First, my friends over at GunWebsites.com have made me a part of their reviewing team. As part of their team, I get the opportunity to get samples of gear they need reviewed, and I make short video reviews about them. Right now I'm doing it for the thrill of it, they aren't paying me - yet. Maybe that will change with time.
Second, I've been playing more games than ever. Since we last talked, my latest platinum trophy was for the game Midnight Club: Los Angeles. I have since acquired and platinumed several more games. These will be revealed after the break.
For a total of nine platinum trophies overall. My current games to work on are:
There are quite a few fussy trophies that require my undivided attention at times, and most of them will not be easy to achieve. (See Auf Wiedersehen Petrovic) This is where most of my time has gone, into playing and beating these great games.
On the home front, my birthday is in a few weeks, and I have no idea what I'm gonna do. Probably nothing, as usual. It's been raining cats and dogs the past few days in Southern California, but the sun shines today.
Third, reading! I have a few books on my table that I want to read and re-read, keeping my mind enriched and finding new things I might have missed the first read. A selection of them are:
-1984
-The Divine Comedy
-The Maltese Falcon
I haven't read much in a while, and I'm ashamed. I love reading, and getting immersed in a story. Books really can send you into another world, and I take full advantage of that every time I crack open a book. My imagination gets fired up, my mind starts to wander, and I'm not even in my living room anymore, I'm somewhere far off and distant, away from the worries and cares of life.
Finally, my little rant about the PS3's social media app called Playstation Home. In a few prior posts, I've talked about the app and about certain features of it. Right now I'm not going to talk, I'm going to vent.
Now, I've been a supporter of Home since the early days, I like the app and the potential it has on the whole, but it seems like most of that has slipped away with a recent glut of decisions and ideas pushed forth from the head developing and marketing departments which have been, well, stupid.
Prices of items. The prices on virtual items has jumped quite a bit since 2009 and early 2010. Used to be you could visit the Mall and buy something for $0.49, and you were completely satisfied with it. At the most, the price might have gone to $0.99 for something like a furniture item or a specialty piece that had some neat doodad on it, or came bundled up with something else. Now, it's not uncommon to find prices starting at $0.99 and going up from there. And the quality has been slipping. Items just don't really grab me anymore, and they're being pushed out every single week with the updates. Used to be a time when there would be a bi-weekly update rotation, where one week would be maintenance only, then the next week would bring content. Then maintenance, and s on and so forth. And that was okay, we liked that. We at least knew they were working on fixes for Home, instead of shutting us out like the present day. Now, it's just content, content, content every single Thursday, without fail.
Which segues us into our next topic, the lack of fixes and maintenance. Before the decision to drop the bi-weekly maintenance schedule, things got fixed relatively quick in Home. If an item or minigame was out of order or didn't work, it got fixed posthaste. Nowadays, it seems you can't walk several feet in Home without something going wrong. Hundreds of topics in the official Support forums go unanswered and in most cases, simply unread. Glitches and bugs remain which have been around since 2008, and have still not been addressed. Just this Thursday, a new minigame was issued in Central Plaza, and the vast majority of users can't even ACCESS it, because of a stupid instancing problem that causes only 4 users to be able to play at any one time. Just access the General Home forum to see threads about the game's lack of functionality, and make your own opinions.
One last thing I'd like to talk about, about Home. It seems that a few users have been able to garner preferential treatment from the moderation staff and community managers, and have used these connections to turn Home into their own sick little playground, which only their like-minded brethren and followers are able to enjoy. What's more, they seem to thrive off of telling everyone else how they should be using Home, and how they should be having fun instead of having an individual opinion or voice in the matter. These mini-mods are a disgrace to the community, and should not be allowed near a Playstation 3. These people eat, sleep, and breathe Home, seemingly doing nothing else. It amazes me that someone would buy a $300 gaming console, arguably one of the best consoles of this current generation, and a great multimedia platform, and do nothing with it except postulate with simulated aplomb in Home, living vicariously through their avatars and projecting their God complexes throughout.
Rant over. Now I think it's time I finish up this entry lest I get any more preachy. Stay tuned for more updates, and maybe regular entries again! Until next time, gentle reader.
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