Grand Theft Auto IV Playstation 3 preview!
I am really hyped for Grand Theft Auto IV, it really sounds amazing with all of the things you can do in the game. I’m a big fan of “interactive” worlds like those seen in Shenmue (Sega), Yakuza (Sega) and Bully (Rockstar). I’ve never actually finished a GTA game before, liked playing them, but they never really compelled me to finish them. I think things will change with GTAIV.
The Orange Box PS3 getting a patch? Let’s hope so!
It seems that evidence is mounting to prove a patch for The Orange Box for the Playstation 3 is in the works. If you recall many reviews stated specifically that Episode Two (one of five games included in The Orange Box) has framerate problems which is probably the biggest of the apparently many “bugs” within the game.
Word on the street is that the port was rushed to get it out in time for Christmas. Valve didn’t do the porting either, an EA team got the honors, but will Valve handle the patch themselves? Maybe, judging by the words of a Valve employee on their official Steam forums discussing the Playstation 3 version of the game.
Below I’ve posted a couple links to news posts on other blogs featuring the quotes from the Valve employee, addressing a patch for performance issues, and to fix the sound bug where Dolby Digital Surround doesn’t output via an optical audio connection (I wondered why I only had Dolby Pro Logic avaialbe).
New Visualizer for PS3 in latest update
Yup, Sony loves to give us hidden things in the firmware updates, which on one hand might be annoying if you don’t know where to find out about them, but on the other hand it’s kind of cool like finding really neat presents or easter eggs!
One of the few undocumented udpates this time around is a new audio visualizer which you can activate by listening to any audio file and then pressing the square button to cycle through the visualizers. This happens to be a realtime render of the Planet Earth in space, complete with the Sun that rises and sets. Really cool and I can’t help but think about 2001 A Space Odyssey while watching it! Put it as the backdrop to some classical music and you have something really spcecial to impress your more sophisticated friends. 
Besides a new visualizer they also did a minor update to the web browser and updated the PS2 game backwards compatability, all of which were undocumented.
The new Earth visualizer truly is beautiful, take a look at some pictures by clicking here.
Dark Mist (Playstation Network game)
Dark Mist looks to be like a “Zelda” type dungeon game with a big arsenal of weapons to take down your foes. This looks to be a fun game and will no doubt look great in high definition. It will be available via download from the Playstation Store soon. Europe gets it December 20th, I don’t know when North America will be able to “mist some darkness”.
Check out some gameplay here:
Sony Playstation 3 Firmware Update! (2.10)
From the Official Playstation Blog:
+ Posted by Eric Lempel // Director, PlayStation Network Operations
Firmware Update v2.10 is now live. This new system update enhances media playback on the PLAYSTATION 3 in a number of ways that the PS3 community has indicated are important.
We are introducing a much-requested video playback format with this update: DivX and VC-1 (WMV) videos become playable in the Video section of the XMB. This update also brings the PS3’s Blu-ray drive up to Profile 1.1. “Picture in Picture” and other enhancements become available on Profile 1.1 compatible Blu-ray discs.
A voice changer feature is added, enabling you to change the tone of your voice during voice or video chat.
As always, we’re committed to enhancing PLAYSTATION 3 functionality, and we’ll continue to post firmware update details on the blog as they are released.
Awesome update! And with the website Stage 6 you will have endless amounts of divx content to watch on your PS3, downloadable straight from the PS3 web browser.
| Instructions for downloading the divx videos from Stage 6 straight to your PS3 via its web browser is easy, all you need to do is edit the link.
Go to the page where the movie should appear, this is what the URL may look like: http://www.stage6.com/*USER*/video/*NUMBER*/*VIDEONAME* Change that URL to look like this and include the specific number for the movie: Next press the START button. Voila! The divx file will now start to download right to your Playstation 3! |
Bionic Commando: Smash and Throw!
Capcom has issued out a new video of their upcoming game Bionic Commando (which is actually a continuation of a much older game they made for the NES) which shows just what the title suggests, smashing and throwing!
Old game:
By watching the video you can tell the game has been given a huge overhaul to the graphics and gameplay thanks to next-gen hardware! There was another Bionic Commando in the works by a Capcom studio for the Playstation 2, however this never came out due to the studio being closed down that was developing it. GRIN, a relatively new gaming company who has worked on the PC versions of Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter is developing this version for Capcom.
I think that the video looks good and shows some promise but will it truly be worth $60? I’ll have to see more to answer that question. Though to be honest I think I’m looking forward to this more than the expanded version of Lost Planet by Capcom due out for the Playstation 3 next year.
Portal: Are you still there?
Tonight I finished an awesome game, part of The Orange Box for Playstation 3, called P0rtal. I finished it in a couple of sittings, which I never really timed myself but it probably took somewhere around five hours I would guess? I really can’t be for sure, but it really was a great time during the entire playtime, a lot of games can’t say the same. Portal is basically a puzzle game under the guise of a first person shooter that gives you a very unique “gun” which allows you to shoot two portals, one for entering and one for exiting. By navigating yourself around each “test” you can progress in the game which has a very colorful story unfold that takes place within the Half-Life universe.
The game has you play as an asian woman named Chell, who wakes up one day from a stasis bed in some kind of isolation room and is told to go through various “test chambers”. The orders, and words of encouragement *wink* come from an overhead speaker voiced by GLaDOS, a computer.
And of course once you complete the game you are rewarded with this hilarious song that talks about the game and what you’ve done. Spoilers!
Call of Duty 4 PS3 gets an update via patch (soon!)
Call of Duty 4 has an absolutely stellar multiplayer component besting every other first person MP game out on the market today. With several game modes to choose from including a realism mode dubbed Hardcore they have been able to create a very large online userbase for their game.
When the game released it shipped without a few things many would consider vital for an online MP of today, such as the ability to mute other players you may deem too noisy and/or obscene, host switching so that when a host leaves it doesn’t drop everyone from the game, etc. Well Infinity Ward has taken it upon themselves to correct these issues and give us some extra goodies in the process, including a new multiplayer map! One request I had for them was to separate Hardcore Team Deathmatch from Hardcore Search and Destroy, which just so happens to be a change they are making with this update! I’m so happy.
Read all of the many details about this update after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »
The Orange Box Playstation 3
Well after a slight delay The Orange Box has finally released for the Sony Playstation 3. The Orange Box contains FIVE stellar games produced by Valve software (Half-Life 2, HL2 Episode one, HL2 Episode two, P0rtal, and Team Fortress 2), however the PS3 version is ported from an internal studio at EA. Long story short, they didn’t exactly put a whole lot of resources into the port but I am glad to report that out of what I have played, besides frequent loading, there are no problems and it is well worth a purchase for Playstation 3 gamers.
Portal especially is very nice and I am just a couple “levels” away from finishing it. I’ve read some reports of framerate issues within Portal but I haven’t noticed not a single issue with it. Great stuff!
Linux for the Playstation 3
This really, really excites me. Read on…
Terra Soft, a Loveland-based Linux software development company, announced Tuesday the unveiling of its Yellow Dog Linux v5.0 operating system for Sony’s much-anticipated Playstation 3.
Yellow Dog is a standard Linux operating system that comes with more than 1,500 “packages,” with thousands more available on line. Packages combine to form applications, including common home and office applications.
