• 30Nov 09

  Monthly Blog: November 2009

  Yes, I've noticed that I'm a horrible blogger, but now I know why: back when I used to write on this thing every few weeks or days, it was because I was busy not playing games! This will the final time I mention how much damn fun I've been having with my PS3, and even though recent holiday sales at numerous electronics stores have made me second-guess my timing, I don't actually regret buying my PS3 in April at $400 and my TV at quite a bit more, even though there's a PS3 with triple the HDD space for $50 less. The last six months have been insane game-wise and I really can't wait to see what 2010 delivers. I'm just gonna let my brain spew things for a while and I'm sure I'll miss things, but hey, whatever.

  -I'm horrible at playing games I buy. I guess I got used to having to play a game in three days or read a book in a week when I was a kid, because despite the fact that there is no time limit with GameAccess.ca, I feel that I have to play a rented game and only that game until it's done. I bought inFamous in June, Bioshock in August and Uncharted 2 in October, and I've played those three for a combined total of maybe two or three hours, and that's just for inFamous: I've installed but not played Bioshock and I haven't even unwrappd UC2 yet! My 2 most recent rentals were Uncharted 1 and Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection, and I only rented SUGA for a fairly easy Platinum trophy because I was so disheartened with being unable to to it in Uncharted ('Crushing' difficulty in that game is a very appropriate name). But now I'm done with SUGA and the game I want next is on reserve, so I'm forcing myself to play games I actually own until it's available. Speaking of which...

  -...Batman: Arkham Asylum is a contender for my personal "Best Game of 2009 That Was Actually Released in 2009." I remember downloading the demo and my friend and I must have played it five or six times before we both marched over to my computer to pre-order our own copies. It took three weeks after release for Future Shop to finally send mine, but it was worth the wait. I won't go too much into Arkham Asylum's awesomeness, but to relate to my previous point Batman was a game I actually had to make myself play: if I wasn't trying to get all the trophies in Uncharted, I was doing homework that I hated, and left Batman to languish but for the fact that two other friends were playing it at the same time and I wanted to talk about it with them. I played it in three chunks and just beat it a few days ago, and during my Christmas break from school I really want to go back and do all the Riddler challenges.

  -I'm still a massive whore for music games. Guitar Heros Would Tour, Metallica, Smash Hits and 5 sit next to Rock Band 2 and The Beatles: Rock Band on the shelf, and at the moment I have eight megabytes short of six gigabytes of Rock Band downloadable content on my PS3 HDD. I love them, I love to feeling of playing them while feeling shamelessly pathetic, I love creating avatars of myself and my friends to play our favourite songs with, and they're also fairly generous with their Trophy support. I also fell in love with the PSP version; Rock Band: Unplugged is extremely fun and the Rock Band aesthetic makes a fairly dissimilar method of playing music familiar and fun. However, for the past two weeks there has been no downloadable content (444 MB and counting), and while I'm annoyed at Harmonix for stopping it what bugs me more is that they won't announce RBU's death. I understand why they would kill it off, and you hear the same argument every time an MMO's death is announced: it simply makes no sense to keep something going if there's no money being made in it. But even though I'd keep buying songs in RBU, if the quality of future DLC stays at the level it's been at maybe it should die. Just don't toy with us and announce it already, HMX.

  -The Japanese Bayonetta demo is flat-out the most ludicrous demo I have ever played, and I'm certain I'll be buying it on Day 1. Yes, a good amount of it has to do wth the sexy protagonist, but the gameplay reminds me so much of God of War and Devil May Cry that I feel like it would be a horrible thing to miss this game. Besides, sexy female protagonists have made me play games before that I thought would be bad but turned out pretty good (P.N.03 for example).

  -Prince of Persia: The Movie: The Game? What the hell is this? I personally loved the 2008 Prince of Persia and anyone who whines that not 'dying' made it too easy didn't get it: a game like PoP with insane acrobatics and landscapes flows a hell of a lot better if you aren't being forced to press "Restart" every fifteen seconds or, for that matter, if you're too afraid to try a jump because you've run out of sand, as I did so many times in The Sands of Time. The Two Thrones ended that story full circle, so what on earth could this be? Are they re-making The Sands of Time? Could it be an alternate sequel, ignoring Warrior Within? Whatever it is, I hope this is temporary and the story of the Nathan Drake Prince and Elika will continue at some point, even if it's another epilogue. Give those of us who actually like that game something, Ubisoft!

