Wow. The details aren’t 100% confirmed, but UGO has defintely acquired 1UP and many staff are no longer with the company. The EGM print magazine is reportedly closed and the podcasts and video shows are reportedly being shutdown. Full details will be available by morning.

Popular editor and gaming journalist personality, Shane Bettenhausen, confirms that he is definitely leaving 1UP and, in fact, had previous plans to do so. He, of course, has a new gaming related job lined up, but has yet to reveal details on that.

The 1UP Show and 1UP Yours podcast are reportedly also being closed. 1UP Yours is the premier podcast in the gaming industry, so this is quite a shock. However, show host, Garnett Lee, suggests on his twitter feed that the show, or another show, will return: “to all the awesome tweets for us, thank you more than I can say, and yes, there will be future confirmation of weekends”.

I think I speak for most online gaming fans, when I say that the 1UP team produced some of the best game industry coverage and I hope we haven’t heard the last from these guys.

I’ve created a Club House in Home last night for users on this site to gather. Maybe we could use it tonight to mingle before our games tonight? Anyway the Club is called PSTHREEBLOG, for some reason “PS3″ isn’t allowed in the Club names.

I’ve put the Namco arcade machines in the club house, all 4 of them and the all-in-one machine as well. But in order to play them you need the Hong Kong Namco Museum Beta.

I’ve sent out invites to a few people already, of course the regular people here take priority. So if you need a invite let me know.

Just so you know it was $5 dollars to create it. And it says that starting March 31st, 2009 there will be a monthly fee but they haven’t determined what that amount will be yet. So we’ll see if I want to continue to pay for it or not. Or if others are willing to chip in at that time.

[Update 1.6.09] Sent out some more invites

Hey guys. I was wondering if anyone here is up for a PS3Blog gamer’s night? I was thinking maybe CoD4 because lots of people have that.

Tomorrow (tue06jan08) at 10pm EST will be our first attempt. If you can join us tomorrow night, that’s great. If not, then maybe some other time, because I’m going to try to make this a regular thing. If you have a headset, please use it but try to cut down on the background noise. Maybe we could all use the “PSB” clan tag??? And please please PLEASE try to keep things civil, just like we do here on this site!

Please reply to this post so that Tosh or I can add you as a friend so we can add you to our party. I’m Blackstaffer and Tosh is xBerserker. Look for us online tomorrow night in CoD4 at 10pm EST.

Oh, and never having really tried to organize anything like this before, suggestions are welcome.

Yesterday I picked up Sony’s keyboard peripheral for PS3 controllers.

As a keyboard, this thing is great. It’s thinner than I expected, and just clips onto the controller easily. It doesn’t actually “connect” to the controller in any way, so you could actually use it separately if you really wanted to. It’s a Bluetooth keyboard that you pair to your PS3 by connecting the two with a USB cable momentarily. This is also how you charge the keyboard’s on-board battery. The keyboard is surprisingly thin, and doesn’t get in the way at all when gaming, which is nice.

As a cursor for navigating the XMB or whatever, this thing sucks. It has a mode you can put it in which makes all the keys behave somewhat like one big trackpad. This feature didn’t work very well for me at all, but I didn’t care that much since I have no need for such a feature anyway. UPDATE: I had indeed neglected to calibrate the keyboard. Once I did that, it worked much better. But I still don’t need it.

I think this keyboard is great. It does everything that I want, and does it well. Here are some pics I took with my brand new Nikon D40 camera.

I’d love to get a Rock Band like product that does with piano what the current Rock Band does with drums (but not guitar): Provides a fun game with a simplified toy version of a real instrument that can actually teach the player how to play the real non-toy instrument. The big challenge is that an 88-key piano doesn’t adapt quite as easily to the Rock Band game formula as a drum kit does. However, I’m sure Harmonix or another quality team can figure that out.

By the way, if you are even slightly serious about music, you should also learn basic music theory (triads, timbre, pitch, scales, reading notes, etc). Playing an instrument is the obvious part that people can see and understand right away, but some basic music theory is important in the long run and it’s valuable to learn early on. Many students just want to play instruments and skip over the theory, because it’s less tangible, but that’s usually a mistake in the long run. Regardless, the theory is best learned from a good textbook or a good lecture course. And learning the theory is much, much easier than learning the physical dexterity, coordination, and timing necessary to play an instrument.

