www.a51.org.uk

It’s one of the most frustrating games I’ve played recently (admittedly I’m rubbish at it!) but if you own it and are up for more punishment, you’ll be pleased to hear that the Pure Time Trials downloadable content pack is now free for Mirror’s Edge on the Playstation 3.

It’s not advertised too well though so you’ll have to search through the Playstation Store for it.

(Unfortunately it still costs on XBox Live. Then again, XBox owners are probably used to paying through the nose for everything by now :p)

To celebrate its anniversary Super Stardust HD is on offer on the Playstation Store for £1.59 (1.99 euros). You shouldn’t need any convincing to snap it up at this price as it’s one of the best shooters on the Playstation 3. Be quick though, the deal ends soon!

In other news (always wanted to say that!), DICE and EA’s free online cartoon-style first person shooter – Battlefield Heroes, has finally come out of beta. I’ve had a quick blast on it and it’s well worth a download. You will need real money if you want to customise your character to any extent but, so far, it seems perfectly possible to play the game and not need to spend a penny.

Just get to http://www.battlefieldheroes.com/ and sign up.

A bit of advice: Make sure you register an account and log into your account BEFORE you click the “Play Now” button and launch the Battlefield Heroes updater. (Initially I didn’t log in and ended up getting annoying “Build not found” errors whenever I tried to play the game. Very frustrating for an hour or so until I googled the solution!)

It’s been well over a week since I last posted anything and I’m ashamed to say it’s because one of those evil supermarket corporations took advantage of my complete lack of any willpower and sold me an XBox 360… At a very reasonable price.

So now I can put my 2p worth into the XBox 360 vs. Playstation 3 debate!

I’ve only had a week with the 360 so far but the boring conclusion is that they are just about evenly matched. Both consoles and the services that come with them have their strengths and weaknesses.

Here are a few quick observations:

Hardware: Both machines are big and heavy. The PS3 being the larger of the two. The fans in the XBox are loud and it gets even louder when a DVD is spinning up in the drive. The PS3 is virtually silent with hardly any drive noise.

XBox Live vs. Playstation Network: A Gold subscription on XL will set you back £40 a year but PSN is completely free online. XL does have many more games on offer though and a movie store which is available in Europe. On the other hand Sony now has an impressive free music video service on the PS3 called Vidzone.

XBox Live Arcade vs. PSN Games: I really like the idea that every game on XLA has a demo version. Demos of PSN games may not always be available and are often only downloadable weeks after the full version of the title has been released.

New Xbox Experience vs. XrossMediaBar: This is just my personal opinion but I prefer the PS3’s XMB. It just looks a bit more classy and seems quicker to navigate with. To be fair though, there is much more content on XL so it’s reasonable that some of it can seem hidden away. NXE has gone a bit more family-friendly-Wii-avatar style which is okay if you like it.

XBox Achievements vs. Playstation 3 Trophies: These are basically one and the same. The big advantage of achievements is that every single 360 game supports them, where as trophies are only supported by the most recent PS3 titles. I do think the trophy system is a little more evolved in that you have a total number of trophies and an RPG-style trophy level. This means you can quickly deduce that those people with a high trophy level and relatively low number of trophies have put in the effort to chase the gold and platinum awards. In contrast, people with high trophy counts but low levels are mainly collecting the easier bronze awards. Maybe I analyse this too much though!

Games: What fanboys love to argue over constantly! Well, personally I can’t see much difference in games between either platform. If you think back a year ago the PS3 was struggling with a lack of titles but now it has a very respectable library, even if it is not as large as the 360’s back catalogue.

I could go on forever but the main point of this post to to say: Stop arguing about which is the best machine. They are both great! The fact that both machines (and the Wii) exist and are successful is the best situation for gamers. It means Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo need to continue to work hard and innovate to stay at the top of their respective games (pardon the pun!).

It’s worth noting that when the world first embraced mobile phone technology on a large scale the development of mobile phones went crazy. Big phones went small. Monochrome LCD screens were replaced by full colour displays. Full internet access is now available and almost every phone is now an mp3 player.

Now games are finally being accepted by the rest of the world. What is going to happen to games technology over the next few years?

Sony unexpectedly announced the availablity of Final Fantasy VII on the US Playstation Store during E3.

Then, like an internet “Mexican Wave”, European users started demanding it too… AND… We’ve got it just a day after the US release (today)!

No one will know if it was planned to come out in Europe in the same week or whether SCEE were listening and rushed to get it to us early. The Playstation Store update was about a couple of hours later than usual tonight so it’s a possibility.

You can download it from the PS Store for £7.99/9.99 euros (1.3GB download) which is very reasonable considering it’ll cost you much more than that to get hold of pre-owned FFVII discs from eBay.

Small request: Please consider giving Metal Gear Solid the same treatment and we’ll all be even happier!

UPDATE 05/06/2009: I must have read someone’s mind! Konami has JUST confirmed Metal Gear Solid is going to be released on the US Playstation Store on 18th June. Hopefully it will hit Europe at the same time.

When you’ve been a train man as long as I have, you see a lot of people meeting, parting, joy, sadness… After a while, it doesn’t even get to you anymore. I wonder how long it’s been… There’s an invisible rail between me and the passengers. I could never live their lives. I’m just a train man plain and simple. It’s easier that way. That’s not to say that the crossing gate of my heart doesn’t hurt now and again. Back during the war, I remember there was a lot of painful scenes then. But, that’s a story for another day.
Train man, Sector 7, Final Fantasy VII

Anyone catching the news coming out of E3 will know that Sony and Microsoft, as well as Nintendo, all now seem to be seriously commited to providing motion control systems for their consoles.

