Friday, April 13, 2012

New year, new post!

Meant to update a while back, but as you can see I never got around to it.

I picked up a PS Vita back at the launch in February. I wasn't going to get one (hadn't picked up a PSP/PSP Go at launch even though I did do so later) figuring I would wait and see how they panned out over time. I didn't even try it at E3 last year because of the line length, although my friend did and he really enjoyed it, and was planning on a day one purchase. I was reading a lot of the launch/unboxing stuff around the net since there was a "early edition" that came out a week before the regular retail launch, and then a lot of retailers started offering 'deals' for the regular launch. So having a bunch of credit at Amazon stored up I grabbed one getting a $20 discount, and a free memory card to boot. Most everyone decided launch week was a good time to do a buy 2 get 1 free deal on the games too, which made it even better. I've really only put time into Hot Shots World Invitational so far it's a lot of fun, and actually looking forward to Resistance next month.

My PS3 had been having memory issues for a while the 60GB drive just wasn't able to keep up with game installs, PSN+ downloads/add-ons, and everything else. I was constantly having to delete stuff or transfer it around to even maintain a ~5GB buffer for new stuff. I was looking to grab a new slim, but never ran across a great deal and since my old one was still running it just made more sense to upgrade the drive. I found a 320GB drive on clearance for $40 bucks at TRU and decided it was a good candidate to pump up the system. SONY makes it really simple remove the old drive, put in the new drive, boot up and the PS3 will ask if you want to install the system software on it and away you go. Of course there were a couple of extra steps I needed to perform like backing up the current drive, then restoring the back up to the new drive. This was all working out great in my head until I realized I didn't have another 60GB drive to put the back up data on. I scrounged and could only find a 30GB, and 10GB laying around the house which weren't big enough to cover the back up (which clocked in at ~43GB since the system software didn't have to go). I put it off for a week (including a jaunt down to Branson (note:Silver Dollar City during Spring Break=BAD but that's another story) trying to think of alternative storage (thumbdrives, etc), but didn't want to have to buy anything else. I remembered I had a DVR put up/shelved somewhere so after some disassembly I had a big ol' 80GB drive to use for the back up. After a 2-3 hour back up, and a somewhat quick swap out then another 2-3 hours to restore I was back up and running with ~250GB to spare.

I finally broke down and picked up the Playstation 3D display about a month ago. I knew it wasn't the greatest thing since sliced bread, but really wanted something that was 3D capable, and 24" was an acceptable size for the bedroom. These things came out last November for $499.99 and have been dropping in price pretty much ever since, holding pretty steady at $299.99 for the last couple months. I had been really close a couple of times after Christmas for the $299.99, but so-so reviews and drawbacks held me at bay. These things had some bad juju out of the gate they were only 24", it's a display not a TV (no tuner), no remote, and one of the 'features' simulview (2 players each seeing their own screen using the glasses, not sharing one split screen) required another set of $70 glasses. Well last month a couple retailers had a deal where you got the 3D display, MLB 12, and another set of glasses (fixing one of the problems) all for the same $299.99. I decided that was pretty good way to use up some Best Buy credit, and grabbed one. I sold off the games (MLB12, and Motorstorm Apocalypse (I already had a copy)) and figure the extra glasses would set you back $70 bucks means I paid about $170 for the display. I've tried a couple games (Wipeout HD, Super Star Dust), a bunch of movie trailers/demo reels, and watched The Three Musketeers (actually not a bad movie) in 3D so far. Luckily I have been buying the blu-ray sets that included the 3D blu-ray anyway/when possible so I already have 10-12 movies to watch, and I have 6-8 games that work in 3D too.

I found the Legend of Grimrock was released a couple days ago for the PC from a studio called Almost Human. It's available directly through them, STEAM, or GOG (Good old games) and is normally $14.99 but is on sale for $13.49 right now (first week up until the 18th I believe). This game could be called a reboot for the Dungeon Crawler genre (think Dungeon Master, Eye of the Beholder, etc...) or a homage to them. I found a thread about it this plus watched a couple video reviews this afternoon, and by this evening STEAM says I've put 3 hours into it. This is old school first person 3D dungeon corridors with traps, switches, and giant snails probably not intended for people under 30. This is the 2012 version though with gorgeous graphics (the lighting effects are amazing), and all of that old school charm.