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Joe Flanigan should play Nathan Drake

This is my response to the news that Avi Arad will be producing an Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune film.

Immediately after playing Uncharted for the first time, I had always thought that Nathan Drake more or less looked like, and sounded exactly like Joe Flanigan. It looks like I’m not the only one who thinks this. Joe Flanigan is perhaps best known (in my mind anyway) for his portrayal of Lt. Colonel John Sheppard on Stargate Atlantis. I was initially going to provide side-by-side comparisons of them, but why bother? If you ‘Google’ both names, you’ll soon see the similarity. Also, if you hop on to YouTube, there might some clips of them both ‘in action’ so to speak.

Even if you’ve never played Uncharted or never watched Stargate Atlantis, then this is still relevant to you. Whilst many videogame-to-film translations haven’t gone particularly well, this one should be a fantastic film. Why? Well Uncharted happens to have a particularly strong plot with plenty of twists and turns. You could call it Tomb Raider-esque, but with way more substance. The truly crucial factor though, is that the writers don’t deviate too far from the source material. The source material is already gold.

If anyone knows what I’m on about, then please let me know what you think. I’d love to have a chat about this!

Ensemble Studios closure: my thoughts

All the headings you see below are scattered thoughts and opinions of mine. They don’t necessarily follow on from each other.

In the beginning
Well, where to start? I guess I’ll mention first that Ensemble Studios has to be one of my favourite developers due to their sterling work on the Age of Empires series. I grew up playing Age of Empires, and I have fond memories of playing historical campaigns and battling friends over a LAN. Yes, Ensemble Studios has a special place in my heart.

The good times
Things were never better than when Ensemble Studios were making Age of Empires. The pinaccle of the series must be either Age of Empires II or Age of Empires III. My personal preference has to be Age of Empires II. That’s the game where I spent many hours over LAN- battling my friends, and the game runs on practically any PC! I won’t go into great detail about the history of Age of Empires, or all its wonderful features but suffice to say, it remains great till this day.

An ever-closer union
Ensemble Studios got the Age of Empires II expansion pack out of the door as an independent developer- The Conquerors. By the time of their next game, Age of Mythology; they were Microsoft-owned. Now, I’m not saying that this has been a bad thing, but if you’re independant, you have more leeway to do what you want. Some great examples of independant studios having a close relationship with publishers and major players are Media Molecule and Insomniac Games. Undoubtedly, once you become the property of a larger corporation, their objective become your objectives.

Halo Wars speculation
Halo Wars has been in development for quite some time now, and as of writing this article, it’s still in development. Apparently:

all non-essential staff have been laid off and remaining staff have been given incentives to remain until the completion of the project

My guess is that something has gone wrong. It would be easy to guess that development has probably gone way over time and over budget, yet there could have been some other factor. This is my thinking, because Microsoft isn’t exactly strapped for cash. And even if that were remotely true, why kill Ensemble Studios? They were able to grant Bungie its independance. Maybe we’ll find out the truth at some point…

Age of Kings II
That’s right, you heard me. Out of the ashes of Ensemble Studios, if it is possible I’d like Age of Kings II. To me, the medievil period remains the best slice of history served up by Ensemble Studios. Age of Kings was released almost 10 years ago, so how amazing would a new game be? Of course, you’d get updated graphics and physics like Age of Empires III, but there’d also be the opportunity to breath new life into the game, by tweaking the gameplay to pefection. This is assuming they’d have any rights to the franchise, which as a new studio, looks unlikely.

The End
Well those are my thoughts, opinions, and hopes. I haven’t intended to provide any answers. Anything I have mentioned is purely speculative and should be treated as such. Signed, a confused and uspet fan.

Warhawk Diaries: First Assignment

“Because every soldier keeps a diary, right? Right?!”

Sure, Warhawk has been on the market for about 12 months, but its online community is thriving. The servers are full of veteran players, but the addition of trophies and the brand new expansion packs have kept the game fresh and interesting. I’m a new Warhawk player and these scribblings are my experiences of being a rookie (I play on the green servers) in the unfriendly skies. So grab a coffee, and read on, why don’t you?

You may (or may not, actually, if you’re a new reader) recall that I wrote some mixed thoughts called ‘Getting toasted in Warhawk‘. To gain some perspective, that was written within hours of my first proper go on Warhawk, and I was truly rubbish! But now, things have changed baby. Things have changed!

Tanks a lot
Playing my first few games, I quickly realised that I was not going to go anywhere fast in a Warhawk. My solution? Ground vehicles. I scanned the area around me, and quickly laid eyes on a tank. Perfect! Out I trundled in my luxurious 60 Ton (at a guess?!) personal safety vehicle, right into the middle of the warzone! I must have blasted about three Warhawks out of the sky within a minute. The power- it felt good. Real good. But… they all kind of ganged up on me and turned my tank into an elaborate metal coffin for me.

