PSone Classics / PSP

Ok so today my Laptop finally did a nose dive into fucksupvill leaving me with no option but to do a full system format. This is a common thing for me because no matter what anti-virus software I have running, no matter how careful I am with my downloads and no matter how often I clean out my computer to stop clutter, something WILL fuck up. So anyway, while waiting for my computer to format (a slow process) I picked up and dusted off my PSP. Realising Silent Hill Origins was in and feeling too wimpy to give it a play but too lazy to get up and go pick up a fun game off my shelf I opted for the more expensive option. Having just upgraded my firmware to version 5.01 (literally days after version 5.00 so god knows what they fucked up to rush out a 0.01 worth of updates) I was keen to try out the PlayStation Store newly added to the PSP menu, so I logged in and dragged myself kicking and screaming though page after page of register information. Finally I had my account so I began to poke around the sore and in fairness it's not a bad little place.

It has some full games, some demos (FINALLY!), even a few free wallpapers for your PSP backdrop. None of this truly interested me though once I found the PSone Classics area...I swear if there was ever proof of a god it would be in the ability to play classic titles on a PSP. So quickly I ran downstairs to get my bank card and bought myself £5 (yes this meant getting up and voids the whole "I'm too lazy to get a game from my shelf" but come on...PSone classics!) worth of spending money in the store, now this is where I start to compare because although I am FAR from a fan boy of Sony they just won themselves some brownie points in my eyes because where Nintendo use Nintendo Points, and Microsoft use Microsoft Points, Sony use £ (or if your American $)! No trying to work out exactly how much a game is in real money instead of silly money like the other two which is actually quite nice, but in fairness what do Sony have to hide? I mean on Wii I paid about £8 for Mario 64, on PSP I paid under £4 for MediEvil! So all is good right? Sadly no...


After buying my game I got to downloading it...this is where things started to suck a little. The game was about 360mb and in fairness over a wireless network (and considering I'm yet to find a console with speedy internet) this was bound to be slow, but it felt slow even with this in mind and finally after downloading the installation took almost as long! By the time the game was ready to play my laptop was formatted and waiting for me to use it.

This was a kick in the knackers but still, MediEvil! So I quickly loaded up the game and in fairness the game ran perfect, I'm yet to see anyone online come up with an emulator for PSX titles with as few floors as the one in the PSP so that was good. Alas though there was a down side, one that could be fixed with a simple peripheral I'd happily buy...there’s no second shoulder buttons! Because of this they have replaced L2 and R2 with the left and right on the joystick (which I had to manually change to the D-Pad cause playing a 3D game with a D-Pad is the perfect way to make your thumb hate you so much) and up on the joystick (or D-Pad) for both buttons pushed together. This on paper seems like a good substitute but it's not when you have to press up on the D-Pad to go into first person view and break a finger trying to press left or right on the joystick at the same time, it simply doesn’t work :-(


There were a few others issues with the emulation, the sound was too quiet, the screen was too dull and the resolution was thumb-nail, but in fairness all 3 of these can be fixed by pressing the Home button and fiddling with the settings but NOWHERE do they tell you this so I didn't discover these options till I hit the Home button with the intention of quitting though frustration and the fact my thumb hated me.

All in all PSone Classics on PSP works well, and if they ever release the Final Fantasy VII-IX titles on it I'll be buying them, but if your interested in getting a game, look though the list and ask yourself "how will the controls work with this title?" before you part with any cash.

Zom-B

As I said about 2 posts ago, I <3 Web Comics and I've run a few in the past. For the last year or so I haven't really done much, just a BOK strip every now and then when I hear a joke I know I can only get away with telling on the internet, or a few doodles for plans for a future return of Life Of TimmY, but I haven't actually started a comic series with potential and tried to meet that potential in a long while. Lucky for me (and maybe for you) that dry spell is almost at an end! For I give you:

Zom-B is a comic following the funny side of a grim near future where zombies have risen up and humanity is falling. The plot is very simple, a group of characters surviving the end of the world, but the comic isn't entirely about that but more about how the characters, each from very different walks of life interact with each other...but you know...in a less boring way than I'm making it sound.

Right now all I have is the cover page for the comic which has been uploaded to it's future home on Drunk Duck and can be found HERE. As I develop characters and zombies no doubt I'll post images of them here to show them off (till Bit Of Corn is online) but the best thing you can do is check on the Drunk Duck Comic page every few days, I hope to have the comic started soon but with things going on in my life I can't promise ANYTHING right now.

