Pocket BLU

So I popped Inglourious Basterds into my PS3 the other day, and was delighted to see a quick ad for a new, free iPhone application called Pocket BLU.  Basically, Pocket BLU will find your blu-ray player on your network over wifi and let you control the movie’s playback from your phone.  As I mentioned my blu-ray player is my PS3, and I hate using the PS3’s controller to playback movies, so this is an awesome app for me.

The main UI does everything you’d expect, you can navigate the blu-ray’s menu, play/pause, rewind/fast forward and so on.  There are some other cool features though – for instance a “Now Playing” button that will provide you with information about the movie you’re watching.  Like the movie’s soundtrack?  The app will give you access to the iTunes store so you can purchase it.  Pretty cool!

When you flip the phone on its side you get some information about the movie’s playtime and can even “scrub” through the movie as though it were a song.

The only problem with the app is that it only works with movies that are Pocket BLU-enabled, but I assume that’ll be come a standard feature here on in.  Like I said, it’s totally free so if you are an iPhone or iPod Touch user you can grab it at the link below!

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pocket-blu/id334746192?mt=8

Summer of Arcade

This is just a quick rambling AudioBoo about the quality of downloadable games we’ve seen this summer, which only further justifies the medium as a contender in the video game market.  I haven’t purchased a single hard copy of a game since Fight Night Round 4 in June, and in the meantime my attention has been kept by arcade games like Battlefield 1943 and Shadow Complex.  I bet GameStop loves to hear that.

Is the PSP Go overpriced?

I think I’m one of the 10 people on Earth that is looking forward to plunking down the cash to buy a PSP Go this Fall.  To be honest the hook manifests itself in the downloadable games – I totally covet digital downloads and the thought that I don’t have to carry around a bunch of UMD discs is extremely attractive.  On top of that the new design is pretty neat, and the overall package is significantly smaller.  What’s not to love?

Well, a couple things.  First off, and this is the lesser of the two qualms, gamers tend to be upset that Sony didn’t add a second analog stick to the device.  I’m completely lost on this gripe.  It’s been clear to me that the PSP Go was more a refinement of the PSP line than an evolution, and therefore since the device relies on the PSP’s back-catalog of games there’s no point to add a second analog stick.  If the focus of the Go is to play all of the PSP games that are already out, games that haven’t been developed with 2 analog sticks in mind, why would they add one now and change everything?  Not only that, but they’d put developers in a jam since they’d have to decide whether it was worth adding support for a second stick to appease the Go customers only.  I’m always against splitting the market, especially when it comes to game consoles, and that’s exactly what a second analog stick would do.  Save it for the PSP 2.

The more obvious complaint about the PSP Go is its price.  At $250 it costs the same as the standard PSP did at the product’s launch in 2005.  It’s $80 more than the previous model right now, and to be honest it looks like even more of a sham with the PS3’s price dropped to $299.  Basically, consumers are faced with the choice of getting a PSP Go for $250, or paying just $50 more (less than the price of a game) to get a PS3 which plays blu-ray movies and next-generation games.

Additionally, Microsoft is dropping the price of the Xbox 360 Pro in reaction to the Sony price cuts, so you can get a 360 with a useable hard drive for $250 now.  That’s right, the same price as the PSP Go.  That’s not even mentioning the Nintendo Wii.  Based on the value-transfer in the console market just in the past few weeks, I really think Sony needs to cut the price on the Go if they want to sell more than 10 of them.

There’s a couple ways they could do this.  The first and most-obvious way would be to drop the price to $199.  However, at Sony they might think that cutting the price of the Go before it hits the market would degrade its reputation as a premium product to potential purchasers.  The question of whether or not average consumers even know about the PSP Go yet, or more importantly if they know what it costs, is an entirely different matter.

The second route they could take is to just bundle in some extra games or accessories.  Right now Sony has started a program where, if you register your PSP G0 by October 10th, 2009, you’ll get a free copy of Gran Turismo PSP.  Why not bundle $50 worth of PSN Store credit with the device?  Or at least bundle 3 downloadable games.  That way they could stick with the $250 price but say it’s basically $199 since you’re getting $50 worth of games for free.  Makes sense to me.

Sony PS3 Slim and PS3 Firmware 3.0

It seems like these days you can almost always trust the rumor mill. Even Jack Tretton, President and CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment of America, has voiced his frustration with his company’s inability to keep a secret. The PS3 Slim has been rumored as far back as E3, and it has finally officially arrived. Oh, and it’s cheaper too!

