The demo came out last night for Qore subscribers and will be available to everyone in October. I put a question mark on some of the “cons” in the list below since I don’t know if these will be addressed in the full release or not.

Pros

Cons

Any racing fans care to comment on the demo?

All NPD, MediaCreate, and Famitsu data is updated in the online public database hosted at Zoho if you want to create your own charts or queries.

This was long overdue. The developers behind Kane & Lynch finally speak up regarding the neagative critical reception to their game:

“…unfortunately the GameSpot review had its own wicked little life and Eidos, GameSpot and of course the game got entangled in what I guess is best described as a conspiracy theory. And if there’s anything the ‘net loves, it’s a good conspiracy.

It was surreal to sit in Copenhagen and watch the game get shredded in forums for reasons and feelings that didn’t all seem entirely based on the game itself.”

Not “entirely based on the game”? That’s an understatement. Almost all of the attention from the press and the enthusiast community was based on the GameSpot conspiracy and had nothing to do with the actual game behind it.

Games and review scores are subjective. While plenty, including myself, loved Kane & Lynch, I know plenty of people who gave the game a chance and legitimately disliked it for valid reasons. But overall, this isn’t just a difference in opinion. The media and hardcore hive mind was focused on the conspiracy rather than the game and the overall reaction was colored accordingly.

Kane & Lynch isn’t the only game that was drowned out by political drama. Two other good examples are Bully and Manhunt. The media provided months of extensive blow-by-blow coverage of these idiotic court room trials and completely forgot about the actual games behind them.

In the defense of the media, this is how media works. They are encouraged to produce trashy attention grabbing click bait rather than deep, meaningful writing. The political media is notorious for this kind of thing. Bill Clinton’s blow job scandal or George Bush’s vomit incident or gay rights issues get extensive media attention, while more important issues surrounding the economy and foreign policy get ignored.

Part of this is just the way the world works: the media and hive mind will be superficial and will get distracted by nonsense like this. But on the other hand, there’s a void for higher quality journalism that cuts through this nonsense. In political media, there is tons of superficial tripe, but if you know where to look, there is plenty of deep thoughtful writing to appeal to almost every perspective. Obviously games are far less important then the issues of governance and society, but the void in quality gaming journalism is real and ripe to be filled.

To clarify the question: Do you think the PS3 needs a price cut to stay competitive and sell well relative to other consoles this holiday season?

Personally, I have no idea. There is an elaborate art behind consumer electronics pricing issues such as this, and I lack the market research, pricing theory, and the business experience to give a definitive answer. However, I can provide the basic ups and downs of each side:

Arguments For: The PS3 DOES need to cut price to stay competitive this holiday

1. Many buyers, particularly gift shoppers buying for a family member, just care about the upfront purchase price and don’t think about other costs until later such as hard drives and WiFi adapters and online acess charges. They need a low price to get them in the door.
2. Look at the success of the Wii at $250, and the continued success of the aging PS2 at $129, and of course the success of the Nintendo DS, and the PSP. Clearly, budget pricing is where the volume sales are happening.
3. The bulk of gamers aren’t enthusiast adults with large disposable incomes, but a younger audience in the 5-20 age range which are far more price limited. Often, the actual buyers are parents and grandparents who are heavily influenced by price point and marketing.
4. There is a large difference in the entry prices of these systems. The base PS3 model will now be completely double the base 360 price and is still slighlty less than double the Wii price.

Arguments Against: The PS3 does NOT need to cut price, and will remain competitive with their current pricing structure.

1. In general, gamers are notoriously opinionated about their console preferences. Lots of people have their mind set on a particular console brand, and a mere price cut certainly isn’t going to change their mind. Of course, many gamers buy all the consoles, and many gamers really are “swing-buyers” that chose consoles based on cost, but they are the minority.
2. The success of the Wii has more to do with Nintendo’s success at connecting with a certain type of consumer rather than its price. Many Wii consumers didn’t want a cheaper PS3 or 360, they wanted a completely different product with a completely different brand identity.
3. Quality is more important than price. And the PS3 arguably has a much better software lineup this year than the competition and has made more progress in terms of base system functionality as well.
4. The PS3 is still very competitive in the short term. A 360, with fairly basic add-ons (hard drive, WiFi, and first year of online service) still costs as much as a base PS3, and the PS3 still has blu-ray, a larger hard drive, better upgrade options, and permanently free online access.
5. Obviously, they will drop price, the question is when. Beyond price, another barrier to more mainstream adoption is the physical size and weight of the PS3. Maybe it would be better to time a price cut alongside a slimline PS3? Or maybe after they switch to cheaper production techniques? Or after they roll in some new mainstream feature, that is not game related?

