Assassin vs. Drake, MP3 and Playstation Eye

I was recently in a quandary as to which game to ask as a Chrimbo present from my parents. This was between either Assassin’s Creed or Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune (Roz should hopefully be getting me Super Mario Galaxy, which without needing to be said, holds priority over just about everything else in the universe at present). Both games look like they have heaps of potential, but after reading various reviews and preview for both games (as well as read personal opinions on forums), the decision was made for me… It’s Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune.

The most striking impression that I get after reading reviews and personal opinions of Unchartered, is that the game is just pure unadulterated fun. Assassin’s Creed seems to be somewhat of a flawed gem of game, whilst Uncharted is just pure entertainment. I must confess that it is reading the personal opinions on forums that has most sold the game to me. Anyway, Uncharted it is. I’ll look forward to playing this come Christmas.

Metroid Prime 3 is hard – damn hard. Then again, I shouldn’t have expected anything less after both Metroid Prime 1 and 2. The final 3 bosses of the original Metroid Prime had me ripping my hair out. Also the final 2 bosses of Metroid Prime 2 were also swear inducing hard. Unfortunately, by my estimate, I’m only approximately a third of the way through Metroid Prime 3 and already the bosses have given me some difficulties. The last boss encounter took me 5 attempts (the last of which took me approximately 30 minutes to eventually kill it and only then by the skin of my teeth). I dread to think how hard it’s going to be near the end. I think the thing that adds to the difficulty is that in order to defeat some bosses you need to purposefully corrupt your PED suit, which in turn drains an energy tank. As such, it s a careful balancing act between burning your health to deal heavy damage, ensuring that the corruption doesn’t overload and staying alive!

I got my Playstation Eye through the post yesterday. I purchased it mainly for the advanced mic attached to it, because I got sick and tired of always having to recharge my Bluetooth headset. Also, I often play games with headphones on (so as not to wake Elliot), and wearing my Bluetooth headset under my headphones was less than comfortable. So now I can listen to conversations through my headphones and use my Playstation Eye as my mic.

I have managed to have a quick go of Trials of Topaq with the Eye and must confess that it was actually quite fun. It’s a bit like marble madness, but the ground on which the ball rolls is the image shown by the eye and any moving elements in that image raises the tiles on the ground. As such, you need to move your arms and body around to push the ball along its path. It’s certainly an inventive use of the Eye and I look forward to showing it to Elliot to see what he thinks :)

Joker

The picture below is fromthe upcoming issue of Empire magazine.

It has to be said that Heath Ledger is looking pretty damn awesume as the Joker. I can't wait for the first tue trailer for The Dark Knight, which is due to hit sometime in December.

XBL vs PSN

I think that Microsoft have taken a long hard look at Sony’s general arrogance and have said we can do better than that… you call that arrogance, this is arrogance.

I’m referring to the comments made by Robbie Bach of Microsoft who has recently stated the following in regard to Xbox Live and the PSN:

"It's fair to say that Xbox Live is clearly head and shoulders above anything anyone else has tried to do. We don't have competition."

He goes on to say what Sony offers shouldn't even be called a service.

Link HERE

Now, I’ll be the first to admit that XBL does offer a better service than the PSN, but to state that XBL has no competition is frankly ridiculous. Especially when you take the following into account:

* XBL has been out approximately 5 years and the PSN only 1 year. Both are evolving over time and initially XBL was a pretty stripped down version of what it is today.

* PSN is free! I cannot state this enough. If I had a Xbox I would resent having to pay to have the privilege to play online – hell I never needed to pay on my PC. What’s more, the cost mounts up over the course of a consoles life. The RRP for 1 years Live membership is £39.99, over the course of say 5 years of a consoles lifespan, this comes to £199.95. Hell you could buy yourself a whole second console with this much (a Wii of course). There is no way in hell that I would pay this to play online.

* Home is due to launch early next year and if you’re into the community aspects of online services, this does so much more than what is currently on offer on XBL.

* So far as I understand it, the majority of the PSN games run on dedicated servers, while to play XBL games, the Xbox is used as the server. The result of this is that if you are playing against someone over long distances, the game experience can suffer from lag

Anyway… rant over.

