[Blog] PS3 appears on BBC's Watchdog

I've had quite a few members of the public approaching me at work in regards to a recent episode of Watchdog that was aired on BBC a couple of weeks ago.

For those un-aware BBC's Watchdog aired an investigation about the 'Yellow Light of Death' (the standby light flickers a yellow colour, telling the user their is a fault) that can sometimes occur on Playstation 3s. According to the BBCs research, 12,500 PS3s have had the yellow light of death. This figure is believed to be drawn from Sony's own figures that state 0.5% of the 2.5 million PS3s sold in the UK have developed a fault. As part of the programme, they offered members of the public a free repair service (2 guys, in a van, outside Sony's UK Head Office). The main point of all this is that outside of the consoles normal one year warranty, if you want your console fixed, you'll need to shell out some cash to Sony to get it fixed.

[Game News] Sparkster is Returning!

Awesome, Amazing, Brilliant, Superb!

What's made me so happy? Konami are bringing one of my favourite (not to mention under-rated) retro gaming characters to the 360, PS3 and PC. That everyone, is the Rocket Knight called Sparkster

It's a new game, devolped by Climax Studios (responsible for Silent Hil Origins), a 2.5d platform game, which is being released on Xbox Live Arcade, the Playstation Network and on PC via Steam.

Axel returns as Sparkster's nemesis and is set 15 years after the last Rocket Knight Adventures game. Konami producer Tomm Hulett, who is a fan of the previous games is producing it, which is a very good sign!

All and all, I'm truly excited..and I've got a very good feeling that this will be awesome.

1UP have a 5-day exclusive on the new game, which I highly recomend you check out. They've got a few early images and are set to post the first trailer of the game on the 9th October.

Rocket Knight Adventures is penned for a release in early 2010.

[Blog] The Great Divide?

After just logging into Xbox.com I had to pause, step back, and then consider what kind of gamer I'm becoming. What could I mean? What caused me to stop and ponder? Ladies and gentlemen, read on...

For those un-aware, when you log into Xbox.com it lists the last 6 games that you've played on your 360/PC. These are mine at the time of posting:


Can you see a certain genre of gaming shining through? In my defence both The Beatles Rock Band and Guitar Hero 5 were new releases, but still, its becoming quite clear to all that I'm currently enjoying living the pretend life of a rock star.

Between myself and my housemates we have enough plastic instruments for 2 full band line-ups. For our house, it seems Guitar Hero/Rock Band is the ultimate in social gaming, a genre of games that brings us all into the front room.

This leads me onto the main reason for this post, and that is the divide between social/casual gaming and the more 'hardcore' gaming community.

Casual gaming has been around for years. Quick, short, pick up and play style games. I'd quite happily sit music games into this category. You can also probably add 80%+ of the Nintendo Wii's catalogue of games into this category, not forgetting the ever-growing popularity of games on Facebook such as FarmVille.
Your hardcore games however, are the kind of games that immerse you into a large complex storyline, and generally a large amount of hours. Take for example gamers who spend a good portion of their days/evenings online playing online shooters such as Call of Duty 4 online, or (like my housemate of late) plunging 50 odd hours into an RPG.

After reading countless articles, its clear alot of people see themselves as one or the other. Even those (and their are many of them) who sit on the fence of the two gaming styles will probably lean more to one than the other.

After seeing my recently played games list I began to wonder if I was becoming more of a casual gamer. A look at my shelves of games dismisses this thought however, as I'm a keen fan of RPGs, which is enforced by Tales of Vesperia sitting between the Rock Bands and Guitar Heroes in my games played list. Not to mention the time I take in catching up on general gaming news. I just feel at the moment I haven't had the time to really sit down and get fully involved with a game.

So what about you guys, what would say you were? A more casual/social gaming kind of person? Or would you say you're more of a hardcore gamer?

Feel free to comment your thoughts, I hope to delve deeper into gaming trends in a future blog post, aswell as discussing any points raised by you guys!

[Guest Writer] Why I Love EA

The following article has been written by a Mr Ben Taylor, a good friend of mine who has kindly sent me a couple of articles to pop online. This particular one talks about a certain major player in the videogames industry, who over the years have recieved a fair amount of flak... How times change..

Enjoy!

--------------------

Why I love EA

There was a time in my youth where EA would bring forth feelings of derision and disdain in my young mind. I viewed them as the scourge of videogames, dispensing of heart and soul for capital, releasing the same game year in, year out; Fifa being the main culprit, along with Need for Speed. I remember the heartache I felt when I found that EA had bought Criterion, and braced myself for ‘Burnout 7: Low Rider Destruction Tour’ , where you played Jean Claude Van Damme and had to fit your low rider with guns and blow up the other pimps, as all the ho’s would flock to you. It was very similar to Burnout 6: Sizzle Pimps.

How wrong I was. Burnout 6 instead has been a forerunner in how to really work download content. Giving content away for free to entice the player to keep playing, then using that trust to ease the fanbase into paid content, culminating in the creation Big Surf Island, a place that is big enough to be a game within itself. It has also shown publishers how to combat the pre-owned market, giving away content means people hold on to their games, a method which is now being employed by all the biggest games, at least on 360. Gears, Halo, CoD, Fable and Fallout have all trickled through the download content, following the path set by Burnout Paradise and EA.

