Extremely funny video review of Heavenly Sword demo.

Another funny review of the PS3 Darkness demo is here:

Well you’ve got a wide range of movies this week. And it seems like most of the new releases lately are on the 50 GB blu-ray discs. Hopefully they are making good use of the space.

* The Lives of Others
* Immortal Beloved
* Perfect Stranger
* National Lampoon’s Van Wilder (Unrated)

My post about Ratchet & Clank Future got me thinking about which games I’m definitely going to buy for the PS3, no matter how bad the reviews are that they get. So here are the games that I’m definitely going to get on the PS3:

Devil May Cry 4
Pro Evolution Soccer 2008
MGS4
Resident Evil 5
Final Fantasy XIII
Mercenaries 2
Ratchet & Clank Future
Half Life 2: Orange Box
GTA IV

There are a load of games that I’m interested in but won’t take the plunge until I’ve read a number of reviews from different sources. Games such as:

Heavenly Sword
Unchartered Drakes Fortune
CoD4
Gran Turismo 5
LittleBigPlanet
Kane & Lynch
Army of Two

Are there any PS3 games that you are going to get, even if they get below average review scores? Games that you are going to buy no matter what?

There isn’t much defined by Sony how you have to do things on PSN, they leave it up to the developers. So there is always a chance for developers to under deliver, but it also gives them great freedom to do what they truly want to do. But with Xbox Live they have to conform with Microsoft’s standards and has a lot more structure and more libraries available for the developers. So each has it’s pros & cons.

As far as playing Haze online they said PSN wasn’t a issue at all. They had planned for it from the start, and they’ve be able to do it how they want it. The Haze developers said “for us as a developer - the PS3 stuff… we’ve always liked working with it.”

Haze Developer: ‘PSN Offers More Freedom Than Xbox Live’

Roughly two months ago, we heard that Sony was closing its Connect online music store and rolling many of the staff into the PlayStation division. Sony has said that music and video store functionality are coming for the PS3, but details have been very scarce.

iTunes and mp3sparks provide quality services and Amazon’s upcoming service sounds great as well. I have no particular company loyalty when choosing a system like this, but it would be nice to see Sony one-up the existing players and offer consumers some unique features.

Here’s what I ultimately want.

Must Haves:

• A non-proprietary file format. AAC is ideal (despite common misconception, this is not designed or owned by Apple). OGG is fine as well. Proprietary formats such as Sony ATRAC or Microsoft WMA are deal-breakers for me. I do not want proprietary issues restricting me if I ever want to move some of my music to a different device or software package.
• DRM-free or very light DRM: watermarks are fine, but more restrictive systems are not. I’m a strong believer in IP rights and I never pirate music or games (mp3sparks is a real gray area: Is the consumer responsible for policing their choice of store?), but DRM is a complete usability killer for me as a legitimate user.

Bonus Features:

• Higher Fidelity: Movies have always had DTS 5.1 which is way better than regular CD. PS3 games and Blu-Ray/HD-DVD movies provide even more with superior bit-rate encoding and lossless compression schemes. I’d like to get actual songs with this kind of quality. Hey, the mainstream music buyer is probably happy with AM radio quality music, but I’m willing to pay for better.
• Multi-channel Support: Most music is fine in one channel. You don’t need spatial positioning when listening to an orchestra or a rock song. However, some music does some pretty cool effects with multi-channel mixes. I heard the NiN album “With Teeth” in a surround sound mix and was really impressed. Why can I only get that surround mix on a physical disc? I’d like to have the option of purchasing that with the convenience of an online store.

Does anyone else also want higher fidelity and multi-channel support? Is there anything that you would like in a music store that isn’t already offered? Speak up in the comments…

Quick + Minor update: Music Store has been announced, but details scarce. Thanks Sporty!

* Armoured Core 4 Demo (free)
* Heavenly Sword Anime episode 2 (free)
* Heavenly Sword Making-of episode 2 (free)

I’m looking forward to the next Anime episode, but other than that, zzzzzzz.

As many of you have heard, the latest in the mega-hit Madden series, Madden ‘08, runs at a full 60 FPS on the Xbox 360 while running only at 30 FPS on the PS3.

I downloaded the IGN head-to-head video and I can’t see this difference. However, the video itself is encoded at 30FPS which makes it pretty useless in this regard.

Technical Question: Why is the frame rate such a simple even number? Usually, frame rates fluctuate constantly depending on the complexity of the scene and the amount of game activity that may consume system resources. Do these titles really generate a perfectly constant frame rate? It won’t drop to 25 FPS when there is a lot of action going on and the player is looking at a busy scene and the frame rate won’t jump to 35 FPS when when the game is relatively idle?

Why would Sony allow this to happen with such a big name title? I can’t imagine that Sony wouldn’t just send over a few of their brightest guys to pull a few all-nighters and fix this. This could be a simple technical issue just as they say. However, it’s hard not to be suspicious that this issue could be entirely political in nature.

EA issued a statement trying to downplay this flaw and cite limited experience with the PS3 hardware compared to the 360. For launch titles, that may have been passable, but now that sounds like a really lame excuse.

EA recently blamed its recent poor financial performance on investing so heavily in platforms such as the PS3. This is their biggest series for the PS3 and it’s being drowned with completely negative headlines. If they were serious about selling well on the PS3, you think they would have avoided this.

I don’t play Madden (or any sports games) and I don’t know how much of an impact this defect is. But even if the defect itself is small, the way that these issues tend to dominate all media coverage of the title can really dampen anyone’s enthusiasm.

The 4 Cs are “Community, competition, creativity and commerce”.

Community is all about communication with other users in Home. Sony says, “In the longer term, we’ll be implementing a fully featured social networking experience within Home.”

Competition is well obvious. But a nice option in Home is that clans could meet in a apt or house to chat. Hopefully you’ll be able to do this when Home launches.

Creativity is a huge thing in home. You’ll be able to customize your apartment with photos, movies, and music from your PS3 hard drive. And user-generated content tools such as their own t-shirt designs. That’s cool, wonder what people will come up with. They’ll be giving out tools to allow scripting, java minigames, etc.

Commerce: Eventually the PlayStation Store will transform into a full three-dimensional virtual world. That should be interesting. Hopefully it’s all kept in one virtual area. You can also buy virtual items for your apartment or upgrade to a larger pad.

PlayStation Home has huge potential, but Sony needs to be adding features and items to Home all the time to keep people interested. Publishers need to be very involved as well. I’m still looking forward to it though.

EIF: Sony Talks Home, ‘4 Cs’ Of PS3 Online Experience