PS3 – Page 20 – The Recycle Bin

More HVB Fun.

I played my first online games last night. I lost the first one by 100 points, but I won the second game, which happened to be a rematch initiated by the game one winner, 164-163. While my scores were not really noteworthy, much less impressive, the online experience was fun for two reasons. First, I earned a trophy, and it looks fairly straight forward to unlock some more trophy whore goodness. Hooray for trophies! Second, since I was using Berry, and my opponent was using Berry, I learned how to better utilize Berry. I know that sounds crazy, but back in the more civilized golden age of gaming friends would come over to kick your ass in Lock ‘n Chase and you would learn from your beating. Playing HVB online was sort of the same experience.

I always have a good time researching a game at metacritic, and in the case of High Velocity Bowling (HVB) the scores are rather revealing. The review sites give the game a subpar 68% (based on 13 reviews), but the users give HVB a 9.0 (based on 12 votes). The users have spoken; HVB is the bees knees.

Sunday morning news and notes.

It’s Sunday morning, so it must be time for some random ramblings, news, and notes.

Prayers for Massa
Each morning while I am enjoying my morning coffee I usually check out a number of sites including ESPN. Thanks to FOX [not really; that was said with venom] I do not get to see the Hungarian GP live. It should be starting within the hour. I was saddened to see that Ferrari’s Massa was in a massive accident.

Ferrari driver Felipe Massa underwent surgery on life-threatening skull injuries Saturday from a high-speed crash during Hungarian Grand Prix qualifying. He was in stable condition in the intensive care unit of a military hospital.

The accident happened when a loose part from another car hit Massa in the helmet, causing him to veer into a tire-lined barrier at about 120 mph. The front of his car was shredded, with both tires gone and the front nose open.

Thoughts and prayers go out to Massa.

Trophy patch for Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
Because gaming is better with trophies. From the examiner …

LucasArts also quietly revealed that they are adding trophy support to the Playstation 3 version of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. Here is the confirmation from the official Twitter of LucasArts Games:

“Just confirmed to me: TFU on PS3 to get trophy support with the Sith Edition. Will find more out Monday (plane takes of in a few hours)”

And all of the IGN gamers rejoiced!

I did not purchase TFU because of all the mixed reviews. Metacritic has this one rated a shaky 71% (based on 47 reviews). The reviews area all over the map. When TFU was first released I thought it would have been a waste of money at $59.99, but now that the game is selling for $26.99, I think this one may provide some good clean fun. Too many game, not enough time.

When gaming nudity does not count.
I should have saved this one for T&A Thursday, but I could not resist posting now. joystiq has an article on Dragon Age: Origins. I do not really know much about the game, but I have seen a few hopeful posts that suggest that we will get to see simulated sex and breasteses in all their CG glory. Something like that. I followed the article’s ESRB link to get to this gem:

Though the game never features human nudity, one female demon character is briefly depicted with bare breasts.

LMAO.

Happy Sunday!

High Velocity Bowling.

I downloaded High Velocity Bowling (HVB) a while back when it was on sale for $4.95, but I never really got into it. Call it an impulse purchase; waste of money. Not sure that I ever really seriously tried the game, but it did not seem to be worth the effort.

As I have been rebuilding my PS3 and restoring all the PSN content that I previously purchased, I decided to take HVB for a spin. I have to say that I am impressed. I am not sure what is different about the game today compared to when I first downloaded, but right now I am fairly addicted to this one.

I have only unlocked a couple of characters, so I am obviously not very far into the game. I have also not checked out the online play option yet. I want to get better before braving the online world against the competition. Getting my ass handed to me frame after frame hardly seems like a fun way to spend my limited gaming time. Besides, two nights of bowling is hardly enough to make me confident to take on the masses.

I am surprised to see how much DLC is available for HVB. It looks like the developers continue to support this game with new ad-on content, most of which is premium (albeit very cheap), but there are some free goodies. I am going to refrain from purchasing any of the DLC until I unlock more goodies and see if this game has staying power.

