The SIXAXIS Report 02.19.08
Posted by Mark Salmela on 02.19.2008
Say your prayers Microsoft; I’ve got the exclusive news as to a potential launch of Home for the PS3. Also look for a celebration, as well as news on the new WarHawk weapons and patch, Little Big Planet, Final Fantasy XIII, Fallout 3, Rainbow Six Vegas 2, Lost Planet’s long PS3 install time, and much more inside this edition of the SIXAXIS Report!
You actually clicked the link? You really shouldn't have. But now that I've got your attention, let me tell you I've got a few tricks up my sleeve. In addition to all of the latest Sony news you've all come to expect, this week I'm going to attempt to explain why I actually don't want Rainbow Six Vegas 2 to be more like Call of Duty 4. Call me crazy, but I'll take Vegas to COD4 any day. COD4 is a great game, but it gets old fast. Any who I'm getting ahead of myself, I'll talk more about it later.
Definitely not the designated driver, it's Sony News of the Week
WE FINALLY WON~!
WE DID IT~! ALL OF OUR HARD WORK HAS PAID OFF IN SPADES! PS3 USERS REJOICE! THE CONSOLE WARS ARE OURS!
Oh happy day, what a glorious victory. The PlayStation 3 has triumphed over the evil that was the Xbox 360. The mighty dragon that was the 360 has been slain. We can all finally retire into our Home apartments and celebrate, the war is over. The PS3 has outsold the Xbox 360!
411's resident 360 writers Mike and AJ Minotti could not be reached for comment as of press time about the matter, nor could anyone even remotely resembling a Microsoft employee. Phil Harrison, Mark Salmela, Jack Trenton, and Sony Computer Entertainment shall take this as a sign of defeat.
Wait, you mean the PS3 has only outsold the 360 for the month of January? Oh shit. Well screw it, bring in the mariachi band, we're going to party like it's 1929 *before the crash, mind you*. That's right people, this long, fanboyish rant is all because the PS3 outsold the 360 for the month of January. The PS3 sold upwards of 269,000 units to the 360's 230,000. While it's obviously not that big of a jump, and Microsoft blames it on hardware shortages, it is a victory for the PS3 all the same. Now call me crazy, but I think that we'll start seeing the PS3 outsell the 360 more and more often, especially once games like MGS4 start coming out in June. I've gone into rants before about why the console race is far from over, and if this keeps up we may have a race on our hands much sooner than we think. The PS3 has outsold the 360 in both Japan *by a long shot* and in Europe, the US is the only place where the 360 is holding strong. If they lose that, it's all over.
Oh I always knew you could do it, even with your crazy little boomerang controller.
Well as you readers may or may not have known, yours truly has been patiently awaiting the release of PlayStation Home for quite sometime now. Well if the latest rumors are true, the wait may soon be over. The rumor first started with the details of the WarHawk 1.3 patch *which I'll get into below*, where it was announced that WarHawk will have full Home integration. Users will be able to visit other fans of WarHawk and launch multiplayer games right from Home once the patch comes out *very soon might I add*.
As for the rest of the rumor, on the official PlayStation boards a user who claims to have close ties to Sony insiders claim that all upcoming PS3 games must support the following two features: Accomplishments and Home integration. Here's the exact quote:
A game must be able to integrate into Home, a game must support "Accomplishments". Right there, two important things, the PS3 system for achievements is called "Accomplishments", and Home is coming out VERY VERY VERY Soon.
So basically the PS3's answer to Microsoft's achievement points will be launching with Home, which according to this guy will be very soon. Now I've been waiting for Home for over a year now *last years Game Developers Conference to be exact, funny GDC 2008 is this week* so hopefully this proves to be true. If I had to guess I'd say that Home will launch sometime in March. I mean come on, even if this is just a rumor, we've been waiting for Home for so long. It can't be that far from completion, can it? Also with rumors of the private Home beta closing *which has been going on for almost 6 months now* it looks like the long wait for PS3 users may be soon coming to an end. Let's just hope I didn't jinx it.
A big update for WarHawk on the horizon, version 1.3
Well I'm not afraid to say WarHawk is probably my favorite multiplayer PS3 game and one of my top 5 favorite PS3 games so far. WarHawk provides for hours of fun, and just Sunday I sat down and ended up blowing almost 4 hours on CTF matches. I couldn't put the game down. If you haven't given WarHawk a shot before, you owe it to yourself to try it; it's especially awesome after the Omega Dawn expansion pack.
