Tuesday, January 6, 2009

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What else do you need?

I couldn't have done it better ;-) Here is the ultimate PS3Fanboy collection of 2009 game titles that will come over your PS3 in 2009. It looks like a very interesting year to me, even though there might be some not delivered promises here and there. 

Anyway, 22 potential exclusives seems to me as a very compelling argument why 2009 will be the PS3 year. So are either a hardcore Halo 4, Gears of War 3 and Fable 3 fan or you go for the variety. Enjoy ...

• PS3 Exclusives (1-17)
• PlayStation Network Exclusives (17-22)
• Multiplatform Titles (23-35)

Monday, January 5, 2009

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The Flying Sofa

Thanks to Zta, I got to know another Home glitch (one beside the already famous rail trick) that allows you not only to put a sofa on top of the roof of your appartment, no, you are also able to move to places you normally can not go. And guess what, the Home developers left some secrets out there as if they were expecting this. Great.

Here is the secret message at the port entry.

And what is this mystic device suppose to be, hidden inside the bell tower? 

Monday, January 5, 2009

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Something to read

You might remember that I am not only collecting Playstation games but also game guides that usually get released with some of the major titles. Here is a set of my recent purchases that are either very helpful guides or just perfectly made books.

1. LittleBigPlanet
   This 320 pages guide is a very good example of what a game guide could be. Each page of this little book is nicely laid out and easily match the cuteness of the game itself. For those of you who are still missing a few crutial parts for the creativity mode, this guide is a way to find them. But what really makes this guide superior over many FAQs and walkthrus you might find on the internet is the very good coverage of the create part of the game. Almost 100 pages are solely dedicated to creating new levels. Even though Media Molecule was able to design an UI that is easy and intuative to use with a lot of tutorials built-in, this book adds another level of support currently not being found anywhere else.
    
2. Fallout 3 - Collector's Edition
   Wowww, there are not many game guides of that size: nearly 500 pages. Almost every little detail of that game is covered inside that hardcover book. Interested in how to levelup your character? No problem. Or do you wanna know about all the different side quests. You got it. Add to that the fact that Prima Games was able to copy the special 50th style of the game almost perfectly in that book, this is a must-have for all Fallout 3 fans. Finally, the book comes with a huge map of the Fallout universe which is much bigger than what comes with the game itself.
    
3. Prince of Persia - Collector's Edition
   This is another collector's edition which simply looks perfect as a book. Prince of persia is definitely not as hard as it would require to buy a separate guide book, but this one is just a precious piece of art. The book comes with a 8x10 art print and has a Maling-of section at the end which gives you a little more insight intothe creation process of PoP. And if you after all are interested in finding all the light seed within the game, this is the ultimate source.
    
4. Mirror's Edge - Studio Series Guide
   And last but not least another hard cover with a slightly smaller format. Prima Games Studio Series Guide focus not only on a game itself, but rather cover the studio behind the game in some detail. In this case it's the EA DICE studio, which is most likely known for their Battlefield franchise. The guide part of the book is most probably not one of the better guides as the screenshots are rather small compared to the level of detail they would have to cover. Anyway, you are still able to find all the hidden bags based on this guide and it even covers what most probably becomes a success inside the community, the time trails.

Sunday, January 4, 2009

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WTF ...

I came across this last year news just recently. Two of my favourite games this year, Dead Space and Mirror's Edge,  are basically collecting dust in video game stores. Based on NPD Group data, Dead Space sold 421,000, and Mirror's Edge sold 145,000 so far. Compare this to Madden NFL 09 which sold almost 4 million units at the same time. These are cross platform numbers of course.

We are usually very fast in blaming the industry big shoots for not being able to create innovative new IPs, but those figures just seem to justify why this is the case. People obviously don't like new, fresh games. What the majority of gamers obviously wants are yearly updates of all so familar franchises with close to zero innovation.

My rather pessimistic conclusion - beside the one that games I like won't become very successful - EA will rather think twice next time they'll do something new. What would you do as a company if you can go for one project with minimum risk that only requires an update vs. creating an all new IP with unclear outcome. One could argue that those blockbusters will eventually refinance the liability that those higher risk projects might cause. Well, that's the optimistic conclusion and I am not sure that the current economic conditions are very supportive in that regard either.

