Be Excellent To Each Other

Hmm,these sound like something i could do with, sadly google isn't helping much.

Were they only a magazine freebie?

Yeah, I got mine in the otherwise detestable PSW.

Chap at work might be interested. What model is it? How many controllers?

I bought Gran Turismo 5 Prologue off the Playstation Store last night, because Tuesday is the "nothing on TV" night at our house.

It went something like this:

5:40pm - Get home from work. Wait for Friends to finish.

6:00pm - Log on. Buy from store. Start download.

7:40pm - Download finishes, game installs itself, start game up. It says it needs an update. Why? Why not just give me the updated version to download in the first place? Anyway, download starts, seemingly without a progress bar.

7:50pm - A tiny block of white appears on screen. Ah, so there is a progress bar, it's just filling very, very slowly. Decide not to sit watching it.

10:30pm - Come back to PS3 after watching a movie to find the update failed. Restart.

10:40pm - Update fails again. Restart.

10:55pm - Update fails again. Restart. Fuck it. Start getting ready for bed.

11:05pm - Check download just as I'm going to go upstairs to find the update has installed itself. Play two short races.

11:20pm - Go to bed. Late.

Great stuff, eh?

The funny thing is, as soon as I was whizzing around in the RX-8 I forgave it for all the hassle and I'm itching to play it again this evening.

Rumour is that the DS3 will be on sale next week in the US, a full week earlier than advertised!

Wimp.

I need my eight hours now I'm old.

Of course you also paid £7 more than you could have paid for a copy, in a box, on disk and could sell on, or take to a mates, or lend to someone.

Resistance - kind of interesting in that it feels more like a hybrid of Doom and the typical FPS experience you get now (probably the health bars and medikits and spray-and-pray style of shooting as opposed to sniping from cover), but otherwise unremarkable. Even the North of England setting is wasted as the voice acting is clearly done by Americans and every other line is BLOODY HELL TEA SHINE YOUR SHOES M'LADY!

It's not bad by any means, though. One to get on the cheap.

Uncharted - gorgeously decorated, above-average shooter with some climby bits and push-the-statue puzzles. "Like Tomb Raider, but good" is the best way to put it. Probably the best single-player shooter on the PS3 after CoD4, but not incredible, and it has the most horrible final boss, so the game ends on a distinctly sour note.

CoD 4 - The single-player campaign grew on me a lot and I enjoyed it a great deal once I'd got used to the style of play (never fight defensively and never expect your teammates to do anything useful), and I'd say it's well worth getting. But it's exactly the same on the 360 (better in fact, as the triggers aren't shite), and I've not played online on the PS3 yet so can't rate that (if it's at all like the 360's multiplayer, it's ace, and I hate online games). Bonus points for allowing four-player split screen (or rather, no points deducted, since this should be the norm but games designers are cunts).

Vegas 2 - Fantastic tactical shooter, trebly so in co-op (unless your flatmate or girlfriend is a moron), and only gets away without a pasting for being nothing but a glorified expansion pack because the PS3 port of the original is terrible.

Army of Two - average shooter with a couple of neato gimmicks and some fun weapon options. Considerably more fun in co-op, but the single-player won't blow you away.

Pes/Fifa 3,000,000 - shit music, slow, dull, lifeless and unresponsive football tediothons, now with adverts in the fucking menus. The case for the wholesale destruction of the entire video games industry.

Fight Night 3 - about the same as on the 360, but a bit less shiny and slightly prettier. That is, a deceptively well-made sparring game with excellent balance - every strategy can be countered, and it's possible to beat a maxed out heavyweight fighter with an average featherweight fighter if you're good enough (I am glorious. My flatmate's shame is eternal). And best of all, you don't have to play it for hours to master it - I was unbeaten in nine games on my first night against three veterans of the series. It really is far more fun than I expected. However! The music's shit, it's got annoying, insidious adverts and the PS3 loading times are considerably longer than the 360's.

I think that's all I've played on the PSSST. Hope that helps!

Yes, simply because I play games more off the hard drive. It was £25 for a game I'll play bits of here and there for many months, or £18 for a game I'd play this week and then probably never touch again.

I'm a lazy bastard when it comes to changing the discs in my consoles and I don't know why.

At the risk of making my review sound uninformed... Do you actually push anything in that game?

You can still get eight hours if you go to bed at 2, 3 or 7am.

sixaxis axed
http://feeds.joystiq.com/~r/weblogsinc/ ... 262833281/

Does that mean they're dropping the motion control?

I got a PS3 for Christmas and I've spent much longer on it this year so far than the 360, much to my surprise. I wouldn't have bought one yet normally, I'd likely be waiting until the next price cut (my money is on September for that) but as it was a Christmas present I wasn't complaining.

Bottom line, I'm much more impressed with it than I thought I'd be.

Games wise, I've completed Uncharted and Ratchet&Clank, both of which I thought were very, very good. Uncharted, as someone up there said, is like Tomb Raider but good and contains some of the finest digital acting I've seen yet. The little touches, like Drake jumping for a ledge and nearly falling, grunting in pain, or looking worried as bullets ping all around him make this the closest gaming experience to an Indiana Jones film I've ever played. R&C is just lovely, lovely fun from beginning to end and everytime I put it on for a quick bash it seemed to swallow hours and hours of my time. It's short, as someone mentioned (took me about 12 hours I think) but has the usual R&C Challenge mode to encourage a second, more difficult, playthrough.

