Showing posts with label PSN. Show all posts
Showing posts with label PSN. Show all posts
Friday, June 8, 2007
Looking Sharp
Wowzorz! Anybody see the latest sprites from Capcom's blog detailing the development of Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix? Cannot fucking wait till this drops for the PSN... Instant Hell Murder never looked so good.
Friday, May 18, 2007
This Mortal Koil
You would think that, with Square Enix's Final Fantasy 20th Anniversary Party event last weekend and Sony's Gamer's Day 2007 earlier this week, I'd have something more compelling to write about than a port of a fourteen-year-old quarter quaffer, but you would think wrong.
While waiting for my hubby and Killa's Poptart to show up, Killa and I decided to play a few rounds of MK:II on the PS3 for old time's sake. Mortal Kombat II came out in the arcades when we were both preadolescent and we used to play all the time. I mean that seriously. We played on arcade machines at least once per week, for hours. When we went on family vacations, I would seek out MK:II machines in exotic locales and play those. The arcade inside Busch Gardens (Williamsburg) had a couple of MK:II machines with the blood and gore turned off; Disney World didn't have the game on their premises at all. I didn't care for MK:I before it. I didn't care for MK:III after it. As MK:II was phased out of the arcades in favor of its later iterations and the burgeoning lineup of 3D fighters in the mid-1990s, I phased myself out of the arcades in turn.
This is just another example of me and Killa growing up gaming.
Such was the background we brought with us as we commenced our first experience with playing online over PSN. You would think that this foray into the brave new world of the PlayStation Network would be the crux of this article, but, again, you would think wrong. Anyway, we signed in to my PSN account and proceeded to search for a game to join. Finding none, we set ourselves up as a host game and waited. And waited. I excused myself to use the restroom, and when I returned Killa had found a challenger and was going to town. We took turns playing against the first challenger for 20 or 30 minutes until he got fed up and left (presumably dishearted by our m4d ski11z). We were then dumped into single-player arcade mode but we only got through half of a round before a new challenger joined in. Subsequently we trounced a number of other challengers before meeting our match (and then some).
This guy random-selected his character every time and murdered us with every character. Even Johnny Cage! He knew every special move and every finishing move (apparently) with every character. Which brought us around to an overwhelming question: What has this guy been doing these past fourteen years? Is it possible that he's been playing Mortal Kombat II this whole time? Biding his time, always waiting for the second coming of the second coming of Mortal Kombat? That glorious day when he could finally emerge from his dark basement and once again feel the sun on his face? I wish I had his dedication, whoever he is. If I had had fourteen years of practice I'd be that good, too. If only I had known at the time that, fourteen years later, I'd be playing MK:II again. But this guy, he knew. Oh, he knew.
The only hitch I noticed in the online play was when I joined a game being hosted by someone else. There was tremendous lag and latency in the remotely hosted game. I imagine it's just that the host was playing with dial-up; I certainly hope this isn't the case whenever one joins a game that is hosted by someone else. I wasn't able to find any other games to join, so I can't be sure.
I've abandoned all of the other games I've been playing to brush up on my Kombat skills, so that when I meet this guy again I can krush him.
While waiting for my hubby and Killa's Poptart to show up, Killa and I decided to play a few rounds of MK:II on the PS3 for old time's sake. Mortal Kombat II came out in the arcades when we were both preadolescent and we used to play all the time. I mean that seriously. We played on arcade machines at least once per week, for hours. When we went on family vacations, I would seek out MK:II machines in exotic locales and play those. The arcade inside Busch Gardens (Williamsburg) had a couple of MK:II machines with the blood and gore turned off; Disney World didn't have the game on their premises at all. I didn't care for MK:I before it. I didn't care for MK:III after it. As MK:II was phased out of the arcades in favor of its later iterations and the burgeoning lineup of 3D fighters in the mid-1990s, I phased myself out of the arcades in turn.
This is just another example of me and Killa growing up gaming.
Such was the background we brought with us as we commenced our first experience with playing online over PSN. You would think that this foray into the brave new world of the PlayStation Network would be the crux of this article, but, again, you would think wrong. Anyway, we signed in to my PSN account and proceeded to search for a game to join. Finding none, we set ourselves up as a host game and waited. And waited. I excused myself to use the restroom, and when I returned Killa had found a challenger and was going to town. We took turns playing against the first challenger for 20 or 30 minutes until he got fed up and left (presumably dishearted by our m4d ski11z). We were then dumped into single-player arcade mode but we only got through half of a round before a new challenger joined in. Subsequently we trounced a number of other challengers before meeting our match (and then some).
