Alex's Adventures on the Infobahn - ps3

CoD: Black Ops

2011-01-04T14:55:00+00:00

As is becoming traditional I got the latest instalment of the Call of Duty franchise, Black ops, as one of my Christmas presents. What follows is some brief comments having finished the single player campaign last night. I don't think I've been overly hammering it but I reckon it took around 16 hours of game time to finish.

The CoD series have traditionally alternated developers between Treyarch and Infinity Ward. While Infinity Ward's original Modern Warfare was fairly ground breaking for a FPS their engine is now used for both streams of development. Some people claim to prefer IW's games but I can say since the original MW I've been happy with both development houses which is just as well as most of the MW developers at IW have left Activision following disputes over bonuses.

The game itself is set in the cold war period following World War II. The plot is driven by the interrogation of the main protagonist and flash-backs to earlier events in which he or other members of the team were involved with. The story is a classic cold war conspiracy thriller set to a large over the top action movie. Considering the game format I think the story worked well and gave me some degree of sympathy for the main character.

The combat is as sharp as you'd expect from this successful franchise with a decent range of weapons to choose from. There are a number of quick time events sprinkled throughout which keep you immersed in the game during cut-scenes although are occasionally frustrating when you want to shoot something. I quite enjoyed the Mi-24 Hind section which allowed a not quite on rails degree of position control as well as full control of the weapons systems. It's still not quite as satisfying and MW2's AC-130 section though.

There are one or two niggles I have with the game though. There were one or two places where I ran into invisible walls at the edge of the game area. Admittedly this was mainly due to me getting confused in a fire-fight and running in the wrong direction. The other thing that annoyed me was occasional infinite enemy re-spawn sections. While the game rewards using cover and not being a damn fool this can mean you are occasionally in a nice comfortable shooting position wondering why the same soldiers just keep running into your kill-zone. Eventually you just have to charge forward and kill anything that spawns behind you and hope the spawning stops at that point. These niggles didn't massively detract from the game but it was slightly disappointing. I suspect some of that is just due to my dislike of re-spawn mechanics.

All in all I enjoyed the single player campaign although it seemed a little short to me. Having said that I'm not a completionist so I may well have missed some chunks of content in my head-long rush through the game.

Of course in terms of gameplay the single player campaign is more about setting. Most of the time a player will spend with the game is in multi-player mode. I've only played a few games so far so haven't had a chance to explore the range of multi-player yet. I did have a quick play with the Zombie modes which are fun although I suspect better in a party setting. Playing it on your own is ultimately frustrating as there is no win condition, eventually they will eat your brains...

RIP: PS3

2010-06-14T11:17:00+01:00

My PS3 died last night with the dreaded Yellow Light of Death (or at least it briefly flashes yellow before turning itself off). Unfortunately it won't stay on long enough to eject the copy of GTA currently stuck in the drive. It also seems the DRM will render any effort to transfer the 250gb drive into the new PS3 slim useless. This means all saved progress is currently stuck on an encrypted drive I can't access. I'm hoping the backup I took for the 250gb upgrade will at least restore something to the PS3 Slim currently winging it's way in my direction.

There are a number of tutorials on the net for potentially fixing broken PS3's by re-flowing the solder. I shall have to chat with my Dad next weekend to see if it's doable in his lab. Has anyone successfully resurrected a dead PS3? Or failing that found a list of PS3 POST codes so we have some idea of what's failing?

Review: The Ballad of Gay Tony

2010-05-27T10:34:00+01:00

We finally reached the limit on the PS3's hard disk a few weeks ago. Although I had the option of reformatting the hard drive to reclaim the 10gb after Sony disabled OtherOS* it seemed a lot easier to get a newer more spacious disk. A quick trip to Amazon later and a very simple backup and upgrade and my PS3 was wallowing in a spare 300gb of internal storage which should be enough for all the DLC we can afford for a while.

