All That Nerdy Stuff » Video Games

MAG: The Beta I’d be playing if PSN didn’t suck

Jason Ward — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 08:49:54 +0000

Update: Finally got into the beta, and it sucked. BORING as dirt.

So, it’s been nearly two weeks, and generally speaking I have been enjoying my PS3 quite a bit. I finished Metal Gear Solid 4 last night (more on that later), I’ve played a fair amount of God of War Collection (including the very nice looking demo of God of War 3), and I’ve tinkered a little with Little Big Planet. And of course, I’ve downloaded some demos from Playstation Network, AKA PSN, thinking it would be awfully fun to play some potential purchases.

The problem is, PSN sucks. It sucks a LOT. For all those fans who decry Xbox Live and its yearly fees, citing the free PSN as the holy grail, let me tell you something: You get what you pay for, and PSN is the proof in that pudding. Let me give you some examples of why this is so. I decided to try out the demo of Dante’s Inferno, which weighs in at about 1GB, and I thought at the same time that it would be fun to try out both the PS3 and 360 versions. So I fired up my PS3 and kicked off the download, and watched as the progress bar slowly crept to 1%. “Well,” I thought, “This is boring. I might as well start the 360 download too.” And so I did. One hour later, I was playing the 360 version-and the PS3 version was at 30%. 5 hours later and the PS3 version finished downloading at last. “Woohoo!” I thought: “Now I can try it out, too!” And then the install screen popped up. The Install Screen, people. On a CONSOLE. Luckily the install only took about 5 minutes, but still: On Xbox 360, you never, EVER install demos. Once the download is finished, you’re ready to play.

So today, they released the public beta of MAG: Massive Action Game. I’ve been a little excited about this. I’m not typically an FPS fan, but this one seemed like something special, what with its 256 player online doolabob and huge levels, and so I eagerly signed into the Playstation Store and found my download. “Hooray!” I thought, “it’s only 289MB!”

Three hours later, it finally finished. Three.Fucking.Hours.

I know what you’re gonna say: “But Jason, it’s your internet connection, it’s too slow for the awesome size of 289MB!” And to you I say “Ha! In your dreams, buddy! I’m on a 10Mb Fiber connection! I can stream HD movies from Netflix and hulu and rarely have so much as a blink!” But here’s the fun part: So I go to launch the MAG demo, and what do I find? After going through the tedious 5 minute install process, it pops up a screen to ask if it’s OK to download another 1.8GB before I can play the demo. That’s about as lovely as it can get, isn’t it? So that’s where I am.

Waiting on PS3 to download. Can’t do anything else with the system while that happens.

Good thing my 360 still works. Moral of the story? You get what you pay for, and you need look no further than the free PlayStation network to see that in action.

Xmas Aftermath: My PS3 Slim Micro-Review

Jason Ward — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 23:48:21 +0000

So, for Christmas this year (my favorite Consumerist holiday; go Commercialism!) I was fortunate enough to receive a brand new PS3 Slim console, with a 120GB hard drive. I’d been looking forward to it for a month (we actually got it on Black Friday, but figured since it was an expensivish item close to the holidays we’d make it a gift), so I was excited when, late on Christmas Eve, I finally got permission to open it up. The experience was cool at first (is opening up a new gadget ever not fun?), but quickly took a dive into frustration before it finally emerged to become cool again. Here are my thoughts:

Little Big Planet is awesome. Blows away almost every other game this gen, especially the “realistic” garbage! BRILLIANT art design!

Metal Gear Solid 4 looks pretty good, but certainly no better than games like Modern Warfare 2 or Gears of War 2. This is one of those games that was supposed to be a “360 can’t do this” example but, ummm…it’s not. Controls sucked at first, but I got used to them after an hour or so and then it became fun. The Cinematography and voice acting are phenomenal.

God of War Collection kicks ass. Looks very nice. Clearly still just an upscaled PS2 game, but the filtering and other enhancements make it passable, like a first gen PS3 or 360 title almost. Still a great game!

PS3 itself-is not a consumer friendly product at all. Out of the box I had to manually enable Optical audio out (connecting an HDMI cable automatically disables all other audio output. Why? Silly!), then find out which codecs my Onkyo 6.1 receiver supported and manually enable those before it would work. The download of the firmware update was fast (5 minutes) but the install was ridiculously long (literally, 30+ minutes. WTF?). Software updates to games are unbelievably slow. 2 hours to update MGS4 so I could play it, 20 minutes to update LBP. Mind you, I’m on a 10MB Fiber connection, and the downloads were speedy enough, it’s the installation process that’s slow, which is systemic. Four other friends have told me that’s the way theirs are as well. Why is it so mind numbingly slow?