If you are wondering, HVB is lot more fun and more involved, and much deeper than the Wii Sports Bowling offering. Besides the actual content and controls, the graphics are actually 1080p. And we all know that graphics make the gameplay better. For those of you that do not follow this blog on a regular basis, that is sarcasm, but the graphics are very nice for this type of game and completely put the simple Wii Sports offering to shame.

My kids have been dying to play HVB with me, but I told them that daddy needs some time with his long lost PS3 before they get a crack at it. Besides, I want to open up some of the content first, and I need to make sure I can kick their little smart asses. Yes, my oldest son is getting better at some games than dear old dad. What the hell is the world coming to?

I have not mastered the controls yet, but I am actually trying to follow real life bowling motions. I am sure I could just site on the couch, press some buttons, flick my wrist, and call it fun. But would that really be fun? I think I would be missing the point. At any rate, trying to time the motion and get the spin down (L2 or R2) has been an interesting learning experience, but I am sure that I will get the hang of it sooner or later. The fun factor here keeps me coming back for more, which is the reason we play games in the first place.

PSN to get Castle Crashers … one day.

Another PSN game that was announced at Comic Con is Castle Crashers by The Behemoth. I know this one has been available for 360 owners for a while, but since I do not have one of those, I am happy that this tasty hack-n-slash multi-player game is headed towards the PSN. One day. A release date has not been announced.

I am fairly sure that Castle Crashers will be a release day purchase for me. I love some good old D&D’ish hack-n-slash type fun.

Looking forward to PixelJunk Shooter.

Yesterday PlayStationLifeStyle posted about five minutes of footage of the upcoming PixelJunk Shooter game. The video was shot at in San Diego, CA at this year’s Comic Con; quality is not all that excellent.

I really like the concept of having to dive into the water to cool down your ship (or whatever it is). This idea looks good on paper (well, the video), but I am not sure how this would play over the course of a long gaming session. This seems like it could get repetitive, but knowing PixelJunk, they probably made the concept fairly seamless with the gameplay.

PixelJunk continues to put out quality games. Shooter will be a release day purchase for me. You can never have too many shooters!

Lack of a PS3 price cut kept Sony financially viable?

I am posting this one from play.tm, who is in turn quoting an article from Eurogamer. Fancy stuff. In the article Mark Rein of Epic talks about the merits of Sony’s decision to not cut the price of the PS3.

“The truth is Sony has had a difficult year and I think they had to do what they had to do to try to be profitable. They have their own financial issues to solve and lowering the price of the console would probably have made their situation worse,” Rein told Eurogamer.

This is a completely different spin than the usual dribble that often gets posted. I tend to agree with Mr. Rein. Unless PS3s started selling like Big Macs, a price cut over the last six to nine months probably would not have stopped the bleeding.

We all know a price cut is coming, and the PS3 Slim thing is the worst kept secret around. When will we see a price cut? How low will Sony go? Timing will be everything because if Sony plays its cards it too close to the launch of the PSP Go, any positive chatter generated by a PS3 price cut could hurt the Go. Wait too late or cut too little and no one will care. Sony’s recent track record suggests it will do both, which will go over about as well as a turd in a punch bowl.

More PS3 backup and recovery woes.

I did a bit of searching tonight and the best I can gather is that each PS3 HDD is encrypted in a unique fashion. I am not sure if this is tied to the actual PS3 system, the HDD, or something else, but it is painfully apparent that there is some form of anti-piracy. Honest I can understand that part – Sony does not want you backing up your PS3 HDD, posting the backup on the internet, and then letting thousands of folks download goodies for free.

