Galaxy Defenders or Guardians of the Galaxy

What does a three day weekend plus a trip to the game store make?

The answer for me is simple, first we rented Guardians of the Galaxy then the next day I kept the theme going by picking up the Galaxy Defenders board game.

The movie was just awesome, one of the funnier movies I have seen in awhile, the screwdriver I was drinking probably helped a little.   I love Sci Fi movies and this one was just excellent.  I will post up a review in the future.  The next day I picked up Galaxy Defenders because I was looking for a tactical solitaire board game.  This one looks neat as I have only set up the first scenerio and read the rulebook thus far.  More info coming later.

Another Long Absence-Hopefully Back Fulltime

I have been gone for awhile now, being a dad, coaching football, managing all my hobbies.  I think I am going to start posting on a regular basis again.  Hopefully I can figure out how to merge my two Google accounts, it would make this much easier.

For the past few years I have focused primarily on board and miniature gaming, that is probably where I will leave off.  I was surprised to see over 5000 page views, that pumps me up.

I Am Back

It's only been three years, be ready for some new content.

Playing With Your Unit(s)

How do you move your unit? I am not talking dirty here, what I am talking about is activating one of your units in an army you control. There are thousands of games out there and all, well almost all of them share one simple feature, they all move chits, mini's, pawns, or pieces around a game board or a hobby table. What is your favorite method to move your pieces?

Chess
On one hand you have Chess, in Chess your turn revolves around moving one piece, or in gaming terms, activating one piece who already has a movement and an attack stat. When I was a kid I really liked Chess, I really liked trying to set up my movements ahead of time to try to take down my opponent even though I rarely won any games. Nowaday's I cannot stand to play the game, I think that there are way better games out there to play. Even though I don't play the game I still like the "activate one piece at a time" mechanic as it lends itself to a strategic game of trying to outmaneuver your opponent. In Chess you don't move every piece of your army, but what if you did. How fun would that be?

Conflict of Heroes
The Conflict of Heroes games can be easily compared to Chess as what your trying to do is outmaneuver your opponent for strategic positioning to obtain a particular objective. Well, after writing all those words, which I am greatly impressed I thought of, it can be stated that the only thing that Chess has in common with the Conflict of Heroes games IS that you only activate, or move one piece at a time. Chess does not have Activation Points, CAPs, or big ass chits that are easy to grab and maneuver around a game board, Conflict of Heroes does. I have not found a better way to activate your units, the COH system is brilliant.

Warhammer/Warmachine
If you compare the systems in Conflict of Heroes to other systems you will see some vast differences especially when you compare them to miniature rule sets. Have you ever looked at a Warhammer Fantasy rulebook? You better know your stuff if you haven't. Have you looked at Warmachine? In both of these miniature systems you activate your entire army and then your opponent does the same. In both of these games it is common to have 15-20 minute turns because of this unit activation and the compexity of the rule set. Do you want to play games like this? Not everyone does, but I do, I love the "move your entire army" aspect of war gaming. The excitement I get from moving my entire army thrills me, I move, he moves, I move, he moves. What could be better? The only thing wrong with it is realism. How realistic is it in war for a general to move one portion of his army then wait to see what his counterpart does? Not really, not on this scale. It depends what your into playing, it depends what kind of mood your in.

Battlelore/Memoir 44
Some games take the approach where they meet these two strategies in the middle and only let you activate a certain number of units before passing your turn to the next person. Battlelore and Memoir 44 share these systems. They both use a card driven mechanic that lets you activate different amounts of units each turn depending on what you draw. This is a fun and fast acting system but tends to lend a little more to luck, which I am not a huge fan of in my board games. I understand the need for some luck but I favor tough decisions over luck anyday. Regardless, the systems for activating units in these games works well and tends to make for fun gameplay.

Overview
All in all each one of these systems works well in their own respect. One question that I have though, when is somebody going to make a game where they incorporate all three? That would be the game I want to play. For now though, try playing Battlelore by moving all of your units on your turn, or try playin Warmachine by moving just one unit then passing the turn to your friend, let me know how they work...

