Little Big Awesome Planet

Okay so its Little Big Planet, but its pretty awesome, actually. A 3D sorta 2D platformer puzzle game with layered depth and online scores and collaboration and gestures.

Yes, gestures. Playing a game and being able to make your character dance or give thumbs up or stick his tongue out is remarkably entertaining on its own. Even more so when playing in a group with friends online.

Now, I've got a little more LBP experience than many people these first few days after its launch since I was in on the beta and got to play it with friends and family then too. My daughter is only 6 and loved it, especially playing community levels and then assigning words to describe them.

The community aspect of the game is very well done, and this is most apparent by how upset everyone was the last day or so with the servers not connecting well -- it really affects things being able to play together and share levels.

Yes, you can create your own levels, with logic and puzzles and stories and characters and movement and vehicles and and and ... its very complex and huge and entertaining if you're the creative type.

Speaking of playing online though, in case anyone else ran into this problem, I had to port forward UDP port 56759 on my router to my PS3 to invite friends into my session. It would appear LBP doesn't make use of UPnP port forwarding functionality, which is somewhat disappointing.

Criterion treats you right

Criterion Games loves their users, its obvious. Not only have they committed to "a year of Burnout", a year of updates and free additional features to their beautiful Burnout Paradise, but they keep improving the game's quality and distribution as well.

On the PS3 they've added proper 1080i support, using the processor to render the game at 720p and 1080i (and also added better 480p support for those pre-HD people). On both the PS3 and 360 they've added additional online content, and rules updates and a new news and calendar system. They're soon releasing their next major content update featuring bikes (motorcycles, not cyclists) and they're working on a new island full of additional content too, all for free.

As if all this weren't enough, and in case they weren't selling enough copies already, they've now announced on the official Playstation blog that they'll be releasing the full game as a download from the PSN store for just under $30 so you won't need a disc copy at all.

No, I don't know how big the download will be (although since the full game also ships for the 360 on DVD, it must be under 9GiB, not including updates). Yes, it is very clear for those who haven't played the game yet that the content on the disc version and the download version will be the same, that updates are available to both and that the motorcyle pack and coming trophy update are not for the download version only, so don't worry.

The question is, can I find someone to buy my disc copy for $30 so I can purchase the downloadable one and not need to put the disc in each time I want to play. I already play Warhawk this way, and I love my other downloaded games like Super Stardust HD for this too. I must say though, even though I upgraded my PS3 hard disk to a 120GiB 7200RPM model, its almost full again. Time to upgrade again.

Sometimes users are fun

Anyone who works in technical support is familiar with some of the incredibly funny situations that can arise on the phone when dealing with customers. I was recently shown an entire website of computer stupidities, many of which made me laugh out loud, for real. Take a look, unless you've called tech support because you don't understand your computer, in which case you may find yourself on the list.

• Customer: "I lost some of my files. I archived them, but when I went to retrieve them, they were gone!"
• Tech Support: "What program did you use to archive your files?"
• Customer: "I used DOS -- but now I can't find them!"
• Tech Support: "Ok, what program are you using to do this?"
• Customer: "I used 'undelete', but they aren't there."
• Tech Support: "Uh...what command did you use to archive your files?"
• Customer: "I used 'del' and the filename."

It turned out that the guy had been deleting files, which would free up disk space (he liked that), and when he wanted a file again, he would undelete it. Apparently he actually got away with this for a while, until he discovered 'defrag', which overwrote his deleted files.

If you have your own stories, make sure to share.

Home, its real, honest

There's no secret to the fact that I enjoy my Playstation 3 immensely, but the long drawn out saga that has been Sony's new Home feature is almost embarrassing at this point. Announced well over a year ago, Sony promised an open Beta by last summer and that never materialized. A website purporting to have instructions 'soon' about how to enter the beta process is now very stale. Some users who got into the closed beta have been leaking information about the state of Home as it goes along, but Sony has been very tight-lipped about it.

Well now it seems there's a new way to get into the beta testing, if you're wanting to do that. Simply download the new PS Home theme from the Playstation Store tonight and you'll be entered automatically. I'm sure quite a few people will jump at that opportunity, despite not knowing the size of this lottery nor how many will make it. I know I will.

