Games Cheats and Reviews

There have been rumors about a Blu-ray drive (both of the internal and external variety) coming to the Xbox 360 a number of times, but that notion was once again shot down by Microsoft’s UK director of Xbox and Entertainment Stephen McGill last week. Asked about the prospect of Blu-ray on 360 in an interview with CVG, McGill said, “We have no plans to adopt Blu-Ray drive for the Xbox 360. In fact, the future of home entertainment started last autumn when Xbox 360 became the first and only console to offer instant-on 1080p streaming HD movies.”

Speaking about the same subject, Microsoft’s Aaron Greenberg highlighted the lack of Blu-ray in the Xbox 360 as one of the reasons why the 360 is currently positioned ahead of the PS3. “Sony bet on the physical disc, and there are costs associated with that,” he told Edge. “The fact that we’re able to offer a console starting at $199 is a benefit of not being burdened with that cost.” He also noted that “being $100 cheaper [than PS3] is part of the reason we’re nearly twice their installed base,” a comment he has since clarified on Twitter as being based on NPD data that has the 360’s U.S. install base at 20 million units to the PS3’s 12 million. The same can’t be said about worldwide numbers, especially in Japan (where PS3 leads) and Europe (where the 360’s lead is much smaller than it is in the U.S.).

Greenberg then reiterated what McGill talked about, saying, “For us, our bet was on digital distribution, that was the future — the ability to [play] 1080p movies with no disc, no download required; we have the largest movie and TV library, the largest HD library of any console.”

Either you’ve played Perfect Dark before, or you haven’t. Most readers who find their way here probably have, and the ones who haven’t, well, you’ll probably need some serious convincing to play a decade-old game that pretty cheerfully ignores the innovations the FPS genre gained from games like, say, Half-Life, and came out on a console that wasn’t exactly known as the cutting edge of graphical holyshit-osity. For that first bunch it’s really easy to say, yeah, with the HD upgrade Perfect Dark on XBLA looks every bit as good as you remember it. Which, if you actually pop in the cart these days, you’ll realize is a hell of a lot better than it actually looked back in the day. Between the replaced textures and multiplayer over Live (in splitscreen, no less) this is a great way to re-enjoy a game you already love. It deserves that love. You should be proud to love it. More so now that it’s been touched up without losing a single bit of its original character.

On the other hand, Perfect Dark is old as hell and likely to alienate anyone who cut their teeth on games that came after. If you’re one of those people…I’m sorry, but I’ll be damned if I can think of a reason to say that this is kind of a major gap in your videogaming experience that you absolutely have to go back and fill in. Unlike some other genres, most first-person shooters are pretty far from timeless. We can’t look back on, say, Tetris, and think, “Man, this would be way the hell better with snappier graphics, more block shapes, and an epic storyline that makes us question the nature of our humanity or whatever.”

GB writes:"Crysis 2 is definitely one of the games that we are looking forward to in 2010. Coming to PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC later this year, Crysis 2 should be able to set a new benchmark in the visuals department again. So does the game match up with Killzone 2? We decided to do a high definition screen shot comparison of both the games, so check it out. The first screen is from Crysis 2 and the second one is from Killzone 2."

DualShockers writes, "Yesterday we brought you a taste of Microsoft’s view of the future for Xbox 360. Today we continue the look at how storage methods could change for the PlayStation 3 in the near future. With the announcement this Tuesday that the PlayStation Network will now be supported by all six major movie studios, for not only the rental, but also purchase of High Definition movies, it feels almost like the stage has been set for something even bigger. With HD Movies now available to own, the disappearance of the PS3 250gb Slim bundles, two new PS3 SKUs emerging, and various other mysterious happenings lately it feels like something massive heads our way. Read more for a little insight as to what this all means and what the heck PS Cloud might be…"

The PlayStation Network has just hit a massive milestone.  All six major movie studios will start using the PSN video delivery service to deliver HD rental movies.  You may now begin to rent sweet HD movies from the likes of 20th Century Fox, Walt Disney Pictures, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment (well DUH!), Universal Pictures, and Warner Bros. Digital Distribution.

It is only up to rentals now, but hopefully this will pave the way for buying in the future.  This is a big win for Sony and the PSN Video service.  Oh wait, you can do all this for free (minus the rental cost).  Xbox live what?

Sharing: It’s Win/Win

Senior Producer Steve Caterson explains when the story for the trilogy was complete and how Jaffe and Barlog’s input still affects the series.

PC WORLD: "Sony is readying itself to roll out an update to current PlayStation 3 games console owners to allow them to take advantage of the new Full HD 3D TVs and 3D programming that are about to launch."

PSLS writes:

Only a few nights ago, epic new God of War III footage was revealed on GameTrailers TV with Geoff Keighley, leaving gamers with the task of picking their dropped jaws up off the floor. That unforgettable footage is now available for download in HD on the PlayStation Network.

The updated Gap Charts from November 2006 to the February 20th 2010. Charts showing 360 v PS3 and HD v Wii are included.

TMC: New footage comparing both versions of Final Fantasy XIII is out on the internet. Do they look drastically different? Nope. Actually from what we can tell they literally look the same with the exception that 360 version is a bit darker.We can’t see much of a difference but you be the judge.

*Remember to Click 720p HD on youtube*