What I’m Playing At
Posted on | March 27, 2008 at 6:57 pm | 3 Comments
I realize I haven’t posted an update about my Playstation 3 experiences lately. Well, I haven’t had much time to play it or play with it. I haven’t done any online play at all. I’m working my way through Heavenly Sword, which is a bit of a button masher, but pretty and entertaining. I like the levels where you have to guide projectiles to their targets using aftertouch. Gives you a bit of a break from the endless combat. The cutscenes are cute and melodramatic and sometimes over-the-top, but I find it a little odd to have these Japanese characters voiced by actors with an English (not American) accent.
The other two PS3 games I own are Motorstorm (which came with the console) and Conan. Haven’t had much time to play either one since I’ve been concentrating on Heavenly Sword. I’m not much for racing games, so even though Motorstorm looks very well done, I probably won’t play it much. Conan and HS are more my thing. I like third person action/adventure games; I like hacking and slashing and working my way through some platforming and minor puzzles that won’t tax my brain (or thumbs) too much.
I’ve also been playing two games I downloaded from the Playstation Network: flOw and Everyday Shooter. flOw is kind of a relaxing low-key game to play when you just want something non-taxing to do – the perfect thing to mellow out with after a long hard day at work. Everyday Shooter, however, is incredibly frustrating and I haven’t even made it past the first level. I was never very good at those dual analog joystick shooting games (picture the old Robotron arcade game). It’s kind of fun though, and it does some innovative things with music. N does not like it when I play it because the odd music is distracting (moreso than hacking and slashing sounds, apparently) and because it makes me curse and scream a lot and throw things around.
I’m also still playing Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin on the Nintendo DS and I think I’m around 75% done with that. But it’s fallen by the wayside as I play the PS3 and God of War: Chains of Olympus on the PSP. GoW: Chains of Olympus is great. I played all the way through the original God of War (1) on the PS2, though it was on Easy mode. So, shoot me. I’m a casual gamer with little actual time for gameplaying, and I want to be able to experience the whole game without spending months on it. It was one of my all-time favorite video game playing experiences. I never did get around to purchasing God of War II for the PS2, though I probably will once it gets down to $20 or so. The PSP GoW is very reminiscent of the PS2 God of War – same play mechanics, same type of events, etc, but it doesn’t lose anything at all on the smaller PSP screen. It even has Major Boobage like the original title. I’m surprised they packed so much power into it. It looks and plays better by far than any other PSP game I’ve seen. Looking forward to finishing this one. And, oh yeah, I’m trying it on Normal instead of Easy mode.
As for using the PS3 as Blu-ray player, that works great. I purchased The Fifth Element on Blu-ray and watched it all the way through the other night – my first full BD-watching experience. TFE ain’t the greatest movie around (the plot is pretty hokey and predictable), but ten years on, it still makes a great reference disc. I always keep buying upgraded versions of it. The visuals (especially the colors) and the sound are amazing. And this was definitely the most amazing watching experience of it yet. It looked and sounded better than HiDef movies recorded off the satellite – I could definitely tell the difference. The combination of Blu-ray and my 50″ Panasonic Plasma TV can’t be beat. Next up is Spider-Man 3 and No Country From Old Men, both on Blu-ray, which I rented from Netflix. N and I just need to find the time to watch them though. We’ve also watched a number of regular DVDs on the PS3. The upconversion to 1080p works great and some of them do look very close to HiDef.
Before watching TFE, I upgraded the PS3 to the 2.20 version of the system software, which finally updated the Blu-ray player to the Blu-ray Disc Profile 2.0, allowing for BD-Live features (connection to the Internet for additional features) and other things. I think that continues to keep the PS3 at the top of the line for Blu-ray players. It can now also remember the position you were at on DVDs when stopping playback or even when turning the player off or ejecting the disc. That also supposedly works with most Blu-ray discs, though it didn’t work with FE when I ejected it in the middle of playback. It did work when I just stopped it without ejecting it.
Don’t have much of a Blu-ray disc collection so far: Lost: Season 3, Planet Earth: The Complete BBC Series (which N and I can’t wait to watch), 300, Justice League: The New Frontier and The Fifth Element. I’m glad Netflix rents Blu-rays discs. I intend to do a lot more renting than buying this time through. I hope to not go crazy collecting discs that I’ll never watch or re-watch like I did with DVDs. I also don’t want to end up re-buying my entire DVD collection on Blu-ray. There’s just some stuff I gotta have though, you know?
I’ve listened to a total of one entire SuperAudio CD so far on the PS3: Agents Of Fortune. It made my genitals tingle.
So that’s it for now. If you’ve got any game or disc recommendations, shoot ‘em at me! My anticipated future game purchases (once I’ve worked my way through the current ones) include Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword for the DS, and The Orange Box, Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, and Ratchet & Clank: Tools of Destruction for the PS3. I’m also really looking forward to Grand Theft Auto IV, Bionic Commando: Rearmed, and (Next Gen) Bionic Commando, and will probably get all those day-and-date when they come out.
Latre.
Jogged Today: Yes (@ 37°F)
Songs That Came Up On The iPod While Jogging:
- “Gold” (XTC)
- “May The Rain” (Caesars)
- “Smokeless Zone” (XTC)
- “Widths & Lengths” (Mink Lungs)
- “Calendar Girl” (Stars)
- “The Boy Wonders” (Aztec Camera)
- “You Don’t Know What It’s Like” (Econoline Crush)
Poignant Search Term Of The Day That Led To This Blog: “spanking janet”.
Comments
3 Responses to “What I’m Playing At”
March 27th, 2008 @ 9:06 pm
“poignant”?
March 28th, 2008 @ 6:01 am
what does the iPhone do while you’re dinking with inferior technology?
fahey xxxx
March 28th, 2008 @ 6:05 am
2fs: my “poignant”, I meant “creepy”.
iFahey: the iPhone is busy preparing my meals.