Bomb Watch Starts Here

Giant Bomb's Jeff Gerstmann today e-mailed anyone who had sent an e-mail to one of the Giant Bomb addresses (Notable the Beta Signup Address). It formalises the site's launch as being imminent, a fact already made abundently clear by the blog having been replaced with a teasing image and a "Landing shortly" message.

The most important part of the message reads:

This e-mail is being sent to let you know that we're getting very close to the beta launch of giantbomb.com -- if you want to be extra-certain that you secure your username of choice, you should start taking occasional looks at the site to see if it's up yet. You will not receive a second e-mail from us, as we're solely focused on the site itself.

So what will you be able to do on Giant Bomb?

Explore a database that already contains...
Entries for over 72,000 releases.
Pages for nearly 90,000 people involved in the creation of video games.
Almost 600 character pages!
Something like 580 pages for gaming franchises!
Dude, I don't know, how about I just write "and much, much more" here and we move on?
Don't forget, you'll be able to edit and add to all of these things!

And of course, we'll have message boards. Tens of thousands of message boards! Way too many message boards! Everything from the PlayStation 3 to hamburgers will have a message board associated with it. In fact, every single page in the database, including consoles, franchises, games, objects, characters, people, and concepts will all have a friendly message board right at the bottom. But don't worry about getting lost or missing out on a conversation. Messages from all boards are easily found in our forum index.

This extract of course excludes the instructions, but they're fairly obvious anyway.

So now, we begin the Bomb Watch. I have arranged for my browser (Firefox 3, Mac OS X 10.5.4, a rock slid and generally excellent browser and platform) set up to reload Giant Bomb (dot) com at set intervals, so excited am I to get into the site.

Unfortunately, I'm also way too excited. I'm afraid to sleep in case I miss it. I mean, even tonight, I really don't want to risk it, even though I'm almost 100% the site won't launch until something like 6PM BST on Monday the 21st of July (At the earliest).

And so, for as long as I'm awake, I'm going to be updating round the clock. I'll Tweet status updates at regular intervals and come the launch, I'll tweet my progress registering, then writeup impressions of the site her on All Your Time.

And yes, I fully intend to contribute as much as I can to anything Disney-Related (Exception: Chronicles of Narnia, we'll get to that little mistake someday).

Speaking of, how awesome does Pure look? For some reason, I'm all-the-way pumped for that game. Maybe cos it's a Disney-made insane off-road racer. We all know I love Disney and Excite Truck, Pure combines them. Naturally, I'll be nabbing the 360 version.

Anywho, where was I? Oh yes, The Bomb. I gotta tell ya, I really need this site. As it stands, the only gaming community I frequent is all but dead in the sections I read. I mean, I visit 1Up and GameSpot, but not their communities (Forums). 1Up's folks were very hostile (Generally, they were some kind souls) to those of us displaced from GameSpot (The site as a whole, not just the forums) after The 29th. GameSpot's forums I just found insular and not very fun.

Wow, I really want to make a movie about Gerstmann-gate...It's a great story for the screen. I saw a YouTube video which recast a JFK (One of my all-time favourie movies) trailer as a traler for JFG, a ficticious movie about Gerstmann-gate (Using JFK footage and dialogue for illustrative purposes), and it was very cool. I definitely think Jeff's story would be good for the screen.

Perhaps a book first, that's howit typically works...Oh well. If it's not been done by the time I can do it, I will. If anyone else is planning to do it and wants help (Writing, directing, any creative stuff really) drop me a line, I have some ideas how it could work.

Anyway, I'm rambling. Onward to The Bomb!

Jens Has Blown

Talking Smack

Hey Sony, looks like we're gonna get another preview of PlayStation Home at E3. I eman, I don't care, do whatever you want, it's of little interest to me, but aren't you even slightly embarassed that you annonced this thing in early '07 for an October that year release and this is it's second E3, 2008 and current info suggests that you'll only get the Beta out this year, maybe?

Dude, whatever.

