The Recycle Bin

Sony’s New Slims?

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.

OOTP 11 – Preorder Special

I decided to preorder Out of the Park Baseball 11 (OOTP 11) while it was $15 off. Getting OOTP 11 for $24.99 is actually $5 cheaper than I paid for OOTP 10 back in November!

It has been my experience that OOTP typically goes on sale for $10 off throughout the year, and maybe drops to $15 off at some point towards the end of the year (or at some point before the next version is released). I am not sure if I have seen the upcoming version this cheap. While I am really just getting into OOTP 10, having recently joined an online league for the first time in ages, I just decided that I could not leave well enough alone. I guess the addiction is back in earnest!

There were several items in the preorder announcement that caught my attention.

A Player Comparison screen, in which you can compare two players side-by-side

I know this is not much of a “feature” however it is about gosh darn time this is included. I guess by this point in the franchise the developers should concentrate on refinements.

More customizable news subscriptions, so you can get just the news you want in your inbox

Another one in the category of small nuances; I hate having to shift thorough all those messages and news items.

A handy comparison tab, where you can compare your simulated results with the actual real-world results from that season

This should be a fun way to see how bad I muck up Braves seasons!

Truth be told, I could have been perfectly content with OOTP 10, but OOTP 11 should be worth the money, especially considering I am getting it at a near bargain basement price.

Waiting for Heavy Rain

The Heavy Rain hype has reached a crescendo, and the reviews are plenty positive. Now it is just a matter of waiting for Tuesday, and of course waiting for the kids to go to bed. There’s no way I can play this one with the kids watching!

Heavy Rain was really an impulse purchase. While I had read the various comments about the game over the last 12-18 months, I was not really interested. The lack of interest may have been due to my gaming doldrums, but I think it was more a matter of being completely disconnected from the content of the story. It just did not look like a day one purchase.

As Heavy Rain neared (or I should say nears) release day, the articles started to sound increasing interesting. Timing could be everything; my gaming melancholy came to a close about the same time Sony lifted the review embargo. I preordered the game, and played the demo.

I am looking forward to this game just because it is so different; new experiences matter, which is very much in line with my contrarian gaming view. This article from TheSixthAxis sums up why I am interested in Heavy Rain.

Is it because it’s so different, perhaps? It’s true, there’s nothing out there like Heavy Rain and, given the development time (and presumed budged) there won’t be another for some time, but is it really as powerful an experience as the hype over the last couple of years would have you believe? Maybe, but that’s not important.

What is important is the direction David Cage attempted to take console gaming. He may have stumbled with the plot (and clearly had some issues with controls) but Heavy Rain is, for its sins, a tale worth telling. It’s sometimes smart, occasionally sophisticated and frequently adult, unlike 99% of games out there.

I should be playing Heavy Rain 40 or so hours. Needless to say, I am excited, dare I say enthusiastic. In fact I cannot remember the last time I actually counted down the time to getting a game. Hopefully Heavy Rain does not disappoint.

Sunday Stuffs

The weather this weekend has been absolutely wonderful – upper 60s and blue skies on Saturday and Sunday. We spent most of our free time outdoors – throwing footballs, practicing soccer, riding bikes, going on long walks, and cleaning up the year. You get the picture. It would have been a perfect weekend for shooting the airguns – the R1, R1 Carbine, R7, and the Marauder – however I never had the chance. Not that I am complaining that there were always kids in my shooting range; maybe next weekend.

Auto Club 500 Fontana
I am watching the closing stages of the race [50 laps left] as I write this entry; rain looms. I only watched the opening laps and this last part of the race. As mentioned above, the weather is too nice to stay inside. Fontana has never been one of my favorite tracks; just wish some of my drivers (Gordon, JPM, Junior, Smoke) where closer to the front. On the occasional look-ins, Gordon has been up front some, but it looks like he has a wounded engine.

Gaming Update
Are you kidding? With this weather? When I was not working on the site upgrade Friday and Saturday night, I was not in front of the TV. I did get in a couple of hours of White Knight Chronicles: International, which I continue to find a lot of fun. From a mechanics point of view, it is actually more interesting as you gain more skill points and build combinations.

Heavy Rain is coming on Tuesday (Feb. 23), followed by MLB 10: The Show (Mar. 2), and Final Fantasy XIII (Mar. 9). Needless to say, I have no idea how I will get in all these games, but I am going to try.