The two games I mentioned at the start of this have also been given new impetus thanks to the turnaround at EA. Fifa is finally the king of the soccer game. Anybody who says Pro Evo is still better hasn’t played Fifa 09. Fifa, although not the first to do it, as good as gives you two games in the box with its excellent Be A Pro mode, and is the first Fifa to dip its toes into something I feel will be incredibly important going forward. You can opt to have one league have its players skills improved or diminished based on how they are performing in real life. One league is free, any more and you have to pay, a very fair deal. I foresee this as the future of sports games. Small updates to the game and transfers done real time based on a subscription model. Fans given the option of either a 1200 MS point fee to update all the players and add the new tweaks to the game but keep the same front end and visual engine or to buy the new retail game at £40. If you want to play against the players with the new game you can update your older version. Madden is already plotting a course with a similar method and I feel it will be a success, EA setting the course for the rest to follow.

Need for Speed is also going through the changes. Back when Criterion was bought who’d have thought that they’d end up being a team working on one of 4 Need for Speed SKU’s including an online only game.

Spore would never have been funded by any other publisher. The Sims would never have existed, let alone 3 iterations. And Henry Hatsworth would be a drawing in the back of a Maths book.

What other company has the gall to release two massive ip’s at Christmas, one with an untried game mechanic. Dead Space and Mirrors Edge didn't perform as expected and I really hope it hasn’t put EA off trying new ip’s as Dead Space is phenomenal and Mirrors Edge, when it’s clicking and you’re not stop/starting with gunplay, is exhilarating.

EA have also recognised the diminishing returns of games. They have recently dumped the Godfather license and the Lord of the Rings license, stating that no more games will be made from those licenses.

Listening to the 1up podcast it was hypothesised that Command & Conquer 4 would be the first major PC game without a retail version, something that I wouldn’t bet against.

The irony regarding my youth was that I was a Nintendo fanboy. A company that has left its major core franchises with so little breathing space. Metroid is now being made by Team Ninja, Mario had to go into outer space for refreshment and Zelda, well, and I don’t think we’ll be seeing Zelda for a while. Zelda has become so stuck in its ways and it will take a major over hall to become in any way relevant to modern gaming.

I don’t know who initiated the turnaround in EA’s outlook but I’m glad it happened. I think it could have been influenced by EA’s biggest publisher crown being passed to Activision, giving them more reason to innovate but whatever it was, I’m glad it happened.

BT

[Update] Remember Me?

Remember the guy who promised you further round-ups following on from E3? Yep..that was me..and I'm very sorry for not following through with my promise. I've made the decision to stop making promises based on blog posts until I get into the swing of making regular updates. You could argue that I'm making a promise not to make promises, but enough about that...

Anyway, with the apology out of the way, lets move on...

A couple of weeks ago, the UK government published the 'Digital Britain' report. Within this report were a few key points in regards to the games industry, the major one being the decision to side with PEGI video games rating system, instead of the long standing BBFC ones.

For those who aren't sure what it is I'm talking about, PEGI (Pan European Game Information) ratings are already seen on some games. Their ratings come in several different flavours, such as 12+ and 16+. Aswell as a recommended age they also provide little markings on the back of the box which show if the game includes violence, sexual themes and swearing, using symbols.

The BBFC rated games however (that's the British Board of Film Classification) can be identified by the recommended age of the product (U, 12, 15, 18), surrounded by a circle, and can also be found more commonly on film titles.

Within the next year or so, you'll see more and more PEGI rated titles and less BBFC ones, until finally PEGI completely takes over the reins.

What's my view on all this? Personally, I find BBFC ratings to be more prominent, which is helped by the fact parents see BBFC ratings on DVDs and the such. The way in which the ratings are displayed are clearer. PEGI have shown since the report that they will be slightly changing the way in which their age ratings will be displayed, adding a bit of colour to the mix, which should hopefully make them stand out a little more than they currently do. I do like the symbol system PEGI use in conjunction with the age rating, as it helps to identify what makes that particular game the age rating that it is.

The important thing will be the transition between the two. As always, alot of the pressure of enforcing and educating the new single form of age ratings to the general public will fall to retail members of staff.

I can't see it affecting the general public too much. Yes, in most cases the ratings will look different, but the concept is still the same. For more information on PEGI ratings, visit their website, which can be found here.

Before I close up this post, I though I'd share this with you:


That folks, is the contents of Activision's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Prestige Edition. And yes, they are working night vision goggles. The price? $149. No word on a UK release as of yet. Check Kotaku's article for full details of the contents.

Oh, and one more thing. I've just read an article on MCV in regards to a statement made by Sony executive Peter Edwards. He revealed that currently less than 30% of PSN users who download and use Playstation Home return after their first go. That's a huge 70% of people who haven't returned (of which, I am one of). In Sony's defence, they have increased the content within Home over the past few months, but, well, in my case, the time in which it takes to download all the needed updates (not to mention all the downloading of areas that you walk into) is a massive put-off. The content in Home just doesn't seem worth it just yet. Sony took a gamble with Home, it's a massive project, and I would like it to become a better product, as it has potential, but with figures like the ones above, it must feel to the people behind Home to be a massive uphill climb.

Just to add to the end of this post, I'm now in my new room. That's right, I've spread my wings and am now living with 3 of my friends. I just hope they can encourage me to stop being lazy and get writing on a more regular basis.

Until next time...which shall hopefully be sooner rather than later!