Ah yes the 4th game in the series of a great idea from Insomniac game developers.  This one was very similar to the others and a blast to play.  Looks like the game got a little longer with the move to PS3 from the PS2 platform probably due to the increased size of the medium.  After about a 30 second install to the HD I was up and running in no time.  The controls were flipped from the last version but you can flip them back.  Some of the puzzles that are presented in this game are done using six axis controller’s gyroscopes so you have to move the controller around in your hands tilting it left right forward and back.  This was a nice integration of a new technology and was pretty easy to get used to.  Although without the forced feedback it was sometimes hard to tell when I was being shot at, glad to see the dualshock remotes are coming back in the next month!

One thing that bothered me with the other games is it seems sometimes cumbersome and difficult to get all the required bolts to buy the next gun or armor.  With this version I found no problem and didn’t find myself constantly running deathmatches just to get some bolts.  This was nice as it didn’t seem like the game lagged anywhere.  Ratchet comes with his typical assortment of fun guns and this time they added devices that let you turn your enemies into Penguins, or you can throw up a disco ball and start a dance party to distract them while you can go around killing them.

Unfortunately most of the game was played in standard definition as I didn’t get the new HD TV until a few days after opening my new PS3.  With the HD it was fun to see details like Ratchets fur and other little details pop.  In addition the levels have great color and use of shape that are all greatly appreciated with an HD set.

All and all this was a great game and gets a great rating and I would suggest it for anyone.  It took me a whopping 3 days to beat the game and I was pleasantly surprised that at the end it asks if you want to start all over again with all your weapons and devices.  Its nice to see developers attempt to keep the game going after you beat it.

After getting the new PS3 one of the first things I did was sign up for a Gamefly account.  With my ability to usually beat games in a few days this is the best approach.  With the new games costing around $60/game it can add up to start a collection of games I will eventually beat and never play again.  So for $22/month for 2 games at a time, I signed up for Gamefly and added some new games to my list.  The first that were to make it to the list were Unreal Tournament III and Half Life 2 - Orange Box.  Both of these games were pretty much brand new and just released within the last month.  I got them last night with usual shipping issues due to Holiday’s.  Gamefly gets my vote so far as a great place to rent games.  I managed to get $120 worth of games for only $22 and if I want I can click a button to keep the games and they just charge my account $44/game which makes it very convenient.

I have decided that I would start rating the video games that I get on my blog so if all the subjects I talked about before weren’t enough now I am adding a new one of video game reviews!

As usual Linux gave me the headache of installing and optimizing, no big surprise there.  So as usual I am writing it to my blog so that I do not forget what I did when I need to install yet again.  I found the solution on PSUbuntu.com Forum (link)

Below are the steps to resolve the resolution on PS3 Linux:

sudo /etc/init.d/gdm stop
(Alt-F1 to switch to the first console in tekst mode)
ps3videomode -h (for the lists available)
ps3videomode -v {x} (change x to the resolution you want to try)

* if you found what you where looking for, try filling up the screen with x’s to see if the screen doesn’t have any anomalies

Start the gdm to see if it works in Gnome:

/etc/init.d/gdm start

If it does, go to a terminal console and make it final through editing (or creating) a "ps3videomode" file in the /etc/event.id folder:

sudo gedit /etc/event.id/ps3videomode

Insert the following commands in this file:

start on run level 2
exec /usr/bin/ps3videomode -v 3 -f

Save

 

Well as one of my many wonderful gifts I got this Christmas one of them has been on my list since the day it existed.  I got a new PlayStation 3.  The PS3 is awesome as it has some great games coming in the near future and some great functionality.  Of course the only problem is its really meant for HD and we didn’t have an HD TV.  PROBLEM SOLVED, what a great excuse to buy a new 32 inch HD TV with all the extras!  With a quick change to the Netflix preferences we will now receive the Blu-Ray discs when they are available for that movie.  The console came with Spiderman 3 which I wasn’t very found of but fun to see the HD difference in the movie.

The first thing I wanted to do with the PS3 other than play games (already beat the new Ratchet and Clank) was to install Linux on the HD.  The first Distro I went after was the official one for PS3 (YellowDog)  After installing the OS on the new partition I quickly found how out of date the Distro was and was very unhappy with the outcome so I went searching.  Low and behold my favorite Distro (Ubuntu) was there to rescue me!  I found this site PSUbuntu.com and it lists step by step instructions and links to download the latest version.  So I went out there and grabbed it and installed again on the PS3, this time with much better results.  I would suggest you use this Distro for your PS3’s.  After my typical tweaks of the Distro and updates and adding MP3 support I was pretty happy.  My only issue is that the performance is a little sub-par for my taste but works and gets the job done as long as you don’t do anything too crazy.