Remote Fantasies

It's not exactly a secret that the PSP has struggled a little since launch, in the face of some stiff competition from the DS. It's lacked killer games and has seemed a little unsure exactly what it's for. Is it just a games machine or a full portable multimedia device? I've held off buying one until last week, and the thing that finally pushed me over the edge was the release of Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core. Being something off an FF nut, it was the final little bit of temptation needed.

First impressions of the machine are very good. It looks good and feels nice. UMD is a bit strange, and it currently lacks internal storage (will be remedied when my 8Gb memory stick arrives in the mail) but overall it's a nice little machine. Even K liked it. It's certainly no iPhone (or iPod Touch even) but it is a nice little bit of kit.

But one thing on it has really, really impressed me because it's really, really cool. It has a feature called Remote Play that lets you link via wi-fi to your PS3. You can then use the PSP to remotely control the PSP. You even see what you'd normally see on the TV screen on the PSP's screen. But the really cool thing is that you can play PS1 games on the PSP over wi-fi. They can be either ones that have been downloaded from the PS store onto the PS3's hard drive or even ones that are actual PS1 games inserted in the PS3's drive.

I tested this today. I stuck the original FFVII in the machine and turned it off. I then got the PSP and used it to remotely turn on the PS3, and then selected the game. I was then able to play FFVII directly on the PSP! It was amazing. I think I'll be able to use this as an excuse to play through the game again! All the streaming video works fine. The game works fine. It's all magic!

And the most amazing part (untested) is that you can also do exactly the same thing over the actual internet!

I haven't worked out a way to change discs over the internet yet though.

Rock Band - The Verdict

I've had quite a lot of play on Rock Band now. It's great. But first the downsides. I'm playing an import PS3 version so I'm not sure what the situation is with downloadable content. At the moment I can connect to the internet and see songs to buy but I can't actually download them. I don't know whether this is because I'm connecting to the American store or because I'm connecting to the UK store but it's not properly enabled yet, due to the game not being out until the Autumn. Either way, it's not the end of the world.

More annoyingly there is the known problem about the incompatibility of the PS3 GH3 controller with Rock Band. Maybe there'll be a patch at some point or maybe there won't. In the meantime I've ordered an adaptor which should make the old PS2 guitars work. Better than nothing if it works.

So onto the game. The guitar element is pretty much the same as Guitar Hero. So it's all about the drums and the singing. Singing is fun enough but nothing new for Singstar Veterans like myself. Something is gained by having it at the same time as someone playing an instrument but it feels more like an add-on than a vital component of the game.

Drums are a different kettle of fish. The drum-kit is well made and has actual real wooden drumsticks. Playing it feels like playing real drums, because you essentially are playing real drums. The difficulty level on it seems a lot higher than the other instruments but this is likely just because it's new. It might look on screen like it works the same way as the guitar but playing it is much more about rhythm patterns. At times it's like trying to pat your head whilst rubbing your tummy. But when it clicks it's good fun.

Where the game really seems like it will excel is multi-player. So far I've not been able to play with more than two people but I think with four it will be fantastic. As long as we can all fit in the room!

Final great thing to mention is the character building. We've made a couple of little people who look just like us... here's a pic:

Endless Console Updates

One of the more annoying things with the current generation of consoles is that they all think they're PCs and hence constantly try to update themselves with new system software of the internet. At least most of it is actually adding stuff rather than just correcting security flaws (that's what they tell us, anyway).

Last night I spent the best part of two hours updating the Wii, the PS3 and the 360. Partly this was my fault for not having played on any of them for a while, due to mainly (still) playing old PS1 Final Fantasy games on the PS2. And some of the rest was because I couldn't work out all the cabling to make the 360 work (you have to turn off the DVD player).

It makes me pine for me old Speccy. It was all fields then.

Final Fantasy Trauma III

I'm quite annoyed. My Final Fantasy VIII trauma is continuing.

The PS2/PS3 memory card adaptor thing arrived today. To cut a long story short, it didn't seem to work well and I've also ended up wiping all my old PS2 save games off the memory card. Inc both my Guitar Hero saves. And even worse, after fiddling a bit longer I now seem to have irreparably corrupted the PS2 memory card.

Luckily I had a couple of old PS1 memory cards knocking around which mean I can now move to plan D: start the whole bloody game again on the PS2. Not ideal. But hopefully it won't take me quite as long to play through the second time since I should have a much better idea what I'm doing. Grrrrrr.

It's kinda funny though. And tragic. But funny.

I will finish this game!

Playstation 3: Why?

I accidentally bought a PS3 this afternoon. I hadn't really meant to, but when I found that pretty much nowhere had actually sold out I thought I'd grab one. First impressions:

1. It's big, but much prettier than the original PS2.
2. It's shiny!
3. There aren't really any games worth playing on it at the moment.
4. Backwards compatability works ok, but you can't use old PS2 memory cards without a special adaptor. FFXII and FFVII work fine, Singstar works but I haven't checked whether you can plug in the mikes, Guitar Hero doesn't work.
5. The online store seems much faster to access than the Wii one. There's a nice Lemmings game to download. I couldn't be arsed to play more than the first level though.
6. Blu-ray: It has this, but I don't really see the point of it at the moment.
7. Wireless. The Xbox 360 is so crap in the way you have to spend an extra 60 quid to get the wireless adaptor. Like the Wii, PS3 has it built in from the start.
8. There's a door that opens on the front with some slots behind it. I don't know what they're for.
9. I wonder if it plays normal DVDs?
10. It really is very shiny. I think that's actually the best thing about it.

Actually the best thing is Step 4 in the Getting Started guide: "Connect the wireless controller to the system using a USB cable".