It's that time again; Home update time! And it brings a whole BUNCH of new stuff!
With an initial update of 13MB (then repeated updates of each space) we now have the chance to expand our wardrobe and furniture, in the form of:
-The Diesel Store - Here there are 17 tops for dudes and 4 for females (wtf? Bit unfair perhaps? Or maybe they assume most girls are guys, therefore will be wearing as little as possible) all pieces at £1.59 each
-The Ligne Roset Store - This is all furniture, so far with 3 new chairs (the first chair being free for some reason, so go grab it quick for now, and the other two being £1.59) and 4 snazzy tables (the first one being free again, the rest -you guessed it- £1.59).
-The Home Threads store - A bunch of stuff has been added to here. For guys there's:
-3 new hats.
-1 new pair of gloves.
-3 new tops.
-3 new trousers.
-3 new boots.
-3 new pairs of glasses.
Same goes for girls, 'cept there's only 1 new pair of glasses, but a new pair of earrings. Also, each group has a piece of clothing of Santa Claus (both male and female). Everything will cost you 59p each, except anything Christmassy, which is 79p.
-Finally on the Shopping Centre front, we have the furniture store, where we haaaave:
-2 new storage units.
-14 new ornaments.
Each costs 59p as per usual, cept the X-Mas tree and the snowman, which are 79p.
And there we go, apart from a couple of Loco Roco 2 adverts and posters, that's all that's been added to the Shopping Centre. New Home Square is being downloaded now, and I'll make another post if/when that's changed!
Your friendly Home lurker, AW.
(and yes I totally bought the santa stuff)
Showing posts with label home. Show all posts
Showing posts with label home. Show all posts
Thursday, 18 December 2008
Wednesday, 17 December 2008
Whatever You Want
I was taking a looksee at the search terms that bring people to our lovely internet home we have here, and decided that it'd be nice to share what is making us so popular!
- Want the Astro Tripper trophy list? Right here.
- Yes, GTi Club has trophies too, they're here.
- So does Blast Factor. Looky here.
- The Wanderer's awesome Home unlockable list is here, for those people of you looking for it.
- The GECK add-on for Fallout 3 is indeed now available on PC, and no we don't think it'll be coming to PS3. Should GECK make it to a console at all, Microsoft already bought the exclusive rights to console DLC.
- And if you're trying to get the Blast Factor trophies and happen to be in Europe, that would explain why you're not getting any, the trophy patch is yet to go live here. And no, we don't know when it's coming. Here's hoping soon (and ditto for Echochrome and High Velocity Bowling).
- The latest we've heard, the Resident Evil 5 demo is coming "early 2009".
- A red exclamation mark on a costume in your LBP Popit menu means there is an issue with the costume. This can be for one of two reasons: either the account you downloaded the costume from has been deleted from your PS3 (or the password has changed if you've got it from another account) so the costume has been de-autorised. If this isn't applicable or the mark shows up on a costume you've made yourself, it's a problem with your game data file. There's nothing you can do apart from delete the data and try again.
- Oh, and you can get Home by just going to the Home icon under the PlayStation Network category in the XMB.
Thursday, 11 December 2008
Home
It's like pulling a block out of a Jenga tower. There's always worry and anticipation, possibility for failure and humiliation, but when it goes right? Complete joy.
That's what it feels like in Home right now. After years of development, it's finally released and ready for god knows how many people to flood in thrusting and harassing their way to fame. I was worried that the servers would struggle, Sony never seems to be good at guessing them kind of things, but right now it's all pretty smooth. Octopus is reporting some instabilities, but it could be random, who knows.
Couple of things that we need to point out that are missing:
So for you beta testers logging in now, don't be alarmed there's nothing new, but you newbies, go out there, make some friends, dance suggestively (in that order) and have fun.
What can we say? Home, is finally...Home.
