I've started playing AC:B this weekend on the PS3 and I've noticed something really annoying.
During most of the game where you are in sunlight, there is a white gradient haze that goes from the top of the screen to about halfway down. And this isn't an effect, because 1) it looks REALLY crappy and washed out the whole top part of the screen and 2) even in cutscenes, it goes OVER the characters. So it's not a "distance" effect.
I thought it might have been part of the HUD, though why that would be I don't know. But turning off the HUD proved to no effect and the gradient is still there.
I've been searching around the web and this issue has happened to a few people. Though I'm surprised it isn't more wide-spread. And so far, the only "solution" that was suggested was to turn down the brightness so that it's less apparent .... yeah. Not doing that.
I've also looked at the Ubisoft support page, but as usual it seems nothing bad gets posted there and so it is utterly useless.
I found an example of what it looks like.
Anybody else experienced that issue? Or heard of official solutions or fixes for it or coming?
I'm surprised that they didn't included insano mode as a trophy. My last trophy that I had to get was beat the game on Titan mode which would be hard on the difficulty level. But there is another level of difficulty after that - Very Hard. So I am surprised , but after playing it on Titan I can only imagine how hard the VERY HARD was.
Even though playing on Titan was a challenge with my hardest battle being the Cerebus battle which took me 2 hrs to try and beat it, the next challenging part was upgrade all your weapons. My first play through on normal I was short by 400 orbs, that was a pisser for sure.
But if you are going to get that trophy you need to spend your orbs has you find them and preferable before a checkpoint, that way you won't lose them when you die. And use the head of Helios to search for secret hidden chest, there are a ton around, you just have to look for them. In the end I had 6000 extra orbs while playing on Titan mode while I was short 400 orbs on normal mode.
So its done, I must say that I was a little disappointed. I had beaten it on hard, normal and all the challenges and I only got 1 extra costume. The last God of War had a nice selection of extra costumes, so that was pretty poopy. Next I'll give some hints on how to beat the challenges, things the videos online really don't tell you. So with that I claim my 18th Platinum.
This is kind of awesome! the controls are sluggish, but considering the time gap between when these things were created it's intertesting to see them interact.
Here is a video with some great 8-bit feel and sounds animated by Curtis with music from Robot Cousin, I heard that Curtis is going to make this into a game, right CURITS??!! I've always wanted to blast some ducks with my alien ship while in the bath tube with bubbles.......boy that's sounds messed up. What the hell is wrong with you??
God of War is a pretty successful franchise and with most things that are popular you tend to get alot of fan made things, be it videos or drawings and paintings. Even the concept art done by the creators is pretty amazing. So here are some of the ones that I find more interesting.
Finally picked this game up for 20$, so I am pretty late to the boat with this one. But no matter, whether its played a few months ago or now, its still a good game.(I don't mind waiting for games) SPOILERS - SPOILERS
I won't bother talking about the game itself cause most people already know most everything about the game, so just my thoughts.
Kratos is one Angry man, playing him in his previous games he still had a hint of humanity that you could relate too and feel bad for him, something redeeming.. Not in the 3rd one, he is one mean unforgiving asshole and you can bet that if you are going to cross paths with him. Then one of two things will happen to you. You will either die or he will bone you, similar yes. But at least one you may walk away from.
The game looks great, no denying that. But I don't know if it was all the hype and best game of the year nonsense, cause I didn't think it was AMAZING!. A really GOOD game, yes, visually and level design, spectacular. Gameplay....meehhhh, its God of War. You know what you are getting into, its fun! The one thing that killed me the most was the double jump and glide technique. Countless times I would jump off cliffs and then hit jump again and fall to my death. I guess the double jump isn't meant for quick presses but a slight delay, so if you hit it too soon he doesn't double jump but instead falls to his death. Way to go Kratos!!
After playing all 3, if I have to rank them in order of which ones I enjoyed the most, it would have to be GOW2 - GOW1 -GOW3 comes in third.