And how about you Microsoft? Doesn't it make you feel a little embarrassed that your console ships without Wi-Fi? Toasters have Wi-Fi these days. In order to get the 360 to have Wi-Fi, you want me to spend £55 on a dongle. These things cost like £20 for PCs. Are you freaking kidding me? There's a way to get my Mac to share its internet connection with the 360. It's convuluted, but you bet your ass I'm trying that before buying your POS peripheral for £55 - apparently it's not even a very good dongle.

This is especially weak because your USP is Xbox LIVE, industry standard online gaming service.

And Nintendo...For God's sake...Make your online system fun. All we want is oemthing akin to Xbox LIVE. Doesn't need to be as feature-rich. Just give us account names, not numbers. Let me accept adds, rather than adding back. Give us voice chat and make Animal Crossing an MMO.

You could add all this in a Wii Channel. Call it the Nintendo Player Connect Channel, something, anything. Just fix the gaming side of the Wii internet.

Talking smack is therapeutic.

Jens Out

It is done then

Well, I've now finalised my plans regarding the iPhone 3G and my exam completion gift. I still intend to buy an iPhone 3G, but I only intend to do so when it becomes available on Pay/Go. And so I shall, funded by my wages from Tesco and my EMA. Contract was really not an option. I hate to wait, but O2 have forced my hand on this issue.

In the iPhone 3G's stead, my exam completion gift is to be the Halo 3 Edition Xbox 360. The effing awesome green one. This is the one I've wanted pretty much since Peter Moore raised it with one hand.

Additionally, in exchange for taking possession of my PC, my parents have bought me a 750GB USB Hard Drive and an Elgato eyeTV for DTT (TV Tuner). Two things I was going to buy myself which I now don't have to. Between those and the Xbox, my PC is redundant apart from Blu-Ray playing anyway. And I can always use the PS3 downstairs for that.

Which means my disposable income for this coming paycheck is £195...Less £59 for MobileMe and I've got £135 to spend.

And you know what? I've run out of major buys. All the big things I decided I wanted are gone (iPhone 3G excepted). So I'll buy iWork and probably try and nab MGS:TTS (Because I'm a Metal Gear freak and I simply must have a Metal Gear game I can play in my room - remember, our PS2s don't work. Long story).

But basically, from now on I'm on impulse and/or small buys until I start saving for the iPhone 3G. There's a chance that instead of iWork and MGS I'll buy a w580i this month, or do that next month if I buy the software this month, but other than that, it's uncharted territory.

I'll have to start buying my "back of the mind" wants. What I might do at some point is buy a DS Lite. That said, I'm half expecting The Reginator to reveal a new DS at E3 next week. I might buy that instead.

It's a Golden Age as far as I'm concrned.

Jens Out

PS: Oh god, I should ask the guy in the Shopping Centre about the signed Jenson Button stuff...I'll start small, with the cap or the (I don't think signed, but rare) Jenson Button F3 car...Then ask about the price of the signed 2000 Williams.

-Evil Grin-

Plans

Okay, so O2 have totally effed me over here. But, I still want the iPhone and I still intend to go with Pay/Go. For that reason, I will buy one this winter by saving up for a couple of months (All it will take, my monthly income will be increasing to start at £275 come Autumn).

In the meantime, I'm going to have my parents buy me a cheaper new phone on the Tesco Mobile network. Probably the cheaper Sony Ericsson slider in white. Additionally, I'll have them buy the hard drive I have my eye on, the 750GB one. Anything left over I'll spend on a game or something, perhaps making use of my GameStation Gift Voucher (I'm praying for Twin Snakes).

That leaves me to buy my new TV Tuner and MobileMe. All told, that still leaves me with £95 after I take into account LOVEFiLM. If I don't end up with Twin Snakes, I might use some fo that for that, otherwise there's some miscellaneous stuff I've yet to buy like iWork and iTunes films.

Next month is probably my Xbox 360 in that scenario. It's gonna take over the PC's place in the VGA Switcher. But its physical location? I have no idea.

There's a chance I'll buy a DS Lite with that £95. I'm not sure, I'm just thinking about it. In that case, the 360 will be a month later and next month will be iWork and stuff.

