PS3 Motion Controller Delayed

Sony recently announced the delay of their PS3 Motion Controller.  I for one didn’t really expect a release this Spring considering the fact that they still haven’t announced an official name for the product or any games to accompany it.  This will probably prove to be a good thing for them since they will have more time to formulate a proper amount of games and marketing push.

TOKYO, Jan. 20 /PRNewswire/ -- Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE) today announced that it will release its new Motion Controller(1) (tentative name) for the PlayStation®3 (PS3®) computer entertainment system in fall 2010 in Japan, Asian regions and countries, North America and Europe/PAL territories together with an extensive line-up of exciting software titles. The new controller, combined with the PlayStation®Eye camera(2), can detect the natural and intuitive movement of the hand and reflect the precise movement within the game, delivering a whole new entertainment experience on PS3.

"We have decided to release the Motion Controller in fall 2010 when we will be able to offer an exciting and varied line-up of software titles that will deliver the new entertainment experience to PS3 users, " said Kazuo Hirai, President and Group CEO, Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. "We will continue to work to have a comprehensive portfolio of attractive and innovative games for the Motion Controller, not only from SCE Worldwide Studios but also from the third party developers and publishers, whom we have been working closely with. We look forward to soon unveiling the exciting software line-up that further expands and defines the PS3 platform as the ultimate entertainment system for the home."

SCE will vigorously promote the Motion Controller as the de facto controller of the PS3 platform along with the DUALSHOCK® series controller and will deploy various measures to enhance the software title line-up for the Motion Controller, delivering groundbreaking interactive entertainment only possible on the PS3 platform.

(1) Motion Controller is a tentative name.
(2) Users will need to use the PlayStation Eye camera to enjoy the Motion Controller on PS3.

Dragon Age Thoughts

A lot of people have been singing the praises of Dragon Age: Origins for months.  I too was wooed by this title at first, but after an extended period of play time it has lost its luster. 

Dragon Age: Origins or DAO has an impressive depth of story paths, dialogue choices, plot paths, items to collect and enchant, spells to learn, crafts to make and other good stuff.  All of this is a great building block for an amazing RPG.  But towards the end of the game it felt more like a job and less like I was playing a video game for enjoyment. 

The combat has an MMORPG repetitiveness to it.  You have a variety of different spells and actions you can perform to mix up the monotony, but none of them are truly amazing to look at.  I also found spell activation to be cumbersome, this is where it becomes evident that this game was meant to be played on PC with a nice row of keyboard shortcuts.  But no matter how they mix it up I couldn’t stand one more moment of hacking and slashing the same small variety of enemies over and over.

My version of choice was the PS3 version and I was very put off by the visuals.  The textures seemed either washed out or very low resolution at times.  The character models seemed oddly proportioned and facial animations were very outdated looking.  Every character in the game seemed to have the same rigid skeleton with no hope for any kind of differentiation between any of the character poses and mannerisms. 

The cut scenes also fell way too short of my expectations.  I found all of the conversations to be very dull and unexciting.  Usually I’m the kind to sit back and enjoy a good Metal Gear Solid style hour and a half cut scene, but I found myself dying for them to be over.  The stories seem to throw a lot of stuff at you where you have no idea what they are talking about and don’t really care in the long run.  I did however like the massive amount of dialogue choices they give for your character, but it would have been nice to see them vocalize your character’s dialogue like the rest of the characters in the game.

Sorry for the hate, but for my score of Dragon Age: Origins I give it a much overhyped 6 out of 10

Analog Drift Episode #12 – 12/24/09

Just previewing a few games coming out in 2010: Transformers War For Cybertron, Spec Ops: The Line and Red Dead Redemption. Merry Christmas Everyone!

Analog Drift Episode #11 (Part 2 of 2) December 11, 2010

Analog Drift Episode #11 (Part 1 of 2) – December 11, 2010

Wii for $150 at Walmart! (December 5th–12th)

As reported by Joystiq.com:

Sad that you missed all the Black Friday sales? Walmart wants to take advantage of that feeling of being left out, with a series of December sales and price drops. The most exciting offer: for one week (from December 5 -12), every Wii will come with a $50 gift card, effectively dropping the price to a ridiculous $150.

Red Dead Redemption, Much Improved Graphics

Still working on my full video blog.  The wife has me working on decorating the house for Christmas.  So hopefully I can get something done with it soon.

But in the mean time, I just saw that Rockstar Released a new trailer for Red Dead Redemption and I had to share it.  The game looks like it’s coming along very nicely and the textures are looking a lot more detailed that the trailer they showed previously.  This is definitely one of the best looking games I’ve seen in a while. 

The environments are beautiful, they show majestic looking snowy mountains and lush pine trees.  Not just barren deserts and open plains.  The voice acting and expressions are great.  They also showed you using a variety of weapons like Gatling Guns, cannons and explosives with the old Wile E. Coyote detonators.  I can’t wait to pick this game up in April 2010.