Installing demos after download is lame and varies wildly. Fairytale Fights took about 30 seconds, Ghostbusters about 5 MINUTES. Why do these need to be “installed” at all?

DVD playback is gorgeous. Easily the best upscaling dvd player I’ve ever seen, not even a question. It’s dvd upscaling playback capability pisses all over the 360’s, and to my surprise even passed up my dedicated DVD player’s upscaling. Nice indeed. I haven’t played or bought any bluray movies, but I don’t really care, either, as I don’t think most movies are worth paying double or more. The only way I’d buy the bluray version over the DVD version is if they were the same exact price, maybe a dollar more. With the upscaling, though, I don’t think I’ll have a need in most cases anyway. Visual Effects heavy epics might be an exception on occasion, but again, only if the cost is comparable to the cost of a DVD.

Audio output is phenomenal-easily better than 360’s, especially on DVD’s. Star Trek sounds and looks better than ever when played on the PS3.

The lack of an IR port for the universal remotes is lame, as the selection of Bluetooth capable remotes is simply awful. The dedicated PS3 dvd remote is garbage, useful for absolutely nothing but the PS3, as it has no IR port for compatibility with other devices, making it essentially useless. I’ll just keep using the controller, I guess, but in my view, Sony really missed the boat on either a)putting an IR port on the PS3 itself, or b) adding IR capability to the official remote so you could use it as a universal. Remotes that only control one device are so…1980′s.

I love the design of the slim. It’s sexy, relatively small (compared to the phat) and has a nice finish instead of that “ghetto fabulous” gloss crap on the old model. I’m still not sold on the controller, because even though it’s dual shock 3 it still feels a little too light and flimsy compared to the solid heft of a 360 controller. It’s also not nearly as ergonomic or comfortable, but then, we’ve been dealing with the exact same controller shape since 1995. Sigh.

All in all, I really like the system. The games, of course, look about the same as 360 games, but the audio is better on movies (and I’m using an optical connector on both). It doesn’t do streaming as well as the 360 does (for some reason the PS3 stutters video from Hulu, streamed via PlayOn media server, while the 360 does not, from the same server. Errors in the server event log indicate that PS3 doesn’t handle the DLNA implementation correctly, which is probably why. Hopefully it gets fixed in a firmware update).

I love that I can stream stuff from the PS3 to the PSP, I just wish the PSP had a more reliable battery. Even my double capacity battery only lasts about 3 hours with wifi enabled. So far the functionality of streaming to PSP from a remote location over the internet is spotty-sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, which is a bit of a drag, but to be expected.

Anyway, I’m glad to add the system and a few games to my library. So far I have MGS4, LBP, Warhawk and GoW Collection. I plan to snag Motorstorm next week, since gamestop has it for $9.99 used, and it seems like a nice HD Excite Truck type game, so hopefully I’ll enjoy it.

Tell us what you watch, win a game!

The Web N3rd — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 21:57:25 +0000

I’m just going to admit it right now: I am lazy and forgetful about certain things. One of those things involves giveaways, and this is one that I meant to do waaaaaay back during E3 of this year. Sadly, I suck, and I tucked these snazzy little cards into a backpack pocket and promptly forgot about them. However, you’re in luck: they’re still valid!

So what I’ve got are three copies of Battlefield 1943, which is a digital download. I have two copies for Playstation 3 and one copy for Xbox 360. The way this will work is simple: In the comments, tell us what your three favorite nerdy shows are and a sentence or two about why you watch them. We’ll sift through the comments and choose from those who make their case with the most…I dunno, I want to say “elegance,” but on the other hand, maybe “humor” would be a better criterion. In any case, get commenting and we’ll select the three luck winners on Halloween!

Well this is funny: PS-Thriimote anyone?

The Web N3rd — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 19:22:53 +0000

When Sony announced their very own evolution of the Wii Remote this year at E3, nobody was particularly surprised. After all, even Microsoft joined the fray with it’s no-controller motion controller system, Project Natal (oh, but for a cooler name), and let’s face it: Nintendo’s more than proven that motion control in some form is the way forward for video game interaction. At this point, it would be more shocking if the big boys didn’t leap in and try to parrot Nintendo; after all, they’ve managed to nearly outsell the two combined.