Jens Out

Guitar Hero: World Tour

This time, I can't not get Guitar Hero. The fourth home console installment follows Rock Band into the whole band emulation category, alongside other newcomers Ultimate Band (From Disney Interactive, a potential buy for me) and a Konami game which souns so bad I've forgotten the name.

But World Tour sets itself apart with an awesome drum set featuring cymbals and some other neat as you like innovations. The guitar too has new and cool features like a touch sensitive strip for those unique riffs.

Vocals have been added too, but since there's not much room for innovation there, the scope of awesomeness is limited to it being there. I fully intend to make use of it though.

Also being added is music creation and this is way awesome. Now a band simulation game can actually let you make music. This is bigger than you may give i credit for. Whilst in this initial version I imagine even in-depth creation will be limited compared to making music the old-fashioned way, it opens the door to a future where making rock music is much simpler.

I'm all for that, I love disruptive media. I mean, heck, I'm harnessing the disruptive media that is the internet to create a crowd-sourced magazine.

I telly what, I can see someone, maybe even me, playing guitar and singing at the same time. Even drumming and singing. This is possible in the current Rock Band, but I don't see it happening much. All you need is a mic stand.

I can't wait to form a band with friends, but I also see some solo fun, both singing and playing both distinct instruments (Guitar and drums. There are bass an rhythm variants of the guitar, but they work largely the same) to be had.

All that remains for me to do is choose a platform, Wii or Xbox 360. I'm inclined to say likely the latter, but I'll base my decision on what my friends decide - gotta make sure we can play together online.

Jens Out

Updating The Setup

Last post I mentioned my plan to redo the setup here just to unclutter the cables situation. Well I've decided to go a touch more drastic. I'm going to strip everything on the desk and the bookcase beside it out (Excluding some stuff on the bookshelf which will absolutely not be moving). That comprises the PC and all the related devices, the monitor, the printer, the VGA switcher, the Composite > VGA box, the Wii, the hi-fi & its speakers, all of my games & DVDs and the total removal of the redundant PS2.

It'll probably also require the reorganisation of a couple of crates and I'll be moving some of the Wii accessories (Though most will superficially remain where they are - hopefully neater though).

All of this is leading to the eventual installment of my new "desktop", the Mac mini. I put desktop in quote marks because it's actually going to sit on the bookshelf by the Wii, replacing the hi-fi which will move up a shelf or down two.

The other big news is that I might ditch the Dell after all. But only if my parents agree to pay me some money for the add-ons of this year in exchange for releasing it to them (Value £184, I'd hope for £150 from them). To recap, those add-ons are a Blu-Ray reader and a better graphics card.

I'd use the £150 to buy an Elgato eyeTV Diversity (Dual tuner Mac USB TV Tuner dongle) - that would replace the Dazzle*Stick as my TV, I'd let them have that...I hate it anyway. That would only cost £79.95, so I'd spend the rest on a big USB external hard drive - 400 or 500 GB. Half of that drive would be Time Machine for the Mac mini's drive and half would be additional media storage, mostly for TV recordings.

This would basically be me set. Yes, I'd lose Blu-Ray watching in my room, but I would still be able to do it elsewhere - either on the big living room TV or wherver they put the Dell. I'd also lose PC gaming, but the PC games I play most nowadays are things like Grid Wars 2 (Which has a Mac version) and older first person shooters (I keep going back to the First Person Shooters of 2003-2005 for some reason). Even Penny Arcade Adventures will run on the Mac mini!

Plus...I plan on getting a 360 anyway. So between Wii, that and the (Admittedly somewhat limited) games that work on the mini, I'll be set.

Speaking of Wii, MOHH2 is kickass.

I'm thinking of Liveblogging the rebuild from my Eee...Mainly as an experiment with livblogging, but also as a way to vent any frustrations with cables or whatever.

Anyway, that's all for now. Catch you later.

