Han Solo: A Smuggler's Trade - A Star Wars Fan Film

Okay, so that was pretty damn good for a fan effort!

Nex Machina - Official Announcement Trailer (4K)

Like someone ripped a neon infused fever dream from the deepest pits of my subconscious and made it into pure video game bliss.

Fuck...

(Wear headphones, pump that volume...)

Tyranny OST soundtrack cover, since I didn't find any yet.

Cannot select another screenshot on PS4

For anyone having this problem on their PS4 preventing them from posting screenshots to social media. What this means is that your upload notification queue is full. Most likely with redundant notification that a save-game could not be uploaded because Sony seriously dropped the ball on the whole cloud save storage this generation.

Yes, that's pretty counter intuitive and will probably be fixed at some point.

Just go to your notifications, uploads, select the first notification and hit the option key to delete it. It's a tedious process but it'll work.

Remove lag from Playstation TV remote play streaming

After my original post on Playstation TV / Vita TV remote play streaming performance I got quite a few questions sent in. Pretty much the number one question asked was:

How do I remove the lag from Playstation TV remote play streaming?

(How's that for a SEO sentence eh?)

The answer to that is remarkably simple. The biggest lag is actually caused by the connection between the Playstation TV and the Dual-Shock 4....

Let that sink in for a second.

So to fix this lag, all you have to do is connect the DS4 to the PS TV via a microUSB wire and you're set.

Well, not quite. As Sony is pretty stupid the PS TV doesn't provide enough juice on the USB port to run, charge and rumble the DS4. So when the rumbling starts your PS TV will complain about not being able to meet the energy requirements. Just hold PS button on the DS4 and turn rumble off. 

Playstation TV with Apple Airport, ymmv

I got my hands on a brand new Playstation TV last Friday as the micro console finally launched here on the old world. I've been eyeing it since ever it was announced in Japan (at TGS I believe last year and actually had to fight the temptation to pick one up in Akiba last spring. 

Over the weekend I tried various ways of getting it to work optimally with my Apple Airport based network. I wanted the lowest latency possible so I could stream Call of Duty from the PS4 in the living room to my desk TV without any perceptible lag.

I think I got very close.

To start with, here is my setup before PS TV.

Modem -1m wired> 3TB Timecapsule -15m wired> Airport Extreme
                                        \-wireless> 2TB Timecapsule
                                        \-wireless> Airport Express

We'll disregard the wireless devices since they don't matter. Wirelessly connecting your Playstation TV to the network or even connecting the PSTV directly to the PS4 via the direct WiFi connection is not a recipe for success. Especially not in a heavily congested area like I live in with over 50 2.4 Ghz access points within range. 

1st try.

3TB Timecapsule -15m wired> Airport Extreme -2m wired> PSTV
     \- 1m wired> PS4

While this setup is fully wired I immediately ran into two problems. 

One was that there was a very perceptible input lag which made shooters unplayable. But even worse was a stutter that would completely freeze the game up for a fraction of a second every 2-3 seconds. 

Not optimal at all.

2nd try.

Airport Extreme -15m wired> PSTV
   \- 1m wired> PS4

This got rid of the micro freezes but still experienced input lag. Games like Diablo 3 and such were totally playable like this but shooter were not.

3rd try.

Airport Extreme -15m wired> PS4
   \- 1m wired> PSTV

Well that's odd, swapping the two around made the situation much better. This could be due to a multitude of things including the faster image processing on the TV on my desk. In this setup I'm able to play any game with no perceptible lag. Although not ideal as I had to gut my network structure to do so. 

4th try. 

Airport Extreme -1m wired> Netgear Gbit switch -15m wired> PSTV
                                                  \-1m wired> PS4

Trying this as soon as my switch comes in. If this works I'll leave both on the dedicated switch and wire everything else back up as before. Will update once I know more.

Destiny - my thoughts

So I'm about 6 hours into Destiny, it's been okay. A famous quote from someone at Bungie (which I'm probably misquoting) is that they strive for 10 seconds of fun and repeating that over and over. And the game succeeds at that. The core mechanic is fun and it feels right.

Unfortunately, the fun isn't all that the repeat over and over.

Echoing what undoubtedly every other publication has already said is that the recycling of content and the bland generic mission design within that content is a huge problem. The last game that so blatantly recycled content that I can remember was Dragon Age 2 and it got critically panned for it. 