What We Need Is...

A chit based medieval tactical war game. Look around, these types of games are far and few between. We need knights, castles, sieges, and everything else that is shown on The Tudors or Pillars of the Earth. I think I have an idea and it revolves around some of the ideas that are currently out there on the market, most noticeably the Conflict of Heroes and Space Hulk unit activation systems. These days it seems that every other game is based on a conflict that happened in one of the major wars over the last few centuries, maybe we can come up with something different, something to teach history from another time period, maybe a different perspective. Stay tuned in the future for an announcement.

What game am I talking about?

The buildings are crumbling around me, garbage is swirling around the streets as it seems like every time I take a breath my lungs get filled with the dust coming from the broken buildings . I have been sitting in the same spot for 20 minutes and then I see what I am looking for. The top of a helmet pops up over a piece of the crumbled wreck about 100 yards away, the helmet rises up and up, until I finally see the skin of my victim. I gently pull the trigger and my bullet races to the finish line in my opponents face. It seemed like slow motion, the blood splattered out the back of his head as it exploded upon the wall behind him. As I though about the kill I saw another helmet running from next to the dead man, I couldn't reload in time to hit him but I saw where he ventured to. I knew where he was, he did not know where I was. I picked up my radio and gave them the co-ordinates and in 3 minutes time shells rained down on the building where the opponent ran to.

The Sci Fi Crappy Movie of the Week- Mega Python vs. Gatoroid

Wow, last night my family and I watched the Mega Python vs. Gatoroid staring old school singers Debby Gibson and Tiffany. This Sci-Fi channel thriller is about two rival women and chronicles them on their mission to save/destroy the everglades. To be honest I didn't even know that the OK looking blonde in the movie was Deborah Gibson, as she is now known, but to be quite honest, after watching her act she should have probably kept to singing. Here counterpart, which I also did not know is Tiffany, plays a chunky red head with huge cans who tries to save the everglades by feeding alligators steroids through Cornish hens. Sounds great huh, not really but it was a little entertaining as the kids really got into it.

February Game of the Month- Conflict of Heroes: Storms of Steel! Kursk 1943

If anyone out there is looking for a good war game series with simple to follow rules which gently ease you into the game then check out the Conflict of Heroes series. The game pays homage to the war game of old but does so with style as in implements an action system where you use points to activate each unit on the board. Because of this brilliant system the game plays relatively simple as all the stats for each unit is on the over-sized chits. Storms of Steel is the second game in the series and shipped in 2009. There are more expansions on the way, all of which cover the many different theaters of World War II.

I have picked this game as my game of the month for February. What this means is that I am going to play this game for the entire month as much as I can. I am going to teach this game to my buddies and to my son not only to justify my purchase but to have a blast with what I like to do, play games. Stay tuned for my session reports.

Twilight Imperium 3rd Edition

A huge box full of systems, universes, races, battle, war, and diplomacy. this is what we are talking about here with Fantasy Flight's Twilight Imperium 3rd Edition. This is the next game I want our group to play. This and the next few posts will be to put together playing aides that will help us not make this a 7 hour affair the first time we play so please pay attention and look at the sites and videos I put up. The target date for getting this game in will be sometime in the middle of February.

Step #1 to Our Twilight Imperium Weekend
Use this link to download a six page pdf about the basics of the game. This safe link is well written and tells how to play the game in a nutshell.

Step #2 to Our Twilight Imperium Weekend
Use this link to get to a site to watch a review of the game, this will get you acclimated to the games structure.

Happy Camper

Wow, get home from a stressful day, hop online, and find out that my favorite series has announced another game. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Check out the trailer here. 11/11/11

Parody in the NFL

This team beat that team, then that team beat this team, the point is that on any given Sunday anything can happen.

Memoir 44 Online

Head over to the link below to download the free beta version of Memoir 44 Online. The game uses a pay to play model but gives you a free 100 "Gold Ignots" to get started. Each match against an online person costs only 1 Ignot while if you want to play against the computer it will cost you 2. You can then buy packages to play later on when you run out of money. I just played a good game which took 21 minutes, I lost 4-2.

