Archive for the 'Hardware' Category




Darrin

Video Downloads Coming Soon?

May 13th, 2008, 3 Comments

Somebody noticed something very interesting in a recent PSN video. Video downloads shown on the PlayStation Store. We knew this was coming, but maybe this is coming sooner than we think? It has options for NBC, HBO, the CW, Cartoon Network, MTV, and more. Some other things in the video are: “Click Start to Search”, “Click Square to Add to Cart”, “View Downloads”, and a Beta section.

But then again they showed the Home icon in PlayStation videos before and now that’s pushed back until November. So take this with a huge grain of salt.

Video Downloads Finally Coming to PLAYSTATION 3?



Darrin

Resistance 2 Gameplay

May 6th, 2008, 4 Comments

It’s a brief look at actual gameplay, hard to see the quality due to the poor video. But it looks good, some new weapons too. I’m very interested in the multiplayer aspect of R2 as well.

Gary

D+Pad Issue 7: MotorStorm 2 In-game Screens

May 5th, 2008, 2 Comments

D+Pad Issue 7

This month we’ve got an exclusive interview with MotorStorm 2’s Game Director Nigel Kershaw, and the first ever screens. It’s the first time these have been available online, so put down those crappy scans and enjoy them how they’re meant to be seen!

As well as that we’ve got a huge retrospective feature on the history of GTA, and of course a 4 page review of the game everyone’s talking about. But of course that’s not all. With heaps of reviews and previews there’s plenty to keep you going in Issue 7.

We’ve also integrated video streaming directly into the magazine, so you can check out the latest footage and trailers while flicking through. Please bear in mind you’ll need QuickTime and the latest version of Adobe Reader to use those.

It’s worth downloading Issue 7 for the MotorStorm 2 interview and screens alone but it’s packed with quality production throughout. It really does put most on the shelf magazines to shame.

Please leave any feedback in the comments.

Download Issue 7 Here

Darrin

PlayStation Store Update 5.1.08

May 1st, 2008, 3 Comments

Lots of content this week. I’ll be picking up Echochrome for the PS3. It’s a still at $9.99. And I’m curious to see what the level creator is like :)

North America

Games/Demos:
-Echochrome - $9.99 (includes 56 levels unique to the PS3 version and a level creator)
-Echochrome (PSP) - $9.99 (includes 56 levels unique to the PSP version and a level creator)
-Dark Sector Demo

DLC:
Rock Band tracks - $1.99 each:
-The Mother Hips – “Red Tandy” (master)
-The Mother Hips – “Time Sick Son of a Grizzly Bear” (master)
-Smashing Pumpkins – “Zero” (master)

Karaoke Revolution Presents: American Idol Encore downloadable songs ($1.49 each)

Trailers:
-Battlefield Bad Company Redford Blog
-Kung Fu Panda Trailer
-Dead Space Announcement Trailer
-Dead Space Ship Date Trailer
-Turok - “Kane” Gameplay Trailer
-Turok “Bring It” Trailer
-NBA Ballers: Chosen One TV Spot
-Wyclef’s “Fast Car” Music Video

Wallpapers:
-echochrome Wallpapers (x4)
-Kung Fu Panda Wallpapers (x3)

United Kingdom

Games/Demos:
-Ape Quest (PSP) - €9.99 / £6.99
-Ape Quest (PSP) demo

DLC:
-NFS ProStreet - Car Packs (all contain different cars)
–Bugatti Veyron - €2.99 / £1.99
–McLaren F1 - €2.99 / £1.99
–Extender Pack #1 - €4.99 / £3.49
–Extender Pack #2 - €4.99 / £3.49

-Snakeball - Team Pack - €2.99 / £1.99

Trailers:
-Kane & Lynch - “Map Pack”

Other:
-Dark Sector theme
-Haze theme
-Haze wallpapers
-Rainbow Six Vegas 2 theme

Japan

Games/Demos:
-Battle Fantasia demo

DLC:
-Call of Duty 4 - Map Pack 1 - ¥1000

Trailers:
-Fifa Street 3
-Motorstorm Complete

NeoGAF

Darrin

Metal Gear Solid 4 - New Video [Spoilers!]

May 1st, 2008, 5 Comments

SPOILER ALERT, SPOILER ALERT, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

! x 100 and I love the ending

Darrin

Metal Gear Online Beta Impressions

April 30th, 2008, 10 Comments

First off this game is not for everyone. You either love it or hate it. Me personally I love it. Big improvement over MGS3 Online. Don’t think this will be your standard FPS, it is not! That’s what makes MGO unique and fun. There is a big learning curve if you’ve never played a metal gear game. But there is a training mode to practice your shooting, CQC(close quarter combat), movement, adjusting the settings to your liking, etc. Which you should do before you jump into a live game, because you’ll get slaughtered quickly if you don’t know what you’re doing.

