Black and White goes clunky
Yes, I know - it's been forever since I lasted posted.
That big huge rant on backwards compatibility then nothing for nine months
So, what's going on in my world of game?
Well, on Christmas Day a shiny white Wii took up residence next to the TV.
Initial response was pretty good - we managed to get both mine and my wife's parents up and playing on Wii Sports and Resident Evil Chronicles was enjoyable (hey, you knew we'd have bought that).
The niggles have slowly crept up on us.
The Virtual Console is good and the fact that you can use old Gamecube controllers on most games has saved me buying yet another controller - but the whole Wii points thing is a little unwieldy - particularly if you are trying to transfer Stars from old Nintendo accounts - It took me from december to early August to get all my Stars transferred (and I only had a few thousand).
Nintendo have this rubbish idea that you can only purchase one Wii points card a day online and that they only have a 'limited number' available.
Huh?
So I have to log onto the website, sign in with my Nintendo account, click on the link to the wiipoints page, log in again(!), see what value of cards they have available at that point, normally shake my head as they say that no cards are available, occasionally - rapidly - click on a icon that says cards are available in set amounts, click another yes to the question of do you want to transfer the points, click the okay that follows, click onto purchase details, copy onto paper the 16 digit number that accompanies that 'purchase', exit the browser (which on the Wii costs 800 points!), load up the Shop Channel, click the 'Start Shopping' button on the news page, click the wii points, click the add points, click on the redeem voucher, click on the empty box, use a point and click system to enter that number from earlier, click enter, click confirm and then I've finally managed to change 400 Stars into 100 Wii points.
Hardly a good rate of interest.
That is the rather convoluted route required to get any use out of my Stars - I'm still going to have 90 Stars that are just going to get wasted as Nintendo have decided to make old points expire. And it looks like every time I buy a game, I'm going to have to do this again.
It doesn't encourage me to buy Wii points.
And the selection of games is still made up of far too many cheap looking party games and poor quality ports (do yourself a favour - do not buy Alone in the Dark on Wii - it's ruining the series, and the Wiimote controls, for me. Although, at the time of writing, I could write the first actual Wii guide for it as there is not one online)
WiiWare looks like it may be useful but releasing WiiWare titles seems to stop Nintendo releasing Virtual Console titles - the whole online experience is very clunky.
I'm hoping that Brawl and Mario Kart are more user-friendly in this respect. These are about the only games out that I have any interest in (well, and Zack and Wiki maybe)
Of course, I'm still hoping that Secret of Mana or any of the Chrono series get a release
I note that there's going to be a new bit to plug into the Wiimote to increase the accuracy. Thank god but should we really have to pay for this?
It's like Sony insisting that rumble was last gen then triumphantly announcing the Dual Shock 3.
And talking of Sony.
We succumbed and we ended up buying the 60Gb model from eBay after it got removed from the shops promptly on December 1st.
I did mean (and still mean) to purchase a larger HDD to install and still haven't got around to it.
Getting it set up was fairly simple - including deleting the old profile that the previous owner had left on there (I still have your FIFA file though if you need it!) apart from transferring the game saves from Memory cards onto the HDD.
For this, we had to buy a Memory Card adaptor (only available on the second hand market and now a little pointless). Then for the PS3 to be able to read the cards, everything had to switched on and inserted in just the right order - get any of the order wrong just meant the card was unreadable; in one case, this actually corrupted some of the data on the card.
Of the eight memory cards that we owned (for both PS1 and PS2) only one of each of PS1 and PS2 could be read, whatever order we tried (one offical and one Mad Catz third party). So I ended up spending a couple of hours with the PS2, moving _all_ the game saves around to get them onto the cards that could be read then switching TV inputs (thank God with the HDMI lead the two consoles were on different inputs) to get them onto the PS3.
And that was a little clunky also. To get the old Playstation saving system onto the PS3, you have to allocate part of the memory to act as a virtual memory card then transfer the saves from the actual memory card onto the virtual card. Then when playing the older games, you have to assign a slot number to the virtual memory card you want to use.
The Sixaxis motion is poor compared to the Wiimote and I'm planning to get Dualshocks at some point - I'm just still baulking at the price of controllers these days (same on Nintendo).
