It is coming up to a year since I bought my Wii to fill the Christmas gaming void left by my RRoD XBox 360. Having always steered clear of Nintendo hardware, I had finally given in the the cutesy world of Mario and his friends. One of the biggest problems I had with Nintendo was that they constantly churned out the same old characters such as Mario, Donkey Kong and Zelda.
Now however, Nintendo seemed to be trying something completely different. The Wii promised a new era of gaming with its Motion sensors and accelerometers giving life to innovative gameplay instead of ever increasingly realistic shooters and racing sims. In the beginning it did deliver. Wii Sports was great fun, for 30 minutes. WarioWare was a riot, for about an hour. Luckily I had Super Mario Galaxy to keep me happy and content until my 360 was repaired in the new year. Since then the only Wii game of any real interest for me was Mario Kart. I had never been a big fan of the hugely popular racing game but thought I would give it a shot, especially with the steering wheel controls. It was ok. Not great. Not very exciting. Just ok. Exactly like every other MK I have played over the last decade, except the steering was a bit different (though not actually better IMHO).
After that, I stopped playing my Wii. Days turned into weeks, weeks into months. Every now and again I’d take a walk into the Game store to see what new and nothing seems to change. Super Mario Galaxy, Mario Kart, Zelda and the like are still in the top 10, still selling at full price. You get the odd new game of interest but most of them are cross platform titles that probably run a lot nicer on my PS3 or dodgy old 360. OK, Wii Fit was a big release for Nintendo and I tried hard to get one when it was released. Try as I might, all stores were sold out for weeks, until I eventually lost interest. After the hype had died down, £70 seemed an awful lot of money for a set of scales.
We are constantly bombarded with tales of how the Wii is outselling every other console by 10s of thousands of units every month. I’d be interested to see what the figures are in terms of game sales. It just seems like the trickle of new Wii games are either cross platform titles with a few Wii-mote gimic controls or strange Japanese titles aimed at teaching kids and non gamers how to cook or fish. The Wii was supposed to be a revolution in gaming but all I see is a cheap lump of white plastic gathering dust next to my PS3.
The Falcon is a futuristic-looking PC game controller from Novint that can provide a greater sense of realism to your favourite FPS game. Using a pistol attached to the main base, gamers get feedback from gun recoil, when getting hit, and environmental feedback from collisions and vehicles. It supports all the main FPS titles you are likely to care about too. At £165, this is probably for hardcore gamers.
I am a big fan of using the mouse for FPS games with its fast and intuitive control but I would love to try this out. I can’t imagine it being comfortable for hours of gaming, which is irrelevent now as I am lucky to get 1-2 hours a week these days.
Looks like everything our mothers said about spending too much time in front of the TV was true. Check out this poor soul who spent too much time on his Xbox 360. Don’t feel too sorry for him though, with his 37″ LCD head, he has become very popular amongst his peers.
As it turns out, Microsoft weren’t making rubbish hardware that died after a couple of days gaming after all. The infamous Xbox 360 RRoD is actually a failsafe switch added to prevent us all from ending up like this guy.
Last Friday I got my hands on a brand new 80GB PlayStation 3, having traded in my troublesome Xbox 360. As well as the PS3, I bought GRID, Metal Gear Solid 4, Gran Tourismo 5: Prologue, an extra rumble controller, HDMI cable and a rented BluRay Movie. Here’s how I got on: Continue reading →
Just coming to the end of my first day in the Cambridge office. Totally gobsmacked by the views of Boston. It is great meeting the people I have been working with in person. Everyone is very friendly and welcoming.
Unfortunately, the weather hasn’t been great. I was caught in a heavy thunderstorm last night. The rain hammered down for three hours with no let up. I found shelter in a nearby Abercrombie and Fitch store which became a living hell after an hour. Ended up having a Clam Chowder Bread Bowl then onto a great little bar where a pint of Bud was $1.50 so it wasn’t all bad.
