LANCOZA Blog

But as it turns out, a really cool toy . Not worth the price that they charge for it, so if you are keen on the Modern Warfare 2 Night Vision Edition, you should wait until it gets a nice fat discount - which I think will happen soon.

The only limited edition accessories that I am interested in are figurines or something practical , like a steel lunchbox .

As we head towards the holiday release season, the price cuts are coming thick and fast. PlayStation started with the Slim and Fat, next Microsoft responded with their 360 price cut combined with increased disk space. And finally Nintendo announced a price cut for the Wii. In these tough economic times it's good to know that you can still afford your favourite gaming platform or add another one to your collection. You may have to live on baked beans for a while but it may be worth it.

Sony is still trying to figure out how to get UMD games onto the PSP GO, the latest news is that they are still working on a conversion program but no update as to what this will be if/when it launches. I was never a fan of the UMD format and digital download games are definitely the way to go for gaming in general but it looks like Sony has the wrong end again.

I did not play the first Crackdown but with the news that Crackdown 2 will have Zombies to shoot at, it has definitely moved up my play-list. I am sure that there must be a diagnosis for unnatural zombie love.

The best kind of publicity is the free kind and I think that Sony and EA have cornered that market. With Sony's Nigeria reference in their new PS3 ad, they appear to have offended someone. The revised ad now states that "You can't believe everything you read on the internet. That's how World War I got started." Is this the World War 1 from 1914 or the time travelling war from 2009?

In other PS3 news, apparently sales of the new Slim are up quite a bit, by about 300% if Sony is to be believed.

There will be free DLC for Batman: Arkham Asylum dropping on 17 September. There are no details on what the new content will be but the rumour mills, as ever, are grinding away. Perhaps new challenge rooms? A new playable character? It would be great if they turned Batman into a franchise which explored more of the DC comic universe. Bring on Two Face !

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.

Sony has finally revealed the long rumoured PlayStation 3 slim. The slim version has all the features of its fat big brother except for the ability to install Linux, no real loss there.

The slim will have a 120GB hard drive , it will be 33% smaller and 36% lighter. The unit will cost R2399 ($299), it will be available from September. The current 80GB version has been reduced to $299 but for my money I would wait for the Slim and cash in on the bigger hard drive.

You can have a look at the new Slim here. I like the smaller form factor, at least it no longer looks like a George Foreman grill. As soon as I have information about the local relase date and price, I will updatemy blog.

If Ninja Gaiden was re-imagined as a movie I am pretty sure this is what it would look like.

I went away for the long weekend and feel like my batteries have been re-charged. It was good to spend some time away from my PC. Aside from a TV which played movies for the littles ones, I did not spend any time interacting with technology.

A few bits of news that are noteworthy, the new Xbox Live update is available today. It is a mandatory update and will include the following: An Avatar market place, downloading games on demand and allowing you to rate any Xbox Live content. Given the price of local bandwidth, I don't think that downloaded games will be a viable option for us but it is an interesting development. Digital delivery does appear to be gaining momentum.

The PlayStation Slim rumours simply will not die. Now we even have an estimated retail price of about R3400, provided of course that this is not another fabricated post. There is also speculation around a September release date.

In line with my policy of not watching too many movie or game trailers, I saw the District 9 info but did not watch the trailer, not wishing to spoil any part of the movie. I had the vague notion that it was some alien/sci-fi action movie, I had also heard Peter Jackson's name bandied about. Upon closer inspection it turns out that Peter Jackson is the producer and it has a South African director, Neill Blomkamp. District 9 is based on District 6 in Cape Town and the aliens versus humans dynamic has obvious paralells with Apartheid South Africa. From the trailer it looks like it will have good special effects at the very least. The movie opens locally on 28 August.

Say what ?

The latest World at War Map Pack launches tomorrow. And despite all the hatred for Treyarch, they certainly seem to have redeemed themselves with the great map packs that they have released for World at War.

I am a huge zombie fan but I don't really like the new level as much as I do the first two. However the Bowie knife, weapon upgrades and exploding monkeys certainly grabbed my attention.

First we have the ongoing rumours of a PlayStation 3 price cut. This has been further fueled by stories of the a PlayStation 3 slim being released. Now there is speculation that Microsoft will discontinue the Xbox 360 Pro edition and keep the Arcade and Elite, which could be timed to pre-empt the PlayStation 3 Slim and it's price reduction. As always only time will tell.

The blog updates are a bit late because I was ill for a few days. The doctor said that it was a combination of allergies and bronchial spasms but I maintain that it was a rare strain of flying pig flu . Either way, there has been alot of gaming news in the past week that I have to catch up on.

First up, Comztek , the guys that were appointed the temporary Xbox 360 distributors will continue as the stand-in distro until the end of this year. When they were initially appointed, they were only intended to be the fulfillment agents for three months. Someone has yet to explain why Microsoft cannot be the official  distributor of their own gaming product. Then again Ster Kinekor does Playstation, so who knows how these agreements work in the rarified atmosphere of multi-national corporations.

This might be the coolest vending machine in the known universe.

 In addition to Kiefer Sutherland and Gary Oldman, Mickey Rourke is also muscling in on the game voice acting. Rourke will be the voice of the lead character, Richard  Marcinko in Rouge Warrior. Rouge Warrior is the new shooter from Bethesda.