I Can Dig It

I had always worried that my purchase of Terraria on Vita would never see the update to the 1.2 content that was released for PC around the same time which basically turned the game into something far larger than the already expansive confines the game offered.  There was multitudes of new -everything-, and indeed, it was one of those things that threatened to turn the game into an entirely different one.  A game that I would never get to play (until I got myself a proper PC, which is still on the agenda because shit is expensive) and one that I really -did- want to play.

Thankfully, the 1.2 content was always promised to us on non-PC platforms, it was all just a matter of time.  And not too long ago, we did see that patch finally.

As expected, Terraria feels almost entirely different.  The trappings are the same thus far - you still want to establish shelter and dig down, you still want to summon the Eye of Cthulhu as soon as possible, and you still want to work towards finding the Corruption (or the Crimson) and destroying Shadow Orbs to spawn the Eater of Worlds. (or their equivalents)  You'll go through new biomes (The Ice biome is especially nice) and improved ones (the Jungle biomes are -incredibly- different) as you do it, but that's still priority one, since that is how you get the Nightmare/Deathbringer (again, dependent on Corruption or Crimson) Pickaxe, which you need to mine Ebonstone, Hellstone and Obsidian, which will naturally impede your progress.

Unfortunately, this is sort of where I'm stuck.  My world has the Corruption, which means the Eater of Worlds, and it has only two spawn conditions.  The first is by breaking three Shadow Orbs (which is repeatable) which will force it unto the world for you to fight and conquer.  I attempted this, and came to discover that the Eater of World has been buffed (I swear it has been) and thus my first attempt met with nothing even approaching success.  Humbled, I sought out better armor, more health and a lot of healing potions, thinking I could certainly best it a second time. 

I could not, and this presented something of a problem.

You see, there are only so many Shadow Orbs in a given world.  They do not respawn.  Thus, once you have broken them all....well, that's it.  Fini.  I am not sure if I have reached this point, as I have to mine with bombs to continue further (or buy purification powder, but bombs are so much more bomby) and actively search for other ones.  Though, there is meant to be that second method of summoning, and it is one that I looked into quite heavily.

All it requires is an item called Worm Food.  Worm Food is made of Vile Powder and Rotten Chunks, the latter of which are dropped quite easily from the Eater of Souls monsters that fly about the Corruption constantly.  Vile Powder, on the other hand, requires Vile Mushrooms that you refine into the powder at an Alchemy Station.  Nothing could be more innocent, as the Vile Mushrooms grow naturally in the Corruption and plentiful, though you can even make a quick and easy farm for them.  I did this, as I wanted Vile Mushrooms, and I wanted them yesterday.  It was with this that I discovered there was something very, very wrong.

All patches have a tendency to wreck things moreso than fix them, we know this, and it's especially prevalent in games that are so open like Terraria or Minecraft or the like.  This is the case with Terraria, as the 1.2 Content update for Consoles included a multitude of bugs which are currently being sussed out.  One of these bugs?  "Vile Mushrooms cannot be harvested."

This is the impasse that I'm more or less at if I cannot find more Shadow Orbs.  In truth, it makes me worry about the validity of my world post-patch, even, as I wonder just how much of it -can- be fixed (since there are tons of other issues that I hadn't even gotten to yet due to my single focus of getting past the EoW) and the fix for these types of scenarios tend to be "Make a new world".  I...am loathe to do this, as my current world houses a "Heaven/Hell Tower" (unfortunately, it is not made of Rock) that extends from the top of the world (as seen at the top of this image) and goes as far down as I can get so far, as Obsidian stands in my way.  It took a lot of effort that I am not particularly invested in reinvesting should that become necessary.  Though I suppose I -will- always have it.  In a...half-functioning world, should it come to the worst scenario.

There are worse things, I guess.

but no, if I didn't make it clear, Terraria with the 1.2 content is so fun you guys

Good News and Bad News for Zone of the Enders

So remember when the Zone of the Enders HD Collection was announced and I was all "Eeeeeeeeeeeeeee~" because it's friggin' Zone of the Enders in HD?  And then remember when it came out and was, er...less than well-received because of speed and framerate issues which are absolutely debilitating to fast-paced action games like this?  And then it was...largely unspoken of from any angle as they just went ahead and did other things?  Well, there's where the good news comes in, as there's a patch for the game in the works.  For the PS3 version.  And....maybe don't click that link just yet.  It'll become a little obvious as to why in a few minutes here, so just bear with me.

In reality, the article makes it seem like the patch is already more or less 'done' and they're just testing it out and such before it's released.

Zone of the Enders HD Collection’s transition from 30 FPS to 60 was not as smooth as Kojima had hoped for. While it wasn’t as noticeable to first-time players, those who enjoyed the original seamless fast-paced games were able to feel the choppiness. (For a comparison, check out Spencer’s playtest.) Kojima believes that such action-heavy games deserve nothing but the smoothest gameplay to fully enjoy. Due to this problem, Kojima and his team have re-programmed the entire game, and will release a free PlayStation 3 patch that should fix the problem and greatly enhance its performance. There won’t be a patch for the Xbox 360 version for the time being.

It's hard to tell if the 360 version won't be patched for the same "technical reasons" as the Silent Hill HD Collection or if it's just because it didn't sell well at all, but in either case, I'm not too sure there'll be the same Konami out-reach for people who have purchased the 360 version.  Which is a shame, of course, and I might be wrong, but it's reasonable enough to think as much considering how low-profile this whole thing really is coming across as.  And to be fair, I'm not quite sure the extent of the issues with the ZoE Collection versus the Silent Hill HD Collection, while knowing that the latter has been described as 'dire' at times.  Which is, you know, a Bad Thing™.  Still, issues are issues and I haven't personally played my copy of the ZoE HD Collection (that I literally picked up for the REVENGEANCE demo and then never played), but knowledge that it might become 'flawless' in comparison to the originals sparks an excitement in me that only the original announcement managed to get.

