Still looks vaguely like KITT

Thanks to Test My Driving I am the proud owner of a brand new PS3 slim. I’ll be honest and say that had I not won it I would never have bought one. One main reason for me is I don’t like the way they implemented the Playstation Network (PSN).

Now many fanboys for Sony’s console will say it trumps Microsoft’s XBox Live (XBL) service because it’s free and therefore accessible to all. This much is true however it’s free because Sony doesn’t provide the servers they’re hosted by the publishers/developers* of the games you play. This may sound great in theory but it’s not. I was lucky enough to beta the PSN on my PS2 back when I had one and while they’ve fixed some of its shortcomings in the PS3 implementation the most problematic part, servers hosted by publishers/developers is still how it all works. This puts you at the mercy of them as they can quite happily turn off the server for First Person Shooter 2009 meaning that if you want to carry on fragging you’ll need to purchase First Person Shooter 2010. It’s cynical but the system as is can be abused in that way. It has also, in my experience, caused far too many connection issues when you just want to have a kick about on Fifa. It’s for this reason alone I quite happily shell out each year for my XBL subscription.

Other than that though I have enjoyed using a PS3 and it’s not been as unusual as I thought it’d be to revert back to the controller which I’ve not used in many years. I’ll admit it was odd at first, especially when playing F1 Challenge, but I’ve taken to it rather quicker than I thought. I still prefer the XBox controller though mainly because I find the positioning of the analog sticks, and the pad in general, far more comfortable. The menu system is pretty cool and thanks to Nullriver’s Media Link I’m able to stream stuff from my Mac as well which is nice.

In the end though I won’t be shelling out to buy all the cross-platform titles for my PS3 as my XBox 360 is still my platform of choice. I have a far better appreciation for the console and the PSN but it’s still not as good as it could be however I doubt Sony will make it a pay-to-play. The bonus for me though is I now have a Blu-Ray player which is great so all’s well that ends well.

*One exception is EA which hosts everything on both services.

Forza 3 Collectors Edition

While release day for the UK isn’t till tomorrow thanks to a postal strike my Limited Edition came early. First off I’d like to tip my hat to whoever designed the box for the LE. It presents the game, the USB stick and the key ring in a very cool yet classy way. What is even better is the game itself is in a sleek black case and not plastered with the usual XBox 360 stuff and the lime green cases. While not a huge thing it certainly ties the whole thing together.

Along with the key ring and USB memory stick you get some downloadable goodies. At time of writing I’ve been able to download everything but the LCE dashboard theme. While not part of the game it was a little frustrating but from what I’ve read on the official forums its absence is simply due to the fact they haven’t uploaded it. So with any luck come Friday, I’ll re-download the pack and it’ll be there. They key ring is a lovely, brushed steel key ring which looks really cool and has the Forza 3 logo engrave on there. The USB stick on the other hand is your run of the mill plastic casing but contrary to some office jibes not a cheap knock-off stick. The make is SanDisk so should be pretty good and reliable though I have not yet used and don’t plan to either.

On to the actual game itself and oh my is it beautiful. The one thing that really struck me is how better looking it is than Forza 2. Maybe it’s just me but everything just seems to have that extra bit of polish, colours are brighter, cars are sharper and the off track scenery feel much more part of the circuit. What is even more amazing is when you think ‘it looks this good and still plays at 60fps.’ This for me is the big plus point as I’d rather have a game that makes you feel you’re going fast than one that looks pretty but at 140mph you feel like you’re doing twenty. Couple that then with some awesome physics and you find you’ve got a top draw sim racer.

The words sim and racer would put a lot of people off however don’t as Forza 3 is really easy to pick up and play. Don’t care about upgrading your car? Forza 3 will upgrade your car for you if it’s not competitive enough to race in the Championship you’ve just entered. Pretty awful at driving? With all the assists Forza has to offer you should find your happy medium. Add to this the new rewind feature which, like in Race Driver GRID, allows you to rewind the race if you mess up, it makes the whole racing thing a less stressful affair (well mostly). It also means that the more someone plays and gets used to how it all handles with the knowledge they can rewind it will probably encourage the “all assists” crowd to turn the odd one off. Personally I’ve played each iteration of Forza without assists, not because I’m amazing, but because you get more cash in-game if you do. At the same time though I’ve felt more a part of the game and find winning a lot more rewarding.

