Console Gaming

Microsoft's Bureaucracy

2010-06-05T01:14:00.000-07:00

About 6 months ago i bought my first xbox360 after owning a PS3 from its release day. So, yesterday i decided to go on live.
If only I had known what I was about to go through. Just a piece of information to keep in mind during the post, I live in Greece.
To begin with, in order to obtain a golden membership, so that i CAN play online I had to get some sort of prepaid card which is virtualy impossible to
find where I live. I went to every single electronics store around a 10km radius and most of the sellers hadn't even heard of the thing before.
But luckyly i was able to overcome that obstacle thanks to the internet. And so i did, i bought a card online from some site and to my surprise
they didnt steal my money :). So far so good. It is now that i was about to face this ridiculus and irrational system that Micro$oft
has created. After getting the code of the prepaid, I went to XBL then to my acount and then redeem code. I put in the code and BOOM
Information cannot be retrieved from Xbox Live(or something like that) error. But that didn't stop me, I was determined to go online. And because
of that I went to Google. After searchin for about 20 minutes, I found out that the error occured because the country I had registered on my XBL
, United States that is, was different from the country of my Xbox, and since I live in Greece I thought I should just change the country i had on Xbox.com
. Sounds simple. To my surprise even that simple task was impossible to do for some reason. When I went to their website, after looking for 10 whole minutes
in order to find the contact information, I found out that for some reason the counrty was the only unclickable option on there. But that didnt stop me either
. Once again, I used my friend, Google, and kept on searching for like 30 minutes on how to change the country. Apparently the only way to do it was
through my WindowsLive acount which was associated with my XBox acount. Finally, I thought I was getting somewhere...Yea right. Ok so I went to MSN.com
and changed the country on my WindowsLive acount, pretty easy. After that, I went back to the xbox site and of course the country there was still unchanged.
I was getting really pissed out at that time, so much that I thought "maybe it would be easier to just make another acount on XBL. After all, my gamerscore wasnt that much just 1500 or something. And so I did... I created a whole new acount from scratch and a new email, with every piece of information
beeing completely identcal to each other(email and XBL). Ok, I thought, what can go wrong now... Apparently there was something! After spending at least 3 hours trying to
figure it out and then retrying my prepaid code I got this massage saying"XBox live is not available in your Country"...Without much thought, I, once again, searched in Google
for this just to find out that there's actually nothing I can do and that I was at a dead end. But after searching a bit more, I stumbled uppon a post saying that if i actually put in a fake country on my WindowsLive , where XBL is available, then something could happen. Of course nothing did so I changed the country on my Xbox aswell and FINALY they accepted my code!! Great after 7-8 hours of searching and smashing my head on the keyboard I had done it.

Now, to conclude, I'm not saying that Microsoft sucks or anything like this, its just that they have so much bureaucracy that even the most simple tasks are hard to do. On the other hand though I have to admit that the online experience is very rewarding by herself and, in my honest opinion, better than the PS3's.

Is episodic release the future of the industry?

2010-06-01T14:15:00.001-07:00

The future of the gaming industry seems dim. The sales of the games and consoles are constantly falling and the marketing directors don’t seem to be able to figure out the reason. In my opinion the reason is simple. “Did I get my money’s worth for this game or did I just waste 70$?” is the question most frequently asked by gamers and because of this many of the potential buyers, after having their opinion formed by the media, are discouraged to buy.

To counter this phenomenon those in charge of marketing have come up with a number of plans, with most of them being unsuccessful. In the late years though, they seem to have come up with a great idea, episodic release of their games. By that I mean that instead of releasing a whole game at once charging 70 - 80$, they just break the game up into smaller section called episodes and sell those instead for less money. This method has positive results both to the customer and the seller. That because the player has the freedom to chose whether he wants to play the whole game or rather just a level or two without worrying about wasting his money. Also the gamer could buy the first episode of a game and if he likes it, then he could purchase the rest if not he just lost 10$...not such a big deal compared to 70$. Moreover companies can now make their games more available to the public as the volume of data in each episode is significantly smaller. Thanks to this, whole games could be purchased through the internet in the form of episodes.

Some studios such as Lionhead and Remedy have already incorporated episodic releases on their games and more are certain to follow.

Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands Review

2010-06-01T04:07:00.000-07:00

Prince of Persia the forgotten sands is the next “official” installment in the famous series. It was released parallel with the movie but the plot is new. In this game the story follows the prince while he tries to save his kingdom from an ancient army of undead soldiers that his and his brothers medals combined have awakened.

