Category Archives: TECH

JUST SAYING, TECH, Videogames

My PlayStation 3 Died, and I Don’t Really Care

I finally succumbed to temptation last August and bought a PlayStation 3.  I tried my best to hold out, but with the release of the third Ratchet and Clank game for the system and the price drop to $300, I finally cracked.  God of War 3 was on the way, and I also thought it would be nice to have a Blu-ray player.

Fast forward two Novembers, and I have six boxed Playstation 3 games, a few downloaded games, twenty-six Blu-Ray movies, and a busted PS3.  The damn thing won’t start.  I press the power button; hear a beep and the power light turns green.  Yay.  A few seconds later, I hear a click, the system shuts down, and I hear three beeps.  Crap.

Of course, after realizing something was wrong, I tried turning it on and off, held down the power button while turning it on a few times, but still nothing.  The Internets proved to be less than useful; I found plenty of ads for repair services or repair instructions, but very little as far as DIY fixing.  My PlayStation 3 was also just out of warranty.  Sending it to Sony would mean a repair bill of at least $100, not to mention shipping costs.  The repairs would also only be covered for 90 days…forget that.

I have now had one of each generation of PlayStation go kerplotz on me: an older ‘box’ PlayStation (remember how dependable those were?), a launch PlayStation 2 (which, to be fair, did last five years), and now a PlayStation 3 that lasted just long enough to be out of warranty.

My only ‘good’ option would appear to be dropping $300 on a new and hopefully more reliable PlayStation 3.  I’m not sure I want to, though.  It’s not the money (well, okay, maybe a little) but to be honest, I haven’t really missed it.  After the awesomeness that was God of War 3, there just haven’t been many games exclusive to the PlayStation 3 that I’m interested in playing.  I sadly never got around to playing some of the good exclusives like Resistance and Uncharted, and I certainly won’t be anytime soon.  The Xbox 360 continues to be my game console of choice because the online experience is better, and most of my friends also own Xbox 360s.  Lots of big games are also multiplatform these days, so it doesn’t make that big of a difference which system you own.  Unless you own a Wii, which means you’re boned as far as M-rated games are concerned.

I’ll probably end up dropping a c-note on a Blu-ray player, but as far as the PlayStation 3 is concerned, I’m done.  Yeah, DONE. That’s it.  Farewell.  Adios.  Sayonara.  Bueno, bye.  No more PS3 for me!

What’s that?  Sly Cooper 4? Well, nuts…just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!!

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CREATIVE, ORIGINAL-GAMER.COM, RANDOM REVIEW, TECH, Videogames, Writing

Reviewing Musings

Reviewing videogames‭ ‬sounds‭ ‬like a‭ ‬really cool thing to do:‭ ‬you get to play games before they are released,‭ ‬you get to keep them if they are downloadable games,‭ ‬and well,‭ getting to play ‬games‭ ‬without having to pay for them is nice, too.‭  ‬I’m not lucky enough to actually get‭ ‬paid to review games‭ (yet‭!) ‬but‭ writing and editing ‬for original-gamer.com gave‭ ‬me the opportunity to attend E3‭ ‬back in July.  Totally worth it.

So yeah, on paper, reviewing‭ ‬games‭ ‬sounds like loads of fun,‭ ‬but in practice,‭ ‬it loses a little bit of its luster.‭  ‬When I’m not playing awesome games like‭ ‬Rock Band‭ ‬3‭ ‬or Kirby’s Epic Yarn‭ ‬I’m struggling through crapfests like Power Gig or enduring kiddie games like EyePet.

Yeah.  EyePet.  That’s hardcore.

The most direct effect of reviewing games is that it has turned playing games into work (albeit volunteer work).  Its a mental thing: instead of playing games because I want to, I now play them because I have to.  It gets a little annoying at times when I have a stack of games I need to plow through or when I get asked to play games in genres I don’t particularly enjoy such as fighting or driving.  The most aggravating bit about the whole thing that it takes time away from games that I want to play, but you gotta do what you gotta do.

