Xbox One
As soon as you lift the box you can tell there's a big difference in the 2 consoles. The Xbox One design reminds me a bit of the original Xbox, it's big, square, and heavy. I do like the design though and it looks nice with my other equipment below the TV, there is a slight glow of the Xbox logo when it's on which is better then the blue glow of the PS4. The huge power brick is back but luckily I can hide it behind my speakers. It's all touch based like the PS4 for turning on and ejecting disks.
I really like the Xbox 360 controller and it's the best controller I've ever used. The PS4 controller is really nice and if they had moved the left analog stick up a bit I think it would top the 360 controller. The Xbox One controller supposedly had over 40 refinements but not all of them were a good idea. The controller is a bit smaller than the 360 and the analog sticks are smaller as well, I have small hands so it fits perfectly, but if you have large hands it might feel a bit cramped. The d-pad is crossed shaped and makes an audible click when pressed, it's a bit different than the d-pad before but seemed to work well. The triggers have rumble in them and some resistance when playing certain games which works well. The problem is the left and right bumpers, they made them smaller and to click them you have to be on the edges and I found sometimes that my clicks wouldn't register hopefully they just need to be worn in. The headset is really nice and where you plug it into the controller is where the mute and volume controls are which is much easier to hit in the dark. The Kinect is solid and about the same width as the previous one so it does take up some space. There is a light on it but it's not bright enough to be a bother in total darkness.
The UI resembles Windows 8's interface and it does OK. There are still too many boxes to get to what you want and it can be a bit confusing. The voice commands worked perfectly for me even when I had the sound cranked up and shaking the walls, the kinect was able to hear my voice and respond immediately. I watched some videos of others and they seemed to have to say the commands multiple times, I guess my room acoustics are good. I was able to say Xbox Record that and it would create a video clip of the last 30 seconds, I really like that feature. The PS4 records the last 15 minutes by default, which is really too much unless you want to capture a whole round of COD so it takes time to edit out the part you want, you can manually make the time shorter by using menu options but the Xbox version is easier. I will upload some of those to my Youtube channel later this week.
Overall I'm impressed with the hardware and it's seems solidly built and it was very quiet. The blu-ray drive is much quieter than the PS4's. It is large though and has to sit horizontally so you may need to make some changes to your setup.
Dead Rising 3
Zombies, zombies, and more zombies. The graphics may not be the best of all the launch titles, but the sheer number of zombies on the screen is crazy and each one is unique. In one scene there must have been about 400 zombies in a block radius and there was no slowdown, it's something that couldn't be done with the 360. Creating different types of weapons and seeing how they interact with the zombies is so much fun, there are around 300 different weapons you can create plus you can combine different vehicles. The game still has it's sense of humor as I was killing zombies dressed in daisy duke shorts and shirt plus my manly fireman moustache and aviator shades. They removed the time limit which really opens the game up and gives you time to explore and experiment. You can use your tablet as a companion device which adds some new missions and other additions as well as recieve phone calls from the game, it's a nice touch that works well.
Forza 5
Only played about 5 races it felt pretty good with a controller, but I miss my wheel. The rumble triggers work ok, they are supposed to give you a better indication of when your wheels are losing grip, but it didn't help me much but I probably need more time to feel the nuances. The loading times are about 25 seconds between races which is something I had hoped would be improved with this generation so that was a little disappointing. The Drivatar feature which uses your friends and others driving tendencies to create AI drivers seemed to work ok, I did have a lot of cars crash into me. You only race 4 times before it uploads them for others to use which seems a bit quick since you are just learning, they will evolve over time as you become better but initially be ready for some crashes.
Madden 25
Played about 3 games so far and I've been impressed, it still has a long way to go but it seemed much better than the 360 version. The bad blocking seems to have been fixed as I didn't notice anything strange while watching replays. The AI seems better and it was able to run against my defense even on the default setting, I was playing as the Cowboys though.
Call of Duty Ghosts
Squad mode. Awesome. Multiplayer has been fixed.
You know how in multiplayer you get people who camp or just don't play right, it's frustrating and makes you want to quit. Last night during normal multiplayer there were 2 people who were running around just knifing people, they were able to set their perks so that it made it difficult to notice and shoot them on a regular basis. After this I decided to give Squad mode a try and it's probably the best ideas COD has had in years.
In Squad mode you create a team of 8 AI soldiers who will accompany you in battle against other AI bots or against another persons squad. The AI is much better than previous games and really feels like you are playing against real people without feeling like the game is cheating. It's very challenging and rewarding as you can equip each member with different loadouts which will alter their AI so it adds strategy on how you build up your squad for each game mode. Taking your squad out against another was better than regular multiplayer as everyone played "correctly". Also since your experience carries over to the other multiplayer mode it's awesome and has no drawbacks.
My only gripe with the game is loading times, it's about 20 seconds to load a map. The maps are larger and have more detail but the loading should be much quicker on next gen.
New Releases - Not much till next year which is good since there are so many games to play.
PC
Professional Farmer 2014 (download - $20)
PlayStation 4
flOw (PSN)
Tiny Brains (PSN)
Xbox 360
Air Conflicts: Vietnam
PlayStation 3
Air Conflicts: Vietnam
Metal Gear Solid VR Missions (psone Classic)
Oddworld: Abe's Box (psone Classic)
Painkiller: Hell & Damnation (PSN)
Saint Seiya: Brave Soldiers (PSN)
Saint Seiya and Ys: Memories of Celceta
Super Motherload (PSN - $15)
Vita
flOw (PSN)
Ys: Memories of Celceta
Nintendo 3DS
3D Space Harrier (eShop - $6)
3D Super Hang-On (eShop - $6)
Race to the Line (eShop)
Nintendo DS
HeathCliff Spot On (DSiWare)
Monday, November 25, 2013
Friday, November 22, 2013
NBA2K13,NFS Rivals, AFL2K8, Steve Vai, Xbox One?
