Gwen Demulder

Well someone asked me to write down my experiences and point of views on the consoles I have played with.

First we’ll start with the ye ol’ gamecube, a favourite of mine which is now obsolete thanks to it’s younger brother the Wii(more on that later). First of all this console was the smallest for a long time untill the pstwo arrived (a smaller version of the playstation two). This console made a big change for nintendo on one part, they switched media. Instead of using the old cartridges they decided to go with an optical medium this time. The Gamecubed used an 8 cm mini dvd that could store about 1,5 GB. The console, even though it looked promissing never really sold in big numbers, there were two reasons for this: Shitty third party games and no online multiplayer (sure they had adapters for internet play, but really how many games actually used that? One?). Nintendo stopped producing the console during the start of 2007. Should you buy one of these consoles today? Well, in short. Nope, if you need a console to play cheap budget games buy a playstation 2 (new or second hand), not only is the console still in production there are still new games being created for it (God of war 2) and it has a huge game library. If you want a next gen console and you’re into party games, save some more money and get a Wii.

The original Xbox is up next. The Xbox itself was nothing more than Microsoft’s attempt to force its way in the game console world, and no one can deny the fact that they succeeded. Unfortunally the Xbox itself was whacked as soon as possible by microsoft in favour of the Xbox 360. The console had to go before it reached its full potential, it was afterall much more powerful than the competitors of that time. But one shouldn’t forget that this consoles managed to get one of sony’s most exclusive games on their platform: GTA. Should you get one of these today.. Well you shouldn’t buy a new one (if you can still find them, actually I know one standing somewhere that’s ridiculousy overpriced)? No, you shouldn’t. However you can find modded versions of this console which can give you a nice basic mediacenter for your tv.

Onto, the playstation 2. Well this one is the big cahuna, even though this console didn’t have superior power it still managed to outsell the other two main competitors of its time. Even today the playstation 2 is selling very well, it even� competes with the xbox 360, even with the newly released ps3. Frankly, if you’d like to play cheap and have a big choise of games, get a ps2. There is no way you can be dissapointed, there are games for everyone on this platform, even for the biggest barbie fans (shiver).

The nintendo Wii, it took the market to surprise, I bet even nintendo underestimated the potential succes of this console. Even now months after its release nintendo is mass producing this console none stop, and the shelves on the store remain empty. If you want one of these puppies you’ll have to order it and wait for your turn (expect a delivery time of 3 to 4 weeks people). There can be no more doubt, this console is a winner, perhaps even the winner of this generation. Any way, this console has succeeded everywhere where the gamecube failed. It’s got the attention of 3rd party developers this time, it can actually connect to the internet and has tons of gimmics to keep you entertained. It even allows you to revisit those ye ol’ classics from nes, snes, turbografix and sega. But I am praying to God, because I fear nintendo will f*ck up the multiplayer part. If you like to play games with friends or family, this is the console to get.

The Xbox 360, well this is the beast, the white powerhouse. If you are into high quality gaming and you don’t care about high definition video playback (let’s be serious, how many of us even have a 1080P screen? ) you should get one of these. It allready has a decent big library of games. Get it if you want to be amongst the first to play GTA4 . Besides the established library you can’t forget about the online multiplayer. Even though you have to pay about �60 a year to play online you get a decent multiplayer experience, it has proven itself over and over again. (Lets face it, multiplayer on ps2 is pretty pathetic even though it is free…). What I don’t like about the xbox 360? The power supply, it is huge. And really it’s huge! They don’t nickname it ‘the brick’ for nothing. Besides that that xbox 360 is a reliable console which according to microsoft should last into 2012. That’s like 5 more years, by then you should have saved about 500 euro to buy the next microsoft console

