LANCOZA Blog

It looks like Tycho from Penny Arcade was right when he said that the PC-gamer demographic is not the core segment of the video game market. The latest news from Infinity Ward is that the PC multi-player mode has been reduced to 18 players from 32 in the original game.

Added to the fact that there will be no dedicated game servers, it really looks like the twilight of PC gaming as a platform distinct from console gaming. Is this a good thing? I have long since stopped using my PC as a  gaming platform. My 360 is currently the only platform that I game on if you discount my dusty PSP. With the convenient, multiplayer games afforded by Live, I really don't miss anything about PC gaming, especially the routine hardware upgrades that gaming PCs required. I will accept the 'degraded' controls and graphics in favour of a more accessible gaming experience.

But why does it feel like a part of me died...

If you love the Penny Arcade comics the way that I do, then you will really love their new Tekken 6 and Dragon Age comics.

The guys over at Penny-Arcade think that the price drop for the PS3 is the final nail in the coffin of Sony's once great console and that it heralds the end of the console as a serious contender in the next-gen console wars. I disagree, I think that the price of the PS3 is only part of the equation. If the PS3 had a good mix of games including head liner exclusives then it would have been competitive despite its price. But I think that we can all agree that the PS3 game catalog is still fairly lean, combine this with the high price of the console and it spelt disaster for sales. The reduced pricing will make the console more affordable in the run up to the Christmas season. Although we can still only hope that the game catalog will improve. Given Sony's history in this business I think that it is much too earlier to count them out.

Inside the Slim
Ever wonder what the insides of the new PS 3 Slim look like? Well wonder no more, the guys from iFixit have you covered. From the looks of it, most of the space is taken up by the Blu Ray player and a HUGE cooling fan.

Sega World
For those of you who remember the Trocadero, here is the SEGA Republic to help you on a trip down memory lane.

While I do value the democratic process, I value voting for the new Penny-Arcade comic even more.

 You can check out the contenders here and here .Make sure that you vote for the comic of your choice, ...ahem... Automata. The poll will be open until this weekend, I will be sure to vote often...

Microsoft used E3 to unveil a fairly revolutionary gaming technology incorporating motion sensing and voice recognition. The actual implementation of the tech still has to be proven but it does provide an interesting insight into what the future may hold . Sony for their part decide that E3 is a good place to announce an updated product, which turned out to be a rough hack job of an unsuccessful product . The PSP Go looks alot like the Mylo . The fact that both products have not been as successful as Sony hoped is another unfortunate commonality that they share.

With the PSP Go Sony has finally gotten ride of the much maligned UMD drive, a propietary technology that never got any traction in the market place. In it's stead they leave a deafening silence. Sony has not mentioned what will happen to the existing UMD owners or how their games will be ported to the GO. But rest assured that Sony is working on it .

After getting all hot and bothered about the early trailers for the PS3, which  turned out to be prerendered bullshots, I am not buying into the Natal hype machine . By the looks of it the guys over at Penny-Arcade are excited about Natal for different reasons.

The guys at Penny Arcade  have a gift for calling it as it is. As regards their opinion on the PS3, I really could not agree with them more.

At the moment the PS3 is an over priced Blue Ray player with too few compelling titles. With format exclusive titles fasting heading for the exit, only a price cut is going to help them gain any market share.

With the global financial meltdown, consumers are even more price conscience and they will be compelled rather than be inclined to the best value offerings which definitely excludes the PS3.

Tycho over at Penny Arcade says that there is nothing wrong with the Resident Evil 5 controls . Although I would not call them sluggish more stunted and unnecessarily cumbersome. The control scheme for a first or third person shooter does not have to be fine tuned to maximise your twitch reflex but it also should not be so cumbersome that it acts as a barrier to the game experience.

In other news, Nintendo plan on converting you all to Islam, so you had better be prepared .

I must admit that I was pretty surprised to find out that people exist who don't follow game release schedules religiously and who do not immerse themselves in every single cryptic screenshot or game trailer that is released for their favourite title.

I would have guessed that if you were not immersed in the gaming sub-culture it would somehow diminish your enjoyment of the games that you play but apparently it does not .

When I saw the stats for the top 10 games played on Live, I was a bit surprised that Gears 2 was fourth behind Call of Duty World at War.

I rate Gears 2 as a far superior game to Call of Duty both in overall design and game mechanics. When you take a closer look at the data used to generate these statistics, their value becomes much clearer, that is, closer to nought.

I played some more Call of Duty on the weekend. I finally made it to the best level in the entire game, which is completely unrelated to any other level in the game which is probably why it is good.

 You are a gunner on a flying boat and have to fend off Zeroes and then MTBs before rescuing a few sailors. The game mechanic is extremely well implemented, so that when you need to change gun turrets it's a simple button push  rather than having to manually shift positions. The level is intense and exhilirating and is over before you realise it. After that it's back to the mind numbing frustration of trip wire game mechanics with brain dead AI.

In other news, I have not had a chance to play Gears in three weeks and I am starting to get the Gears shakes, I am sure that it's a treatable condition.

 In even more news, NXE is awesome. The interface is a massive improvement over the previous version. I also found out that I have 11GBs remaining on my hard drive which is pretty scary because I only have saved games and no installed games on it.

 If you are in tech support then you will love this comic .