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I picked up a copy of Call of Juarez its quite a cool game, there are allot of cut scenes and not having a manual with the game makes it quite annoying trying to find out all the buttons etc But im enjoying playing it

The achievments (360) is very odd, you dont get any for clearing levels/missions just doing parts of missions like without being spotted I only noticed these after about an hour into the game, so in order to get the achievments you will have to replay the game.

I dont know if this game is part of the Call of duty franchise but it is simillar but very different in controls etc

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~In the event of a Zombie Uprising, remember to sever the head or destroy the brain!~

Argh, I hate it when that happens. Last XBL purchase I made was Puzzle Quest II which isn't bad but a real mixed bag - the puzzle part is excellent and even improves on the original but the questing bit is clunky to say the least and a real letdown compared to its predecessor.

I became one of the mugs last week who signed up for 3 months of Playstation +.

The more I think about it, the more stupid it sounds...

You get a 'free' (actually a long term rental because you lose it if you cancel your subscription - crafty) game each month plus some themes and discounts on other PSN purchases. Sounds good, especially when it's less than XBL per month?

Not really:

1. You've got no choice in the free game. July's is Wipeout HD and is a fantastic game but I already own it. August's is apparently (no official announcement from what I have seen but I saw it mentioned on a few forums) Zen Pinball, which is a fantastic game but one ... you've guessed it.

2. Unless I'm missing something you don't know what offers (going by this month it's discounts on DLC and download games) will be coming at the start of a month so the incentive to actually buy something at full price which isn't on offer yet is diminished. Pity the poor sucker who bought Wipeout HD on 30th June...

3. When are we gonna get a company (probably EA) bringing out a game who's online features are only open to PS+ members? It's bound to happen and thus PSN's big selling point of free online gaming goes up in smoke.

My subscription's up at the end of September and unless things drastically improve - a chance for new users to pick up previous months' offers would be a start - that's the last money they get out of me.

Final Fantasy XIV watch:

It works!

Not very well!

But, hey, it's just the first day of this earlyish round of Beta testing!

Horrible lag and servers closing at 9pm BST made things a bit of a slog but what I did manage was promising - lovely character models, just a notch or two down from FFXIII (which is an achievement considering they've got to account for differing computer powers) and a nice intro after you create your PC, which is as far as I got because the darned servers shut for the day.

I doubt if it's the mythical World of Warcraft killer but the legions of FFXI fans won't be disappointed.

I, alas, wasn't a big fan of FFXI.

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"Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how the Tatty 100 is done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves." - Brendan Behan

Just gave Risk another go for luck and got trounced twice in a row, so it might have a bit more longevity than I first thought . Still has loads of clunky elements under the skin which scream bad design every time (The 'dramatic' pause every time someone earns a card for invading a territory is bad, but the unremovable reminder of what the card is for [which pops up at the end of any turn where you won a card] is maddeningly dumb).

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That sounds like such a deviant twist on good practice that I can already see it being reality

To be honest it would take perks like free games to get me back online - which is a shame, coz multiplayer with mates is great - but orchestrating that amongst the welter of other obligations is nigh impossible, leaving you with.... arseholes. Where the hell did all these arseholes come from? The ones with singing arseholes. That sing racist songs. About how great their racism is. It makes me think online gaming services need a giant butt plug.

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Virtual Reality chatter on a movie site? Got endless amounts of it here. Reviews over here

Aye, I'm not that big into online gaming and have debated a few times recently whether to let my XBL membership slide into Silver but it's one of those direct debits that someone who's as crap with money as me just doesn't notice coming out each month. The discounts for Gold members are nice occasionally, too.

I've had much less cause to get depressed about the state of humanity while online with PSN compared to XBL, though. I dunno if it's just that the PS3 demographic is that little bit older and wiser or that in-game chat with the machine (no packaged mic, wireless or otherwise - you've gotta buy your own bluetooth or USB one) is a bit complicated for the mouth-breathers to understand.

You still get the odd w@nker, mind, but nowhere near as frequently.

