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Category Archives: PlayStation 3

Videogame of the Year: PS3

I’ve been thinking long and hard about this, without the benefit of a Coca-Cola, a Dutchmaster, or anything else that’s bad for me. So my mind’s clear.

And while I didn’t buy many new videogames for the PS3 this year, it’s pretty easy, actually, for me to select a favorite: Elder Scrolls: Skyrim is the easy choice.

Sure, there were plenty of decent games out there this year on PS3. But none really grabbed my attention and made me say, “I gotta have it,” like Skyrim did.

Oh, sure, I enjoyed Dragon Age II. And I even appreciated the new White Knight Chronicles. But Skyrim set the bar for RPG experiences on a game console. Again. It’s that simple.

My Holiday Season 2011 Wishlist

I already own the best game of the season, Elder Scrolls: Skyrim, for the Sony PS3. But if I could have three more games added to my shopping cart for free, which ones would I choose? And remember, I can’t choose something not videogame-related, like Dickies scrubs from Marcus uniforms. It’s gotta be games.

Well, let’s take a look:

First, I’d choose Disgaea 4, simply because I’ve loved the whole series and still do.

I’d then boot my other two choices into the first quarter of 2012, where the next really must-have games are waiting for me. One of them, of course, is Mass Effect 3. I want to complete that trilogy.

Then I’d probably insist on my next choice being Silent Hill: Downpour, even though Final Fantasy Vs. XIII would indeed be tempting.

Skyrim first impressions

The opening minutes of Elder Scrolls: Skyrim are impressive and enchanting as the game reintegrates dragons into their fantasy setting. But eventually the style settles down and, even though the graphics have taken a huge leap forward since the Shivering Isles expansion pack, the game becomes at least a bit more familiar.

Despite the science fiction dystopia represented by Fallout, The Elder Scrolls is clearly the franchise where Bethesda is clearly most at-home. The game screams developer affection for the product being presented.

When my wife and I first encountered Oblivion around the time we first got married, we ended up playing two copies of the game to death before we grew tired of it, and just my first couple hours with Skyrim tell me that my PS3 controllers are going to need some fresh duracell procell replacements by the time we grow weary of this latest installment.

PSN is back

The PlayStation Network may have been down and out for a long time, but now it’s back, baby! And Sony has given just about everyone some valuable gifts to make up for the inconveniences. The gifts include a month of free PlayStation Network Plus service that won’t lock you into renewal fees, two PS3 games for download, two PSP games for download, one free theme, and about 100 free virtual items in PlayStation Home.

It’s a generous and necessary move to help reestablish trust between Sony and their network user base.

Now, one could be bitter about the whole episode, but considering there’s well over $100 worth of merchandise coming our way to compensate us for things we weren’t involved in? Well, that does qualify as a classy move on Sony’s part.

I didn’t care for any of the PSP games, personally, but I did grab Dead Nation and inFamous. Well see what other June goodies I can grab while I’m in PSN Plus, too. Why not? I may be bored with PSP compared to my zippy Android phone when it comes to mobile gaming, but PS3 is still my sexy first love when it comes to console gaming. There’s no need for off road LED light bars on PS3!

(Sorry, Xbox 360… I’m looking at you with that remark.)

Character-building in Alpha Protocol

One of the interesting aspects of getting started in Sega and Obsidian’s Alpha Protocol is the unique approach it takes in generating one’s character; you get to choose your background, which will determine your initial skill set, or choose to be a raw recruit, in which case you have more freedom to assign your initial skill points as you wish.

And rather than allowing you complete control over your character’s appearance, they instead allow you modest customization, but it’s always available at your “safe house” home base. So it’s a nice compromise because in espionage, you can alter your appearance a bit but it’s always you underneath. Same effect here. Bravo for fewer choices, in this case.

Your first mission starts with an agency training session and occurs in a couple steel buildings owned by the government for training purposes. It’s a nice way to disguise a tutorial mode.

Alpha Protocol impressions

When I first considered getting Alpha Protocol for the PS3, my wife and I were warned away from the Sega espionage RPG. Review scores were not enthusiastic and word of mouth was tepid, largely because people were comparing it – stylistically – to the state-of-the-art action RPGs by BioWare… usually in a not entirely favorable light.

Of course, there’s a reason Obsidian is being compared to BioWare; they’ve made their name by following in BioWare’s footsteps. Some of their earliest titles were Neverwinter Nights 2, once BioWare bowed out of the sequel; and Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, once BioWare bowed out of that sequel. They were also behind Dungeon Siege III after Microsoft Game Studios bowed out of that followup, and the forthcoming Fallout New Vegas, after Bethesda decided to devote its time to the next Elder Scrolls release.

