RANT ON.

Have you seen the headlines? They’re plastered all over the web. Playstation 3 has backwards compatibility problems! PS3 not 100% Backward Compatible? And more.

Guess what source they quote? The one below, actually, from gameindustry.biz. An article that actually says that progress is going quite well, thank-you very much. An article that doesn’t say anything about problems. It doesn’t say anything about the PS3 being anything but 100% backwards compatible!

Which just goes to show you how the media seems to have its guns set on Sony, and that Sony can do no right.

So next time you hear some news that says some bad news about Sony, check the source.

Software emulation for backwards compatibility progressing well, claims source

RANT OFF.

According to Gamasutra, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion could be a launch title for the PS3:

According to online reports citing an inadvertently mailed version of publisher Bethesda’s forthcoming game release list, the company is planning to debut PlayStation 3 and PSP versions of its hit Xbox 360 and PC title Oblivion before the end of 2006.

The unconfirmed but authentic-looking release list, which also shows already announced titles including Star Trek - Battlestations for PlayStation 2 and Star Trek - Legacy for the Xbox 360, has The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion SKUs for both PlayStation 3 (as a launch title) and PSP penciled in for a November 2006 debut.

….

I won’t believe it’s true until it’s been officially confirmed but if that turns out to be true then any doubts I had about the quality of games for the PS3’s launch will no longer be valid.

Oblivion has had nothing but rave reviews & has been hailed as a game of the year contender for the 360 & PC.

I will reign in my excitement until it’s been officially confirmed.

Oh & how will it fit on the PSP? Surely they will have to seriously scale it down for it to even be possible on the PSP?

GAMASUTRA - Oblivion Set For PS3 & PSP

Gary had another idea for a poll. It’s an easy one. E3 is coming up soon, and we’ll be getting more information on the PS3 and PS3 games. Which game are you looking forward to the most? Vote in the PS3Blog sidebar, as always.

• MGS 4
• Resi 5
• Killzone
• Devil May Cry 4
• MotorStorm
• GT5
• Heavenly Sword
• Other

Previous poll results:

How do you plan to use the PS3’s online stuff?

* Play games a lot.: 55% (51)
* Download movie trailers and such.: 17% (16)
* Kick the tires now and then.: 22% (20)
* Not at all.: 5% (5)

Total Votes : 92

The title says it all really. There isn’t much on it at the moment (understatement I know) except for a pre-E3 podcast (mmmm Diane Mizota! ).

I’m getting more & more excited by E3, it has the potential to be the best E3 yet. It can’t come soon enough!

US.PLAYSTATION.COM - Sony’s E3 Website

gamesindustry.biz has some new info about the PS3’s ability to play PS2 games & PlayStation HUB, from inside sources at SCEE:

Sources at Sony Computer Entertainment Europe have revealed that technology for the PlayStation Network Platform is being developed at Sony’s London studio, under the internal name of “PlayStation HUB”.

This tallies in with our earlier report about the progress in developing a billing system for the platform with the Royal Bank of Scotland, with testing on that aspect of the network system due to begin next month.

However, as yet it’s not clear whether PlayStation HUB is the final name for the system which will be used in the company’s marketing, or if a more consumer-friendly name will be chosen before the PS3 launches in November.

I think the name should be changed. PS HUB sounds a little weird. Any ideas for a name? I haven’t got any.

Some interesting news however about the PS3’s backwards compatibility:

Elsewhere in Sony’s UK division, other teams are working on the backwards compatibility for the PlayStation 3 - which, one programmer on this project has revealed to GamesIndustry.biz, will be accomplished in software rather than by building the PS2 hardware into the PS3 console, as was the case with the PS2’s emulation of the PSone.

Sony has already pledged that all PS2 games which adhered to the company’s TRC (technical requirements checklist) will be playable on the PS3 - and according to our source, the software emulation system is progressing well and may indeed meet that lofty goal.

He claimed that a surprising number of PS2 titles are already working on PS3 prototype hardware, and revealed that the emulation tricks being used to mimic the behaviour of the notoriously complex PS2 processors are getting whole swathes of game titles up and running on an ongoing basis.

It will be very interesting to find out which PS2 games adhered to Sony’s TRC. I bet there will be some big names that didn’t. The Xbox 360 has a few problems running new Xbox games although they are updating the list constantly.

I hope GTA: San Andreas makes the list! Which PS2 games do you want to play on your PS3?

GAMESINDUSTRY.BIZ - PS3 HUB & Backwards Compatibility Update

I know this is a PS3 blog but this has to be seen!!

It’s a trailer for God of War 2 on PS2:

GAMETRAILERS - GoW2 Trailer

Oh.My.God!

I initially wanted GoW2 on the PS3 but after seeing that I think they are justified in keeping it on the PS2. It looks fantastic & if it turns out to be the last high profile game for PS2 then what a way for it to bow out.

Plus it will give the developers time to work on GoW3 on PS3. Oooohh what a prospect that will be!!

Henning I think you’d better hurry up & play God of War before this comes out next year (& before the PS3 is released).

1up - GoW2 Interview & Trailer

I haven’t bought a game for my PC in a long long time. I’m more of a console gamer now, so I never play games on my PC anymore. But yesterday I decided to buy Call of Duty 2 because I’d been playing it multiplayer during lunch at work and it’s a great game. I thought it would be cool to take it for a spin on my machine at home, and check out the single player mode.

