Well after about a week of waiting for Amazon.com to proceure this for me it finally showed up today and was waiting for me when I got home from work. What is it you might ask? It is quite possibly the best $9.99 you'll spend if you don't like the lower triggers on the PS3 controller.




They are 2 little plastic pieces that attach, quite well I might add, to the L2 and R2 buttons. They are made by a company called Messiah Entertainment, the site I'll list at the end of this blog for those interested. The small L shape of the attachments make it much easier to use those bottom 2 triggers.




I was a little apprehensive when I ordered it not really knowing how they would attach, I was thinking tape or something, but they snap on very well, and haven't seemed like they are going to come off. I've been playing GTA4 for about an hour now, and using the triggers for driving wasn't my favorite thing to do, but now its much much easier. I haven't got to try them with any other game yet, but if this trial run was any hint it seems like they will never come off my dual shock 3. As a bonus, and to justify spending $9.99 for a dollars worth of plastic, they included a metal piece that slips over the top of the controller.



It doesn't do anything really but add a little flare to your controller. It makes the start, select, and PS button recessed, but they are still accessible and take a little getting used to.

Overall I think its definatly worth the money if you don't like the lower triggers on the PS3's controller. Also I'd like to thank Brainderailment for originally posting the website picture of these that got me interested.

http://www.playmessiah.com/products/ps3/hardwear-controller-armor.htm

http://www.amazon.com/Playstation-3-Hardwear-Controller-Armor/dp/B0013YNL6M/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1212541720&sr=1-3

I'm not sure if this has been posted here recently, I did a search and didn't see it so here it is.

I stumbled on this article a few days ago while browsing the web to pass the time at work. After reading Yojimbo's rant on the recent Grand Theft Auto 4 problems it made me think of this.

http://www.cracked.com/article_16196_7-commandments-all-video-games-should-obey.html

Its from cracked.com, a site which has some good satire articles, but I think this one really hit the nail on the head with some of the recent issues in the video game industry that are running wild currently. The short list is below, BUT YOU REALLY NEED TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE OVER THERE, as their explanations are spot on.

#7.Thou shalt let us play your game with real-life friends.
#6.Thou shalt not pad the length of your games.
#5.Thou shalt not force repetition on the player.
#4.Thou shalt make killing fun.
#3.Thou shalt admit when enough is enough.
#2.Thou shalt make sure your game actually works.
#1.Better graphics do not equal innovation and/or creativity.

(Now for my take and partial rant.)

A number of these have been covererd in a cblog or two before I'm sure, but I thought this list was very good and their thoughts echo what we have been asking for. Number 1 and 2, especially 2, has been a major focus recently. Remember back when games didn't have online functionality? When you couldn't patch your shit. You had to fucking make sure your game worked. You couldn't release a patch to fix it, it was broken, and would stay that way. If you give a company the option to rush a title out to make money faster and be able to fix any issues later with a patch they might do just that, and thats some shit if you ask me. When someone in my store sells a product to a customer and it doesn't work properly you had better believe the customer will be back fast as hell to find out what is going on, and will usually be very upset.

Don't give me the "oh its harder to program for systems now than it was back then" line, I'm sure it is. But is that excuse acceptable? Hell no. Just because something is hard DOESN'T MEAN ITS NOT WORTH DOING, AND DOING RIGHT. I know developers and programmers work hard and have great love for their games and for most of them it shows. But if little things like this keep poping up for years to come it will leave people very upset. If something is worth doing, its worth doing right, period.

Not my list, it came from gamedaily.com. I came across it during my usual internet browsing today. I'm not sure if its been posted before, I did a search and didn't see it. If it has, whatever. The list is as follows for those of you who don't want to click the link below, but if you do I promise there is a hot girl pic with #2 on the list so its not all bad.

http://www.gamedaily.com/articles/galleries/the-bucket-list-25-things-every-game-player-should-experience-before-they-die/

1. Beat Portal
2. Buy a dedicated MAME cabinet -- or build your own
3. Get into a press conference
4. Visit an arcade in Japan
5. Dress up like a video game character and walk around in public
6. Play a game for more than 24-hours
7. Take a sick day for a game release
8. Play as a female character in an online game and flirt relentlessly
9. Work on your own dedicated video game blog or site
10. Import a game
11. Test out the Rez Trans-vibrator on yourself
12. Try and ask out a girl using a video game pick-up line
13. Perform something cool in Super Mario Bros
14. Unlock the super-hard Tofu Survivor game
15. Spend more than $100 on a video game item/system on Ebay
16. Rent a game just to get Achievement Points
17. Create your own level in a video game
18. Become an expert at Guitar Hero or Rock Band
19. Destroy an accessory or a game console
20. Wait in line for a video game or hardware release
21. Score some form of headshot in a first-person shooter
22. Miss human activities just to finish a video game
23. Perform some near-impossible superhuman feat in a game
24. Defeat a professional gamer with a super-simple technique
25. Beat the Halo trilogy and then play it online at least once

So of this list I have done numbers, 1, 7, 10, 13, 17, 18, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24.

