Archive for May 16th, 2007
Continue Reading May 16th, 2007
Filed under: Sony PlayStation 3, Online, Sports, Casual
Click for bigger version.
In a game announcement destined to pit Wii against PS3 (did you ever think you’d hear that?), Sony announced its very own High Velocity Bowling game that utilizes the Sixaxis’ motion controls. You literally flip the controller on its side, hold it with your thumb between the analog sticks, and then sweep your arm gracefully along an arc while holding and releasing one of the buttons to send your ball down the alley.
Sound simple? Well, it is and it isn’t. Holding the Sixaxis like that feels really, really weird. It’s like we’re wired or programmed to hold that controller with both hands, and doing something like that makes our gamer genes cry out in pain. Although, in all honesty, once we got the hang of it, it wasn’t all that bad. It’s not Wiimote easy, and with the Sixaxis having no wrist strap whatsoever, we’re especially worried about people sending these things sailing through their 1080p plasma screens.
There’s no Mii-like cutesy Fisher-Price people in this bowling game. Instead, you get extremely uncanny valley-ish avatars that look a tad frightening. Those shiny wood floors sure look good in HD, though, and there’s a fairly kitschy Lebowski feel to the whole setting. Strangely enough, this downloadable PlayStation Network game is different than the bowling game you can play in Home (which still in the works). They haven’t announced a price point yet but as far as a release date goes, “Fall” has been the watchword of the day.
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SPONSORED BY: Age of Empires III - Real-Time Strategy Game Control a European power on a quest to colonize and conquer the New World. AOE3 introduces new gameplay elements, as well as new civilizations, units, and technologies. http://www.ageofempires3.com/
Continue Reading May 16th, 2007
Filed under: Sony PlayStation 3, Online, Sports, Casual
Click for bigger version.
In a game announcement destined to pit Wii against PS3 (did you ever think you’d hear that?), Sony announced its very own High Velocity Bowling game that utilizes the Sixaxis’ motion controls. You literally flip the controller on its side, hold it with your thumb between the analog sticks, and then sweep your arm gracefully along an arc while holding and releasing one of the buttons to send your ball down the alley.
Sound simple? Well, it is and it isn’t. Holding the Sixaxis like that feels really, really weird. It’s like we’re wired or programmed to hold that controller with both hands, and doing something like that makes our gamer genes cry out in pain. Although, in all honesty, once we got the hang of it, it wasn’t all that bad. It’s not Wiimote easy, and with the Sixaxis having no wrist strap whatsoever, we’re especially worried about people sending these things sailing through their 1080p plasma screens.
There’s no Mii-like cutesy Fisher-Price people in this bowling game. Instead, you get extremely uncanny valley-ish avatars that look a tad frightening. Those shiny wood floors sure look good in HD, though, and there’s a fairly kitschy Lebowski feel to the whole setting. Strangely enough, this downloadable PlayStation Network game is different than the bowling game you can play in Home (which still in the works). They haven’t announced a price point yet but as far as a release date goes, “Fall” has been the watchword of the day.
Continue reading High Velocity Bowling is … bowling its way onto PS3
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SPONSORED BY: Age of Empires III - Real-Time Strategy Game Control a European power on a quest to colonize and conquer the New World. AOE3 introduces new gameplay elements, as well as new civilizations, units, and technologies. http://www.ageofempires3.com/
Continue Reading May 16th, 2007
Filed under: Sony PlayStation 3, Online, Sports, Casual
Click for bigger version.
In a game announcement destined to pit Wii against PS3 (did you ever think you’d hear that?), Sony announced its very own High Velocity Bowling game that utilizes the Sixaxis’ motion controls. You literally flip the controller on its side, hold it with your thumb between the analog sticks, and then sweep your arm gracefully along an arc while holding and releasing one of the buttons to send your ball down the alley.
Sound simple? Well, it is and it isn’t. Holding the Sixaxis like that feels really, really weird. It’s like we’re wired or programmed to hold that controller with both hands, and doing something like that makes our gamer genes cry out in pain. Although, in all honesty, once we got the hang of it, it wasn’t all that bad. It’s not Wiimote easy, and with the Sixaxis having no wrist strap whatsoever, we’re especially worried about people sending these things sailing through their 1080p plasma screens.
