According to an article on Kotaku, Kijima and the team over estimated the capabilities of the PS3 in particularly the cell. Mmm, this doesn't sound good at all, while he admits the game is a step forward, he barely disguises his disappointment. While not overtly critical of the PS3 this has to come as a big blow to fans of the console and in particularly fans of the Metal Gear series, who have been waiting with baited breath for the next incarnation.
I'm sure Sony who have set the hype machine in motion with MGS4 bundled consoles won't be too happy with his comments. I fully expect gamers to still pick this title up by the millions but one can't help feel that the winds have been taken from the sails of Sony's much vaunted system seller.
Some of his comments:
"Game-wise, it's pretty close to the original vision: you sneak into the battlefield and can choose whether to do a stealth game or interfere with the battle more directly. But the graphic, side things like motion-blending and the size of the map, totally was not accomplished to my original vision - to my satisfaction."
"When we first showed the game engine at TGS, the staff were really proud and happy. PS3 was a dream machine, y'know, and we were going to work on this and that - and we had so many ideas. But when we actually started developing the game, we realized there were a lot of restrictions and so it turned out how you see it today. The original vision was to go ten steps further, the reality was just one step, which isn't to say we didn't progress."
I remember saying three years ago that we wanted to create something revolutionary, but in reality we couldn't really do that because of the CPU. We're using the Cell engine to its limit., actually. Please don't get me wrong, I'm not criticizing the PS3 machine, it's just that we weren't really aware of what the full-spec PS3 offered - we were creating something we couldn't entirely see."
Kane & Lynch: Dead Men Again, if you haven't heard about this game, two words: mercy killing. Kane and Lynch has the dubious honour of being famous for the wrong reason: bad publicity. It was one of the biggest stories around the end of 2007 when Gamespot editor-in-chief Jeff Gertsmann was fired amidst a flurry of rumours suggesting his scathing review of Kane and Lynch was the cause. What followed was nothing short of a mass gaming uprising against Gamespot (at the time recently aquired by CNET), with many commentators rightly distressed at the fact that advertising revenue seemed to trump truethfull reviewing in the corridors of CNET's latest aquisition. There was no hiding the fact that the pages of Gamespot were thickly laden with Kane and Lynch advertising - had that very rough line between the expectations of an advertiser and the rights of the punters to transparency been crossed? Gamespot and Gertsmann tried to dodge the issue through ambiguous press releases but it has become widely accepted (and recently confirmed by Gertsmann) that the review was the cause of his demise.
For those that haven't seen the original review (which was quickly pulled of Gamespot, edited and reposted in a more appeasing form) have a look below:
I would immediatly like to dismiss a lot of what he says as poppy-cock. Jeff must have been having a bad day, maybe the office politics had finally gone to his head, maybe he just got a little self-absorbed and needed a rant - who knows? After all the negativity in his review, he gave the game a 6/10 - hardly the shocker one could have been forgiven for expecting.
I booted the game up last week and chose the single player campaign, I had begged Brenda to play the co-op campaign but she was still more than a little miffed at my suggestion that Lynch had probable cause for offing his wife and then listed a few of Brenda's annoying little habits as reason why.
As it turns out Kane is a mercenary who was part of an organisation called The7, who have reason to believe he disappeared with a rather large sum of money that was intended to be more equally split. Lynch, is a psycopathic murderer who killed his wife in a fit of rage and is on a concoction of pills to keep himself from losing it completely. In contrast to Jeff's assertion, both characters are likeable enough. The games starts of with Kane and Lynch on their way to death row when a deftly organised 'break-out' occurs, orchastrated by The7 to get their hands on Kane and thereby their loot. The story starts as a hunt for the money to return to The7, then revenge and some more revenge. I've not yet finished the game but I must be close to the end, so I am unsure if things will change.
Graphically the game is decent, this is no eye-poppingly beautiful second coming, but it certainly isn't what I'd call ugly. The game is a third person shooter, and right from the start you are expected to shoot your way out a circling mess of local law enforcements finest. I found the controls a little slow on it's default setting so I quickly increased sensitivity and it instantly improved my accuracy on quick shots. As with Jeff's assertion, I found the AI to be incredibly stupid. Cops will often just stand in one place and wait for you to empty your clip into them. They often crouch, as if behind cover, but there isn't any! Don't be fooled into a false sense of security though, the hit detection in this game is to put it lightly, screwed. I've often had the reticule bulls-eye for a head shot and emptied a clip into thin air - one can expect over a distance for accuracy to be negatively adjusted, but this happens over short distances too.
