January 2007

Silly Analysis
Submitted Monday, January 29, 2007 - 4:43:41 PM by Klaitu

I was over at The Devil, reading about how Bloomberg is predicting gloom and doom for Sony's profits. Nestled in the article, a sentence caught my eye:

Sony CEO Howard Stringer has "failed to fend off Nintendo," the report continues, with the Wii outselling the PS3 two-to-one worldwide.

Exploded Ovarian Cysts and YOU!
Submitted Saturday, January 20, 2007 - 1:57:38 AM by Klaitu

Have you ever been to the hospital?

I have!

Not as a patient, mind you. I've never been in the hospital as a patient, not since I was a wee baby-Klaitu, fresh hatched!

As my family has aged, I've gotten to spend more and more time in hospitals. Seems like when you get older, your parts start gettin all crunked up and stuff. The process starts earlier for some, such as my pulchritudinous companion Destiny.

This time, Destiny contracted an ovarian cyst. What is an ovarian cyst, you ask? Well, I'm glad you brought it up!

A cyst is a closed sac surrounded by a membrane that can contain any type of slime, gunk, goop, junk, or crap except for pus. If there's pus in that cyst, it's not a cyst at all, it's an abcess, baby!

So, anyway, Destiny got one of those stuck on her ovary.. and after it got stuck on there, it started kickin her in the ovary. I understand it's quite painful, like getting hit in the beanbag.

At first, the condition was a mystery, we went to the emergency room, where we waited for about 6 hours to determine that it wasn't life threatening and was "probably" a cyst, but the ER being what it is, was not willing to do further tests and kicked her out, post-haste. This was 7 days ago.

7 days later, through an arrangement of doctors and other people who stick their gloved fingers (and equipment) in orifices best left undescribed, surgery was scheduled.

Once again, a long wait occurred. There was waiting in line to check in. There was waiting in a waiting room until we could go to the other waiting room to wait. There was waiting for the doctor in the waiting room where we waited.

Then there was some hospital cafeteria chicken.

And then more waiting. I took the opportunity to tool around the hospital campus, and I can only come to the conclusion that doctors are pretty rich people, and hospitals are a pretty pimpin place to work, so far as atmosphere.

I mean, I probably wouldnt want to be a nurse or a doctor.. you know, since people die at hospitals, but I could get on board with being the guy who changes the lightbulbs. The.. Janitor if you will. Perhaps the groundskeeper.

They should put a mcdonalds or a wendys or sonic in that cafeteria. I mean, not only would be be incredibly ironic to have a fast food restaurant in a hospital, but also the food would taste a lot better!

So, long story short, the surgery went off without a hitch, and I got to experience some joyful moments as the last vestiges of surgery medicine began to fade. It's in thie brief period when truly wonderous news comes to lignt..

"I like Graham crackers, I'm not going to share them."

"Look, they gave me a nurse calling button!" *bing* *bing* *bing* *bing*

"Oh, I feel like my guts are going to fall out."

"Wheres my graham crackers? Did you eat them?"

And my personal favorite:
*bing*
Nurse (over intercom): Can I help you?
Destiny: I HAVE TO PEE!
Nurse (over intercom): ... okay..
Everyone else in the room: (raucous laughter)
Nurse (over intercom): Be right there, honey!
Destiny: Why is everyone laughing at me? Where are my graham crackers?

All-in-all, I think everyone got what they wanted. Destiny got her cyst removed. The doctor got a fat wad of cash. I got KFC for dinner later on.

A happy ending!

Universal Combat
Submitted Saturday, January 20, 2007 - 1:35:16 AM by Klaitu

Here's a PC game for y'all, Universal Combat!

This one is most similar to Battlecruiser Millenium. In fact, it's pretty much identical except for the spit-n-polish. Universal Combat looks better, but costs almost 50 bucks.

Battlecruiser Millenium is free.

Universal Combat is primarily a space-combat sim, something like Elite was back in the beforetime. You're piloting and commanding a space-carrier, much like Battlestar Galactica. You've got control over your fighters and personnel, and the game really has some interesting twists.

Pesky aliens got you down? Invade their system! First, jump in the system while cloaked, they'll never see you coming! Approach by stealth and unleash your fighters in an alpha strike against the defense command, then proceed on target to the orbiting defense station. Fire some rail guns into that baby and take er down while your fighters hold back the enemy.