There’s no Mii-like cutesy Fisher-Price people in this bowling game. Instead, you get extremely uncanny valley-ish avatars that look a tad frightening. Those shiny wood floors sure look good in HD, though, and there’s a fairly kitschy Lebowski feel to the whole setting. Strangely enough, this downloadable PlayStation Network game is different than the bowling game you can play in Home (which still in the works). They haven’t announced a price point yet but as far as a release date goes, “Fall” has been the watchword of the day.
Continue reading High Velocity Bowling is … bowling its way onto PS3
Permalink | Email this | Comments
SPONSORED BY: Age of Empires III - Real-Time Strategy Game Control a European power on a quest to colonize and conquer the New World. AOE3 introduces new gameplay elements, as well as new civilizations, units, and technologies. http://www.ageofempires3.com/
Continue Reading May 16th, 2007
The guy from Spurs blog Pounding The Rock had it exactly right this morning: The worst part about Amare Stoudemire’s (and Boris Diaw’s) suspension tonight is that it immediately makes the whole game illegitimate. If the Spurs win, it won’t feel like they earned it, and they’ve instantly become the bad guys. The only way anyone takes any real joy out of tonight’s game is if the Suns win, and that’s not particularly fair to the Spurs, who, other than Bruce Bowen, are not inherently unlikable.
We aren’t quite ready to go as far as his solution, however: Bench Tim Duncan.
The NBA wants a ridiculous, small ball game? Let’s give it to them. Their star big is out, our star big is out. Their 3rd best big is out? Our 3rd best big is out. Fair game, fair fight. Let’s just play midget ball for 48 mins. It would shut up every critic, it would shut up their taunting fans, it would blow away the broadcasters. No matter what they say about us, they can’t can’t call us cheaters and they can’t say we’re not classy. It would send a message to the world and to the Suns that we didn’t want the Amare/Diaw suspensions to happen. It wasn’t our idea.
You don’t think all of the Suns momentum would be sucked right out of that building? Nobody would know what to think. It would totally fuck with the Suns minds and all their intensity and focus would be gone in a flash. Whatever desire the refs might have had to screw us would be forgetten and they’d be impressed with our chutzpah and our principles. I don’t know if we’d win or lose, but either way we’d make our point.
Well, yeah, we suppose, though watching the Suns play the Jazz in the next round might temper some of that self-congratulatory principle. We admire the idea, though. Regardless, they’re gonna play anyway, and you can probably expect to see Duncan.
Oh, and that Cavs-Nets series is tonight, too, still plodding along.
(Getty Images photo)
Continue Reading May 16th, 2007
Filed under: Microsoft Xbox 360, Online, Sports
Innocent bystanders get hurt in every war. In Microsoft’s war on online cheating, those victims are sports game fans that make and share customized rosters online.
5WG did some digging and found that the latest Microsoft dashboard update stealthily disables hundreds of customized rosters that are shared on unofficial sites like 360gamesaves. Apparently, the new update checks all save files against a list of banned system IDs extracted from sharing sites. Files from banned systems will not work on other systems.
Why does Microsoft care whose save files you use on your machine? We can only assume the move is an effort to stop players from getting Achievements without earning them by using downloaded save files. This is somewhat understandable — Achievements are good for both bragging rights and real freebies, and it’s important to keep that playing field level.
The side effect, though, is the destruction of a small but vibrant community of players using these game saves to extend the value of their sports games. As 5WG points out, “there’s no cheat here: just a group of people giving back to the community for little or no compensation.”
Hopefully Microsoft will come up with a solution that protects their Achievement system and allows for a healthy roster trading community at the same time.
