Sunday, March 14, 2010
Starting at 3 p.m. CST until whenever

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Enjoy!

Playstation Home 1.35 update details:
PlayStation Home 1.35, a new service update available tomorrow, will decrease load times, enabling users to access PlayStation Home faster than ever before. In addition, PlayStation Home 1.35 replaces the PlayStation Home World Map with a new intuitive navigation system. This streamlined interface features multiple categories to enable users to quickly navigate through PlayStation Home, locate friends, and go to their preferred spaces in just a few clicks.

Categories will include:

• Favorites: Personalize your own section to make locating and going to your favorite places quick and simple.

• Personal Spaces: Your clubhouses and personal spaces are now right at your fingertips. The personal spaces you own and the clubhouses you belong to will be viewable in one convenient location.

• Friends: Finding your friends that are signed into PlayStation Home has never been simpler. View the current location of your friends in PlayStation Home, and then navigate there to enjoy the action together.

• Explore: Browse all the spaces PlayStation Home offers. Finding spaces that suite your taste and mood is now even easier.

• Recommended: Keep up with what is “hot” in PlayStation Home. This regularly updated category will feature the newest and most exciting spaces and additions to PlayStation Home.

The new PlayStation Home 1.35 update also enhances the login process. Once users have launched PlayStation Home from the XMB™ (XrossMediaBar), they will be transported directly to the navigator to begin exploring – making logging in and enjoying PlayStation Home even simpler.

Title: God of War 3
Release Date: March 16, 2010
Platform: PS3

Santa Monica Studios brings us the 3rd (well actually 5th if you count Chains of Olympus and a crappy cel phone game) in the God of War series. Is Kratos still a “generic action movie character?” Is the game full of awesome? Do you get to have sex with beautiful women while not actually seeing what’s going on? Find out after the break!

As I’ve said on the show before, I always appreciated the God of War series, but it’s never been my top choice for an action game. My fear with God of War 3 was, as it’s been in the first two, that I would get to a section that was so immensely frustrating that I would just quit and never return to it. I’ve never been a fan of the “pure action” titles in the past, so my expectations for GoW3 from a gameplay perspective were pretty low.

Boy, was I wrong.

God of War 3 is nothing short of perfection, and is the best looking game on any platform, ever. Trust me, I can’t believe that I wrote that either.

Where do I begin? The first thing you’ll notice is that the reported “new type of Anti-Aliasing,” and it is insanely impressive. Nothing shows “jaggies” nor is any shimmering evident either. The lighting is the best I’ve ever seen, and all of the shadows are real (no “tricks” or “cheats” are noticeable at all.) Every character has an immense amount of detail, including rippling muscles under the skin, and the skin actually glistens in direct light. One of the most amazing lighting techniques is when there’s a powerful light-source behind an object in the distance, and if you move to the right or left, the light blazes into the screen in all of its HDR glory. Textures are detailed, and at no time did either of us see any texture popping or de-resolution, even for things far in the distance. Animation is great, and the little details are all there, including facial expressions, and interaction between objects.

I guess if you have to “ding” anything, on a couple of occasions, the camera going around a corner didn’t catch-up right away, but it in no way took away from the game. Using the fixed camera as they always have in this series, they obviously have a lot more control over what’s on the screen, and when you see the depth of the visuals, your jaw will hit the floor. The visuals aren’t leaps and bounds over Uncharted 2, but it is a good jump. Also, throughout the entire game, I came across 1 visual glitch…. 1. A shadow on a floor changed abruptly when Kratos walked past a certain section of the floor and back. I actually had to walk back-and-forth a couple of times until my buddy could even see it.

This game is all about scale, and if you think that God of War 2 huge set pieces and huge boss fights, God of War 3 exceeds it greatly. Some of the boss battles I still can’t believe I went through. It still relies on quicktime events and some button mashing, but the mechanics have definitely been improved. Controls are spot-on throughout the entire game, and definitely feel better than the first two. The mixture of “cut-scene” and gameplay is well done, and the pacing is excellent. Everything here uses the game engine this time around (I do think that some scenes are probably done like in Ratchet and Clank, where it is actually a video file so they can load data during the scene, but I can’t be sure.) Load Times are almost non-existent, as the entire game streams from the disc (yup, no install.)