I am considering eBay’ing Madden 10 because I have not played it in a week, football season is over, and I would like to capitalize on something to put towards Madden 11. This is always a challenge – trying to hit the perfect moment to still get something for the game before the upcoming version makes the current version worthless. I am not sure if I am ready to throw Madden 10 away; it’s the best Madden in years and Madden Ultimate Team is a lot of fun. However I have not played it in two weeks, and with a slew of incoming games, my Madden opportunities are probably slim.

I’m actually having the same debate with FIFA 10. Unlike Madden, I have not gotten my money’s worth out of FIFA. The World Cup version will be here in April. I need to do some research to see what sort of gameplay upgrades the new version would offer over FIFA 10. Decisions, decisions, decisions.

More Site Stuffs – Green is Back!
I know I am biased; I love the new theme. I think it is the perfect complement to the original Calvert Games brand, without being overly done. It has taken a long time [calendar and actual weekend work] to get it back to this point. I think it was worth the effort.

As I mentioned yesterday, I still have some maintenance I need to do before I put a ribbon on this puppy and call it clean. I continued to polish the site today, and I have a few other items I would like to touch-up this week. I would also like to add in a few more plugins and widgets; nothing too over the top … just enough to make the site a more dynamic experience.

Maintenance Weekend – New Theme

I have been playing around with a lot of different WordPress themes the last 12 or so hours, and finally found one that I think will stick. It is different than the old 3 column layout, but I think it is nice and crisp. The design is fairly simple and easy to modify. I think I will stick with this one for a while, and continue making it Calvert Games branded.

For those that are interested, I will post a change log at the end of the upgrade.

*****
Update 1 [afternoon]: I am continuing to play around with themes and colors; I think this one will work.

Update 2 [night] Change Log …

Upgraded from WordPress 2.2 to 2.9.2
Added new theme – Arjuna X – with color modification to give the site a Calvert Games flavor
Introduced new “AddToAny: Share/Bookmark/Email Button” plugin for those of you that enjoy social networking. Earlier in the day I had a Google Buzz plugin, but for now it has been removed.
Added Google XML Site Map plugin (to allow for better search engine indexing)

There is still some work in front of me. WordPress 2.9.2 includes Tags; I need to see how to best utilize them with all the previous historical content.

I also would like to re-introduce GoogleAds. I am going to research some additional widgets/plugins to make for a more dynamic site. The site still needs more Calvert Games branding, but I am happy with the initial results.

Maintenance Weekend – Initial Upgrade Complete

Yea me! I just upgraded from Word Press 2.2 to 2.9, which is a pretty substantial upgrade to [knock on wood] not experience any issues with the upgrade process.

For those of you that are interested, I followed these fairly simple upgrade instructions. Of course, like a good company man, I did a backup, made sure I had my shell access working, and then started the ftp for the updated files.

I have only done initial tests, but everything seems to be working correctly, included the current theme. I figured that puppy was going to die a painful upgrade death.

It looks like a couple of my plugins may not be working, but no worries, as I was planning to add some new ones anyway.

You may see some more wackiness and the like as I continue some improvements over the weekend, but the major stuff is out of the way. Happy days!

Maintenance Weekend – Featuring Sporadic 404s, Outages, and Other Nonsense

I plan to perform some much needed site maintenance over the weekend. Hopefully most of this will be transparent to the masses. Starting tonight you may see some error messages, strange behavior, and otherwise stuff that may make you scratch your head.

You need not worry. While maintenance on this site has long been neglected, I am in the opening throes of moving from the Recycle Bin (call in CG 3.0) back into the realm of Calvert Games. Yes, CG 3.5 is calling. Maybe.

And all the choir girls said hell yes…

PS3 Becoming the Sex Console

In the latest sex article to grace a PS3 site, PlayStation LifeStyle details the God of War III “mini sex” game via the ESRB write-up of what is in store for overzealous sex starved gamers.

The game contains a sex mini-game. Players will encounter a goddess and her two hand maidens, all topless, all holding and caressing each other. If players wish to, they may join the goddess (and only the goddess) in bed. Actual sex is never depicted as the camera drifts, then fixes on the two maidens, who watch from a distance. As players respond to the on-screen prompts with button presses, the topless maidens will continue to watch, and sometimes caress. Moaning sounds from the bed can be heard throughout the sequence.

Good times. I guess I am going to have to pre-order now. Probably.

The 360 Beat Down Continues

Another day gives us more flaming articles on how the 360 version of Final Fantasy XIII does not feature all the graphical goodness of the PS3. The funny thing about these “FFXIII 360 is not HD” articles is that they all shoot up the N4G charts even though they basically say the same thing.

