Saturday, April 30, 2005

Next gen games, and EB Stop...

There has been a lot of next gen activity lately, starting with the supposed Xbox 360 picture leaks (see below), and now some next gen game screens. There have been a couple posted like Steel monkeys (Click on 2 Days to Vegas), and these from an upcoming PS3 game called Possession. If some of these are really close to what the next gen graphics are going to be, I'll spend more time looking at the scenery and forget I'm playing a game (kinda like the first time I booted up Half-Life 2).

On a different note 1up has put up an article about the merging of GameStop & EB, what it means to gamers.

PSP, and DS...

I finally got a hold of a used copy of Lumines today (YAY!), was really starting to think I may have to buy a new one. Doesn't seem to be a lot of them traded in anywhere, usually a sign of a really good game. :) With the Lumines purchase that pretty much covers my PSP want list (I have Untold Legends, and Wipeout already). Although Hot Shots Golf comes out soon, and will probably find its way on the must buy list.

I tried Pac-Pix (NDS) this week for a bit (just the first chapter), and enjoyed it. It's a fairly simple game as Pac has gathered all the ghost in a book, but unfortunately gets sucked in himself. You have to clear the pages (ie. levels) of the ghost to advance to the next. Each page has it's limits (number of Pac-men you can draw, and time) that you have to work within. You control Pac by drawing him on the screen (a set movement, think of it like graphitti on the palm) he moves whichever way he was facing when you drew him. You draw lines (walls) to make him change direction, and you can stop him momentarily by holding him with the stylus. I don't think I would pay full price for it, but it a pre-owned one shows up I may pick it up.

Saturday, April 23, 2005

Mini Movies... PSP UMD's

Well the movies on UMD are actually surprising me, I know we've sold more than I thought we would, and more companies are supporting the format. Personally I feel they're to high especially when I already own most of the DVD's. I would like to see them sell through two versions of the DVD, one regular, and one bundled with the UMD for a bit more (~$10). This of course, would only work on new releases that aren't already available on DVD, but I think I would pick up one of these over paying $15+ for just the UMD release. Anyway here are the current release dates I compiled of upcoming UMD's:

5/03 National Treasure, Hero, Reign of Fire
5/17 Spider-Man 2 (Guess for those who missed the initial PSP launch?)
5/24 Are We There Yet?, Charlies Angels
5/31 Hollow Man, Boogeyman
6/07 Terminator 2, Saw, Van Wilder, Punisher, Open Water
6/14 Spider-Man (Animated Series), Daddy Day Care, Hitch
6/21 King Arthur, Hostage, Cursed, Tron
6/28 Grudge, Anacondas
7/19 Kill Bill v.2, Armageddon, Gone in 60 Seconds, From Dusk Till Dawn

The Lion's gate releases on 6/07 are all listed as 6/24 on Amazon.com, but that is a Friday so I don't know which date is correct. I also read that they plan on putting out 12 titles total so there are others coming from them.

Untold Legends & Xbox sneak peek?

I picked up a copy of Untold Legends the other day for PSP, and I must say I really like it. If you ever played Diablo this game is for you. So far I'm up to level 13, and seem to gain about 1 level per "quest". The only difference is in Diablo (and other RPG's like FFXI) there are newbie zones where lower level players go, Untold Legends seems to tailor the monsters in whatever area you are in to your level, so your always gaining experience.

On another note, this shot was released and it is supposed to be the Xbox 360 design. I guess we will know for sure in a little over 3 weeks.

Xbox 360

Saturday, April 16, 2005

PSP goodness...

Well it's been in my hands for 5 days now, and I like it. :) Of course, I'm talking about the PSP unit.