This post is extremely late, but GTA 4 is easily one of the most influential games of this generation and is worth a look back. I’m looking forward to a discussion in the comments

Pros

• Huge Range and Depth of Detail Obviously the physics and graphics have received major overhauls. But beyond that, absolutely everything has been expanded. The NPCs have more elaborate behaviors and reactions, the environments are more detailed and there are more ways to interact with everything. For great coverage of these little touches read here and here.
• Writing, Humor, and Narrative The wit, humor, and hilarious sarcasm of the series have always been a key part of the experience. That hasn’t diminished; the writing is as fresh and sharp as ever. This felt like a satisfying evolution to GTA fiction rather than merely more of the same. The main themes of the central story are slightly different. For example, the main story line moves away from the rags to riches arc of previous titles.
• Gunplay The physics, impact, cover system, aiming controls, explosions are all improved. Also, shooting out of and into vehicles works much better than before.
• Driving The car physics and damage is much more elaborate. Cars spin out and fish tail very easily which gives this game a steeper learning curve.
• Wow Moments The game’s “wow” moments are more frequent and more spectacular than ever before. This is largely a result of more elaborate car chases, shootouts, gun fights, and explosions.
• Full Multiplayer Multiplayer modes are surprisingly fun. Great voice chat and friend invitations.
• Graphics Sure, all the polygon counters and pixel geeks scoff at this title and can name dozens of games with higher specs. But this game is absolutely beautiful to look at: the explosions, the car crashes, the jumps, the falls, and mostly, the overall rendition of the city. For maximum effect, fly through Times Square in a helicopter at night: it’s absolutely stunning.

Cons

• Extended Tutorial The first 30-40 story missions all felt like part of a huge tutorial sequence. They were still fun to play through, but ideally the player wouldn’t feel like they are playing a tutorial for so long.
• Soundtrack Where is my massive GTA 4 soundtrack boxset? Amazon lists a mere three online albums.
• Core Game is aging I played GTA 1 when it came out on PC, and that was only OK, but GTA 3 blew me away when it came out. The whole game felt completely magical and completely unlike anything else I had ever played. GTA 4 is probably the biggest and best evolution of a series into the new generation of hardware, however, after playing through the last five GTA games (3, VC, SA, LC:S, VC:S), the core game experience is no longer new to me. Despite the game doing everything better than ever before, I no longer feel that raw sense of wonder just aimlessly exploring the fictional city.

Summary

There was a lot of controversy about the outrageously high praise that this game received at launch. Every highly rated game has legions of detractors and this game is no different. In an ideal world, GTA 3 would be rated more highly, since that was such a massive genre defining experience, but that’s probably a once in a lifetime sort of thing. No game can appeal to everyone, but this game deserves its unusually high marks for delivering ridiculously high polish and for the sheer quantity of detail and content, the great writing, the frequency of in-game wow moments, and great multiplayer.

Agree? Disagree? Let’s hear it.

Afrika, the African wildlife photography game has shipped in Japan. A western release is expected (although not confirmed) in 2009.

One western gamer has imported the game and written up some early impressions:

I wasn’t really expecting too much from Afrika’s gameplay but have been pleasantly surprised and found it pretty engrossing if not mind blowing. It’s not the technical powerhouse I had hoped for after watching trailers, but it’s got some charm and it’s a great change of pace so I’m looking forward to playing some more.

Not too many exciting details, but this game has always sounded like a great concept, so I look forward to its western release.

So first off Mirror’s Edge is not an exclusive PS3 game. Apparently this was a strong rumor, but i was not aware of this? Secondly, the PS3 is getting exclusive downloadable content (DLC) much like how GTA IV is on Xbox. There is no further news stating what the DLC will be but here’s hoping for something substantial like extra levels, modes etc…

Already we have seen Soul Calibur offering console exclusive characters, FIFA 09 having an exclusive PS3 mode and Xbox with GTA IV mission exclusives. Is this going to become a growing trend with how the console war will be fought?

Here is the announcement.

