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Tag Archives: PlayStation 3

Top PlayStation 3 games for October 2008

Let me be as direct as a Dansko-clad kick to the keister: I’m not going to recommend the same four games here for PS3 that I did for the Xbox 360. That’d be boring and whichever platform you want to buy Dead Space, Fallout 3 or Rock Band 2 on is up to you. This’ll be more a more PS3-centric list, so deal with it.

BioShock

Sure, this was an Xbox 360 exclusive last fall, but who cares? There’s plenty of PS3-specific upgrades to be found here, and it’s still an awesome game. If you haven’t played the 360 version, get it this year on the PS3. Available October 21.

LittleBigPlanet

Supposedly launching at the same time as PS3′s new online community, Home, LittleBigPlanet is that unique kind of game that’s impossible to describe but highly addictive to play. Think along the lines of other fad games like Katamari Demacy and you’ll get an idea. Anyway, after about a year and a half of delays, it’s here on October 21.

Guitar Hero World Tour

Music game fans will be pleased with this upgrade that not only expands the game to catch up with Rock Band, but moves beyond it by adding in the ability to compose your own songs! Whether you prefer guitar, drums, or vocals, you’ll still want to be called a Guitar Hero! Available October 26.

Yes, we considered the NBA titles coming out this month, as well as the PS3 release of Eternal Sonata… but we’re out to help you spend wisely, not widely.

Review: College Hoops 2K8 (PS3)

In basketball and in videogames, one thing remains true: the struggle to reach the top is nothing compared to the struggle to stay on top once you’ve reached that plateau. No one should understand this better than 2K Sports and the development team behind College Hoops 2K8.

Back when they were first relaunching their college hoops title, the king of the hill for college basketball games was EA Sports’ March Madness series. It took several years and a lot of critic’s picks hype, but College Hoops has clearly grown to become the college basketball game of record across most console platforms.

They’ve been on top, depending on who you talk to, for a couple-three seasons now, and the real challenge for them has become staying on the cutting edge and innovating enough that March Madness or some other title doesn’t come ‘round and overtake them again.

This year, 2K Sports put more time into revitalizing and refreshing the Legacy mode, which has been stagnant for the past couple outings as the developer focused on graphics improvements to bring the franchise into the next-gen era. That mostly accomplished, Legacy mode was overdue for a makeover and this year’s edition has received some much-needed attention.

Consider this, from a game play perspective, to be College Hoops’ real next-gen coming out party, and you can get the invites to the debutant bash from the same place you receive the first communion invitations. If you thought building a winning franchise was tough before, prepare for the next generation of legacy-building.

In the game, Legacy mode is still offered in two flavors. Open flavor will appeal to folks who just want to coach their favorite college team and nothing else; it allows you to take over any program you desire, often with the real-life coaches currently at those schools. Yes, that means Tubby Smith is now at Minnesota, rather than Kentucky, sports fans!

The other flavor of Legacy mode is Career, in which you start out as a young, inexperienced, less-skilled coach and your only option is to take on a bottom-rung school at an obscure conference where only by winning the conference tournament are you guaranteed a spot in the NCAA March Madness event, because your conference is so small that no other team, no matter their win-loss record, is going to get respect from the NCAA Selection Committee. As one remakes the fortunes of these obscure programs, other schools start taking notice.

After a minimum two-year stint at each stop along the way, you get a chance at the end of the season to take part in the coaching carousel. The better your teams finish each year, the more likely you’ll be invited to take over the program at a school in a more high-profile conference. Of course, it’s not always best to move up fast, since an optional game feature allows your coach to be fired for poor team performance, so if you move into a Big 10 or ACC job too soon, you might not be ready for the challenge and could get busted back down to the obscure ranks once again. Some folks may prefer to stay for a longer stretch at a smaller program where winning the NCAA March Madness tournament isn’t a yearly expectation, but perhaps only making the tournament is.

