PS2 games on PS3 again?

Remember the good old days when the PS3 was able to play PS2 games? Well that might be coming back. Last December, Sony patented a software technology that would allow the PS3 chip to translate data on PS2 disks. In early versions of the PS3, to achieve backwards compatibility they put a chip from the PS2 into the PS3 which made the cost of the PS3 high.

Having a software solution allows them to update every PS3 with a new firmware for PS2 backwards compatibility. This is smart move for Sony because now it gives everyone the chance to play old games without paying the premium for the extra chip set. The ability to not play PS2 games is definitely a source for unsold PS3s and this will surely turn around the market for Sony.

There has been no public announcement form Sony saying this will happen, but based on the patent, there is no other reason why they tried to get this through the office.

Lost Planet 2 Demo under the snow?

Lost Planet 2 has a winter release date. The game is shaping up to out due its predecessor with it's new co-op mode and customization. The first Lost Planet came out for the Xbox 360 and slowly popped up on the PC and Playstation 3. People had mix feelings about Lost Planet, but overall it was a pretty good game.

Capcom's Jun Takeuchi, the producer of Lost Planet 2, thinks a demo is possible and could be soon.
"I think we might be able to offer it [demo] in a little bit. Taking the E3 feedback account, the game is changing daily," (Famitsu) However what platform the demo would be for is still obviously unknown. Chances are we can assume it will be for Xbox 360.

Source: http://kotaku.com/5303487/lost-planet-2-demo-soonish

The Conduit

Let’s get this out of the way first, this is not by any means an epic game. In fact there are some things that don’t work that have been in other shooters for years. That said, what this game promised us, it delivers. This has the best graphics on the Wii, best controls for the Wii, and I also believe the best sound in a game for the Wii.

Let’s start with the graphics. I played this game on a 46” 1080p HD TV and even though the Wii resolution is only 480p, the graphics look stunning. You can definitely tell that the image is being stretched but once you get into the game, you hardly notice it. Weapons look amazing, reload animations look even better, and the enemies really feel alive. Like most games, wall textures don’t look as good as everything else. But overall this game has the best graphics on the Wii.

Next are the controls. You have full customization over everything from vertical and horizontal speed, run speed, and bounding box. The bounding box is the area in the middle of the screen in which the crosshairs can move without moving your point of view which allows you to choose your own settings on how fast you turn. Besides those controls, every button is customizable which, being on the Wii, is nice because a lot of people complain that the Wii controls never work. So if you don’t like the controls, you have nothing complain about.

What I thought the really surprise me was the sound. The sound is fantastic, and I don’t just mean the music. The sound effects and the ambiance provided for an amazing atmosphere. The other thing that most games don’t have is directional sound (sound coming from a direction) and this game implements it beautiful.

Having said all that, there are flaws, not big ones, but they are noticeable. There was one time where I turned a corner and I could see right through the walls for a second. I tried to jump over a barrel, landed in the barrel, and manage to die because I keep taking damage. Some areas seem to have more health packs and the following areas have none. Another big flaw is that at times the AI seemed incredible dumb. I only noticed it at the beginning of the game, but as time went on it was fine. My problem was that I would creep up onto a wall look just past it, and I could see an enemy looking straight at me, but as long as I had part of the wall covering me, he didn’t even move. I used this mechanic many times just to kill enemies before I got ambushed. Annoying, but effective.

My finally conclusion to single player is that this is mediocre at best. This is not the life changing shooter people may have been raving about. But where this game does shine is in multiplayer.

If there is any reason to buy this game, it’s the multiplayer. Its the only first person shooter game on the Wii that has 12 players at once. Compared to other games on other consoles, this is nothing to brag about, but that fact that the Wii has had just the worst multiplayer ever allows this game to shine. The other thing is that most of the levels are somewhat small so having 12 players never feels lonely. One thing I did notice is that the graphics take a hit when playing online, but the end result reminds me of Unreal Tournament, the first one from 2000. This doesn’t bother me because it all blends very nicely and gives it a nice nostalgic look without being pixelated.