That's what it feels like in Home right now. After years of development, it's finally released and ready for god knows how many people to flood in thrusting and harassing their way to fame. I was worried that the servers would struggle, Sony never seems to be good at guessing them kind of things, but right now it's all pretty smooth. Octopus is reporting some instabilities, but it could be random, who knows.
Couple of things that we need to point out that are missing:
- Everything
So for you beta testers logging in now, don't be alarmed there's nothing new, but you newbies, go out there, make some friends, dance suggestively (in that order) and have fun.
What can we say? Home, is finally...Home.
Sunday, 7 December 2008
Overheard in Home
Tomorrow I'll be posting my in depth preview of PlayStation Home, but in preparation here's something that popped up when I was in Home the other night. I was sitting in the arcade waiting for Aquatic to log on, and happened to be facing the wall.
"Are you sitting in the naughty corner?"
"Are you sitting in the naughty corner?"
Comic: Racist Undertones
It's our second week or so in the world of Home, and as you've heard from all of us, we're having a ball. But this ball isn't without it's spikes. Or holes. Or whatever irregularity that would cause the ball to become faulty, yet retain it's spherical shape.
...
Home is full of people who do not have the Sony chatpad, a USB keyboard, or a headset of some kind. Thankfully the nice people at SCE have gifted these chaps with pre-set phrases to really get to know whoever you want to. Phrases include "Hello" and "I have no keyboard".
Now, this is a great idea in theory but since there's about 10 phrases, once they've been used up, conversation ceases and it just become awkward. Here's a scene that's happened to me countless times, causing me to surmise the entire population of Home is racist.
First ever webcomic, so go easy!
-AW
...
Home is full of people who do not have the Sony chatpad, a USB keyboard, or a headset of some kind. Thankfully the nice people at SCE have gifted these chaps with pre-set phrases to really get to know whoever you want to. Phrases include "Hello" and "I have no keyboard".
Now, this is a great idea in theory but since there's about 10 phrases, once they've been used up, conversation ceases and it just become awkward. Here's a scene that's happened to me countless times, causing me to surmise the entire population of Home is racist.
First ever webcomic, so go easy!
-AW
Saturday, 6 December 2008
Weekend Roundup X: Part One
Hello all, Octopus here. Well not actually here, I'm in fact currently in Brussels, and am therefore posting from the past, and due to sleep requirements, this weeks roundup is an epic in two parts.
As most studios now begin the slowdown before Christmas, game related news has been thin, but there have been bits and bobs here and there to keep us all just about occupied, and that's not to mention the now massive pile of games to be played from the rest of this year.
The main news this week isn't even really news - the announcement that Uncharted 2 will be formally announced in just over a week at the Video Game Awards presented by Spike. As well as the first full trailer for the new game, subtitled Among Theives, there will be a new trailer for God of War III, an annoucement of EA's Fight Night Round 4, and a trailer for the recently-revealed GTA IV content. All I can say is for anyone getting a PS3 for Christmas, there's a lot to look forward to next year.
Elsewhere, Home got its first substantial content update, with some downtime to add content to the stores and trailers for Pineapple Express and Watchmen amongst other bits in the beta, and another update later in the week got people excited that the Open Beta is coming very soon. Myself and Aquatic are loving Home so far, and we will be going into some detail about our experiences during the next week.
And the rest of the week in list form!
As most studios now begin the slowdown before Christmas, game related news has been thin, but there have been bits and bobs here and there to keep us all just about occupied, and that's not to mention the now massive pile of games to be played from the rest of this year.
The main news this week isn't even really news - the announcement that Uncharted 2 will be formally announced in just over a week at the Video Game Awards presented by Spike. As well as the first full trailer for the new game, subtitled Among Theives, there will be a new trailer for God of War III, an annoucement of EA's Fight Night Round 4, and a trailer for the recently-revealed GTA IV content. All I can say is for anyone getting a PS3 for Christmas, there's a lot to look forward to next year.
