Nearly all of them stem from the simple fact that Sony is taking is a very open approach to the PS3. Off the shelf flash drives, hard drives, headsets, keyboards and mice, printers, etc all tend to work with the system immediately. Some of these are just announced, some are old hat - but they all seem (to me) at least to be small, seemingly separate, pieces of a larger, concerted strategy.
Awesome Thing: Unreal Tournament's MOD Capability
It may be old news now but the fact that any PC-based content for this game can be used on the PS3 is nothing short of revolutionary. That the huge world of PC-based MODs can (admittedly, with a conversion process and a bit of finagling) migrate to a console is a sea-change.
We have the possibility of any game providing a direct, open conduit into its world. While Unreal Tournament provides for huge, foundational changes via mods other games might provide much simpler content which could dramatically improve the experience. What if you could just obtain a constant flow of new books and stories in "Oblivion"?
Awesome Thing: Burnout Paradise's "My Discovery Map"
Criterion's Burnout Paradise is a tremendous game but simply discovering all of the events in its non-traditional open world can be challenging (forget about actually beating those events). This PS3-exclusive feature allows you to copy your save game file to a USB stick (or memory card if you're so
equipped) and upload it to the Criterion website. The file will be analyzed and you will be rewarded with a customized map of Paradise city featuring your current progress and everything you've missed.
Think about this for a moment: the ability (completely supported by the
console) to transfer personal game data to another medium and use it...
however you (well... the publisher) likes.
Clearly you could do something similar in the game itself (via a patch) but in this case the PC (more specifically the PC printer) is really the preferred target. This openness allows the developer to try experiments or publish quick "toys" without the extensive testing and approvals that any published patch must go through. I assume that the save game file (which is obviously readable) could be actually modified if a developer chose.
Imagine how this might used. Upload your character in a role playing game for customized wallpaper or themes or avatars or whatever. It would be neat to use my painstakingly designed "Oblivion" or "Mass Effect" character as an Instant Messenger avatar (and I'd be more likely to actually spend real time using the customization features if my creations had more utility). Same goes for any customizable assets (cars in racing games come to mind).
Stuck on game? Upload your saved game and get automatic hints for the area where you last saved. There are points in "Folklore" where I would have liked to have some hints on where to find some of those last few folks. A site like "GameFaqs" is great, but not personal: this could change things.
Pop in your "Drake's Fortune" save and a custom website would be presented.
Sections might include "Tips for your current location", "Treasures you've missed", "Weapons you're under utilizing", etc. That last one might note that you haven't been using the sniper rifle and link to a video of a level you've already beaten and present a video of how it might have been easier with the sniper rifle.
Unlike a generic "faq" such a site, because it's based completely on your personal information, would focus on your current needs and your past
performance: no spoilers!
Awesome Thing: PixelJunk Eden's YouTube Connectivity
Sony continues to add features to its developer's toolbag and one of the latest items was the ability not only to capture video directly from a game (they've allowed you to capture still pictures from the beginning and many games already do this) but to actually upload that video directly to YouTube. PixelJunk Eden, a PSN title, will be the first to support this.
Here we have a completely supported, generic library allowing games to interact with a popular service (I can't stress enough that this is supported in the PS development libraries directly - any game could use this). While "Eden" may not be the killer app for this it will pave the way and I fully expect to see support in some of the important holiday releases (I'm betting you'll see this in "Resistance: The Fall of Man II" for example).
It's hard to understate how important such integration could end up becoming. Most gamers like to watch clips from games, but making them was often either a very high-tech (running game consoles through video capture cards on a PC) or low tech (shaky camera-phone footage) affairs. This allows anybody to capture and publish their play easily and immediately.
Did you finally frag one of your rivals? Publish it! He might respond with a collection of videos however. This kind of public rivalry has parallels in sports and other competitions and generally increases the public demand of those events. On the more peaceful note you might use the creative aspects of some games to create a homage or a gift for a love one. At the very least we should see a generous crop of "how-to" videos helping those having trouble.