Any who the WarHawk version 1.3 patch is about to roll out, and it's a much bigger update than most had anticipated. In addition to the Home features I explained above, the game will support two big new features. First off will be the wrench, which is a weapon which if struck against friendly vehicles will repair them, and if stuck against enemy vehicles it will damage them. The wrench is also a one hit kill against a single enemy, so it packs more a punch than you might think. In addition to the wrench is the bio-field generator, which does just as you think. You can throw and stick the bio-field generator to anything, and it will increase the health of your teammates if they are inside the bio-field, and it will damage enemy players if they happen to wander inside. Both additions sound pretty cool if I do say so myself. New voice chat options are being added so you can choose that both teams can hear each other, which would allow for a lot of trash talking if you know what I mean between teams. All in all the new patch sounds really cool, and it looks as if it's only a week or two away from launching. I'll have hands on impressions as soon as it's released, see you on the battlefield.
Time for another sandwich, Lost Planet also requires 20 min install time
Oh boy, people are going to be happy with me. After defending the Devil May Cry 4 20 minute install time saying it's a rare occurrence, Capcom throws another curve ball and does the same thing for Lost Planet. Now I'll admit defeat here, as I did not expect Capcom to do another full install so soon. While the 20 GB PS3 user base is small, it does exist, and Capcom needs to look out for them. 2 installs of 5 GB takes up over half of their hard drive space, and that's ridiculous. I have the 60 GB hard drive *though I just purchased a 250 GB hard drive, more on that purchase at the end of the column* and I have run into problems running out of hard drive space. I can't even imagine what the 20 and 40 GB users are going through.
While I understand installing onto the hard drive makes some games faster, there are plenty of games that don't use it and are just fine on load times. I let Devil May Cry 4 get away with it because it was the first game that I know of that installed that much crap onto your hard drive and it was still an awesome game. Lost Planet does not get that benefit, as I honestly fail to see what's so good about it. I played the PS3 online demo and got bored in about 2 minutes, there's nothing about that game that makes me want to throw my money at it while I go and "make a sandwich" because it takes 20 minutes to install. Not to mention DMC4 had a nice story while it installed telling what happened in the first three games, Lost Planet is pretty much just a blank screen. Thanks but no thanks, there's a better solution than just installing the entire game onto the hard drive.
Sony PlayStation Store update for the week of February 14
Well it was another decent showing for the PlayStation Store this week. While there wasn't really any new games per say, there were a couple of interesting demos. First off was the re-launch of the Lost Planet multiplayer demo. The demo went up for a couple hours last week, but something inside was broken, as no one *including yours truly* couldn't get into a match, so it was taken down. Well the demo is up now and actually works, although as I stated above I'm still not a big fan of the game.
In addition we also got a demo of MLB 08 The Show, which isn't bad at all. I haven't bought a baseball game in almost 4 years, and if it wasn't for the clipping problems I'd probably buy it when it comes out. I mean seriously, my guy stole second, and he went right through the second basemen when he dove into second. The bastard went clean through him, and I was embarrassed. They have all of these cool little touches like volleyballs being tossed around in the background yet they can't add collision detection? That's half-assed to the max. It's too bad, as I was having a lot of fun with the game.
Besides MLB 08 and Lost Planet demos, we got the usual Rock Band songs *The Police still suck*, a cool Star Dust HD theme, and a bunch of videos. I recommend you pick up the Little Big Planet video, it shows how well the game is coming along. As for the PC PlayStation Store *which I never bring up*, there's allegedly a PSP demo of the game Patapon. I've heard a lot of really good things about Patapon, too bad my memory stick probably isn't big enough to hold the demo.
Credit: Sony
Sony Quick News!
40 GB PS3 owners may not be out of luck after all, as Sony reaffirmed that if the demand is there, backwards compatibility can be emulated via software updates. While they currently say they have no plans to do it, if the demand is there they will add it. I know I'd be pissed if I lost my PS3 and lost backwards compatibility, so here's hoping they bring back backwards compatibility soon for you 40 GB users. Go send them letters or something.
Here's an interesting rumor, apparently Final Fantasy XIII is further along in development than we think, and could actually make a late 2008 release. But Square Enix president Yoichi Wada might hold off the release until 2009 because he doesn't want to compete with Dragon Quest IX. Now I'm hoping this isn't true, as I'd be pissed to find out they're delaying FF13 because of a DS game *or at least I think Dragon Quest IX is for the DS, I must admit I don't care at all about Dragon Quest*. I'll be sure to follow up on this, though we probably won't here anything significant on FF13 until E3 in July.
