B3yond the Report 8.17.09: New Writer, Gamescom and More
Posted by Jon Seddon on 08.18.2009
This week we look forward to what might turn out to be a very big week for Sony when they might announce a new PS3.
This is my first time writing this column and so to introduce myself, let me give you the history of my life in gaming up to the present day. My name is Jon Seddon (PS ID strictlybeats), I've been writing for 411mania for a couple of months and I'm British. Being British might not seem very relevant, but if I sometimes seem a bit "limey" in my outlook, that's why. That and the fact we have to pay more for games you guys got about 6 months ago.
My route into gaming was playing a Pong clone with my dad, which probably makes me about 37 years old. The advantage here is that I've seen a whole lot of gaming history and the disadvantage is that I'm now a little too slow to keep up with the modern Call of Duty player.
I own all the current and most of the past consoles. I have no allegiance to and hopefully no bias for any console or manufacturer, but I do wish Nintendo would release some decent games. That's me – I just like playing and talking about games.
Anyway, here goes and I hope you like it.
The Top Stories
The biggest Playstation news of the week
MAG Release Date
We were all disappointed when Sony announced that MAG wouldn't be out until 2010, not least because it was just another of the many victims afraid of the Activision juggernaut. It also leaves Sony with just Uncharted 2 and Ratchet & Clank as their platform exclusives confirmed for Q4. Thankfully, it isn't delayed very long and now has a release date of January 26. Perhaps avoiding Modern Warfare 2 might be a smart move, but whether people will be ready to move on from Call of Duty by January is still doubtful.
Batcave in Home
I'm not one to spend time in Home, but even I could be tempted to take a look at the Batcave on August 25 (28th in Europe). Purchasers of Batman: Arkham Asylum will get to theme their apartments after the home of Bruce Wayne. This is one more reason to purchase Arkham Asylum on PS3 rather than 360.
Mini Ninjas Demo on PSN this week
No more news than that, but this is the first game from IO Interactive since Kane & Lynch marred their previously faultless reputation. It will be interesting to see how they handle a cutesy action adventure. For my money it seems incredibly similar in concept to Kung Pu Panda and I'll be interested to see whether it has any depth to it. The game hits the streets September 11 so the demo should be a good indicator on the final game quality.
BlazBlue Coming to Europe
Last week the release of this enormously praised fighter in Europe looked extremely unlikely with no publisher stepping up and so I imported a copy from my favorite Canadian store. Unfortunately, I couldn't get the limited edition release as stocks were sold out long ago. This week, Kotaku reports that Europeans will not only get the game, including the limited edition content, but we will also get new moves and characters. Damn my impatience and I'll still probably buy the UK release as I'm a sucker for a good strategy guide
Uncharted 2 Media Overload
If you're not excited about Uncharted 2 then perhaps it's time to go back to Wii Sports. For everyone else then 1UP have a ton of screenshots and 5 minutes of single player footage to keep you excited. I'm trying to ignore it as much as I can, so as not spoil the experience, but if you can't wait then go knock yourselves out. Naughty Dog also indicated that another multi-player demo might be released, but there would not be single player demo.
Capcom PS1 Classics rated for PSN store
Dino Crisis, Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 3: Nemesis have all been rated by the ESRB, which means they'll probably be released on the Playstation store soon; in North America at least. You would think that putting these games on the store was like free money, but I still wonder whether Sony let that motivate them these days
The Talking Point
The big discussion point this week
Europe's largest video game show hits Cologne next week and I am super excited about it, not least because I'm going and hoping to get some hands on time with many of the year's most anticipated games. Sony's press conference is August 18 at 7pm Central European Time and expect to hear some big news on the PSP Go and perhaps the much needed price cut for PS3. Other than Sony, there's a huge list of companies going including all the big name like Activision , Ubisoft and EA.
I've been surfing hard this week and gathered some of the stories and rumor we can expect to hear about next week.