Unlike other MMO's the game only has a few zones and these zones like an MMO spawn the same groups of enemies and the same locations over and over. Your few missions take place in between these random mobs. Everything you do gets you XP and sometimes loot (see below.)

And it is an MMO, don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Not in the way that the game forces you to group but in a way that the game is simply a lot less fun without others. Don't solo this game, just don't do it. This isn't like Halo where you have groups of AI marines to back you up. Playing solo just makes you feel alone and the respawn mechanic actively punishes you for this. So why is there no open game mode where you can drop in to someone else's game or they can drop into yours. Not unlike Diablo 3. If you know your game is a miserable experience solo, what do you care that sometimes there is a level difference or that some people may have to play through a mission twice?

It's also a loot game, but the loot sucks. For all the examples out there like Borderlands, Diablo 3 and the piles of MMORPG's out there. How hard is it to design a loot system that actually encourages the grinding that your levelling structure demands? I'm level 8 but am still wearing level 4 boots as I haven't been able to find nor buy a pair of boots anywhere. ANY boots, better or worse.

I played a few matches of Crucible, it was hideously unbalanced. I stopped caring about it pretty quickly. This is not Halo's multiplayer, it's trying to emulate pretty much every other generic shooter out there. No tactics, poor level design and one hit kill weapons abound. 

Will I finish the story? Probably, if I can find people to play with. Will I uninstall this pretty soon afterwards? Very likely. Is this the game were were promised? Not by a long shot....

Update:

After a number of patches from Bungies side to improve the loot situation and finding a bunch of goons to play with I did manage to stick it out till hitting level 27 and indeed finish the story.

Now, mid November, as the torrent of games has started I've finally said my goodbyes to Destiny.

Logitech G35 on Playstation 4

Yes, the Logitech G35 works just fine on your PS4.

Change the volume from the Playstation button -> Adjust Devices menu.

That is all, you're welcome.

After scouring the inter webs for 20 minutes to look this up, I decided to dig up my own G35 and just try it out. So you don't have to (or maybe now you want to...)

The Last Night

Got 5 minutes, like Cyberpunk and want to play something amazing right now?

Check out The Last Night at http://timsoret.itch.io/the-last-night

It's the best 5 minutes you'll spend today. Looking forward to the Kickstarter ;-)

Surface Pro 3 - first impressions

The Surface Pro 3 is not "the tablet that can replace your laptop"and if that's what you are looking for then stop looking. That mythical all-in-one convergence device simply doesn't exist yet.
What the Surface Pro 3 is however is a powerful productivity device that while not what you were looking for might be exactly what you need.

The Surface in question here is a middle of the road Core i5 with 256GB of storage. Adding the type cover, Office 365 Personal and a perhaps redundant 13" Incipio Ronin sleeve my grand total came to $ 1.598,- which is frankly a lot of money, twice as much as my iPad Air 4g 64GB for example. On that note, if you are in the market for a tablet, get the iPad and stop reading this piece as the rest of it is totally irrelevant.

Still here?

The reason for that rather blunt statement is that as a pure tablet the Surface Pro 3 is simply a failure. Way too heavy to comfortably hold in either orientation for longer than a minute or two and too large to balance on an uneven surface. The legacy of windows gives most apps a exceptionally poor touch interface and the majority simply don't support portrait mode. Also the kickstand is absolutely useless as the slightest touch of the Surface while propped up on it sends it sliding all over the place on any kind of smooth surface like... a table or a desk. Making the device unsuitable for anything other than passive content consumption. A tablet you can't use as a tablet is completely redundant.

But, with the type cover connected, that awkward device becomes an amazing ultra portable, powerful and convenient Win 8.1 laptop. For one, the keyboard instantly stops the surface from sliding all over your desk and gives you all the keys you need to be productive in the included applications. You'll quickly learn how to move between the keyboard and the touchscreen to get things done in the most efficient manner and even the most die hard Windows 7 hold-out might finally get what Microsoft was aiming for with Windows 8. The included pen was great for making quick notes but personally, unless you're an artist, I think the pen is a hold-over from a bygone era and not really that useful anymore for those of us with mouse/trackpad and typing skills. The trackpad itself is actually the only downside to the type cover as it's not as responsive as I'm used to from other notebooks.

So as a first impression, it's probably one of the worst tablets I've ever used and at the same time one of the best ultraportables. At this price however it's still very hard to recommend this over a MacBook Air unless you just absolutely need Windows.

