Around the Web - April 28, 2011 Edition

First, some bad news: the Playstation Network has been down for more than a week now. Apparently, they've been hacked, and personal information of all account holders may now be in the wild, including, possibly, credit card information. Click here for the FAQs page they set up.

I guess my purchase of the PSOne classics I've been drooling for that would finally wake up my sleeping PSP would have to be put on hold for now. Sleep tighter, my PSP.

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After more than 3 months in the burner, after numerous declarations of more frequent patch releases, World of Warcraft 4.1 has finally arrived.

Nothing substantially new. Carry on. Yeah, I'm trolling.

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The Wii's successor has finally been officially announced. As usual, Nintendo is tight-lipped on what we could expect from their new console, but they did mention that demo units and more specs will be available come E3 this June. Expect the out-of-nowhere name to be dropped a week before that, ala Wii.

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Megaman Legends 3 has been announced for the Nintendo 3DS even before the console was launched. While it is quite some time before the game is actually finished, Japanese 3DS owners will be able to play a demo-ish version in time with the 3DS's eShop launch, reportedly this May.

I'm not well-versed with the series, having only played a few minutes of the PSOne original, but I'm still boggled why a Megaman game doesn't prominently feature the blue bomber.

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Back to WoW. My warrior is 1.5 levels away from cap, finally. No trolls please.

Game Over: Final Thoughts on Infinite Space (DS)

I don't have time for this. Let's go.

Hi,

Yeah, I'm sure you're surprised why I'm writing this to you. I'm quite surprised myself, actually, but I guess this is the best way to go about this.

It's over.

I wanted to like you, really. A lot of people said that you were nice, that although it takes a while to really get to know you, the end result is more than worth it.

I guess it's not you. It's me.

I guess I'm just not as patient as I once was. And boy do I get patience. Just ask my friends.

The thing is, there are some things about you that I just can't take any longer.

For instance, you can't seem to remember anything. I mean, I'm sorry but I do get busy and I have to do other things as well, but would it be too much to ask for you to take note of what has happened in our prior engagements?

Also, you seem to be a bit slow in the uptake. It's kinda cute at first when you always ask me whether I'm sure about one thing or not, but after the 84th time, it gets kinda grating.

The biggest thing, though, is the fact that you just don't seem to care at times. You sometimes make me think that we're getting along just fine, that I'm correctly guessing the things that you like. And then BAM! Out of left field, you unforgivingly bring up something that I just can't take. And you leave me staring at you, clueless as to what I could have done better.

It's best if we don't see each other for a while. I don't have time anymore for these kinds of games.

Farewell

xxx

Rift Sale

$10 off? Where!?!

Rift, the recently-released massively-multiplayer online role-playing game from Trion, is selling the game this weekend for $39.99. That's $10 cheaper folks.

Rift's claim to fame? WoW-like and polished from the get go.

A troublesome sign for a 2-month old game? Probably.

Enough for me to splurge? I've been spurned 3 times already by trying to download their 8 GB client without any way to resume a disrupted download. I know when I'm not wanted :(

The martyr that I am, I'll think about it.

Around the Web

More Wii2 stuff: According to IGN, Wii2 aka Project Cafe aka Stream (as in the console streams the game into the controllers' LCD touch screens) will be sporting a customized AMD graphics card which outperforms the PS3's. It will also be released early 2012 with a $350-400 price point. Wii then Stream? Seriously?

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Kotaku blogs that the Playstation 4 and the Xbox, umm, 720?, will be released 2014 at the earliest. If this is true, and Nintendo does indeed release a significantly more powerful console in 2012, Nintendo will have a 2-year free reign of having the biggest bad boy in town. Of course, Microsoft and Sony are expected to bring out consoles that will significantly overshadow the Wii2 power-wise. The question now is, will the Wii2 be a Sega Dreamcast situation, releasing first and dying a quick death, or a Playstation 2 situation, releasing before its more powerful generation-mates and dominating?

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This week's Steam Weekend Deal: Metro 2033 (Metacritic Average 81/100). A gorgeous-looking first-person shooter based on a book set in post-apocalyptic Moscow. As usual, the future of what's left of humanity is in your hands. $10.

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Shigeru Miyamoto, creator of Mario and Zelda and etc. etc., has announced that they will do their best to release the next 3D Mario on 3DS this year. A 3D platformer on a 3D screen? That's a lot of D's!

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Peter Vesterbacka, developer of Angry Birds, the most downloaded AppStore/Android Market game, is #7 in Times Magazine's 2011 Time 100 most influential people of the world. I guess selling a reskinned version of an old AND FREE and already derivative Flash game makes you influential now, ey? Ey?

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Gonna reskin Gorilla.bas and sell it on the AppStore. 2012 Time 100 here I come!  

(Pictures owned by their owners. Duh.)

Free World of Warcraft?

According to this thread in NeoGAF, Blizzard has given some Battle.NET accounts with a free base World of Warcraft copy. Yep, that includes a whole month of going around Azeroth minus Outlands minus Northrend minus the Cataclysm maps.