Interesting features:

• Automatic pairing with PS3 via USB cable like SIXAXIS/DUALSHOCK3 controllers.
• On screen indicators of headset connection status, battery life, speaker volume, and mute status.
• Eight hours of voice time on one charge. Recharges by USB.
• Noise Cancellation One problem with many headsets is that the game sounds coming out of your speakers gets picked up by the microphone. The PS Eye has this same feature and it works well, but it’s not perfect.
• Works with cell phones supports both HSP and HFP profiles

It’s suspected that this will come in a SOCOM bundle. The PR also mentions support for Motorstorm 2 + Resistance 2, although I’d suspect this would work fine with any voice chat ready game.

From Amazon:

• Resistance 2 video game and Bonus DVD with Behind the Scenes video, video commentary by Insomniac Games, and “Twisted History” chronology video.
• Exclusive in-game HVAP Wraith multiplayer skin
• Sneak peek at the upcoming Resistance novel, “Resistance: The Gathering Storm”
• Exclusive 5.5″ Chimera Hybrid action figure with Bullseye weapon
• Double-sided Resistance art book covering a war-torn America from two unique perspectives.

Is this worth the extra $20?

What Type of Game is This?

This game clearly fits into the strategy RPG genre: It’s like a regular RPG but there is more focus on the combat system and almost none of the exploration and adventure elements. All the item collection, character building, and stat building typically found in regular RPGs are here. There is plenty of story and narrative in between battles as well.

Who Will Like This?

This is an elaborate, chess-like strategy game that demands a large time investment to appreciate. Does that sound appealing? This genre of game has a definite niche audience, and it is easiest to explain this way:

I would have loved this when I was 8-18 years old and I had no other outlet for making strategic and tactical decisions. As an adult, I don’t want to play this for the same reason that I don’t want to play chess: I’d simply rather spend the type of effort and brain power that these games require on something more productive like work projects, or taking a night class at the university, or learning a real skill of some kind. Now when I play games, I seek either relaxation, inspiration, or type of excitement that I don’t get in my regular life such as gun fights and car chases.

Technology

The screenshots and videos give a good idea of exactly what to expect. This does not have flashy graphics or fancy technology and it clearly wasn’t supposed to. This title does look a little bit nicer than PS2/PSP games of this sort, but don’t expect anything huge.

Compared to other SRPGs

This is one of the more highly regarded series in the genre, but I don’t know this genre very well, so I can’t add much. Anyone else care to comment?

They changed the following below, it’s all server side so you don’t have to download anything. Nice that they added reward points to something other than survival (which only open from 8 - 11 p.m. Fri - Sun for me). But only 5 points?? Some things in the reward store cost 10,000!

1)Players will gain 5 reward points when they have finished a round in the automatching lobbies “SNAKE:EX”, “LIQUID:EX” and “SOLIDUS:EX”.

*The lobbies “SNAKE:EX”, “LIQUID:EX” and “SOLIDUS:EX” are only available for users who have bought the “MGO GENE EXPANSION”.

2)A new Survival Lobby “MK2″ has been added.

Konami.jp

Click here for bigger version:

It looks exactly like I expected. An updated version of Indigo Prophecy with dramatically improved visuals and technology. Unfortunately, the trailer highlights the notorious Quick Time Events. Does anyone not dislike those things?

160GB with Uncharted and a voucher for the PSN game PAIN. $499 this Fall.

I like how they worded this on the official site:

“The 160GB PS3 has all of the same functionality as the new 80GB PS3 that’s popping up on retailer shelves now, but obviously has twice the HDD space”

Translation: Same limitations as the old 40GB unit. No PS2 compatibility whatsoever, only two USB ports rather than four, no integrated flash card reader, and no SACD support. OK, I don’t think anyone cares about SACD support, but many enthusiasts including myself really want the other extras. I know I can buy a separate PS2 and USB extenders and external flash readers, but that sucks. It really does. I assume they are pulling the older 80GB SKUs off the market as well. I can’t complain too much since I still have my near-launch 60GB model (with a 250GB HDD) but I’m less enthusiastic about other people picking up these units.

I’m normally not one to be negative, as the PS3 is awesome overall, and video games are better than ever, but I’m not going to pull punches on this one. This really sucks.

On the bright-side, the new PS3 units have been using the smaller, cooler 65nm process for CPU manufacturing and these new units may be the first to have 65nm GPUs. This isn’t confirmed, but they’ve previously said that GPU manufacture would upgrade to 65nm process this fall so the timing is right.