As a fan of the Prince of Persia series I wanted something that resembled the good old days of the game and by that I mean the immerse action that was present in the first three released in the PS2. To get more specific I think that after those three, Ubisoft tried to “milk” the series unsuccessfully by releasing some games for the PSP, PSN, DS and finally the PS3. As far as they are concerned I knew I wasn’t gonna get an original prince of Persia but The Forgotten Sands really disappointed me. The graphics were nicely done and the sound also was above average but overall it didn’t feel like prince of Persia…more like a gimmicky version of it with improved graphics. To back up this opinion of mine, I noticed that the character of the game is now redesigned with a younger look and a different voice, loosing this hardcore attitude he had in the previous games. Generally the game has become significantly milder. In the end it is my belief that the Prince of Persia series ended when the third game in the PS2 came out, after that any attempt to refresh the series has failed.

Artwork and Trailer

Prison Break Review

2010-05-31T05:54:00.000-07:00

I have to admit that before playing Prison Break I was a bit preoccupied. Why, because every single movie-game I’ve played before was a total failure. But after playing a couple of missions the scenery for this one started to change a bit.

Tom Paxton, a top agent from the Company, is the main character of the game. He is sent in Fox River to spy on Scofield and give a feedback to the Company. After a bit though he discovers that the plan was more complicated and that he now is expendable. After realizing that he fights for his survival.

First off, what immediately caught my attention, is that Prison Break is a different game. And by that I mean that it might not have great graphics or sound but it has something that forces me to keep playing. After thinking about it for a bit, I realized that this something was that the gameplay was flowing really quickly. One mission following the other without any loadings and the storyline was unfolding really fast. Although the missions can be a bit repetitive it never tired me out as the continuation of the storyline kept me motivated.

Now, as far as the technical field is regarded, the game doesn’t show anything great. The models are detailed unequally with the faces being adequate and the rest of the body bringing back some memories of a PS2 game. Also the sound doesn’t make the game any better as it repeats over and over again and the voice acting is just terrible. The animations are too, on the same level . One thing I liked about the graphics is the environment, being pretty well designed and detailed it improves the quality of the game.

To summarize, my opinion about Prison Break is dichotomized. One part of me tells me not to like the game because of the technical mediocrities, but on the other hand my other part insist on me liking the game as it provided a very enjoyable experience

Pictures and Trailer

Red Dead Redemption Voice Acting

2010-05-26T02:23:00.000-07:00

A few days ago i got a copy of Red Dead Redemption, which is a great game, probably the best i've played this season but to my surprise, the thing i really loved about it wasn't the fancy graphics and the smooth animation, it was the voice acting.I mean its litteraly the first game I have played in my entire life where the characters are so realistic.Besides beeing very detailed in the design, they give the illusion of having a personality.I dont know who's job was to make that work(dialogue writter or voice actor) but they have definately made a great work.My favorite character is Nigel West Dickens who is made by the combination of some very natural animation and the voice of Steve Rimpici. With that beeing said I can finally understand the importance of good voice acting, it can really take the game to a whole new level.

Watch the cutscene in the begining of the video and you'll understand

Top 10 games of 2010(24-5-2010)

2010-05-23T17:06:00.000-07:00

In 2010 alot of worth mentioning games has been released but only 10 of them made it to my list.Let's go check them out.

10.Star Ocean-because it has an amazing and seemingly endless storyline which kept me interested for a very long time

9.Dante's Inferno-because eventhough many consider it a GoW ripof, i think it has an incredible gameplay and great graphics

8.Dragon Age Origins :Awakening -because its an expansion of my favorite game of 2009, thus earning a place in this list

7.Mass Effect 2-because of the very emerging plot it has and its rpg features

6.Battlefield Bad Company 2-because in a world where CoD is considered the peak of videogames, its nice to see games like this that really ARE good

5.God of War 3 -because of the very intense overall experience it gives to the player

4.Splinter Cell : Conviction-because of the storyline, graphics, sound, animation, .....

3.Red Dead Redemption - because of the vast open world and the out-of-this-world graphics

2.Heavy Rain -because after all these years im really happy to see that the game industry is taking it to a whole new level

1.Alan Wake -because after six years of production and testing, Remedy managed to create a masterpiece.The graphics, the physics , the sound, the storyline...All of them add up to create this tittle which is really a genre defining game and definately a must-have for everyone.

This list regards only the games that were released before May 24.

