Sleepy Gamer

You may have heard that the federal deadline for the digital television transition has been postponed until June 2009.  However, a lot of the local channels are still beginning their digital only transmissions in just a little less than a week from now.  So what does this mean to you?  Starting Feb. 17th, you may start seeing static on your favorite television channels if you don’t have the right equipment.  If you’re a bit worried about the digital conversion read on to see what you can do to save yourself from the the white fuzz.

Digital to Analog Converter Box

If you are currently watching your beloved shows through an old tube TV hooked up to antennae, you’ll definitely need to look into purchasing a digital converter box.  These boxes essentially take the incoming digital signals and converts it to an analog output so that your old TV can view it.  This is by far the most cost effective choice since these boxes are quite affordable and typically rang from $30-$60.  On top of that, the federal government is offering two $40 rebates towards the purchase of a digital converter box.  You have until March 31^st to apply for these rebates, so do it soon.   If the struggling economy isn’t treating you very well, this is the way to go.

Cable/Satellite TV

Believe it or not, cable TV subscribers will be affected by this transition as well.  If you have a standard cable subscription without a digital cable box, you’ll need to pony up the extra cash and upgrade to the digital service.  Fear not though since this digital upgrade can enhance your TV watching pleasures if you tack on features like DVR and movies on demand.  The digital service is typically $10-$15 more than your standard cable service depending on your provider.  Satellite subscribers shouldn’t need to worry about upgrading anything since most, if not all satellite receivers accept digital signals anyway.

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Let’s face it, every game has it’s fair share of painful load screens.  Maybe they come up early, as you boot the game up, perhaps they are sprinkled at the ends of levels, but they’re inevitable.  Technology has certainly improved, but so too have the resources required to run most games, which means don’t expect a load screen-free utopia with fairy tale wishes and rainbow dreams any time soon.  Thankfully, there are a number of strategies developers can employ to keep load screens to a minimum, or at the very least hide them in creative ways.

The Cinematic or Cutscene. Story devices such as pre-rendered or in-game cutscenes are just about as old as gaming itself.  They control the pacing of a game and can portray important story elements in ways the game may not be fully able to, such as complicated action sequences or emotional set pieces.  They also tend to restrict player involvement, which can be useful when large portions of data are needed to play the next area of the game.  Mission briefings in military FPS or RTS games like Gears of War use these breaks to feed you with objectives and background intel, while enormous amounts of texture data are piped in behind the scenes, keeping the actual downtime to a minimum.

Ridiculously Long Elevator Ride. Although similar in nature to the previously mentioned lengthy hallway, this techique differs slightly in that these more blatant transitions do not usually require any player action whist in the load screen. Portal had many such elevator rides, with one after every puzzle. Some games choose to use this time to also convey some story elements, such as was the case in the Metroid Prime series. Likewise, Mass Effect was famous for it’s incredibly long elevator rides, but also supplemented the trip with relevant radio broadcasts pertaining to some of the player’s more recent endeavors. Another similar technique is the laughably long, door-opening animation, found in early Resident Evil games and many other 3D action titles. The animation for opening a desk drawer or treasure chest could even give the game a split second to process whatever random loot you happen to find in that hidden stash.

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With the phenomenal sales of the original PS1 and PS2, Sony was once way ahead of the curve.  So it’s come to be quite a disappointment to see the PS3 limping along this generation.  When Ken Kuturagi unveiled the PS3 back in 2005, it was touted as the most powerful and revolutionary gaming system ever made.  Apparently, all that power and revolution didn’t mean squat.  Looking at the December 2008 sales figures, we can see that the Wii completely outsold the PS3 almost 3:1, with the Xbox 360 outselling almost 2:1.

* Wii — 2,150,000
* Xbox 360 — 1,440,000
* PlayStation 3 — 726,000

Sony needs to do some damage control, and they need to do it fast.  Here are some suggestions to make 2009, the year of the Playstation.

