Sony Tech Support: Still Making Amends

So I was playing the Ico and Shadow of the Colussus pack on my PS3 and was chatting with a friend on my PC the other night. I took a break for a second to look to the IM I responded, couldn't have taken longer than a few seconds to do. When I turned back to my screen, the PS3 was turned off. "Well that is strange." I thought to myself. So I got up from my chair and inspected the system. The red standby light was on, nothing seemed out of the ordinary but I didn't want to take any chances so I pressed the eject button on my system and was greeted by the beep to let me know it turned on, and a fiercely loud crack as if the late Macho Man Randy Savage was snapping into a Slim Jim in my ear. It was so loud that I jumped back away from the system while I was sitting. "Well that is definitely not good." I said out loud, "Perhaps its just an overheating issue." So I waited for a few minutes, give the thing some time to cool off a bit. I tap the eject button again and again I receive the beep. The lights glow for less than a second and then immediately shuts back down. Something is seriously wrong.

So bitter and grumbling, I dig up the box to my slim PS3 system and find my receipt. I bought the system in June of this year. It lasted 3 months. THREE. My 60gb lasted since the launch till this June. I'm a tad confused here because I was under the impression that new model was supposed to be a more efficient green design? A slimmer design that runs cooler, with less fan noise, and uses about 40% percent less power than its predecessor. In essence they have the smaller and quiet part down but not the cooler. I always make sure that I pull they system out some to get the proper ventilation but that did not seem to save the system. So naturally, I was pissed.

With receipt in hand I prepare to make my call to the Sony support line. I have it memorized from my time working at the game store. I dial in and something strange happened: I get the automated message but in the first one it announces that I can press zero and skip right to a representative. Don't have to deal with an a barrage of automated bullshit? Don't mind if I do. I hit zero and after the call may be monitored message it rings one time and I am put through to a very clear English speaking gentleman by the name of Mark. I understood everything he said the first time he said it, this was obviously Mark from Connecticut, not Mark from Bangalore so that's a +1 for this call. I explain my situation to him and he has me run through about 2 or 3 things and we assess that its most definitely an electrical issue. He tells me that I am still under warranty so it will be repaired free of charge. This was expected as it was only a few months old. He told me that he would be sending me a prepaid shipping box to send my system out their repair service in Texas and the time frame that I should receive it. Ive already received the shipping box so best case scenario i should have it back within 2 weeks.

Here's my problem, I knew going into the call if this is something that cannot be fixed or fixed easily, they will replace my system with a refurbished one they have already repaired. He told me "Its the same thing as buying it brand new out of a retailer." To which I immediately shot back, "With all due respect, I have worked at a GameStop for like 7 or 8 years. Every single one of those refurbished ones come back within days. They are hardly like buying it new." But I understood that and that wasn't the issue. What did bother me is he would let know that regardless if they system could be repaired or not, they were going to wipe my hard drive. I understand its a security issue but that's another 70 hours of Yakuza 4, my new Disgaea 4 save, and another set of Demon's souls saves. Considering I just had to start a few of these games from scratch a scant few months ago I'm kinda ticked off.

Since my credit card was used during the big Sony hacking this summer, my new system had no information on it. So I threw a note in there asking if they wouldn't wipe the drive but I'm expecting it to be gone when I get it. The other big complaint is the game I have been waiting for all year is Dark Souls. Its the spiritual successor to Demon's Souls which as most PS3 owners can tell you is one of the most difficult games you can play, its a game I love immensely. I have been really stoked to play it but now I might not have my system by it comes out. Major bummer. But perhaps there is hope, as I got the box to mail it out almost the next day and I have shipped out my system already.

Ultimately however I have to say that most of the time dread having to make a tech support call of any kind. But I was overall very pleased with the speed, clarity and helpfulness of the call I made. It certainly seems like Sony is focusing on keeping up their customer service standards. I guess they are still trying to keep people happy after letting so many people down over this past summer. Who knows....