So that's the good news.  But, as stated, there is bad news and....well, bad news might be under-stating things a bit here.  In similar fashion to the good news, remember when The Enders Project was announced?  As in the threequel in the Zone of the Enders series where actual, literal models of the robots were being made and then scanned into computers and rendered with the FOX Engine to look badass as all hell while also being fully-functional and such as a regular model?  Well, er...okay, now you can click the link above (or this re-link).  Maybe also sit down if you're not already.  Because, well, The Enders Project might just be cancelled.  Or at least postponed for a while which...might ultimately lead to the same fate as that sometimes happens.  Regardless of the future of it, the present of it is that the game has entered a period of re-evaluation, which is never a good statement to hear.

Not only has this incident prompted Kojima to work on a patch to fix the problem, but it has also put a halt to the Enders’s Project which was announced last year as a Zone of the Enders sequel. The entire team behind the project has been dismantled, as Kojima would like to re-evaluate the franchise before moving forward, he says. Furthermore, he also wants to re-evaluate fans by asking once more, whether they would still like to see a Zone of the Enders sequel.

Obviously the most worrying piece of that is the statement "The entire team behind the project has been dismantled" as that really hammers in the idea that it's just out-and-out done.  Yet, as the eternal optimist, I can't help but say that maybe it was just dismantled to be...you know, reassembled, reconfigured at a later date once they know for sure whether or not they're going to go forward with the project.  Which will most likely be once more work on The Phantom Pain and Ground Zeroes has been done, since, well, I can't imagine Kojima Productions has enough manpower for three AAA-Quality games to be worked on simultaneously, or at least not to the degree of quality that we expect from the studio.  Because, especially with the FOX Engine involved in all three projects, it's likely a bit tasking to work on all three games, no matter how many people are around (though it's likely not enough, as stated).

Yet another piece of optimism that I can't help but attempt at is wondering if this realization of the HD Collections issues, and the subsequent work in re-programming the entire game, has been the reason for the radio silence on the announced Vita version of the collection.  Obviously, it's easier to say that it's just been quietly cancelled and that could very well be the truth to it, but the issue was likely apparent right from release and the programming work probably didn't start right away, but as soon as it was feasible, meaning a 'hold off' order on the Vita version for the...ahem, very busy High Voltage Software, if they, indeed, were even tapped to work on that version as well.  Or if anyone had been tapped by that point.  Basically what I'm saying is now that the PS3 version has been entirely re-programmed and it's apparently very easy to port from PS3 to Vita that perhaps the game -will- see a release on the handheld, given Kojima's support for it, if nothing else.

Unfortunately, this is something that we might not ever really 'know' about, in the realm of it actually being announced.  If the game actually comes out on the Vita eventually, well, we'll know, but if 2014 rolls around and there's still no word on it...then, well, we'll probably know that way as well.  Still, it doesn't hurt to have some -hope- for something like this, as a portable version of Zone of the Enders:  2nd Runner is always something to hold out hope for.  Without an official statement, it'll be something that I'll consider a possibility for a time yet, and it'll only be when the time for 'timely' release has come and gone and left the house cold that I'll accept anything less.  Since, as stated, a fully-functional version of the HD Collection on PS3 (as well as the very loose release window of it) could very well mean good things and a simultaneous announcement.  We'll just have to see how KojiPro handles it, really, but the patch is certainly something to look forward to for PS3 owners.

in all seriousness, I will choke a bitch for ZoE HD Vita

Oh, the Youtube App for Vita is Good Now

So, waaaaaaay back at the end of June, the Vita saw the release of a Youtube App that I was initially hopeful for.  It was released in a sorry state, with no subscription support (or Channels, but those came into the prominence they're in currently later on), a shoddy Search function and overall, it just wasn't a way to enjoy Youtube unless you had access to a computer to double-check your favorite Youtubers.  Still, I hoped, but never suspected some update that would add in those features.  Then, a (little over a) month later I kind of went over the Apps downfalls again now that they had become ingrained and it seemed fairly obvious that the App was in the state that it would remain in.  I was a little bitter about that since, well, it was a half-done app and it seemed it would remain that way, meaning it was not a true way to enjoy what Youtube has to offer off of a computer which is very important to me.  Because my computer sucks - I don't think I've really hammered on that point lately.  Still, I've been using it since, well, I can at least keep up with a few Youtubers using the "Recommended" (which was basically your Sub Feed, but not as good) list and the search (if I knew exactly what was out there already) and I'd more or less become complacent with its short-comings.

Imagine my immense surprise, then, when I opened the Youtube app today and the little orange "Update" icon appeared next to the usual three and, upon touching said button, it prominently displayed "Subscription and Channel support" as one of the many Bullet Points on its little changelog.  I was ecstatic yet also cautious, as Youtube usually never takes a step forward without two backwards.  It's unfortunately not a thing that is done, and, much like the App, I've more or less become used to that as well.  So I updated.  I waited anxiously in the quite short update, installed it and launched it to the brand new state it was in.  And I am happy to say that it's like a brand new world.  The image above was the one to greet me (well, not -exactly- that one as it was earlier today, but still) and it's as goddamn intuitive as it looks.  Touch one of the channels on the left side to open their feed which actually can filter by playlists too which blows my damn mind and everything is there.  (At least, I haven't dug too deep, but it looks like it at least.  I mean, there's playlists.  And Uploaded videos as a category.)

