» 2008 » December

  

Sony mentioned its long waited PlayStation Home would be released before the end of this year, after so many delays and disappointments, Home beta actually got released today! I can’t imagine what the result would be if it wasn’t able to deliver its promise, again.

I was quite excited about hearing it from wired blog because I’m into virtual reality related games such as Second Life. I downloaded a 70+ mb file from the PlayStation Network and I was in the game within minutes. You start out in your own virtual apartment and let me tell you the graphics are stunningly nice. The view is even more impressive if you want out the balcony and look out the the boat yard. Literally breath taking!

  

There are tutorials here what will teach you about the features of Home such as basic action, words and the ability to move your decorations as you see fit. Obviously you can buy more decorations with real money just like you would when purchasing downloadable contents from PlayStation Store.

Every place requires you to download its piece, for example the Mall, which is around 30mb in size. Hopefully my 40GB PlayStation can last for a while because I don’t want to install a bigger one (too lazy) and right now I only have 12GB left. Anyway back to the Mall, as you can guess, this is where you will be able to purchase new clothes ($0.49 and up), home decorations ($0.99 and up) and even new living spaces ($4.99 and up). Obviously since its beta so there are only a handful of items available for purchase and some stores are still closed. I’m pretty sure there will be a LOT more since if Home goes well, it will be another source of income for Sony. I can already see myself buying all sorts of clothes and decorations to personalize my own character, or avatar and my apartment.

  

Aside from the Mall, there is also a Theatre, a Bowling Alley, a music place where you can vote for which song to play next and in the middle has a mini game in a pond in the central gathering area. You basically fly a UFO around and catch things. I assume there will be more mini games introduced in the future, hopefully free of charge. I assume the Bowling Alley is also another mini game place, I haven’t had a chance to download that piece and experience it yet because I was too busy appreciating the graphics of Home.

  

Unfortunately none of my friends have it yet but there are already many PS3 owners to interact with. Just like many online games, there will always be some idiots annoying others. I guess that’s part of MMO life. You have the option to block and/or mute players. And of course you can also add players to your friends list. Chatting can be slow without the keypad but its nothing major plus there are some preset words and emotions for you to choose from. I am still trying to figure out how to get the emotion of playing the PSP. I asked around and no body answered. Sigh, talking about friendly huh?

I highly recommend the PlayStation Home to everyone, with a PS3 obviously, because its an alternative way to meet up with your friends as well as meeting new friends and play mini games or launch, say, Call of Duty 4 together. The graphics are amazing, and I hardly experienced any lag at all even with many people around me. I haven’t noticed any frame rate issues so far either even with the impressive graphics and the amount of people. And best of all, its free to play unless you start decorating your character and/or your apartment.

That is all I have discovered about PlayStation Home so far, I am sure there are more but that’s for me and YOU to find out!

  

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I have just joined Paying Post after my blog got rejected from PayPerPost recently. Mind you, my blog was accepted and I got over $100 paid from PPP in less than 2 months. PPP has been auditing blogs in an attempt to clean up the not-so-good blogs and unfortunately mine was one of them. And as the support rep stated, once a blog gets rejected, there is no way for that blog to get accepted again. I was and still am upset about it, mainly because my blog was accepted already and my blog isn’t plastered with ads or its MFA (made for adsense).

Anyway, enough venting.

I’ve joined Paying Post in late November hoping I would start earning by blogging again. As usual, I submitted my blog for approval and it took less than a week before it was accepted. I quickly went to the Open Opportunities section and found this opportunity. One noticeable difference between Paying Post and PPP is PPP has a lot more opportunities offered to its bloggers. Hopefully its because of my blog’s rank since its rather new (around 5 months) and I will get to see more opportunities in the future as my blog grows. Another difference is the payment system, although both use paypal, Paying Post will pay you after you have accumulated $50 or more on the 1st of the next month.

For advertisers, Paying Post is 50% cheaper than its competitors for the fee charged when creating opportunties.

Fianlly you can also check out the latest PP news on its blog, the most recent entry.

If you are interested to earn a bit of extra income on the side and are into writing, you should consider getting paid to blog. No its not an affiliate link, its the direct link to its web site.

Evil Controllers brings you the best possible rapid fire gaming controllers for many of the most popular first person shooters for your Xbox 360. There are many advantages you can gain when playing with these evil controllers. Pretty evil I would say.

Evil controllers claim to have “THE ONLY UNDETECTABLE XBOX 360 RAPID FIRE COD5 CONTROLLER ON THE MARKET” as some of you may have already heard about the recent patch that was released to eliminate the rapid fire until EC here came out with the all new Call OF Duty 5 Rapid Fire Controller for all you COD 5 fans. The site also claims this newly developed COD 5 controller “is 100% undetectable and it does NOT slow down automatic weapons!”. There are three versions of the controller, basically the cheapest one has a button that toggles the rapid fire on and off at the lower back side of the controller (its harder to use relatively, and thus the cheapest), the second one having the button at the back side as well but at an easier to reach area. The last and the most expensive of all does not have the button at all where you can toggle the rapid fire feature on and off by the secret two button combination.

