If you haven’t been living under a rock, you’ve heard that the popular Half Life Orange Box title is supposedly substantially worse on the PS3.

Judge for yourself:

The videos really don’t look that different except during the hovercraft portion. During the hovercraft section, the PS3 version shows the text “Quicksaving…” while the 360 version does not. The PS3 version is noticeably choppy until the Quicksaving prompt disappears and then the game runs smoothly. That is really odd to put that Quicksaving section in only one platform during a head to head comparison.

To some extent, this is a self-fulfilling prophecy: whether the game actually has problems or not doesn’t really matter. With high-profile journalists at 1UP, EGM, and IGN giving this such negative commentary, most online-aware gamers are fully convinced before ever seeing the product themselves.

Case in point: F.E.A.R. After reading IGN and other previews, I was fully convinced the PS3 version was terrible. I was so convinced, I posted this to help get the word out so that PS3 owners didn’t waste their money. However, when I rented it and got the chance ot actually play for myself, I found that it was actually completely fine compared to the PC version. It wasn’t “dead in the water” or terrible or any of the other hyperbole the gaming press used to describe how terrible the PS3 version was. The tech was completely fine. Even after studying hi-res comparison videos in slow-motion, I couldn’t spot the slightest lighting flaw, or frame rate drop or texture deficiency. The game was rather repetitive and formulaic, but compared to other platforms, the PS3 version ran completely fine. Either I got a special version of the game that didn’t lacked these major graphical glitches or this is simply anti-PS3 platform bias masquerading as an objective comparison.

BTW, regardless of which version of Orange Box looks better, neither version in those videos look as good as other recent shooters such as Call of Duty 4 and UT3, or even Resistance or Gears of War from 2006.

From Bloomberg:

Stringer today said the company sells about 200,000 PlayStation 3 consoles in Europe each week, and 40,000 to 50,000 in Japan. It also sold more than 200,000 in the U.S. following “Black Friday,'’ the day after Thanksgiving.

200K per week in Europe alone! Wow!

It’s about time for some good news! Let’s hope we see some good software numbers as well.

Bonus Round at GameTrailers.com is reviewing the past year. And part one of episode 17 covers Sony. Michael Pachter, Shane Satterfield, and N’Gai Croal talk with the host about what Sony has done so far, and what they need to do. I enjoyed the video, check it out.

Bonus Round: Episode 17, Part 1

Summary

Rock Band is the most advanced, feature-complete, polished game in the music/rhythm genre. If you liked previous music/rhythm titles or want to try one out, this should be at the top of your list. I loved Harmonix’s earlier titles, Frquency/Amplitude and the Guitar Hero games, but this really does push the genre forward.

While this is definitely my favorite, no one game is for everyone, so I listed some alternatives as well.

Reasons Why Rock Band is the best in the Music/Rhythm Genre

Reasons Why You Might Be Happier With an Alternative

Alternatives

Wish List

Anyone else have any impressions of this title?

Amazon has a great deal right now. If you where waiting to take the Blu-ray plunge, now is the time to stock up on Blu-ray movies! Buy now before the deal is gone. I mentioned this in a earlier post today. But I wanted to get a full list for you to choose from, and man what a list! Here it is:

300
Troy - The Director’s Cut
The Departed
Casino Royale
GoodFellas
Blood Diamond
The Fifth Element (Remastered)
Underworld (Unrated)
National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation
A Christmas Story
The Last Samurai
Monty Python’s Life Of Brian - Two-Disc Collector’s Edition
Bram Stoker’s Dracula
Letters from Iwo Jima
Unforgiven
Happy Feet
Black Hawk Down
The Fugitive
Read the rest of this entry »

It’s been just over a year since the PLAYSTATION 3 launched, and I want to know where you guys think the PS3 is sitting. Vote in the sidebar, as always.

How is the PS3 doing?

1. Awesome. Couldn’t be better!
2. Very good.
3. Alright.
4. Not so good.
5. Terrible.

Last poll’s results:

Are you playing CoD4 on your PS3?

* Yes!: 61% (403)
* Soon.: 24% (158)
* Never.: 16% (104)

Total Votes : 665

For all you Blu-ray and Harry Potter fans out there. This is the week for you! You can get all the movies out so far on Blu-ray. Separately or in a box set.

