Hardware woes
The monthly update - a month or so late ...
Meh, I'm sure you all will forgive me
I have been noticing recently the things around gaming on the consoles that would make things easier.
If PS3 could enable much more background loading, that would be nice.
If it could also provide a better breakdown of the contents of the hard drive, that would be another welcome addition for an update.
While the Xbox 360 allows me to see exactly how much room is taken up by games, videos, demos, etc at once, the PS3 only allows for 'all the memory' or item by item, which is very dull.
And I remember news stories back when Home was first introduced about being able to have your trophies onshow for friends to wander through and look at. How much longer will that take?
I kinda like the idea of having a gallery of my trophies that I can walk through and examine in detail. Some point soon, Home team?
Talking of Home, I am liking that companies are bringing out Second Life style mini areas for games. But if they are going to do it, they do need to keep on top of things. At the time of writing, the Resident Evil 5 area on Home only has game launching activated. The game has been out for four months now - you think that one of the three areas with the big 'coming soon' signs would be up and running by now.
EA is showing how fast changes to an area can happen with their sports area - just seems typical of Capcom to notice a zeitgeist and not quite get it right.
I mentioned last time about Resident Evil 5
and the likelihood of my having to play it solo. Well, wife number one can't quite keep her hands off the controllers any more so she tried it out.
The default control set-up proved, like Gears of War 2 to be too awkward but messing around with each different set-up meant that she found a system that actually works.
It's kinda interesting that while I stay with the starting normal, fastest aim, control D (strafe movement) she goes with the invert y, default aim, control type A (legacy movement). But that is also as likely to to her survival horror based game history while I've been fairly big on action adventures these last few years.
Yes, we've saved the world from bio-weapon infection for now and I didn't need to deal with the Sheva AI that forums are bitching about.
I do wish that developers would allow for players preference's with controls. It is a pet peeve of mine when controls are set to one type - particularly if they are a non-standard layout. I think it's safe to say that no company is going to risk the bad publicity of suing another company for a similar layout and it makes a game feel a little more finished and a little more 'mine' if I can alter the controls. And it's not just the controls. I want to be about to alter the audio levels (I always like to be able to pull the music down a little without affecting sound effects, voices or cut scene levels; to up the brightness a step or two and so on and turn on the subtitles to aid keeping up with what's going on.
And if I alter the controls, I want any pop up messages to reflect that. I'm fairly certain that it doesn't add much additional programming to make this possible. And I prefer controls that I can totally alter rather than just swopping two buttons somewhere. If I want to have a combination that uses three face buttons rather than shoulder buttons, I want to be able to do that (I wouldn't but i would like the option). I'll settle, as RE5 has shown, for a number of control layouts but they do need to be noticeably different.
On a more positive controller note I recently picked up a Chatpad and headset combo for the Xbox 360.
For anyone who uses Messenger on the 360, the Chatpad is brilliant. It fits between the handles while still allowing you to use the joypad normally; it has a quick messenger start button and the layout is just like a regular QWERTY keyboard - I presume this comes in localised versions. It does make the controller a little heavier but not that much and only seems to draw power when actually being used - and the backlight is bright enough so that you can see the keys clearly.
I have noticed that one or two of the shift keys don't work properly - the ' is over the z and the only way to get it to work is a double tap, which gives 'z. Still, at least it's that way wrong so it's only a quick backspace to clear it. And whether that's just mine I don't know.
Of course, having these means that I've finally bitten the bullet and bought xbox live gold. I still resent having to pay to game online but the lure is too strong. After having bought it though was the point at which I found out that my connection to live is classed as moderate - meaning that I may have issues on some games.
Real life has been busy of late so I haven't had chance to log onto any server yet to check the connection. That, and the inevitable cries of "n00b" whatever game I pick.
But it did give me an excuse to add some more games to my collection (like I needed one :-))
It's been a while since I mentioned Halo 3 (way back in this post) and I finally succumbed to a 2 for £20 offer to pick it up.
It's not grabbing me as yet. Partly this was due to a humungous scratch that meant I had to return the disc before it would let me past the menu screens and partly the opening just wasn't all that exciting. I'll come back to it at some point but it's shelf filler for now.