The best I can tell is that I actually have the same PS3 unit – at least the SN is the same. Or is it? The PlayStation support folks said it was the say, but why did my PS3 system say that my 250GB HDD was from a different PS3? Is it possible that whatever keys the HDD encryption to a matching PS3 was replaced? Kind of like keeping the shell, but the internals are all different? That is my guess.

So it looks like I am SOL. I still cannot get over losing my PSX, PS2, and PS3 game saves and data. The PSX and PS2 saves are priceless. The PS3 game saves are really more of an annoyance because I have not had them as long, but I have put in a decent amount of time with games like Super Star Dust HD, Oblivion, Pixel Junk Monsters and Eden, and F1. I hate that all of that is just gone. Well actually the data is on my Pass Port, but I cannot get the sum bitch to load.

Another real pisser is that I have to download all this shit all over again – all the PSN games and Qore downloads will probably take hours and hours to download. I would gladly accept that if I could just recover my data.

Here is the real kicker from the online manual

In some cases, you may not be able to use the Backup Utility feature to back up or restore the system correctly. It is recommended that you always copy or move important data to storage media in order to independently back up your data.

Cheese and crackers! Now you tell me. WTF is the backup and restore utility worth if you cannot use it to restore your f’ing data onto a repaired PS3? I am so f’ing despondent over this one. I do not even have the stomach to turn on my PS3 and start over.

NCAA Football 10 Dynasty Issues.

I have been pretty good this football season. I have only purchased three annuals, I have not visited a single forum, and I have only stopped by a few sites to look for news, notes, and impressions on NCAA Football 10. What I have seen so far as not been too outstanding.

Bill Abner of The Nut and the Feisty Weasel has a great write-up called NCAA 10: How Important is Dynasty Mode? And How Can EA Fix It?

Currently, progression works like this — kids come in inside a certain ratings range depending on their star value during recruiting. Then, each off season, everyone gets better by anywhere from 3 to 12 points (or so). So basically every team’s players get better each season and in a few years your Dynasty is littered with 90+ rated players on damn near every school.

It’s a player ratings orgasm. In one preseason top 25 poll 20 teams were rated at least an “A” overall. It’s bonkers.

It represents real college football like my daughter’s soccer games represent Fifa. It’s technically soccer.

Not so good. At a minimum I want the simulation aspects of dynasty and franchise modes to produce realistic statistics. Some abnormalities are ok, as long as they are consistent. I want to gameplay experience to be fun, believable, and at the same time I do not want to see the CPU do spectacular things that I could never manager (i.e. cheat).

Another good article is at Dubious Quality by Bill Harris titled NCAA 10 (360): A Brown, Gelatinous Mass That Is Only Vaguely Shaped Like A Football. Because sliders were not working, which seems oddly reminiscent of last year’s release, while waiting for a patch to fix the problem, Mr. Harris did some very detailed work on player progression.

The summarized version: there were 14 players in the entire game (any position) with an overall rating of 95 or higher on the default rosters. After five years, there were 75! Also, there were an additional 112 players with overall ratings of 90-94, and after five years, there were 270.

That’s kind of a shitty mess, really, and some positions are just mind-boggling. There were originally two centers at 95+ and 8 more from 90-94, but after five years, there were 18 at 95+ and 36 from 90-94!

You either enjoy this type of stuff or you don’t. I love looking inside the numbers, so this is a great read. Unlike Mr. Harris, for the first time in a long time, I am not going to run up to the ball and hope that Lucy will not pull it away from me at the last minute. No thanks. As I previously wrote, this year I am going to pass on NCAA Football 10.

Taking the day off to regroup.

I think after yesterday’s epic failure with the PS3 backup and recovery of my old data, I may have to take a day or two off from videogame blogging.

For what it is worth, I called the Sony support number and after a few minutes (waited less than 5) I got a person on the phone. He confirmed that I have the same system; I did not receive a replacement unit. I walked through the system restore functions with the guy on the phone, and when I got to the warning message about this being a different system I was told that some of the content must have been copyrighted or illegal. WTF? I told the guy that I did not have one illegal game, video, or otherwise on my system. Ridiculous.