[Via ArsTechnica]
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SPONSORED BY: Age of Empires III - Real-Time Strategy Game Control a European power on a quest to colonize and conquer the New World. AOE3 introduces new gameplay elements, as well as new civilizations, units, and technologies. http://www.ageofempires3.com/
Continue Reading May 16th, 2007
Filed under: Microsoft Xbox 360, Online, Sports
Innocent bystanders get hurt in every war. In Microsoft’s war on online cheating, those victims are sports game fans that make and share customized rosters online.
5WG did some digging and found that the latest Microsoft dashboard update stealthily disables hundreds of customized rosters that are shared on unofficial sites like 360gamesaves. Apparently, the new update checks all save files against a list of banned system IDs extracted from sharing sites. Files from banned systems will not work on other systems.
Why does Microsoft care whose save files you use on your machine? We can only assume the move is an effort to stop players from getting Achievements without earning them by using downloaded save files. This is somewhat understandable — Achievements are good for both bragging rights and real freebies, and it’s important to keep that playing field level.
The side effect, though, is the destruction of a small but vibrant community of players using these game saves to extend the value of their sports games. As 5WG points out, “there’s no cheat here: just a group of people giving back to the community for little or no compensation.”
Hopefully Microsoft will come up with a solution that protects their Achievement system and allows for a healthy roster trading community at the same time.
[Via ArsTechnica]
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
SPONSORED BY: Age of Empires III - Real-Time Strategy Game Control a European power on a quest to colonize and conquer the New World. AOE3 introduces new gameplay elements, as well as new civilizations, units, and technologies. http://www.ageofempires3.com/
Continue Reading May 16th, 2007
Filed under: Microsoft Xbox 360, Online, Sports
Innocent bystanders get hurt in every war. In Microsoft’s war on online cheating, those victims are sports game fans that make and share customized rosters online.
5WG did some digging and found that the latest Microsoft dashboard update stealthily disables hundreds of customized rosters that are shared on unofficial sites like 360gamesaves. Apparently, the new update checks all save files against a list of banned system IDs extracted from sharing sites. Files from banned systems will not work on other systems.
Why does Microsoft care whose save files you use on your machine? We can only assume the move is an effort to stop players from getting Achievements without earning them by using downloaded save files. This is somewhat understandable — Achievements are good for both bragging rights and real freebies, and it’s important to keep that playing field level.
The side effect, though, is the destruction of a small but vibrant community of players using these game saves to extend the value of their sports games. As 5WG points out, “there’s no cheat here: just a group of people giving back to the community for little or no compensation.”
Hopefully Microsoft will come up with a solution that protects their Achievement system and allows for a healthy roster trading community at the same time.
[Via ArsTechnica]
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
SPONSORED BY: Age of Empires III - Real-Time Strategy Game Control a European power on a quest to colonize and conquer the New World. AOE3 introduces new gameplay elements, as well as new civilizations, units, and technologies. http://www.ageofempires3.com/
Continue Reading May 16th, 2007
Filed under: Microsoft Xbox 360, Online, Sports
Innocent bystanders get hurt in every war. In Microsoft’s war on online cheating, those victims are sports game fans that make and share customized rosters online.
5WG did some digging and found that the latest Microsoft dashboard update stealthily disables hundreds of customized rosters that are shared on unofficial sites like 360gamesaves. Apparently, the new update checks all save files against a list of banned system IDs extracted from sharing sites. Files from banned systems will not work on other systems.
Why does Microsoft care whose save files you use on your machine? We can only assume the move is an effort to stop players from getting Achievements without earning them by using downloaded save files. This is somewhat understandable — Achievements are good for both bragging rights and real freebies, and it’s important to keep that playing field level.
The side effect, though, is the destruction of a small but vibrant community of players using these game saves to extend the value of their sports games. As 5WG points out, “there’s no cheat here: just a group of people giving back to the community for little or no compensation.”
Hopefully Microsoft will come up with a solution that protects their Achievement system and allows for a healthy roster trading community at the same time.
[Via ArsTechnica]
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
SPONSORED BY: Age of Empires III - Real-Time Strategy Game Control a European power on a quest to colonize and conquer the New World. AOE3 introduces new gameplay elements, as well as new civilizations, units, and technologies. http://www.ageofempires3.com/
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