Elsewhere, Home got its first substantial content update, with some downtime to add content to the stores and trailers for Pineapple Express and Watchmen amongst other bits in the beta, and another update later in the week got people excited that the Open Beta is coming very soon. Myself and Aquatic are loving Home so far, and we will be going into some detail about our experiences during the next week.
And the rest of the week in list form!
- PS2 games for download from the store got rerumoured, and then pretty much confirmed by an ESRB rating listing.
- A new, quite awesome-looking, PSN game called Trine stole our hearts and attention.
- In other PSN news, Crash Commando and Savage Moon both got dated for release in December in the US, and hopefully a European release isn't far off.
- And a school for deaf children fell in love with the PSP.
Saturday, 29 November 2008
Weekend Roundup #9
It's been another pretty uneventful week in gaming - bar one thing: Home. The Wanderer has already spoken a bit about his first impressions, and as we go into the first full week of the massively expanded beta, expect to see improvements and enhancements across the board. But it's easy to see why Sony is so excited about Home (and difficult to see why what is currently available took so long...).
Likely you'll be seeing a lot more on the topic of Home soon, but this week has also been pretty bare. But there's one very good reason for this, probably the best possible reason in fact, and that is that we've all been playing very good new games. Fryingpan has been digging into Call of Duty World at War, as well as defending himself against increasingly more deadly zombies in Left 4 Dead. Aquatic has been engaging with mutants and hacking into supermarket intercoms in Fallout 3, and working through the second half of Dead Space so I can steal it. I myself have been playing FarCry 2, which makes you think quite differently to the normal first-person shooter in order to succeed. Oh and a package arrived for me this morning:
It's short roundup this week, partly due to the lack of anything interesting to talk about, and partly because I have Little Sisters to go rescue/harvest. Toodles!
Likely you'll be seeing a lot more on the topic of Home soon, but this week has also been pretty bare. But there's one very good reason for this, probably the best possible reason in fact, and that is that we've all been playing very good new games. Fryingpan has been digging into Call of Duty World at War, as well as defending himself against increasingly more deadly zombies in Left 4 Dead. Aquatic has been engaging with mutants and hacking into supermarket intercoms in Fallout 3, and working through the second half of Dead Space so I can steal it. I myself have been playing FarCry 2, which makes you think quite differently to the normal first-person shooter in order to succeed. Oh and a package arrived for me this morning:
It's short roundup this week, partly due to the lack of anything interesting to talk about, and partly because I have Little Sisters to go rescue/harvest. Toodles!
Reward Unlocked: Home
So I've been in Home for about 6 solid hours now, and (so long NDA) I'm liking what I see.
Out there, in the vast expanse of the Internet, a lot of negative attitude has been generated for Home, from the long long production schedule, lack of content in the beta, or a combination of both*. Which is fair enough, and they're valid points, but you all forget that this is not only a beta, but a closed beta. Sony aren't going to show give us all the content they've got planned for Home, are they? It's not a test to see whether the users like what they see (well it is, but to a lesser extent) but instead a test on whether their servers can take the strain that Home will bring.
I will happily put my reputation as a semi-committed blogger on the line when I say that Sony will have a bunch of stuff ready for us on the release of the open beta, if not before.
And that sounds like there's not anything in there already; there is, surprisingly, you just have to know where to look. Unlockables have been hinted at (clothing, furniture, trophies, etc) but there are tasters of them already chucked in.
Echochrome Unlockables:
There's a bunch of unlockables that you get from playing the arcade game echochrome in the Bowling Alley. You can unlock gloves, shirt, trousers and shoes that make you look like the white mannequin character (echoing footsteps not included). To do this, just achieve a score of about 4000 in the game. My approximate settings were about 20 shadows, 4 minutes and a score of 4200, which unlocked everything for me.
Icebreaker Unlockables:
I don't know much about these, but after completing every 4th level (4th, 8th and 12th) you are awarded 2 unlockables. I don't know how long this goes on for, since I died on the 12th level, but I unlocked a penguin hat, icebreaker shirt, and 2 more things I have yet to identify. I will be playing more and finding out later.
