My appreciation of the PS3 continues

Lately I have been addicted, yet again, to some good old Diablo 2. Even though I am weaning myself off of the blast-from-the-past I still do my fair share of random countess/chaos/baal/andy/pit runs. I have been trading off attention to my handhelds, I imagine it would be similar to entertaining two children with equal attention (heh I wouldn't know). On the PSP has been a lovely classic JRPG experience with Crimson Gem Saga, lots of fun with this one so far. On the DS I have had a great time with SMT: Devil Survivor which is enjoyable but some magic from the console SMT titles is missing I feel. That shouldn't be a mark against SMT: Devil Survivor though since it is still a great game that has a complex and gratifying combat system (strat rpg/standard turn based rpg hybrid). That being said I have been giving my consoles a bit of the cold shoulder. Getting back into the groove this past weekend I started the PS3 up.

Yesterday I picked up Fat Princess which is loaded with fun. I felt a bit detached from the gameplay since I am lacking a headset to coordinate but that was minor. I enjoyed most of my time playing the game as a worker or archer class. Charging up arrows and letting loose was great while dancing about avoiding getting hit. Gathering resources and reinforcing the defenses was also rather entertaining. One problem I noticed was the great amount of time spent on trying to find/connect to games. At first I was curious if it was my problem but I have just recently been upgraded to a FiOS connection so that was unlikely. Destructoid says that Sony will be working on it. I look forward to that being a little more smooth.

I have also played a good amount of Savage Moon which is a terrific TD game that I got while it was on sale for $5 on PSN. It is very challenging, I am not used to my cattle fighting back while herding them in a TD.

Finally I have played a large amount of Wipeout HD this weekend. I grabbed the new Fury DLC which practically doubled the amount of content in the game. While I had dabbled in the title a little when I had gotten it during the previously mentioned PSN sale for a great price of $14.99 (the DLC was $9.99 which is great considering what you get) I finally sunk my teeth into it this weekend. All I can say is WOW, this is one of the best downloadable titles I have played on a console yet. That statement is taking into consideration Castle Crashers, Braid, Ikaruga port, Rez HD, Geometry Wars 2, Pixel Junk Eden, and what have you. I think it's the fact that I already enjoyed Wipeout Pulse as my entertainment for most of the flight to and from Japan, now that I can have the same experience at 1080p with 60fps and blasting music/sfx it floors me. As an additional icing on the cake they have a photo mode. I never figured I would enjoy this since it didn't seem like much on the PSP iteration, my god it is different on the PS3. The options you have and the kinds of pictures you can get out of the game just leave my jaw on the floor. I'll just let the pictures do the talking. Lighting... textures... I am just amazed.

Enjoy the Silence

Many moons have passed since last I posted, and lots of stuff happened. Some of that time was spent wrapping up school and graduation, I visited Japan during this time as well and had some good times there. Also in this time I was fortunate enough to receive a fair share of gifts from my graduation. Using some of this I recently procured a Playstation 3, I am now fortunate enough to have all three of the current consoles. Yeah, basically it is pretty sweet.

While visiting Japan I picked up some rather cool tidbits that were game related. I was tempted to pick up a game for my PSP or DS while there but figured the difficulty I would have for translating it outweighed my desire for any of the titles I saw. I picked up a full set plus extras of some SMT One Coin figures (a picture, the seventh character being a wolf) as well as a lovely Gwendolyn figure from Odin Sphere. I missed out on a gorgeous Valkyria Chronicles figure due to limited luggage space, I also just missed the last Etrian Odyssey gunner figure that was in a store. Finding well done figures from games that I've played is rather exciting...

Ok that's enough random talk about figures, now about games. Having gone on a long trip with plenty of time on an airplane as well as a new console to boot I dug into plenty of games since the last time I posted. The end of my semester was spent playing metric ass-tons of Rock Band and Resident Evil 5. My roommate and I SS ranked all of the mercenary levels save for maybe one? It's been a while but damn co-op mercenaries is hella fun. On my trip to Japan I played a huge amount of Wipeout Pulse for PSP as well as the Star Ocean Second Evolution port (stuck in the same part of the bonus dungeon as I was back in 2000/2001). I had gotten to the last disc of Lost Odyssey while at school, when I eventually get around to finishing it I need to do a summarizing post since the pacing really slowed and it has become slightly tedious to play. Finally, in my time since getting back from Japan I have been putting my PS3 to the test in terms of time in use. I started playing Folklore which I picked up from Bestbuy for $30 and LOVE the art direction/atmosphere but the actual gameplay is a little lacking. I have played some Little Big Planet, it is very unique but I am unsure if I will be able to personally use the customization elements to its full effect. Noby Noby Boy is something that, well it just needs to be experienced because you can't really describe it. I played lots of PS3 demos, in particular the demo for R&C: Tools of Destruction and it reminded me of all the reasons why I loved the first 3 Spyro games on Playstation (yay Insomniac) so lotsa fun there. To end it all before I ramble too much longer I played and beat MGS4 (stayed up this past night cause I couldn't put it down once I had gotten back to Shadow Moses MMMMM so good). That was a very satisfying and great first experience with the PS3 and I hope to make a more detailed post of my very late impressions of the PS3, particularly in comparison now with my other current consoles.