u l t r a m o o k i e

For my grad, dad and birthday gift, my wife got me a spanking new Playstation 3.
Thank you wifey for such a cool gift!  You are a kick-ass wife and the PS3 is a kick-ass gift!
I wanted a PS3 mainly so that I can watch Bluray movies — we already pay for Netflix, so it would [...]

For my grad, dad and birthday gift, my wife got me a spanking new Playstation 3.

Thank you wifey for such a cool gift!  You are a kick-ass wife and the PS3 is a kick-ass gift!

I wanted a PS3 mainly so that I can watch Bluray movies — we already pay for Netflix, so it would be better to take advantage of the Bluray selection, rather than pay a whole lot more for HD satellite feeds.  I must say, the PS3 is quite impressive — although, I guess I could be a bit biased as an ex-Sony employee.

Observations about the PS3:

• Now that Bluray has won the high definition format war — finally — the PS3 has an upper-hand when compared with the Xbox 360.  Whether it really plays out, I don’t know.  But, that was the whole reason why I wanted a PS3:  Bluray.
• Brilliant move pricing the lowest priced Bluray player the same price as the PS3.  It just makes people think that they are getting a “free” game console with the Bluray player.
• Demos on the Playstation Network (PSN) are great!  Usually, I don’t play through a whole game unless I can really get into it — and there are not many games that I can get into.  So, playing a demo from start to finish is usually enough to make me satisfied.
• PSN network speed is horrendous.  It takes forever to download something from the PSN.  I tried downloading the PS3 update from PSN and it ran ~160kBps, which is terrible (my DSL line is a 3Mbps line so I get around 300kBps max).  Sony needs to invest into more bandwidth (or stop throttling).
• Even though Sony is out to sell Bluray discs, there is still a market for downloadable video and audio content.  So where is it Sony?  Sony has a whole library of movies, TV shows and music that it can sell online.  They should get on the ball and start doing it — Microsoft does it with the Xbox 360 and Apple does it with the AppleTV already.
• The PS3 hardware itself is beautiful.  When Alice lent me her Xbox 360, I was surprised by the size of the total package — most importantly that the power brick was the same size as the Xbox 360 console!  The PS3 is all enclosed, the only thing that sticks out are the HDMI and power cables, no fugly external power brick here.
• The PS3 is quiet.  Alice’s Xbox 360 was loud — not just the fans, but the drive also.  And not just “kind of loud”, more on the “this is distracting my gameplay loud?.
• I’m kind of disappointed at the lack of 1080p games.  Most games seem to run at 720p, which is fine, but I figured the PS3 was powerful enough to squeeze out 1080p gaming easily.
• The DVD upscaler (software) does not do as good of a job as a dedicated DVD upscaler.  When compared to the old Pioneer DV-400V upscaling DVD player that we had, the PS3’s upscaled DVD output is a little disappointing.
• The SixAxis controller is lighter than I thought.  Also, I don’t like having to pay for Sony’s stubborness when it comes to rumble.  Sony should have swapped out the SixAxis controllers the minute they settled the lawsuit against them.  One of these days, I’ll get a Dual Shock, but not right now.  I’m fine with the SixAxis.
• The lack of PS2 backwards compatibility is a disappointment, but not that big of one.  It is not like I have played any of my old PS2 games recently and that I would pop one back into play anytime soon.  I still have my slim PS2 in the garage and can pull it out to use when I want.  It would be nice to have the backwards compatibility, but not a requirement.  What is hugely disappointing is the actual reason why Sony stripped out the backwards compatibility from the 40GB PS3.  Sony reasons that “by omitting the option of playing PS2 games, Sony hopes that new customers will instead spend their money on more PS3 games.”
• The one game that my wife got me was Burnout Paradise — because I’m a huge Burnout fan, I have all of the games on either the PS2 or PSP.  Burnout, Burnout 2: Point of Impact, Burnout 3: Takedown and Burnout Revenge on the PS2.  Burnout Legends and Burnout Dominator on the PSP.  Now, Burnout Paradise on the PS3.  Fantastic game.  The only thing that has be a bit frustrated right now is that I still don’t know my way around Paradise City and that makes doing races a bit difficult — as sometimes I find that I have turned on the wrong street and am going the wrong way.  If only Criterion would have made the minimap like a GPS device — mark out a general route (that skips shortcuts) for the player, if the player gets off route, then “reroute” based on where they are heading.  This would help lessen the frustration of being lost in the city — there are subtle hints that Criterion threw in like the blinker on the car will give you a hint where to go.
• The one movie that my wife got me was Casino Royale.  The movie is a gorgeous showoff film for Bluray.  The scene where Bond and the bombmaker are fighting it out on the crane really shows off the resolution of Bluray movies (as the water sparkles brilliantly in the background while the helicopter-mounted camera revolves around the two from a long distance).
• Remote Play functionality — where the PSP can take control of the PS3 and display media (and some games) — works really well.  I was surprised at how easy it was to setup and get going.
• Although the PS3 has no PS2 support, it, ironically has psOne support.  The support works and there are some “enhancement” technologies to try to make the old games look new again — like texture smoothing.  The psOne games I have tried on the system (Gran Turismo 2 and Metal Gear Solid) both work well and look…well, like the are ten years old.
• Netflix continues to amaze.  I sent back movies the day that I got the PS3.  That night, I logged into my Netflix account and flipped on the Bluray option and moved some Bluray discs to the top of my queue.  The next day, Netflix received my DVDs and sent Bluray discs to me.  I got the Bluray discs the following day.  That is normal operating style for Netflix and it continues to amaze me.  Now, if only Netflix to adapt their “Watch Now” feature to stream HD content and stream it to a PS3, that would completely knock me out of my chair.
• The PS3 is made as a media center.  What I love is how the harddrive is easily user-replaceable (which I will do with an old, larger notebook drive.  What I also love is that the PS3 can play all sorts of media — including MP3, WMA, AAC, DVIX, XVID and H.264 AVC.  And all of this can either reside locally, on a USB thumbdrive, on a DVD-RW disc, or can be streamed over the network (from a DLNA server or, as Alice tells me and I have to test out, an Apache server).  The PS3 is surprisingly open for a product that has come out from Sony.
• The PS3 can also take Linux, but I don’t know if I’ll go down that route.  I have enough Linux boxes at home (yes, one can actually have “enough” Linux boxes).  I don’t really want to turn my PS3 into a semi-Linux box also.