So with my PS3 out for repair and Dead Island becoming completely unplayable because I die every few steps, I cracked open my sealed copy of Fable 3. I've been debating doing a review for it because the game has been out for so long that it might as well be a retro review. The initial reviews are not that great, but perhaps that will change as I play the game.. In the mean time the next few reviews might be a while or perhaps I can get some guest reviews going or something. Hang tight peeps.

Dead Island (XB360): See? Told you we weren't Left 4 Dead.

I, like every other 18-32 year old and their brother in this country, love zombies. And because of this, by proxy I usually love anything that contains zombies. Tv shows, comics, movies, and of course video games. I usually have a rule of thumb that if it contains zombies, it must be good and history in the gaming world tends to back this theory. Here's a brief list of games that contain zombies:

-Disgaea

-Call of Duty

-Resident Evil
-Saints Row 2

-Castlevania

-Left 4 Dead
-Red Dead Redemption

-Silent Hill (if you could call them that.... maybe)

-Dead Rising

Different styles of games, all proven to be successful. I don't play maybe one of these games but as you can see, that's some company that produces money. So because of this theory, I don't research zombie games like I do others and this was the case with this weeks review.

DEAD ISLAND:(XB360)

Although perhaps in this case maybe I should have done a little research. I blindly reserved and purchased my special edition from my local LameStop and quickly unwrapped it. Initial views seemed very positive as it starts with a first person view of you getting blackout drunk at the Island Resort and waking up to zombie infestation. I picked the usual girl character like my custom from the racially stereotyped pick and mix  (and they are unabashedly stereotyped) and was treated to a cut scene of shit going haywire and started running through my tutorial. I was surprised that there was so much story right out the gate. It pretty much let me know right off that this game was not trying to be Left 4 Dead. I plugged my way through the hotel and tried to find my way to my first house full of survivors where the guy from The Hangover explained to me we need to help these people and get everyone to the Lifeguard Tower because its safer there. Sounds great. I wandered around the house and got me some side quests, grabbed a boat paddle and jumped out of the house to crack some skulls.

I had remembered hearing when I was looking at the initial reviews of this game that is primarily melee focused, and that is certainly the case. But for some reason, it does feel a little sloppy to me. First person games and I never get along as it is for the most part, but I understand the logic of lining up the reticule and pulling the trigger. But these are melee weapons, if I swing a baseball bat I'm going to hit the things I'm sweeping to the sides on. This is something that Dead Island doesn't exactly execute properly. For example, I use the Asian assassin who is proficient with bladed weapons (such as katana's if the stereotype wasn't bad enough yet). One of the earlier headaches you meet in the game are larger zombies called thugs. They are slow and lumbering but if you take a hit from them, they send you flying. They do have a fairly simple weakness though. Your kick move can hit them but keeps you just out of the range of their swing. You can usually land 3 or 4 of them before they yell and flail. At this point you can take some swings with bladed or blunt weapons to cut off or break the arms so they have use a less effective lunging headbutt. The problem is despite the huge swinging arc I am swinging with my machete, I only am scoring damage on the chest. Many of the early blades do not have all that great of durability and usually go down after a zombie or 2. So if you aren't moving your aim way over and scoring your arm attacks on the thugs you are in for some big hits.

God that's another massive complaint of mine in this game. How many games have you played where you thought to yourself: "Oh my weapon broke. That was pretty cool." Let me answer for you, NONE. I understand you are trying to go for realism in these games but its friggen annoying and it just frustrates a player especially in the middle of a tough fight the last thing you want is your character announce the beefed up bat with a saw blade sticking out of it is broken. They make up for this by having the kick move drain no stamina and a rage ability for a few seconds of high damage, but it doesn't balance it. You can repair and upgrade you weapons for a nominal fee, but you only get you money from completing quests or looting and usually you never have enough to repair all your favorites and will almost be left in a tight situation without a decent tool. Its friggen annoying.

