Tech blog post 5/4/12 Kinect star wars review

A long time ago, in a game studio far far away, a great idea was pitched to Microsoft, to bring star wars to the kinect so people can wield a virtual lightsaber or drive a pod racer at 500 mph in there own home. On paper, this idea sounds mind-blowingly amazing, in reality, it's a poorly executed and sluggish pile of drivel, but not all of this is the games fault, it is partially to do with the hardware and the kinect peripheral itself. Kinect is not optimised for rapid swinging and jumping, More so for slower, more timed movements, which is probably why yoga and fitness games are so popular, as they utilise kinect properly and are designed to run better on it. So the sad thing is it appears the only time we will get a responsive kinect star wars game is if Microsoft release an entirely new and more responsive kinect 2 and kinect star wars 2 game, which is almost Guaranteed to not happen by the end of the decade, if at all, as Microsoft will already have their hands full with the next gen Xbox.

But enough with the bad, as I still sense goodness in this one... First off the pod racing is a blast, putting you in the cockpit of many of the iconic pods featured in the phantom menace. You hold a pair of virtual handlebars and pull your arms back in the desired direction you want to go, and it works surprisingly well, there are a few tracks to choose from including the mos eisley and felucia raceways. You get a boost feature by pushing your arms forward which is quite neat too.

The next mode I played is the main story mode, also known as Jedi destiny mode, which is probably my favourite part of the game, as you navigate your way through levels slicing battle droids. These sections are broken up by occasional speeder bike or turret sections which are also fun.

Rancor rampage is another very enjoyable mode, as you play none other than an escaped giant Rancor, smashing your way through towns bringing Down buildings and eating people to regain your health. You actually have to reflect how a real rancor would move to get it to walk around, like you have to stomp around flailing your arms (still not as embarrassing as the dance mode, which I have not tried yet...) for it to work best, and use all fours to charge like a giant cheetah. This mode surprised me as in videos I saw it looked quite unresponsive but in reality it's one of the more responsive modes in the game. The destruction effects looked surprisingly good, similar to the felling effects in battlefield. Once I had levelled tatooine to the ground, I took a look around my living room to see it mirrored the mess I had just made by stomping around in game, kinect certainly is interactive... .

The last mode I played is duels of Fate, which on paper, should be the best, and it's naturally the reason people will be picking up this game, to have lightsaber duels with iconic characters such as count Dooku and darth Vader. But all it is is a slow paced mess where there is a 2 second break between saber swings which really breaks up the combat and doesn't reflect the fast paced fights from the movies at all. You take turns defending and attacking each other, but it's just slow and boring whereas at least in the story mode the combat is a bit faster and uninterrupted. I had higher expectations, seeing as the saber duels are a key part in star wars, you would think they would have spent a lot of time polishing this mode to perfection, but sadly it appears the stormtrooper dancing minigame has more polish, so the devs have got their priorities horribly wrong, and when you have a fan base as big as a small moon you need to get things right.

I am going to give kinect star wars a bit of slack because as I mentioned the problems partly lay with kinects poor rapid movement detection and it simply can't handle fast paced games. Die hard fans might squeeze some short lived enjoyment from the pod racing, rancor and story modes, just make sure you avoid the dancing mode if you dont want your soul to be crushed. Families will probably love this game as it can be played cooperatively. But as the phantom menace proved, catering star wars purely for a child audience is loosing them a big part of their fan base, so sadly many older fans may now avoid this game as it appears more marketed for children or young teens, even the shop assistant in Tesco who sold the game to me said he was turned off by the dancing mode and will just go back to playing star wars the force unleashed.

All in all I will award kinect star wars 6 out of 10, as there is some fun to be had here, with lots of unlockables to boot. The soundtrack and sound effects you know and love are also all here, apart from the voice actors who are absent. One last thing I need to give credit to is the tutorial with yoda, I genuinely felt tired lifting my arms in the air like Luke did when he was using the force to lift heavy objects in empire strikes back! So I really felt like I was in the Film at that point!

Thanks for reading

Ryan

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Tech blog post 31/3/12 Kinect Star Wars

Hey everyone

I have already been blessed with one great star wars game this year (the old republic) and now only 4 months into the year another star wars game is on the way. Kinect Star Wars is out April 3rd, and I am thinking about picking it up seeing as its the only kinect game so far that actually makes me want to use my £130 peripheral that has been sitting idly since christmas. Previews so far haven't been great, and this is even after the delay from last year. Nonetheless it is still a star wars games that features lightsaber fights, pod racing and... Dancing. I am not too bothered about the last option but the other 2 appeal to me very much.

