Playstation Plus – Too Much of a Good Thing

I’ve been on the Playstation Plus bandwagon since April this year and it’s been quite a ride. I’ve played at least 20 new games through it, some crap and some great. The whole idea of “playing games you wouldn’t normally play” is conductive to a bit of open-mindedness, but I found the opposite started happening as the months went on. The little bubble of “Playstation Plus” games became the only thing I played on PS3 without me even noticing. My eyes stopped looking at the shelf of games I decided were worth buying, because I always had a backlog of PS+ games to check out that might be good. The service obviously has many upsides but I don’t think it’s sustainable in its current form, and here’s a few reasons why.

Continue reading “Playstation Plus – Too Much of a Good Thing” →

Thomas Was Alone – Are You?

Grubdog was alone. It was 2am and he couldn’t sleep. He was looking for a new game to play, not just any game but something special. Something to fill that empty void in his heart. He lived alone, all his friends were pixels and words on a screen. He was happy that way, with his choices. Sometimes though, it became hard to see what was in the distance. All he could see tonight was his PS3, as he shuffled towards the new PlayStation Plus games of May. “Thomas Was Alone?” Why was Thomas alone? Would Thomas be his friend? One 300mb download later, it would all become clear.

thomasandfriends

Continue reading “Thomas Was Alone – Are You?” →

Dead Space 3 – Demo Impressions (it sucks)

After a ridiculous “Xbox 360 time-exclusive” period where you had to sign up to Origin, Xbox Live and the Dead Space official website to get the demo, it’s finally available for free on PSN. I downloaded it and decided to write some impressions because I really liked the first Dead Space (and Extraction). The first thing the game asked me to do is read two large documents and agree to the “terms and conditions”. I just scrolled down and agreed to whatever it was like a good consumer. The next screen told me to sign into my Origin account, this was so I could get access to the online mode and a possible patch for it. No thanks EA; while it’s nice that the demo has access to online play, I don’t have an Origin account and I will never get one. It’s one more step between starting the game and playing it that nobody needs. Playstation, Xbox, Wii U all have accounts we’ve already signed into. By the way, a patch for a demo is called a “game”. After declining to sign into Origin, another popup appears asking “are you sure?” as if I’m doing something wrong. I already hate this game.

Continue reading “Dead Space 3 – Demo Impressions (it sucks)” →

NiGHTS into dreams HD: Simple game, stupid analog mess up, short review

Ladies and gentlemen, I have or had a problem. I kept thinking to myself, “What game should I review for Pietriots since I want to be my unprofessional self rather then an in-depth reviewer?” Well SEGA decided to give me an answer in the form of an extremely fun Saturn classic given an HD re-release… actually, scratch that; an extremely fun Saturn classic given what was originally a PS2 make-over, never released outside of Japan for almost six years but then deciding since they have no money left to fund anything just upscale the damn game. Continue reading “NiGHTS into dreams HD: Simple game, stupid analog mess up, short review” →

GrooveRider – Extreme Slot Car Racing

While Americans have been updating their Wii U’s and drawing dicks in Nintendo Land, I’ve been playing GrooveRider, the best slot car game ever made. Browsing the Playstation Store I noticed this PS2 classic for $8 with an average user review of 4.5 stars. Could a slot car game really be that good? Sure, why not? I downloaded it immediately without even consulting the internet, because that’s the kind of risk worth taking.

Continue reading “GrooveRider – Extreme Slot Car Racing” →

Wreck-It Ralph Sequels and Games Announced

Hot off the successful debut of Disney’s Wreck-It Ralph in theaters and their groundbreaking purchase of Lucasfilm, Disney has entered a partnership with Pietriots to release additional movies and merchandise of the gaming-inspired universe on an annual basis. The new properties will demonstrate the momentum of this exciting franchise, as Disney aims to expand its video game operations and usurp Activision’s Skylanders.