Well I think my initial views on the games was correct, there just isn't that much out there I'm dying to play. I still haven't picked up Untold Legends, trying to find a pre-played one (saving money for E3), and haven't really had a chance to look for one yet. I did try out both Lumines, and Mercury. While I enjoyed Lumines (enough to warrent a purchase at some point), Mercury left me feeling down. I wanted to like it as it shares similarities to Monkey Ball, and even Marble Madness. In the end it felt like there was too much other stuff to worry about, almost like they over complicated it. I just didn't enjoy playing it. I already own Wipeout Pure (bought because of the web browsing) and have been playing it, and found that it's quite fun (and great looking) in it's own rite. Although I'll be the first to admit I *enjoy* racing games, I do ultimately suck at them, so they usually aren't high on my wish list.

It didn't take long for the last episode of South Park to make it too the handheld (I lost the link where I found it but search for episode 904 "Kenny gets a PSP", and you'll probably find it.). I watched it last night, and thought it was really funny, I wonder what the release date for "Heaven vs. Hell" is?

I found this site makes a great PSP starting point.

Tuesday, April 12, 2005

Temptation wins!

Well I give up, after playing with the PSP last weekend, I broke down and bought one. It just happens that I came across a sweet deal on a pre-owned unit that I couldn't pass up. Got pretty much everything that was in the value pack with the exception of the wrist strap, the manual, and the SONY soft case. I got a different case, extra earphones, and a UMD case so I figure it was ok.

I'm probably in the market for a new case as the Intec one I got is a only so-so. I like it better than the SONY soft case because it does have some storage room, but want to look at the logitech case that's coming out.

On the plus side there were no dead pixels! yay! Course that's pretty easy to check on a pre-owned unit. Also, I've already come to the conclusion that the 32MB stick is waaay to small. :(

Here are some sites I found for PSP formatted video downloads...
Misc. Trailers & Videos
South Park Episodes
Misc. Trailers & Videos
Older Star Wars spoof - Troops
Sony's Trailers & Videos

Saturday, April 09, 2005

White PSP

Oops, I forgot to mention I found a picture of the Gran Turismo PSP unit. I remember hearing there was going to be a GT Pack which would include a White PSP, and the Gran Turismo game. Don't know if it is or isn't Japan only, probably will get a clue by the time E3 rolls around (just a little over a month!).

Gran Turismo PSP

This week's adventures... PSP love and WiFi

Well, Friday slipped passed and I didn't write a blurb. But, got some "hands on" time with a PSP, and man do I want one. Although, it isn't the games that are pushing it over, it's the Wipeout Pure web browsing hack (google it). The PSP has built in 802.11b wifi capabilities out of the box, and as you may or may not know there are a lot of wireless access points (WAP) out there especially if your in a city of some size. Now most of these are secured/encrypted, but some are not. :)

I picked up Wipeout early this week (yet I don't own a PSP?!) and was really excited thinking about portable internet. The PSP will scan for WAP's when setting up a new infrastructure connection, and show you there name, encryption, and signal strength of the ones found. What your looking for is ones where whomever controls the WAP forgot (?) to set the security features. I thought I would see if any of my neighbors were "leaking" wireless signals, but unfortunately they were not. If/when I get a PSP I will have to buy a wireless router for the house. Since I still had the PSP this afternoon I decided to check around work, but it's a business area so all of the WAP's I found were encrypted although some had interesting names (Exit Wi-Fi = Wal-Mart?) . For example in the parking lot I picked up 5-8 WAP's depending on where I was standing. Another interesting place to check is an apartment complex, I drove through one, and found 20+ easily with I'd say only 1/2 with encryption turned on.

OK now for my PSA, if you hook up a wireless router take the time to change the name, and turn encryption on! Do you want anyone to come along and use your internet bandwidth, or gain access to your network? Okay some people don't do this, and you would be surprised how many units are still named default. Anyway enough of that. To make this extremely long story short(er) I surfed the web through one of the PSP portals, and damn it was cool! It's not without some problems (big pictures won't load, most pages aren't designed for the screen size, and the PSP's text entry method is kinda tedious.) but overall its really neat.

Friday, April 01, 2005

Another week...

Well it's been a week since the last post, Friday's seem to be a good day to update. I watched Upside of Anger this morning and enjoyed it. Drama with a light layer of comedy, there were a couple of really good laugh out loud moments.