It doesn’t run. Something about my video card not supporting dynamic textures. Which really ticked me off. I can’t take the game back because I’ve opened it! To prevent this exact scenario, before I bought the game I checked the minimum system requirements. 1.5GHz Pentium 4. Check. (Actually, mine’s 2.5GHz, so it’s even better than minimum.) 512MB RAM. Check. Graphics card must have 64MB of RAM. Check. In an NVIDIA card, it must be at least a GeForce 4. Check. (Mine’s a GeForce 4 MX 440.) So my machine should run this game just fine.

So what’s the problem?

The problem is that I tried to play a game on my PC. I know how bad this can be, seeing as how installing a total of 4 games totally screwed up the machine my kids use, but I thought I’d give it a chance.

Now I’m left with a decision to make. Do I sell the game at a loss? A brand new game that cost me $60Cdn? That I haven’t even played? Or do I throw more money at it, and upgrade my video card? I’m not exactly made of cash, so this option doesn’t appeal to me very much.

But I really wanted to play that game!

Crap.

Crap. I can’t wait for my PS3 to arrive, when I can play games with this quality and I know they’ll just work.

Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA) has announced the time it’s annual pre-E3 press conference will take place, according to IGN:

PlayStation fans should mark your calendars now, because the event you’ve been waiting for has finally been given a time. Sony Computer Entertainment has announced when its annual E3 Press Event will start, slated for Monday, May 8th at 4 PM at the Sony Pictures Studio in Culver City.

Not long now! I wonder what will be revealed this year? An official price? The newly designed joypad? A shock game announcement? Nothing we haven’t already heard?

What do you hope/think will be revealed?

IGN - Pre-E3 Conference Time Announced

As a gamer, I view the next generation of game platforms as a chance for developers to strut their stuff. Show us some great new graphics. Show us some great new gameplay not possible before. But I also expect developers to have learned some from previous mistakes and make the whole usability thing work better as well. And I also want the developers to give us more options, not fewer.

And I don’t think developers are giving us all these things in the Xbox 360 games I’ve played so far. I’ve only played on my friend Todd’s machine, so I am limited in my experience to the multiplayer games that he has, though I have to say he seems to have a good selection. In particular, I’m talking about Project Gotham Racing 3 (PGR3) in large degree, but Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter (GRAW) suffers a bit too. I’ll take these one at a time.

GRAW

First off, GRAW. Now, I have to say that this is one great game, and my quibbles are few. But I have to wonder how many people actually play-tested this thing in multiplayer offline mode. As I’ve complained before, setting the options before gameplay begins is a pain. The use of the ‘B’ button is inconsistent and frustrating. But that’s not the worst of it. Why can’t the players change their names? We haven’t found any way to do this. So the people that are playing the game are Todd, Player 2, Player 3, and Player 4. Which is really annoying. I’d like to know if I killed Viper (unlikely, if you know Viper), or if Scae potshotted me. None of this Player 3 killed you nonsense (or whatever the wording is). And if you can change the names, and we haven’t found it yet, that’s just as bad! The UI should be easy to understand and manipulate! This mars what is otherwise quite a great game. (Pssst! Anyone know how to change the names? Is it possible?)

Pugger 3

Second, I’ll look at the larger offender, PGR3. What are some important things in a racing game? Great graphics. Yup, sure. PGR3 has that alright - it looks great. Great gameplay mechanics. Yup, it sure is fun racing around those tracks, but frankly the experience isn’t much (any?) better than PGR2 was. What about a large variety of cars to race? Well, here they fall down. They’ve got a bunch of fast cars, sure. But where’s the Mini? The Beetle? A BMW? I wanted to drive that Audi again - crap, it’s not there. The decision to go with the over-170MPH club was an extremely bad one, IMHO. As well, they way they organized the cars in PGR3 was confusing as heck. In PGR3 you chose “Compact Sports” or “American Muscle” or somesuch. It was easy to know what kind of cars you’d get in each class. No longer. Now each class of cars is virtually indisinguishable from any other. How are you supposed to remember what class your favourite cars are in? A real disappointment.

But it gets worse. What about the fact that they only give you five cities with a few tracks each to play? PGR2 had a much wider selection of locales for your racing pleasure. It feels like they ripped out all the best tracks.

What else? Oh yeah - getting into multiplayer mode is more complicated. You don’t just select multiplayer. No! That would be too easy. You also have to go into the blade and add players there. What the heck? It’s messed us up a couple times already. But that’s not the worst of it. No no no no. Two-player? Two-player? What happened to our beloved four-player mode???? GGGGaaaaaargh!

Frankly, when you put all these problems together, you come up with one conclusion: PGR2 is better than PGR3. I eagerly await the day PGR2 is added to the Xbox 360’s compatibility list, because then we’ll play a real racer at Todd’s place. Sure, it won’t be as pretty, but it’ll be a lot more fun.

Next-Gen

Don’t get me wrong. This is not a knock against the Xbox 360. It’s a great platform, and we’ve seen some good stuff on it. It’s the developers that still have something to learn. When they charge us that next-gen premium for a game, I want to get a premium product.

I know two games is a small sampling, but so far these problems have been quite annoying, especially the deficiencies in PGR3. Let’s hope that as developers get used to the Xbox 360 that they polish their games more and try to at least match the previous generation games in functionality, playability, and enjoyability. After that, ratchet it up a notch or two. This is next-gen, after all.

If you’re interested in seeing the Resitance: Fall of Man video from GDC, follow the Fraggerock link below. Supposedly the gameplay is from an older build, and something newer will be shown at E3. Fraggerock also three low-res images from the game, but they look quite good. I’d just like to see them at HD resolutions!

Unfortunately, I don’t have the right codec installed (I guess) so I couldn’t watch the video. If anybody does successfully watch this thing, I’d like to know if it’s good!

Fraggerock - Resistance: Fall of Man - PS3 GDC Video