NBA 2K13
Tried the MyPlayer mode where you create a player and then go through his career making decisions and playing just his position. It has full cutscenes and mini-games that make that mode feel like a mini rpg. You start off by playing in a college allstar game and based on how you perform will decide how quickly you are drafted into the NBA. I was the 5th pick going to the New Orleans Pelicans, ugh.
This mode really changes how the game is played and I really like it. You have a purpose in every game and you do more than just handle the ball and shoot, you need to set picks and move around the court trying to get in good position in order to perform well and stay in the game. It's awesome.
NFS Rivals
Played a couple of more hours and improved my Cop rank to level 10 so I have a ton of cars to choose from and gadgets to equip. The seamless single/multiplayer is really cool and I'm hopeful more games will introduce this feature.
AFL2K8
I saw on operation sports that there was a mod to the game that allowed for current rosters and I got that setup and played a game.The presentation from this 5 year game is still so much better than Madden it's crazy. The graphics don't hold up well but the gameplay is top notch.There are rumors that NFL2K may be making a comeback next year. Some NFL players may have been scanned into the new engine.
Xbox One
Should arrive today. I'm a tech nerd so I couldn't hold out. I'm picking up Dead Rising 3, Forza 5, and Call of Duty Ghosts. I almost chose Ryse but the reviews weren't that great, graphics awesome gameplay boring. I have Madden 25 coming as well since I traded my current gen version. From initial reports it has some nice subtle changes that make it a better game.
There is a mandatory 1G patch that will have to be downloaded before you can use the box so hopefully Xbox live won't go down.There is no Dolby Digital support at launch. It will send uncompressed audio to a receiver so I'll have surround but it just goes to show that they did rush out the systems a little early. There have been some reports of the Blu-ray drive eating discs.
Steve Vai
Last Sunday went and saw Steve Vai play at Juanitas with Brooks and Josh. The show was sold out and the place was standing room only, I was shocked because I didn't think that many people would know who he was.The show lasted around 3 hours and it was great although by the end my feet were killing me. The sound was much better than the last time I was there. I wish Joe Satriani would come to town, I may have to make a trip somewhere to see him play live.
Tried the MyPlayer mode where you create a player and then go through his career making decisions and playing just his position. It has full cutscenes and mini-games that make that mode feel like a mini rpg. You start off by playing in a college allstar game and based on how you perform will decide how quickly you are drafted into the NBA. I was the 5th pick going to the New Orleans Pelicans, ugh.
This mode really changes how the game is played and I really like it. You have a purpose in every game and you do more than just handle the ball and shoot, you need to set picks and move around the court trying to get in good position in order to perform well and stay in the game. It's awesome.
NFS Rivals
Played a couple of more hours and improved my Cop rank to level 10 so I have a ton of cars to choose from and gadgets to equip. The seamless single/multiplayer is really cool and I'm hopeful more games will introduce this feature.
AFL2K8
I saw on operation sports that there was a mod to the game that allowed for current rosters and I got that setup and played a game.The presentation from this 5 year game is still so much better than Madden it's crazy. The graphics don't hold up well but the gameplay is top notch.There are rumors that NFL2K may be making a comeback next year. Some NFL players may have been scanned into the new engine.
Xbox One
Should arrive today. I'm a tech nerd so I couldn't hold out. I'm picking up Dead Rising 3, Forza 5, and Call of Duty Ghosts. I almost chose Ryse but the reviews weren't that great, graphics awesome gameplay boring. I have Madden 25 coming as well since I traded my current gen version. From initial reports it has some nice subtle changes that make it a better game.
There is a mandatory 1G patch that will have to be downloaded before you can use the box so hopefully Xbox live won't go down.There is no Dolby Digital support at launch. It will send uncompressed audio to a receiver so I'll have surround but it just goes to show that they did rush out the systems a little early. There have been some reports of the Blu-ray drive eating discs.
Steve Vai
Last Sunday went and saw Steve Vai play at Juanitas with Brooks and Josh. The show was sold out and the place was standing room only, I was shocked because I didn't think that many people would know who he was.The show lasted around 3 hours and it was great although by the end my feet were killing me. The sound was much better than the last time I was there. I wish Joe Satriani would come to town, I may have to make a trip somewhere to see him play live.
Monday, November 18, 2013
PS4 is in the house. The next generation is here?
PS4 Hardware
The console itself is smaller than the PS3 Slim and weighs less, as I was putting it under my TV I thought that I heard a loose piece moving around but I think it was just part of the case. The initial build quality doesn't seem as solid as any of the PS3 models, the power supply is inside the unit so there is no power brick so hopefully it won't overheat. The console does have a light on top and it's not that bright in a dark room, the controller light on the other hand is too bright and can't be turned off so I had some shadows and I could see a reflection in the TV although once I was playing I didn't notice that much. The controller is much better than the DS3 as it has more weight and the sticks have more resistance, the sensitivity was great and the shooting in Killzone felt really good. I did notice the systems fan running a bit loud when there wasn't any sound in the game, at first I thought it was my PC but it was the PS4.
There is a day one patch and it didn't take very long to download and install. The crossbar interface is back but with a nice face lift, moving through all the options was fast and responsive. I wasn't able to sign into my profile initially but had to wait a couple of hours since the PSN network was unavailable, it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. The PS4 still does it's install stuff but it's automatic instead of a manual process which was needed. Once the patch was loaded I was able to access the store and download my free PS+ games and the download speeds seemed to be much improved over the PS3. I do have mine hard wired, the wireless card is only 2.4ghz b/g/n which is not the latest or greatest which is a bit disappointing.