Killzone 3 Announced

2010-05-23T16:07:00.000-07:00

To those of you who still havent heard, Killzone 3 is announced!The release date is still unknow although the possibility of it appearing at E3 is big.The latest info **cough** rumors regarding the game mention the following:

1)the combat system remains unchanged, with some difference in close quarterts combat where a new set of moves has been implemented

2)soldiers will now carry “extremely lightweight and agile” jetpacks on their backs, thus altering the gameplay a bit

3)the feeling of being far away from home and completely outnumbered is present

4)the surroundings are now covered in glaciers and ice

5)unexpectedly the game will provide 3D support in the main scenario.And I say unexpededly because 3D TVs are still kinda new so I don’t know how many people will have one available.

6)a new weapon called Wasp will be introduced, firing projectiles which then disolve into thousands of robotic insects

Tell us your thoughts…

Alan Wake Review

2010-05-23T05:45:00.000-07:00

So, 2 days ago I got a copy of Alan Wake and I decided to spent some time on it without having many hopes for a good game as this is not a genre i am really fond of. To my surprise, it turned out to be and amazing game, easilly one of the best titles I’ve played this year.I mean, the experience was so intense that I didn’t even let the controller for a moment before I finished it.

Alan Wake utilisies Remedy’s own engine, its called Alan Wake Engine and imlpements a Havok component to produce extremely realistic physics.The graphics of the game are also amazing, absolutely natural transactions between day and night, fully volumetric and high detailed shadows projected everyware, dynamic rendering and a depth of field of about 2 kilometers without a single loading screen and of course not the slightest drop in the frames per second

Although the technical features of the game are out of this world, the main asset of Alan Wake is it’s storyline.Alan Wake, a bestselling crime fiction author is unable to write anything for the past 2 years. In order for him to relax and get some inspiration, his wife Alice Wake convices him into going for vacation in the idylic small town of Bright Falls.Upon their arrival Alan has an intense fight with Alice and leaves the cabin where they were supposed to stay in the middle of the night, knowing that his wife wouldn’t follow him because of her fear of the dark. Not long after that Alan hears his wife’s terrified screams coming from the small house and momments before he reaches her, Alice falls into the Cauldron lake.Alan dives too in an attempt to save her but he blacks out and wakes up 1 week from then with his car stuck in the bark of a tree. This is where the main plot sets in following Alan in his endavors with the goal of saving his wife.

The sound in the game is also great, with the volume of speech increasing and decreasing according to your location in the field, high quality recording and of course incredible voice acting, it just adds up to the whole experience.

Now something, and possibly the only thing I didn’t like.Because the aspect of the game is third person, the camera is placed above Alan’s left shoulder and a bit up. Those who, like me, are used in having the camera in the right side, could push the right analog stick and the camera went to the right. But, here’s the tricky part, the camera, after a bit, would go back to the original possition, thus forcing me to spam the button.

Overall the game was an amazing experience.I got so emerged into the plot that when I finished the game I was having second thoughts before walking into the dark. A must-have addition to your collection.

Graphics : 10/10

Sound : 9/10

Gameplay : 9/10

Storyline : 10/10

Overall : 9.5/10

ARTWORK AND TRAILER

Project Natal

2010-05-20T15:27:00.000-07:00

There has been a lot of fuzz lately (and I mean a lot) about Microsoft’s new peripheral device that was announced back in the E3 of 09. Countless sites have wrote about it and rumors have spread like wildfire as it is widely believed that with that, the whole “gaming experience” will change.

But what is Project Natal? Some say its nothing but a usual overhype from Microsoft, others, embrassing the positive side, support it fanaticaly and can hardly wait until the release date.Peter Molyneux has even said that the introduction of Natal in the gaming world will be similar to the one of the mouse in the computer systems. For now all i can say is that untill the next E3 where a lot of things are going to be revealed I try to keep a neutral stance against it.

Natal was first mentioned in last years E3.Until then little is revealed but the following information is confirmed so you can rest assured. What we know is that a company named 3DV initialy inteded to sell the product to Nintendo , whose boss, Satoru Iwata, refused saying that he would only invest on whatever he though would appeal to the Nintendo audience.After that Microsoft saw an opportunity there and started the development of Natal somewhere in 2008.Natal consist of a peripheral device(pics and demo at the end of the post) which contains an RGB camera, a depth sensor, a multiarray microphone and a custom processor all that running a software enabling Natal to run on every Xbox 360 console.