Here's a quick tip to gain money fast. Whenever you need scratch, jump into a friends who game who is a much lower level than you. All the baddies are leveled with whoever hosts the game, but the rewards you get are to your level. So a simple level 3 fetch quest may only reward your friend with like 97 dollars but you might get up to a couple thou plus experience. A few missions and you can easily rack up some cash to repair or level up your favorite stuff.

Be careful in the water. Zombies can take drowning damage if you knock them over under water, and you can usually cut through beaches if you want avoid a scuffle. But if the water seems too deep, don't try. Its crystal clear over the surface but if you wander a little to deep the screen blurs badly and turns near black. Its VERY difficult to get yourself turned around the right way to get yourself back to land before you health depletes to zero. Apparently island resort beaches are just tar that looks really nice from above.

The kick is really broken by the way. As I eluded to, it doesn't use your stamina, it stuns your enemies and sometimes knocks them down, and if they start to get up another kick will keep them down. Later you will learn a head stomp move for stupid damage. In one on one situations you typically won't even need your weapon. But in group situations neither of these moves are great because you'll take a beating as you do it. By the 2nd act of the game its almost not worth it to you. As I have played through the game, I have collected some handguns so far, but for the most part they have been completely piss weak and not worth using the inventory slot on unless I'm fighting other survivors who have guns and can't close the gap to use my knives.

The Kick. The most useful tool in Dead Island

Here is my major gripe. While I was running around the island looking to complete the side quests I had taken, I found myself wondering "god where is a zombie so I can fight it already.". After minutes of walking I would beat one down and be like "That didnt last long enough to be fun, where the hell is the next one?" And after a few of these I realized I had these feelings before. It was like the time when I tried Borderlands and in that same fashion, I got bored as hell walking around looking for something to shoot or putting down the same type of skag or whatever. That was the major flaw for me. I was getting bored. I also have this problem when I play a game like Fallout 3 or Elder Scrolls. If I can walk around a field for 40 minutes and have nothing happen its not a game I am going to play for very long. And if that wasn't bad enough, the game hammers you with like 25 side quests right out the gate. So it is very easy to get distracted from the main campaign if you are like me and like to the get side stuff out of the way for you to be beefed up for the actual story missions. But this can be terribly exhausting to do and can slow the pace of the game to a legless zombie's crawl.

I was just about ready give up on the game and take it back but I had to opportunity to jump into the game with a couple of friends. Suddenly I wasn't just waiting to kill zombies. I was yelling at one friends bad driving, or tried to explain to them that electricity conducts through a car, or trying to get the lead out to save them from a thug or something. I was enjoying the game a lot more. I was having fun with it. I was starting to think that I should maybe Borderlands another try, but then my friends who I played with kinda dropped off.

I was back to playing the game alone. I was further along in the game now so I didn't have the problem of only having one zombie to fight every 500 steps but now everything was so high level I was just getting wiped out every few steps because when zombies get that many you need an effective gun, not a broken stick. Now I am skipping past zombies to get to objectives. I'm just running around the town now. I was getting bored.

Handy weapon against zombies but that many AND dealing with a ram? Yeah, you're eff'd.

I have never been the type of person to play games online because video game online communities are the anal wart of human society, and if I wanted to hear 7 year old's spit venomous racism at the top of their lungs, I could just go to the teen room of the library I work at. The bottom line is that this game is designed for you to play online with people. And since my friends don't play it that often and I don't like random assholes dropping in on my game, I figure I will not be getting much in the way of mulitplayer play. Which is not favorable for the longevity of this title. I'm already thinking of going on to the next game instead of finishing this one. But I'm going to try to plug it away at it so I can at least see how it ends. But really, had I known what I know now about this game when I first reserved this title? I probably wouldn't have.

Disgaea 4: A Promise Unforgotten (PS3): A return to form, Dood!

