Cigol

Yeah, about that... I remember following the RPS coverage that I thought the guy was a little whiny. The very last place you wanna go all emo on is the internet.

Not to drive hits to Kotaku, but if you haven't seen it, Zelda running in real-time; http://kotaku.com/5809555/zelda-games-on-wii-u-could-look-this-stunning I remember being excited for the potential of the Wii only to end up massively disappointed - particularly when I saw the price - so I'm a little hesitant here, but yeah... excitement has taken hold...

Um, so that Nintendo stuff looks totally awesome right? [/seeking approval for excitement] I know it's Kotaku, but if you never watched the conference (I didn't) then it's worth seeing so you can check the Zelda demo running in real time; http://kotaku.com/5809555/zelda-games-on-wii-u-could-look-this-stunning I remember being excited for the potential of the Wii only to end up massively disappointed - particularly when I saw the price - so I'm a little hesitant here, but yeah... excitement... Or not. I'll wait and see what the hivemind thinks.

Uh, I'm going to assume this is some very subtle trolling and simply exit stage right. [audience applauds] A man enters from the left holding a placard with the following words written on it; "this was meant to be a jokey representation of frustration, not a statement of fact."

...and when you sign up to PS+ it will explicitly tell you about the automatic funding and how to disable it. It's a subscription service to which you subscribe. It has the option to automatically renew defaulted to on for convenience only - not because of some nefarious scheme to scam you out of money - but because that's the option most normal people (who aren't grinding axes and looking for their pound of flesh) would ordinarily select. To say nothing of it being industry practice. Maybe it would, maybe it wouldn't. It's hard to please everyone, and I doubt giving away around $750,000 would go down well at Sony HQ, not to mention I think you overestimate the value of $15 credit as a 'welcome back gift'.

Valid points, but hopefully someone buys the rights and remakes it into an atmospheric first person shooter instead.

Oh yeah, or that. Don't know why I got the impression people who made only 1 tag were having issues, probably that retard thing.

It works for me, but I've made two tags already, so I guess it isn't checking.

Do a search for Infamous and see whether you can download it. If that doesn't work I'm pretty sure someone on NeoGaf has a solution if you search for it Which is standard practice as far as online subscriptions are concerned (whether they are free trials or not). When I signed up it was fairly explicit in pointing this out and I've been through the process of turning off the free trial subscription of both Qriocity as well as PS+ and it's as simple as it gets; just go to your account, find the subscriptions, and turn them off. Job done, no great pains! I think cynicism is fine, as it's clear the free stuff is calculated, but it would have been difficult to please everyone. I for example am pretty happy as I've never played infamous and always wanted a digital copy of the PS3's LittleBigPlanet (though not prepared to pay twice). I also get LBP and MNR's on the PSP which are both very decent games based on their demos, as well as the free month of PS+ to go on top of my existing subscription. It's value increases the longer you're a member. You get a lot a fluff each month but there's always something good around the corner, or something surprising (like an entire season of Sam & Max or Stacking on release day), there's early betas & demos, special offers, free DLC, and I think if you have a PSP it's even more valuable with all the MINI's & PSONE games they give away each month. The automatic downloading and installing of updates overnight to firmware and games you've recently played is a nice touch too, and although it's not much to get excited about the 'cloud service' provided to PS+ users works well enough (even for protected save files if I'm not mistaken). I mean you can't expect the world for the price they charge and considering it's a supplement, but I've been impressed with what they offer on the whole.

My name on there is Cigol, surprisingly enough, and I look forward to logging back in one of these days.

What's interesting about the Madden series is how over the years they've actually removed some really good features for no apparent reason. I think they've gradually made it worse.

That's a shame, I liked them. Maybe something can be worked out though.

I use them all the time I probably account for 90% of the tags on here As far as this forum is concerned - since only a few actually bother tagging properly, if at all - its usefulness is lessened, but you could potentially discover old threads that are worth a read via tagging that you'd otherwise miss, and they are good at grouping stuff together that would otherwise be separated in a search. Obviously the sniping in the tags of late has gotten out of hand though I agree.