Talking about difficulty the game gives you three options - aspirin, codeine and morphine - an interesting alternative description for normal, hard and insane. I chose to play on morphine, which is difficult. The game uses an autosave feature at the end of each mission so it's best not to quit half way, you'll start at the beginning again, even though you reached check points within the mission. I personally hate that. The game employs a cover system with varying degrees of success. Snapping in and out of cover is hit and miss affair, it's done by manouvering towards cover and waiting for the game to suck you in, often this doesn't happen and then a quick left-right of the anologue stick will get the job done. Not all cover is impervious to damage, so realistically hiding behind a wooden stall is not going to provide unlimited protection. Often though when trying to shoot someone from the cover position your character ends up shooting the cover instead, requiring you to break free and take your enemy on in the open.
Besides Lynch, you are often helped by other criminal elements which allow you to use your limited squad based commands of 'follow me', 'go there' and 'kill that'. Again the AI is disappointing, your sqaud members will often just get in the way of enemy gunfire and go down, requiring you to risk life and limb to administer a reviving dose of adrenalin. This is also incedentally your saving grace in many a situation. There is no health bar but getting hit enough sees your screen turning red and losing colour, take any more hits and you will go down. This is when having one of your squad close to you is necessary as they will have a few seconds to administer your dose of adrenalin and revive you. If they don't get there in time you will die - and don't go down too often as you will die of an adrenalin overdose should not enough time have elapsed since your last injection. The trick here is to always have someone close by, as your guys will not get to you if they are in the thick of battle or have to cross a path riddled with gunfire.
Kane and Lynch see's you fighting it out in an array of intersting locations, from a bank to a prison to a war-torn city to the jungle. The change of locations keeps the game fresh and you're never left feeling like it's just one gun fight after the next which in some games just sees you going through the motions. I am really enjoying the pace of the title and the storyline is engrossing enough to keep you interested. The gameplay is slightly flawed with little problems here and there but on the whole it's a very fun game. I am sure further additions to the franchise will be more polished which should turn this into a well supported series. The co-op mode should be lots of fun too, it's not an Xbox Live! co-op though so it's a split screen, single console affair but it should put an interesting spin on the story if you're playing the Lynch character. The multiplayer is called Fragile Alliance and is an exciting twist on standard MP gameplay. All players team up to rob a bank and collect as much money as they can and then escape. Police bots are provided to bring your heist to an end but once you've collected the spoils the fun really begins - any one of your team mates can turncoat and kill you for you loot. This puts such a spin on things it really is lots of fun, if you're the subject of sabotage you can get your own back as you respawn as a cop! Good game.
I can hear the popping of a thousand champagne corks around South Africa. Some very clever and brave person has found a way to download restricted content from Xbox Live! I think possibly this is the best news we've had all year.
When Epic released the Gears of War Map Pack 2 last year for 800 MS points with the promise of a free download in the future many South African gamers decided to wait until they became free rather than pay for the download. What we didn't know was that before the maps became free Microsoft would start IP blocking 'mature' content - a result of Germany's restrictive censorship laws - and any region falling outside of Live's supported territories list, was by default blocked. For those that had used the small window of opportunity to pay and download the maps this was not immediately a problem. However it started to become a really annoying issue when half of the Gears lobby would drop when the new maps were in the cycle. It soon became evident that including the new maps in the cycle was just not worth the trouble - and many people missed playing a brilliant addition to the multiplayerbehemoth that is Gears of War. Epic then also updated the achievement list to include the new maps and gamer score suckers where effectively cut out of the picture. It was a sad turn of events.
With the immanent release of GTAIV the worry returned. There was just no way South Africans would have access to the DLC which would be a real shame, as no-one needs to be told that this is the most anticipated title of the year!
Sploit made a post yesterday - he'd done some research and found a website that offered an offshore VPN - thereby scuppering Live's attempt at working out your location. The service cost $10 - not a princely sum by any means - but it presented a risk. Would it work? And more importantly, would Live! figure it all out and ban the console?
I can answer one of those questions: Yes, it does work!
Kudos to Sploit for risking his cash and his console in an attempt to help all of us! This guy deserves South African MVP status in my opinion. We are all still biting our nails though, will he be banned? We'll just have to see, but I think things will be fine.