Little Big Planet may now be in a closed beta stage, if moderators on the European PlayStation boards are correct. Apparently their gamertags all read that they're playing Little Big Planet, which makes me angry for not being a European PlayStation board moderator. I want Little Big Planet dammit. Hopefully this means that a more open beta may reach US shores, or at least some sort of demo to hold us over until September. I expect to hear more either at GDC this week or at the latest E3 in July.
Pixel Junk Monsters on the PlayStation Store has become so popular that Q games will be bringing an expansion pack for it in the not too distant future. I for one am in love with the game and recommend everyone go download it now, it's really addicting. No details on the expansion pack yet, but I'll let you know when they announce what's coming.
In what could be the final deathblow to HD-DVD *I say it almost every week now*, Toshiba may be dropping HD-DVD. A press release is expected soon, but since they make the 360 HD-DVD player as well as the majority of HD-DVD players it would definitely put a nail in the coffin in my opinion. With the recent announcement of Wal-Mart, Blockbuster, Netflix, and Best Buy supporting Blu-Ray, all I have to say is: Viva la Blu-Ray!
Anyone looking to pick up a 40 GB PS3 this week should be aware that Target is offering a free $40 gift card with purchase. That's a pretty good deal in my mind. Not to mention they're offering a ten dollar gift card if you purchase a particular PS3 or 360 title.
Now I'm never one to get special editions of video games, as $10 for some special DVD or collector's piece isn't worth it in my opinion, but boy does Rainbow Six Vegas 2 throw me for a loop. A Rainbow Six Vegas 2 poker chip key chain, that's actually pretty damn tempting. If anyone knows a way for me to snag one without paying the extra $10, I'll be forever grateful.
Bethesda, makers of Oblivion, has announced a simultaneous launch for their next game. They are promising that Fallout 3 will launch on the same day for PC, 360, and PS3 users. Now I wasn't the biggest fan of Oblivion, but my friends definitely were. So to see that not only is the game planned for launch this year *this fall allegedly*, but that it'll make all 3 platforms on the same day is pretty good news if you ask me. I've always meant to give Oblivion a second try, but for one reason or another it never happened. So to make up for it I do plan on getting Fallout 3, if for nothing else than the promotional material for it so far looks really cool. That and I've always wanted to tinker around in my own post-apocalyptic nuclear wasteland.
Video B3yond!
Gametrailers has been painfully slow for me the past couple of days, so if the videos take forever to load I apologize.
Here's the Little Big Planet trailer you can download from the PlayStation Store onto the PS3. I still recommend you download it on your PS3, especially since you can get it in HD on the PS3.
From the guys who brought you DiRT for the PS3/360 *which I reveiwed* comes Race Driver: Grid. I was so-so on dirt, so Race Driver will have to prove itself to me, especially with Gran Turismo 5 Prologue coming next month.
The latest from Condemned 2: Bloodshot, coming to the PS3 and 360 March 11.
Here's some gameplay footage of Rainbow Six Vegas 2, look below for some of my thoughts on the game so far.
The One Man Water Cooler~!
Well let me tell you, Rainbow Six Vegas is probably my favorite game for either the 360 or the PS3. Vegas just did multiplayer so right, I want to go play some attack and defend on Calypso Casino just thinking about it. Now as you've probably heard Rainbow Six Vegas 2 will be shipping next month for PS3/360, but I for one have quite a few reserves about it. First off is the running, do we really need it? Now I don't need to be reminded that "it's more realistic" but I do need to ask why. We already have Call of Duty 4, we don't need an imitation. Rainbow Six has worked perfectly without a sprint button; I see absolutely no reason to add one in now. Rainbow Six is all about being tactical, not being a run-n-gun shooter like COD4. Anyone can go on a rampage in COD4; it takes skill to get good at R6. Adding a run feature takes away more strategy than it adds, and I have yet to hear from one person who's actually pumped about the run button.
Another new feature that I'm upset about is shooting through cover. Once again I understand it's more realistic, but it's only in there because it was in COD4. Rainbow Six is its own game; it shouldn't be trying to copy COD4. Vegas allowed for some great firefights, and it wouldn't have been possible if I could just blow right through his cover. Hell, why bother having the game revolve so much around cover if you can just blow right through it? I know some covers will be indestructible again but from what I've seen a majority of the cover can be shot through and that takes away a lot in my opinion. Once again Rainbow Six should be a shooter based on strategy, not a run-n-gun shooter like COD4. Call of Duty 4 is a great game, but run-n-gun shooters like COD4 take little skill and get old quickly. I could play tactical games like Vegas all day, especially attack and defend on Calypso Casino. I gotta protect my package, ya know?
