Category: Games

Ordered

I’ve caved in and ordered a PSP through ebay. Ridge Racer and Wipeout Pure too. Hopefully delivered next week. This is a device that could replace the iPod as my favourite gadget – it certainly has the potential. I cannot wait for Wipeout – when the PS1 and Saturn were jostling for best new console (95/96) this was the game that showed what next gen really meant – great graphics, amazing style and Chemicals Brothers all in a game which was difficult but once mastered impossible to put down – hopefully pure will be the same.

Danger – Eyetoy

The Eyetoy has been out for the PS2 for a couple of years now – I never had any intention of buying one but those nice chaps at Sony sent me one along with Eyetoy chat for doing a questionnaire as part of the ongoing beta trials. I managed to ‘acquire’ a copy of Play 2 and gave it a whirl yesterday. Never have I felt like such a fool as I did when playing these games.

Firstly you need to wave at the OK and Cancel buttons. Quite why I’ve no idea but there you go – already I had an idea that a few beers before trying this would have helped. First game I tried was Table Tennis. Nice enough but the opponent got in the way of the ball and it was all quite awkward. Next was Goal Attack – save penalties from the comfort of your lounge. Or not – pretty poor game. Onto Kung Fu – damn – while the lighting was fine for the other games I wasn’t distinct enough against my magnolia walls. Final game was Boxing. This started off well – swing your fists and try and knock out your opponent. Good way to vent some frustration….need to swing a bit harder. Ouch.

I managed to smack myself in the jaw. Surely not what was intended. At that point the PS2 was switched off and the Eyetoy packed away until the next games night. Now – can I sue Sony for the injures I sustained – there’s certainly no warning on the packaging. Mmmmm.

 

GTR

gtr
As many folk know I do like my racing games. Xbox Live has seen many great racing games. Moto GP 1 & 2, Project Gotham Racing 2 and Race Driver 2. All were class games and had various strengths. However the driving model in each, although attempting to be sim, veered more to arcade so to keep the games as approachable as possible.

GTR is an entirely different beast.

Continue reading “GTR”

GT4

gt4
The much delayed GT4 was launched in the UK last week. I had no intention of picking this up – GT3 was a stale game that offered little over the previous titles that appeared on the PS1. The online section of the game had also been dropped – it is alleged that this will come out at some point but I doubt it.

However after playing Graham’s copy on Wednesday night I made my purchase…for the princely sum of 99p. Game are doing a bit of a bargain – trade in any 4 games (except for football and wrestling games) and you can pick up GT4 for 99p.

Onto the game – graphics are very impressive for a PS2 although the ‘edgy’ look is due to the lack of anti-aliasing. It’s down to preferences but I prefer the look of the Xbox racers. The options within the game are vast. You can get straight into some action via the arcade options but it’s the license tests and tune ups that most people will want to play. Here the game is massive with lots of car choices and potential upgrading. For me however this is the most flawed part of the game. It’s too easy to tune up your car and win races simply because your car out performs your rivals. To encourage the tuning aspect the handling and performance of the cars seem to be reduced so that you *have* to tune up whether you like it or not. The license tests can also get a bit dry. Handling is also more difficult with the PS2 pad – the lack of triggers forces you to use the right thumb stick for acceleration and braking – not the best. I’ve played GT4:Prologue with a steering wheel and if you have the room and the ability to set it up there really is no rival on any console.

Track selection is much improved over the previous games in the series. Highlight for me has been the inclusion of the Nurburgring (all 20.8km). This looks stunning – much narrower and twisty than the PGR2 version and with better textures than the Xbox game. Overall a worthwhile purchase for 99p – not convinced I would pay full price for it though.

 

WoW

I vowed never to buy an online game that a) charged per month, b) involved Orcs and Elves, c) made me worry about levelling up and the skills that I learn and d) consumed more of my time than is already spent on Xbox Live

But I gave in and bought World of Warcraft. Quite simply the most enjoyable online game, if not most enjoyable game I have ever played. Graphics and sound are good if not ground breaking. Half Life 2 put paid to that. What’s astounds is the sheer scale of the gaming world that is available to you and it’s non-linearity. The community aspect is second to none. Although the game doesn’t come with voice support Yahoo messenger with a headset soon gives you the ability to talk with your fellow players. There’s just so much to this game – different races and classes, so many occupations and skills available, an in game e-mail system as well as auction houses and some astounding set piece moments and this is a game I’ve only scratched the surface with. Recommended although only if you’ve got the time to spend on it. The WordPress upgrade will have to wait.

Edge-Online

My favourite games mag, Edge, has always had a really bad website. It’s redeeming feature was an active and sometimes intelligent forum but that fell by the wayside more than a year ago. After a period of inactivity Edge-Online has been updated and is now supplying daily’ish updates. It’s also powered by Movable Type so could be called a blog….kind off. Just need those forums back now.

Pro Evo Patch

It’s finally came out and it’s what you could call a mixed bag. Firstly, quitters are automatically awarded a loss. Yay! Second, it’s attempted to fix the lag issues. I say attempted as for me it seems to work well but I’m sure those with 128k uploads will still be laggy for any connecting clients. Thirdly, you can now cancel the goal animations directly after you score. Fourthly, that’s it!

Which is disappointing as it’s taken 2 months to produce. You still can’t cancel replays of offsides and near misses, you still can’t have manual player select, you still can’t swap L1/L2 and the ranking is still the same dumbass who’s won most type that isn’t the most reflective of who is best at the game. Rankings however have been reset – how annoyed the quitters and those that had played thousands of games to get to the top must be. Shame 🙂

However this is likely to be the one and only patch for PES 4. Roll on PES 5.

Cheats never prosper

Bungie (and I guess Microsoft) have finally acted with regards cheaters on the Xbox Live service by banning thousands of users who cheated in Halo 2. I say finally…Microsoft have acted before when people tried to access the Live network with hacked copies of games (PGR2 where the hacked cars were faster than the standard cars) but there has never been a real cull of people using Xbox Live. Until now.

The banning seems to have been due to two reasons – cheating in games and cursing including racial taunting. The cheating has really affected Halo 2. Using modems with stand by buttons players were able to host the game and then stop the upload to any clients connected while they ran around the map getting flags, dropping bombs etc. Happened increasingly frequently but thankfully the banning should curb it’s use. The second type is all to common, especially form Americans. Every second game usually has an American running his mouth off. To report this you can use the feedback service i.e. user x was cheating, user x was swearing but I guess it takes a fair number of reports before a ban, temporary or permanent is introduced. More info on the banning can be found in the weekly Bungie update.

This is great news. Xbox Live was better than multi player on the pc as the amount of patches and cheats in use in the pc land meant gaming never felt fair. Xbox Live brought that feeling back. I’m off to play some Halo.

PSP – First Hands On

Play-Asia won a PSP in an auction in Japan and has provided some of the first hand on impressions, pictures and videos. While I still worry about battery life (2-6 hours depending on task and whether you follow……the law) it looks good, will hopefully play good and unlike Apple gear will hopefully not cost the earth when released here. Roll on March.