Since all games have to be installed on the hard drive the games do different things as it installs that make the wait bearable which I will describe individually. All of the games that I played looked nice and crisp, I was worried that since I had a nice PC I would be jaded by the inferior consoles but I was nicely surprised. I didn't see that many jagged edges and the frame rates all held up nicely. There are tons of particle effects that were not possible on the older consoles so the games did look much better than the older gen games, it's not a huge leap like last generation but it does compete with a decent PC graphics card.
Need for Speed Rivals
This is my favorite game out of all the launch titles, it looks and plays great and has some cool online functionality. The game runs at 1080P and 30fps which is a little disappointing since 60fps really helps racing games with a sense of speed but I really didn't notice. The game installs while you are playing the tutorial so there wasn't any wait to start playing. The game has you playing as a racer or cop and then you have challenges to increase your rank which opens up new cars and gadgets. If you play online, which you should, you are put in a world with 8 other users who you might come in contact with while you play your single player experience. It's a neat concept and it works great, you may be a cop that gets called to take out some racers and then notice that 2 of the racers are user controlled which adds a nice dynamic to the traditional single player game, I think we will see this idea in a lot of future games.
I played for about 3 hours straight and had a blast.
NBA 2k14
Probably the best looking game that I played, the character models are outstanding during replays although not every player has the same amount of facial detail. The presentation in the game is outstanding and it just makes EA's efforts look like child's play, you feel like you are watching a real NBA broadcast, it even has post-game interviews. The game starts with you playing an exhibition game with the Heat and Spurs while the game loads, it took the whole game with 6 minute quarters before it finished installing all of the game, there wasn't any announcers during this time as well. I won that game with a last second 3 pointer by Wade so that felt pretty good.
The game does play like the last gen titles so if you like that then this is a nice graphical upgrade. I feel that basketball games are a little tough to recreate with all of the collisions that occur so some of the animations are a little janky. I went through the tutorial and this game is very deep so if you want to get the most out of it, it will take some practice in combining all the moves before you are successful. You can customize the game to be more arcadey and it's still fun but if you want the games to look like the real counterpart it will take time.
Killzone Shadowfall
I was really impressed with the graphics as the world has a lot of detail to it, the lighting model is great and I've seen some really cool environments. The game play unfortunately is a bit generic so nothing ground breaking there, I've played about 3 hours of the campaign and I've had a decent time but nothing exceptional. The shooting is much better and tighter than previous killzone games as the others seemed to have too much weight, the shooting feels really good which is due to the new controller. I played one game of multiplayer and really didn't know what was going on, I got killed by our teams turrets twice so I'll have to spend a little time reading about the different modes.
Overall it's a decent game but not a system seller.
Resogun
Free with PS+. Do you like defender and wish it was updated with today's graphics? This game is from the developer of Super Stardust and it's really good that will remind you of playing defender. There are a ton of particle effects flying around which is impressive. The game is tough, I was able to beat the first level after an hour and 4 different attempts. It has the feeling of being the PS4's version of Geometry wars, a downloadable game that is probably the best exclusive game for the console.
New Releases - November along with 2 new consoles means tons of games.
PC
Adventure Time: Explore the Dungeon Because I DON'T KNOW! (download) - Maybe good had to see for reviews.
Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag - Got my copy with my new video card so hopefully it's good.
Conflict of Heroes: Storms of Steel
Mysterious Cities of Gold: Secret Paths (download)
Need for Speed Rivals -
Tank Operations: European Campaign (download - $15)
The Shivah: Kosher Edition (download - $5)
Young Justice: Legacy (download)
Xbox One
Angry Birds Star Wars
Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag
Battlefield 4
Call of Duty: Ghosts
Crimson Dragon (XBLA - $20) - Panzer Dragoon sequel?
Dead Rising 3 - Decent reviews will probably pick this up.
FIFA 14
Fighter Within
Forza Motorsport 5 - Debating really upset that it won't support my nice wheel.
Just Dance 2014
Killer Instinct (XBLA - free-to-play)
LocoCycle (XBLA - $20)
Madden NFL 25 - Hopefully Amazon gets my trade-in of the old version so I can get this at launch.
NBA Live 14 - Who knows if it will be good.
Need for Speed Rivals
Powerstar Golf
Ryse: Son of Rome - Unsure probably will get bad reviews.
Zoo Tycoon
Zumba Fitness World Party
PlayStation 4
NBA Live 14
Xbox 360
Adventure Time: Explore the Dungeon Because I DON'T KNOW!
BandFuse: Rock Legends - Has Slash and some other big name bands behind it hopefully it does well. More of a teacher than a game.
Farming Simulator
Need for Speed Rivals
Soulcalibur II HD Online (XBLA - $20)
Young Justice: Legacy
Zoo Tycoon
Zumba Kids
PlayStation 3
Adventure Time: Explore the Dungeon Because I DON'T KNOW!
AquaPazza
BandFuse: Rock Legends
Blood Knights (PSN)
Contrast (PSN)
Farming Simulator
Need for Speed Rivals
Stick It to The Man! (PSN)
Soulcalibur II HD Online (PSN - $20)
Young Justice: Legacy
Wii U
Adventure Time: Explore the Dungeon Because I DON'T KNOW!
Super Mario 3D World
Wii
Zumba Kids
Vita
Stick It to The Man! (PSN)
Tearaway
The Amazing Spider-Man
Nintendo 3DS
Adventure Time: Explore the Dungeon Because I DON'T KNOW!