Check out the download here.

For more information about the game visit here.

Were Back Again

Didn't We Already Try This Once?
Hello fellas, I know what your thinking, here we go again. Your absolutely correct, but this time we are back to stay hopefully. To understand why we have been so on again and off again the past few years you need to know about the crazy lives of some of the guys in the group.

What Is Going On With M0NSTAR09?
I started online gaming with the original Ghost Recon when my kids were little. As my kids grew and my son started playing football I started coaching him while trying to raise a family and finish college, which did not leave me much time for my online friends. To make a long story short, I finally graduated college, I kind of have a teaching job now, and my last day of being the head coach for my son is this Saturday. The point being, I will now have a lot more time on my hands for online gaming. I want to get us our gaming team back, back when we were really good at GRAW2 and the original COD over at DC Combat. Hopefully you guys will all come back, hopefully we can build this team again and compete with all the big boys.

MY NEW HOBBY?
During my time away from gaming I found another hobby also. This hobby gives me the same competitive gut wrenching feeling that trying to hold "A" gives you when your the last guys alive and the score is ties at 3-3. What is this, you might ask. This new hobby is War/Mini Gaming. I met a few dads about a year ago who got into this hobby with me and we usually meet once or twice a month to play board games. Games like Monopoly and Sorry are a thing of the past fellas, there are new games out here that are awesome and I will be the one to bring these games to you guys. I will let you know about the other stuff out there.

SO WHAT IS THIS 2ND PERSON SHOOTER/BEER DRINKIN GAMER THING?
This is where I would like to mesh the two groups together, my online gaming buddies and my offline Wargaming dorky buddies. The 2nd Person Shooter has been here for 2 years, idle, inactive, The Beer Drinkin Gamers have been active for almost a year, thriving, active. The best thing to do is the bring these groups together. To try to mesh these groups together and build a big gaming community. If your in then please sign up for a blogspot account and join the forums.

So for now I imported a bunch of older articles I wrote for the original 2PS as I wait to start writing new ones. If you are interested in writing then let me know, it would be nice to have a staff of guys who would write one article per week so we could constantly have a fresh content on the site.

Enjoy the site and remember, have a beer.

Uncharted-PS3

What do you get when you throw Tomb Raider, Gears of War, and a Hot Blond in a blender? The answer to that question would be found on the Playstation 3 and developed by Naughty Dog. Uncharted is the name while exploration and from-behind-cover-gunfights is the game. The hero of the game is Nathan Drake, part Indiana Jones with a mix of Laura Croft without the huge breasts, and your primary objective is to find the treasure that Sir Francis Drake was looking for back in the 1800′s.

After booting up the game I was immediately impressed with the opening cut scenes as they laid the foundation for the gorgeous visuals that I found throughout the game. The game is linear by design but the draw distance is up to par as you think your really in a much bigger world than your actually in. Just as the graphics shine throughout the controls do also. The shooting mechanics in the game are phenomenal as Naughty Dog has done the cover and shoot mechanic better than anyone I have seen yet. Popping in and out of cover never gets old as wave after wave of piraty-looking terrorist are after you and your companion Elena.

The story in the game was excellently crafted and easy to follow as long as you paid attention to the cut scenes. As intriguing as the story was the sexual tension that developed between the stories primary characters, Drake and Elena. Their love/hate relationship was comical at times and really helped develop the pace of the game when the story slowed down a little.

Naughty Dog took the blueprint for Uncharted right from the manual on “How to Make Video Games”, as there are a variety of game play elements that are used to break up the monotony of running around in the 3rd person view taking cover and shooting bad guys. There is an on-rails shooting level as well as a few levels where you man a jet ski when searching for the lost treasure. The game also boasts the best water effects I have ever seen in a video game, if you thought Far Cry had good looking water, you need to check out Uncharted.

