Sixaxis Falling Apart

What do you do when your left analogue stick is angled forward and your game character keeps falling off cliffs or walking in a room full of blood thirsty gangster with big guns instead of staying behind cover? You could throw the controller against the wall which will cause it to fall apart without the possibility to put it back together or you can fix it. At least that was what I thought. I decided to fix the controller myself and removed the 5 screws at the bottom of the controller. Opening the controller was another thing, the top and bottom parts won't actually let go that easily. With a screwdriver and a little force it would finally come off. Which caused some other parts to fall out too, I never suspected that there were so many parts in shoulder/trigger buttons. Throwing the controller against a wall would have had the same result. Time to buy a new one I guess.

I could buy a new one, but that gives another problem. Would I spent the money on a new one right away or wait until the Dualshock 3 comes out here? But the fact that we can disassemble the controller it means we can also assemble it. This fact was hard for me to let go and made putting it back together again my life's goal. Before starting I first cleaned the top part by blowing out the dust, which caused the analogue stick to jump back into position. This was a bigger motivation for me to put it back together, fixing the analogue stick was the reason for this mess anyway. The next thing was fixing my second trigger, luckily the first trigger had stayed in place. Putting the metal pin in the trigger button and clicking it to the part in the controller put it back in it's place. Next the two pieces of plastic that come between the shoulder buttons. These parts won't lock in place, the back cover locks them into place, but we aren't there yet. Before the back cover can be put back we need to put another piece of plastic back in place. It's the reset button, a reset button? Yes at the bottom there is a small hole, putting a needle in it will turn off the controller.

Time for the final step putting the back cover back on. Although putting a back cover back on seems like a simple task, it isn't for a PS3 controller. The back cover slides over the two plastic pieces between the shoulder buttons. It took me a lot of time to get the back cover to slide correctly over these pieces. Multiple times one of the two pieces would fall out and i could start again. After finally getting it on and sliding the front all the way down to lock the pieces in to place we had another problem. With the front down the rear wouldn't slide over the battery. After some more fumbling around I finally got all sides to correctly slide down and the back cover was closed. Time to put the 5 screws back. As being a litte smart i decided to first test the controller to see if it worked. Oh no the controller wouldn't turn on and the trigger button wasn't working. Guess taking it apart and putting it back together again had broken the controller. Now it really was time to buy a new one.

Still not giving up I opened the back cover again, knowing it would take me a lot of time to get it back on again to see what was the problem. Luckily I quickly found the problem why the controller wouldn't turn on. The little piece of plastic over the reset button was put on backwards, causing the cover to always push in the reset button. Unluckily the trigger button was a bigger problem, the spring to push the trigger back out was missing and I had used all the pieces. The nice thing about springs is that they don't fall out they jump to anywhere. As being a little smart I just started repairing the thing where I play games; the couch. Not the most suitable place for repairing electronics. After crawling around the room searching for the spring I was lucky enough to find it. Guess where I found the spring; under the couch. To put the spring back I needed to take the trigger back apart and I was back at square one. The earlier experience helped me get it back together a lot faster and this time everything worked as normal. Be warned COD 4 players, I'm back.

Assassin's Creed is the Living

After the morning disaster a friend and I decided to go home and play Assassin's Creed. AC is one of the games on my wishlist and after today's play session I can say it's a must have. It currently is the best game available on the PS3. You'll be amazed by the visuals of the game the view from the different towers is awesome and the smooth movement of Altair is drueling. The environment just feels alive, with the people walking around in the city, the birds flying around the towers and the interaction with the characters in the game. It's the first game where you can actually sit on the couch, play it and say: 'This is Living.'

Gameplay 2007 Disaster

Today was the last day of the Gameplay 2007 event in the Jaarbeurs in Utrecht. It's the worst event organized this year. Only 40% of the space was used by stands and the rest was empty or filled with trash. There were too few consoles to play on for the amount of gamers drawn to the exhibition. The amount of new Playstation toppers was minimal, I only saw Assassin's Creed, Haze and Devil May Cry 4. Where were the new games Uncharted: Drake's Fortune and Call of Duty 4. The Eye of Judgment also had a stand to promote the games, which is the right strategy to sell the game. But further there was nothing new to be seen or it wasn't promoted enough. Better try something else next year, Gameplay is one of the worst events I've ever been to.

Grand Theft Auto: Best Game Ever?

Is Grand Theft Auto the best game ever? Who am I to say it is. As a game collector I have about 20 games that I never played before. But this weekend the game I grabbed to play was GTA: San Andreas. I picked a game I've played a long time ago, instead of a new game with new challenges and a lot of hours of gameplay. I even recently played GTA: Liberty City Stories (PSP), GTA III (PS2) and GTA: Vice City Stories (PSP). But still I grabbed GTA: SA.

With the new consoles on the market, graphics has become the new standard to judge games nowadays. But GTA proves graphics aren't the only thing that makes a great game. GTA has never been the cutting edge graphics in it's time and still is a million seller. The fun, the freedom and the diversity in the game, make it a game you keep playing again and again. I would say that makes it the best game ever.