There are already many “learn to play piano” products out there. To be honest, they are worthless. They are just like those “learn to speak [some foreign language]” packs that you can buy: they sound great, the box looks awesome, tons of people would love to learn those skills on their own schedule, but ultimately they just don’t work. Almost everyone who buys those things gives up after a few practice sessions. Learning a foreign language or a musical instrument is a tall mountain to climb and those prepackaged kits are simply not very effective nor do they have any fun value to them.

Another good attempt is Synthesia (renamed from Piano Hero due to copyright dispute). In that game, you hook up a MIDI keyboard (piano, not the QWERTY kind) to your PC/Mac and you can play MIDI files in a Guitar Hero like game. While it’s a noble effort for a single developer (I wanted to write exactly the same thing many years ago), it’s just not in the same league as a commercial console game like Rock Band or Guitar Hero or even the older games like Amplitude. It lacks polish, game balancing, bundled tracks, difficulty settings, game progression, online features, multiplayer features, and has really crude graphics. And that quality is still a mile better than most edutainment titles.

Right now, the main ways to learn are through K-12 school lessons or band club, expensive private lessons, or just spending thousands upon thousands of hours of isolated solo practice. There’s a huge market that would leap at the chance for a better alternative. For me, spending $300 on a Rock Band set is nothing next to thousands in private lessons. Games give you positive reinforcement (points, levels, game progression) which is a very helpful motivator. And the online forums and multiplayer features would break up the isolation of solo practice.

The premise behind Afrika and Aquatopia sounds interesting. I love wildlife, but for present day wildlife, I can already get documentaries with phenomenal real life footage in something like Planet Earth. With those high quality documentaries available, a 3D simulation on the PS3 isn’t really necessary.

On the other hand, what would blow my mind, is if I could explore a 3D simulation of the Earth in the Cambrian period. Since that era ended 488 million years ago, we have no footage of that period, and only fossils and scientist sketches of what life may have looked like. I’d like to see those scientist sketches fleshed out into a full blown accurate virtual Earth.

No really. I’ve read about this stuff in biology classes and it would absolutely blow my mind if I could explore a graphical simulation of these prehistoric plants, insects, and animals moving, finding food, fending off predators, succumbing to parasites, competing for mates, raising offspring, and the other dramas of wildlife.

OK, everyone: the ps3blog Best of 2008 vote. Write your votes in the comments. They will be tallied and reported in a week.

Criteria

Any voted game must have had a western (US/Europe) release in 2008. Japan only games released in 2008 (such as White Knight Chronicles) are not eligible.

Best Narrative/Fiction

Not just the best premise, but which game had the best characters, dialog, pacing, immersion, and emotional impact.

Biggest WOW Factor

Not necessarily the most technically sophisticated, but which game shows off the biggest, from the gut, “wow” effect.

Most Innovative

Which game broke new ground and pushed the boundary of game design the furthest? Which game will be copied the most in years to come?

Best Multiplayer

Which game had the best local or Internet multiplayer?

Most Overrated/Overhyped

Which title was hyped way beyond expectations or is rated far beyond the actual quality delivered.

Most Underrated/Underhyped

Which quality game was overlooked and didn’t get the recognition it deserved?

Best Surprise of the Year

What was the best announcement, unexpected game, or other surprise of the year?

Biggest Disappointment of the Year

What was the biggest disappointment: either the most disappointing game, missing feature, lost exclusive, slipped release date, etc.

Best Party Game

Which is the best game for having a group of friends over.

Best Downloadable Game

What is the best downloadable game. We will count full-sized downloads and games that were distributed via disc and download (such as GT5:P and SOCOM)

Game of the Year

This is the big one: which is the all around best game of the year. The criteria for “best” is somewhat open to interpretation: it can imply any combination of accessibility, addicting, longevity, value for the dollar, technical sophistication, production values, thought provoking, emotional impact, or design innovation.