Next on the change list for Forza 3 was the look and feel. The menu system in Forza 2 was okay but not great and at times could get a little confusing. Forza 3 however has a clean white look with minimal menus which are easy to follow and intuitive. The first thing I said about the menus to myself when I played the demo was ‘how very Gran Turismo’ and that’s not a bad thing. Either way the new look interface is welcomed as is the new way to make vinyl groups. Ask any of the painters in Forza 2 the way they made a lot of designs was find the car with the biggest roof and make the groups from there. There is now a stand alone option to make a vinyl group in Forza 3 and it takes you to an area where you have a grid layout. This makes making vinyl groups much easier as you have lots of space to play with as you don’t have to worry about part of your design going off the side of the roof. These groups can then be saved and put on a car later or, if you’re an awesome painter (which I’m not) you can put up for sale on your storefront.

The storefront is another new addition to Forza 3. Here the community at large can check out the best painters and tuners and buy their designs/tunes. For someone like me who was awful at painting and tuning in Forza 2 this is a fantastic addition. Now I can easily find tunes and designs and give something to those who provide them. Right now there’s not much on there as the game isn’t out but I can’t wait to see what the games best painters come up with, especially with the new painting method for vinyl groups. However don’t think that this replaces the auction house as that is still there and seemingly for me, still impossible to win a bid.

Finally then it’s on to the single player game as I haven’t touched multiplayer. The first thing of note is the new season play. One of the biggest issues with previous Forza game was that it was just race after race and a slow progression through every category. Forza 3 introduces Season Play to combat this. Each season you’ll compete in one World Championship which take place on weekends then after each of those you’ll be asked to select a week based competition. It’s definitely a more engaging way to play the game but if you want to slog through just competitions you can still do this and is where I selected my first drag race which to be honest wasn’t as fun as I thought it’d be. There’s also still the usual leaderboards which can be asked for every track and event for fastest lap as well as for drifting, the other newcomer to Forza 3.

Drifting was a community startup with drift teams like Project Blackjack being the forerunners of this sub-community. In Forza 3 it’s an add-on accessed by pressing left on the D-pad but it’s fun sometimes to turn it on and just go nuts. The drift points are awarded in a Project Gotham like way and the familiarity is nice. The other thing to is that it’s not easy or at least I found it hard to get anything good going which makes your respect the drift teams immensely.

So in closing Forza 3 is such a huge step-up from the impressive Forza 2 I almost couldn’t believe it. Forza is a seasoned racer now and the current iteration shows this in the professional look and feel. At the same time however it’s still a serious simulation editor which, with all assists off will bite your head off if you get it badly wrong. What is even more amazing is that despite this it can still be picked up and played by the arcade type racer or those who aren’t big racing players and still be enjoyed. What Turn10 has done with Forza 3 is impressive and sets that bar high now for its competitors namely Race Pro. At the same time though it puts quite a lot of expectation on them for the future. But if Forza 3 is anything to go by they’ll excel under pressure and can’t wait to see what they do next.

Nintendo blind sided the games industry with the Wii. It wasn’t “nex-gen”, it didn’t have HD graphics and most importantly, it wasn’t expensive. What it was, was revolutionary. Nintendo’s gamble on motion based games which required some actual exertion was a hit with the masses, gamers and non-gamers alike. The console itself was like gold dust for many months after launch, I myself paid over the odds to get my hands on one for Christmas. When I opened it up on Christmas day 2006 it was instantly hook up to my parents TV and for several hours we made Mii’s and played Wii Sports. My parents who are without doubt non-gamers, took to the Wii with relative ease. Once the basics of Wii Bowling was acquired my Mother was almost unstoppable. For my parents having movement involved made it easy to learn, less complicated. They have their own Wii now, in-fact they have two, and they enjoy playing on it when they find the time. This was a revelation and the Wii was out-selling the other two by a country mile. Everyone wanted a Wii.