As some of you may know I have been playing star wars the old republic on pc recently, now that game does a good job of telling a story, and it makes you feel like a Jedi, but I believe kinect should technically have the power (or the force maybe?) to increase that "jedi feeling" ten fold, as it offers way more interaction by waving your arms and kicking your feet as opposed to say pressing keybindings or clicking your mouse. I personally am looking forward to the lightsaber battles and pod racing the most, there are other modes such as rancor rampage and a dancing minigame but these don't really appeal to me that much.

Anyway, my point is I am glad kinect now has a game that isn't sport or fitness related and is set in one of my favourite fictional universes. If I do pick Kinect star wars up I will be sure to make a blog post with my impressions.

Have a good weekend, cya later

Ryan

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Tech blog post 29/3/12 What I have been playing this week

Hey all

Sorry for the lack of updates, instead of having a daily blog I'm thinking about just having a weekly one or just updating where I see fit.

Anyway, I started playing Halo Reach again the other night with a friend I met through twitter. I've been a loyal fan of the halo series for the last 12 years and still have fond memories playing combat evolved at LAN parties, something Xbox live will never be able to replace. Halo is fun because it can be played by both hardcore audiences in modes like team SWAT, and then the more family friendly modes like griffball and living dead (of course they can both be played professionally too but families could still enjoy them as they are simple yet fun to Play).

I also switched my vita on for the first time in a few weeks the other night, simply for the fact I've just not had time to play it since moving house, but it is an awesome piece of kit and I can't wait for AAA titles like call of duty and battlefield to come to it which I really hope they do.

I've also been reading the latest edition of PC gamer magazine and read a little bit about the much delayed Diablo III, I don't know an awful lot about and haven't played any of the previous entries but I am sure blizzard know what they are doing and have reasons for the delays, but regardless from what I have seen the game is looking good and I may have to pick it up upon (eventual) release.

I also read some leaked information about GTA 5, I am aware that leaked information is hardly a reliable source but from what I did see planes are back and flyable again which is great news for an aviation buff like me and I sometimes even boot up San Andreas from time to time to fly the planes (something GTA 4 sorely missed).

My brother is supposed to be lending me SSX when I next see him, it looks like a fun, colourful and refreshing change from a lot of shooters and RPGs which I have mainly been playing lately. He also said I can borrow the first crackdown which is supposed to be better than the second crackdown.

In April comes star wars the old republic patch 1.2 which brings a wealth of new content and tweaks which I am excited about. I got to level 50 in that game about a month ago and haven't continued to play since reaching level cap as the end game
Content is quite laggy for me in pvp warzones which I am hoping patch 1.2 (also known as the Jesus patch) will fix.

So anyway I have a lot of games to keep me busy and to look forward to this year and will keep you updated via this blog, you can also follow me on raptr.com (ryane1991) to track my progress through these games.

Thanks for reading

Ryan

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Tech blog post 21/3/12 Mass effect 3 ending! *spoilers*

Hey guys

My last blog post was over 10 days ago! I've been crazy busy lately moving house but I'm all settled in now so things are pretty much back to normal now including my pc and Xbox setups.

In-between moving I still found the time to play and complete mass effect 3, I clocked in around 28 hours on normal difficulty and thats with doing a lot of side missions. *spoilers beware* I have to admit I think I preferred mass effect 2 in a few areas but mainly the story, the story was less confusing for a start, most of you have probably played it but for those that haven't, you had to assemble a team of the galaxy's best and head through a mass relay to a place from which no ship has ever returned. It ended perfectly, with lots of exciting, epic cutscenes and a huge boss fight ending on a cliffhanger, with the huge reaper army sitting at the edge of the galaxy imminently about to attack. Mass effect 2 is allowed to end on a cliffhanger, because it had mass effect 3 to come in afterwards and finish the story, but the problem with mass effect 3 is that even that finishes with cliffhangers! And it's supposed to be the end of the trilogy! I felt ultimately confused at the end and had to resort to going on google afterwards to find answers as to what i had just watched. This is unacceptable, its the equivalent of return of the Jedi ending on a cliffhanger, you are supposed to tie things up at the very end of a series or trilogy not create more Questions because when the hell will we get answers to them? Never, not unless there is a mass effect 4 or this supposed ending DLC which is pointless because a lot of us have finished the game now and in my eyes its too late to change it.