Ps. Oh and no, it's not pure luck that I'm working on this comic close to the release of Left4Dead, in-fact L4D is a strong inspiration and I'm hoping the popularity that the game will no doubt have will help my comic get somewhere :-D it's a sell-out move I know but fuck it, if it gets me readers!

One Week...

In one week I'm going missing and it would be safe to presume I'm dead, why? Because in one week I get paid...at the same time Fallout 3, Saints Row 2, Farcry 2 and Fable 2 (yes not one original IP, although I have no idea when Dead Space is out) will all be out and within my grasp...I'm going to be dead to the world for a little while. So, why am I so excited about all these games? Well if you genuinely need to ask I'm a bit ashamed of you...FOR SHAME! But yeah, I don't wanna spam my page with a video for each of the games mentioned but here’s the first of some build up videos released for Fallout 3, Enjoy:

5 Web Comics To Check Out...

Since about 5 years ago I've been in love with Web-Comics. Not those piece of crap sprite comics, or ones ripping off anime in the way you'd expect of a rapist. No, I mean genuinely funny or interesting comics. Hell I've even run a few (Life of Timmy, BoK, Chav Town and so on) myself with varying dedication and success. So weather your new to Web Comics or an old fan like me, why not check out these five and see if there are any gems you love, Enjoy:

1. Cyanide & Happiness
A strange comic with no set cast, no artistic ability, no running theme (other than the fact it's very funny) and a few different artists causing a variation in both art and writing. This leaves the comic feeling constantly fresh unlike a lot of comics which after about 20 strips your ready to stop reading. Well worth a look!

2. John and John
A comic not for the innocent minded out there. John and John is a perverse comic which shies away from no sexual topic. The jokes are a variation of funny jokes, the kind of jokes you laugh at cause their gross, and the kind of jokes you laugh at but hide it cause you know the joke was just flat-out wrong. I'd recommend this but remember, it is 18+ and probably NSFW.

3. White Ninja
White Ninja is pretty weird cause just like Cyanide & Happiness the art sucks, also the humour I personally find half the time sucks. Yet when a strip is funny it's VERY funny, it's also the kind of strip you can read for hours without getting bored. Worth a look :-)



4. KinokoFry
Wow, a web-comic by a girl...that isn't anime, a love story, or furry? Something’s not right here...never the less although I'm pretty new to this comic I love it, it's disjointed humour and twisted visuals as well as beautiful at times artwork all mix together for a very enjoyable comic you'll keep coming back too for more!

5. Dueling Analogs
Of course I couldn't do this without at least ONE game related web-comic! Dueling Analogs is a well under rated web-comic after coming out a few years too late to make it's name as one of the big players in the game-comic craze but that isn't to say it's a bad comic! In-fact you wont find any miscarriages, or horrid lack of updates here like two of the leading game-comics and it's also a VERY funny comic if you play games enough to get the jokes!

A little bit of class

This site was started almost 2 months back now and I must admit I had no real intention to take it anywhere, but I've quite enjoyed it so far even though no one reads it. So, as a mini-celebration I thought I'd add a little drop of classiness to the site in the form of this snazzy new background! I can't promise it looks good on anything bigger than 1280x800 cause that's what I've setup the site using so I can't tell if there are floors or issues but in truth if your running a screen bigger than that, screw you for having a better computer than me!

Enjoy

More posts soon :-)

Mother 3 goes English!

If there is one game I am quite ashamed to say I’ve never played it would be anything from the Mother series, or as we English speaking people call it, Earthbound. The series began on SNES and in truth I know little about it or what happened to it, all I do know is that the third instalment was released on GBA but only for Japan which annoyed a lot of the fans, but not one who settled down and started painstakingly translating the game via rom and after quite some time has now released the English Patch for the games ROM file. Now I should make clear I have not tried this patch and I don’t own a legal copy and thus it would be naughty of me OR ANYONE ELSE to get this patch and a ROM from some website like mininova.org but in case you do own a copy, here’s the website:

Sigur Ros

Ok, it's rare I post anything music related on here...hell I don't think I ever have before, but I can pass these guys off as worthy of a mention on two fronts:

1. They were used in the trailer for the new Prince of Persia game and made it 10 times more beautiful and actually make me wanna get a copy of the game!

2. Their fucking beautiful! Seriously, listen to the song below and try telling me that doesn’t just feel amazing to listen too!

I don't have much to say on them but here's a damn gorgeous song by them, and my second favourite but most powerful for first time listeners. Enjoy, I did.