Goodbye papa, please pray for me,
Jens

Xbox LIVE, AOL and the Changing Face of the Internet

And so today brings us news that intrepid geeks have found a way to trick BBC's iPlayer into working on the PS3 - to many a shout of "about bloody time someone did, damned Auntie". And what does this say about the state of the internet. Many would say not much. I say a lot.

As Sony and Microsoft rush to tell us their PLAYSTATION 3 and Xbox 360 are the place for entertainment, the place for internet features...Wii beat them both to the punch by simple virtue of being more friendly. Wii scored a major coup in being the first "Living Room Platform" other than the failed Windows Media Center Standard to get iPlayer support.

But why the Wii you ask? Simple. Microsoft, to address them first, wanted the content, but not the brand. Yes, they want their customers to be able to access iPlayer, but they want it to be called Xbox Media Stream or some such nonsense name as they come up with arbitrarily. BBC said no, Microsoft wouldn't do the deal.

And that kills iPlayer's chances on Xbox LIVE for the time being. Because Xbox LIVE is a subscription based, gated community web service. Does that sound familiar? It ought to.

Exhibit A, the world's foremost dead-in-the water internet boom company. America Online, Inc. AOL's entire business model was a subscription based, gated community web service. Yes, Microsoft has more strings to its bow, as does Xbox alone, but the fact is: Xbox LIVE is AOL.

What then of Sony, with their "open" free web system? Open my ass. iPlayer isn't officially on PS3 because Sony don't want to do the deal. They won't let the BBC open the service to their customers as it stands for arbritary technical reasons.

What the real reason is? I don't know. But face it, it can't be very good.

But Nintendo? BBC said "hey, we have this iPlayer, it's pretty popular...". Nintendo said "What's that Flash? Use 7 and we're there".

Then they got even chummier "if you want, we can work on a Wii Channel for your service, I think our customers would love an iPlayer Channel, our competitors would hate it and it's a good use of our downloadable software platform."

Auntie was like "Hell to the yes."

Nitendo? Totally Firefox (Well, Mozilla).

So who does that make Sony in this second internet war?

Arbitrary technical blocks on service customers want for purely political reasons? Come on, you know this.

They're being Microsoft.

To summarise:

Microsoft's Xbox LIVE: America Online, Inc.'s AOL
Sony's PLAYSTATION Network: Microsoft Web Services (Comprising Internet Explorer, MSN Group etc.)
Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection/WiiConnect24: Mozilla (/Firefox)

Jens Out

Eeek

Well, what a difference a day makes. It turns out I'm not going to need to buy a PS3, my dad's getting us one. Which saves me basically £300 hard cash. Some of you might expect me to go back to buying the Xbox, but I decided not to.

Instead, I decided to get a hold of a computer. The geek in me was getting antsy. Of course you've guessed, the computer I'm getting is the Asus Eee PC. I'm getting the white one with 4GB of Flash and a webcam. It probably has a specific name, but I can't really be bothered to find out what it is.

Does this mean I'm not getting the Air? Not necessarily. What it does mean is whether I get the Air or a different Mac, I will still have a nice, light notebook for writing in bed and so on.

In other news, I got some really great news today, between moving operations from Petrograd (Peterborough), the heartland of English mediocrity to somewhere in Scotland, which by the way kicks ass, we're taking a slight detour for 2 or 3 weeks.

To the Everglades.

Yeah, Florida. It's awesome. I've been waiting to go to America for years. Finally I'm going to get to go to Disney World, see the awesome American food and purchase consumer goods at rock bottom prices (AKA exploiting the USA's shitty economy).

We intend to rent a villa over there and take in all the stuff we want at a leisurely pace. As a geek, I'll be taking at least one computer and my camera(s) and updating the blog on what we're up to as we go. As a part of that, I expect I'll be taking a fat USB HDD and several big SD cards.

Then we'll return, not to a house but to a boat. My dad really wants a boat. We were going to get a smaller boat and a camper van, then decided that was stupid and merged the two into a bigger boat.

Then we'll redo the house we buy to have it just the way we want it.

Well that's the future for me.

Live free or Die Hard,
Jens

This is an entertainment box

Here's one that'll surprise you. I'm not buying an Xbox 360 anymore. Yes, it's a cool system. But since we already have one, I've decided it's probably more important to broaden our platform set.

