Which Borderlands Class Are You?

Well this will be my first official game buy for the PS3 excluding the PS3 itself and whatever is bundled with it.
Now ive been watching alll the trailers and caught the review but I still didnt really know what the characters and classes were…. so I looked them up!
Heres a link to a nice little review of the classes in short terms! And good for me because the reviewer often compared them to World of Warcraft classes lol

Now the discussion on who should play who, doesnt really matter because you can play anyone but initially i think its important to start the class you should specialize in to level up throughout primarily and master it.
My opinion is based on looking at all 4 of our playing styles, or from what ive seen of you all, and on the fact that Guido and I (and ross?) will be playing 2 player Co-op often.
Since its a FPS and plays like an RPG it would make sense to play it like how you manage combinations in Warcraft. If you have a Tank and a Healer then your set to handle any obstacle… so thats where I see me and Guido… With BRICK the Berserker (TANK) and ROLAND the combat soldier (OFF/DEF/HEALER)… and since Im more of a Run-and-Gun playstyle the berserker aka shock trooper maybe destined for me (im less likely to die with more HP and shields lol), and Ham could be the Paladin type jack of all trades with solid offense, defence and healing powers…. lol now that im writing this I wanna play the paladin lol WAAAH!!
The other 2 are the damage causers or in Warcraft we call them the DPS (damage per second). MORDEKAI the sniper may suit RealmEnder, because in GoW he was a good sniper (but not as good as me of course lol) and he gets flustered when getting ganked so would be good to keep him at the distance doing the uber headshots.. plus he wears spandex gimp gear so theres another reason why blair may suit him lol jk. That leaves LILITH the thief style character, with her wicked invisibility special talent (that does damaging shockwave to all enemies when entering or exiting invis!!) and if u gank an enemy from behind while invis u do 3-4x more damage… Rogues where certainly the best characters to have in PvP and most annoying when fighting them! SO Roscopct would suit the little inconspicuous invis assassin character that can run in and out of combat at will and turn invis to gank an enemy from behind (especially if its on me… kill stealer rosco lol) or turn invis and do the bolt towards Roland to heal or get protection behind his magic super turret…
If you want to have a look at the skill trees from each character from Borderlands check this, Its similar to WoW.
Anyway what does everyone think?
I wanna play them all! Its just floating ideas/opinions so if u dont wanna play as someone I will, happy to swap! lol

BETA Shopping List (this list is beta as! beware of glitching)

Well what better way to do a shopping list of all the gaming tech (so I dont forget) than to blogify it!
It will be impossible for me to make a list with any sort of chronological style because unlike the pre-order king guido, I wait for the deals and impulse buy…
Well here goes my Pre-Xmas/Xmas/Boxing Day/New Year and beyond beta as list of things I need!! (not want but neeeeed!! to fuel the appetite!)

Brain Power!

Spawns New Alpha Brain!

Well my first purchase is a better Brain CPU/Mega Fan Combo to handle these purchases and the gaming ahead, the current setup is so beta it cant even handle NobyNobyBoy gameplay… fuck!? how is it going to handle Borderlands? Modern Warfare2? jeez the brain is flipping out already at the thought of the brain system resources required to handle it!! BSOD/Faint anyone?! So Ill soon welcome you to Spawns New Alpha Brain v1.0 (Ex-Beta)! 50% better brain processor speed, double the RAM and a Duel fan system upgrade for half price! deal!

PS3!

2 Down - 1 to go - PS3 coming!

Well with some great deals out at the moment and I bet more coming for xmas Im sure ill end up with one before xmas, before i even have a 1080p TV to play it on… fuckn beta as! but oh well gotta get the deal when the deals on! Maybe there will be a TV unbeatable sale before xmas, but usually better after? in NY? or have I got this wrong? fuckn brain processor is glitching as we speak, Hard drive headache going nutz and eyeball system has stopped/frozen… thank fuck for the upgrade coming… this is bullshit!!

TV!