  • Posted Nov 30, 2009 7:57 pm PT
  • Category: General
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• 12Jul 09

  I hate my PC; thank you PS3

  Just a quick word: my computer crashes seven times a day, and I've grown really sick of not being able to use the internet. So today I went out and bought a PS3 keypad to get my proper surf on and so far love it. I know I could've bought a USB keyboard, but having a keyboard on my lap would be much more annoying than this, and the old way of pressing X four times for one letter makes message board posting near-impossible. For the time being I don't even need a PC, and I'm so glad the PS3 has a web browser. You never think you need it, but having it is a life-saver.
  • Posted Jul 12, 2009 9:22 pm PT
  • Category: General
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• 7Jul 09

  PS3 Ownership So Far: Renting Games, And No I'm Not Dead

  I like money, I like having it and I hate wasting it, as I have done all too often since opening an eBay account. Since finally joining the now-gen I'd figured I'd be buying more games, but I knew my wallet couldn't take it so renting was the real choice. And hearing so many good things about GameFly (mostly from X360 achievement whores) I decided to try it for myself, save one problem: GameFly is continental U.S. only. Before I really startikng digging around, I found GameAccess.ca completely by accident and immediately filled my queue with games I know I'd buy if I was a little less frugal. (Seriously, I spent almost what my PS3 and games cost on eBay crap last year. I really needed to reel it in.) First arrival was Dead Space, and playing the first two chapters and jumping out of my chair yelling when my cat nuzzled my leg was enough to convince me to buy it outright. Despite what some pessimistic Aussie might say, Dead Space was really fun, scary as f&(% and a game I'm glad I bought. Two games (Call of Duty 5 and Prince of Persia) later, I declare the experiment a success.

  Not that it's been flawless. I want to rent some things because buying them outright would be stupid, like Guitar Hero Smash Hits. I've made good buys in Orange Box and inFamous, but I abolutely refused to even look at GHSH prices online. However, when I found myself in a Videotron/Microplay searching for a used copy of Burnout Paradise, I saw SH on the shelf and gave in. The guy working that day turned out to be a friend I had not seen in months and months, and we must've talked for almost an hour when he wasn't serving other customers. I tried resisted that purple box's siren call, but GameAccess had no copies and I knew there wouldn't be many people playing it online by the time I received it. I became extremely pissed later when I discovered that my Rock Band drums don't work with it. They work with World Tour and Metallica, so why not Smash Hits? What The F**K Activision? But I digress.

  (EDIT 7/14/2009: My RB1 drums DO work. I realized the problem: when I tried them the first time, the drums were automatically assigned to slot 7 on the PS3. Why do all my music game peripherals get assigned to 7 when pretty much every game only recognize up to slot 4? Geez. Well, at least I didn't go out and buy GHWT drums only to discover this afterward, huh?)

  I've sadly also become a trophy whore. I don't have any platinums yet, but I actually seek out games that have easy trophy accomplishments and look up how to get simple or obscure ones, going so far as to reset Prince of Persia a couple dozen times to ensure I got the Speed Demon and No Time to Waste trophies. But I'm not a complete slave to "the system": I can't push myself beyond what I'm capable of and I know it. For example, World at War has numerous (bronze) trophies for finishing each mission on Veteran (expert) difficulty, and the only reason I ever played Veteran was to get the Purple Heart trophy, which is essentially the 'die 20 times without quitting' award. That's also the biggest reason I caved to GHSH: easy trophies for winning online matches, but not close to worth the $60 I paid. Why didn't I just go back to RE5? I dunno.

  GameAccess has one quirk that so far has bugged me: the game they send is practically random. They have you set up a ranked list, the ranking being the game you'd prefer to receive next. My first rental was Dead Space, and it was #1 at the time, as was Call of Duty, but the next game after WaW I was sent was Prince of Persia, which I think had been at #6. Two weeks and some $10 DLC later I've decided that getting sent PoP wasn't so bad, but now I've been sent Far Cry 2, which was #7 out of 11! There was some malarky on their front sign-in page about the 'Game Reserve' feature 'increasing your odds,' and maybe an extra $2 a month wouldn't be so bad, but on top of the $17.95 per month and the $4 for the "Fast Return" feature I feel slightly like I'm being milked here, which is ironic because the entire reason I rent is so I don't have to be milked at retail if I wanna play ten game this summer instead of two. But why bother having rankings if I have to shell out an extra two bucks to ensure that the game in my #1 slot is the game I receive? Maybe I'll be singing a different tune if Far Cry 2 turns out good, but if the game after that isn't Ghostbusters or Terminator Salvation (nothing but Gold trophies in the latter) I'll be making an angry phone call or two.

  And that's how you all know I'm still alive. (...Aperture Science, we do what we must because we can...)

  • Posted Jul 7, 2009 9:03 pm PT
  • Category: General
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