Here's a full changelog from the Playstation Blog post about the update:

• Subscriptions and channels: Now you can view and manage your subscriptions (including your subscription to the PlayStation YouTube channel), browse all videos on a specific channel and check out detailed information in the “About this channel” menu option.
• Improved controls: We’ve added new functions on controls including Next/Previous buttons, a loop video option and the ability to browse videos while another is playing, making it easy to select preferred videos without interrupting playback.
• Playlist settings: You can now create playlists and add videos to your playlists, including your Favorites or Watch Later lists.
• Closed captions: Captions help deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers enjoy YouTube videos, and they’re also useful if you forgot your headphones and want to watch videos in a loud (or quiet) setting while on-the-go. Now you can display closed captions when playing videos. Look for the captions icon on the video thumbnail. You can even change the language of captions in the options menu.
• Continuous playback: In the settings menu, you can now enable continuous playback, so your next video selection will start to play automatically.
• PS Vita buttons: You now have the option to use the PS Vita buttons to control playback and menus, which can be enabled in the Settings > System menu.
• Share: Show that you’re tuned in—Tweet, Email or group message your friends the name and URL to the latest video. You can also invite people to check out any channel on YouTube — like the the PlayStation YouTube channel — via group message, so they don’t miss a beat.
• Improved search: You can now use search filters — sorting by upload date or duration, for example — making it easier than ever to find your favorite videos.

Look at that.  Look at that.  Bask in that shit, for that is something worth basking in.  Because, quite simply, that is Youtube when it works and that's a rare sight indeed.

There's now five sections of the App (previously four) with the first being the Subscription section, which is fairly obvious from the screenshot above.  Suggestions, the next one, now functions as it -would-, taking what you've watched and generating a list of things that you might also be interested in for whatever reason.  The Search function has indeed been improved with a wealth of filtering options more than the two stated in the changelog - it's actually useful now.  History is the same and the last section, previously your Favorites list is now your Playlists sections which, for me just has favorites and Watch Later as you can see.  (Don't judge me.)  The Windowed Mode of watching videos is much the same as well, however the Like and Dislike buttons are in a different place and you'll notice the Uploader's little button thing is there.  This is so that you can go to their channel and subscribe to them if you so desire or unsubscribe if that's what you wanna do too.  Or if you just want to watch their other videos.  Which, well, this is kind of a Youtube necessity.  Full screen mode is largely the same with the addition of a Repeat button and a new button on the title row that, when pressed, shows you the playlist you accessed the video from while the video continues to play.  So, if you're marathoning something, well, there you go, it is that much easier now.

The good thing about all of it is, obviously, that it's a full-featured App now and, from my limited exposure to it, it's stable.  Knock on wood for that, however since, again it's -Youtube-, but it's been working fine for me so far.  The bad thing about it is that it took five extra months to get to this point when, by all means, it should have been like this when it first came out.  Honestly, there was no excuse for the state it was in when it came out originally.  Still, I can't be too mad anymore as I have what appears to be Youtube in its near-entirety (the part I care about at least) and I don't have to worry about juggling my Recommended list from "Subscriptions" to "the point in which it's actually Recommended videos which means I have to search now".  If I want to keep up with AvidyaZen's three different Feed the Beast series, hey, I can do that from his channel.  It's almost like this, as a concept, is very obvious to understand and has been at work elsewhere for months upon months.  Sarcastic italics.  Still - even though there's no more urgency, I am quite invested in these videos as well as my usual LPers like the oft-mentioned Helloween4545, my buddy Kaseius and everybody's favorite German, Klyka1.  The neat thing is now you can just look them up on the App and check out their stuff without any hassle!

Vita's PSOne Support Inbound....Kinda

So, in most parts of the world, the 1.80 update, which is talked about in the above video is either live (personally, mine is downloading as I type this) or on its way, assuredly.  As I brought up back on the 14th, the star of the 1.80 show is the PSOne Support and, as suspected, it seems that it's going to be a gradual process of opening up, rather than a whole lot of stuff magically working right off.  At least...that's how it seems to be for North America and not so much for PAL territories which is certainly.....certainly a thing, I suppose.  No one seems to know why there is such a giant disparity, but there's probably a few things to be addressed before going into that further.  This one's a real head-scratcher as always, and pretty much all I have to go on is what I've read so far, less I want to put this post out a half-hour from now when my update finishes and I get to test it myself.  That, I suspect, will just be an update after I get a firm grasp on it all.

So, something to address right off is that, for as great as the PAL list is, I don't see Xenogears on it (nor do I know if it's either on their store) so nyeh, take that.  (I'm so sorry, Xenogears was pretty much the only thing I wanted to DL right up-front, but I guess I'll fall back on FFVII)  In all seriousness, however, the lists do appear to be deceiving, not only for us, but for the PAL-land as well, presumably because the update has come up before the announced dates of the 28th and the 29th.  For instance, I've heard some statements claiming that some games aren't on the list, yet downloadable, versus some are on the list, but cannot be gotten by the conventional method of getting it right on your Vita.  I say this because, as with the PSP library (and it persists now, really) some titles can be gotten on your Vita if you have a PS3 to go along with it and serve as a content gathering machine.

The process is as simple as getting on your PS3, downloading the PSOne game of your choosing, NOT INSTALLING IT, and instead transferring that bubble that you install the game with to your Vita, presumably through the content manager.  This is not fool-proof, of course, as the game has to be a game that can be played on the PSOne emulator that the Vita is being out-fitted with.  For reasons unknown to everyone, certain games (this is true with PSP as well) simply are kept back, presumably to be tweaked more for best performance with the emulator, but are still in a very playable state if you can get them.  This list proves to be a lot larger than the 9 titles we have, I'm told and is probably on par or thereabouts with the PAL list.  If you're willing to put in that amount of effort, of course which, you might guess, I am not.  Call me silly or what have you, but I'm more than happy to wait for the titles to be 'officially' touted before I get in there and get attached once more.  I assume they will do this as they've done with the PSP games in recent weeks; thrown them in the new releases section even though they are hardly new at all, simply because they are probably new to play for plenty of people.