I was able to restore, but the restore only took 7 minutes vs. 120 minutes that it took pre-repair. It looks like the only data recovered were some videos, which to be honest I think I could do without.

I think my only option is to see if I can look inside the backup/restore file and pull out individual files. I have no idea how the file is put together; maybe it is a zip or tar ball file?

It sucks that I lost Oblivion, F1, and other PS3 game data and saves. I can always download all my purchased content again; of course it takes forever to pull anything off of the PSN, but I can recover that part of my PS3. I cannot get over the fact that I have lost years of PSX and PS2 saves. Once I transferred the data to my PS3, the memory cards were discarded, sold, etc. It just plain sucks ass that years of gaming history are gone, and the sad thing is that I tried to do everything right – I actually backed up my f’ing system.

PS3 comes home to bitter disappointment.

My PS3 arrived today fresh from a factory repair. The first thing I checked was the model number and serial number to see if I got a refurbished unit. The good news is that the system looks like it is my system. Strangle enough my service repair number still does not show up on the online system, and the service receipt that came with the repair does not show what was actually repaired although it does say this “document is a description of the work performed on your unit …”

First the good news. I placed the repair order on June 25, so end-to-end repair time was under 30 days, which is not all that bad. But the bad news is bitterly disappointing.

Straight away I pulled out the original 60GB HDD and replaced it with my 250GB upgrade. This was another confirmation that this is actually my system. I actually almost stripped one of the screws on the HDD harness and it is plainly obvious that this one is mine.

After powering on the system, I got a HDMI device detected, followed by you must format this HDD. Not so good. I chose “no, I really do not want to format my HDD” and the PS3 told me that this HDD was from a different PS3 system. Huh? WTF does that mean? It cannot mean anything good.

So I decided to put the original 60GB HDD back in the system, and everything started correctly. Of course I previously formatted the drive, per the repair order instructions, so everything was basically as good as new. Only without the good part.

I figured I would put my 250GB HDD back in the system to see what would happen. I got the f’ing different system notice again. This time, with my Pass Port in hand, I told the PS3 to format the shit out of my HDD. After all, why should I care? I have this handy little USB HDD with a backup of my 250GB HDD prior to sending it in for repair.

Without any other options, I format. I then go to the system restore option and cannot restore the backup because option, but guess what? I am told that the backup is from another PS3 system, so it cannot be used for a restore. Holy, f’ing shit. You have to be kidding me.

Of course when I backed up the HDD, I did the full backup option. I did not backup individual files, games, game data, etc. Years and years of PSX and PS2 memory card data is gone. Goodbye. F-you later. Screwed. Not to mention all my PS3 downloads, game saves, game data, etc. All gone in a blink of the eye.

Words cannot fully describe my disappointment.

Madden 10 franchise news at IGN.

I am a little disappointed in this Madden 10 franchise article from IGN, but it is hard to complain too much because there is no other f’ing news worth posting.

I haven’t had the time to get all the way to the draft in my franchise just yet, but EA Sports is saying that they’ve crafted more than 8,000 rookies for use in the draft and that there’s new AI logic governing moves made by you and the CPU. Hopefully that means that you won’t be able to swindle teams out of all of their first-round picks this year.

I wonder how long this bird has had the game? It is nice and all to write about the new improved presentation, but as a Falcons season ticket holder, I already know all about going into the Dome and standing in the concession lines. How about the statistics? Did the author simulate any seasons? Did writer actually try to swindle the CPU teams?

I wish someone would post something that was PS3 specific. I understand that the 360 is dominating the world, but you would think with all the extra nuts and bolts under the PS3’s hood, something worth mentioning would pop out. Except for the price point, the PS3 really does have shades of Dreamcast written all over it. If I have to explain, you wouldn’t understand.