Lets do a quick math problem shall we? What do you get when you add 650 hours + 211hrs + 28hrs + 97hrs + 59hrs? You get the embarrassingly large amount of time I have spent playing Disgaea games. Each one of those digits represents the time stamp on of my save files. So if you haven't figured it out already, I kinda like these games. And even sadder, those numbers don't include the offshot titles produced by the same company like La Pucelle Tactics, Phantom Brave, Makai Kingdom, Soul Nomad, or Raphsody just to name a few more.

The first entry of this series Disgaea: Hour of Darkness is heralded by its cult following as one of the best tactical RPGs ever released. Boasting incredibly depth, Fun characters, incredible customization, and a tounge in cheek story light that goes from goofy to brilliant in a heartbeat makes it one of the most memorable games I've ever played. The story will play you about 40 to 60 hours. But if you look at my 650 hour save you can see that I still haven't done everything the game has to offer. With different aspects like character reincarnation, tons of hidden levels and bosses, character throwing and Geo panels, the first Disgaea was nothing short of phenomenal. Since its release there have been sequels and offshoot series, but nothing has matched up to the first one. And I can tell you the three reasons why:

Meet Laharl, Flonne, and Etna. The reasons to play Disgaea

The story of demons, angels, and humans may be the overall driving point of the story, but the dynamic of these three characters are what make it special. Their tongue and cheek attitude to each other and other characters is hilarious in every chapter almost to the point of being nauseating to the non-anime fan, but if you can stick through it, when the main climax starts to roll up the they show such development as characters to real make you feel for them even if you are getting the good or bad endings (one that is particularly heart wrenching). Both of which are equally satisfying and drive you to play through the game more than once. Which is great because the game lets you keep your characters and levels.

Sadly, because of these three hitting the mark so perfectly it makes it almost impossible to repeat this. So when the 2nd came out, I knew this and took Adell and Rozalin as their own pairing and found them to be just as entertaining in their own interesting dynamic. The 3rd one however really missed the point. The game was fun to play the but the story was just awful. So it was with a little hesitation I jumped into the newest installment of a game I loved so much. 

Disgaea 4: A Promise Unforgotten: (PS3)

The game starts off with you controlling Tyrant Valvatorez, a vampire who has lost his powers and relegated to his new role as a Prinny Instructor in Hades with his servant, a Werewolf by the name of Fenrich. (For those who don't know, a prinny is basically the soul of a human trapped in an combustible penguin demon  form who is forced to work essentially slave labor to atone of their sins in life in heaven or hell). Val sustains what little power he has left through an obsession with sardines. Fenrich makes multiple efforts to try to make Val drink blood again to regain his powers that make him a tyrant, which Val ardently refuses to keep promise he made years ago. While he is about to reward his graduating class for completing their prinny training before they go on the Netherworld or Celestia, a vortex rips them away to be destroyed and he follows after them to maintain the promise he gave. Here the game begins.

Generally the play style of Disgaea maintains its core roots. The sprites are much better detailed this time through but the game gives you the option to go to the classic sprite style. It uses the same grid tactics system you would see from its previous installments, and after a few tutorials you are pretty much free to go after all the features of the game right from the get go. You start off each chapter in your home base where you can equip your characters, run to the item world, talk to some of the inhabitants, or go to your Cam-Pain headquarters.

The Cam-pain HQ, for those who played 3, is essentially the same as the classroom system. Here is where you can create your new characters and adjust their bonuses. The Senate voting system comes back here as well. For those who haven't played Disgaea, you use the senate if you wish to get better equipment for the store, unlock new powerups for your map, raise or lower the difficulty of the levels, unlocked new character classes, open additional levels, and a myriad of other things as well. Many of the same tricks you might have learned in past editions are there as well. Such as a cheap trick to make some extra money. When you use the hospital and they give you and item for healing so much, instead of taking the item right away, back out and check it again. Doing this gives you the chance for a rare version of the item which will have better stats and value if you need to sell it. They did take away the ability to get Legendary items from this as I haven't been able to do so.

