Along with Metal Gear Solid
4, Little Big Planet is the
biggest exclusive title for the PS3 on the horizon, but LBP is probably more important as it’s the one that will potentially
take a big bite out of the Wii’s hold on the casual gaming market. It’s still
several months away and because of that I have to say that my excitement level
hasn’t been running too high, but details and more importantly gameplay, is
starting to roll in and honestly after seeing some of this LBP has officially hit my radar and
maybe other’s as well.

Late to the party you say? Most definitely, but being an old
school side-scrolling platforming freak it’s not unusual at all for me to find
myself caught in time warps and waking up in another era, but when I saw this
video I had to put down my Wiimote and take note. Play, creation and sharing of
levels in single, co-op and online multiplayer modes? Adding danger to your levels
and PlayStation Eye functionality?? Uh, yeah. Where can I get a PS3 again? Oh right,
I have one already. I had better think about making more time for it and
getting a few more controllers. Up through LBP’s release in October I’m sure
that I’ll keep up my regular trawling of Nintendo’s Virtual Console, but after
that it may be out with the old and in with the new.

Click the image below to check out a Little Big Planet demo video from Sony’s recent
Gamer Day and let me know what you think:

--Hobson's Choice

Read reviews and shop for great bargains at the Gaming Corner. >>>

Along with Metal Gear Solid
4, Little Big Planet is the
biggest exclusive title for the PS3 on the horizon, but LBP is probably more important as it’s the one that will potentially
take a big bite out of the Wii’s hold on the casual gaming market. It’s still
several months away and because of that I have to say that my excitement level
hasn’t been running too high, but details and more importantly gameplay, is
starting to roll in and honestly after seeing some of this LBP has officially hit my radar and
maybe other’s as well.

Late to the party you say? Most definitely, but being an old
school side-scrolling platforming freak it’s not unusual at all for me to find
myself caught in time warps and waking up in another era, but when I saw this
video I had to put down my Wiimote and take note. Play, creation and sharing of
levels in single, co-op and online multiplayer modes? Adding danger to your levels
and PlayStation Eye functionality?? Uh, yeah. Where can I get a PS3 again? Oh right,
I have one already. I had better think about making more time for it and
getting a few more controllers. Up through LBP’s release in October I’m sure
that I’ll keep up my regular trawling of Nintendo’s Virtual Console, but after
that it may be out with the old and in with the new.

Click the image below to check out a Little Big Planet demo video from Sony’s recent
Gamer Day and let me know what you think:

--Hobson's Choice

Read reviews and shop for great bargains at the Gaming Corner. >>>

Seeing as resident
shredder and fellow Amazon video game blogger Osver hasn’t dropped in on
this one yet, it looks like it falls to me regardless of my limited experience
on the deck to point out EA’s announcement that its Skate franchise will be making
its way to the Wii and DS sometime in 2008.

Not a port
of 2007’s Skate, which was for 360
and PS3 only, the new game will be called Skate
It and be both for Wii and DS. The original Skate will see a second iteration on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3
platforms in 2008, but feeding off the decline of Activision’s long-lived Tony Hawk series and the rise of the Wii,
it looks like EA is ready to siphon off some energy from its well-known and honestly
somewhat well-worn sports games muscle to expand the franchise and take up the
slack. According to Scott Blackwood, Executive Producer of the Skate games:

"We
knew it would be an exciting challenge to bring the soul and feel of
skateboarding to the Wii and Nintendo DS," he continues to say, "With
fresh new designs and gameplay components built from scratch, we've been able
to, once again, capture the true experience of skateboarding in a completely
innovative way."