A lot of the mass effect community have been complaining about the ending not being happy enough, Shepard died in my ending, so the only way to correct my ending and make it happy for my play through, would be to bring Shepard back to life, and the only way to do that would be if the alliance used a lazurus project similar to what Cerberus used to revive shepherd from death in mass effect 2, but bringing him back from the dead 2 times would be ridiculous, and would make me care about him even less as a character, because if he is invincible then the reapers wouldn't have really been a threat all along because they could just keep reviving Shepard until he found a a way to destroy them. And then there is the cliffhanger of joker (well for some people's endings anyway, on mine the Normandy door opened Slightly but nobody came out? Did the crew die? Did the door open by itself then? What planet did the Normandy crash on? I have no idea what the hell happened!) stepping out of the Normandy onto an unknown planet with your squad mates. And then after the credits there is what is presumably a father or grandfather telling a child about the stories of shepherd saving the galaxy, so have all 3 games really just been the old man telling a story to this child? Explaining the gay romance to him might have Been a little awkward... .

Anyway my point is the ending is overwhelmingly disappointing and confusing, and even from time of writing this I now have a headache trying to recall and detail it. In my opinion it's too late to fix it because what about people who don't have access to Xbox live? Why should they have to put up with the shitty ending. Bioware messed up on this, and I can't see what they can do to fix it and please everyone, so for the time being we will Just have to deal with it and move on.

Anyway I'm off to take some aspirin for this headache...

Cya, Ryan

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Tech blog post 9/3/12 Mass Effect 3 is here!

Hey readers

ITS HERE!

Well not until 6pm for me anyway, but as soon as I knock off work i am going straight to Tesco, and If they don't have any stock then I'll go to Morrisons, and if they don't have any stock ill go to Asda... You can see where this is going. Basically I am getting my hands on it tonight one way or another.

So i finished mass effect 2 on insanity last night (perfect timing), it took me about 30 hours without doing many side quests or loyalty missions, this was my second play through and I just wanted to get to the end as quick as possible for the insanity achievement and so I am ready to import my save on the big day. I am hoping it will be a flawless transfer, as I had problems transferring from ME1 to ME2 and resulted in me starting ME2 fresh, much to my disappointment. And I will be even more gutted if I can't transfer from ME2 to ME3 as the character transfer is a big feature of the game in my opinion and really makes them feel like a trilogy of films. However i kind of wanted to change class anyway after 30 hours of playing a vanguard in ME2, and I struggled on insanity because some of the moves, like charge, require you to be up close and personal to your enemies to do damage, which is suicide on insanity and I feel ranged classes would have given me an easier time.

As I mentioned, I skipped a lot of the loyalty missions, which resulted in many of my teammates perishing after the trip through the omega 4 relay, and after making the one way trip, I realised there was also a risk that my Shepard could die, and after enduring 30 hours of excruciating difficulty I wasn't prepared to start again. luckily my Shepard made it out alive (although the human reaper/ terminator boss thing took a few hours) I was biting my nails as he jumped aboard the Normandy, half expecting him to fall to his death, but I was overwhelmed with relief as joker pulled him up and the door closed and the Normandy blasted into hyperspace.

So I want to import my character for the decisions I Made in ME2, but I don't really want to play a vanguard anymore, I will probably just play the vanguard for the first time around for the achievement of completing the game with an imported character and then start another character class and make different decisions etc.

So thanks for reading, I'll post some blog updates maybe over the weekend or on Monday about my thoughts of the game.

See you soon

Ryan

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Tech blog post 6/3/12 Arma II

Hey guys

Yesterday evening I was planning on playing some battlefield 3 with friends, but I had logged onto my PC a few hours before my friends were due to come online. So I was browsing the steam catalogue and came across Arma II. I had previously played this demo on my old laptop but it ran at around 5 fps so I removed it almost immediately without even playing it. Now that my computer is capable of playing high end games reasonably well I thought Arma II deserved a second chance. So I downloaded the demo and began to play.

Arma II is a battlefield esque shooter, perhaps even more realistic, and undoubtedly more realistic than modern warfare. The maps are huge in scope and you even have Equipment like binoculars and a compass incase you get lost. The game is entirely playable in either first or third person views both on foot and in vehicles, and despite it being a shooter I actually found myself getting more kills from the third person viewpoint.

The free version of Arma II only features the map editor and multiplayer modes, so I started off on the map editor so I could place some helicopters and planes to get some practice and get used to the controls. The game isn't designed to be a fully fledged simulator (neither on foot or in vehicles) but I was impressed at the amount of detail, especially for the air vehicles, which offer full control for the flaps, landing gear and ejector seat, which are usually an automated action in most games.

I haven't spent much time with the guns as of yet, or even much time on the ground for that matter, as after i had finished on the map editor i decided to give multiplayer a go and joined a dogfight server which is where everyone gets in a jet and engages in aerial warfare. This portion of the game was very fun and you get the standard chain guns, heat seeking missiles and flares, and then if you return to your aircraft carrier or airstrip you can repair and rearm.