One innovative thing that High Voltage Software (Developers of the game) did do was how you choose match types. Before you go to a server, you can pick between three different categories which boil down Death Match, Team Match, or Team Objective and each one explains exactly what they are. Death Match is every man for himself, Team Match put you on a Team, and Team Objective is always a form of Capture the Flag (CTF). Once you pick that, you join a server. Beyond that you enter a lobby (unless there is already a game in session in which you go to the lobby after the match ends) and you actually vote on 3 different things: Match Type; Weapon Type; Level. In Match Type, each Game type has a few categories, most of which are similar. There’s timed matches, kill limit matches, the basics. One mode in particular though is in Death Match where you are giving a player to kill, and you can only kill that player. What is new to this is that once the timer for voting runs out, it picks at random what was selected to be played for the map. This means that the more an option is voted the more likely it is to be played.

Although the severs seemed a little laggy and sometimes where hanging when I tried to connect, they will probably work out all the bugs within the next couple of weeks.

Final Verdict: Must buy but only for multiplayer. The career mode is not worth the $50

Guitar Hero Flu: The Epidemic

Yea I'm just going to rant right here about how sickening Guitar Hero has become. Hey don't turn around because you might get smacked in the face by another version of Guitar Hero. These versions are new games in the same way that dressing up your younger sibling in drag and giving them a new name of the opposite sex makes them a new person. Thats right, the only differences they contain from their counterparts are a few new songs. Congratulations Activision, you can mass produce disks excuse me if that isn't enough motivation for me to become bulimic with my money and purge all my money on your products.

Oh and thats another thing, the products. Guitar hero world tour's peripherals were so laughably faulty they were more likely to break than to work. Oh and if you wanted to get a replacement? You had to pay, Activision couldn't be bothered with such minor details as quality control

What do you want? Guitar hero Metallica, Van Halen,Aerosmith, greatest hits, hell why don't you just get them all? Oh maybe you aren't a fan of one of these bands....damn that just limits the amount of people that will buy the game, but thats ok Activision is just having a fun time skull f*** us with all of it's cutting edge music destroying games

Thats all for now, next week MADWORLD. Can you guess who i'm going to envision ripping apart with chainsaws?

BURN ZOMBIE BURN! for Playstation 3

One of the good games on the Playstation Network has to be Burn Zombie Burn

Not too many people know about this awesome game. It's a simple shooter game that you can play either one player or co-op; however, I recommend co-op. It's pretty hard to do all by yourself. Unfortunately, it's one of those games that you have to do the one player to get new levels and such.


The basic point of the game is just to survive for as long as you can with whatever weapons they dish out. You get bonuses for using a certain weapon for a length of time, and the name derives from the fact the more zombies you have on fire, the higher your score. Each level also has a special "button" that does certain things, like a space ship comes and abducts zombies, a holy light disintegrates them, rain falls from the sky and puts out fire, etc. They also implement a plethora of
different types of zombies to throw you off your game if you're doing a specific type of technique or weapon, so you have to be able to run quickly and adapt yourself. For example, you could be using a chain saw and then all of a sudden exploder zombies pop up that if you get too close OR hit them, they explode in your face. It also has other modes, such as having to save your girlfriend from being eaten by zombies.


This game has been out for almost a year, so if you haven't tried it, it's $9.99 on the Playstation Network and good for those long boring hours you have with friends. So try it out if you haven't, or if you have play it!

Play Station Eye: To Much Motion?

Sony released their idea of what motion control should be at this years E3. In short, it was the same principle as cinematic “Mo Cap” (Motion Capture): a camera tracks balls that give off a special kind of light (usual IR) and then a computer is able to distinguished the movement. Basically the way Sony uses it is that the IR is on the controller and a camera near your TV can pick up movements. With the horsepower of PS3, it is able to track movements very precisely and quickly.