Talking of the PSN, I was pleased to not that the first DLC offering for Rock band are due to go online on the US store this Thursday. They are as follows:

Band add-on content

Metallica pack 1 ($5.49)
"...And Justice For All" ($1.99)
"Blackened" ($1.99)
"Ride The Lightning" ($1.99)

Queen's of the Stone Age pack 1 ($5.49)
"3's & 7's" ($1.99)
"Little Sister" ($1.99)
"Sick, Sick, Sick" ($1.99)

The Police pack ($5.49)
"Can't Stand Losing You" ($1.99)
"Roxanne" ($1.99)
"Synchronicity II" ($1.99)

"Bang a Gong" - T. Rex cover ($1.99)
"Cherry Bomb" - The Runaways cover ($1.99)
"Fortunate Son" - Creedance Clearwater Revival cover ($1.99)
"Joker and the Thief" - Wolfmother ($1.99)
"Juke Box Hero" - Foreigner cover ($1.99)
"My Sharona" - The Knack cover ($1.99)

This seems like a good initial selection and only hope that this continues and is similar when the game is launched next year in Europe.

Also on a side note, I completed the single player game on Call of Duty 4 last night. It may have been a short game (6-7 hours), but it was a very intense experience and I’m looking forward to playing through again on a higher difficultly level. This is always a good indicator for a good game in my opinion. Also, I’m sure that online multiplayer will keep me busy for some time…

Now I just need to get past that damn hard boss on Metroid Prime 3!

Inland Empire and Kiki

Film watched:
Inland Empire

Breathtaking. Lynch at his best – but… what the hell happened?

8/10

Elliot sat down with me today and watch Kiki’s Delivery Service, a fantastic anime film from Hayao MIYAZAKI (Spirited Away, Princess Mononke etc). What made it special was that Elliot almost never watches films, and seeing as it is one of my passions, it was really nice to sit along side him as we watched it.

Roz and I have tried to limit Elliot’s contact with TV (and definitely the cinema), but I hope in future as he grows older that we can share some more fantastic films

Playstation R&D with the Eye.

I stumbled across this blog entry on the US Playstation Blog which shows what there R&D department are currently doing with the Playstation Eye.

I must admit I'm pretty impressed - they could seriously use some of these elements to make fantastic games that could be user designed by players, in a similiar fashion to Little Big Planet, but with very limited work on the part of the user.

I especially like the last video. The game reminds me of the Wiiplay tank game, but the program seems to effortlessly scan just about anything to be used as a tank - and also the level is user designed. Very impressive.

Anyway, link HERE.

Games, games and games

I’ve got tons of stuff to blog about and should have written earlier, but haven’t had the inclination…

Anyway, this is the brief abridged version…

New games

Zelda: Phantom Hourglass and Metroid Prime 3

Got both of these for my birthday a few days ago. They are both brilliant examples of how a perfect control scheme can help to make a perfect game. Metroid nails FPS controls for Wii effortlessly and as such, adds to the emersion of an already excellent sequel. This is still very much a Metroid game, and as such, it is very similar to the first 2 games, but this is by no means a bad thing, as the first 2 were also amazing games. Zelda on the other hand, perfectly adapts Zelda games for the DS. It uses a control scheme which is similar in some way to Animal Crossing on the DS to control Link and this works perfectly. At first I found it a little odd that you didn’t use any buttons on the DS at all, but have since got used to it. I’m not too far into the game, but have just got the boomerang and I have to say, that this put a huge smile on my face. I have always loved the boomerang in Zelda games, but being able to draw the path of the boomerang in Phantom Hourglass is simply sublime :)

Call of Duty 4

I also picked this up for the PS3 as a little present to myself a couple of days after my birthday. It has to be said that this is by far the most graphically stunning game I have seen on any system to date. On a technical level it is pretty impressive, but it is the sense of immersion which really drives this game. It has the most impressive opening level I have ever seen in a game, it really is pretty staggering.

Online is also great fun, not an arcade shooter like Resistance, but a more realistic FPS experience, and probably better for it. I also love the way that as you level up online, you can create your own classes, assign perks and improve your weapons, a definite incentive to keep on playing.

