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.