That brings me to my final complaint so far, the maps. Why are they all outdoors in the daytime? When I think about terrorists taking over Las Vegas, I think about it being inside a casino at night time. I want to fight in luxurious hotels and the worlds most famous landmarks in Las Vegas, not some deserted ghost town no one's ever seen before. Streets from R63 and Vegas was a great map, but I only want one or two maps like it. So far I've only seen one map that takes place inside, and once again it's sunny and is a generic building. Why can't I have more places like LVU campus? Any who, that's just a minor complaint, and I guess I should wait until I get Vegas 2 for myself before I make a final judgment. I'll be sure to let you all know if my arguments are justified and Vegas 2 ends up as a COD4 rip off or if Vegas 2 carries on the greatness that was Vegas 1.
As for other news, I ordered a new hard drive for my PS3 this past week, so next week I'll have hands on impressions on what it's like to change out your PS3 hard drive. I'll probably even have a little guide for those who don't know how to do it. Also within the next month I'll upgrade to Yellow Dog Linux 6.0 and I'll probably do a little guide and give my impressions on that as well. The things I do for you guys.
Well here's hoping my new PS3 hard drive makes it in before the end of the week. It's actually going to be a pretty slow week for yours truly, so feel free to hit me up on the PlayStation Network for a good game of WarHawk or something. My name online is Fester, and I have pretty much every good PS3 online multiplayer game except Vegas and COD4 *I got both of those for 360*. So I'll see all of you online, just look for the plane with the giant sumo wrestler logo flying around in circles pretending he knows what he's doing. As for the rest of you, I'll be back with a full report of the Game Developers Conference 2008 right here in the SIXAXIS Report. Cya in 7!
I was pretty disappointed with the demo as well. I had solid contact with the ball a couple times and got a strike. Replay shows it clipped through the bat. It's just a demo, but that was a problem last year too so I'm hoping they nail it down.
Posted By: Rod Oracheski (Registered) on February 19, 2008 at 01:52 AM
Say your prayers sony and wish you had Mass Effect
Posted By: thedouce (Guest) on February 19, 2008 at 02:32 AM
You know, I can't wait as EA is going to turn Mass Effect into another Madden as they want to make it a franchise...
But anyways, the news about the PS3 outselling the 360 makes me proud to be a defender of the PS3.
Posted By: Travis (Guest) on February 19, 2008 at 07:25 AM
Software sales are FAR more important.
Microsoft continues to CRUSH Sony (and Nintendo) in that department.
The DelayStation 3 hopefully will release some good games. 1 in 15 months is not acceptable.
Posted By: Idiot (Guest) on February 19, 2008 at 07:54 AM
Yes please do a guide on how to install ydl 6 on ps3 because i have no clue what you need, or what do do. im waiting to becuase i heard its goin to be free in a month. great article.
Posted By: Matt (Guest) on February 19, 2008 at 11:34 AM
I was just wondering which system has sold the most so far overall wii, 360 or ps3??
Posted By: mark19 (Guest) on February 19, 2008 at 01:05 PM
May I point out the fact that PS3 was bound to outsell 360 one or two months at sometime. I mean when you have sold so many more consoles then the competition then eventually your target market shrinks because the demand is less. You are the lamest FANBOY I have ever read! Good luck with the harddrive swap....I hope you don't void your warantee.
Posted By: Dman75 (Guest) on February 19, 2008 at 01:11 PM
ok, ps3 outsold 360 in the month of jan. it's called income tax slacker! until they lower the price more it will only happen around this time of the year.
Posted By: kasehard (Guest) on February 19, 2008 at 01:37 PM
I just changed out my 20 gig for a 200 gig, and the hardest part was getting the little screws out of the hard drive. I stripped them all with my screwdriver and had to break out the vice grips to take them out. Luckily, for only $100.00, a nice 200 gig hard drive is easily obtained. Oh the other thing is to maybe get a portable drive to back your current drive up to, so that you don't have to go through the pain of redownloading all of that stuff. If I had to sit through another DMC install, I'd have probably just given up right there.