Oh, but what's that? There's aliens on that planet too? Set your fighters to enter the atmosphere and combat air patrol while 4 shuttles filled with marines breach the surface and wreak havoc.

Alternatively, you could ride the shuttle down with them, pilot one of the fighters, or even beam down with a security squad in the midst of the fighting. It's all good! While you're down on foot, why not hop in the enemy's tanks and torch some buildings? The possibilities are endless.

Undoubtedly, Universal Combat gets an A+ for the concept. It doesn't rate that high on the actual implementation.

You see, Universal Combat is an indie game, which means it has no quality control or official testing process. Game crashes are frequentt, and seemingly occur at random, and the game has a steep learning curve.. the tutorial section of the manual is upwards of 90 pages long!

The brainchild of the game, Derek Smart, is well known in the gaming community as an egotist, and while he's got the design down, he needs to work on everything else. He kinda reminds me of the designer guy in "Grandma's Boy". You know.. "Adios, Turd Nuggets" that guy.

So, I went to see what the deal was with all these crashes, and I experienced the true failure of this game: the support.

The technical support for this game is done in a forum. The latest thread (and the only thread, the message board appears to only allow a few posts to remain up at a time) is a guy just trying to get his game to work. The response from Derek Smart "It's not my game, it must be your computer".

The other people on the forum proceed to help the guy, and eventually he has some success by turning the game sound completely off. Derek Smart expressed his disdain with mucking with the default settings of the game.

Like the ill-fated fellow on the boards, I turned my sound off and the game ran for a couple hours before crashing, so that was nice.. but I still approach the game as if it were an egg.. fragile.

And you know, the only way to save your progress in the game is to quit the game. Genius maneuver there, sherlock.

So, lessons have we learned?

Think big with your design concept, it can work. Heck, Derek Smart ALMOST did it.

Arguments like "It's not the game, it's your computer" are worthless, especially when the same computer runs more intense games from real developers just fine. Bethesda's games work on my computer, and they're newer than your old and crusty game.. if they can do it, why can't you, Derek Smart?

This would be an awesome game if someone else picked up the concept and ran with it. It could make an awesome Battlestar Galactica game.

I don't recommend buying this thing, if you want to try it, check Battlecruiser Millenium, it's free.

Overall Score: 5 of 10

Blargh
Submitted Thursday, January 11, 2007 - 11:03:34 AM by Klaitu

It's official, I have contracted a condition known as blargh.

Blargh is an illness that makes me go "blarrrrgh" a lot. Also, there's snot, lots of it. Like Kill Bill, except... you know, out my nose.

It's not as fun as it sounds, I recommend that everyone stay away from blarrrrrgh and contract more pleasant diseases.

Playstation 3
Submitted Wednesday, January 10, 2007 - 4:27:35 PM by Klaitu

Yep. I finally got ahold of one. It was a little tricky, but I succeeded. I recently read over on Penny-Arcade about how PS3's were becoming un-rare suddenly, so I decided to take a local survey to see if this observation was true in my area.

So, I had my sweet Destiny call over to the local Best Buy, and they said they had 5 of them or so. So, after diverting my PS3 fundage into a spendable account, I let it rock and roll and Des took me down to that very same Best Buy, and there it was.. there was only one of them left.. and yours truly snagged it!

And, you know.. there is a certain amount of shame associated with carrying around a console so large the box has a handle like a suitcase.

So, I finally got it home. I connected it to my TV via a HDMI cable. Of course, I bought that seperately months ago.. It came with standard AV cables out of the box, the connector for S-video, component, and composite cables to the PS3 is the same one they used for the PS2. If you've already got the cables, they will still work.

The interface is pretty much exactly the same kind as the PSP uses. It even has the same ticks and clicks for navigation sounds. It makes more sense to me than the 360's interface, with it's nested menus and whatnot to access videos and media.

The sixaxis controller is almost ridiculously light, It's lighter than a PS2 controller, and it's way lighter than the 360's controllers.. even if you remove the battery pack thingy from them.

So far as functionality, it works the same as the 360.. the PS button turns the console on and off, sets which player the controller is and all that.

The only disadvantage I see is that to change the battery, you have to unscrew the rear panel of the sixaxis to get to it.