I have found Arma II to be a very enjoyable war game so far and am looking forward to spending more time with it, perhaps even purchasing the full game + expansion packs. I will talk more about the game once I have had a little more time spent on the ground which is a core part of the game.

Thanks for reading and see you tomorrow

Ryan

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Tech blog post 5/3/12 Star wars elite and renegade squadron (psp)

Hey Folks

Hope you all had a good weekend, I myself was abroad from Friday to Sunday so the only gaming I managed to fit in was on the psp. I didn't take my vita with me because it's not insured and neither is my psp to be honest, but it's a bit older so I wouldn't care as much if anything happened to it. Also I have a bigger library of games on psp, but the two I spent the most time playing were star wars elite and Renegade squadron, with renegade being the first game and elite squadron being the sequel. Both of them are spin offs of the hugely popular star wars battlefront series but renegade and elite squadron were designed from the ground up for psp so they aren't just simple ports.

The strange thing is, renegade squadron (the first game) is a whole lot better than the sequel elite squadron despite them both being made by the same studio, which is called rebellion. Renegade squadron offers better customisation, more vehicles, better maps and I even prefer the graphics and controls In the first game. It just made me wonder why the studio would bother to make a sequel that is drastically inferior to the prequel (probably money £££).

The story in the prequel was a lot more interesting as well, which involved han solo (a character we actually care about) leading a squadron of troops on daring missions and operations. The story in the sequel was just about 2 random clone Jedi called X1 and X2... Really? How long did it take to come up with those names... . The story was basically either X1 or X2 is evil (shows how much I paid attention) and the other is good and tries to stop the evil one.

The only real feature that makes elite squadron better than renegade, is the 3 levels of transition between the areas of the maps, you have interior (which is the inside of your capital ship in space), then you have space itself which you transition to once you fly out of the hanger of "interior", and then there is ground, where you fly towards the planet and eventually transition to the surface. It helps spread the combat out and makes it feel like a really large conflict is taking place, and some of the things you do in space can affect the battle on the ground, for example using orbital cannons to fire down may kill enemy troops, and then using the ion cannon on the ground can disable the capital ships in space etc. However even this feature does have its problems, when you enter a transition you momentarily loose player control and have to watch a cutscene while the next area loads, this breaks the flow of the game, like if you are In a dog fight with a tie fighter in orbit and accidentally fly too high and transition to space then the dog fight ends which is really infuriating.

Both games however provide the epic star wars battles that you would expect, whether your stomping through the snow in an AT-AT or driving through the forests of Endor on a speeder bike, you will feel like your really in the battle. Plenty of guns, equipment and power ups are also available to choose from such as jet packs, rocket launchers and remote turrets, the variety of tools at your disposal helps make each battle feel unique because they require you to play in a different way.

Anyway, if you are one of the few people who aren't jumping on the psvita bandwagon and want a good star wars game to play on psp, I would definitely choose renegade squadron over elite squadron.

Thanks for reading, see you tomorrow

Ryan

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Tech blog post 2/3/12 Mass effect 3 excitement!

Hey all

Todays post will just be a short one, as I have to get ready to go to Denmark for the weekend in a few hours.

Anyway I just wanted to talk quickly about how hyped I am for mass effect 3! I'm looking forward to jumping back on board the Normandy and having those funny conversations with joker, and revisiting the citadel to see if much has changed and exploring earth and so much more! As we have learned over the 2 previous games, the threat of a reaper invasion is very real, with that invasion beginning to take place in mass effect 3, with huge warships descending across the earth. I will be purchasing ME3 on Xbox as to utilise my kinect accessory, I may not use it all that much, if at all, but I am just curious to see if It makes the combat any easier, or perhaps harder.

What I am very curious about, is seeing how the decisions I made in ME1 & 2 will (mass) effect the outcome in ME3. I won't post spoilers, but I remember some of the big decisions I made in part 2 and I am really excited to see the repercussions in part 3.

I am not sure If I will be able to get the collectors edition (as much as I want it) or even if I will be able to get ME3 at launch (which will be incredibly difficult to resist) due to being so busy. But I will find a way to get my hands on the game, as I havn't spent countless hours in ME1 and ME2 levelling characters and revising the story and lore to miss out on the ending to the trilogy.

Anyway I will be away this weekend and back Monday so won't have any time for gaming, but I am sure I will think of something to talk about in Monday's blog.

Have a good weekend and thanks for reading

Ryan

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Tech blog post 1/3/12 Jurassic park: the game

March has arrived, bringing with it some great new games. SSX is out tomorrow, so far I have only watched my brother play the demo but from what I have seen it looks impressive visually and fun in terms of gameplay with lots of tricks and combos to pull off on your snowboard. The big one (mass effect 3) is out next week on march 9th so there is lots to look forward to this month.

