I recently moved to a new place few miles from the old place I spent almost 4 years in. A really cool new apartment closer to work and nature, so guess what, recently I had less time to play :). And what's funy too is that I have to choose way more what i like and don't, with less and less time available for the video game media...
I can't wait for Thx giving for instance, because It will be Uncharted 2 time for me this year :)...

I still tried lots of games thought demos, and specially on PSP. Like i said on a previous post, with the PSn store, my 1st gen PSP never been so turned ON since I bought it for it's launch. I's downloading everything thru my PS3, even if could do it directly from my PSP, I just prefer saving everything on the PS3's hard drive, and with a 4 gigs memory stick, having all those demo is a great feature for Sony's handle imo. I even bought a game "Prinny : Can I Really Be the Hero ?", 1st game bought on PSP for those last three years... Unbelievable :)...
I downloaded Jack and Daxter and MotorStrom: Artic edge demo recently and will try them this week.

At work, I'm playing with a friend to PES 2010 when we have time during lunches, and it's definitely an improvement compare to the previous year and years... at last, thx to EA for making this market competitive again with their Suppose to be awesome FIFA 2010... It make PES way better now :).

At home, I'm finishing Dead SPace still (still liking it, it just take me some time ;), and tried recently Wii fit with my girlfriend, Did not bought it, i finally found a friend not using it anymore so i can borrow it and try this. I'll get back to my impression on this all game and Balance board market on another post (I hope).

I started to play yesterday Super Mario Bros Wii, one and two player, and it's lots of fun both way... and I went back playing to Wii sport Resort on my own, and realize how fun it is actually when you get the time and courage to stand up and play it.

And realize too that my 360 will not be turned on for a while anymore, Now that I received my Netflix Ps3 disc , maybe for some Xbox live arcade or some Exclusive game here and there... having 5 consoles is way too much, fortunately, most people are not like me, and just own the one they need or want, and one is usually WAyyyy enough :).

THE big news of the week, (couldn't’t wait next week end to post it)... Netflix is coming to Ps3 (Here).
While Microsot is announcing some increase profit in the game or entertainment section today, I wondered how much people are like me, owning both consoles, and will definitely switch from Xbox live gold membership (you’re paying for) to watch Netflix, to the free Ps3 online services...

360 to me is a really good console, with at least two exclusive game that worth the buy (Gears of war and Geometry wars), but since then, it's a little bit empty (in terms of exclusive), despite some good xbox live titles I must say (let's not forget them). But since the "new" Xbox horrible Dashboard update, where it take me so much time to check my games, or go to my Netflix account, lost in so many Ads and options all over the place, with this still stupid gold membership you have to pay to get, I really turned less and less my noisy 360 on... and it seems it's not gonna changes that much in the future... Good for you Sony, let’s see Microsoft Answer now, let’s the battle continue :).


Edit: for Europeans readers, it's important to know what Netflix is providing and why it's so great: let's skip the Awesome DVD/Blue ray delivered at home, "For $8.99 a month, members can stream unlimited movies and TV episodes to their TVs and computers via Netflix ready devices..." You understand Better how this is the best answers to Piracy, yeap, what is the point to go look for a freaking movie on Emule and other torrents when i can have so easily so many movies anytime i want on my computer or console... When I'm back in France, the price of one movie to rent online is 5 bucks... pretty stupid and so last centuries.
When I'm following the all Hadopi Law in France, and thinks that just this would resolved everything, it's sad and funny at the same time

And while I was speaking on last post about Ipod Piracy, I guess some guys start to be not happy about it. (I know i would be pissed too, stupid peoples spending 200$ for a freaking phone and being cheap and not spending 2$ on a game or application... lame !).

Busy week...
I discoverd (thx to Josh) A life well Wasted. A podcast really cool to listen to with lots of work in the sound editing...

Check out this very interesting article about Piracy on Itune store market: (French here)

I updated my PSP (first generation) (from an old un-official 3.4 to Official latest) and started to download demos and buy digital games, and i think this console suddenly become awesome again with a playstatiion store improving the all experience and Memory card big enough to carry severals games or medias. I tried lots of big games, but the only two i would recommend you should take a look at are: "Half minute Hero" and "Holly invasion of Privacy, Badman", very different and funny. I bought too "Prinny: Can I Really Be The Hero?" that i really like so far.

On Wii, I of course bought Lost wind 2 (Just started, but loving it so far too), and i might be interested later if the controls are tight by "ShadowPlay" later (trailer).

On PS3, I'm playing slowly to the very good (even if not scary so far) Dead Space, and might get Shatter (video review) that seem to be really fun.

What's funny too is that it seems i'm playing a lot right now, But I have not that much time, playing games is probably taking 2-3h hours of my weeks max!

"Stupid Ideas for the future" of the day :)

What if, for next generation of Handle consoles, around 2011-2012, you will start to see appear in US and quickly all over the world some Video-game Vendor machine like you can found some today, to buy a Snack or Sodas.