Of course the next step is to expand the list. YouTube is actually one of the more difficult services to interact with (and I'm glad they tackled it
first) - it should be relatively simple for games to contribute to sites like Flickr (the dev library already allows for in game screenshots), MySpace, Facebook and Twitter. There's really no reason that your PS3 couldn't update your blog with "what am I playing now" information.
So there are three examples showing how the PS3 can allow for new (even
unofficial) information to be added to a game, how in-game information can be used outside of a game and how games can connect and interact with popular third-party services (and, I hope, eventually with popular social networking services).
There's a lot of good stuff on the PS3 in general, but these are specific example of how Sony is attempting to blur or eliminate the lines between a closed, console eco-system and the open online community. This is something that neither Microsoft (who has built up an excellent, tho' rigidly closed online system) and Nintendo (who, it seems, is utterly retarded when it comes to online) have shown no interest in.
Wii
The VC is a wonderful idea with horrible implementation (as all Nintendo Online efforts have been). Just off the top of my head:
+) No accounts means that your titles are pinned to a single console. In comparison the PSN license allows you to use your purchases on up to five devices.
+) No support for mass storage (coupled with the sloooow wifi only networking) makes managing large libraries an exercise in utter frustration. We've got an SD slot, we've got USB ports... maybe let us use them?
+) When you need to (and you WILL need to) delete purchases to make room those purchases you lose those titles from your channel list... you're forced to return to the store to retrieve them. So you lack any permanent ability to organize large collections.
+) The store is completely obtuse. With useless descriptions, screen-shots, and NO DEMOS buying games is either a total crap shoot or left to those with intimate prior knowledge. Really, would it be so hard to offer 10 minutes of "free play" for each game as a "try before you buy"?
In short the Wii store is the bare minimum on all accounts. The only tangible benefit is the high quality of the games themselves and the breadth of systems supported.
WiiWare, with larger and more involved games simply exacerbates all of these problems.
XBox Arcade
The XBox Arcade has improved significantly since launch. The store is easy to understand and navigate and has a ton of content.
Unfortunately nearly all of that content is direct ports of classic (and many not-so-classic) games. The storage limitations imposed by the system ensure that games will be limited in scope.
Nearly every game has a demo and you can even enable an "auto download" mode which will automatically download all new demos as they appear.
There are definately some amazing games available. I spent a good portion of my first year with the XBox playing "Uno" (a nearly perfect online game). "Pac-man Championship Edition", "Space Giraffe", "Catan", "Worms", "Geometry Wars" and many others are all great reasons to support the service.
PSN
For a company traditionally nearly as bad with online as Nintendo PSN is a suprisingly competent offering and, by far, the most improved service since launch.
The new store is fast, easy and understandable and worlds better than the poor web-based original. Already purchased content is easily identifiable as you browse and there are many contextually relevant sorting schemes.
PSN is the only service with no size limitations and the freedom this allows shows. PSN is the only service that sells "full games" - downloadable games that are exactly the same as their Blu-Ray counterparts but cost less (although often they lack special features like documentary video).
Games like "Warhawk", "Grand Turismo: Prologue" and "EchoChrome" eliminate the line between "download game" and "real games". We're even beginning to see previously released XBox 360 games be repurposed as PSN downloads.
PSN also has a tendancy, one being echoed by WiiWare, to support independent and "quirky" games. "Everyday Shooter", "FlOw", "PixelJunk Monsters", "Calling All Cars", "Pain" and the many Eye camera "toys" and games all present unique, polished experiences.
While there are some remakes and ports of classic games they are relatively rare. There are also a (very slowly) growing number of classic PS1 games available which can be played on both the PS3 and the PSP (while sharing the same save-games).
PSN also seems to support it's games more than the others: nearly every major original game has had at least one expansion pack and many games have had several. Simple games like "Vegas Strip: Poker" have had game types and camera support added while other games like "Pain" and the excellent "High Velocity Bowling" have received new characters and modes.