The Ballad of Gay Tony has finally finished it's exclusive stint on the Xbox360 and is now available on the PS3. Being a long time fan of the GTA series I forked over my hard earned cash for the ~2gb download. When you first start GTAIV again it detects the presence and offers you a chance to start a new TBGT based game complete with a new disco friendly loading sequence.

Although the game takes part in the same expansive world of Liberty City it involves a brand new set of characters and a new protagonist in the form of Luis Fernando Lopez who is the titular "Gay Tony" Prince's right hand man. The story line is what you expect from GTA although being DLC skips a lot of the build up from the main game dumping you almost immediately into the sort over the top gun battles and movie inspired chase scenes that are the GTA's forte. Refreshingly your character starts tooled up for the job without having to start at the bottom of the equipment tree like Nico does. A couple of other gameplay tweaks are also evident including the ability to restart sections of the mission (although you lose trophy bragging rights if you do) as well as rudimentary targets to aim for in each mission. A few new mini-games are also introduced including golf and the ability to take a more proactive role in managing Tony's night clubs.

The game benefits a lot from the solid foundation created by the GTAIV rendition of the living detailed Liberty City. Even after finishing the original game I found there is still a lot of discovery possible. Given the amount of effort invested in building the city simulation the DLC model should prove lucrative for Rockstar providing the story, characters and acting keep up to the high standards expected of the series. So far for me TBGT has done exactly that, it's just a shame I had to wait so long for it to turn up on my platform of choice.

* Brief aside: Yes I'm pissed off at Sony for removing OtherOS but realistically I never really used the functionality as the core operating system support for media and streaming is already very good. It does provide yet another salutatory lesson on how we don't really control our modern consumer hardware anymore though.

Sniper Fi

2010-01-28T10:32:00+00:00

I actually has an opportunity to play with the Special Ops mode of CoD4:MW2 last night with a friend. Despite a terribly laggy connection we had a blast working our way through the Alpha and early Bravo missions. I suspect the AC-130 mission was the most fun although the player on the ground is mostly just following behind the creeping barrage of explosions.

The mode is fairly well thought out. The missions are short and tactical and really reward co-operative play (re: quite difficult as solo missions). This also stands in contrast to the main multi-player game where unless you are in a clan you tend to just get on with your own thing. While most of them seem to be re-hashes of the main game areas (maybe tweaked a little) there is also some new level designs in there as well. Hopefully next time we can get the lag sorted out, unfortunately with my partner on shifts our congruent frag times are fairly rare. Any other CoD:MW2 players out there who want to work their way through Spec Ops?

Ripping PS3 compatible MP4s

2009-11-20T12:29:00+00:00

There are literally hundreds of scripts and tools for encoding stuff to various compressed video formats. However I was never able to find something that did exactly what I wanted and until recently just did everything from the command line with mencoder. Eventually I got tired of the copy and paste and scripted stuff up which I've pushed onto github.

There are two scripts. The first is rip.py which is designed to automate the task of ripping box sets as much as possible. Originally it spawned the encoder step but that is a very quick way to overload your machine. Syntax is fairly simple:

rip.py -v -m 45 -b 13 -l

Which means rip tracks that are around 45 minutes in length and number them from 13. Create a log file with a list of ripped VOB files. Currently everything is hard-coded to ${HOME}/tmp

The second script is even simpler:

ps3enc.pl /path/to/file

By default it does a automatic guess at crop detection and then a 2 pass encoding of the file into a PS3 compatible .avi. That is then unpicked and re-packaged into an .mp4 file.

By it's very nature it is tailored to my command line sensibilities but I push it to the outside world in case it's useful to someone else. Patches are of course always welcome but don't expect it to grow much beyond it's current scope. About the only thing I'd like to get working properly is handling subtitles for foreign films. It's currently a bit of a black art.

The original "recipe" for the PS3 friendly encode options where gleaned from Carlos Rivero's blog post.

