Haven’t done a ton of gaming so far this weekend so haven’t had a lot to post about. I did fiddle around with Nile Online a lot yesterday, but that meant checking in on my city every couple of hours. I’m still enjoying that game quite a bit.

One of my PS3 hard drives was getting pretty full so I spent some time cleaning that up. I watched episodes three through six of Qore, the online magazine on the Playstation Network. It’s an entertaining product, but I’m still unconvinced its worth the price, *unless* you’re all about getting into betas. If it gets you into one beta you’re really jazzed about, then the ~$25/year is probably worth it. (My math there is that the product itself is probably worth $15/year and getting into a beta you really really want to get into is probably worth $10 to you.)

In Warhammer, I put all my characters except my Witch Hunter to bed, mentally. I cleaned out their mailboxes, organized their inventory. In the case of my Shadow Warrior I pushed him to the next Rank so he could wear a cloak I’d sent him from another character. That way he’ll look a bit snazzier when I come back to him in a month or two. Everyone is in a camp now, drinking ale and waiting for my return. Everyone, that is, except my CoW character, who I’ll continue to play right up to the cut-off day, though honestly knowing the account is going to expire soon makes that feel a little sad. At the same time I’m already a little excited about the improvements that will be in the game when I come back to it.

Probably next weekend I’ll fire up the EQ2 account so I can get re-familiarized with things before the expansion lands on the doorstep. Hmm, actually that doesn’t bode well for playing Warhammer next weekend, so maybe this will be the last week for my Witch Hunter.

I played some of The Witcher last night. I bought this game a year or so ago and it wasn’t too good, but they released an “Enhanced Edition” a couple months back and offered a free “upgrade” mega-patch to all registered users of the game. I started a fresh game just before the Fall tsunami of new game releases hit. I’m not very far into it but my conscience has been nagging at me not to lose track of it. I started playing it once on release, then restarted for this enhanced version. I know myself enough to realize that if I totally lose touch with the game and have to restart a third time, I never will.

And it seems like a pretty good game now. It feels a little like a cross between Fable 2 and an MMO, actually. It has a skill-based progression (though with ‘generic’ experience so you don’t sculpt your character via actions like you do in Fable 2), action-ish combat (left click to melee, right click to fire a spell, melee chains via timed button presses) like Fable 2, an alchemy crafting system similar to what you’d find in an MMO (with you getting components from foes you slay), NPCs offering side quests and an apparently huge, MMO-sized world. Anyway, we’ll see. I need to get back to Fable 2 today!

So what’s everyone else been up to this weekend?

Is anyone else wondering what the heck is going on at Sony’s Entertainment Division? The past few weeks have seen one mistake after another:

• SOCOM: Confrontation (an online only game) launched with the servers not working at all well. This is secondhand info but I read enough reports about the problems that I’m confident that they were real and widespred. People spoke of spending more time staring at menus waiting than actually playing the game.
• LittleBigPlanet got delayed because of the Qur’an lyrics in one of the music selections for the game. How did this only become an issue in the eleventh hour? Wouldn’t you think you’d get a translation of any song lyrics that were going to be in your game, well before launch? The delay took a lot of the ‘bang’ out of the launch; instead of a single launch day when everyone was getting the game, we got a launch window of about 4 days. Which might have been a blessing in disguise because….
• LittleBigPlanet servers were also borked on launch. Not only did this mean you couldn’t play online, it also impacted the single player game (if you were logged into PSN, which must of us are if our PS3s are internet-connected). I talked about this here; the long and sluggish load times I experienced were indeed caused by the game trying to talk to the servers and not being able to. Not the way to make a good first impression.
• Last and admittedly least, the Mirror’s Edge demo is hitting PSN and XBox Live Arcade this week. There’s a lot of buzz and anticipation built up around this game, and for once, a demo was coming out first on PSN, and not on XBLA until the following day. Except the Playstation Store didn’t get updated until late evening ET. I’m thinking it was somewhere around 10 pm? I started to download the demo, but (Playstation Store servers being the slow beasts they are) had to go to bed before the download was complete. Advantage squandered.