I did enjoy the game, its took me a little over 9 hrs to finish it and with that I plan on going back and trying my hand at platinuming this little baby. So off I go to finish this beast on Titan mode. More about all this nonsense later.
So a friend of mine told about a MMO that he has been playing. The catch for me was the word, FREE to play. Kinda shitty, if I buy a MMO game and then a months membership and find out that don't like it. So the play it for free, is a great way to test new waters.
The game that my friend is talking about is Dungeons and Dragons Online. And yup, its free to download and play, where they make their money is with all the extras that real fans may want to experience. But for a first timer, what they offer is more than enough.
The game looks like most MMO's Ive seen and it starts with a pretty indepth character creation, and I mean indepth. If you have every played any RPG's with the pen and paper and dice and you are given all the specs of everything, such as "The door infront of you is made from a harden wood, strengthen with Morrow Magic - Door-SDC-15/magic save of %15" Now apply that to EVERYTHING. So there is ALOT to take in for the first time jumping into the world, I'm glad I was playing with a friend to give me hints and tips as to what was going on.
But I understand that like all RPG's, you get used to all this. So what I am saying is that, there is alot of details to objects/weapons/skills. You really have to watch what affects what and make sure your gear and skills compliment each other, otherwise you will be in for a more difficult game.
But in the end, I just didn't feel invested into the game. We got a quest, I don't even remember what it was, I just followed the arrows and killed and picked up stuff. At one point I was told "Don't die in a dungeon or you will lose XP". I really didn't care if I lost XP or if I left behind a item/armor/weapon, etc. I just wasn't interested in what was going on.
Perhaps its because I wasn't playing at my own pace, or the world in general wasn't interesting me. I mean I think of a MMO and all I think of is wizards and knights. Personally, for me: I am tired of that genre.I would still like to try DC Universe online or Starwars- The old Republic mainly because I like the material more.
But will the gameplay be the same? I just walked away from the game feeling bored, uninterested and thinking,"I don't see what all the Hoopblah is all about with WOW".
For my first MMO, it did not leave a very good impression on me. Perhaps I will try it again on my own and see if I feel any different about it. But I think its the being dragged along on a quest with a party that just makes me feel uninvested into the game and its that, that I don't like. Although playing a LAN game like I did in the past is different all together and I enjoy it much more.
Also we were typing, I much prefer talking on a mic. It makes the game a more enjoyable experience. Some of the most entertaining times I've had playing online with friends usually involved a mic. Had many a laughs playing Little Big Planet with friends.
So I guess for now, I won't cast my final thoughts. It was after all my first MMO trial, so I guess I will have to try others. But this doesn't make me want to go PAY for a better MMO game just to see if I feel differently about it, that's for sure.
EXPERIMENT Here is a trailer for D&D Online and I sure as heck didn't feel epic rock music when I was playing. So here is what I want you have to do, click play on the trailer and mute it. Then click play on the second video and listen to that while you watch the D&D trailer. THAT's how I felt while playing the game.
Thanks to Edwards Shumps for showing me yet another video of scripted gameplay. This is the first time I came across or even heard of this type of thing in games. Though I shouldn't be surprised, I'm sure there are quite a few of these types of things that go on within games. But seeing as the first video was of some casual racer for family types to the hardcore BlackOps, is pretty shitty. BUT-this is the PC version, which I heard is almost broken with bugs. I want to try it now on the console to see if indeed I get the same results.
Its a pretty long video, I suggested watching the first min then jump to 13:10 to get the main point this guy is making.
These are the types of videos that I want to test out myself and see if this infact going on or if this is just fanboy videos. If its fake then it doesn't warrant any feedback, move on. If it is, then this is like finding Cocaine in my sugar.
I'm a big old school fan of Pacman, hence the site name. U can pretty much rest assured that if a classic old school game comes out redone with pretty lights, I'll be on that like fly's on shit. After seeing this trailer I had a little dance in my pants and pooped a little(always a good sign for games). This will be a day one getter game for me. You don't have to show me anything else...you had me at Pac......you had me at Pac!