Are you on about leaving it in sleep mode and then coming back to find its battery charge has gone? Because I've left mine in sleep mode for about a week and come back to it with charge enough to resume the game. Besides if you make a point of topping it up each night I don't see how you can fall foul of that. Not to say that more effort from developers in tailoring the games to the platforms strengths and weaknesses wouldn't be appreciated, of course.

Yeah I own a PSP. It's a good idea with good games. I think it makes even more sense this time around thanks to the abundance of control inputs. They still don't have like for like but depending on the game in question they should be able to get around that by using one of the new inputs. A portable Demon Souls, Noby Noby Boy.... Whatever... to me that sounds great when you couple it with the traditional fare. It's called sleep mode, I use it all the time. Now if you're talking about certain games not having appropriate saving mechanisms then fair enough, but it's worth noting how people complained about the saving mechanism in the original Persona 3 on PS2 only for P3P to actually improve upon it. I can't say I've ever come stuck myself since as I said I usually just hit the sleep button but then I'm also the sort of person if he's going to play games, whether it's on the handheld or big screen, I'm going to really play them. I don't get this need for gaming sessions that last only 5 minutes or so since I personally just wouldn't bother (or would use my phone). This argument against games which are perhaps better suited to a proper dedicated session is flawed in my opinion. The PSP caters for both. I also don't take the argument comparing CW and LCS - to begin with GTA used to be widely criticised for it's control scheme and formula on the bigger consoles, and you have to give some leeway in expecting them to take advantage of the PSP's ability to render the game in full 3D and port the 'real experience'. It would be better instead to consider games like God of War which made an almost flawless transition to the small screen. Success stories like that might be dwarfed by the amount of lazy porting, but they aren't to be ignored. There are some good ports of bigger games - and if you don't have a console other than the PSP I'm sure they are appreciated far more. In truth I'm more interested in games of the Nippon Ichi variety, but the PSP and the PSP2 by extension will be capable of all sorts - the increased performance and new control inputs can potentially make it even more interesting and varied too. Price will obviously be a factor but it's probably best to wait anyway since then you have a greater selection of games to choose from.

Maybe it doesn't make sense financially to create a device that appeals first and foremost to a hardcore niche, but since I'm not a shareholder and I'm a part of that niche I can't say Sony making the same mistake again worries me. You're complaining about the one thing people felt the original PSP was lacking? There are plenty of ways to utilise the second stick beyond simply improving camera controls, Super Stardust HD twin-stick style shooters for example, and as for them protruding from the casing; I've often thought it would be better, not worse! The way it is now as a nub you can't 'lean' on it or use the outside/bottom of your thumb since it's a glorified, fiddly D-Pad, so if these new sticks are anything like the proper dualshocks I think it'll be a vast improvement personally.

I was hoping for Police Quest SWAT 2 myself.

I've only bought one UMD game as it is and that was a forced import. The whirring drives me nuts! If you can get a game digitally it's preferable by far, since it loads faster, you don't have to swap discs, it uses less battery power and it's less noisy. As far as the UMD selection over here goes I've no idea how the retailing of these things works but my guess would be the process for Europe is a lot more complicated (and expensive) than for North America or Japan. Would a game like ClaDun or Z.H.P. benefit from impulse sales in a retail space that considers the PSP to be dead? I only know about these games because of obscure internet forums, and I only know they are good because of them. But what do I know, every game of Capitalism I play ends in bankruptcy. The problem with digital only on PSP/PS3, especially when it concerns third parties, is that the pricing is not consistent and can often veer into the ridiculous. Up until the sale yesterday a copy of the digital version of Peacewalker would set you back around £31 as opposed to the £17.99 UMD version Any games you can't get over here can be imported and played region free and it's not much more expensive. I'm not advocating piracy or anything either but you can now effortlessly download games from any region, along with emulators, onto the official firmware of all PSPs including GO. You can't do everything the guys on custom firmware can do but the important stuff like emulators is there. PSP is still an amazing device.