More iPlayer updates for the PS3

2009-09-07T16:27:00+01:00

There is more information about the new iPlayer support for the PS3 on the BBC Internet Blog. While I don't get a shiny iPlayer logo on my XMB (due to owning the Japanese version) I don't really miss much as it was just a link to the iPlayer web-page. However according to the BBC blog one of the drivers for improved performance has been the 3.0 firmware release which has hardware accelerated some aspects Flash video playback. Certainly from the stuff I watched yesterday it seems a lot smoother than before. The BBC have also re-worked the layout of the iPlayer applet which now renders a lot better on the PS3 display.

Now if only Channel 4's On Demand service worked on the PS3....

Half-Life 2 and the Orange Box

2009-08-05T12:27:00+01:00

The Orange Box certainly represents the best value for money for gaming in a long time. I think we picked it up for the PS3 for about Â£12 which in an era of Â£55 for a new release is welcome in the credit crunch.

People make much of the fact the PS3 port was out-sourced but certainly I've only noticed frame-rate issues once so far and that disappeared on re-load. I've long gotten used to playing FPS games with console controllers to the point I suspect I'd find it hard to play with the PC mouse/keyboard combo. It's also a fairly old game so it probably not making the most of the graphics hardware. However to be honest I don't think I'd notice, graphics reached the point I stopped caring about them a long time ago. I can still jump when some unspeakable horror surprises me in a dark corner and I'm not sure any extra pixel shaders would be noticed as I reach for the shotgun.

On to the game itself. The original Half-Life was fairly ground breaking at the time. Along with Deus Ex it was one of the few PC FPS games I played all the way to the end. The combination of combat with in game scripted plot without resorting to cut-scenes made it a compelling play. The only reason I never bought Half-Life 2 when it first came out was the shift I was making away from PC gaming and single-booting my main machine on Linux. Having had the Call of Duty franchise remind me how much I enjoy the genre it was a fairly easy buy.

One of the things that stands out is a fairly complete physics implementation which allows the player to interact with the environment in more elaborate ways. I think the developers got a little happy with their new toys though having done several variations of the see-saw puzzle throughout the game. This aided by the addition of the Gravity Gun which you can put to good use in later levels and is especially useful in building quick barricades so you don't get overwhelmed by the occasional mass bundles in the game. It can make a fairly useful weapon as well especially when combined with things like circular saw blades. I've read it gets powered up later in the game but I've still to reach the last few levels.

The game is pretty faithful to it's horror roots and alongside the numerous set piece battles with human forces and various aerial contraptions there are mutant zombies, aliens and other twisted lurkers waiting to jump out at you. It is not a game for the faint hearted to play in the dark and it's certainly made me jump out of my seat more than once.

As I've noted previously I'm still in the main Half-Life 2 game. Once out of that I have another two episodes to play before I run out of straight shooting action. This is already far more single player game play than any individual member of the CoD series has delivered. However the other two components are Team Fortress 2 and Portal. TF2 is certainly a fun little multi-player shooter and I enjoy it's cartoon aesthetic and reasonable variety of game-play. However for multi-player I think CoD will still be vying for my attention. I have yet to play Portal but Fliss has been enjoying it immensely (not being a fan of horror shooters herself). It certainly seems to have a sense of humour which combines well with the pure puzzle genre.

So in summary if you are a fan of the FPS genre and for some reason didn't buy any of the components of the Orange Box before then I can highly recommend buying it now.

On the Subject of GTA

2008-07-01T12:53:00+01:00

So despite my obvious desire for the game I haven't mentioned much about it since I got it. Some times it makes sense to comment on things with a little perspective that time can provide.

Well the first thing to note is I'm a fan of the GTA series and the general concept of free roaming dynamic world environments. As an example of the genre GTAIV does take it to another level with the amount of detail the cram into the living, breathing Liberty City. The next-gen bling has certainly been applied to city and everything looks really nice. The dynamic weather is pretty stunning and a great improvement on what SA supported. You quite often want it too rain because things look a lot shinier :-) The animation has also benefited from the increased horse power offered with the Euphoria engine offering a lot more realistic responses by the random characters. The first time I dragged a police officer along the road as he tried to stop me stealing a random car was pretty impressive. As far as looks are concerned I think the game has it pretty much nailed.