I can only
hope that a big part of these ‘new designs and gameplay components’ will be the
Wii version’s Balance Board functionality. The building block of Wii Fit , the Balance Board has always
seemed tailor-made as a peripheral for other games, although I must say after
demoing Wii Fit and the surprisingly sturdy
Balance Board, I questioned whether it could stand up to the punishment a
skater, even a virtual one, would dish out. If you read into the complete EA press release it would seem that the Skate
It team more or less agrees. Apparently the game will showcase what EA
executives are calling the “FlickIt Revolution,” which will supposedly allow
players to use the Wi Remote (or the DS stylus) to stand in as a skateboard as
players string tricks and flips together.
The press release goes on to say that “Players can also deepen this
experience by planting their feet on the Wii Balance Board.” I’m not sure what
that means when it comes down to actual play, hopefully not just simply balancing on the board with the controller
in hand. Frankly that sounds a little lame, but then again I’m sure the Balance
Board will not be necessary for play. It just seems to me that the “the soul
and feel of skateboarding” that Blackwood talks about above could only really
be captured with a board-like peripheral. I could be wrong though.

Any non-poser shredders in the house with an opinion? If so, let me know if I’m off-base here.

--Hobson's Choice

Read reviews and shop for great bargains at the Gaming Corner. >>>

As you may or may not have heard, the DS service (Nintendo
Fan Network - NFN) at Safeco Field, home of the Seattle Mariners, is now free.  Last night I went to the
Seattle Mariners vs. Texas Rangers game and brought my DS along to test out the
NFN.

The software was easy to download.  You can get it from two
kiosks, or from one of the download stations on the concourse (look for
the white signs on the wall).  It took about a minute to get the
software and another minute or two to set up a login and password.

Here's a quick breakdown of the choices from the main
menu:

Food and Beverages: There are four subsections;
Drinks, Entrees, Snacks, and Adult Beverages. 
Expect the normal stadium prices, with an additional 17% service surcharge
added on.  There's a minimum to order.  We ordered a Turkey Bacon Panini with Seasoned
Fries and it showed up at our seats in nine minutes.  There are even status updates to see how your order's progressing

MLB Stats & Standings: Here you can see 2008 and career stats for players (sorted by name, position, or number).  It defaults to the two teams currently
playing, but you can look up any team, by active or 40-man rosters.

Fan Network Games: Your choices are Trivia (MLB, Mariners, World Series, or Awards), Word Search, Match
Game (using MLB logos), and Slide Puzzles. 
You can view your score (by average or total) against other NFN users for each
game type.

Fan Network Information: This section has all the
miscellaneous stuff such as traffic information based off this page, but cropped down a bit.  You can also enter
your credit card number (needed to order food), as well as add friend
codes (a 6 digit pin), and find a list of all the food in the stadium, which
stands carry them, and if they can be ordered over the NFN.

Fan Network Audio/Video: When the game's going on, this
is a feed from Fox Sports Northwest. 
Pre-game, or between innings, it's a feed of what's on the big center
field screen.  There's a delay on the feed, and it buffered a fair amount initially.

MLB in Action: This option lets you check out scores of
other games around the league.  If
they're in progress you can see who's hitting, pitching,
and on base, and get pitch by pitch updates. 
If the game is over it displays the winning and losing pitchers.  Both versions show the score by inning.

Fan Network Messaging: You can send messages to other
people using the NFN, but I didn't test it out.  You can toggle between receiving messages
from anyone or just people on your friends list.

Overall it was pretty entertaining for pre-game use.  Once the game became a blow out (Texas was up
10 - 0 after 3 innings), it kept us entertained until the end of the game.  If you're going to the game, and have a DS, you should definitely try out the NFN.

The only complaint I have is that there are no box scores available.  A simple list of Hits, At Bats, Runs and Runs Batted In, for all players, by team, is all I want... and is pretty basic in terms of baseball stats.  How else is a gamer to keep an eye on his fantasy players while at the ballpark?

-- Osver

Read reviews and shop for great bargains at the Gaming Corner. >>>

What were you doing ten years ago? If you are a console gamer you were probably mashing away on a Nintendo 64, a Sega Saturn or a PS1. But regardless of where you were then, Sony wants you to know that even though it may take a while--up to ten years--they are confident that PlayStation will reclaim the lead world-wide in the console wars.

Ten years huh? Seem like a long time to you? It does to me, but in a recent interview with the BBC, Sony Computer Entertainment President Kaz Hirai laid it out like this:

"The true test of the console in terms of the 'install base race' if you can call it that, is really when you look back at the end of the life-cycle. So I'm very confident that after the ten year life-cycle that we'll have the install base we are looking for and obviously be back in a leadership position..."