This guy random-selected his character every time and murdered us with every character. Even Johnny Cage! He knew every special move and every finishing move (apparently) with every character. Which brought us around to an overwhelming question: What has this guy been doing these past fourteen years? Is it possible that he's been playing Mortal Kombat II this whole time? Biding his time, always waiting for the second coming of the second coming of Mortal Kombat? That glorious day when he could finally emerge from his dark basement and once again feel the sun on his face? I wish I had his dedication, whoever he is. If I had had fourteen years of practice I'd be that good, too. If only I had known at the time that, fourteen years later, I'd be playing MK:II again. But this guy, he knew. Oh, he knew.The only hitch I noticed in the online play was when I joined a game being hosted by someone else. There was tremendous lag and latency in the remotely hosted game. I imagine it's just that the host was playing with dial-up; I certainly hope this isn't the case whenever one joins a game that is hosted by someone else. I wasn't able to find any other games to join, so I can't be sure.
I've abandoned all of the other games I've been playing to brush up on my Kombat skills, so that when I meet this guy again I can krush him.
Wednesday, May 9, 2007
The Liberal Application of the Word "Super"
Super Mario Brothers. Super Street Fighter. Super Metroid. Super Contra. Super Bomberman. Super Double Dragon. Super Robot Wars. Super Monkey Ball.
Super Rub-a-Dub?!
Killa didn't quite believe me when I told him that there was a "rubber-duck-based" game on PSN for download and that I had grabbed the demo. "No," he said, "You're confused. That's the PS3 tech demo; it's not a game."
"It's a game, yo!" I eloquently insisted. A little research turned up an interesting back story: At E3 in 2000, Sony used the "ducks demo" to display the awesome power of the PS2, specifically it's capacity for rendering water and the physics of the single rubber duck that interacted realistically with said water. In 2005, a new ducks demo was shown for the PS3 that featured, among other things, many rubber ducks in the tub to demonstrate the PS3's ability to handle the advanced physics of so many objects interacting. Apparently, someone realized that Sony was missing out on a golden money-making opportunity and subsequently turned the demo into a game (available on PSN for $6.99), and then produced a demo of the game (available for free on PSN).
The game makes use of the sixaxis's tilt function so that play requires no button-pressing at all. You start with a rubber duckie in a bathtub. Tilting the controller tilts the tub, causing the duck to move around. The goal is to (A) Collect smaller rubber ducks from around the tub (which then paddle along behind the main duck in a chain); and (B) get the baby duckies safely to the exit, without (I) jumping out of the tub; or (II) being eaten by deadly, deadly bathtub sharks. Bonus points are awarded for beating a goal time and for getting the longest string of ducklings to the goal at the same time (e.g., picking up ten ducklings and dropping them off at the exit will result in more points than picking up five, dropping them off, and then collecting the other five).
After your performance on a particular tub (level) is scored, the game will either praise you (e.g., "You Quacked It!") or chastize you (e.g., "Featherbrain!") based on your score. The demo includes five different tubs that can be played solo; the full version includes sixty tubs, supports up to four players, and features online leaderboards with viewable replays of the most skillful rub-a-dubbing. Killa and I played through the five demo tubs several times, learning new tricks and trying to beat our best scores. Here's a tip: "Popping" the tub (rapidly jerking the sixasis upward to make your duck "jump") can flip sharks onto their backs, rendering them temporarily harmless---but it can send your ducklings flying out of the tub, too, if you're not careful!
The controls are intuitive, the graphics are colorful and friendly, and the cute duckies have a broad appeal. I had some difficulty getting into the tilt controls of previous PSN darling flOw, but I had no such problems with Super Rub-a-Dub. This is the game that I'm going to have my non-gamer friends play when they come over to visit. I imagine that this cuddly bathtime adventure could bring a whole lot of hesitant would-be gamers over to the dark side.
Super Rub-a-Dub?!
Killa didn't quite believe me when I told him that there was a "rubber-duck-based" game on PSN for download and that I had grabbed the demo. "No," he said, "You're confused. That's the PS3 tech demo; it's not a game."