Now all these may sound exciting but I remember about 5 years ago that I used to have something similar to that…hmm what was it called….oh…Eye Toy ! and it even run on PS2!!So what sets Natal appart from eye toy and other similar devices?Acording to Microsoft Natal is nothing like the rest of ‘em.Unlike traditional 2-D cameras and controllers, Project Natal tracks even the slightest of your body movemets in 3-D space, it also understands several emotions by analyzing the pitch of your voice and evenmore, it is claimed to be able to understand facial expressions, making it able to recognise each person individualy.

Now eventhough I really want to believe all the above from Microsoft, I simply can’t. I mean, c’mon lets be realists, motion controllers are not even close to the accuracy required to replace standard controllers, and I don’t see how Microsoft with theoriticaly no experience on that field will manage to fullfil all their promisses.Additionaly, as stated from a developer, “Natal is not made to replace the controller”.From my point of view it seems like an overestimated addon for the xbox which in the worst case senario will end up like eye toy and sixaxis.

Now to conclude, eventhough I am not convinced from Natal I like the fact that motion sensors are getting back in fashion and I am sure that the due to the market competition that exist,these systems will be pushed to their limits in the near future.

**Rememebr to leave a comment if you have something to add, thanks**

PICS AND DEMO

Latest Game Anouncements of 2010

2010-05-20T10:31:00.001-07:00

It has already been a great year for the gaming audience with lots and lots of prestigious game releases, among them beeing:Mass Effect 2, Red Dead Redemption and of course God of War too, BUT the year is not over yet and a ton of great games are on course to arrive before 2011 so lets check them out.

Call of Duty:Black Ops, the next installment of one of the best FPS series ever made, is going to be hitting the shelves on November 9^th.Its storyline will unveil with the Cold War at the background.

Ubisoft has also announced the arrival of another sequel to last year’s Game of the Year.Im talking of course about Assasins creed:Brotherhood, which is claimed to be the last of the series.In the third season the player returns to playing Ezzio, the legendary assasin, with the difference that this time he will not be roaming Venice but instead, Rome.The sequel is expected to arrive at the 4^th quarter of 2010 and is rummored to have intense multiplayer functionalities.

And speaking of multiplayer, Sony recently announced the release of Little Big Planet too, giving now the ability to creative funs of the game, not only to design levels but also create games which they could later share with their friends.This too is expected at the end of the hollidays of 2010.

Finally, Square-Enix finds a place in this post with the announcement of Kingdom Hearts:Birth by Sleep.The fans of the series will be excited to see Mickey and the rest of the Disnay heros in another adventure coming out this September.Unfortunately it is only getting released for PSP.

OTHER TITLES COMING THIS YEAR

Starcraft 2 -27 July 2010-

World of Warcraft:Cataclysm -Summer 2010-

Quantum Theory -TBA 2010-

Hallo Reach -Q4 2010-

Super Mario Galaxy 2 -23 May 2010-

**Leave your comments and suggestions, thanks J**

Gears of War 3

2010-05-20T02:20:00.000-07:00

“This is Adam Finix…Is anyone out there?...Can you hear me?...This is Adam Fenix…Can you hear me? What have you done?!.With the above line, back in April 2008, Epic Games Inc hinted the development of Gears of War 3.Exactly one year after, the official anouncement comes, eventhough not as expected(*see bottom of post), from the designer Cliff Bleszinski that GoW3 was on the way.Here’s some info :

Name : Gears of War 3

Genre : 3-rd Person Shooter

Developer : Epic Games, Inc

Publisher : Microsoft Game Studios

Platforms : Xbox 360 (only)

Release Date : 5 April 2011

As stated by Microsoft, Gears of War 3 is going to be “a conclusion to the CURRENT story arc for Gears of War”. That could mean several thing as you can assume but that’s not the topic of this post. In the third –and final- release of the series, the story finally unveils and a lot of unanswered questions generated after the credits of the second one are now shed light upon. The story takes place about 18 months after the dramatic destruction of Jacinto, the military HQ. The world of Sera is once again filled with thousands of Locust that have recovered and regenerated despite the fact that humans thought they were dead. How that happened, still remains a mystery. In addition the dramatic broadcast from Adam Fenix, father of Marcus Fenix , adds another layer of mystery into the whole plot making the story even more engaging, as there are many speculation regarding his role in the game.

The final part of the trilogy is going to be the most advanced yet made, technically speaking. The graphics are going to be better than before as the game makes use of the new installment of the Unreal Engine. Also a lot of new weapons will be added, such as the double barreled shotgun and, after the request of a large number of gamers, a female soldier(shown in trailer).