Divinity Original Sin Review

Now I must admit, I wasn't part of the original Kickstarter on this one. As it was launched around the time I was suffering from a now common affliction called Kickstarter fatigue. 

In hindsight, that was a mistake. 

I'm about 12 hours in and enjoying myself immensely. The game is a breath of fresh air in a genre that seems to be obsessed with chasing wide open world and often forgetting to put anything interesting in them. In Divinity every part of the gameplay map servers some kind of purpose. From providing place to find a secret to an interesting spot for one of the games tactical turn based encounters.

And it are these encounters that are the highlight of the game for me. Taking the rich tactical options of games like Baldurs Gate and more recently the original Dragon Age and putting them in a X-Com like framework with actions costing a set number of points. Unspent points carry over to the next round adding an even deeper level of strategy where some spells and abilities require you to save some points from the previous turn. That's on top of an already very varied menu of tactical options.

I'm playing as a Ranger and Cleric. Which gives me access to a number of archery abilities, tens of special arrow heads from standard exploding and poisoning to steam and smoke screens. On the Cleric I get healing, buffs and the ability to cast a number of offensive spells. You're never at a loss for options.

Apart from the two "main" characters you can swap additional characters in and out of your party. Supplementing your two mains. Just for the combat, Divinity: Original Sin is worth the price of admission.

That doesn't mean other areas are underdeveloped, graphically the game looks better than most most higher budget commercial games and those graphics are backed up by some great sound effects, okay voice acting and the usual suite of fantasy music. Again, the battle music is the standout here which is good because some of the battles tend to last in the tens of minutes.

The story so far has been a bit slow going, taking me through a traditional murder investigation plot while funnelling me from area to area. While the game is essentially non-linear it's the enemies levels which in practice gate you from certain areas. There is simply no way your level 3 guys will be taking out that mob of level 5 Orcs without either a lot of luck or patience. Better try again when you've levelled up a bit. But the setup of the story is promising and I will certainly be playing more of it to see where it goes.

All in all, I recommend you pick this one up if you're a fan of classic RPG's and tactical battles. Those of you looking for an open world RPG or a more MMO like experience will not find what you're looking for here.

The technology of Watchdogs

Polygon ran a very interesting video feature today on the technology Ubisofts upcoming game Watchdogs and how close to that reality we might already be in Chicago. Very interesting and though provoking.

Nokia and (mis)targeted advertising

Found this in the latest edition of fast company, perhaps I'm out of touch but I think the cross-section of those who care about megapixels and those that wear skinny jeans is smaller than Nokia's advertisement agency thinks.

Killzone: Mercenary first impressions

As someone who has always enjoyed the Killzone games and even takes a little bit of pride in them being developed in his motherland of the Netherlands. I was looking forward to the first instalment of the franchise on the PS Vita, not in the least because it's indisputably a triple-A title of the calibre we were promised when the Vita launched.

It's here now and it looks absolutely stunning. It really does rival the current generation consoles in graphical fidelity and it's surprisingly smooth with virtually no slowdown. This is also one of those games you kind of need to play with headphones as the sound does enhance the experience and completes the triple-A package. Gameplay wise, after having played the first few levels, it truly is the Killzone experience on a handheld. Which, as I mentioned, for me is a good thing.

I prefer the slower, more "realistic" pace of the Killzone games over for example the gravity defying leaping of the Halo franchise.  One thing new to the series is the ability to take a more stealthy approach and take out a number of enemies without alerting their compatriots. There are still plenty of unavoidable firefights though but the mechanic serves some welcome variety and is a blessing in the earlier sniper infested levels where being able to take out the majority of these instadeath dealers silently is particularly helpful.

As the name implies, rather than fighting directly for the ISA or the Helghast you are a mercenary for hire. Fighting for both sides although the story (so far) favours the ISA. This also gives the developers an excuse to tack on a inventory system where you have to buy your weapons from the black market for credits. These vending points are scattered around the levels and let you kit out your guy as the situation demands. Stealthy section coming up? Swap out your loud assault rifle for a silences SMG, no problem. Credits are handed out liberally too and reward head shots and close combat kills over regular kills. But even looting corpses for ammo, taking out security cameras and releasing hostages give credits.

All in all, I'm enjoying Killzone: Mercenary immensely. Pick it up on the PSN store now!
(Seriously, it's 2013. Save the planet, buy digital!)

Wii U, the little console that could.

