Playstation Home: First Impressions

So I completed the DL this AM and made me, the system gives some decent customization options for recreating your face, the options for hair color and style seem a bit limited, especially for females...no long hair option??? How hard would it have been to take one of those books in a unisex hair salon and duplicate every style? My Harbor Studio has a nice view but I couldn't throw my art deco furniture over the balcony...darn.Before I left my studio I familiarized my self with all the emotes, I'm impressed with the amount and variety of emotes...do the robot and talk to the hand at the same time...made me smile in approval. The comm system is great hold R2 to talk via headset and just type away for texting, if you don't have a USB keybord or headset hit L1 for pre formatted messages or use the PS3's built in keybord (slow). As far as curse words, they get the astrik treatment...although I didn't test l33t text...

Start brings up your triquarter thingie (looks like a PSP in other peoples hands) this little dodad has a lot of uses like warping to a differnent area of Home, calling a friend, inviting a friend to where you are and more (can't remember now).

Before I started to explore Home I DL'd all the zones while in my studio then I headed to the theater, grabbed a seat and sat while the movie trailer was DLing (Optimum or Fios will definately make the wait a lot less painful compared to my Verizon DSL) Got an invite from a guy in my clan, pulled out my trusty triquarter and warped to the mall. Here is the core of the Home experience....you can set up a chat room with your PS3 where up to 9 friends can chat and if you have a PS Eye you can video chat...with Home every PS3 owner is in this virtual environment and can communicate with anyone, this open ended environment can trully build the Playstation community beyond your basic friends list. The one thing I was a little disapointed in was the fact developer zones like Sully's bar didn't seem "connected" to the rest of the Home areas which kinda takes you out of the cyber reality of the landscape of Home. So I'm at the mall now talking to one of the guys in my clan via my headset and text, he shows me the new sweatshirt he bought in one of the stores in the mall...$00.50 for a virtual sweatshirt, I laughed thinking of the repercusions if my wife found out I spent real money on a virtual sweatshirt! The real estate store was open and I could've dropped $4.99 on a summer home...prices seem a little off in home...$00.50 for a sweatshirt and only 10X that for a summer house! Maybe that's where we're headed with the RL economy...with all the sweatshirts my wife and I have we'll be owning an island in the carribean soon! I think conversations are proximity based meaning people walking by would hear our conversation. As I talked with my my clanmate I couldn't help but compare Home to your typical message board, the mall being a section of a message board such as a Video Games section and the we were having a conversation about Home so you could compare it to me and my clanmate talking about CoD4 in the CoD4 thread of a message board. Same concept, different application. Then I thought to myself as dozens and dozens of people interacted...where's the mods? The Mr. Smiths of Home...

All in all Home is potentially a new way for people to meet online and participate in community based activities.There is also unlimited potential for Home to generate RL revenue via advertising and micro transactions. I'm looking forward to more publishers embracing Home and using it to promote their games with game-centric zones such as Sully's Bar and special events where Home owners can acquire unique items to showcase how involved they are in home. And Capcom....if by some miracle you're reading this make Chun Li's stage as an area in home to promote Street Fighter IV! And If EA BIG makes another SSX game make a Ski Lodge with a store where we can purchase boards and equipment to use within the game...and an Elise lamp or statue to buy for our homes! So many ideas I could go on and on...

Mama I'm coming Home!

PS home has been in development for so long now I can't remember when I first read about it. I've seen all of Sony's video's showcasing Home, from the TV being thrown down the stairs to the avatar creation vids, to the aimless wanderings throughtout Home from your "Home" to the mall, to the theater and arcade area's. I've lurked in the Playstation.com Home forums hoping to read a legit post regarding a release but that never happened. Little by little my friends began recieving invites to the beta...I even downloaded that gawd awful Home theme in hopes to find a "golden ticket" into Home in my email...alas I was never able to join my friends in Sony's digital eden, or as some call it Sony's 2nd life/sims spinoff.

Sony has promised that Home will open before 2009 which leaves them 21 days to keep their promise....

http://www.g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/691543/PlayStation_Home_Will_Be_Available_In_Nine_Days.html
http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/09/scea-confirms-that-playstation-home-launch-coming-this-month-in/

UPDATE 12/10/08

Well looks like Sony will be keeping their promise, the doors to Home will open tomorrow for all PS3 owners!

http://threespeech.com/blog/2008/12/home-to-open-up-to-all-ps3-users-on-the-11th-of-december/

http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/10/playstation-home-launching-globally-on-11-december/

Mog Houses...they ain't what they used to be!

