Addictive Shooting

I always say that I'm not fond of shooters. Basically these games are nothing more than getting across a specific area and kill everyone you meet. And the online part isn't any better, you just end up killing the players from the other team over and over again, because they keep respawning. This doesn't seem exciting. How come I keep playing these games again and again? Because it is exciting! It's something you can't do in real life. In a game you can shoot someone without regret and you can die without any consequences. It's human nature to be better than someone else and shooters are a great way to show other people you're better than them. By shooting them in the head.

Take Cover for the Uncharted 2 Beta

Another Beta to play where I got the same problem as M.A.G. I couldn't get online. I waited a few days so that they could upgrade their servers and yes it worked. I was able to play a deadmatch game. I'm not a fan of the Deadmatch type of games, mainly because of the big ego's running around killing everybody to demonstrate how good they are. I don't have the time to become an elite player, so I normally go for the team and object based games. Unfortunately the only game I could get into was the Deadmatch game, so I had to play that one. As with most online shooters Uncharted doesn't stand out much in comparison to other online shooters. The one feature I found interesting was the possibility to take cover. A cover system is one of the most natural feature missing in shooters. In most shooters you can stand behind something to hide for cover, but few let you duck behind cover when bullets come flying your way. The most natural thing to do when projectiles come flying your way is to get out of the way by ducking so they won't hit you. It's a great feature that should be implemented in all new shooters.

Fat Princess M.A.G.

Finally, last night was the first time I was able to play the M.A.G Beta to which I was awarded a key. The first problem was getting online for this game. The developers decided that the servers are online for a limited time. So I tried lots of times to see if they were online but 9 out of 10 times they didn't deviate from the normal times. The servers are only online on weekdays between 17:00 and 20:00 GMT and between 00:00 and 04:00 GMT. I don't know if the developers ever heard about daylight saving time? For most european users it means the can only play between 19:00 and 22:00, which at least the first few hours is social time for family and friends. The next interval between 02:00 and 06:00 at night is not a something you wait up for, because the next day you need to go to work or to school. And if you think they would be smart to run the servers in the weekend, when everybody has more time, you are wrong. In the weekend the server are down. So I must say they really screwed up the European chance to play the Beta.

The one thing they did right was to count Saturday morning between 02:00 and 06:00 a Friday night interval. In my Friday night gaming marathon I finally got the change to get online into the M.A.G. Beta. This game gave me the same experience as Fat Princess I played earlier that night. Total chaos. You run out of your bunker towards the dots on the map and flank the enemy and shoot it in it's back. Besides that everybody is yelling into their headsets which adds a lot to the chaos. Instead of leading a squad what should be the object in this game, the only thing you hear is 'Fuck' and a real lot of that. If I want to hear a lot of fucks I will watch a Tarantino movie, I don't need that when I'm playing a game. For now M.A.G. has been a disappointment and I don't think I will be able or want to play it again any time soon.

New Homepage

After being quiet for 5 months there finally is an update and a great one too. Besides being busy with other things, I also found time to rework the website. The Blog and the Trophy page have been split into multiple pages, which makes it easier to read and will also download faster. But the major update has been in the background. The new homepage can now also be read on the PS3 and PSP. What is a homepage about my Playstation experience, that isn't viewable on Playstation devices? That was the most important and most challenging part of the new design. I also made the homepage easier maintainable, but I will spare you the technical details, because that is something you won't see. Now that the new homepage is live, you can expect more updates in the near future. First of all blog updates, I've got a lot of things I want to put up. And you can also expect an update to my trophy page, the list is by far complete. Enjoy and be sure to check back regularly.

Cavern of the 3D Engine

One of the updates on Playstation Home's Xi this week was an old skool text adventure. It brought back some good old feelings when I played a lot of MUD's. Too bad is was just a short experience, it still was an enjoyable one. All games nowadays all utilize a big 3D engine to blast us away with top notch graphics. What's wrong with just putting text on our screen? I think it's better to put the game in words than visualize it. What do you think when you see a movie about a book you have read. The book will always be better, the movie won't be the way you visualized it when you read the book. It's the same with text adventures, the way you visualize the text will be completely different from someone else's interpretation. But for both it will be an excellent game, because you both visualized it the way you both liked it. With a 3D game it is the interpretation of the game designers which you either like or you don't. So let my PS3 bring some more text adventures to my 1080p screen to play. Preferably with it's own designer so the community can join in to write new adventures.

Stupid Playstation Store Rules

The Playstation Store is the place to find the latest games, videos and other cool stuff to enjoy on your playstation. Yeah right. Why is it that in my region (Netherlands) everything is more than a month old? I know there is a difference between the American and European region because of the (old) tv standards, but that should not effect us this much. Retail games normally come out at the same time. Why can't all this nice stuff come out at the same time?

Four weeks ago the Unreal Tournamanet III Titan Pack should have been released on the Playstation Store. It was delayed two weeks already for the Playstation 3 but that is something to get over, but another two weeks later and still I get nothing. First the update came to the European Store a week later than the US release, but it didn't work so it was removed. Yesterday it was released again but it's only up in some European Stores and not in the dutch store were it was supposed to be released. How long do I have to wait before I can play with the new pack?

