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Gaming Review - System Attic

Sony Releases Firmware Patch, Writer Inserts Foot In Mouth

July 9th 2008 08:20
This is how it goes sometimes isn’t it? Sometimes the Gods of Journalism spin the roulette wheel and choose a single opinion blogger to whom they will serve a freshly peed in bowl of Cheerios. Maybe I’m too bias. Maybe I’m too one-sided. I don’t know.

For those of you who are wondering what I’m talking about, it has to do with this fancy new firmware Playstation released last week that I basically wrote an advertisement rather than an article about. I was baffled today when I switched on my PS3 and saw the “Update Required” message pop up. With a little bit of investigation (courtesy of CNet.com) I found out that the update has caused a few consoles to nearly crash. Well, I must have been granted immunity, because my system has been problem free, but it doesn’t make the fact that I talked the update up in excess of 500 words sting any less.


Sony was quick to release a patch, and although I haven’t been able to find any statistics, CNet reports that the problem only affected a small number of consoles. It also doesn’t appear to be a fatal bug. According to CNet, a simple call to Sony support has been able to fix many of the major issues. So I can still report a small victory in the quick response time of my beloved Sony, and the fact that no consoles were completely ruined. Plus, v2.41 includes an updated replacement to the bland trophy icon. Yippy.

I was write a review of the newly released Batman Begins Limited Edition Blu-Ray Gift Set, but this development has humbled me and I’ve decided to take a day to gather my confidence before I can write a worthy review. In the meantime, make sure not to fall off of the edges of your seats in anticipation. That would only further compound my guilt.
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Posted By: derek - Category: Tech News, Gaming Review
   


NCAA Football 09 Looking Good

July 8th 2008 11:09
Ah, the joys of this new generation of gaming consoles. I remember the days when a guy had to wait for a Pizza Hut promotion or subscribe to a pricey gaming magazine to get his hands on some upcoming game demos. Then, if that didn’t work you had to wait for your rich buddy to buy a game, then go over to his house, throw a few please and thank you’s his mom’s way till she asks you to stay for dinner, then politely excuse yourself from the table to figure out whether Mortal Kombat 13 is really as cool as it looks on TV.

Nowadays, with the Information Age in full swing, all you have to do is pick up your controller. Xbox Live and the Playstation Network have enabled us to preview thousands of titles right from our couches. NCAA Football 09 is one of the newest demos on PSN, and it’s definitely worth a look-see. Sure, you might be skeptical. Last years demo, with no announcers, weird camera angles and horrible frame-rate kept me from buying the game. But this years effort is much smoother, sleeker, and packed with as many features as EA could cram into a gig and a half.


The Play Now option puts you in control of Ohio State or LSU as they battle it out at the Shoe in Columbus. The graphics as the game opens are much improved from last year. The shadowing is much more realistic and even the crowd passes as convincing. Lee Corso and Kirk Herbstreit talk about key players as they have in previous installments, but the demo doesn’t show the players on the field. This is hopefully just a symptom of it being a demo, and not something that carries over into the actual game.

The players then line up for the kick off, which is said to be one of the many instances that the game will allow players to insert their own music. The demo doesn’t allow it, but that’s to be expected. It does give a glimpse of improved animation though. In the past, the kick off teams were stiff as statues until the kicker approached the ball. Now the players move freely, stretching, jumping up and down, just as they would in real life.

Once the ball is kicked, the returner fields it and as you advance him up the field you’ll notice a more human flow to the jukes and spins as he tries to avoid defenders. There’s no noticeable change to controller layout. I didn’t play last years title as I said, but the controls here were nearly identical to last year’s Madden. Throw an interception or go for a game winning kick and you’ll notice a change though. When you throw a pick, your QB’s composure will drop, causing a slight drop in attributes and the inability to check your pre-play play art. All is not lost however. Immediately after the interception, you’re taken to a screen where you’re asked to pick which play the defense ran. Choose correctly, and you get a portion of the composure back. If you’re wrong, you lose more. On game winning field goals, the kick meter ices over and accuracy is hard to come by. There’s also a rather distracting thumping sound meant to simulate the nervous kicker’s heart.

If you get bored with the Tigers and the Buckeyes, you can try out the Mascot Game feature, which is making it’s debut on the new consoles this year. You can choose between Florida’s Gator or the Texas Longhorn, but it doesn’t really matter because all mascot teams have maximum attributes. The major draw of this feature is the almost comical athleticism of these players. Go for a juke and the ball carrier will do a mid-air cartwheel to avoid the defender. The only real flaw of this mode in the demo is when the Gator QB lines up under center. A graphics glitch makes the centers tail go right through the middle of him. Maybe the actual game won’t have this, but even if it does, it doesn’t take anything away from the fun of being able to plow through defenders with superhero-like power, all the while dressed in a ridiculous alligator suit.