As always, scouting and recruiting are at the heart of this game, and that is where a large part of the redesign effort has been focused. Puffing out recruiting and scouting is a new mode, the ABL season. A real-life summer league made up of high school all-stars, in the game there are more than 100 ABL teams spread out across the nation and as a coach you can either sim past all this, attend the games, or even play them out.

The advantage to playing them out is that you earn extra points for recruiting functions once recruiting season starts, so there’s a real advantage to at least playing out some of these games, especially if you’re coach of a small school with a thin scouting budget to begin with.

Throughout the ABL season, you can choose to attend or play out as many or as few games as you wish, and target players. Based on your coaching skills after playing out each game, you’ll start to see some of the ratings for those players revealed; skilled coaches will see all the ratings revealed in fewer games; less skilled coaches will need more games to make those assessments.

About the only disappointment here is that once those skills are revealed, those are that player’s real, hard-coded stats. Unlike Wolverine Sports’ Draft Day Sports: College Basketball for PC, the stats are accurate, rather than skewed to the coach’s perspective. Seeing less-experienced coaches by a little off on their skills assessment of players, as in DDS:CB, would add a bit more realism to College Hoops 2K8.

There are many ways to utilize the ABL season, but for smaller school coaches especially, it’s usually best to focus on the ABL teams that are closer to their college; after all, how often is a player from Los Angeles going to take seriously a scholarship offer from Maine, if he’s drawing interest from UCLA, Kentucky and Duke? Not often.

Still, with this simple but depth-adding feature, 2K Sports has innovated in the area of college recruiting in a college basketball game, in a way that no other game has anticipated or pioneered before them. That’s how a top game in its category, like College Hoops 2K8, manages to stay on top.

On the PlayStation 3, the graphics are sharp as ever, though it’s clear that the team focused on game play this year, rather than graphics improvements. That works fine, though, since game play improvements were clearly the bigger area of need. This may be the last edition of the game in which the SixAxis controller is utilized exclusively, since Sony plans to launch the DualShock 3, with both rumble and six-axis motion sensitivity, early in 2008. That alone, if fully utilized in College Hoops 2K9, could make next year’s edition even better for controls. The utilization of motion-sensitivity remains scant and optional this season, just as it was last season.

The online mode is robust and friendly, making it easy to find game opponents, even though Sony’s network is still not as robust with traffic as Xbox Live; the delay of Sony’s Home interface may have something to do with that.

In the end, the improvements made to the Legacy mode transform that part of the game into an area of renewed interest, which is good since the Legacy mode is the heart of any offline play experience with the game. The result is that College Hoops 2K8 remains ahead of the injured and “headed for IR” March Madness franchise by a good distance, for now.

Review: WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2008 (PS3)

If at first you don’t succeed, try and try and try again.

That is the maxim that has built THQ’s WWE SmackDown vs. Raw into a winning wrestling game franchise. When the franchise first appeared after THQ outbid Acclaim several years ago – and initially appearing on the PSone platform – the game was a pale imitation of Acclaim’s game, which at the time was pretty impressive.

Times have changed, though. After two outings on PSone, about six outings on PS2 and now the company’s debut effort on PS3, WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2008 is a smooth, slick, deep and detailed pro wrestling sim that gets better every year pretty much off the virtue of listening to user complains and responding to them with surprising flexibility.

This year, one of the main roster twists is that the game finally acknowledges the ECW brand. The show, which airs on SciFi, is now part of the game’s WWE schedule in 24/7 mode, and their superstars now part of the roster. Yet, like so many features that have become part of this game, there’s still work to be done to fully integrate ECW into SmackDown vs. Raw.

For one thing, you cannot play through Smackdown vs. Raw’s 24/7 mode (more on that in a bit) as an ECW superstar on the ECW broadcast. Perhaps that’s due to the far more detailed and varied storyline mode; the developers may not have had time to incorporate a complete set of ECW storylines into the mix, although that’s just a guess. At any rate, hopefully the 2009 edition will correct this oversight and fully integrate ECW into the mix, so that ECW stars and the ECW show are a complete and equal partner to the Raw and Smackdown brands.