We also have SingStar, which I'm infomed is good (I'm not allowed to sing -- court order). It could cost you a fortune in DLC though. Unreal Tournament 3 I think is the PS3's must-have shooter but I'm a long time fan of the series. The mod support with all the free DLC will give this game a lifespan measured in years, and a distinct edge over the 360 version unless Microsoft pull their collective head from their collective ass. I've heard COD4 is good on the PS3 but I got it for the 360 as I have a lot more friends over there and I mostly bought it for the multiplayer.

As for the GT5P controversy, personally, it seems to be garnering a lot of hate I don't understand. Yes, it's not that long compared to a proper GT game, or Forza 2 for that matter, but I think it's plenty long enough to justify £18. I also don't seem to have this violent objection to the handling many other people have had (I am playing on Pro with all assists off) but I'm only halfway up the B series so it may get worse once I get the more powerful RWD cars. I will freely admit though to a possible case of rose tinted glasses here, because I once took two weeks off work to play GT3 with a mate (we got to 93% completion), so even the little "bong" it makes when you select things in the menus feels nostalgic.

The hardware is mostly lovely, the console feels really well made, and little things like the ability to use any memory card to backup save games, any Bluetooth headset, and any laptop hard disk are very nice. It has made me object even more to the merciless price gouging on 360 accessories. It's a peerless media centre, as others have noted, and a superb DVD/Bluray player; using it as a media player is also helped by the fact that compared to the howling tornado the 360 seems to need to cool itself it's practically silent. The pad is distinctly inferior to the 360 one -- convex triggers, WTF? -- but again, other people seem to hate it but it doesn't bother me that much.

Would I buy one yet if I hadn't gotten one as a gift? No, probably not, but I'd be getting sorely tempted now and I'd certainly cave in whenever the next price cut tips up. Do I regret getting one? Absolutey

Also: hey Owen! Nice to see you

Oh, and Grim..., the Dualshock3 does all the same motion control as the Sixaxis, with rumble as well. So no, they're not dropping the motion control.

Pedant note: The 360 makes practically no noise unless you're playing games. But otherwise, I'd say you're right (although the browser is practically worthless IMO, and I don't like the shop).

I disconcur, Grim... I'm easily irritated by fan noise (I pulled a Shuttle media centre PC out of my living room because it was getting on my nerves). Yes, the 360 is a hell of a lot quieter when the DVD drive isn't doing helicopter impressions (random semi-related link) but the 2x40mm fans in the back of it are still louder than either the PS3 or my SkyHD box. Loud enough that I can tell immediately when I come in if someone has left it on, whereas I once left the PS3 on overnight without realising (which flatted the controller as it has no idle power-off like the 360 pad has, WELL DONE FOR THAT SONY).

That's odd, I can hear my PS3 quite easily. Maybe it's because it's in a cabinet, and so has to work a little harder to keep itself cool.

Yeah, maybe. Mine's out on a bare shelf so has good airflow around it.

Your TV stand is a lot like my old one: http://www.flickr.com/photos/grim/1048747251/

That is very similar. Your's is a bit smaller and looks rather more expensive. Mine was a cheapy (£45 I think) from the hilarously named house-o'-tat shop, What!.

Sadly, when choosing their premises in my home town, they didn't move into the vacant lot next to a prominent midmarket clothing shop, otherwise our out of town shopping bit would have What! Next.

I'd have said mine was bigger (fnar) - it's got a 46" TV on it, so it might be an illusion-style thing.
It's for sale, if you want it
(The stand, not the TV)

Actually, they're probably about the same size, looking at the number of XBox's you could fit.

Oh yeah. I think the relative TV sizes (mine is a feeble 32") confused me. My stand is a typical metre-long one; i.e. two-19"-components-plus-a-little-extra. What's the white thing next to the HD-DVD on yours -- HDMI switcher? Also, look at your cables! For shame!

You can't see the sub in my pic, it's the other end of the room, hooked up over wire I thoughfully laid under the laminate flooring for just this purpose.

Why do you keep all of your expensive equipment in a cupboard?

Because soon the Grim...let will start crawling. And I could do without little hands all over my stuff.

Sadly, they have still not improved the actual shape of the controller, despite it now being 11 years old, all the while their rivals improving massively on the ergonomics of their controllers.

2 hours playing forza (or whatever it is we do on wednesday) = fine.
1 hour of playing F1:CE = crippling hand pain.

I shouldn't be allowed to sing... but I do!

I'm especially fond of Total Eclipse of the Heart.

Also: hello!

There are some shockingly priced ones on ebay. This looks interesting though. Not sure what the point of the "armor" is, but it includes triggers.

You push some big stone buttons in the first underground-y bit, and later rotate some statues just before you get to the church. It's a figure of speech, really, I use 'push-the-statue' as 'decipher simple visual/verbal instructions'. Pattern-matching, typically.