What I would like to talk about in todays blog post however is Jurassic park: the game. The reason being I noticed steam have lowered the price an incredible 66%, from £21.99 down to £7.47. And for this price it is worth checking out, I have completed the game myself a few weeks back and despite it being more of an interactive story than a game it does a good job of telling a story. You see the game through the eyes of more than one character, by being able to switch between them to complete tasks, such as distracting an almighty t-Rex by pushing crates off of a ledge to cause it to turn around, it then once it's distracted you switch to the other character who now is free to run away.

As i mentioned, it is more Of an interactive story, requiring mostly just mouse clicks or keyboard presses at the appropriate time (known as quick time events) such as pushing a dilophosaurus (the dinosaur that spits poison in dennis nedry's face in the first movie) trying to devour you, off of your chest. The other parts of the game that are not quick time events, are mainly conversations and investigations, such as following blood trails and things to that extent. The game lasts around 6 hours covering 4 chapters, the last chapter was definitely the best though featuring plenty of plot twists, betrayals and deaths!

Jurassic park: the game tells a good story in typical Jurassic park fashion, a group of strangers stranded on an island full of rampaging dinosaurs which have escaped their enclosures. But then again, the gameplay is so minimal and the story is so heavily focused on that it almost is trying to be an interactive Jurassic park movie, and people are paying for what they are told is a game which is slightly misleading.

Some people may say, in the words of Ian Malcolm, "that is one big pile of sh*t" but in my opinion, the admission fee of £7.47 to enter Jurassic park is worth it, for the achievements, the film references, to experience the great story, and the incredibly cinematic moments such as escaping velociraptors and a tyrannosaurus in a barely functioning helicopter.

I hope I have convinced a few people to pick up this game, because it really is a good offer on steam, and will probably have ended by tomorrow.

So thanks for reading and see you tomorrow

Ryan

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Tech blog post #2 29/2/12 IPad 3, GAME troubles and warehouse 13

As promised, here is my second blog post for the 29th feb to make up for no post yesterday.

First off rumours have been flying around twitter today (to be honest, when ARN'T rumours flying around twitter) that apple may be unveiling the iPad 3 next week on march 7th. If true, then the unveiling comes in typical apple fashion, releasing an upgraded product not even a full year since the predecessor. I am not doubting apples decisions, because I know that whatever they do they will remain successful and people will purchase there products, but I personally feel that yearly upgrades are slightly unnecessary and apple may run out of ideas to keep things fresh for future products if they don't enlarge the
release gap between products.

Seeing as I am trying to cover 3 topics in one post I will now move on to another trending topic on twitter today. That being a leaked document revealing a shocking discovery, that retailers GAME and gamestation wont be stocking what could potentially be the game of the year, (mass effect 3) in none of there stores or even online. I have witnessed first hand that this has caused much upset among mass effect fans (myself being one but luckily I hadn't pre ordered yet) especially those who had order the "N7 edition" I don't know what this means for the future of the chain but its definitely not the best news as they will miss out on an incredible amount of sales.

Anyway one last thing I would like to talk about is the tv series warehouse 13. I watched the 1 hr 30 minute pilot episode on Netflix last night and loved it. The plot is basically about 2 secret agents that get transferred to a new department, a department that operates from a huge warehouse in the middle of nowhere. A warehouse very similar to that featured in the Indiana jones movies, full of weird and wonderful artefacts and relics with magic powers. The story for the pilot episode was very gripping and makes you want to keep watching, especially when the warehouse is first discovered by the characters and lots of random occurrences start to happen to that the audience wants to see answers to. The chemistry between the 2 main characters is very good, with the male agent being sort of a comedian and getting drawn into the mysterious warehouse by an offer of cookies from an eccentric man claiming to be the warehouse owner. And the female agent has a more professional attitude and often disagrees with what the male character says. I am looking forward to watching the rest of this series (currently on its 3rd with a 4th series in production this year) and seeing what other artefacts will be discovered and what other situations the agents will get themselves into.

That's all for today's updates then, Not sure what I will cover in tomorrows blog but maybe some more news about GAMEs situation or the iPad 3 will have come to light by then, so stick around.

Ryan

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Tech blog post 29/2/12 Kingdoms of Amalur

Hello readers!

Apologies for not having time to update my blog yesterday, it was quite a stressful day due to me arranging moving house. So things are going to be a bit hectic for me over the next few weeks as well but I will try and update the blog as much as possible.

