For all new PS3 owners

Updated 27th June 2009

Want inspiration for what to do initially as a new PS3 owner?  Step right this way… I’ve jotted some points down covering various areas that might be of use, and tips that I’ve found helpful to get up and running quickly, but also to provide the most enjoyment:

  • The first switch-on– immediately get connected to the internet either by a wired or wireless connection.  You might need a system update for a start, and it’s pretty much essential for updating your games with the latest patches/improvements.  (See http://ps3explained.com/ if you want clear and detailed guidance.)
  • Sign up to the PlayStation Network (it’s free!) and get yourself a PlayStation Network ID, which will give you access to the PlayStation Store, the ability to start collecting Trophies, PlayStation Home and most crucially perhaps, the ability to play against other people online.
  • Try a great game– Now is the time to try a great game that will show off what the PS3 is all about: personally, I’d recommend Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, LittleBigPlanet, and Metal Gear Solid 4, to name but a few.  Visuals like you’ve never seen before.  At least rent one of these titles!  If you’d like a wider selection to choose from, and you’re in a bit of a hurry, you can’t go far wrong with No Fuss Reviews.
  • Stay in the loop– If you want the inside scoop straight from the horse’s mouth, than you can do no better than paying PlayStation.Blog.US and PlayStation.Blog.Europe a visit.  For regular news, there’s Joystiq and TheSixthAxis.  Or for a more personal take on everything there’s always good old reliable Los Havros.  Ahem.
  • Go beyond– The beauty about gaming on the PS3 is that the experience is as deep and rich as you want it to be: sample free demos or purchase extra content on the PlayStation Store, mix and mingle with people in PlayStation Home, go it alone in-game, or go out and play on the PlayStation Network.  For those feeling a bit philanthropic, then do some good with your PS3 and number-crunch protein folding for Folding@Home that is contained within Life With PlayStation.
My top tip: Want to chat to other gamers online, but don’t have a PlayStation headset?  If you have a bluetooth headset for your mobile phone lying around, charge it up and sync it with your PS3.  Sorted!

Taking Liberties

Yes, I own GTA IV, but have I really played it yet?  Absolutely not.  At the time of GTA IV’s release, I was happily engrossed in playing Race Driver: GRID.  At the back of my mind from previous experience of past GTA titles, was that each games requires an enormous investment of time.  An investment I wasn’t willing to make without Trophies.

You’re probably thinking “Yes, Los Havros has really done it this time.  He’s finally sold himself out, putting thoughts of Trophies before the game itself”.  Fair enough, but this is my rationale for doing this.  The only game that I’ve been willing to play through for possibly the 4th or 5th time for Trophies has been Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune.  Yet Uncharted has nowhere near the number of hours of gameplay that GTA IV has.

If I had already played through GTA IV, I doubt that I’d start from scratch again just for Trophies.  I’ve even seen quite a large number of posts from gamers who have stated exactly that.  Secondly, my time is precious these days.  I don’t actually have enough time to play each game in turn for 100% completion.  Even a game that I have actually completed like Uncharted, hasn’t been completed 100% as I haven’t collected all the Trophies for it yet.

So I suppose either over the Christmas period or through 2009 I vow to make a start on GTA IV by completing as much of the story as I can, and see how far through the Trophy system I can make it.  This isn’t a cast iron promise though, as something may inevitably crop up (there’s also the new ‘easier’ patch for PixelJunk Eden to consider).  But there you go.  I swear that after I’ve finished my degree I’ll be king of the jungle gym… of gaming.  Possibly.

Anyone got any games they haven’t yet started, but they’re going to have a decent crack at this Christmas?

Naughty Dog: Uncharted 2 Teaser is Real-Time

Naughty Dog: Uncharted 2 Teaser is Real-Time– If you read the article, it’s absolutely true.  It was the same with Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune which is probably why it earned accolades of best-looking game.  Seriously though, on top of everything else, the visuals in this series are something rather special to behold.

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!

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!

So many games, too little time

I suppose that this post has as much to do about money as it does about there being loads of games out there, but not having enough time to play them!  Anyhow, I might as well recount from the beginning.  I got my PS3 for Christmas 2007 and played on Assassin’s Creed.  A lot.  My brother and I then got some extra games as well to be playing through, such as Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, The Orange Box, Resistance: Fall of Man and Colin McRae: DiRT.  Quite enough to be getting through, don’t you think?

I think I had finished Assassin’s Creed (or there about) a few weeks after Christmas as I had to go back to Uni for exams in January.  Between January and Easter 2008 I got hooked on Uncharted and played it as much as I could each weekend I was back home… every 4 weeks!  I then finally completed it at Easter.  Over Easter I got stuck into Resistance, DiRT, and the Orange Box.  I’ve still yet to complete either DiRT or Resistance!  Anyhow, I decided to attack the Orange Box over Easter and over the following months got a fair amount of it completed.  I then came to the end of my journey with the last bit of Half-Life 2: Episode 2 to finish and Portal.  By mid-May The Orange Box was completed.

