Where are my Satellite Guy's gamers at?

The system separates game install data from dlc, as well as your saved games. The saved games don't take up much space but those installs can take up multiple gigs at a time. I just deleted like 5 or 6 game installs (not whole games, just the stuff the blu ray installs) and cleared up around 10 gb.

I also wouldn't be too worried about psn pulling content so you can't download it anymore. They know they'd unleash a firestorm of bad press if they did that as a standard policy. I cant remember an instance of DLC getting pulled without at least a warning beforehand. Usually when stuff gets pulled its over a licensing issue, like TMNT Turtles in time remix or Outrun (lost rights to the car.) I think you can weed some stuff out and feel safe about it as opposed to going through the hassle of upgrading the PS3 hard drive.

Based on a surprising recommendation, I decided to try out Driver: San Francisco. Now I'm not big on driving games at ALL. The only ones I like barely pass as such, because they are the ones that allow you to use weapons or ram other cars off the road. So basically, the only "driving" games I've ever really liked are the Mario Kart, GTA and Burnout series. Driver: SF so far has been very appealing to me, mainly because it falls into the category of driving I like.

The main gimmick of the game is that your character has the ability to quantum leap between vehicles at basically any time, even during missions. So for example, if you're in a mission where you have to chase someone, you can either chase them yourself and try to disable them with just your car, OR you can shift to other drivers and have them ram head first into the guy, thus completing the job MUCH more quickly. I'm only a few chapters in, but I Have to say that so far that act has NOT lost it's appeal or thrill at all. The game is basically a sandbox style driving game similar to Burnout: Paradise, with missions placed in various places along with little side quests and "Challenges", such as maintaining a high speed for a certain period of time, jumping a certain distance, destroying a lot of something, etc etc. This game does seem to be flying under the radar in this season of mega releases, but it may be worth your time to check out. Again I haven't finished it yet, but I don't see it taking a turn for the worse.

Other than that I haven't been playing much new. I'm still trudging through Gears 3 and am about 60% through that. I have Resistance 3 on the way from Gamefly, along with Dead Space 2, which through discounts and coupons I was able to snag for $1.80. And also I'll be getting Batman: Arkham City for Xmas. Looks like I'll be set for a while.. assuming of course Gamefly starts sending me more stuff I request. Hell I'm still waiting on Uncharted 3...

Sadly I've given up on both Driver and Resistance 3. In Driver I got stuck on a mission where I had to transport 4 cars to different areas in the span of 5 minutes, and after about 10 extremely frustrating and futile attempts I simply gave up. I still recommend the game especially if you like driving games, but I just stopped caring enough to keep trying.

Resistance 3 isn't bad either. I guess I'm simply not in the mood for an FPS game that isn't Black Ops, which sounds horrible to say but I just had issues getting into it. I also suppose jumping into the third of the series without playing 1 or 2 didn't do much to help me get engrossed with the plot.

For now it looks like I'll be spending some time with deep space 2 and arkham city. Also I've been getting back into black ops multiplayer as of late. I guess playing mw3 online reminded me of how much more fun black ops was when compared to it.

I just finished Rayman: Origins and here are my thoughts..

Some of you may be asking yourselves, "What the hell is Rayman: Origins?" Sadly it was lost in the shuffle of major AAA releases that dominated Q4 of last year, which is a shame because Rayman: Origins is f-ing AWESOME, and deserves your time and money.

Rayman: Origins is a classic 2D platformer in the tradition of NSMBW and LBP that seems to encompass all the best features of both while nicely avoiding their worst features as well. There isn't much of a plot to speak of (as is common with games like these) but that's irrelevant because the game is just damn fun. The controls are tight, the sound is great, and the graphics are GORGEOUS. Seriously! To an outsider or passerby it would be easy for them to confuse this with a modern cartoon. The game also has a lot of charm and style which make it a true treat to play.

