The Recycle Bin

Sony has announced that they are offering free WKC:I quests, plus those crazy kids are running a sweepstakes, which offers up some serious looking action figure.

Beginning this Thursday, March 11th, we’ll be offering up additional quests for free every week through the end of June! You read right, free. Just log into the PlayStation Network, start up your copy of White Knight Chronicles and you’ll see new quests pop up on the World Map. Each week we’ll be releasing a new permanent quest, as well as limited quests that will only be available for two weeks at a time.

I am nowhere near enough (currently GR2) to be able to enjoy any of these quests. Not sure if this is poking me in the eye, incentive for me to drop what I am doing and get on with the game, or a little of both. I really appreciate Sony’s support of WKC:I with the addition of free DLC quests.

WKC:I has not received critical acclaim, and it is sure to be lost in the shadow of several other soon to be major hits (cough … FFXIII, cough GOW:III … cough). WKC:I has fan favorite, cult classic written all over it. I hope Sony continues to support the game for a long time to come, because I know I will be lagging behind everyone else in terms of gameplay time and guild rankings.

In case you missed it, assuming you are interested in the first place, the Deal of the Day features Star Trek Online. The Standard Edition can be grabbed for $27.99, while the Collector’s Edition is available for the bargain basement price of $47.99.

If my laptop was a decent gaming rig, with a video game worthy graphics card, I would give Star Trek a whirl, but as it is, things were WoW was a frame rate mess, so I think I am going to have to pass.

Really need to upgrade my PC one of these days, so I can pick up these types of deals, and of course to give iRacing a go.

Not sure WTF I am doing up at 1:30AM to write that this apparently mediocre (by Final Fantasy standards) game shipped.

Amazon is also giving me a $10 credit towards a future game with my order. I am becoming so far backlogged that I am not sure when I will actually look at this game, much less when to consider my next purchase at a $10 discount. For those keeping score at home, I have not finished a Final Fantasy game since FFVII, so this does not look very promising.

BTW, the PS3 version is current tracking at 82% (36 reviews) to 84% (17 reviews) on the 360. Go figure.

I did not get nearly enough time with MLB 10: The Show (MLB10) over the weekend. There was just too much other stuff to do and catch up on after being out of the country for a week. Besides, the weather was spectacular and it was opening weekend for youth soccer, so we spent as much time outside as possible.

I did get to activate my code of the six classic stadiums. I guess this was a nice enough extra from the folks at Amazon, but it was not as if I grew up watching baseball at the Polo Grounds. Of course these stadiums are better than the cement circles that were popular when I was growing up – Fulton County, I call you out. Still; gift horse, so I will not complain.

My first thoughts are that MLB10 has an overwhelming assortment of options. With my thirty minute gaming sessions, it will take me a while to figure which options best suit my style of play.

MLB10 looks like it has superb presentation; the game looks real, the announcers seem to do a good job, and the game appears to have all the other intangibles that go into making an immersive baseball experience. One of the things I noticed right off was the ability to speed up the time it takes in-between pitches. When I actually spent a lot of time playing console baseball games, my favorite experiences where those that I could actually wrap up in 30 minutes; 45 minutes tops. I am not sure if a quick game is possible with MLB10, but any options to speed up the game are always appreciated. I almost feel guilty for attempting to bypass some of the wiz-bang side effects that the development team put into the game to make it appear as a realistic baseball experience.

I played a couple of three inning games; both times as the Braves. I lost 1-0 to Seattle and 2-0 to the Dodgers. I managed a single hit. I suck.

Thankfully there is a practice mode, so I can get some much needed practice in the batting catch. I am not sure if I should keep at it on the default batting Veteran level, move down to Rookie, or maybe change from the Catcher view. I will have to experiment and see if I improve; cannot stand seeing a .105 average. Ouch.

I am sure more impressions will be forthcoming throughout the week. I am cautiously optimistic because I actually have a console baseball that I want to play. It has been a while.