It's not ideal, of course, and I'm positive there will be so much whinging and "Oh lord, Sony is incompetent" and blah blah blah, rabble rabble, but it's all just hilarious to me, as there is honestly pretty much a triple-standard at play here and nobody seems to realize it, nor care.  For some, it's simply 'too much' that this wasn't here at launch and they will not let up beyond that.  Others, they harp on that it took so long, but understand it wasn't a thing that could be done.  Then the last caste gripe that it took too long -and- there are only these titles officially supported at the front-end of it.  So no matter what, they're annoyed that it took 'this long', so if it worked perfectly, they'd still bitch, meanwhile, there are people who bitch for the sake of it and etc. etc.  There's just no substance to it, and if anything, push me to be more passive to it all than anything.  Snarky people say "Heh, it's such a big thing for the Vita to play ten-year old games" and then complain that they cannot play their favorite ten-year old game on it right away and I'm just not sure where these people find the time to complain, really.  Between Gravity Rush, Treasures of Montezuma Blitz and a plethora of PSP games (not to mention the Youtube App), I've discovered that I don't have enough hours in a day for -anything-, much less whinging about things for no reason.

Do I get it on some level?  Of course.  I want to play Xenogears, and I wanted to play it like two months ago, but my real recourse is to just fish out my disks and play them on one of my consoles that will allow such a thing, or purchase it digitally for my PS3 (which if I'm playing anything on, it's Sleeping Dogs or Lollipop Chainsaw).  Or buy a new PSP since my good ol' 1000 is borked nine ways from Sunday.  I have all these options at my disposal, but since I prefer the one where I get to play Xenogears on that lovely screen of my Vita, I can wait.  Patiently.  I'm not really sure what part of this is a difficult concept, especially since holding back the update until all the titles are compatible means it probably wouldn't come out for months.  Regardless, it's not like I don't have a wealth of things to do on my Vita, so the fact that I won't be able to play Xenogears on it tonight, tomorrow or the next day isn't really a factor for me.  It'll get resolved enough soon enough for the rest of the folks, I'm sure, so once again it's simply a big to-do for the sake of it.

Update!:  Well, I can download Final Fantasy VII and probably will.  Honestly, that's fine enough for me for now.  The whole thing is pretty well-documented by now, but it's not really that big a deal unless you're a giant baby working for Joystiq in charge of most of the Mobile Gaming posts and clearly have a hate boner for all things not on a cell phone. Not that I'm bitterly pointing fingers at anyone who's being a jerk about the situation just because he can be for some page hits from the lowest common denominator that will just agree with him despite the intricacies involved.

Gamescom News Dump - Vita Edition

So, Sony's Gamescom presser was today and many people, especially myself, hoped that it would bring good tidings for Sony's latest handheld, though I imagine most were expecting not.  In a rare moment of catharsis, us expectant people were given quite a bit to hold onto, where the people expecting to be able to gloat were left with precious little ammunition to actually launch, leaving what they said rather sad, instead of something that could be arguably grounded.  Indeed, it was a good showing for Sony all around, as New IP after New IP were announced, including Rain and Until Dawn as hoped, though certainly not in the incarnations expected.  Regardless, they're PS3 games, which I will focus on tomorrow as tonight is the Vita night.  It is a night for me to celebrate for having something fairly unequivocally positive for the overlooked little handheld slice of gaming heaven.  These nights have not been as scant as you would have been lead to believe, but they have been too rare regardless.

Instead of starting with what is arguably the biggest bit of news to come from the conference, I'm instead going to focus on the above pictured game first.  That game is Tearaway.  It is adorable and magical.  No surprise, it is being made by Media Molecule, the folks behind the lovely and charming LittleBigPlanet series that you know I have a particular fondness for.  I had no idea that Media Molecule was actually working with the Vita and the knowledge that they were filled me with all sorts of glee, even before I saw Tearaway and it only amplified thereafter.  Because seriously, watch this trailer and tell me it is not magical because I posit that it is not only magical, but double-magical because not only is it very obviously Media Molecule doing what they do, but they're also doing something rather wonderful with the Vita's controls if you look at the trailer.  While a lot of people whinge about motion controls and the like not being utilized properly, I would posit that Tearaway uses them in all the right ways, screaming at your screen aside.

Tearaway puts you in the shoes of a little papercraft dude called iota, who has a very, very important message to deliver.  Of course being a world of fantasy and a video game, he faces hardships along the way and that is where you, the player, come in, though in more of a role than one would normally think.  Not only do you control iota, but at times your direct interaction with certain things, like the microphone or the touch screens has a very blatant effect on the world.  Touching the rear touch screen thrusts your finger into the world, as if the paper dimension, being as 2D as it is, exists purely between the two screens of the Vita.  You can use that finger to sweep aside enemies, switch switches or perhaps even offer something for iota to jump on for platforming puzzles if I'm not mistaken.  This is just what was shown in the little trailer, of course, so it's possible that there are all sorts of other uses.  Certainly, the front screen gets some love too as, at one point, you're tasked with cutting out a shape on the front screen in the shape of a crown, though it's pretty safe to assume that you do not -have- to conform to a crown.  I'll leave that one up to your imaginations.

There's no real information on Tearaway beyond what's in the trailer, but what is there will suffice for now, I suppose.  I would like if there was some sort of window in 2013 when this comes out (as I seriously doubt it'll make the end of the year), but January, to fill the LittleBigPlanet gap (Since LBP2 came out mid-way through that month) would be exceptionally nice, though I won't hold my breath.  With LittleBigPlanet Vita coming out next month, I can honestly hold off a little more than I could otherwise, since I intend on having that game in my Vita non-stop for a good clip after I get it.  Everything else will likely be put on the backburner after that unless there is something really big that I am completely forgetting, which is entirely possible since my blinders kind of go on when I talk about the Vita and LittleBigPlanet, so doubly so for LBPV.  Regardless, more magic is always appreciated.  For it is always magical.