The first thing I do when I get assigned a new game to review is I write the review’s introduction.  I like to have it done before I even start playing, and in my opinion it should give the reader some context in regards to my relation to the game.  Is it something I have been looking forward to, or something I’ve never heard of?

When I play a game for review, I keep my laptop handy so that I can take notes while I’m playing it.  That way after I’m done playing the game I just have to flesh out the bullet points I have marked down.  I’m not sure if I should be admitting this, but I don’t always finish games I review.  Usually its because I don’t expect to see anything new after having played a game for so many hours.  Let’s be honest, after a certain point, few games really offer anything surprising in terms of gameplay.

One game that bit that strategy in the pants was Gladiator Begins. I played through about 30 days of the campaign, probably about seventy or eighty nearly-identical fights, figured there was nothing else in the game, and wrote my review.  I went back to the game and soon discovered that the levels did start to occasionally change up, and upon seeing the box in a store, I learned that there were even fights against animals.  D’oh.  It was either my fault for giving up on the game too early or the devs fault for taking too long to open up the game’s interesting parts. Probably a little bit of both, oh well.

Writing reviews is a balancing act.  On the one hand, I don’t want to look like a fanboy by gushing praise all over a good game, nor do I want to simply verbally vomit all over a bad one for the sake of being entertaining.  Great games have minor flaws that have to be explored, and bad games sometimes have good ideas that were not executed well.

Picking out a numerical score can also be a bit of a headache, because I want my score to reflect what I have written.  I still read reviews myself, and I get annoyed just like everyone else when the two don’t jive.  I go by what the site says on the “About” page, supposedly we work on the ‘bell curve’ model where the middle point is average.  Despite the occasional “10” handed out, nobody’s really perfect.

At the end of the day, though, the site editor is the guy that says what goes up on the site, and while I haven’t always agreed with Oscar, I think he’s doing a good job for the most part.  Working with him and the rest of the original-gamer.com crew has been lots of fun.

And now, back to EyePet…whee

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JUST SAYING, TECH, WORK

Had To Be Aggies…

From the TTI-TDS Department of Texas A&M University:

“Thank you for your interest in the Senior Web Applications Developer position within the TTI – TDS Department. The response to the posting included many qualified individuals with documented relevant education and experience.  After an extensive review, it was determined that another candidate would more closely satisfy our immediate need.”

Sheesh, and I thought I was wordy.

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JUST SAYING, TECH, WORK

Bye-Polar

“I would like to withdraw from being considered for a developer position and instead want to be considered for a support position.  Thank you.”

I sighed as I clicked the “Send” button.  The email was going to an HR person at a local company that I had interviewed with earlier that day. We had been talking about a programming job, and I made the mistake of griping about having worked in under less-than ideal conditions at my last few jobs.  After hearing that diatribe, she asked me if I would instead be interested in a support job.  I said “no” out of reflex, but I think it was more likely because I wanted the higher salary that the programming job would command.

I was deluding myself, though.  I’m done with programming as a career.  From a mental standpoint, it probably was over months ago, but I just didn’t want to admit it.  Instead I chose to hang in there in the hope that things would somehow get better, but they didn’t, and so here I am.

I have always wanted to work with computers, and programming seemed to be a logical career choice. As time went on I gradually grew disenfranchised with it, though.  It did not help that I have never worked in a place where things were done “right.”  Instead, proper procedure and best practices were sacrificed to what I like to call The Altar of the Almighty Deadline.

I was chatting online with a friend about the whole situation shortly after the interview and during the conversation I had an interesting epiphany.  I started to wonder if my disinterest in programming as a job was related to my newfound interest in creative endeavors.  After all, I only really dove into creative things like writing, blogging and podcasting just over a year and a half ago.

I’m too lazy to look back through old blog entries and see if the two match up, but it raises an interesting question: am I starting to become more right-brained?  If so, does it have something to do with my desire to get away from programming?  The fact that I have also thrown my hat into the ring for technical writer jobs is also a telling sign.

