News
Mass Effect Galaxy Version 1.1
A new version of ME Galaxy has been released yesterday, or the day before, for the iPhone/iPod. This version improves stability, and boy does it show.
I previously blogged about how the game is completely unplayable on the first generation iPhone. This update fixes that, and also decreases the horrendous loading times, making this game somewhat playable.
It is still much better on the second generation iPod simply due to the faster processor.
Left 4 Dead 2 E3 Announcement
Wow, a lot of debate about this announcement at E3. The first Left 4 Dead has been out for a year, so it’s really unusual for Valve to announce a second one, especially since Valve are known to take their time with new releases and make sure it’s the best thing possible.
I only played the demo for L4D, but it was very enjoyable. From what I’ve heard, the second one adds new stuff, but isn’t a significant jump to justify a full retail title, and it would have been better to just release DLCs instead. A lot of fans are apparently boycotting L4D2 because they feel that the release of a second game, which isn’t a major release from the first, will split the online community in two and result in poor online play. I see their point with this, and have to say I kinda side with them a bit, not sure about the boycotting part though.
L4D2 mainly adds melee weapons, such as axes to the gameplay. That was asked for a lot in the first game, but besides that, and incendiary fire rounds, there isn’t a lot of difference between the first and second. Valve have stated though that there will be a bit more emphasis on story, with the player possibly finding out how the zombie infestation came about in the first place.
Regardless, I know Valve will put out a L4D2 that will be enjoyable. I am a bit disappointed that it is so soon though, about the end of this year. I think it would have been better to release the content of this game as a DLC for the first, and then package a new edition of the game with the original and all the DLC combined for a new retail package.
Apple WWDC 2009
Apple’s World Wide Developer’s Conference took place yesterday. A lot of hype was built up, particularly surrounding the iPhone having new models. So what did we see?
iPhone 3Gs
A new iPhone model was announced, scheduled for a June 19th released – although I believe that’s for the USA and other countries will receive it in August. The new iPhone, disappointingly, keeps the same form factor as the current iPhone 3G, but adds new features.
- Video Recording: finally, after a lot of calls from fans to have video recording, Apple have given their new iPhone this features. It’s VGA quality with 30FPS, which is decent although seeing as the new iPhone has a 3 megapixel camera, we would’ve thought video recording could be a bit better.
- Digital Compass: Not sure in this day and age how useful this really is, but there’s a magnetic digital compass built into the new iPhone, which shows what direction you’re facing but also orients Google Maps to suit the direction you face. A bit useful if you’re completely lost somewhere and need to use Google Maps to show what direction you’re facing, but in London, not exactly required for me.
- Voice Control: Every other mobile has some sort of voice dialling feature, and so does iPhone now. Except, you can use it to control your iPod features too now, and other stuff on your iPhone which is quite cool. More of a technological show-off rather than a practical use for me, I can’t imagine myself talking to my iPhone on public transport.
- Simply faster: The new iPhone, although technical specs weren’t released, is a lot faster than current iPhones, up to 4 times as fast in some cases. Most of the tests that were shown portrayed it being around twice as fast in most tasks, such as opening applications and so on. Data speeds are also up to 7.2MB HSDPA, rather than the 3 or so MB before.
So not sure how much of an upgrade the new iPhone 3GS (S standing for Speed) really is worth the price. The current iPhone 3G has been reduced in price, $99 in the USA but not sure how much that translates to in the UK.
A welcome announcement was that of Snow Leopard, Apple’s next iteration of their Mac OS X. It will be available for $29 for upgrade users in September, which is a great price! It builds more on back-end stuff rather than front-end that directly impacts the users, but still looked impressive. You can find more information from Engadget.