Of course, the game is by no means perfect, although it definately looks to hold a place in my 2012 GOTY list (a list that sadly very few people seem to fill out nowadays.) The biggest problem with the game is ironically also tied with one of it's strongest features, which is the difficulty. The game is basically made up of 2 main "quests" along various levels. While the first quest is more than reasonable in terms of difficulty, the difficulty "curve" quickly turns up, and you'll find yourself dying at an almost disturbing rate. Some of the later levels are reminiscent of "perfection platformers" like Super Meat Boy and Splosion Man, where one mistake will send you right back to the beginning. Luckily, like those games, there is no limit on lives and checkpoints are rather generous for the most part. As a result, no challenge feels unreasonable or unbeatable, giving the game that classic "One More Try" feeling that gets you going as a gamer. The other complaint I have is that the very last level and ending are rather underwhelming. After going through hell and back in that final level, the final "thing" that ends the level is rather baffling, and when you are left in bewilderment as to whether or not you beat a game until you finally see the credits start to roll, that typically is not a well executed ending. I have a feeling though that this is like the Mario games where you don't get the "True Ending" until you achieve 100% completion and get all the various collectables and such, which is something I don't care about, but will likely appeal to other players.

Overall Rayman: Origins is arguably one of the best 2D platformers of this current console generation (although to be fair the competition isn't very stiff in that department.) It is definately worth your attention and could stand to be on your gaming shelf. I give it an A-.

I finally popped my RPG cherry and spent the last six weeks in Mass Effect 2. Normally, as I purchase all my games, after finishing a game's main story campaign, I'll take a break and (re)play the campaigns of other games I'm currently working on (I usually play my games 100% completion/platinum trophy--if I can).

ME2 was the first time I ever started a new campaign immediately after beating the game the first time. I was that hooked ... and considering I'm currently also working on Batman Arkham City, Uncharted 3, and Assassin's Creed Revelations (3 of my favorite franchises), and the ME2 campaign can take 40+ hours, that's saying a lot!

Fortunately almost all the story-related DLC that came out for the 360/PC version was included on the PS3 version, and I only had to buy the Arrival DLC (which went on sale while I was playing) to complete my experience--and the 100%/platinum.

Well, I just sent Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception back to Gamefly. I didn't beat the game, but I sent it back anyways..

Followers of my reviews (of which there are none) will know that I don't view the Uncharted series in the same light as some other people who seem to herald it as some major achievement in gaming. While I'll be the first to admit that the games are good, I'd have to say that they aren't so good as to throw a fit when reviewers don't give it a perfect score. Still I went into UC3 as I did with any of the games, with decent expectations of fun and cinematic quality. While the game certainly delivered on the latter, it didn't do so well with the former.

My first problem is with the combat, both the gun and melee aspects of it. I remembered reading about how some people were complaining that there were aiming issues with this game but I honestly did not expect them to be as bad as they were. I tried both aiming settings and with both I found the game refusing to register my hits on numerous occasions. And for the record, I've played numerous 1st and 3rd person shooters so I think at this point I know how to aim properly. I know the loose controls certainly don't help matters, but all I know is that I didn't have as many problems in the previous 2 games as I did with this one.

The melee combat was significantly better in that is just merely bad. Now to be fair I only played through the first half of the game so maybe it gets tougher later on, but basically every fight could be won by mashing the square button like you're trying to squash a spider on your controller and then making sure you hit the proper QTE to counter or break a hold. However the room for error in hitting these QTEs is so great that you'd have to be completely ignorant to them to not hit them properly. It reminded me of Batman, Arkham Asylum if the combat had been turned back to preschool level.