The soundtrack is truly epic, and fits the game perfectly. All of the voice acting is superb, and the cast is a very recognizable list of well-known Hollywood talent. I mean, come on, they got Kevin Sorbo to play Hercules!!!! They also thank Elijah Wood in the credits for some reason, which had us scratching our heads. The story, while not A Tale of Two Cities, is actually pretty cool, and continues down the path that the first 2 games started. The dialog is enjoyable, and helps with the pacing of the rest of the experience. There’s some pretty messed-up stuff going on here, and they obviously don’t pull any punches. Even a favorite minigame from the series makes a comeback, but it actually becomes a necessity this time around.

Overall, my play-through was roughly 10-11 hours, which to me was perfect. There’s definitely incentive for you Trophy Hunters to replay the game, and the included bonuses on the disc (most of which doesn’t unlock until you finish the game) are very well done. Along with a new costume, there’s a “Making-of” video that’s pretty lengthy, and some of the cinematics from the game become available to be viewed at any time. Included below are a bunch of screenshots from the first 30 minutes of the game. I didn’t want to go any farther, as my goal is to always try and stay away from spoiler-country. The screenshots were all taken by me using our capture system, and nothing has been doctored. All of the shots below are actual gameplay.

I can’t stress this enough, God of War III is THAT good. It is a system-seller, and is a game that just about everybody should at least rent (unless you’re too young to play it, they don’t pull any punches.) It ties the story up very nicely, and is definitely a game that I plan to play through again (my trophies are on my friend’s account ) In so many words, yes, God of War 3 was worth waiting for, and it definitely made a believer out of me.

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Football has ended, the NBA is in full-swing (but who watches Basketball any more AmIRite,) and Spring Training is just beginning. Yup, it’s the beginning of March, and like death and taxes, the new Baseball games are hitting the shelves. This year is a big one, as the chief competitor to the mainstay that is The Show seems to be making some strides toward becoming a contender. For the last 3 years, the gold-standard for Baseball in videogame form has been MLB The Show from Sony San Diego Studios. Let’s talk about what’s in-store for the virtual diamond this year!

Let’s be honest, at its core, this is is the same game that you’ve been playing for the last 2 years, but with a lot more polish and features. This is a good thing! Besides the addition of many more correct batting stances and more correct details in the stadiums, Road to the Show has been tweaked like crazy, and they even brought back the Home Run Derby mode. There are so many tiny inclusions, fixes, and additions that I’d never be able to list them all, but what I’ve seen after playing this for a few days is an incredibly polished version of a game that many truly love to play.

Visuals
Word was that the development team was trying to get all new player models into the game this year, but they ran out of time. Instead they’ve added a ton of nuances in the lighting engine, cleaner shadows, and over 200 new animations. One thing that has always set “The Show” apart from other sports games wasn’t just the animation itself, but the smooth transitions between those animations. This year it’s still not “perfect,” but it’s about as close as you could expect. It’s even more evident when you view a replay in The Show’s “Show-Motion” super slo-mo camera. Even nicer (and totally cosmetic,) is the team’s attempts at making the presentation even more realistic by actually having players not walk through each other. Now, when a batter walks near someone else, they’ll actually move out of the way before continuing on. It may not sound like a big deal, but it blurs the line just that much more between videogame and real broadcast.