Overall this game is definitely a must buy for all you PS3 owners out there as it took me a good ten hours to beat. The controls, graphics, story, and sound are all on par with the best games on the market today.

9.5

This article was originally posted on April 15, 2008 on our previous gaming blog.

King Kong

One might wonder why I am reviewing a game that is older than dirt and that’s first appearance was on the original Xbox and to that person I would answer, “because I can, lol.” In all seriousness, the reason for the review is because if you play the game today it is pretty much a solid rental or cheap buy that will give you 5-8 hours of entertainment while netting you an easy 1000 Achievement points if your inclined to play a game that is over 3 years old.

My son has this King Kong/Achievement fetish lately so after his flag football game last Sunday we ventured up to our local Gamestop to get the game which we bought for $12. The games visuals are totally outdated when comparing them to today’s FPS’s but battling the great dinosaurs that are in the game is a fun as every encounter leaves you waiting for the next. I couldn’t help but compare King Kong’s T-Rex to Turok’s. Both are big, nasty, and full of heart wrenching roars as the T-Rex in King Kong would probably give the one in the latest Turok game a fair battle if they ever were to meet.

The game uses the standard FPS control scheme which controls quite well and the sound is also a pleasant surprise. There are a few different weapons that you use in the game but arguably the best for me was when I was able to find and throw spears at my enemies. At first it was tough but then I learned how to aim and I was able to hit anything that pissed me off. The story in the game was ripped straight from Peter Jackson’s movie but the presentation was well done as you could follow the story easily even if you lived under a rock and had no clue who or what King Kong is.

I recommend this game for anyone who wants a quick 1000 points and for only $12 it is well worth the purchase especially if you get it at EB Games or Gamespot. Those companies let you trade in your used games if you beet them or did not like them as long as it was within a week of initially buying it. So do what I my son did, buy the game, keep it for under a week as you beat it and get the points, and then trade it back in for another game while getting the full value of what you payed for it. Sweet deal if you ask me.

7.5

This article was originally posted on April 19, 2008 on our previous gaming blog.

Battlefield: Bad Company Multi-Player Review

Since Last Fall the entire community of shooting fans have focused themselves mainly on the award winning shooters Halo3 and Call of Duty 4. Week after week, they sat one and two on top of the XBOX Live Leaderboards being the most played games on the service. Their online options are rivaled by none as both games share many options that catapult each games multi-player components into being the best in the history of online shooting games. As the heat from the summer forces most of us into our air conditioned basements we are finally tiring of those great online shooters and looking for something else to play. Enter Battlefield: Bad Company. Battlefield: Bad Company follows DICE’s 2006 release Battlefield: Modern Combat as it tries to improve on its average 77 out of 100 rating on Metacritic.com.

After playing the demo for a week straight I was thoroughly impressed on the scope and scale of the game as my son and I ruled Oasis on a consistent basis. We had a great time and were very excited for the final release of the game. After picking up two copies of the game we plopped them in out boxes and continued to play online for 3 straight hours as we were eager to see all we could see on the first night.

My excitement soon faded to disappointment though because as soon as I got online I noticed the faults with Bad Company’s lack of online options. One game type, no clan support, no lobby system for online clan matches, are just a few of the games online faults. Have developers ever played COD4 or Halo3? Did anyone notice how great MP games are loaded with options for people to experiment with. The three gripes that I listed above are inexcusable in this day and age . The game does run smooth but I think the online functionality of the game is just terrible. Man do I wished they would give you a Helicopters only Team Death Match mode, how fun would that be. Or better yet, what about a Tanks only CTF game, the possibilities are limitless. My question is why? Why not give us the option to play the game the way we want to play it. Make your “get the gold crates” game type the default but at least let us play the way we want to play.

As the game lacks any real features that make up a top notch shooter’s online functionality it gets 10′s across the board from me for the games fun factor. Yes, it is missing a lot but when you pop it in and hit the online battlefield but you always have a great time playing even if you can only really ever get three other friends in your games. The game is just plain fun, whether your crashing your teams only helicopter into a group of tangos running for cover or whether your on foot trying to take down that tank with your nube tube your always having a blast. It’s the kind of fun that makes you want to come back every night.