Anyway the first thing I would like to talk about today is kingdoms of Amalur, the action Rpg released by EA earlier this month. I picked Koa up at launch but only invested a minimal amount of time In it because my new pc arrived shortly afterwards which kept me preoccupied for the following weeks. So last night I thought I would continue playing the game because it was quite enjoyable (360 version btw). I picked up where I had left off, which was in the middle of a forest somewhere because that's where I last saved the game. I was running around the forests in my mass effect shepherd armour (which looks awesome btw) killing annoyances known as boggarts (similar to those Hobbes in fable). The combat in Koa is simple to execute and is a lot more fluid than say skyrim, but if you take the time to learn your advanced moves and combos it can become harder but more rewarding by dealing more damage. With these combos the game kind of feels like a street fighter game mixed with a free roam Rpg. There are three basic combat options and then a few hybrid options As well, but the main 3 are might, finesse and sorcery. Might is for the sword or heavy weapons fighter, finesse is the polar opposite and for those who prefer lighter weapons that deal less damage but attack much more rapidly, and sorcery is the Mage class offering destructive lightning spells etc. The hybrid classes are say for example, my character, who is a sword wielding Mage who uses mana to boost his attacks.

All of the basic Rpg elements are present in this game such as quests, side quests, skills, coloured gear and much more. The skills are very fun and rewarding, the game offers blacksmithing, alchemy, sage craft and lock picking. The map is very big with multiple regions like deserts and forgets and I am 6 hours in and still in the first zone so it's promising to be a lengthy journey. The game has a similar conversation system to mass effect, but its slightly pointless because the conversations and actions don't have any consequence as there isn't a morality system in the game (no good or bad choices). The game has coloured gear with white items being common and purple being ultra rare with blue and green colour items In-between white and purple, and if you pick sage crafting as a spell you can put socket gems in your gear to make it even more powerful!. My main and only real gripe with koa, is that the developers have not made it easy at all to understand this universe, even during the first hour you are bombarded with names and races you won't have a clue about such as Almain varani and liosalfar to name a few. Admittedly an open world fantasy Rpg does need to be populated with exotic races to make it feel alive and diverse, but not in a way that bombards a new player to the point where they get a headache during the first hour.

Overall though I would say the fantasy world of Amalur is defiantly worth a visit, especially for fans who are exhausted of being a dovahkiin (although that's not likely just yet). And there is still about a week to go until mass effect 3 is here so check it out in the meantime!

That's all for this post, but because I didn't update my blog yesterday I may do another entry later today to make up for it, and talk about warehouse 13, the tv series I began watching last night which I highly enjoyed.

See you later

Ryan

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Tech blog post 27/2/12 Uncharted Golden Abyss!

As I kind of anticipated, I didn't have time to update my blog over the weekend. But perhaps that's a good thing, because I have had more precious time to spend with the things I am about to talk about, mainly being uncharted golden abyss.

So let's get started then, uncharted golden abyss is the most popular vita game at the moment, no seriously, it topped the UK charts being placed at number 1 beating even console and pc games. So I picked it up myself, and I was completely blown away. Golden abyss really is the signature game for the vita at the moment, and probably will remain that way for quite some time too, at least until studios release games specifically for vita and not just ports like rayman origins. Golden abyss shows off and utilises most, if not all, of the vitas new features, including the front and rear touch screens, the camera, the accelerometer (tilt controls), and the hardware itself boasting great visuals that almost rivals console. You may be wondering how the external camera works in this game (uncharted also has an in game camera used to take in game pictures but that's something else), the external camera is used at points in the game where you receive bits of parchment or paper that need to be held to a light source to see the hidden messages written on said paper/parchment. I did as instructed and held my vita towards my window where light was coming in, and there it was, the hidden message was slowly appearing before my eyes. Another feature you will use in golden abyss (this one being used more frequently) is chalk rubbings, when you discover a relic that has an inscription on it then you will have to take a chalk rubbing of it, by swiping your finger across the front touch screen until 100% of the rubbing is legible. Sometimes you will come across artefacts that are dirty and covered in mud (to be expected if they have been buried for thousands of years) so you will use the front touch screen to wipe them clean and the rear touchscreen to rotate the artefact to make sure you clean every last book and cranny. Then there is the accelerometer, which can be used to swing drake for example if he is hanging on a vine, by tilting the vita device backwards and forwards. Another reason why Golden abyss is the vitas signature game is because it boasts amazing visuals and sound which is a first for handheld gaming, the jungles look vibrant, lush and green. The water looks realistic, fluid and clear, and the sweeping vistas look incredible. Nate's voice Sounds just as good as on ps3, and you can hear every crumble of rock and piece of splintering wood as you climb around.

