There can't be many ways to make a good advert for Old Spice. It's rank.
But this is probably a good start:
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And yes, I know they've ripped off Richard Cheese - but he spends his life ripping off songs, so it's not like there's a crime...
During its Gamers Day in San Diego, SCEA announced its intentions to launch its long anticipated PSP Store.
"I think the advent of a long awaited and quite frankly long overdue ability to deliver a downloadable service for the PSP will help us out a great deal," said SCEA president Jack Tretton. "Hopefully we'll have it out there by the fall."
About time too! It would be wierd if they spent all that money developing the PlayStation Store and then didn't make a mobile version for the PSP. Allowing gamers to purchase PS1 games for their PSP without the need for a PlayStation 3 will be a big step forward for Sony.
Mind you, they should've have that up and running years ago, when the PSP launched.
(Taken from Shack News)
SOCOM was a great game. It set PS2 online, on fire. Well, for a bit anyway. SOCOM I and SOCOM II were great but subsequent sequels for me, failed to keep the simplicity of the first two.
It's good to hear that a PS3 version of the series is in the works, SOCOM: Confrontation had it's first screens and footage released today from the Sony Gamers Day in the States. It's set to be online only, which probably won't be a bad thing. In an interview on Gamespot it was made clear that at this years E3 there will be big announcements about the game. But some beans were spilled: Expansion packs will be available on the PSN and will include maps, characters, weapons, bonus content and will often be 'themed'. This immediately makes me think of Battlefield 2 and it's themed add on packs like Special Forces and Euro Force. A release date of Christmas 2007 is also hinted at, though no date has been set.
It's looking very good and they've obviously decided to take SOCOM back to its roots, it looks alot like SOCOM II gameplay...
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Still looks beautiful. Carboard box dude ftw.
Oh, sorry - and the trailer (complete with typo):
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The Optimus Maximus. A keyboard to end all keyboards. It's already legendary among internet geeks worldwide, many thought it would never be released, many thought it was simply too good to be true. The pant wettingly good original concept was sent around from geek to geek and didn't take long for it to go viral.
Well - the waiting is almost over (or about to begin, depending on how you look at it). The Optimus Maximus keyboard, with 114 113 fully customisable OLED keys, each capable of displaying images or animations at 96x96 48x48 pixels wide - is available to preorder in just 3 days, 23 hours and 35 minutes and 48 seconds, at the time of posting.
Ok, then: May 20, 2007 at 3 p. m. Moscow time.
It's going to retail for a hefty $1564 but promises to be, well - the best keyboard in the world.
The included Optimus Configurator software runs on Windows and Mac and allows users to place whatever images they want on whichever keys they like. The current software version is for the Optimus mini. So first up you could change the font very easily, on every key. Or set up profiles for different software, so when you're making pretty things in Photoshop keys could be individually labelled for shortcuts, all your shortcuts are labelled. The possibilities, are awesome.
If you do place a preorder, don't expect to receive it too soon though as the first production run is not scheduled until December. Keep an eye on the Optimus Maximus project blog for more details and insight in to the development of the product.
If your budget doesn't quite stretch to the price of an Optimus Maximus then perhaps head over to the Art. Lebedev Studio Worldwide Store, paybe pick yourself up a decent quality, 5 year lasting eraser.
The PlayStation 3 receives regular firmware updates and details of the next 2.0 update have recently flooded on to the net. Whilst at first rumoured to be false, it's clear that Sonys behaviour about these details has certainly shown that they've been concerned about the release of the information. Official boards are locking down threads about the details and the original forum post has been removed, with the author apparently getting a telling off. But with features like Zero Unused Disk Space has been added as an option under System Settings, it's unlikely that these are made up.
Sony hasn't been treating the leak very well, but there has been some great feedback from a rather excited PlayStation 3 community. The update looks absolutely great - So, without any messing, here are the new features:
- Users
- You can now password-protect user accounts.
- Settings
- [Dynamic Normalizer] has been added as an option under [Sound Settings].
- [Energy Saver] has been added as an option.
- [Equalizer] has been added as a feature under [Music Settings].
- [Full] has been added as an option for [DVD Wide Display] under [BD / DVD Settings].
- [Photo Settings] has been added as an option.
- [PS / PS2 Settings] has been added as an option.
- [RSS Channel Settings] has been added as an option.
- [Sample Rate] has been added to [Audio CD Import] under [Music Settings].
- [Screen Saver] has been expanded under [Display Settings].
- The method of selecting an output resolution has been changed in [Video Output Settings] under [Display Settings].
- [Theme Settings] has been added as an option.
- [Zero Unused Disk Space] has been added as an option under [System Settings] > [Format Utility].
- Photo
- Additional slideshow effects have been added.
- [Photo Effects] have been added as a feature.
- Wallpaper feature has been added.
- [Zoom] has been added as a feature.
- Music
- Additional visualization effects have been added.
- CD information can now be entered.
- Three-speed fast forward and fast reverse has been added as a feature.
- Video
- Files can now be played sequentially.
- Three-speed fast forward and fast reverse has been added as a feature.
- You can now select [Zoom] under [Screen Mode] when playing video files saved on the hard disk or storage media.*.
*An appropriate USB adapter (not included) is required to use storage media with some models.
- Game
- Support for PLAYSTATION®3 format software titles has been expanded.
- XMB™ (XrossMediaBar) is now accessible during gameplay.
- Network
- [RSS Channel] has been added as a feature.