"It's a game, yo!" I eloquently insisted. A little research turned up an interesting back story: At E3 in 2000, Sony used the "ducks demo" to display the awesome power of the PS2, specifically it's capacity for rendering water and the physics of the single rubber duck that interacted realistically with said water. In 2005, a new ducks demo was shown for the PS3 that featured, among other things, many rubber ducks in the tub to demonstrate the PS3's ability to handle the advanced physics of so many objects interacting. Apparently, someone realized that Sony was missing out on a golden money-making opportunity and subsequently turned the demo into a game (available on PSN for $6.99), and then produced a demo of the game (available for free on PSN).
The game makes use of the sixaxis's tilt function so that play requires no button-pressing at all. You start with a rubber duckie in a bathtub. Tilting the controller tilts the tub, causing the duck to move around. The goal is to (A) Collect smaller rubber ducks from around the tub (which then paddle along behind the main duck in a chain); and (B) get the baby duckies safely to the exit, without (I) jumping out of the tub; or (II) being eaten by deadly, deadly bathtub sharks. Bonus points are awarded for beating a goal time and for getting the longest string of ducklings to the goal at the same time (e.g., picking up ten ducklings and dropping them off at the exit will result in more points than picking up five, dropping them off, and then collecting the other five).After your performance on a particular tub (level) is scored, the game will either praise you (e.g., "You Quacked It!") or chastize you (e.g., "Featherbrain!") based on your score. The demo includes five different tubs that can be played solo; the full version includes sixty tubs, supports up to four players, and features online leaderboards with viewable replays of the most skillful rub-a-dubbing. Killa and I played through the five demo tubs several times, learning new tricks and trying to beat our best scores. Here's a tip: "Popping" the tub (rapidly jerking the sixasis upward to make your duck "jump") can flip sharks onto their backs, rendering them temporarily harmless---but it can send your ducklings flying out of the tub, too, if you're not careful!
The controls are intuitive, the graphics are colorful and friendly, and the cute duckies have a broad appeal. I had some difficulty getting into the tilt controls of previous PSN darling flOw, but I had no such problems with Super Rub-a-Dub. This is the game that I'm going to have my non-gamer friends play when they come over to visit. I imagine that this cuddly bathtime adventure could bring a whole lot of hesitant would-be gamers over to the dark side.
Thursday, May 3, 2007
Nu Gamma Sigma
Not just an honors society anymore.
At long last, I downloaded the demo of Ninja Gaiden Σ.
Before saying anything else, I want to make a few comments on my downloading experience. Before grabbing the demo I had to update my PS3 with the latest firmware (1.70, I think), which then allowed my PS3 to download things in the background while I do other things with it. This is great because Killa was over for the evening to play some FFXII, and we would have had to stop the download when it became apparent that it was going to take forever. So we have background downloading going on. The download made it to 10 percent in approximately 30 or 45 minutes while I was waiting for Killa to arrive. We then played Tekken DR for another 45 minutes or so while the demo was downloading in the background. I must stress that Tekken has no online component that I'm aware of. During the 45 minutes we were playing Tekken, the download only crept up to 12 percent. Strange. We then spent an hour or two collecting my husband from the subway station and then eating some dinner. The download progressed to 45 percent during that time. Then we played FFXII for the next 4 hours (download still going in the background). At the end of those 4 hours, we shut down FFXII and the NGΣ demo was at 58 percent. What the hell?
If I was going to have to download it overnight anyway, then I have reaped no benefit whatsoever from the background downloading function. I hope they shore it up in the future so that it doesn't require the PS3's undivided attention to, you know, function.
Anyway, the 983 MB download is finally complete and I had a chance to play through the demo yesterday. I was pleased with how responsive the controls are. Ryu handles like the Prince (of Persia, that is), although Rachel, once you get her unlocked, handles more like a Mack truck. Mission mode (featuring Rachel) and hard mode were both unlocked by beating the demo once, which took me a couple of tries. The demo includes a robust set of weapons for Ryu (the quintessential dragon sword; nunchaku; a larger, heavier sword; a staff; and dual-wielded katanas) that you can use from the start to vary the gameplay. I am particularly enamored with the Lunar, a large bo staff useful for mowing down multiple enemies at a time. The entire first chapter seems to have been included and took me approximately 20 minutes to run through on my winning attempt.
