's very similar in a lot of aspects to Gran Turismo. Some base components of the game are very different from Gran Turismo. It's a little bit different from what a simulator is. You can feel it when you drive it.

Will there be a Gran Turismo 6?

Yes. You won't have to wait as long as you did for GT5. GT5 represents a whole new operating system. GT6 is just new apps that run on the GT5 system.

Will there be downloadable content for GT5?

Eventually there will probably be but there are no actual plans set yet.

What did GT5 cost to make?

[He and translator do some figuring, converting yen to dollars] $60 million. There are other games that cost more. Considering the size and scale of the game, I think it's probably a fairly small amount.

Where do you see the future of gaming? Is it taking over movies, music and video as a form of entertainment?

I think that's already happened. It does take up a part of somebody's time in life. What's taking the most amount of time in people's lives is communication, like Facebook and things like this. I think that might take away from the time people spend on entertainment, whether it's movies or video games. A lot of basic instincts of human beings is starting to come out now [on sites such as Facebook]. Maybe human beings are just satisfied by continually communicating, not face to face but just communicating. The content they communicate doesn't seem to matter very much; it can be pretty much anything, even meaningless at times. There's a good possibility that even video games might be faded away.

But not right away?

Obviously not right away, but things change over time in every generation.

Domo arrigato

You're welcome.

Blind Man Sues Sony

"GameSpot reports that a man has sued Sony, Sony Online Entertainment and Sony Computer Entertainment of America, contending the company violates the Americans with Disabilities Act for not making its virtual worlds more easily navigable by the visually impaired." [more?]

Next up, deaf man sues Sony Music for not making braille CDs...


Hit the XP 1,000,000+ mark in Borderlands last night and i have also earned over £1,000,000 in-game dollars. currently Lv32 FireFly/PlagueBringer, because everything is better when you torch it, or infect it with toxic green waste :) loving the way i spontaineously ignite now when i kill someone, makes for total panic in an enclosed room. muhahhhaaaa. Got challenged online to a dual by a Lv5 Hunter, i don't think he even had time to draw breath before being slammed with 1000Hp of damage from my very nasty shotgun FTW! It's getting harder and harder to level-up, i think the gap between 32 and 33 is like 85,000xp or something and seems to increase at a rate of 5,000 per level. oh well, just need to KILLZ MOAR! And you just wouldn't believe how arsey i got when i realised i'd lost my best shield! i know it's stupid, but it was a rare item and had saved my neck many times, i think i accidentily drop/swop'd it while gathering up some booty after an arena fight, i had a long and grumpy man sized sulk about that for a good few hours, while kicking myself for not paying enough attention. Strangely that exact same shield came up for sale in one of the shops several hours later, not one like it, but the exact model and spec's. Now if you know that the game runs a randomisation engine for the creation of items/weapons the odds of that happening are mindbending.

"In theory, the infinite improbability drive would make it infinitely improbable that anything would go wrong. It was not successful, however, ending in a "Spontaneous Massive Existence Failure." This was because, in these earlier times when the nature of improbability was less well understood, it was not appreciated that any event that is infinitely improbable will, by definition, occur almost immediately."

[mobiletone]

reviewed like it's 1997

VIDEOGAMES ARE GETTING more sophisticated all the time--with splashy graphics, complex plots, and scary villains. But the real challenge has been to come up with a game controller that lets you easily move around the screen, whether to drop-kick your opponent or get out of his way.

Get ready for The Glove. Developed by Reality Quest in Longmont, Colo., The Glove is shaped like, well, a glove--but with one twist: The device includes a plastic casing cradle that straps onto the hand with Velcro and uses wrist-motion sensing technology to help scoot around a screen.

The Glove is designed for use with Sony Corp.'s PlayStation,

/// Despite being 12yrs old this thing still works with the PS3, how's that for forward planning? you do need to use a PS2 to PS3 joypad adapter mind, but it works! strapping the 'glove' on it feels comfortable still after all this time, the main parts fix around your wrist to pivot and allow l/r u/d hand movement to be translated into left analogue stick or d-pad controls depending on how you have it configured. the face buttons sit under your fingers with l1/l2 r1/r2 operated with thumb control. needless to say, it is total arse trying to play a game with the thing but for controlling your XMB it's quite quick and easy to use. But there we have it, despite tryign to develop a new control system all those years back we are still playing with basically the exact same joypad we did then. does that say something? i'm not sure.

what's the weirdest controller, joystick, dongle you've used in a game?

[mobiletone]

Wii 2 sports 1080p graphics and blu-ray

Nintendo's second-generation Wii console will come equipped with Blu-ray, with new reports suggesting the updated console will hit shelves in 2010.

Gaming website Maxconsole.net believes it has got hold of some leaked information which details just what hi-def goodness the new Wii will house.

The info was allegedly leaked by a Nintendo of France marketing employee, who suggests the new console will have a Blu-ray drive and will support 1080p games and movies.

If this is the case, then it means that Microsoft's Xbox 360 will be the only console on the market not to pack in a Blu-ray drive. But, rumours also suggest that a Blu-ray add-on for the Xbox 360 may be on its way.

Leaked details

Translated from French the supposedly leaked details are as follows:

• The Wii2 system will feature a Blu-Ray drive with a secondary aim of stopping piracy
• 1080P and lower resolutions will be supported, for Blu-ray movies and games
• The release date is scheduled for third quarter of 2010
• The release will be worldwide and on the same day for all countries
• A scheme will be available in which it is possible to trade in the original Wii for a cheaper price on the new Wii 2

Maxconsole.net is also reporting that Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata noted is a recent press briefing that Nintendo would likely make use of HD in its next Wii console update.

Via Blu-ray.com and Maxconsole.net.