Game assets are also used well with game music and images available and console themes based on the games common. The entire (excellent) soundtrack for "PixelJunk Monsters" is available for download (and, amazingly, results in DRM-free MP3 tracks that you can use on any music player).
Pricing varies, but is often suprising. Many of the smaller games are released for only $2.99 (and some of them are even worth it). A simple, addictive puzzel game lke "Piyotama" is an amazing deal at that price. Games are often given cheaper introductory pricing ("Calling All Cars" was introduced at $4.99, or 50% off) and there are often "sales" and special offers.
If you own a PSP this becomes even more attractive as you can use much of the content you buy directly on the PSP and several games can be played remotely over the network.
All told the Playstation Store seems like the most dynamic and supported to me. Although it's hard to say with the introduction of WiiWare so recent, but it also seems to offer the most innovative games - definately the best supported ones.
XBox Arcade, having over a year's head start, has everything beaten in sheer numbers but the number of truly great games is still pretty small.
WiiWare and the VC are conceptually great but crippled by simply retarded online and storage implementations.
There may be spoilers ahead... but the movie wasn't good enough for me to care about ruining it.
I made a concerted, sometimes rude effort to know nothing about this film going into the theatre. I wasn't completely successful, but I was close.
And it just wasn't really worth the effort.
To be fair the movie wasn't awful... it was competent. Competently staged. Competently acted. Competently filmed. It wasn't, however, a fitting entry into the series.
It could be that the core story, referencing some of the most irksome, clichéd and annoying hoaxes and "theories", just biased me. I mean really... do we need ANOTHER interpretation of Roswell (how about a single one that just honestly calls it a load of crap)? Area 51? Ancient astronauts (who only needs to help those poor, primitive brown people) and Nasca lines? Cold War psychic research (well... actually that one did happen, although nothing came of it)?
I mean I could live with the references - I'm not a militant skeptic - but these are so trite. I was fine when I saw the Roswell incident spoofed in "Futurama" and in "Deep Space Nine" and in "Doctor Who" and "Stargate" and "Independence Day" and "X-Files" and "The Invisibles" and sooooo many others. Am I expecting too much for such an iconic movie to be just a little original?
It was a great idea to bring Karen Allen back... then they propped her up like a cardboard cutout throughout the film. When they waved a fish in front of her she had to make a pixie-smile face.
You expect unbelievable events in an Indy movie... but in this you get insults to intelligence. Surviving a nuclear blast in a fridge? Surviving that fridge being thrown several hundred yards? Having radiation washed off with brushes (well, we all know that actually works)? The duck gently placed in the river by the stream. If these feats were done with some irreverence, some style you might forgive them... but they just rang false. Retarded daydreaming rather than adventure fantasy.
Perhaps most shamelessly (since all this takes is money, which they had a lot of) many of the effects were weak. The skull looked like a toy. The "magnetic" gun powder looked incredibly lame and many of the kinetic effects (the flying blades and such) just looked blurry and indistinct. The movie worked best when it presented the classic environments from the early films: ruins and jungles.
(As an aside this movie did renew my absolute love of the game "Uncharted: Drake's Fortune"... which looked about as good and had a MUCH better story than this.)
I AM being hard on this movie: if the words "Indiana Jones" weren't in the title I might have liked it more. A nice, throw away adventure movie like "The Mummy" or "National Treasure". But "Indiana Jones" IS in the title. We waited decades for this, they argued for years about the "right movie" to make, we talked this up to our kids for months... and this is what we get?
There is no chance that my son will remember this movie like I remembered "Raiders of the Lost Ark". George Lucas is killing my childhood one beloved franchise at a time.
(As another aside there were some great previews here: "Hancock" looks to be absolutely great, a movie made seemingly specifically for me. I also predict that "Wall-E" will replace "The Incredibles" as my favorite Pixar movie of all time. It just looks that good.)
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