Man the turrets!
A good map for me has been the Ruined Capitol (correct me if I’ve got the name wrong). Rather than get caught up in the huge bloodbath in the centre of the map, I opted to protect our home base. I wasn’t hoping for peace and quiet though, as I knew an enemy player would fancy their chances at capturing our base. I didn’t have to wait long. From the top of our tower, I had a great vantage point in my rocket turret and could spot an enemy jet from quite a distance.

Sure, I took down my fair share of enemy aircraft, but they had a surprise in store. Unbeknown to me, an enemy aircraft had flown in low and had not crashed as I had assumed. We’d been boarded. After admittedly being killed by the intruders a couple of times, I eventually managed to gain the upper hand and defeat them. After doing this, I received a couple of trophies: ‘anti-camper’ and ‘revenge’. Not too bad for one night’s work.

Till next time
I hope you’ve enjoyed this account of a new Warhawk player fighting the good fight, but that’s all for now. Tune in next time to read my triumphs and mishaps in the various game modes, and find out which mode is my favourite!

Getting toasted in Warhawk

I suppose after my previous aside, this particular post shouldn’t be surprising to you. I.e. I’m currently spending most of my time on Warhawk as a rocket-riddled corpse rather than a living, breathing soldier. In case you’re wondering, yes- it’s soul-destroying.

Reverse gear
Let’s recap shall we? I now possess Warhawk because I did indeed go down the download route and snagged the game off the PlayStation Store for £19.99. Bargain or what? There’s a couple of drawbacks: first, the game can only be played from your PSN account that you bought it with, and secondly, you must be signed into the PlayStation Network to play the game. Seen as this game is online-only, I didn’t think this was a major problem.

I also bought all three expansion packs, which probably brings my total spend to nearer £30, but that’s still not too bad. Headset? I’ll probably acquire the official PS3 headset when it comes out. Before I continue, It is worth noting that the install size is under 800MB. Seriously. That’s some really impressive compression

Earning my wings
Before I was going to take to the skies online, I thought I’d go through the new training scenarios that have been added in the new v1.5 patch (which included trophies). I progressed well through ground combat and vehicles, but when it came to piloting the Warhawk I found evading constant missile attacks to be a bit tricky. Sure, everything’s simple when you have chaff, but that’s not always to hand so evasive manoeuvres are required. I half considered that this may be a problem if I were to venture online. Hey, I got about 4 trophies for completing the training anyway. Yea!

Crash and burn
On the ground, I’m not too bad; I shoot people, I man the turrets and have managed to take a few planes out of the sky, and I’ve dealt serious damage in a tank. As soon as I step foot inside a Warhawk though, I’m toast. Within a few seconds several missiles have locked onto me and before I can think of what to do my burning corpse is flying through the sky- sans aircraft. A few times though, I have managed to shake off quite a few missiles, but they come so thick and fast that eventually I get hit in the end anyway.

Lessons? Well, I’m pretty sure that I’m not quite ready for the online world and so I’m going to hopefully play a few local games to get my flying skills up to scratch and then I shall take my place amongst the hardened warriors and do battle, rather than take my place amongst the fallen. I’ll post more updates on my Warhawk experiences as and when.

Does anyone have any similar experiences of joining a hardcore group of players online? If so, I’d like to hear from you!

Resistance 2 Collector’s Edition cover for Europe

Whilst the good-old USA gets to have a vote on which cover (out of 3) they’d like, apparently SCEE has already chosen for Europe. It’s this one:

Resistance 2 Collectors Edition, European cover — Resistance 2 Collector's Edition, European cover (image from IGN.com)

My thoughts on this cover? Erm, not too keen, but it’s good enough I suppose. Totally clashes with the first game’s cover to be honest. But beggars can’t be choosers?

Trophies: The Hunt Is On

(Note: I was originally going to call this post “Gentleman, start your engines” but due to equality issues and the phrase having nothing to do with trophies, it was scrapped. That’s your dose of trivia for the day!)

Well, enough games are now out there that have trophy support. First I had a ‘blast’ on Super Stardust HD, which was the first PS3 game to have trohpy functionality, and now I’m engrossed with PixelJunk Eden (need to complete those gardens!). My next target will be another play-through of Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, which I am really going to relish.

I suppose my future targets will be Warhawk and LittleBigPlanet, which I both like, really need to buy! This is especially true for Warhawk, seen as it has had several free updates. I’m one of these people who try to hold out on buying certain games till they come down in price! Several games I want though are stubbornly remaining at quite a high price.

That’s besides the point though. What I really want to say is good luck to all trophy hunters! I’ll be collecting trophies myself, though not at the frentic pace of some of you. I’ll probably mention something more about trophies a few months down the line. Till then!

