Click here to go to the archives main page.
Other popular tags: Sony, Xbox 360, PS3, Activision, Microsoft, EA, Nintendo, PC, fail, Wii, Xbox Live, DLC, Modern Warfare 2, Xbox, Girls, journalism, Review, video, Ubisoft, Xbox Live Indie Games, UK, Kotaku, Valve, gaming, DRM, DS, Left 4 Dead, Disregarded Demographics, XNA, PSP
People from around Britain today described Sony’s console issues as a “shambles” and slammed the company as well as a minority group for the problems.
British pants for British workers!
Sony’s newest console, the PlayStation 3, has seen massive outages over the last few days.
Some spectators declared the problems “everything that’s wrong with Britain.”
An anonymous builder from Stoke commented that “if the immigrants hadn’t come over ‘ere, we wouldn’t have to worry about the PlayStation breaking!”
A fellow hard-working-Brit added: “I just want those robbin’ MPs to go without the PSN for a week!”
There was also debate as to whether health and safety had contributed to the PlayStation’s breakages.
The outcome was a resounding yes, with 97% of hard-working-Brits agreeing.
Speaking to the Negative Gamer Reporter a man from the Cotswolds said it was “disgusting” that a thing had happened and that “bringing back Fox Hunting” would fix the problems PlayStation users had experienced.
The Tax Payer’s Alliance also commented from their Brittany headquarters: “We shall be investigating the problems and ensuring the liberal MP asylum-seeker terrorists will be brought to justice for these disgusting attacks on British PlayStations and the British way of life.”
Update: It seems the problem has corrected itself. Kotaku and Engadget are both reporting success. No word from Sony yet though, so we still don’t know what’s caused this mess. Now go get playing!
Well it’s been what seems like an eternity since PS3s around the globe decided to stop working and frankly, the universe is close to collapse. However, Sony has now released a statement on its blog which confirms initial reports suggesting the problem was due to the system’s clock malfunctioning.
Sony has also advised all users of the older, chunky PS3s to “not use your PS3 system, as doing so may result in errors in some functionality.” They say a fix is due in the next 24 hours and that they are doing their best to resolve the issue.
BioShock was a fantastic game. Atmosphere, plot and gameplay all worked together to create one of gaming’s all-time greats. When a sequel was announced that wasn’t being produced by the original team, many people became instant cynics. Lightning doesn’t strike twice after all.
BioShock 2 brings you back to Rapture as a Big Daddy, one of the lumbering and iconic enemies from the original. The setting continues from the first game, though the similarity stops there. With some subtle (and some not-so-subtle) improvements on the original mechanics, the game accepts what it follows and takes several logical steps in the right direction. The first-person shooting sees new toys and hacking gets itself an upgrade. The game also comes with a whole new multiplayer aspect, expanding both the fiction and your time in the city.
I bought myself the PS3 Special Edition which came with enough fan-service inside that even without the disc it might be worth it. (Though probably only to me; the original game is easily one of my favourites.) For this review I played Xbox 360 version of the game (that Chelsea bought).
Read more →
Lost Planet 2 has apparently suffered “significant” content cuts at the hands of Xbox 360 DVD capacity. “We had to wrestle with disc space” said Jun Takeuchi, Lost Planet 2’s producer. Citing reasonably painless cross platform development, Takeuchi flagged console storage limitations as “way too much”, and suggested that attempting to overcome space problems “was more difficult than anything [else].” Gamers concerned with Microsoft’s antiquated choice of optical format spoiling the party for everyone can rest happy that the producer is at least considering DLC as means of “add[ing] that content at a later date”.
So, in analysis, it appears that through dubious circumstance, content has yet again been cut from a game’s development to be shilled later as downloadable content. Fanfare? Rapturous applause? No?!
Let’s just build a few rules for loud mouth team heads and production managers. Cut content is understandably a part of any game’s development cycle. We gamers understand and appreciate the pressures of deadlines and crunch periods. Ignorant of business or creative dilemmas in a game’s oft protracted creation, we appreciate and welcome with open arms, post-release DLC which furthers story or experience. However, we are collectively opposed to the concept of publicly removing something from a project alongside the open admittance that the “edited content” will later be forced back down our throats via micro-transaction.
