The Static Stops Soon

It's getting ridiculous, I'm spending something like 7 hours a day playing this game. It's at the point where I know there's problem, but I just don't give ****.



Typical game, I'm the sorceress and the Bear and Paladin are two of my friends. The Paladin is a member of this site, maybe you can find him. The Bear is a buddy that is completely hooked and never seems to be offline, even more so then the rest of us.

Anyway, if you want to play with us and you're not hardcore at this game then by all means add me at Deep_Throat_1 and yes, I'm quite aware of the jokes so if you think you have a new one don't try, you'll fail.

BTW: Right click view image for full screen goodness.

MARCH CONTINUES!

I completed Max Payne 2 today, it was definitely worth the $10. There are some graphical and gameplay quirks, but overall it's a solid experience with a pretty damn good story. There isn't much replay value though as all the difficulties feel the same except for the last one which limits your saves. The alliterative ending isn't that great either, the original seemed to fit better. I'm considering picking up the original, but I couldn't find it last time.

I was going to write big blog about how things seem to be coming back into my life, such as the return of that summer feeling, a reconnection with an old friend and Diablo II madness, but ironically the last one has me preoccupied so much that it's not going to happen.

March Break  start NOW!

So, I wasn't that far off with my predictions, though I did imagine a cartoony look and was way off. I'm totally happy with PS Home showing, there's definitely a lot of potential there. The fact that the whole thing is free unless you otherwise choose for it not to be is great and because of it I'll probably take part. Having ads everywhere isn't going to bother me, in fact I'm kind of excited to see adds, I guess virtua ads are better then real ones. What helps probably is the idea that there will be events in the world, ie Spiderman 3 showing at 10 or 1up chat at 6. Plus there's things like using your apartment as a lobby for games, getting trophies, getting stuff when you buy/ beat a game and just hanging out with people that are PS3 users like me (will be)

What do you guys think? What did you like, didn't like? Anything you want to see?

There’s very little in this world that could get people as excited as leaked information before a big event, but “Sony stole my idea/ tech/ wife (again)” information draws even more discussion and that’s why you’ve heard nothing, but PS Home for the past couple of days. I don’t want to get into another discussion on whether it’s okay for Sony to do the things people suggest, as most people have already made up their mind. But I’ll be the first to admit it, the PS Home is not the most original idea and yes it does have achievement like functionality, but if the PS Home anything like what we expect it to be no one will be able to say that both things are the same.

For those out of the loop the PS Home is a community feature that will allow users to create a character, but more importantly a home that they can fill with items they receive after completing tasks from future PS3 games. Some have suggested that this system copies the Nintendo Miis featured on the Wii. I want to address that first because it’s an easy fight. The Miis are all about creating a whole bunch of characters that you can share with friends, use in games and have general stupid fun with. The PS Home does none of that. The achievement comparison is where everything becomes much more debatably, but I don’t think that’s valid either as achievements place a focus on numbers where the PS Home is all about the visual.

Let’s start from the beginning with creating a PS Home. Since the home creation of the PS Home is the focus of the feature, it would be reasonable to believe that there are going to be a couple of different homes to choose from at launch and more to come later. Now let’s say the PS3 tracks how many tasks you’ve performed or the PS Home provides a cash value to all the items you receive and as you increase in either you can unlock larger homes for you to place all your stuff. This creates an instant community aspect, as you’ll be able to tell who plays a lot of games or has a lot of time on their hands by just looking at their home. Let’s go larger then that though.

The PS3 already supports a friends list, now imagine that you could click on something and bring up real-time footage of your friends list, but in a neighbourhood fashion. All your friends would be lined up on a street with mailboxes that have their names. You could scroll through their homes or rearrange them in any fashion you’d like: big home to small, A to Z, random, etc. What if you want to send a message to one of your buddies and a mailman or paperboy could be seen walking towards their home. Maybe you’ve set your PS3 calendar to December and snow could be seen falling down from the sky as your buddy’s character slowly shovels away the snow in their part of the sidewalk. Maybe as they finish they could be seen walking into their Christmas decorated home or one with Hanukah candles light.

We’ll enter the home of one of your buddies who really likes his shooters and it’s obvious because his rooms is filled with Resistance, Call of Duty and GRAW stuff. Wallpapers, bed sheets and that coveted Resistance trophy on his desk, which required him to kill 1 million people online. On his desk is an open notebook that has his blog, talking about the new Killzone Trailer that just looks freaking awesome as it plays in a looped fashion on his big screen TV, which he won by being the first to download the demo. In the corner of his room is a shelf that holds all the games he has played on his system arranged in a last time played fashion. Two more shelves in his room hold the movies and albums he’s played on the system and they are also arranged in that fashion. Finally, as we come downstairs we can see that your buddy really likes dogs because all the pictures he’s stored on his PS3 are hung on his walls.

Do all the things in a person’s home require completing a task? No, of course not, things like a blog could come standard so could a basic TV and some photo frames. Maybe other things could be purchased at the Network store for a small fee or maybe some items are free because a company sponsored them (Samsung TV anyone?). Is all of this going to happen, probably not, but then again we don’t necessarily know what exactly the PS Home is. As far as we know, it’s what Phil calls a British joke or what Kotoku calls a mistake.

I’m not saying that Sony has come up with this all on their own, sure there’s a great deal of achievement elements in their and tons of Sims elements as well, but there is a great deal of potential for this rumoured community feature and I highly doubt your Gamer Tag snows.