Patapon Revisited

A few months ago I got myself Patapon shortly after its release and quickly became addicted to it. What I began to realise though, was how nail-bitingly hard it could be in certain places of the game. One easy example, is the difficulty many people had in figuring out how to cross the desert. Once you know how, it’s quite easy. But in the game itself, you are more or less left to try and figure it out for yourself- if you can.

This probably explains why the PlayStation.Blog team had to lend us a helping hand. Also equally frustrating is the ease at which you can lose the beat. From my own personal experience, this has made me want to throw my PSP at the nearest wall after trying to complete the same level 5 times in a row. So I left the game and vowed to return to it once I had calmed down…

What I have been doing for the past couple of years now, is taking my PSP with me on holiday and having a quick gaming session before I go to bed. Last year I took LocoRoco and completed all levels (not all quite 100% yet though!) and this year has been Patapon’s turn. Yes, about 4 months after I had last touched the game, I decided to revisit Patapon and see how far I could get this time.

Surprisingly, I found that I wasn’t losing the beat as easily, but I think this was down to a new technique. Heard the advice (includng my own) about tapping with your foot to the beat? Forget about it- repeating “pata, pata, pata, pon” or whatever drum beat you’re doing, in your head, in-between your turn is very helpful in keeping the beat. Why is it otherwise so hard to keep the beat in fever mode? This is because the fever mode music can trip you up, especially when the music starts. I have found this to be THE most unhelpful feature of any game- ever!

Let my little story not distract you from the main point- this game is fantastic! You just need a lot of time and patience as Patapon is amazingly deep. Think you’ve done it all? Well, you haven’t. There’s just so many rare Patapons, weapons and materials to collect. Get frustrated at time? Give the game a rest and then get back to it, feeling refreshed. Some games are like a fine wine: they get better with age. That is why, although I’ve never actually reviewed Patapon, I’ll give it a 9/10 just because it deserves it. If you haven’t picked it up yet, you need to! Its essential for your PSP.

The Stone Age Gamer

This article originally appeared on TheSixthAxis on July 25, 2008

Let’s talk tasty treats for a moment, shall we? The general consensus is that as tasty as vanilla is, it just has to be chocolate. Chocolate is so much richer and decadent than vanilla. Right- keep those thoughts of ice cream and chocolate in the back of your mind for the minute. All shall be revealed in due course…

I had a discussion the other day with a fellow PS3 gamer. You’d have thought that we perhaps shared common ground? Wrong. Very wrong indeed. I was talking to this gamer about the latest PS3 update and the Trophy system that had been added. I received a blank look. That wasn’t a good sign, I thought.

I then venture out and ask whether he’s played online at all with his PS3. He said he hadn’t. It turns out that he hasn’t even registered with the PlayStation Network! This means, my friends, that he has not experienced the soft, blue glow of the PlayStation Store containing all the latest PS3 game demos, PSN games, film trailers, themes and more. He will also not be able to collect Trophies without registering, let alone play any games online- the bread and butter of the online experience.

I mentioned all of this to him. He didn’t care. He told me that he ‘just wants to play games’. I have to admit that it had never occured to me until now that there were gamers out there who didn’t care about what else they could do apart from play games. In my opinion they are not getting the fullest, richest experience. They are munching on plain vanilla ice cream.

I however, am indulging on the rich chocolate experience of the PlayStation Network which is a glorious feast for the senses and showcases some simply cracking entertainment. I wouldn’t have it any other way. This writer is a trully next generation gamer, not stuck in the Stone Age.

This leaves me wondering: which category do you fall under? And do you know any other gamers who are like this? Feel free to leave a comment on this subject, or send me some hate mail if I’ve really rattled some cages. Till next time!

Trophies: The Bigger Picture

This article originally appeared on TheSixthAxis on July 12, 2008

I have recently been pondering the effect of the trophies update in the latest 2.40 (and 2.41) firmware update. Just what has Sony caused within the gaming community? And how could this addition change perceptions to the PS3’s value?

I have been playing Super Stardust HD like most of you, as it is currently the only game to support trophies. I have to admit I passed on this game the first time round, but the trophies update has caused me to think again, and give it a go. Of course now I’m totally addicted to the game, but also wonder what ‘the trophy effect’ will have had on sales of the game? My guess is that the addition of trophies has caused sales of the game to rocket, but I still hope that some updated sales figures are released to confirm my suspicions.

So after I purchased and downloaded the game I eventually earned my first trophy (see also My First Trophy by Al for a great idea of what it feels like), although it took me a little while to keep up with the frantic pace of the game! But what’s this? I find that a friend of mine has got the game as well, and also has a trophy. Game on. We never really talked to each other about it, but both knew we had our reputations as true gamers at stake. So we both spent the evening silently playing away. And every so often after I’d earned another trophy, I’d pause the game and compare trophies with him to find that he was catching up! I’m sure he was doing the same thing as me.

