Anyway, it looks like Starhawk will bring out some new features that Warhawk was lacking. First off, a single player mode! When Warhawk was first announced it had a single player mode, but was later cut by the team because it didn’t “feel right.” Now, it looks like it’s back and should bring a nice addition to the game. I mean, I think all PS3 games should have single player modes now-a-days since you can’t play online anymore. It seems they cut out picking up health items and have swapped to the newer tradition of slow health regeneration. As you mow down your enemies you will acquire rift energy which can be used to call down strategic structures in the middle of a battle to help alter the fight in your favor. This is pretty much all the information I was able to get from my first viewing of the video found below but felt I should share some the key points I was looking forward to. If you’re a fan of Warhawk, own a PS3 or just like awesome games. Check out the video and see what you think. I can say with 100% certainty  that I will be pre-ordering this bad boy when it makes it way to Amazon.

****Edit*** I removed the video here because it stopped loading. There is a better video that can be found here.

The new map is also a welcomed site to sore eyes. Not nearly as large as Omega Dawn (Thank goodness) and no where near as bright as Broken Mirror. In the middle of the map, it appears that there is a giant space ship that has fell from the sky (Hence Fallen Star, eh.. eh?), which I can only assume is one of the ships that were meant to be in the single player campaign the game was originally going to have.

On a quick side note, I want to give kudos to the team that created all the names for the trophies. They have all made me chuckle, and I hope to some day have the Platinum, All Your Base Are To Belong Platinum.

As of Wednesday, the new 1.4 patch for Warhawk was released. Why it didn’t contain the new trophy patch (That will be the 1.5 patch that should be out “soon”), but instead it contained two very nice new game modes.

The first new game mode has to be my favorite of the two, Hero.

Yes, this is what it looks like when you are the Hero for your team (Change color when needed).
Basically the game mode plays out like this. Team Death Match style, but on each team there is one hero. The hero is randomly selected and upon becoming the Hero, your backpack becomes full with all the fun weapons you love. On top of this you get a bonus to your armor(health?) All in all you can take a whole lot more damage, and you can dish TONS of it out. Your weapons become much stronger, for example, I blew up a tank with my assault rifle!

Once you die, a new hero will be randomly selected. If you manage not to die, about after two minutes you will lose your hero status and a new player will be selected.  So far I have become the hero at least twice a game.

The next game mode is called Collection, which takes capture the flag and puts a twist on it.  If you look closely on the map above, you will see four little biohazard symbols. These are where the cores are. Your job is to grab a core, and take it back to your base. Here’s the catch though, the points improve the more cores you have. So if you turn in one core, you recieve one point. Two cores = three, three cores = six, four cores = twelve I believe. Although I have yet to see four turned in at once. It’s different, but a little odd feeling. If you’re a fan of base defense like Mike K. is, you might find you need to adjuts your play style, since the bad guys will never come into your base unless they are chasing you down.

This patch brought in a few other features and tweaks, but I mainly wanted to go over the new game modes.

So it seems that as soon as I make one claim, someone has to go and show me up.  Almost as if someone was actually taking my rants seriously (Although it’s ok, I know it’s not true)

Namco Bandai made the announcement that Eternal Sonota will be making it’s way towards the PS3 US this fall. Now even though Tri-Ace’s game may not be the console seller/die hard fanboy lover that the Final Fantasty series has grown over the years. I won’t sit idly by when a day before I was going on hoping for a more leveled playing ground. Then when a company responds, just to ignore it. What kind of Journalist would I be? (I wonder if Hillary Clinton needs anyone to work for her)

So all in all, Eternal Sonota has been announced to make it’s way to the PS3. The game looks quite interesting and shall be played. One reason at least, I feel like it took a stand next to me in a world of equals.

So I gave myself a day to think about this one before the rant begun. When I first heard the news that Microsoft managed to get their hands on FF XIII, I didn’t have the enjoyable sweet taste in my mouth that so many others had during that moment.

Now I want to make one thing clear, I don’t want to call myself a PS3 fanboy. I love my Playstation, and I chose to go with Playstation for a few strong reasons. I didn’t go the way of the 360 because, well I don’t like the idea of shelling out a few hundred bucks to buy a console, some more money for a video game, and on top of that have to shell out more money just to be able to play games online. I kept away from the Wii, because… well I have a personal grudge against Nintendo that I think only Mike K. knows about. I decided to get a Next-Gen console for the sole purpose of Online Gaming, since Online PC games have been… lacking lately unless you play MMO’s live inside of WoW.

Back on track, I am happy to see the 360 getting FF XIII. The only thing that really pisses me off, if you step back and take a look at the industry.  It seems the entire system is revolving around the 360. Where the only thing Playstation has going for them is their Blu-Ray player. I don’t mind the idea of non-first party exclusives. It just seems that Playstation 3 can’t get any from Microsoft. Yes, I’m ready for those of you that are fanboys of 360, or just have their dire hatred of Sony saying various remarks about how the PS3 is shit and that’s why they can’t get any games.  I’m not trying to say the industry should revolve around the PS3, and I am not trying to sound like the fanboy crying.