Visit Crowd DNA Gamer Panel

Woman Hate Consoles, Gamers Stay Loyal.

Almost half of women would stop their boyfriends or husbands from buying a games console if they had the choice.

Research conducted by ps3pricecompare.co.uk found that 48 per cent would ban their partner from having a console, despite one in three claiming they wanted one themselves.

The top reasons for not wanting a console include jealousy, cost, loss of quality time and having their living rooms taken over.

Almost a quarter of women questioned thought that a games console had a negative impact on their sex life.

The survey did find, however, that six per cent of women thought the consoles brought them and their partners closer together.

compared to:

Men who own a games console are more faithful to their girlfriends or wives than those who don't, according to a survey.

The PS3PriceCompare.co.uk website surveyed 1,562 males between the ages of 16 and 30 and found that those who didn't own consoles were more prone to go elsewhere for their entertainment.

Half of non-gamers admitted to being unfaithful, but only 20 per cent of gamers said that they had cheated on their partner in the past.

"I suppose gamers either just don't have the time or the motivation to go out and cheat, as most of them would prefer to spend their leisure time at home with their consoles rather than going out and about. For the gamer, the console is his mistress," said Mike Elsmore of PS3PriceCompare.co.uk.

[mobiletone]

Vogster Entertainment kills your PSN Account

Today in a stroke of marketing genius Vogster Entertainment decided to give away copies of it's latest and greatest title to promote the wonders of digital only downloads for this title on the PSP.

"Wait, what? FREE?? You bet, but because downloading digital content to your PSP is so darn easy (signed in from the PlayStation Store, select “Redeem Codes”) , we decided to throw in a little extra challenge just to emphasize how easy the actual process is WITHOUT the silly contest challenge. Here are the codes — all you have to do is guess the missing characters. (And yes, there is a pattern related to this posting…)"

The problem was that after the codes had been redeemed and you tried to input your guess as to what the code was, along with it's missing letters, you got served with a big fat 80551056 account blocked message effectively locking you out of the PSN. nice going there Mike Kennedy, if there's an advantage to distribution on a physical medium this counts as one.

Read all the wailing and moaning on the Eeeeeew.blog {here} i just hope Vogster can come up with some sort of big choclatey muffin with a cherry on the top way of making up to all those people who now have knackered PSN accounts thanks to them.

[mobiletone]

Britain’s Best Gamer Crowned

After battling it out against hundreds of hopefuls from across the country, today 19 year old Josh Stevens from Berkshire is crowned Britain’s Best Nintendo Gamer.

The final of the first ever Nintendo tournament saw the Berkshire teenager outstrip the competition to take home the prestigious title of Britain’s Best Nintendo Gamer, together with a trip for five to the home of Nintendo in Japan, worth £10,000.

Throughout October eight GAME Group stores across the UK opened their doors to Nintendo fans old and new, for a series of fiercely fought regional heats. Players competed on four games to win their place at the grand final – Wii Sports Resort, Wii Fit, Mario Kart DS and New Super Mario Bros DS....

/// I'm sorry but, best gamer ON A Wii, that's like holding the title for fastest person to gouge their eyes out with a rusty HIV infected syringe.

[mobiletone] best gamer my arse! hrurmph grumble grumble

I Aint Going Back To Rehab.. No, No, No

It's time to admit you have a problem...

A rehab clinic in Somerset has now opened its doors to people with serious gaming addictions.

The center will adapt its Minnesota Method Twelve-Step program, which it normally uses to treat people addicted to drugs, drink and gambling, to treat gamers that exhibit similar behaviour.

Patients at the clinic will take part in group therapy, video sessions and therapeutic tasks including vacuuming and washing up.

According to The Telegraph: “Sufferers spend days at a time glued to their computer screens - going without food, sleep, or any social interaction. As a result they suffer malnutrition, relationship-breakdown and postural problems.”

Brian Dudley, the center’s chief executive told the The Telegraph that he believed between five to ten per cent of the nation know someone addicted to an online game.

Dudley believes that the rise and rise of online games such as World of Warcraft, which requires players to invest large amounts of time to progress, has triggered this new addiction.

With the recent release of Borderlands, there are sure to be bleary-eyed, pale-skinned addicts across the country that don’t know what day it is. If this sounds like you, contact the center now.

[mobiletone]

Fancy A Challenge?

A gamer from Kent has played himself into the record books Friday after speeding through the classic Sonic the Hedgehog game in the fastest recorded time ever.

James Richards, 21, completed the 'speed run' through the first level of the platform game in 22 seconds, a time confirmed as a record by Guinness World Records officials present at London's Golden Joystick Awards.

I've got the urge to dig that MegaDrive compilation out now..

also, is Mr Sketch breeding mutant game smashing clones of himself? :)

Visit Crowd DNA Gamer Panel

Tech' Support goes On Holiday

PS3 Brings You Freeview TV

As well all probably know we've had PlayTV(tm) on our PS3s for a while now and it can be picked up for around 40 beer tokens if you look hard enough. The 'other' console just got Sky TV for 15 quids a month, but what if i was to say, Oi NO! subscription based viewings and new hardware are alright for some but what about the man in the street, the guy who thinks the internets and TV should be free!? hey, what about him?

Well today lucky ThreeSpeech readers, as a small celebration to mark our long awaited rise to the No.1 spot in the Google search engine i can tell you that Freeview TV over the interwebs is available to you, now, today. Not a cut down version but all 40 channels of glorious standard definition TV. People, we have made the switch over.

point your PS3 browsers to http://tvcatchup.com, sign up and enjoy.

[mobiletone]

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


Mordacai suddenly realises he'd shot a kid in a Skag Halloween costume.

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?

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.

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]

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!

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*

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."

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]