So I'm going to buy a PS3.

Alright, you got me, that's not the only reason. Sony has been showing off a DVB tuner for the PS3 called PlayTV. With it, the console becomes a full-blown FreeView PVR. That's rad.

Currently, my PC serves as my TV and PVR. It's far from a perfect setup. For one thing, the software the Dazzle Stick which forms my tuner came with is kind of crap. For another, with it being a single tuner setup, I can only record one channel at a time and if I want to watch while recording, it has to be the channel I'm recording.

Worst part is, if I schedule a recording (Which is not easy with the software's sub-par EPG), it will strt up and basically high-jack all my system resources, making the PC unresponsive. This usually necesitates stopping what I'm doing and going off to do something else.

PlayTV has two tuners, eliminating the first problems. It would be a PVR seperate from my PC, so it couldn't highjack my resources. And Sony has plans to update the software down the line so that you can play a game whilst recording a show. That is cool.

What makes it supersweet is all of these features (Live and recorded TV) can be accessed remotely from any Wi-Fi connection by a PSP. So I could be in a Starbucks in London watching TV. Badass? I think so.

I, of course, also need the PS3 for some of the games it has as exclusives (Metal Gear, the last F1 game - though I expect new ones will be made by EA cross-platform, Warhawk, a timed exclusve in the form of UT3 and I'm sure there are others).

So there it is, I'm buying a PS3 in late March. Flame if you will.

Jens Out

In the Future

Well guys, since no-one seems to be reading this any more I figure it's not wasting anyone's time if I do a post about stuff I'm gonna buy and indeed stuff I have bought.

Since my PC and desk now function as my entertainment system, and I have a widescreen 1050p monitor, I decided to make use of those pixels and seriously upgrade my media centre.

Firstly, I bought a LiteOn DH 4O1S Blu-Ray Disc Reader to allow playback of the dominant consumer HD video format. It's in the system now, though I can't yet watch any Blu-Rays (More on that later).

Next, I decided to upgrade the control system. Now, I do have a wireless presenter mouse built into my desktop mouse. That method of control does work of course, but it can be tedious to mouse ball over controls from my bed.

So I got CyberLink's IR USB remote control. It works great - controls DVD(/Blu-Ray) playback, TV Centre Pro (Helpful, since the mouse and keyboards for that are jacked) and iTunes. Basically, I'm set.

Incidentally, Need for Speed Carbon (Yes, I did buy it) is great on Wii and works really well with my steering wheel shell.

For those of you wondering, my first Blu-Ray movie is The Simpsons Movie - easily one of my favourite films of all time. 2007 was a great year for movies. Bear in mind, Spider-Man 3 (Another of my all-time favourites) and other truly great films came out this year as well. Even made for TV Movies were better than expected (Yes, I do love HSM 2. So sue me.). It was also a great year for games between Mario Galaxy, Halo 3, CoD 4 and of course Portal. This year shall go down in entertainment history.

So what am I buying in the coming future? Well, first I'm going to get a Sapphire HD 2600 XT graphics card with 256MB of GDDR4 memory. Besides bumping games performance (Like making Halo 2 at least seem playable) and providing access to recent games like Unreal Tournament 3, it has HDCP. With that, I will be able to watch my Blu-Rays (My monitor is also HDCP-compliant).

Games-wise, Medal of Honor Hereos 2 is next on my list (I'm moving to renting games unless I really want them from now on, thanks to my £10.99 per month LoveFilm account which is also supplying me with additional HD content in the form of Blu-Rays). February 8th can't come soon enough.

I'm also buying an Xbox Live Vision Camera £50 set, the one which comes with a headset, 12 months of Gold and 2 Arcade games. It's outstanding value. I more interested in the Gold subscription, games and the headset to be honest, but the camera will be nice to have.

Then, a month later, I'll be grabbing Game's £209.99 Xbox 360 Arcade Bundle and putting the hard drive from my brother's Premium in it. He's buying an Elite. The Premium will go in the living room, mine will go in the upstairs TV room (My dad won a 20" HDTV at work).