The new PS3 Slim is, as you may have discerned, smaller than its predecessor.  It’s also now down to $299, a move that the gaming industry has been anticipating for some time.  The design is basically identical to what we’ve been seeing for the past 3 months in various information leaks, but if you’ve stayed out of the loop you can see it below.  Although it doesn’t look to be as dramatic of a reduction in size as the PS2 Slim version was, it’s still considerable.  Note that the smaller size comes with the removal of some meaningful/meaningless features (depending on who you’re talking to): it has no PS2 backwards compatibility and no ability to install a secondary operating system.

(Photo courtesy of Veronica Belmont’s Flickr feed, you can see the rest of her shots here)

PS3 Slim and original PS3 side-by-side

Another notable announcement is the feature list for the PS3’s 3.0 firmware update.  It’s nothing totally revolutionary, but it looks like Sony is working on enhancing the usability of the system.  I really like the new visual flares to the XMB and the community feature listings which let you get easy access to new content both in the PSN Store and elsewhere.  The video detailing the updates is below.

Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 Night Vision Goggles!

Man, I thought the legendary Halo 3 “cat helmet” was bad. If you haven’t seen it, Infinity Ward has really gone to great lengths to cash in on the Prestige Edition of their hotly anticipated Modern Warfare 2 game. For a whopping $150 (roughly equivalent to two full-priced 360/PS3 games and a DS game) you can get your copy of Modern Warfare 2 with a working pair of night vision goggles. What??

Sure, you get a lot of stuff for that cash aside from the goggles. Included in the package are:

• Steel book with metallic finish (included in the $80 hardened edition)
• Artbook (included in the $80 Hardened Edition)
• Token to download the origninal Call of Duty (included in the $80 hardened edition)
• Night Vision Goggles that is capable of seeing up to 50 feet
• Collector’s stand to hold your goggles that is individually numbered.

How to improve Xbox Live messaging

It’s generally accepted that Xbox Live’s core user experience is better than that found on the PlayStation Network.  Having one set standard across all games makes communicating with your friends much less of a hassle (most noticeably when grouping up for particular games).  However, I still think there’s plenty of room for improvement.  The following is just a quick list of simple features that I wish Xbox Live had.

1. Message Previews – More often than not, when I receive a text-based message from a friend while playing a game it’s usually a short 1-3 word phrase.  But in order to actually see what the message is saying I have to open up the dashboard, go to the messages tab and that’s where I see the actual preview from the full message.  Why not just include the preview in the new message notification?  Rather than the notification saying “so and so just sent you a message” it could say “‘Invite Please’ – Friend’s Name.”
2. Simpler Voice Messages – Voice messaging is the sort of feature that you use a few times because it’s a cool idea and then realize it’s too much work so you go back to normal text messages.  If you’re playing a game it’s hard to justify opening the dashboard, going to messages, selecting create new message, recording audio, then sending it to your friend.  It just takes too long.  Not only that, but most of my friends hate getting voice messages if they’re in a game because not only do they have to navigate to the messages tab (see #1), but they also have to take the time to listen to whatever the sender is saying.  It sounds trivial but if they could add a sort of hotkey with the xbox jewel for quickly recording messages, and also add a prompt similar to “hit the ‘A’ button to play” for incoming voice message notifications, it might be a much more attractive feature.
3. Access to Sent Messages – This is a quick one.  There’s nothing worse than logging into Xbox Live and seeing a new message from a buddy that simply says ‘okay’ or ‘haha’ or ‘cool.’  What are they talking about?  I have no idea, but if I could see my sent messages I could find out.
4. Seamless Community Integration – It’s kind of annoying that for every game my group of friends decides to adopt we have to first go through that game’s particular clan or team features to become associated.  Why not just work this into Xbox Live itself?  Steam does this quite well.  In Steam you can setup your own groups and invite users to the group without having to mess with individual games.  Steam also provides a handy homepage for each community group to see their latest activity.  Imagine being able to login to Xbox Live and browse a list of clans/guilds, see what games each is playing, and also sign up right from the guide?  Sounds like a good feature to me.

AudioBoo – Battlefield 1943 and Monkey Island

This one’s split into two parts because the first part exceeded 5 minutes.