For Sony fanboys predicting a Wii-like storming of the industry behind the PS3, just remember that in dog years ten is something along the lines of 70 and if you think consoles it's more like two to three. So, make sure you put the controller down every now and then over the next decade to show Fido a little love because if we follow Sony's timetable he probably won't be around by the time of Sony reascends the console throne, although your PS3 probably will. In the interview noted above, Hirai confirms this by stating that part of Sony's managing the ten year life-cycle of their gaming consoles is to ensure a 4-5 year overlapping of relevance for legacy products, i.e. your PS3, and goes on to add the standard party line that the the PS3 represents the current apex in the console gaming industry in all columns. As long as quality games keep rolling in on a regular basis and the online functionality can eventually match Xbox Live, I concur, at least on the last point.

All in all a very diplomatic response to the current dominance of the Wii in the overall console market and the Xbox 360 in the Next-Gen segment of that. The obvious footnote missing from Hirai's statements is that this is a world-wide race. Although the Wii has far out sold both the PS3 and the 360 in every market since it's release, gamers in Europe, the largest single economic market on the planet, have snapped up more than five million PS3s. That's more than have bought the 360 there, even though the Microsoft platform had almost a two year head start. Japanese gamers not exclusive to the Wii obviously favor the PS3 as well. So, unless console gaming REALLY takes off in China and India, what this points to is the U.S. of A. where the Xbox 360 still holds the lead if the race is solely between itself and the PS3. That's the rub though. The way things are going, ten years seems like a long time for the PS3 to catch the Xbox 360, but maybe that's about how long it will take to catch the Wii, which has sold over twice as many units as the PS3. If Sony hopes to stick to their ten year plan, like I said, they had better keep the games coming and hope that Nintendo isn't as successful as they hope to be with upcoming and current improvements to the Wii's functionality, like the Nintendo Channel. If they not, a ten year time table may seem like an all too realistic estimate.

--Hobson's Choice

Read reviews and shop for great bargains at the Gaming Corner. >>>

It's been a good while since Ubisoft announced details of their upcoming uber FPS Haze, and since then the hype has noticeably dropped off. This isn't exactly the best case scenario for a game about to enter its launch month, and in fact is a shame because the game's got an interesting quasi political premise of a frightening future scenario where the overwhelming powers of the military industrial complex and the pharmaceutical industries are merged. But if a press release put out today announcing a Campaign/Multiplayer Haze Demo coming to PSN can be taken at face value it looks as if Ubi has finally realized that the time for promotion is now if they want to get the word out that Haze is actually going to release with its impressive multiplayer functionality (24-player online action) in tact.

The date given for the demo is vague, only noting an "early May" timeline for release on the PlayStation Network. The game is due for release on 5/20, so earlier in the month would be much better for the game if Ubi hopes to avoid the game being lost in the dog days of summer.

Find out more about Haze in the video Developer diary below:

--Hobson's Choice

Read reviews and shop for great bargains at the Gaming Corner. >>>

Have you ever found yourself using the wrong controller for a game?  I know I sure have, either due to a lack of proper controllers, or just idle curiosity. 

For example, on the original Xbox, I only had one light gun, so player two in House of the Dead III had to use a standard controller.  It isn't as much fun as using the light gun, but of all controller mismatches this is probably the most common one (not having enough specialty controllers).

Where it really gets interesting is trying to purposely play games with the wrong controllers.  Try playing a platform game with a guitar controller, or a first-person shooter with a racing wheel.  These experiments usually fail horribly, but they're good for a laugh.  If you've never tried it, I highly recommend you give it a shot sometime, if just for a couple of minutes.

Every once in a while, though, the pairing ends up being so wrong, it's right.  The best example I have is when we played a lot of Power Stone on the Dreamcast.  We used the standard rule of whoever wins stays in; the loser passes the controller on.  But, in a twist to make sure you didn't have to wait too long for your turn, if you won more than three matches in a row you had to use the fishing controller (which was meant for Sega Bass Fishing). 