The graphics of the game are excellent. While not the best out there, the graphics sure make up for the lack of MP features and really add to the fun of the game. Trees sway in the wind, the character animations are great, the buildings and smoke look realistic, and the landscape of the battlefields look amazing. This is definitely a high point for the game as it looks like some of the better shooters out there. The graphics of the game complement the controls quite well as the controls of the game lie somewhere between the hardcore shooter and the arcadey shooter. The precision in aiming is not on par with COD4 but they are OK for a game with the scope and magnitude that this multi-player game offers. One issue that I do have with the controls however is that they are generally too fast for my old ass as I literally had to dumb down the sensitivity to bar one. The default sensitivity was way too fast and my reflexes are not what they used to be. It seems to me that the controls are more dependent on what gun or class you picked as they tighten up a little more depending on your kit. No matter what gun or kit you use you can bet that anything you pick is going to sound completely awesome. I dare you to shut your eyes and just listen, after a minute or two you will think your in the middle of Saving Private Ryan 2 or Platoon. The sounds in the game are that good and coupled with the great graphics it is a real stimulating experience for two of your 5 senses.

All in all the game is pretty awesome but I am still having a hard time with the way EA and DICE delivered the game without key options in place that would have made the game one of the best online shooters ever. If you want a team based game to play because you need something for your clan to compete in then pass this game up when your at your local Control Pad but if you want to run around crazy for the next four months playing with a few friends in hectic online battles then this game is a definite buy.

8.3

This article was originally posted on June 29, 2008 on our previous blog.

Sony's Three Red Rings of Life

How many people has had this scenario happen to them? You run downstairs with a beer and a sandwich in hand ready to conquer the world in Call of Duty 4 and you turn on your Xbox 360 only to be met with the Three Red Rings of Death. You think maybe its just a mirage, maybe if you turn it off and then on again it will work, maybe if you take out the hard drive and then clap twice while hopping on one foot if will miraculously return from the dead. But nothing happens, your video game love has fallen as Taps starts to play in the background. I know the first time this happened to me I was bent, I felt violated inside as I returned it to Gamestop. It wasn't until the second time it happened did I decide that I was not emotionally upset anymore but I was pissed off, the team I play Call of Duty 4 on was in the midst of being the best team on the site we play on while amassing an incredible 57-8 record and I was going to miss the last quarter of the season and the entire playoffs, at this point I was totally fed up with Microsoft for this and I vowed to get revenge. How does one get back at a multi-billion dollar corporation? How does one hit them where it really hurts? I found my answer at my local Blockbuster, the answer to me ran me about $450, the answer to me was a Playstation 3. I was a Microsoft fan boy forever, I never had a PS2 and I never really thought of buying a PS3. I was totally content playing the GRAW's and COD's on on Live via my 360 as I met many awesome people over the years. I played with 4 or 5 different teams online while we tried to gel knowing that we could never be as good as the guys who play the games 7 nights per week. My love for my Xbox never faded until I got the Three Red Rings the second time around. Once was OK, the timing was bad, it happened the night I brought home both Gears of War and Call of Duty 3, but I was good with it because I only had to swap it out at my local Gamestop instead of sending it back to Microsoft. But now I am truly upset and I am ready to give the Playstation 3 a chance, now I am ready to venture to the Dark Side. This article was originally posted on February 14, 2008 on our previous gaming blog.

PixelJunk Monster's Review-PS3

A Real Beauty
When I picked up my PS3 I knew that the Playstation Network that Sony offered its customers was far inferior to Xbox Live and it's Marketplace but what I did not take into account was the quality of the games that Sony offers compared to the quantity of games that Microsoft offers. Now don't get me wrong, the 360's Arcade has a few great hits but none of them can hold a candle to the PSN's PixelJunk Monsters.