One major change to the game this year is the complete elimination of two modes from the past two or three seasons; gone are both Manager Mode and Career Mode. Given the shortcomings of both these modes over the past 2-3 editions, that’s not a huge loss because what replaces it is a much more complete and comprehensive mode called WWE 24/7.

Named for their On-Demand PPV site, WWE 24/7 mode is the new storyline mode and it marks a big upgrade in gameplay and appeal. It marks the first time the game has offered gamers a chance to simulate more of a realistic schedule that WWE superstars have to fulfill, even though some niggling details are still overlooked.

In the mode, you either select an existing WWE star, or create one. Which brings up a great chance to mention the Create-a-Wrestler mode, as an aside. On PlayStation 3, the create a wrestler mode has finally become a refined and subtle tool for creating a realistic and convincing superstar to play as; gone are the days of uncustomizable, wacky, butt-ugly mods and in are a set of features, from head-to-toe, that look convincing. It is a noticable upgrade, especially when playing in 720p high definition. (Unfortunately, the PS3 version lacks a 1080p True HD mode this season … another area for improvement in the future.) Most of the costumes are solid, and do not consist of ridiculous things like baby clothes.

Anyway, if you select an existing WWE superstar, you’ll start out on the brand they were in when the roster was finalized; if you create a superstar, you can identify him with either Raw, SmackDown or ECW, but even if you select ECW, he won’t get to compete on that show, which is a shame.

If you begin as a created superstar, your first concern will be making the WWE roster, which means wrestling a set of Heat matches to show the GMs of SmackDown and Raw where your skill levels are; of course, this is tough, even in easy mode, because unless you’ve accumulated some upgrade first, most superstars you create will start out at a skill level of 36, competing against a roster of superstars ranking at skill levels of 70-95. That’s just tough.

Of course, over time, you can overcome this, but expect to lose a lot along the way.

The 24/7 mode has plenty of out-of-ring features as well as a wide variety of in-ring match types and challenges, and solid story variety. The mode is a true career mode that lasts several seasons and not just one. It is as well done as it has even been, and finally realizes some of the potential of what such a career-type mode ought to be.

One way in which the 24/7 mode could be improved is if THQ were to pay attention to the dialog and interaction system created by BioWare for Mass Effect; if a similar system were implemented for the storyline mode in SmackDown vs. Raw, it could offer gamers an even deeper level of immersion and a feeling they are affecting the course of their storyline.

The controls for this year are standardized across all platforms and on PS3 do not take advantage of the SixAxis’ motion sensitivity, which is a shame, especially since the Wii version does incorporate that – although the game is significantly different on Nintendo Wii.

The grappling system is less complex this year, and an all-new struggle and submission system adds some drama to those submission hold and escape maneuvers. The system is now pressure-based and responds on PS3 to how much pressure you apply to the control sticks – just don’t break ‘em, homey!

Graphically, the game is a step forward, especially in 720p, although the lack of a True HD 1080p mode on PS3 is a sore spot for Sony fans who want to get the most for their HD money, which is why many early adopters probably bought a PS3 instead of a 360. Still, the game has a long way to go to achieve next-gen refinement; next to a true masterpiece like Mass Effect, the graphics still have quite a way to grow.

SmackDown vs. Raw, over the years, has overcome many obstacles. When THQ first took over the WWE license, the company was determined to do a different style of wrestling videogame for each hardware platform. Some of us still remember WWE Raw for the original Xbox, WWE Royal Rumble for Dreamcast and WWE WrestleMania for the N64.

Yet with most of those games, a more arcade style of game play predominated and eventually it was the sim-style of SmackDown vs. Raw the proved most popular with wrestling fans, leading to THQ eventually narrowing the franchise to one game appearing on all platforms.

While THQ’s stewardship of the WWE license was shaky at best for the first four or five years, the company has really grown into its role as a group passionate about capturing a true-to-WWE experience for fans, even if they have a prominent and annoying habit of releasing modes and features that are, at best, works in progress.

