Sometime before 1:50am EST the latest version (1.8) of the PS3 firmware became available for North American users. My initial impression of the DVD upconversion quality is included below. Full list of what was updated is also reported.
read more | digg story
DVD and game Upscaling up to 1080p, Blu-ray playback at 720p, memory card support, improved media functionality and friggin printer support! Now that's an update.
Showing posts with label Gaming. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gaming. Show all posts
Friday, May 25, 2007
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Xbox 360 Design: The Back Story
"A look into how the design of the Xbox 360 came to be."
*Warning*
Long-winded rant below:
It's a stupid design, they attempted (this being the keyword) to go for aesthetics, instead of being technically proficient, so they ended up failing on both fronts.
The main complaint with the Xbox was size, what does the 360 do? Deceive you. MS likes deception (MS points pricing is another example off the top of my head, not to mention the Core and the barebones Vista, it's all marketing), they bank on deception. There's no room inside the original Xbox, yet the HDD and power supply are internal. There's "plenty of space" inside the 360 further emphasizing the poor design of it, just compare both systems with the covers removed.
The 360 gives you a giant fucking powerbrick and a non-standard HDD, which has been reduced to a glorified memory card, with the illusion of choice (removing a core feature of your previous system is asinine, imagine if the GCN came out with only 2 controller ports). Although the HDD being external has paid off, so you can keep it when you have to send your system out to be repaired. Yet the main issue is that it's basically the same size and weight as the Xbox, not to mention having worse build quality and louder than any console should ever be, they completely ignored the REAL issues.
There's nothing elegant about it, it's big, loud, clunky and it barely looks better than the Xbox did. Being vertical looks nicer and sleeker, but I certainly don't trust the 360 when it's vertical, so that's kind of useless. When it's horizontal, it's awkward to grab as there's no space for your fingers to go underneath it. Don't get me wrong, I have fun with it (it's all about the games after all) and my 12k+ gamerscore backs that up, but I'll be damned if it's not the one of worst designed consoles out there and ironically it's modeled after a dead person, how fitting.
read more | digg story
*Warning*
Long-winded rant below:
It's a stupid design, they attempted (this being the keyword) to go for aesthetics, instead of being technically proficient, so they ended up failing on both fronts.
The main complaint with the Xbox was size, what does the 360 do? Deceive you. MS likes deception (MS points pricing is another example off the top of my head, not to mention the Core and the barebones Vista, it's all marketing), they bank on deception. There's no room inside the original Xbox, yet the HDD and power supply are internal. There's "plenty of space" inside the 360 further emphasizing the poor design of it, just compare both systems with the covers removed.
The 360 gives you a giant fucking powerbrick and a non-standard HDD, which has been reduced to a glorified memory card, with the illusion of choice (removing a core feature of your previous system is asinine, imagine if the GCN came out with only 2 controller ports). Although the HDD being external has paid off, so you can keep it when you have to send your system out to be repaired. Yet the main issue is that it's basically the same size and weight as the Xbox, not to mention having worse build quality and louder than any console should ever be, they completely ignored the REAL issues.
There's nothing elegant about it, it's big, loud, clunky and it barely looks better than the Xbox did. Being vertical looks nicer and sleeker, but I certainly don't trust the 360 when it's vertical, so that's kind of useless. When it's horizontal, it's awkward to grab as there's no space for your fingers to go underneath it. Don't get me wrong, I have fun with it (it's all about the games after all) and my 12k+ gamerscore backs that up, but I'll be damned if it's not the one of worst designed consoles out there and ironically it's modeled after a dead person, how fitting.
read more | digg story
Why do my games cost so much?
"Many people have been complaining about the $60 price tag for next-gen console games. Forbes takes time to explain why."
Don't buy $60 games. I haven't paid more than $35 for a 360 game and all of my games are like new, complete with cases and manuals. The 360 has a high software attach rate and with so many games out there so fast, second hand copies drop in price even faster.
I got like new copies of Gears of War and Dead Rising for $35 shipped and just recently found Lost Planet at a steal of a price, $25 shipped, a game which came out not more than two months ago and obviously still retails at $60 new.
Amazon, eBay, Cheapassgamer, Tradegamesnow, GameTZ, etc. these sites are your friends! Most gaming forums also have trading boards/threads, use them and save. A little work on your part will save you quite a bit in the long run.
read more | digg story
Don't buy $60 games. I haven't paid more than $35 for a 360 game and all of my games are like new, complete with cases and manuals. The 360 has a high software attach rate and with so many games out there so fast, second hand copies drop in price even faster.
I got like new copies of Gears of War and Dead Rising for $35 shipped and just recently found Lost Planet at a steal of a price, $25 shipped, a game which came out not more than two months ago and obviously still retails at $60 new.
Amazon, eBay, Cheapassgamer, Tradegamesnow, GameTZ, etc. these sites are your friends! Most gaming forums also have trading boards/threads, use them and save. A little work on your part will save you quite a bit in the long run.
read more | digg story
Monday, March 19, 2007
Devil May Cry 4 Now Coming to Xbox 360, PC and PS3...