One thing I can say is that unlike most games like this, the AI is actually rather intelligent. Unfortunately though it seems like they're too smart for their own good to the point where it just gets annoying. For one they seem to spawn out of seemingly nowhere. I lost count of how many times I'd be in the middle of a gun battle only to have my focus broken by some goon that punched me in the back of the head because somehow I missed them during the combat. I would also run into them frequent times while I was moving into a new area, like we were trying to recreate that door hitting scene from the beginning of Laverne and Shirley. Finally, the stealth gameplay continued the problems of the second game, where killing 1 guy (or attempting to kill 1 guy) would alert every baddie with a gun within a 5 mile radius. And of course, most of these guys will be behind cover at distances of nearly 50 yards, leaving you to try and kill them over a long distance with a pistol or a machine gun, forcing you to drain about half your ammo just to hit them, while they seem to have the accuracy of the Vietnamese girl at the end of Full Metal Jacket with those same guns.

The final straw came in Chapter 12: Abducted where I was forced to run around some old abandoned shipyard with little more than a pistol and a tommy gun against 30 some-odd armed men in, of all things, a water level. After dying for about the 5th time when some guy came out of nowhere and started melee combat in an open area that caused all the bullets to turn me into swiss cheese, which then lead to said guy laughing at me as the game faded to black, I threw my controller and asked myself 2 important questions:
Am I having fun playing this? NO.
Do I care at all about what happens to Nathan Drake/Tim Tebow and his ragtag gang of friends? NO.

That's not to say that UC3 is all bad. As I mentioned earlier the game continues the tradition of great acting and imaginative set pieces, and the gorgeous visuals created by the PS3 help significantly with the immersion factor. Unfortunately though that just leaves us with a game that looks great but plays badly. I'm sure if I really tried I could pass Chapter 12 along with the rest of the game, but all that would do is just lead me to more parts of the game I wasn't going to enjoy anyways. Besides, if I really find myself dying to know how the story ends, I can just fire up Youtube for that.

In conclusion I would still recommend UC3 (and the entire UC series in general) to anyone who has a PS3, but unfortunately this one did not warm up to me as much as it would give me the cold shoulder whenever I tried to get into it, like the hot girl you're trying to get with but is ignoring all your advances. And that's UC3 in a nutshell for me. It's an extremely attractive girl who looks hot in all the right places, but once she opens her mouth you quickly see that she is not one for the long run. I give it a C-.

yourbeliefs said:

Well, I just sent Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception back to Gamefly. I didn't beat the game, but I sent it back anyways..

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Sorry to hear you gave up on what for me was one of the best parts of U3. But I understand the feeling that if you're not having fun, why bother.

The dockyards are pretty tricky, especially on harder difficulties as the level design induces you to first stealth kill the guys on the platforms, but once the goons are alerted, you get pummeled with turrets, RPG's and armored guys with shotties.

On my Hard (2nd) playthrough, instead of heading to the right toward the platforms, I went to the far left side of the map where the two ships are. There you can first stealth kill a few guys off the side of the boat and then deal with the few remaining on those boats while bobbing in the water, which provides good cover. You are also well-shielded, by the boats themselves, from the turrets and other gunfire. Once the two boats are cleared you can climb aboard grab some ammo or another weapon. Then jump back in the water in time for the next wave (almost all the goons on the map eventually will work their way over to the two boats). After that, all that's left is getting back on the boat, grabbing the sniper rifle or RPG to take out anyone still on a turret or otherwise staying in place.

As much as this game deserves both the praise and criticisms it's received, the general consensus I've read in many forums is that it gets better in the second half (though the melee combat doesn't really get any harder ... even the "bosses"). The online co-op missions can be a lot of fun, too.

I may give the game another shot down the road, but for now I'm just not up for it. The annoying combat and other aspects just kept making it not fun for me. I was really trying to like it and forgive it for it's shortcomings, but after a while I just said enough is enough for now.

In the meantime I'll probably be occupying myself with Batman: AC and Assassin's Creed: Revelations, which I got on sale at 50% off recently (Thanks Gamespot!... For reducing it to that price and then REALLY thanks Amazon for matching the price and allowing me to bypass paying sales tax as well as getting it in 1 day with Prime!)