Wal-mart is apparently daft in the head because they are selling Mad Catz fight sticks with a copy of Street Fighter 4 for $29.99. I mean you could resell the copy of Street Fighter 4 and get back some of your money. The cost of one of those sticks alone retails at Wal-mart for $39.99, so if you like good deals, then I suggest making your way to (as my dad says-to walleymart) and picking up one of these sticks.
Just goes to show what a well put together trailer done right with the right music can make it all that much better. This looks F'n kick ass!! Always loved the Filter song anyway!
Borderlands was a really fun game, but boy am I glad its over. I started playing a new game after I finished this one and my first thought was,"I should be playing some Borderlands". I guess its like crack.
Obtaining the platinum is not all that hard with the game of the year edition for one main reason. It extends the game time which makes it easier to obtain those grinding trophies. The only trophy that is difficult to get and its not because its hard, its just time consuming, is to reach level 50.
When I finished the regular story of Borderlands I was at level 32. So if you owned just the regular copy you would have to restart the story again in hard mode to go up some levels. Where if you had the DLC, you wouldn't have to worry about grinding. You could just enjoy yourself with the new stories and your character levels up along the way. But that only takes you so far.
After I completed all the DLC I was at level 47, which when you get up to the higher levels it really takes alot of XP to rank up. So to get the final 3 levels I played the General Knoxx DLC on hard and it took about 2-3 hrs to get my last 3 levels.
So with that I got my 17th Platinum and on the something new, yaaayyy!
Wow! was I surprised of how short this DLC was, I mean after coming off from the the General Knoxx DLC of 25-30 hrs. Playing this in 6-8 was a big surprise! I was honestly legitimately surprised when I got to the last mission. I was thinking,"Yeah, that's not the end, there's going to be something else". But nope!! Now I'm not saying that because its not over 15 hrs its bad, I was just surprised at the length of the story.
This DLC is not as in depth as Dr Zed or General Knoxx DLC, sure it as new items, weapons and new enemies and locations but on a much smaller scale than all the rest. This DLC as you trying to stop the Claptraps from taking over Pandora, so its suppose to feel like this big epic adventure to save the planet, but really feels like a side story to the overall world.
The Claptrap voice work is really well done, like Knoxx, its funny and has you looking forward to more interactions with them. But the overall missions feel like a side note has you explore the new territories. All the new locations feel more like FPS online shooter maps, lots of buildings, tight quarter's, it really does feel like they were designing new maps for a lot of Co-op action. The new locations are okay.
Infact that's my overall census on this DLC, its okay! I was disappointed in the trophies for this DLC. 5 of the trophies had you collecting dropped items from the claptraps that you killed. Such as gas cans, fish, pizza, underwear, 3D glasses, etc. But none of these do anything for you, they are just stuff for you to collect. Collect so many of this or combination of that one to get this trophy. Because they drop these items so rarely, its going to take a long time to fill that list.
So I guess that's how they were hoping to keep people going back to this DLC, make them run around and collect items, LAME!!!
I see the story they were tying to do, a big robot revolution , save the world with the overtone of that guy from Cuba, but it doesn't get there. Honestly, I was just glad to have completed the final DLC.
Overall this one falls just short of being what the DLC 1, 3 were. Its not bad, but after getting all that content from DLC 1,3. To get a little taste from this one just seems like a disappointment. This DLC is what you mostly expect from any DLC for any game, and that's an extra 4-8 hrs. I have to say I was looking forward to the final DLC, and came away disappointed. In my opinion, DLC 1 and 3 are the ones that if you are going to buy are the ones to get. DLC 4 if you really are a big Borderlands fan and DLC 2, if you like boring killing them over and over and over again levels.
I am horrible at puzzle games, crosswords, trivia or anagrams, etc. My wife on the other hand makes me look like she's married to a retard when it comes to these types of things.
I really liked this show when I was a kid, but I could rarely ever solve those puzzles. So I found this NES game with a classic puzzle on the cover from Classic Concentration the Video Game.