I love my PS3 and during the prior console generation I appreciated the broader range of games offered on the Sony platform than you can generally find elsewhere. But now the JRPG’s are moving to the 360, and the ‘quirky’ games tend to show up as downloadable titles so you can get them anywhere. The only advantage Sony seems to still have is hardware reliability and even that may be fading as Microsoft finally starts getting the 360 hardware right.

Sony has been struggling and this holiday season is its change to turn that around some, and maybe it can. But it needs to stop making these highly visible blunders if its going to gain (and retain) the confidence of gamers. Fable 2 is only on XBox. Fallout 3 looks better on XBox. And Microsoft’s game servers tend to be pretty reliable. Let’s hope that the Resistance 2 servers are rock solid when that game launches.

I jumped back into this again, just for a few moments. Which turned into an hour and a half.

Servers are up finally, and load times are way way down, so as I suspected in my last post it looks like the game was phoning home for some reason and slowing down load times.

I re-ran the level that I got 37% in yesterday and got up to 50%. Still lots of hidden goodies! Then played through a few more levels, finishing the first “section” which unlocked more modes. Tons more fun tonight than last night, with jet packs and hazards and getting flung all over the place.

I downloaded my first user-created level. The bad: it took a bit for it to download. Not, y’know, 15 minutes, but maybe 3-4, which is a long time when you might get total junk. Also, in a way it made it apparent that Trophies will be pretty easy to farm in this game, since the level had a little treasure room that I got a 50X score multiplier in.

The good… it was a simple but fun level that had me laughing out loud the first time I played it. And of course I’ve forgotten the name of it, but I “Hearted” it so if you friend me (Dragonchasers is my PSN name) I think you can see what I’ve ‘Hearted’. Now what I love tonight I might think is mediocre after I explore more, so keep that in mind.

All in all, I’m totally sold. This is as great a toy as I’d hoped it would be. I imagine it’ll also be a cash cow for Sony… I’d be really surprised if they didn’t offer weekly DLC packs (I’m thinking $1-$2 packs with a bunch of items and stickers).

Amazon finally delivered my copy of LittleBigPlanet today. I only got an hour or so with it, so the usual huge caveats apply…this isn’t a review or even an in-depth first look.

Bad stuff first: the online servers are borked. Trying to upload a high score (which happens automatically) fails, and there are other times where I *think* (hope?) the game is trying to call home and can’t. The reason I say I hope so is that the level loading times are just awful. The screen actually will freeze for long seconds before going back to an animated “loading” state, and I’m hoping again that this has something to do with the online servers. I should’ve tried logging out of PSN and trying again.

Once you’re actually *playing* the game though…it’s just a joy. Pretty much exactly what you think it would be… a physics-based platformer. The first couple levels (that’s all I did) are a mix of tutorials and gameplay. They’re very easy to complete, but getting all the hidden goodies on level 2 won’t be easy. I snagged 100% of the items on level 1 but only 37% on level 2.

The ‘marionette’ system is really neat. Turning the controller makes you sack dude (or dudette) turn its head. Holding a shoulder button lets you control the corresponding arm with the analog sticks. So you can turn and point and wave your arms around..it’s pretty cute (though has no impact on gameplay). And there’s all the dressing up and decorating that you’ve seen in all the videos.

The presentation is superb, with Stephen Fry narrating, a great (and now Qur’an free, I suppose) soundtrack and those super sharp visuals you’ve already seen.

Now all that said… I’m not sure its a game I’ll sit and play for hour upon hour. I think its going to be more of casual “drop in and play a level or two” kind of game for me. But we’ll see. I just think at this stage in my gaming life I’m more interesting in compelling narrative than in just completing levels. That’s not really a flaw of the game though.

Oh, and I’m guessing this will be an absolute blast in multiplayer!

Last year I was introduced to the whole ‘plastic instruments games’ genre as dominated these days by Guitar Hero and Rock Band. I’d sniffed haughtily and declared them “silly” many times before taking the plunge and, of course, having the time of my life playing. But as with everything else I get involved with, the infatuation passed. I kept downloading any freebie songs and things like that, but never got around to playing them.