I guess that’s a long-winded enough posting for now about the PS3.  I’m sure I’ll have more later.  Do you own a PS3?  What do you think about it?  And what’s your PSN name?  I want to add you to my friends list!

Here’s what I’m playing right now:

Burnout Dominator (PSP):  You gotta love the Burnout series!
Cooking Mama (DS):  Just.  Plain.  Fun.  And no dishes, pots or pans to clean up after cooking.
Rayman Raving Rabbids (Wii):  Hee-larious and very fun game!
Super Paper Mario (Wii):  A great re-imagining of the Mario series.  I really like the small touches they’ve [...]

Here’s what I’m playing right now:

• Burnout Dominator (PSP):  You gotta love the Burnout series!
• Cooking Mama (DS):  Just.  Plain.  Fun.  And no dishes, pots or pans to clean up after cooking.
• Rayman Raving Rabbids (Wii):  Hee-larious and very fun game!
• Super Paper Mario (Wii):  A great re-imagining of the Mario series.  I really like the small touches they’ve added like the “flipping”.

I watched a bunch of videos from E3 and here are some games that I would love to play:

• Halo 3 (Xbox 360):  I have played and finished Halo and Halo 2 on my Xbox.  Halo 3 looks really great, but I am hesitant to cough up $460 to play Halo 3 ($400 for an Xbox 360 and $60 for Halo 3).
• Killzone 2 (PS3):  This game looks fantastic and was the talk of E3.  Again, I don’t know if I would want to cough up $560 to play it though ($500 for PS3  and $60 for Killzone 2).
• Super Mario Galaxy (Wii):  I can’t wait for this one to come out.  I want it for my Wii.
• Metroid 3:  Corruption (Wii):  Looks interesting, I just hope it doesn’t have the “I finished the level, now I have to backtrack through the whole level on a timer” thing.

Any games spark your interest from this year’s E3?

Wow!  So, I haven’t posted since my birthday.  Here’s what’s been going on.
Eileen and Jacob got me, not one, but two games for me birthday!  Burnout Dominator for my PSP and Cooking Mama for my DS!  Wow!  That’s a lot of gaming!  It should keep me busy for a long time!  Thank you Eileen and [...]

Wow!  So, I haven’t posted since my birthday.  Here’s what’s been going on.