Maybe I’m tired of being isolated all day at work and want to do something that involves contact with people, even if it is just over the phone or e-mail.  I worked with some great folks at my last tech support job, and heck, if the company had not hit a rough patch and started laying off, I might still be there today.  Or maybe its something more basic than that.  Maybe I just want to be as happy at work as I am outside of it.

Whatever the reason, I’m look forward to embracing a different side of the IT field, and some opportunities are starting to open up, so we shall see!

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RANDOM REVIEW, TECH, Videogames

RANDOM REVIEW: Band Hero

Gamers often complain about ‘those bastards that buy Madden every year.’  Well, I have to confess, I am one of those bastards, but instead of Madden, music games are my sweet, sweet digital crack.

Of the thirty-eight boxed Xbox 360 games gracing my living room, nine of them start with “Guitar Hero.”  If we add five Rock Band games (no Green Day for me, thank you) two Karaoke Revolution games, and DJ Hero, that brings the total of music-based games in my Xbox 360 library to seventeen.

As I’ve written before, music and videogames are the two great tastes that taste great together.  So yeah, when it comes to music games, I am “that guy.”

I was mildly interested in Band Hero when it was initially announced as a “family friendly” version of Guitar Hero, something for parents that weren’t interested in introducing their younglings to the musical stylings of Slayer or Nirvana.  While some of the songs on the Band Hero setlist looked like they would be fun to play, there wasn’t enough Good Stuff to justify dropping sixty bucks on the game.  I figured I’d wait for the inevitable price drop.  Fast-forward about a year later and I find that my Friendly Neighborhood Electronics Store has marked it down all the way to $17.99, so I figured, why not?

Band Hero isn’t quite what it says on the box.  It isn’t just “family friendly Guitar Hero.”  Don’t get me wrong, it is family friendly, but that phrase only tells part of the story.

Band Hero is Guitar Hero for girls.

Band Hero Interface

Its so sparkly!!

Seriously, there is no better way to put it.  Take Guitar Hero 5, coat it in pastel colors, dip it in glitter, drop several scoops of pop music on top and you get Band Hero.  There isn’t anything inherently wrong with making a music game for the younger crowd, though.  After all, their competitors at Harmonix made Lego Rock Band so that kids can have some fake plastic rock fun, too.  But for Pete’s sake, the interface looks like it was designed by Lisa Frank. I haven’t seen that much purple since the 80’s.

Also, Lego Rock Band, at least has some, well, rock with Lego versions of Queen, David Bowie, and Iggy Pop as well as music from those iconic performers.  Band Hero has Taylor Swift, Adam Levine and No Doubt.  Yeeeah.  I’m sorry, but except for maybe No Doubt, those guys don’t exactly bring the house down.  Even then, there are some pretty cool classics we haven’t seen in any of these games before like “Mr. Roboto” by Styx, “Black Cat” from Janet Jackson and Marvin Gaye’s “I Heard It Through the Grapevine.”

One feature that I found odd was the ability to perform as your Avatar in the game.  The Avatars look just

Xbox Avatar in Band Hero

SECURITY! There's a Muppet on stage!

plain weird on stage next to the other characters, like Muppets.  Otherwise, it’s Guitar Hero 5, which was pretty good from a technical standpoint but had awful music.  I actually had more fun playing this game than Guitar Hero 5, which says something about how lousy 5’s songs were.

Your decision to purchase the game (or really any music game, for that matter) will depend on how many of its songs you like.  A quick dash to Wikipedia will determine whether Band Hero is worth it to you.

If you have kids, or just really like pop music, there are worse games than Band Hero to drop a twenty on.  Underneath the sparkly presentation is a pretty good game.  Now if you’ll pardon me, I need to play some Gears of War in a feeble attempt to salvage what masculinity I have left.