For diehard console uncharted fans, all of these gameplay additions may be making you cringe, but don't worry, despite a lot of additions (i must stress they are additions, not changes) the core gameplay of running, jumping and climbing remains the same, and plays with the same button configuration as uncharted on ps3. The new additions just enhance the experience and really make you feel like a treasure hunter and these vita features add a welcome new level of depth to gaming and hold great potential for future vita titles.

As for the story in golden abyss, (I am at chapter 20 of 32) it is so far very engaging. As most of you may already know, drake is a funny protagonist, often making jokes towards the side characters. The story itself is full of plot twists and surprises which draw you in, which may be a bad thing for a handheld, because if you are playing on a train or bus, you may miss your stop if you are absorbed in the story. The story cutscenes in the game are very good and so is the voice acting, but I felt that for a console that is supposed to be "pick up and play" they drag on a little too long wasting precious battery power and gameplay. Also in heavy combat I sometimes noticed a slight frame rate drop but nothing that lasted longer than a few seconds and wasn't a very persistent problem. Apart from those little things though, uncharted golden abyss is a beautiful handheld game that utilises most of the vitas new functions and has plenty of collectibles to add to replay value. Multiplayer would have been nice but is not essential as portable gamers are not often near wi fi. All in all, golden abyss is in my opinion the best launch title for the vita .

That's if for today's blog, hope I didn't ramble on too much about uncharted, but there was a lot I wanted to cover about this game, in tomorrows blog I will probably talk about wipeout for the vita or perhaps something else.

Anyway hopefully see you tomorrow

Ryan

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Tech blog post 24/2/12 More Vita and tv shows

So i spent most of yesterday evening playing the vita in bed, and being able to play games on it that look hardly any different to their home console counterparts (uncharted and rayman origins for example) it's almost like having a portable ps3.

I found myself really liking the friends list on the vita, because I can log in using my ps3 network ID so I can still chat to my friends who are on the ps3 whilst I am on my vita which is very impressive.

With the vita my whole trophy collection now travels with me, and I can view and compare my trophies with my friends on the fly. I like the fact that the vita games also include trophies, I always found achievements and trophies add extra life to a game, and give you a sense of accomplishment, especially if you obtain a time consuming or difficult achievement.

There is an app on the vita called "near", which picks up who else is also playing on a vita in the same area as you, and I was very surprised to see about 6 or 7 people pop up in my normally quiet area, playing there's.

There are still a few more features and games on the vita that I haven't experienced yet, but i hope to play as many as I can in due time.

I spent the remainder of yesterday evening watching a tv show called "the hard times of rj berger", which is an American comedy about a teenage boy dealing with problems at school such as girls and bullies and then problems at home with his parents. The program reminds me of my life, and i can relate to the main character having experienced a lot of what he has, and then there is the added laughs on top which makes it even better. I watched the last few episodes of season 2 last night, and it ultimately ends on a huge cliffhanger, and with MTV cancelling series 3 and the show completely, the audience are left wondering how the story carries on. I would still recommend people watch the show as over the 2 series there is a lot of plot twists and turns and the end of series 1 is shockingly good.

So after I finished watching rj Berger, I spent a bit of time on the PC version of battlefield 3, which is a vast improvement over the console version, both in terms of graphics and player count, the Xbox version only allows 12 v 12 players max whereas the PC version allows 32 v 32 which makes a huge difference, especially on the larger maps which really feel like a huge open conflict unlike on console where they felt a little empty. You can also play the same map as many times as you like unlike console that has a forced map rotation which used to annoy me.

So that's all for today, I wouldn't normally talk about tv shows, but if this is going to continue being a daily blog then I can't ALWAYS talk about tech related things, as people would get bored and I would run out of things to talk about. I may blog over the weekend if I have the time.

Maybe see you tomorrow

Ryan

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Tech blog post 23/2/12 VITA!!

Anybody who read my blog post from yesterday will probably be laughing at my self control issues, because i mentioned that I would delay buying the vita until funds permitted and would probably wait a few weeks to buy one. Well, I lasted one day, the barrage of pictures on twitter of people with there vitas was too much.

So an hour before work this morning I quickly rushed to Tesco to pick one up with a free rayman origins game and 4GB memory card, I also picked up a ham and cheese sandwich whilst I was there. Upon entering the shop, I immediately saw it, standing proudly in a tall clear display stand surrounded by games and memory cards almost teasing customers to buy one. I approached the stand and reached for the vita like Indiana jones would with an ancient artefact. Damn, the display case was locked. I approached the customer service desk and asked how I could get the vita out of the stand, the assistant went off somewhere and returned with a key and continued to pull a brand new boxed vita from the display stand. I stood there, Eagerly awaiting her to hand it to me, at last, she did. I had one hand on a brand new vita... And a ham and cheese sandwich in the other... Does life get any better?.