So, with that out of the way, it should be said that the big news is that the next Vita Firmware update, 1.80, finally has a date for you to look for - August 28th.  That post doesn't specifically say the 28th, rather saying late August, but it was apparently stated as such during the conference, so barring delays, look for it then.  The post also does not specify whether a good portion of the back library will be supported from the get-go, or if it will be a gradual process as is the tail-end of the PSP back-log addition.  Many, many people will gripe if it is the latter and perhaps slightly rightly so, but this is not a simple matter of "Put data on Vita, wiggle fingers as it magically works".  It is an emulator, and as we have all discovered at times, emulators are not the most reliable of things and especially when it concerns something rather expensive like a PS3 or a Vita, you want to ensure that the testing it thorough to see that each game will not buckle under the stress of running it as well as some other applications, possibly.  Since that is a main feature of the Vita and all - running several things all at once.  And games tend to take a lot of resources regardless.

While PSOne Compatibility is the main point of 1.80, it's not the only point, of course, though it certainly overshadows the other things.  Possibly the next highest thing on the list is the Cross Controller ability which allows you to use your Vita as a PS3 controller, particularly for things that have specifically announced it like LittleBigPlanet 2 and Guacamelee.  I would assume, however, that it leaves the door open for other games to have some functionality patched in, should developers be so inclined to do so.  It is a brand new field, of course and so long as you can suffer the people whining about 'copying', then you'll likely be golden no matter what, even if it doesn't get supported wholesale.  One would suggest that what it -does- get will be pretty neat regardless, but we'll just have to see when something comes out.  Well...something other than LittleBigPlanet 2's functionality because no way will I be able to be unbiased there.

Also included in the 1.80 update is just some miscellany, nothing too big.  People have been complaining about -having- to use the touch screens to navigate the Vita's LiveArea, so it will include the ability to control the screens with the actual controls.  I'm not sure if this involves a cursor like arrow, highlighting or simply the ability to shift between screens with the controls where you still have to launch with your finger.  Or, you know, something else; it's hard to tell since I haven't thought about it and probably won't be using it.  Aside from that, you'll be able to import playlists from iTunes and other such formats, control the web browser with the back screen as well as the front should you so desire, and have slightly more options when watching videos downloaded onto your Vita.  And finally, Near might finally be fixed in a way that helps people like -me- who are stuck on wi-fi that is not near location data from Skyhook to actually use it.  I'd dig it.

There was all sorts of other Vita announcements worth mentioning today of course, so I'll go ahead and run through those quickly and get off here to go lay down or play on my Vita or something.  Worth mentioning right out is that a new initiative called "Cross-Buy" is officially a thing for all games (that come from Sony, at least) that will be on both the PS3 and Vita.  Say you're interested in picking up the new Sly game or the just announced version of Ratchet and Clank:  Full-Frontal Assault on the Vita, but you also want it on your PS3.  Using some simple math and averages, $60 for the PS3 version and $40 for the Vita means you're spending $100 on, essentially the same game (even though extra copies are always handled separately, etc. etc. blah blah, not getting into that argument tonight).  Well, with the Cross-Buy initiative, if you buy the game on the PS3, you're then entitled to a digital version of it for your Playstation Vita as well, free-of-charge.  It works one-way only, of course, as you can't opt for the cheaper Vita version and get the $100 value like that.  At current, only Playstation All-Stars, Sly Cooper:  Thieves in Time and Ratchet and Clank:  Full Frontal Assault are announced for the Cross-Buy initiative, but more games are on the way that will support it.

Beyond that and the earlier announcements, Call of Duty:  Black Ops Declassified finally got a gameplay trailer that looks strangely familiar.  Though why that is, I'm not sure I can put a finger on it....hmm.  Oh, right, announced today was the fact that the game was handed off to Nihilistic Studios to develop instead of Activision even using one of their own B-teams.  Which is...well, I won't even touch how annoying that is, because I'm sure you understand that it is very annoying and I shouldn't have to accentuate that.  Now, if you're wondering just why Nihilistic Studios and the game have have anything in common that would make it look familiar, let me go ahead and end that wonder right now and state it:  Nihilistic Studios was the developer behind Resistance:  Burning Skies which I said to be decent, but not great and this looks...well, very similar.  If Burning Skies was any metric to go by, then perhaps CODBOD (That's a thing now, I made it a thing) might not be the Call of Duty game that the Vita wants, nor deserves.  Here's hoping NS learns, though, but...well, don't expect it.

Finally, the last of the announcements is another First Person Shooter, but one that is decidedly -not- being developed by Nihilistic Studios, and I daresay that it shows.  Killzone: Mercenary was shown off and looks fairly impressive for assuredly being an early build of the game.  Killzone:  Mercenary seems to take its title a little literally, as apparently in the game you will not be fighting for the ISA or the Helghast forces specifically, at least, not for the whole game.  Yes, as a Mercenary, you'll be able to fight on both sides of the battle, doing whatever you can to earn money and weapons for taking out targets and/or just doing whatever you're asked of.  I'm not quite sure as to what level of control you'll have over your contracts and price tag, but fighting on both sides of the war seems novel enough.  And it doesn't look like ass or anywhere near it which might have something to do with using the engine from Killzone 3.  Certainly, if you're looking for a FPS on the Vita, this is the game you'll want to firmly plant on your radar.

So, that was about it from Gamescom.  I'd say that is a hefty bit of news, especially when you consider that that is literally just half of it, as there was all sorts of PS3 news going on as well.  I'll get into that tomorrow unless something comes up, but with any luck, I'll be able to just keep rolling with things.  But for now, I'm going to put a few extra touches on my Sound Shapes level and post it up on the community, provided it actually works as it did earlier, finally allowing me to play some community levels.  That....weren't exactly worth the wait.  But whatever, blah blah, fun news for the Vita everything is wonderful, magic is everywhere, etc. etc. etc.  Gonna be a busy rest of the year, assuredly, but that's just the way we like it.  Most of the time at least.

Konami Won't Patch Silent Hill HD Collection on 360, But...