Terminator Salvation Trailer

Check it! John Connor grows a pair and talks smack in the face of a T-400. The first TS trailer is out and attached to TDTESS remake. Seems that Mc G has been slightly influenced by Bayformers, if you've been following the TS news there's a terminator cycle that may or maynot actually transform. And that big dude at the end of the trailer appears to "transform" as well! If you missed it on Entertainment Tonight you can see it here thanks to JoBlo and our friends in Japan with tiny digital cameras.

Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix Review

You Win...Perfect!


I've been posting about SSFIITHDR all year and the good pilgrims at Capcom have delivered a digital feast for the Thanksgiving holiday!


Once the download was complete I jumped right in, SSFIITHDR is a must have for fans of the Street Fighter franchise and it's as good as this 14 year title has ever looked or played.


The intro screen boasts a powerful remixed score by the guys at overclocked and showcases Ryu and Gouki (Akuma) artwork from UDON. Press the start button and your brought to the main menu, there you can choose Singleplayer, Multiplayer, Scoreboard, Help & Options.


Choosing Single Player will bring you to a new window where you can choose Arcade Mode or Training Mode. Choosing Arcade Mode will bring you to a new window where your given the choice of HD Remix or Classic Arcade, Choose a mode and then the character select screen will come up, choose your fighter and get to kicking ass offline.


Training Mode is a great place for Street Fighter Vets and N00bs to familiarize themselves with how the remixed World Warriors handle. Like Arcade Mode, Training Mode gives the player the choice of HD Remix or Classic, after choosing the fighter you want to train with, your sparing partner and stage to train on this mode goes the extra mile by giving a list of additional features like the character's Move List, Training Options; Opponent's Behavior: Stand/Crouch/Jump/CPU controlled/ Human controlled Opponent Blocking: Auto/Always/Never Super Meter: Normal/Infinite Display Hitboxes, which will overlay red hit boxes for attack moves and blue for defensives areas during moves. The other features are Help and Options, About the Game which explains some terms and techniques of Street Fighter, Controls which is where you can customize the controller buttons to your preference and Settings where you can adjust the audio and/or display (WS or Standard) of the game.


OK stop playing with yourself....There's Plenty of Other Fighters Like You All Over the World!


Lets test your skills against all the other World Warriors all over the World!


Multiplayer mode is where your gonna trully test your might! Choosing multiplayer will bring up a new screen with four options Local Match, Scoreboard Match, Friendly Match and Tournament Match.


Local Match


Test your skills with friends and family on your console, that's ok but playing the same people over and over gets dull after awhile...trust me I know!





Friendly Match


"The true warrior enters the *online* arena with all his powers at the ready"


You may be able to beat the game with over five stars difficulty and disgrace your buddies with but lets see if you got the heart kid! For some this may come as a rude awakening that all these years you thought you were l33t at Street Fighter only to find your like Apollo Creed against Ivan Drago...


Friendly Match mode will not record your records so it's an ideal location to sharpen your skills for when it matters in a scoreboard match!


When you choose Friendly Match you'll have three options; Search for Match where you can specify certain filters like game speed/ number of players in a room/ voice chat. You'll then get a list of rooms that fall within your parameters, or leave the filters as any to widen your search, pick a room with an opening and wait your turn to challenge the current leader of the room. Rooms can range from two players to six and private slots can be set aside for friends.

Scoreboard Match

When sparring matches in your safe 1v1 friendly match games is over and your ready, enter the Scoreboard Match and test your skills, this is virually the same as a friendly match, double blind character select, 2 rounds to win a match. The only difference is the these matches record your wins, losses and according to Capcom there will be a stat tracking website launnched that will keep track of not only your wins and losses but how many special moves you've performed such as kikokens, hadokens, shoryukens, and spinning bird kicks, how many times you've won by perfect, how many times you've won by using a super move etc.

For me, Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix is a tremendous value, for only $14.99 you get a 100% arcade quality port of the original SSFIIT as well as the HD remix which could be considered a completely new version. SSFIITHDR is a testament to the longevity and quality of the Street Fighter franchise, the fact that this project almost got scraped yet the teams behind it pushed on to produce such an amazing game shows how devoted Capcom USA, Udon and Backbone were to this project and the hard is seen in every frame of the game and every sound bite!

I have waited since the late 90's to be able to play Street Fighter on line on my home console, I would've been pleased with a straight port of any version but for Capcom to practically rebuild SSFIIT from the ground up with the depth and attention to detail like a swiss watch maker was more than most fans of the franchise could've hoped for!