This is definitely one of the better sports demos available and a must-have for any football loving gamer. So save your money and stop taking advantage of your rich friends. You don’t even have to put on a pair of pants. Just download and enjoy.
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Posted By: derek - Category: Gaming Review
   


Qore Episode 2

July 6th 2008 09:05
As many of you know, the first article on My Take/System Attic was unprofessional and sloppy and had a very “thrown together” feel to it. (And it was less than a month ago. How things change. Or do they?) In that article, the first episode of the new Playstation 3 series Qore was basically slammed, and well, rightfully so. The bang for the buck just wasn’t there. It also seemed a bit thrown together, and although it may seem hypocritical to criticize that due to the aforementioned unprofessional nature of our first article, our article was free. I mention this because the host of Qore, Veronica Belmont, commented on the article in defense of her show, and I feel the need to clarify that her comment in no way affected the objectivity of this review. In fact, if anything, it may have caused a harsher judgment in an effort to prove credibility.

Now, that’s out of the way, so here we go.

Right from the get-go in episode two, there’s an obvious increase in the amount of work put in. The biggest thing to notice is that in three of the four features, Belmont is actually present for more than just the introduction. This adds a whole new degree of entertainment to the equation. Belmont is the anchor of the whole show, and should be involved in as many aspects as possible. Game programmers and producers deserve respect for what they do, but let’s face it, they’re boring. The presence of anyone else while these guys drone on is an improvement, but Belmont, with her wit and liveliness, keeps attention from drifting during the segments. In the Resistance 2 and Silent Hill: Homecoming features, she is able to entertain us with her very human approach to the interviews, while not taking away from the information presented by the interviewees.

In the R2 feature, there’s a segment where Belmont asks to try on a mocap suit that you can’t help but smile at. In the Silent Hill feature, she has to watch a suspenseful demo of the game while openly admitting to being a “wuss”. While this segment could have gone a little more in depth with the shots of the game itself, her reactions, especially the last one, appear to be very genuine and are also worth a smile, maybe even a little giggle.

The Naruto and Madden 09 features weren’t quite as in-depth and interesting, but they were third and fourth listed in the menu probably for that reason. The downloads were all up and running this time and started with no trouble at all, as apposed to being completely unusable in the first episode. (Granted, I got there after it had been out for 10 days.) The ads between each segment are puzzling considering that the episodes aren’t free, but they are skippable after the first 10 seconds or so.

If you still think $2.99 is overkill, consider this. Your average magazine is going to cost you anywhere from $1.50 to $3 at the newsstand and around $12 to $24 annually. This is video. This is interactive. This gives you free dowloads on top of what you get in the video itself. There are hidden features to find. And how many magazines do you know that have a hot, charismatic host? This is worth what you pay for, especially if you can afford the year subscription, which saves you about 12 bones plus the free download of Calling All Cars which would set you back $9.99 normally.

The first episode should have been free. It wasn’t worth the money, but it did give you a vague idea of what you were in for. This episode showed improvement, and there’s a lot of potential in this media form. We can only hope that the effort to realize that potential doesn’t waver, but just like anything new, it all depends on how much interest the product generates, and how willing the creators are to work at generating more.

That really wasn’t very harsh at all. Well, uh, 1.7 GB is too much hard drive space! There, take that.
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Posted By: derek - Category: Gaming Review
   


New Firmware Makes PS3 Social

July 2nd 2008 12:39

One of the major weapons of PS3 bashers since it’s inception has been the almost total lack of social compatibility online. Compared to the 360 (Or so I’ve been told since I don’t play one) the PS3’s online experience has been very lackluster, not even allowing you to invite someone into a game while playing. But, the greatest thing about the Playstation 3 is it’s almost creepy ability to adapt to the ever-changing needs of its users, and this need is no exception.

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Posted By: derek - Category: Gaming Review
   


An IE 7 tweak.

December 2nd 2006 05:42
Allrighty, so I kinda sorta figured I'd review IE yesterday and in my last post I ended up mentioned a few cool features with the new IE. But this morning I woke up and realised that I'd test this new feature onto - this struck me outta nowhere. And boy did it work!!

In my previous post I did mention the new IE feature wherein one can embed a search engine of their choice onto IE 7. This is probably because some users find it convinient to embed search engine toolbars onto their browsers which is kinda nice and all, but the more toolbars one installs, the more loading time. Loading times can be annoying ya know


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Posted By: Harsh - Category: Gaming Review
   


Tweaking Windows startup

October 26th 2006 02:15
Do you have a lot of stuff loading when windows starts up? Does it make the startup really slow? Here’s a way you can fix this!

Go to the start menu > run > Type “msconfig


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Posted By: Harsh - Category: Gaming Review
   




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