They went back to the Skills and Evilitiy shop for getting new attacks and abilities. Before in the older versions when you would play, every class as an aptitude for certain weapons. And the more you used them, the more special attacks you would get.  I preferred this because it was easier to boost up a character.  In this there is a shop you spend the mana you earn from killing baddies to unlock new attacks and level up their strength or attack range, its slower and kinda forces you to keep using the same characters, so if you've built 20 characters some of them are going to ride the bench.

Disgaea's best attribute in the actual play is something that they hold over most tactics games is the ability to make changes to you selections after you make them. Meaning if  you line up 3 or 4 people to make an attack on a certain enemy, but then realize you'd rather go somewhere else, you can can cancel out those selections as long as you did not execute them aside form a move. Most Disgaea vets use this constantly, as you can move characters towards your healer, have them cast their heal and then undo the moves to put them right back in the fray. The tower throwing and attacks come back as well, with a slew of new tower attacks to use to help level up those lower level characters.

Doing a review for a game like Disgaea is difficult because there are so many different features to talk about that I could go on forever. Now like I said earlier, I came into this installment a little sluggishly because with Disgaea, the story is everything. Three was fun to play but the tale was so uninteresting it really took away from the game. It just didn't have any of the magic that the first two had. For the first few hours of the game, I did get a bit of a chuckle out of some of the scenes but I wasn't rushing to play it. But as I was trudging along in the game, I found Valvatorez to be a very likable character. He sometimes is downright hokey in his heroic banter or sage like advice for the other characters, yet in the very same conversation is so absent minded that he can be manipulated by Fenrich at will. But almost every single bit of banter he has with characters made me laugh through the course of the game with every chapter raising a new question to be answered as you play. And while the overall story branches into a series of different sub paths as every single character seems to have a different motivation,  The climax at the end pretty much has me completely gripped that I'm ignoring the shit I need to do to try to finish the game to see how it all ties up.

So not every line is gold....

Lord Val giving Desco tips on being the Final boss.

Ain't it the truth....

I guess what I am saying is that this one brought Disgaea back for me. Even as I write this article with homework sitting on the desk in front of me I'm thinking about flipping the game back on to get a little more level grinding to start ubering my characters to shred through playthroughs to see the other endings the game has to offer. If you are a fan of Tactical RPGS, don't mind some anime cliches or pop culture references, or are looking for a story that doesn't take itself too seriously then I would highly recommend Disgaea 4: A Promise Unforgotten.

Which probably doesn't mean much coming from me.

Oh yeah, and Axel still sucks. 

Madden 12 (XB360): Herk-a-Derk-derk-derk-derk FOOTBARR!!!

I hate Madden Football.

There, I said it. I have never enjoyed the game. I liked ESPN NFL 2k5.

I don't even know why I am doing a write up for this game. Who am I writing it for? You know who buys Madden? People who have bought it every year for the past 20 fucking years. I don't need to explain anything about it, because anyone who has played the game once probably knows more about the nuances of the game than I do. I shouldn't even be wasting time with this because I have Dead Island and Disgaea 4 right around the corner.

But the problem is, EA slipped up. Instead of taking someone who was a top performer to the NFL in the last season or a household name and face that people might recognize, they allowed the fans to vote for the coverboy of the 2012 edition of the game. They set up a brackets of 31 players from 32 teams (because the Seahawks are just awful) and let the fans vote over weeks. And the impossible happened: The player from my team, Peyton Hillis of the Cleveland Browns, was voted to be on the cover of Madden 2012.

So here I am, playing a game I never buy simply because I might never see a Brown on the cover again. This will more or less be a impressions of the one compared to the last one since I played that for a few days.