Dead Space is a horror/suspense 3D shooter. How good is it? Read on…

Pros

• Presentation: All the little things are just so beautifully presented. Even things like accessing the save terminals, opening your inventory, or unlocking a door is just beatiful.
• Animation: All the animation is consistently excellent. Worth mentioning are some really spectacular death animations when you are killed by monsters or environmental hazards.
• Variety: The creatures, the combat, the weapons, the environments, the hazards, and the bosses all feature extensive variety. This game has variety in spades.
• Narrative: This is at the high end of video game writing. The level of narrative quality is comparable to other excellent games such as Uncharted or Bioshock.
• Bosses: This has the best bosses of any shooter I’ve played. They’re unique, they all have some hidden trick to them, but they are all beatifully done, and fun to play.
• Art Design: Most of us have already seen millions of space ships, space marines, and aliens over many different games. For such routine subject matter, the art team really ran with this one. This game features the most unique and beautiful designs for it’s environments, weapons, and creatures. This game is jam packed with extremely stylish and well designed artwork.
• Unique: This game features tons of unique touches for a shooter. The upgrade system, the bosses, the limb dismemberment centric combat, the weapons, the zero-grav sections, etc..
• Weapons: While most other shooter tend to feature the same type of weapons, this weapon selection stands out from the pack. Most weapons are designed to cut and slice rather than just poke holes.
• Quantity: They didn’t skimp on this title. There is a high quantity of quality content to experience.

Cons

• Nothing: This isn’t the perfect game or even game of the year, but it really nailed the genre that it is in. There are really no outstanding flaws.
• DLC: OK, if I had to pick a negative, it’s the DLC. This isn’t a big negative, just don’t buy it and problem solved, but it’s junk-ware DLC: just a new set of skins separated into approximately ten different packs for $3 each. I’d rather they not clutter the store with this kind of thing.

Bottom Line

Previously, I would have said Resistance, Bioshock, and Uncharted ruled the single player action adventure shooter genre. Those three are still phenomenal games, but Dead Space easily takes the crown. It really is that good.

This game has the variety and animation of Resistance, the narrative experience of Bioshock, the graphical presentation of Uncharted, and artistic design and bosses that are unmatched. This is a very polished product, and I would say it’s the perfect solo action adventure title for 2008.

Fallout vs Oblivion

Fallout and Oblivion are very different style of games. Personally, as a huge Fallout fan, and an Oblivion hater, I was nervous that I was going to get more Oblivion than Fallout. Oblivion felt like like it came out of a random fantasy RPG generator: the story, stats, towns, and quests all felt completely generic and uninteresting to me.

I previously said that I would rather play a game by the old Fallout team using the Oblvion IP rather than the Oblivion team using the Fallout IP. I was wrong. Bethesda nailed it. They authentically captured all the magic and personality that made Fallout 1 + 2 great, and they evolved the whole experience further.

Pros

• Decision Trees: There are tons of decision trees to this game. Beyond basic good/evil decisions, there are tons of dialog trees and optional questing routes to take. I love this mechanic and wish more games would use this.
• Flexible Game Progression: All game missions and objectives can be completed in multiple ways. Characters can take many different useful combat specializations and extra specializations and play the game in very different ways.
• Nails RPG Basics: Stats, combat, story and atmosphere are the cornerstones of a traditional RPG, and this game really nails all of them.
• Stats: All RPGs have tons of stats, but a mediocre RPG has bland, generic stats that make leveling up feel like a chore. The stats in this game are all fun. None of the stats are worthless, each one lets you do cool stuff in the game. It’s fun to choose perks and it’s exciting to get to assign new points. The stat system is basically the same as Fallout 1 + 2, but it was great back then, and it’s very well integrated into the current game.
• Combat: The combat is fun. It’s mostly picking a body part and rolling the dice. It’s got strategy, and the rag doll death animations are very satisfying and fun to watch.
• Story Line and Atmosphere: This isn’t Shakespeare or anything, but by RPG standards, the story is very entertaining and fun to play along with.
• Authentic Fallout experience: Bethesda did a phenomenal job at capturing the the personality and experience of Fallout 1 + 2 while using new tech and making several major improvements.

