In Defence of Gran Turismo 6

Following the launch of Gran Turismo 6 last November I looked forward to receiving it at Christmas. When Gran Turismo 5 came out my pre-order was quickly snaffled away by my wife for Christmas, and so on this occasion I by-passed the pre-order and accepted it would be a Christmas present. Between the release and my receiving it, I was somewhat surprised by the criticism, but with the present purchased a few weeks prior to Christmas I didn't consider returning it.

Do I regret that at all? Not in the slightest. I really enjoyed Gran Turismo 5, and my enjoyment of Gran Turismo 6 has lasted for a solid two months, and I don't think it will stop at any point soon. For one thing, it has met my biggest need from Gran Turismo 5, namely more circuits. Having visited Brands Hatch, I love having both the Indy and Grand Prix circuits to drive around. Having watched countless races from Silverstone, I love having all manner of Silverstone configurations to drive round. Additionally, the sadly fictional Apricot Hill is a fabulous circuit, offering challenging fast turns, an opportunity to get into a nice rhthym, and lots of overtaking opportunities amid the rolling contours.

(Billionaire to-do list: Build the Apricot Hill circuit in real life. I won't ever have an opportunity to do so, but if someone could that would be awesome, thanks.)

So why the criticism? Because the game isn't very different to GT5? So driving on the moon and on a hillclimb aren't different? The licence tests are now required to progress throughout the game, and if you throw in the coffee break challenges there is plenty of new content there. Because you don't see every intimate detail inside every car? That's a criticism I have never understood, although I'm more of a race fan than a car fan, with a keener interest in the circuits and driving on them as well as possible instead of as beautifully as possible. Because sounds of collisions still sound, as one critic suggested, "like elbowing a fridge"? Well, to be fair I can't argue that last point.

My biggest bug-bears are the absence of the colossal rewards that some of the seasonal challenges offered in Gran Turismo 5, and complete disappearance of the Ferrari Formula 1 cars. While the F2007 was pretty challenging to drive, the rewards from setting it up perfectly and then driving it well rank as some of the most enjoyable moments I've had from any video game. I wish they would come back, although I suspect if the cars were not in the game at launch then there is no plan to add them later. Polyphony Digital, feel free to swap these in for the Ascari circuit, which looks pretty in an overhead plan but which is too twisty to really let loose and have fun on.

I have come to enjoy the opportunity to experience the longer races (i.e. ten, fifteen and twenty minute races), but an opportunity for further control over races would be welcome, as in fact would the opportunity to take part in the endurance races which although daunting where nice to take part in on days off from work. Opposition driver AI needs some work as well, for with the exception of occasional swerving from the racing line their refusal to fight overtaking sometimes takes the challenge away. Perhaps one day there will be the opportunity to change the challenges you face, whether that be in regard to AI aggression or to AI tactics in general. Want to run long on a set of hard tires? Why shouldn't an AI driver go to soft tires for a faster set of laps in a longer race?

I would suspect at this point that such resources and options may be saved for Gran Turismo 7, which will ultimately be the point that I will need to decide whether I'm a 40-something with a wife and two kids who is happy to "make do" with a PS3 or someone who feels younger than they actually are and who can't be without a PS4 and the opportunity to blast around Laguna Seca in Gran Turismo's latest incarnation. While I enjoy the present game the three year gap between GT5 and GT6 seems to set a precedent, along with a clock ticking. For the time being I will continue to enjoy GT6 on the PS3, and occasionally think ahead to what I might need to ask the family to put under the Christmas tree for me in 2016.

SingStar Tennis: A Follow Up

In the unlikely event that anyone wanted a follow up of how the first ever game of SingStar Tennis went, here are the scores from the first game.