Rock Band for the Xbox 360 gets a 3 out of 5: G00d

I grade on a 1 to 5 scale.  My “review philosophy” can be found here.

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JUST SAYING, TECH, Videogames

The Meaning of Game

I recently participated in the Extra Life fundraiser alongside the staff of original-gamer.com A few days left before the event, everyone was busy posting in various social networks around the Internets in an attempt to raise more funds for hospitals in the Children’s Miracle Network.

One friend’s plea for donations added the statement: “Make gaming mean something!” I paused for a moment after reading that.  To me, it insinuated that playing videogames otherwise had no meaning, and I wasn’t sure that I agreed with that sentiment.  While I am aware that those words were chosen to make a point about doing something for a worthy cause, it made me think just the same.

According to some people, playing videogames is an activity that serves no purpose except for burning time.  I’m fairly certain we’ve all heard it from parents, relatives and significant others: they’re a waste of time, they’re rotting your brain, they’re burning your eyes out, why don’t you shut that thing off already, and so on and so forth.

The question then becomes: Why do we play video games?

One reason I play videogames is that they challenge my mind.  From Tetris’ never-ending rain of shapes to the hidden pictures of Picross, puzzle games have always had a place in my game library.  Outside of the realm of puzzle games, action-oriented games occasionally pause the action with an occasional brain teaser and many action-adventure games incorporate problem-solving into their gameplay.  As an example, the Legend of Zelda series features dungeons that challenge a player’s mind in addition to their reflexes, often requiring the player to figure out how to use the tools they have available to reach new areas.  The Ratchet and Clank series has the lead character solving puzzles in order to unlock doors.

Secondly, playing a videogame that intertwines its story with its gameplay makes me feel as if I am a part of the story as opposed to just passively watching one.  This isn’t easy to accomplish by any stretch of the imagination, but when it is done well, a player can feel more emotionally attached to the characters and to the story as a whole.  Gears of War occasionally forced the players to walk so that the characters could interact with each other without interrupting the gameplay to show a movie clip.  Final Fantasy VII went as far as to permanently kill a player’s character partway through the game, which added a significant in-game consequence to the actions that took place in the story.

Finally, videogames are fun to play.  I play video games to have fun whether it is by myself or with friends.  Early video game advertisements featured pictures of happy families sitting around enjoying games instead of watching television.  That ideal lives on in the family-friendly multiplayer games of Nintendo.  Rock Band can also provide hours of  enjoyment for a group of friends.

Many other games play to compete, those that relish the near-endless competition that is found online are catered to by Sony and Microsoft.  Across the country, video game tournaments large and small are held and there are even professional gamers (such as  this one) who make a living playing games.

One can also learn from video games, and indeed, one of the current trends in workplace training is to use simple games to teach repetitive tasks to employees.  On a more personal note, playing Pikmin taught me a lesson that I’m not sure I wanted to learn about war, of all things.  More on that later.

Video games are not meaningless, and the act of playing them is hardly a passive activity.  Just like any other form of art, a videogame can mean different things to different people.  As long as videogames continue to provide compelling experiences that cannot be reproduced in other media, we will keep playing for whatever reason they mean to us.

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BUSINESS, CONS, RANDOM REVIEW, TECH

RANDOM REVIEW: Sprint Overdrive / Clear Spot 4G+

Overdrive next to a deck of playing cards

Well, as 'standard' a deck as I could find anyway...

UPDATE: My Overdrive bit the dust almost a year after this review was written, read the update here.

Smartphones may be smart and all, but in my opinion there is no substitute for having an actual computer when I need to do things on the Web.  In addition to being a huge nerd, I have two websites to take care of (www.firststormmanga.com and this one) and so a smartphone doesn’t always cut it.  I like to have a full-sized keyboard and screen for when things need to Get Done.

Back when I was with T-Mobile, I used the built-in tethering that came included on my T-Mobile Dash, which ran Windows Mobile.  I thought it was odd that it wasn’t disabled, but once I started to use it, I found out why.  Tethering on 2G was dirt slow. It did work, though, and I could check my e-mail and do some very light browsing even while in the technological black hole that is my hometown of Odem, Texas.