However, in the end, THQ has proven adept at continual improvement or, as Vincent Kennedy McMahon might term it, ruthless aggression. The ECW element of the game, as well as the lack of 1080p resolution on PS3, are the most obvious examples of this, this season. But as time has proven, we can now count on THQ to come back next year with noticeable improvements to these shortcomings, as well as a handful of new ideas that, likewise, will be rough and in need of refinement.

And so it goes.

The entertainment stand of tomorrow

Finding the right cabinet hardware for a modern entertainment system is harder than ever. Just think of all the stuff you need to fit on it. Here’s a list of what I’d want, if budget were no barrier:

1) 48-inch TrueHD (1080p) Sony LCD HDTV

2) 6.1 Surround Sound stereo system, preferably by Bose

3) DirecTV HD digital video recorder

4) 80GB Apple video iPod with docking station for home play and charging.

5) Xbox 380 (top bundle available)

6) PlayStation 3 (top bundle available)

7) HD Radio and Satellite Radio tuners

8) Blu-Ray DVD player (HD-DVD sucks and I don’t want to overuse my PS3)

9) Entertainment center chairs

10) Nice cherrywood construction on the entertainment center

Think about it. How easy is it to build all that and yet have room for some DVD / games / music CD storage racks nearby? They don’t come cheap, that’s for sure.

Memory enough, and time…

Have the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3 really future-proofed their new consoles when it comes to RAM capacity? Although set up in slightly different configurations, both consoles possess essentially 512MB of RAM for developers to take advantage of. With such a dramatic improvement in RAM over the last generation of consoles, surely the Xbox 360 and PS3 are immune from being bypassed by PC configurations any time soon, right?

Think again. Try it more like this: they’re already outmoded.

With the introduction of Windows Vista, 512MB of RAM is the absolute minimum the system will run on, and most games had bypassed that a few months before Vista was introduced. In fact, the average Vista configuration has about five times more RAM available to it than either the 360 or the PS3.

Recently, I was browsing through a Best Buy, looking at the new models. While I’m note quite ready to buy a completely new PC and was hoping to get by with a computer memory upgrade, even that seems insufficient after looking over specs demanded by the newest PC games.

Just to focus on the memory aspect, a less expensive PC has anywhere between 1GB to 1.5GB of all-purpose RAM, and the average system has a solid 2GB of RAM these days. Add to that the fact that most decent graphics accelerators now pack on an extra 512MB, which is likely to go up to 1GB over the next year or so, and by Christmas, between general RAM and video RAM, most PCs will soon have between 2.5GB to 3GB of RAM available for game developers to take advantage of.

Compare that to the 512MB of RAM found on 360 and PS3, and it won’t take long for there to be a healthy upswing in the popularity of a new generation of PC software. Both Microsoft and Sony should have planned better, and included at least 1GB of system memory in their spiffy new consoles. By the time 2011 rolls around PCs will feature between 6GB to 10GB of RAM, I predict, and those 512MB of RAM on PS3 and 360 will once again look puny and outdated.

Xbox 360 Elite: Microsoft surrenders to Sony propeganda

With a little extra market research, Microsoft’s Xbox 360 could have set the bar higher for the PlayStation 3. While the Xbox 360 Core system was always a joke, $399.99 for the Xbox 360 Premium system was a bit of a sticker-shock but was sold as being relatively “future-proofed.” Yet with only a 20GB hard drive, that’s turning out not to be the case.

Microsoft itself has basically admitted as much recently when it announced the impending release of yet a third configuration, the Xbox 360 Elite system. The 360 Elite contains only two major upgrades: a larger hard drive, weighing in at 120GB, and an HDMI output that ought to have been included on all 360 systems to begin with. The Elite doesn’t even toss in an HD-DVD drive; that’s still an extra.