Christmas Wonderland 3 (eShop)
Girls' Fashion Shoot
Mario Party: Island Tour
Ohno Odyssey (eShop)
The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds
Young Justice: Legacy
The console itself is smaller than the PS3 Slim and weighs less, as I was putting it under my TV I thought that I heard a loose piece moving around but I think it was just part of the case. The initial build quality doesn't seem as solid as any of the PS3 models, the power supply is inside the unit so there is no power brick so hopefully it won't overheat. The console does have a light on top and it's not that bright in a dark room, the controller light on the other hand is too bright and can't be turned off so I had some shadows and I could see a reflection in the TV although once I was playing I didn't notice that much. The controller is much better than the DS3 as it has more weight and the sticks have more resistance, the sensitivity was great and the shooting in Killzone felt really good. I did notice the systems fan running a bit loud when there wasn't any sound in the game, at first I thought it was my PC but it was the PS4.
There is a day one patch and it didn't take very long to download and install. The crossbar interface is back but with a nice face lift, moving through all the options was fast and responsive. I wasn't able to sign into my profile initially but had to wait a couple of hours since the PSN network was unavailable, it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. The PS4 still does it's install stuff but it's automatic instead of a manual process which was needed. Once the patch was loaded I was able to access the store and download my free PS+ games and the download speeds seemed to be much improved over the PS3. I do have mine hard wired, the wireless card is only 2.4ghz b/g/n which is not the latest or greatest which is a bit disappointing.
Since all games have to be installed on the hard drive the games do different things as it installs that make the wait bearable which I will describe individually. All of the games that I played looked nice and crisp, I was worried that since I had a nice PC I would be jaded by the inferior consoles but I was nicely surprised. I didn't see that many jagged edges and the frame rates all held up nicely. There are tons of particle effects that were not possible on the older consoles so the games did look much better than the older gen games, it's not a huge leap like last generation but it does compete with a decent PC graphics card.
Need for Speed Rivals
This is my favorite game out of all the launch titles, it looks and plays great and has some cool online functionality. The game runs at 1080P and 30fps which is a little disappointing since 60fps really helps racing games with a sense of speed but I really didn't notice. The game installs while you are playing the tutorial so there wasn't any wait to start playing. The game has you playing as a racer or cop and then you have challenges to increase your rank which opens up new cars and gadgets. If you play online, which you should, you are put in a world with 8 other users who you might come in contact with while you play your single player experience. It's a neat concept and it works great, you may be a cop that gets called to take out some racers and then notice that 2 of the racers are user controlled which adds a nice dynamic to the traditional single player game, I think we will see this idea in a lot of future games.
I played for about 3 hours straight and had a blast.
NBA 2k14
Probably the best looking game that I played, the character models are outstanding during replays although not every player has the same amount of facial detail. The presentation in the game is outstanding and it just makes EA's efforts look like child's play, you feel like you are watching a real NBA broadcast, it even has post-game interviews. The game starts with you playing an exhibition game with the Heat and Spurs while the game loads, it took the whole game with 6 minute quarters before it finished installing all of the game, there wasn't any announcers during this time as well. I won that game with a last second 3 pointer by Wade so that felt pretty good.
The game does play like the last gen titles so if you like that then this is a nice graphical upgrade. I feel that basketball games are a little tough to recreate with all of the collisions that occur so some of the animations are a little janky. I went through the tutorial and this game is very deep so if you want to get the most out of it, it will take some practice in combining all the moves before you are successful. You can customize the game to be more arcadey and it's still fun but if you want the games to look like the real counterpart it will take time.
Killzone Shadowfall
I was really impressed with the graphics as the world has a lot of detail to it, the lighting model is great and I've seen some really cool environments. The game play unfortunately is a bit generic so nothing ground breaking there, I've played about 3 hours of the campaign and I've had a decent time but nothing exceptional. The shooting is much better and tighter than previous killzone games as the others seemed to have too much weight, the shooting feels really good which is due to the new controller. I played one game of multiplayer and really didn't know what was going on, I got killed by our teams turrets twice so I'll have to spend a little time reading about the different modes.
Overall it's a decent game but not a system seller.
Resogun
Free with PS+. Do you like defender and wish it was updated with today's graphics? This game is from the developer of Super Stardust and it's really good that will remind you of playing defender. There are a ton of particle effects flying around which is impressive. The game is tough, I was able to beat the first level after an hour and 4 different attempts. It has the feeling of being the PS4's version of Geometry wars, a downloadable game that is probably the best exclusive game for the console.
New Releases - November along with 2 new consoles means tons of games.
PC
Adventure Time: Explore the Dungeon Because I DON'T KNOW! (download) - Maybe good had to see for reviews.
Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag - Got my copy with my new video card so hopefully it's good.
Conflict of Heroes: Storms of Steel
Mysterious Cities of Gold: Secret Paths (download)
Need for Speed Rivals -
Tank Operations: European Campaign (download - $15)
The Shivah: Kosher Edition (download - $5)
Young Justice: Legacy (download)
Xbox One
Angry Birds Star Wars
Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag
Battlefield 4
Call of Duty: Ghosts
Crimson Dragon (XBLA - $20) - Panzer Dragoon sequel?
Dead Rising 3 - Decent reviews will probably pick this up.
FIFA 14
Fighter Within
Forza Motorsport 5 - Debating really upset that it won't support my nice wheel.
Just Dance 2014
Killer Instinct (XBLA - free-to-play)
LocoCycle (XBLA - $20)
Madden NFL 25 - Hopefully Amazon gets my trade-in of the old version so I can get this at launch.
NBA Live 14 - Who knows if it will be good.
Need for Speed Rivals
Powerstar Golf
Ryse: Son of Rome - Unsure probably will get bad reviews.
Zoo Tycoon
Zumba Fitness World Party
PlayStation 4
NBA Live 14
Xbox 360
Adventure Time: Explore the Dungeon Because I DON'T KNOW!
BandFuse: Rock Legends - Has Slash and some other big name bands behind it hopefully it does well. More of a teacher than a game.
