God of War III: ESRB Rated “M”, lol?
by saberwolf on Feb.26, 2010, under Adventure
The God of War (GoW) lineup has been a quality series for the Playstation brand for quite some time but the boys over at Sony are treating this latest rendition like no other. They set out to push the PS3 to it’s limits and apparently the ESRB too. This game takes gore to a whole new level: Decapitations, Impalement, Pulling off of finger nails; This could be the goriest game I’ve ever seen, which only makes me want to play it more. Gametrailers TV (GTTV) with Geoff Keighley did a showcase (gore fest) on this very game in their latest episode. It’s only 21 minutes and it covers a few other titles coming up this year but GoW looks so ridiculous I had to post it.
The guys over at NeoGAF have already started breaking the video down and making some SICK .GIF’s: Forum Thread. You can also download the raw .FLV HERE if you want to save it and watch it at your leisure, i.e. when your boss isn’t around.
You have something in the corner of your eye. Lemme get it for you...
It’s about that time…DVD Demise.
by saberwolf on Feb.25, 2010, under Uncategorized
We’ve all wondered for some time now when the day would come when the DVD just isn’t enough and I think it’s about that time…
Let’s have a little history lesson first off:
It all started with the DVD and the PS2. The orginal PS2 disc’s weren’t infact DVD’s, but a Hybrid disc that Sony developed specifically for the PS2. They did make the PS2 compatible with DVD’s as an added feature but eventually this “added feature” became the standard media format to develop games on. The orginal X-Box used it and with the “earlier” realease of the X-Box 360, they also followed suit. Time passes and Sony who is falling behind in the gaming market boldly moves ahead and decides to develop games on there “next-gen” media format, the Blu-ray Disc. Mircosoft inturn adopts the HD-DVD and the format wars begin. Utimately the Blu-ray Disc wins because of Disney (my opinion, but do you blame me?) and Mircosoft allows returns on all the HD-DVD players that they sold for their X-Box 360′s. So here’s the result: PS3 with minimal console sales using Blu-ray, and Mircosoft using the DVD with rather large console sales. Everyone’s okay with that, right? Wrong. Microsoft’s big asset this time around was the number of Playstation exclusives that they turned into multi-console games and the number of exclusives the company acquired; The same move that Song made on the gaming world during the era of the PS2. The problem lies in the fact that their is such a dramatic difference between the DVD and a Blu-ray disc we as consumers always knew that one day this quality would play a large factor in game development itself.
This is a comparasion chart of two media mediums: (it’s a bit dated but it’s still accurate)
| Feature | DVD | Blu-ray |
| Maximum native resolutions supported via HDMI | EDTV (480p) | HDTV (720p, 1080i, 1080p) |
| Disc capacity | 4.7GB (single layer)
8.5GB (dual layer) |
25GB (single layer)
50GB (dual layer) |
| Video capacity (per dual-layer disc) | SD: approximately 3 hours | SD: approximately 23 hours
HD: 8.5 or 5.6 hours, depending on encoding method |
| Compatible video game consoles | PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Xbox, Xbox 360 | PlayStation 3 |
| Player prices | $99 and less | $170+ for Profile 1.1 players
$250+ for Profile 2.0 players $400 for PlayStation 3 |
| Movie prices | $6 and more (retail) | $20 to $28 (retail) |
| Number of titles available at the end of 2008 | 90,000-plus | about 1,000 |
| Set-top recorders available now | Yes | No |
| Copy protection/digital rights management | Macrovision, CSS | AACS, ICT, BD+, BD-ROM Mark |
| Region-coded discs and players | Yes | Yes |
The medium that a game is on can make the life of a gamer much more enjoyable. Anyone remember when Half-Life 2 came out and if you bought the CD version you had to sit through a 7 CD install? Then you went over your buddies and he had his DVD version sitting there in it’s “one disc glory”. The X-Box is feeling these same effects. Developers are either packaging multiple DVD’s in one box and requiring installs of the additional discs to the harddrive or limiting the product as a whole. These limits can even be seen in graphics or features throughout the game.
One of the biggest examples of this issue is in the upcoming release of Final Fantasy XIII. The game itself is slated to be around 25gb total. This either means one dual-layer blu-ray disc or 3 DVD’s. 2 of those DVD’s will need to be preinstalled; a total of 18.3gb of data on your harddrive whether you like it or not. Rumor has it that the game was developed on a different graphics engine to compensate for the space restrictions of the DVD. If you search the internets you can find several sites with comparasion screenshots between the two versions but little can be distingushed between the 2, so if they did use a different graphics engine they did an awesome job with the equivalent. As a developer that has to be a major pain. (<-Great Movie)
Games like God of War 3 are releasing with 35 gigs of content and if Microsoft doesn’t see this as a problem they should. They may have the “real” next-gen console lead but if they don’t look over their shoulder and try to fix some things the PS3 is going to sneak up on them with the consumers and the game developers leading the rush.