A few days ago, on a whim, I picked up a Wii U. The premium model as you see above this post. With a copy of Zombi U. After spending some time with it, in true internet fashion, I will consider myself an expert and bestow my wisdom upon you...

Let's start off with what I like, which are the exclusive games. Zombi U was kind of meh but Super Mario and Pikmin still have that Nintendo spark. The game that really did it for me however was Lego City Undercover. In my opinion one of the best open world games out there and yes, that includes the two recent Saints Row games who I though were made for people with the IQ of a turnip.

In any event, that Nintendo makes good games is no surprise. It's probably the reason they're still in business as their franchises can carry entire consoles through rough spots.

What did surprise me is how solid the rest of the console's experience is compared to it's current rivals, the PS3 and the 360. This is perhaps the first console I've owned since the 16-bit days that just works and works as you want, even expect. None of the convoluted, advertisement ridden bullshit that the 360 has these days and none of the odd instabilities I've experienced with my PS3. Virtually no startup time and thanks to solid state technology the best possible load times.

Yes, I hear you think, I you've read some Wii U game reviews and all of them complain about the load times. If you think things are bad now, let's look forward to the next gen shall we? Currently the PS3 and 360 have about 512MB of ram that needs to be loaded in, which can be done reasonably quickly from a hard drive. The Wii U has double that, so naturally the loading of that data takes a bit longer. PS4 will have 10x that available to games, which will need to be loaded of that same hard drive technology that you've got now. So please, stop complaining about load times, it's probably the next gen's most unifying feature.

The non-gaming software on the machine is also top notch, it comes with the best web browser on any console, ever. Allowing you to start movies from Youtube or sites like IGN and Giantbomb and then move them to the TV screen for viewing while you continue browsing on the gamepad. The browser also works everywhere, even in the middle of a paused game you can look stuff up.

But, while that game is paused, why not snap a screenshot and share it with your friend in the Miiverse? Features so simple that consoles should have implemented them years ago, but Nintendo is first.

But, you can't talk about Wii U without talking about the huge, almost insurmountable, issue it has.

NO GAMES

Well, that's not entirely true, but at least nowhere near the depth and breath of gaming experiences that any other console platform (except maybe the Vita) is or will offer. At current count the two other next gen systems will have about the same number of games at launch as the Wii U has been able to amass in near 10 months.

Will it pull together? I sure hope so. With even Nintendo now acknowledging that, besides the naming confusion, lack of games is the primary factor in the system selling so poorly.

Let's hope big N can turn the tide...

Final Fantasy XIV Beta impressions

In a fit of karmic justice, my main PC's motherboard decided to fry itself. After some troubleshooting and cursing I resigned myself to the fact that I'd be without a PC for a few days while a new mobo gets shipped.

In a foul mood I was browsing through my e-mail and I had received a new one from Square-Enix with the question how I was enjoying the FF XIV beta.

Wait what now? I didn't know I was in the beta?!

A quick search revealed they had sent me an invite for the PS3 version over 2 weeks ago. So some clickety-clack and a 5GB download later and I was in business.

Now my experience with Final Fantasy is extensive having completed pretty much every main series game and dabbling in FF XI on the Xbox 360 back in the day. But I never did get around to playing the original Final Fantasy XIV as tales of its god-awful-ness had reached me by the time I was able to procure it. So I was going in fresh and I must say, so far I'm impressed. Impressed enough to want to sign up for a while when it goes live later in August.

Rolling an Archer I was plopped down into a quaint little town in the middle of a forest and told to pretty much go forth and be entertained. Which 8 hours later I still was. The first 10 levels really breezed by and in a way less linear fashion than games like WoW or even Guild Wars 2. Speaking of GW2 though this game borrows heavily from them with world events and abilities deriving from the equipped weapons going even a step further where your current class is wholly based on what you happen to have in your hands. Letting you swap to any other class simply by picking up a different weapon after having reached at least level 10 in your primary class.

Apart from the combat classes there is an extensive roster of crafting and support classes from staples like carpenter and miner to things like fisherman. If you like crafting you've come to the right place!

The aforementioned non-linearity was a great plus though. At any given moment I could do my class quests or follow some storyline quests (which are okay, but not amazing) or just walk around in the forest doing randoms stuff for random people to get my level up.

If I have one complaint it is that the mission variety is of the same non-variety as other games where it comes down to fetch x, kill x of y or talk to x. I understand this is simply a function of these kinds of games but it seems as if MMO developer just simply burn all their creativity on making these amazing worlds and then go "fuck it" and just have the interns populate it with uninspired quests.