Cons

• Glitchy: This game doesn’t have a few glitches, it has tons of them. However, most of them are mostly minor. The worst glitches required a game restart. These glitches can be irritating but they have a fairly minor impact on the overall experience.
• Repetitive Art: Thee overall style is good, but the art assets felt very repetitive throughout the game. Most environments looked the same.
• Character Models and animation: The character models all have a very stiff feel to them. It seems like artists designed separate head, torso, arms, and legs while a crude program stitched them together and animates them.
• Anticlimatic: The game felt like it had a long, slow start of killing bugs and such, and when the game finally felt like it was really getting going, it abruptly ends.
• Fallout Remake Rather Than Sequel: This is a completely new engine, and has completely new dialog and characters, but the overall story arch, and game progression felt exactly like Fallout 1 + 2. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as it is a great formula to begin with, but the game felt like a Fallout remake rather than a sequel.
• Combat quirks can be gamed: Monsters can’t open most doors, so a popular tactic is too use all your action points on targeted attacks, leave the room, relax and recharge in safety, then reenter the room with full AP and repeat.

Bottom Line

This game has tons of flaws, but ultimately, this is an awesome RPG. I’m not a huge RPG fan, but this is easily the best RPG that I’ve played since the earlier Fallout games. It’s addicting, exciting, and does full justice to the Fallout license.

I got a solid twenty hours of playtime in, but my biggest gripe is that the game ended too quickly. I can’t wait to see Bethesda take this concept further with a bigger, better sequel.

Here are my favorite games of 2008:

Metal Gear Online
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots
LitleBigPlanet
Uncharted
Call of Duty 4
Heavenly Sword
Wipeout HD

I wanted to get a lot more games, but didn’t have the money for it. Let’s hear your favorites!

If you Pre-order Killzone 2 at Amazon, you get a code to unlock an ISA Soldier or a Helghast Assault Trooper, or anything in between. This is only available for America at the moment, but I’m sure other pre-order goodies will make the news in the coming months.

Codes to access your bonus costumes will be sent no more than ten days after the game releases. Offer good while supplies last. Must be sold and shipped by Amazon.com to be eligible.

This is exactly the kind of stuff home needs, keep it coming. So will you pre-order it for a costume to use in Home?

[Update]

Gamestop pre-order will get you a Killzone 2 demo!

Hope everyone had a great holiday. Let’s hear some of the things you received. I got Planet Earth on Blu-ray, the BBC version, some travel books for Japan. Then some cool Japanese ceramic masks for my office area, whenever that get’s complete. I got the MGS4 DLC for LittleBigPlanet for myself and a snowman head in the Home Beta, lol.

Well, what did Santa bring you? What games are you catching up on? I’m playing LBP, Wipeout HD, MGO, Tekken 5 DR Online.

Happy Holiday’s to everyone! Here is the list for North America. I’ll update Europe when it’s available. And the Asia Home Beta gets this cool update. What about the rest of us??

DEMOS

► Lord of the Rings Conquest
○ 1313 MB

GAMES

► Lumines Supernova
○ $14.99

► PSOne
○ Suikoden ($5.99)

ADD-ONS

► Buzz Quiz TV
○ National Geographic: Undersea ($7.99)

► Disgaea 3
○ Absence of Justice Disgaea 2 Character Pack ($4.99 or as listed each)
- Rozalin ($1.99)
- Adell ($1.99)
- Nekomata ($0.99)

► Guitar Hero World Tour
○ Reggae Rock Track Pack (free)
♪ “Jimi” - Slightly Stoopid
♪ “Your Face” - Pepper
♪ “Sacrifice” - Expendables

○ Untitled Track Pack ($5.49)
♪ “Use Me” - Hinder
♪ “Because of You” - Nickelback
♪ “Light it Up” - Rev Theory

► High Velocity Bowling
○ Gutter Bird Ball (Free)
○ Patches Pack One (Free)

► Hot Shots Golf Out of Bounds
○ New Character Toro (Free)

► Karaoke Revolution Presents: American Idol Encore 2
○ Various Tracks ($1.49 each)
♪ In the Air Tonight
♪ Time of the Season
♪ Too Little Too Late