Overall, during the last few days I’ve been in gaming nirvana, which of course, is a very good thing.

What’s more, only 5 more days until Super Mario Galaxy is out! Of course, I’ll have to wait until Christmas to play it, but I’m sure it will be worth the wait and I have plenty to keep my occupied in the meanwhile.

Also, I thought I’d post this picture.

Elliot did this using pins and wooden pieces on a board, it is meant to be a picture of me… I was rather impressed by it :)

Halloween, Heroes and stuff

Well it was Halloween last night, and as is traditional for me, I settled down to watch a horror film last night. My film of choice this year was Night of the Living Dead, as classis a horror film as you could possibly find. I had intended to make a Dead marathon out of it and also watch Dawn of the Dead, but I have been feeling a little run down of late, so instead headed to bed with Cell to read.

I asked Elliot yesterday whether they did anything at school to do with Halloween to which he replied “no”. Not a thing, nada. Now, as a kid (and also as a grownup) I loved Halloween and yet it seems that everyone these days seem to be trying to suppress the celebration. Whilst I can understand that unsupervised trick-or-treating these days is probably a bad idea, this however, does not mean that Halloween shouldn’t be celebrated in other ways. Roz pointed out that she thought that other parents of children might disapprove. Well, sod them. I don’t particularly approve of celebrating the torture and brutal execution of heretics, but that has never stopped Easter! (Okay maybe this also celebrates the “resurrection” as well, but as I think that’s bullsh*t, I choose to ignore that).

I have to say that I’m very disappointed that the terrestrial TV channels available to us here in the UK, don’t make a special effort to celebrate Halloween. You would think that it would be the perfect opportunity to screen classic films during the evening and into the early hours of the morning, but instead we just get the normal old crap.

Of course, an exception to “the normal old crap” on TV last night was Heroes. This was the episode “Company Man” and in my humble opinion has been the best episode so far. My only complaint with Heroes in that they have too many main characters and as a result most episodes loose any focus by flitting back and forth between these characters. It could be said that Lost is similar in that it has a large cast of characters, but with Lost, each episode is firmly focused on a particular character – so escapes the pitfalls of Heroes. This episode of Heroes was different, it focused on the Bennett family throughout and was extremely effective and touching. It’s just a shame that it looks like Mr Bennett will be effectively leaving the show following this, as he was one of my favourite characters.

Other news:

It looks like a demo for Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune will be upon the PSN next Thursday – I’m looking forward to trying this out as it looks very promising from all that I’ve seen of it so far.

Joss Wheadon (Buffy/Angel/Firefly) will be returning to TV with a new project called Dollshouse. What’s more, it’s due to star and be produced by Eliza Dushku. There is more info on this on the Empire website here, but it sounds very promising.

Plus, they have a hot picture of Eliza on the site, which I couldn’t resist but post here:

Fish

I bought a Bio-orb fish tank the other day, and we now own goldfish... 1 for each member of my family.

My fish is gold and white and is called "Dennis"

Roz's is all black and is called "Sylvia"

Elliot's is multicoloured and is called "Pam".

RE3 & BAFTA's

Film Watched:

Resident Evil: Extinction

Mad Max meets Resident Evil, with additional exploding heads.

6.5/10

I note that the gaming BAFTA's were announced yesterday and was pleasantly surprised to se that Wiisports game out on top, winning a total of 5 awards. I was also pleased to note that Bioshock won best game and that Okami also walked away with an award...

Okamii & Phoenix Wright

Yep – the rumours have been confirmed. Okami is now due to be remade for the Wii, and as such, I have rather unofficially renamed the game Okamii. This is of course a no-brainer, with the heavy use of calligraphy brush strokes in the game this was always best suited to the Wii as opposed to any other platform, I’m just surprised that it has taken this long to be announced!

I have been tempted in the past to buy Okami (for the PS2), as it follows a very similar template to the Zelda games, also you cannot ignore the fact that the art style in the game is simply awesome. Well, now that it’s due on the horizon for the Wii, I thing this has jumped to a must buy status.