So once I have that and I can play 360 just about whenever I want, you can expect my GamerScore to go up a fair bit. Possibly I could take it to above 5,000 before we leave Cambridgeshire.

I'll also grab a GameWare Play and Charge kit as I continue my ongoing fight against Double-As.

Then, in mid-June, I will make the biggest purchase I ever have. At long last, I will be buying my MacBook. So hooray for that.

Anyway, that gives you an idea of where I'm headed in the coming months. You can probably expect me to gush at length about most of those products and, indeed, I advise you to be prepared for more Blu-Ray love than anywhere else on the internet which doesn't swear allegiance to PS3.

Jens Out

Bill Gates at CES

Bill put in a surprisingly good performance, lifted by an amusing video about him leaving which led to a meme for the entire keynote about new things to do with his time, to announce absolutely nothing.

Microsoft demoed new and upcoming technologies, but did not announce any new products. The only announcement made was that BT are to launch an IPTV-enabled Xbox 360 soon.

The rumours were wrong. Bill didn't care about going out with a bang.

CES Las Vegas 2008 Bill Gates Keynote Predictions

Next week, Bill Gates is set to give his final CES keynote. Although Bill's keynotes are generally considered to be nowhere near as entertaining as Steve's (Jobs) - notably due to how awkward a person Bill is - he usually has some pretty significant things to discuss at these things.

Furthermore, rumours have been flying around the Internets relating to games that the keynote will carry at least one major announcement relating to Xbox. Bill wants to go out with a bang and apparently that bang is going to come courtesy of the good half of Microsoft's Entertainment and Devices division.

If it's still called that. I haven't checked recently.

Anyway, the smart money seems to be on the Xbox 360 Ultimate. The Ultimate will offer a built-in HD-DVD drive, WiFi, a 320GB Hard Drive and Microsoft's much touted Mediaroom software for IPTV functionality. It'll offer users a dominating home media solution for a huge cost, but one which will probably compete well with Sony's comparably tepid 80GB PS3 (Which does have one slight advantage: Blu-Ray pwns HD-DVD, but more on that once my 2 still-due packages arrive).

Now that's quite impressive. Bill could retire on that. But I said he wanted to go out with a bang.

So hold on tight, here's my purely speculative idea for the real big news.

Xbox Live Silver is dead. Long live Gold.

And by that I mean that I expect Bill to announce some way of playing online free. It might be that Gold gets cheaper and moves to dedicated servers with Silver using the old user-hosted system.

Or Gold will stay the same price and offer a subsidy against IPTV services, or even bundle IPTV into the cost.

At the very least, I think Bill will say Xbox 360 Ultimate owners get free Gold. That would allow them to charge a slightly higher premium over the PS3/80GB and drive even existing 360 customers to the top model. Which would itself drive sales of Microsoft's inferior - and lousy - HD-DVD standard, rather than Sony's Blu-Ray.

And now for some less exciting predictions. Bill likes Windows, but we already decided this will be a fairly gaming-oriented keynote. So I suspect Games for Windows Live is about to go to Version 2. Obviously, it would fall under the same pricing changes listed above. But I also think Windows itself will now access live.

Windows Live will probably get an update with a Games for Windows Live Manager/Guide. This would function as a combined version of the Xbox 360 Dashboard and Xbox Guide and would likely function by putting your GamerCard in the Sidebar (As well as an obligatory Notification Area icon), the clicking of which would bring up the Guide window.

Also, I expect the Xbox 360, Windows Gallery and Zune Marketplaces are to be merged. I doubt that means you'll be able to do much more than cue downloads, but you might get to buy music on your 360.

But hey, maybe you'll finally be able to buy that Games for Windows Live version of Uno they promised.

By you, I mean me.

I want my Uno.

Jens Out

Breaking the Street Date

Super Mario Galaxy is officially released tomorrow here in the UK. Millions of fans nationwide are waiting impatiently. I've already played about 3 and a half hours of it.