It was no surprise then that a couple years down the line Microsoft and Sony want in on the act. Lure those people of a certain generation who have the disposable income to buy their consoles but would normally be put off because of using a standard controller. Out of the two the Natal is odd one out as it’s a sort of camera based whole body motion controller. Sony’s effort does use the Playstation Eye but you still have a controller to hold. I watched the Natal demo video involving Milo and I was really taken with it. I have read Eurogamers hands-on and the fact that at the moment it’s pretty scripted but the possibilities are massive. What I was most impressed by was the passing of the picture to Milo. Think of an MMO with proper interaction, characters reading your body language and reacting accordingly, I’m honestly excited by what this could mean for the console.

On the flip side I feel that Sony’s effort is just their adaptation rather than a re-thinking. That’s not to say their wrong for doing so, I guess there’s only so many ways to introduce motion, but I guess I was looking for more after seeing Natal. Sony’s console is coming strong now and a lot of the most recent games are really starting to flex it’s muscles and adding motion control will aid in its goal to be an all-in-one home entertainment system. Want to watch a HD-movie? The PS3 has Blu-Ray. Want to play the latest HD games? PS3 has that too. Want to play interactive motion games? With a motion controller the PS3 will do that soon.

As the title of this post suggest all of this is in aid of capturing the non-gamer those who flocked to the Wii on launch. They’re also after those who have overlooked the Wii due to its lack of features like DVD playback. However I think in some ways both are a little late, at least, they are for those who already have a Wii. The non-gamers won’t want to have more than one console nor do I think they will sell one and buy another. They’ll be comfortable with what they have and don’t want to invest again in another formats peripherals and games. It’ll be about capturing those who haven’t made their choice yet and it maybe that Sony’s decision to imitate rather revolutionise that will help them. Many of these potential buyers will undoubtedly have already played on a Wii. The motion controller will be familiar to them and make it an easier adaptation. Couple that with Blu-Ray playback and Sony may be on to a winner here. However I also hope that Natal is taken on by the gaming fraternity. If it is used in an MMO context then it’ll sell, especially if it’s well implemented. The key for Natal is game support and innovative use and this depends upon game developers. Here again Sony has the upper hand as many have had experience with the Wii which will make the development life cycle a simpler issue. With Natal it’s a whole new concept and one would expect that it’ll take a while for developers to really push the envelope with it.

I’m excited to see where this will all go, who will do what and what the game developers will do. It’s an exciting time to be a gamer no matter which platform you’re on.

The main thing for me is they boast this service as an platform which can be played from a Windows or Mac PC as well as it’s ‘micro-console.’ Cool, brilliant love that especially as gaming on a Mac is pretty lacking in top notch titles. The reason I stopped playing games on my Windows PC was I was tired of having to upgrade every few months to play the latest title in it’s full glory. With my XBox I could play any of the latest titles without any upgrading and the only upgrade would be every few years when they release the new console. However when you consider the numbers that could potentially connect to this OnLive service you begin to wonder whether it’s at all feasible. According to a Gamespot article XBox Live currently boasts 17 million active members and the Playstation Network having 20 million members. If half of those join up to OnLive their servers would potentially have to deal with 18 million connections. That’s a little over the top I appreaciate but they could likely get say 1 million people wanting to play the latest games and they say no lag?

That’s the other thing, lag. Lag or latency is the bane of any online gamer and even with current tech you will, at some point, experience lag when gaming. However the boffins over at OnLive say they’ve eliminated it to the point where they can say that they’re service will be without it. That must mean then they have something completely new that no-one has figured out already but I simply can’t believe that. Even when I was gaming on a server where I had a ping of <10ms I still experienced lag, it was frustrating then and if I signed up to this service and was playing say Mirror’s Edge I’d be even more frustrated if I died because my input to jump was relayed that mili-second too late. The only thing I can think they’ll be doing is having different servers per game and even one per region and that’s a staggering amount so they must have a monumental amount of financial backing.

In the end it’s a cool idea and if it works, great! However it won’t spell the end of the console for one reason, this service relies on you being on broadband and while the numbers of broadband take up is on the increase it’s not reached everyone. There’ll always be those who will be too rural to get broadband or who plain don’t want or need it. It may become standard at some point in the future but too immediately for Microsoft or Sony to worry about. I wish OnLive all the best and if I lived in the US I’d apply for their public beta which is coming up. I guess like those ‘revolutionary’ services before time will be it’s judge.