- Friends
- You can now have multiple chat sessions.
- You can now select an image to use as your Avatar from [Photo].
- Other
- Date and Time is now shown when the PS button is pressed. (yay!)
- File sorting has been changed.
- [Help] has been added as a feature.
- Playability status with the PS3™ system has changed for some PlayStation® and PlayStation®2 format titles.
To check on the latest status, visit the search site for compatible titles. - [Secure Delete] has been added as an option.
- Some PLAYSTATION®Network features have been revised.
So, there are a number of key features being added, like accessing the XMB in game. The PS/PS2 settings option might spark some immediate speculation about the possible up-scaling of PS and PS2 game software. There are a number of small features from the PSP that have been added too, such as the ZOOM on photo and video, RSS news feeds, (ahem) and more audio visualizations (HD again hopefully). ALl in all - 2.0 looks set to be an excellent update. My only niggle (once again) is... Where is remote play!?
This feature list was posted on the PlayStation forums by Leia, who we all now obviously love to bits.
There is a fairly drab selection of Blu Ray discs available in UK shops currently and if you’re a PlayStation 3 owner looking for juicy High Definition content for your juicy new console and HDTV, then it’s frankly disappointing.
I was pleased to discover however that seemingly most Blu Ray discs are infact region free. They have a region, but they’re still region free. Odd. It’s not as clear as HD-DVDs, where, apparently they are all region free - but still. Most are.
So, armed with that knowledge, provided by a very helpful webpage, a few weeks ago I went shopping over at U.S retailer (but distribution based in U.K) movietyme.
I picked myself up 4 discs:
- BBC Planet Earth 4 disc set - Seriously worth buying. Simply amazing HD footage and quite possibly the best HD disc available. Of course, I won’t even begin to rant about how the hell America gets this BBC series on HD-DVD and Blu Ray before us, in the U.K.
- Superman Returns - Ok movie (Kevin Spacey is great), excellent quality HD video and even better sound.
- A Scanner Darkly - The animation is great and looks fantastic in HD awesomeness. But the film itself I found very boring. Straight to eBay.
- The Corpse Bride - One of the visually highest quality Blu Rays available, it really does look staggeringly good in HD. Good movie and definitely a keeper.
So yes. Once again, if you’re thinking about buying some U.S Blu Ray discs, then be sure to check out this very useful page about which discs are region free.
Meet Spike. He's the latest member of my home, a very pretty 6 year old black male cat from the lovely man over at www.citycatshelter.com.
He arrived very scared and wide eyed on Thursday, spent most of the day under the sofa before he came out a bit in the evening. He spent the whole of Thursday night hiding in a cupboard and then the whole of Friday (home alone), sitting on the kitchen draining board. I set up a web cam in the kitchen so I could watch him from work - he pretty much stayed there all day.
Then, last night he spent the night running around the house in the dark, over excited and giving me a bad nights sleep. It's worth it though. He's a very friendly cat with a nice purr.
Today he had a little photo shoot and I thought I'd share it with the world...
b3ta never fails to have the best jokes on a Friday…
I’ve shamelessly ripped this so I’ll be nice and credit those very special people (person?) at MushyBees for making this frankly *genius* little comic.
A Community Team Coordinator over at the Official PlayStation Forums posted fresh news today about a forthcoming MotorStorm update, v1.2.
Set to arrive mid-May, it will automatically pop up to download and install, once you choose ‘Online’ from the MotorStorm main menu. There are no new maps or anything too exciting, but the patch looks set to fix the major bugs experienced when playing MotorStorm online. Though some might question why things as simple as being able to tell who the host is - were not in there from the start.
Unfortunately, the update will wipe all the current rankings, and although this might upset a few players, it’ll at least mean everyone can start off on the same foot this time round. No more boost exploits!
- Game List Improvement - ‘Game Status’ is now displayed with the game list in the online lobby making it easier to find a session where you’ll be able to join and race promptly.
- Host Identification Within the game lobby the host is now clearly identified by a ‘host’ icon visible to all players and updated during host migration.
- Boost Exploit A bug involving the boost system that allowed a player to use boost in an exploitative manner has been resolved.
- Buddy List Size This has been updated to support up to 50 friends.
- Text Cut-off When playing in standard definition all messages will now display as intended.
- Improved Stability Online Online gameplay stability has been improved.
- Audio issues All known issues with 5.1 / 7.1 surround have been fixed. Audio issues within the front-end have been resolved.
- Player Ranking Players were found to be ranked incorrectly due to a bug. Because of this all online rankings will be reset and the ranking system should now function correctly. Evolution and Sony apologise for this measure but it will result in a fairer and more stable ranking system for all players.
- Auto-Start Races will be forced to start after a fixed countdown which should dramatically reduce the waiting times in lobbies. Hosts may delay this countdown up to three times.
- Save Data Corruption When quitting the game using the PS button it was possible to corrupt the save game data. This will no longer occur.
- Lobby Information Upcoming track and current lap details will be displayed in lobbies.
- Vehicle Damage When restarting a single player race during a death camera the damage wasn’t always reset at the start of the next race. This has now been resolved.
- Missing Audio Audio effects were missing from the death camera, these have now been reinstated.
- Name Tags Added ability to switch the player name tags on / off during online races using a single button press (L1).
Previously, I posted my 100% EU MotorStorm game save for those poor souls, who like me, had spent so many hours completing the Japanese version of the game. But then had to complete the game again to unlock the juicy cars on the E.U version.