Just the Drift

Not a full blown video blog.  Just one of my short checking in posts.  I will be calling these posts “Just the Drift” for now.  I need a better title though.  In the future these may be my off-topic posts or whatever comes to mind.  Also, I posted this with my cell phone to try out the video camera on it.

Platinum Dragon is Coming Back!

Working on a new video blog.  Should be ready sometime after Thanksgiving weekend.

Analog Drift Episode #10 - October 3, 2009

It's October now, I thought I would give you my top 5 Horror Games of all time. Enjoy.

Analog Drift Episode #9 - September 26, 2009

Just a brief note about Tokyo Game Show, PlayStation, Dead Rising 2 and Lost Planet 2.

Crappy Day/Week

Been a crappy day at work, so podcast is delayed.  Maybe Friday or Saturday.

Analog Drift Episode #8 - September 17, 2009

This week I talk about Smackdown Vs. Raw 2010 Roster and more. PS3 Releases, PC Deals, Much More.

Analog Drift Episode #7 – September 10, 2009

This week I discuss new releases on PSN and this week's sale on Direct2Drive. You can find that sale at http://www.direct2drive.com/d2dturns5

Analog Drift Episode #6 - September 3, 2009

My thoughts and impressions on PS3 Firmware version 3.0 and Assassin's Creed 2. Kind of a short video this week. Hopefully something more interesting next week

Analog Drift Episode #5 - August 27th, 2009

This week is a slow news week with Gamescon being over and everyone at home playing Batman: Arkum Asylum, so I decided to talk about my top 10 most anticipated games of 2010.

Video Blog August 20th, 2009

Just thought I would get back into my blog with my new computer.  Sharing my thoughts this week on WWE Smackdown Vs. Raw 2010, OSMOS, PS3 Home and PS3 in general.

The shocker!

I was tempted to pick up inFamous, but not tempted enough to pay the $59.99 for it.  Luckily I stopped at a store in Mansfield, OH called Buybacks and some PS3 traitor was trading in all his PlayStation games for an Xbox 360.  I scooped this one up right away for $40.00.  I’m glad I found this great deal too, because game kicks ass.

The controls and animation are very slick.  You feel very empowered while playing this game.  So far I have only tried the good side, but I hear the bad side is way more intense.  The missions do repeat but I find them way less repetitive than most open world games.  Most of the missions are enjoyable except for some of the time trail ones are a little too linear. 

The story is one of the only parts that this game fails on, but the experience is too fun to discount it very much.

Rating – 8.5 out of 10

You are my guide, my path-beater to the next incarnation.

I went to Target the other day and found this pretty little gem for $20.00.  I have been a Tomb Raider fan since its first release on PlayStation many years ago.  I own every other title out there.  But with the economy in shambles I have been tighter on my game budget.  So I waited to pick this one up. 

One of the first things I’ve noticed is that the controls take a while to get used to after playing Uncharted.  For some reasons it seems like Lara’s animations don’t transitions as well as Jakes.  I find myself thinking this game would have benefited from some additional polish.  Often times grabs don’t catch in the right place and collision detection isn’t up to snuff.  I’ve also seen a few creatures stuck in endless wall-crawling loops. 

I am also disappointed with the lack on any kind of traditional item system.  Just like the original game, Lara’s main guns have endless bullets.  However, all of her other guns are given to you from the get go and there is no need to find ammo.  I don’t mind scrambling for ammo, I think it adds a layer of realism to the game that is now missing.  I used to love the feeling of finding a new gun as well but now they are all open to you from the start which I feel was a great way for the previous games to offer you awards along the way.

Besides all of the problems the game does a great job of bringing back the mechanics that make the game great.  It has a lot of really clever climbing mechanics.  There are some areas where it gives away just enough of a hint of where you need to go to make you feel rewarded after each successful checkpoint.  That’s something else that amazes me; the check points area really great for a Tomb Raider game.  I also like the fact that this game is very light on the combat, considering it is not it’s strong point.  I couldn’t really see turning this into a Nathan Drake style shooter. 

I’m glad to see my favorite old franchise still has some legs on it and I hope that the rumored revitalization is kind to old fans of the series like me.

Rating – 7 out of 10

Home again.

I have always made it my point as a PS3 fanboy to defend PS3 home.  But even I have to admit that it’s pretty damn boring sometimes.  But maybe that will change.  At GDC 2009 PlayStation Home director Jack Buser announced that there will be a lot more interesting things coming to Home.  "You'll see about three new spaces launched a month - I'll be shocked if we ever go under that number, we have so much in the pipeline," Buser said.

Frankly I’ll believe it when I see it.  The Red Bull, Resident Evil, Warhawk and Uncharted things have all been so so, thus far.  The only thing that will really get my excited about home is when they:

1.  Bring back all-world voice chat

2.  Allow game launching for ALL games.

Anyhow, let’s keep our hopes up.