The Silent Hill HD Collection has, in all honesty, kind of been a ridiculously news-worthy thing ever since it was first announced as a PS3 Exclusive which obviously didn't pan out, but may just have been an omen now that we have the joy of hindsight.  From there, the game went on to have a whole snafu about voiceovers, get delayed several times, release in a rather buggy-state, and then get panned by Silent Hill's art director.  All this in the scant few months since it was released back in March, and it's still not done coming up in bits of news here and there.  The latest, however, is a bit of a doozy when compared to the rest of it, which should tip you off, considering the latest news is that the PS3 version of the game will be the only one patched.  While I've been lead to believe that the PS3 version was, initially, buggier than the 360 version (which I whole-heartedly believe) and that the 360 version is actually playable, it's still kind of a big deal.  As is what Konami is doing about it.

This isn't the first time a game on the 360 has been completely refused a patch to fix it, and that process alone is just as bad as it was when Polytron decided they needed the money more than they needed to have a fully-working game out there.  I'm sure it won't be the last time it happens either.  And I'm also sure that people won't connect the dots because we don't learn when these types of things happen.  I'm sure that at least a percentage of the very same people excusing Polytron because "wah wah, money" are openly shitting on Konami for doing the very same thing for what could be a legitimate problem.  They are citing "Technical Issues" for the reason why the 360 cannot get the patch and as vague as that is, it could be completely legit.  These HD Collections are games simply being tooled to work on the consoles we have now, rather than being completely rebuilt, so it's entirely possible that some things have simply been held together with the equivalent of duct tape and chewed gum, so trying to introduce something else might just bring it all down.  Is that a valid excuse?  No, of course not.  Is it possible that "Technical Issues" means simply that there aren't enough 360 copies out there to pay for what will likely be patch after patch?  Of course.  We will never know, so not coming out and saying that it is flat-out about the money is a good move for Konami.

What also helps their case is that instead of just saying "Well, it sucks but thanks for the money!", they are offering an opportunity to exchange your game for another Konami product and while there's not an -official- list anywhere that I could find, it seems that it is rather large.  If you've had your eye on the Metal Gear Solid HD Collection or Castlevania:  Lords of Shadow (Limited Edition, even) and don't already have it, you might be able to grab one of those up (for PS3 or 360), as well as being able to trade across for the Collection on PS3 to get the one that'll get 'fixed'.  Or any of two dozen other titles for the PS3, 360 all the way back to the PSP and original XBox if you are so inclined.  I'm basing this off a list cross-posted from a forum, which is why I'm not linking it, so take it with a grain of salt, but the exchange bit, at the very least, is very true.  All it takes is a little bit of talking to customer service and presenting the receipt which serves as another reminder as to why you should always keep those things.

Konami is likely going to lose money over this, if not with the straight-exchanges, than the obvious loss of business they'll get from the move for as long as attention spans hold out.  Which is to say probably the next few games they put out won't sell so great, but after that, it'll go back to business as usual for the most part.  For the obvious parallels that I drew to the Fez situations, I can't say that the situation is exactly the same, however which is why, despite how bad a move it is, I can't hold the same ire with Konami that I can with Polytron, and that has everything to do with the size of both 'companies'.  Where buying/not buying a Polytron game affects them directly (or close to it), doing the same with Konami is not affecting the people who make these decisions and is likely only going to burden the people on the bottom.  I imagine the team that put the ports together is being dismantled currently and scattered to different parts of the company where they will hopefully do better work, but any money lost for Konami as a whole is going to come out of the pockets of the people just trying to put together games long before it comes out of the executives.  I've said it before, and I'll say it again:  This is pretty much why 'I'll never buy another (company) (product) again' doesn't do a whole lot of positive in the long run.

So if the smart thing to do is to just buy what you want to buy, ignoring who has 'wronged you' personally (which is by-and-large the smart thing to do) instead of carrying on with these boycotts, then what are you to do?  Well....the sensible thing, really.  If you own the game, take them up on this exchange offer if you're so inclined or just try to enjoy the game you put down money on.  Do anything you can to make sure the monetary investment isn't something that you come to really regret.  Whatever the case, if you feel the need, just exercise a little more selective purchasing in the future; waiting til it's out to find some reviews speaking to its technical quality before you take the plunge.  It seems entirely too level-headed a move to do, I agree, but like I said, where I could direct my ire at exactly the people who would be effected at Polytron, the same cannot be said for Konami using the same methods.  So while we can decry their decisions, that will just have to suffice for now.

Gaze Upon the Metal Gear Solid 4 Trophy List and Weep

So, just a few days ago, there was a Playstation Blog post that gave a 'full' list of Metal Gear Solid 4's trophies in the up-coming (for non-Japan regions at least) patch that was announced last month.  I say 'full' list because, as a person with a fairly discerning eye when it comes to trophies, I noticed that there were only 20 on the list, which is far, far fewer than I think most retail games would be happy with, much less Kojima.  And also missing from the list were the standard "Completed (Stage)" missions which seems to be a mainstay no matter what, which are generally Hidden trophies so that the player can't check the list and decide how much of the game is left.  Which is not to say that it helps with that, since said trophies are generally at the start of the list and after so many Hidden trophies, the visible list tends to start, so you can generally just count out how many hidden trophies are in a row, gauge how often they're giving completion ones to you and figure on a number that way to guess how close you are.  But....that's entirely more meta than it needs to be, and I think I've revealed too much.

Moving on, it was for this suspicion (and the fact that it was confirmed through Twitter in a tweet that I am not even going to begin looking for) that I held off on making a to-do about the list.  Since there is a friggin' to-do to be had about this list which I am going to do (Ha!).  But even more of a to-do with the hidden fifteen trophies since I'll be able to show them off as well as the visible list of twenty trophies, which comprises the much more satisfying looking list of Thirty-Five trophies in all.  I want to just go ahead and do the full list of trophies, visible first, then Hidden and get that out of the way so I can then discuss certain trophies in a little more detail.  So, since I'll be showing off the Hidden Trophies, and I'll bold it with extra clarification, do not read the list if you don't want to know what the Hidden Trophies in Metal Gear Solid 4 are.  Why would you not want to know?  Beats the hell out of me, but I'm quite fair when it comes to anything that might be a 'spoiler' of sorts (and being a hidden trophy falls under this umbrella) so I am just trying to be nice.

