A Gaming Diary
PS3
Forumla 1 CE Demo (PS3)
Mar 23rd
With the driving aids on and damage off it’s very dull indeed.
With the driving aids off and damage on it’s much more dynamic, but my wheels keep falling off.
I don’t think I’ll be buying the full game, though for patient, careful F1 fans it seems like it could be decent.
Genji: Days of the Blade Demo (PS3)
Mar 23rd
Rubbish. It’s fairly standard hack and slash action with lovely lighting and a terrible, terrible camera is appalling.
I mean, I did get to fight a giant enemy crab and expose its weak spot to do massive damage, but it wasn’t really much fun.
Ridge Racer 7 Demo (PS3)
Mar 23rd
It’s meant to be more or less the same as Ridge Racer 6. It’s not, there’s a big difference: in RR6 I could win races. In this demo, my best position is tenth. Ouch.
Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection (PS3)
Mar 23rd
This is marvellous. Can’t remember any of the moves from my time on the PSP version, but never mind. It’s really great fun, but I’ve got up to what I presume is a boss as he’s incredibly annoying and I can’t beat him. I had a few goes and gave up.
Gran Turismo HD (PS3)
Mar 23rd
It plays just like Gran Turismo; it looks prettier.
And there’s not very much to it.
Third Impressions (PS3)
Mar 23rd
Well, I’ve now set Gran Turismo HD, Tekken Dark Resurrection, Gripshift and demos of Formula 1, Genji and Ridge Racer 7 to download.
Gran Turismo is finished and is now installing itself, which takes a strangely lengthy amount of time. Ah! Here we go! Now to… play!
Second Impressions (PS3)
Mar 23rd
It’s bloody massive. Huge. Enormous.
Plugged optical, HDMI and power cables in round the back. Plugged the controller and a USB keyboard in round the front.
Set it up easily enough – connected to my wi-fi network without hassle. Am in 1080i mode, but may drop down to 720p and see if that’s better. Audio’s coming out of my receiver via an optical connection.
Am now doing an update to the system software to get it up to 1.60.
One day I may even play a game on this thing!
First Impressions (PS3)
Mar 23rd
It’s really, really heavy and doesn’t fit into my trolley.
Also: I’m sick and it’s raining.
I’ll set it up soon.
Trip To Gamestation
Mar 17th
So, this afternoon my lovely wife and I wheeled about a hundred and fifty old games or so up to Gamestation.
They wouldn’t take Just Cause or Tomb Raider: Legend because they were imports. I’d forgotten about that. Just Cause was actually a PAL copy, but had “Distribution outside the UK only” written on the back, so I they wouldn’t take it. They also couldn’t take Michigan: Report from Hell, which though an official UK release was obviously so badly distributed that no copies even made it as far as the Gamestation central computer.
When pulling the games out of the bag I decided I couldn’t part with Mario Golf, Hitman Contracts, Virtua Fighter 4 Evolution or Thief: Deadly Shadows, so they come home with us, too.
Anyway, after all that I was given a credit note for a massive £543, which means that on Friday we can get a Playstation 3 with two or three games. Hooray!
I’m now absolutely terrified of losing that credit note. I’m effectively going to be carrying around over half a grand in my wallet for the next week. Eek.
(If I left it at home I’d be terrified of a fire burning it up, or rats eating it, or gremlins stealing it, or a local time-space disturbance sucking it into an unholy vortex.)
Playstation 3 Plans
Mar 4th
I went into Gamestation today and put down £20 on a Playstation 3. Probably won’t get one on launch day, they don’t reckon, but I’m not overly bothered. The reason I’ve gone there – when Game and many online stores still have preorders for launch day open – is that I want to trade in games against the cost of the console, given that it costs an obscene amount of money in this country, and Gamestation give the best prices in town.
To that end I went through all my PS2, Xbox, 360 and Gamecube games and asked a series of questions.
1) Is it a UK game? If no, leave on shelf, if yes, proceed to next question.
2) Will I, thinking realistically, ever play it again in my life? If yes, leave on shelf, if no, proceed to next question.
3) Is it something that, even if it won’t get played, will still be loved? If yes, leave on shelf, if no, put in “to be traded” pile.
I’ve ended with about two hundred games to trade in and the vast majority of the games that I’m keeping are only staying because they’re foreign. They’re mostly very old PS and Xbox games that I picked up very cheaply several years ago, so I doubt I’d get more than a quid or two each. And I’m guessing the likes of Pro Evolution Soccer 2 and Dave Mirra BMX 2 won’t even be taken. Even the most recent stuff I’m getting rid of – 360 launch titles – won’t be worth anything much by now. I’m not going to take everything in at once, but some time in the next couple of weeks I’ll be taking the first hundred or so up to Gamestation. I’ll see what happens.
The person behind the counter is going to hate me, I’m sure.
(Actually, I’m pretty sure my Dave Mirra 2 is a US copy, so I shouldn’t have put it in the bag. I’ll find out in Gamestation, I guess. And I’m already regretting not keeping Mario Golf on the Gamecube, so I think I’ll take that back, too.)