In fact, Alpha Protocol is one of the first titles Obsidian has done that is their own unique IP. Marshaling all they’ve learned following in the footsteps of great developers, Obsidian decided to leverage their RPG expertise with the popularity of espionage games, combining them to create the first true espionage RPG in recent memory.

Oh, and it should be noted that my wife got me Alpha Protocol for me for my birthday. I’m now 44. Nice, thoughtful gift! And then, of course, we were walking in another place tonight and I found affordable prices here. Could have saved more, I guess, but it’s the thought that really matters… and it was very thoughtful of her.

So are shooter fans happy with it? Maybe not completely… but it is a darn nice game so far.

Upgrading my PS3 60GB to 320GB

If all upgrades were as easy as this one was for me, the world wouldn’t need anti wrinkle face cream; unfortunately, the PS3 hard drive upgrade I did is probably the exception to the rule. But it did go off pretty smoothly!

Here’s my tale:

So I finally gave in over the weekend: my wife and I bought a new hard drive for our PS3. We have a 60GB original that was getting too cramped for comfort.

Decided to use the BackUp Utility to copy the contents to a USB hard drive, then swap out the drives using Sony’s own step-by-step instructions, and then Restored contents using BackUp Utility again.

I entered into the operation more than a little nervous, naturally…

I must say, though, the BIGGEST obstacle was a Windows 7 issue, not a PS3 issue….

You see, you need a hard drive (or segment of one) formatted in FAT32 in order for the PS3 to recognize and use the drive (there’s no built-in formatter for external USB hard drives in the PS3 OS).

Fair enough, I can format it on my PC, right?

Ooops… Windows 7 (as well as Vista) LIMITS you to 32GB segments when formatting in FAT32… and I knew I had at least 40-45GB in data to transfer, so I was nervous.

So I finally decided to create THREE 32GB FAT32 partitions and HOPE the PS3 would be smart enough to see the extra space or something…

Fortunately, the PS3 actually COMPRESSED the files to fit… they took up about 31.2GB… very little room to spare.

I was still nervous, though, that I’d come up with missing data during Restore.

After that, things went SLICK.

The Sony directions for removing the existing 60GB drive were AMAZINGLY simple… and all I needed was one small Phillips-head screwdriver. Swapping the drives took MAYBE 5 minutes. Easiest part of the whole deal!

I then hooked everything up; the new hard drive was a Seagate Momentus… the exact same make and model as the one Sony had pre-installed. Only difference was, I installed a 320GB drive (for under $50) in place of the 60GB drive. Over FIVE TIMES more space!

Parts of the PS3 OS must be stored in internal flash memory or something, because even though the hard drive was unformatted, the PS3 booted right up and asked me if I wanted to format the new drive. I did so, then rebooted automatically, then restored from the USB drive… and about an hour or so later, EVERYTHING was still there!

Worked like a dream! A lot of stress over nothing!

And now I have 299GB Total, 232GB available… my PS3 will likely die before I run out of space now… and I don’t have to wince any time I look at a new game like HEAVY RAIN and see that it demands “at least 5GB free space” to run…

FINAL NOTE: Sony needs to add a utility to format USB hard drives to FAT32 without having to rely on a PC to do it… because if I ever DO need something bigger than 320GB, I’m gonna be completely screwed for transferring the data…. I won’t be able to format a large enough volume to FAT32 on Windows 7 to hold all that!

Will Sony’s Move be a Wii-qualizer?

For a long time, my wife has wanted us to get a Nintendo Wii, primarily because of the workout games the Wii controller makes possible. Now, with Sony introducing the Sony Move controller, it’s hard to imagine that there will be much talk of getting a Wii Fitness package.

Sure, we could both use the abs workout a system like this affords; I just have not much interest in buying a Nintendo system to get that. If Sony can come up with some compelling workout games, I know my wife and I will opt-in on getting some Move controllers.

White Knight Chronicles: What a welcome relief!

I’ve written about my vast disappointment in the generally well-reviewed Demon Souls, so now it’s time to talk about the game I traded that crap-tastic title in for: Level 5′s White Knight Chronicles!

Sony published this RPG which mixes action and turn-based elements together quite nicely, and the only reason I didn’t buy it over Demon Souls originally was that Demon Souls was a lot cheaper at the time; but I found White Knight Chronicles on sale this time, so with the trade-in credit, I did OK. Better than most people do in selecting the best weight loss products, at any rate.