So for those who have Battle.NET accounts, who don't have World of Warcraft accounts yet, login and check your account statuses now. And see you after a month. :p

One Small Step - Initial impressions on Infinite Space (DS)

After languishing shrink-wrapped in my cabinet for almost a year, my failed attempt to renew my driver's license has given me a reason to finally start playing Sega's sci-fi Nintendo DS RPG, Infinite Space. I was initially interested in the rave reviews for this no-name game. I've always been a fan of RPGs and my sci-fi craving hasn't been sated since the quite unmemorable Galactic Civilizations 2 so why not, right?

I've logged in a bit over two hours now on the game and within those 2 hours, I have died around 15 times already. This game is friggin' ruthless. Combat is like bato-bato-pik with the only strategy that I could muster as of this moment is planning when to go in or out of weapon range. And then it throws unescapable encounters at me. Funny that the game does that when my fleet's hit points are at critical levels. Hmm.

The game's UI is a bit clunky as well. Not only does it throw numbers and choices at you with nary an explanation of what they are, the whole thing is just slow. Having to confirm almost every darn action with fleet customization takes the fun out of what I feel is the essential part of the game. Saving also takes a good 5 or so seconds, and you really need to save a lot.

Those aside, I'm still willing to give this game a try. Some people have compared this to a space opera, and I could actually see glimpses of that 2 hours in. The story is unassuming so far and promises a bit of depth.

Customization is also fun, from changing your ships' attached modules and weapons, to crew assignments. I just wish these were explained better with tool tips and the like.

Right now, I'm reluctant to suggest this to any but the most starved roleplaying gamers for a try. Let's see if delving into it a bit more will change my mind.

More Wii2 details

I initially blogged about the "details" of the Wii2 yesterday thinking that there's nothing more to squeeze out of the rumor mill. The barrage of new info regarding Nintendo's supposedly upcoming new console still hasn't abated, however. Here are some more supposed details:

- Ubisoft, Activision, and Electronic Arts all have dev kits for the new console, and they have had it for months already.
- Motion sensing is still in, and with higher fidelity than the PS3's Move.
- Controllers have a 6" non-multitouch screens that have sub-HD graphics. The console can stream games into the controllers. Whoa.
- A multicore CPU and a graphics card two generations up from what the Xbox 360 has.
- A big surprise is still to be unveiled at E3.

Sources are Nextgen.biz, CVG, and this post from Neogaf.

My take? I personally would rather keep my anticipation in check. Nintendo and high-ish specs haven't been synonymous since the Gamecube. Oh be still my inner Nintendo fanboy heart!

Rockstar Games Weekend on Steam

I've always wanted to play Bully, the sandbox-ish action game about a high school student bullying nerds, kissing girls (and boys), all while dissecting frogs in Biology class.

I missed purchasing the game for a really low price back in the Steam Christmas sale last December due to Bully being region-locked from good ol' Pinas. And then it became unlocked the day after the sale. Ngek.

I grabbed Bully for $3.74, and the same-priced Max Payne bundle as well, as soon as I turned on my PC. Not letting this opportunity pass me again.

+2 on my ever-growing list of games to play. STEAM! *shakes fist*

Wii 2?

Today, multiple videogaming sites reported on rumors about an impending announcement of a new Nintendo console. Sites like CVG, IGN, and GameInformer have almost simultaneously posted articles on the successor to the Wii.

The scary thing is that they are mostly all in agreement with the details: significantly more powerful than the PS3, backwards-compatible with the Wii, a touch screen added to its standard controller, and an unveiling of the details at the E3 this June.

Nintendo has been known to be the most secretive company in the industry, and some have speculated that this is a very calculated move despite the news/rumor not coming directly from them. On one hand, they've been known to spill some info about new hardware before their E3 debut, like the Revolution's rechristening to the Wii. On the other hand, the monthly US videogame sales results compiled by the NPD were released today, with lackluster sales figures for both the Wii and Nintendo's new handheld, the 3DS, and many think that this new console rumor is just a diversionary tactic.

We will find out soon enough, though. If not by the end of April when Nintendo releases financial data to their investors, definite details, whether to confirm or deny all these current tidbits, will surely come out at E3 this June.

Exciting times ahead, definitely. I still remember the geekgasm I experienced while watching the Nintendo E3 conference last year on TV as it was happening. Not this year, unfortunately.

Taym Pers!

Hi folks!

Taym Pers is my attempt at a gaming blog. Yeah, there's a ton of them out there, so now it's a ton + 1!

I had a short stint as a contributor to a locally-published video gaming magazine some years back and was the "gaming editor" of my previous employer's quarterly newsletter. What am I trying to say? Not much, except that I have this huge unspent amount of ideas that has been trapped in my brain for the last few months without an outlet. I guess this makes Taym Pers my videogame idea toilet.

Obviously, just by looking at the layout, this is still a work in progress which I hope to stick to for a significant amount of time. Unlike my last attempt, which I would rather not speak about. Ngwek.

Once in a while, whenever I feel like it, I'll post opinions on the biggest video gaming news, share my thoughts on games that I'm currently wasting my time on, and just do general videogaming non-sense. I'll try to keep things short, sweet, and light-hearted most of the time, but no promises ;)

And with that, I still have a first gaming blog to think about writing about. Taym Pers!