The list of known films, to debut in theaters immediately following every E3 Expo, is presented below:

Continue reading “Wreck-It Ralph Sequels and Games Announced” →

Late to the PS3 party: LittleBigPunishment

Just over a week ago I finally bought a PS3 – there’s quite a few games on here I’ve been keen to play and Tales of Graces F was the pushing point, as well as my new Logitech G27 steering wheel that shamefully isn’t compatible with X360. I’ve been enjoying LittleBigPlanet so far; it’s a lot more fun than I expected. The physics aren’t horrible like I’ve read; it’s easy to adapt to, and the game has quite a bit of charm with some great music and pretty graphics.

It was all going fine until I foolishly plugged in my ethernet cable while the game was paused… THEN OPENED THE GATES OF HELL.

Continue reading “Late to the PS3 party: LittleBigPunishment” →

SSX: Deadly Descents Demo – Impressions (From Chat)

SSX has finally arrived in HD! After a failed Wii game that nobody could figure out how to play, EA has been inspired by recent market trends and added some grit and realism to the franchise. What’s it like? A demo has just been released on PSN and Xbox Live, go download it! If you can’t be arsed, or you’re waiting for the demo to be available to Xbox Live standard members like me; then read on as Infernal Monkey shares his experience!

Continue reading “SSX: Deadly Descents Demo – Impressions (From Chat)” →

PSN Addendum

Dad rang me today, he’s never played a video game in his life despite owning an iPhone since launch. I didn’t even bring up the subject but even he had a laugh about Sony and the PSN. I think his exact quote was “they are so fucked.”

Anyway this was just a quick update to promise future updates. I’ve got a review of Mortal Kombat for PS3 to post but I feel I should test out online play first…

PSN Failure Time Capsule

As many will know, Sony has run into some trouble with their PlayStation 3 again. Recently we’ve seen systems crashing and randomly deleting data, trying to comprehend the date February 30. We’ve also been warned of PS3 controllers that may explode, and witnessed the sinking of one of Sony’s own PR representative’s battleships.

PlayStation: It Only Does Single Player

PlayStation Network has been down for a number of days with no official word on when it’ll be back. Due to the unfortunate existence of “online only” single player games on PS3, many gamers around the world are stuck with games they can’t play. There’s also reports of peoples personal information and credit card details being leaked from Sony’s database. It’s a tough world for PS3 fans, one week you’re enjoying mandatory 24 hour patch installs, the next you’re sitting there alone, forced to finally watch the free Blu-ray of “Planet Earth” you got with your PS3. Before dwelling too much on the negatives, we’ve got to appreciate the humour of the situation. The disaster has been called everything from PlayStation Notwork to The Great Collaps3. Microsoft has taken this opportunity to rub salt in Sony’s wounds by unbanning a mass amount of people from Xbox Live. PSN has even been compared to pop-sensation Rebecca Black, both sharing the joy of getting down on Friday.

Continue reading “PSN Failure Time Capsule” →

Easter, PSN and Public Radio News

This Easter all I wanted to do was try out the PSN. This is no joke either, I’ve had a PSP for years but using that for internet related shenanigans is a nightmare. My new housemate has a PS3 though and this Easter he and his missus (my other housemate) were going down south for the long weekend. I was planning to charge up his PS3 and get some Battlefield 1943 action going. Maybe see how it’s movie purchases compared to iTunes, my current digital store of choice.

You can imagine my disappointment at the mysterious error code I received. The ever reliable Penny Arcade confirmed that the PSN network was down. I did however, strangely, successfully manage to download an update to my housemate’s copy of Super Street Fighter II HD Remix. Surprised he owned it really. So with my weekend fun cancelled I had to settle down and read All Quiet on the Western Front instead. I also got to eat a lot of chocolate and play online games on all the other systems in the house so the weekend was alright in the end.

All Quiet on the Western Front; better than Heavy Rain and available despite the PSN.

Continue reading “Easter, PSN and Public Radio News” →

Friend Codes

Friend Codes are a controversial online schematic that can mildly be described as cumbersome. The IDEA behind Friend Codes is a good one, but the execution of this idea has until recently been poorly lacking.

However, with the announcement of the universality of Friend Codes for the 3DS, the Friend Code system rises from unwieldy to a viable alternative that’s even superior in many ways to alternate online systems.

Continue reading “Friend Codes” →