But for the life of me I don't know what it says. This was my guess," Mend My Shepard" What the hell does that even mean? So I know its wrong, but like a hillbilly trying to figure out rocket scientist, my brain can't figure this one out. Any guesses??
I gameshared this one from Ian(Rowan). It really made me go,"What the hell is this?? what do you do? whats it all about?"
In a nutshell, its a Sim game. A not very in depth Sim game at that, but for some reason, I find myself going back to it again and again. Checking on my virtual fish to see how everything is going.
Remember those boring Flight and Train Simulator games, the ones where its just all the controls of a plane or train and you have to monitor the controls over real time to the destination. The only really animated graphics were if you chose to look at the thing you were controlling from the outside at different angles, but beyond that there was really nothing else.
Well I would say that this game kinda falls into that category. Its like that, you start with different size tanks, fill them with stuff and put fish in them and feed them, THAT is it. They kept it really safe, where the potential is there to have so much more. There are little write ups on the fish, such as" difficult to breed, this fish is very territorial, aggressive, finicky eater" but none of these facts affect how your fish will behave in the tanks.
They could have made it really in depth for the player like certain fish couldn't be in the same tank with other fish, feed them different foods, the lighting. I mean they already have the basis in the game, its just that none of these factors affect the life in your tank. You can put fresh water fish in with saltwater fish, etc. The bigger fish will eat your smaller fish, so I guess that's something.
But none of your fish can die, so I guess the game over all is maybe to make you relax or geared towards kids. But wouldn't you want to teach kids that if you don't feed your fish/clean the tank/take care of them in general, they will die?
So beyond some music and tank decorations there's really not much to do once you make the tank. There are 52 fish to unlock in total and they are just randomly set to unlock after a certain amount of time passes. I guess if you are a fish person, then you may get more enjoyment out of the game that the average gamer.
For me, its a great little way to pass 10 min, check on my fish. Rearrange some stuff, feed them, did any of them breed, did I get any new fish and then turn the game off. Its exactly that, nothing more, nothing less.
Boy do you ever get alot of content for this DLC, infact both the first and the 3rd DLC of Borderlands is great value. With the Secret Armory of General Knoxx we get a Highway DLC pack, so lots curving raised Highways to drive around in getting from one place to another. You get 2 new vehicles each with its stats, but it boils down to fast and agile to slow and powerful. The Monster truck can actually hold 4 people, so its great for 4 player co-op online.
The amount of missions for you to do in this DLC is impressive, I easily put in 25-30 hrs for this DLC alone and that is doing all the missions except one (I will come back to that one)Can you imagine that there are full priced games out there for $59.99 and clock in between 4-6 hrs and here we get a $9.99 DLC pack , all new locations, all new stories,Increased the level cap from 50 to 61, characters,enemies, weapons, gear,vehicles, trophies, etc and you get 20-30 hrs. AND ITS FUN!!! which is the most important part!
If you enjoy the story of Borderlands that you will like the stories from the DLC aswell, its amazing value for your money.
General Knoxx has to be my favorite character so far in the entire Borderlands Universe, hes funny as hell. He delivers lines with such nonchalant that I really do get a kick out of him every time I run into him. He's great!! I looked forward to pushing to story along just to hear what he had to say, Great Job with Knoxx.
This DLC world is really large aswell that each time a new area opened up I was "I can't believe there are still new places to go"
Its mind blowing amazing, I have never experienced such in dept DLC, they could have easily charged $19.99 and it would still be a good price.But I must say that as much as I am enjoying Borderlands, I want to start something new but I still have one more DLC to do and one mission in the Knoxx DLC pack. That mission is to kill Crawomax or something like that.I'm at level 45 and this Beast is at level 64, it literally kills me in one hit, so I have to level up some by doing the other DLC and then come back and give it a try.
Overall, this is a impressive collection for Borderlands. Although it has double the content of Zombie Island of Dr Ned and a larger world I still preferred the area of the first DLC, just due to a different feel. But both are great, MAd Moxxi can still shove it.