It has been a while since I went hells blazing, stuffs to the wall crazy, so I figured it was time …

There And Back Again
I spent last week in Calgary, which explains why the site experienced a severe slowdown. Thursday and Friday marked the first time in over 150+ days (8 months) that I did not post something. That was a hell of a run; I suppose it had to end sooner or later.

Flying sucks. Everything stinks about flying from the airport parking experience, to get a boarding-pass, to security, to sitting next to overweight folks that have no business buying a single seat. It all makes for a crap experience. For this trip I had to go from Atlanta to Salt Lake City to Calgary, and returned via Minneapolis/St. Paul to Atlanta. Four different airplanes; 2000 sky miles. Glad to be home.

Now Drinking
I am sort of a homebody; I am not much for traveling unless it is with my wife. With three kids, that is just not something that occurs frequently these days. When I do travel, it is almost exclusively for work. If I had to pick a favorite part about traveling, it would have to be having the opportunity to sample different local beers. While I was in Calgary, I was able to enjoy 4-5 different beers, my favorite of which of Big Rock Honey Brown Lager. The Big Rock Black Amber Ale was a very close second.

New on Blu
While I was out of town, two new Blu-rays arrived – Never Ending Story and Clash of the Titans. Unfortunately it looks like both movies received absolutely nothing in the way of extras, which is extremely disappointing. We watched Never Ending Story for family night tonight. My youngest son was really into it, although he did not know what was going on except there was a really bad wolf. My oldest was pretty much soured on the whole “making him watch another stupid movie” routine. Thankfully my middle boy decided the movie was pretty good, even if he tried to play it off as a ho-hum experience.

Gaming Backlog
MLB 10: The Show arrived earlier in the week, but I have not had a chance to crack it open yet. I have not even come close to finishing Heavy Rain, and of course WKC:I is also uncompleted. FFXIII arrives next week, so I better get going. Or get eBay’ing.

I should have plenty of comments on these games over the next few days. Something video gaming related to make you stand up and clap your hands. Sorry; I think you get the point.

While I was in Canada, all hell broke loose in PS3 land. I guess I should be thankful for small favors. Non event for me, but from the best I can tell, there are some seriously pissed folks out there. Time heals all wounds? This too will pass.

Chrony In Action
Today was truly a blessed day; 60 or so degrees. Sunny, blue skies. I was finally able to get my Chrony setup for a few rounds from the Beeman R1 .22 Long and my Beeman R7. The good news is that I was able to get the shots to register. This was a huge improvement over my first experience, which was a non starter. I still do not know what I am doing, but it looks like my R1 is blazing at around 713.85 FPS while the R7 was cracking at 574.75 FPS. As the weather turns nicer, there will be a whole lot more of this for your airgun reading pleasure. I just hope the weather holds so I can break out the Chrony again and see how the Marauder fares.

Bring on Sunday!

I am far, far away from my home, so hopefully my wife will make sure MLB 10: The Show (MLB10) does not sit neglected on the porch too long.

It has been a couple of years since I embraced a console baseball title; I want it back – MLB10 will pave the way. MLB 10 looks to do everything right. From online leagues, to a more realistic gaming experience, MLB10 looks to set the stage for the greatest game of console baseball ever produced.

Sony’s boys and girls in San Diego have been incredibly busy this year, refining the game, and making little adjustments that put the game into a whole different ballpark from what we have experienced with past titles. This 30 minute gamer [I need to TM this quickly] will appreciate the warm up features.

Among other options to note, we brought back the classic L1/R1 baserunning controls for you old-schoolers. The RTTS Baserunning option will default to New, but if you prefer the single button press style controls, be sure to change it to Classic. We’ve also added in the ability to take pregame batting practice when you’re in the starting lineup for that game. You can step into the cage and take ten swings to help get your timing down before game-time. You won’t receive any training points or attribute improvements, but this will definitely help get you into a nice rhythm. To ensure you participate in batting practice, set the Pre-Game Batting Practice option to On. Lastly, we’ve added a new Mound Warm-Up feature that will give relievers a chance to throw eight warm-up pitches on the mound, after coming out of the bullpen. Just like pregame batting practice, you won’t receive any training points for this, but it does give you the chance to get a good rhythm before facing live hitters.

