I popped to Toys-R-us today to buy yet more Pokemon cards to add to my Sons collection of over 500 (most were donated though… I’m not that stupid (or rich!)). We still don’t know how to play the game yet though.
Whilst I was there I got my eyeballs on the Playstation3 demo cablnet! A large Sony (40 inch+) screen was running Hi-Def demos of the PS3’s capabilities such as Blu-Ray, movie trailers, photos and games too. Some of the games looked amazing and smooth, such as Motorstorm - but others like “Metal Gear Solid 9 - Trouser Snake gets zipped” looked a bit PS1 for my liking.
I was immediately thinking..
Wow! This really is better than my Xbox 360! I might get one. Hmm.. £450 for the console.. how could I afford one… Sell the 360, and my Nintendo DS Lite…
Then I leant over to take a look at the console itself only to read, printed on the top in plain white capital letters “EXAMPLE CONSOLE ONLY”. Not only was the shiny black beastie not a real PS3, it meant that everything I was seeing on the video was also fake!
I then realised that all of the employees at Toys-R-Us were looking at me and they had little radio receivers in their ears like the FBI use - and they were all talking about me! Even the CCTV cameras were watching my every move. I tried hiding in the Hot Wheels isle, but some of the customers were also obviously “in on it” too and were casualy watching me whilst pretending to look at boxes of Yahtzee Texas Hold-Em Edition. One of them was even pretending to be texting on his mobile phone - but was obviously taking video surveilance footage to send back to the scientists at Area 51 who have been after me ever since I accidently hacked into their mainframe whilst looking for crackz and serialz for my BBC Micro.
I had to ditch the kids in the Scoobiez section and pull over a display of new TMNT action figures in order to escape the shop and then call my mate Jesus to come and place a protective “Faith Bubble” around me so the police and social services could not track me using that anal alien implant they gave me.
I’m invisible. You can’t see me. By the power of Jesu.. oh.. hello officer..
If you have got an Xbox360 and have not yet purchased Gears Of War then… I must chainsaw you to death!
Its no wonder that this game has sold several million copies and has practically “sold the console” to those non-believers. As 3rd person shooters go, it’s certainly the best I have played. Evar!
I was chatting to some opponents and team mates the other night about a video I had seen a montage video of kills with the “torque bow” weapon. Well here it is:
I have been playing multiplayer Gears Of War over the weekend and it’s amazing! Certainly better than Halo2 multiplayer (IMO). Check out the video above!
The only problem is that I am really crap at it and get killed all the time.
Last night I was playing on a team against a 4 guys who all worked in a video store by the sounds of it. They were all pretty good at the game too!
In the game, when you shoot someone, you can “down” them where they are crouched on their knees, bleeding, until a team mate comes and gives them help and they can play again.
I was hiding behind a tombstone on a map when one of the enemy sneaked up behind me and show me enough to put me down but not kill me. Then, as I was stuck, bleeding and pleasing for assistance from my (silent) team mates, all 4 of the enemy team surrounded me in a circle, revving their chainsaws maniacly before all slicing me into a bloody gush which splattered my screen .
This thing is bright! Like a fallen star embedded in my forehead, slowly cooking my retinas and microwaving my brain!
It’s a Samsung LE23R71WX LCD TV . 23 inches of 3000:1 contrast ratio lovliness, with an enhanced “game mode” with an 8ms response rate. Blah blah blah….
I decided to go all hi-def with my XBox 360 and purchased this TV from Costco at a very reasonable price. I have my 360 hooked up to the composite connection, running at 1080i resolution and my PC plugged into the VGA connector running at 1024×768.
The 360 has been given a new lease of life and the PC looks amazing, bright, clear and detailed. When if I get my Mac Mini, there is a HDMI port on the back too, so I can hook that up.
I stopped at buying a wireless adapter for the 360 (£60!!!) and hooked it up via Internet Connection Sharing on my XP Media Centre PC which is right next door.
Make me a console that costs £1000 and I will scoff at it.
Make me a 3rd generation console that costs £1000 and features online play, gold plated connectors, built in teas-made and blow job machine and I will still scoff and scorn.
Make me a console that does all the above and then bring out a new Tony Hawk skateboarding game for it…
SOLD!
I have been playing the demo of Tony Hawks Project 8 since it came out on my XBOX360 and its freakin good! Every spare 20 minutes I have has been given to this game.