..and is it really too much just to use an extra disc? Or optimised compression? Or hard disk storage?
Via: Kotaku
Welcome to the first video edition of Adventures in Middle-Aged Gaming. In this installment I decide to have a go at some things that are bothering me while playing the most excellent MAG from Zipper Entertainment. I hope you all enjoy my first video and I think that you should pay extra attention to the wrinkled and stained green t-shirt I chose to wear.
Feel free to leave any comments or suggestions below. Feedback is always appreciated.
Images released by Square Enix several days ago reportedly showed like for like gameplay screens from the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of upcoming, role-playing super hit Final Fantasy XIII. While Kotaku at first jested that “every shot looks identical, save for the display of the buttons on the role-playing game’s interface”, later probing found the superlatory allegation to be quite true. Each pair of images really were duplicates, with interface crudely pasted over the top.
An official Valentine’s Day statement was released by Square Enix:
Unfortunately we did mistakenly include screenshots taken for pre-production (non-promotional use only) in our latest release of assets. Screenshots from the final game intended for the press kit will be released shortly. As shown in our recent demo tour and Microsoft’s X10 event, there is no material difference between the two consoles.
As is always found in cross platform development (and evidenced extensively by Digital Foundry’s excellent Face Off series), the idea of true platform parity is largely a myth. Whether Square Enix’s mistake aimed to deliberately mislead is of course impossible to say, but it seems cynically convenient that images released with comparison as their specific aim would turn out to be copy / paste bullshots.
“We don’t feel there is a need to enhance the X360 [version]” tweeted Sonia Im, Square Enix’s North American spokeswoman. “We are looking into how the #FFXIII altered screens ended up in our presskit … this was obviously not intentional.”
Via: Kotaku
In a rather odd marketing maneuver, Sony recently made the statement that the release of Heavy Rain is a “gamble”. I’m pretty sure this would fall under the category of “doing it wrong”, as Heavy Rain has become the shove-it-in-Microsoft’s-face game now that the Uncharted 2 craze has begun to recede.
Sony should be doing nothing but praising Heavy Rain for all the wonderful innovation it’s bringing to the PS3. There should be advertisements plastered on every site saying “Come buy Heavy Rain (and a PS3) and be freed of those Red Rings of Oppression Microsoft has bound you with!”
I’m always excited to see a new IP get some attention from the gaming press. A man gets tired of shooters featuring generic brawny men in gray and brown armor blowing up things in a gray and brown city. You realize someone originally had the idea of making a game about brawny men and gray and brown cities, and at the time that was a great and novel concept. Then the other developers realized that was a great concept as well, and ran it into the ground.
The reasonably well reviewed, though financially dubious 360 “exclusive” Episodes From Liberty City have finally met with inevitable announcement of pending cross-platform release. Both the PlayStation 3 and Games for Windows editions of GTA IV will be receiving the expansions on March 30th after years of speculation as to the terms and dates of Microsoft’s rumoured $50 million exclusivity agreement. The episodes will be release individually as digital downloads for $19.99 each, or as a boxed, stand-alone compilation as seen on the Xbox 360 some months back.
In a press release, Sam Houser, president of Rockstar Games, appreciated the “patience” of Microsoft’s rival console holders. But it’s questionable whether releasing the DLC some two years after the core title this “patience” has lingered long enough for PS3 and PC gamers to welcome the additional content. Presumably the group who “finished GTA IV and wanted more story and gameplay” have satiated their open world urge with any number of titles in the proceeding years.
Read more →
Oh Sony, you are a one. In a press release sent out today Sony have announced that their motion controller, “tentatively” named Motion Controller, will be launched this fall (co-incidentally the same time Microsoft’s Natal launches). In the statement Kazuo Hirai, Sony Computer Entertainment’s President and Group CEO gave generic statement of enthusiasm about the device as well as the soon-to-be-unveiled “groundbreaking interactive entertainment” that will be accompanying it.
The statement also reaffirmed the fact that you’re not just going to need to buy the Motion Controller, but also have a PlayStation Eye camera sitting around to make use of the wand.
But back to the important part; Motion Controller the motion controller. I can’t tell if this is a sign Sony have no clue what they are doing, or if they are the smartest grapes at the picnic. I know for sure this will be easier to explain to non-gamers with its Ronseal style name than “Project Natal” or “I run a website about videogames”. Though it could lead some (more cynical than I) to assume the games that come with it will be about as novel and original as “Motion Controller” the motion controller.