Oh, and when it goes on sale I'll probably download Skyrim at some point. I want the PC version because the mods I've seen are already interesting and the developer's kit is about to be released, which will provide even more free adventures beyond just what Bethesda supplies..

Well, Skyrim went on sale at Steam last week, and about 12 hours of playtime later I can safely say that I am all in. I just played the game for about 6 hours straight (love "working from home") and I only stopped because I figured my wife would be mad at me if she heard I delayed picking up my daughter as a result of it. This game has basically sucked up my free time, and everytime my wife says she has to work late and my daughter falls asleep I smile with glee, knowing Zena and I wll be adventuring along the countryside, constantly being interrupted along the way by new quests and random bandits that need an ass kicking.

Skyrim has been a mixed blessing though. When I originally tried to run the game on my 6 year old computer Skyrim laughed at me and slapped me around with horrible detail levels and repulsive frame rates. I had to throw in a new video card and finally the game ran at playable levels. Shortly after doing this, my long running itch to build myself a new computer came rolling back, so now I have a new motherboard, processor, and memory coming to me in the mail and I'm going to gut my old machine and finally have a computer that doesn't embarass me. Maybe this is the link that will push me back into PC Gaming..

I took a break from Skyrim and went through KoA in about a week. Now I am going back to finish my second go around with Skyrim

I am a classic gamer NES, Sega, and PS1.

Dan Rose

grydlok said:

I took a break from Skyrim and went through KoA in about a week. Now I am going back to finish my second go around with Skyrim

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What'd you think of KoA? Curt says some DLC is coming, apparently is was bigger (more content) than EA likes their DLC to be, but he pushed it through anyways. Really love his passion for his company and their IP, they self-published it on Steam to meet fan demands that don't like Origin.

Most of my time had been sucked up with Skyrim and some other PC games now that my PC is top of the line once again. Still working through Painkiller (which is sad considering I'm pretty sure I purchased the game nearly 2 years ago) and I've loaded up Prototype again because I just love the game so much and it runs like butter on it, but right now I've shifted my focus back on Mass Effect 2.

I fully plan on getting the 3rd one, but I need to bring my characters up the speed before I do that. I have one completed Shepard but I just did the main mission and none of the DLC stuff (as it had not been released yet) while my other Shepard has been playing all the DLC along with the main mission, but still hasn't finished. This is mainly because of the last released DLC which frustratingly forces you to play by yourself (as opposed to bringing 2 squad mates) and playing as an Adept on Hard difficulty by yourself at times feels like you're playing Serious Sam with just a shotgun. I got stuck at the end of the mission and said "F This" and moved on to other games, but now that the new game is out I may as well finish up now. At first I felt bad because I didn't beat the game in time for the 3rd release, but considering the fact that they still haven't ironed out all the bugs such as the perplexingly obvious face import issues, I'm not that upset over it.

yourbeliefs said:

Most of my time had been sucked up with Skyrim and some other PC games now that my PC is top of the line once again. Still working through Painkiller (which is sad considering I'm pretty sure I purchased the game nearly 2 years ago) and I've loaded up Prototype again because I just love the game so much and it runs like butter on it, but right now I've shifted my focus back on Mass Effect 2.

I fully plan on getting the 3rd one, but I need to bring my characters up the speed before I do that. I have one completed Shepard but I just did the main mission and none of the DLC stuff (as it had not been released yet) while my other Shepard has been playing all the DLC along with the main mission, but still hasn't finished. This is mainly because of the last released DLC which frustratingly forces you to play by yourself (as opposed to bringing 2 squad mates) and playing as an Adept on Hard difficulty by yourself at times feels like you're playing Serious Sam with just a shotgun. I got stuck at the end of the mission and said "F This" and moved on to other games, but now that the new game is out I may as well finish up now. At first I felt bad because I didn't beat the game in time for the 3rd release, but considering the fact that they still haven't ironed out all the bugs such as the perplexingly obvious face import issues, I'm not that upset over it.