Farming Simulator
Need for Speed Rivals
Soulcalibur II HD Online (XBLA - $20)
Young Justice: Legacy
Zoo Tycoon
Zumba Kids
PlayStation 3
Adventure Time: Explore the Dungeon Because I DON'T KNOW!
AquaPazza
BandFuse: Rock Legends
Blood Knights (PSN)
Contrast (PSN)
Farming Simulator
Need for Speed Rivals
Stick It to The Man! (PSN)
Soulcalibur II HD Online (PSN - $20)
Young Justice: Legacy
Wii U
Adventure Time: Explore the Dungeon Because I DON'T KNOW!
Super Mario 3D World
Wii
Zumba Kids
Vita
Stick It to The Man! (PSN)
Tearaway
The Amazing Spider-Man
Nintendo 3DS
Adventure Time: Explore the Dungeon Because I DON'T KNOW!
Christmas Wonderland 3 (eShop)
Girls' Fashion Shoot
Mario Party: Island Tour
Ohno Odyssey (eShop)
The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds
Young Justice: Legacy
Friday, November 15, 2013
Trace Young
I lost my 25 year old nephew to a motorcycle accident this week. They had the viewing from 5-8 on Wednesday night and it was unbelievable, I have never seen so many people show up to a viewing, there must have been over a thousand people. The line was packed for the full 3 hours and people were lined out the doors in the cold for over an hour. The parking lot held about 50 cars and it was full, people were having to park blocks away and some never got a chance to come in, I was in awe.
He was an eagle scout and played almost all sports growing up so he had a ton of friends. He was a people person and always greeted you with a hug. His dad was telling stories that he'd heard while greeting the viewers and one told of how Trace had met him at a stop light and from there they became good friends. What do you do when someone starts talking to you at a red light?
At the burial site they had paint setup so that everyone could dip their hands and then place them on the coffin. It was a great way to send him off.
For a person who was only 25 years old he lived life to the fullest and was a great influence to everyone he met. He will be greatly missed.
Tuesday, November 12, 2013
BF4
I've played about 5 hours of the multiplayer and it's growing on me. It did take awhile to start getting some unlocks for the various classes since I've been mixing up which class I use. You can also level up your vehicles which is nice, just by riding in a vehicle will get you experience and unlocks. I don't think that I've seen every map yet, I've been mostly playing conquest with a few games of Rush. I'm playing on the Gamerswithjobs server which is a website I visit daily and it's been really fun with good matchups and no teenagers. The visual are still amazing and I was really surprised that I haven't seen any lag, I did get disconnected once but other than that I've had no other issues.
New Releases - Thanksgiving is fast approaching so that means it's game time! PS4 releases this Friday.
PC
Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition (download - $25) - Hmm. Not sure if just buying the older version and doing free mods will be better?
Blood Knights (download)
Chivalry: Deadliest Warrior (download - $15)
Contrast (download)
Deadfall Adventures
Injustice: Gods Among Us Ultimate Edition - A little too expensive will wait until it's on sale.
Redshirt (download)
SimCity Cities of Tomorrow - I really had high hopes for SimCity and although it was fun at times the overall structure just wasn't satisfying. Biggest let down of the year.
World of Warplanes (free-to-play)
XCOM: Enemy Within - Debating on this expansion. I really liked the original game even though I didn't finish it.
X Rebirth (download - $50) - Exploring space.
PlayStation 4 - Target and Amazon are having a B2G1F deal on Tuesday so I may bite.
Angry Birds Star Wars - Surprise Surprise....
Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag - Already got a free version with my video Card.
Battlefield 4 - Tempted as I would like to play the multiplayer in my chair.
Blacklight Retribution (PSN - free-to-play)
Contrast (PSN) - Comes free with PS+ so I'll get that.
DC Universe Online (PSN - free-to-play)
FIFA 14
Flower (PSN) - Owned the PS3 version so you get this for free.
Knack - Tempted.
Injustice: Gods Among Us Ultimate Edition
Just Dance 2014
Killzone Shadow Fall - Need to see some reviews on this one. May just rent from Redbox, if they carry PS4 games.
LEGO Marvel Super Heroes
Madden NFL 25
NBA 2K14 - The vidoes on this have been awesome really disappointed the PC version doesn't have the advanced features of the next gen versions.
Need for Speed Rivals - Probably get this version since the wheel support isn't the best for this type of game.
Resogun (PSN) - Free to PSN+ members.
Skylanders Swap Force
Sound Shapes (PSN) - Have PS3 Version so free as well.
Super Motherload (PSN - $15)
Trine 2: The Complete Story (PSN)
Warframe (PSN - free-to-play)
Xbox 360
Contrast (XBLA)
Deadfall Adventures
Injustice: Gods Among Us Ultimate Edition
The Bridge (XBLA - $10)
XCOM: Enemy Within
PlayStation 3
Injustice: Gods Among Us Ultimate Edition
Ratchet & Clank: Into the Nexus
Velocity Ultra (PSN)
Wonderbook: Book of Potions
Wonderbook: Diggs Nightcrawler (PSN)
Wonderbook: Walking with Dinosaurs
XCOM: Enemy Within
Wii U
Barbie Dreamhouse Party
Mario & Sonic at the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games
Wii
Barbie Dreamhouse Party - Finally.
Vita
Flower (PSN)
Injustice: Gods Among Us Ultimate Edition
Nintendo 3DS
Barbie Dreamhouse Party
Jewel Match 3 (eShop)
Senran Kagura Burst (eShop - $30)
Word Wizard 3D (eShop)
World Conqueror 3D (eShop)
Nintendo DS
Barbie Dreamhouse Party
I've played about 5 hours of the multiplayer and it's growing on me. It did take awhile to start getting some unlocks for the various classes since I've been mixing up which class I use. You can also level up your vehicles which is nice, just by riding in a vehicle will get you experience and unlocks. I don't think that I've seen every map yet, I've been mostly playing conquest with a few games of Rush. I'm playing on the Gamerswithjobs server which is a website I visit daily and it's been really fun with good matchups and no teenagers. The visual are still amazing and I was really surprised that I haven't seen any lag, I did get disconnected once but other than that I've had no other issues.