It still took me some time before I really got used to the controls, and adjusting the settings to my liking. It’s a blast to roll over people in the barrel. But if you roll for to long you will throw up. It works great to hide barrels and boxes. Most of the time people just walk by, but you’ll get people that shoot boxes and barrels just to be sure. The catapult (I call it the man cannon), is so great. You hop on and you can move it to two angles, then just press triangle and off you go flying into the air. I like to rotate the camera in mid air to get a good look at the whole level almost and see if I can spot any enemies while flying. Then you nail the landing on both feet and continue on. You always know when somebody is flying because of the scream they make, lol.

Then there is the magazines with bikini clad ladies. Works the same as usual, but this time you can actually turn the pages and choose which sexy lady you want to “distract” you enemies. I think there is a about 4 pages. The CQC is fun, I finally leveled up my knife skill to lv3 so I can slit throats. So fun to hide around corner and grab a enemy passing by and knock him out or kill him. If you have CQC level 3 you can actually disarm your opponent of his weapons, inject a virus, knock him out, etc. I don’t have this yet, but I’m working on it.

The skill system has 4 slots and 16 skills total. For example you can select a gun type mastery which reduces the recoil and faster reloading or Fast Movement which would be useful for CQC or just getting away from enemy fire. But if you level up a skill to level 2 it will take 2 slots, and level 3 (max) takes 3 slots. Which I wish wasn’t the case. Because if you want to slit throats with a knife. You have to have lv3 knife and lv1 cqc, and that takes up all your slots. Wouldn’t be so bad if you could swap out your skills after you die. But you can’t until the whole round is over.

The SOP system is great addition. Just press triangle near your team mates and you are all linked to the SOP system. Once you die your not connected and you’ll need to connect again. This outlines them with your teams color (red or blue), and it’s still visible threw walls even. You can tell if your teammates are distracted by a magazine, stunned, being killing etc. There is even a skill that allows you to hack into your opponents SOP system and if the guy you hacked into is connected to his team mates you basically know the locations of everybody on there team!

On Monday Konami released another game mode, Sneaking Mission (my favorite), and a map called Midtown Maelstrom. Somebody at random is picked to be Snake, and if there is at least 11 players somebody gets to play as the Metal Gear Mk. II robot. To win Snake must collect 3 dog tags from enemies without dying, which can be very hard sometimes. While this is going on there are two teaming battling it out. For a team to win they have to kill snake up to 5 times (depending on your server settings). If Snake doesn’t collect his 3 dog tags or he doesn’t die five times from a team. Then the team with the most kills win. It’s a blast.

Snake has Octocamo, which takes the color and texture of whatever he’s against if he doesn’t move for a couple seconds. Sometimes he is extremely hard to see, think of it like trying to find predator cloaked during a fire fight. But for the Octocamo to be truly effective you have to keep changing the suit to match your environment. Snake also has another great tool in his arsenal, the Solid Eye vision system. Which allows him to switch between Night Vision and binoculars. Another cool thing is you can even do a hold up with Snake. Just point your gun at a guys back and he’ll say Freeze! :D

Playing as the Mk. II robot is a blast too. It’s basically invisible in the shadows, in the sunlight it casts a small shadow. The Mk. II only has one weapon & purpose really, to assist Snake in winning. He can deliver shocks to people to knock them out so snake can collect the dog tags.

Had a epic MGO moment over the weekend! A guy had my team member in a standing choke hold just outside the warehouse doors. I was hidden inside the warehouse with my sniper rifle. I zoomed in on the opponent doing the CQC choke hold and boom head shot. Team member saved. Then he saluted me! :)

This game is so fun, I haven’t even been tempted to try out the new CoD4 maps I bought, or anything else really. A easter egg I found, is when your booting up the game and your on the screen with your character. If you rotate the camera for a while, your character with get dizzy and fall down. If you just sit there he hides in a box. Oh Konami what else have you hidden! lol This is exactly why I love the MGS series! I could go on and on about MGO, but I’ll shut up now.

Darrin

Could the PS3 be a Home Computer Replacement?

April 21st, 2008, 13 Comments

What do most typicaly people use home PCs for?

  • Web Browsing. This is the biggest and broadest use and covers many types of web applications.
  • Messaging: Email and IM
  • Word Processing + Spreadsheets
  • Music + Photos + Movies
  • Games

The PS3 is way ahead of home computers for games, and it’s better for movies (IMO) as well. But the PS3 still has a ways to go in several other areas. What if the PS3 made these improvements:

  • Made a really good web browser. The current browser is great for occasional use when you don’t have a PC handy, but realistically, no one would use the existing browser for their main web browsing. But what if the PS3 really did make a great browser that was nearly as good as a PC: fast, standards compliant, tabs, improved support for USB mouse/keyboard, search box, cookie management, all the preferences and options that power users want, and something that overall could be used as a primary browser. I don’t know if this is possible given PS3’s hardware design, but if they did this, people could use web applications for regular email, word processing, and spreadsheet functionality.
  • Impoved Music and Photo apps. PS3 has great music and photo features, but they still are missing many of the polish and features found in the better PC software such as iTunes, Windows Media, or Picasa.
  • IM. There are web clients, but the native clients work better. Also, people want to use their existing IM networks (AIM, Jabber, etc), not just the PSN network.