I really can't blame them anymore, it's obviously us, the consumers. So, if you read this, go and get both games as I wanna see followups for both of them ;-)

Saturday, January 3, 2009

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My Top Ten Future Home Features

I guess there is nothing new on that list, but anyway, here is my personal, prioritized Future Home Feature List. Anything missing?

1. More content
   I guess there is no question about this. Where are all the game related spaces for Sony's own IPs. Give us a Killzone 2 space even before Killzone 2 gets launched.
    
2. Broader game launch support
   This is most probably the killer application for Home. People meet in appartments or club houses and decide to play a certain game that get's automatically launched and you find yourself right in the middle of action. No setup, invite or whatever is usually needed.
    
3. Music and video streaming in club houses and appartments
   This is so obvious and should have been there since the open beta started. I see this issue of bandwith and we already know that Sony had an performance issue with the voicechat, but c'mon such things should be possible by now.
    
4. Custom wallpapers & pictures
   Furniture and accessories are nice, but please give us wallpapers as well. Even better customizable wallpapers. An while you are there, why not being able to put pictures on your walls? 
    
5. Reflect the users PSN level inside Home
   User should be able somehow to level up their character inside Home pretty much in the same way as they do with trophies. this would make Home much more attractive to be used by people, just like in an RPG game.
    
6. Integrate Home in to the core XMB
   How long does it take these days to startup Home from XMB? 20-30 seconds? Well, this is definitely too long and is to some extend caused by the fact that Home is a separate application like Life with Playstation or PlayTV. Get Home into the "firmware" if you will, which makes this part of Home much faster and more usable.
     
7. Support PlayTV in Home
   How cool would it be to watch TV inside Home on your TV set with some other folks and being able to chat at the same time? Not sure though if there are some legal issues invlved with this.
    
8. Support for personalized game libraries
   Well, we all have our game library collected over the years. Some are bigger, some are smaller. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to register those games and display them on a virtual board inside your appartment? Why not combining this feature with the game launch mentioned earlier?
     
9. Merge the web with Home
   It has been demonstrated by Phil Harrison (god bless him) at one of the Home presentations and I think it is key for Home to melt the web with Home in both directions. Being able to use RSS feeds inside Home for instance in the club house or represent some of the stuff that's in Home on the web would be great. But then again, this is to some extend true for the PSN in general.
    
10. Make LittleBigPlanet part of Home
    Sure this is a product management decision in the first place, but wouldn't it be nice to have both the levels as well as the user generated content accessible directly inside Home? I guess this would boost up Home once more and would give Home immediately some tangible content.

Does that make sense?

Saturday, January 3, 2009

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Developer's New Home

For some is it the biggest disappointment of last year and for Wired Magazine it was worth an entry in their 2008 Vaporware Award. Well, I am talking about Home, Sony's long announced service that just went live as an open beta right before the holidays.

Even though there is not much new stuff we can talk about here let's look at Home from a slightly different angle, the developers view. In the most recent develop Magazine issue, the lead developers of Home talk about where Home came from and what there overall plans with Home are.

Developed by the SCE London Studio Home already has a long and mixed history. What obviously nobody knew before, Home or whatever it was called these days started as an interface for the online lobby of the not so successful The Getaway: Black Monday. This was four and a half years ago! Meanwhile The Getaway got cancelled on PS3 and Sony realized that the neither nor the PS2 is the right platform for such an ambitious product and refocused Home or what it was called at that time to be a PS3 only product.

Then there was the famous GDC 07 presentation of Phil Harrison which obviously fueled everbodies immagination in terms of what Home could be and should be. This was obviously something Sony did as well which ultimately lead to the point where Sony once again had to focus in order to finally deliver a tangible for their primary customers: the gamers out there.