New Releases - Thanksgiving is fast approaching so that means it's game time! PS4 releases this Friday.
PC
Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition (download - $25) - Hmm. Not sure if just buying the older version and doing free mods will be better?
Blood Knights (download)
Chivalry: Deadliest Warrior (download - $15)
Contrast (download)
Deadfall Adventures
Injustice: Gods Among Us Ultimate Edition - A little too expensive will wait until it's on sale.
Redshirt (download)
SimCity Cities of Tomorrow - I really had high hopes for SimCity and although it was fun at times the overall structure just wasn't satisfying. Biggest let down of the year.
World of Warplanes (free-to-play)
XCOM: Enemy Within - Debating on this expansion. I really liked the original game even though I didn't finish it.
X Rebirth (download - $50) - Exploring space.
PlayStation 4 - Target and Amazon are having a B2G1F deal on Tuesday so I may bite.
Angry Birds Star Wars - Surprise Surprise....
Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag - Already got a free version with my video Card.
Battlefield 4 - Tempted as I would like to play the multiplayer in my chair.
Blacklight Retribution (PSN - free-to-play)
Contrast (PSN) - Comes free with PS+ so I'll get that.
DC Universe Online (PSN - free-to-play)
FIFA 14
Flower (PSN) - Owned the PS3 version so you get this for free.
Knack - Tempted.
Injustice: Gods Among Us Ultimate Edition
Just Dance 2014
Killzone Shadow Fall - Need to see some reviews on this one. May just rent from Redbox, if they carry PS4 games.
LEGO Marvel Super Heroes
Madden NFL 25
NBA 2K14 - The vidoes on this have been awesome really disappointed the PC version doesn't have the advanced features of the next gen versions.
Need for Speed Rivals - Probably get this version since the wheel support isn't the best for this type of game.
Resogun (PSN) - Free to PSN+ members.
Skylanders Swap Force
Sound Shapes (PSN) - Have PS3 Version so free as well.
Super Motherload (PSN - $15)
Trine 2: The Complete Story (PSN)
Warframe (PSN - free-to-play)
Xbox 360
Contrast (XBLA)
Deadfall Adventures
Injustice: Gods Among Us Ultimate Edition
The Bridge (XBLA - $10)
XCOM: Enemy Within
PlayStation 3
Injustice: Gods Among Us Ultimate Edition
Ratchet & Clank: Into the Nexus
Velocity Ultra (PSN)
Wonderbook: Book of Potions
Wonderbook: Diggs Nightcrawler (PSN)
Wonderbook: Walking with Dinosaurs
XCOM: Enemy Within
Wii U
Barbie Dreamhouse Party
Mario & Sonic at the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games
Wii
Barbie Dreamhouse Party - Finally.
Vita
Flower (PSN)
Injustice: Gods Among Us Ultimate Edition
Nintendo 3DS
Barbie Dreamhouse Party
Jewel Match 3 (eShop)
Senran Kagura Burst (eShop - $30)
Word Wizard 3D (eShop)
World Conqueror 3D (eShop)
Nintendo DS
Barbie Dreamhouse Party
Monday, November 4, 2013
Networking, New Console Hard Drive Sizes, New Releases
New consoles
I'm still in the debating mode about getting the new consoles. I have 2 weeks to decide on the PS4, there really aren't any games that are coming out that I really have to play, I would get a couple of cool indie games for free because of PS+ though. The biggest game for the PS4 is Killzone, it's about 50 Gig, this raises an interesting point that I just thought about for both consoles. Each console only comes with a 500G hard drive, and from what I've read Xbox One games must be installed and I think it's the same for the PS4(I've read something about caching instead of installing the whole game). Since most of the games are 40-50G that means that you can have around 10 games on the hard drive at any one time. If you want to play that 11th game then you have to mess around with hard drive maintenance deciding which game to delete or keep which is a pain.
The PS4 will let you install any 9.5 mm hard drive which 1TB is the max so that helps a bit, but no external drive support. The Xbox One's hard drive can't be replaced but will support external hard drive installation sometime in the future. Until this gets resolved it makes digital distribution not very attractive, with no way to offload games you'd have to re-download these huge files that could take awhile plus eat at your bandwidth limit so to me it's a step backwards. Hopefully they can reduce the game sizes or I guess just don't buy or play many games.
Fun Exciting Weekend
Well maybe fun and exciting isn't really the way to describe it, more like frustrating and hair pulling is a better description. Went to lunch with the guys on Thursday and after a discussion I decided that I wanted to hard wire a couple of my PC's together and finally complete the media server I've been trying to setup for a long time. I first went up to my attic to see if I could run my wires there and instantly ran into a problem. Where I have my cable modem sitting was apparently wired before the roof was put on because there is about a half a foot gap that I had to work with so that was out. I have an unfinished basement which is where I should have started anyway. It just took a long drill bit and three holes and I had my wires run easily, I'm not sure why I didn't do that when I first got the house, it could have saved me a lot of money. All the connections were working at the full speed, 100MB/sec, so I was able to transfer some PC games between them quickly, did I mention that game sizes were increasing?
