Well it’s out, the long-awaited, fanboy heralded, Sony first-party exclusive FPS is in stores. I picked up my copy on friday and have been having a good time with it. But after a lengthly multiplayer session on saturday I thought to myself, why all the craziness over this game? Does it look great? Sure. Does is sound incredible? No doubt. But what else does it do particularly well? Not much. The leveling system is fun but didn’t quite hook me like CoD4/WaW. One might ask is it fair to even compare them? Of course it is, one of the most hyped games in the last couple of years begs to be compared especially to other titles in the same genre.  The controls also take some time to get used to. The DS3 does its job when you are in the middle of a fire fight, but all too well. The controller rumbles so much it becomes hard to aim. That type of  realism is better suited for games that take place on Earth, not Helghan. The multiplayer modes are the usual fair and the ability to rotate them is a really nice touch. Please do not some of my small complaints give you the impression that I don’t like the game, I do.  However it just does not offer anything as fun or polished(control-wise) as CoD or Halo.  But in a world with DLC and patches, that can be remedied. All in all KZ2 has a future, it has not launched broken like another Sony exlusive, and chances are I will be there playing it.

Like many gamers and movie watchers I was looking forward to subscribing to Netflix once the 360 Dashboard overhaul aka NXE was released(Nov 19th). The icing on the cake was news that Netflix would be doing HD streaming. Then the bad news came when it was discovered that HD streaming would only be allowed over HDCP compatible displays. I have an older rear projection HDTV so looks like no HD streaming for me. Sucks.

Apparently this device comes from Level 5(creators of Prof. Layton and Dragon Quest VIII) and it allows you to download PC and mobile games. I still don’t get it. Nor do I get this:

Article on Roid

This handheld device that I think came from the creators?/fans? of the GPX systems. It will cost around ~$330 and is already “available”. Pandora is selling out quickly as several thousand are produced at a time. It runs Ubuntu and was designed in order to run games like Quake 3 and Firefox.

Article on Pandora

Pandora Wiki

Videos of Pandora

Last week I stopped at my local Gamestop to preorder RockBand2. It was near closing time. The employees there were very generous. I walked out with a RB2 preorder along with a free Fable Pub Games card, Fallout CD(they never game me one when I preordered it weeks prior), Little Big Planet Kratos code(they ran out when I preordered a week prior) and a plush Harvest Moon Cow for my youngest. Not bad. I think I will start going by GS near closing time from now on.

I have been frustrated all day trying to get the feed and itunes to work correctly. I didn’t realize that getting all that working was such a pain. Honestly , felt just as much frustration getting the site, forums and everything else together. I didn’t give up on all that so I shouldn’t give up on getting the podcast stuff working.

Comparing feature sets between PSN and XBL has always been a point of contention between fans of either system or even of both systems. So the rumor about 2.40 was very exciting. That excitement and hype was further heightened by Sony confirming that the rumors were true. Now that everyone has a chance to experience in-game XMB, is it all that we hoped? I cannot acurrately answer for ‘we’ but for myself the answer is, no. This is not a MS fanboy rant or rationalization. I do favor the 360 because of it’s community features which the PSN is slowly getting. I do like the in-game XMB, but the real issue is that because I had not been able to easily communicate with people on my PSN list, I don’t really feel the need to now. I just like knowing that I can.

The trohpies sounded great too but only one game has them and obviously it’s not a part of the PS3 spec to include trophy support for games. I really like Resistance FOM, but it will have no trophy support. That seems odd as it’s a game published my Sony. Perhaps Insomniac is so busy working on Resistance 2 that this was a lower priority. Who knows? 2.41 is here, it works but I went without it for so long I fear that I may not really use it.

The game is fun. It’s no 10/10 though. I still manage to play other games. I find that I can play GTA’s single player for an hour or two and then I get tired of driving around. So it’ll take me awhile to finish it. The multiplayer is quite enjoyable. The controls feel a little unresponsive at times but it’s forgivable.  Hopefully this week I’ll be able to post some GTA videos and some videos of Snake Mode on MGO.

I was familiar with the wrestling stars of the early 80′s but was never really into it. The wrestling bug bit me in college of all places. One of my roommates was into it and I slowly became fan. What made that transition so rapid was the games. WCW World Tour(pics) for the N64 to be specific and then WCW/NWO Revenge (pics). One could assume that I was a WCW fan first, indeed I was. AKI was the developer behind these games and they went onto create two more classics WWF Wrestlemania 2000(pics) and WWF No Mercy(pics). These games took what I loved about the WCW and perfected them and added an admittedly(at the time) better crop of wrestlers (performers). Sadly that was AKI’s last wrestling game with THQ. Wrestlemania X8 for the gamecube was developed by Yukes and was garbage. My interest in wrestling slowly went away, until I picked up Fire Pro Wrestling 2 for the GBA. However my initial impressions for this game was almost as high as as my fleeting interest in wrestling at all. It is a very tough series to get into but stuck with it and have zoned out on more train rides to and from work that I care to recount. AKI did show up again and developed the first Def Jam game, Def Jam Vendetta, which was not quite as deep as their wrestling games but great nonetheless. The latest FPW release, Fire Pro Wrestling Returns, did not dissappoint either. Although I had to get used the dual shock controls. I can’t write enough good things about the FPW series, BAM! has always done a good job with it. Here’s some gratuitous gameplay footage of the FPW2 for the GBA:

The capture is a bit choppy because the software I used to do it doesn’t work well with hardware acceleration on. I’m late to the party but this is a great game and it’s free. However I am waiting for the inevitable feature which I will search for only to discover that it is paid content.