Los Havros

This is just a little note to you all: readers, followers, subscribers, visitors, travellers- the lot!  Thank you very much for reading my blog, and I wish you the very best this Christmas!

Who knows what to expect from this blog in the next few weeks?  There’ll possibly be a few more posts than usual, and I’ll be finishing some features that I’ve wanted to write about for quite some time now.  I’ll also be cleaning up some of my old posts: removing links, fixing any typos, and giving them a general polish.

Apart from that, I’ll be catching up on some quality gaming, getting my uni work done, and relaxing by the fire with some mulled wine otherwise.  Fantastic.

All the best,

Los Havros

Tags: Christmas, holiday, Los Havros, winter

Yes, I own GTA IV, but have I really played it yet?  Absolutely not.  At the time of GTA IV’s release, I was happily engrossed in playing Race Driver: GRID.  At the back of my mind from previous experience of past GTA titles, was that each games requires an enormous investment of time.  An investment I wasn’t willing to make without Trophies.

You’re probably thinking “Yes, Los Havros has really done it this time.  He’s finally sold himself out, putting thoughts of Trophies before the game itself”.  Fair enough, but this is my rationale for doing this.  The only game that I’ve been willing to play through for possibly the 4th or 5th time for Trophies has been Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune.  Yet Uncharted has nowhere near the number of hours of gameplay that GTA IV has.

If I had already played through GTA IV, I doubt that I’d start from scratch again just for Trophies.  I’ve even seen quite a large number of posts from gamers who have stated exactly that.  Secondly, my time is precious these days.  I don’t actually have enough time to play each game in turn for 100% completion.  Even a game that I have actually completed like Uncharted, hasn’t been completed 100% as I haven’t collected all the Trophies for it yet.

So I suppose either over the Christmas period or through 2009 I vow to make a start on GTA IV by completing as much of the story as I can, and see how far through the Trophy system I can make it.  This isn’t a cast iron promise though, as something may inevitably crop up (there’s also the new ‘easier’ patch for PixelJunk Eden to consider).  But there you go.  I swear that after I’ve finished my degree I’ll be king of the jungle gym… of gaming.  Possibly.

Anyone got any games they haven’t yet started, but they’re going to have a decent crack at this Christmas?

Tags: completion, Grand Theft Auto IV, GTA IV, PixelJunk Eden, progress, Rockstar, trophies, Uncharted, Uncharted: Drake's Fortune

I feel that Codemasters are missing out on a golden opportunity.  How so?  I’m referring to Trophy support and downloadable content; what I’m on about will all become clear very soon.

Codemasters are driving game veterans, having developed the Collin McRae Rally series over a number of years now.  They followed up their great series with the launch of DiRT on the PS3.  Then the subsequent development and launch of Race Driver: GRID- essentially the latest game in the TOCA Touring Car series, was a stroke of genius.  I’m only guessing here, but GRID surely reached a large audience.  I was a gamer that had played the TOCA Touring Car games and didn’t particularly like them, but GRID changed that. The visuals, the style, and the sublime handling.  Hey, I liked the handling! (some people would argue the handling was lumpy).

What has made things turn sour for PS3 users, is the fact that GRID won’t be patched to retrospectively support Trophies.  Everything’s been quiet on the GRID front for months, and then a mysterious downloadable content pack is available to purchase on the PlayStation Store.  It’s called the “8-ball pack“, and for £6.29 you get 8 cars.  Yup, for all that money, you just get that.  Let’s have a look what the competition have done…

Criterion Games, the developers of Burnout Paradise, have toiled away at and released Trophy support, and numerous downloadable content packs (all free!), and are only going to charge for their next pack because it adds a whole new island to the game.  It is probably even in the territory of an expansion pack.

This is why I don’t get this comment:

We’re currently not planning to retrospectively support PSN trophies - it’s not a trivial thing to add to a game.

Source.

This is where I believe that Codemasters have missed a golden opportunity.  The fans want Trophies, and the developers want a return on investment (ROI), so why don’t they patch the game for trophies, chuck a couple of cars in to sweeten the deal, then offer the pack up for purchase on the PlayStation Store?

You may think I’m making a big deal out of this, especially because there are many games out there that were released before Trophies came out and haven’t been patched such as Resistance: Fall of Man, The Orange Box, and many more.  But none of those games have just had a downloadable content pack released!  If they’re willing to develop new content packs, then why not Trophy support?

Sure, there will be a development team working on DiRT 2, but GRID is a franchise now in it’s own right and they could have kept interest in the game for far longer than they have done, just by following Criterion’s example.  But I digress.  I’ll conclude by admitting that the main reason I’m so upset about this is that GRID is one of my favourite games, and I’m just irritated by the attitude of the developers in this case.

Tags: 8 ball pack, Burnout Paradise, Codemasters, Criterion, DLC, downloadable content, patch, Race Driver: GRID, trophies, Trophy Support

I’d like to start off by saying that first and foremost, my experience with LittleBigPlanet as a whole, and more specifically, the community, has been really good.  Great, in fact.  I’ve been making my way gingerly through the story mode; loving the visuals, level-design, and uniqueness of the whole LittleBigPlanet universe.  I’ve even ventured online properly, playing a couple of levels with other people, playing user-created levels and passing judgment.  Then I created my own level…

The rating system is out of 5 stars, then you can sum up what you think of the level with a one-word answer, which gets rid of any profanities I guess.  After doing a few story levels, I was itching to create something.  However, due to being away at University for most of the time, I admit it has taken much longer than I planned to get my first level out of the door.

After working my way through some of the tutorials, I started to piece my level together.  I admit though, that because I haven’t completed the whole story mode yet, I don’t exactly have a full list of parts to select from!  I created a fairly short level, named it “Life’s A Beach“, and provided a description saying something along the lines that it was my first level, please be kind. I put some sand castles in it, added a bit of humour, an obstacle or two, and offered some prizes.  Fairly reasonable, no?  So I uploaded the level…

I checked back a few hours later and my level received 3 stars- hooray!  But the words I got describing what people thought of the level was: horizontal, empty, rubbish.  Fair enough with the first one, probably the second as well, but rubbish?!  That struck me as being a bit mean.  I did state, didn’t I not, that it was my first-ever level?

I suppose what I’m after, Is some support here.  Of course, there are some great levels out there, and I’m just starting off with my first steps into LittleBigPlanet level creation, but was a label of ‘rubbish’ really required?  I’ve seen some pretty dire levels myself, but would never dream of labelling them rubbish.  I only go so far as calling them empty, or horizontal.  Am I being too nice here?!  I want answers dammit!

Any thoughts my fellow sack people?

Tags: community, cool levels, create, LittleBigPlanet, Media Molecule, Play, PLAYSTATION Network, share