Tag: playstation 3

On Sunday evening I was relaxing with GTA IV, playing online. There were a couple of moments I'll remember for a long time.

I finished a deathmatch with my best score of 22 frags and 0 deaths, taking first place in the end. I doubt I'll ever repeat such a result, I mean 0 deaths with several opponents around, some of them higher level. It was a ten-minute deathmatch in the Alderney prison with auto-aim and powerful weapons. Right at the start I managed to dig in on the north-western tower, where the combat sniper rifle spawns. By hiding from other snipers and managing to take them out before they could aim at me, I held out the entire round. The ones trying to get closer I picked off with no trouble using the SMG and auto-aim, manually adjusting my sights to the enemy's head.

The other moment was in GTA Race mode on the Round The Block track. The race was in muscle cars, that is, in the Sabre GT, just two laps, and already on the first one I managed to take the lead while driving onto the Algonquin bridge and started collecting combat pistols (Desert Eagles). The opponent behind me with an Uzi closed the gap over a lap, and on the second, final lap he tried to shoot at me on that same bridge. Since the stretch was straight and no cars were expected ahead on the highway, I turned around backwards, kept driving blind, and started shooting back, apparently successfully, since the opponent increased his distance to bullet-reach range. After that I just kept driving calmly, picking up a health pack after the turn onto Columbus Avenue, but at the end of the race, already past the museum, I lost control and clipped an oncoming car, and in the end the opponent did overtake me, with no chance for me to catch up. On the final turn onto Ruby Street, already in despair and out of habit, I started blindly firing at the leader as he took the turn on a wide arc, and in the end I hit him and killed him right before the finish line — apparently his health was at a minimum after the shootout on the bridge, and I had taken the health pack. I took first place in the race.

There really are some interesting moments, a shame that few people play GTA IV on PSN anymore. With the release of Episodes From Liberty City on PS3 that should change, the new multiplayer modes from The Ballad of Gay Tony are especially interesting.

Finished Heavy Rain. Right up to the end I couldn't figure out who the killer was, and I didn't read any spoilers. I was stunned and pleased by the logical explanation of so many clues, and I'd actually tried to work out his identity myself. If you don't skip over all the little details and inconsistencies, then maybe you can guess it, though it's unlikely… To do that you'd have to analyze the psychological profiles in the same way and consider the least likely but logical option, exactly like in the Sherlock Holmes stories. The game is made with quality, and so is the plot. There's never been anything like it, and they managed perfectly fine without science fiction. I love that you choose what happens on the screen, and in most cases the main characters don't act like complete idiots, though you can choose that option too, but that's already for collecting trophies and seeing the other variants.

For now I'm interested in how to make sure all the playable characters of the story survive. On my first playthrough I collected only 47% of the trophies, I played on the normal level – and even then I couldn't always pull off the QTEs, especially as the FBI guy. I keep mixing up circle and square, I need to get used to the gamepad button symbols somehow.

The game is a masterpiece. I can't imagine how you could play it on a keyboard or without the SIXAXIS controller and get the same feeling you get playing on the PS3. It's a shame it takes only two evenings to finish, but you can play it a few more times and get different events, finding new little details the creators thought of.

I got the game Heavy Rain: The Origami Killer, it took exactly a week to ship from England. It came out not much cheaper, since it's a new game, but on the plus side I picked it up with the pre-order without any trouble. A bit of a shame that it's region two and only has English, though I wouldn't have played with Russian voice-over anyway, but Russian subtitles wouldn't have hurt, and even so about 90 percent is clear with the English ones. I hadn't looked into the game's technical specs beforehand, and was surprised that it's in 720p, given that the demo was 1080p, but the graphics are dated as it is and nicely smoothed over, so the difference isn't noticeable, and once you're into it you're past caring about flat tree branches and the like anyway.

I played it for an evening; at times the routine chores can get tiresome, but they're well interspersed with drama, thriller and action, and in the end, when the plot starts gaining momentum, it's hard to tear yourself away from the game, except maybe at the moment of switching from one main character to another, and even then only if it isn't done smoothly.

Yes, this is interactive cinema with graphics that are average by today's standards, but in the end it works better than ordinary films of the genre, since just watching isn't very interesting, whereas here you find yourself at the center of events, you influence them, you make decisions and you distinctly feel the characters' emotions, which are only heightened by the music and the controller vibrations. But it's also a video game with an excellent plot, with puzzles you want to know the answer to, though you may fail to reach it because of your own actions. I hope the plot isn't as simple as it might seem on second glance, and that the ending won't fall short of the beginning, unlike the creators' previous game, Fahrenheit. My impressions of that one have somehow already faded, I can't even compare them now.

Just finished playing through the game. Plenty of impressions. I won't say anything new. Others have said plenty about this masterpiece, thought through down to the smallest detail.

A very epic and detailed story, I love that kind of thing. I wouldn't say I liked the gameplay all that much, I'm not really into stealth, even though everything's there, plus in tense action situations it's hard to aim with the stick. Somehow, in this respect, the Splinter Cell it ripped off appeals to me more. The first act, Liquid Sun, only drew me in on the third try, after which I didn't stop playing.

But in MGS4 the game itself isn't the main thing, and it hardly takes up most of the experience; the main impressions come from the cutscenes, their story, the emotions conveyed, the staging of the scenes, and so on, and so on… I hadn't seen anything like this in games before, the game will definitely be memorable. It's just a shame that I'm not familiar with the previous games in the series and didn't fully grasp all the nuances of the story, I'll try to fix that. I need to figure out where and how it's best to get them and run them.

There's also an upside to not having taken an interest in the series before and not having read anything about it, and if I did read something, then I didn't understand it or remember it. During the playthrough I got genuine enjoyment out of the unexpected twists of the plot.

Around New Year's I made the two biggest online purchases of my life. Since I'm not yet willing to risk buying anything large from abroad, I used the services of Ukrainian sellers.

First, I made a purchase at rozetka.com.ua. I'd heard decent reviews about it before and figured the store had a good reputation, but after dealing with them I almost completely lost any desire to deal with local online stores.

The second was nextgame.com.ua. I bought from them right after the New Year's holidays. They left a good impression, if you don't count the problems with the local branch of the delivery service.