My 60GB model of the PS3 features Wi-Fi support, which is nice. it connected brilliantly to my existing network with no problems. It even supported WEP with no trouble.

The PS3 features a remote play feature with the PSP, it basically turns the PSP into a minature PS3 screen. any media you have on the PS3 can be shared on the PSP. This doesn't include games, however. While it's kind of a neat feature, I can't really see myself using it all that much.. the PSP has to be within wi-fi range of the PS3. If I'm in that range, then why do I need a portable screen? I will just watch it on my HDTV!

Maybe they plan on making the PS3 accessable through any hotspot. That might be useful.

The PS3's answer to Xbox Live Marketplace is the Playstation Network Store. While Live isn't hard to navigate, the PSN Store makes more sense to me. It's essentially a webpage where you click on whatever you like. Easy to get into because you've done it all before. Also, PSN uses real money, and not some silly points system. Live stomps the PSN on one thing, though. A download queue. On the 360, once you set something to downloading, you can go and browse for more stuff to download, or play a game or whatever. With PSN, you get to wait for the download to complete before you can do anything else. This is something that seriously needs fixing.

Due to the PSN, I was able to download neato PS3 demos, since I didn't have the cash for a game. The sales tax on the system alone was 50 bucks! I downloaded a bunch of them, but I'm going to focus on motorstorm, because its the only one I know of that uses the sixaxis motion sensing capability.

Motorstorm is an off-road racing game where you drive a truck or other kind of vehicle around a dusty track. You can use the analog sticks, or you can use the motion sensing ability of the sixaxis to drive.

The controller works great, it's super sensitive to your input, and is not broken or sluggish in any way. In fact, it may be a little too sensitive. I was overcorrecting all over the place at first. After about an hour or so, I had the hang of it.. or so I thought. I switched the controller into analog stick mode and I was instantly a lot better at driving.

The motion controls are novel, but not very practical.. at least, not in this particular game. I'd prefer the stick every single time.

So, what about the graphics? Everyone wants to know which looks better. The answer is.. it depends on the game. Gran Turismo HD puts anything the 360 has to shame, but most of the PS3's launch titles are not that swell looking. Resistance: Fall of Man looks like something you might see on the 360, for instance.

At any rate, it seems a solid system, and I look forward to more awesome games in the future!

Overall Score: 9 of 10

Fight Night Round 3
Submitted Tuesday, January 9, 2007 - 5:54:29 PM by Klaitu

This one is the 360 version, of course.

So, what am I doing reviewing such an old game? I just played it, gimme a break!

Anyways, Fight Night round 3 is boxing. Punching the crap out of your opponent repeatedly. Essentially, it's a fighting game.. with a twist!

No healthbars!

Now, I like this no healthbars idea. You're supposed to be able to determine how beat up you are just by looking. I don't know if it's just me, but I wasn't able to get a good sense of how beat up I was.

Obviously, a guy that's been beat up for 5 rounds looks and performs differently than a fresh fighter, and those differences are obvious, but it;s difficult to determine how devastating that upper cut you just took was. Likewise, this translates to your opponent as well. It becomes a situation where "I dunno if that hurt him, but he's still standing.. I guess I'll punch him again!"

The controls? They're goofy. I'm not a boxing enthusiast, so maybe I'm just not getting the way this thing works. You kinda swirl the analog sticks until your boxer throws his arms out at a random target on the opponent's body. There's a little bit of control to it. After playing for a couple hours, I could effectively hit the body or the head at my own discretion instead of just randomly. There's probably a method to the control scheme, but I can't say that I've figured it out.

And that's okay, because your opponent ALSO can't figure it out!

The result is a boxing match that looks like a boxing match. Blood, sweat and all. This game looks mighty fine on the 360.

But in the end, it's a fighting game, and how long can those hold your attention? Maybe a week if you stretch it, right?

Overall Score: 6 of 10.

Xbox 360
Submitted Tuesday, January 9, 2007 - 5:37:05 PM by Klaitu

So, my cousin has gone away for awhile, for some training for a new job he's taking. 10 weeks, they say. So, while he's workin, yours truly will be playin.. playin with his 360!

That's right, 360 for me!

So, 360 impressions, what's to do about this console?

Because this particular one was the core version of the console, it did not come with HD cables, those had to be purchased seperately. The HD cables are component, and can produce resolution up to 1080i. All of the games I have played work in 1080i.