Bronze	You enjoy all the killing, that’s why.	Killed many enemies in one area, and vomited.
Bronze	Divine Wind	Caused a “divine wind” using the Tanegashima.
Bronze	Hands Up!	Held an enemy soldier at gunpoint and performed a body check.
Bronze	Emotion Control	Controlled an enemy soldier’s emotions using an Emotive Magazine.
Bronze	Hurt me more!	Shocked an enemy soldier using Mk. II/III.
Bronze	Drum Can Addict	Knocked an enemy soldier flying using a Drum Can.
Bronze	That Tune Is His Mind Control Music	Played Oishii Two-han Seikatsu and made one of the BB Corps dance.
Bronze	Overhead view — just like old times…	Used overhead view on Shadow Moses Island.
Silver	SUNLIGHT!	Obtained the Solar Gun.
Silver	I Just Don’t Fear Death	Caused ALERT status while wearing the Corpse Camo.
Silver	Where I Can See Ya	Located enemy soldiers using the Scanning Plug.
Silver	Ghost Photography Addict	Snapped at least 5 shots of ghosts on Shadow Moses Island.
Silver	FaceCamo Addict	Obtained 10 or more types of FaceCamo (excluding types obtained via password).
Silver	Can you feel my power now!!!?	Took control of an enemy soldier’s body using the Mantis Doll or Sorrow Doll.
Silver	Are you an Otaku too?	Viewed all model posters.
Silver	You’re pretty good.	Got kissed by Ocelot during the final battle.
Gold	Flashback Mania	Viewed all flashbacks.
Gold	Sounds of the Battlefield	Obtained all iPod® tracks (excluding tracks obtained via password).
Gold	I am THE expert on weapons, equipment and cutting-edge technology.	Obtained all weapons (excluding weapons obtained via password).
Platinum	The Legendary Hero	Obtained all trophies.

(Hidden) Bronze	Liquid Sun	Cleared Act 1 (Middle East).
(Hidden) Bronze	Solid Sun	Cleared Act 2 (South America).
(Hidden) Bronze	Third Sun	Cleared Act 3 (Eastern Europe).
(Hidden) Bronze	Twin Sun	Cleared Act 4 (Shadow Moses).
(Hidden) Bronze	Old Sun	Cleared Act 5 (Outer Haven).
(Hidden) Bronze	Laughing Octopus Doll	Defeated Laughing Octopus by non-lethal means, and obtained the Laughing Octopus Doll.
(Hidden) Bronze	Frog Soldier Doll	Escaped the Haven Troopers in the Middle East by non-lethal means, and obtained the Frog Soldier Doll.
(Hidden) Bronze	Raging Raven Doll	Defeated Raging Raven by non-lethal means, and obtained the Raging Raven Doll.
(Hidden) Bronze	Crying Wolf Doll	Defeated Crying Wolf by non-lethal means, and obtained the Crying Wolf Doll.
(Hidden) Bronze	Screaming Mantis Doll	Defeated Screaming Mantis by non-lethal means, and obtained the Screaming Mantis Doll.
(Hidden) Bronze	Handle with Caution	Broke off the most important part of a statue.
(Hidden) Bronze	Liquid!	Piloted Metal Gear REX and screamed at your enemy.
(Hidden) Silver	Crop Circle	Found a crop circle and heard a mysterious voice.
(Hidden) Gold	Infinite Ammo	Obtained the Bandana.
(Hidden) Gold	Stealth Camouflage	Obtained the Stealth Camouflage.

So it is...quite a list when you add in the Hidden trophies, really.  I mean, it almost doubles it in sheer entry size if not exactly adding quite as much content that is necessary to do.  No-killing the bosses is pretty simple enough, stage completions are a given, and the others are either optional things that are admittedly neat or just buying things (unless you're super awesome in your multiple playthroughs).  Though, the base list itself isn't quite that bad when you take the quick glance across it, mostly because at no single point does it say specifically "Earned the Big Boss Emblem" or anything of that sort.  The problem is....well......you still -have- to get that.  The Big Boss Emblem is the dick-kicker of everything professional about a run-through, especially for Metal Gear Solid because a Big Boss Emblem run-through means beating the game in under five hours with no kills, alerts, continues or restorative items used.  On The Boss Extreme difficulty level which is, of course, the highest one.

What trophies do you need the Big Boss Emblem for, I hear you ask?  Why, the Gold ones, "Sounds of the Battlefield" and "I am THE expert on weapons, equipment and cutting-edge technology" which is a ridiculously long trophy title, by the by.  So there is that at least; I've seen more offensive lists simply for the fact that they award something equally ridiculous with a Bronze trophy as a giant troll-face move.  You see, you acquire the Patriot (a machine gun with unlimited ammo) and the Big Boss song for the in-game iPod upon earning that Big Boss emblem.  And of course, you will likely only be ready for an attempt at the Big Boss Emblem after getting the next highest Emblems (Fox and Foxhound) because those emblems (and the ones you unlock by proxy) will unlock some neat things that will not count against your 'no special item' requirement since the special items in question are basically just the Bandanna and Stealth Camo.  Well, by neat things, I basically just mean the Solar Gun, since the charged shot takes dudes out pretty fast and gets you a lot of items without killing them.

Beyond that, after consulting my Metal Gear Solid 4 Strategy Guide from when I bought the game, I have discovered that you only unlock the "Snake Eater" track after unlocking all forty emblems that the game has to offer.  That is, at minimum, probably five playthroughs since some of them focus on directly opposite things:  Being seen versus being unseen, killing mans versus not killing mans, etc.  Plus some are difficulty dependent and this and that and it kind of makes my head hurt just thinking about it.  According to the guide, you can get the Fox Hound, Fox, Hound, Wolf, Octopus, Pigeon and Scorpion emblems in the first, Big Boss, Mantis, Raven and Little Grey in the second, Twenty-three assorted animals that I'm not listing individually on the third, Tarantula and Assassin on the fourth, and then it's just sweeping the last few of Centipede, Spider, Jaguar, Panther and Leopard in a few runs on the easiest difficulty.  They aren't interesting at all and just basically have different combinations of alert phases, continues and kills that are impossible to total all on the same plays for all five.  Given that there is no difficulty requirement, nor is it barring you from using special items, these last few plays are likely to be pretty fun, if you're not just completely goddamn tired of the game by that point.