I'm a huge Prince of Persia sands storyline fan. Not the rebooted 2008 one. Yuck! And although it's release was coordinated with the awful movie's, the only similarity is in the box art. The story is MUCH better.
So I was really excited but also weary when this one came out. Would it be my beloved Prince, leaping and bouncing off walls in a giant self-contained environment? The answer: yes and no.
This game is PoP 1.5. So it takes place after the original, but before the (inferior) 2nd one. The Prince is back, with the same voice actor and the whole beginning of the game is a love letter in similarity to PoP1. The Prince even comments on it, in his delightful inner-monologue.
Everything looks pretty and right in the beginning. Not quite as charming as PoP1, but it evokes feelings of it. The palace is huge, it is twisting and turning AND believable.
There's the familiar crank puzzles. Most of them are a bit dissapointingly simple, except the main gate one, which is terribly annoying. But that's standard PoP fare.
The enviroments start off really strong, with nice variety through the settings. Then, a sandstorm hits and makes everything even MORE destructed and interesting.
Then you get to the "Djinn City" which invokes some magical place. Nope. It looks like the castle basement. All gray and boring. And this is where the game loses it's believability and beauty. The majority of the game looks great and then it just fizzles.
And it has one of the issues I have with lots of games these days. I'm looking at you, God of War 3!!! It's enemies that are placed just so you can use them to navigate through the levels. The Sand Birds appear in a succession that takes you EXACTLY where you need to go. LAME! And there's even one sort of enemy whose entire purpose is just to zip you through levels. Their only purpose is to exist so you can go to a ledge.
But the end fight is fun and exciting and through the main game, I had lots of fun with the platforming.
So in essence, the game fizzles a bit towards the end, but it still makes for a very fun game experience.
Since November rolled around a little thing snaps into mind, like a bear going to sleep for the winter, I too go into no buying new games mode.
Every since I was a little kid when November hit, my mom would say, "its too close to Christmas to get new games, so make a list of games you want for Christmas". So from Nov to Dec I didn't get any new games, I make a list and maybe get 1-2 games at Christmas.
This rule and the other one of "no getting a new game till you finish the one that you got" I have stuck with this tradition as a adult. I'm okay with it, Modern Warfare 2-Black Ops comes out today and I wouldn't mind giving it a try.But now until Christmas, I won't be getting any new games and that includes DLC. So I can use these 2 months to catch up on my backlog, good times.
But that also means comes Christmas I will have another boat load of games that I will have wanted to play. But I enjoy this time, the same as for the month of Dec when Egg Nog season kicks in. So for now I will use this time to finish Borderlands DLC, God of war 3, Uncharted 2. That should keep me busy until Christmas.
Here is my list of games that I would like to have for Christmas.
CastleVania-Lords of Shadow Call of Duty-Black Ops Transformers -War For Cybertron Spiderman-Shattered Dimension. Starwars -Force Unleashed 2 3 of those are Activision titles, so they would have to be second hand. I will probable end up with 2 of those titles listed above, which is good enough for me. So until then, I will enjoy my backlog.
So the reviews on the Xbox Kinect were released today by some sites. Will it still sell like hotcakes regardless of reviews? Of course it will? Will there be alot of baffled people out there trying to get it to work properly? Yep.
I have no problem with what the Kinect is trying to do with gaming, but being met with a argument today with,"at least Microsoft is trying something new as compared to the Move -Wii" then you only have to look back to the PS2 and the Eye when it came out with the same type of gameplay. So much so that it was so broken they had to add a controller to get it to work properly. So is Microsoft being original here? Of course not, they took an existing broken idea and tried to fix it, which is good on them. Take a broken idea and make it work and we as gamers will benefit from it.