Controls however are more of an issue. I have managed to balls up a mission more than once due to the switching of the "fire" button between foot and vehicle mode. Also the cover system for combat while useful still occasionally grates and gets in the way. It could be I just don't play enough games to have developed a context sensitive control re-mapper in my brain. The ability to re-try a mission directly from the phone does help though although they could have given a little thought to the distance between brief and start location. There are times I swear at the rush hour traffic as I try and get back to the start of the mission. I have to say I think the control system is probably the weakest aspect of the game, however I don't think it's an area the GTA series has been especially strong at anyway. Still who cares about the controls, what about the game?

The main plot is very well thought out. The central character, Niko is probably my favourite GTA protagonist so far. The script, setting and feel is all very well done. The replacement of San Andreas' annoying keep fit system with a more nuanced friendship system for keeping up with all your contacts is an improvement. It remains to see if the morality choices will keep you coming back for replays of the main plot line, as far as I can tell the main plot doesn't branch too much. As you would expect Rockstar have done an excellent job with the satire of modern New York. Little details like dynamic radio news reports (the stations are no longer 60 minute loops) and TV coverage add a lot of colour to game. You can even kick back at a comedy show , or bizarrely watch it on the TV at your home!

I think there are less side missions than previous games. While you can pull taxi journeys I don't think you can just nick a yellow cab and get on with it. You can actually take taxis but I generally avoid it as the AI of the driver is (deliberately?) worse than mine, even in "drunk" mode. There is a sub-way system as well but having ridden it once I don't see it becoming a regular event, unless perhaps it makes escaping cops easier. These issues aside though there are plenty of places to see and I suspect given the scale of the city I will have enough to do if I just want to idly cruise the game.

The multiplayer is a new addition to the game. Unfortunately it's not as slick games like CoD4. When you join a game the system should hurry things along, filling the game up and getting it running as fast as possible. The customisations the game offers offer the promise of depth but so far getting playing has seemed too much of chore to have explored this option much. The free-mode looks intriguing but I suspect that will wait for when some other friends suggest some wacky challenges to meet up complete on-line.

All in all it's a pretty solid addition to the series. I'm not sure it's worth all the 10/10's is has received but I suspect a lot has been due to anticipation and relief when it delivered. It's still a solid addition to any console gamers collection, certainly a must have for fans of the series.

Blu-Ray and CoD4

2008-02-19T15:50:00+00:00

I see that Sony have "won" the battle for physical high definition media. Unfortunately since the last firmware update my Japanese PS3 has rather taken against playing Blu-ray discs. It does however play DivX files quite nicely (better than my ageing Cello DVD player). Given current trends I'm unlikely to be buying any Blu-Ray discs for a while. The problem of the firmware is probably fixable once I (finally) get Linux up and running on the spare partition but I suspect the pain of the DRM will get in the way. Up till that point I shall have to get my Hi-Def joy via other means.

Which leads me nicely onto the topic of Call of Duty 4. I have mentioned the game in the past so I thought it might be worth a quick review.

First of the main game is very short. It doesn't take more than a few days of play to get through the game. When you do reach the end however wait until after the credits to play the last aircraft hostage mission. Once you finish you open up the Multiplayer and Arcade mode. Arcade mode is fairly fun for quick dipping in play should you want to know if you have cleared a level the best possible way. I can highly recommend giving the AC-130 section several goes. It's quite a fun over the top level even if the infrared view is eerily close to the real video footage the real war PR departments churn out.

Multiplayer is however where a lot of attention has been payed. They haven't simply slapped a multi-player mode onto the existing engine and let people get on with deathmatches (which is pretty much what R:FoM did). Instead they have a full XP system and a series of un-lockable perks and weapon modifications. Once you gain the ability to create your own classes you will find yourself playing with particular weapons just to complete it's challenges. They also have added non-weapon based challenges (including things like downing a helicopter, or falling certain heights). There is also a wide range of game types from Free for All to Capture the Flag and other variants. My current favourite is Headquarters in which you take over an HQ and your re-spawns are stopped until the attackers over-run and destroy your base. All this variety means you are unlikely to get stuck in a rut being shot by camping teenagers in repetitive free-for-all games.