E3 2009 So Far…
My personal highlights so far from E3:
- Mass Effect 2, more gameplay trailer, looking pretty solid and can’t wait to get my hands on the game
- Star Wars The Old Republic, trailer that’s looking pretty good, not really gameplay but hopefully it’ll be a good MMO
- Alan Wake, it was shown first a few years ago, so it’s good to see it’s making progress and hopefully it’ll be out soon
- Various XBox Live services, including Sky on Live to watch sports, Facebook & Twitter integration
- Left 4 Dead 2 
- Metal Gear Rising, can’t wait to see some gameplay footage, although it was never said to be an exclusive to 360 although it was only mentioned at the Microsoft talk
- Modern Warfare 2, this is looking amazing! Should be a worthy successor to CoD4: Modern Warfare
- Announcement of Crysis 2 being on both PC and PS3/360
- Super Mario Galaxy 2 and New Super Mario Bros. Wii <-- looks very cool
- Goldun Sun DS, I played the first two on GBA, should be another solid RPG
- Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, I’m starting to hope the franchise doesn’t get abused with too many spin-offs…
- PSP Go, the worst kept secret, looks nice but overpriced
There was a lot of other stuff too, but these are the things that really stood out for me.
Super Monkey Ball Patch for iPhone
I only blogged yesterday about the new iPhone firmware, and also about Super Monkey Ball, and there’s already a patch available! The release date on the patch was 31st August, however it appeared in my update list just last night.
I was hoping and praying that Sega would release a patch fixing the issue of sensitivity. However, this was not done, instead the patch simply adds a new Help section, which features a tutorial and instructions. The tutorial is particularly useful for getting a feel for the sensitivity, since it provides a nice small diagram showing at what angle you are holding your iPhone and how much it is tilted – I really think they should somehow incorporate that into the actual game itself.
Another thing included in this patch which was definitely needed, was the ability to save your game when you exit the program. It doesn’t quite save the game, however it’ll pause it and give you the option to resume from that point next time you open the game. This is a very nice and necessary feature, since the game doesn’t save your progress until you complete 10 levels – and seeing how difficult this game is, that’ll be a while!
Some Old XBox Live Demos and E3 Stuff
I’ve been playing a few demos on my XBox 360 downloaded through Live, the first being Rez HD. I remember playing the original Rez back on the Sega Dreamcast. The Dreamcast was a pretty awesome console, and I still have it around somewhere, although it’s collecting dust. The main reason I kept it was since it had all of the great fighting games on it such as Capcom VS SNK 2, possibly my favourite fighting game of all time. I’ve also got Rez on it somewhere, and I remember playing that games tons, as well as the PlayStation 2 port – I think.
Knowing that Rez came out on XBox Live Arcade (XBLA) was fantastic news, as well as the fact that it was tweaked for High Definition! I finally got around to actually playing the demo, which goes through the first level. It’s exactly as I remember it to be, and really is an enjoyable experience. It’s difficult to explain what Rez is, you’re a mesh character flying through a mesh environment shooting at mesh objects that are your enemies. As you progress through the game, layers are added on to the mesh to create the environments. You really have to see screenshots or a video to get an idea of what it’s like.
Another demo that I thought I’d give a go was the Quake IV demo. It’s an old game, the demo has been up there for ages, but it’s eluded me for a long time. After playing the demo, I’m not too bothered by the fact I didn’t really make an attempt to play it. I was a huge fan of Quake back in the day, in fact it’s what got me into gaming and particularly First Person Shooter (FPS) games. I even remember buying Quake II and then taking a couple of days off school to complete it! I also played the hell out of Quake III Arena on my iBook (yes, Mac version).
Quake IV returns to the story of the Quake series. So we have some aliens called the Strogg, who the military attempted to attack in the second game but were somewhat unsuccessful, except the character you played as who does a solo mission through the entire game to deactivate some big gun and kill some important monsters. Quake IV carries on from there with squads still attacking the Strogg planet in a second wave, and you play the stereotypical new guy.
The game plays too much on dark environments and attempting to spook you, however it doesn’t really work since it’s just not scary, and way too predictable. It’s obvious when something is going to happen and anyone who played Doom 3 will see the obvious inspirations. It wasn’t really an enjoyable demo, you play the first 15 or so minutes of the game regrouping with your squad and not doing many important things.
The next game that I played, which I may have mentioned at some point before, was Pac-Man Championship Edition. I’m a huge fan of Pac-Man and used to have it on one of my old mobile phones. Pac-Man CE adds a lot more to the original game – firstly the actual maze or whatever you call it, is larger. The difference between the original Pac-Man and this one is that only a few dots are there to eat, and more appear once you’ve eaten them – so it’s potentially never ending instead of moving on to the next level. The tweaks do wonders to the looks of the game, and any fan of the original Pac-Man should definitely give this a try. The demo is limited to 3 minutes of the game, which flies by a lot faster than you realise!