My only concern is that it seems like an awful lot of titles are due out now for quarter 1 2006, especially in light of several titles being delayed from the end of 2007. From memory, the titles that I’m interested in that I can think of are:

Mario Kart (Wii)
Rock Band (PS3)
Super Smash Bros Brawl (Wii)
Fire Emblem (Wii)
Advance Wars: Days of Ruin (DS)
Metal Gear Solid 4 (PS3)
Little Big Planet (PS3)

Phew!

I completed Phoenix Wright 3: Trials and Tribulations the other night. I must admit that it was rather sad, knowing that this is the last game is the series. Whilst a new Ace Attorney game is due out next year (Apollo Justice), this just won’t be the same without the same memorable characters that made the Phoenix Wright games what they are.

It has to be said that the very final case was pretty damn epic and had more twists and turns in it than an entire series of Lost. Just when I thought I had it all figured out, a new piece of evidence, or some new testimony completely threw everything upside down. I even found myself verbally shouting “you what” at the DS (as oppose to the mandatory “objection”).

Now it’s time for a rant…

Now I quite like EDGE magazine, I really do. I’ve collected it on and off for numerous years, but it has to be said that I think that in my opinion their reviews have become less and less reliable over the last few years. They gave Phoenix Wright 6/10 – in other words slightly above average. The main complaint seems to be that the game mechanics were a little too rigid and that there were a few typo’s in the translation. Now first off, this is based on an imported game, so the fact that it already has a translation is a blessing, secondly, I probably only notice 4-5 occasions in the entire game where there was a typo. This is out of literally thousands and thousands of lines of text, as such, I think that this point is rather petty. As for the game mechanics, they seem just fine to me for what is in reality, an old fashioned text adventure. There is no harm in that at all, after all, how many games in this genre are there left?

Let look at the game as a whole. It has an amusing story, fantastic characters (which are the most memorable and likeable that I can think of for years), is a game which rquirs you to think things through very carefully, has a fantastic soundtrack and is overall a long, memorable and extremely pleasant experience… So 6/10 seems a tad low.

I know, I know, this is all very subjective, but it got me somewhat peeved! Also, although I’m yet to play Metroid Prime 3, their review seems a tad low when compared to other reviews of this game (which have been positively glowing).

You just need to take a look at Metacritic to get a better view of these:

Phoenix Wright 3

Metroid Prime 3

I know that I’ve been rambling, but I just wanted to get it off my chest. Overall, to summarise, I still read game reviews these days, but ensure that they do not bias my view on a game (especially EDGE’s) and instead go with my gut feelings.

Metroid channel

I was pleasantly surprised to come home today to find the blue light on my Wii blinking, which is always nice to see.

The reason for this was that the Metroid Channel was available to download. After taking a look at this (which is a great idea BTW) it made me think why on earth Nintendo don’t do a similar thing for all their titles due out. It would certainly drum up a bit of interest and is probably best put to use to lesser known titles than something like Metoid which is bound to sell loads without the additional publicity.

Anyway, not long now until it’s launched… but then again I won’t be getting it until my birthday on 7th November. Definitely looking forward to it!

Demos and Guitar Hero effect

The PSN (US) was graced with a couple of demos of interesting Friday, these being for Ratchet and Clank and Conan.

The Ratchet and Clank demo just goes to show how visually stunning this game is. It’s almost on par with watching a playable Pixar film. What’s more, there is just so much going on in the demo as the city around you is being attacked and is generally falling apart. Admittedly the majority of things are happening in the background and as such you are unable to interact with them, but still the effect is pretty impressive. As far as the gameplay goes, it seems a little busy and cluttered for my taste, certainly not a refined platform game like the best that Mario has to offer, however I can see it appealing to a lot of people.

The Conan demo was a bit of a surprise. I was pretty much expecting it to be rubbish, but actually found that I rather enjoyed it. At its basics, it’s an action game in the same mould as God of War and Heavenly Sword, but at the same time I found it much easier to get a feel for what your doing and most importantly, it is a game where you get nowhere fast unless you block attacks (something which is strangely lacking in most games).

I’ve noticed that since playing Guitar Hero down a friend house (I don’t own it – but plan to get Rock Band when it graces our shores early next year) that I tend to listen to music in greater detail than previously. I can now distinctly make out the different instruments and elements that make up a track, namely lead guitar, bass guitar, drums etc. This is also probably helped further by the fact that I’m currently (very slowly) trying to learn how to play a real guitar.