Probably nearly have it all already!! lol

Have the Bachelors wicked entertainment couch!! but i just feel like I need something else??? Well what more do I need? How about a TV capable of keep up with my new brain capabilities! Dont need some piece of beta shite blowing a pixel on the final boss just because it cant keep up with my 24inch python arms and ripping abs (fuck ive been listening to Brucie on GTA4 waaaay too much!!). Rightie hoe this large investment is giving me the shits! ok literally i think i need to go for a shit… ok back… where was I? oh yeah.. fuck big questions here. Do i go Sony? Samsung? Panasonic? does it really matter?, Do i go LCD? Plasma? LED? once again does it really matter?, What amount is good to spend but not stupid? $4000 overdoing it? And whens the best time to wait to get the best deal? prexmas? boxing day? NY sales? After the NY?… At the moment im liking the look of the Samsung, but think i should go Sony because most of my entertainment is Sony… but im going new and fresh here so that doesnt matter, but am getting a PS3 so could use the bravia sync on it.. or probably never use the option really lol. Am going 46inch at this stage, 1080p obviously, 100hz minimum (most newish ones are, newer are 200hz), Was thinking plasma due to the better contrast ratio, I feel it gives a richer picture of highlights and shadows in the picture, LCDs can look bland on colour, but less problems/risk with them? and less power comsumption. Ok I better stop before my brain literally goes BSOD/RROD/YLOD! What do you guys think?

iTouch!

I will finally join the FNG group who touch themselves way too much!

Well as the caption says Ill finally be joining you all with this new toy… will be getting the 3rd generation version… but as far as I know the 8gb doesnt have the 50% faster processor… anyone know? And with no 16gb Ill have to take the step up to the 32gb id say. If this is the case I wont be buying one immediately unless a Hong Kong friend can get one cheaper but they seem the same price worldwide.. damn Apple! So with a Ps3 coming, a new TV coming that will literally rip my wallet a new asshole I think the Touch will be pushed back a bit… Oh well will be left out again as will just be taking the DS camping again this year when u all are Touching lol

Games & Accessories

Ill be safe @ home now when playing crazy fuckn americans in Borderlands! Im ready for u you fuckn sugared up yankie 12yr old muther f*ckrs!!

Im so getting one of these vests! I can see myself on my couch.. 3metres away from my 46″ Screen playing a FPS multiplayer! Im so going to PWN some ass wearing this.. I maybe fuckin ‘beta as’ in FPS online multiplayer but shit ill look the fuckin business doing it!!
Well havent talked about games yet? jesus this is a gaming site, did you really think id be leaving that out? My god where to start!?!?! Well 360 is going to be my RPG console at the moment (excluding Gears of War, exclusives and random bargain bin games), have still got both Condemned 1 and 2 to go, and just ordered Star Ocean. Others that will be certain will be Dragon Age:Origins (getting way too hyped for this!!) and Mass Effect 2… and I dont really wanna think about anything else as yet as that will take me awhile to finish them up inbetween PS3 bits n bobs. Onto PS3… this will be my FPS console of choice… Borderlands will be a certainty in the NY!, MW2 will be too but most likely pre-owned id say, 6-8hr campaign + MP isnt worth $150!. And well Guido has enough games that ill never catch up, and the thought sickens me lol, May get Fallout3 GOTY, and may get Dragon Age:Origins on PS3 if it truely is epic! oh and i have to platinum WipeOutHD if its the last thing i do on this planet, that mutherf*cken game is going DOWN!! Man i do feel like Steroid junkie Brucie from GTA4 lol Listening to Metallica at the moment probably isnt helping with my anger management either lmao.

Well that completes the BETA As Shopping List.. more to come probably in Beta v1.1 patch update!

Patch v1.1 Update
Well as i said its beta as, yes there is a patch within 24 hours of release of the post… not much different to alot of the games out there, or the ps3 😛
Ok so other NEEDS:
1) Internet connection… with who? have to find out whos best in Brighton area. Heard Telecom no good there?
2)Wireless Modem/Router… will just go the G type, no point of N?? Any brand better than any other?
3) Headset and clipon keypad… well sony have pulled a microsoft here with there pricing thats for sure… $70 each? lol May just keep the bluetooth headset I got with my UK phone.. if i can find it, its in a box… somewhere.

Wow nearly 1200 words in this post… must have been on the Red Bulls last night!

I am the Noby Noby Boy™ master! :-D

I finally got all the trophies in Noby Noby Boy™ tonight! I had to look some of them up because there was NO way you would even fluke some of them. For example you get one for uploading a length of precisely 765m?!? Usually you upload something in the thousands so you could say you have a one in several thousand chance of hitting that number except that you don’t normally bother to upload such a piddly amount. Another one required you to eat precisely and ONLY the letters NOBY NOBY BOY in the in-game user manual?! One additional letter before or after and you don’t get the trophy. I love the fact that you can EAT the user manual!!

