Great news!

Well as you all know my Playstation 3 currently is swimming with the fishes after getting my review copy of Skate 2, and also Sony had proceeded to tell me I had to pay $160 to fix a machine that barely lasted over a year. Well I decided that wasn’t right and proceeded to call Sony another time, being fully prepared to get hostile if needed because there is no reason a machine this expensive should of died so quickly when it was taken care of very well and hardly used.

So I spoke with a representative about the broken PS3 and said that I should not have to pay that fee because of how short of a lifespan this thing had when it shouldn’t of happened at all, the woman was like “That’s our policy we can’t really fix it unless you pay” So I said, “Is there anyone higher up I can speak to about this? Because frankly this isn’t fair and it isn’t right. I’ve been a loyal customer for years and never had a console die this fast ever.” So she proceeded to connect me to the Manager there but I never actually got to speak to one I was just on hold for awhile. So after about 15 minutes of being on hold she tells me that the supervisor authorized them to fix my console, needless to say I was very pleased that it was all handled quite fast and I now have a box on its way to me to send in my PS3.

I’ll keep this updated and let you know the turnaround and how quickly I get my PS3 back.

update 1-29-09: well I received the box today and to my surprise the return label is an overnight shipping label, that is quite nice! Microsoft doesn’t do anything like that so I hope they overnight it back to me when they fix/replace my system!

The passing of a great friend :(

I received my review copy of Skate 2 on PS3 on the 16th, It was actually supposed to be an xbox 360 copy but someone messed up somewhere. So that error aside I go to start my journey into a game I’ve been waiting a LONG time for. Then trouble ensues, first for some reason the game wasn’t running like it should, second the textures started blurring out and not loading in properly. I thought I might of gotten a bad disk, but then my PS3 freezes, I restart the machine only to find out it will not read discs anymore. I’m like 15 days past my 1 year warranty and they want to charge me 160 dollars. I’m not happy, I’m quite depressed.

*sigh*

Fat Princess

How dare you call me that! Oh wait, It’s a new game!

I’m sure by now a lot of you have heard a little something about Fat Princess, if not definitely look it up. Fat Princess is a new PSN game coming out soon that looks fantastic! It’s a team based game where teams of 16 go up against another team of 16. It’s almost like Team Fortress 2 but with a different twist. First off,  it’s not a shooter. It’s almost like playing capture the flag but the flag is a Fat Princess. Your team needs to gather resources to upgrade your castle buildings and also add defense to your castle, other players feed the princess cake to fatten her up to make her harder to carry away. It’s just so brilliant and really looks like it’ll be a HUGE hit on PSN and I’m desperately awaiting this game.

Gametrailers put up a few videos of it today walking through some of the game explaining the class setup and resources! Check them out.

CES 09 Walk-through part 1: http://www.gametrailers.com/player/44198.html

CES 09 Walk-through Part 2: http://www.gametrailers.com/player/44199.html

CES 09 Walk-through Part 3: http://www.gametrailers.com/player/44200.html

EA Skate 2 demo confirmed date! Coming soon to an Xbox Live near you!

Well, well, well.  Here we are starting the new year off with some very good news for all of you Skate/Skate 2 fans out there! Microsoft has updated their Skate 2 page on the Xbox website with a nice sweepstakes deal they are going to be running for those of you who download the Skate 2 demo between the 8th of Jan to the 15th!

I recently had quite a few hours of hands on time with Skate 2 on my trip to EA Blackbox in beautiful Vancouver Canada, and I must say this is the skating game to end all skating games, this is the holy grail for those of us who are die-hard skateboarders / skateboarding fans. I can honestly say I’ve never been captivated by a game as much as I was with Skate 2 in all of my years of playing video games, there is just something about landing that trick that you’ve been trying for hours and getting a gnarly replay out of it!

Skate 2 releases this month on the 21st, I personally was really surprised the game was coming out as early as it is, so much was added into the new iteration of Skate that it’s just mind blowing that it’s already done. I’ll be writing up a very comprehensive review of the game once I get my hands on it and hopefully get copies for both systems so I can also post up some graphical comparison videos for those of you who are on the edge about which console you should purchase it for.

Happy new year and I’ll be looking forward to skating with everyone in this new year

 

Xbox Live demo release: January 8th

Retail release: January 21st on Xbox 360 and Playstation 3

Demo Sweepstakes : http://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/s/skate2/downloadandwin/default.htm

Attack of the demos!

Well well well, Lets kick this off with Left 4 dead.