Other than that my XBox has returned home and I’m happily playing once more, good times. Sorry for the quick post but not much else has happened to truthful.

Moving on from the weather to Superbowl XLIII in which my beloved Pittsburgh Steelers were victorious. For me it was the best Superbowl I’ve ever seen, granted I’ve only seen 4 but still. Pittsburgh were immense in the first half completely dominating Fitzgerald, though did allow 7 points and then to turn what was about to be another seven into a defensive touchdown. What a play that was by Harrison! Second half though was where this game came alive, Steelers go up another score to the Cardinals to com back overturning a huge deficit to lead only for Ben to show the rest of the NFL how to do a 2 minute drive up the field. This was then capped by a superb end-zone catch by Holmes. The only sore after the game is yet again hearing some comments from non-Steelers fans saying the refs gave the game to Pittsburgh. Personally it was given both ways with both sides being given contentious decisions. It’s Football the refs are human deal with it. As a sports fan who follows many teams I’ve seen many awful decisions given against only to see them given for. Over a season it balances itself out and you’ve just gotta deal with it.

Finally a word for my dearly departed XBox which RRoD‘d last week. Alhough a refurb/replacement is on it’s way I doubt it’ll be the same box. All the best ‘ol XBox, you will be missed.

So I’ll play some FM on my Mac maybe some Eve Online and probably finish of Stargate and Battlestar Galactica which will no doubt please Cat. Good to catch up, just a shame about the XBox. It was one of the first batch so most of those went within a year or there abouts so the fact mine has lasted this long is a bonus. That may’ve been down to it always being well ventilated I’m not sure less to say though I’m pretty bummed.

In other gaming news my GTA IV pre-order was despatched today in time for its release. I’m looking forward to as I’ve always enjoyed the games and going by previews this one is look like the best yet. Still no doubt I’ll mention in some future post. Shame it wasn’t out last week as Cat is away this weekend so would’ve given me some good gaming time.

Anywho, time to watch all the build up for todays game, c’mon United!

Aside from that I ran my fastest mile the other day, clocking in at 9″44′ which I’m quite pleased with and thats because I’ve started running at work. Because of where I work there’s a good amount of area to go running in and that’s hopefully going to help me train up for this half-marathon I’ve got to do in June. Elsewhere I’ve been having fun gaming away on Assassins Creed and Burnout still and just generally feeling that bit more relaxed. I’m sure this’ll pass or fade away a little in time but to be honest I’ll be trying my hardest to make it last!

Life in general is going pretty well despite the odd worry but then they’re nothing more that what everyone else probably worries about. It gets me down and recently it’s got me down more than it usually does. The other thing that keeps bugging me lately is I have this feeling that things are just passing me by. I don’t know if they are or why I have this feeling but even as I sit here now I just thinking I could or should be doing something more. Fact is I probably could, I even started writing my part of a story I’m doing with Legionary, hopefully I’ll write more soon. Cat is doing well in her job though right now she’s worrying and stressing about her dancing exam which is approaching far too quickly! Our holiday to Iceland is booked for next year, just a case now of saving the money and damn it’s expensive but there you go, what in this life isn’t?! Still it’ll be worth it and I really can’t wait to go. On another life note, my birthday is approaching again, I tell you it must be improving its ninja skills as it really did sneak up on me this year.

One cool thing though that happened recently was my attendance, along with my good friend Carl, to the NHL ice hockey game in London. The atmosphere and venue (The O2) were superb and the game wasn’t half-bad either. It’s certainly got me buzzing and really excited now about attending the NFL London game for which the tickets turned up the other week. I also managed to get my hands on the Halo 3 Legendary Edition. It’s a seriously cool special edition and, in my opinion, worth it.

Sports wise it’s an up and down start for my teams. The Steelers are doing well in the NFL with their defence really looking the business this season. United have only just started to get in to gear and as far as the Penguins go; such a stark contrast to last season. I won’t mention anything about the Pirates’ baseball season as, apart from the odd surprise win there’s nothing to talk about.

So there you go, 3 months zipped up.