It took place between myself and my best friend Neil when he visited, with the contest actually taking place on Friday 7th October. As a kind host I let Neil "serve" first and therefore pick the first song. The songs and scores were as follows (person choosing the song, or "serving" is brackets):

1) Queen - We Are The Champions (Neil)

Neil won 7497-7181, Neil leads 1-0

2) Baha Men - Who Let The Dogs Out (Tony)

Tony 6363-6050, 1-1

3) The Scorpions - Wind of Change (Neil)

Neil 8554-8377, Neil leads 2-1

4) Kelly Clarkson - Since You Been Gone (Tony)

Tony 8129-3762, 2-2

5) Elvis Presley - Suspicious Minds (Neil)

Neil 8089-7492, Neil leads 3-2

6) Toni Braxton - Unbreak My Heart (Tony)

Tony 7693-5391, 3-3

7) Queen - Who Wants to Live Forever (Neil)

Neil 8501-7696, Neil leads 4-3

8) Black - Wonderful Life (Tony)

Tony 9198-8791, 4-4

9) A-Ha - Sun Always Shines on TV (Neil)

Neil 8718-8507, Neil leads 5-4

10) Edwyn Collins - A Girl Like You (Tony)

Tony 6873-6137, 5-5

11) The Proclaimers - Letter From America (Neil)

Tony 7537-7535, Tony leads 6-5 (break of serve!)

12) ABBA - The Day Before You Came (Tony)

Tony 8778-8211, Tony wins 7-5


Neil figured out afterwards that I had been much more tactical (honestly, "Who Let The Dogs Out" is a song we bought for our daughter), so I don't think he'll ever mention hating a song again. As he refused to sing Shayne Ward's "That's My Goal" as a forfeit I'll obviously have to buy him a Kelly Clarkson CD as a joke present to remind him of the fact that I beat him by 4367 on that one song.

I would also like to thank The Proclaimers for providing the most exciting SingStar moment to date (Scottish geography, literally FOR THE WIN!) and for ABBA for writing the most dependable song that I'm still unbeaten on (because almost nobody has ever heard of it).

SingStar Tennis

Next week should be a good week. My best friend is coming up, and seeking family friendly entertainment for the evenings with my oldest daughter it is likely that SingStar will get an airing. Or two. Or possibly fifteen.

So with that in mind I've thought of an idea for a bit of fun between myself and my best friend: SingStar Tennis.

Here's how it works. We both love playing in the duel mode, where we both sing at the same time and whoever gets the highest score wins. With SingStar Tennis I pick six songs and he picks six songs, and we each take turns to hold serve. If we get to 6-6 then we select shuffle, singing off against each other with a randomly selected song.

The winner gets to choose a song for the opponent to sing as a forfeit.

Now if you don't mind, I'm away to clear up my sore throat and practice all the Kelly Clarkson songs my best friend can't sing.

My Suggestions for New SingStar Releases

So after much waiting the PSN network is back with us and playing games on a Playstation 3 can return to some degree of normality. Then you read that Andrew Lloyd Webber songs are available for SingStar and you have to think that there must be some better options than that. So with that in mind here are three better ideas (at least in my opinion, if you disagree please suggest something different in the comments).

SingStar at the Movies

Wouldn't this work? If they can have other vague categories along with more structured ones like Motown then why not go down this route? You could easily find 25 great songs with cross male/female appeal from movies, or if you like 24 and John Waite's "Deal For Life" from "Days of Thunder" (I think I'm the only person who likes that and thinks it should be used in a cheesy party political broadcast).

SingStar: Beautiful South

Extensive back catalogue, and arguably even bigger if go back to the Housemartins and include them as well. Mixture of songs sung by men and women, quirky, funny stuff, and more than a few songs that a lot of people know. Certainly more than some that you see on the SingStore, mentioning no names (*cough* Eoghan Quigg *cough*)

SingStar: Eagles

My ultimate choice for the a new SingStar addition. An extensive back catalogue, full of classics, and also the ability to go into the solo work of the likes of Don Henley and Glenn Frey as well. Okay, so you're not getting any songs with female lead vocals, but that didn't stop them making SingStar editions for Take That or Queen, and arguably the songs are universal enough to appeal to everyone. I think this is clearly the the one which could have the most universal appeal (and unquestionably more than anything by Busted which presently exists in the SingStore).

Have any better ideas? Suggest them in the comments.