So on to more E3 stuff. I haven’t been following a whole lot at E3, possibly because there actually isn’t that much going on over there. However, XBox Live has been updated with content from E3, including various videos for Resident Evil 5, Gears of War 2 and Fallout 3. So let me go through my impressions of these three games:
- Resident Evil 5: The game looks a lot like RE4, which isn’t a bad thing at all. RE4 was an awesome game, and the change from the dark environments to a random Spanish village was a huge leap for the series. It allowed new environments to be used and gave a completely different feel for the game, which has now been incorporated into RE5. For those who don’t know, RE5 takes place in Africa, however plot details are still thin at this point. There is a cooperative mode in the game where two players can play the game at the same time, since there’s a second character to accompany Chris Redfield. The game is due next March worldwide, and from what I’ve seen so far it really is shaping up to be a great game.
- Gears of War 2: Sequel to the best FPS game on XBox 360 in my opinion (yes, it beats Halo). Gears 2 seems even more polished than the first game, which is pretty difficult since the first game looked very slick. The gritty look and feel of the game has been carried over with a few more shades of grey, and other dull colours! The main thing however, is that the gameplay looks very enjoyable, just like the first one. The action that was shown at E3 seems exciting and the game plays just like the first one, so I’m really looking forward to it.
- Fallout 3: This is probably my most anticipated game this year. I’m a huge Fallout fan and love the narrative and atmosphere in the games. The third promises more, and this time using Oblivion’s engine. The game has been put into a first person perspective, rather than the third person isometric view used in the first two games. At first I was skeptical at how this will work, and how it will drastically change the feel of the environment. However after watching some gameplay footage and trailers, I can see it working and regardless, I’m excited about the game anyway simply due to the open-ended scenarios and plot.
There were some other news at E3, such as Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic returning as an MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online) game. I just hope they don’t mess it up, since the series is brilliant and not many will argue that they are some of the best RPGs to date. Also, Grand Theft Auto is coming to the Nintendo DS. I’m pretty reserved about this, since there aren’t any screenshots or videos to actually see how the game will look and play. Supposedly it is going to use the DS’ controls, i.e. touch screen and maybe the mic. I’ll have to see how this turns out when more details are revealed.
iPhone 3G Released, E3 2008 Underway
The new iPhone 3G was released last week, and instead of the grand launch Apple were expecting it was hit with lots of complaints, mainly to do with the activation process. The servers, reportedly from O2 (the sole network provider in the UK for the iPhone), were put under enormous strain by the success of the launch. Apple have stated that one million units have already been sold (the first iPhone took over 70 days to sell this many). While sales are good, it seems pointless in purchasing a phone and then effectively not being able to use it, since it hasn’t been activated. Apparently, there are still users that are unable to use their brand new iPhone 3G!
I own the first iPhone, just a regular 8GB version. With the launch of the new iPhone, there is a software update available for existing iPhone and iPod Touch users, version 2.0. Currently I’m on version 1.1.4, which works fine for me. Officially, upgrading to version 2.0 will make me lose any applications that I have installed through third party sources, using Installer. Also, my iPhone is unlocked and jailbroken (so I can use any sim card, and also I can install third party programs on it). While I know version 2.0 can be jailbroken, there are still numerous bug reports, so I guess I’ll hold back for now and see how things turn out.
In video game news, E3 2008 has started and there have already been some interesting announcements. The main ones that really stood out for me were:
- Final Fantasy XIII was confirmed for XBox 360 in Europe and America, so it’s no longer a Sony exclusive in these regions! Massive news considering the majority Final Fantasy titles have been Sony PlayStation exclusives since Final Fantasy VII (there have been smaller iterations of the series on Nintendo DS and other consoles, but not XBox 360).
- Gears of War 2 was confirmed for a release date of 7th November 2008.