GAME sent my copy early, so I was able to play it once I got back today. It's actually probably a bad thing, I have some homework I need to do for tomorrow. But it's not too much, I should be able to get by.

To start, the game's freaking gorgeous. The water and the normal mapping in particular shine - as do the brilliant light effects. Pun fully intended.

Next, the controls are great. Mario moves perfectly and his various actions like spinning and jumping feel great to do. Spinning initially worried me. Shaking the Remote, you know? But it actually works very well.

Now, the game is a roller coaster in difficulty. There are some extremely fiendish levels that had me pulling my hair out to get the star, and others which simply require some effort to get through. It's all very satisfying.

All in all, deserved its hype.

To move on, Call of Duty 4 is awesome. We played it in 1080p - the first time we've played any game at that resolution - and it just looks fantastic. And watching my brother play it reminded me how much I like that style of gameplay. Which put me onto the Medal of Honor Heroes 2 thing again.

So I went and found IGN's review. Normally, I avoid IGN. I prefer to stick to 1UP and GameSpot. But IGN had a review and I read it. Game looks totally awesome. I can see myself spending hours playing and tweaking the controls.

I'm really pumped for it! 32-Player CTF on Wii? Hell yeah I'll pay £30 for that!

Well, £27 to me.

I've been looking into PS3. My father intends to buy a 60GB model, but I think I will probably also need my own model. As such, I'd likely grab a 40GB. But I'm holding out for the White one.

But this is after iPhone, MacBook, 360 (May buy my brother's off of him), and PC upgrades.

Jens Out

Backwards Compatability

As some of you may know, I plan to get a PLAYSTATION 3 in the new year, once I have an XBOX 360 (The Halo 3 Edition most likely). The reason being, there are a few games I want on it (Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, Metal Gear Online and Warhawk) and one movie I simply must own in HD which is going to Blu-Ray Disc (The Simpsons Movie).

Now, you may have guessed from the above games that I like Metal Gear. And I do. A lot. So I went to check the backwards compatibility of a PLAYSTATION 3 with the PS2 entries. Metal Gear Solid 2 will play fine, good. I have both versions of that.

But by far my favourite Metal Gear game of all time is Metal Gear Solid 3. Subsistence will play with "Noticeable Issues".

I have the original, Snake Eater, only. It is not listed.

I'm extremely annoyed. I do not want to have to pull out a PlayStation 2 every time I want to play my favourite entry in one of my favourite series. It may well be that I like Metal Gear Solid 4 better, but it doesn't matter. I will still have a desire to play 3 again, and unless they remake it for another platform (Say, Wii, *hint*hint*) I will have to plug another console into my TV.

Which will be no mean feat. By the time I have a PLAYSTATION 3 (I will by then have a 26" HDTV), I will have the Wii, an XBOX 360, the PLAYSTATION 3 itself and possibly one more product to plug in. The final product is a DVD Recorder into which I can plug the Wii, freeing up one SCART socket...But I can't guarantee the ports will be there - it may be that I use the port on the DVD Recorder for recording FreeView.

I could plug the PlayStation 2 in via Composite, but can you imagine the mess? Cables trailing from all sides of the TV, 5 or 6 Mains plugs...This would all be much simpler if Sony had put a PlayStation 2 inside the PLAYSTATION 3 like they were supposed to.

This went on a fair bit longer than I expected, but it really Grinds my Gears™. Anyway, I'll shut up if Konami put Metal Gear Solid 3 on Wii.

Jens Out.

Classic Controlling

Today, I bought the Wii Classic Controller for use with my Virtual Console games (I have Super Mario Brothers, Sonic the Hedgehog & Kirby's Adventure).

I gotta say, that is a nice pad. Comfortable, good looking...I wish I could use it as a PS2 or GameCube pad - it's that cool.

Weird things going on lately 'round here. Gonna have to look into them. Strange to say the least.

Other weird things include Resident Evil 4 on Wii, DRM-Free music on iTunes & the colour of the XBOX 360 - Elite. XBOX 360 looks crap in black Microsoft, get over it.

Anyway,
Feel Good,
Jens