I will be going to my first baseball game tomorrow night to see World Champions Boston Redsox take on the Texas Rangers. Its a hard job but somebody has got to do it
So I did it. It took a bit of courage and a lot deliberation but I have sold my Xbox 360 and all its games. I started by deleting my gamertag. Once it was gone there was no going back. I reformatted the HDD, stuffed it into my old Gears of War Limited Edition box, traded it in for £130 (including the wifi adapter) and put my name down for a spanking new 80GB Sony PS3. It isn’t due until the end of August but I can make do with my Wii and Crysis on the PC. I had 10-12 games to trade in but Game were only offering £30 for the lot so I brought them to Extra Vision who offered me £65. All I have left is a spare controller that I will use for my PC and a dodgy wireless headset. I still have 5 months of my Xbox subscription and 1500 Xbox points but I guess that doesn’t really matter.
So its goodbye Microsoft and hello Sony. I am really looking forward to getting the PS3. I think the hardware has much more potential than the Xbox for the next few years. I will finally be able to watch HD movies on BluRay, which was one of my original reasons for buying the 360 before HDDVD borked. There are also some interesting games including MetalGearSolid 4, KillZone 2, Little Big Planet and of course Gran Turismo 5. Most of all, I am looking forward to having a console that doesn’t refuse to play my games (fingers crossed!).
After 1 and a half years, I have finally lost patience (and interest) in my Xbox 360. So am planning to sell up and replace it with a brand spanking new 80GB PS3.
I bought my first 360 just before Christmas 2006 to go along with my new 40″ LCD TV. The first few days of hi-def gaming with Gears of War was fantastic.The graphics were awesome and the Gears cover mechanics really added to the realism. Unfortunately, the Honeymoon didn’t last very long. The ear deafening roar from the noisy 360 itself was disappointing. Then I had to replace the 360 after less than a week’s worth of service, spoiling my Christmas games fest. This was my first introduction into the world of pain surrounding Microsoft’s dodgy hardware. Then I had to replace my spare controller and both of my rechargeable battery packs a week later. The wireless headset was complete and utter rubbish. My second 360 has been a royal pain in the backside. I have had to deal with constant interruptions to gaming sessions due to “unreadable” disks, all of which were brand new and completely unblemished. My 360 had a habit leaving strange concentric rings of crud, which took ages of gentle rubbing to clean off. Then last Christmas, as I was planning another annual games fest, the console suffered the Red Ring of Death (RRoD) and I was left without a console for three weeks. Actually, I bought a Wii to cover the loss so it wasn’t all bad. Since then, it has been used less and less. I would play once in a blue moon, often interrupted by the “Unreadable” disk error. Then, the other night, as I settled down for a rare hour on GTA IV, it happened within 5 minutes of starting up. The final straw.
It is sad because I still love the console for all its faults. All of my brothers have 360s. The controllers are the best of any console, Arcade was great for a quick blast of Geometry Wars and online play was second to none. With big changes to the menu system, Gears 2 coming out this Christmas, and the brilliant Microsoft only PGR series, it would be tempting to stick with it for a while longer, or even just go for a new 360 in the hope that they have sorted the issues out.
I would love to hear from anyone else with similar experiences, particularly those who traded in for a PS3. How did you find the switch? Any regrets??
Recently I’ve been thinking about how productive I was at school compared to the current day. I am still amazed at the amount of different subjects I was juggling back during my GCSEs, carrying a backpack crammed with a bunch of textbooks and file blocks. Somehow I still managed to study, play computer games, play Gaelic and football for for 3 different teams and still find time for some telly (and the odd date!). Ok maybe I didn’t study as much as I should have but I still did well enough. Continue reading →
VMware Tools improves performance, mouse control and enables copy/paste between host and guest OSes. If you create your own VM using VMWare workstation (see here for instructions) you should install the Tools. You can get the official guide from VMware here but it is missing a few points so I thought I would share them here: Continue reading →
Lately I have had a lot of stuff on my mind and it is driving me slightly crazy. There are so many different things I want to do and I have so little time to share between them. So each night, I sit down and try to decide what do to that night, by the time I get round to deciding, its bed time. Whats a guy to do?!
What things I hear you cry? Well its quite a diverse list ranging from expanding my knowledge portfolio (thanks prag prog!), working on my current list of projects, fleshing out some of the ideas I have for new projects, getting myself fit, DIY work round the house, learning to play the guitar, my new hobby of amateur photography, gaming and spending quality time with the family. I am also considering touting for little bit of freelance work to supplement my craving for all things gadgety (Anyone need a part-time coder??).
Somehow I need to organise my thoughts and start to manage my time effectively. If I don’t, I will never get anything done!