Well I haven’t really played or even touched the playstation 3, but nevertheless I felt that I should include my thoughts about the console. There has been a lot of negative talk about this console, I myself think that the public (at least a lot of them in europe and america) have grown somewhat tired of Sony’s reign. Much of that can be blamed on Sony’s PR. I mean come on, force feedback is obsolete, don’t make me laugh. They call the motion sensitive remote of the Nintendo Wii a gimmic, not much later they make their own controller motion sensitive… like wtf? And well, I think the playstation was ripe for a new controller design. It still looks the same as the original playstation controller, don’t tell me it can’t be improved because it’s perfect. There is always room for improvement! Do I believe the PS3 is a bad console? No I don’t at all. However I would advice most people to wait at least a year to get one. Why? Well a strongly marketed part of the PS3 is the blu-ray drive. Agreed, the concept itself is great, but they neglect to tell one thing. The drive, is slow. Yes that’s right, what do you get with large data disc’s and slow drives? Long loading times. I hope that within a year those drives will be replaced with faster ones. If we’re lucky they might even return force feedback to their controller.

Well these were my fews on the consoles I’ve played with. If you decided to get a console just think of what you need. If you want cheap + lot’s of games, go for the ps2. If you like nice gfx and excellent online play, get a Xbox 360. If you like family entertainment and nostalgia, get the Wii. Who should get a playstation 3? Besides the Sony fanboys we’ll have to wait and see who should get a playstation 3. Afterall the Playstation 3 is roughly targetting the same gamers as the Xbox, the only question that remains is: Will they succeed?

About friggin time!

Finally snow! I was afraid it wasn’t going to snow this winter, but thank God that he proved me wrong. I always enjoy waking up and seeing a white blanket outside. Even though I don’t like driving on snow I didn’t mind the short drive to the drug store and afterwards to work. It was hard not to stare outside the whole time to look at the snow.

At work I am currently trying to upgrade both our php and mysql versions both from version 4 to version 5. I’m trying this first on our local test system. At first it looked as if the update succeeded, but upon closer inspection I noticed that our webshop was fubarred, the other sites looked just fine. So I’m almost certain the problem lies within the webshop application itself instead of the upgrade. I hope I can solve this problem soon so that I’ll be able to upgrade our webserver.

In other news I finally found the first lego star wars game, so I can now play the first three parts of the trilogy with lego characters. These games are so much fun, I wish there were more platform games like this. I’ve allready finished the first few levels. My only regret about the lego star wars games is that the levels are so short.

What many of you probably also don’t know is that I have a deviantart account on which I often place my artwork, so if you are a fellow deviant, please check out my account.

Latelly I’ve found myself playing more games then I’m used to. I presume the shittage weather might have something to do with it. The past two days I spent most free time playing a fun simple game in co-op with my brother. That game ladies and gentlemen is Lego Star Wars II, it is filled with a lot of humor and might even be the best Star Wars game on the market. Lego really scored with this game.

The thing that makes this game so much fun is the fact that you can’t lose, if your lego character gets killed he’ll just reappear. In the Co-op mode you can work together to solve puzzles in the game. Even after completing the story mode of the game you can replay maps in a free mode. This allows you to access previously locked areas. I think I’m going to try to find Lego Star Wars 1 also

Another game that I picked up yesterday is called Goldeneye: Rogue agent. I guess this was an attempt to recreate the succesful goldeneye game from the nintendo 64 for more recent consoles. I can’t make a comparison with the original one because I actually never played/owned it. This is also my first fps for console. It’s odd at first, apparantly you can have different modes for aiming at targets, some requiring more precision then the other. On the PC you’dd have to be very precise with the mouse to take down a target. With a console controller however, this is practically impossible… So thank god for these simplicated modes. The game itself is nice, I wouldn’t call it a hit but it’s got a nice touch of james bond nostalgia in it (even though you only get to see bond for a few moments during the start of the game).

In the game you are a “rogue agent” (Well, we didn’t expect that one now did we?) who’s lost his eye in a confrontation with doctor No, after that event your character became aggresive and uncontrollable. So MI6 decided to take away your 00 status. This caused the agent to cross over and join the ranks of spectre in which goldfinger apparantly now plays a major role. I can’t say much more now since I haven’t progressed that much yet.

I also purchased need for speed underground, I doubt this game needs much explaining. It’s a fun arcade racing game that allows you to tune your car. In my opinion, this and underground 2 are the best games made by EA that involve tuning. For some reason I was very dissapointed when I triend NFS Carbon.