When you have a brand that’s as large as Sony PlayStation then asking your consumers opinions of every aspect of your business is paramount to your future success, after all the only way to improve is through feedback. You can ask your registered users, or at least those that bothered to return the card or step into a mammoth online form, or you could employ a marketing company to go and harass every mother and their kids in the local supermarket. The thing is the only way to get a true response about how you are doing and if you’re doing it right is by asking the people who have gathered in your community, those gamers that spend all their time and effort playing your games and then conversing on your forums about their experiences.
So with this in mind over on the Official PlayStation Forums the community which follow the PlayStation brand have been voting in their thousands for what they feel was best about their experience in 2009.
From Best PlayStation 3 game to which game had the best trophies and which game was the most innovative, all these plus a whole host more were asked of the community. It didn’t stop there though and the community were asked to look at who in the community was most helpful, who was the funniest and who had the best PlayStation Online I.D. – yes we’re looking at you RockHardSemi. In total 21 categories for the community to vote on and every one a worthy winner.
So the results are in the votes have been counted and verified and the Community Team Leader MusterBuster has gone for a lie down in a dark room.
I’m not going to spoil the party and put the results here but I will give you this link to go and see for yourself who won what and why. Also whilst your there have a look round there’s many familiar faces if you’re a PlayStation junkie and lots of events to get involved in.
So you’ve played Bayonetta and cartwheeled your leather clad goddess to victory, ridden your horse through the apocalypse in Darksiders and now you may just be getting to grips with M.A.G. and deciding which faction to support. Yet, February is upon us already and and how the hell are you going to find the time to play what you already have and what’s on the way this month? Let’s take a quick look at February as it’s rammed with excellent titles and I for one am carefully looking at where the hard earned cash is going to be spent.
There is just so much to talk about no matter what console or handheld you have and the quality of gaming on offer is superb. Dante’s Inferno from EA swinging and thrashing into stores on the 5th, and Nintendo Wii owners can also get there hands on a new RPG the same week too with Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers from Square Enix. Then we see the return of Big Daddy, and I don’t mean the wrestler for those old enough to remember World of Sport – I mean the worldwide release of Bioshock 2 on the 9th. It’s going to be awesome and certainly set to get some great reviews.
PlayStation 3 owners will have empty pockets as Star Ocean: The Last Hope International Edition from Square Enix makes an appearance and we can’t ignore Heavy Rain which will debut worldwide and with its innovative control system, variety of story paths and multiple endings, it has to be one of the most eagerly awaited first party titles for the PlayStation 3.
Xbox 360 gamers better make sure the have cleared their throats and lubricated their larynx on the 26th too, as Lips Party Classic arrives providing opportunities to sing your way through Tubthumping by Chumbawumba for days.
Its a big month for Sega too with 4 titles and the cream of the crop here would have to be the awesome Aliens vs Predator making a welcome appearance on the current console generation and one which looks to blow us away.
Its a big month for handhelds with a return of the ever popular Ace Attorney in Ace Attorney: Miles Edgeworth Investigates on the DS whilst PSP owners can leave the rest of the year blank as they will be playing the extremely addictive Half Minute Hero from the 12th.
Here is the rundown for the month ahead and the pick of the month for me has to be the return of Bioshock, although I will have an eye on the weather come the end of the month.
| Title | Publisher | Format | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| MX vs AV Relfex | THQ | XBOX 360, PS3, DS, PSP | 5th Feb 2010 |
| Dantes Inferno | EA | XBOX 360, PS3, PSP | 5th Feb 2010 |
| Disgaea 2: Dark Hero Days | Tecmo Koei | PSP | 5th Feb 2010 |
| Final Fantasy: The Crystal Bearers | Square Enix | Nintendo Wii | 5th Feb 2010 |
| Endless Ocean 2 | Nintendo | Nintendo Wii | 5th Feb 2010 |
| Bioshock 2 | 2K Games | XBOX 360, PS3, PC | 9th Feb 2010 |
| Phantasy Star Zero | Sega | Nintendo DS | 12th Feb 2010 |
| Super Monkey Ball Step & Roll | Sega | Nintendo Wii | 12th Feb 2010 |
| Star Ocean: The Last Hope International | Square Enix | PS3 | 12th Feb 2010 |
| Half Minute Hero | Rising Star Games | PSP | 12th Feb 2010 |
| Aliens vs Predator | Sega | XBOX 360, PS3, PC | 19th Feb 2010 |
| Ace Attorney: Miles Edgeworth Investigates | Nintendo | Nintendo DS | 19th Feb 2010 |
| Dynasty Warriors: Strikeforce | Tecmo Koei | Xbox 360, PS3 | 19th Feb 2010 |
| Resident Evil 5 (Platinum/Classics) | Capcom | Xbox 360, PS3 | 19th Feb 2010 |
| Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing | Sega | XBOX 360, PS3, Wii, DS | 26th Feb 2010 |
| Undead Knights | Tecmo Koei | PSP | 26th Feb 2010 |
| Heavy Rain | Sony | PS3 | 26th Feb 2010 |
| Lips: Party Classics | Microsoft | XBOX 360 | 26th Feb 2010 |
| White Knight Chronicles* | Sony | PS3 | 26th Feb 2010 |
*date is only provisional and not confirmed by SCEE
Whilst watching the VGA’s last Saturday night and sitting perched in the back end of our website typing endless award winners and watching the latest premiere we posted an article based on a comment made by the music legend Stevie Wonder. He was at the VGA’s to present the award for Best Music and rightly so, after all he would be in the best position to judge had it not been for the thousands of online voters. Before the presentation was made however he made a point of asking a very simple question “Why are video games not more accessible for the disabled”, now before you jump and shout but is a video game and he’s blind. Think !
