PlayStation 3 Price Drop Rumored Tomorrow March 30, 2009
Posted by Lyle in News.Tags: Playstation 3, PS3
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Big rumors today all over the internets about Sony (finally) dropping the price on it’s very awesome, but very not-selling-like-hotcakes PlayStation3 console. No one really knows if it’s true or by how much it’s going to drop but the gurus are saying 50-100 dollars. How nice would a $349 80 gigabyte PS3 be? Not as nice as a $299 80 gigabyte PS3.
The PlayStation 2 is set to drop as well, and this is actually the more believable of the two rumors. The people that somehow know this stuff say that your older brother’s generation system is going to be sub $100 starting tomorrow.
Moral of the story – don’t buy into the rumors completely – but also don’t buy a PlayStation console til tomorrow
UPDATE – It appears that Sony reps have been calling around to internet sites and telling everyone that the rumors are false. Nothing to see here folks, move along; sadly…
Sacred 2: Fallen Angel Installation Thoughts March 25, 2009
Posted by Lyle in Just For Fun, Now Playing.Tags: PC Gaming, Sacred 2
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Sometimes I like to play games on my computer. I don’t have anything top-o-the-line, but it can handle most games that I throw at it. Yesterday, however, when I tried to “Install” Sacred 2, I remembered why I love consoles.
I’m glad it was my day off.
I started the process around 10am. Put DVD 1 in and went and hung out with the kids as it installed. Came back later to swap the other DVD into the drive – worked fine. That process only took about 20 minutes or so. Then I decided to download the latest “patch”. Apparently, Sacred 2 has been a pretty bug-ridden experience for a lot of folks, and so it wasn’t that surprising when I found out that the cumulative patch was 722 mb…
No problem. I gave it a click and went and started planning lunch. I came back to the pc to find that the patch was fully downloaded (didn’t check how long it took). I found the file and hit it and my machine suddenly acted as if it was a 386. For about a minute, nothing at all happened; I’m a patient person sometimes, so I figured that it needed that minute to primp or something. What finally popped up was the typical install message/user agreement to hit accept on and away it went… verifying my files. Verifying what, exactly? I assume that this was an anti-piracy program doing some snooping. It crawled along at 1% progress per minute or so and stopped dead at 6% and told me that my files had been changed and the patch would not be installed. That’s funny, because I had previously installed and played the game on my laptop; this was a fresh install on my desktop. How were the files changed?
I took a long, dark journey onto the Sacred 2 internet forums to find some help, and I finally found the answer after reinstalling the game and failing with bad advice 3 or 4 times. I read this very overlooked post by a self-proclaimed nerd who checked the error logs (he was having the exact same problem as I was). What you have to do is extract a file off of the game DVD (explore it, open up a cabinet file and explore it; then copy a file within that file into the installation directory on my hard drive) and replace the one that was originally placed in the install directory. No really… I essentially had to patch their game with a user-discovered fix, in order to get their patch to work.
I finished installing the patch at 9:00 pm. I installed/wrestled with the game (off and on) for 11 hours; played it for 30 minutes. Great game – should have waited for the console version that is coming out in May.
Little Big Planet is Huge March 20, 2009
Posted by Lyle in Just For Fun, News.Tags: Family-Friendly, Little Big Planet, PS3
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600,000+ Huge, that is. Media Molecule has sent out an email to the cooler video-game blogs out there (um… no I didn’t get one) that there are now 646, 135 user-generated levels available for Little Big Planet. Most of those are simple points and trophies collecting levels that are silly and fast, but there are some really awe-inspiring and very professional looking levels as well.
Little Big Planet is one of the best family-friendly games of all time in my book (my 5 and 3 year olds are always wanting to play it with me)! For those of you that are on the fence about purchasing a PS3, this could be the game to win you over.
Resistance and Resistance 2, Heavenly Sword, and Warhawk are all jealous of Sackboy and the amount of attention he gets at our house…
What’s Up This Week March 19, 2009
Posted by Lyle in News.add a comment
I finished Chapter 6-2 of Resident Evil 5 yesterday (one more sub-chapter to go). About to beat the game, but went back to chapter one to help a friend in some co-op (by far, the best way to play the game). Still stand by my first impression about the game’s content. It’s not for kids, but for grown-ups who don’t mind gooey monsters – it’s pretty amazing once you adjust to the controls.
Resistance: Retribution on PSP is the first shooter that I’ve played on the system that I’ve liked. The fact that it has fully-functional online multiplayer is pretty amazing. And it’s fun until you get up against some glitch-abusing-spawn-killing foes that are just in it for the points. Parents be warned about this one as well, but more for the swearing in the campaign than anything else.
Played some 3-player Little Big Planet last night and that’s pretty much always a winner. Some of the user-made levels are absolutely incredible.
And supposedly the Call of Duty:World at War Map Pack 1 will be out today featuring a new zombie-level and 3 new multiplayer maps. It’s ten bucks on PS3 or 800 MS points on 360 (the mega-corporation proprietary currency of Xbox LIVE equivalent of 10 bucks).
Parents: Nintendo Does Have Some Mature Games March 18, 2009
Posted by Lyle in Must Read, News.Tags: Family-Friendly, Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars, GTA, Madworld, Mature Rated Games, Nintendo
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Some folks I’ve talked with are under the impression that the Nintendo systems (Wii & DS) are the “family friendly” video game systems. I would agree to a point. I’d say they are the most family-friendly systems available.