► LittleBigPlanet
○ Metal Gear Solid levels & goodies ($5.99)
○ Metal Gear Solid costumes ($5.99 or $1.99 per costume)
- Solid Snake
- Meryl Silverburgh
- Screaming Mantis
- Raiden

► Lumines Supernova
○ Holiday Pack (Free)

► PAIN
○ Ao No Kutsu ($0.99)

► Rock Band
○ Rockin The Holidays 2008 Pack ($2.99 or $0.99 per song)
♪ “Hanukkah Blessings” - Barenaked Ladies
♪ “Christmas Is The Time To Say I Love You” - Billy Squier
♪ “Blue Christmas” - The Pretenders

○ Foo Fighters Pack ($5.49 or $1.99 per song)
♪ “DOA”
♪ “Times Like These”
♪ “This Is A Call”

► Shaun White Snowboarding
○ Glamour Pack - Target Edition ($4.99)
○ Glamour Pack - Regular Edition ($4.99)

VIDEOS

► Pulse
○ 12/23 Edition

THEMES & WALLPAPERS

► Savage Moon
○ Wallpaper 1
○ Wallpaper 2

► Resident Evil: Degeneration
○ Theme

► Premium Themes ($1.99 | $1.49)
○ The Dark Knight: Batman Theme
○ The Dark Knight: Harvey Dent Theme
○ The Dark Knight: Joker Theme
○ Alpine Winters Theme
○ Bikini Photo Shoot Theme
○ Digital Blast Theme
○ School Girls Theme
○ University of Virginia Theme
Read the rest of this entry »

If you don’t have MGS4 and want to try MGO, now is your chance! It’s under new demos on the PlayStation Store. I personally love the game. The game has a LOT of depth to it. A lot of different skills, you can earn points to buy new things for your character. Actually the main games I play at the moment are MGO and LittleBigPlanet. If your in the North American MGO server, add me. I’m xBerserker on MGO. Sadly the MGO servers are region locked though

This game does have a learning curve, so give it some time!. Some tips for you:

* Go into the training area, and tweak your settings until your happy with them
* Try some CQC in training
* Turn auto-aim off
* Aim in 3rd person view and try to go for the head shot

This is not a run and gun game! Don’t run around in the open very long, you’ll regret it. This is a squad / tactical shooter. Some of the new game modes in the MEME Expansion are great. Stealth Death Match is very fun, everyone has stealth enabled. May sound boring, but the level actually starts to constrict to a very small circle. So it forces everyone to come together. And the central point is random.

Now there is a MGO Tournament that happens every weekend around 1900 and 2200. You can earn items for your character if you win 1st or 2nd place. The items can only be earned in Tournaments. Be sure to check out Survival, the days it happens change. Right now I think it’s Wednesday - Friday night.

I know their is a lot of hate surrounding MGO, but I don’t get it. It’s very fun, yes it’s very unique, but that’s why I love it. What other game can you run around in cardboard boxes and place adult magazines to “distract” your enemies. There is even “man launchers” at least that’s what I call it, lol.

Yes the Konami ID is a drag, I wish it was integrated into the PSN. But after you set it up you never have to remember you log in really. It remembers it for you. The last survey I took about the game asked about different payment methods for expansion packs. One option was the PSN Wallet. So who knows, maybe PSN integration is coming? At least try the demo for a while before you knock it.

I’m not sure what modes are in the Metal Gear Online demo, so let us know.

Konami is also launching a contest around the MEME Expansion:

“Additionally, Metal Gear fans can now purchase Metal Gear Online - MEME Expansion and have the opportunity to win a limited edition, Metal Gear Online Happy New Year T-Shirt. MEME Expansion contains a vast amount of content including new maps, special characters, new skills, new customizable characters, funny avatar parts and more. 1,200 randomly selected players will win one of three different styled in-game shirts, which will be distributed on January 5th, 2009. Metal Gear Online is available for a SRP of $9.99 through MGOnline’s in-game shop. For more information please visit: http://www.konami.com.”

Metal Gear Online demo hits Playstation Network