I'm also not a fan of the revised R2/L2 triggers - they just seem to fall somewhere between the Xbox 360 triggers and the PS2 shoulder buttons and don't seem work as well as either. I do prefer having the analog sticks in line with each other, unlike the X360 style and the controllers are a good size - if a little light.
Sony have done better on PSN - apart from the god awful load times for icons on their shop - and have a better integration to the PSP than Nintendo to the DS.
The DS can accept demos from the Wii now. Since the Nintendo channel started, if you go to the 'find games for me' section, there's an option to download to the DS (I tried out Iron Man and Ninja Gaiden DS) - you can't save anything and the demo is lost when you switch the DS off but it does work pretty well.
That PSN is starting to do more upgraded versions of old games (Bionic Commando is whetting my fancy) is good and there are some PS1 classics available but the pricing does seem a little random with games varying from £3 to £8 and DLC ranges from free to £3.
And being able to download demos and trailers is brilliant - though not being able to install games/demos in the background is very annoying - as is getting system updates that don't mention what they are updating.
I purchased a Jabra BT125 bluetooth headset separately which the PS3 found and accepted very quickly and easily. You can only have one (mono) Bluetooth headset profile stored on the PS3 which could be annoying if co-op multiplayer takes off.
Of course, what I haven't checked to see if that is one headset per account ... I will and report back.
I haven't yet managed to get online with any demo to try multiplayer - this may be an issue with connection speeds on my wireless network but I've certainly managed to get onto the scoreboards for Pain, Super Stardust HD and Eden.
Trophies also are a nice idea, presumably as a small offering from Home, though I wonder over the more competitive idea of Trophies over Achievements. I'm also not certain that having exclusive Trophies (ie no equivalents to Achievements) is going to help the big studios very much.
I'm also a little peeved that Trophies can't retroactively reward you - I've managed to clear all the planets on Stardust but am going to have to do it again.
Anyone able to confirm when (if?) Pain is getting Trophies added? That's a game I really can see trophies coming in for and I don't want to spend too much time on it if they are going to be used.
I'll talk more on games, modems and other thoughts at a little date (including some Xbox 360 stuff) - it's just nice to clear the air sometimes.
That big huge rant on backwards compatibility then nothing for nine months
So, what's going on in my world of game?
Well, on Christmas Day a shiny white Wii took up residence next to the TV.
Initial response was pretty good - we managed to get both mine and my wife's parents up and playing on Wii Sports and Resident Evil Chronicles was enjoyable (hey, you knew we'd have bought that).
The niggles have slowly crept up on us.
The Virtual Console is good and the fact that you can use old Gamecube controllers on most games has saved me buying yet another controller - but the whole Wii points thing is a little unwieldy - particularly if you are trying to transfer Stars from old Nintendo accounts - It took me from december to early August to get all my Stars transferred (and I only had a few thousand).
Nintendo have this rubbish idea that you can only purchase one Wii points card a day online and that they only have a 'limited number' available.
Huh?
So I have to log onto the website, sign in with my Nintendo account, click on the link to the wiipoints page, log in again(!), see what value of cards they have available at that point, normally shake my head as they say that no cards are available, occasionally - rapidly - click on a icon that says cards are available in set amounts, click another yes to the question of do you want to transfer the points, click the okay that follows, click onto purchase details, copy onto paper the 16 digit number that accompanies that 'purchase', exit the browser (which on the Wii costs 800 points!), load up the Shop Channel, click the 'Start Shopping' button on the news page, click the wii points, click the add points, click on the redeem voucher, click on the empty box, use a point and click system to enter that number from earlier, click enter, click confirm and then I've finally managed to change 400 Stars into 100 Wii points.
Hardly a good rate of interest.
That is the rather convoluted route required to get any use out of my Stars - I'm still going to have 90 Stars that are just going to get wasted as Nintendo have decided to make old points expire. And it looks like every time I buy a game, I'm going to have to do this again.
It doesn't encourage me to buy Wii points.
And the selection of games is still made up of far too many cheap looking party games and poor quality ports (do yourself a favour - do not buy Alone in the Dark on Wii - it's ruining the series, and the Wiimote controls, for me. Although, at the time of writing, I could write the first actual Wii guide for it as there is not one online)
WiiWare looks like it may be useful but releasing WiiWare titles seems to stop Nintendo releasing Virtual Console titles - the whole online experience is very clunky.
