Category Archives: General

Common or garden posts.

Games, General, PlayStation

PS3 Worldwide Launch

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Now it looks like things are going to get interesting. A year after Microsoft’s worldwide launch was filed under the “could have gone better” category, Sony are going to attempt the same thing. Credit to them for not shitting on the European audience like they can so often be accused of doing, at least.

My name is still down for one and it remains to be seen how we’ll they’ll be able to deliver since demand is likely to be astronomical (depending on what price they announce, of course) and one can assume that first generation bespoke hardware would have even more manufacturing problems than the more proven stuff that Microsoft launched with, but they’ve thankfully given themselves more time to get the manufacturing done.

One thing we can be assured of is that the gloves are really going to be off at E3 now, with Microsoft showing off some second-gen stuff (Halo 3, please), Sony letting us know the exact launch details for the PS3, and Nintendo coming in with their dark horse in the form of the Revolution. I have a feeling that people aren’t giving Nintendo all the credit they deserve at the moment and they’re being very hush-hush about something, so I’ll be watching them closely come May.

Time to start saving those pennies again because this year is going to get expensive…

General, Movies & TV

What The Hayes?

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I had to laugh at this. Isaac Hayes has quit his role as Chef in South Park because he objected to the “intolerance and bigotry toward religious beliefs” of the show.

That’s fair enough, but he didn’t have a problem with the jokes about Christians and Muslims, or the jokes at the expense of Kyle’s Judaism in pretty much every episode, but only decided to quit when the show inevitably turned its sights on his own religion, Scientology. With Tom Cruise’s well-publicised descent into madness continuing it was only a matter of time. Matt Stone put it best:

“[We] never heard a peep out of Isaac in any way until we did Scientology. He wants a different standard for religions other than his own, and to me, that is where intolerance and bigotry begin.”

Hypocrites can suck on my (white) chocolate salty balls.

Games, General, Nintendo, PlayStation

PlayStation 64

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With the first day of Spring a little over a week away and Sony still insistent on getting the PS3 out in that impending three month window, the jokes and conspiracy theories are inevitably starting to hit fever pitch. I’ve just been reading this feature over on 1UP and it really made me think.

I chuckled at their Dreamcast 2.0 feature back in November and although those parallels are quite amusing, I have to say that the ones between the PS3 and the N64 are even more compelling and Sony will be in trouble if they come out a year after the 360 with little extra in the way of power and a price tag $100 bigger, brand name be damned. Microsoft’s launch might have been a minor debacle but the signs are looking like unless Sony have pulled the wool over all our eyes they could actually be taken to the wire with this one.

I’m tempted to back Microsoft if only because I want to see what would happen if a system that they can’t give away in Japan becomes the top dog. That could be interesting…

General, Nintendo

DS Lite Video Review

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Not mine, unfortunately. That’s lost amongst the millions of Japanese and potential importers who are scrabbling to obtain what little stock is available, although I may be able to get one next week since Eynon and team are off to Japan again. This is a video review put together in two parts (the second is answering questions from the first one) and answers most of the concerns from people wondering how much better than the standard DS it is, so without further ado…

The bigger Mac geeks out there may have noticed that the videos were made by Cabel, co-founder of Panic, who are in turn makers of the best FTP program ever and one of the few pieces of shareware that I’ve bought. He’s a great host for the videos, with some classic lines explaining how the DS Lite can function as a death ray whilst also managing to call it “mildly retarded” and coming out with a great ending to it. I’ll be watching for more material from him in the future.

DVD & Blu-ray, General, Movies & TV

Deadwood

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I picked up the second season of Deadwood on DVD yesterday, and I have to say that I think this is one of the finest shows on TV at the moment. I don’t get to watch it until it comes out on DVD because it’s shown here on satellite, but I’m not bothered because I love DVD as a medium for TV shows.

Deadwood

I’m always up for a good western, preferring the more gritty ones like Unforgiven to the older, more quixotic ones, and Deadwood does nothing if not fall into that bracket. I’m not entirely convinced that conversation in the real Old West was quite as populated with “fucks” and “cocksuckers” as it is in Deadwood, but the setting is still remarkably authentic. The characters are similarly believable, all painted in varying shades of grey and subject to their own numerous vices. If you haven’t seen it and like westerns at all, definitely check it out.

The show is obviously a western but often seems to turn into something of a political series, as much of the storyline is based on the struggle for power and wealth in a soon-to-be-but-not-quite legitimate frontier town, complete with the necessary negotiations and murders that this entails, usually with an especially gruesome method of disposal. Even though HBO DVDs never seem to drop in price, the first season is still readily available and worth every penny.

Now I just want to see HBO’s Pacific War miniseries. It’s the spiritual follow up to Band of Brothers, which probably is the finest thing ever to be on TV.

Games, General, Work

Pro-G

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Another site now has the dubious pleasure of hosting content written by me. This time it’s Pro-G, a UK-based gaming site, which has my review of Castlevania: Curse of Darkness on PS2 available here (I know it’s been out in the States for ages, but we’re just getting it now) which is a slight comedown after my previous Castlevania stupor but to be fair isn’t as outright bad as I expected. I was surprised because I was looking forward to bashing it (negative reviews are often the most fun to write) but ended up getting at least some fun out of it.

As long as they’ll have me I should be writing more stuff in the future for them, so subscribe to their RSS feed because it’s a nice little site with some good content.