But the problem is do we want that much realism in our games not to mention buying new controllers? The Uncanny Valley is basically how creepy humans think something is when it becomes too life like and it seems that video games are started to head that way. With motion controls and extremely High Definition graphics, I think we’re going to reach the point we’re we are basically playing our lives on screen if we haven’t already. The Wii was definitely a stepping stone towards motion controls but it might have been all we needed. PS3 seems to precise to be practical for gaming and Project NATAL lacks haptic feedback.

Although Sony’s Motion Captures Technology (titled “PS EYE”) was shown off as being able to do some amazing stuff when it comes to shooters, strategy games, and overall realism when it comes to wielding items in hand (e.i. Swords, Whips, Baseball Bats), if this isn’t as real as we can get, it sure is damn close. One major reason the Wii hasn’t been good for shooters is because no one wants to be standing up holding their hands out in front of them pretending its a gun pointed at the TV for hours on end. It’s just strenuous and kind of pointless to be in alone doing it.

On the other hand, Project NATAL showed some interesting new ideas for motion control like the 3-d Break Out. But Are motion controls going to ever hit the hardcore gamer? It seems like the type of games hardcore gamers play are just too complex to insert motion controls with practicality.

GTA: Chinatown Wars coming to a PSP near you!

So Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars is hitting the PSP. GTA: Chinatown Wars came out for the Nintendo DS last year and was well received for it's graphic style, and most importantly it went back to it's predecessors and became a birds eye view game. This isn't the first time a GTA series that has been on a portable, the PSP received two versions which brought you back to Liberty City and Vice City and played much like GTA 3, Vice City and San Andreas. Both of them had full voice acting and a fresh story and did fairly well.

Exciting as it may be for PSP fans, you can't help but wonder how Rockstar and TakeTwo Interactive are going to go about emulating a game that was built from the ground up for the Nintendo DS. GTA: Chinatown Wars used a fair amount of touchscreen interaction and most likely hit the limits of the Nintendo DS. In terms of hardware and disk space, the PSP is far superior to the DS. Is Rockstar/TakeTwo going to just make a direct port and just change the touchscreen parts to button pushing? Or will they make it a “directors cut” and add more content, full voice acting and do some graphical changes? So far Rockstar and TakeTwo have had a great track record when it comes to this generations portables, and it would be a shame if Chinatown Wars isn't as good as it could be. While there is no release date yet, the article does mention that it will be available for the PSP Go as well as regular PSP systems.

Digital Distribution

Digital Distribution is what the future holds. GameStop doesn’t think so though and they are planning to stay around for a while. People at GameStop also believe that once Digital Distribution is an option, that only 25% of their customers will have fast enough internet speeds to consider the option. GameStop doesn’t see what is right in front of them, people have been buying more and more games from the downloadable service like Steam since the turn of the century, and it’s only growing in popularity. More and more companies are putting their games on Steam because of its ease of use and low piracy rates.

I think that Digital Distribution will be the future, but the people to really make that decision is the console makers. Nobody will every download full games made for the Wii because there just isn’t enough storage. I don’t mean Virtual Console games, I mean games that come with a physical case that has a Wii logo on it. Also with the XBOX 360, the average game takes up about 7gb if you include ripping the game to your hard drive and the data. This means with even the highest sold capacity for the XBOX 360, you can only have 17 games on it. For the PS3, the average game disk holds about 17gb of date (Blue Ray disks can hold up to 25gb) and they have a hard drive that is only 120gb which leads at about 7 games. It may seem like a lot, but hardcore gamers have a lot more than 7 or 17 games in disk form.

If Digital Distribution is the future, we need one of two things to happen. One is that consoles need to come with more storage. Computer hard drives these days are extremely cheap and consoles usual use the same kind of the hard drives. What would be cool is if you can swap hard drives in and out as you wanted. Like have an entire hard drive with your shooters on it and another with driving games. The ability to swap hard drives in and out with a loss of content would be a new feature to consoles.