There are so many things that can be said about Left 4 Dead, It’s not every day that a co-op based game comes out, and actually turns out amazing. There is just something about L4D that makes it so much fun, I can’t specifically pinpoint it but it just has that formula that keeps you coming back for more. It keeps you coming back even in demo form! I cannot imagine what the full game is going to be like, with that been said lets talk a little bit about it

Firstly the graphics, its undeniable that the source engine is quite old in game years but the good thing about Valve is that they made the source engine incredibly well and made it very upgradeable, not only does L4D look amazing it runs amazing as well, with an incredible amount of characters on screen at the same time and no slowdowns, it is very impressive. The lighting effects look equally as awesome as everything else in the demo.

Sound, oh the wonderful sound. In a game like L4D you can always expect the best in sound, although the weapon sounds almost seem like recycled half life 2 or counter-strike sounds, but those sounds were never bad to begin with. It’s the ambient sounds and the zombie sounds and the soundtrack that gives the game its spooky on the edge of your seat always intense feel.

The matchmaking system works really well and I never experienced any sort of lag during all of my playthroughs, Valve looks to have another winner on its hands. I won’t be surprised to see high review scores all around for this amazing experience.

Mirrors Edge was a giant surprise to me, I had been somewhat watching this game over the months not expecting much from it, but EA seems to be pushing out more games these days that are quite good. Just from my first playthrough of the Mirrors Edge demo I had said to myself at the end “I must buy this game!”

It takes such a simple concept and pushes it in the innovation department to make it feel unlike anything that we’ve played before, it almost feels like a plat-former in a way. The graphics are very bright and give it a really nice feel, there is indeed a lot of white like most people have been saying but its not a bad thing. Every game has a theme and a color scheme to go along with it to give it a certain feel.

I’ve always been a sucker for being able to physically look down in a game and see your characters body it makes it feel more grounded to reality and connect you with the character you are playing because it makes you feel as if you are playing that person. The overall feel of the new first person view is just really really cool, the game really makes you feel like you are this person, and it gives you this very rewarding feeling when you pull off a complicated maneuver like running up a wall and 180 jumping off it Ninja Gaiden style onto a platform behind you.

Overall It’s an exciting season for video gamers everywhere, there are new huge titles around every corner, so many games so little time!

Managed to snag a copy of LittleBigPlanet

Decided to try my luck at my local 24-hour walmart at midnight on the 21st and they happened to not of gotten the recall memo or something, I now own LittleBigPlanet and it’s every bit as good as all of the reviews have been saying. Quite exciting.

LittleBigPlanet Beta Preview/Review

There isn’t enough that can be said about LittleBigPlanet and what it offers, you’ve all seen the hype, you’ve heard the word on the street. Just from the beta which weighs in at a mere 903Mb download there is SO much content held within. I’m very excited to see the final product which is rumored to be somewhere around the 40Gb mark, now with that much filled up I cannot imagine how much stuff there will be to play with in the final version.

Anyways, On the graphics side of things LittleBigPlanet is LittleBigBeautiful, from the very detailed backgrounds in the story levels to the small details like full reflections in the bubbles you collect, LittleBigPlanet is visually impressive on many levels. The textures just on the sackboys/girls themselves are very high resolution and it really makes you FEEL like those little sackboys are really made up of the material you have chosen for them. Speaking of materials they seem to favor a lot of real world materials that make up a lot of the objects in the game such as trees for example the leafy area seems to be composed of a felt type material and it MOVES like its real world counter-part, it is a very nice touch and makes it believable. On the technical side of it all it seems to stay a consistent 30 frames per second, I didn’t notice any slowdown which is very nice.

On to the sound, the sound is just as impressive as the graphics, from the quirky noises the pre-made people and creatures make to the cute and addictive music from such bands as “The Go Team”. I mean who doesn’t love the song every has tagged as the “Theme song” for LittleBigPlanet? I know I sure love it.

Sure I’ve spewed a lot of praise for the game but it wasn’t perfect, there were a few problems that I did encounter. For example: the online play was horribly laggy any time I tried to play with 3 other people, the sackboys and girls jumped around the screen inconsistently and it was very unplayable, but I’m sure that’s what the beta was for was to work out the network code. The other problem I had with the game was the way the Foreground, mid ground, and background layers of the game worked, When you jump towards something you’re meant to get on and it’s in a different layer than your character is currently standing in, it is automatically supposed to put you on to it. Now on paper this sounds “correct” and the way it should work but a lot of the times I found it would work against you when there were a lot of different things around you, so often times you would be jumping on something you didn’t want to get on. It’s a small annoyance in a game that is full of greatness it’s something that can easily be tweaked over time through patches.

On a closing note, the game was missing 1 key feature that was promised for a long time which was online create a level with other people, although Media Molecule has said it will be added in via a patch after launch, no one knows HOW LONG after launch we are looking at. I know I’m not the only one who is really looking forward to multiple amazing level builders getting together to collaborate and make the ultimate level.

Sony looks to have finally found their killer app and their own mascot for the Sony brand. Look out Super Mario here comes sackboy!