I am....not surprised.  There are several other things that I am, but chief among them is not surprised.  Absolutely horrified, acquiesced to the fact that I will never get a Platinum trophy for Metal Gear Solid 4, ensured that my efforts to go against common sense will result in pain, and oddly willing to give it the old try are the other things, mostly, but yeah, 'not surprised' pretty much covers it.  I'm not...not really bitter, I would say, about the difficulty, but I am a little miffed at the delivery since it is just the slightest bit deceptive.  There is a slight bit of difference between outlining the goal to effectively warn the player and just saying "Get this" when the method to get whatever that is is overwhelmingly difficult.  Especially because I'm sure a lot of players will find themselves mired in far too deep in the end-task that, by the time they realize the full breadth, the full scope of the mission, it will either be a challenge that will quickly suck the fun out of what remains, or be the point where they violently rip the game from the console and shelve it.  So if nothing else, perhaps this was a bit of caution thrown your way before you plan on giving the list your own shot.

War. War Never Changes. MGS4 Does.

Back in ye olden days when Metal Gear Solid 4 was considered one of the only titles to own a PS3 for (which was faulty logic regardless) it wasn't as easy a title to recommend to anyone.  At least, that's what it seemed like, as everyone always had their own caveats for whether or not it was a good idea for a person to play the game, insisting that the content only catered to a specific group of people and it would universally be fairly awful to everyone else.  Glad to see that, like war, some things never change.  Regardless, as time went on and on, there were two things in the game that did make it a hard sell to certain individuals, provided they had not been party to playing it already by then.  Since everyone always seemed to have 'that friend' with a PS3, whom just let everyone play the games on it that apparently didn't exist since back in those days, the PS3 had -no- games, you see, which is of course utter truth and not rhetoric that eventually became something of a meme from being parroted off so many times.

Those two issues, of which I'm sure you know which ones I'm referring to, are soon to be a thing of the past as a budget version of Metal Gear Solid 4 is released to help celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Metal Gear Saga.  (I assume they're starting at the MSX Metal Gear games.)  "The Best" versions of games tend to be the equivalent of the "Greatest Hits" re-releases we have here in North America, of which I am sure you are familiar with, in concept alone at least.  I'm not going to bother finding out all the different terminologies or anything that are in the different regions or on different systems since we know the practice already:  re-release the game with a slightly less appealing box art (because it has to promote the fact that it sold fantastically) for a low price, generally $20-30 to encourage tail-end sales to bolster the to-dates.  I don't really think they herald changes to the game itself or anything like that normally, however, unless it's the type to pack in the DLC available for it or something.  But changing the game is exactly what Metal Gear Solid 4's "The Best" version is doing.

When the version hits stores, a new patch will be out roughly around the same time that updates all versions of Metal Gear Solid 4 to what's already on-disk for this one which includes the two biggies that have been strikes against MGS4 for quite a while.  The patch and new version adds Trophies to the game, which is something that everyone had rallied for as soon as Trophies became a thing and is only...er....a few years late at this point.  As well as that, it adds something that is definitely a near necessity, and is pretty much one of the few valid complaints people have had about Metal Gear Solid 4.  You see, with each act of the game, there needed to be an install beforehand that would help keep the game from loading every other moment and the like.  These installs did take some time and more or less broke up the mood, even though they weren't completely detached from the game itself and were disguised rather well as the "Go ahead and take a break" signifiers, as was implied by Snake using said time to take a smoke break.  Oftentimes consisting of several cigs.  The issue many derived from it was that it was rather unnecessary when, in theory, those could all have been condensed into one install in some fashion, and that's entirely too difficult to argue against.

Luckily, that's no longer an issue, as a full install option will be available as the second bit improvement the patch/new version offers.  I'm pretty sure patches are not a region-restricted thing, so it's worth noting that even though this is generally just talking about Japan's version of the game, there's absolutely nothing saying we shouldn't expect it to hit our shores as well.  As such, I'm going on believing just that and already trying to think of just when I could reasonably think to play Metal Gear Solid 4 again to give a good run at some of the trophies on top of just...well, enjoying the game once more.  Since it's a fantastic game, and one that I don't believe I have popped in much after the acquisition of my TV with an HDMI port.  Yes, I started my PS3 playing with an SDTV and I still thought games managed to look absolutely brilliant on it.  One of the games I fully enjoyed in that method was MGS4 and if I played it fully on my HDTV after I got it, I entirely forget the experience, so when I do replay MGS4, it should be...quite the experience, for sure.

So it seems that the question still remains:  Why the long, long, long wait?  I doubt it'll be a question that's ever answered in any sort of formal manner, so I wouldn't waste too much time on speculation and looking a gift horse in the mouth.  However, there -is- all sorts of speculation that one -could- do, and if I were the type, I would suggest that maybe it had something to do with MGO.  It certainly seems a bit strange that a little over a month after MGO goes offline, this comes out, but it could just be a step taken to renew interest in people who might have only been playing the game for MGO anymore.  I simply think that there could have been an issue with game versions and connecting to the MGO servers, since they were not PSN servers and that that was pretty much something that could've caused a lot of headaches.  Of course, I don't quite remember if MGS4 had been patched since its release and whether or not it had could certainly blow all sorts of holes into that theory.  Regardless, it doesn't matter a whole lot, as we have a great game still, along with two big reasons as to why we should give it another go, veterans and otherwise alike.