I will never doubt them again. This is the seminal series of our generation. January seems so far away.
Monthly Archive for March, 2007
On my way back from seeing 300 (great great movie) I managed to snap the Mecca of the PS3 launch in Birmingham. As you can see the buzz is truly unprecedented.
I consider myself platform agnostic when it comes to games. By that I mean I buy the consoles that are going to deliver the games I want to play and the services I wish to use. I don’t hold any allegiance to either Nintendo, Sony or Microsoft and in fact I owned a Gamecube, PS2 and Xbox in the previous generation because quite simply, I wanted to play games on all those systems at some point in their life cycle. And of course as many of you know I am an avid PC gamer.
Looking back to November 2000 when the PS2 launched I had many of the same feelings I do now with the Playstation 3’s arrival only mere hours away. Back then the Dreamcast was the system to beat. It was a fun, innovative console with a great selection of games and solid sales. And so it was a real let down when Sony showed up late to party with no modem and only two controller ports. People often forget Phantasy Star Online, ChuChu Rocket and Quake 3 were being played over the internet on a console long before Xbox Live was fired up for the first time. Of course we all know what happened to Dreamcast, it was a brief sparkle in time that died out so quickly and cruelly that it’s hard to believe it ever happened.
The same is true today as it was back then - Sony are cashing in on name and brand alone. I couldn’t fathom the PS2 missing all those features that their competitors had, it just seemed arrogant, as if Sony were saying “This is the Playstation, there is only Playstation, you must buy it.”
Arrogance (Ar”ro*gance) (#), n.
[F., fr. L. arrogantia, fr. arrogans. See Arrogant.]The act or habit of arrogating, or making undue claims in an overbearing manner; that species of pride which consists in exorbitant claims of rank, dignity, estimation, or power, or which exalts the worth or importance of the person to an undue degree; proud contempt of others; lordliness; haughtiness; self-assumption; presumption. “I hate not you for her proud arrogance.” Shak.
That is what Sony became after the success of PS1. The comments from Ken Kutaragi the ‘genius’ behind Playstation show they fully expect and assume that their customers will continue to keep buying into what they produce no matter what the price or how devoid of innovation it is. Kutaragi (via Games Radar),
“We want for consumers to think to themselves, ‘I will work more hours to buy one.’ We want people to feel that they want it, irrespective of anything else. … The PS3 will instil discipline in our children and adults alike. Everyone will know discipline.”
It recently came to light that Kutaragi was very distant from the rest of Sony, even during the system’s development refusing to meet with the division that would go on to manufacture the components for the PS3. This of course led to the over priced and delayed monstrosity that we see today.
It becomes very evident what a quandary Sony has been in by just focusing on one area - the controller. What started life as a boomerang mutated into a wireless dual shock when they realised they couldn’t go too far off the beaten path. Then at E3 2006 with news of a law suit with Immersion looming and noticing the disruptive effect the Wii-mote was having the ‘SIXAXIS’ was born. In dropping the rumble from the controller Sony went on to claim not only that rumble was a last-gen-feature but they couldn’t technically provide it with motion control simultaneously (while Nintendo were doing just that). Alas Sony and Immersion solved the very real and much lied about reason for the lack of rumble and now all SIXAXIS pads look set to become obsolete in the not too distant future.
The integrated online service, a dream for many years, was finally realised with the release of the Xbox 360. One unified persistent identity across all games, cross game invites, voice chat, matchmaking, downloadable content and achievements. The first console to fully take advantage of broadband. Sony chose to ignore this. If I am playing Resistance and want to hook up with a friend who is currently racing in Motorstorm there is no way to invite them, let alone see what game they are playing or even know they are online. All this even though both players sit behind identical systems connected to fast internet connections. You would think with all those cores available in the much hyped cell processor that a small fraction of one of them could be allocated to vital tasks such as this. The persistent background dashboard also gives 360 owners the ability to use custom soundtracks, download in the background and access all the information a good online service provides. Features such as custom soundtracks need to be specifically hard coded into Playstation 3 games as nothing has been provided by Sony.
Regardless of all this essentially it all boils down to the games. What can Sony and third parties deliver on PS3 that no other system has? Well it would seem the end of third party exclusives is officially apon with just this week Capcom announcing that the former PS3 exclusive Devil May Cry 4 was going multi-platform. This falls into line with GTA IV, Virtua Fighter 5 and others. The last stalwarts of Playstation, Metal Gear Solid and Final Fantasy still stand but how long will it be before Konami and Square Enix cave in? They need to make money after all. So this generation it will actually come down to first party games. Nintendo do extremely well with their first party franchises (much to the dismay of third parties) and Microsoft have set up what looks to be the best first party line up I have ever seen in 2007 (Halo 3, Mass Effect, Forza 2, PGR4, etc). Aside from the increasingly stagnant and delayed Gran Turismo 5, Ratchet and Clank and God of War 3 in the long term what do Sony have? I am awaiting more announcements.