In any event, I had a great time and you might too. the public beta is coming up so sign up at their website now to be a part of it.

Oh yeah, I was playing it on the PS3 and it worked just fine. Controller mapping was pretty inventive so don't let that keep you.

Update: Karma, it's a bitch isn't it. Less than a day after me writing the below SOE finally got around releasing a patch that solved all my problems.
3 hours later, my motherboard died... I'm sure the two aren't related...are they?!


I like Planetside 2, I like it a lot. Having checked it out a few times in the past I decided to give it a proper go this week and I love the epic feel of the battles and the sprawling landscapes on which you and up to hundreds of your brothers in arms fight.

Which makes it all the more frustrating that several serious technical issues prevent me from playing it.

Planetside 2 crashes, a lot. On a bad day it crashes to desktop about once every 30 minutes and nothing I do can prevent that. I've rebuilt the file structure, updated my drivers, removed my overclock hell even underclocked. Nothing seems to be able to prevent this game from just randomly, arbitrarily deciding that I've had enough. It's like Sony has finally started to enforce their "take frequent breaks while playing videogames" policy that I see so often on the PS3.

Then there are the glitches, the worst by far is a constant droning buzz through my speakers. Kind of like what interference sounds like on analog speakers...But they're USB speakers, fully digital, with those buzz only happening in Planetside 2.

After 3 days of getting this all to work. I've given up. There is nothing more frustrating that putting 30 minutes of work in capturing a facility only to have the game crash on you a few seconds before the pay-off. No XP, no nothing and when I log back in I can't even get back to where I was because of the retarded respawn system.

Day One Digital, give or take a few hours...

Dear Sony, I pre-ordered the last of us from the PSN about a week ago. You charged my creditcard a few days ago. So why do I now have to wait another 2 hours to actually play the game? Couldn't you have pre-loaded it like you did when I ordered Bioshock Infinite and Remember Me from you in the same way? 

We really need to figure this day one digital out, as any advantage over brick and mortar sales is lost like this. While the disadvantages are well known.

(2 hours was on my 60Mbit line, I can imagine others may have an even worse experience...)

Shiny Chromebook?

So I bought a Chromebook...

I'm actually posting this from my Chromebook.

Now granted, I didn't pay as much for this Chromebook as most of my countrymen. The model I got, a series 3 Samsung pictured here still goes for near 300 euros in the Netherlands, which is borderline robbery! But on a recent trip to the USA I picked one up at the local Best Buy for what translates to a mere 180 euros. That's about 1/3rd of what I paid for my iPad.
And so far, I'm pretty happy with my purchase. I was planning to upgrade my Google storage for a long time already anyway and the Chromebook came with a free 100GB for two years which is great value.

If you're like me and have a grandfathered Google drive account (20GB for $5/year) then I can hereby tell you that you will keep this deal when you add the 100GB package, it just adds it on top of the total and you will NOT lose your legacy account status. For those like me this is probably the only way to do this without losing that status, short of getting a Pixel which..well...

For what it is, the Chromebook is a great bargain, it's exactly as advertised, a small, light, fast enough little laptop that runs the Chrome browser as its OS. Anything you do today inside Chrome save for hardcore gaming you can do on the Chromebook. And that is important to note that the more core games like for example Bastion do not currently function on the Chromebook. So if you're heavily into portable gaming you should look elsewhere.

Getting Internet on the go is also a piece of cake, the Nexus 4 I use can tether with the Chromebook through  WiFi, Bluetooth and even direct USB connection. The latter having the added benefit that it keeps the Nexus charged and doesn't add the battery strain of running two radios at the same time on it. Without the Nexus attached I got about 6 hours out of the Chromebook. With the Nexus providing 3G the whole setup lasted about 4.5 hours. With the Nexus 4 still being fully charged at the end of it.

After having used tablets exclusively while mobile for the past two years it's great to have a real keyboard and mousepad again. I would never have typed up this piece of text otherwise. The keyboard is actually better than that of most laptops three times the cost. And on par with that of the MacBook Pro I use for work (well, on par....close enough, the keys are a bit looser but in day to day use you don't notice the difference.)

For the price, it's a great buy if you understand what it is and isn't going in.

DeadSpace 3 full graphics

Man, it sure looks good, shame I don't like these kinds of games ;-)