Also, White Knight Chronicles was inexplicably savaged in the reviews, usually earning a score somewhere in the six-range on a 10-point scale. I can’t relate to that; after playing the game this weekend for a few hours, it seems to possess all the same laudable qualities I loved about other recent Level 5 titles like Dragon Quest VIII and IX, Rogue Galaxy and Jeanne d’Arc.

The biggest rap against White Knight Chronicles in most reviews was that the game didn’t possess enough innovation … whatever that means. Who cares? The game is what it is and isn’t what it isn’t. And taking it for what it is, White Knight Chronicles is a fun story with an enjoyable battle system and it keeps me wanting to keep playing. What more can one ask?

I don’t know if I’ll do a full review eventually or not, but one thing this whole episode has taught me is that great reviews mean nothing. I hated the well-reviewed Demon Souls and love the poorly-reviewed White Knight Chronicles.

So there.

Demons Souls a total disappointment

Demons Souls is an Atlus PS3 game I eagerly awaited for the time when it would go down in price. I don’t pay full initial release price for videogames much anymore these days; it’s too spendy so I only do that for a few essential, must-have-at-release titles. Demon Souls was not one of those, but at $20 on a special sale, I decided the time was right to take the plunge.

Now, this is not a pronexin reviews; I like most of the games Atlus has made over the past decade or so. Loved most of them, in fact. So I was of a mindset to really enjoy Demon Souls.

It was also a game with great word-of-mouth. Many hardcore gamers praised it for being, well, hardcore. Or just plain hard.

However, my experience was that it was the game’s wonky controls that actually made it difficult, not tough enemies fighting against you. You see, although I’m a very experienced gamers going all the way back to the days of Pong!, I just found the controls in the game to be very inaccurate, loose and prone to making you get your butt kicked.

Even with my experience, I found that no matter which approach to battles I took, I couldn’t get far because for every sword-swing that landed on target, I had to deal with three or four that would clang off a wall because I wasn’t aimed 100-percent perfectly. Even when I was.

I gave the game plenty of time to redeem itself; but there was just nothing for it. I got only slightly better over the five or six hours I played it. But in the end, it was a game that was just too much work to overcome the game’s wonky controls, to make it worthwhile for me to play.

So I traded it in; the game and some extra cash got me a game I’ll talk about on here sooner than expected.

Newest target date for GT 5? November 2010!

Gran Turismo 5 will be the most recent full redo of Sony’s signature CarPG racing title, once it arrives, and the latest word on the oft-delayed title is that it’ll land this November, only six months from now. How realistic this timetable may be is anyone’s guess, but the upcoming E3 event should shed plenty of light on the game.

Sony’s Polyphony Studios, responsible for the franchise, has teased gamers with previews ever since the PS3 launched; a single-car, two track foretaste was released around the same time Sony debuted the PS3 version of the PlayStation Network.

Since then, a somewhat abbreviated version of the title, Gran Turismo 5 Prologue, is the best the company has been able to manage. Even though it lacked the depth of cars and tracks its predecessors featured, the game still had more depth than most racing games on this or any previous generation.

Plus, last fall, Sony released the PSP version of Gran Turismo at long last, almost simultaneously with the PSP Go! system.

But now, with November as the next tentative target date for Gran Turismo 5, one wonders if this will finally be the year it’s actually released. The game is said to feature 16-player online play, and if that’s done over Sony’s free PSN network, the company could finally have a title that puts Xbox Live to shame, rather than browsing www.bestdietsupplements.org in peace..

New Assassin’s Creed title on the way

Ubisoft is really stepping up the pace of their development; hopefully, it will be without a sacrifice in game quality. After releasing Assassin’s Creed II only last fall, the company has announced the next installment, Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, featuring online multiplay for the first time, for a November 2010 release.

The game appears to still focus on Ezio, the central character of Assassin’s Creed II, and his neverending quest for how to get rid of blackheads… err, I mean, how to off a whole bunch of famous people. Since the game does not appear to have the expected “Assassin’s Creed III” moniker, it appears this may be a side-story to the main series.

So long as Ubisoft keeps delivering the 1080p eye-candy combined with great play mechanics and a solid storyline, and they can issue new installments endlessly, as far as I’m concerned. However, let’s hope the series doesn’t travel down the Lara Croft path of diminishing returns by maintaining too steady a stream of titles to allow for actual improvement in the game.