With that said, I can’t claim to have seen this one coming: The Wii Remote…now for Playstation 3. Luckily Sony’s not exactly behind this (it’s coming from Blaze Products Europe), because oh how the fanboys would howl. No doubt there’s a collective sigh of relief at Sony HQ today, the kind that comes with the ability to smile and say “wasn’t us!” As you can see from the diagram at left, the new “BLAZE PS3™ Motion Freedom 3D Controller” (yeah, I copied and pasted, so sue me) is virtually identical to the Wii Remote, with the sole exception being the addition of a ton of buttons (wonder how often they’ll get pressed by your palm while swinging a virtual tennis racket or baseball–err, cricket bat).

The description isn’t clear as to whether it has a pointer functionality to it or not, nor does it tell us whether it has the full range of detection found in the Wii’s Motion Plus adapter, so we’ll just have to sit on our hands and wait for more info. In the meantime…sit back and chuckle a bit as the “fad” migrates to the “big boy” consoles.

Hot deal on Xbox 360 Pro!

Jason Ward — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 06:46:25 +0000

OK, OK, so I’ve been slacking off lately. I might as well just admit it and get it done with. Here’s hoping this will make some headway in making up for lost time, then: Woot is having a Sellout sale in which they’re letting the always desireable Xbox 360 Pro 60GB console go for just $229. I know what you’re thinking: “Oh, but it’s probably a refurb, and we all know how MS tends to treat refurbs”. Lucky for you, then, it’s not a refurb but a brand spankin’ new console.

Of course, you probably already know that the story has the 360 Elite (120GB) receiving a $100 price drop (to $299) to counter the newly minted PS3 slim 120GB version that was announced the other day at Gamescom, but still, for $229 you’d be hard pressed to find a better deal on the 360 right now. My feeling is snag it while it’s cheap, it won’t be too long before all you’ll get in this price range is the hard-drive-less Arcade model at $199 (though if Microsoft is smart, they’ll drop that sucker to $149 post-haste!).

Now about that Wii price drop…

All That Gaming Stuff launches!

Jason Ward — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 21:28:10 +0000

We’ve been swamped the last week or so as we prepare for the launch of our new sister site, All That Gaming Stuff. While we occasionally cover games industry related news (and generalized bitching) here, the new site will focus exclusively on games news and reviews and Industry chatter. We’ll shortly be launching a new Gamer’s community on the new site where you can drop by and shout out what you think about all the latest comings and goings in the industry!

Welcome to the fold, ATGS, we look forward to a long and fruitful run!

UBISoft thinks new consoles in 2011ish–and they’re probably right

Jason Ward — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 05:18:55 +0000

It probably seems like premature nerdjaculation to begin speculating about the Next Generation of gaming consoles at this point; PS3 and Wii have scarcely been on the market for 2 years and 360 has just broken 3. Even so, that hasn’t stopped a little speculation from happening, not the least of which has come from UBISoft’s Yves Guillimot who, quoted in an article on GamesIndustry.biz, has stated that his company is preparing for the next generation to arrive in the 2011-2012 time frame.

As you should expect, there are naysayers, and some of them have good reason say nay, but they’re still wrong. The logic goes like this: “Well Sony says PS3 will last 10 years!”. Yes, and they said that about PS2, and that appears likely to be the case–but that didn’t stop Sony from announcing PS3 just 5 years after PS2 launched, and launching just a year later (that’s 6 years, folks, and if you use both hands worth of fingers to count you’ll find that 2012 will be-you guessed it-6 years after the launch of PS3-and Wii for that matter). Moreover, Xbox 360 will be 6 years old in 2011. Simply put, it’s not unreasonable to suspect that the next gen will launch-or at worst case scenario, be announced-by 2011-12.

While the present Toddlerific ages of the Current Gen consoles seem pretty young, reality is that technology moves at a breakneck pace and all three systems were behind the curve the day they launched (especially Wii when it comes to graphics processing). The advancement of technology waits for no one, but who will be first off the line with a new system? Will Microsoft follow the path of Xbox 1 and leap forward 4 years in? Given the success of Xbox 360, that seems very unlikely, and coupled with a weak economy the reasons against this notion are easily doubled.