Yes, that's right, if you were too good and kept winning, you had to play a fighting game with a fishing controller.  It was the ultimate leveling of the playing field.  A new player could have a chance against an experience player stuck using the fishing controller.  Also, the sheer hilarity of watching someone try to attack while frantically spinning the reel, or doing a casting motion mid-fight to see if it had any effect never got old.

So, what controller mismatches have you tried out?  Did they work, or crash and burn?  Which do you think would make a great pairing? 

Personally I think Frogger was meant to be played on a Dance Dance Revolution pad, and one day I will try that out.

--Osver

Read reviews and shop for great bargains at the Gaming Corner. >>>

It's been a good while since Ubisoft announced details of their upcoming uber FPS Haze, and since then the hype has noticeably dropped off. This isn't exactly the best case scenario for a game about to enter its launch month, and in fact is a shame because the game's got an interesting quasi political premise of a frightening future scenario where the overwhelming powers of the military industrial complex and the pharmaceutical industries are merged. But if a press release put out today announcing a Campaign/Multiplayer Haze Demo coming to PSN can be taken at face value it looks as if Ubi has finally realized that the time for promotion is now if they want to get the word out that Haze is actually going to release with its impressive multiplayer functionality (24-player online action) in tact.

The date given for the demo is vague, only noting an "early May" timeline for release on the PlayStation Network. The game is due for release on 5/20, so earlier in the month would be much better for the game if Ubi hopes to avoid the game being lost in the dog days of summer.

Find out more about Haze in the video Developer diary below:

--Hobson's Choice

Read reviews and shop for great bargains at the Gaming Corner. >>>

Have you ever found yourself using the wrong controller for a game?  I know I sure have, either due to a lack of proper controllers, or just idle curiosity. 

For example, on the original Xbox, I only had one light gun, so player two in House of the Dead III had to use a standard controller.  It isn't as much fun as using the light gun, but of all controller mismatches this is probably the most common one (not having enough specialty controllers).

Where it really gets interesting is trying to purposely play games with the wrong controllers.  Try playing a platform game with a guitar controller, or a first-person shooter with a racing wheel.  These experiments usually fail horribly, but they're good for a laugh.  If you've never tried it, I highly recommend you give it a shot sometime, if just for a couple of minutes.

Every once in a while, though, the pairing ends up being so wrong, it's right.  The best example I have is when we played a lot of Power Stone on the Dreamcast.  We used the standard rule of whoever wins stays in; the loser passes the controller on.  But, in a twist to make sure you didn't have to wait too long for your turn, if you won more than three matches in a row you had to use the fishing controller (which was meant for Sega Bass Fishing). 

Yes, that's right, if you were too good and kept winning, you had to play a fighting game with a fishing controller.  It was the ultimate leveling of the playing field.  A new player could have a chance against an experience player stuck using the fishing controller.  Also, the sheer hilarity of watching someone try to attack while frantically spinning the reel, or doing a casting motion mid-fight to see if it had any effect never got old.

So, what controller mismatches have you tried out?  Did they work, or crash and burn?  Which do you think would make a great pairing? 

Personally I think Frogger was meant to be played on a Dance Dance Revolution pad, and one day I will try that out.

--Osver

Read reviews and shop for great bargains at the Gaming Corner. >>>

Remember the days when the PlayStation 3  was the console with potential, but Xbox 360 was the one that really worked? Well guess what, the way things are going, especially with the pending 2.30 update to the PS3’s firmware, I’m more or less ready to say that those days are officially over.

The two major bits of functionality included in the update are:

• DTS-HD Master Audio for Blu-ray discs
• A major interface overhaul for the PlayStation Store

Legend
has it that DTS-HD Master Audio in its purest form is a bit for bit match of
the studio master recordings used in laying down the tracks and sound effects
for movies. Sounds very impressive. Assuming the use of an HDTV and of course a
quality home theater audio setup, this new audio codec matched up with the
video quality of Blu-ray technology only makes the triumph of Blu-ray over HD-DVD and the
studios decision to back it, seem even more of a no-brainer. Actually,
check that. It’s probably more like a nearly total no-brainer since although
following the update DTS-HD Master Audio will be available, currently it will
still be an optional audio feature for Blu-ray discs. So, if you are looking to
go high-end on the audio, make sure that you read the fine print on those
Blu-rays. Yet still, quite the feature.