Eileen and Jacob got me, not one, but two games for me birthday!  Burnout Dominator for my PSP and Cooking Mama for my DS!  Wow!  That’s a lot of gaming!  It should keep me busy for a long time!  Thank you Eileen and Jacob!  I have been playing Burnout Dominator a lot lately, unlocking stuff.  It is really nice.  And the graphics are surprisingly good, almost PS2-like.  I am impressed by the game.

My parents got me a niiiiiiiiice gift card from Fry’s for me birthday!  Thanks Mom and Dad!

My sister and brother-in-law got me…a niiiiiiiiiiice gift card from Fry’s for me birthday!  Thanks Sis and Albert!

Eileen and I went to Todai’s on my birthday for a free seafood buffet dinner.  Mmm!  Yummy!

On Sunday, I flew down to LA to help my sis and Albert move.  That was quite an adventure and fun too!  They moved from the boonies/outskirts of LA into Westwood!  That is a big move and a great change in lifestyle.  And I got to eat at Yoshinoya’s!  Yum!

Anyhoo, that’s it for the last few days!

I visited Micro Center yesterday at lunch (which curiously my wife asked, “They’re still in business?”) and I was quite surprised when I got into the store.  For those of you who haven’t been to a Micro Center — and that could be most of you — they have a huge book section in the [...]

I visited Micro Center yesterday at lunch (which curiously my wife asked, “They’re still in business?”) and I was quite surprised when I got into the store.  For those of you who haven’t been to a Micro Center — and that could be most of you — they have a huge book section in the store. I would say their book section was a good 15-20% of the floor space at a store. Well, not anymore. Yesterday, when I arrived at the book section, it had been sectioned off. The book section was now about 40% of its old self, the other 60% was dedicated to console gaming.

I can understand Micro Center doing this, as they are in business to make money and they will dedicate floor space to what is actually selling. But, it is a pretty sad reflection on our society that we have become so enamoured with the instant gratification of video games that books (and more importantly, reading) has taken a backseat.

On an off-note, I got to play Gears of War on the Xbox 360 finally and I must say:  Graphics, sound and music score are fantabulous!  Framerate?  Not so fantastic, after a few minutes of play I was feeling a bit nauseous — and this only happens to me with games that have bad framerates.

Here is a sampling of the media I am consuming or have consumed recently…

The Devil Wears Prada — Yea, sure, chick flick. But, damned funny and even a bit touching. Meryl Streep made the movie hers, I really loved Streep in this movie (”That’s all.”) Anne Hathaway was OK in the film. [...]

Here is a sampling of the media I am consuming or have consumed recently…

• The Devil Wears Prada — Yea, sure, chick flick. But, damned funny and even a bit touching. Meryl Streep made the movie hers, I really loved Streep in this movie (”That’s all.”) Anne Hathaway was OK in the film. It was Streep who stole the film though.
• The Departed — I watched this the day of the Oscars, finishing it just a few hours before the show started. This is a great movie, I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was complex, dark, violent, and the ending was very…un-Hollywood. I am saddened that Leonardo DiCaprio was not nominated for his role in The Departed — and instead, he got a nomination for his role in Blood Diamond for which he lost. If you like a good crime story that does not get watered down, The Departed is for you. Brilliant film.
• Star Trek: The Motion Picture — Ok, I am a Star Trek fan. But, sadly I have not seen The Motion Picture until now. I have seen every other film, but have no idea why I never got motivated to see The Motion Picture. The whole theory about odd Star Trek movies being terrible and even ones being good…that theory kind of holds up for The Motion Picture. It was not terribly bad, but it was not terribly good either. It is old school film making with long thoughtful scenes (I loved the scene where Scotty shuttles Kirk to the new Enterprise, you don’t get that kind of long slow scene anymore). Other than that, the whole existentialism in the film was a bit hokey. I did love the score by Jerry Goldsmith. Other than that, I can’t say I enjoyed the film.
• Heroes — Wow, last week’s episode was great (the one about HRG). It was tightly focused and had a deeply emotional storyline. I very much enjoyed that episode. This week’s episode was also good. The writers lost the focus they found last week, but they did put out a very good episode. There were a few surprises in tonight’s episode that made my jaw drop. An exciting episode. Now, I have to wait until late April for a new episode? Why?
• American Idol — Yes, even I partake in cheap entertainment like AI. I can’t believe that Antonella Barba and Sanjaya Malakar are still in the competition! Barba is just a terrible singer. And Malakar is just too young (and too soft). Sigh.
• Iron Chef — The bartenders were a good twist.
• Lost — The show continues to suffer in its third season.  It isn’t a bad season, it’s just not the kind of Lost that we had in the first season.
• Point of Impact — This is the book I am reading right now. It is written by Stephen Hunter. It is getting to a slow start, but I am enjoying it. The next book for me is sitting on my bedstand, Gates of Fire by Steven Pressfield (it’s about the battle at Thermopylae).
• Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror — Playing this on my PSP.  Decent game.  Great graphics and sound.  Good controls (considering that the PSP is missing a second analog stick).