What he actually said was disabled not blind but for that matter why not, blind or partially sighted people could still enjoy video games and with the diverse range of music titles like Guitar Hero and now D.J. Hero there is no real reason why blind people could not enjoy making music in this way. After we posted the article we were inundated with mails and suggestions from various people from all walks of life. People who had disabled relatives who enjoyed gaming and also from people who had invented concepts and in some cases instruments for use with today’s popular music titles.
One reader got in touch and linked us to this site and for those that doubt that blind people can play games and enjoy them like the rest of us I suggest you go and take a look at Blind Hero. Using a glove which vibrates when a note should be played it allows the gamer to keep up with the music and enjoy the game. Whilst the game has been modified to allow use of the glove it clearly shows that this is possible and all from a research University. Maybe if this sort of gaming device got some support from the huge gaming companies that make so much money from the likes of Guitar Hero, Rock Band and similar games then this could be developed further and give gaming enjoyment to everyone. Even a peripheral manufacturer could take some of the ideas on board and try to develop or integrate them into existing designs.
Several groups got in touch with us but one website stood out Ablegamers.com is run by a group of disabled gamers and brings all the days news, reviews and previews but also keeps them in touch with all the disabled gaming newsgroups too.
If nothing else Stevie Wonders comment made us all think about the issue that is facing many disabled people around the world today and bring the issue back into the public eye and his comment was perfectly placed to reach out to everyone in the industry. If only one company would listen to his words and actually do something to help then gaming for everyone could one day be a reality.
It was only last week that I wrote to let you all know of our blogs section to allow the staff to present their views on a range of gaming topics amongst other things, and now I can utilise my blog to announce our first new content feature section.
The Launch Pad is where you will find all the latest news, screens and videos for the most hotly anticipated gaming titles and major gaming event assets. We know that news is ever changing and we know stuff gets lost behind all the other news posts, so we are creating content portals to allow you to get to what you need. At the moment we are covering Mass Effect 2 and Final Fantasy XIII and we’ve got more in the works in a dark and dusty room at HQ so rest assured we’ll have another one sneaking in soon.
We will also be tying up with some of our media partners to bring you coverage of the big events via Launch Pad – Gamescom and E3 will surely find their way into the section along with some other well known gaming knees ups.
So with a press of the big red button it should all be appearing on the right of this post and if it isn’t then I pressed the wrong thing again…….hate it when I do that.
Enjoy
In amongst the review titles that are pending I’ve had a soft spot for Modern Warfare 2 lately and it’s the game of choice for a relaxing kick back after a hard day typing. However as with all popular titles it’s prone to those gamers that want to get a step ahead for one reason or another. I call it cheating but others call it ‘Glitching’, finding a place on a game map that’s technically out of bounds or finding a way of exploiting a weapon. So imagine by surprise that a ‘Glitch’ has appeared in Modern Warfare 2 and having been party to more and more games where it’s being used, I am currently trying to work out a few things in my mind that just don’t add up.
Firstly why is it there, why is such an exploit in the game? Having gone on YouTube and looked at exactly how these gamers are activating this I would be astounded that anyone found it by accident. Just like the man that first found milk from a cow, what was he trying to do and why and so I wonder what gamers are doing rather than enjoying playing the game. So I can only assume that somehow and for some strange reason the games developers Infinity Ward already knew this existed and thought that nobody would ever find it and if that’s the case, how wrong can a developer be. The strange thing is that Infinity Ward have threatened to ban anyone from the game if they catch them using the exploit, yet they leave the videos that show how to do it on YouTube, a site which could be asked to remove such content under copyright laws.
I’m sure that other ‘Glitches’ will raise their heads before we are all done playing Modern Warfare 2. The developers will have to frantically rush to get a patch out to correct the problem and save the gaming experience whilst infuriated gamers shout and scream down microphones when somebody exploits such a ‘Glitch’. I have to say that whilst I don’t get to the point of verbally commenting when I see the culprits in action, it really does get my goat and cheating to win is a sad reality of mindless children that can’t stand to lose.
I’m all for fair play during online gaming and level playing field is all I ask but surely the developers have a role to play in ensuring that such exploits are removed before commercial release of a title if they know they exist or the sites that host the explanatory video’s are forced to remove them whilst a fix is employed.
For over 12 months we’ve been hammering away at keyboards, joypads and uploading thousands of screens, videos and all manner of gaming goodness to bring our readers the information they need to feed their gaming desires. As with all new ventures growth is important to success and sometimes it’s difficult to engage your readers due to the fact that as fast as the team type up the daily news, you’re reading it and we’re on with the next article. To enable us to be able to reach out to our readership the site now includes blogs for the staff members including myself to have their own blog to express their views and opinions and engage you the readers. Please try to remember that the blogs section are the opinion of the author there is a no more opinionated industry than that of gaming.
There are also many behind the scenes goings on too and we will be bringing you more content, more features and more ways in which you can get involved with us and help us grow further and develop into the site that you want to be part of. We have taken on more review staff as well as article writers and also someone to look after all that code that hurts my brain but enables us to see all the whistles and bells that the site displays.
If you’re a regular reader and not a member then join us and you’ll be able to comment in our forums as well as enter some member only competitions and it’s a fun place to be, or so they tell me.
Anyway that’s enough from me for now it’s time to go and shoot some noobs, I mean play Modern Warfare 2, look out for the new improved TLG coming your way over the next few weeks and into 2010 and thanks for joining the journey this far.
Steve
