Starhawk private beta looking tidy..

... but what's this, talking about a private beta publicly? Think I'll lose my beta programme priviliges, or worse - face legal action?

Nope, check this out from Lightbox:

REMINDER: players in all territories are free to publicly discuss the Starhawk Private BETA, post videos, etc. We apologize for any confusion on the matter and the SONY attorneys have modified the EULA to make sure that it accomidates free and open public discussion!

Many Thanks to the SONY PlayStation Legal Team!

This is the most radically engaged PS3 beta I've been part of, the point updates are every couple of days, there is an RSS feed to share update details and balancing stats, Lightbox are pushing for active forum participation, both US and EU forums are up and running.

 The game - we've only got CTF for now, it's radically different from Warhawk, the most noticable at first being the button selections, then the build and battle elements, but as expressed in the run-up, it does feel familiar - "spiritual successor" is dead on. For a very early beta, it's super solid, seemingly lag free and stable, nice accurate long shots, grenades, close quarters - all good. Only critisism so far, looks a little lo-res, this could simply be colour selections though. Oh, and it kept me up till 1am on a work night.

 Now I've 100%'d the Saints Row 3 missions, this beta could soak up a lot of my time...

three60speech: deal of the weekend

Blockbuster £12.95 - Forza Motorsport 3: Ultimate Collection



The Forza 3 Ultimate Collection is the largest Forza entry yet: comprising 500 premium cars with fully modeled cockpits; each completely customizable via upgrades and through Forza’s groundbreaking in-game paint and decal system. Ultimate Collection will also feature all cars and tracks found in the previously released Forza 3 Add-on Packs including:

Motorsports Legends Pack
October Track Pack (Benchmark and Sidewinder tracks)
Hot Holidays Pack
Autoweek Car Show Pack
Nürburgring Grand Prix Circuit Track pack
Jalopnik Car Pack
Road & Track Car Pack
Exotic Car Pack
Summer Velocity Pack
World Class Car Pack
Forza Motorsport 3 Ultimate Collection will also include seven new car models, including:

Lancia 037 Stradale
Jaguar D-Type
Plymouth Cuda
Audi R8 5.2 FSI Quattro
Audi TT RS Coupe
Audi R15 TDI
Porsche 550A Spyder

The world’s best automobiles combine with some of racing’s most famous circuits in Forza 3 Ultimate Collection; the game will have more than 100 track layouts to race on, including Laguna Seca, Tsukuba, Road America, as well as endurance tracks like Le Mans de la Sarthe and the Nürburgring Nordschleife.

It's going to take me ages to download ALL that content, nice to see it's not a code redeem job either (except TopGear theme). I loaded the game up and got a bunch of messsages from Turn 10, i clicked the links and it took me to the Store and a whole list of stuff to grab all for nada.

Best part is i have now got my PS2 Logitech Rally wheel running on the Xbox360 along with the pedals working, had a bit of a problem with that a while back, as i found the correct set-up in the Forza Options menu, why they can't has a straight button customisation option in this day and age i'll never know, but the pedals are 'A' and 'X' buttons using the converter. I turned the wheel sensitivity up to max and it's all good.

Had to be careful though in Blockbuster as the Ultimate Collection was mixed in and priced up with the normal versions.

Saints Row The Third: Playing It My Way

Freedom, Fun, F**king About.. From the first time the game started to when i turned the console off many hours later i totally enjoyed myself. I played this with my tongue firmly stuck in my cheek and a grin on my face. There was a point when the crew were flying over a penthouse about to do an assault when my character gets asked 'can you see anything?' and i reply 'yeah, there's someone in my pool!' before leaping out of the helicopter to parachute in and start blazing. That moment has summed up the game so far.

If you are not worried about your Trophy collection then the cheats list i posted opens up a whole new world of possibilities, i have two save files on the go now, one for straight playing, the other for balls out daft. I finished off the night driving around a zombie infested Steelport in a tank with 3 hotties in a purple scoutcar in tow sporting uzis, this had the side effect so that when you get a phonecall for a gang side mission (horde mode type gameplay) the zombies started attacking the other gang too and all shit would break lose.

talking of 'Whored Mode' this is a nice solid addition entered from the main menu, i wouldn't play it with the kids mr jimmy! ;) i gave it a go and got to wave 6 first attempt.

Haven't played any co-op yet as i'm waiting for more news on the fact PS3 owners will be able to download Saints Row 2 next week sometime until Feb when they redeem their in box code.

