Online passes are some of the most unfair things you can add to your game. While I’ve rarely sold/gave away any game I had (the most I’ve given away was 3 my whole life), I’m certain this is something that would concern anyone with the trigger finger to sell their own games on a constant basis, or buy used games a lot. David Jaffe, creator of Twited Metal, said that he wouldn’t want an online pass in his game considering how much of an emphasis the game has on multiplayer. However in the end, it was Sony that made him put the online pass, and he made it clear that it wasn’t his company, Eat Sleep Play, that made the decision. Big ups to Jaffe for thinking about the little guy. But damn Sony, damn.
… Ends in failure. I was playing ICO (from the ICO and Shadow of the Colossus Collection) At the room with the lever and pipes at the top (a little bit after the waterfall), there is a secret room where you can play a game of basketball. Already miffed that I died in the room with the pipes (I slipped off), I had to go and do all the crap that was needed to be done again. So, my sis with the walkthrough still open tell me that I have to hit a tree to get a rock down. So, I bring the rock to the secret room to play basketball. It’s pretty hard to get the rock in there as Ico has some odd strength throwing the rock (but struggles holding on to it). After a few more attempts, the rock does a strange physics hiccup and… this happens! I tried jumping and swinging, hitting the tree that had the rock (there was only one), going far enough and coming back, and nothing. It just stayed perched there like an owl hooting at my misfortune.
Maybe if I fully left the area and returned it might’ve gone back to the tree where I found it. But alas, I didn’t frickin’ feel like it! So to the rock I have this to say: Dumb rock!
Now then, on Christmas Eve morning, we took a look back on the PS1 and my experience getting and owning a PS1. I longed for an N64 for a very long time after playing a lot of it at my cousins’ house. Then come Christmas of 98 I had received a Playstation. You can go to that article to see how I reacted. I briefly mentioned that my first game for it was Blasto. Well, that’s the game we’ll be talking about on this weekend of yet another eve, New Year’s Eve.
Merry Christmas fellow fishes! Today’s Christmas Eve, and today’s probably a very important day for you. You got gifts to get (slowpoke), people to see, things to prepare in the house, stuff to cook… well you get the idea. So I thought it’d be best to make this weekend’s Retro Weekend extra early and put it up at 7:00AM. I’m sure you got time to spare for this article. Last week I said that we’d come right back here and talk about something that changed my gaming habits. Well, if you look at the header image up there, then you know exactly what I’m going to talk about. Hit the jump to read about my history with the original Playstation. Continue reading →
Ouch… well, at least now we know the real reason Sony was so reluctant to include cross game chat in one of their updates. According to an interview Eurogamer had with Shuhei Yoshida, the Sony Worldwide Studios president admitted that the PS3 does not have enough ram to implement cross-game chat. The PS3 has 256MB of RAM each for the system and video, and all of it is used to run games. He states that the games themselves implement the voice chat feature, not the system. Because of the infrastructure of the PS3, and the possibility of alienating owners of newer PS3 models, Yoshida stated “It’s not possible to retrofit something like that after the fact.”
So there you have it. If you’re curious, the Vita has 512MB of RAM and 128MB of video RAM. So that little thing is quite a beast in that department.
Super Version. Hyper Turbo. Ultimate. Game of the Year Edition. In the gaming community, these are identifiers of a game that has been updated. Super, back then, was really just something that was getting released on Super Nintendo. But now, Super is synonymous with an update that was unexpected after promises were made beforehand. You can probably see which game I’m indirectly referencing and probably understand where I’m coming from. Before the situation we’re facing now in the gaming industry, Capcom led the charge in making updates to their games. However, back then they had good reason to.
Welcome one and all to the third episode of The Wired Fish Podcast. For this third episode we finally have Kung-Fu expert David and fighting game funnyman Bryan on board to discuss the issues at hand in this wonderful geekoverse we live in. In this episode, we discuss Sonic Generations and the trials and tribulations of the series leading up to this point. Next is Sony’s PSN Pass and their attempt to combat used game sales. Afterwards we discuss the current state of the JRPG market and its migration too handhelds. And finally we talk about comic-con and the anticipation of many new fighters on the horizon.
The new intro animation and title card was inspired by Gaijin Game’s BIT.TRIP series if you notice the similarity.
Lost Odyssey trailer obtained from IGN.
Intro – ………………………………………:30
Sonic Generations – ……………………2:18
The Sonic Supporting Cast – …………16:40
PSN Pass – ……………………………..26:00
The current state of the JRPG Market – 45:23
Comic-Con -…………………………… 1:13:10
Credits – ………………………………..1:17:16
Soulja-Boy Attack -…………………. 1:17:48
Things seemed to have been going all fine and Dandy for Sony and their PS3 and PSP. But then the shit hit the fan when PSN suffered a major hack attack, shutting it down for almost a whole month. But now, things are back to normal (hopefully). But, does anyone remember what Sony was planning to do for E3? To be honest, I forgot since the PSN stuff was the talk of the town. Regardless, we expect the usual things Sony will show. We should be seeing some Infamous 2, Twisted Metal, and Move action to go along with this conference. Hopefully after today, we can really put this PSN stuff behind us and focus on the games Sony will be releasing.
Sony’s Press Conference starts at 8PM EST (5PM PST). Once the conference starts, click the link below.
