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  Chris Till 2:40 am on December 20, 2009 Permalink
  Tags: 2009 (8), Awards (10), GOTY (12), PS3 (11)   

  3DGalaxy 2009 Game Awards – PS3 

  PS3 2009 Awards

  Quick note: Only games that I’ve played / am excited to play soon will be eligible to win awards.

  Best Action Game - Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

  Uncharted 2 – Among Thieves was destined to be a great action game from its inception. The game has astonishing graphics, great fun gameplay and a very engaging story. It’s simply a must play for all PS3 owners.

  Also notable: Ratchet & Clank: A Crack in Time, inFamous, Batman: Arkham Asylum (playing soon)

  Best Fighting Game - Street Fighter IV

  In the past, I’ve never really known a lot about Street Fighter, or really played it much, if ever. I got Tekken 2 bundles with my PS1 back in the day and always just assumed that Tekken was the pinnacle of fighting games. I must admit that I’m not a fighting game expert, and while I didn’t get into the technical side of SF4, I appreciate the 2D nature of the game and the old school gameplay mixed with modern subsystems which allow many different tactics to be deployed.

  Best Music Game - The Beatles: Rock Band

  Beatles: Rock Band really stands out among a sea of cheap Guitar Hero cash-ins and while the main entrant in the series, GH5 was actually good, and metallica was good for fans of that type of music. The other GH games: Greatest Hits and Van Halen were shameful cash-ins for Activision. New entrant DJ Hero was surprisingly good but despite the fact that I haven’t played DJ Hero, from what I’ve seen of the game, it can’t compete with Beatles: Rock Band’s incredible attention to detail, great setlist and fun gameplay. The game was made with love, it was clear and that’s a great thing to see.

  Also notable: Guitar Hero 5

  Best Puzzle Game - Critter Crunch

  Critter Crunch is an incredibly stylish downloadable PSN puzzle game where you feed critters to larger ones to create chains. Controls are tight, graphics are incredible and the art style is simple irresistible.

  Best Racing Game - Dirt 2

  While Dirt 2 does effectively insult and ignore the history of Rally and what Colin McRae stood for, the fact is that it is a very well made, very fun off-road racing game in its own right. Despite playing the game on PC, it’s still undoubtedly the best driving game of the year on PS3. The only game to beat it in the genre in my opinion is Forza 3.

  Also notable: Need for Speed: Shift

  Best Shooter - Borderlands

  I’ve been agonising over this award for a while. Borderlands and Modern Warfare 2 are the main contenders although I did also play Killzone 2. KZ2 and Modern Warfare both have single player campaigns which I didn’t enjoy whatsoever. Please note that this is my own personal opinion. Borderlands, even though it’s known as a co-op game, I’ve been playing so far exclusively single player and I’ve been enjoying myself more than I thought I would do. When I go online, I’m expecting it to get even better so I’m looking forward to that.

  Also notable: Modern Warfare 2, Killzone 2

  Best Sports Game - FIFA 10

  FIFA finally got the jump on its arch rival Pro Evo Soccer this year, and in my opinion it’s richly deserved. Konami has sat back while EA have been really working hard to improve their game and make it the definitive football experience. While I’m not a huge fan of real football, I’ve always had a soft spot for the games, despite skipping about 5 years of the FIFA series up until last year. The gameplay is solid and the licenses of all the leagues and teams is a great thing in my opinion, and has always been one of the series strong points.

  Also notable: NBA Live 10

  Best Visual Quality - Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

  It’s hard to argue with this, UC2 has mind blowing graphics in both gameplay and cutscenes. I’m sure I’ve never seen better, more real looking cutscenes before anywhere.

  Also notable: Killzone 2, Ratchet & Clank: ACiT

  Best Use of Sound - Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

  UC2 has possibly the best voice acting ever in a video game. Nolan North is fantastic as Drake. The whole cast is brilliant. Voice acting aside, the soundtrack is perfectly suited to the game and the mood feels right when you play. Sound effects too are top notch.