As a confessed Beatleholic, I must confess that I would love to see some Beatles tracks eventually end up on Rock Band (especially anything from Rubber Soul), which is a possibility since EMI are providing their back catalogue. Although it has to be said that the remaining Beatles have been very cautious when it comes to the distribution of their songs – after all you still can’t but a single Beatles track on itunes, however, I can still dream.

The only problem would be that usually for the Beatles you have the following elements: lead guitar (Harrison), rhythm guitar (Lennon), bass guitar (McCartney), drums (Strarr) and vocals (normally Lennon or McCartney). By my count that’s one Guitar too many for Rock Band!

I also notice that EA has recently acquires Bioware… Does this mean Mass Effect on the PS3 down the line? Only time will tell.

I also confessed that I’m intrigued by the looks of Everyday Shooter. Ars Technica (a great site BTW) has a good look at it here :

Everyday shooter

Not bad for a just a one man team…

Nintendo news

A big Nintendo news day…

There has just recently been a press conference by Nintendo in Japan which has revealed a lot of additional information about up coming games.

The games shown were as follows:

Dragon Quest IX
Fire Emblem DS (Oh yes!)
Mario Kart Wii
Battalion Wars II
Super Mario Stadium Baseball
Wii Music
Star Soldier R Wii (WiiWare)
Mojipittan Wii (WiiWare)
Doctor Mario Wii (WiiWare)
Pokemon Farm Wii (Wiiware)
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Young King and the Promised Land (WiiWare title)
Monster Hunter 3 Wii

Additional information from the conference

- Nintendo plans to start a service centre to help people set up the internet at their home, in order to aid them in getting online with the Wii.
- A DS download service is coming that will allow us to download DS demos from our Wii
- Wii Fit 12/1 in Japan. 8,800 yen
- Wii Vote Channel will be updated. Rate games you’ve played, search for games that fit your likes
- Mario Kart Wii, Spring 2008 in Japan, and there will be motorcycles, steering wheel included.
- Sonic is playable in Smash Bros. Brawl, Super Sonic is shown, delayed in Japan until January 24, 2008, online co-op.
- Monster Hunter 3 was last heard to be for PS3, has now shown up for Wii. May not be exclusive, but the title is definitely coming to Wii. This series is massive seller in Japan.

Sonic in Brawl will now realise many a video game geeks greatest wet dream since the 80’s, namely the opportunity for Sonic and Mario to kick the crap out of each other!

Underworld Evolution

Film watched:

Underworld Evolution

Constant mediocre action. Beckinsale in cat suit / corset combo (yummie)!

6/10

Added bonus...

Gratuitous cat suit picture…

3:10, PS3 (budget) and Bungie split

Film watched:
3:10 to Yuma



A western just like the good old days. Very entertaining.
7.5/10

Well, the PS3 rumours have turned out to be true following the announcement today. Yep, now you can buy yourself a PS3 in 2 flavours as follows:

PS3 Value pack
60GB – just like the current console. 2 games (does not mention which) and one controller. All for £349.00. A saving of £75.00 – not too bad…

PS3 “entry level”
40GB. No games, only 2 USB slots (as opposed to 4), no memory card reader (no real loss), one controller and NO backwards compatibility with PS2 games. All for £299.00. Thankfully, this still keeps the Wifi…

The value pack would seem to hit the “sweet” spot of being just under £300, however the lack of backwards compatibility is a shame. I guess they’ve taken out the GS chip (PS2 graphics chip) as well as the emotion engine now, stopping even software emulation. Even still, these two price points will I’m sure, cause a large upsurge is sales, which can’t be a bad thing – especially if Sony adequately advertise the price drop.

Also, it turns out today that those other rumours are also true. Bungie have split from Microsoft.
Whilst this will mean that Bungie can now work on creating games for other consoles, this does not mean that Halo will be leaving Microsoft, as they still hold the rights to this.

All in all, an eventful day for gaming news…

Edit:

Eeek... have just read this...

“Once stocks are exhausted the new 40GB model will be the only one available in the SCEE territories.”

So those 60GB models will be a rare comodity!