Today the PS3 version of Rock Band 2 came out (I play these games on my PS3…I have a 360 but don’t trust the hardware very much, having had to send mine back for repair twice already). We were out and about doing chores and stopped for lunch and I had a beer which lubricated my purse strings enough that before I knew it, I’d picked it up, even though there was no budget for it.

Tonight I booted it up and the joy came flooding back in, buyer’s remorse flew out the window, and that silly grin reappeared on my face. I almost always play alone, and one of the nice things about Rock Band 2 is that they included some RB1 “band only” features for solo players in #2. Instead of flat playlists to work through, you now have the “world tour” where you have to earn money and gain fans and fames enough to work your way to bigger and bigger venues. It makes the game feel more like a game, which I like. But you can still set up your own sets and play those if you like.

There’s a Battle of the Bands feature which lets you match scores against other (basically anonymous) bands, and then there’s a series of challenges… basically a whole lot “more” than what RB 1 had.

Make no mistake, the basic mechanics are the same (why mess with a good thing, right?). The presentation is sharper and things like guitar solos seem more tailored to the music that’s playing. I spent the $5 to get an “Import License” for the RB 1 songs, which do take up 1.5 gigs of space (that would be a big deal on my 360 but the PS3 has a 60 gig hard drive).

There’s still a few things I’d like to see: I’d like to create characters to fill out the rest of my band, for instance, and I don’t *think* you can do that right now. I mean just for aesthetics. I hate it when my lead guitarist is all decked out in punk-ish threads and ends up in a Gwar-themed band, for instance. Actually it’d be pretty cool if you could play any character in a band at different times, now that I think about it. But I think the “band leader” always has to be present.

Also when you create your own sets, there can be some weirdness. I had some rock dude singing Belinda Carlisle’s vocals in “We Got the Beat” during one set. But since the band doesn’t change across the songs in a set, I guess that’s as much my fault as the game’s. And really this is nit-picky stuff.

I played for like two hours so this is NOT a review of the game. But my initial reaction has been really positive. If you enjoyed Rock Band I can’t see any reason why you won’t love Rock Band 2 as well. And if you’ve never tried one of these games, well, time’s awasting. They’re an awfully good time. Just be careful who is around. Apparently I sang every lyric of “Psycho Killer” while I was playing through it, loud enough to be heard by others. Much teasing ensued.

When I was younger music was a *huge* part of my life (as it is for many young people) but the older I got, the less I listened. What I love about Rock Band and Guitar Hero is that it gets me back to listening to music (while “playing” it) and in fact often hearing it in new ways. Yeah, they’re “toy” instruments but still these games feel like they have a bit more meaning than your typical shoot-em-up.

LittleBigPlanet can’t get here fast enough for my liking!

(I think I’m the only one in the blogosphere that didn’t get a beta invite. Doh!)

Wow, huge PSN update today. We’ve got Wipeout HD for $20, Megaman 9 for $10, GEON Emotions also for $10, and Burnout Paradise for $30. Plus the usual assortment of add-on content (for Buzz! & Soul Calibur this week) and Rock Band songs, game videos, demos of NBA 09 and Megaman. Just a huge update.

I finally pulled the trigger on Burnout Paradise. When the game first came out I played the demo and liked it, but I didn’t like it $60 worth. When it hit $40 on sale I was really tempted but still held out. Now, for $30, and all the additional content they’ve released for is since release, and no need to scrabble around looking for a game disk when I get the urge to play, I figured it was time.

Unfortunately the PSN network isn’t ever superfast for me, and tonight it’s seeming extra special slow. I started the download but don’t expect it’ll be done before bedtime tonight. Oh well. Guess I’ll have to log in to WAR!

Amazon has a listing for the upcoming Playstation 3 Bluetooth Headset. Price is $49.99! Yikes. That price includes a charging cradle and it should work with your cell phone, etc. According to PS3 Fanboy:

A new High-Quality (HQ) mode will use “advanced wireless technologies and the Headset’s dual-microphone design to enable clear and wide-band wireless voice communication with the PS3 system.”

(They don’t attribute the quote in that, um, quote.)

Of course, for $10 more you can buy SOCOM: Confrontation and get the headset and a game, which is what pretty much everyone will do, and that’s probably exactly what Sony wants you to do. $59.99 for a bluetooth headset and a game seems like a decent deal.

