I caught myself just now in a bit of a conundrum, you may ask what that might be and it is that I was excited about playing Too Human for quite some time now, but there has been so much press and fanfare that it is getting to the point of annoying. Too Human first came out to huge acclaim and then people pooped all over it once they got their hands on it. There was talk of the game being too short and not having any replay value. Some have even gone as far to cal it the Haze of the Xbox 360. (Now that is just hurtful)
Denis Dyack also continues to throws his two cents in the mix and now there are countless numbers of reviews for the game and discussion. Too Human for me will be an interesting game and I have chosen to not play the demo and not read any reviews, it is a game that I want to experience for myself. I want to review it for everyone, but I may even refrain from that as well seeing as the reviews out now are all over the place, there is no consensus on the title and now it is just a virtual pissing contest. Read More »
Looks like this guy already got his hands on a MGS4 PS3 bundle, from Walmart of course. I like how he says he feels a bit dirty while unboxing it and that when he saw it he went and looked for the newest associate they had. Great find by this guy, I say play it until your eyes bleed.
Okay, so I recently had the opportunity to get some real hands on time with both versions of Rock Band for the PS3 and Xbox 360 and here is how it breaks out. Both games are for all extensive purposes identical for either system, you can form a band or play solo tours or just rip up some quick play with friends. Each system needs an update to run the game before you even start, the PS3 version requires the latest system update as well in order to communicate with the Rock Band servers and upload your scores. Graphically the two versions are also identical, but lets face facts you aren’t getting Rock Band to look at the visuals, your playing for the music and both versions pack a punch.
As for the peripherals, this is where the two versions differ a bit. The drums and the mic are identical between the two systems, but the Fender Stratocasters are different. The Xbox 360 version has a wired Fender while the PS3 version has a wireless version, now a lot of you like me would probably give the edge off the bat to the wireless version, but I think I prefer the wired. The wireless version requires you to have a small dongle hanging from your PS3 and also requires 3 AA batteries in order to run, the biggest offense on the wireless is that in order to change out the batteries you need to have a screwdriver! What engineer thought this would be a good idea? Read More »
We got to play a little bit of the Pursuit Force sequel at Sony’s Media Day, but got an even better hands on when they sent us a preview build of the game. If you never played the original Pursuit Force on the PSP, I’ll break it down for you. You’re a member of Capital City’s special police force know as, you guessed it, Pursuit Force. The gameplay basically consists of you driving some crazy cars after gang members and shooting while you drive. The sequel, Extreme Justice, ramps up the intensity level in quite a few ways.
The game features five gangs in Capital City that you have to neutralize. You play as five different members of the Pursuit Force team throughout the game to accomplish this. High speed battles take place in cars, trucks, helicopters, hovercrafts, and more with a total of 12 vehicle types being available in the game. The preview code we received had 2 cases (levels), but the final game will feature over 50 cases and 7 environments for you to play.
Buzz Hollywood is the latest in the popular Buzz quiz show series, which drunk pandas, myself, and a Sony PR rep got to play a round of at Sony Media Day. Due to my rain-man like ability to remember useless facts I easily took first place (this is not something I’m particularly proud of…). From what we saw, Buzz Hollywood should wind up being a very fun party game.
The game has over 5000 questions and over 100 clips and pictures to test your movie knowledge. Like previous Buzz games, you can customize your player a bit such as choosing your character, what they’re wearing, your buzzer sound, etc. There were 3 rounds in the game we played, the first being general trivia, where the first person who answers correctly gets the most points, the next fastest answer gets less, and so on. The second round was fastest fingers where you had to put 4 things in order (for example put the movies made by a director in chronological order). In the final round you choose a specific category to answer questions in which can range from a category as specific as “Julia Roberts” to something more general like “Disney”. If the person going before you gets a wrong answer their points will roll over to you if you answer your question correctly.
Don’t mess with Kratos. Its a simple rule that everyone seems to forget, which fortunately for us means another installment in the God of War franchise with the Chains of Olympus. This is the first game of the series set on the PSP and actually takes place before the first God of War game while Kratos is still in service to the gods.
The level we played was a bit further on in the game than the demo released a few weeks ago. In it Kratos is facing some soldiers along with a mini-boss which looked like a giant minotaur. Just like in the previous titles, the regular mobs can be dealt with quickly with a few hits from your blades, and if you choose you can grapple them and do a finishing move that varies depending on the mob. Also you get an all new set of magical attacks to use on your enemies. As for the mini-bosses, after you do enough damage to the minotaur, you can perform the special finishing move on them which requires you to hit the buttons in the order they come up on the screen. In this case you wind up taking the sword away from the minotaur and impaling him through the head with it, and lets be honest…you’d be disappointed if Kratos didn’t right?