Nintendo are pushing ahead with a new iteration of their control system called Motion Plus which is an add-on for the Wii-mote that promises more precise movement tracking.

Microsoft surprised everyone with Project Natal, a motion tracking system which requires no physical controller. It tracks your body movements and even claims to include advanced facial recognition.

Sony also launched a new motion controller dubbed (unofficially) by the internet as the PSPenis! (Well, the prototype is a stick with a big purple bulb on the end so they should have seen that one coming!) It uses the Playstation Eye for tracking and also promises tracking precision to millimetre accuracy.

As all three companies now have a motion control strategy it makes serious sense for third party developers to begin designing games based solely around motion sensing. So we could see some very different games in the near future.

Although, there is at least one guy that doesn’t seem particulary happy about this prospect…

Other great Sony news from E3 (I’m focusing on Sony because I missed the Nintendo and Microsoft press conferences!) is the announcement of Final Fantasy XIV to be released on the PS3 in 2010. Yes, that’s in the same year as Final Fantasy XIII is coming out. Also Project Trico was officially announced and named The Last Guardian. It’s the sequel to Ico and Shadow of the Colossus and it looks stunning.

EDITED 04/06/2009: I’m completely wrong of course! The Last Guardian is the prequel to Shadow of the Colossus and Shadow of the Colossus is the prequel to Ico. Thanks to LiQuidGFX for spotting the mistake.

There is also a shedload of new PSP games being released in the coming months including a new Resident Evil, Metal Gear Solid: Peacewalker as well as the previously announced Little Big Planet PSP and Motorstorm Arctic Edge.

It looks like Sony are finally getting the message that Playstation owners want games and lots of them. Which is great news!

“Take us BACK to the paradise city!”

Criterion have announced the release date of the Big Surf Island update to Burnout Paradise and it’s going to be out on June 11th. Although no price has yet been set (that I am aware of, correct me if I’m wrong).

There is also a new video on Criterion’s site: http://www.criteriongames.com/packs/island.php

Definitely added to my shopping list… Those jumps look crazy!

It seems like a couple of years (slight exaggeration) since the Tomb Raider: Underworld trophy patch was announced for Japan.

But it’s finally making it across the shores according to an announcement by Keir_Eidos on tombraiderforums.com (I’m assuming this is all geniune?):

PS3 Trophy Patch announcement
I am pleased to be able to announce that the PS3 Trophy Patch for Tomb Raider: Underworld has a confirmed worldwide release date of Thursday the 28th of May.

Sorry for the delay and thank you very much to those who were able to wait patiently, it’s really appreciated and I hope you get some great Raiding out of it.

I expect there will be more whoring than raiding when the trophies are released!

Now for fuck’s sake! Get off that Hannah Montana game people! Have some self respect!

Source: http://www.tombraiderforums.com/showthread.php?t=152210

Sony are giving away Rag Doll Kung Fu: Fists of Plastic for free! The catch is that it’s only on the US Playstation Store (The UK Store is still selling it for £7.99).

Fortunately it’s easy for UK Playstation owners to make themselves a US PSN login. There are a few guides to this on the internets already but as a brief guide you just need to create a new user on your PS3 and then go to register a new Playstation Network account. When you are prompted for your region make sure to select America. The only slightly tricky part is when you are asked for an address and zip code… I found that Beverly Hills 90210 works well!

As an additional bonus you’ll find a lot of PS3 and PSP demos on the US store which haven’t made it to Europe yet (…even though the full games have been out for months in many cases! PixelJunk Racers for example.)

But hurry… The free Rag Doll Kung Fu offer is only open until Thursday 21st May!

Just downloaded the new voice control plug-in for Singstar on the PS3 and was very impressed with it. You can either directly say a song title you want play or use simple phrases like “Browse Right”, “Browse Left” and “Select”.

We tried tricking it last night by speaking fast or being lazy with pronunciation but it got it right every time. A nice feature is if you say “Stop” about half a second too late when you are scrolling through songs, it recognises you intended to stop on the previous song and moves back to it quick. Simple but genius!

Is it possible that sophisticated voice control could potentially be a more revolutionary game control device when used simultaneously with a joypad than waving a Wii-mote? (Which, to be honest, makes your arms tired after a while!!)

The other game that came out recently for the PS3 that also uses voice control effectively is Tom Clancy’s Endwar which is a real time strategy game that I couldn’t get into (not because it’s a bad game it’s just I’m rubbish at RTS’s!).

Although I may give the Endwar demo another try as I’ve seen the game on offer and I’m half-tempted to buy it… As having 20 games started but not completed clearly isn’t enough for me as it is.

According to a post on the US Playstation blog by Rusty Buchet, Farbrausch are about to debut a demo on the Playstation Network for the PS3. Well they describe it as an interactive art experience, or god forbid a music visualiser, but to you and me it’s a demo!

.deTuned by Farbrausch

They haven’t released too many details at the moment and the only blurb is: .deTuned is a bit of an odd beast that offers an abstract and surreal interactive experience like nothing else. It is not exactly a game or an art piece like Linger in Shadows. It allows you to create your own visual to accompany your favorite music tracks on the XMB, and using the SIXAXIS™ Wireless Controller, you will be able to manipulate the given scene by interacting with and modifying a man and his world. It even lets you tweak your music as you play with it.

Plastic were the first group to release on the Playstation Store with the excellent Linger in Shadows a few months back. If you missed it then you can still grab it for about £1.99. Don’t be tight! It’s virtually free! It’s almost worth the price alone to be able to get a trophy called “Greetings to Fairlight”… Although I would absolutely love one called “Fairlight cracked Elfmania 100%” :p

I’m still hoping for a Desert Dream in 2009!

Source: Introducing detuned