Hopefully the statistics engine will be spot on. While I have OOTP for statistical simulations, it would be pretty damn impressive if MLB10 could satisfy my twitch urge, and keep the stat-head in my happy.

Cannot wait until I get to get my hands on this puppy!

As mentioned earlier, today is travel day. I cannot think of the last time I turned on my PSP, so if it does not get much use on this trip, it is high time to ditch the little brick. There is not a direct flight from Atlanta to Calgary, so I am going west (Salt Lake City) before heading north to the frozen lands of Canada. With a combined 6+ hrs in the air plus a layover, you would think that the PSP would be the perfect way to pass the day. There is also the return adventure on Friday; some PSP gaming must be in order, right?

I charged up both batteries, which in my opinion is the primary weakness of the PSP – the battery life basically sucks. I have a handful of UMDs at my disposal – Lumines, Final Fantasy Tactics, two different Pinball Hall of Fame collections, Star Wars Battlefront: Renegade Squadron, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories, Loco Roco, Untold Legends, Pangya, and Wipeout Pure.

Taking 7-10 UMDs with me makes me think about the appeal of a PSPgo with a digital library. Not too much; just a passing thought as I write this article. To be honest I am just not that excited about my current library of PSP games. Hopefully something will float my boat and make the trip pass a little quicker.

Pretty good article from GamesThirst (via N4G) on how the various Sony in-house studios are pushing each other for graphical and gameplay supremacy.

It all started in earnest with Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune. No one paid attention back then, the game did not receive the praise to so badly needed but deserved. It was, and still is one of the best looking games on any console. After it, the flood gates were opened, and while lazy devs complained about the PS3’s built, Insomniac Games, Naughty Dog, Santa Monica, Kojima Productions, Guerrilla Games, Quantic Dream and Zipper Interactive were all working their hearts off to drop bombshells on the gaming industry. Guess what? It’s exactly what they did.

Technical Quantic Dream may not be a first party studio, PS3 fans have to assume Sony will do everything they can to lock up future IP from the developers of Heavy Rain. Sony may not have the numbers yet, but I like their strategy of getting out original IP experiences.

I am only a few chapters into the Heavy Rain experience, but I wanted to offer a quick comment or two. The opening stages/chapters are slow going, but they are necessary to introduce you to the backdrop story and of course the awkward controls. Yes, I still find the controls cumbersome, and they take away from the immersion factor. The quick time events are interesting, and add to the intensity; I just hate holding down the R2 button to walk. Seems so 1996 Resident Evil-ish.

IGN (UK) recently posted an article a couple of days ago offering various opinions from their contributors; spoiler free and worth a read. I thought this opinion summed up my experiences so far in the early stages of the game.

Heavy Rain is so well-put-together and finely produced that it’s guaranteed to suck in even the most skeptical PS3 owners right off the bat. It’s an adventure game at heart — there’s no doubt about that — but don’t let that turn you off. While the adventure genre has been effectively dead on consoles for a very, very long time, Heavy Rain puts a new spin on things. This is no point-and-click, read-read-read bore-fest. Heavy Rain exemplifies what adventure gaming should be in 2010.

It is worth noting that the Heavy Rain metacritic user scores (6.6 based on 566 votes) are significantly lower than the critic ratings (88 reviews). Heavy Rain is definitely not for everyone. A rental may be in order for some; so for this jaded gamer is enjoying the experience.

For those of you that like this sort of thing, Sony made an alternate Heavy Rain cover available for your downloading and printing pleasure. I think this is based off of the UK release.

I am not sure what it says about me that I am posting this link; I can say that I have never been “hard core” enough to replace a game cover with something I could print off the internet. These days I am thankful for small blessings!

It looks like the kids at Sony have figured a way to eke more ram out of the PS3. According joystiq, PS3 developers now have access to 70MB more RAM.