I also got a trophy for making my head smaller than my arse lol I used the inbuilt youtube uploading feature so you can see how rediculous this looks!!

I also discovered that you can take screen shots in game. I wish every game had this feature! Some do but not enough although it’s getting more common. Here’s one that shows you that Noby Noby Boy™ isn’t all about Nobs lol Check out the tits on that chick! They’re huge and yes, Noby Noby Boy™ has jiggle physics!! LOL

Team Ninja would be proud!

Good time to be a third-person action fan

There is quite a bit of genre blending going on in third person action games these days. The trend is toward large open world games that try to do everything. Games that combine shooting and melee combat, RPG, and stealth elements, all in the same game, are becoming the norm. These innovations have produced some awesome games, but I also enjoy third person action games that are more linear and focus on melee combat (otherwise known as hack ‘n’ slash). Luckily there are a number of these due for release at the end of the year. Here is a list:

Bayonetta
From the maker of Devil May Cry and Okami, Bayonetta’s combat revolves around the use of combos delivered by both melee and long ranged attacks. Game play looks super fast and smooth.

Darksiders
Exploration and puzzles feature as much as combat in this one. Quite a cool art style, with big over sized badass characters.

Dante’s Inferno
Tame huge beasts and ride them to fight enemies. The tortured environments of hell are set to be the star of the show.

God of War 3
The God of War series reigns supreme in the hack ‘n’ slash genre and the level of hype for GOW3 is off the scale!

Nier
This is Square Enix’s crack at the genre. The competition is formidable, it will be interesting to see if they can measure up!?

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow
Patrick Stewart and Robert Carlyle’s voice acting alone should make this game worthwhile and Hideo Kojima’s involvement will mean it has amazing production values. It could be the best of the lot!?

The Last Guardian
There’s still a lot of mystery surrounding this one, but the pedigree of Team Ico is all that’s needed to create anticipation.

Worth a mention:

Brutal Legend
An open world hack ‘n’ slasher by Tim Schafer who has the dubious honour of making the highest rated game to sell the least number of copies (Psychonauts). Jack Black voices the main character and Ozzy Osbourne also features in this Heavy Metalfest.

Assassins Creed 2
Doesn’t really need any explanation and more an open world action adventure than hack ‘n’ slash? but I’m really looking forward to it.

Although all the games are looking like they will be extremely high quality, I won’t be able to get them all. At the moment my picks are Dante’s Inferno and Darksiders mainly because I’m attracted to the art styles of both the games. Dante’s is really gritty, dark, and twisted, and it looks like they’ve nailed the fire and brimstone atmosphere of hell perfectly. Darksiders is a lot more colourful and just looks like an epic apocalyptic world to explore. I’m sure GOW3 will be fantastic and will no doubt be a day one purchase when/if I get a PS3.

Home Alone 3 – PS3 that is…

A little boy waits… I mean what’s wrong with me? I’ve got a cool apartment. Excellent fashion style with my new MotorStorm jeans, awesome Diesel hoody and wicked cool spiked hair so I should have friends constantly over? It’s always sunny here too and I have an awesome harbour view! If people don’t like the sun I could always buy the Visari Throne Room for something a little more sombre?

I know things are still in beta around here but hell, if this is beta it’s pretty damn rock solid for a beta. Sure my couch has occasionally flown out across the harbour but only after a lot of effort to do so. Mostly things are very stable.

I wonder if the PS3 dropping in price will help at all? Maybe after Xmas there might be a few more bums on seats? Gotta have someone to show my ninja costume off to. If nothing else it’s an excellent environment to voice chat in where multiple people can get together and geek out on all the latest gaming news and indulge in a little virtual cosplay while they’re at it. It’s also free and although a lot of the content costs a few bob a lot of it is also free. Everything you can see in my apartment including the apartment itself and what I’m wearing was free. Where else do you get free Diesel clothing?! My ninja costumes were also free. When you buy Batman: Arkham Asylum you even get the Bat Cave free! How cool is that? Some stuff you have to pay for, like the Killzone 2 content but there’s definitely enough free stuff to keep any tight arse more than happy and I’m sure one day the seats of my apartment will be filled with visitors.

Gaming apps for the Touch/iPhone

Here’s a run down of the videogame related apps I have on my Touch.

PS3 Trophy guide

Features:
Lists most games available trophies
Displays info on how trophy is achieved
Displays games cover art
Publisher & Developer details
Overview of the game, link to its official website and trys to search YouTube for the trailer.