The second part of the update, an overhaul of the
PlayStation Store’s user interface, will put yet another chink in the 360’s
armor. One of Xbox 360’s strongest points and conversely one of the PS3’s
weakest has been online functionality. Will the update really close the gap? The
PlayStation store has needed some serious help for a while, so I’m kind of
thinking it will, especially with Sony trumpeting today that in less than ten
years 90% of games will be delivered via DLC. Anyway, click here to check out a demo of the PlayStation
Store’s new functionality or check out the basic breakdown below:

• No longer web-based, functionality will now be native to the PS3, making content more dynamic, and supposedly faster
• 8 categories of content
• New releases
• Downloadable games
• View all games by title
• Add-ons
• Game Demos
• Videos
• Themes and Wallpapers
• Featured items

Anyway you slice it, this will be quite the update. So, when will it happen? The PlayStation blog only says mid April, but posting today at Sony’s European press site gives a solid date of April 15th. The fact that Sony just announced the other day that the new PlayStation Store will not be region locked leads me to believe that we over here in the New World can hope for the same time table. Either way, if you own a PS3 or plan to get one it might be time to update your home theater and get ready to get your game online. The Xbox 360 better watch its back.

--Hobson's Choice

Read reviews and shop for great bargains at the Gaming Corner. >>>

Remember the days when the PlayStation 3  was the console with potential, but Xbox 360 was the one that really worked? Well guess what, the way things are going, especially with the pending 2.30 update to the PS3’s firmware, I’m more or less ready to say that those days are officially over.

The two major bits of functionality included in the update are:

• DTS-HD Master Audio for Blu-ray discs
• A major interface overhaul for the PlayStation Store

Legend
has it that DTS-HD Master Audio in its purest form is a bit for bit match of
the studio master recordings used in laying down the tracks and sound effects
for movies. Sounds very impressive. Assuming the use of an HDTV and of course a
quality home theater audio setup, this new audio codec matched up with the
video quality of Blu-ray technology only makes the triumph of Blu-ray over HD-DVD and the
studios decision to back it, seem even more of a no-brainer. Actually,
check that. It’s probably more like a nearly total no-brainer since although
following the update DTS-HD Master Audio will be available, currently it will
still be an optional audio feature for Blu-ray discs. So, if you are looking to
go high-end on the audio, make sure that you read the fine print on those
Blu-rays. Yet still, quite the feature.

The second part of the update, an overhaul of the
PlayStation Store’s user interface, will put yet another chink in the 360’s
armor. One of Xbox 360’s strongest points and conversely one of the PS3’s
weakest has been online functionality. Will the update really close the gap? The
PlayStation store has needed some serious help for a while, so I’m kind of
thinking it will, especially with Sony trumpeting today that in less than ten
years 90% of games will be delivered via DLC. Anyway, click here to check out a demo of the PlayStation
Store’s new functionality or check out the basic breakdown below:

• No longer web-based, functionality will now be native to the PS3, making content more dynamic, and supposedly faster
• 8 categories of content
• New releases
• Downloadable games
• View all games by title
• Add-ons
• Game Demos
• Videos
• Themes and Wallpapers
• Featured items

Anyway you slice it, this will be quite the update. So, when will it happen? The PlayStation blog only says mid April, but posting today at Sony’s European press site gives a solid date of April 15th. The fact that Sony just announced the other day that the new PlayStation Store will not be region locked leads me to believe that we over here in the New World can hope for the same time table. Either way, if you own a PS3 or plan to get one it might be time to update your home theater and get ready to get your game online. The Xbox 360 better watch its back.

--Hobson's Choice

Read reviews and shop for great bargains at the Gaming Corner. >>>