Scene it? LCA I'm a great fan of Friends, the series, you know the show with Chandler, Joey, Ross, Monica, Phoebe, Rachel and Central Perk? (That question was rhetorical - but seriously if you don't know what I am talking about: kill yourself, slowly). I purchased the full series on DVD a good couple of years ago and my significant other (from now on referred to as Brenda - no it's not her real name - a round of high fives to the person who can correctly name the columnist and author whose wife he also christened Brenda and to whom this is a mini tribute) and I have made a ritual of watching it from beginning to end, rinse and repeat. We are on about the 7th rerun and it just gets funnier each damn time! So by now you're probably wondering why I'm rambling on and what the hell Friends has to do with Scene It: LCA besides the obvious. Well, if you are a Friends aficionado like myself you will be well aware of Monica's ..erm competitive streak. Here is a perfect example, where Monica turned Joey and Chandlers game of catch into some sort of freakish exercise in endurance straight out of a Chinese torture manual:
Now, my Brenda makes Monica look like the Dalai Lama of competitive restraint. Absolutely everything is dealt with in terms of who's better at it. Hell, even when it's just the two of us having to go somewhere by car, she still shouts 'Shotgun!' as she bounds towards it like some rabid animal. Often, I'm tempted to just get into the back and wait for the penny to drop but I fear I may still be the loser. It's got to the extent that when watching a film together the person who can correctly shout the production company's name before it's logo fully reveals itself is proclaimed winner of 'the movie'. I put the blame squarely on her for forcing me into a reclusive life of video games and skin the shade of see-through!
Scene It? LCA has made my life worse. It's horribly addictive quiz-show gameplay was an instant hit with Brenda. I think it might also have something to do with the fact that it comes with projectiles in the form of buzzers. You get 4, yes four, buzzers in the box, batteries included. They are comfortable, small and light, obviously they are only held in one hand, and are connected to your 360 through a supplied IR USB device. The really grand thing about this is that four people can play which makes it a whole lot of fun. It's the perfect antidote to boardgames for those of us who are sick of losing those rediculously small Trivial Pursuit wedges. Most importantly, this game has another trick up it's sleeve when it comes to comparing it to traditional boardgames - access to Live! Surely the developers will make use of this to keep the game fresh by updating it's content in line with recent movie releases! It is also a great way to get your non-gaming friends involved in your hobby (I know how frustrating it is when visitors intrude on your gaming time) as it revolves around entertainment that everyone is familiar with - the movies.
Off the bat, if there are more than two people playing, first use an ordinary 360 controller to create the extra profiles needed on your 360. This will save you a lot of time, as trying to do it with the buzzers is an exercise in frustration. Once thats done, hook up the buzzers and get started. There are three options, Short Play, Long Play and Party Game or something along that line. We generally opt for the Short Play as it tends to make the games a lot closer score wise and builds the tension for a smashing finale. The only difference between Long and Short Play is the amount of questions in each stage by the way. The Party Game basically just runs through each quiz without an eventual winner, either that or it goes on forever and we've never got to the end of it!
The idea of bringing a movie based quiz to gaming is one that has always appealed to me - the fact that you could bring actual scenes from a movie into the gameplay was enough motivation for me to get this. (Incidentally, this was another second hand purchase from the marketplace on www.xbox-360.co.za/forum) In this area the game doesn't disappoint, although I do find the audio in some of the scenes a tad soft. The game uses movies from all era's which does add a level of difficulty but not to the extent that you'll feel out of depth. Questions based on a played scene range from the names of the actors, questions on the dialogue and even questions about the props in the scene.
There are numerous other quizzes:
Picture Puzzle See's contestants trying to identify the actor whose picture is jumbled up into tiny pieces and displayed in a random order.
Name the Movie Anagram Obviously the name of a movie with the letters in random order.
Identify the movie from a sketch A sketch is drawn in staggered stages from abstract to obvious against a timer with contestants picking a movie which corresponds with the drawing.
Timeline Correctly place the shown movies chronologically according to the year of their release. This one is very tricky!
There are quite a few other types but I am sure you get the idea. There is a time limit and points are awarded on a sliding scale obviously the quicker you correctly answer the higher your points tally. At the end of each round the points are tallied up and bonus points are awarded for certain milestones for instance: quickest answer, most correct answers in a round, correctly answering all the questions in a particular quizz etc etc. Many of the achievements in the game are based around similar milestones.
It certainly is a great way to spend a few hours, it's fun, competitive and right up my poor Brenda's alley - she's already done the victory dance and the my-head-meets-her buzzer dance too many times to mention.
A Workaround: It seems some bright spark from http://www.ps3.co.za/forum/ has found a way to beat the system and download some extra content available on the European Playstation Store. It does involve some dubious fiddling of the user location field though.
The steps are simple enough to follow:
1) Create a new gmail / internet based email account 2) Create a new user on your PS3 3) Sign in under that user name 4) Register that user name on PSN 5) Under the location tab enter any UK town and its relevant postal code (Google is your friend) 6) Enter your new gmail / internet based email account 7) Enter the store and download the free pack
Erm, thats it folks. Unfortunately actually downloading the charged-for content is proving to be a hiccup. The Playstation Store seems to cross check your credit cards billing address (doh!) with your fake credentials and cancels the transaction. I'm not sure if providing false billing addresses would solve the problem (or even if there is a field to do this), I'll leave that to someone else to find out - having done so to access Live! I'm not looking for another possible lawsuit.