Kaz Hirai has just announced that the PSN restoration process has begun. Right now, most users will be able to update the firmware of their PS3 and change their passwords. As for a nationwide restoring of the service, that will happen from on a state by state basis. Sony currently has a map on its blog that it will use to indicate which state has service restored. The first service to be restored for PSN will be online multiplayer. He hasn’t stated when the Playstation Store will be up and running again.
Update 1: So far I can confirm that I was able to update to the latest firmware. I wasn’t able to change my password. It did give me a message , however, stating that my password is now invalid, so Sony is serious when they say to change the password. It was followed by a message stating that the Network is undergoing maintenance. So in due time, I’ll be able to change the password.
Update 2: After seeing that Sony has updated their restoration map (see link above), and that New York’s PSN service is on, I checked again to change my password. The first attempt game me the same message as before. But the second attempt brought me to the password change screen. And so I can confirm that PSN is up and running for the Northeast US. It’s still a bit rough though. I have yet to play a game though. I checked the PSN store, but it’s still down. I’d imagine that’s the last thing that will be turned on most of the transaction activity happens there.
After many months, and after many votes, the Smithsonian has chosen what games will be shown during their Art of Videogames exhibit. There are some obvious choices, and some surprises. Since this list is long, you’ll have to hit the jump to see them. Okay? So here we go.
Well well, looks like I have a couple of minutes to start writing some stuff. My Review in Progress for Final Fantasy 4 is almost wrapped up (the first publish will be up to the end of -interlude-) and as an added surprise, I’ll also be discussing Mortal Kombat, which was actually not on my to-do list, but, it was addicting enough for me to play through the entire story mode.
For now though, it’s music time. It’s funny how Ys Seven came to mind for this post. Far from my favorite Ys game, the story was great and the music is arguably some of the best in the series. I tend to have vivid dreams this time of year, and a couple of nights ago, actually started dreaming some of my favorite music from this game and putting it on TWF, so I said why not go through with fulfilling my dream. Brace yourselves, cause this is going to be a large list of tracks, even if I eliminate some. As a matter of fact, I’ll break this one into two episodes, one for each disc of the soundtrack.
Why not just put up the whole intro for the opening track, right? Right. It’s actually pretty standard rpg opening music, nice pulse, the melody in the strings is pretty cool. Not my favorite opening in the series, but that doesn’t make it bad, just alright. I still get pumped listening to it every now and then.
My first though encountering this track in the game : “This dick does not deserve such a badass theme song”. It’s one of those slow paced electric guitar themes more suited to a character more mysterious and …silent — he doesn’t know when to stfu! The guy earns his cool points late in the game, but until then, it doesn’t fit the personality at all. It’s a perfect listen if you want something slow to jam to though. Continue reading →
From what I’ve read of the big PSN crisis, it usually comes from two angles. There’s the legal/economic side where people are looking to sue Sony, hunt down whoever hacked their PSN service, ensure their financial security. It’s either “Fuck you hackers!” or “Fuck you Sony” and people just going crazy pointing fingers. Then there’s the other side where people are taking advantage of the situation to remind us that competitive services are still alive and well.
I'm tired of looking at this damn ball logo all over the headlines.... why not join the fun?
This is a rough time to be a PlayStation Network user. PSN being down for the past 6 days as bothered many, but was more of an inconvenience than anything else. But now Sony admits that all of its users have had their personal information compromised from an external intrusion.
The PlayStation Blog goes on to list what information has been acquired. Apparently, everyone’s “name, address (city, state, zip), country, email address, birthdate, PlayStation Network/Qriocity password and login, and handle/PSN online ID” has been obtained by the person(s) behind this. Further information that could have possibly been stolen as well consist of “profile data, including purchase history and billing address (city, state, zip), and your PlayStation Network/Qriocity password security answers.” If that wasn’t enough, Sony says that, while there is no evidence that credit card information has been obtained, to take measures as if your credit card number and expiration date have been acquired.
And I mean everything. The Team Ico Collection (which has Ico and Shadow of the Colossus) and The Last Guardian have all been delayed. *sigh* My Ps2 is aging pretty badly, and it won’t be long before it bites the dust and stops working (it’s a 2002 PS2). I’ve never owned Ico nor Shadow of the Colossus (I do have the demo of Ico though). How much more longer do I have to wait for these two game to get released on the PS3? Till my PS2 dies? *hardsigh*
Fumito Ueda, director of The Last Guardian, stated in a letter to fans, “All the members of my production team are working together at a fast pace to develop and release the game in First Party Studio quality.” He goes on to apologize and states that he’ll announce new dates soon.*hardersigh*
As you might notice from my recent posts, handheld gaming has taken an increasingly large portion of my coverage. All the good stuff just seems to be coming out this month in particular, and between running Tactics Ogre : Let Us Cling Together with Prota just after finishing Final Fantasy Tactics : The War of the Lions and the race to finish Pokemon White and Okamiden continuing, I haven’t really touched any of the big consoles this month.
That said, I’d like to discuss the next wave of handheld systems : the 3DS and the “NGP” along with my concerns for each.
On Nintendo’s side, I can’t complain about the amount of quality games coming out. We’re getting great stuff, a couple of disappointments, but overall enough to keep me coming back for other games. If only the same treatment went toward the actual quality of the console, it would be perfect. Currently I own the original gray model, two DS Lites that have torn out L and R triggers from trying to figure out why they would stop working and a 3DS that not only has busted triggers, but shuts itself off randomly wasting hours I’ve spent on games not taking into account that I typically use my DS as my alarm clock so I can make it to class on time…
The Wired Fish Network 