Zero Punctuation: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
by saberwolf on Dec.01, 2009, under FPS
…well it’s been awhile, so i probably should get caught up. To get this blog-ball rolling again i figured I’d steal a page from Yahtzee over at The Escapist. Call of Duty: Modern Warefare 2 (CoD:MF2) smashed all the records when it came to FPS sales on opening day (over 7 million copies worldwide), making Halo 3 look like the latest in the Sonic the Hedgehog series. So does the game live up to all the hype?
1UP writes: “Mixing real-world locations with bombastic set-pieces MW2 continues the guided, thrill-ride experiences of its predecessor, and adds even more depth to its multiplayer offerings. It might not have fixed all the problems from the first game, but there’s just so much quality content packed into this game that it will almost certainly be one of the most-played games in your library for a long time to come.”
…lets see how Yahtzee feels about this game:
Epic Fail… Well at least 54.2% Fail
by saberwolf on Aug.19, 2009, under Uncategorized
I stole this from The Consumerist who stole it from Game Informer. Isn’t the internet grand?
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Game Informer Finds Xbox 360 Failure Rate is 54.2 Percent
i wonder if this is a Japanese remake too?
The Xbox 360 breaks five times as often as its closest failure-prone competitor, the PlayStation 3, a print edition-only Game Informer survey found.
The poorly manufactured, red ring of death-prone console has a 54.2 percent failure rate, compared to 10.6 percent for the PS3 and the Wii’s 6.8 percent.
The magazine surveyed nearly 5,000 readers to get the data. And while the 360′s rate is alarmingly higher than the others, it’s still bafflingly low because it blows the mind to imagine that 45.8 percent of the consoles have not broken. Also, Microsoft’s numbers are inflated because 360s are used the most of the three consoles. Results said 40.3 percent of 360 owners use the console three to five hours a day, compared to 37 percent of PS3 owners. Meanwhile, the plurality of Wii owners (41.4 percent) play their consoles less than an hour a day.
Microsoft also seized the gold medal for unhelpful customer service, taking nearly a month to repair or replace a console, while Nintendo and Sony stuck closer to a week. Only 37.7 percent of Microsoft customers found the company’s customer service was “very helpful,” compared to 51.1 percent fo Sony and 56.1 percent for Nintendo.
The most shocking number from the survey — and frightening from a consumer perspective — is only 3.8 percent of Xbox 360 owners said they’d never buy another Xbox because of hardware failure.
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SO what have we gathered from this article: 1.) If you buy a 360 the chances of you getting the R-ROD (that’s what we call the red ring of death here at cstGaming) is quite similar to that of a coin flip. 2.) The people that buy 360′s could care less that their hardware is shit. 3.) Regardless of how superior the PS3 is the 360 still rules the realm of TV based consoles. 4.) Nintendo Wii is not real.
Swine flu inspires new video game
by saberwolf on Aug.17, 2009, under Sim
…this one is for AbraXas.
The things i find on my news updates at work:
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By MARIA CHENG,Associated Press Writer AP – Tuesday, August 18
LONDON – Since swine flu first emerged in April, it has sparked panic, vaccine production and now, a video game.
In an effort to further raise awareness, Dutch researchers have created a game that challenges players to control a new pandemic.
“It is actually what is happening now, what is happening in the real world,” said Albert Osterhaus, head of virology at the Erasmus Medical Center, who designed “The Great Flu” game with colleagues.
The game can only be played online at http://www.thegreatflu.com and it is free. A World Health Organization spokesman said Monday the agency was not familiar with the game and had not had time to play it.
WHO has reported nearly 178,000 cases of swine flu including 1,462 deaths worldwide, though those numbers are believed to be a gross underestimate of the actual caseload, since hard-hit countries no longer test all cases with flu-like symptoms.
As the virus has spread worldwide, countries have tried different methods to slow it down and pharmaceutical companies are now racing to produce a swine flu vaccine.
The game begins with images of bedridden patients and graveyards from the 1918 Spanish flu. As the head of the fictitious “World Pandemic Control,” players pick a flu strain, and then monitor that strain’s spread around the world.
To fight the emerging outbreak, players use measures including setting up surveillance systems, stockpiling antivirals and vaccines, and closing schools and airports. Players also have a limited budget and are warned that “your actions to control the virus cost money, so keep an eye on it.”
A running tally of the numbers of people infected and those who have died sit above the budget. Newspaper stories about the deadly virus and the global response to it _ like riots breaking out worldwide _ pop up to help players monitor the outbreak.
Messages from governments mirror the difficulties faced by international agencies like WHO. For instance, when players set up costly surveillance systems, the game often relays a message from governments that “we will comply with your directions…but we must inform you that the political support for this action is low in this region. Therefore, the effectiveness of the system may differ from your expectations.”
Osterhaus said the video game’s approximation of combating a pandemic, choosing between various interventions yet still watching the outbreak spread, gives people a sense of how difficult it is to make decisions in the public health world.
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Seriously though, this game is one of the coolest sim games i’ve ever played. It’s has a full flash interface and is very easy to use. Handling something like this isn’t something you’d see yourself doing everyday which makes it all the more interesting. It’s free…. so there’s no reason you shouldn’t check it out.
p.s. don’t get the swine flu…who seriously wants to smell like pigs while they’re sick?