Meanwhile Home developed in something that was more than a single dimensonal product. Home is now a development platform of its own, in addition to the disc based PS3 gaming platform and the pure online based PSN platform. As of today Home comes as a bundle of different services like a micro payment service or an online lobbies, an full fledged SDK which allows developers to use the different features of Home in their own content and the simple to use and secure scripting language Lua,  which can be used to glue everything together or even develop simple mini games in Home. Assets used in Home like the cloth and furniture you can buy is nothing new for game deveopers and can be created pretty much in the same way as within games. Just as a sidenote, Lua is as well used as a scripting language by Insomniac Games in games like Resistance and Ratchet & Clank.

What really makes Home so special is the fact that it is complementary to the traditional content that is already out there. If there is anything that resembles Home in some way, then it's most probably those dedicated game websites that are standard with every new game that comes out these days. For Sony it is a unique differentiator to Microsoft and Nintendo. Today, multiplatform games pretty much are the same experience on all platforms due to the fact that both the PS3 and the 360 have at some level roughly the same features and performance. Home adds another level of functionality that adds a competitive advantage to the Playstation platform in general, similar to what Microsoft had with Live before Sony launched the PSN.

Beside the standard disc-based PS3 platform and the PSN as such, Home is the third pillar that basically ties everything together with a virtual environment that is game independant. Home gives the online infrastructure an interface and a look that can't be found anywhere else. This is to some extend very similar to Second Life as many said before, but there is a clear difference between SL and Home: Home is targeted towards gaming and the gamers, something that is not so clear with SL.

One of the things where Second Life definitely has a big advantage is its openness in terms of being able to provide your own content and use the SL API to create your own stuff. This is obviously one of the things that Sony is thinking about in terms of having an own Home platform. Currently you have to agree to the License program for PS3 which requires a considerable entry fee as well as some prereqisites that rule out people like you and me. It is obviously not totally unrealistic to expect a separate license program that is restricted to Home only and much easier to apply for.

One of the issues there is obviously the topic of unapproriate content. As we all now, Sony is spending a lot of effort to keep Home clean as possible in terms of not being sued by anybody. As Sony is to some extend responsible for what's being done in Home, they have to take those actions which sometimes seem to be a little to much. Anybody trying to write something in Home most probably got in touch with Home's filter system. Beside that, moderators are all around Home, invisible of course, being the police cops (or secret service if you will) that are able to ban people for unappropriate behaviour. Things like that are obviously necessary these days as people are obviously doing such things at first. This is obviously also an issue for opening up Home even further. In all cases Sony wants and needs to be able to block things before someone is able to see them (new services) or block them as soon as somebody sees them (user generated content).

So far we talked about mainly about the platform, but meanwhile a lot of publishers and developers are in the process of producing content for Home. As mentioned earlier, it's easy to loose focus while thinking about what's possible in Home, but Sony clearly focuses on the gamers first, with additional more advanced things coming later.

Personally I think that Home could still be that killer application everyone was talking about almost 2 years ago after GDC. What the long time since then just reminds us, there is more than imagination an new ideas to deliver a dependable and solid product. Home definitely needs that time as well as the development of great content. What  would like to see in the near future to make Home even more seemless and easy to use is a better integration into the XMB. Yeah, Home has an own unique spot there on the XMB, but Home still needs to get started up first before you can use it. This is more like a separate application then an integrated service like the PSN is today. Keep in mind, as soon as you startup your XMB you are online. There is no onlne application you gonna startup first. I want Home to be the same. Sure, there are some lag tmes due to the sheer amount of data that's required, but it would change the user experience a lot if you can take away those 20-30 seconds that are required these days to startup Home.

Last but not least, I think Sony's decision to keep Home for an indefinite time has a beta project is the right thing to do. I would have started even earlier with this step, but that's of course history. Beta gives Sony still the freedom to try out things, experiment to some extend and most important get user feedback at the same time. It is key at this point in time not to loose focus again and clearly do what the community wants, even though this might defer some of the things that I personally want to see coming in Home. Remember, the community is always right ;-)

Wednesday, December 31, 2008

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Happy New Year 2009 ...

... to all of you readers out there. Take care.

Wednesday, December 31, 2008

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Second Chance

Do you know that: you buy a new game, start it up on your machine, play with it for let's say 5 minutes and then won't touch it for days if not weeks. Been there. done that, you might say. It's kind of weird why this happens, but all I can say, it has oviously nothing to do with the actual quality of the game.