I eventually ended up bidding T-Mobile and Windows Mobile a not-so-fond farewell and signed on with Sprint, getting a spiffy new Samsung Moment in the process.  I found an app to tether with, but it was limited and I wanted a less hacker-y solution.  A few months later, I looked into what Sprint had to offer and had two options: I could get a USB stick for my laptop for free or an Overdrive 3G/4G Mobile Hotspot for fifty dollars, both coming with the usual 2-year contract yadda yadda.  FYI, Clear Wireless also sells this device as the Clear Spot 4G+ but its ‘official’ name is the Sierra Wireless AirCard W801.

I went with the Overdrive because I was starting to go to conventions, and my experience with hotel Wi-Fi up to that point was that it was either: slow because of all the convention attendees, not there at all, or really expensive.  Fifty dollars didn’t seem like too high a price to pay for the convenience of having WiFi and the attached data plan was going to cost the same either way.  I thought it would be handy to have a connection that I could share when on the road.

The Overdrive isn’t too big, it is just a little bit wider than a standard deck of playing cards (see pic above).  There isn’t much to it: on its top are a display and the power button.  The front has a micro-USB charge port and a micro-SD card reader.  The back has a switch for enabling or muting the sound, and that’s it.  I was also hoping for a little blinking red light on top, but oh well.

Holding down the power button for a few seconds starts up the Overdrive.  After taking about a minute to boot, it attempts to connect to a network.  If I may digress for a moment: I have griped about boot times in portable devices in the past, but I’m just going to have to let it slide from here on out, because nearly every portable device short of a Nintendo DS is going to take some time to boot.  Its just something I’m going to have to live with from here on out.  Oh well.

Once it has connected to a network, the Overdrive’s display will show its SSID and WiFi password.  Once you connect to it using a computer and type ‘overdrive’ into a browser you will be taken to the device’s setup page.  There you can specify an admin password, select a WiFi security type and change the Overdrive’s SSID and password to something more memorable.  Once you have that done you are ready to go, the Overdrive’s ID and password is displayed on its screen and up to five Wi-Fi devices can be connected to it at a time.

Speedtest.net results

Broadband on the road, baby!

The Overdrive’s 4G connection works great. I have seen it go as high as six megabits/sec with a good signal, the results at right were with a 60% signal according to the Overdrive’s setup page.  While that is peanuts compared to a cable connection, for a portable connection it is great.  The Overdrive has the ability to fallback to a 3G connection if 4G is not available.  It does get a little squirrely on occasion, but not any more so than any other wireless device I’ve owned.

I have had my Overdrive for about six months so far, and I have been very happy with it.  I do have one complaint that I will address in a few paragraphs, though.  As Odem does not have 4G right now (and to be frank, I’m not holding my breath) the Overdrive’s ability to use 3G is a life-saver when visiting my parents.  I have used it at a few Texas conventions and for a few days in Los Angeles, and it has exceeded my expectations.

You can leave the Overdrive’s settings as is or use the admin password to adjust its settings.  Among other things, you can choose to not display the WiFi password on the screen, or even set the WiFi to auto-disable when it is plugged into your computer’s USB port if you don’t feel like sharing.  The Overdrive’s webpage also shows the actual signal strength as a percentage, which comes in handy when I am looking for a ‘sweet spot’ to place it.

As with many wireless devices, the fly in the Overdrive’s ointment is its battery life.  At about three hours, it isn’t terrible, but it is short enough that it will run out of power before most laptops.  It can be charged via a computer using the included USB cable, but I highly recommend packing the charger in your laptop bag.