Remember with PSN+ you also (if you get a year) get LitlleBIGPlanet. I didn't read the whole post, so not sure if you put that in.

n3wt. I believe that Call of Juarez has nothing to do with CoD at all, same with the sequel. Same with Bound in Blood.

Ahh just with the name being similar I thought it might of been

Does this happen on Live? As PSN+ is basically the Sony version of Xbox Live Gold, with the ability to play games online still there, unlike gold. Which also won't even let you have Private chats with Silver. Basically, I can't see it happen on one and not the other.

I do prefer Live to PSN. And the less W@nkers on PSN, I think is due to a lot less people having mics. Most games I've played online is rather silent.

LBP's a great game but it's one (and I'd say 1000s upon 1000s of PS3 owners as well) I have owned for ages and can be picked up on disc with no expiry everywhere for well under £15.

Eh? Isn't the whole point of Gold online play? Do you mean that the ability to play online is still there in the free PSN, unlike XBL Silver? See below.

M$ already operates the system I was foreseeing with Silver and Gold but if that ever happens with PSN (cherry picking online services for subscribers only) there are gonna be a hell of a lot of upset people who made their choice of consoles because of the all-encompassing free aspect of Sony's network. First they stripped PS2 compatibility, then the ability to run Linux...

The first was a measure to bring the cost of the PS3 down, fair enough, but there's no choice in spending a bit extra now to play your old PS2 games if you want a new one. The second was the easy way of cutting off a potential exploit but that seems to have died the same death as every other PS3 hack has so why not re-introduce it?

PS+ was originally rumoured to include cross-game chat but I don't see reference to that anywhere now. You're paying money to rent some games that loads of people already own (ie, not new releases) and to have updates waking the console up and downloading automatically which is a neat feature but hardly worth paying for the privilege.

A fool and his money are easily parted, they say. I'm a fool.

EDIT - Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that one of PS+'s 'free' games this month is Destruction Derby. That one wasn't even that good when I first bought it in the mid 90s.

I can't believe what good value the Orange Box is these days. I'm now totally hooked on Half Life 2. Bit late to the game I know (but given that 'Ep 3' still isn't out, maybe I'm just in time? )



Even tho the graphics are a bit dated, the constant first-person immersion really does make you feel like a cinema hero (in a future alien-infested 1984). The variety of gameplay makes the linearity painless, keeping things feeling pacey and tense. The soundscape is excellent too (love it when a game can creep you out just with an innocuous 'clink' sound, coz you're so keyed up for any hint of a bad guy)

I see from reviews I've still got plenty of new stuff on the way. (Only at the waterbike stages at the mo). Grand

Incidentally, found a fun PC mod while looking for an image...

I still havent played Orange Box, shocking as it is. I will have to borrow it off my brother in law

Destruction Derby was great. How dare you say otherwise

I meant that with Silver you can't play online at all, and private chat isn't included with Silver. I do believe they said about cross game chat in Sony's E3 conference.

Either way, I won't be getting PSN+ I already pay for Live Gold and I rarely play on that due to WoW. Though, the last week me and my friend have been playing Saints Row 2 co-op as SR2 is awesome ( I personally prefer it to GTAIV asit's a much more fun game,) and we both wanted to play it in co-op. Eeerrr... My point is, that I won't be getting PSN+ I don't see the point, and my PS3 isd in my bedroom.

Destruction Derby and Destruction Derby 2 were two of my favorite games when I had my PSone funnily enough I was thinking recently how awesome it would be if another Destruction Derby was released now on 360/PS3. It really would look amazing and be so much fun

Played them recently?

I liked DD, and especially DD2, when they were released but, boy, have they dated. A lot of the PS1 classics still stand up today but racing games in particular suffer, especially the ones, like DD, which don't use analogue controls.

n3wt - Try Burnout Paradise for the 360, you can pick up the edition with most of the DLC for £15 most places. Think Destruction Derby in a free-roam city - it's great fun. Had it first on the PS3 but bought it cheap a while back for the 360 though haven't played it much this time round.