The other thing that needs to happen for Digital Distribution to work is the same thing that Steam has had for years: An online account that keeps of a record of everything you buy. With steam, I can download a game and then delete it and still know that I can download it again without paying for it a second time. What’s even more forward thinking on Steam’s part is that you can’t have the same Steam Account logged in on two different computers at the same time. If you login to you Steam Account, it will logout the other computer if there is on with the same credentials logged in. This makes it tough for people to share a Steam Account. The only problem with copying the Steam model over to consoles is that I can make a backup of Steam games I have installed to CD or DVD. This is a problem for consoles because they can’t burn a disk.

The real question to this whole debate is will Digital Distribution take off for hardcore gamers? We gamers enjoy the feel of a new game, the satisfaction of being able to touch what we own, and to let our friends borrow the game. To me, nothing in the gaming world is better than to be able to touch the case of a game, to know that you own it and that no one can play it without your consent. Although I do like Steam and have close to about 30 (if not more) games from the service, I enjoy looking at my cases and ,especially, have them scattered around the house or in a book case to show off. I think this will be hard for the hardcore gamer to give up, and it might end up being that in the future there is downloadable games for the casual gamer and physically games for the gamer who need reassurance that they own it.

Activision Sticks It to Sony

Earlier today, Activision publicly announced that if Sony doesn’t change their ways, they would not make any new games for the PSP and the PS3. The reasons Activision stated were that:

-Sony makes it too hard to develop for their platforms

-Sony has made no attempt to bring down their prices to make their systems more mainstream

-Sony’s system licenses are too expensive.

This seems like a huge change for those who want to make games for the Sony platforms. If Sony doesn’t comply, it will lead to other companies following suit and only having first party games and very few new third party games on the console. This means that the PS3 will have a very small library and will probably flop. What Sony should do is change all 3 of these things. Making the platforms easier to developer for and licenses cheaper will entice more companies to developer games. Making the system cheaper will give more reason to make the games for the system so that their games spread.

If Sony wants to actually make money on this console cycle, they would be wise to agree to Activision’s demands. They way Activision put it, it seems this will be make or break for Sony.

Review of Tales of Symphonia 2: Dawn of the new world

Let me start this review by saying I was wearing rose colored glasses coming into this game. The first Tales of Symphonia for the GameCube was so spectacular that it currently resides at number two in my all time favorites. But enough of my verbal jacking off of Namco and on to the review.

First of all is the gameplay which is as good if not better than the first. While it is an RPG it certainly does not have that feel. TOS2 has a free range battle system that lets you run around the battlefield slashing at your enemies with various skills that become gradually more powerful as you grow in level. Leveling up seems rewarding because you gain some great abilities (some are more hidden than others) and you can just hump enemies into submission who you once barely lived through. Of course there are different playable characters in battles with their own unique abilities. One drawback is that you aren't really doing too much when you aren't battling, sure there are a few puzzles, but they are more like the ages 5-10 that take 1 minute to complete....and have 3 pieces to them. The monster element was an interesting gimmick, that quite frankly they could have done better, but at least there is reason to level them up as they can get a whole lot stronger than any of the minor characters in the story who are stupidly capped at level 50 so by the second play through they are useless. The Wii controls aren't utilized at all, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, too much of that would have made the combat suck. Despite these setbacks the gameplay is so immersive you will be bumping into enemies all the time to get into the battles.

Next of course will be the story. While others may criticize it, it was really easy for me to get into. I think it was mostly because I had played and loved the first one. Despite the translation problems the characters are really endearing, though they are a bit frustrating because they are flat at times. But most of the time you are so into the story that you will want to keep going through the game to see what happens next. The story is basically a nostalgic trip through the TOS world so as such you eventually meet up with the old characters who help your characters Emil and Marta try to save the world, There are some very good twists that you won't see coming and sure some painfully crappy moments, but overall I think the story is strong.

The graphics....well they look like GameCube graphics. They may be a little tweaked, but they don't really add anything or take anything away from the game. I like to think the graphics fit the game, but I would also like to see SOME sort of improvement. The levels also aren't that masterful, sure but they are fun and add an element of exploration to your quest. That’s about all I’m going to say on that topic

As far as re-playability, there is plenty of it here. I'm sure there are plenty of events and secrets you won't find on the first play through. This game contains a good number of side quests, and even a dungeon that does not appear on the first play through. That’s probably the first time I've seen something like that and it does keep the game from getting stale and smelling like rotting fish. There is also a shop at the end of the game that lets you transfer your data over to a new game to make things easier for all of you pack rats. And then of course there are multiple difficulties for you to test your level of nerdom.