On a technical level, the Overdrive works great: you push the button, it connects to the cellular network, and then you and up to four friends can have Internet just about anywhere you go.  While the battery life could be better, it isn’t bad enough to be a deal-breaker, but it is something to be aware of.  Another negative is that the service does not come cheap.  Clear and Sprint are currently charging about sixty dollars a month for the service which consists of unlimited 4G and 5GB of 3G data.  If you don’t mind paying for the convenience, though, you might never find yourself “off the grid” again thanks to the Overdrive!

NOTE: The author received no compensation for this review.

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CREATIVE, ORIGINAL-GAMER.COM, TECH, Videogames, WORDS

Why So Serious? WHY NOT?

I’ve been writing opinion pieces, game reviews and doing voice-overs for Original-Gamer.com (and occasionally here) for a few months now, and for what its worth, I always try to play it straight.  Well, except the voice-over stuff, unless its something I wrote myself, I don’t have much of a choice there. -shrug-

I play it straight because I don’t believe in pandering to the least common denominator.  If gaming is an artform that is just now ‘growing up,’ as some claim, then the people that report on it are probably just a few steps behind.  As I said at the end of my second article, The Numbers Game: “if we want others to take games seriously, we must take them seriously ourselves.”

But why aren’t videogames taken seriously?  Is it because of their relative youth compared to other artforms such as television and film, or is it because of the immaturity of those that cover it?  Granted, this is the internet, but there are very few places where videogames are covered without a wink and a snarky attitude. What the gaming press needs is the equivalent of The Wall Street Journal or Variety, but what we’re getting is Mad Magazine.

Now, I openly admit, I don’t practice what I preach: I crack jokes in my reviews and perhaps I shouldn’t ‘write myself’ into them.  The latter, I do because think it is important for the reader to get a sense of where I am coming from.  For better or worse, my score will be influenced by whether the game was something I was REALLY REALLY REALLY looking forward to or was just something that got tossed into my lap.  I think it also helps the reader if they are made aware of my biases for or against the game coming in.

Am I impartial? Admittedly not, but let’s be honest, nobody truly is.

In any event, while I am pointing out the problem, I don’t really have a solution.  The best that I can hope for is that the ‘serious guys’ get popular enough to, well, be taken seriously.  Now, does everybody have to take gaming seriously? Not really, there will always be a place for the snarks and clowns, and if worse comes to worse I can always go back to joking about how much I suck at fighting games.

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CONS, E3, TECH, Videogames

PRE-3

I’m at the airport with just an hour until my flight leaves and I am starting to get really excited.  I understand some of the boys had a few hiccups getting to LA but its all good now.  I look at the “golden ticket” inside my laptop bag and smile.  As I go to a news website to see what’s happening in the world, an eyebrow raises as I read about a 5.7 quake near the California-Mexico border.

“This ain’t gonna be Texas.” I think to myself.  This is only the second time I will be in California, the first being a forgettable trip back in college to a conference I really could have gone the rest of my life without attending.  I think the amount of suck involved makes it more of a “symposium.”  Any way you slice it, it was a waste of a weekend and I also didn’t get to see much outside of the hotel.

It wasn’t for lack of trying, though, I remember the Saturday night when we all hopped into a cab to go somewhere.  Upon asking the driver what was in the area, he told us that The House of Blues was nearby. I was excited, I have never been to The House of Blues and it sounded new and exciting.  If nothing else, live music is always a treat.  Sadly, it was not to be, the jackasses I was with wanted to go to a crappy club that was just like every other crappy club I’ve ever been to in my life.  I don’t know, maybe I was supposed to be excited and be all “Oh my gosh, we went to a crappy club but its a crappy club IN LOS ANGELES!”

Whoop-dee-freaking-doo…okay, maybe I’m just a little bitter.

Luckily, I have more in common with the crowd I will be hanging around with this time.  That is to say, we’re all a bunch of socially awkward weirdos.  Actually that probably isn’t completely true, I think we have one or two “cool kids” in the group, you know, balance of the universe and all that.

The thought of occupying the same place with over forty-thousand other socially awkward weirdos is a pleasant one, though, and I can’t wait to get there.

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