Okay, I was trying desperately not to mention E3. But I have to. Mainly – PlayStation Move and Project Natal, no known as “Kinect”.
We’ll start off with Kinect:
Not only can Microsoft not spell, but they’re basically designing a bastardisation of the Nintendo Wii. The advert is even filmed exactly the same way.
However, Sony aren’t much better. In fact, they’re even worse (for once). Now I’ve already made my opinion of PlayStation Move abundantly clear, so I shall comment on a recent hands-on preview from IGN with SOCOM 4:
Either the controls suck or Greg Miller isn’t that good (I’m hoping it’s the latter). This game doesn’t look very engaging Move-wise. It seems that you just stand there and wave the controllers around like you do on the Wii. SOCOM 4 appears to be nothing more than a 3D rail shooter and Sony should be ashamed of themselves. Although I suppose it is something that they tried to incorporate their motion controls into a proper game, not some juvenile, incorrigible reject from Nintendo’s drawing boards.
See, I’m not always bashing the 360. (grow up)
Thank God Microsoft ditched that ridiculous name though. (okay, so I’m a hypocrite! Flame me!)
Before you say it, no, this is not fake. It’s an official report recently taken from Metacritic. PS3 has a higher average score, almost 3 times bigger than the 360. And that’s from just 60 exclusive games compared to the 360′s 218 exclusive games.
But of course it does. The PS3 is far more powerful than the Xbox 360 and even most standard PCs. What I’m talking about is that the video game company Crytek have reported that their upcoming game Crysis 2 runs better on the PS3 than the Xbox 360. Many developers have found the PS3′s hardware difficult to work with and were not able to deliver with as much quality as the 360. e.g. F.E.A.R., Bayonetta and just about every port made by EA Games. Read my post about console ports for more details.
Crytek are joining the console generation fairly late and are therefore more capable of developing a good game by learning from other developers’ mistakes. But they aren’t the first developer to do that. Do the words “Naughty Dog” and “Uncharted” ring any bells? They completely blew every other developer and game out of the water with Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, and even more-so with Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. So I guess this is a sign of things to come – developers are slowly getting better. And with Blu-Ray movies coming down in price, this is a very good time to be glad, proud and excited that you own a PS3.
Reported by IGN, Microsoft are suing Datel for allegedly copying their Xbox 360 controller design and therefore “infringing on several design patents” owned by Microsoft. Now usually I, and pretty much everyone else, cannot see any similarities between the 2 products and the company doing the suing doesn’t win the case because they’re blatantly not similar in the slightest. But after seeing a picture of Datel’s new “Wildfire” controller, I can see why Microsoft aren’t too pleased about it:
Now, compare that with Microsoft’s Xbox 360 controller:
Give or take the size of the analogue sticks, direction and face buttons, the Wildfire is clearly trying to be like the 360 controller. It even has the exact same colours for the face and middle buttons. It should be interesting to see how far Microsoft gets with this lawsuit. You can view the lawsuit file and info on Microsoft’s 6 controller patents in this PDF file. It’s not for the simple-minded or those who don’t give a shit though, it contains a lot of legal-babble.
I consider myself a fairly hardcore Sony fan. I’ve owned every gaming platform they’ve ever released and have been nothing but impressed by their efforts.
But now, they appear to be merely copying Nintendo. With the recent announcement of PlayStation Move, I’m baffled as to how they are getting away with it. Watch the launch trailer for it and tell me that it isn’t a clone of the Wii…
What’s that I hear you say? “It looks exactly like the Wii”? I thought so too.
To make matters worse, Sony are copying the Wii and they know it. They seem somewhat proud of themselves, thinking that they’re improving the Wii. Last time I checked, “You can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig”.
And providing the icing for this harebrained confectionery, is Kevin Butler.
I have now totally lost my faith in Sony.
And what a douche – “Real boxers don’t hit like this” *mocks Wii Boxing* – Surely Nintendo could sue him for that. “PlayStation Move is not only crazy precise (a semantically null sentence), it’s also got what we in the future all buttons which turn out to be pretty important to those ???-millions of people who enjoy playing shooters, platformers or… well, anything that doesn’t involve catching a big red ball so… I mean, c’mon, who wants to pretend their hand is a gun? What is this? 3rd grade?” – Not only can he barely string a correct sentence together, but openly mocking the Wii like that is just childish and unprofessional.