PS3 Price Drop
Since there’s no way for the PS3 to compete with the Wii, the best that they can do right now is fight for 2nd place.  With the current recession, it’s obviously not a good idea to be the most expensive system on the market.  With the PS3 models retailing at $399 and $499, it’s much more expensive than the Xbox 360 at $199, $299, and $399.  Sony justifies this price difference due to the built-in blu-ray player capabilities, but it appears the general public is still quite happy with their DVDs and can’t justify paying the extra premium for this feature.  To top it off, most PS3 versions of a game often look worse than its Xbox counterpart.  So why pay more when its competitor is providing a better gaming experience at a lower price?  Sony needs to drop the price to $299 to simply compete with the Xbox 360.
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Brand new game series’ are usually few and far between, and good ones are even more unlikely.  The current generation has seen it’s fair share of potential new franchises, but many new notables have yet to have produced proper sequels.  The cycle of innovation, refinement, then innovation is the foundation that the games industry is built upon.  So, here are some recent gems that are definitely worth revisiting.

Dead Rising (Xbox360)

You, trapped in a mall with thousands of zombies and the freedom to use practically anything as a weapon.  It’s no wonder we haven’t seen this game concept done earlier.  The zombie playground idea could be applied to almost anywhere too. Amusement park, airport, or even a small, open-world town would all be great locales.  Throw in a bunch more interactive objects for creative, new ways to kill the walking dead and you’re all set.  Oh yeah, how about some online co-op, please?

Zack and Wiki (Wii)

It’s the brilliant, Wii, point-and-click adventure that was a critically success, but a retail failure.  Sadly, we probably won’t ever see a sequel any time soon.  Some of the later puzzles were down right diabolical, but when you finally did figure it out, that “eureka” moment was pure magic.  The cute, lovable animations, the multiple solutions, and the clever use of items and enemies all worked to create an experience that could only be compared to the days of playing an old-school, LucasArts adventure game.  More of the same is all I ask.

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Out of all the games out this holiday season, this is what I’ve been pouring most of my hours into.  It’s gotten to the point in which other epics, like Fallout 3 and Little Big Planet, are simply neglected and collecting dust.  There’s something about the original Street Fighter II formula that makes it so fun and addicting.  Capcom must have an entire division that is solely dedicated to appeal to our nostalgic appetites.  These re-releases are certainly easy money for Capcom, but at least they know how to do them right.

HD Remix is the same game from 14 years ago except with a major face lift.  The original fighting game engine are still intact while all of the graphics have been redone with gorgeous high resolution sprites.  Udon Comics has done an extraordinary job recreating the characters in beautiful Hi Def.  The once pixelated and blocky textures are now smooth and extremely detailed.  Nothing is left to the imagination anymore since all of the character models are finely illustrated with minute detail.  There is an option to play the game with the classic visuals, but it’s definitely an eye sore to view those outdated graphics on the HD screen.

Although the detail in the character models and backgrounds are superb, the animation department is not up to par.  Because Capcom wanted to keep the core mechanics of the original game, all of the animation frame counts have been preserved.  Unfortunately, this results with every move looking jerky and abrupt when performed.  With the low resolution sprites, this problem was not nearly as noticeable in the original game.  But the upgraded visuals expose holes in the animation that doesn’t look as smooth as it should be.
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The gamble that Bethesda made in acquiring the rights from Interplay seems to be paying off. The fanatical outcry from the incredibly vocal Fallout fans has died down. The game is finally out and available for the masses to judge for themselves. And yet, as I log yet another hour in this wonderfully crafted, post-apocalyptic vision of Washington D.C., heading into the credits of my second playthrough, it’s apparent that the game lives up to every bit of the hype and then some.

Destroyed Beauty

There’s just something about the meticulous attention to detail of Fallout 3, how the environment was lovingly created and just as lovingly destroyed, that gives it that personality that is so rare to find in games. The Fallout series has always had a brilliant art style, mixing old 1950’s-inspired culture with the futuristic technology of tomorrow. With Fallout 3, Bethesda truly outdid themselves by presenting a world of hauntingly beautiful structures that spell a cautionary tale of nuclear war at every turn. Every corner of the game’s world is enriched in amazing little touches; torn-down walls, pieced together suits of armor made of shopping carts and old tires, tons of humorous, fake products and advertisements. There are even a handful of in-game radio station broadcasts with a wonderful selection of music from the ’40s and ’50s that help in immersing you in the alternate-history dystopia that the series is known for.

The characters themselves offer an incredibly rich selection of voice-acted dialog, whether or not you recognize the Liam Neesons or Malcolm McDonalds of the bunch. And just like Oblivion, there are naturally some repeats here and there (for example, three ghouls outside a vault all had the same exact voice and slightly different thing to say), but it’s never quite as noticeable, possibly due to the smaller amount of settlements and survivors that the Fallout setting lends itself to.

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