Elefunk is pretty cool

It was only five dollars. It also looked cool, but for $5 how can you go wrong? I'm slightly disappointed it didn't come with trophy support, and like several other PSN games, it could use some help with its leader board display (take some hints from Super Stardust and Super Rub a Dub people), but its pretty fun.

Sorry, let me back up a moment, we're talking Elefunk. Its a cute new physics / engineering puzzle game featuring elephants trying to cross bridges that badly need some support upgrades. You add trusses, supports, ropes, wires, spans, etc. in an attempt to make them withstand the weight of the elephants (and other critters) as they cross. You're also trying to beat the clock and use as few pieces as possible if you want a high score.

The game plays quite well. Its not as complex as a bridge building simulator I once tried for kicks, but it appears to have some decent physics as they're implemented for the game. Note, as the game points out, that only joints can break -- pieces in between joints simply detach from said joints. Also, joints are always mobile; you can't make a nice solid beam 20 units wide, its like you've strung them together with putty instead of a good weld, but once you get the hang of it, its quite entertaining.

Have I beaten it yet? Nope. Got through the first few levels (up to one called something like "this is going to be tricky") before deciding to quit for the evening. I'll definitely go back and try levels over to do them faster or more efficiently, although it would be nice to see the stress on your joints in some type of colour coding before they break, to judge how close you got to failure. Also, trophies. Small puzzle games should all feature trophies.

The verdict? Definitely worth $5. Needs in-game music. Needs trophies. Very replayable. Could use higher resolution graphics -- somewhat blurry to me, not as sharp as Super Stardust for example. Music is so so, but crisp and fairly well recorded.

Sony E3 PSP video announcement

So it would seem that Sony has just announced their new downloadable video content for the store is to be available tonight, and transferable to the PSP. Its not quite my wishlist item, but its very cool nonetheless. From their live casting of the presentation:

• 12.23 - Jack talks about the new video download service. On Day 1 - Sony Pictures, Fox, MGM, Lions Gate, Warner Brothers, Disney, and more will have content available. A huge differentiator - you can take movies and tv on the go via PSP.
• 12.25 - Eric Lempel takes the stage (you remember him, right), to show a live demo of the video download service - it’s part of the existing PLAYSTATION Store - there’s a new video tab. Each studio has a page. Eric shows how to buy, rent, or preview a movie.
• 12.29 - “How long will it take to download an SD movie?” The answer is about an hour for a 2 hour movie. However, with progressive downloading, you can begin watching your video almost instantaneously.
• 12.30 - Eric demonstrates how to copy movies to the PSP. You can do this either through a PS3, or through the PC Store. BTW, this video download service will be available TONIGHT (applause). We’ll be adding new titles each week.

You have to admit that's pretty cool. Its not exactly Netflix on the 360, but its a good start, and we'll see how it goes. Having PSP integration for watching movies on the go is awesome though.

PSP wishlist

I'm the happy owner of a red Kratos PSP, which I got for Father's day (and half for my birthday). I've been enjoying it quite a bit, playing the included God of War game, ignoring the bundled Super Bad movie on UMD, and trying to wrestle it back from my wife as she works her way through Patapon. I have been playing with Remote Play and picture viewing and loving the screen for showing off photos and home videos.

I have, however, come up with some features that I would love to see addressed in the future, and hopefully they will be implemented some day:

• Saving of music/videos/pictures viewed via remote play to the connected PSP.
• Optional resizing and transcoding of video/music/photos to the screen resolution of the PSP. The PS3 should be able to easily transcode video it supports into video the PSP can play and transmit the result.
• Full-time wifi scanner that constantly updates the wifi visibility list until it is stopped instead of timing out and requiring a re-scan.
• Bluetooth support for two-way headsets as well as headphones and file transfers with cell phones, mini keyboards, etc.
• The RSS features from the PSP implemented on the PS3.
• Downloadable day planner and IMAP E-mail applications. VNC viewer if you really want to make me happy.

There it is, if you have any suggestions, feel free to add them as comments below.