Instead I’m coming to you as a fellow gamer. Another person that has the love and passion for video games, no matter what system. If I am at a buddies house and they suggest we play PC/360/Wii/hell even board games. I am all for it and ready to throw down. I have never shown up at Ronin’s or Visceran’s house with a clove of garlic and my trusty wooden cross prepared to ward off the evil demons of their 360/Wii.

I just want the developers to start thinking about both (all three parties) when making games for multi-platform. I mean… some of the companies make the games for more than one system, but then only make extra content for one of those systems? What was the point of selling your soul and going non-exclusive for the extra money, if you’re not going to fully comment to the lack of a soul and continue to draw money from all the platforms? Just boggles me how some of these guys think.

-Ranting terminated

Well it only took nearly two years for Sony to bring this feature to the Playstation 3, but they finally did it. As of midnight, I was able to download and install the new 2.40 firmware update. So now, I’m off to play some Super Stardust HD so I can check out these new trohpies.

Not exactly as I invisioned, but I think it will do.  Something they can always improve on right? I’m not going to be one of those people that say they’ve been wanting it, but then complain cause it’s not exactly what I want. I’m thrilled Sony is finally taking care of their users. I mean… later is better then never, right?

So here you are, and this is all coming to you live, Wednesday.

I won’t rant about what I like and don’t like, I’ll wait till they bring out all the videos for 2.40 before I cast my judgement. So far though, I approve.

With the final chapter of the Metal Gear Solid Saga staring a ripe old Solid Snake, be prepared for tons of back history and linking things together in order to bring the whole story/series together.  By this point of time, any Metal Gear Solid fan will have already bought the game, and more than likely beaten it. So what’s the point of even writing a review in the first place? Easy, for the fun of it, and for the few of you out there that have been holding off on getting their PS3 and have been debating due to the MGS4: Bundle. (I’m looking at you Mike K.!)

I’m not going to go into graphics or how awesome the sound was, it was made by the team that’s done the other Metal Gear Solids, and you know they can deliver. (For those of you that don’t know, just know this, I think I need to write a whole paragraph just bragging about those two things, trust me, the man filled a Blu-Ray disc)

I will however comment on the controls, and they were quite different from other games from the series. Not necessarily in a bad way, but in a way where it will take you a bit to get use to the new controls. For the most part, they play much like the older ones, except now you need to hold down L2 to aim (which takes you into an over the shoulder style aiming) then you can press triangle which will pull you into a first person perspective for aiming. This is where it was a little tricky for me, although pretty much the entire game I used the FPS mode, however I had to tweak the sensitivity a little.

One of the few minor announances is the inital eight minute long install the game requires you to take in order to do what it does. Then after every chapter, there is another, one to three minute long install for the mission briefing cut scenes. Which including cut scenes, the entire game took me roughly 20 hours to play through. Although I felt like a complete newb, since the first five minutes I was unsure what to do and I died to some giant machine walking around on two legs that decided to do a sweeping kick at me.

As far as the Online game goes (Yes, for those of you that didn’t know, MGS4 comes with Metal Gear Online) I haven’t really broke into it yet. I played it back when it was beta, and wasn’t a big enthuthiest of it.  Not because it was in beta, trust me, I’ve done enough beta’s in my day to understand the workings of them and what to expect as far as game performance. No my issue with the game was… well it takes team work for the game to be tons of fun. Sure you can have some fun going around shooting people, but it’s sort of a tactical game, much like the real game.  So if you have a team full of fuck-tards, the game game just seems like any other game where  you mindlessly run around with a gun or a knife and try to murder people where a team with better skill than you will just kill you. (much like that shitty ass Counter-Strike) So I think the game might have potential, if you are able to play with some friends and work together, but if you go in there as the stand alone, lone wolf, screw everyone else kind of player.  I just don’t see this one being the one for you.

For the over all of the game (can you write an over-all when you never really reviewed it in the first place? yes… yes I can!) I agree with the high scores this game has been given. If you’re a fan of the series, you will enjoy this one to finish up everything. Anyone that has been debating on the PS3, but still unsure and MGS was one of your factors you wanted to weigh in, let this one push that scale down to “Lets go buy a PS3!” You’ll enjoy it.

I leave you with two things, one final image, and the Zero Puncuation of Metal Gear Solid 4

As for now, if you load up your PS3 (and haven’t done so before reading this post) you will be greeted with the 2.36 Firmware update which:

“…improving system stability when playing select PlayStation format software titles.”

So there you have it for those of you that believed in game XMB was like the cake.

Kotaku’s Story
Playstation’s Blog