Games
Flight Control
April 06 2009 22:50
Bought a new iPhone game "Flight Control". Fantastic. Short
little games and good use of the touch screen.
Very much worth $1.
Weakness
December 04 2008 12:01
I bought a Playstation 3. This is something that I've
have sworn I would not do for a long time. I've
always thought that Sony went the wrong direction
with that one by setting too high a price and
throwing in too many features. They want to edge the
game system over into the realm of general home
entertainment system so they have stuck everything
and the kitchen sink into it. It's trying to be the
end all be all of entertainment systems when most of
that stuff, at least in my case, is just totally
unnecessary. Just make a good game system.
So two things finally dragged me in. One is Wipeout HD. I love Wipeout. More specifically I love the old Wipeouts and XL in particular. The PSP version was nice, but I didn't enjoy playing it on the PSP so much, cramped hands and all. HD however, is fantastic. It's a downloadable game for ¥1800 ($20) and took maybe 20 minutes total to download and install. It may not be graphically up to par with a lot of other modern games, but it's still pretty. (EDIT: Having seen all of the tracks now, I revise this opinion. It's very pretty.) They've basically taken various tracks from previous games and given them all a facelift. Game runs in 1080p with a nice high framerate. Big win.
The other is Little Big Planet. I'd seen gameplay movies for a long time, and the graphics were always the standout. A very solid, physical game. My wife and I have played through the first four or five levels together now, and it definitely shines as a multiplayer game. The mechanics of the game are not all that complicated. Sort of a Mario type thing, but with more emphasis on finding stuff hidden around the level. No clock or any pressure to progress, so you end up just kind of wandering around playing with things and exploring. It's a nice pace. It is possible to die too many times and get bumped out of the level, so the element of danger is there. The style of the game is very creative. It actually seems like the makers of this game enjoyed the process of making it. Colorful and fun. Big win.
I still think the PS3 is burdened with too many features. Maybe there will be a video I will download someday, but I can't see me hooking the PSP up to it, or installing Linux on it, or using it as a music player. I have other devices that do all of that jazz better. But, it is a quality piece of hardware. In general it seems like a better build than my (now RRODed) XBox 360. I could never use that thing for movies because it was too loud. Fans and disc spinning. The PS3 is very quiet on the other hand. I like it. Ya, I'll give it a whirl.
So two things finally dragged me in. One is Wipeout HD. I love Wipeout. More specifically I love the old Wipeouts and XL in particular. The PSP version was nice, but I didn't enjoy playing it on the PSP so much, cramped hands and all. HD however, is fantastic. It's a downloadable game for ¥1800 ($20) and took maybe 20 minutes total to download and install. It may not be graphically up to par with a lot of other modern games, but it's still pretty. (EDIT: Having seen all of the tracks now, I revise this opinion. It's very pretty.) They've basically taken various tracks from previous games and given them all a facelift. Game runs in 1080p with a nice high framerate. Big win.
The other is Little Big Planet. I'd seen gameplay movies for a long time, and the graphics were always the standout. A very solid, physical game. My wife and I have played through the first four or five levels together now, and it definitely shines as a multiplayer game. The mechanics of the game are not all that complicated. Sort of a Mario type thing, but with more emphasis on finding stuff hidden around the level. No clock or any pressure to progress, so you end up just kind of wandering around playing with things and exploring. It's a nice pace. It is possible to die too many times and get bumped out of the level, so the element of danger is there. The style of the game is very creative. It actually seems like the makers of this game enjoyed the process of making it. Colorful and fun. Big win.
I still think the PS3 is burdened with too many features. Maybe there will be a video I will download someday, but I can't see me hooking the PSP up to it, or installing Linux on it, or using it as a music player. I have other devices that do all of that jazz better. But, it is a quality piece of hardware. In general it seems like a better build than my (now RRODed) XBox 360. I could never use that thing for movies because it was too loud. Fans and disc spinning. The PS3 is very quiet on the other hand. I like it. Ya, I'll give it a whirl.
Tokyo Game Show 2008
October 18 2008 12:13
Some random shots of the recent Tokyo Game Show from my
iPhone. The iPhone has a decent camera and while
the pictures come out pretty good in high light
situations, and blurs pretty bad in low light.
So some of these shots came out pretty bad. Just
some random shots, as there wasn't really
anything there to highlight with a picture.
There is not much happening on the gaming front.
Polyphony did yet another Gran Turismo demo and
there was a pretty long line for it, but alas it
is the same demo they have done for what, 3
years in a row now? Otherwise nothing so great
this year.
Lander Video
July 22 2008 19:36
Posted a video of Lander to Youtube. It is still
boring, but is at least moving forward. New levels
will spice it up, as well as more stuff to smash
into. Need to really start digging into many many
bodies for collision. Also the levels can be expanded
to pretty much any size. Those are the things to
exploit here.