Little Big Whoop

The following is from my new primary blog at Giant Bomb:

So everyone loves LittleBigPlanet apparently. Seriously, the game's not out yet and everyone seems to love it. Everywhere I look, it's heralded as the second coming. And I can't see why. Okay, it lets you make your own levels. It's not that big a deal. I see people rave about every little thing. People call me weird for not being interested. I'm sorry folks, it's just not that interesting an idea. I'd never play it long enough to make anything I really liked with the editor, so I'm not interested.

It bugs me that in an era when everyone complains about the hype of games like Halo 3, Grand Theft Auto IV and Metal Gear Solid 4 (Games which were awesome, get over it folks), all those same people don't have a bad thing to say about LittleBigPlanet. I get it, you're interested. Doesn't mean the idea is particularly amazing or that the game's that original. Doesn't mean I have to like it too.

So add me to the minority not in the least bit interested in LittleBigPlanet.

Now Black Rock's Pure? There's a game I can get behind. Mindless off-road fun? Hell to the yes. 16-Player online races? Oh yeah.

Yes, I think Pure's going to be better than LittleBigPlanet. And for me, it will be. I might be alone in that. Does that mean you need to come here and tell me how wrong I am and list all the features of LittleBigPlanet which have still not made me think it's god (Yes, I ave heard about them)? No, it doesn't.

I'm immue to Little Big Planet's power. Even if I have to be the lone critic, I will be.

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-

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

The Heroic Prejudice

Those of you out there who've played Halo 3 almost certainly loved it. I loved it too. I played single player on Normal. I've played a bit on Heroic, but am I going to play it all the way through on Heroic solo? Hell no.

And so what? I'll go through on Legendary or Heroic on Co-Op. And what's the problem? All these people - Bungie included - acting like Normal is retarded. Well, no, sorry, I just don't particukarky like being killed a lot. I play Halo to kick aliens' asses, not to have them snipe me before I even arrive.

There used to be this big prejudce against Easy by Bungie, like they wished it wasn't even there. Now they treat Normal like that and act like Easy doesn't even exist.

The descriptions for the difficulties don't help either. Normal is, logically, the normal setup of the game. So it should be the way it was meant to be played. And yet, the difficulty descriptions claim Heroic is. Er...No...

Anyway, this is indicative of a greater problem in gaming. Namely, that every gamer has to be absolutely god-like at every game or at the very least masochistic enough to play something that keeps beating you so much you know what to do by heart.

Well fuck that. Fuck it to hell. I play Halo for fun. Not for a challenge. If I want to have a challenge, I'll play multiplayer. Single player is for goofing around. Multiplayer is for having a real, level fight.

I, in fact, would rather we did away with traditional difficulty levels. Because, even some of the better gamers find certain games' higher difficulties impossible. Why? Not because they suck at the game, but because the game has added difficulty to an area which is not their strength.

What we need is for you to say at the start if you're playing to be hardcore, to feel god-like or just normally. The game then assesses your relative skills and adjusts itself to suit your preference.

Sure, it's a pipe-dream, but I'm sick of 12-year-olds complaining about people playing Halo 3 on Normal. Some people just don't want the kind of challenge Heroic represents.

And Bungie, stop being dicks to half your customers. Not everyone is a Bungie Bitch. And incidentally, Heroic is for anyone who's ever completed an FPS before? Are you mad? Maybe for those weirdoes who played more Halo 2 than all other games released over the period between it and Halo 3 combined.

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.

Safari

Well, once again, I have changed browsers. As of yesterday, Safari 3 has been available in beta form. On OS X Tiger and Windows (Vista and XP).

I have been using Safari on XP since the first moment I could. And what a browser it is, speedy and gorgeous.

That's pretty much all I feel the need to say on that...

Leopard is looking good, and it will be released before I go Mac, meaning I get all these awesome looking new features and the gorgeous new interface as standard. Score.

Anyway, onto other things. I just inherited an XBOX (The original one). It's...An XBOX. Nothing much to say about it. Except that it rips CDs at an astoundingly slow rate.

Getting Red Steel soon, so my time will probably get taken up by that. Reminds me, Halo 3 Beta kicked ass.

This post is very bitty. Lots to cover...I'll resume normal services next time.

It's funny, the more I hear about this so-called smaller, more intimate E3, the more it sounds like it's become even more intense. Curiously enough, I actually want to be there at the press briefings. Just hope it lives up to expectations.

Re-Elect Gore 2008,

Jens