Here is my problem, don't give me a piece of hardware and tell me its the bee's knee's. The argument that its the first piece of tech like it is both false and tiresome. How many times do we have to swallow this shit from Microsoft? They released the Xbox early with over 50% dieing in the first 6 months, they release Kinect that has fundamental gaming flaws. And with both of these hardware flaws people still say,"Its only the first ones, you have to expect problems"
Does Microsoft own your balls in a jar somewhere that you can take broken, flawed hardware and have an excuse for it? Do you accept this kind of flawed merchandising with your TV's, Phones,etc. Do these things not work on a regular basis so much so that we just say,"Oh its new". Can't we expect and demand that the products we buy will work properly? Is that asking too much as a consumer?or can you man up and say."I'm not taking this shit no more, I refuse to buy a inferior product, go back to the lab and don't come back out till you have made a product that works properly!!"(I"m looking at you Nintendo Powerglove)
Kinect will trap alot of ill informed people out there and for me that is just bad consumer relations. Its sad that alot of people are going to get gipped in the end.And saying that maybe a update later on will fix some bugs, isn't good enough. Cause that what I really want with things I buy, I can't wait to get this home and play it properly a couple months from now. Like the PS3 Move its still a casual gamer gimmick where the Move is a more responsive piece of hardware and the Wii has a better selection of Software and the Xbox has a innovative piece of Hardware.
I can probable say I won't be getting any of these.(although I do like the Wii)
Here are some the things that the game sites are saying.
Joystiq
For all the talk of revolutionizing the Xbox 360 experience and making gaming more natural/ accessible, it's bordering on absurd how broken Kinect is when it comes to something as simple as working in your home. I find the technology itself fascinating, but the fact that I know a lot of people who simply won't get Kinect to work in their rooms beyond troubling. Given that Microsoft conducted a beta program with actual consumers, this issue is doubly surprising, but it could just be that Kinect just works that way (or doesn't, given your room) and there's no way short of redesigning the sensor to fix it.
GameLife
Direct sunlight on your body kills Kinect. Sunshine doesn’t make the controller slightly less accurate — it completely obliterates the sensor’s ability to see you. I was rocking out to Lady Gaga in Harmonix’s excellent Kinect launch title Dance Central , but as soon as the sun streamed in through my west-facing windows that afternoon, the game couldn’t read my poker face — or my poker arms or poker legs, for that matter.
Kinect also has some pretty serious space requirements. I am a city dweller with a studio apartment, and even though I have a good amount of distance between me and my television, I barely have enough room to play some games.
The voice commands only work for a small set of features, and the single most useful and important voice command any Xbox 360 owner will need doesn’t exist: “Xbox, off.”
Kotaku
It was ironic that in searching for an electric socket in which to plug my Kinect a week ago, I had to unplug my Wii. I now need to find a second socket. Kinect doesn't replace the Wii any more than it does an Xbox controller. It's not even a sure thing as a games platform, not until it has its first great game. But it doesn't have to be. If Kinect becomes nothing more than a replacement for the TV remote, it'll prove to be a winner. For its launch price, though, it needs to be more. If Microsoft keeps supporting it, and if its flaws can be patched and improved through software, Kinect can be revolutionary
Destructoid
I was definitely more impressed by the Kinect hardware (and the software) than I imagined I would be. But I’m not ready to champion Kinect as the death knell for controller-based gaming, and I’m not sure I ever will be. When it comes to the games themselves, I’m a bit concerned that the lack of a physical controller will really limit the type of gaming experiences we’ll see. (Will we get any games that aren’t on rails?)
Engadget
The comparison everyone wants to make -- including Microsoft and Sony themselves -- is how Kinect stacks up against the Move. By the numbers, picking up Move starter bundle and an extra controller is the same price, and in that setup you also get a two-player experience. Move's Sports Champions is arguably a stronger bundled title compared to Kinect Adventures. But really, we feel like both systems -- along with Nintendo and the Wii -- are just taking a different approach to the same issue. Where does interaction go next? How do you bring it to the living room? Back to the Kinect, though: we think there's some fighting spirit inside that glossy shell, but it's definitely got a lot of growing up to do first.