I'm hoping that Brawl and Mario Kart are more user-friendly in this respect. These are about the only games out that I have any interest in (well, and Zack and Wiki maybe)
Of course, I'm still hoping that Secret of Mana or any of the Chrono series get a release
I note that there's going to be a new bit to plug into the Wiimote to increase the accuracy. Thank god but should we really have to pay for this?
It's like Sony insisting that rumble was last gen then triumphantly announcing the Dual Shock 3.
And talking of Sony.
We succumbed and we ended up buying the 60Gb model from eBay after it got removed from the shops promptly on December 1st.
I did mean (and still mean) to purchase a larger HDD to install and still haven't got around to it.
Getting it set up was fairly simple - including deleting the old profile that the previous owner had left on there (I still have your FIFA file though if you need it!) apart from transferring the game saves from Memory cards onto the HDD.
For this, we had to buy a Memory Card adaptor (only available on the second hand market and now a little pointless). Then for the PS3 to be able to read the cards, everything had to switched on and inserted in just the right order - get any of the order wrong just meant the card was unreadable; in one case, this actually corrupted some of the data on the card.
Of the eight memory cards that we owned (for both PS1 and PS2) only one of each of PS1 and PS2 could be read, whatever order we tried (one offical and one Mad Catz third party). So I ended up spending a couple of hours with the PS2, moving _all_ the game saves around to get them onto the cards that could be read then switching TV inputs (thank God with the HDMI lead the two consoles were on different inputs) to get them onto the PS3.
And that was a little clunky also. To get the old Playstation saving system onto the PS3, you have to allocate part of the memory to act as a virtual memory card then transfer the saves from the actual memory card onto the virtual card. Then when playing the older games, you have to assign a slot number to the virtual memory card you want to use.
The Sixaxis motion is poor compared to the Wiimote and I'm planning to get Dualshocks at some point - I'm just still baulking at the price of controllers these days (same on Nintendo).
I'm also not a fan of the revised R2/L2 triggers - they just seem to fall somewhere between the Xbox 360 triggers and the PS2 shoulder buttons and don't seem work as well as either. I do prefer having the analog sticks in line with each other, unlike the X360 style and the controllers are a good size - if a little light.
Sony have done better on PSN - apart from the god awful load times for icons on their shop - and have a better integration to the PSP than Nintendo to the DS.
The DS can accept demos from the Wii now. Since the Nintendo channel started, if you go to the 'find games for me' section, there's an option to download to the DS (I tried out Iron Man and Ninja Gaiden DS) - you can't save anything and the demo is lost when you switch the DS off but it does work pretty well.
That PSN is starting to do more upgraded versions of old games (Bionic Commando is whetting my fancy) is good and there are some PS1 classics available but the pricing does seem a little random with games varying from £3 to £8 and DLC ranges from free to £3.
And being able to download demos and trailers is brilliant - though not being able to install games/demos in the background is very annoying - as is getting system updates that don't mention what they are updating.
I purchased a Jabra BT125 bluetooth headset separately which the PS3 found and accepted very quickly and easily. You can only have one (mono) Bluetooth headset profile stored on the PS3 which could be annoying if co-op multiplayer takes off.
Of course, what I haven't checked to see if that is one headset per account ... I will and report back.
I haven't yet managed to get online with any demo to try multiplayer - this may be an issue with connection speeds on my wireless network but I've certainly managed to get onto the scoreboards for Pain, Super Stardust HD and Eden.
Trophies also are a nice idea, presumably as a small offering from Home, though I wonder over the more competitive idea of Trophies over Achievements. I'm also not certain that having exclusive Trophies (ie no equivalents to Achievements) is going to help the big studios very much.
I'm also a little peeved that Trophies can't retroactively reward you - I've managed to clear all the planets on Stardust but am going to have to do it again.
Anyone able to confirm when (if?) Pain is getting Trophies added? That's a game I really can see trophies coming in for and I don't want to spend too much time on it if they are going to be used.
I'll talk more on games, modems and other thoughts at a little date (including some Xbox 360 stuff) - it's just nice to clear the air sometimes.
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