I have nothing. Dog days of summer continue.

It is like a gaming vortex has sucked all the news dry. There is just not much going on right now. Maybe the biggest story is that Xbox 360 Live Gold subscribers will get the Madden 10 demo July 23, a week or so before anyone else. No idea when us poor saps with a PS3 will get to take on some demo-goodness.

In other news, my PS3 is due to arrive today.

Is there honor in third place?

I ran across this article via N4G and thought it was a bit ridiculous. The author is claiming that the PS3 is really not doing that bad. Huh?

In their lifetimes, the Gamecube sold 21.74 million units, and the original Xbox 24 million. With the PS3 at 23 million, that means that it has sold the same amount as the Gamecube and Xbox in about half the time.

Ooh! Ooh! I know the answer to this one. Dreamcast! I am sure Sony never saw the day coming where their shiny new Blu-ray of wonder would get compared to the Gamecube. Good grief. There are silver linings and then there are dark clouds of mumbo-jumbo.

Lastly, there’s the issue of cost. Sony lose money on every PS3 sold. In 2006 when the PS3 launched, Sony were losing approximately $250 on every PS3 sold. But now with Blu-Ray development costs dropping (as well as Sony taking a few features out of the console), the development costs are (as of January last year) about $450. 80 GB PS3s currently cost about $400, which means that Sony is now only losing $50 per PS3. The development costs of Blu-Ray will continue to drop, which means eventually Sony will start making money off of the PS3. Until then, though, they still have sales from the PS2, PSP, and other electronics (such as TVs and standalone Blu-Ray players) to help recover their losses.

But mom! I am only a little pregnant. Something like that. The author can spin the numbers any which way they darn well please, but the simple fact of the matter is that Sony has had it handed to them the last few years.

How is this current generation going to play out? Will a $50 price cut [you know we all want to see $100, but predictably Sony will do the wrong thing] actually salvage things for Sony? Will Sony attempt to keep the PS3 on a 10 year cycle similar to the PSX and PS2? Will Sony abandon the PS3 in hopes of competing with Microsoft by simultaneously launching the next PlayStation with the next Xbox?

There are lots of questions to ponder, but no real answers right now. Maybe I will start a rumor or two later. Until then, happy Sunday!

NCAA Football 10: Where did all the good sports games reviews go?

This afternoon my wife was shopping, my youngest son was taking a nap, my two older sons were watching some Sponge Bob, and my PS3 was on a UPS truck. I decided to look for some good NCAA Football 10 reviews.

Based on a few tid bits that I have read, I strongly suspect that PS3 version is just a minor upgrade over the NCAA Football 09. What about the PSP version? That could give me some quality football time until Madden gets here in a few short weeks.

First stop was metacritic – the PS3 release only has 7 reviews listed, for an average score of 82%, while no reviews [in case I stuttered, that is zero, zip, nil] were listed for the PSP version. WTF? Don’t bother us; waiting for Madden!

The disturbing trend here is that for the PS3 reviews, none of them are sports gaming centric. This is disappointing. I know reviewers, especially sports game reviewers, are damned if they do and damned if they don’t. If you review too quickly you may miss some obscure flaw that ruins everyone’s fun. If you review too late, no one cares. What is the poor reviewer to do?

Next I went to gamerankings – they had the same PS3 reviews and of course no PSP reviews. This sucks monkey nuts. No reviews? What is wrong with the kids these days? I figured someone would have slapped up a couple hundred words on their blog and called it a day. Cheese and crackers.

Finally I headed to IGN. I bet they had a review, but maybe the tracking sites just did not get around to listing it? Not so much. At least IGN pointed me to something called gamestats that at least had a couple of worthless reviews. This is is more or less worthless, because the next link is actually for a PS2 game, not a PSP game, but I am desperate at this point, so here goes nothing! At least G4TV is going to try to throw me a bone and give me some fun with a mediocre review.