  Also notable: Ratchet & Clank: ACiT, Killzone 2, Modern Warfare 2

  Best Story - inFamous

  inFamous is a very impressive open world game. While I found the difficulty to be punishing at around the mid-point in the game, I thought the story was well told and very in depth for a new IP. Other games like Batman had good stories but are less impressive mainly due to there being such a huge pool of stories to draw inspiration from.

  Also notable: Batman: Arkham Asylum, Ratchet & Clank: ACiT

  Best Multiplayer - Modern Warfare 2

  MW2 is probably the best multiplayer game of all time, and that’s not an understatement. The game is impeccably well engineered to offer not just a great gameplay experience, but also by far the best matchmaking and hosting service ever. One of the most important aspects in multiplayer gaming is how fast actually getting into the game is and how the smooth / lag free the gameplay itself is once you get there. MW2 excels in all areas, leading to the massive commercial and critical success it has garnered to this point.

  Also notable: Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, Killzone 2, Battlefield 1943

  Best Downloadable Game - Shatter

  This category I think is the toughest to call of all of them. It says a lot about the breadth of great games available on PSN in 2009 that I can’t pick one. In the end, I picked Shatter because it offers something rarely seen anymore in modern gaming, and that is a breakout style brick breaking game, with a twist. I could have given this category to Critter Crunch but didn’t because I felt I should share the awards around as much as possible. Flower is also fantastic and a game you can give to pretty much anyone. Fat Princess is less mainstream but very fun nonetheless. PixelJunk Shooter is a recent release and is also very good. All in all, you should get all these games.

  Also notable: Critter Crunch, Flower, Fat Princess, PixelJunk Shooter

  PS3 Game of the Year - Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

  I’m sure you know by now, Uncharted 2 is incredible. It;’s won more awards that any other game and deservedly so. Pick this up, and if you don’t own a PS3 yet, now is the best time yet to grab a slim version.

  Also notable: Ratchet & Clank: ACiT, inFamous, Batman: Arkham Asylum

  Up next: Wii

   

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  Chris Till 1:12 am on December 20, 2009 Permalink
  Tags: 2009 (8), Awards (10), GOTY (12)   

  3DGalaxy 2009 Game Awards 

  I mentioned recently that I would be putting up my own year end awards for gaming in 2009 a while ago, and now is the time.

  I’ve been deliberating on what format to use for this series of features. What categories to include, whether or not to do individual platform awards of just overall and so on.

  I think because there were so many great games this year on all the platforms, it wouldn’t be fair to do just an overall list and therefore miss out completely a lot of games that deserve recognition.

  With that said, I will do a feature for each platform I’ve played this year. That will essentially be everything except Xbox 360. It wouldn’t be right for me to pick games on a system when I haven’t played many of them.

  Yes, there are quite a lot of multi-platform games, but there’s obviously several exclusives besides.

  I hope you enjoy, and please remember, the awards are my personal choices, and quite possibly won’t reflect the absolute technical best games. If you want that, please check IGN, Kotaku, GameSpot etc.

  I should also quickly mention that I’ll be using IGN’s award system as a template for my own. Go and read IGN of course, although you probably already have.

   
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  Chris Till 2:43 am on December 19, 2009 Permalink
  Tags: P2, WordPress   

  WP 2.9 and P2 Update 

  A few weeks ago WordPress.com launched the new P2 theme along with the equivalent of WordPress 2.9 for self hosted blogs. I played around with the new P2 on my backup blog on wordpress.com and liked the changes.

  I tried to upgrade P2 with the older version of WP and ended up having to delete it and search for the original P2 online because it wouldn’t work properly. I failed to notice that you need at least the beta of 2.9 to run it.

  I’ve been waiting since and now that it’s available, I do appreciate the new additions and refinements. Instead of going into all those new things, I’ll just suggest you upgrade and get P2. It’s in my opinion the best WP theme around. It looks stylish, is feature rich and is easy to use. Plus, because it’s developed by Automattic themselves, it is guarunteed to work flawlessly with all aspects of WordPress, which is something a lot of themes can’t boast.

   
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  Chris Till 6:04 am on December 18, 2009 Permalink
  Tags: PS3 (11), RROD, Wii (16), Xbox 360 (5)   

  Pro Tip: don’t buy 360s for a relaxing life. 