Thoughts on the PSN Security Breach

If, like myself, you own a PlayStation3 then it is more likely than not that you are on the PSN Network. Having seen what has happened in the last week, like me, you might be somewhat displeased with what has occurred.

To summarise Sony's own posts on the matter they experienced an intrusion into the PSN network between the 17th and 19th of April. Then on the 26th of April they informed us that there had been a loss of personal data, including user's addresses, passwords and possibly credit card information. Seemingly it appears that passwords and credit card information was stored in an unencrypted fashion.

When I look through comments on Sony's official blog I am amazed by two things. Firstly, some people's first concern seems to be when the network will be back up and running. Secondly some people are surprised that people are upset with Sony. If a network is unsecured they cannot possibly reopen it as yet, and if that unsecured network has critical unencrypted data on it then I think people have a right to be upset.

Personally I am amazed that Sony did not at least encrypt passwords and credit card information. Looking into encrypting these details is not difficult. I am not careless with my own data and security details and I am personally appalled that a company the size of Sony should be careless with this in this manner. It is an astonishing abuse of trust in my opinion.

At this point in blog comments someone will say that the hackers are to blame. I don't think they're angels in this, but the responsibility to at least encrypt data starts and ends with Sony.

When the network comes back up will I stop playing on it? In all likelihood no, but I'll not put credit card details on the system again. It has also prompted me to carry out a further password audit on every account I have on every site and service I have on the internet. Unfortunately it seems that my details are not safe with anyone, and that if other companies will not take responsibility for it then I have to do my utmost to protect myself, and by association, my family.

The Custom Music Monster

I have a slightly hazy recollection of this, but if my memory serves me rightly Madden 2004 for the PC featured a little nugget which I still appreciate to this day: the ability to add your own music to the game. Sure you had to move music to a particular directory, but it really wasn't a big hassle. The ability to customise had begun!

Of course this meant much more to those with a keener musical ear, like my best friend Neil. He soon good a music converter that Electronic Arts offered and was putting custom music in everything, from various Need For Speed games to his own organ music in the NHL series.

Just over two years ago I bought a PS3. I slowly but surely built up a small collection of games, replacing those which I had for years in different guises on the PC. I thought the launch of NHL 10 would be the ideal time to replace my trusty old copy of NHL 2004, and wow, how pleased would I be with the final version. While I would ideally prefer commentary from Jim Hughson I could overlook that for the most complete custom music solution I had seen to date.

NHL 10 allowed custom music for menus and - for the first time that I could see - individual game events. This sent me scurrying to my .mp3 collection and Audacity, ready to pare down the Three Amigos' "25 Miles" in the style of Rob Fox and all kinds of blue songs for my best friend with a St. Louis bias.

Now FIFA 11 has followed suit (eliminating the need to rid FIFA 09 of any evidence of Duffy) and Gran Turismo has done likewise (in admittedly clunky fashion). Does it get better than this? The difficulty now is in making the choices, not in putting up with what comes with the game. Some examples of individual events/playlists are as follows:

FIFA Menu Music
The Lightning Seeds - "Life of Riley (Instrumental)"
Shakira featuring Wyclef Jean - "Hips Don't Lie"
Black Eyed Peas - "I Gotta Feeling"
Bubba Sparxxx - "Back In The Mud"
Maroon 5 - "Wake Up Call"

NHL Blue Playlist
Eiffel 65 - "Blue (Da Be Dee)"
Chris Isaak - "Blue Hotel"
New Order - "Blue Monday"
Elton John - "I Guess That's Why They Call It The Blues" (my best friend hates this)
Erasure - "Blue Savannah" (see above)

NHL Off Ice Mix
Blue - "Song 2"
The Doors - "Light My Fire"
Franz Ferdinand - "Take Me Out"
Girls Aloud - "Wake Me Out"
Guns 'N' Roses - "Sweet Child O' Mine"
The Lightning Seeds - "Sugar Coated Iceberg"
Monaco - "What Do You Want From Me?"
Spaundau Ballet - "To Cut A Long Story Short

What custom music do you add into the games you play?

A Time To Review

Far too often I'm spending time talking about things on this blog, and they get left there and never mentioned again, so on this occasion I thought it would be nice to review some of the things I've posted and what I've learnt since I posted them.