That’s about it for the review, overall it is a good game, and sure it has its flaws but what game now doesn't?

Now excuse me I'm taking a 168 hour break

PUNCH OUT! for the Nintendo Wii

One of the new-age "Nintendo Classics" has hit the Wii, the new 3D version of PUNCH OUT!.


This game has amplified the original classic, to fit the new style of the Wii with the same fighting style of the original Punch Out. Mac still hasn't changed much, and you still have Doc cheering you on. The basic strategies of this game haven't changed at all, however. The same style of boxing techniques used in the first game, still apply to this one. For example, King Hippo still goes down if you hit his sweet spot on his belly.

The game can be played with just a Wii-mote, Wii-mote + Nunchuck, or with the Wii Fit balancing board, and there's different modes so you can either bout in the stars of boxing in three different modes or go head to head with either a computer or another player.

Having owned the game and played it, I can honestly say that it is incredible as far as the difficulty and the controls. The only downside I saw to it was that it is pretty short game play, which isn't much different than the actual Nintendo game. The only way I could see this game lasting long is if you fought other people or played all the modes over and over again. A few good things about the game is that it is mentally challenging the further down the line you go in the Career mode and you do have to watch and play very strategically. There's always some way to take down your opponent; personally, I stopped when I got to "The Sandman", the final bout of the World Circuit. The man hits you four times and you're down for the count.

Speaking of down for the count, the feature in this game to get up, instead of spamming the A and B buttons of the Nintendo controller, is that you have to use the Wii-Mote + Nunchuck to act like you're climbing the ropes. Still have yet to get up before 4 seconds though, no matter how much I do that.

Same typical gameplay, though. You get knocked out too many times, you KO, get knocked out 3 times in one round, TKO, or it is put to the decision. I believe they added a few new characters, because I don't remember some of these guys being in the game, but overall, this game is very fun and very up to date. I'd definitely recommend it to anyone who enjoyed the NES version of the game.

ESRB on iPhone

With all the games coming to the iPhone and no rating system implemented, people wonder how they will be able to tell if it’s suitable for children. As of now, there is no rating system on games in the iTunes App Store. Last week Apple announced that with the new iPhone Software will include a way to put parental settings on games in the App Store but never said how they would determine how the games will be rated.

Well now it appears that the ESRB (Entertainment Software Rating Board) is thinking about getting in on the action. They are most known for rating all video games on consoles and computer sold in the US. Last week Apple announced that the new iPhone 3.0 Software and said that it will have parental controls for games but never said how it happen. Is Apple going to ask the ESRP to rate all iPhone games?

As the article points out, there are just too many apps in the iTunes Store for this to be a speedy process. Also ESRB isn’t free which means that someone will have to pay them and knowing Apple, they will make the developers pay because Apple doesn’t make much money off hosting the apps.

I think there are two ways Apple can avoid this. First is that they say every app that is submitted it reviewed so that it is safe to put on the app store and it doesn’t break any rules that Apple says all apps must follow. This means they hired people to review these apps even though it’s seems extremely arbitrary which gets in and not. Some apps get in and then get removed because someone found out something they can do with it that is NSFW like the e-book reader that was taken down because someone found the Kama Sutra on it while others like Podcatcher was rejected all together because it violated something the Apple didn’t want other people to do but wasn’t made clear at the time. As many people have speculated, it’s like there are four people running the approval process, three of which are lenient and the other is just being straight to the book and not letting anything through.

The other thing I think they can do which is better is have the developer of the app post what they believe is appropriate and if anything suspicious is found, ask the developer to change it or have the app approvers change it. You could also have people on the app store file a complaint about the rating of the app like what they have for podcast (on the side of the podcast page there is a link to report a concern). The ladder option makes more sense because it saves the time to get approved faster and it makes them more conscience of what they are putting in their app.