In the light of recent releases on both the Wii and the DS that should concern the concerened parent, I thought I would do a little experiment. I navigated over to the esrb website and did some simple searches. Here’s what I found:
A search for M-rated games on all major platforms (some games are rated and have yet to be released – some are download titles):
- Xbox 360: 135 games out of 751 (18%)
- Playstation 3: 89 games out of 450 (20%)
- Nintendo Wii: 26 games out of 954 (3%)
- Nintendo DS: 7 games out of 1072 (<1%)
- Playstation Portable (PSP): 41 games out of 532 (8%)
- PC Games: 770 games out of 7963 (10%)
- Playstation 2: 259 games out of 1892 (14%)
- Xbox: 193 out of 1006 (19%)
Unscientific but common sense conclusion – Nintendo has a smaller amount of Mature rated games than any other console. There are some very mature rated titles on those systems however. Grand Theft Auto (which has been on every system BUT Nintendo until last week is now available on Nintendo DS in the form of Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars. Some titles on the Wii to be wary of are the recently released Madworld and House of the Dead: Overkill; as well as older titles No More Heroes and Manhunt 2.
I recently read an analyst’s report on the GTA Chinatown (DS) game. It is believed it will sell 2 million copies. That’s a lot of potential for unknowing parents to allow their kids access to a very mature rated game. Head’s up mom and dad! Your kids could be playing GTA right under your nose…
And hey I’m not calling for any boycotts or for developers to be shut down or anything – I just hope parents are aware of what’s out there…
Edge Reports Wii Game is “Most Profane Game” March 16, 2009
Posted by Lyle in Must Read, News.add a comment
According to the Guinness book people, that is. Funny, in a world of useless, uncompromisingly trashy talk the king of the curses in the video game medium is found on the Nintendo Wii (y’know; that family-friendly console)…
The game in question is Headstrong Games’ House of the Dead: Overkill. Here’s a quote from the Edge article:
The records authority says the lightgun game drops the “f-bomb” 189 times in about three hours of “relatively limited dialogue,” or just over one f-word per minute. The Queen Mother of All Swear Words accounts for about 3 percent of all spoken words in the game.
Unfortunately the developer is proud of their achievement. The article goes on to explain that the profanity is exactly what they were looking for and is OK with the “dubious honor”
Resident Evil 5 Impressions March 13, 2009
Posted by Lyle in News, Now Playing.Tags: PS3, Resident Evil 5, Xbox 360
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So I went and stood in line with the zombies last night to get my hands on a copy of Resident Evil 5. I’m not sure what compelled me to do so because I was not that impressed with the demo – I guess I figured it’s a high profile game (my youth group kids were all about me getting it) and I should probably “impressions” it. Let me start off by saying that I was sure that I would continue to be just OK with the game as far as fun factor – I was wrong. The demo did not sell itself enough – although the graphics and the co-op action were both standouts – throw in the meat and bones of the story and I was hooked and couldn’t put it down. There is so much going on in the RE back-story that is both intricate and actually very creepily believable – it sucked me in.
Content – everybody should know that zombie games are violent – and this one is no exception. It’s bloody and gory; but more than that it’s scary and gross (childhood descriptions there, but that sums it up well). The game is no bloodier than any of the other zombie games on the market – but the detail level of the graphics adds to the intensity quite a bit. Like Gears of War, there is some chainsawing going on, and like Gears of War – this game is not kid-friendly.
The yuck and scare factors should not be taken lightly for kids. If the split-headed dogs won’t keep the kids up at night, the medieval-ax-wielding staple-skinned black-hooded mini-boss will. The infected are disturbing and ridiculously detailed whether it’s a grunt or a boss.
There have also been some scattered moments of strong language, but that is fairly tame compared to some other games out there. However I’ve only seen acts/chapters 1-1 and 1-2. I don’t know how much worse it may get.
So far – great fun for iron-stomached adults.
Not so great for young-ens that may think they want to play because their friends think it’s cool.
Killzone 2 Multiplayer Thoughts March 6, 2009
Posted by Lyle in News.add a comment
Getting ready to head back into it tonight. I’m still a serious noob at it all but the game has a good way of easing the new player in. I haven’t unlocked much yet but the default setup seems pretty powerful. The multiplayer simply titled “warzone” is some of the best fun I’ve had online… There are five games types that are changed on the fly by your commanding officer and it really sucks you into believing you’re really there amidst the chaos of the battlefield. Your character moves along at a pace and heft somewhere in-between Call of Duty and Gears of War. They take the Killzone cover system out for multiplayer games in case you are wondering how that works (cover is still important, you just can’t stick to it).
Also, the graphics are absolutely mind-blowing-beautiful and the frame-rate is buttery smooth. As good as that screenshot looks, it doesn’t do the game justice.
As far as content goes, the multiplayer aspect really doesn’t have much that is over the top. The vision-impairing blood effect when you’re getting hit is more jarring but less gory than Gears of War. The single player game (of which I’ve only played the demo) has a LOT of swearing in it, some that I’ve heard in the demo, some that I have heard of. It’s there enough to get other-more-famous game reviewers complaining about it so there must be a bunch and it sounds like it’s rather gratuitous – so parents take care… not kid-friendly.