There is no obvious reason why it isn't available on the dutch store. If I would download it from another european store the update works. But then I would have to make an (illegal) account for the playstation network to have access to other european stores. I don't want multiple accounts to access all the available content on PSN. I guess to problem lies in the localization of the texts for the store itself. Maybe the dutch store should be extended to have an english and a dutch part. So all the good stuff can be released in the english store right along the rest of europe and release the localized part when it is ready. Sony this strategy doesn't make te Playstation Store something to be enthusiastic about.

Good Repetitive Gaming

I've read numerous previews and reviews about next-gen games and they all say that repetitiveness is a bad thing and mainly take a nibble out of the final review score. Why must repetitive gaming be a bad thing. Since the first days of gaming, games have been repetitive. Does anyone remember a yellow pizza on pills? I don't want games to be new on every level, I don't want to learn new things every level. I want to be able to pick up a game and continue the same way I left off the last time I played it.

Assassin's Creed in my opinion is one of the best PS3 games. Stunning visuals with a good, maybe a bit predictable, story, and a great movement and fighting system. One of the main downers of the game was it's repetitive gameplay. But after the first level you can play the game without ever learning new controls or new gameplay. Although you learn more tricks and need to master them to finish the game, the large part of the game can be played using the first set of moves you learn. The complaints about GTA IV are that you just drive from mission to mission finish it and go on. But they forget the freedom you have in Liberty City. If you don't want to do a mission, you can drive, walk, race, fly, play a game, hunt pigeons or do something else you like. It doesn't have to be repetitive.

But there are games that fail. Repetitive is a good thing if you still advance in the game. Some RPG tend to make you grind a lot. It's non-entertaining repetitive gaming and that isn't enjoyable. Grinding is for the hardcore gamers that have time to spare. I don't have a lot of time to game and I want to enjoy myself, not repeating the same thing over and over again. An alternative is trail and error gameplay, but that also has its flaws, but that's something for another time.

Boss Battles are Killing Games

After hearing a lot of complains about the boss battles in Resistance 2 I would like to give a reaction. Most people say the R2 boss battles are easy and boring. I agree that the boss fights are easy. I have more difficulty fighting the Titans, Ravengers and swarms of Stealheads and Hybrids, than defeating the bosses in the game. The first two bosses are the hardest in the game for the others are relativle easy when you know how to defeat them. When I first met the Leviathan I got squashed a lot. Which made me feel it was a difficult fight. Yesterday I defeated it for the third time, but now I know what to do, so yesterday's fight was easy (on Superhuman difficulty).

In Resistance 2 the boss battles don't feel impossible and that make the game enjoyable. I have a few games where the boss battles kill the pleasure of the game. Role playing games are the most prominent example where boss battles kill the game. I've recently been playing Final Fantasy XII and Arc: Twilight of the Spirits and both have boss battles that killed my gaming experience. In ATOS I'm currently at the final boss of the game, but this fight is impossible with the condition my characters are currently in, although the level of the characters was enough to reach the final boss. I know it should be harder to fight a boss character, but the difference between the normal monsters and the final boss is so big I need to go back and level up my characters before taking up the final boss again. I need to do the same thing over and over again to be able to defeat the final boss. That's not what I call enjoyable gameplay. FFXIII has the same problem, suddenly you can walk into an Esper in an area where you can defeat the monsters, but the Esper is impossible to defeat. But here it's a little less painful, you can continue with the game and easily come back when you are stronger to eventually defeat the Esper. Although here you are also defeating monsters to increase your level, it isn't as awful as ATOS, because here you go through different area's and fight different monsters and continue with the story.

Resistance 2 provides the same challenge throughout the whole game. It doesn't become increasingly more difficult when you come by a big Chimera. Defeating a squadron of Chimera is just as difficult as defeating the Kraken at the end of chapter 1. This makes the whole game fun and playable. If you want a challenge try the Superhuman difficulty. Besides R2 I would also like to mention the game with some of the best boss battles; Shadow of the Colossus. I know this is a bit of cheating because the only thing you fight are the Colossus and it's a matter of opinion if they are the normal monsters or the bosses of the game. Knowing how to beat a Colossus doesn't make the fights less challenging. Boss battles should provide the same challenge or be a little more challenging than the rest of the game and not nearly impossible. Games are meant to be a fun experience not a frustrating, controller breaking experience.

Resistance to Start

Great the new Resistance is finally available. I got in the car drove to the nearest gamestore and got myself a copy. Raced back home to fire up the PS3 to stop the Chimeran invasion from spreading any further on American soil. Unfortunately Resistance 2 is resisting the players to support the resistance. After pressing the X it starts to download the latest patch, 1.30. A total amount of 68MB which is slowly filling the download bar. After it reached 100% and the game restarted I was anxiously waiting to pick up a carbine rifle to put an end to some Chimera. But unfortunaltly I had to wait again, it has to mandatory install some junk to enhance my playing experience. So it will take another 2 minutes before we get the title screen. But finally after all it's resistance I can finally start a new campaign. Chimera look out here I come.

Trophy List

The number of games containing trophies is growing and growing. Already released games get updates to include trophies and the new games to be released before the holiday season will contain trophy support right from the start. After receiving my first trophy a while ago, I've been collecting more trophies over time. Today I've updated the site with the list of my achieved trophies. It also includes a nice trophycard generated by the Playfire gaming social networking site. I can't wait to download the patches for Battlefield: Bad Company and GTA IV to start collecting those trophies. It will bump up my total trophy collection by at least 40 trophies.