Arcade

So its safe to say that the US Videogame Arcade market is dead, if not close to it. After games like Hydro Thunder, Dance Dance Revolution and Cruisin' the World I cant seem to name any good arcade game that I would go out of my way to throw 5 bucks into coin machine. In Japan however, things are different, VERY different. Arcades all over Japan strive to the point where they have mini amusement parks in some malls with High-End Arcade machines you would never dream of. They even have carnival rides inside some of these arcades which are also games. As someone who has visited Japan before, I think I can reinforce this point by saying that while in Tokyo I wound up in at least three different Sega Arcades which had some of the coolest arcade machines I have ever seen. (8 player Mario Kart anyone?)

Just recently Kojima Productions (the creators of the Metal Gear games) announced that they were making Metal Gear Online arcade cabinets. What this means is non PS3/Metal Gear Solid 4 owners can have a taste of the MGO experience. It makes me wonder how arcades lost so much popularity in America while in Japan, they don't need to just make a new game, they can also rerelease the online portion of a game and ride the cash cow to the bank. What made arcades in America so “out of touch”? Was it marketing? Was it time? Was it variety? Or was it simply because American arcade machines simply didn't have the same appeal? Ms.Pacman, Donkey Kong, Dance Dance Revolution, and Time Crisis all originated in Japan and took the US by storm, now you don't see many new arcade games that would make you go “WOW!!!” to. It might have been that, here in the US the variety of different types of games were dry. You had your shooter, driving, and simulator....thats about it. Nothing was all that innovative compared to the next. I think that's what caused the decline of American Arcades. It wasn't the people, it was the variety.

Now that American Arcades are dead the chances of revival seem slim. Japan has a bunch of innovative arcade games that you would never imagine being seen in an arcade and these games won't see the light of day State side because the demand is next to none, which is a shame. I kinda wish a company like Sega would take a risk and internationalize their arcades and export some theres arcade games. Face it, if Donkey Kong could revive arcades then I'm sure that there are plenty of games like it that could rekindle the dead flame that is the American Arcade Indusrty.

New XBOX 360?

A rumor going around the web lately is that Microsoft will be releasing a new console, possible an updated XBOX 360, that will be made specifically to work with their anticipated motion gaming device, Project Natal. Project Natal was their motion capture camera that was announced at E3 last week. The way it works is that it uses a camera, plugged into the XBOX 360, put at the base of your TV and recognizes how people move in front of it along with face and audio recognition. It was stated at the Microsoft E3 Conference that Project Natal will work all XBOX 360s.

The problem with this is that if they are making a new console to work with Project Natal and also work with all XBOX 360s, then it probably will not work as efficiently as we want it to because its being made for one specific combination of hardware. If Microsoft wants this to succeed, they should spend their time and money on making Project Natal work on the hardware that is already in circulation.

To put this into perspective, lets talk about the other console’s hardware refreshes. Nintendo has had one version of their Wii and Sony has had two major version, one with backwards compatibility and one without. The XBOX 360 has had about 4-5 major hardware combinations because of all the ones affect by the Red Ring of Death and the later E-74 errors.

With all these iterations of the XBOX 360, it might be wise to make a completely new system specifically for Project Natal that can take advantage of the hardware more efficiently. But Microsoft did announce that the XBOX 360 is less than halfway through it’s life cycle and with announcing Project NATAL, they are stuck between a rock and a hard place. After the announcement that Project NATAL will be available on all XBOX 360, it seems that Microsoft will have to release a refresh to the 360 hardware so that there is at least one system that can have optimal settings for Project Natal.

About The Blog

This is a blog written by college students. We have 4 people that will be regularly posting, 3 of which are pursuing a career in the gaming industry. This blog will display news, game reviews, and editorials based on what we believe about the gaming world and how it affects us. We will try to post at least once a day, including weekends, which adds up to about 7 post a week.

Stay tuned for more content. Thanks