Some of them I'm not that hip to like dressing up as a video game character, again not my thing but if you ladies like to dress up as one I'm all for it.

I would love to buy or make my own arcade cabinet, and to visit an arcade in Japan.

Any others you think should get added? I'd add have sex while playing a video game, goes against the stigma that gamers don't get laid that much, but that is next on my list for sure.

Ok so I was reading Samit's article on sports commentary and an idea came up that I thought of one day when I was talking to my boss.

We were sitting around one day talking about games like we normally do. He brought up how much he disliked the radio commentators that were in Madden 08. Not having played a Madden game in years I took his word for it, and reading what other people had to say about the comentating, or lack there of, it looks like he was right. So we were tossing around ideas and I thought of the following.

A lot of cities have an AM radio station broadcast of the games, and usually the announcer, at least here in Chicago, does a stellar job broadcasting the game with knowledge, verve, and emotion. ESPN uses these sometimes in a highlight clip reel on sportscenter. You know those guys that sound like they are ready to fall off their chairs announcing a great play. A lot of times I watch the game with the sound off and the radio on because Joe Buck is a fucking robot with no passion. And I know they can't be emotional because the have to seem non biased on a national broadcast, but I say FUCK THAT. I'd rather listen to someone who is as excited to see my team do well as I am.

From what I remember the announcers for the game read from a script and add their own voice talent/inflection to it. What if as a probably paid for DLC you could download that same or modified script from your favorite local radio commentator and have that woven into the game? The only problem is sometimes your favorite team might not be tied to the announcer you liked. So there are downsides, and yea I know the scope seems to big, but damn I think it would be a cool idea. It would add that "immersion" word, that is thrown around a lot in the games industry, to a title that really hasn't felt innovative in years.

What do you all think?

So yesterday I had the day off and decided to do some game room cleaning. After getting the dust bunnies off the bottom shelves, removing the bottles of whiskey, and getting the room to not smell like feet, sex, and liquor I decided to take a few pics and share them. Its nothing spectacular but it calms me down after dealing with the everyday morons. The pictures were taken with my Iphone, they are not gigapixel quality, but don't look that bad either. My digital camera took a shit a few months back and I'm too lazy/drunk to go get another one.



TV is a 43" Sony LCD Projection, 1080i. The progressives were a little to pricey for my taste when I bought this one which was about 2 years ago. I had 1 of the light sources replaced already, didn't cost me anything per Best Buy's 4 year protection plan that I got cheap when I still worked there. And yes that is a VCR on the shelf as well. I don't watch TV that much and don't need a DVR at the moment, and I haven't used the VCR in so long I'm not sure if it still works, but the clock does anyway. The PS3 is hooked up through HDMI, and looks great with Blu-Ray and the games too. Of course Uncharted is up in the pic there. The Wii does get used just not as much as when I first got it.



That would be my DVD rack overflowing with movies. I have more than what is there, and I think that rack holds over 150. I'm working on getting those more organized in a larger rack, when I get one, in another room, but that is for another day.



My PC setup. Blue case is my main PC. Intel 3ghz P4 HT, 2 gigs of ram, 512mb AGP ATI card, 250gb HD, and an 18" LCD. Other PC is an AMD 64, 1.5 gigs of ram, 256mb AGP ATI card, 200gb HD, hooked up to an older 17" CRT that I mostly use for music downloading and the like. I'm not a big PC gamer like I used to be. I've got copies of Bioshock and Orange Box for it of course, but after I stopped playing WOW in November I rarely game on it that much, my PS3 gets the majority of my gaming time now.

I know what you're thinking. What the hell?

Link below to a G4 vid so you know I'm not talking out of my ass.

I know I thought that a blue ray disc had more than enough storage space for developers. But according to Kojima in a recent Japanese blog interview he said that there isn't enough space on 1 disc to fit everything he wants, and he talks to his team about what to cut or what to compress. Here I thought news like this would be further in the future. A blue ray has what an 50gig capacity. I'm curious and excited as to what is going on over there that one would need dare I say 2 blue ray discs to hold Kojima's newest masterpiece.

Maybe this is premature, but would a multiple disc MGS4 tarnish the image of the blue rays? I for one could care less, but it was always touted as the superior video format, by Sony of course, for one reason because of its superior storage capacity. And now a game is coming out on the format that can't hold it all?

Is it posturing by Kojima to generate buzz and get people more atwitter for the game more than some already are? Or has his crazy mind gone off the deep end more than normal?

http://www.g4tv.com/xplay/videos/20572/XPlay_Gaming_Update_030308.html