**SPOILERS**

Now I know that is still a bit early for storyline guesses and other such thing but I have found some pretty interesting theories which might interest you.

Theory number one

This theory suggest that COG initially attempted to breed superhuman soldiers and Adam Fenix was in charge of this program. The superhuman subjects though grew too powerful and uncontrollable and broke away from their labs, finding refugee underground where they created a sub culture, the Locust. The Locust, due to the fact that they where discriminated by normal people, as they multiplied underground grew aggressive towards the human species. When they became too powerful and threaded humans with extinction someone had to do something, and as the superhuman project head, Adam Fenix was that someone. He created the Lambents whose mission was to kill the Locust. Taking that into consideration , It could also explain the Sires who could be an early form of the Lambents

Theory number two

There is this other theory which is the exact opposite to the previous one. This one explains that Adam Fenix is either under captivity by the Locust or has allied with them, with the later being more plausible.

Theory number three

Well this is not actually a theory, just an assumption I made after watching the trailer. Dom, now appearing with a beard and long hair, seems to have lost any interest in his life, let alone the battle due to the recent death of his wife. The scene at 00:40 resembles that fact. The female character now could be Anya Stroud but I find that highly unlikely. Instead she could be another Carmine :D

TRAILER AND ARTWORK

**Please leave comments so i can improve my posts, thanks**

Fable 3

2010-05-19T10:17:00.000-07:00

Welcome everyone to my first blog post(yay!).The theme today is one of the most anticipated games of the year and, from what it seems , and a definate buy for me.I’m talking of course about Fable 3, a sequel to one if the best action-rpg’s ever made.

Okay, before we get started here’s some information about the game:

Title : Fable 3

Gendre : Action-RPG

Developed by : Lionhead Studios

Published by : Microsoft Game Studios

Platforms : Xbox 360 (and possibly Windows later)

Release date : Late 2010 (no official date yet but estimated around November)

Storyline

As in every Fable game, in this too, not much is revealed about the storyline.Several rumors have arose but the facts are these.The game takes place 50 years after the end of Fable 2 in the world of Albion which is now ruled by tyrant who uses his influence to his advantage.In the beginning of the game you are given the choice to import one of your saved files from Fable 2 into Fable 3 so your player in 2 can now be aged and become your parent in 3.Pretty cool.The basic objective of the game is to overthrow the current king , but to do that the player is going to need some support from the people.In order to gain this support , the hero will have to acomplish varius missions in villages or towns, and the harder a village is influenced by the king, the harder it’s going to be to make it come on your side.But the game doesn’t stop there , actually this is just half of it as in the middle of the story you finally manage to overthrow the tyrant.After that you are placed in charge and have the chance to be kind ruler of albion, or a tyrant like your predecessor.

Gameplay

So the gameplay, eventhough it has the same core, its going to have some major changes.Firstly Lionhead’s creative director, Peter Molyneux, has stated that in an attempt to make the game more “accesible” they are going to deminish a bit the RPG character of the game.That means that any of you who expect another classic RPG where the player is underpowered at the beginning and kills the bad guy at the end are going to be disspointed.Another new feature in Fable 3 is the touch.Now eventhough this looks strange, if you take the time and review the previous Fable games you will notice that there is no touchin.Molyneux is going to change all that by adding the Dynamic Touch in the game with which the player will have a whole new range of expressions , among them some that allow him to for example grab someone’s hand and lead him whereever he wants.Moreover, to those who, like me, though that the game was going to end up like one of Lionhead’s earliest, a strategy game that is, he swiftly stated at a major website that the game would not be becoming another management game so I guess we can rest assured.Another major change is the anouncement of Aurore a whole new continent to which the player will be able to go and explore.Lionhead has also mentioned that the way in that you behaved would not only affect your appearance but also your weapons look’s and stats.Finally the Health/Mana bars are now absent and the leveling system is redefined.

Rumors

Several speculation are heard with the most important of them beeing these:

1. Fable 3 is going to be a bit more difficult as to most of the gamers the previous one was way too easy(Let me remind you that it was rated M and as a matter of fact you couldn’t even die, you just respawned on the spot)

2. Fable 3 is going to have a lot more armor sets that ARE actually ARMOR sets, unlike the previous one where the best outfit in the game was some sexy pirate clothes.

3. Fable 3 is going to have a bigger gameplay story thus making it more durable in time.

Pics and Trailer

**Please leave comments so i can improve my posts, thanks**