There are three episodes of “24″ and five episodes of “Battlestar Galactica” sitting on the DVR.  I think I may just delete the episodes of “24″ because this season is not a good season.  I don’t know why, but Battlestar Galactica has lost its appeal to me.  I just don’t feel motivated to watch it anymore.  Well, that’s it for now.

Noooooo…
Anyhoo, I did not grow up on Star Wars. I did become a fan later in life though. Anyone who knows me, knows that I am a complete Star Wars geek now — well, I love the original ones and the later ones (Episodes I-III) can be done without.
What I did grow up [...]

Noooooo…

Anyhoo, I did not grow up on Star Wars. I did become a fan later in life though. Anyone who knows me, knows that I am a complete Star Wars geek now — well, I love the original ones and the later ones (Episodes I-III) can be done without.

What I did grow up with were Legos. I had mounds of Legos to play with when I was a kid. I loved Legos and they remind me of my childhood — on a side note, my sister and brother-in-law got me a Lego version of the Batmobile for Christmas, hehe, thanks!

So, when the original Lego Star Wars came out, I gave it a try. It was a great idea, but I did not have a real attachment to the game because it was based on Episodes I-III. Now that Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy is out, I just had to have it. I got it yesterday for my PSP and played it until my PSP ran out of battery. I have been playing it all day today also (well, that is relative, “all day” really means the minutes while Jacob is sleeping). I played through the Empire Strikes Back chapter already and it was damned fun watching Lego actors do Star Wars. Heh. And there is a sly sense of humor that is injected into the whole Lego Star Wars thing and that makes it so much more fun.  I can’t get enough of seeing Chewbacca pulling off the arms of a Storm Trooper.  Heh.

I think I will try to play through A New Hope today. Maybe when I have time, I will go Ewok hunting in Return of the Jedi soon.

I picked up Killzone Liberation a while back — before Jacob was born — and played it for a few hours. I got stuck on Chapter 2, Level 2 right before Jacob was born. I tried to finish the level before he came, but it was difficult. After he was born, I [...]

I picked up Killzone Liberation a while back — before Jacob was born — and played it for a few hours. I got stuck on Chapter 2, Level 2 right before Jacob was born. I tried to finish the level before he came, but it was difficult. After he was born, I hardly had time (or patience) to try it. It is the kind of thing that makes me stop playing games. I had been playing non-violent puzzle games since Jacob was born since they don’t require a boatload of concentration or long stretches of time (Tetris DS kicks ass by the way). Tonight, I finally got a chance to play again and after what seemed like a gah-zillion deaths, I finally figured out and passed the level. What a pain in the ass. Now, off to the next frustrating level.

I picked up Killzone Liberation because Sony had sent me a teaser UMD in the mail — they also sent a demo UMD for Pursuit Force, but that one didn’t get my attention like the Killzone one did. I do like Killzone Liberation, I just wish it had one big feature: Save anywhere. I don’t like games that make me go back to checkpoints — especially if there is some damned frustrating firefight between checkpoints. I want to save my game whenever and wherever I am. This is doubly important for me when it is a portable game.

There is a lot to love about the game. The graphics are the best on the PSP, bar none. The rag doll physics and character animations are incredible. The sound fits the game perfectly — though, the repetitive cursing could be toned down a bit. I like the controls and the user interface also. When playing the game, things never stop — like if you stop at a tool chest to get ammo…things just…slooooow….dooown. You can be attacked while issuing orders to your teammate or while picking up ammo. It is pretty cool. The extras in the game (minigames) are a good addition also.

Anyhoo, Killzone Liberation is a pretty good game for the PSP. It is a bit frustrating, but the other things in the game make up for it.

Guerrilla, next time, can I play as one of the badass looking Helghast?