Madden NFL 2012: (XB360)

The first thing I noticed is how many mistakes this game makes with announcing.. The New York Titans? Is that a new expansion team I had never heard of??? I was just thinking that NY needed more friggen football teams in their state. In addition to that it gets many of the names wrong too. Browns drafted Phil Taylor, not Ryan Taylor. They also referred to Chad Ochocinco as Chad Johnson, but that's OK because he's only legally changed his name in 2008, so its not like that was breaking news. Perhaps its just a small gripe, but during a lot of play it just went to the create-a-character standbys for play calling: "THE RECEIVER makes the grab!", "THE QUARTERBACK, fires it over he middle!" I understand some of it can't be helped but EA has been making this for 20 years, and most of the time its a copy paste job. There shouldn't be that many mistakes.

Honestly, Simple mistake to make. Looks just like Johnson to me. 

There was a plus though, I did notice that the game seems to move a bit faster than the previous edition of the games. The tackling feels more fluid and realistic and there is a good emphasis on the hits. This does highlight one of my bigger issues though is that the they have never cleaned up running the ball. I don't how many times I have tried to run the ball and just watched my back hit a player and run in place till someone tackled him or the players moved out of the way. This is something that was addressed way back in the 2k5 game, so why hasn't the fluid running ever been incorporated here? It isn't as bad in this edition as it has in previous from where I stand, but its almost guaranteed to happen when I'm 4th and goal or inches.

Only EA's programming can keep this guy from the endzone....

There was always an annoying feature I would notice in madden that has been toned down in this one but is still there and many of the Madden veterans will know this one. I can't think of how many times I get a receiver who gets a beat on the defender and I launch a pass to see them magically close the gap from like 10 yards away at lightning speed for the interception. Its happened so often that I will flat out quit, even if its the first play of the drive. I don't play online for this reason too.

I will say that I was impressed by the detail that went into the presentation. Character Models for marquee players have looked better than I have ever seen. They have done an excellent job of producing camera angles you would commonly see if you were watching the game on Sunday. Most impressive to me, was actually the Pregame introduction. I've been to a number of Browns games at this point, so when the blimp shot ends in the game and it shows the armed forces holding out the gigantic Browns flag across the field I had to laugh. Ive seen that so many times live I was actually pretty happy they put in it (but where the heck is Chomps, guys? I'm sure the virtual me up in the family zone nosebleeds wants free subway too).

Now, as I'm sure some of you are reading this, you are thinking "I don't have any of the problems he has here.   You must just suck at the game." You are correct. I do suck at Madden. I have never been good at the game. I was playing with a co-worker and I picked up the game with like 5 minutes left and the Browns were up 24 to 0. My co-worker picked up the other controller, someone who picks up every version of madden for the past 10 years, and by the end of that 5 minutes the score was 30 to 24 his win.  I know I'm not good at it and that is my biggest complaint to EA. They are not building Madden for new players, they tried it with the Madden NFL 2009 All-Play and it was a complete flop. They don't include much instruction in the game, and even the in game manual isn't very explanatory. Most of the training and practice situations don't test you for multiple players on the field. Even something little as the fair catch which claims to be as simple as pressing Y, doesn't let you know you need to switch to that character first. Madden is for the audience that has been with it for years. I can practice every day for a year and will still get whipped soundly by someone who's bought it years ago. They handed out Madden Club cards and you didn't get one you aren't getting one.

So is the game bad? No, not at all. As far as this franchise goes it might be one of the most polished football games I've seen to date, as far as visuals are concerned. But then again, nobody is reading this on the fence if they are getting it or not. People who want to buy Madden probably already have it, are in their 8th franchise mode playthrough and have 21 Create a Legends in retirement. The bottom line is the same for people who like shooters, or JRPGS, or quirky puzzle date sim games. It comes down to interest. I love watching football but I don't play football games. Madden 12 didn't sell me on the franchise, and it probably never will but that's fine, because EA knows who they are selling it to and knows they'll get it. I'll probably pick one up used to support my teams coverboy later. Here's to a wild 2011-12 season. Go Browns.




Oh yeah, And in case you are wondering if I am as bad as I say? Here is proof, and I am ashamed to show it.

Brings me to about 3/897 total deep balls completed.