Here are two recent example of mine. Number one is the so-called interactive screen saver LocoRoco Cocoreccho. When I first downloaded the game I was really, really looking forward to play Locoroco on PS3 as I thought that the SIXAXIS control would perfectly fit to the game.

Then I realized that the game had a slightly different twist and diffrent controls, which distracted me a lot from the game. I was so confused that I didn't get the idea behind the game and boom I lost interest. It took me until now that I just picked up the game once more and what should I say, it is actually great game to kill some time. The game has more depth and gameply than I thought in the first place and to actually finish the game it takes quite an effort.

In the beginning it looks like the play field of the game is rather limited, but the longer you play the more MuiMui gates will show up and you be able to finally discover all the 200 Locorocos that are scattered around the screen. The game even features 3 mini games which are by themself fun to play. Haven't yet discovered let's say 150 Locos I have already spend more then 3 hours in the game and I am not done yet. Do yourself a favour and give it a try. As a little tip, wait before you operate one of the MuiMui gates that give you access to different parts of the play field. Just let those Locos run in a circle until you have managed to get all of them. Then it's time to open the gate. And, there is always a coming back. And make sure you are not going to the exit too fast.

Example number two is even more prominent and has already taken a couple of awards just recently. Dead Space. I am definitely a big fan of epic spaceship science fiction stories and I've played in my life a couple of games that centered around that topic. From test adventures like Planetfall, Hitchhickers Guide to the Galaxy up to PS2 titles like RTX Red Rock, just to name a few. When I first got Dead Space a couple of weeks ago I didn't get hooked by the game immediately. Was it the kind of strange 3rd person view or just Resistance 2 that was lying on my desk at the same time? I don't know but the game just didn't work for me.

Now, a couple of days ago i gave the game a second chance. Wowww, I could I be so wrong. I haven't played a more intense game since a long time now. As much as I am one of the first to beat on industry big shoots like EA, those folks really delivered an intense and vibrant game. Be it the sound, the graphics, the story, it really doesn't matter, everything in that game is just at the point. Even the gameplay is at no time unfair. Add to that game sections that haven't yet been able so far. Like the sections when you have to leave the ship and operate in zero gravity and no air. All in all, a must-have title if you are interested in scary spaceship settings. Even though I am not finished yet, I would call that game already one of my highlights in 2008. I love that game so much that I actually got myself the Deap Space Bluray that's now available. A great addon to the game I think. Well done, EA!

P.S. You also wanna check out this making-of article on Dead Space which is quite interesting. Yes, I know it's an Xbox feature, but this doesn't disqualify it ;-)

P.P.S. And yes, I still have a couple of those second chance games in my collection ;-)

Wednesday, December 31, 2008

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The story of the PS360ii

It is no secret that IBM is the actual winner of the next generation console war. As IBM provides the hearts of all three consoles, the PS3 - Xbox 360 - Wii, it is the winner no matter which console will finally win. All three consoles CPUs are more or less based on PowerPC architecture, with the Hollywood CPU of the Wii being the least powerful, the 360 Xenon CPU being a 3 core PowerPC and finally the Cell being the most powerful CPU which uses a PowerPC core to orchestrate the 7 (resp. 8) SPUs.

A new book that's coming out in February is now obviously telling the story about how the new CPUs of the 360 and the PS3 have been developed within IBM and how challenging the design process actually was. Looks like an interesting book to me. But if that wouldn't be enough, the authors, both being in charge of the PowerPC design at the time, seem to be in need to spice up the story a little bit by saying that obviously Microsoft took advantage from the already ongoing Cell development, namely the PowerPC core. Check out the prologue chapter on Amazon. ps3fanboy takes this even futher by saying that Sony help Microsoft to make the 360.

Well, I am definitely not an insider ;-) but I am seriously questioning this theory. Why? First of all, the PowerPC core is an important part of the Cell but not the important part. The PPE is "just" the conductor of the Cell SPUs. Second, the PowerPC architecture is to some extend already open source and already well developed. Third, the 3.2 GHz PowerPC core was already on IBMs roadmap for the PowerPC family and therfore not Cell or Sony specific. IBM was at a point where thy have to offer Apple a next generation CPU for their Macs and this was a PowerPC based architecture at hat time. As we know now, Apple moved over to Intel due to their less power consuming Dual Core CPUs and changed their CPU architecture once again after their initial move from 68000 family to the PowerPC family.

Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that IBM didn't share anything between both customers, but that was part of the concept of using someone like IBM as a development partner. Their compentence and expertise to actually do a custom development on that scale, this is what helped both, Sony and IBM. STI, the company formed out of Sony, Toshiba and IBM to develop the Cell chip had far more challenges to cope with other than the pure PowerPC core. But that's a different story.

Sony did most probably burned some money with the Cell development that might not come back as an return of investment, but it was for sure not subsidizing Microsoft's 360. Myth busters, where are you?

P.S. I am definitely gonna buy this book as it looks like an interesing read anyway.

Source: ps3fanboy.com

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

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Is Casual Hardcore's Enemy?

There is no doubt video games are becoming more and more of an mainstream business these days. Even though video gaming was already a successful business in the past, the clientel was mostly male at a certain age. Far away from John Doe and the typical mass market. Even though this was a great success in general, both console makers as well as development studios and producers are looking for a continous growth of the business. This is how the economy works.

What I can see nowadays really scares me to a certain extend, as the industry as a whole is clearly targeted towards more digestable and easy games or like some people call them casual games. Well, the term casual might not really hit the spot here as I personally like casual games as well. But the difference between a real casual game and a crappy, cheap video game are really simple: the first being a little snack that is good for 30-45 minutes of quick entertainment for both hardcore gamers as well as beginners, where the latter is just something that is clearly targeted towards people who just started playing video games with no clear idea what's good ad what's bad.

Just take at your preferred video game dealer. Walk around the DS and Wii aisle and you know what I am talking about: loads of loads of mediocre games that have been cranked out just to satisfy the demands of the all new video gamers. The recipe is pretty simple: take a known movie or comic character, make a game around it and boom here is your new video game that sells as a full price game with minimal production costs. Add to that all kinds of brain teasers and animal games and you have all you need to make money these days. Even though some of these games might not be too successful, due to the very low production costs, the risk is minimal.

Compare to that the effort that it takes to develop a typical state of the art next generation game for PS3 or 360 and you see the big difference. Not only does it require 2-3 years (sometimes even more) to finish such a high profile production, it also takes sometimes more than 100 people all together to actually create the final product. The only problem is, they sell at the same price as the aforementioned crap games.

Ok, one could argue that this is ok, as those crappy games will actually sponsor the more expensive games in the end. Well, this is true as long as it is the case. The trend in the industry looks actually different: take a look at the Wii or DS again. It's really hard to find a decent gam on these platforms and if there is one, it comes for sure from nintendo itself. The rest of the industry is using this platforms to sell those high profit games instead of those what a hardcore gamer would consider a good game.

Due to that observation I am scared by those latest market trends. The new popularity of video games is good, but what if this means that the industry as a whole is focused more or less on the easy money instead of dealing both customer groups. Sure, there is room for both customer segments, but it is so seductive for producers to go the low risk path instead of staring an unclear multi-million development endeavor.

Personally I think it is critical that companies like Sony and Microsoft need to make sure that cistomers understand the value of the both online platform, PSN and Xbox Live. Both companies need to offer easy to approach but nevertheless good games in order to get those new customers slowly to point where they are able to enjoy more complex games. In that respect games like Super Rub'a'Dub or Sudoku are key for those customer. But it's not just enough to develop those games, they obviously need to be advertised at the same time. How can you as a new gamer know about a game like Super Rub'a'Dub that's available on PSN only without having a PS3 in the first place.

Coming back to my original point though I can see the day coming (especially in these tough financial conditions) when a lot of the hardcore productions have been replaced by those aforementioned "casual" games. Let's just hope that this is not going to happen, as console platforms like PS3 or the 360 are nothing without the right content. On the other side it is critical for both companies that customers re becoming more mature and demanding in terms of new games, instead of buying Wii Sports 25.

In that respect I'll do what I can to bring the PS3 to my family and friends. It just takes a few demos to get them hooked. Happy demoing ;-)

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