One detail that immediately caught my eye is the uniforms. Vinyl lettering reflects light correctly, and if they’re actually stitched-on, they are raised off of the surface of the jersey correctly. Also, the uniforms don’t seem to be just a hard casing around the character, as you’ll actually see the cloth stretch during movement in a very realistic fashion. You’ll still see a lot of the other visual glitz as in previous years, but they’ve definitely included a lot more on top of what was there. The animated tomahawk on top of the Braves scoreboard now lights and animates, the outfield scoreboards in left field at Miller Park now represent the changes made in the real stadium, and even fireworks for a Home Run at “The Cell” in Chicago partnered with quite the light show on the humongous scoreboard. The field itself even seems to be affected more by wear and tear this year, and the effect in the batters-box is more realized as well. Transitions between animations is smoother, and the even seems to have more variety than last year (you’ll still see “twins” but they may be farther apart now.) Many people may think that MLB 10 looks a lot like 09, but if you put them side-by-side the differences are quite noticeable and plentiful.

Online
It works! Well, most of the time. You’re still at the mercy of your opponent’s Internet connection, but online does work, even when your PS3 is wireless. I played against the same opponent twice, once when my PS3 was wireless, and once when it was wired. Both games played very well, but the differences were pretty obvious. In wireless (which coincidentally wouldn’t even work last year,) I noticed more “hitching,” and the timing still seemed to be off by a bit. When I plugged my PS3 in to the switch though, it ran very well. We had a couple of momentary pauses, but seriously, the online experience was very close to being on the same tv. Another cool feature is when you use an external keyboard. Doing so allows you to text-chat to people that don’t have a mic, and you don’t have to hit any buttons or even pause the game to use it, just type and it slides-in from the bottom of the screen. No one that I played online had a mic yet, so I cannot comment on voice chat quality etc.

Online leagues aren’t available yet (about 10 days to go,) so I can’t really speak to any of those functions yet. Since their online tech is all peer-to-peer though, it should never matter “how many people are on the servers,” as once the session is established between the 2 people, the servers are completely out of the mix. This is great to know since if Online was working a few days before the game hit, it’ll work the same no matter what. I’m not saying that Online is perfect, but it’s gotten a serious upgrade and is such a welcome change!

Audio
I’m a sucker for Matt Vasgersian. He used to be the announcer for the Milwaukee Brewers tv broadcasts, so I love hearing his voice in MLB 10. They’ve definitely added more variety to the phrases this year, but you’ll still get a repeat here-and there. The ambient stadium sounds have seemingly been improved as well, as I’m noticing a lot more sound field separation this time around. The crowd definitely reacts better to whatever the situation is in the game too. I’ve had more than a few nail biters already, and the experience was incredibly heightened by the aural elements in those situations.

As in 09, but expanded quite a bit this year, the ability to load a custom soundtrack is easy to use. But what you can also do with the music is one big item that sets this game apart from anything else in sports titles. Using your regular voice chat mic, you can record taunts or cheers for any player. You can also set certain songs to play when a Home Run occurs, or even set a portion of a song as your Walk-Up Music. The options have expanded a lot in those areas, and so far I’ve only scratched the surface of what’s available.

Road to the Show (RttS)
The strongest feature of this series is Road to the Show, where you create a player, start in AA, and play through his entire career as you scrape your way to the Majors (The Show.) There are many new tweaks this year, and so far all are welcome changes. They’ve doubled the amount of Minor League stadiums, a couple of which I really love playing in. Trade logic seems better so far, but definitely not perfect. One major difference, because of the 5GB install this year, load times are much nicer! It’s not instant by any means, but I would almost say they cut the load time down to almost half of what it was. This is huge in RttS, especially when all you’re doing is pinch-hitting late in a game. It was also nice to see that a bunch of training points were available right out of the gates, which gave me the opportunity to beef-up in certain areas right away. Also, the handling of Goals has definitely improved. I had an instance where the goal was to hit the runner in from 2nd. I hit a great liner through the infield that advanced the runner to 3rd, but he held-up there. Instead of, like last year, seeing “Goal Failed” I actually got a “Positive result” instead. This is huge!

Creating your player can be as easy or as hard as you want it to be. There are many more options than last year, including 2-tone bats and even allowing you to set a different color for the laces in your fielding glove. Much of this can also be changed after the fact, which is great since sometimes things may look good when you’re creating him, but once you see him in action, yeahhhhh things are gonna need a change.