Echochrome was one of the downloadable games from the Playstation Newtork that were demoed for us at Sony’s Media Day, and from what I saw it looks to be a very tough, but creative game. The concept is really cool; take a 3-dimensional environment, and using the left and right analog sticks, manipulate your 2-dimensional view of it so that your character can pass through to different checkpoints. How does this work? Lets say for example that there’s a gap in the platform you need to walk across. One way to get across would be to turn the environment so that there is another object blocking your view of the gap. The game is all about perspective - it works based on the Object Locative Environment (OLE) coordinate system - which basically means that if you can’t see it, then it’s not there. If you can’t see the gap in the platform, then your character doesn’t know its there and will walk straight across. This is just one of several interesting mechanics used in the game. This preview has a few more:
We got a chance to sit down and play some Singstar 90s, which is coming in March 2008 for the PS2. The game plays and looks exactly like the previous Singstar titles, which is to say it’s a hell of a lot of fun. What intrigues me the most of the setlist for the game. Holy dookers people. This has to be the best tracks of any Singstar title to date. Here’s a sampling of what you can rock out to in March:
Hold On - Wilson Phillips
Tub Thumping - Chumbawumba
Motown Philly - Boyz II Men
I Wanna Sex You Up - Color Me Bad
More Than Words - Extreme
U Can’t Touch This - MC Hammer
Ice Ice Baby - Vanilla Ice
Unskinny Bop - Poison
Baby Got Back - Sir Mix A Lot
No matter how much I wanted to make Sony’s Alyssa Casella perform a few of these, I resisted the urge to make her sing that early in the morning. Me on the other hand, I’ll be rocking out like a mofo come March. Unskinny Bop for the win.
At Sony’s Media Day in NYC, we also got to play some Hot Shots Golf 5 on PS3. I’ve played the Japanese demo quite a bit, so I had something to go off when playing the US version. I was surprised to see the graphics look even better than the demo. The game runs at 720p at 60fps, which Sony had displayed on a nice Bravia XBR LCD. Just wait until you see the blades of grass on the greens as you watch your putt roll into the cup.
The biggest change to the game is a new shot mechanic. The old tried and true method of three clicks on the shot meter at the bottom of the screen is still available. But now you have the ability to set your power and accuracy by watching the swing. You still use three clicks, but instead of the shot meter at the bottom, you control your power by how far you let your backswing go. To set the accuracy, you hit X when you get come down to make contact with the ball. It takes a bit to get used to, but once you do, it’s a lot more fun than the old method. You can to watch your character more while swinging, which is always a plus. Along with the new shot meter, there are a few new camera angles you can choose from while swinging. This can make it easier to see in some cases when making your swing. The only downside is you can’t change your swing style from new to classic (or vice versa) during your round.
One of the last games we checked out at Sony’s Media Day was Gran Turismo 5 Prologue. Running at 1080p at 60fps, the game is absolutely stunning. From the car models to the tracks to the background environments, every aspect of the game looks utterly amazing. The game is set to be released in Spring 2008 on both Blu-Ray disc and as a download from the PlayStation Store. No pricing has been set for North America just yet.
When the game ships, it will include approximately 70 cars and 5 reversible tracks, including Daytona. Like all Gran Turismo games, you’ll have to progress through the races to unlock most of the cars. There won’t be any license tests in Prologue, but will make it into GT5 when the full game is released. There will be more car tuning than what’s found in Gran Turismo HD, but nowhere near the amount you’ll find in the full GT5. There will be no damage modeling in Prologue, as Polyphony Digital didn’t have enough time to dedicate to making it work perfectly.
We're like Spaceballs... we're making Loot Ninja everything. Coming soon we'll have hats, shirts, hoodies, possibly banana hammocks if one Editor has his way...
Check out the shirt prototypes here and the hats here
Okay, so I recently had the opportunity to get some real hands on time with both versions of Rock Band for the PS3 and Xbox 360 and here is how it breaks out. Both games are for all extensive purposes identical for either system, you can form a band or play solo tours or just rip up some quick play with friends. Each system needs an update to run the game before you even start, the PS3 version requires the latest system update as well in order to communicate with the Rock Band servers and upload your scores. Graphically the two versions are also identical, but lets face facts you aren’t getting Rock Band to look at the visuals, your playing for the music and both versions pack a punch.
