Having grown up with limited funds to obtain the latest and greatest PC hardware to play games on, I’m used to wringing out the most performance possible out of my hardware and software. If this means I need to do some overclocking of the hardware, I will do it. I’m not afraid to do registry hacks, toy with configuration files or go through anything with a guide in order to improve framerate or improve image quality.
I wanted nothing, but the best framerate and image quality my hardware and I could muster. I wasn’t willing to settle and I certainly couldn’t simply go out and pick up a $300 video card. And although my gaming now occurs primarily on the consoles, I still want that smooth framerate and high image quality out of my games. But with console games, I cannot tweak or overclock the hardware to make them run faster. The best I could do is to choose the right platform or choose not to buy it.
It’s the end of February. While in year’s past, this would be gaming business as usual, 2010’s March lineup rivals the best holiday lineups ever.
I placed my order for Battlefield: Bad Company 2, my Final Fantasy XIII order was placed earlier this year and God of War III was in the queue since mid-2009.
Unfortunately, I still have games I wish to spend with including BioShock 2’s multiplayer which I will do a write up about later this week. I also have Trine to complete; I would have been a bit disappointed with if I had spent the full $19.99 for it. Then there’s Starship Defense, which didn’t particularly wow me, but I did just finish it with all “Perfect” medals. I did want to spend more time with Marvel vs Capcom 2 as well. After all these years, I really wanted to spend time into executing an “Air Combo” consistently.
I currently have 10, 080 Achievement points on Xbox Live! and I’m level 11 on the PlayStation Network.
Achievements and Trophies have become a requirement now and whether you like it or not, it’s propagating. Even games on platforms without global achievement systems have achievements of some kind.
Lately, I’ve been on a Trophy/Achievement hunt of sorts. I’ve revisited many of my favorite games of the past to unlock additional Trophies/Achievements in an attempt to thoroughly complete them. During this hunt, I’ve come to a number of realizations and thought I’d share them.
I acquired the Sony KDL-52V5100 for $400 last year as an offer for resolve my issue with the KDS-50A2000. It is most definitely an improvement, but it does have one flaw known as “red flashing”.
What is the “red flashing” problem?
It’s called “red flashing” by many owners of the AVSForum’s V5100 thread who are experiencing this issue. What happens is the color intensity/balance of an image will sometimes automatically adjust as seen in the video below:
The YouTube description is apt:
While difficult to capture with a video camera, in this clip the background noticeably shifts colors when the interview subject brings his hands into the frame. In person the color shift is visible across the entire picture.
Sony denies the problem exists.
Called local authorized repair shop and they were told that this problem was already addressed in the most recent firmware update which I already have. That’s bullshit. The most recent firmware available on the support site addressed the auto-dimming issue, not this new color fluctuation issue.
As for what they could do? They offered to pick up the unit for in-house testing, but that’s it; they could not do anything else for me. As we all know, this is not a simple part replacement fix. Many AVSForum members already tried part replacements without success. I told them I wanted to contact Sony Canada themselves. They said that was fine and to repeat what they told me.
Contacting Sony Canada produced no results. They were shocked to discover that the local authorized repair shop couldn’t do anything. They reconfirmed that I installed the latest firmware and that was all. They told me that they had to contact the local authorized repair shop to sync up info and will get back to me in a “few days”. I voiced my displeasure and said that I would be waiting.
Now I wait. If there’s no acknowledgement of this problem, I’m going to demand a replacement. I don’t want to risk another defective replacement.
Clip from the “Colbert Report” on November 16, 2009, with guest Paul Goldberger.
Whoops. I completely forgot about this week’s Checkpoint. Sunday came and went, and I didn’t flinch.
It was Chinese New Year and thus there was a whole lot of nothing going on. I finished BioShock the other day and it was still creepy all these years later. I was also still impressed with the technical and artistic work overall. The character models were a bit disturbing though; too doll like.
It’s Super Bowl Sunday 2010. This is the first NFL season which I’ve paid significant attention to, but it’s still superficial compared to the dedicated fans out there. Nevertheless, I do have a preference and want the Indianapolis Colts to achieve victory.
There are many games out there thick with lore. However, very few capture my attention and interest like Mass Effect’s and with good reason. A great deal of Mass Effect’s backstory is told through optional audio entries which I often feel compelled to endulge in while I grab a snack to eat. I did this with the first Mass Effect and I’m repeating it with the sequel.
Why read manuals or in-game encyclopedia entries when I could get it all via narration? I much prefer to keep it all within the voice and aesthetics of the game and its universe. It may seem like a financially costly detail to include, but it shows commitment to the world and how much the developers want me to stay immersed.
Being immersed into Mass Effect’s world requires more than just a bunch of voiced encyclopedia entries though. The politics, the problems and the people need to feel real as well. Nearly every problem in the Mass Effect universe felt plausible. Some of it may seem like jargon, but there’s usually an explanation to every little thing that happens within this universe.
However, no matter how well a developer integrates its lore, it takes more than an immersive world to make a good game. Sharp execution and strong mechanics are also required. The original Mass Effect was a bit sketchy in both areas, however it did show a lot of promise. And by the looks of things thus far, Mass Effect 2 is delivering on those promises which BioWare set out in 2007.
I suspect I’ll have a review of the game next week, but you really don’t need me to tell you how awesome Mass Effect 2 is.