  I saw Jeff from TRS tweeted that his red ringed for the third time.

  I’ve had issues with my Wii and PS3. We bought the PS3 together but now my bro is buying a slim because our launch 60 has an f’d up blu-ray drive. I don’t trust discs anymore and he plays it much more anyway so he’s footing the bill.

  When I’ve had trouble with both of the generally more reliable systems, I can only imagine the joys being a 360 owner would bring.

   
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  Chris Till 6:27 pm on December 17, 2009 Permalink
  Tags: Home, Playstation, PS3 (11)   

  Playstation Home Updates 

  It’s always the same in Home, they announce something and you think, yeah that might be cool, so you go and check it out and it’s either passable or just boring, and you never go back to it either way.

  This week they’ve launched a host of new spaces and items. The Audi space and Sodium One are the main two, but there’s also items you can buy based on LBP and other things.

  The Audi space’s main reason for existence is the special game, which looks a lot like wipeout but with an Audi. The objective in the game is relatively simple. You try to build up as much speed as possible and then drive off the end of a large ramp. The further you fly, the higher the score. If you get a high enough score, you can unlock an Audi Apartment. I’m not sure what the required score is, and I probably won’t get it, but it’s cool for the people who get it.

  In the end though, this space, like all the others except the original bowling alley, has next to no replay value.

  The other space, called Sodium One is much the same story. The space includes multiple mini-games but it also asks you to purchase the full versions of these games to play at higher levels.

  If the games were really fun and controlled well then fair enough, but in my opinion the hover tank game controlled very loosely and it didn’t feel very satisfying.

   
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  Chris Till 10:42 pm on December 16, 2009 Permalink
  Tags: Blu-Ray, Digital Copy, iTunes, Movie, Watchmen   

  I just used the Watchmen Blu-Ray I have to get a digital copy transfered off the included extra disc straight into my iTunes library. When I heard about digital copy before I dismissed it but after seeing this, it’s surely the best of both worlds and has to be the future of home entertainment.

  When I say future, I mean more as a bridge to fully digital distribution whenever that happens. This is a great thing for letting people get their feet wet and get a feel for what’s to come eventually.

  I think it’s a fantastic idea and everyone should be doing it.

   
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  Chris Till 2:05 am on December 16, 2009 Permalink
  Tags: Nintendo (12), Wii (16)   

  A new Nintendo Channel got released today. It looks so much cleaner and better. Everyone should go and grab it from the Wii Shop Channel.

   
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  Chris Till 4:38 am on December 15, 2009 Permalink
  Tags: Awards (10), GOTY (12), IGN, PS3 (11), Xbox 360 (5)   

  IGN Platform Awards 

  After checking through some of the IGN awards, I noticed that while Assassin’s Creed 2 won 360 GOTY, it didn’t get a single PS3 Award.

  Not only that but Modern Warfare 2 didn’t get any awards on PS3 either. Not even for best shooter or best multiplayer.

  Despite how great Uncharted 2 is, I think in terms of multiplayer, MW2 surely has the edge. Also controvertial is Killzone 2 beating MW in best shooter on PS3.

  I feel as if the playstation team used this opportunity to highlight the exclusives for the system. Having said that, UC2 and KZ2 are both very worthy in both categories.

   
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  Chris Till 6:37 am on December 14, 2009 Permalink
  Tags: Awards (10), GOTY (12), Uncharted 2 (2), VGAs   

  Uncharted 2 won VGA GOTY. They deserve it. Some awards I didn’t agree with but mostly good.

  Also excited for Green Day: Rock Band.

   
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  Chris Till 12:56 am on December 12, 2009 Permalink
  Tags: DS (5), NPD, PS3 (11), Wii (16), Xbox 360 (5)   

  The NPD data for November says Xbox 360 outsold PS3 despite everything. I really feel bad for Sony. I mean they deserve better all things considered. The fact that PS3 does better here even though it’s more expensive than the 360 makes me wonder what the difference is between American and European consumers. The DS and Wii also had great months but that’s to be expected.

   
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  Chris Till 9:49 pm on December 8, 2009 Permalink
  Tags: minis, PS3 (11), Sony (10)   

  PS3 Firmware 3.15 

  Sony have announced the latest update for PS3 on the blog. It does two interesting and useful things.