PS3 Slim. It was difficult to go to a gaming website this week without reading about the PS3 slim. UK retail outlets are reporting difficulties getting stock of the existing 60GB model, whilst French supermarkets were more brazen, leaking adverts for a PS3 Slim for ˆ299. That it will be revealed is now almost a given, but what interests me more is what we'll be getting. If I could replace my current behemoth with a smaller unit that also had backwards compatibility and a decent number of USB slots, I'd be tempted. I very much doubt that will be the case, instead providing reduced functionality keeping the core components and ditching anything deemed extravagant.
PSP Go. I would like a couple of announcements for Sony's handheld gamble. Firstly, I want to see some solid examples of what their new PSP store is going to offer. Podcasters and forum posters have been talking about games available at similar prices to the iPhone's Appstore, so something like a Rolando would be nice. I also expect them to talk about how I can send them all my UMDs and get digital copies of my games. I stopped buying new PSP games once the Go was announced and would imagine a few people have done the same. Don't let us down Sony.
Sony's games. There'll be an opportunity to play Sony's big games including Heavy Rain, MAG, Uncharted 2 and perhaps God of War 3. Perhaps we won't see anything that wasn't at E3 but we can hope. The PSP library of winter titles should also be there in force with the launch of Go just over a month away. The list of games including: Gran Turismo, Little Big Planet, Motor Storm and SoulCalibur representing a solid line up in support of the Go. If they can couple demand for their games in general and specific demand for the new handheld by gamers desperate to get their hands on a collection of download only titles, then PSP Go might be successful. If there isn't an appetite and a reward for leaving behind
Video Store. Europe will finally get a video store on PS3 and it will be announced at Sony's press conference. Bearing in mind a video store hit 360 a couple of years ago, it's staggering that Europe has had to wait this long. Again, perhaps Sony doesn't like money, but I'm sure people will pay to download movies and TV series.
Little Big Planet at Gamescom . According to Media Molecule's podcast, they will have some big announcements this week at Gamescom. I would expect extra costumes and levels rather LBP2 or anything major, but we'll let you know as soon as we do.
Retail Releases for the week of August 17th
Wolfenstein is out this week, although it's been so under hyped that I'd be surprised if anyone even notices. Perhaps Activision thinks that we're so desperate for new games at this time of year, that they don't have to market it. I suspect they will be wrong and this won't trouble the charts. I hope to get my review copy soon, so I'll let you know whether it's worth picking up.
If Wolfenstein doesn't excite you then you haven't got a great deal of choice this week. You are better off waiting to get Batman next week and then its hold on to your pocket books once we get to September.
Playstation Store Updates
PS3 owners finally get a chance to play Marvel vs Capcom 2 this week and it's well worth the download even perhaps if you still have a Dreamcast and copy of this game. In the PS3 version all the characters are unlocked from the start, so you don't have to spend hours unlocking them and/or have to leave your console on all night to just to unlock that one particular character. If you like Street Fighter then this is worthy distraction and if you have fond memories of playing this before it still looks good today.
Otherwise, apart from the original Tomb Raider being released as part of the PS1 classics collection it was a week of add ons. DLC was released for Cross Edge, Disgaea, Pain, Little Big Planet and the usual Rock Band and Guitar Hero content. A full list can be found on the Playstation Blog.
What I've been playing
I've had a pretty packed week and I'm not ashamed to admit that much of my gaming time has been on other platforms, but I'll leave discussion of 360 platform exclusives out of here.
At the risk of getting bombarded with arrows, freeze spells and cake, I just don't get this game. I haven't seen the technical difficulties that most people have complained about, but what I have experienced mostly is a feeling of "so what". In multi player games I run around bewildered about what I should be doing, but luckily almost everyone else seems to be in the same boat. The likelihood of meeting strangers online that have a headset and are willing to discuss strategy is pretty low, so we all just run around throwing bombs or swinging swords. I've tried the single player modes as well and apart from the fact you can command other bots on your side to help you I get pretty much the same result. If anyone would like to take pity on me and show me the ropes my ID is strictlybeats and I'd love to find out what I'm missing.