I guess all the 360 owners are busy playing their exclusive games and third-party multiplatform titles that dare I say for the most part feature better graphical ports than their PS3 counter parts. Meanwhile the PS3 gamers are actively in defense of their wunderkind, posting articles near and wide about how the 360 version of FFXIII features inferior graphics. Don’t tell me to look in a mirror; I’m just making an attempt at providing entertaining op-eds for your reading pleasure at o’dark-thirty in the morning!

Of course from the best I can tell none of the mainstream mega web sites are actually releasing reviews for the 360 version; Square Enix may have some sort of embargo at play. A couple of screens do not make or break a game, but tell that to all these folks following the madness [raises hand]. Following my typical contrarian view, if I had a 360 I would buy that version to help rain on the PS3 parade. No; I probably wouldn’t – not if all things being equal the PS3 features better graphics on a single Blu-ray.

Capcom – 360 Content Removal
In more anti-360 news, Sankaku Complex [Warning: Very Much Not Safe for Work] posted an article about Capcom cutting content from its latest 360 title.

Capcom has publically lamented having to cut large amounts of content from Lost Planet 2 in order to fit it onto the Xbox 360’s piddling DVD capacity without the game turning into a swapfest, but promises users will be able to buy everything they cut as DLC.

Speaking with rag Famitsu about the production of Lost Planet 2, now in the fine-tuning stages, producer Jun Takeuchi complains of the constraints imposed by Microsoft’s refusal to employ Blu-ray; in previous interviews he made much the same comments about Resident Evil 5, saying he would like to see a “complete” version on the PS3…

While this may trouble the developer, and to some extent the gamers that think they are getting screwed, I am sure that Microsoft and Capcom [wearing the publisher hat] very much appreciate all the DLC they can muster from any title released, regardless of platform. Any revenue earned post game sale is a major asset to the bottom-line.

Reading between the lines, as games get increasingly larger, more and more content may have to get removed. This may not be a problem for 360 exclusives, but any multiplatform release may be perceived as better on the PS3 if the Blu-ray release features more gaming elements that matter – i.e. levels, missions, extra boats, airplanes, trains, and Legos. It is a travesty if the rumors about content removal from FFXIII prove true – the PS3 could have had more stuff [just what TBD], but it was removed in the name of multiplatform parity.

This speculation on my part will largely depend on how long this console generation lasts; with a piss poor economy I doubt we will see any new hardware in the next 18 months. Regardless of PS3 capacity advantages [thanks to Blu-ray] publishers near and far are increasingly going in the premium DLC direction, which sucks for all gamers if content that would normally be included on a game is getting removed in favor of future revenue opportunities.

MLB 10: The Show – Atlanta Braves Rankings

As we draw ever closer to the March 2nd release of MLB 10: The Show, I read every new article with anticipation and excitement. Yesterday, pastapadre revealed the MLB 10 team rankings. I was happy to see my beloved Braves garnered an overall ranking of sixth (22nd Defense; 4th Pitching; 9th Batting). I’ll be tickled pink if the Braves can carry that over into real life; back in the playoffs again?

White Knight Chronicles: International Update

As I have written on several occasions, when I actually have time to play, I am enjoying this JRPG, which features hybrid turn-based/pseudo real-time gameplay elements. It is certainly not for everyone, but I think it is a real gem.

Over the weekend I ordered the strategy guide, which is something I only rarely do for games that I really enjoy. I think the last guide I purchased was maybe FFX. Of course I will never be able to defend my position, much less convince non-JRPG fans that I only order guides to enhance my gaming experience.

I’ll comment on the guide later this week. My only initial comment is that I have already noticed some errors where the map/grid references are actually incorrect.

I other WKC news, according to PlayStationUniversity, Japan is getting some new DLC on Feb. 25. Hopefully new content works its way to the U.S. PSN servers.

Final Fantasy XIII – The 360 Implodes

It has been a long time since I remember seeing this much fervor over a game, but I guess that is what happens when Final Fantasy goes multi-console.

Why so much fervor? I guess it is an emotional reaction from youngsters that grew up with the PlayStation. Of course they probably do not realize or understand that once upon a time Nintendo was the home of all things Final Fantasy.

In the case of the PS3 vs. 360 debate, Square Enix has not helped the situation by releasing doctored graphics, which PS3 conspiracy theorists say indicates that all things 360 must suck. Never mind some of the piss poor ports on the PS3 that have gone in the other direction.

Me? I will continue to watch it unfold and chime in from time-to-time as I see fit. Some of debate is actually interesting and does matter – Blu-ray capacity, disc swapping, HD graphics, and the removal of content. I can appreciate that the developer made every attempt at platform parity, but from what I have read too many compromises were made.