  Seeing as we may have to get a PS3 Slim soon, the new data transfer utility will help a lot and make things much easier. It allows you to hook up two systems by ethernet to move games and save data over.

  You will also be able to play minis on your PS3 with the update, which may sound weird but I suppose it can’t hurt really.

  edit: Maybe it can hurt. What if Sony use this to overprice content that should be cheaper, and justify rising prices for all other PSN games which used to cost around £4-5 and end up at £8-12.

   
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  Chris Till 1:21 am on December 1, 2009 Permalink
  Tags: PSP (6), Sony (10)   

  The PSP go continues to frustrate me. This whole HMV price cut thing today can probably only hurt Sony in the long run as many people will just refuse to buy one now until it is officially £150 which may be quite a while.

   
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  Chris Till 4:04 pm on November 30, 2009 Permalink
  Tags: PSP (6), Sony (10)   

  HMV’s PSP go sale, what does it mean? 

  The quick couple of hour sale HMV pulled today that took the black PSP go from £200 down to £150 showed me a few things. The first of which is that at £150, the PSP go has the potential to be an enticing prospect, but not to everyone.

  When I saw the sale I instantly thought of my brother rather than myself. The reason for this was that he has only a few UMD games that he plays at the moment. Those are Resistance: Retribution and a couple of others. He recently made the decision to go totally digital and only buy from PSN, and put up with the price increase over traditional media.

  Myself, on the other hand, since the PSP go was launched, have stuck even more rigidly to UMD based games, despite the fact in general I am a huge fan of digital downloads of games. I buy almost all my PC games on steam unless they’ aren’t available there and I buy a lot of PSN and iPod touch games.

  In other words, Sony screwed up the great concept of PSP go so much that it turned me, a huge digital download supporter off it almost entirely. Yeah, that’s a massive screw up by them.

  But as far as this sale goes, it made me realise that £150 may just be the magic price point that Sony need to get to in order to sell a lot of these devices, rather than marketing it as a premium device when it clearly lacks the premium qualities of the iPod touch, while certainly not skimping on the price tag.

  £150 may be the magic price point, but I think it will be for only a select group of people unless they can work out a way to let people copy their UMDs over to the go. For someone like me, it’s hard to really imagine myself splashing out on a go at any price because I want all my games on the system’s memory, and until that’s a possibility the device in general is useless to me.

  What I really wish Sony had done is simply kept with the 3000 until the PSP 2, and roll out the digital content alongside UMD (which they are doing now) for the current system rather than introducing a whole new one which would sour the whole PSP brand, in a similar way to how the PS3 originally made people dislike Playstation.

   
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  Chris Till 5:57 pm on November 29, 2009 Permalink
  Tags: Google (3), Wave (2)   

  Google Wave First Look 

  

  I was lucky enough to receive a Google Wave invite today. Upon first use, I would say that the service definitely does have the potential that they have touted in recent months.

  I think there are possibly a few issues with it though. I’m not sure I’m ready to have my email just in the browser, and it seems as though for a while at least, that will be the only option. Not only that, but the task they have to convince the world that this is the future of email, and actually getting everyone to switch to it, is of monumental proportions.

  I think the third issue is that it feels more like a geeky project at this point rather than a serious future email service. Will the masses be able to adjust to something that has far more complex overall than the current email protocol.

  One benefit though is that this doesn’t require all the fiddly email settings that you currently require in an email app. Email has multiple protocols which can be confusing so this could be a step forward in simplicity as far as settings go.

  Of course, even current email services have had web interfaces for many years, Hotmail started it from what I can tell, but Gmail really took it to the next level in terms of style, simplicity and usability.

  I will probably be using Wave for mostly family communication and as more of a novelty at first, but with all the talk of extensions and more, the service has a huge amount of potential going forward.

   
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  Chris Till 3:45 pm on November 29, 2009 Permalink
  Tags: Google (3), Wave (2)   

  I got a google wave invite. If you want one (I have 7 remaining), register and leave me an intelligent comment on why wave is the future of email. Will write full thoughts later. So far so good.