For Halo 3 fans, the Halo 3 Rapid Fire Controllers are perfect for all your evil doings. There are also five different versions similar to the COD 5 controllers depending on how much you can afford.

If you want ridiculous advantage over everyone else, you have to get these sick controllers!

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Today gaming consoles have become our extensions. Apple, Sony, Nintendo has pleasantly rubbed us from all sides. The idea is to bring the best multimedia features and graphic interfaces to the thirsty public. Non hardcore gamers can download mac games at the Download Mac Games site where there are all kind of games; be it the adventure games, action games or arcade games. It also has poker games which add a lot to the zing of gaming so not only the kids have something to play with, but the adults as well.

Here are some of the games:

1. Space War – this is a strategy game where you have to conquer planets here and to gather resources.

2. Pet Shop Hop – this places you as the owner of a pet shop. Your duty is to deal with the customers.

3. Kudos Rock Legend – this one allows you to live a virtual fantasy. You can be an American idol. The game is simply exhilarating with all kinds of musical backgrounds.

4. Venice Mystery – the game lets you capture the beauty of the city of Venice in this Mahjong kind of a game.

Well! MAC game downloads are really making our lives filled with higher doses of fun and aren’t we loving it. Also, don’t forget to check out classic solitaire for mac as well as ipod games for more fun games!

I just read news, or rather rumors from DailyTech that Walmart will be selling the 4GB version of the ever popular iPhone. If the rumor is infact real, then its no brainer about seeing more people with iPhones. Hack, even I am tempted to get one myself now. I was tempted to get the 8GB version from Rogers AT&T when I saw the 8GB version for $199 with 3 year contract. For $99 you get a 4GB version, size doesn’t really matter to me here really. And I think 4GB is more than enough for me anyway. iPhone is more of a cool gadget to have and chances are I won’t be using it for heavy gaming, as a multimedia player, checking emails or surf the web even though it is capable of doing so. Most likely just like any other cell phones.

And there is this data plan that I have to worry about because as I said it comes with a 3 year turn, that’s the price to pay when you can get an iPhone for $199. The minimum cost for monthly cost is $35 (Voice Plan) + $25 (Data Plan) which equates to $60 + all that tax and other lame charges. Which is probably going to end up being 2-3 times more than what I am paying now.

Either way definitely a great move by Apple if in deed the rumor comes true and great news for those that crave for an iPhone but cannot justify buying the 8/16GB versions or without contract.

[update] Looks like the rumor will remain just a rumor. According to WIRED Appl WIll start selling iPhones through Walmart but not the $99 version like in the rumor. But will be selling the same 8GB and 16GB ones that we are seeing now.

Oh well, it doesn’t hurt to dream right?

If you are into real life poker, then you should be interested in online poker as well. One advantage of playing online poker is the fact that you don’t have to be IN the casino physically to enjoy the poker thrill (although its certainly a different feeling). Say its Winter time and you are snowed in and you cannot drive to your favorite casino or to your friend’s house to play some friendly poker. You don’t have to worry if you play online and you can also play with your friends as well.

Online Poker Tutor provides a large selection of tutorials from Basic Poker Rules and Basic Poker Strategy for the beginners to Advanced Poker Strategy for the more experienced players. There is also a detailed list of top 14 online poker rooms when you are ready to start testing what you have learned.

Everyone wants to make an extra buck or two, who doesn’t really? If you got a hang on the online poker field, you can try to monetize your newly obtained poker skills and check out the Make Money Playing Poker.

Aside from the information provided on the site, you can also ask the poker tutor specific poker related question and the answer will be posted on the page as well.

Overall, although the site is plain, but that’s not its selling point. This is more than made up by the sheer amount of helpful tips and information provided on the site. If you are a poker fan then you must check out Online Poker Tutor because you will never know what you will learn or discover!

Game will be released on March 13th 2009 for the Xbox 360 and later for the PlayStation 3. I’ve been pretty hyped up about this game since the beginning of this year and we are getting a bit closer to actually owning it. I envy the Xbox users because they get to try out the RE5 demo. The recent released trailers from Gametrailers.com show really promising game play and look pretty intense based on the trailers. But one thing I dislike is the fact that when you are in shooting mode you cannot move, similar to Resident Evil 4. I would like to be able to move while shooting because honestly, it just doesn’t make sense to me and in reality, would you just stand there and shoot?

Anyway I hope us PlayStation 3 users get our first taste of RE5 soon. And here is one of the trailers from Gametrailers.com. Enjoy!