In my opinion, Sony are going to wipe the Xbox360 and Nintendo Wii off the floor with their new console but probably only based on the established user base they already have. Also, Sony and the Playstation have always seemed to appeal to younger gamers more than the Xbox so they will immediately have the upcoming generation to rely on buying their console.
They have also stolencopied used the same motion detection techniques that Nintendo are planning to include in their new Wii console which leaves Microsoft as the only “next gen” console maker not to have this capability - yet. Microsoft are due to launch details of their external USB HD DVD player at the E3 conference too though - whoppee!… not.
The “Sony Hub” will take on the might of XBox live too but contrary to early information, it will not all be free and will probably follow the same pricing structure of free access to somethings, but pay-to-play access to multiplayer gaming.
The real kick in the nuts for this console is going to be the price which has been announced at the conference too. The console will be launched worldwide in early November and will come in 2 flavours, one with a 20gb hard disk and one with a 60gb hard disk. Pricing will be set at $499 and $599. Expect that to translate to £499 and £599 here in the UK.
Would you want to pay nearly £600 for a console? And as we have found out with the Xbox360, the games are’nt cheap either with some of the recent flagship titles like Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter retailling for nearly £50! How much are the Blu-Ray based games going to be on the new PS3? £70? Reports on the capabilities of the PS3 versus the Xbox360 are also revealing that they will be more similar than first revealed and it may become difficult to tell the consoles graphics apart.
Sony will win. I have no doubt about that. But if Microsoft drop their console price then things may be different come christmas 2006. And if Microsoft can realease Halo3 at the same time, things will get really nasty and all sorts of name calling and hair pulling will ensue.
The wife was watching Disparate Whorebags and I was playing my first 5 or 6 games of FIFA RTWC on XBox live, sat at my PC monitor.
In all apart from one of the games did anyone talk, until I played a very chatty American who ended up beating me on penalties, or “shoot out” as he called it. Actually, someone else did pipe up to appologise for scoring in a flukey way. On the whole I lost every game I played - but it was still fun!
On a game that I was winning 3-1 my opponent quit the game just after I had scored the third goal with a cheeky Michael Owen chip shot past a defender and over the goalie as he rushed out to hack me down.
He could have at least pretended he needed a poo or something! I left him a bad feedback anyway…..
I received my Joytech VGA Cable for my 360 yesterday and after suffering the planned outage of XBOX Live and the intense double episode start of the new series of LOST, I was ready to play.
Now, my AOC branded LCD monitor is not a recent piece of hardware. In fact i’m sure that I have seen it pictured on the bayeux tapestry, just next to the knight listening to that £250 Rio MP3 player with 64mb of memory I used to own.
I was concerned that with a low response time, my attempts at FIFA RTWC would just turn to a mushy blur instead of a sharp, Hi Def graphics experience.
I had to cycle via Maplin on the way home from work to obtain a £4.99 VGA Gender Bender as the monitor connection on the Joytech cable is male and my AOC display does not allow me to remove the cable from it at the back. See, I told you it was old!
I plugged in the VGA cable from the 360, into the gender bender and then into my monitor and booted the 360. I was pleasantly suprised to see the 360 logo spinning onto my display in lush 640×480. After getting into the dashboard and setting the display to 1280×1024 I was nearly wetting my pants in anticipation as I loaded a game. The quality is amazing! As an old-hat PC gamer, I was half expecting the game to slow down as the 360 tried to pump out the higher res graphics but it was just the same - but better.
After XBox LIVE came back online at midnight I got online using Internet Connection Sharing on my PC and got beaten 2-0 by someone playing as Argentina on FIFA RTWC. Still, it was nearly half past one in the morning and I was only testing it….
So, by the end of the weekend I should be up and running on the 360 via my PC monitor!
This means that while the wife will be watching Eastenders, I will be killing some poor teenager on Halo 2 or winning another match on FIFA RTWC…
I saw this listed over at Play.com a few months ago and expected it to be a larger LCD monitor designed to fit with the 360 - but it turns out that it's only a "flap screen". I suppose it means you could play games in the car though. Go wardriving for a WiFi connection or get yourself a mobile wireless setup and you could play against your mates on Live too!
Well, it's not a giant lizard slaying robot and its not a new religion.
It's just a place for me to hang out, store my thoughts and technical musings and stay in contact with my friends. It's purpose may change in the future - who knows!
Sony have had their Pre-E3 conference last night and have given more 
Wow!
Well, it's not a giant lizard slaying robot and its not a new religion.