What's This?
PixelJunk Monsters is an exciting strategy game that pits you, the turtle, against wave after wave of enemy creatures all hellbent on consuming your precious offspring. What separates the game from most in the arcade lines of both consoles is that instead of actually shooting the bad guys yourself, you build towers anywhere on the map to do your shooting for you. Well you can't build the towers just anywhere as that would be too easy, the path that the monsters take is lined with trees and by running to a tree and clicking a few buttons you can transform that tree into the tower of your liking. If a band of flying bugs comes in from the entrance where they spawn you would build Anti-Air Towers, if a huge number of creatures came at you but were all slow movers you would build Cannons. The game proceeds down this path the entire way, waves and waves of enemies come and its up to you to decide how to defend you base.

Graphics & Sound?
There are some Arcade games out there that are really easy on the eyes and while there are some that look as if the designer's secretary threw the graphics together while he was out to lunch. PixelJunk Monsters doesn't necessarily go to either one of these extremes but the game does look good. On my 1080i HDTV it looks smooth and colorful and it is really a joy to watch and play. There aren't a vast amount of colors since we all know that grass is, green, and trees are, green, but the colors are vivid enough for me to be happy while playing as every map has roughly the same grassy-forested theme. The creatures and trees are all cell-shaded which gives the game a very nice and clean look. The sound is really disappointing as it pretty much had my ears bleeding from the start. Like many Arcade games it seems as if they just threw the sound in the game because all games need sound but when the game's pace quickens the sound does also which adds a nice touch when playing. There is nothing like a band of fast spiders coming at you as the sound puts you in the mindset that you have to hurry up and build or all your little babies will bite the dust.

Overall Review
Developers make arcade games different from standard console releases. A good arcade game is one that you can pick up and play anytime without having to get all caught up in a long drawn out story. It needs to be able to play quick when you have just a few minutes to do so and it needs to be fun and interesting. The only thing I want to see is a multi-player add-on which would pit you against others on the PSN network but it has all the traits which makes it a MUST BUY for anyone who is looking for a good game on the PSN. The mix of strategy and fun game play is unparalleled on either console and for $7.99 it is a steal to purchase.

This article was originally posted on February 16, 2008 on our previous gaming blog.

Grand Theft Oblivion

OK, I will admit it, I am not a GTA fan but with the release of GTA4 next month I figured I would give it a chance. I tried playing the other games to no avail, I hated the targeting systems most of all and I really could not understand why every quest in the games were either fetch quests or the standard “go kill this guy” quest. Where is the variety in game play? There is none, and that's my problem.

At least with other open ended games there is variety in game play. Look at Oblivion for example. Yes, its not entirely the same as the GTA games but the games are more similar than you think. What makes Oblivion stand out more than GTA is the fact that you can play Oblivion like so many other games. It’s a shooting game using magic if you want it to be, its huge open ended RPG if you want it to be, its a fast acting action game if you want it to be. GTA is just GTA, there is only really one way to play the game, yes, its open-ended but why play a game like that which is so close to real life. Is it really fun to jack cars in the game? Is it really fun to go kill so and so? Is it really fun to take that thing to that guy? No its not.

In Oblivion its not like real life, yes, there are a bunch of fetch quests out there but the depth of those quests is a story in itself. I have played Oblivion for about 50 hours and I remember at least 5 quests that stuck in my mind because of how well the story was done. Has anyone had that experience with any of the GTA’s? I highly doubt it. What makes GTA such a hit is the culture of GTA and that it was the first of its kind. It came out with a roar when the Playstation 2 needed a killer app. At that time you were hard pressed to find a title that would let you jack cars and kill people at will and the original GTA let you do just that. But these days games need more. They need more than just messed up gimmicks in their games but they need the gimmicks because there is only so much you can do with a real life open ended games like all the GTA’s. gimmicks are what sells the games nowadays.