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Though it was by no means a cake walk, I actually managed to beat the Arrival DLC on Insanity difficulty as an Adept. It wasn't too bad except for the part where you have to protect someone while she hacks a computer. It glitched on me three times as enemies that I blasted with biotics got trapped in weird places where I couldn't finish them off forcing me to restart the checkpoint.

Otherwise I'm in a very similar position. On Shep #2, I still need to complete some DLC and side missions and on a third Shep I still need to finish the story.

Because I put in over 100 hours in Dec/Jan/early Feb on ME2, I'm in no hurry to get ME3 (more than happy to wait for a price drop). In fact I've now gone back to other games, including finishing AC Brotherhood (side missions) so I can start AC Revelations which I bought in November.

I also took advantage of a sale this week to finally pick up inFamous Festival of Blood. Short but sweet. Can't wait for inFamous 2! (also in my backlog)

The hacking wasn't too bad. The part my fem Shepard is stuck on is at the end when you have to get to the communications tower. All those troops along with the ED 209 robot have been too much for Kate Shepard to handle. David Shepard got through it in one try but David was at level 29, was a one man army as a soldier, and only playing on normal difficulty while Kate is on hard. I know the part is beatable, but I still need to come up with the right strategy.

yourbeliefs said:

The hacking wasn't too bad. The part my fem Shepard is stuck on is at the end when you have to get to the communications tower. All those troops along with the ED 209 robot have been too much for Kate Shepard to handle. David Shepard got through it in one try but David was at level 29, was a one man army as a soldier, and only playing on normal difficulty while Kate is on hard. I know the part is beatable, but I still need to come up with the right strategy.

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I stayed behind that first bit of cover and spammed the soldiers to the right and the approaching YMIR Mech with Level 4 Singularity and Warp (as an Adept). Even if the mech gets all the way up to your cover, it can't damage you, except when you pop up to fire a weapon or biotic. It probably helped though that I had purchased the Firepower Pack and had the Matlock Assault Rifle and the Phalanx Hand Pistol in addition to the Locust SMG at my disposal (can't remember the Heavy Weapon I used, but I'm sure it wasn't the Cain, which would've cleared the area in one shot).

I literally made it to the communications relay with one second to spare.

But your post reminded me that in my third playthrough as an Infiltrator, I'm currently stuck in the Shadow Broker mission (the last battle before leaving Illium), and my pride won't let me drop the difficulty from Insanity, which is something I told myself I would allow myself to do before starting out on this "just for fun" run, as I had already beaten the entire game on Insanity (skipping Shadow Broker) on my Adept run.

Actually I ended up beating the scene about 2 days ago. I set myself up on the right side so that I couldn't be flanked, and I basically went crazy with the sniper rifle and brought everyone down. Now I've progressed and am at the last boss fight. I'm hoping though that everyone makes it out alive. I had to reload a save because apparently making Grunt the head of the diversion group was a bad idea and he ended up dying, so I had to reload and Jacob was able to get the job done. I'll be pissed though if it turns out someone in my group ends up dying and I need to fight that guy again. He's not hard, but goddamn the fight is drawn out. I want to have everyone alive for my Mass Effect 3 experience. I have to imagine keeping everyone alive would do more good than bad.

Speaking of Mass Effect 3, I'm a little worried that the main "buzz" about the game now is that the ending is very disappointing. By "disappointing" I hope they just mean that it's not as extravagant as they thought it would be, and not that it goes on some weird tangent that you can't understand, or leaves the door open for another game or "required" DLC to get the whole story.

Think I am about done buying games for my PS3.

Picked up Resistance 3 on clearance. It took over an hour to download and apply 4 patches.

I downloaded Street Fighter II Turbo Remix (in a moment of weakness I subbed to a year of PS Plus some time ago), and it had a 300mb patch for the 303mb game that I let sit there for 15 minutes, and it said there was another 55 minutes remaining.