For now I've uploaded it to Fileserve: Idle Thumbs UK - A Fireside Chat.mp3 File size: 37.39 MB

I was just listing decent exclusives I knew of. Hustle Kings (which features snooker as well as pool) is actually quite good though. The graphics are extremely crisp as in the screenshot, and its online mode is fully featured. The only problem is that so many of those playing choose to use the medium/greater aiming lines - sort of negating the point - and the AI is either exceptionally good or bad with no inbetween. But it's otherwise the best snooker/pool game on the PS3 by far. I think that goes without saying.

The list was done for another forum so it was a case of any old excuse to reuse it

I have FIFA 10 on the PS3. One consideration is that FIFA 11 requires you to buy the game (or an online activation) in order to play online. So if there were any curious but non-committal thumbs, it wouldn't be worth renting as you only get to play online for the 7 day trial period. And anyway, the game is only marginally better as you say, I personally got bored of it rather quickly (since it's no different to '10, which I played to death) and am playing PES'11 (on PS3) instead - which is the first decent PES in a long time. I suspect of those most will be on 360 anyway, but if anyone wants to play FIFA/PES on the PS3, I'm up for it.

God of War III, God of War Collection Heavenly Sword Heavy Rain infamous, Infamous 2 Killzone 2, Killzone 3 LittleBigPlanet, LittleBigPlanet 2 Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots Motorstorm, Motorstorm: Pacific Rift, Motorstorm 3: Apocalypse Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction, Ratchet & Clank: Quest for Booty, Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time Resistance, Resistance 2, Resistance 3 Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves MLB 09: The Show, MLB 10: The Show WipEout HD Fury Valkyria Chronicles Gran Turismo 5: Prologue, Gran Turismo 5 Yakuza 3, Yakuza 4 Disgaea 3, Disgaea 4 EyePet Afrika / Hakuna Matata 3D Dot Game Heroes White Knight Chronicles, White Knight Chronicles 2 Buzz! M.A.G. Everybody's Golf Modnation Racers Formula One Championship Edition Singstar Siren: Blood Curse Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm ~ Trinity Universe SOCOM: Confrontation, SOCOM 4 Zen Pinball Critter Crunch Super Stardust HD Noby, Noby Boy Joe Danger ~ Hustle Kings WarHawk Echochrome Trash Panic Planet Minigolf PixelJunk Monsters PixelJunk Shooter PixelJunk Eden Fat Princess Flower Flow ~ *nothing in that list that is inherently bad, all worth playing at the very least. The last Guardian, and the ICO/SOTC collection will probably be worth a look when they are released too, but that's pure speculation on my part As for the XBOX, from the perspective of someone who doesn't have one and can't afford to have one, the exclusive games that stick out to me are; Forza, Alan Wake*, Project Gotham Racing, Gears of War, Halo, Limbo*, Fable*, Dead Rising & Banjo-Kazooie. *these titles have 'PC possibility!' hanging over their heads which, in my feeble mind at least devalues their selling power (whether it's true or not). The only one that would really tempt me is Forza. I know if I had an XBOX I'd be playing and appreciating the rest of its catalogue but they just aren't system sellers to me on a personal level. Forza was, but the price of buying the system, the online component, the game itself and then having to replace my existing G25 setup with a new one that was compatible made it very hard to justify - especially with GT5 (seemingly) around the corner. The way it positioned itself in relation to GT and the foul ups with all the lies and PR spin didn't exactly endear me to the franchise in the end either. It's only a joke if you ignore what Polyphony did in the same period of time (which was release less games and make oodles more money). If it's not out at the end of the year, which I think it will be, then it's obviously a bit of a shambles, but at the end of the day all of that disappointment / scorn will be rendered moot on release. It's not how long it takes, but how good it is.

That's what I meant by digital effects, you can see it in the beginning with the flag strewn on the ground, but what is it?

My first thoughts were pre-rendered too, then it got into what looked like actual gameplay and, wow*, it looked pretty amazing, even if the combat still doesn't do anything for me. I've not been following it closely, but what's with all the digital effects on stuff like flags and characters? Is it supposed to be related to their powers or something? *...that cleavage.