Fight Night Round 4 – Vicious Uppercut

So I picked up Fight Night Round 4 this week and I have to say I’m loving it so far.  I’m a huge boxing fan and this game doesn’t disappoint.  There have been a lot of haters out there complaining because EA took away the use of face button controls, but I find “Total Punch Control,” i.e. controlling your punches with just the right analog stick, to be more than adequate.  There’s a bit of a learning curve but once you figure it out it’s a bunch of fun.

One of the coolest new features is the ability to replay and upload videos from your fights to EASports.com.  Below is a 4 second clip of my latest knockout.  It was a “flash knockout,” which is a new feature in FNR4 as well.  What it means is basically if you land a perfect punch even if you’re getting beat pretty badly you can instantly knock down your opponent, just like in real boxing.

Sacred 2: Fallen Angel Review

Sacred 2: Fallen Angel is almost difficult to review just because of the sheer amount of content in the game.  You can play for hours and hours and still not really make a dent in the overall scope of the game, but based on the amount of time I’ve sunk into the world of Ancaria I think I’m well equipped to dish on my opinion of the game.

Sacred 2 is, at its most basic form, a callback to the classic PC RPGs of yesteryear.  For the most part if you’re a fan of games like Diablo, Diablo II, Dungeon Siege and Neverwinter Nights you’ll have a good time with this game.  You get to choose one of six character classes with unique traits and skills, and play through either the dark or light side of the main story campaign.  Make sure you’re careful to pick a character you really like though, because the level cap maxes out at a staggering 100, so you’ll have a lot of time to bond with your digital self.

As with most RPGs the main gameplay is as follows: travel from town-to-town picking up quests from villagers and other NPCs, go bash in the skulls of some monsters, and return to said NPC to get experience to advance your character’s level and gain some loot.  The items you receive are rated on a star scale up to 5, with each additional star signifying an ever better item with more powerful attributes.  The reason this is important is because, as we all know, dungeon crawler RPGs are all about the loot.  If you don’t have a propensity for acquiring trinkets to maximize your character’s abilities then this game (as well as the entire genre) isn’t for you.

The graphics are somewhat discouraging for next-generation title.  The closest thing I can relate them to is Titan Quest on the PC, but that’s a 3 year old game.  Still, the comparison is apt as both the camera angle and character movements in both games are very similar.  Given the fact that the world of Ancaria is huge it makes sense to give them some leeway in the graphics department, but still there are better looking games out there.  The audio is another aspect that I have issues with – it’s very repetitive.  You’ll hear the same bits of music everytime you have an encounter with an enemy (a scenario which plays out roughly every 30 seconds) so you’ll probably be tired of the sound aspect of the game within a few hours of play.  The voice acting is also hilariously bad, but one could almost chalk that up as a feature of the game since it brings some nice comedic relief every now and then.

Where this game truly shines is in co-op multiplayer.  You can jump into an instance of the game with up to 3 of your friends and progress through the story as you would if you were playing the game alone.  Like most RPGs this is the way the game was meant to be played.  You’re able to jump in and out of games no matter what your progress is in singleplayer, given that you characters are no more than 10 levels apart.  From here you can progress through the campaign as you would normally, working through quests and generally helping each other out and once you finish up the session your character’s experience progress, items and loot are carried back into singleplayer.

My biggest problem with Sacred 2 is the platform.  As I mentioned above, it’s a traditionally PC RPG experience which has been ported to the console, and I think the Xbox 360 doesn’t do it justice.  Being able to use a keyboard and mouse instead of a controller probably would have made this game much more enjoyable to me, if only because clicking on the screen to have my character move is much easier than using an analog stick.  The game also chugs a bit when you’re in towns which may be a symptom of limited console hardware.

If you’re looking for an action RPG on the console then I’d have to say give Sacred a shot.  I know a lot of people have been much more glowing about it than myself.  However, I don’t think this is the type of game that someone who isn’t familiar with the genre will be into.  In the end I’d say that Too Human pulls off a console adaptation of the genre better than Sacred 2, so if you’re going to try Fallen Angel consider picking it up for PC instead.

“How To Make A Great Movie-Based Game” – IGN

Until relatively recently most gamers cringed when they heard about a new game based on an upcoming movie or similar franchise.  Because of the fact that movie tie-in games usually seem rushed out of the door and leave fans of the movie scratching their heads, the developers at GRIN were faced with the overwhelming task of making a game that lives up to the fanbase’s expectations while at the same time providing a fun experience to everyone else.  Hit the link below to check out an IGN article discussing how they went about making it all come together.

http://blogs.ign.com/terminatorsalvation/

(Courtesy of RocketXL)