So now that I had my wired network working I was ready to get my media sever setup. I bought a Mac Mini back in 2010 and messed around with it as a media server using Plex. Plex itself is awesome piece of software, but I really wasn't fan of the Mac OS. My data drives were formatted using NTFS and the Mac can't natively write to that format. I tried a couple of applications that added support but they didn't work that great, I've actually had 2 hard drives that have failed that were plugged into it so I was hesitant to use the Mac OS. I used the bootcamp utility in the past and also ran into some issues so I was thinking I might have to get another small windows PC as my server. My router does support a hard drive and I was getting around 22Mb/sec with it which wasn't bad, but I did want the faster speed. I decided to try bootcamp one last time, messing with computers is fun, right?
The first thing the bootcamp utility tries to do is download the drivers of your Mac for the new windows installation. For that you need a FAT formatted USB stick, once I found one and got it formatted it tried to download the software but failed saying something about the server being down. I tried that about 5 times and each time it failed so I skipped that step, I really only needed the ethernet port to work anyway and thought that Windows would find a generic driver for that. The next step is partitioning the hard drive and that took about 20 minutes then it started installing windows. The initial setup worked fine and it rebooted a couple of times and finally got to the part where windows really boots for the first time and I got a blinking cursor. I looked up that error and most of the hits didn't apply to my setup, I finally found one that had me issue some boot commands from the windows repair utiltiy and it finally worked, I'm not sure how he found these commands but I was very happy he did.
Once that was setup everything else on the box ran fine. Plex is really the best media server software that I've found. If you name your content correctly it does a great job of finding the descriptions, pictures, and even theme music for TV shows. The interface is slick and easy to use on Widows and on my iPad. Once it processed my 1TB of data I was ready to test it out on my living room PC. I started Plex and streamed a video and noticed that it took awhile for the video to load so I double checked my LAN connection and it had the speed rated at 10 Mbps. Yes that was a 10 and Mbps not the 1 Gbps that I was expecting, so I was so close to having everything working correctly, unfortunately I really brought this issue on myself.
The night before I was upgrading drivers and messing with the BIOS on that computer because of a USB 3 issue so I thought it was a driver issue. I messed around with various drivers and every time my connection was at 10. I googled and googled, rebooted and rebooted, and tried many different things for about 3 hours and still no luck. I was upset at myself for messing with it the previous night. Then I remembered in the BIOS menus there was a utility or something called SmartLan that I tried, it was supposed to check and see if you had any cable errors. I then Googled that and it led me to fixing the issue. I'm using a 50ft cable and I guess when I ran the utility it set my connection to 10 and the only way to clear that was to power off and unplug the PC for 15 seconds. There was something somewhere holding onto those bits and by unplugging the PC from the wall it reset them. Once I did that it worked and I couldn't believe it, sometimes PC's ..............
Now that I had my connection issues resolved I was able to test the media server and it worked perfectly. I setup remote desktop support for my 3 PC's and now I finally have my wired connected setup that I've been wanting and should have setup the first day in the house. All it takes is time, frustration, and Google.
New Releases - Call of Duty releases this week, may be the first Call of Duty game I don't buy on release day.
PC
Battle Worlds: Kronos (download - $30)
Call of Duty: Ghosts
Final Exam (download - $10)
Luxuria Superbia and Poof VS the Cursed Kitty - First of a bunch of oddly named games.
Poof VS the Cursed Kitty (download)
Sid Meier's Ace Patrol: Pacific Skies (download - $5) - The iOS version is really good.
State of Decay (download - $20) - Really liked the game on the 360 and it should improve with higher resolution.
PlayStation 4
Call of Duty: Ghosts
Xbox 360
Ben 10 Omniverse 2
Call of Duty: Ghosts
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow Collection
Final Exam (XBLA - $10) - Unsure?
Zumba Fitness World Party
Ace Patrol: Pacific Skies and Final Exam
PlayStation 3
A-Men 2 (PSN)
Ben 10 Omniverse 2
Call of Duty: Ghosts
CastleStorm (PSN)
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow Collection
Final Exam (PSN - $10)
How to Survive (PSN) - Bought this on Steam and really wasn't impressed.
The Adventures of Cookie & Cream (PS2 Classic)
The Guided Fate Paradox
Wii U
Ben 10 Omniverse 2
Call of Duty: Ghosts
Toki Tori (eShop)
Wii Sports Club (eShop)
Zumba Fitness World Party
Wii
Ben 10 Omniverse 2
Zumba Fitness World Party
Vita
A-Men 2 (PSN)
CastleStorm (PSN)
Nintendo 3DS
Ben 10 Omniverse 2
Crazy Chicken Director's Cut 3D - Has to be awesome.
Moshi Monsters: Katsuma Unleashed
My Baby Pet Hotel 3D (eShop) - Ok.....
Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures
Power Rangers MegaForce - They are still around?
Nintendo DS
Moshi Monsters: Katsuma Unleashed
I'm still in the debating mode about getting the new consoles. I have 2 weeks to decide on the PS4, there really aren't any games that are coming out that I really have to play, I would get a couple of cool indie games for free because of PS+ though. The biggest game for the PS4 is Killzone, it's about 50 Gig, this raises an interesting point that I just thought about for both consoles. Each console only comes with a 500G hard drive, and from what I've read Xbox One games must be installed and I think it's the same for the PS4(I've read something about caching instead of installing the whole game). Since most of the games are 40-50G that means that you can have around 10 games on the hard drive at any one time. If you want to play that 11th game then you have to mess around with hard drive maintenance deciding which game to delete or keep which is a pain.
The PS4 will let you install any 9.5 mm hard drive which 1TB is the max so that helps a bit, but no external drive support. The Xbox One's hard drive can't be replaced but will support external hard drive installation sometime in the future. Until this gets resolved it makes digital distribution not very attractive, with no way to offload games you'd have to re-download these huge files that could take awhile plus eat at your bandwidth limit so to me it's a step backwards. Hopefully they can reduce the game sizes or I guess just don't buy or play many games.