Sure, all the programmers, 3D animators, CAD people, and other specialty users want general purpose computers with apps highly tailored to their specific needs, but why does the common user who basically wants a web terminal need a full-blown general purpose Windows/Linux/Mac computer?

If the PS3 did the above, would people really start using the PS3 as a genuine home computer replacement? Would you start seeing PS3’s on desks and in small offices in addition to living rooms?

Darrin

March Hardware Sales

April 18th, 2008, 4 Comments

chart4.png

NPD MediaCreate Total
PS2 216,000 51,068 267,068
360 262,000 9,041 271,041
PS3 257,000 71,325 328,325
PSP 297,000 422,358 719,358
NDS 698,000 281,085 979,085
Wii 721,000 268,720 989,720

Commentary

- Above only includes US + Japan figures. I currently can’t get reliable Europe figures which would be very nice to include.

- The 360 managed to eek out a small lead over PS3 in the US NPD numbers this month. Of course, PS3 has a much larger lead in Japan and Europe, so globally, the PS3 is well ahead for the month. It would be nice to see PS3 keep the US lead over 360 in March, but given preliminary vgchartz numbers, it looks like PS3 will take the US lead back for April while keeping large leads in both Europe and Japan.

- First party PS3 titles such as MLB ‘08 The Show and Hot Shots Golf didn’t make a splash on the top 10 charts. They could be doing well outside the top 10, and they may sell over a longer stretch of time, but we can’t tell.

- Sony is putting out some really strong software content and firmware updates. I can’t wait to see what happens next.

Darrin

Dual Shock 3 Hitting Next Week

April 2nd, 2008, 3 Comments

For those that haven’t imported yours, your wait is almost over. I’ve loved my DS3 so far :) You can pick one up for $54.99 MSRP next week. I do wish Sony had some sort of trade is program for the SIXAXIS controllers, but oh well. Here is the list of titles supporting the Dual Shock 3 currently. Shame there isn’t Call of Duty 4 in that list ..

SCEA - Formula One Championship Edition* (PS3)
SCEA - MotorStorm* (PS3)
SCEA - PAIN (PSN)
SCEA - High Velocity Bowling (PSN)
SCEA - MLB 08: The Show (PS3)
SCEA - Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune (PS3)
SCEA - Resistance: Fall of Man* (PS3)
SCEA - Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction (PS3)
SCEA - Go! Sports Ski* (PSN)
SCEA - Folklore* (PS3)
SCEA - Heavenly Sword* (PS3)
SCEA - Warhawk* (PSN / PS3)
SCEA - Super Stardust HD* (PSN)
SCEA - Snakeball (PSN)
SCEA - Toy Home (PSN)
SCEA - PSOne Emulation (PSN)
SCEA - Piyotama (PSN)
SCEA - PixelJunk Monsters (PSN)
SCEA - Blast Factor* (PSN)
Sega - Condemned 2: Bloodshot (PS3)
Ubisoft - Lost: Via Domus (PS3)
Ubisoft - Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas 2* (PS3)
EA - Burnout Paradise (PS3)
KOEI - Dynasty Warriors 6 (PS3)
Capcom - Devil May Cry 4 (PS3)
Atari - Dragon Ball Z Burst Limit (PS3)
Disney Interactive - Turok (PS3)

Feel the Shock Next Week!

Darrin

Inside the DualShock 3

March 31st, 2008, 9 Comments

PCWorld takes a look inside the new DualShock 3, along with the DualShock 2, and the SIXAXIS controllers.

The PS2 DualShock 2:

ds2.jpg

The original SIXAXIS for the PS3:

six.jpg

The PS3 DualShock 3, which is out in Japan and is officially coming to North America in April:

ds31.jpg

Henning

IR2BT - InfraRed to BlueTooth Converter for the PS3

March 28th, 2008, 3 Comments

ir2bt.jpg

Finally, a real but expensive solution for the lack of infrared support in the PS3. This little device will translate infrared commands to BlueTooth for the PS3 to understand. Including the Power On and Off buttons! Only problem is, this thing costs $55. If anybody buys this thing, please post your comments.

InfraRed to BlueTooth Converter for the PS3



QuickNews

In the first half of 2008 in Canada, the PS3 outsold the 360 170k to 129k. For once us Canadians get it right! :)

- Thu31Jul08



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