I recomend this game with no reservations for veterans and newcomers alike, the game offers enough variations for newcomers to learn the basics and work on mastering the more technical aspects of the game. And the remixed version is trully a joy to play, not only is it a visual masterpiece but the gameplay and remixed tweeks to the characters adds tremendously to the competitve nature of hardcore players. Below is a list of links to the Capcom Unity Blogs chronicaling the retooling of the World Warriors. With a game that is so dependant upon timing, lag could ruin the experience of playing this game online but with over 200 matches fought I can say that, for the most part, very minor issues with lag (I use Verizon DSL) and that the network is for the most part, very stable. Although I did find myself in a scoreboard match with someone who found a way to make the entire screen black except for my character and the health bars...obviously this person was very inexperienced to say it politely to loose to me even with a glitch that rendered me blind so to speak.

9/10

Ryu http://blog.capcom.com/archives/558

T.Hawk http://blog.capcom.com/archives/598

Ken http://blog.capcom.com/archives/627

Blanka http://blog.capcom.com/archives/872

Cammy http://blog.capcom.com/archives/960

Balrog http://blog.capcom.com/archives/987

Sagat http://blog.capcom.com/archives/1041

Fei Long http://blog.capcom.com/archives/1105

T Hawk (revisited) http://blog.capcom.com/archives/1143

Guile http://blog.capcom.com/archives/1183

Dhalsim http://www.capcomdigital.com/blog/20...art_13_dhalsim

M. Bison http://www.capcom-unity.com/s-kill/b...art_14_m_bison

Zangief http://www.capcom-unity.com/s-kill/b...art_16_zangief

Dee Jay http://www.capcom-unity.com/s-kill/b...art_17_dee_jay

Rock Band 2 Review

Like a devoted groupie I rushed to the store to pick up my copy of Rockband 2, once I got home the first thing I did was jump on the PS Store, buy the $5.00 "key" and transfered the 55 out of 58 songs from RB1 along with all the songs I had purchased from the Rock Band Store (DLC) then I entered the promo code for the additional 20 free DLable songs that are available from RB2. The game comes with 84 brand new Rock songs from such bands as AC/DC, The Allman Brothers Band, Alice in Chains, Beastie Boys, Bon Jovi, Fleetwood Mac, Foo Fighters, Greatful Dead, GnR, Journey, Kansas, Linkin Park, Metallica, Motorhead, Nirvana, The Offspring, Paramore, Rage against the Machine, Soundgarden, The Who and so many more!
Rockband 2 keeps all the deep customization for your avatar and adds a few new additions. In fact the game keeps all the aspects that made the first so great and builds on them like, Band World Tour, this time around the solo tour is replaced and now World Tour can be played online or local. This is an improvement as many people may have friends who aren't local but wanna join a band and play together. Score Duel, Tug of War, Quickplay, Tutorials. Some new additions to Rockband are Tour Challenges, and Battle of the Bands, Tour Challenges are exactly what they sound like, my wife and I have just started doing these as we've been so focused on completing the world tour and reaching 1 billion fans that we haven't really explored the new aspects of RB2. Battle of the Bands is the focal point of RB2 and is showcased in the games intro, this is a really cool feature that allows bands to compete online in limited time tournaments. The tournaments are posted on the world tour at different venues around the world and each has unique criteria to perform, bands meeting the criteria perform the tournament and have their scores posted and any other bands that participate can see their score versus others and their rank within the tourney.
Since I got Rockband 1 the strummer on the Fender Stratocaster style guitar crapped out and I had to buy a new guitar for my wife. I hope they improved the durability of the equipment as I've read alot of sites that offer DIY repair walkthru's for the Fender Stratocaster guitar. As I said in my Rock Band 1 review The game is great fun for parties and individuals alike and has infinte replay value especially when DLC is factored in. For those players looking to expand their Rock Band experience even further check out http://www.rockband.com/! The site offers some really cool things for the Rock Band communinity like you can design your own band T-shirts, and have custom figurines of your band made!

9/10

Happy Thanksgiving

While you're stuffing your face with turkey and cranberries today take a moment to recognize there's always something to be thankful for, like the adjustable lounge chair your gonna park your ass in after desert.
Happy Thanksgiving from Free Swim...see ya when I come out of my food coma!