As LazyGamer pointed out, and backed up by Burns4711, the irony is palpable. PS3 users having to sidestep the system to access a PSN feature, well I never..... Local Xbox 360 users are gleaming.
It's been a reasonably quiet one. Havok returned home, apparantly thinner, but full of the joys of spring and with a smile practically tattood on his face - it's still not clear how long that honeymoon tan is going to last. Talking about tattoo's, the forum 1Up'd its female count with Nixy Pixy's arrival. She burst onto the scene with her thread about ink and I think alot of the guys were only too happy for some female attention - a prime example being Sploits homemade effort, a fine angle into the thread albeit a little disturbing in a night-of-the-living dead kind of way. Scratchy apparantly takes his inspiration from behind, I mean brokeback, I mean his back. Bokka1 suggested a motivational poster in his bedroom instead, Scratchy's rebuttal being the impracticality of carrying a poster around with him. I guess he must have a little vanity mirror for an over the shoulder view when he is on the move. By the way Scratchy's so hardcore, being in the desert he just cling-wrapped himself and did the tattoo cut-out and then waited for the dunes to sandblast it in. ScubaSteve pwnd all with his sado-mas0chistic tendencies. Looking at his chest I don't see tattoo's, just pain. Echo ZA also got his word in with a couple of pictures of unhappy animals - I like. Secretly we were all hoping for a photo of Nixy but that didn't materialise and the thread died as abruptly as it started.
One little corner of the woods that I'd like to pay a visit is the Buffalo Soldiers private forum. Their posts are always popping up on the index page - I mean how much Vernon can you talk? As far as I can see they have the most active clan forum - mmm. Talking about activity or rather inactivity - WTF is Sauron? (someone needs to make that a bumper sticker) Since the forum got prettied up - thanks Minem - he's gone soft.
In a step towards the ultimate fanboy showdown - TinFish asked how many 360 forum members visited the Ps 3 forum. This comes hot on the heels of a bun fight over there caused by a LazyGamer flamebait friday article. You got to love Lazy. If you're gonna throw stones do it around glass houses - otherwise it ain't fun. More about that further on. As it turned out, TinFish's post was all it took to bring Viking out of the woodwork. Many of you will remember him as the guy who sold his working Xbox 360 to buy a PS3 -bacause his 360 would have RROD - and then sat for 3 months with no games to play. He became the poster boy for sellers remorse - the pain of reading about the fun he could have been having ended up being to much and he set up camp at the PS3 Forum.
And, would somebody please sell Hiro a second hand copy of Bully.
This has to be my favourite place on the web at the moment. Apart from the interesting articles, Abe's posts are worth looking out for. This guy makes doobiwan look like a fence-sitter. In fact, Abe escaped being an Xbox 360 fanboy by a pixels width when he won a competition for a PS3. You've got to admire him for atleast backing the sponsors.
This week saw a couple of interesting articles by James Francis (ex editor of GAG, oops NAG), which made for some interesting reading - I hope he stays as part of the team - he looks good for a rant or two so I'm holding my breath for some fireworks.
I'm gonna jump straight to last Fridays article though. GTAIV: Is the Xbox 360 Version Superior? A simple question. 74 comments and over 600 views later we can confirm that yes, Fight Night 3 and Oblivion are both better on the 360. Oh, the sick-axis also got pulled into the argument and it was decided that 90% of people found it to be comfortable, or atleast 90% of people in kindergarten. (Sorry PS3 fans - just remember you've got HOME to look forward too - it's a safe place to go and cry into a pillow)
The real fireworks happened over at the PS 3 forum with a post bemoaning the superiority of the 360 - referencing the above article. Our local ninja Durayel, went in nunchucks and all and told everyone to just buy a 360 and stop moaning. This obviously went down like a warm beer. Burns4711 pointed out that most people with both consoles prefer the 360. Bradster69 decided to skate the thin-ice and back up the 360 - a decidely dicey undertaking, as he is a moderator of the PS 3 forum.
Durayel then had an idea for poll - I'm not sure if he predicted the outcome but the results were predictable: A little bit of how's your father ensued - with one person conspicuous by his abscence, Durayel. A master ninja.
According to an article on Kotaku, Kijima and the team over estimated the capabilities of the PS3 in particularly the cell. Mmm, this doesn't sound good at all, while he admits the game is a step forward, he barely disguises his disappointment. While not overtly critical of the PS3 this has to come as a big blow to fans of the console and in particularly fans of the Metal Gear series, who have been waiting with baited breath for the next incarnation.
Durayel then had an idea for 
A little bit of how's your father ensued - with one person conspicuous by his abscence, Durayel. A master ninja. 