Also there is a Buy One Blu-ray Disc and Receive a Second for Free sale at Amazon! Click here to buy before the offer ends! You can 115 titles to choose from!

* Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Warner Bros.)
* Harry Potter Limited Edition Gift Set: Years 1-5 (Warner Bros.)
* Lost: The Complete Third Season (Disney / Buena Vista)
* High School Musical 2: Extended Edition (Disney / Buena Vista)
* Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Warner Bros.)
* Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (Warner Bros.)
* Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Warner Bros.)
* Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Warner Bros.)
* Led Zeppelin: The Song Remains the Same (Warner Bros.)
* The Legend of Zorro (Sony Pictures)
* Rent (Sony Pictures)
* SOS! Tokyo Metro Explorers: The Next (Bandai Visual)

Blu-ray.com

So, what does everyone think?

Is the main character and the setting a good choice? Are the graphics good enough? And more importantly, beyond the graphics, will the game improve along with it?

From an IGN interview:

IGN: Is there anything in the trailer that people might overlook?

Rockstar: The level of detail - look at the wheels of the motor bikes, the details in the faces and light reflected in the river. This same level of details exists throughout the game - not just in terms of art, but also mission design, animation, physics, narrative, audio, AI and world atmosphere. Creating a detailed but still consistent and believable game world has always been one of our aims with any Grand Theft Auto, and for Grand Theft Auto IV it has led to an amazing amount of life and detail in every aspect of the production.

My vote is yes, the whole game will improve: the missions, the “world”, the atmosphere, and the writing. Obviously, you can’t see all that from the trailer, but I get the feeling that it will.

What do you think? Will the core game improve much? Will it retain the same free form, pick up and play and style that the series is known for?

I just got a chance to try out the Logitech MediaBoard Pro.

UPDATE: In the image above, the escape key is mapped to “X” and the enter key is mapped to “O”. The actual western keyboards have the expected mappings (escape -> “O”, enter -> “X”). As Segitz points out, the above image is probably for a Japanese keyboard. Appararently, Japan PS3 systems use “O” for forward and “X” for back (kind of odd that Japan and US would have this bizarre difference).

It uses native Bluetooth wireless. No special dongles needed.

It runs on two AA batteries. There is an on/off switch at the top right of the board.

The integrated trackpad is obviously ideal for sofa use where finding a surface for a traditional mouse might be awkward. It works perfectly for browsing the PS3 store and using the web browser. I doubt it would work well for an FPS however.

Overall, it’s exactly what you would expect. There are no real big surprises or anything, but it’s light, simple, it does its job well, it’s an exact stylistic match for the PS3, and it’s a perfect keyboard for chatting, text entry, web surfing, and navigating the XMB from a couch. It’s expensive for a keyboard, Amazon lists this at $62.99 while wired keyboards can easily be found for $10, but I’m definitely a happy customer.

As I posted previously, my original near-launch PS3 died. Shortly after updating to firmware v2.0, my system would freeze frequently: usually within seconds of booting, before I could even run a game or even login. I’ve put that system through heavy use (almost constantly turned on and usually running folding@home) and lots of physical transportation, but I gut guess as to the fatal blow was the v2.0 firmware flashing process. That’s just a guess though.

Regardless, the PS3 seems overall very stable. Out of my handful of friends and co-bloggers who own them, I’m the only one whose had any serious stability problems. A few readers have mentioned similar problems and I wanted to mention a few things just in case:

• If your PS3 is crashing, freezing regularly, that’s not normal: call support and get them to service your system.
• The standard Sony warranty on the PS3 is only one year. If my system was going to die on me, I’m glad it did so within the warranty period.
• You will need your receipt or proof of purchase and all original cables to get a replacement.
• If you need to send in your system for replacement, you typically get a completely different system in return. This means all the save games and content you had on your hard drive won’t come back. If you can back up your data before sending your system in for service, do so. Also, this is an advantage of using a separate HDD.

The whole service process was as painless as it can be. I’d definitely rather not have my system break, but I got my return in less than a week of sending my old system in.

Now I’m not advocating actually purchasing these speakers, mind you. Anything priced at £69 / €97 can’t sound that good. But I have to admit that they look kinda cool, which is why I posted this pic:

Logic3 SoundStation3 PS3 speakers