I've got a couple of questions for anyone who's on their second (or more ) 360:

Is the game licence transfer as straightforward as the instructions make it appear? All I need to do is format the old 360's hard drive and my account details are gone from that machine?

I'm picking up the new 360 S on Friday, see. (that's my Welsh accent coming out )

I believe I have played Burnout Paradise but not to sure, infact I know I borrowed a burnout game from Pedz about 2 years ago now I think. If its the game im thinking of it was very cool and I should pick it up

Fairplay Taci your Welsh accent was supurb

Just format the 360 HDD and all things will be wiped. I believe that if you go online on the xbox.com you can transfer your game licenses, but I think you get 30 minutes. Or you can get a transfer cable, transfer everything from one 360 to the other, then format the old 360 and then trade/sell it. Never done either myself, even though having more than one 360 due to always being on Live so can always access my XBLA games etc.

I don't find Burnout much like DD, it's more like TDU with cars exploding. You get hit hard in Burnout Paradise and your car dies, in DD it was more than just one crash and you car is totalled. Unless there was a mode I haven't tried on it, which is really likely.

Depends on the car - some of the big 4x4s you get later in the game mean you can plough into most of the traffic apart from high speed head ons. Then there are the survival and annihilation missions which are a bit like a destruction derby through a town. The race bits are similar too except, you've guessed it, through a town.

Transfer cable isn't an option for me because I'm trading the old console at the same time as buying the new one but I'm glad that an NXE update means you can use USB flash drives as memory units so my save games and general account info are safe. Just means I'll have to re-download the DLC and XBL games but what can ya do?

If you could transfer directly from 360 to your PC's drive/portable drive then to the new one via USB it'd make things a lot easier but M$ are determined to make things difficult. You can backup almost everything on the PS3 as long as you've got a big enough portable drive.

This licence transfer thing seems a pain. The PS3 does it much better - you can have your account on up to 5 different machines, I think.

Yeah, it is better, for the us consumers, not Sony though. Why? Because people can share accounts. I have a few game a friend bought, simply because he gave me his details. My other half's brother has a few games I bought due to me giving him my details. It's great.

I think that's a sensible way to deal with potential piracy, though. You're limited to a few accounts which isn't exactly gonna cost Sony much money if you share them with friends and is a much more straightforward way to do things when you're legitimately switching consoles.

The M$ attitude of 'assume everyone is going to pirate our games' is the dodgy one.

Just got the phonecall from my local GAME telling me that the 360s have arrived and I can pick mine up after midnight because they're opening (very) early.

I politely told him that I'll see him at Friday lunchtime.

I assume it'll cost them a fair bit, and at the moment Sony need all they can get as they are still losing money on the PS3. I ain't complaing though.

Also there is a way to get XBLM stuff on 2 consoles. Download/transfer Gamertag to friends 360, download a nice shiny new arcade game. Transfer your GT back and there you go. The reason is, the 360 the game is downloaded on, doesn't need your GT signed in as the licences for the game are registered to that console, and as you got the game with your GT, you can then play the game fine on your 360 when signed in.

Hope you enjoy your 360. I personally don't like the look of them, but would like one as I have little space, so if I had the 360 S and PS3 Slim, I may be able to have all 3 main consoles in the living room, instead of just my 360 and Wii.

I honestly can't see account sharing costing Sony anything significant. I don't know many people who make use of it (a couple have set up dedicated sharing accounts but it's too much bother for me) and I've been hanging around an underground gaming forum for years - only 2 or 3 of the PS3 guys there do it regularly. I'd say that the average Joe doesn't even know that the feature exists.

I'm honestly not too bothered about having a new console but the deal GAME had going for pre-orders was too good to turn down - It's costing me the same price to change as it would be to put a new 250GB hard drive in my Pro. If it wasn't for that I'd just have bought a new HD.

Of course, the GAME bloke was already trying to sell me their optional insurance over the phone. Some things never change.

EDIT - FFXIV Beta update:

I totally forgot it was installed on my PC!