Tag Archives: playstation 3

Gamer's Life, General Commentary

Using Games to Get You in the Mood to…Play Games

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Image by Flickr user jDevaun
Image by Flickr user jDevaun

Many of us have been there. You know that some gaming time is coming your way, be it an hour or seven, and you psych yourself up for it. You plan to jam through game after game after game! Defeating old bosses, facing new ones! Finishing that one game from your backlog that’s been bothering you, starting up that new game that you’ve been meaning to get to! You know that your gaming session is going to be EPIC!

But then that fateful hour arrives AND…you feel a little bit meh about the whole thing. Maybe you’re feeling distracted. Maybe you’re feeling tired. Maybe you just can’t get your head in the game ( no pun intended). Whatever the reason, you simply don’t feel like playing. Yet you know you just can’t let the time go by doing something else. You had it all planned out that you were going to use this time to game, and by golly, that’s what you’re going to do! Maybe all you need is a little push. Something less monumental than that heavy action shooter or 60-hour RPG to get your gaming gears greased and rolling. There are plenty of games out there that can be easily stopped and started, that don’t require a ton of brainpower off the bat, and that can serve as the perfect segues into more massive gaming showdowns. When I’m not quite in the mood to game despite having set aside time to do so, here are a few tactics I use to get the gaming juices flowing.

Continue reading Using Games to Get You in the Mood to…Play Games →

Console

The Duck Discusses the Wii, 360, and PS3 Generation: Part 3-Sony Still Can’t Think of Creative Names

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Image from Flickr User: alessandrofaj
Image from Flickr User: alessandrofaj

Today is the last day of my series of posts on what I like and dislike about the last generation of consoles, the Wii, the 360, and the PS3.  While I loved the PlayStation 2, I actually didn’t have any intention of getting the PS3 because Naughty Dog was still refusing to make any more “Jak and Daxter” games, the “Kingdom Hearts 3” release date was nowhere in sight, and because I could just keep up with the “Final Fantasy” games on the 360.  And then, because of a sale on used games at GameStop, I bought myself a few PS2 “Ratchet and Clank” games, causing me to really get into the series.  And that’s when I found myself with an unstoppable need to buy the PS3 and catch up on all the “R&C” games I had missed.  Nevertheless, at first, my PS3 didn’t have much to motivate me to play it aside from a few short “R&C” games, and I wondered if I may have wasted my money.  The console did become much better, however, when I added to my collection “Portal 2”, “Rayman Legends”, and the Final Mix version of “Kingdom Hearts”, and now I’m starting to really love it.  Not as much as my PS2, but it still turned out to be a pretty grand console.  And now, I present you with my pros and cons for the PS3!  (With the focus, again, on gaming, and information found on Wikipedia.) Continue reading The Duck Discusses the Wii, 360, and PS3 Generation: Part 3-Sony Still Can’t Think of Creative Names →

Console, PC, Retro

Know Your Developer – Housemarque

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Image from Housemarque Main Website
Image from Housemarque Main Website

Well known for their work on PlayStation Network with hits like Super Stardust HD, Dead Nation, and the recently released, Resogun, there’s no denying that Housemarque is a household name among PlayStation fans. With as many top notch games as they’ve put out, have you ever stopped to think how well you really know the developer?

I recently had the pleasure to chat with two members of the development studio, Tommaso De Benetti and Mikael Haveri, who gave me some insight into who they are, what it’s like to work on some of these great titles, and also a hint at what’s to come. It was great to get a peak inside the oldest game company currently in Finland and also what it’s like to develop one of the best PlayStation 4 titles currently available right now. Continue reading Know Your Developer – Housemarque →

Listmas

Merry Listmas: My Gaming Wish List

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It is now time for the Duck’s second Listmas list.  This one is kind of like my gaming Christmas list, listing all the gaming-related things I would like to see someday, whether they be things that can actually happen someday or are merely silly and impractical. Continue reading Merry Listmas: My Gaming Wish List →

Food For Thought, General Commentary, Listmas

Merry Listmas: Games I Hope to Complete in 2014

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Image by Flickr user seamonkeyelephantseal
Image by Flickr user seamonkeyelephantseal

When 2013 started, I had a singular gaming goal in mind: complete Skyrim. (Which I did!) Now that I’m facing the start of 2014, I have the same gaming goal in mind, except it involves multiple games. In the past, new years have tended to bring forth crops of new games, and I’ve generally tried to finish any games from the past year by the end of it. Well, that just didn’t happen this year. In fact, I’ve got such a large number of started-but-not-finished titles in queue right now that I’m swearing to myself (and all of you) that, depending on the system, I’m not going to buy new games until the ones that I started from my backlog are totally and fully complete. Or…their main stories, at the very least. So here’s a list what I’ll definitely be playing next year (ordered by system):

Continue reading Merry Listmas: Games I Hope to Complete in 2014 →

Listmas

Merry Listmas: Things I Dislike About Games I Like

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Hello, everyone, and welcome to the duck’s first Listmas list.  I enjoy lists, whether it’s keeping track of all my games (in order from best to worst, of course) and realizing that my collection might be getting a wee bit enormous or marking things off a list and knowing that I’m getting one step closer to a goal.  And so when I found out there was an actual little holiday where I got to list stuff, I then got to thinking about what I wanted to list (as was the logical next step in that sequence of events).  And I eventually came up with the idea to list the things I don’t like about games I like.  Here I go. Continue reading Merry Listmas: Things I Dislike About Games I Like →

Uncategorized

Glitches Involving Capricious Audio

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A little while ago, Cary wrote a post about some glitches in a damaged copy of “The Last of Us” that ruined the game for her, which got me thinking about how much fun I have talking about glitches, no matter how bothersome they can be.  Because not all glitches are purely upsetting.  Some can be rather funny, too.  And so I decided to start a little mini-series talking about the glitches found in various games I’ve played.  Today’s topic, unpredictable sound.

Skipping is fun, but not when it comes to gaming: I first had skipping issues when I moved and two consoles didn’t fare quite as well as they had in the past.  These two unlucky consoles were my poor dear GameCube and my not as dear, but still poor, XBox (who was just a year old at the time, too).  That’s when issues began that I had never had before.  Months later, I plugged the Cube in for some joy, and I was confronted with some skipping music in that pirate’s cave place in “Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door”.  Very odd, as it was the only area that decided to do that.  I suppose pirates like to skip?  They certainly like to sing (on TV, at least, which is very accurate).  Then, finding this great fun, the XBox decided to join in (I guess it was just emulating its big brother Cube, who was being a very bad influence) with “Star Wars: Battlefront II”, where I was subjected to more skipping and erratic music, especially in the Hoth level.  It really didn’t like that place at all.  (Considering the freezing experienced in “Tak 2” not long earlier, though, I really didn’t mind at that point.) Continue reading Glitches Involving Capricious Audio →