CES was a lot of fun this year. If I wasn’t at the Convention Center checking out super-huge TV’s and 3D goggles, I was getting free drinks at one of the many industry parties that were happening all weekend.
Of course, you —Negative Gamer’s loyal readers— were my first priority, so I took plenty of pictures at these parties, just for you. It’s like you’re really there!
This batch of shots came from the “It Won’t Stay In Vegas” party, held at the Atomic Testing Museum (which is an awesome place). Sony had a room set up showcasing lots of the PS3’s new and upcoming games, as well as a PSP-Go here and there.
I’m not sure if you know this, but a few months ago Michael Jackson died. There was little in the way of media coverage, save for the release of a film entitled This Is It. The movie was a documentary comprised of footage taken during dress rehearsals for MJ’s last tour. The film showed Michael doing what he did best: put on some of the greatest musical numbers ever, all for the love and adoration of the millions, nay, billions who loved him.
This of course leads to this story, wherein Sony has decided to make a This Is It PS3 bundle. Lucky Japanese gamers who’ve been clamoring for this bundle since MJ’s death now have a reason to celebrate.
The bundle comes…bundled with the regular crap the PS3 comes with, This Is It on Blu-Ray, a “special PS3 wallpaper” (probably the hottest selling point), and videos of Thriller and Smooth Criminal. The Japan-only (for now) bundle will be released on January 27th, the date of This Is It’s Blu-Ray release.
A demo should do a few things in my opinion. It should lay the groundwork for any relevant story points, it should give the player a strong sense of what the gameplay will be like, and ultimately, it should make the player want to play more of the game. The demo for Dante’s Inferno dropped last Thursday on the PSN and I finally got around to taking it through its paces. With all due respect to my old professors at Queen’s University and the Faculty of English, this demo impresses enough to take it off my “ignore” list.
I’ve made some mistakes in my time. Some were relatively minor, where others were real doozies. The doozies involved leasing a Nissan 240SX in 1992 and not reading the small print so I ended up locked into a closed lease and paid $40,000 for a $22,000 car. Another doozie was marrying a hairy lesbian in 1994 and losing the house I paid for after putting her through college. My personal fave doozy was mistaking a jar of Vicks Vapor Rub for Vaseline when I was 12, and not realizing it until my cock was screaming in hot searing pain. Where the minor ones are usually relatively painless, they can still endure. Recently I agreed, rather stupidly I know, to host a kid’s videogame party.
Read more →
If you were one of the unlucky souls to be stricken by the “Hideout” bug within Assassin’s Creed II, Ubisoft has good news for you today. They’ve submitted a patch to Microsoft and Sony certification that addresses il purgatorio along with numerous other glitches found in the retail game. The patch will be released for PS3 owners today and on 360 this Friday. Also, of the many other bugs they’ve addressed, Ezio will no longer appear to walk in thin air or get stuck underwater with one of the game’s motley denizens.
Assassin’s Creed II felt much more open to playing missions, collecting items and fooling around out of sequence. In some ways it’s surprising there aren’t more of these game breaking bugs out there. It’s baffling that no one at Ubisoft, Microsoft or Sony caught the Mission 11 Autosave bug. If a game features an autosave system the developer and or certification teams should have tested them all.
Read past the break if you want the full patch notes, but be warned thar be spoilers contained within!
Wow.
Yahoo Finance has posted “A Grinch’s Christmas Guide”, which aims to help holiday shoppers avoid bad purchases. In it, Anne Kadet finds ways to make products that are probably good look bad by complaining about repair costs and procedures.
The most jarring bit of the story is her description of the Playstation 3 and its “glued-shut” “remote control”. Kadet mentions nowhere that it is possible to recharge the controller in any capacity, and goes so far as to claim that when your controller is out of juice you need to pony up $55 for a new one.
It’s all fun and games until the battery dies. Unlike its competitors, which use replaceable AA batteries, the PS3’s remote control is glued shut. When the battery goes, Sony customers have to blow $55 on a new controller.
