So, friends — you just got a PlayStation Vita because that shit was on sale for $179 bucks and you just couldn’t say no? Good on you! The PlayStation Vita is a terrific handheld device, despite what naysayers and angry fanboys have to say about it. One thing you’re probably going to hear is “OMG VITA SUX NO GOOD GAMES”, which is pretty much the same tired ass argument Xbox fanboys used against PlayStation 3 owners during its first year or two as well. Rest assured, the Vita not only has games, but it’s got a whole lot of really good games. While certain games like Sound Shapes are unique and awesome, the PS Vita’s got a whole lot of stuff that’s almost identical if not better than its console counterpart.
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Sony’s PlayStation Plus program has been in effect for roughly two years now, and has given away a multitude of games, media, and services to PlayStation Plus subscribers since its inception. With the announcement that next month’s free game would be Rockstar’s legendary Red Dead Redemption, I decided to delve into my experiences with PlayStation Plus over the past six months, and give an overview about the games/services I’ve received. Being a particularly broke gamer, every purchase I make is based on the dollars-to-fun factor, so I’ll have a sentence listing the original retail price and whether or not it would have warranted a purchase. Continue Reading…
I love the God of War series. I played the original game when it came out on PS2. I played the second the moment it came out. I played them both again when they were released in HD in the God of War Collection. I played the shit out of number 3, and even got the Ultimate Edition that came with Pandora’s Box. I have an unbiased love of this franchise and of Kratos, the lead protagonist, and will defend it’s blood-soaked glory from any naysayer against mindless violence. It’s visceral, surreal and intense. Kratos is a great character (say whatever you will about lack of depth), and is the true incarnation of chaos and destruction. I love him.
This is why when I heard the news regarding the latest installment of the franchise, God of War: Ascension, getting some questionable censoring, I had to speak out.
In an interview done near E3 2012 with God of War: Ascension game design manager David Hewitt revealed that the 6th game of the bloody story of Kratos will tone back on the violence, specifically violence on women. So I can assume there’ll be no female bosses or general enemies, like the Sirens and gorgons. Kratos will somehow ignore all the female gods and all their misdeeds because Sony Santa Monica is afraid to get yelled at by feminists. Continue Reading…
News broke late last night/early this morning that Sony has acquired cloud based game streaming company Gaikai (pronounced Guy-K-eye) for the pocket change sum of $380 million. If you’ve never heard of Gaikai, they’re basically an alternative to OnLive. My experience was pretty decent with it, beta testing it a years back when Dead Space 2 came out. It played right in the browser with no downloading or customization, just a login and clicking the play button.
That said, Sony could potentially use Gaikai to do some cool things for the PS3/Vita, as well as even more for the future consoles. Imagine if you will the ability to play any PlayStation 1, 2, or PSP game on your PS3/Vita. Take that thought, and then forward it on adding PS3 games for the next generation and you’ve got a really impressive category of titles and a brilliant way to tout “the largest library of games available for any console” or some other silly marketing phrase.
Sony could also use Gaikai’s technology to bring gaming to typical non-gaming devices, such as Sony’s Bravia TVs, or BluRay players. Sony Ericsson could also bring this technology to their Xperia Playstation phone, creating even another space to compete with (and possibly dominate) OnLive in.
While the speculation sure is impressive, knowing Sony they’ll just rename the technology and then sit on it because they can’t figure out how to make it as good as it should be. I wouldn’t at all be surprised to find that Sony purchased Gaikai just to hopefully stifle the amount of competition on Android tablets/iOS devices.
Still, if the right people make the right moves to put this service to good use and Sony can bring ALL of their existing software library to it, PlayStation will have successfully changed the gaming future for the second time in their existence.
There’s a rumor going around that Sony may be preparing to launch an even slimmer version of the PS3 soon. The original PS3 slim announcement was made at Gamescom back in 2009, and with Gamescom coming up soon, this rumor seems to be picking up a lot of steam.
“We haven’t announced anything new on PS3 in terms of hardware revisions. We should never say never – hardware guys are always looking at ways to make things cheaper, smaller.”
The news is a bit far fetched given how far into the product’s life-cycle we are, but Sony’s never been afraid to throw money away on a new idea. Personally, I don’t think revamping the hardware again is the answer, so much as getting the PS3 down to the lower cost like Microsoft did with this new budget 360. The only way I could see Sony pulling it off is to lock people into PS+ but even then, would it be enough to beat MS’s included two years of Xbox Live? I’d think free games every so often would blow the doors off of paying for online multiplayer, but that’s just me.
We’ll see if Sony has any hidden tricks up their sleeve at Gamescom.