The graphics are rich, detailed, and beautiful, especially the backgrounds. Ryu and his many foes are generally moving too fast for me to get a good look at them. The action was very smooth and I found it pretty easy to string moves together to make impressive combos, although I can already see that this game relies more on precise combo input than, say, God of War, in which any combination of button presses will yield the requisite carnage. I'm a little concerned that my skills are going to need a lot of polish before I can expect to succeed at the final version of the game. Apparently there's a tank battle that emasculates all comers. We'll see. This demo is a great move by Tecmo; I was a little ambivalent about Ninja Gaiden Sigma before I played through the demo, but now I'm sure I'm going to buy it at my earliest convenience.
Finally, I'd like to express my feelings of distaste for the numbering system of this series. Ninja Gaiden 1, 2, 3, 4, and so on, would be acceptable. Alternatively, how about Ninja Gaiden I, II, III; or A, B, C; etc. But the series goes: Ninja Gaiden 1; Ninja Gaiden 2; Ninja Gaiden 3; Ninja Gaiden; Ninja Gaiden: Black; Ninja Gaiden Σ. Listen: "1, 2, 3, Black, Σ" is not a sequence! Here are my suggestions for the next next gen: Ninja Gaiden: Gaiden of the Ninja for the DSMicro; Ninja Gaiden ₤ for the PS4; and Ninja Gaiden: Plaid for the XBox 720.
At long last, I downloaded the demo of Ninja Gaiden Σ.
Before saying anything else, I want to make a few comments on my downloading experience. Before grabbing the demo I had to update my PS3 with the latest firmware (1.70, I think), which then allowed my PS3 to download things in the background while I do other things with it. This is great because Killa was over for the evening to play some FFXII, and we would have had to stop the download when it became apparent that it was going to take forever. So we have background downloading going on. The download made it to 10 percent in approximately 30 or 45 minutes while I was waiting for Killa to arrive. We then played Tekken DR for another 45 minutes or so while the demo was downloading in the background. I must stress that Tekken has no online component that I'm aware of. During the 45 minutes we were playing Tekken, the download only crept up to 12 percent. Strange. We then spent an hour or two collecting my husband from the subway station and then eating some dinner. The download progressed to 45 percent during that time. Then we played FFXII for the next 4 hours (download still going in the background). At the end of those 4 hours, we shut down FFXII and the NGΣ demo was at 58 percent. What the hell?
If I was going to have to download it overnight anyway, then I have reaped no benefit whatsoever from the background downloading function. I hope they shore it up in the future so that it doesn't require the PS3's undivided attention to, you know, function.
Anyway, the 983 MB download is finally complete and I had a chance to play through the demo yesterday. I was pleased with how responsive the controls are. Ryu handles like the Prince (of Persia, that is), although Rachel, once you get her unlocked, handles more like a Mack truck. Mission mode (featuring Rachel) and hard mode were both unlocked by beating the demo once, which took me a couple of tries. The demo includes a robust set of weapons for Ryu (the quintessential dragon sword; nunchaku; a larger, heavier sword; a staff; and dual-wielded katanas) that you can use from the start to vary the gameplay. I am particularly enamored with the Lunar, a large bo staff useful for mowing down multiple enemies at a time. The entire first chapter seems to have been included and took me approximately 20 minutes to run through on my winning attempt.The graphics are rich, detailed, and beautiful, especially the backgrounds. Ryu and his many foes are generally moving too fast for me to get a good look at them. The action was very smooth and I found it pretty easy to string moves together to make impressive combos, although I can already see that this game relies more on precise combo input than, say, God of War, in which any combination of button presses will yield the requisite carnage. I'm a little concerned that my skills are going to need a lot of polish before I can expect to succeed at the final version of the game. Apparently there's a tank battle that emasculates all comers. We'll see. This demo is a great move by Tecmo; I was a little ambivalent about Ninja Gaiden Sigma before I played through the demo, but now I'm sure I'm going to buy it at my earliest convenience.
Finally, I'd like to express my feelings of distaste for the numbering system of this series. Ninja Gaiden 1, 2, 3, 4, and so on, would be acceptable. Alternatively, how about Ninja Gaiden I, II, III; or A, B, C; etc. But the series goes: Ninja Gaiden 1; Ninja Gaiden 2; Ninja Gaiden 3; Ninja Gaiden; Ninja Gaiden: Black; Ninja Gaiden Σ. Listen: "1, 2, 3, Black, Σ" is not a sequence! Here are my suggestions for the next next gen: Ninja Gaiden: Gaiden of the Ninja for the DSMicro; Ninja Gaiden ₤ for the PS4; and Ninja Gaiden: Plaid for the XBox 720.
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