Having said that the muti-player does befit from the game engines attention to detail. Listen out for the direction sound of people running as they approach, creep around if you don't want to be heard. If you choose your camouflage carefully (and take the right perks) your ghillie suited sniper really does blend into the scenery. The variable protection offered by different types of scenery also comes into play, in fact one of the challenges is how many kills you can get through scenery. Last night I bagged someone who had retreated from the doorway but still stood the other side of a flimsy shed wall :-)

There are rumours that there will be some download-able content for CoD4 multi-player around spring. When it arrives Activision are almost certainly welcome to a few more of my hard earned pounds. CoD4 for the PS3 is a must have game for any fan of the FPS genre and I can highly recommend it!

Going Mobile

2008-01-08T14:33:00+00:00

I spent bits of yesterday getting final meter readings in and cancelling my Sky account. The rest of it was taken up with a fair amount of cursing at Call of Duty 4 as I struggled my way through act 3. Having the rest of the household point out the danger of hand grenades every time I bit the dust again didn't help that much. I'm really quite enjoying the game but it does get quite hard in places. I'm tempted to say it's one of the best FPS games I've played and I'll stick my neck out and say the experience is probably better than playing on the PC. After all not many PC's have the wide-screen display my PS3 does. Although a lot of PC gamers pour scorn on the controller vs the classic mouse and keyboard I think it's actually a better control method. The two sticks give quite fine control when you are maneuverings and of course all the buttons for grenades and weapon switched are in ergonomically helpful places.

I switched my mobile tariff a few days ago to one that included a decent amount of data. I subsidised this by dropping the number of free minutes as I wasn't quite using all 900 every month. As a result I've been playing with the mobile web.

First up is Opera Mini. It's a little Java app that runs on your phone and runs as a clipping browser. This means it takes normal non-phone optimised web-pages and attempts to render them in a vaguely sensible form. Generally it works very well although I personally preferred the older versions rendering of the BBC new site. The new version added a panning display instead of forcing the text to flow down one column which was a little simpler to read. The only website that has so far failed is the ever present Facebook and that could just be down to finger trouble.

I've also played with some of the Google services. Of all the services Google Calender and Google Maps (separate application) are the most mature. The calender functionality is basic but enough to check your appointments while on the go. Adding a simple events with a natural language (e.g. "Meeting at 1400 tomorrow") works well enough. Given the growing ubiquity of mobile data services I can see my days as a loyal Palm user coming to an end. I've been using the calender a lot over the last year and especially like the ability to have different ones with different collaboration profiles. It's extremely handy for Fliss and I to have one shared calender for all out activities (even though I suspect I rely more on electronic memory augmentation than Fliss does). If the integration with Evolution pans out it will pretty much solve all my calender requirements.

The Google Maps application warns you it is data-intensive but on modern 3G networks it still runs pretty quickly. They have taken care with the design of the UI, especially in the zoom control. You can very quickly get a map of the right scale for navigation in the limited space of a phone display. The only disappointment is the non-GPS "My Location" service isn't supported on my phone. The list of supported devices is a little vague.

There is not much to say about the mobile version of Google Reader except that it works reasonably well. However I suspect the reading of large numbers of RSS feeds is going to hard to optimise for a mobile phone sized screen.

Google Apps is also available in a limited mobile flavour. You can't edit documents but you can certainly view documents and spreadsheets (if you select desktop mode, the default spreadsheet view is one column at a time which isn't all that useful) with Opera Mini. I don't expect to be using it much but it certainly could be useful if you just want to check the last time you called a certain utility company while in the pub.

The last app I played with was MidpSSH which is a GPL'ed Java ssh client implementation. I doubt you will be wanting to do much with the hassle of text-typing to the command line but it may prove useful for an emergency server reboot or service restart. Having said that I haven't managed to log onto one of my boxes yet (I haven't tried very hard yet).