In GTA4 I guess you can get drunk now, what? Who does Rockstar think plays these games? Yes there is a rating for the game and its the parents responsibility to oversee what their kids play but we all know that there are thousands of kids out there that will play the game. Doesn’t Rockstar know that drinking and driving is illegal in real life but they put a drinking and driving mini-game into GTA4. Now some will argue that killing people is illegal also but most of the normal people in the world know that killing people and jacking cars is wrong and usually they abstain from those activities. Drinking and driving is different though. Having a d&d mini-game is just wrong. I can imagine the fifteen- sixteen year olds sitting around playing GTA4 one night and getting to the d&d mini-games. I think that's bad karma and I am a dad who lets his 7 year old play Call of Duty4 and whatever else he wants to play.

If the D&D mini-game is not as bad did you hear about the new Achievement that Rockstar put in its old/new title Bully:Scholarship Edition? Well word around the podcast community is that you can get fifteen Achievement points if you kiss a boy. I think that's a little strange but the pod caster who will remain nameless(because I cannot remember his name) tried to argue for this saying that it was like one of those choices you have to make in Bioshock whether you save or harvest the Little Sisters. I think this argument was totally pathetic, kissing a boy in a video game while playing as a boy has nothing to do with the conscious decision you had to make whether or not you saved or harvested the Little Sisters, its just a stupid gimmick to get people to talk about the game. What other developer puts such ridiculous aspects of game play into their game just to drum up interest?

The point I am trying to make is that their are better alternatives to GTA4. There are other games out there that will give gamers a better experience. Yes, its early but one can only look back at the past, the other GTA’s were the same thing over and over. Hopefully with GTA’s new cover and targeting systems the GTA franchise will be reborn without getting the positive reviews just because its another GTA.

PS3 On The Rise?

Arguably the Xbox 360 has enjoyed the lead in the console war thus far when comparing it and the PS3 but word around the community is that the PS3 is on the rise. It seems that people are now going to be propelled to buy a PS3 simply because Blue Ray has won the HD format war. That and the fact that the PS3 is finally coming out with some games are the two main reasons that advance these assumptions that are being made about the console. I have two questions that need to be answered. Who is going to pay $400 for a Blue Ray player six months from now when Blue Ray players start popping up everywhere cheaply, and what PS3 exclusive games are coming out that warrant this “the PS3 is on the rise” attitude?

So Blue Ray has won the HD format war. That’s great news for Sony but all that means is that for now they might sell a few thousand more PS3’s because some of these people have waited to buy a next gen system until the industry had picked a winner between Blue Ray and HD DVD. Does Sony think that they will get another 100,000 PS3 sales because of these events that have taken place? I think not. The hardcore gamer already has their system of choice, they don’t have to go out and buy a new system just because the format war has been won by Blue Ray. I think we need to remember that less than 20% of the households in America even own HDTV’s and when manufactures finally see a winner in the format war I bet ya a dollar that the price of Blue Ray systems will drastically drop in the next year. If I already own an Xbox 360 do you think I am going to go spend $400 on a PS3 just for Blue Ray or am I going to go to Wal Mart and get a stand alone Blue Ray player for $96.88?

So the PS3 game library is ready for a significant upgrade which will let Sony overtake Microsoft? Yes, it took the PS3 over a year but finally they are putting out some quality games for the system. Uncharted, Ratchet & Clank, and Warhawk are all great games and a much needed addition to the PS3’s slow rising library but where does Sony go form here. As I look down the list of upcoming releases I don’t see very many games that sound good to me. Sure, you get Metal Gear 4 in June or whenever they release that soap opera but don’t you actually watch more of that game than play it? And better yet, you have to buy the online mode of the game for a total separate price and game and it won’t be available when MG4 releases. Wait a minute, Grand Turismo 5 is coming in April, great but isn’t that just a $40 demo with the real game coming in the Fall? Haze will be here in May but that game has been pushed back more times than the original Xbox game BC. The best exclusive game that the PS3 has this year is Little Big Planet which also ships in the fall.

Given the information above one can only wonder how people think the PS3 is finally on the upswing, but if they are, and they are finally turning it around, and this is getting better, its sad to see how bad it actually was for the PS3 in the first year of its existence.

This article was originally posted on March 4, 2008 on our previous gaming blog.