- Portal: Still Alive was confirmed for XBox Live Arcade, it contains the original Portal and some extra puzzles (no further details were given). It’s said to be an exclusive, but it’s unclear whether this means console exclusive, since it can still be released on Steam for PC (a likelihood to me).
- Resident Evil 5 for both PlayStation 3 and XBox 360 was confirmed for a release date of 19th March 2009.
- Fable 2 for XBox 360 exclusive was confirmed for a release around Octoer 2008.
And finally, quite appealing to myself, Microsoft unveiled a new dashboard. This has been rumoured for quite a long time, and I think it’s a necessity. The current design doesn’t really look that bad, however the way categories are arranged is not intuitive. To browse through games, there’s generally a long list that you’ll have to go through. If the amount of things to browse was small, then the current design would work fine, however there are loads of stuff to download – demos, themes, etc. Each category then has hundreds of stuff within, so it really needed a new design to make browsing easier.
Microsoft have also gone for a cross between Nintendo’s Mii characters and Sony’s Home idea, and are allowing players to have their own avatar in some 3D cartoony way. I’m not sure what the point of this is, since to me it seems to be a waste of time to develop. I’m sure there will be some sort of interativity and communication with other users using this avatar. This is incorporated into the new dashboard design.
There were a few other things, like new colour controllers (green and red) as well as Microsoft partnering with Netflix to offer online rentals onto the XBox 360. The coming days of E3 will let us see what Nintendo and Sony have to offer as well as any third party titles that will pop up.
iPhone 3G Impressions
So, the new iPhone was announced over a week ago, and to be honest, I’m thoroughly disappointed. I’ve owned the original iPhone since last November, and love it (mostly thanks to it being unlocked and jail broken so I can install third party apps on it). For the next iteration of the iPhone I was expecting a lot of improvement, how about a thinner and more compact design with a better camera? Nope, instead Apple went and made it a curved design, since it’s actually thicker in the centre than the original. And also, despite tough competition from competitors, a 2 mega pixel camera is good enough. Very disappointing.
So the new features of the iPhone 3G, are well, introduction of 3G. So now we’re expected to have higher data transfer rates and compatibility for other 3G services. The other notable feature is the addition of built-in GPS navigation, which is indeed useful. Those two features are really the only two contributions that make a difference between the original and this new version. Oh, and unlockers/jailbreakers/hackers, there’s a catch.
Apple obviously know that a very small percentage of iPhone sales were actually ever activated with the contract that it was supposed to be on, well now the phone must be activated in-store. You can’t activate it at home through iTunes anymore, so no more purchasing the iPhone and then doing what you want with it (usually throwing away those bundled leaflets pleading you to active the ludicrous contract deal, and unlock it to put your own sim card in).
On the whole, pretty disappointing. At the conference Steve Jobs, CEO and Co-Founder of Apple, introduced the new version of Mac OS X, dubbed Snow Leopard (current version is called Leopard). For the average user, there are no real features here, it’s more of a technological move forward to get things ready probably for future software development by utilising the new and more powerful processors.
For most consumers, the announcements would be completely disappointing and pretty much irrelevant. It certainly wasn’t the conference full of big surprises and giddy new features on various products.
iPhone 1.1.4 Jailbreak
So I finally went ahead and upgraded my iPhone. I was previously on the 1.1.2 firmware, which was stable. After the infamous 1.1.3 was released, I decided to stick to my previous version since all I heard was incompatibility issues, bugs and problems for jailbreak users, despite the firmware being jailbroken very quickly.
Firstly, a quick explanation of what jailbreaking is: The iPhone comes locked to Apple’s set of applications. Currently, there is no official way for users to install or even create their own apps (SDK is upcoming, more on that in a bit). Of course, this is a major downside considering the capability of the iPhone, so jailbreaking it allows you to install third party apps. Currently there are already hundreds of different apps available. Of course, this somewhat voids the warranty, but it’s not much of a problem since you can restore your phone when going in for repair, and then just jailbreak it again when you get home!
So going from 1.1.2 to 1.1.4 gives me a lot of updates, since I missed out on 1.1.3 and certainly feels stable since 1.1.4 was primarily supposed to be for bug fixes. So let’s run through the main changes that I’ve seen from that jump, which mainly includes stuff from 1.1.3:
- The icons on the home screen can be rearranged in whatever way you want, also allowing for multiple pages which was previously available if you had tons of apps from Installer. There were also some other third party apps that allowed this, but now it’s officially available.