Posted By: swami (Guest) on February 19, 2008 at 03:21 PM
Which system has the dominant media format? The 36....oh wait! They supported HD-DVD. HAHAHA! The reason why the 360 leads in the US is many Americans are sheep. I feel like saying "BAHH" all the time. That is the only way I can communicate with these troglogytes.
Posted By: David R (Guest) on February 19, 2008 at 03:39 PM
BTW F Lost Planet that game 3 years old no one playin that sheet anymore
Posted By: thedouce (Guest) on February 19, 2008 at 04:38 PM
Which has the dominant media format? That would be the 360 with DVD, if you want to be technical.
Posted By: Rod Oracheski (Registered) on February 19, 2008 at 04:48 PM
To be technical the PS3 does too and then some.
Posted By: Chris (Guest) on February 19, 2008 at 05:52 PM
Holy freakin crap. Every week I have to get on here and read 360 fanboys rant on and on. I've never seen such a dumb group of people. If I wanted to here about your crap system I would go to a 360 forum.
Posted By: Calem (Guest) on February 19, 2008 at 07:41 PM
Calem, you don't have to read anything. You read it because you want to, the only thing that really matters is the column, not the comments. They're pretty easy to ignore if you really wanted to do it, but obviously you don't, so don't complain about what other readers have to say. Everyone has a right to their opinion, only fanboys get upset and call ppl childish names when they read something they don't like.
Posted By: TWilliams (Guest) on February 19, 2008 at 08:45 PM
I want to tell you something. We (the US) voted George W. Bush to office twice. That tells you how stupid the american people tend to be. Where is the 360 thriving? ...in the US. That tells you something. We can't take care of our own people. Our country is ruled by the pharmaceutical and insurance industry. We will decend to the levels of a third world country. The 360 is exhibit A.
Posted By: David R (Guest) on February 20, 2008 at 12:53 AM
I think it's kind of funny that you call Americans stupid, while admitting to being an American. Bravo.
Posted By: Rod Oracheski (Registered) on February 20, 2008 at 02:28 AM
Ok now we are comparing politics to video games this is truly my last post, wtf
Posted By: thedouce (Guest) on February 20, 2008 at 02:34 AM
As a Sony guy since the PlayStation and the PSOne, I am VERY happy to hear this.
It MIGHT have something to do with the Blu-Ray thing, considering the 360 just put out a $200 external Drive for.....HD DVD. Oops.
Also, I can't wait for Home to come out. This looks cool, and I want to see it!!!
Posted By: Brad McLeod (Guest) on February 20, 2008 at 06:55 AM
It's funny, hotshot? Wow! I didn't know everyone is on the same level... You should be mention in the same breath as Albert Einstein... Actually, you should be clumped in George W. Bush's company. Truthfully, you remind me of certain politicians in the south...The people who started Jim Crow laws.
Posted By: David R (Guest) on February 20, 2008 at 02:02 PM
"Wow! I didn't know everyone is on the same level..."
It's funny that you say that, after lumping every American together in a group as sheep. I swear, you need some serious help.
Posted By: Rod Oracheski (Registered) on February 20, 2008 at 02:47 PM
Nice personal attack...didn't the MAJORITY of voters allow Bush to have a second (the crux of my argument). Do you have a counter-point or should I lump you together with the unevoled?
Posted By: David R (Guest) on February 20, 2008 at 11:06 PM
I own a PS3 and can't defend it. Where are the games??? I own a $500 60 GB paperweight. If the games don't roll out this year, sales figures will only show how many others made the same mistake I did. Uncharted is the only great game I've played on this thing unless I count Ninja Gaiden Sigma, which I won't since it's an X-Box port. None of us should make any effort to excuse Sony's futility unless they actually start to deliver consistently. BTW, after the 2004 election I declared this a nation of idiots. Doesn't mean no smart people live here, we're just the minority.
Posted By: Jason (Guest) on February 22, 2008 at 11:43 PM
I bought my PS3 mid-january of this year. I now own seven games for the system (CoD4, R&CF: TOD, UT3, WarHawk, R: FoM, SvsR2008, and DMC4). I'm tired of the no games argument. This isn't 2006/early 2007. Really...
Posted By: David R. (Guest) on February 23, 2008 at 12:37 AM
Jason, if we are a nation of idiots then its because of people like you. Afterall, your the only one on this forum using your ps3 as a "$500 paperweight".
Posted By: Calem (Guest) on February 24, 2008 at 07:24 PM