Will it be Sony? Will they drop something more consumer-and investor- friendly on the market sooner rather than later? Given their problems with PS3′s sales lagging at a distant third behind their competitors’ one might be tempted to assume an anxiousness to get this embarrassing generation behind them. However, the state of their finances (they just announced an estimated 3 billion dollar overall loss) coupled with the enormous costs of developing and selling the PS3 (which has already devoured all of PS2′s profits for the last 8+ years) make it unlikely that they could afford to launch a new console early even if they wanted to. I wholly suspect that both Microsoft and Sony will wait until the last possible moment to launch their new consoles and that they will continue to sell their current consoles for as long as possible. PS2′s continued success in spite of being 3 years deep into the succeeding generation has proven that such a model can work.

What strikes me as far more likely is that Nintendo will strike first in the Next Generation console war, and there are many reasons to support this theory. We’ll discuss these reasons and think out loud about the games industry’s future direction in a series of articles beginning on Monday, January 26th, 2009. I hope you’ll join me for a little review and discussion, and if you really must, a flamewar in the comments section. Just try to be civil if you can, please

Charts: Wii outselling PS2 LTD, Analysts surprised?

Jason Ward — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 23:04:36 +0000

Sometimes I wonder what the criteria is for something making the world of gaming news. For example, website VentureBeat, as reported by megablog Kotaku, has reported that Nintendo’s evergreen (OK, white) box Wii is set to outsell PS2 and become the best selling console to date (sorry fans, I HATE “of all time” claims, they’re patently absurd and assume a knowledge of the future that I have yet to uncover).

Apparently, even Analyst Michael Pachter made some predictions about that idea over the holidays. If you already knew the PS2 was a big success but were somehow completely in the dark about Wii being a success (I know, I know, some people have their heads in the sand, but usually they say things like “we’re not really competing with Wii” or some such nonsense), then it might surprise you to learn that Wii has always trended higher than PS2 in sales ever since it launched.

If you click our handy dandy chart, generated on demand by the fine folks at VGChartz (we like them even if they can’t spell, because they provide fun times for fanboys on their forums), you’ll see a complete chart for both PS2 and Wii over a period of 112 weeks, which it just so happens is exactly how long the Wii has been out so far. Reading the chart is quite easy: the little blue line represents Wii sales worldwide, and the little red line represents PS2 sales worldwide. Notice how often they cross? Aside from during the couple of weeks at their aligned launches, they never cross. Ever. Put plainly, where in the hell does the surprise factor come into play and why is it newsworthy? Seriously, I have an inquiring mind, I really want to know.

Because I’m such a nice guy though, I’d like to point out that just because Wii has outsold PS2 to date doesn’t mean it will overtake it in lifetime sales. For starters, I don’t think Wii in its current form will enjoy a lifespan as long as the PS2 has. Now, don’t take that to mean that Wii has no longevity; rather, I think that Nintendo is going to take a page out of Sony’s playbook (they’ve already taken several this generation) and will release their next console alongside the existing Wii, discount the Wii we know today and sell a high powered, refined version at their $249 price point. That’s probably a topic worth discussing at some point, no?

13 Months of Live for $29.97!

Jason Ward — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 21:09:10 +0000

UPDATE: Bummer, it’s $38 now! Still, better than $50!

PREVIOUSLY: Well if that isn’t just the bee’s knees! Amazon has your Xbox Live Gold membership for a scant $29.97, no rebates required and you can get free shipping. If there was ever a good time to either subscribe or renew your subscription, this would be it! You can’t even get a cup of overly strong Starbuck’s coffee a month for this price!

Core Gaming goes…Dress Up Dollies?

Jason Ward — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 04:44:10 +0000

In a virtual affront to anything resembling masculinity, a fearful demo has been shown of a probable future addition to Playstation Home: Playstation Dress. You read that right: soon you’ll be able to break out your inner Fashion Designer fetish, detach your penis and engage in building clothing from templates for your Playstation Dolly. If you don’t feel like parting with your penis–testicles are enough loss for you–you can just buy some virtual clothing for your virtual dolly and play Dress Up without needing to actually design anything.

My friends, if this is where the Core Gamer is headed, I’ll dismiss myself to the other room. And for those who wonder, yes it would be every bit as unmasculine and sad if Microsoft offered such a tool for Xbox 360′s Avatars and even more sad to be willing to pay for virtual clothing for said virtual dollies.