"Looks like PS3 just lost another exclusive. Now if Konami gets their way, MGS4 will be next, but Hideo Kojima is resisting."
Huge news and I guess Dead Rising and Lost Planet selling so well were part of the reason for this, not to mention the huge cost of next-gen games.
read more | digg story
Huge news and I guess Dead Rising and Lost Planet selling so well were part of the reason for this, not to mention the huge cost of next-gen games.
read more | digg story
Friday, March 9, 2007
Xbox 360 backwards compatibility "not important anymore" by 2008
Chris Satchell: "At some point we're going to focus less on it. When you get to the end of this year there will be a reduced focus on backwards compatibility. There are so many 360 games out there. I don't know if it's important anymore."
This is a company that makes a boatload selling friggin pictures online and they can't afford to get the few decent games on their dead system to play on their new one? Put up some Panzer Dragoon Orta picture packs to fund the BC support of it. MS continues to show their greedy, asshole nature.
read more | digg story
This is a company that makes a boatload selling friggin pictures online and they can't afford to get the few decent games on their dead system to play on their new one? Put up some Panzer Dragoon Orta picture packs to fund the BC support of it. MS continues to show their greedy, asshole nature.
read more | digg story
Saturday, February 17, 2007
Gaming for the first time again
I just played the Nintendo Wii and I felt something that I haven't felt for a long time (no, not an urge to blog, but that fits in this equation too). Fun. It was like playing games for the first time again. The Wii brought my inner child to light and made me look like a fool swinging that Wiimote around, but I didn't care, I was too busy enjoying myself. Before the Wii, I had been in a slump, I had Xbox, recently purchased a PS2 and most recently, Xbox 360, but those just felt like there was something missing.
I had purchased a PS2 late into its life cycle, allowing me to catch up on a few games that I had been dying to play. I enjoyed them, but I was never really that into them, they felt like diversions and failed to hold my interest. The 360 was the first next-gen system to market and I had gotten one a couple months after launch, but never really enjoyed myself. I eventually sold it and came into another one just a month or so ago, but I still felt that void. The 360 offered nothing new, just the same damn generic games I've been playing all my life, except they were prettier, that's it. After completing Gears of War, which was enjoyable, albeit overrated, short and anticlimactic, I was burnt out. Shooting people had gotten old and I was in a rut that would need more than pretty graphics to fix. Enter the Wii.
A friend of mine got a Wii and invited me over to play it. Before this, I had only briefly tried Zelda at GameStop and wasn't blown away. Once I got there, we played Wii Play, a game reminiscent of air hockey, I got my ass kicked, but I was still learning the ropes. After this came something surprisingly fun, Wii Sports bowling. 4 people gathered around the TV, tossing virtual bowling balls down a lane and it was amazing. Golf, baseball, boxing and tennis followed. We all probably looked foolish, but it didn't matter, it was a blast to play and the simple gameplay with the new control scheme was indeed revolutionary. Learning the Wiimote barely took any time and I even bowled the first strike of the night. I had an incredible time and I couldn't believe that something so simple could offer so much fun. It's no wonder why the Wii won't stop selling, Nintendo hit gold here, offering something to draw in new gamers and to make sure the old, cynical gamers like myself have some fun. Laughs and smiles were plentiful and the exuberant amount of fun I had made me feel like I was playing games for the first time again.
I had purchased a PS2 late into its life cycle, allowing me to catch up on a few games that I had been dying to play. I enjoyed them, but I was never really that into them, they felt like diversions and failed to hold my interest. The 360 was the first next-gen system to market and I had gotten one a couple months after launch, but never really enjoyed myself. I eventually sold it and came into another one just a month or so ago, but I still felt that void. The 360 offered nothing new, just the same damn generic games I've been playing all my life, except they were prettier, that's it. After completing Gears of War, which was enjoyable, albeit overrated, short and anticlimactic, I was burnt out. Shooting people had gotten old and I was in a rut that would need more than pretty graphics to fix. Enter the Wii.
A friend of mine got a Wii and invited me over to play it. Before this, I had only briefly tried Zelda at GameStop and wasn't blown away. Once I got there, we played Wii Play, a game reminiscent of air hockey, I got my ass kicked, but I was still learning the ropes. After this came something surprisingly fun, Wii Sports bowling. 4 people gathered around the TV, tossing virtual bowling balls down a lane and it was amazing. Golf, baseball, boxing and tennis followed. We all probably looked foolish, but it didn't matter, it was a blast to play and the simple gameplay with the new control scheme was indeed revolutionary. Learning the Wiimote barely took any time and I even bowled the first strike of the night. I had an incredible time and I couldn't believe that something so simple could offer so much fun. It's no wonder why the Wii won't stop selling, Nintendo hit gold here, offering something to draw in new gamers and to make sure the old, cynical gamers like myself have some fun. Laughs and smiles were plentiful and the exuberant amount of fun I had made me feel like I was playing games for the first time again.
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