March 2010 - Backups

Yep, just a matter of days after posting about requiring a backup plan I needed to refer to it. It also led to me discovering some flaws with it, and that a weekly backup wasn't enough.

Due to a problem on my hard drive which began on the Thursday evening I had a backup which was nearly a week old. Fortunately it has been a quiet week, but I saw that just backing up weekly wasn't often enough. I needed a daily backup too. Not one which caught up everything, but one which would get anything important I had worked on in the past week.

So I added a daily profile to SyncBack, set it to only back up my documents and settings (as the main user on the computer), skip over large files like music files and video clips (which can usually be replaced easily, especially if burned from a CD) and again add the settings from the original weekly backup profile. This has ended up leaving me with an additional backup which comes in at around 5Gb and hopefully meets my needs. If you don't mind though, hopefully I won't need it too soon.

April 2009 - PS3 Games

Just needed to update this, especially as I've taken a bit of time this week to catch up with some time on what I would say are now my two favourite games: Madden NFL 10 & NHL 10. These are just two awesome games, with NHL 10 narrowly edging Madden as my favourite due to the fantastic feature where you can add in your own music for special points at the game. Of course I've not really done much with this, and certainly haven't added this in when Palace, er, the Ducks score.

April 2008 - Nurses Pay

My wife got paid today, her lowest pay in about eighteen months. Can I figure out why she got paid what she did? Absolutely not. In the words of Toyah Wilcox, "It's a Mystery".

May 2007 - Must See TV

Okay, that's a really tenuous link. Anyway, here's the point. Mad Men is fantastic, and I cannot wait until series 4 beings.

Time vs Me

I hate feeling like I have to explain a tweet, but on Saturday night I tweeted that the night's biggest loser was the PS3 game Uncharted 2.

Feeling as if I'm a somewhat solitary voice on this game I need to explain myself. It looks fantastic, it has a plot and it certainly has charm. What it can't do is create about 20-30 hours for me to play it. Furthermore the two friends with me (one slightly older than me, with a busy career, the other slightly younger and married) agreed with me.

So Uncharted 2 would have been perfect for me in May/June 1994, when I spent the end of my first year at University avoiding people and playing game after game of Football and Baseball ("Pop-up!") on my Amiga. Now I just don't have that time.

I'm now the person who fits in a quick game of FIFA. I'm the person who mostly runs and stays in bounds on Madden to keep the clock moving. I'm the person who rues replays in NHL because they're a hindrance to the game progressing*.

(* I made an exception when my best mate missed an open net the on his recent visit, but only because it appealed to my warped sense of humour.)

Time isn't my friend, it is a persistent and speedy enemy. I have ways to combat it, but in ways which don't leave me with time for Uncharted 2.

Three Months as a PS3 Owner: The Other Games

About a week and a half ago I posted Three Months as a PS3 Owner: Prologue, a short introduction to my review of the games I currently own as a PS3 owner. In that I talked about MotorStorm: Pacific Rift, my favourite game, and now I talk about the other games I own, in order of preference.

Don't get too excited, I don't own that many games. I haven't been a prolific games owner probably since I was at University. Work and friends - not to mention family - tend to take precedence these days.

FIFA 09
For a long time I must admit that I wasn't a great fan of the FIFA series. Between battles on my best mate's PC where the pitch seemed huge and times where I was overwhelmed by my brother-in-law on his Nintendo Gamecube, the game didn't hold a lot of appeal or fond memories (and that's before you even mention the old combo of John Motson and Ally McCoist).

But then I was given FIFA 09 by my aforementioned best mate when he came to visit, and you know what? It's a lot more fun now. Okay, I still haven't won a game online, but I'm slowly getting better at it and enjoying it more and more. I'd probably learn more if I actually experimented with learning new things in a game instead of trying to win every single match I play, but that's my being competitive I guess.

Odd quirk: the feedback on the Dual Shock controller when a shot hits the post, something which my best friend and I both pondered and couldn't reason exactly why they'd applied that at that point.