The other game of the offer was Crackdown which is proving fun. You start by picking one of three vehicles and drive straight into a fire fight which then allows you to open your first supply point to give weapon choice and choice of start locations.
The controls are somewhat clunky for sure and the AI is a little suspect - there was a great moment when a gang of Los Meurtos foot soldiers threw a grenade which bounced off a gate, killing three and opening the gate for me on the other side.
But the freedom in moving around the city is far more involving than the jungle corridor that Halo 3 wants me to walk along.
That's not to say that linear corridors can't be fun - Splosion Man is the latest non-disc game I've purchased, purely on the strength on the demo. And while that is all about the corridors, its definitely worth it's download price and some. I has taken some hours to reach the end but that's 8 of 12 achievements unlocked without using a guide to find my way through any of the levels. I'm taking a break from it at the moment but I will be returning on the cake hunt at some point.
And another spot of good xbox related news - last night was the first point that I realised that parties on live aren't game related. So myself, my best man and his mate were all chatting online, me taking out the last few Los Meurtos gang members on Crackdown and them dodging grenades and air strikes on Call Of Duty 4.I hadn't realised that the voice chat was separate to the game until then - though it makes sense now and is a welcome addition.
Don't think that the Xbox gets all good news this time around though. I finally tracked down my Gears Of War 2 unreadable disc error to the hard drive. It seems that if I take the HDD off and use a memory card the game runs fine - it's just having the hard drive attached that causes issues.
That is dull, but workable around for now.
It's liable to become an issue down the line, though, when space becomes an issue. My profile and dashboard updates are already taking up a fair chunk of memory card storage.
Still, storage is more of an issue on the PS3's 60Gb HDD. At least the Xbox HDD is easily removable. But my PS3 is down to thousands of megabytes rather than gigabytes of storage. It's looking more like I'm going to be opening it up and installing a new HDD.
It is a mystery to me why computer hard drives start at 250Gb and work up and domestic appliances like consoles and recorders start at 20Gb - actually no it's not. It's about selling peripherals, and cost cutting, sadly rather than customer service.
Meh, I'm sure you all will forgive me
I have been noticing recently the things around gaming on the consoles that would make things easier.
If PS3 could enable much more background loading, that would be nice.
If it could also provide a better breakdown of the contents of the hard drive, that would be another welcome addition for an update.
While the Xbox 360 allows me to see exactly how much room is taken up by games, videos, demos, etc at once, the PS3 only allows for 'all the memory' or item by item, which is very dull.
And I remember news stories back when Home was first introduced about being able to have your trophies onshow for friends to wander through and look at. How much longer will that take?
I kinda like the idea of having a gallery of my trophies that I can walk through and examine in detail. Some point soon, Home team?
Talking of Home, I am liking that companies are bringing out Second Life style mini areas for games. But if they are going to do it, they do need to keep on top of things. At the time of writing, the Resident Evil 5 area on Home only has game launching activated. The game has been out for four months now - you think that one of the three areas with the big 'coming soon' signs would be up and running by now.
EA is showing how fast changes to an area can happen with their sports area - just seems typical of Capcom to notice a zeitgeist and not quite get it right.
I mentioned last time about Resident Evil 5
and the likelihood of my having to play it solo. Well, wife number one can't quite keep her hands off the controllers any more so she tried it out.
The default control set-up proved, like Gears of War 2 to be too awkward but messing around with each different set-up meant that she found a system that actually works.
It's kinda interesting that while I stay with the starting normal, fastest aim, control D (strafe movement) she goes with the invert y, default aim, control type A (legacy movement). But that is also as likely to to her survival horror based game history while I've been fairly big on action adventures these last few years.
Yes, we've saved the world from bio-weapon infection for now and I didn't need to deal with the Sheva AI that forums are bitching about.
I do wish that developers would allow for players preference's with controls. It is a pet peeve of mine when controls are set to one type - particularly if they are a non-standard layout. I think it's safe to say that no company is going to risk the bad publicity of suing another company for a similar layout and it makes a game feel a little more finished and a little more 'mine' if I can alter the controls. And it's not just the controls. I want to be about to alter the audio levels (I always like to be able to pull the music down a little without affecting sound effects, voices or cut scene levels; to up the brightness a step or two and so on and turn on the subtitles to aid keeping up with what's going on.