Macross Ace Frontier is basically the Macross version of Gundam Seed: Rengou vs. Z.A.F.T. Portable. For those that don’t know Macross, its another Japanese anime with robots. The japanese version of the game has actually be released more than two months ago and no words for a North American release yet, as usual. The main ones are different though as they can transform into three different forms – plane, half plane half robot and full robot mode. Check out the latest series called Macross Frontier which just ended recently (25 episodes in total).

  

Story and game play
There are two game modes for Single player – campaign mode and free mode. Everyone should know what you can do in free mode (just incase you don’t, you can pick random levels to play). Campaign mode contains four stories from the anime series ranging from the very first series Macross, Macross Plus, Macross 7 and finally the newest Macross Frontier.

I first started with the very first series Macross and first thing I don’t like right away is how crowded the menus are and its just so hard to navigate and too much to read (see image). It will take some time to get used to.

  

Missions are relatively short so its really good for people looking for on-the-go kind of games. There is one type of mission that I absolutely hate and Bandai Namco keeps implementing this type of mission in all these games – stupid crate pick up game where you have to pick up supply crates from one spot back to the ship which I find it really annoying and waste of time. Other than that, I don’t have much more to complain. It plays just as well as the Gundam counterpart. Also, you now have a partner that will assist you in missions as well and it does a pretty find job at helping instead of getting into your way. Your partner loves going out there all by itself sometimes. Unless you give your partner a specific task like defend, attack, grapple and operator (I assume the operator will tell you your current object if choosing this option)

I would also like to point out that there are many large scale battles, while they are very intense and fun to play. As trade off, the game suffers frame rate problems during these battles.

I haven’t had a chance to test but multiplayer mode supports up to 4 players.

  

Controls are identical as well (go figure) with one button for melee, range weapon, boost/jump and even the special attacks are the same (L + melee/change target/both). Enough with similarities, there are in fact differences between Macross and Gundam. First of all, as mentioned the main Macross robots can transform into three different modes (I know some Gundams are transformable too like Z Gundam, ZZ Gundam etc but they don’t have the half plan half robot form) with your analog button. I prefer the robot mode though because the other two modes you are constantly moving since you are a plane/half plane and I find it hard to control still as in the ones in the Gundam game. And as usual, you will unlock new robots, leveling up you and your partner after completing missions as well as abilities which is something new. Abilities like higher defense and further sight etc. Upon finishing up each series you will also unlock a few missions where you will get to play as the enemy from that series.

Another major difference is weaponry, Macross robots are famous for their missiles. The game does a nice job of showing that by having two modes of missiles. The first one is your normal lock-on missiles for a single target and the second one allows you to lock-on to multiple targets (by holding the circle button and the computer will auto lock-on to the targets for you, provided you are in range) which I find pretty interesting. I also find it fun to launch missiles non-stop at targets until you run out. By the way, all weapons can be recharged and the recharge time can be reduced through upgrade. The missiles are kind of overpowered in my opinion, but then again you are deal with a lot more enemies in this game then in the Gundam ones.

  

There is nothing new in the upgrade section except it looks more crowded with the menu design. Your upgrades will reflect on your partner’s robot as well so you don’t have to waste your upgrade points on the same type of robot, doesn’t make sense to anyway. You can upgrade a wide range of options like having more ammo in your gun, longer boost, reduced recharge time, more HP and of course stronger weapons etc.

Completely new to this game, or this type of game is the addition of customizing your own robots with different colors. The customization has three parts, main body, secondary body and the eyes. There are also many preset colors for you if you are too lazy to bother playing and testing with the colors yourself. This feature is a big PLUS as I always think being able to personalize your items, in this case, robots makes the game ten times more enjoyable because you can really call it your own.

  

Finally, you can also switch between first and third person view and I find it very helpful to be in first person when you are in the plane mode. It gives me the Ace Combat feeling actually. Pretty neat feature there!

Graphics and audio
Again, graphics are similar to its Gundam counterpart. I know I’ve been saying this for the past few PSP reviews but I think its true as you can’t really go any further on a PSP than it possibly can. All I can say is that its good enough to be enjoyable. This goes to audio as well, nothing new here, just your usual robot moving sound, machine/laser gun and missiles firing. And as long as the game uses actual music from the anime series, I’m happy. I would be even happier if they actually implemented songs with people actually singing like Gundam vs Gundam instead of just plain music.

[correction] Its probably the first Macross series that doesn’t have songs, if you pick the Macross Frontier series, you will actually hear a song instead of just music on the very first level. So there are songs but not on every single level and I suspect only on a few levels.

Final verdict
Another great game that I am sure Gundam/Macross or any robot fans will enjoy. While it didn’t try to reinvent the wheel, it did add a few new features to the game. The greatest feature being the ability to customize your robots with different colors. And again, tons of unlockables like robots, missions and character abilities. If you really want this game even if you don’t know Japanese, you can find it on yesasia and ebay as well.

8/10

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