Update: Just fired this up today for the first time in a while. Saw the new trophies for the first time - lots of fun stuff there. Even scored a goal from the move which earned me The Ol' Switcheroo Trophy. Nice!

SingStar ABBA
A concession to my lovely wife, who I felt wasn't getting the most out of having a PS3 (the word "widow" did pass her lips prior to buying this). As we couldn't get the SingStar with microphones pack that Argos were offering at the time we decided to pony up for the microphones ourselves and then get the ABBA version of the game separately. Honestly, it probably worked out better for us. More songs we know, more fun, and we probably got our money's worth from it the first time we played it.

And that was before I learnt to save other people's songs, then play it back with the pitch shift effect applied - Chipmunks in your living room, wunderbar!

Just don't ask me to provide backing vocals on "Take a Chance On Me", it isn't pretty.

(And yes, I will be getting SingStar Queen at some point. It's a cast-iron certainty.)

Gran Turismo 5 Prologue
Ah yes, part of my reason for wanting a PS3, to be able to indulge in the Gran Turismo series, the one game which pays the proper homage to Laguna Seca, my favourite racetrack in the whole world.

Small problem: version 5 proper keeps being pushed back and back, leaving us with the short version of the game which allows a total of six tracks in a grand total of 12 different configurations. Of these tracks, four are in Japan, four are nigh-on impossible to overtake on, and six don't exist in reality at all. That being said, the two-player battle mode is great fun, especially for the time when I watched my wife play against my mother-in-law. It wasn't a quick game but I'm amazed we didn't wake Chloe up with all the laughing.

Back onto the negatives and the online mode, which might be the most frustrating experience of any game I've ever played, having various other players batter me about and then I get penalised for hitting them by accident? Infuriating. Less of that, more two player battles for me are the way to go. Lots more fun.

(And get on with the main game... with Laguna Seca please!)

Midnight Club: Los Angeles
To be honest until a few days ago I hadn't had this out of the box for weeks. To begin with I liked this game. The presentation is stunning, it looks beautiful and some of the graphics are nothing short of stunning. However for a casual gamer like myself it slowly loses appeal for a number of reasons, these being:

1. If you only play games every so often the thought of earning a few hundred dollars each race and looking towards a target of earning a million dollars seems like a long way off.
2. There is no multi-player mode (yeah, I know that PS3s work towards online play, but I'm old school and like playing games against someone in the same room).
3. The soundtrack is a little bit, how can I say this?... urban. It isn't really my style (and my style is a whole other debate, as anyone who has ever lived with me will tell you).
   
4. It all gets to be a bit samey after a while. At least Need For Speed Underground (my previous fave of a similar nature to this) had circuit races, drift races, drag races. The different modes in Midnight Club: Los Angeles are pretty much the same (and don't get into how many times I've managed to get lost in red light races, that's my pet peeve about this game).

That being said, if they launch a Midnight Club: Atlanta/Glasgow/London I'm probably buying it. It isn't that bad, it just isn't quite my thing.

Three Months as a PS3 Owner: Prologue

I thought I'd put together a little post on being a PS3 owner, but as I'm struggling to get the time to put together a longer entry right now I thought I'd post a little taster with some words about my favourite game.

Motor Storm: Pacific Rift
Yes, I'm putting this game at the top of the list. Me, the sports buff. Just because I really think this game is that good.

Prior to getting a PS3 I played a demo of this on my friend Douglas's PS3, and we both really enjoyed it. It showed enough of the game to me to justify picking one of the bundles that included it when I bought a PS3, and I've enjoyed it from the get go.

While winning races takes a little while to master, having fun during them does not. Lorraine enjoys this game as well, although mostly for the spectacular crashes (she earned the Stuntman award for performing an impressive barrel roll).

Whether played by just yourself, with a friend in the room, or online, this game provides all kinds of fun, plenty of challenges, a range of different race options depending on your level of skill and experience. I start playing this game and then find I can't stop. I actually had to earn the Survivor award on the same night as I got the Timesink and Bully awards, just so I could feel a little better about myself.

Needless to say, I highly recommend this game.