- You can make a shortcut from a website and put it right on to the home screen. A nice feature to have these shortcuts right on the home screen instead of having to open up Safari, the internet browser, before accessing them.
- Google Maps now has the ‘Locate Me’ feature, which was available via a third party app, appropriately named Locate Me. This one is definitely more accurate though and gives a more exact location than it’s third party counterpart.
- The keyboard now apparently supports multi-touch, although I personally haven’t really needed this. Update: Tried it out with the shift and works very well, just like holding the shift key down on a normal keyboard and then typing for capital letters.
- You can send text messages to multiple users now, which is mind-boggling as to why it wasn’t included right from the beginning. This was previously available from the third party app SMSD and iSMS.
So overall it’s an update playing catch-up, besides the whole adding website shortcuts to the home screen. The home screen could also be updated and changed from third party apps as well, but it’s nice having all this by default.
I’m thoroughly looking forward to Apple’s SDK, reportedly due to be released this June. The possibilities seem awesome, especially gaming-wise which was previously lacking on the iPhone. I’m really just hoping that somehow this stuff will be jailbroken, since it will be on a new firmware version. Here’s the video of Steve Jobs introducing the SDK:
Media unavailable
So the SDK allows people to create their own programs for the iPhone. Apple however have full control over what is released, since it must go through a new application called the App Store, where you buy these programs. This is really a great feature since a lot of software developers, large and small teams, are going to jump into this and create all sorts of programs aimed at a range of consumers such as individuals to business. I’m really looking to the possibilities, and particularly the gaming side of things to come! There are more videos on YouTube showcasing what has already been made for the iPhone using the SDK.
Wha..! January is upon us!
Wow, time really flies by. The second week of term has just about finished and only having a handful number of hours of sleep due to two deadlines this morning doesn’t help.
But anyway, XBox Live’s trouble filled Xmas was a bit of a disappointment. I picked up Call of Duty 4, and having played the multiplayer beta quite a bit before it was released, I was contemplating subscribing to Gold, but seeing how poor the performance was, and apparently still is for some people, I stopped myself.
So still playing Mass Effect and Call of Duty 4 (and by playing, I mean about two weeks ago playing). But that isn’t what I’ve really been following over the last few days.
Macworld 2008 just happened a few days ago, and what did we see? MacBook Air, a new laptop that is the world’s thinnest laptop. And damn, it’s thin. I downloaded the presentation that Steve Jobs gave and was pretty much amazed by the new laptop. There are some downsides, so let’s jump into it.
No disc drive. I can see how Steve thinks that most people won’t be really using discs much soon, however it still is a BIG form of data in general (DVD movies, data discs, music CDs, software, etc.) While the new remote access for CDs is a very nice utilisation of technology, I wouldn’t go as far as saying it’s a replacement.
The 1.6GHz is impressive, and it’s nice having the full 13.3″ screen like the MacBook. However they slapped a £1,200 price tag upon the beauty. Now, if the processor was faster, had a disc drive (preferably SuperDrive internally) then maybe that price is acceptable. Considering the MacBook is £700 and has better specs, it seems unreasonable despite the thinness to have such a high price point.
Besides that, Steve unveiled a few other things but the Time Capsule really stood out for me. It’s a hard drive that wirelessly syncs with your Mac and backs up using Time Machine. This is great, especially for me since I have to get my external hard drive out and plug everything in, and then back up. This is just always there and done wirelessly, just no hassle at all.
On a more gaming note, there was an old game called Crayon back on an old console somewhere. Many with iPhones or iPod Touch that are jailbroken will more commonly know about it under iPhysics. Trust me, if you don’t know what it is just Google search it, since it’s awesome! It just makes those lectures fly away!
And finally, I wrote an article over at Home Made Mech/Anime Boredom about the Best Games for the 360 of 2007. You might find it an interesting read, and there’s also one for the PS3 by John Huxley, owner of the website and a good friend. Be sure to check them out!
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