Well hello there my friend, can I call you 360 Pro? Maybe I’ll just call you Pro. You know, your particular specs are a little hard to come by these days. It’s either the big ones at 120 or 250 gigs, or your somewhat gimped little sibling with no hard drive on the shortbus. You may not know this but I was very close with an older sister of yours about three years ago. She was an Elite so you may not have travelled in the same circles. It was a quite an ordeal I had with your darker, bigger sister and I don’t want to brow beat you with her shortcomings. Let’s just say that she and I had some problems, and we decided to part ways somewhat prematurely.
Anyhoo, now I have decided to once more enter the 360 fray by picking up another of you sexy little darlings. Please ignore the very rude PS3 just below you on the stand. She doesn’t respond well to competition. And, even though I have been very clear with her about how she is my primary console and always will be, she’s a bit reactive right now. It doesn’t seem to matter that the only reason I picked you up was for Left 4 Dead 2, Mass Effect 2, Gears 2, and a few other exclusives that I am tired of missing out on. Nor does it seem to matter that I won’t be paying the robbery for access to Xbox Live Gold features, she just is in a funk right now.
I see that you still don’t include WiFi either… “See sweety, she doesn’t even have WiFi built in yet. There’s no need to be jealous.”
Read more →
Microsoft is claiming that around two million people have used their Facebook service within the first week. The service enables users to access Facebook through a special Xbox 360 themed interface. CNET is reporting that 10% of Xbox Live’s 20 millions members used the service, which is designed to bring social networking into the living room.
Never mind the fact that the interface is clunky and useless (and unless you have a keyboard, impossible to write on); who actually wants Facebook on their Xbox? I really can’t understand the attraction of having to sit in front of your TV to go on Facebook (although I don’t see the attraction of going on Facebook on any device).
U.I. improvement,
with a Robo King equals,
more odd fun and games
To say that this game is a “much-ballyhooed” title is to make a colossal understatement. Let’s be honest, I wouldn’t be surprised if SCEA executives are willing to sell their unborn children into servitude to garner GOTY votes for Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. Naughty Dog has taken the PS3 faithful back into the exotic world of Nathan Drake with their third-person action franchise that relies heavily on a cover system, platforming, and puzzle-solving. In this sequel to Uncharted Drake’s Fortune Naughty Dog have decided to risk an online multiplayer element as well. Though the predecessor was lauded for great production values and competent gameplay, combat and game length were concerns that many of the Sony faithful wanted addressed. So, did Naughty Dog listen and act accordingly?
Uncharted 2 Among Thieves is essentially the equivalent of a summer blockbuster movie that happens to be really good as well as really overwhelming with the production values. Nathan Drake follows the trail of yet more treasure in this follow up. This time he’s tracking the whereabouts of a certain 13 ships filled with treasure that Marco Polo lost while returning to Europe from the Orient. Utilizing platforming, very light puzzle solving, and a much improved gun and melee combat system, the player climbs, shoots, and wisecracks through 26 chapters of respectable lengths to a very rewarding finish. Read more →
Sony’s PSPgo was released in Japan on Sunday, a month later than the European and US launches. Already it’s not off to the best start. Reports are suggesting that Sony’s newest handheld sold just over 28,000 units on its first day, compared with 170,000 units for Nintedo’s DSi. Gamasutra also notes that the PSP-3000 sold 140,000 within four days of launch.
While there’s not many figures on a European-American launch, as of October 20th, just 1000 PSPgo units had been sold in Australia. Sony claim to have seen a 300 percent rise in PSP sales, including crucially, the UMD version. The PSPgo has been hit with much criticism (quite a bit from Negative Gamer too) over the handheld’s hefty price tag, around $250.
Many sites have pointed out that you can buy a PlayStation 3 for a little more than what Sony is asking for the PSPgo and have attacked Sony’s “aspirational pricing” model. Sony have also claimed that it’s quite happy selling you the PSP-3000, something which has to be undermining the PSPgo’s sales. While it’s still early days for the PSPgo in Japan and around the world, it’s not looking promising.
Source: Andriasang.com
Welcome to the first video edition of Adventures in Middle-Aged Gaming. In this installment I decide to have a go at some things that are bothering me while playing the most excellent MAG from Zipper Entertainment. I hope you all enjoy my first video and I think that you should pay extra attention to the wrinkled and stained green t-shirt I chose to wear.
iTunes