While 70MB of additional memory is not insignificant, don’t expect drastic changes to future PS3 games. A PS3 developer told us that “any bit of RAM helps. Generally it probably won’t change design, but might allow extra effects resolution or dynamic lights or something. Probably more beneficial from the systems and art side then from design/gameplay.” In tandem with increasingly efficient code, the added RAM will undoubtedly make for even better looking games.

Better looking graphics should scare the piss out of ESRB reviewers near and far.

Last night I put the Heavy Rain Blu-ray into the PS3 and was immediately greeted with a “must install 1.01 version” message. So of course I did the needful.

When I was playing the game I noticed that the character dialog was choppy (call it audio skipping), which brings me to this article by the examiner; apparently the patch causes some gamers some serious issues.

Among the complaints, many are complaining about game crashes, audio skipping, save/loading problems, and some characters getting caught in furniture. Not all are complaining about the game, though. For many, the game is running fine after the patch and they are enjoying the experience the game offers. Whether the problems are widespread or just a minor problem for some can’t be determined, yet. Since the game isn’t an online title, you don’t need to get the patch to play the game, but you will have to deny the patch every time you play the game.

I guess we will see a 1.02 patch fairly quickly; hopefully. If the audio skipping continues tonight, I guess I can play with closed caption turned on, but I may as well wait to progress the game. For a game that is story driven, this type of glitz is a hell of note, exemplifying poor quality control.

I only played the initial opening chapters, which to be honest, were really just not my cup of tea. I understand that farting around in the house for a little while introduces you to the characters, background story, and gaming mechanics. My initial impressions were certainly not favorable; I would have rather spent my time playing something else.

To be fair, I only played an hour or so; when I progress into the meat and potatoes of the game things may be a lot more interesting. At this point I just cannot bring myself to accept that I am going to spend the next 8-12 hours with Heavy Rain holding down the R2 button to move around. To me it just breaks every aspect of being immersed into the game.

It is really difficult to post comments about Heavy Rain without talking about the story, which in effect would be to give out spoilers. As I move on with future Heavy Rain posts, I will attempt to avoid spoiling surprises for those of you that have not played the game yet, of I will make sure there are “spoiler alerts” to warn you before continuing on with the article.

It sucks being up at four o’clock in the morning, but I did get some cheerful news – Amazon has shipped Heavy Rain. It should be landing on my doorsteps later day. I hope to get a crack at it later tonight, but it will be like my WKC:I experience – gaming one hour at a time.

Another day (technically from Sunday), gives us another silly ESRB story. This time joystiq references Tecmo Bowl Throwback for the PSN and XBLive.

This is a top-down arcade-style football game in which players compete against teams around the country to become the “Tecmo Bowl Champion.” Some of the football highlights are depicted in animated cutscenes (with better graphics); a few non-football highlights depict cheerleaders wearing low-cut tops while dancing. And a jumbotron screen displays a 2D swimsuit model with some exposed cleavage.

It may be too soon to be 100% certain, but it looks like the game will not feature any NFL players – thanks for that exclusive license NFL & EA.

I noticed this article earlier this morning via N4G. Apparently Sony is up to something, but what?

Sand Dollar’s filing today is for the CECH-2101A ‘Computer Entertainment System.’ Label pics for the device (above) confirm that this is indeed the Sony PS3, while label placement pics (below, left) show a device that is the same size and shape as the PS3 Slim. Another device, called the CECH-2101B is also identified in Sand Dollar’s filing. The only difference between these two devices is the hard drive size.

We’re not sure why Sony is passing two new PS3 Slims through the FCC. The wireless specs on the new PS3 Slims include 802.11 b/g and Bluetooth – nothing new there. We’re guessing that maybe Sony found a new manufacturer for some of its wireless components, and was forced to pass the PS3 Slim through the FCC again.

This could be as simple as Sony offering new bundles, or maybe Sony is offering a yummier Slim – bringing back some of the previously removed features such as backwards capability and additional USB slots. My guess is either cheaper internals or game bundles; however it seems too soon to already be changing the innards, so let’s go with new bundles for this fall (or whenever the motion controller thing is due for release). I’ll speculate that one of the Slims will include the new motion controller and the other one will have a motion controller plus a game.