See you on the streets

It’s a brisk fall day, as Krog and I drive up the hill towards our destination, I bring up the matches we had a few days prior and what we could do differently if the girl who plays Blanka is there or that Japanese dude that spams the Shoryuken. As we park the car and head towards the doors I feel my anxiety rise…or is that my chi? Krog boasts about how he pummeled the guy playing Zangeif and how he was totally feeling his Krojo after knocking the guy playing Guile off his win streak. The chill of the air and the light of the afternoon sun fade as the sounds of HADOKEN’s and YOU WIN’s fill the stuffy air of the arcade, as we walk through the door way a wall of Street Fighter II cabinets form wall of neon, electronic euphoria. I reach into my pocket and grab a ten and slide it into the change machine, like a crack addict my hands begin to shake with excitement, I meet up with Krog at one of the machines where there’s room to put our quarters down….only five matches ahead of us. We watch as challenger faces off against the current leader of the machine…I study his methods…looking for patterns, patterns that I can exploit. My turn arrives and I throw my quarters in and scroll to my primary fighter…the one I am most familiar with…the first lady of fighting games…

As the announcer says READY…I get into position, run my fingers over the six buttons and get a comfortable grasp on the joystick, my mind is racing on what my first move will be…vertical jump forward, play offensive or jump backwards and turtle? Perhaps a straight vertical jump or risk a Spinning Bird kick from the getgo to let him know I know how to play the Chunster…..FIGHT! The cheering and noise fade away as the match gets underway, I slip into a sort of tunnel vision as all I’m aware of is my health bar and how my opponent is doing, where’s the opening to get a punch in or a kick…do I have enough health to risk the Spinning Bird again I got him with it twice…should I switch up my style and go on defense…I have the lead…how much time is left…how much of a lead do I have…
The match comes to an end and the dull sounds of the crowd flow back into the room, Krog cheers me on as he drops his quarters in to challenge me, the experience starts again but now the trash talking ensues…
That is what it was like during the early 90’s when Street Fighter II rejuvenated the US arcade scene.
Come tomorrow Capcom will launch SSFIITHDR on the PSN. I have waited a looooong time for this game to be playable online. Why do I love Street Fighter so much? I don’t know but there’s a competitive spirit that burns in me every single time I play Krog, it drives me and makes me play harder than usual. The best analogy is the competitive nature between Ken and Ryu seen in the story line and the anime’s. And in the end it’s pure fun.
So Krog I’ll see you in the streets… ^_^

http://www.capcom-unity.com/jimmyrey/blog/2008/11/24/hyper_mega_post_of_super_street_fighter_ii_turbo_hd_remix_for_your_reading_pleasures

Astro Boy teaser

I recently posted about the Robotech live action movie that's rumored to be in the works thanks to Warner Bros. and Tobey Maguire and how I think it's not only a bad idea but pointless, your making a movie based on something of the same medium....it makes me think of that scene in Chasing Amy, "you're a friggin tracer man".
Anyway before I go off on a tangent please enjoy the mega man teaser with Dr. Wily and Dr. Light...no wait...the dig dug trailer...oops I mean the Astro boy trailer!
I have but one question for whoever is responsible for this, WHY!???

Outlander

While we wait for the glorious return of Conan, we may get to watch Vikings battle Aliens! It's gotta be better than AVP2, there's definately not enough Leif Erikson ass kicking out there! After watching the trailer I kinda got the impression James Cameron has spies in his camp....an alien with iradescent fiber optic hair in dreads.

Check out the trailers on the OS @ http://outlander.solsector.net/index.htm

There still is no announcement for a US release date, so we get to enjoy twilight instead o.O

SSFIITHDR price

$14.99 that's it. That's right, $14.99 for SSFIITHDR! Now that's a value even vagabond Ryu can scrape outta his duffle bag!
Look at what you get for $14.99!!!!

Features:

• All new 1080p high-definition art for Street Fighter characters and backgrounds created by Udon Entertainment, creators of the Street Fighter comic books
• Features all 17 of the original Super Street Fighter® II Turbo characters including Ryu, Guile, M. Bison and Akuma
• New optional "Rebalanced" Mode: massive changes across the board to all Street Fighter characters as created and tested by some the world’s top-ranked professional Street Fighter players
• One to two player head-to-head play either offline or online
  Single player vs. CPU
  Player vs. player over the same console
  Player vs. player online
• Training mode helps fighters hone their skills
• Improved network code for the best possible online fighting game experience
• Numerous online features:
  In-game voice chatting between players
  Matchmaking flexibility through multiple options
  Personal and friends statistics tracking
• Quarter Match Mode - this spectator-based system allows online competitors (2 competitors and up to 4 spectators) to use a "virtual quarter" to "buy into" heated two player matches
• Comprehensive worldwide rankings and leader boards by character - tracks overall wins and losses, number of throws, perfects, highest combos and more
• Widescreen support with option to select classic 4:3 mode for SF purists
• Choose from either classic Super Street Fighter II Turbo music or optional newly remixed tunes
• Option to play as the original Super Street Fighter II Turbo 2D sprites for traditionalists

Super SFII Turbo HD Remix 'Combos' trailer