Don’t even mention Grand Theft Auto IV; I just haven’t had time to go on it or been particularly bothered with playing it.  It’s not going anywhere, so I’ll get back to it at some point.  Since being home for the Summer, Race Driver: GRID has been out and I love it.  I have still got way over 3/4 of the game left to finish!  Other times, I’ve fired up GRID and decided to play online for a good hour or two.  Recently released is Metal Gear Solid 4, but there’s no way I can afford it, let alone have time to play it!

Assassin's Creed

I suppose this little story of my PS3 game playing journey might be a bit boring, but I’ve been trying to describe the plight of a gamer more often than not, not being able to play any games!  As a student I don’t have that much money to start shelling out on £40 and £50 games, and my PS3 is left at home whilst I’m away at Uni.  I can however appreciate people who have full time jobs as both this year and last year during the Summer, I have worked 40 hour weeks and you don’t necessarily feel like gaming after a particularly rough day.

Really, this post has become a kind of message to all those kids with a 40-strong PS3 (or Xbox 360, why not?) games collection who play every night and complete one game a week.  Which is ridiculous.  So my message is, erm get your homework done(?!) and gaming will have to take a back-seat in your life in future, so enjoy it while it lasts.

If anyone is wondering what on earth has being going on in this post, then you are not alone.  I, myself am not really sure either.  I’ve kind of gone off-tangent and started to rant a bit, but I’ve covered everything I’ve wanted to say, so I’ll leave it at that.  Comments, as always are most welcome.

Lost in a Haze?

Yes, perhaps ‘Haze‘ is an apt name for such a game.  Wikipedia defines haze as:

…traditionally an atmospheric phenomenon where dust, smoke and other dry particles obscure the clarity of the sky.

Did the developers have a clear idea about what they were aiming for then?  I like my first person shooters (FPS) to feel solid.  Haze is instantly confusing and the demo left me feeling quite removed from the action and not at all in control, unlike sublime FPS games such as the Halo series, Killzone, Red Faction, the Half Life series, Resistance: Fall of Man– I could go on.  What do these games share in common?  Generally great story lines aside, the gameplay is solid.  Everything from movement to firing weapons just feels right.

Haze

I can’t really offer a rational explanation of why I don’t like Haze so much, but as soon as I picked up the pad and played the Haze demo I knew within the first few minutes that it was a bad egg.  What adds insult to injury is the fact that even after months of delays, the graphics aren’t anything special either.  Unfortunately this is not a PS3 exclusive to be proud about.  My gut feeling?  Disappointed- I had been looking forward to this game.  Looks like I’ll give this one a miss then.

Nothing is true, everything is permitted

Assassin's Creed
Image via Wikipedia

I’ve finally completed the story of Assassin’s Creed, even though I’ve had the game since Christmas.  However, I can tell you that it is not easy trying to complete a game when you only return home about once a month, and have studies to attend to.  I only completed Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune itself about a week ago.

Yet what I want to explore is the issue of using walkthroughs, and to what degree.  In recent memory, I have only used walkthroughs very rarely.  Generally I’ll only turn to a walkthrough to get past a bit in a game which has actually stopped me progressing any further.  After I get past a tricky bit, I’ll then discard the walkthrough and continue to enjoy the game at my own pace, and deal with the challenges ahead myself.  I’m sure that most people would agree with me in this respect.

However, a much more controversial use of the walkthrough in my opinion is finding all certain extras in order to complete the game “100%”.  In Uncharted, there’s 60 treasures to find and I admit that I have used a walkthrough to find a few after completing the main game the first time round.  The way I view Uncharted is that the levels are linear, and that entails being able to enjoy the story and gameplay once more, whilst being able to grab the extra treasures.  If you’ve missed a treasure in Uncharted you’ll have to start that particular chapter again.  However Assassin’s Creed is more of an open, free-roaming world in which you can go back to any city and look around for flags or Templars for as long as you want.  I am therefore more reluctant to use a walkthrough in this case.  I find a particular thrill in finding a Templar, hidden in a remote place and adding him to my tally.

That brings me to the case in point, as I see it: such items, be they flags, treasures, coins etc- are put there by the developers for the skilled or explorative gamer.  Not for a lazy gamer to simply collect by reading a walkthrough, else why bother?  I’m intrigued to hear any other voices or viewpoints on this matter.

Home has great potential

From Kotaku:

Sony is apparently pitching features like these to developers to extend the lives of their titles, using strong first and second party development showcases to prove that Home can effectively market outside of traditional means. We hope they take them up on their offer, because we’re definitely excited about the prospects.

Kotaku has examples of extra Home integration with Warhawk, Resistance: Fall of Man and Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune.  If developers add this extra functionality into their titles then the PS3 could leap ahead of the Xbox 360 for sheer richness in online offerings.  As of yet, the Xbox 360 is quite far ahead.

Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune is amazing

Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune is amazing- I’ve been playing it quite heavily over the past weekend, and it just rocks my socks. At first I wasn’t so sure about the plaudits of best ever graphics and cracking gameplay, but it’s true. Looks like everyone else agrees that it is awesome.