Initially the game feels different to SR2, the customisation is not as in-depth but that does not matter much, not as in the character so much as the fact there are only a couple of store outlets to buy new stuff from, and most of it seems to have been in the free Initiation Station downloaded from the PSN Store. There seems to be less vehicle types too. You can buy up shops, and buildings to gain an hourly income, this will come in handy to keep you in bullets and up grading your weapons.. an incendary round duel weilding uzi set-up anyone?

Early days yet but it looks like The Saints are on a mission, where that mission will lead who knows. But i'm pretty sure i'm gonna have a damn good laugh finding out.

Saints Row The Third - day one verdict

A necessary post given our own Mr Mobiletone is most likely at work and wondering...

I've had a couple of hours, and it's really really good.

One thing I expect in a modern game is a clear and responsive user interface, not just the menus but extending to the way cut scenes work. SR3 does not need the cut scenes skipped to get in the action, as the mission details are explained while you play. When you fail/complete a mission, the screens look great and are quick and get the point across in a satisfying manner. They really worked on this 'keep the player having fun' factor and IT DOES IT BETTER THAN ANY OTHER GAME I'VE PLAYED.

Sandbox is an overused word, as rarely do you feel you can go anywhere and do anything. Grand Theft Auto started it then lost the plot somewhat, Saints Row plagiarised so much, but here they've improved on the format in almost every respect. I kid you not. For example:

• Talk about straight into the action. No spoiler, but a top first mission in seconds of starting!
• Guns are fun, accurate, vary well, zoom works well, ammo is no tighter than necessary but not free etc.
• Stealing cars has a wide variety of animations and outcomes, right up to immediate steals by jumping through windscreens etc.
• After 2-3 missions and a couple of sides I was genuinely spoilt for choice - a round of Genki (OMG that is amazing - a murdering game show against the clock though fire traps etc - very 'Running Man'), assassinations, drug running, gang killing events - all without needing to drive for 5 minutes to get there. Great map, great smartphone system for finding/selecting everything - wonderful.
• Cars handle even better than before, fast, easy yet mental too. Hazah! 
• Good story line so far, no sign of letting up. 

Any downsides?

• I don't like the hair customisations, a few more would have been good. I wanted to recreate my SR2 character and I can't get very close at all. 
• I can't play a game with a 4 foot long dildo weapon with my 11 year old daughter. 

Enjoy...

Skyrim Broken on PS3 (360 version fine!)

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is a big game. Players will want to save their progress along the way. And this is apparently causing players problems on the PS3 and making some call the game "broken".

After Skyrim gamesave files surpass 5MB in the PS3 version, many claim to experience lag and stability issues. "Such as framerate issues, poor rendering, shoddy loading and non interactions fro finishing quests/cutting wood etc," wrote gamer PurpleHaze on the game's official forums.

"I can't finish ANY quest and i can't buy from ANY trader/npc and i can only talk to them after some laggy button pressing," continued PurpleHaze. So my gamesave is now 6mb (how i don't know since i couldn't buy/sell/talk or complete quests) and the LAG and framerate issue is so bad at this point, the game isn't worh restarting."

PurpleHaze, whose issues started after hitting 5.3MB, isn't alone, with other players experiencing similar slowdown once their save files pass the neighborhood of 5MB~6MB (some are reporting problems after reaching 10MB).

"My file size is growing constantly, and fast," wrote player AMG on the game's forums. "It's already well over 3mb in size and I've only played for 3hrs."

The current fix is to restart the system, which makes Skyrim playable. However, after an hour or two of play, the game once again apparently becomes laggy.

This issue does not seem to affect the Xbox 360 version nor the PC version. Even gamers with plenty of available PS3 hard drive space are having problems.

"It does not take long for the save file to exceed 6MB, roughly 16 hours for me, so playing the game in any sort of depth will become very troublesome," wrote Kotaku reader Toby.

Players are calling the PS3 version "broken".

Bethesda, Skyrim's developer, is no stranger to PS3 game issues. The PlayStation 3 version of Bethesda's Fallout 3 also suffered a whole host of PS3 problems, including this.

When The Saints Go Marching In

Dispatch estimate:15 Nov 2011 - 16 Nov 2011



see you all in Steelport biatches! Adios. it's been a blast.

GTA V: Trailer Breakdown

Initiation Station Custom Na'vi