But again, let me re-iterate; Home is awesome. Whether you're judging it's potential or the service as it is, it is awesome, and I fully forgive Sony for all their delays. *twitch*
*(And what is strange, is that everyone that I've spoken to on the beta say that they're really enjoying it. I suppose you could argue that I only found them because the rest are off expressing their hatred on some blog, but still, I should've found one Scrooge at least?)
AW
Out there, in the vast expanse of the Internet, a lot of negative attitude has been generated for Home, from the long long production schedule, lack of content in the beta, or a combination of both*. Which is fair enough, and they're valid points, but you all forget that this is not only a beta, but a closed beta. Sony aren't going to show give us all the content they've got planned for Home, are they? It's not a test to see whether the users like what they see (well it is, but to a lesser extent) but instead a test on whether their servers can take the strain that Home will bring.
I will happily put my reputation as a semi-committed blogger on the line when I say that Sony will have a bunch of stuff ready for us on the release of the open beta, if not before.
And that sounds like there's not anything in there already; there is, surprisingly, you just have to know where to look. Unlockables have been hinted at (clothing, furniture, trophies, etc) but there are tasters of them already chucked in.
Echochrome Unlockables:
There's a bunch of unlockables that you get from playing the arcade game echochrome in the Bowling Alley. You can unlock gloves, shirt, trousers and shoes that make you look like the white mannequin character (echoing footsteps not included). To do this, just achieve a score of about 4000 in the game. My approximate settings were about 20 shadows, 4 minutes and a score of 4200, which unlocked everything for me.
Icebreaker Unlockables:
I don't know much about these, but after completing every 4th level (4th, 8th and 12th) you are awarded 2 unlockables. I don't know how long this goes on for, since I died on the 12th level, but I unlocked a penguin hat, icebreaker shirt, and 2 more things I have yet to identify. I will be playing more and finding out later.
But again, let me re-iterate; Home is awesome. Whether you're judging it's potential or the service as it is, it is awesome, and I fully forgive Sony for all their delays. *twitch*
*(And what is strange, is that everyone that I've spoken to on the beta say that they're really enjoying it. I suppose you could argue that I only found them because the rest are off expressing their hatred on some blog, but still, I should've found one Scrooge at least?)
AW
Friday, 28 November 2008
Arriving Home
So, you know that bunch of Home invites that were recently sent out?
Guess what tumbled into my inbox at 11:24pm, seconds after I'd gone to sleep?
That's right. I'll see you all in Home.
(Rumour has it the NDA has been lifted, but I don't know the details about that yet. Will find out, then report as much as I possibly can about it.)
AW
Tuesday, 18 November 2008
Monday, 2 June 2008
Vaguely Associated (Or 'The Forgetfulness of an Octopus')
I warn you now: this post is entirely disjointed. Basically, whenever cool gaming news comes out or I get a new game, I tend to add it to this ever-lengthening list of things to blog about. Except there's always one or two things I forget to mention when I stick a post up, so certain things get rolled over until later. Or I forget completely. And so I end up with a list of items still to write about. So here goes...
Quite a while ago, I mentioned that I had brought myself the loveable PSP game Patapon. A number of guys who worked on LocoRoco also worked on this and I quite liked the look of it, so post-demo playing, I indulged myself. And it really is a great game. The graphical style is something new, the gameplay is a great concept (you move/attack/defend by inputting the correct 'beat' on the PSP face buttons) and the characterisation of the little Patapon is fantastic. However (yes, that is a however. And in italics too), it is very repetitive. Playing through levels that are very similar, defeating the same enemies with no real difference between attacks, gets very annoying. And that's before I get to the boss battles: you basically fight a big bad guy the same way about five times in a level, but there's no way to tell how well you're doing, he will just randomly die at some point. Oh and the cutesy music? Does you head in after a while. I assume all the unlockable's add a lot of replayability to the game, but I wouldn't know, because I just gave up through boredom. Great game, well executed, very repetitive. Due to not reviewing games I haven't completed, I wont give Patapon a score, but I will recommend it just for a hire.