The 360's interface is via a series of tabs. I'm pretty sure there's probably a fancy name for these tabs, but that's essentially what they are. You can manage your games, your media, your saves, and demos from the interface.

The 360 can recognize external devices that have a USB mode. It recognized my PSP and my Digital Camera, but did not recognize my cell phone. It also doesn't recognize tablet PC's running Windows Mobile, which I thought was strange.

A particularly noteworthy feature is the ability to eliminate the game sountrack and play your own MP3's in their place. This is especially useful for EA sports titles, all of which use licensed hip-hop music for their background music.

The wireless controllers take a small amount of getting used to. No longer is your player position determined by which slot you're plugged into, it's determined by who activates their controller first. Turning on the controller will also turn on the console if it's turned off, which is an extraordinarily nice feature. You can even turn the console off via the wireless controller. A lovely feature!

I had some rudimentary experience with xbox live, but it cost me some man-hours. I had to frankenstein every ethernet device in my house to extend my ethernet cord far enough to reach to my 360. The 360 doesnt inherently support Wi-Fi without an expensive adaptor. Once I had it connected, though, it worked smoothly.

I didn't attempt to play any games online, but I did make use of the Live Marketplace. This is where you can purchase games, videos, addons, and music through the xbox service. Essentially, you buy "live points", and then the materials on the marketplace will cost like "500 points". If you want to find out what something costs, you have to do the math on it. I do believe that 2000 points are worth about 25 bucks. (That's just from memory, don't quote me on it).

All those issues aside, the marketplace ran smoothly, and the 360 dutifully retrieved the downloaded content, which ran just fine.

So, in conclusion he 360 has lots of things going for it, it could use some tweaks here and there, but it works very well. And, since the console can be patched, there's no reason to believe these things won't be fixed.

Overall Score: 9 of 10

Oblivion 360
Submitted Tuesday, January 9, 2007 - 5:15:33 PM by Klaitu

I already reviewed the PC version, but things can change in the transition from console to PC, so since I've got my hands on a 360 for awhile, Here's the scoop on the fourth installment of the Elder Scrolls!

Many of the complaints from my PC version review carry over here. Things like the poor animations, poor physics engine, and the overall "sloppy" feel to the gameplay.

The good news is that the 360 version is infinitely more playable thatn the PC version. The controls were designed for console play, and that's readily obvious from playing either version. It looks great at 1080i, and has widescreen support, which is very nice.

As with the PC version, the graphics look awesome.. until something moves. If you take some screenshots, they will look amazing. Stay away from taking videos though.

Physics are still horrible. Nothing like walking straight into thin air and then falling to the ground repeatedly. Change your mind about that jump? It's okay, you can backup and return to the place you landed while in mid air!

Do yourself a favor and only play in first person mode. While most any game is better in third person, this one will just make you cry. When you run, your legs often don't move, and when they do, it's seldom in the same direction you're travelling. When you jump, there is no animation, you kind of just float into the air for a moment.

Then there are other issues with the game, things like it crashing constantly and having trouble loading certain areas. At first I attributted these things to a dirty disc, but after repeatedly cleaning the disc, I've come to the conclusion that there's either something wrong with the game, or something wrong with my 360 that isn't apparent.

Ovlivion is supposed to be a sweeping game with impressive graphics. It's supposed to be a game that is revolutionary, and a simulation of an actual world. It falls short on these goals.

Where are the children? There's plenty of NPC's, plenty that are married. Only adults populate this world.

Where are the seasons? The game has a detailed calendar, complete with fictional months and days, yet the seasons do not change.

Why are there only about 5 voice actors in the entire game? If the character is female, that character has one of two voices. If the character is male, it has maybe 3 voices.. if you don't count Patrick Stewart and Sean Bean.

Oblivion strikes me as a game with the right idea, but with poor implementation... a swing and a miss.

Still, It's not a complete waste of time. There are fun moments, and some of the stories are amusing.

The PC score was 5 of 10.

Overall Score: 6 of 10

RAAARRR!!!
Submitted Tuesday, January 9, 2007 - 4:50:25 PM by Klaitu

Holy crap I'm back from the dead!

Okay, so I was never dead, but Special K kinda was. Let's see if I can breathe some life into this baby!