So I say to those of you who go out in the next few days, weeks and months in search of a PS3 to consider the alternatives. For less money you can get a system with more games, better services and a strong outlook in the future. Of course you could go out to Virgin and pick one up for ¬£420 on release day. Then go and pick up Fifa when it comes out. Twiddle your thumbs until GT5 hits. Or you could join the millions of others who care about this industry, innovation, it’s future and not being taken for fools and look at the competition. Playstation is not gaming. Gaming has been around long before and will be around at lot long after. Consider this as you queue up on Friday.
Crackdown is about doing whatever the hell you want whenever the hell you want to. It doesn’t have the traditional story line based missions of most games, just the overall goal of wiping out every gang leader in the city at some point. This doesn’t sound like much but it ceases to matter when you start hoping about from roof top to roof top gunning down crooks and stealing agility orbs. There is plenty to do here be it races through the city or powering up your character that will draw you back even without a plot.
This all leads to the fundamental core of the game.
Most titles use achievements to reward the player for general progression or doing a certain thing. Many are merely side effects and the rest are usually obscure ones that only achievement junkies go after. Crackdown is the first game to revolve around achievements. Because there is no plot, no story and no character development the focus is instead on doing the craziest things possible just in order to see that glorious ‘Achievement Unlocked’ message.
Aside from Gears this is the best use of achievements yet. They are all realistically reachable yet challenging but most importantly of all they are fun. No more sitting through hundreds of hours of Rainbow Six Vegas’ Calypso Casino just to get a few hundred points.
This is the way points should be done - as a non frustrating way of drawing the player back into the game and allowing them to explore new areas and do things they otherwise wouldn’t have seen or done.
While collecting these points the polish in the graphics and sound design is very pleasing. There is no noticeable pop up while bombing around and whenever you scale tall buildings you can see the entire city in all its glory. I would have preferred more players in co-op and maybe a split screen option but any co-op at all right now is good stuff in my book.
Only 90 points to go! Make that 190 when the new achievements are released.
The PS3 is out next week.
Don’t buy one.
Note: This is my first negative post about BSG!
Wired have a short look at the reaction to this week’s BSG. I must say I was suprised and angered by the way this episode played out. I even downloaded the podcast commentary from Ron Moore to see if he could explain the reasoning behind Starbuck’s ‘death’. He sees it as a pivitol event that she overcomes her fear of death and sucumbs to suicide. He thinks that she sacrificed herself for the good of humanity. I don’t think anyone watching saw it that way or even considered that. Strange goings on in BSG land.
Battlestar works best during the periods of week to week on going arcing stories (serial form). The last few weeks have been individual episodes with their own concluding stories which provide only small amounts to overall plot development. Just to make it clear how random her death was in the context of the season here are a few important things that happened in the last few eps.
11 - She realises those doodles are The Eye of Jupiter. Remembers Leoben said she has a destiny.
12 - Apollo patches his marrige up, Baltar gets a talking to.
13 - Helo fights medical malpractice (!)
14 - Chief and the Mrs get trapped. Starbuck and co save em. Adama remembers his wedding aniversary.
15 - The chief starts a worker’s union. Starbuck is happy to get a new pilot at the end of the ep.
16 - Starbuck kills herself after visions of The Eye of Jupiter and Leoben in the gas giant.
At no time between episodes 11 and 16 is there any evidence of Starbuck’s worsening mental condition or troubled childhood. This is why it seems out of the blue Ron. For her it’s like those episodes never happend and 11 and 16 are back to back. I don’t mind killing off main characters if it has meaning and adds to the story but the way this happend was pitiful and pointless. Kat was killed similarly in that they devoted an episode to her so as to kill her off. Bad move. Pull your socks up and lets get back to how things were only a few months ago!
If you went into a lab, studied the strengths and weaknesses of Tim Sylvia, then built the ultimate machine to defeat him the result would be Randy Couture.
Last night Randy Couture was the perfect weapon against the monstrosity that is Tim Sylvia. It was an incredible sight to watch a 43 year old decimate this man for 5 rounds straight. HE OUT BOXED HIM. He took him down. He knew exactly what to do and it was one of the most perfectly put together plans I have ever seen in MMA. I was standing for the entire fight along with the 19,000 in attendance. This is one of those special events that those of us who saw will remember for a very long time.
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