On the field, the game is a solid football title. Kudos to the dev team for adding some new animations that not only enhance the realism of gameplay, but look cool as well.

Huh? Love me a dash of coolness with my gameplay. How exactly does this improve upon last year’s gameplay?

Receivers and DBs jostle as they run routes, pass protection actually forms a pocket that QBs can step into, and it’s also possible to throw out of sacks — though players are advised to it at their own discretion; it’s embarrassing to get picked off twice in one game by a sure-handed defensive end.

No doubt. Embarrassing. I thought this was heading somewhere important.

It’s a shame that all these new tweaks are just that: tweaks. The gameplay jump from NCAA Football 09 to this year is quite minimal, and the fact that NCAA 10 will be a full price game should make gamers think long and hard about whether or not they can just make do with 09 for another year. NCAA Football 11 will need some additions, most notably some better on-field presentation (no rivalry game trophy celebrations? C’mon, EA) and the development team needs more creativity when they decide to add new modes.

How dare those bastards at EA leave out the all important rivalry game trophy celebrations? My gameplay is just not complete. Screw it. I give up. I guess I need to go back to writing my own reviews because this dribble sucks.

Friday Stuffs

Because it is Friday. And I have stuffs to discuss.

She’s a good hearted woman…
Happy b-day T! You’re still the best!

Many happy returns.
I never could get Sony’s online repair system to tell me squat about my PS3, but last night I received noticed that my PS3 just left Laredo, TX. It looks like it is due to arrive July 21. After going so long without playing, I am surprised how much I miss the little bastard. Cannot wait to play some more Ratchet & Clank.

That did’t take long.
July 4 I wrote a bit about the Braves making a bid for the NL East. So much for that. At the time of that article, the Braves were 2 GB, 1 under .500 (39-40). Today? Atlanta is still 1 under .500 (44-45), but they are now 6 GB. Sell, sell, sell!

Beckham madness over?
I never thought I would see the day that Beckham was ripped on ESPN, but it looks like that day has finally arrived.

In his first match since the Italian League’s season finale on May 31, Beckham was often behind the play and seemed winded. He had no free-kick chances near the goal, didn’t make any crosses that created threats and didn’t even take all the Galaxy corner kicks while he was in the match.

While this is not exactly a total bitch slap, the article was surprisingly overly negative towards Beckham. I agree with the overall assessment in the article. The Beckham buzz is done. Make of it what you will, but times, they are a changing.

Numbers game.
This article from EndSights (via N4G) contends that the latest NPD data shows that Microsoft is kicking Sony in the crown jewels. Actually, the author is trying to make a point that Sony fans are loyal, but the PS3 base is so much smaller than the 360 that the 360 will always have higher NPD numbers.

When you think about it, this is a bit of a head scratcher. I am not sure what loyalty has to do with it, right Sega fans?

Two of the biggest releases in June were Prototype and Fight Night Round 4, and both sold, in pure units, better on the Xbox 360. Prototype in particular was extremely pronounced, with the Activision published title selling 600,000 units between the two platforms, with the Xbox 360 accounting for close to 70 percent of those units — selling through close to 420,000 units. Fight Night Round 4 wasn’t as drastic. The title sold an impressive 471,100 units between the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, despite only being on retail shelves for five days. The Xbox 360 still represented the bulk of those sales, however, selling through 260,800 units — or 55.3 percent.

Despite the apparent dominance in the software sales chart by the Xbox 360, which, on one level, is an undeniable reality for Sony, also provides some rays of hope for the PlayStation 3 going forward. Conventional wisdom would say that Microsoft has a better hold on the hardcore gamer, as shown by their software sale dominance. Instead, if the June NPD numbers are any indication, it’s not software that Microsoft dominates — it’s hardware.

The whole system race (hardware game) is all about installed base. Grow your install base and make a cut off of each game sold. License fees and royalties rule.

All for now. Happy Friday!