All I can say on this point is this is exactly what the PS3 needed: that element of competitiveness that just wasn’t there before, like achievements on Xbox Live. I’ve come across chatter on the interweb that suggests that Sony’s effort is ‘too little, too late’. Whilst I do agree that this update has been released quite late after the console’s launch, it is not too late for the prospective gamer.

Whilst this part is quite speculative, I’d imagine that it is not too far from the truth: a lot of hardcore and FPS gamers in particular flocked straight to the Xbox 360 and have no doubt been loving Xbox Live, their gamerscore and achievements. However there will have been plenty of people who have hung onto their PS2s possibly even bought a Wii. Yet now when comparing the Xbox 360 against the PS3, there is free online multiplayer over the PlayStation Network, the visually gorgeous and continually improving PlayStation Store, some fantastic exclusives on the PlayStation Network, and trophies which you can compare with your friends and level-up, just like a RPG.

Sony should take note however, that there is still much they can do to stay competitive such as enabling a PSN gamer to be able to show their stats on their websites and blogs, just like Xbox Live gamers can. Maybe Sony’s trump card that will combine the online community and trophies will be PlayStation Home. But that’s enough speculation for today.

This of course, is just my thoughts and opinions on trophies and the bigger picture. Agree, disagree? Then sling a comment this way and I’ll be happy to answer anything.

The Comprehensive PS3 Fan Guide

It seems a lot of people are still hungry for more information about their PS3’s fan: how loud should it be? And when should the PS3’s fan kick in? I’m hoping that this is THE comprehensive PS3 fan guide that will tell you everything you wanted to know. I’ve done the hard work for you and hunted amongst Sony’s support sites and documents. I mean, let’s face it- how many of us will actually read through an instruction manual cover-to-cover?

NB: if you want to see the documentation directly, I’ve linked straight to the source. Anything I am directly referring to will be quoted, and my own advice written underneath. So, shall we begin?

Common solutions for troubleshooting the PLAYSTATION 3 system

Check your Environment

Make sure to allow adequate ventilation to flow from the PLAYSTATION 3 system’s vents (i.e. avoid obstructing the vents etc.).

Make sure to keep the PLAYSTATION 3 system away from excessive dust, smoke, steam, extreme temperatures, humidity, or direct sunlight.

See the PLAYSTATION 3 system Safety and Support guide for full details on Safety Precautions and Use and Handling.

I’ll add that the best way to position, and therefore cool your PS3, is to stand it on its side, so that it is in the vertical position. This ensures that a greater surface area of the PS3 can be in contact with air. If you have enough room, place your PS3 on the same level as your TV, rather than in a confined shelf where there will not be much fresh air circulating. See the picture below:

Notice the location and position of the PS3- allows for optimum cooling eficciency — Notice the location and position of the PS3- allows for optimum cooling efficiency

Anyhow, let’s have a look at the next document, shall we?

PLAYSTATION 3 system Safety and Support guide

Use and handling

Do not allow liquid, small particles, or other foreign objects to get into the system or accessories.

Do not expose the system or accessories to dust, smoke or steam. Also, do not place the system in an area subject to excessive dust or cigarette smoke. Dust build-up or cigarette smoke residue on the internal components (such as the lens) may cuase the system to malfunction.

Vents

Do not block any vents. To maintain good ventilation, follow the guidelines below:

Place the system at least 10cm away from a wall surface.

Do not place on a carpet or rug with long fibres.

Do not place in a narrow or cramped space.

Do not cover with cloth.

Do not allow dust to build up on the vents.

Cleaning
– Vents

When dust accumulates in the system vents, remove the dust with a low-powered vacuum cleaner.

Other Issues

– The system makes noise

When using the system in a location where heat can build up, such as an enclosed AV cabinet, the fan will rotate rapidly to reduce the system’s internal temperature and this may generate increased noise. Move the system to a location with good ventilation.

Most of this documentation is common sense, but what is the main message flowing through the documentation? You could say ‘location, location, location’. But in this case, it’s probably ‘ventilation, ventilation, ventilation.’ If you follow official Sony guidance (listed above) then you shouldn’t be having any problems. Check your environment and follow the steps for cleaning your PS3 and removing dust. As for running the PS3 fan test on 40Gb PS3s… rather you than me.

The PS3’s fan is very quiet. If you are experiencing abnormally loud fan noises for a sustained amount of time, then double-check the location of your PS3. If the location is fine, then you may have a faulty PS3.

See also: PS3 Fan Noise Controversy. It contains extra info which may help you to put this article into context. If I’ve missed something then either send me an email, or comment on this article, and I’ll update it!