Fun Exciting Weekend
Well maybe fun and exciting isn't really the way to describe it, more like frustrating and hair pulling is a better description. Went to lunch with the guys on Thursday and after a discussion I decided that I wanted to hard wire a couple of my PC's together and finally complete the media server I've been trying to setup for a long time. I first went up to my attic to see if I could run my wires there and instantly ran into a problem. Where I have my cable modem sitting was apparently wired before the roof was put on because there is about a half a foot gap that I had to work with so that was out. I have an unfinished basement which is where I should have started anyway. It just took a long drill bit and three holes and I had my wires run easily, I'm not sure why I didn't do that when I first got the house, it could have saved me a lot of money. All the connections were working at the full speed, 100MB/sec, so I was able to transfer some PC games between them quickly, did I mention that game sizes were increasing?
So now that I had my wired network working I was ready to get my media sever setup. I bought a Mac Mini back in 2010 and messed around with it as a media server using Plex. Plex itself is awesome piece of software, but I really wasn't fan of the Mac OS. My data drives were formatted using NTFS and the Mac can't natively write to that format. I tried a couple of applications that added support but they didn't work that great, I've actually had 2 hard drives that have failed that were plugged into it so I was hesitant to use the Mac OS. I used the bootcamp utility in the past and also ran into some issues so I was thinking I might have to get another small windows PC as my server. My router does support a hard drive and I was getting around 22Mb/sec with it which wasn't bad, but I did want the faster speed. I decided to try bootcamp one last time, messing with computers is fun, right?
The first thing the bootcamp utility tries to do is download the drivers of your Mac for the new windows installation. For that you need a FAT formatted USB stick, once I found one and got it formatted it tried to download the software but failed saying something about the server being down. I tried that about 5 times and each time it failed so I skipped that step, I really only needed the ethernet port to work anyway and thought that Windows would find a generic driver for that. The next step is partitioning the hard drive and that took about 20 minutes then it started installing windows. The initial setup worked fine and it rebooted a couple of times and finally got to the part where windows really boots for the first time and I got a blinking cursor. I looked up that error and most of the hits didn't apply to my setup, I finally found one that had me issue some boot commands from the windows repair utiltiy and it finally worked, I'm not sure how he found these commands but I was very happy he did.
Once that was setup everything else on the box ran fine. Plex is really the best media server software that I've found. If you name your content correctly it does a great job of finding the descriptions, pictures, and even theme music for TV shows. The interface is slick and easy to use on Widows and on my iPad. Once it processed my 1TB of data I was ready to test it out on my living room PC. I started Plex and streamed a video and noticed that it took awhile for the video to load so I double checked my LAN connection and it had the speed rated at 10 Mbps. Yes that was a 10 and Mbps not the 1 Gbps that I was expecting, so I was so close to having everything working correctly, unfortunately I really brought this issue on myself.
The night before I was upgrading drivers and messing with the BIOS on that computer because of a USB 3 issue so I thought it was a driver issue. I messed around with various drivers and every time my connection was at 10. I googled and googled, rebooted and rebooted, and tried many different things for about 3 hours and still no luck. I was upset at myself for messing with it the previous night. Then I remembered in the BIOS menus there was a utility or something called SmartLan that I tried, it was supposed to check and see if you had any cable errors. I then Googled that and it led me to fixing the issue. I'm using a 50ft cable and I guess when I ran the utility it set my connection to 10 and the only way to clear that was to power off and unplug the PC for 15 seconds. There was something somewhere holding onto those bits and by unplugging the PC from the wall it reset them. Once I did that it worked and I couldn't believe it, sometimes PC's ..............
Now that I had my connection issues resolved I was able to test the media server and it worked perfectly. I setup remote desktop support for my 3 PC's and now I finally have my wired connected setup that I've been wanting and should have setup the first day in the house. All it takes is time, frustration, and Google.
New Releases - Call of Duty releases this week, may be the first Call of Duty game I don't buy on release day.
PC
Battle Worlds: Kronos (download - $30)
Call of Duty: Ghosts
Final Exam (download - $10)
Luxuria Superbia and Poof VS the Cursed Kitty - First of a bunch of oddly named games.
Poof VS the Cursed Kitty (download)
Sid Meier's Ace Patrol: Pacific Skies (download - $5) - The iOS version is really good.
State of Decay (download - $20) - Really liked the game on the 360 and it should improve with higher resolution.
PlayStation 4
Call of Duty: Ghosts
Xbox 360
Ben 10 Omniverse 2
Call of Duty: Ghosts
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow Collection
Final Exam (XBLA - $10) - Unsure?
Zumba Fitness World Party
Ace Patrol: Pacific Skies and Final Exam
PlayStation 3
A-Men 2 (PSN)
Ben 10 Omniverse 2
Call of Duty: Ghosts
CastleStorm (PSN)
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow Collection
Final Exam (PSN - $10)
How to Survive (PSN) - Bought this on Steam and really wasn't impressed.
The Adventures of Cookie & Cream (PS2 Classic)
The Guided Fate Paradox
Wii U
Ben 10 Omniverse 2
Call of Duty: Ghosts
Toki Tori (eShop)
Wii Sports Club (eShop)
Zumba Fitness World Party
Wii
Ben 10 Omniverse 2
Zumba Fitness World Party
Vita
A-Men 2 (PSN)
CastleStorm (PSN)
Nintendo 3DS
Ben 10 Omniverse 2
Crazy Chicken Director's Cut 3D - Has to be awesome.
Moshi Monsters: Katsuma Unleashed
My Baby Pet Hotel 3D (eShop) - Ok.....
Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures
Power Rangers MegaForce - They are still around?
Nintendo DS
Moshi Monsters: Katsuma Unleashed
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