PSN Capcom Sale

The “official” PlayStation Blog has an article from the good folks at Capcom announcing five weeks of PSN Capcom games at the low, low price of 50% off. The schedule includes …

* February 18, 2010 – Marvel vs. Capcom 2 for only $7.49!
* February 25, 2010 – Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix for only $7.49!
* March 4, 2010 – Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo HD Remix for only $4.99!
* March 11, 2010 – Age of Booty for only $4.99!
* March 18, 2010 – 1942: Joint Strike for only $4.99!

I already have 1942, which may not be worth the full price, but is a pretty good deal at less than $5. Lord knows when I would have time to play Age of Booty, but I have wanted to give this one a spin for a while. $4.99 is a pretty decent price point. As much as I love the Street Fighter, especially the Alpha renditions, I just don’t see putting these in the shopping cart – I have too many new games as it is and my best gaming days for dexterity intensive fighters are far behind me.

Final Fantasy XIII – Inside The Technical Details

While looking for more news, notes, and whatnots of the upcoming Final Fantasy XIII (FFXIII), I came across this great article on the DigitalFoundry blog (EuroGamer) that takes us inside the math, art, and science of FFXIII. I don’t think I have every come across an article that goes to this length, with this much detail, comparing the PS3 demo of FFXIII against the actual Japanese release of FFXIII. If you are interested in this type of technical details, this article is definitely worth a read.

For me two things stood out, neither of which are part of the detailed technical feature analysis.

Overall, the leaps made by Final Fantasy XIII over its predecessors are mostly visual in nature and that’s clearly been the focus of this tech analysis. However, bearing in mind the four-year gestation period Final Fantasy XIII has had, it’s disappointing that all the key improvements have been in the audio-visuals.

Of course, these are hugely important factors in FFXIII’s make-up, but gameplay-wise this feels like it could’ve been done on PS2. Clearly, there’s much to enjoy in the nature of sumptuous visuals and what is clearly the best-quality CG we’ve seen on a Square-Enix videogame, but early importers of the Japanese version of the game are divided about the merits of the actual game underneath.

To be completely fair, I think this can be said about many of the games in this generation. They are just visual upgrades over their PS2 and Xbox predecessors.

The other item of note fills the entirety of the last page of the three page article, covering speculation on the potential compromises made to port the PS3 originated title to the 360.

However, porting the game across to the 360 must have been a daunting proposition. Taking a look at the structure of the Blu-ray disc, we see an absolutely colossal 32.6GB of what looks to be pre-rendered movies, while the actual gameplay content itself is a more reasonable 6.8GB. Co-incidentally, 6.8GB is also the maximum usable space developers have on the dual-layer DVD (yes, Xbox 360 games theoretically have less storage available than PS2 and Wii titles).

The article mentions that 360 users will only have to switch games at two points in the game, so that does not seem to be much of a burden. I also doubt that 360 owners will care (maybe not even notice) if the movies are not pre-rendered, if they are compressed, or if the sound is compressed. I also think that dual system owners will pick up FFXIII for the PS3 over the 360. In the U.S., due to its larger install base, 360 numbers will slightly surpass the PS3, but elsewhere FFXIII will lead the charge on the PS3.

MLB 10: The Show – The Waiting Game

After skipping a year [really seems like I skipped the last 2-3 years of gaming entirely] I am really excited about this year’s game, which is set to arrive while I am out of country for work!

The “official” PlayStation Blog site, like any good official mouth-piece runs some great articles pimping their first party offerings. MLB 10 is not an exception.

This year, we have added “calling pitch selection” and “calling pitch location” to your RttS catcher’s responsibilities. When you are in the game defensively as a catcher, you will be responsible to select the pitch that you want thrown. The system works just like it does for selecting pitches as the pitcher does. The pitcher might shake you off, or he might accept that pitch. If he does shake you off, you choose a pitch again. If you choose the same pitch, he will figure it’s really what you want and will accept it, at this point. Once you have selected the pitch, you will be responsible to select where you want the ball thrown. You can choose any of the nine zones within the strike zone, or you can choose eight areas outside of the zone if you want the ball off the plate (four outside edges and four outside corners). Now just like in real life, this doesn’t mean the pitcher will hit his spot. It just means this is where he is aiming. The better the pitcher you have throwing to you, the more effective your location calling will be.

MLB 10: The Show is going to be the real deal and will be a system seller for console baseball fans. I cannot wait to get my hands on this one!