For these two minor upgrades, Microsoft is asking $479.99, only $20 shy of the price of Sony’s lower-end PlayStation 3 unit, which may have a smaller hard-drive at 20GB, but has HDMI and Blu-Ray DVD playback. What this waffling has come to demonstrate is that Sony’s marketing reps were correct all along: PlayStation 3 at $499.99 or $599.99 is actually not that bad a deal, for everything you get at those prices.

The funny thing is, a bit more market research could have prevented the debacle; anyone with half a brain could have told Microsoft that a 20GB hard drive would not have been enough to future-proof the 360, especially since the company has known for years they wanted to use Xbox Live to distribute music, TV shows and movies in digital format. Or that HDMI and 1080p output was essential to call their box a “true HD” unit.

With a bit more vision, the 360 could have looked far more visionary and beat Sony’s position on pricing. As it stands, those PS3 prices don’t look that inflated after all, anymore.

Rogue Galaxy is a great "final PS2 RPG"

The folks who made Dark Cloud, Dark Cloud 2: Electric Boogaloo and Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King have released their latest – and last – PS2 masterpiece. Developer Level-5′s Rogue Galaxy is being billed as the last great PS2 RPG, and it lives up to that billing.

While the game isn’t a next-gen, open world masterpiece like Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, that allowed you to do everything from becoming a vampire to taking up a job doing presentation folder printing, Rogue Galaxy does its best to offer a game that pushes the boundaries of previous-gen gaming.

The graphics and soundwork are solid, the game is over 100 hours long, and the writing is witty and light-hearted without losing an element of heart. Anyone who has owned the PS2 and loved it for its wealth of RPGs need to get this one. It’s a great capper to a great run on a great platform.

I just hope PS3 will do as well. Level-5 is working on their first PS3 title, White Knight Story, though… so the signs are promising!

Gran Turismo HD Concept

One of the coolest things going on the PlayStation 3′s PlayStation Store right now and for the last three weeks or so is the limited-time offer to download Gran Turismo HD Concept for free. Sure, the game is limited right now to about a dozen cars and only one track, but as a “play it now” glimpse into one of Sony’s most-cherished racing franchises and what the PS3 could hold for fans of the game, Gran Turismo HD Concept is an addicting teaser.

Now, it’s not a completely original-for-PS3 build. The game is based on Gran Turismo 4, with an extensive port-up makeover for PS3. And early rumors had it that you’d have to buy 100s of extra cars and dozens of extra tracks to race on via PlayStation Store “microtransactions.” Otherwise known as literally “nickle-and-diming you to death.”

The prospect had some people with dollar signs in their eyes scheming to find ways to make similar micro-transaction schemes involving everything from unofficial game mods to business card printing. Yikes!

So far, that doesn’t appear to be the case. The game is limited, seems to be little more than a tech demo, but is addictive fun for all of that. And it’s free. That’s nice. Now, back to our regularly scheduled time trial.

Not bad for $2.99

My wife is a big Sudoku fan. Loves the stuff. I’ve never much cared for it. But today we downloaded the demo of Go! Sudoku from the PlayStation Store and darned if the game didn’t hook me, too.

The free “starter pack” offers up four matrices each of four different difficulty levels. I let my wife try it out, because I want thinking Sudoku was about as fun as writing out a bunch of return address labels. My wife was skeptical she’d like it because she prefers to work things out on paper when she does Sudoku.

But soon she was having a decent amount of fun and when I tried it later on, it hooked me, too. We checked into the PlayStation Store again and there are four booster packs available for $2.99 each. I was hoping each pack would offer maybe 50 extra puzzles at that price.

I couldn’t have been more wrong. The first booster pack weighs in at well over 500 “easy” level matrices, and by the time you buy all four booster packs at $2.99 each, you have over 1,400 matrices in all.

Some folks have been skeptical the PlayStation 3′s PlayStation Store can succeed. But with low-cost, high-entertainment stuff like this available, I think once they work out the kinks (like no background downloading), PS3 and their online store could give Xbox Live some competition this time out in the world of online gaming.