And if I alter the controls, I want any pop up messages to reflect that. I'm fairly certain that it doesn't add much additional programming to make this possible. And I prefer controls that I can totally alter rather than just swopping two buttons somewhere. If I want to have a combination that uses three face buttons rather than shoulder buttons, I want to be able to do that (I wouldn't but i would like the option). I'll settle, as RE5 has shown, for a number of control layouts but they do need to be noticeably different.
On a more positive controller note I recently picked up a Chatpad and headset combo for the Xbox 360.
For anyone who uses Messenger on the 360, the Chatpad is brilliant. It fits between the handles while still allowing you to use the joypad normally; it has a quick messenger start button and the layout is just like a regular QWERTY keyboard - I presume this comes in localised versions. It does make the controller a little heavier but not that much and only seems to draw power when actually being used - and the backlight is bright enough so that you can see the keys clearly.
I have noticed that one or two of the shift keys don't work properly - the ' is over the z and the only way to get it to work is a double tap, which gives 'z. Still, at least it's that way wrong so it's only a quick backspace to clear it. And whether that's just mine I don't know.
Of course, having these means that I've finally bitten the bullet and bought xbox live gold. I still resent having to pay to game online but the lure is too strong. After having bought it though was the point at which I found out that my connection to live is classed as moderate - meaning that I may have issues on some games.
Real life has been busy of late so I haven't had chance to log onto any server yet to check the connection. That, and the inevitable cries of "n00b" whatever game I pick.
But it did give me an excuse to add some more games to my collection (like I needed one :-))
It's been a while since I mentioned Halo 3 (way back in this post) and I finally succumbed to a 2 for £20 offer to pick it up.
It's not grabbing me as yet. Partly this was due to a humungous scratch that meant I had to return the disc before it would let me past the menu screens and partly the opening just wasn't all that exciting. I'll come back to it at some point but it's shelf filler for now.
The other game of the offer was Crackdown which is proving fun. You start by picking one of three vehicles and drive straight into a fire fight which then allows you to open your first supply point to give weapon choice and choice of start locations.
The controls are somewhat clunky for sure and the AI is a little suspect - there was a great moment when a gang of Los Meurtos foot soldiers threw a grenade which bounced off a gate, killing three and opening the gate for me on the other side.
But the freedom in moving around the city is far more involving than the jungle corridor that Halo 3 wants me to walk along.
That's not to say that linear corridors can't be fun - Splosion Man is the latest non-disc game I've purchased, purely on the strength on the demo. And while that is all about the corridors, its definitely worth it's download price and some. I has taken some hours to reach the end but that's 8 of 12 achievements unlocked without using a guide to find my way through any of the levels. I'm taking a break from it at the moment but I will be returning on the cake hunt at some point.
And another spot of good xbox related news - last night was the first point that I realised that parties on live aren't game related. So myself, my best man and his mate were all chatting online, me taking out the last few Los Meurtos gang members on Crackdown and them dodging grenades and air strikes on Call Of Duty 4.I hadn't realised that the voice chat was separate to the game until then - though it makes sense now and is a welcome addition.
Don't think that the Xbox gets all good news this time around though. I finally tracked down my Gears Of War 2 unreadable disc error to the hard drive. It seems that if I take the HDD off and use a memory card the game runs fine - it's just having the hard drive attached that causes issues.
That is dull, but workable around for now.
It's liable to become an issue down the line, though, when space becomes an issue. My profile and dashboard updates are already taking up a fair chunk of memory card storage.
Still, storage is more of an issue on the PS3's 60Gb HDD. At least the Xbox HDD is easily removable. But my PS3 is down to thousands of megabytes rather than gigabytes of storage. It's looking more like I'm going to be opening it up and installing a new HDD.
It is a mystery to me why computer hard drives start at 250Gb and work up and domestic appliances like consoles and recorders start at 20Gb - actually no it's not. It's about selling peripherals, and cost cutting, sadly rather than customer service.
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