While the Great BlogWAR of Aught-8 was raging, the Leipzeig Game Conference was ignored here at Dragonchasers. Shame on me.

A couple Playstation-related hardware announcements cropped up. First is the PSP-3000, another rev of the familiar PSP, this one with a built-in microphone (for Skype or voice chat in games) and a screen that is supposed to have double the refresh rate of the old screen, a “color gamut” twice as wide (honestly not sure exactly what that means but I figure it boils down to twice as many potential colors) and 5 times the contrast ratio. Also the Home button is gone, replaced my a Playstation button.

An incremental improvement, for sure, but still welcomed.

Also, a new PS3 bundle. 160 gig PS2, Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, DualShock Controller and a coupon for PSN game Pain, all for $500. Uncharted is pretty f’ing great, so its a nice pack-in choice. The downside is that, from everything I’ve read, this new 160 gig PS3 has no Backwards Compatibility. So presumably the MGS4 80 gig bundle now on store shelves is your last chance to get limited BC.

PS3Fanboy has a post up about PlayOn, software that you run on a Windows XP or Vista machine (no Mac OS X or Linux support, at least for now) that allows you to stream Hulu content to your PS3 or XBox360. The software is in beta and PS3F reports some clunkiness, but that’s what betas are for, right?

Netflix support is planned for later on down the road, which is probably of more interest to PS3 owners, since the 360 will be getting Netflix integration on the dashboard this fall. Me, I’ll stick to my Roku box for Netflix, which rocks.

Sign up and download the PlayOn software, and let me know how it works for you!

Previews of Guitar Hero World Tour are hitting all over the web (I’ll throw a few links in at the bottom of this post). I was rather surprised to find that GHWT was offering a lot of what I was hoping for in Rock Band 2.

Let’s get the big bad news out of the way first. Your downloaded Guitar Hero III content will not work in Guitar Hero World Tour. Wow. I mean just…wow. That’s going to be a huge drawback to those of you who’ve invested in a lot of DLC for GH3. Let’s hope they find some way to change that, or to give you GHWT song credits based on what you’ve spent on GH3 DLC, or something.

That big ugly hobgoblin out of the way, the rest is all goodness. Of course they’re adding a whole band feature including an even more elaborate drum kit than Rock Band has. But as someone who generally plays solo, what had me smiling was the 5 career paths, one each for lead guitar, bass, drums and vocal, plus one for the whole band. And rather than just a list of songs you play in order, apparently these careers are going to be more open, letting you choose where you want to play next and so forth. Hopefully it’ll be a bit more ‘game-ish’ than the solo stuff in GH 3 and Rock Band.

Additionally you’ll be able to set up set lists of up to 7 songs, and play them in order without having to go back to the menus. Great for when you just want to kick back and enjoy playing.

The Guitar Hero World Tour guitar has been made a lot more realistic looking, and has a kind of ’slide panel’ on the neck for free-styling. It’s a bit larger than the other ‘fake guitars’ out there, too. Closer to full size.

But the really huge news is the Music Studio feature, which lets you create your own songs. You can capture them as you play, or go into an editor and get precise. Once you have a great song written you can share it with friends, of course. Apparently the editor gets pretty deep if you want to really dig into it.

It’ll be interesting to see what Harmonix does with Rock Band 2, but right now I’m thinking that I’ll jump ships and be a Guitar Hero fanboy for the next iteration. I really like the idea of being able to use a game to write songs! Not that I have an iota of talent in that department, mind you!

Check it out for yourself!

Guitar Hero: World Tour First Look (IGN)
Exhibit: Guitar Hero World Tour (Nukoda)
World Tour: New Details Galore (Game Informer)

Anyone who played Fatal Inertia on the XBox 360 will tell you that the game was not very good. So of course I was expecting it to be not very good on the PS3, but after trying the demo, I have to say that it isn’t too bad. In fact it was pretty fun. It looks great, the controls are nice, I found some shot-cuts, fired off some cool weapons…

In fact at this point the only bad thing about it is the price of the full game. Are they really asking $30 for it? I need to actually check the store because that just seems too steep. At $20 I’d definitely pull the trigger, but $30 is a bit too high.