I don’t know who to turn to now. Sony’s always been my favourite of the big 3 companies, but now they’ve turned into Nintendo. And Microsoft are doing that exact same thing only they’re using full body control so they can get away with it more easily. C’mon, Nintendo got into the whole motion controller thing first and they did it well. There’s no need to copy it and make it “better”.
I won’t be surprised if Nintendo files a massive lawsuit against both Sony and Microsoft for stealing their idea, causing both companies to loose huge amounts of money and forcing them to concentrate on the other big new trend. That’s right, 3D. God help us all.
Every year the 3 major games console developers Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo compete to make something new and engaging for their consumers. A new genre of game for instance, an online marketplace/store, TV streaming, avatars, each one more bizarre and outright pointless than the last.
But one thing that really gets on my nerves is motion controllers. Nintendo was the first to release such a thing to the public back in November 2006 with their ridiculously-named “Wii”, on which they’ve released countless Mario and Zelda remakes. Then in June 2009 Microsoft announced they were also jumping on the bandwagon with their even more ridiculously-named “Project Natal”, going the whole hog with full body control.
I will admit that both of these ideas are interesting and bring something new to how we play games, but they’re also completely obsolete to the hardcore, even the casual gamer. And they might as well forget about people that don’t play games, except maybe your grandmother who likes to play a little Wii Tennis at Christmas.
Hardcore gamers are simply not interested in moving while playing games. They’re lazy, probably obese couch potatoes with very little knowledge of the word “exercise”. The idea of moving their arms around to aim a gun is baffling to them and just far too much effort. And remember all those reports of people injuring themselves while using the Wiimote? Dislocated shoulders from swinging it to hard while playing baseball, hitting ceiling lights and people in the face while playing tennis, controllers being flung into TV screens while playing bowling with the wrist strap unfastened, the list is endless. If they thought those incidents were bad, Natal is literally going to murder them.
I suppose the casual gamer may be slightly interested in this idea, but due to the word “casual” it’s not enough to turn them into a full-time gamer. I mean, the idea of pretending to hold and fire a gun when there’s already a gun being held and fired just a few feet in front of you is ludicrous.
Finally, Sony are the last to join the club with a currently unnamed motion controller (possible called “Gem”). A poor decision if you ask me, I was rather hoping Sony were smarter than that, would remain unique and invent some kind of brain-wave controller. But alas, it wasn’t to be. And this “Gem” thing just looks like a rip-off of the Wiimote, which is rather disappointing. Of all people, I didn’t expect Sony to come up with shittiest idea.
Here’s something I found on YouTube, Left 4 Dead 2 using motion control:
I know, right? The motion detection is unresponsive and you look like a total burk when using it. If this technology makes it to production, gamers everywhere are going to develop arthritis far too early in life. That goes for all motion control technology; Wii, Natal & SIXAXIS/”Gem”. All 3 developers need to pack it in and get back to making quality games again.
What’s the next big innovation? Ah yes, 3D. It’s already in our cinemas, so it’s only a matter of time until we’re playing games in 3D. As if I thought there wasn’t anything more pointless than motion control…
I just started downloading it now, and it’s utterly pointless. It consists of two things – Facebook and Polish as a System Language.
First off, what’s the point in having Facebook on your PS3? Or your Xbox 360, which also adopted it last week? I have a computer that I can use Facebook on, I don’t need an app on my PS3. I could even use Facebook perfectly well on the PS3′s Web Browser before this firmware update!
Secondly, why have Sony only just got round to adding Polish as a System Language? Surely every available language should have been added on day 1. But no, those racists bastards didn’t even acknowledge the existence of the Poles. It makes me physically sick.
EDIT: Just tried it out now, and Facebook on the Web Browser hasn’t changed one sodding bit. Not only are Sony racist, they’re also lyers.
Xbox’s use UDP, which basically throws data packets at the CPU, doesn’t care if it catches them and only sends them once. Whereas a PS3 and a Wii use TCP, which catches every data packet and lets the computer know that it’s caught it.
I was taught this in college so don’t start flaming me if I’m wrong/inaccurate. It’s just a little something that I found interesting, perhaps Microsoft should consider TCP if it’s so much more reliable and efficient than UDP.
So if you’re playing a game on an Xbox (or PC) and you experience lag (especially online), you’re no doubt using UDP.
It has finally arrived! Backing up my files right now. Unfortunately, it’s almost 500GB of data. So it’s going to take bloody hours. Oh well, I’m just glad I’ve got it at last.
(grow up)