You'll found two type of them,
the one by Brand: the EA, Activision, Sony or Nintendo ones, selling only their products for different console on the market. EA would have Madden or NFS for any downloadable console, ect...
You will find those in very big places like train stations or airports...

You'll found another type of machine, the distributors ones, with a label of Gamestop, Best buy Apple or Blockbusters and Wallmart... they will be available of course mainly in they own stores, but in Shoppings mauls too, and will provide "for you" a collection of game to buy and upload to your machine immediately, for any type of game and hardware they would have made a deal with...

You will of course still be able to directly purchase anything from your Console like you can already do on the Go or Ipods, but those vendor machine would let you download way faster 1 gigs and more size handle games thru a cable from their Hard-drive instead of a shared slow Wifi maybe available where you are, and with the comfort of browsing the available catalogue and videos or demos on a bigger screen than yours.

Crazy idea, that i'm sure I would be smart to try to make and push for... or not? :).

Ready at dawn just announced that we will provide and licensing our engine to other companies soon. It's an interesting thing the company is "starting", and it's a blast to think our tools will be soon shared and tested by some other users, because it will make us progress a lot by trying to improve them with different feedback and needs, as much as I'm sure it will be a blast to use and discover for some other teams what we've been developing with for several years now too.

On the release side, It's going to be a big video game week... I will buy "A Boy and His Blob (Wii) and Afrika (PS3) to start with :)... Uncharted 2 and Brutal Legends will have to wait... yeah, that's life !

I still play and enjoy a lot Uncharted, I'm probably kinda close to the end now. Two years after it's release, the game is actually really impressive and fun despite some few slightly weaker points here and there...Congrats to "the Dogs" for this really impressive game that I'm discovering so late.

I forget to mention that right now, I'm playing "NyxQuest, Kindred Spirits" on Wiware too (trailer) and if lot of people are telling me they don't turn on their Wii that often, I'm sure they forget to check all the Wiiware games available, lots of them are actually really good and interesting ones.
If you missed that one, please give it a chance, it's a fun short game at a really nice price.

Hooo, and on a side note, I just read about a news that surprisingly i haven't heard about when it came out few weeks ago, DSiWare purchases cannot be transferred to a new DSi... WOAW, way to do it wrong Nintendo, sometimes, you still do.

Well, it seems the blog was broken (under Windows Explorer at least), Sorry for not reparing it earlier, but it was working fine under Safari, so, hard to guess I made a Html mistake in my pages when everything was working fine for me :)...

This week end I went to Indie Cad 09 in Culver city, and even if I went kinda late and lots of people were already gone, It was nice to speak with several developers on really original and different fun game avaialble there.

Game wise, I started to play to Uncharted, and after a boring begining and few minor bugs, the game start to take off and become gorgeous with some really cool gameplay moments... Pretty impressive, just take the time to pass the first hour or so of the game. Before starting the second one that is coming out soon (cool ads btw), I'll probably first play Dead Space (one year later but hey, supposed to be a good one) to change a little bit.

I almost took a PSP GO last week too, but i'm a little short on money this month and I might wait for a potential 32 Go version, or a slight 50$ price drop of this 16Go one... I must say that the controle seems better to me and playing Daxter or Gow on a friend's PSP Go was pretty cool. (Daxter is running incredibly smoothly at 333hz (Rad's news), the only game running better than the UMD version).

Last June, several of Rad's members were invited for an after E3 party at Naughty dogs' Studios... the team of Gameblog.FR was there too, we did a big interview in French, and despite the chiliness of the evening, we had lot of fun speaking during 40 minutes all together... Here's the results of it (French only :):

Raise the Game: The competitiveness of the UK’s games development sector and the impact of governmental support in other countries.
A very interesting PDF to read, with an interesting analyses of UK, Canada, French and German markets.

thx to Daz for the link.

Two weeks ago already, I had the pleasure to get a PS3 slim!
Almost four year after the Xbox 2, three after the Wii, Sony is providing a replacment for it's ps2: a finished product at the right price, with available good games and AAA titles to come (My hopes goes to "The last guardian", "Uncharted 2" and "God of war 3").

And Yes! Their was a Beta product that around 10 millions of people bought at a way too expensive price for a non finished product, with a firmeware and options too basic to be compared to Xbox and Wii ones, with a Joypad without vibrations, or with some disconnection while you're playing, and a giant size, consuming an amount of electricity way too high to be consider "green" to me.

But don't get me wrong, I never hate the previous PS3, I just had no interest at all on this unfinished product until now...