And what do I really find weird? That there was one game everyone slated upon release for being too repetitive: Assassin's Creed. And I bought it weekend before last. And it's not as repetitive as Patapon. Maybe it's due to the lack of little critters screeching samey tunes through your headphones, or maybe that there is actually a story in AC. Whatever it is, the 'Creed is the less repetitive game. Ironically, I'm pretty sure I just repeated myself there. Anyways, I've had a little while to get my teeth into the genetically-modified medieval-em-up, and to be honest, I'm impressed. It's reeeeaaallly fun to be leaping around the roof tops (socially acceptable walking be damned), grabbing onto whatever you can find, and it feels like a developed version of the fantastic movement in Shadow of the Colossus. Adding to that comparison, the animation engine is probably the shining star of Assassin's Creed. It basically connects all the different actions together with individual animations, so there is no judderyness at all when changing direction or attacking or whatnot. Also, I'm only up to my third assassination, so the investigation-and-assassination fatigue hasn't set in yet, but if reviews are correct, it should do soon. We'll see I guess, but Assassin's Creed is definitely a great game so far.
How am I getting so many games lately even though I should be completely skint, earning no money like I do? Well that would be down to Aquatic and I's recent discovery: game trade-ins. Basically, we can finish games, then hand them back for monies. Then buy more games with those monies. It's genius! So over the past few weeks I've traded in my PS2, all of my PS2 games that aren't scratched to within an inch of their lives, and my old PSP phatface, and I didn't do badly out of it either; those trade-ins have financed the purchase of Resistance, MotorStorm, Assassin's Creed and the two most recent additions to my game library: Burnout Paradise and Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. I haven't put much time into either as I've been busy revising for this week's shagloads of exams as well as edging closer and closer to the end of Resistance: Fall of Man when I find some spare moments, however I will make some very brief notes. Burnout is great fun, particularly the seamless online. Uncharted is a next-gen Tomb Raider with a green coat of paint, clothes that dynamically dry off, and more shooting, but that's no bad thing. Expect more from me on both of them soon.
PlayStation Home. How I long for thee. Okay, actually that's a lie: I still don't have my PS3 hooked up to the internet. Well not my internet. My neighbours at the moment. Bad connection. Dodgy gaming. Short sentences. Anyways, Home has always seemed pretty cool in concept, and I'm now waiting to get my hands on it. In the meantime however, Sony seems to be quite content with just adding more and more stuff to the closed beta and just taunting the rest of us with it. Bitches. The most recent addition was that of the 'Home Events and Media Space' (from here on that's the 'Event Space', kay?). Basically, the Event Space is where virtual recreations of gaming (and other) events can take place, likely simultaneously with the event in real life. The debut of the Event Space was with the PlayStation Day the other week, and the Space was all decked out in media from the event, with a live video feed from the keynote, screenshots in a literal gallery, along with gameplay footage and trailers on screens. I believe something similar was also set up for UbiDays last week. The concept is a fantastic addition to Home, as it means that come E3, rather than reading liveblogs on the web, you could be seated in a virtual arena set up in the Event Space watching the presentation live, then wandering around Home taking in all the news and games. And it makes me just a little hopeful that Home could really be something impressive and individual.
Other news that caught my eye recently: Bioshock is finally coming to PS3 in October (wahey!), which makes me happy because my poor laptop is not ideal for gaming and I own not a 360; PS3 firmware 2.40 is rumoured for an imminent release adding Trophies to the XMB as well as in-game messaging amongst other things; and Cloverfield is out (in the US) and reviewed on Blu-Ray, so expect me to grab it as soon as it arrives in my fair nation. Juno's out June 9th though, I shall be purchasing that indeed.
Speak soon, lots of gratuitous love, FO.
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