BlazBlue. As I mentioned earlier, I imported this and my copy turned up on Saturday and I've been busy playing it since. Visually, I expected it to look a little better after all the glowing reports. I prefer Street Fighter IV's graphics, which look much more impressive in motion, but it's still overall beautifully presented. So far I have played story mode, had an initial foray online and played remotely via my PSP, all of which worked flawlessly. I urge anyone to have a go playing this via remote play – it's a weird feeling playing this in bed on your PSP, which is actually streaming it from my living room. I'm not whether these characters fit into a greater gaming mythology, but they are a fun bunch. So far I am concentrating on trying to learn Ragna.
Resident Evil 5
I have played the entire game in the online coop mode and I'm now reaching the climax. It's not very Resident Evil and certainly a mechanically dated game. However, my brother and I have had fun almost the whole way through. Only level 5-3 has caused us to break our commitment and consult a guide before a controller went through a window . You know the one where you have to remove that damn necklace and neither shooting nor wrestling with it seems to work? Hopefully, we'll get this done in the next couple of weeks – organizing online sessions can sometimes stall us for a while
Terminator: Salvation.
As a long time fan of the films I happily ignored the bad reviews of this game just wanting to shoot T600s with that stirring music in the background. The game is a third person shooter with a cover mechanic and was developed by the now defunct studio Grin. It also features the ubiquitous on rails shooter sections and later on lets you take control of one of the terminator machines, which gives you that trademark red vision. I'm just over half way through, which is taking considerably longer than the expected 4 hours. I'm playing though on hard though, which requires repeating some of the same crushingly difficult battles over and over until I'm either lucky or learn the patterns. So far, the reviewers are right that the game is unpolished, a little uninspired and light on content. However, it is telling a simple yet enjoyable tale set before the recent film with John Conner struggling with the responsibility of leadership. I'm definitely not going to recommend that anyone buys this , but let's call it my guilty pleasure this week
As I said, I'm at Gamescom from Thursday onwards, so hopefully, I'll have plenty of exciting news and pictures to post and a roundup back here next Monday. If you'd like to see something different here let me know.
"Perhaps Activision thinks that we're so desperate for new games at this time of year, that they don't have to market it."
They might be pissed about the whole iD/Zenisoft (Bethesda) thing as well.
Posted By: Rod Oracheski (Registered) on August 17, 2009 at 11:14 PM
Hey Jon nice work with the column this week. Had a lot to talk about which is great. How about adding in some newer banners n pics for Beyond the Report?
Posted By: Hdj360 (Guest) on August 17, 2009 at 11:32 PM
nice work jon, keep it up. I loved dino crisis back in the day, something about a red headed hottie shootin up dino's in a resi clone really did it for me back then, dunno with all the unessesary crap they dig up, why couldnt they give dino crisis a go for the hd era.
Posted By: gooched (Guest) on August 18, 2009 at 09:40 AM
Hi and welcome to the column. Britain represent and all that! (Although I live in the States now)
For all of the hype building up to Gamescom I hope it is a good showing for Sony.
Posted By: Squishy (Guest) on August 18, 2009 at 09:58 AM
Where the fuck is Shaq? LOL
Nice work, I reviewed Terminator Salvation for this site, and although it was far from a great game, I enjoyed it for the simple fact that I got to shoot Terminators, and I thought it was a decent story as well leading up to the Salvation movie.
Posted By: Todd Vote (Registered) on August 18, 2009 at 10:34 AM
I demand more Shaqy! Although I hated Vince, that raping punk-ass bitch. Anyway, great report and I really enjoy your layout. Easy to read and to the point.
Posted By: Armando Rodriguez (Registered) on August 18, 2009 at 02:29 PM
Since the PS3 is now $299 for an 80 GB or $399) for a 160 GB, I cannot wait to see what happens this holiday season. :-D
Posted By: David (Guest) on August 19, 2009 at 11:12 AM