Pros:
Simple and direct, mostly works, the overview page is a nice addition and best of all it’s free.

Cons:
It doesn’t sync with tour PSN account so it doesn’t know which trophies you have, it simply lists all of those available.
You have to scroll down the entire list of games to get to the one you want. Hope your not looking up X-men or Warhawk [scroll scroll scroll scroll]
Also it’s free, which means the odd add pops up.

iTrophies

Features:
Basically a portal to your PSN details including list of games you’ve played and the trophies you’ve achieved.
Displays your friends list, shows their online status and total trophies.
Trophy leaderboard showing trophy totals for all friends in a reorderable list.
Trys to search YouTube for help on achieving a particular trophy.

Pros:
Very nicely designed app and does what it does very well.
Syncs with your PSN account giving the most up to date trophy data and friend status.
Only $2.59

Cons:
Takes a while to open while it syncs to your PSN account.
Doesn’t list trophies for games you don’t own.
Doesn’t do a full game by game trophy comparison with friends.
It costs $2.59.

CM Guide
Basically a portal to ConsoleMonster.com’s news and reviews but it also has achievement and trophy lists.

Pros:
It’s the only app I have that lists both achievements and trophies.
Great interface that lets you quickly drill down to the game you want without excessive scrolling.
Includes up to date news and over 500 games have reviews.
Only $1.29

Cons:
It doesn’t sync with your PSN accounts friend and trophy lists etc.
It costs $1.29 which is a bit rich since it’s basically one big add for ConsoleMonsters.com

IGN
A portal to IGN’s reviews and game guides.

Pros:
It’s free but add supported.
It has full written reviews as well as some video reviews
The guides are frigging excellent, include plenty of images and as well as complete play throughs and secrets. These guides really are amazing. Ross, check out the highly detaled blast shard location maps and descriptions if you get really stuck!

Cons:
It’s free but add supported?! Come on, it’s one giant ad for IGN already?! Why MORE ads?! Not all the ads are to follow IGN on twitter either. Some are for other sites.

So that’s it for now. There are no doubt Xbox equivalent apps for the Playstation specifics apps above that will function just the same, cost the sane etc. There are also some other apps I haven’t tried out such as the one that views GameFAQs.com but with these apps combined I can do everything I need to. Let me know of any others you may have come across.

UPDATE: Here’s a screen of the excellent iNXES that lets you load your Xbox live buddies and keep up with what they’re doing while you’re out and about…

PS3 Slim – worst kept secret in the gaming world?

Well ive been following this topic over the past month and as time goes on the information, pics, vids just keep coming.
Its easy to speculate but its all adding up to only one thing really, the Slim is coming!!

This things more leaky than the leaky homes debarcle:

-Days ago Sony announce their plan to stop the production of their 80GB PS3. Sony will announce the PS3 Slim and its Gamescom press conference in Cologne on 18 August. That’s just 9 days after the 80GB PS3 stops selling in Japan (News Here)

-Video leaked to YouTube of a possible?probable PS3 (Video here)

-PS3 slim on the German Amazon site.. I actually saw this site myself and now i notice its been removed ? suspicious lol (Site/Pic Here)

Heres a few other Bulletins in case you still dont beleive…
GameSpot
Kotaku
Ars Technica

Vertical PS3 Slim

White Slim

PS3 Slim

PS3 Box

Start your twatter-bleeping!

Ross mentioned the other day that it would be cool to have a blog to update everyone about your gaming progress, major achievements and just general kickarsery and antics in video gaming! Just somewhere to post those achievements that certainly don’t require a full on blog post or even an email but somewhere where you can say a little more than what you can fit on your gamercard. My first thought was Twitter. Nick mentioned it the other day and Dean’s an addict of it and I’ve often wondered if there was any actual use for it myself and this may just be one such use. Also, as we found out recently, Microsoft are integrating Twitter into the New New Xbox experience before the end of the year. I don’t think PS3 users will be getting this kind of integration any time soon (sure you can just use the PS3’s browser but you have to quit what you’re doing first) but the iPod Touch is an excellent twatter-bleeping device so Ross and I will be covered 🙂 So maybe now is the time to jump on the bandwagon?

By the way the twatter-bleeping thing features on this ad 🙂

and another hilarious ad…

When Gears of War meets FF

What happens when you mix Gears of War and Final Fantasy into one game. Maybe you get Tecmo’s upcoming PS3 exclusive shooter QUANTUM?

Take a little Final Fantasy

and add in some 3rd person Gears style action and you get Quantum.