Other Stuff
So, a few items that I wanted to make sure to mention. The Replay Vault makes a triumphant return this year, complete with the to record and save any of the videos to the XMB, which can also be done with the Highlight Reel at the end of the game. You can gran the video file from your PS3 with a USB drive, and upload it to your favorite video site like Youtube or Viddler. I really would have liked to see a better framerate in the videos though, so I’m hoping that’s something that they could patch.

Also, pretty-much at any time you can go to the Photo section in the XMB, and choose “Save Screenshot.” This will take you back to the game, and when you see a screenshot that you want, simply hit the “X” button, and the HD photo is saved to your XMB. The photo can be grabbed on a USB drive and used anywhere, and the quality is very good. In fact, all of the screenshots you’ve seen on this site were made via this functionality

The new ability to call the game as a catcher works very well. Even if you haven’t set your player up as a catcher in RttS, you’ll probably get to play this mode anyway. In AA, you’ll be brought-in to pinch-hit for a catcher eventually, and the Manager usually leaves you in as the catcher. The interface is very streamlined, and it’s actually pretty cool to lay the game this way. Just remember, it’s pretty time-consuming though. You’re not going to burn through games like you would as an outfielder.

The addition of six “Classic” parks is also very welcome, but at review time, they aren’t available to unlock yet (I’m nowhere close to having a Platinum, and it’s not available as a store unlock yet.) The Classics available are Forbes Field, Crosley Field, Polo Grouds, Shibe Park, Sportsman Park, and Griffith Stadium. Along with those, two other “old” venues are available right away, the Metrodome and Shea Stadium, both of which have been replaced this year. It sounds silly, but I really do hope this becomes a trend, as I’d love to see Milwaukee County Stadium included some day. It wasn’t much to look at, but it still had a lot of charm. Plus, that’s where they filmed a majority of “Major League,” and some games in the ‘82 World Series were played there as well.

I’m sure that I’m still missing some elements of what’s included. I’m actually looking at a 4-page synopsis of improvements and features, which is a good indicator that this isn’t just a “roster update.” SCEA San Diego have done a fantastic job this year. Yes, there still are a couple of bugs and there are a couple of elements that could still use tweaking. But, they’ve made great strides this year, and they’ve definitely still given us the best representation of the game of Baseball on any videogame platform. You may find yourself using the sliders to adjust the experience to your liking, and that’s one element that really makes this title a great one, the fact that you can make this game your own and play it the way that you want to. I’ll be looking for you online this year, so be ready to bring it!

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Audio from the Live Show, Episode 155, which originally aired on Feb. 27th, 2010.
Comedian is Bill Burr

Zipper’s BRINGIN’ IT BACK YO!

Full 32-player online and a 14-mission Single Player experience, I CAN’T WAIT! More details coming soon. Check out the reveal on the Playstation Blog.

Here’s what we’ve come up with so far:

Warhawk 2 (Possibly)
Twisted Metal (not yet)
Killzone 3 (E3 at the earliest)
inFamous 2 (Maybe)
Parappa 3 (lol)
Gradius 6 (there have been hints)
Ico/Shadow of the Collosus sequel that’s not the Last Guardian (wishful thinking)
Rumored Socom developed by Zipper (hmmmm)
New Jak & Daxter title for PS3
Resistance 3 (Again, seems early)
GTA 5 Exclusive to PS3 (Yeahhhhh, probably not)
Syphon Filter (The last game ended with a cliffhanger…)
Lair 2 (lol)
Haze 2 (LMAO!)
New Timesplitters (Again, there have been hints)
PS3 Exclusive Burnout (EA and Exclusives don’t mix much any more)
Mass Effect 3 (exclusive to PS3? hmmmm)
Motorstorm 3 (Obviously coming, but seems early)
New title from Lightbox Interactive (who knows at this point, it’s all rumor)
New Ridge Racer (if done right, YES PLEASE!!!)
New Ace Combat (see New Ridge Racer)
New Krazy Ivan (ZOMG!)

So what do YOU think? Let us know in the comments!