Anyway, since last week, I have one, simply because the right product was available, and since then, I must say it's THE console always turned on in my living room. Even if nothing's perfect (online connection problems, stupid Dvd player interface (look at Microsfot's one), It's a really good piece of hardware, it's silent and allow me to try several new games, sometimes even good ones. :)

To make a quick list of what I already got my hands on, I played and finished Heavenly sword (what a terrible game, It's when i'm playing a so terrible boss that i would like to have the game designer in front of me so he can explain if he is just dumb, or if his stupid producer asked him to do the boss in two days).
I tried Motorstorm (the first one, very fun), Warhawk (good online Battlefield like), and bought Flower (started to play, very relaxing), Fat Princess (really fun but not finished yet IMO, some important control are missing and it's a bit too expensive), Pixeljunk monster (the two players mode is awesome), Ratchet and clank quest for Booty (very pretty, same game as ps2 one so far thought) and have way more game to try (I just finished Resident evil 4 on 360, took me for ever... :)

Otherwise, I'm still playing to Plant vs Zombie and The dig (i'm stuck :) on my Ima(P)c, and tried Warhammer Online during 10 days on Mac Os, ( well, it's just not for me anymore those MMO).
I'm playing too much of this Xpert eleven game too. SO simple so good, specially in league with friends :P...

I'll have to make a post soon about several browser games recently tried.
I'm not up to date for this kind of game, but they are so good you have to try them if you haven't already.

'till next time, have a nice week.

It's ipod Apps review time !!.

Like I said before, I'm not using that much my ipod but it's really a nice multimedia handle object!

I updated the OS to rev. 3.0 without knowing really what was new (I must say i still don't really know except the "copy past" now available), but I recently started to buy some apps for 0.99, it took me some time after not founding any that i thought was really interesting more than the 5 minutes i had with the demos or lite version that i could found available on the store...

so, first, let's talk about the apps i bought, you will probably not found here some secret unknown apps, but hey, I want to share my points :)

• Peggle: I bought it because it's 0.99. I must say, i don't get what people like about this game, that i tried on PC back then with a long free demo few month ago. Anyway, i thought it was a good deal, probably a game more tight to the Iphod. After playing longer to the game now, i still don't get what is good or even remotely interesting or fun about this game. It's even pretty boring to play, but at least, I can see how it make you spent lot of time if you really have nothing else to do! The game is at least still really well polished, that's I think one of it's really high point, with it's horrible graphic art direction.
• Critter Crunch: A puzzle game soon to be released for PSN (nice trailer). There is a demo version of this game and until now, i stayed with it, but it was on sale recently for 0.99 and i thought that at this price, it was one of the title i would play sometimes if i had too. The concept is simple, the controls are nice and the graphics really cool. Nothing you can't do on a ds or any other platform, but it's a nice time killer for Ipod owners.

I bought some other game but haven't played them enough yet to really have an opinion again, so, more next time!

Now, let's speak about the one i tried and did not bought, or the free ones.

• Chase the dots, and One dot Enemies are free, very simple and well done enough for you to try. Both are very similar (touch the fastest you can a big or small dot) but really different in their concept. I kept them both on my ipod because i still launch them once in a while. I would not pay for those 15 second time killer. I just saw a demo of Retro player by the creators of ODE btw, Something i will not buy but i can see getting if it's dropping at 0.99 or for free. I give them both
• Zen Bound is one of the "Ipod exclusive" game to me, You can really see how the game is fit for the hardware it's been made on. I will pick it up once the price will drop, the reason i did not bought it already is because It's not completely my type of game and would not play it that much. The demo is really working well and you will know if you like the game of not after trying it.
• Idracula is really nicely done, but boring and repetitive after few minutes, with controls that are working, but are not fantastic compare to any game with an analog stick. Maybe this kind of game are simply not meant to be for this plateform. the demo is great to try though because it is a really pretty and well polished game.
• Zombieville USA is like Idracula, well done and simply fun, with horrible controls, and repetitive too. the free demo is really giving to me all I needed.
• Dapple is a puzzle game, a Bejeweld-like, with a original twist based on color, but i did not liked it at all.
• Brick breaker 3D revolution is an Arkanoid-like game in 3d, with some good idea but not really good control and average graphics. the demo if you even download it give you way enough.
• Sway is a 3d rip-of of Nintendo's GBA and Ds game DK jungle. The trailer was pretty neat and the concept a good idea for ipod, the game is everything but a success with horrible control... try the demo, you'll see how horrible it is.
• Up There, a simple idea of a game you will play 3 minutes and never launch again, the free demo is perfect to keep your money in your bank account.
• Race for home is a nice little game, but here too, the demo was way giving way enough for me to enjoy it 5 minutes and liking the ideas and game, but it's a game i will never launch again, so no point for me to buy it, even for $0.99.

Well, that's all for today!

I know I should have talked about Hardware price and analyze all this for the different consoles, and speak about what was next, but I may do that later now that every other website spoke about it recently too. I'm not paid by Wedbush Morgan to tell the future with more accurate knowledge than people they work with, so I'll just take my time for my point of view anyway :).