May I point you toward THIS post by one "MattG" over at HipHopGamer. Apparently Matt knows how well the X360 version of Final Fantasy XIII will perform somehow by judging it from the PS3 demo version of the upcoming RPG from Square-Enix. I am by no means taking a stab at the X360 and it's capabilities, I'm in full belief that it could perform just as well as the PS3 version, in fact what I am doing is praising Matt's unrivaled ability to determine how well games will run on different sets of console hardware by what seems to be effortless measures. All he has to do is pick up say a PS3 game and he'll be able to tell you how well it'll run on the Xbox! Maybe I should get him to come over to my house, I have the Riddick Dark Athena demo on my Xbox but I want to know how well it will perform on PS3 and there's no demo on the PSN! Matt, give me a call, maybe we can work something out.
HipHop Gamer, the Stupidity is Now Proven
Playstation.com Trophy Tracking is Live
Woot, the first official automated trophy tracking available on the web. Now hopefully Sony give out the required information so 3rd party websites can do it automatically as well.
Will God of War III be banned or censored in Australia?
After reading a few previews of GoW III around the Internet, namely the GamesRadar one, I thought a few things to myself;
1. GoW with extreme gore - awesome
2. GoW with amazing graphics - awesome
3. GoW with extreme gore could ultimately be a bad thing - not awesome
In GamesRadar's preview of GoW III Mikel Reparaz points out how violent the game actually is.
"First, we’ll talk about the insane levels of gore that we mentioned earlier. Now, “gore” is a word that gets tossed around a lot in videogames, and it usually refers to bloody dismemberment or maybe a loop of intestine poking out here and there. God of War III takes that shit so far, it made a theater full of jaded games journalists go “eww!” in shocked unison. It’s not hyperbole to say that its gruesomeness is unprecedented in gaming. To be honest, there’s such a level of uncomfortable realism to it that it makes Gears of War’s chainsaw deaths look cartoonish."
"First, there was a demonstration of the game’s “zipper technology,” which was trotted out during the gameplay demo when Kratos faced down a centaur. Being a large enemy, it can be finished off with one of Kratos’ quicktime-event finishers – which ends, shockingly, with Kratos slitting open its belly and letting its clearly identifiable guts spill out onto the marble floor."
"Slightly later in the level, a Cyclopes showed up, giving Kratos an opportunity to show off his ability to ride and control the stupid beast by stabbing it repeatedly in the neck. More importantly, he finished it off in his usual way – by tugging out its eyeball – but this time, the camera panned around to a close-up side view. As Kratos dug into the creature’s eye socket and began to pull the massive orb free, it slowly bulged outward and the eyelid slid back until suddenly, the eyeball was torn free and left hanging by an angry red nerve stalk."
"Immediately after that, we were treated to a scene in which Kratos works his magic on Helios, the sun god whom he rescued in Chains of Olympus. And note that when we say “works his magic,” we mean he straddled the god from behind, grabbed his head with both hands and – in a brutal, multi-stage button-mashing sequence that focused closely on Helios’ agonized face – tore Helios’ head right the hell off. It wasn’t just a clean rip, either, as the skin stretched and tore, revealing muscles and tendons underneath that snapped loose individually as the god screamed out his final breath."
-Taken from GamesRadar
GoW III sounds like it's is going to be brutal, very brutal. This is fine by me, perfect even, but if we take a sweet little trip down memory lane to a place called November 2008, Australian gamers were shocked to find out that F.E.A.R. 2 had been banned in Australia due to "High-Impact violence" Of course, we all know the decision concerning F.E.A.R. 2 was re-thought and the game was given permission to be sold within our glorious country. 3 cheers for F.E.A.R.
F.E.A.R. 2 isn't the only game with a high level of violence to have trouble with the Australian classification board. If you do a Google search of games banned in Australia one of the top results will be a might fine Wiki page showing you all the games, the reasons they were banned and if they were eventually allowed into the country, censored or un-censored. The Getaway, Grand Theft Auto (III, Vice City, San Andreas and IV), Manhunt, Manhunt 2, Soldier of Fortune Payback are all games that have been censored to be allowed on Australian soil
I don't know if GoW III will be banned or censored, I'm not a fortune teller but after reading some of the previews and the focus on gore it really makes you wonder if GoW III will fall victim to Australia's child-like beliefs on gamers.
If this came to be, a piece of me would painfully die and my love I have for my country would retrench to a state of nothing.
Unlimited Saga
Why, why did I spend $20 on this. The back of the case is oh so misleading. I thought I was in for a JRPG treat, not chess with a few battles, pathetic menu and town navigation and some cheap cutscenes thrown in. What a waste of money. At least if I was mugged just before purchasing this game, chances are the person mugging me would have spent my hard earned $20 on something that wasn't Unlimited Saga.
Ha, Bill Gates, you make me chuckle
"We’ve had a lot of questions from people who weren’t really happy with the kind of service they’ve been getting from Xbox in the last few years… What are you going to do to ensure that new consoles are more reliable than previous versions"
"Gates: Well we certainly had to apologize to our uses about a number of box that had to be replaced. We did that for free for all of those people, we’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback about the way we handled it. We’ve got incredible reliability on the new work we’ve done. Our commitment is that it will be the most reliable video game box out there. People really love the Xbox because of the content, but we’ve got to make sure that the hardware never stands in the way of that."
Taken from BBC article, taken from Loot-Ninja
That Gaming Site Snaked My Article!
Pft, I just found a feed in my inbox that reminded me of an article I wrote up last night when I was severly sleep deprived. I wrote an article containing a few methods I think Sony should implement to get a few more sales out of the PS3 and so did TGS, BUT! I was first, and mine are better. Ha!
As you can see, there are more than 5 hours difference between my posts. I win.
My Article
That Gaming Site