I hadn’t heard of this game before and haven’t looked into it much but it comes from the guys responsible for some Ninja action, a little beach volley ball and the odd horse racing game. These are all very successful series but they don’t seem to have much of a shooter background so whether this will play as well as Gears remains to be seen but it’s an interesting visual mix that’s for sure. It’s adds a bit of colour to the usually bland shooter formula.

Many Natal features to be available on PS3

I wrote recently about how the differing ways of implementing motion controls on the different console gaming platforms might cause headaches for cross platform development, in particular driving a wedge between the PS3 and 360, which up until now have largely received the same set of games across both platforms essentially bringing the total tap-able HD console market up to Wii sized proportions. At a time when the Wii was showing that HD wasn’t necessary to be successful in this generation of consoles the HD market needed to become a lot more, not less, cohesive. But according to recent reports, cross platform development between Xbox and PS3 in a post Natal world might not be so difficult after all. I guess it was obvious really as they both employ cameras at the centre of their tech but it’s not like Sony went to any lengths to make this clear at E3. Perhaps they just didn’t think that this camera based stuff was ever going to take off in any big way. Here’s an overview of their motion control. What isn’t mentioned there is that Sony’s solution is more Wii like in that you hold two controllers that have buttons and rumble/force feedback available. This was touched on at E3, however what wasn’t really looked at at all at E3 (“at” overkill!) is the fact that because it uses the PS3 eye camera they can do most of the body / face tracking and face / voice recognition stuff also. Here’s a super short article talking about it albeit pretty briefly. Another recent report of  a Sony patent shows that they are looking at scanning in everyday objects to use them to control in game equivalents. Once you have scanned in the object (presumably form multiple angles) it can then track that object and use it to control in game actions, something that Microsoft says they can do also.

So although I am still pretty sure the Xbox tech is probably more capable (it has it’s own dedicated processor and depth sensor that the PS3 eye doesn’t have) it should at least mean that devs can bring a game from one HD platform to the other with it’s camera based features mostly intact. It might also mean that devs will concentrate on just those features shared between the two platforms, ignoring any platform specific features or capabilities leaving only first party titles to fully take advantage of everything that each platform is capable of.

One thing that remains to be fully detailed though is how much processor overhead all these features incur. Natal after all has it’s own processor so there’s nothing additional taxing the Xbox itself when implementing these features. In this sense they come for “free”. The PS3 on the other hand would need to use some of it’s internal processing power to handle things. But what hasn’t been made clear is whether or not Natal will actually come for “free”, as in will it be bundled in with every Xbox at no extra cost or is it something that will be an optional extra expense? Sony also haven’t said if they’re going to do anything to ensure the PS3 Eye gets into more hands or not but at least that’s a known quantity/expense and is already available, what isn’t known is how much the “wands” will cost? In fact almost nothing is known about these. They’re in the prototype stage, the ones at E3 don’t represent what the final ones will look like, cost hasn’t been discussed and there’s been no disclosure of things like the button layout, rumble, internal sensors etc. All we know is that it has buttons/triggers, rumble and some sort of internal sensor (most likely a gyro). Details are few and far between.

All in all I think Microsoft came out with a more focused, branded project and left Sony scrambling to sweep together all the different technologies that they have had available for sometime now but haven’t fully utilised or supported. It looks like they have most of the necessary tech lying around to come up with something roughly equivalent to Natal but are they able to bring it all together in time? After all Microsoft have shown an actual product and let people play actual games with it whereas Sony has only had tech demos and patents to show. Even though they’ve been doing camera based stuff since the PS2 days and even have a camera available for the PSP so far they haven’t given the PS3 Eye much lovin’ but it looks like a lot may suddenly be hinging off it!?

UPDATE: Sony’s balls light up different colours 🙂 and it’s apparently really really accurate. At the E3 conference they said it tracked “with sub millimetre precision”. They also reiterate that the controller has buttons. Well I hope it has a LOT of buttons because then you could use it for REAL games. In fact it would be cool if each wand had four buttons on the “face” and two triggers opposite them making it much like holding a dual shock in two parts. Anything less and I fear it will be doomed to mini game hell.

UPDATE: Urm, maybe like this?!

Ok, this is one of those crappy looking patent application drawings that always make things look a little retarded but this image is from an actual patent lodged by Sony?! Interestingly it includes Ultra Sonic?! Which I assume works with the PS3 Eyes built-in four-capsule microphone array for another level of tracking.