I went to the checkout and paid for the goods, the lady recognised I had picked rayman as the free game (even though I have rayman on Xbox there wasn't many other games that appealed to me and uncharted wasnt part of the free deal) and she started to tell me how she used to play rayman and found it very hard, I agreed and said it was fairly challenging but fun nonetheless, anyway, I was just glad she started a conversation with a customer unlike a lot of boring shop worker "drones" these days. She asked me how many hours I planned to spend playing on it, "countless" I replied and walked out the shop with the lady smiling at my response.

So I have had a little bit of time to check out the vita this morning and so far I am highly impressed, the screen is rather large but still compact enough to fit into the average pocket. Whilst we are talking about the screen I would just like to make a point about how crystal clear it is, In fact, I think playing rayman origins on the vita OLED display actually looks more crisp and vibrant than it does on my 22 inch 1080p HD tv! Now that is very impressive especially seeing as it is a handheld!. Because it is a handheld, using as little space as possible is always a priority to reduce overall weight and keep the device portable, so you can understand why the memory card and game cartridges are very tiny, almost minuscule for the memory card in fact, but the the only real problem with this is the risk of not being able to find the memory card if it is dropped.

The general user interface is very simplistic, especially on the home screen, where every feature is represented in a little bubble, so If you would like to use the camera then you just touch the bubble with the camera, simple. You can log in on the vita using your ps3 profile if you would like to view and compare your ps3 trophy collection on the move, whilst acquiring yet more trophies in vita games.

Todays post has gone on a bit longer than intended but with the launch of a new console that everybody wants to know about I felt I needed to at least cover the core features, I will most likely talk more about the vita in future posts.

Thanks for reading

Ryan

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Tech blog post 22/02/12

I picked a good day to start blogging, with today being the release date of Sony's new handheld games device, the PS Vita, I think I will begin by talking about that. As with any new gadget release, whether it be an iPhone, tablet or games console, there is always going to be a lot of hype surrounding them. With these new products, we are always promised by the manufacturer that they have expanded upon since the previous entry, by being faster, looking prettier or having a must have new feature to sway owners of the previous devices to fork out yet more cash. Sony seems to have nailed those 3 points on the head, with the vita indeed being faster, prettier and having more features than the PsP.

I myself would love to pick up a vita, but only If funds are permitting. Seeing lots of pictures on twitter of my friends with the vita and lots of games and accessories is not making resisting the purchase any easier. The vitas launch line up of games definitely appeals to me more than the launch line up of the 3DS did (which I purchased on impulse because it was a new gadget and then traded in a month later).

Despite early adopters of new gadgets often encountering problems (iPhone 4 signal comes to mind), I am still willing to take the risk mainly for bragging rights, however if there is a problem like the aforementioned then it backfires on me. I have only seen 1 or 2 tweets so far about technical problems with the vita but am not yet yet sure if these problems are "server side" or "client side" so to speak.

The appeal of being able to play AAA games like bioshock and call of duty on the move sounds incredible. So knowing me, I probably will pick a vita up at some point because I am unable to control myself, it could be in a few weeks or even tonight if I see many more pictures on twitter of people enjoying their ones.

Watch this space

Ryan

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Ryans first blog post 22/02/12

So this is my first blog post, and unless you follow me on twitter you won't know much about me (unless you work for a secret government organisation).

I am a 20 year old working in full time employment, in my spare time I like to play video games on a multitude of consoles mainly the Xbox or PC.

I have many reasons why I play games but one of the main reasons is the social aspect, it is very easy to communicate with people over headsets whilst you play so by sitting at home in front of the tv you are still in a sense being social by taking to your friends. I play with friends I know in real life, but I have also met many more new friends from across the globe.

Another reason I play is to escape from reality, I work in an office from 9-6 which is pretty dull, so when I get home I want to get as far away from that dullness as possible, and by playing games such as battlefield 3 with jets, rockets and explosions going on its the exciting counterweight to the dull day.

Apart from gaming I am interested in gadgets and gizmos, such as mobile phones, cameras and iPods etc. I am fascinated by how they work and how they make people's lives easier (admittedly sometimes harder).

Another hobby of mine is to collect models such as those from sci fi films such as star wars and also model aeroplanes. I am interested in aeroplanes because I am fascinated by how they work, the fact that such a heavy peace of metal can fly in the air for hours on end safely carrying over 400 people really intrigues me. I also like aviation photography because it captures these great machines in all there glory.

Well that's probably long enough for my first post, stay tuned for more, I will try to talk more about tech related things in future blog posts but this was just an introduction so people can build up an impression of me.

Thanks for reading

Ryan

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