Reballing

I'm going to be posting here again soon, mainly as a discussion of video games. I've been kind of delayed in doing this, however, since my PS3 died. it's a smaller known issue as compared to the RROD on the Xbox 360, but the occasional PS3 will, after quite some time of being played, experience an issue referred to as the Yellow light of death (YLOD). the problem is caused, in essence, beacuse the solder used in on the PS3 is, by law, not allowed to contain lead as no toy sold to children can contain lead, meaning that Sony uses a silver based solder that weakens over time when it is repeatedly heated. y'know, like when the system is run for any length of time. so, eventually cracks form in the solder, leading the gpu to overheat, and the system to YLOD. the good news is that this IS fixable. there are two methods, reballing, and reflowing. reflowing is usually only a temporary solution, at least as far as I've read. it involves reheating the solder, and applying more to the cracked areas. obviously this doesn't exactly fix the problem, as the original solder may, and often does, crack again. the more permanent solution is reballing, in which the solder is removed, and replaced with a lead based solder. Sony will repair your system if you send it back to them, and it's still under warranty, however, in many cases it's more efficient for them to send you a refurbished system than to repair your old one. not that they don't repair any systems, but it is sometimes easier to send out a refurbished one. additionally, Sony doesn't stock parts for older generations of PS3s, such as the first generations, and in these cases, you'll often be offered a PS3 slim. which would be all well and good, except that those first generation PS3s, and only the 60gb models if my memory serves correctly, had the ability to play old PS2 games. the backwards comparability has since been removed from the newer versions. so, if, like me, you have an old PS3 that you use to play old PS2 games, you can't really send it to Sony. and that's where I'm at. I've had it sent to a 3rd party repair, who have finished the reballing, and benchtesting, but I'm still waiting for it to arrive. which sucks because I have Lollipop Chainsaw and Dragon's Dogma sitting in my living room waitiing to be played. but, until that happens I don't have much to say. unless you want to hear about Minecraft. or Kerbal Space Program, or the always interesting Final Fantasy XIV*. hmm, maybe I do have stuff to post... *based on personal experience many patches after the original version. results may vary.

Cenotaph

me, being lazy and neglectful of my blog? never!

but I haven't really been doing anything else of note, so it's true.
been playing some of the DLC for dragon age: origins. dunno why, was just in the mood.
played through Leliana's song, and Awakening, but I'm taking a break before doing Golems of Amgarrak and Witch Hunt. I completed Ostigar, stone prisoner and warden's keep on my last playthrough, so I've just got those left. but, I'm taking a break, so I can save them for later, closer to when the second one is released.


completely unrelated to the above, y'know what kinda bugs me? God Eater. see, I'm a HUGE fan of Monster hunter, and have been eager to play Konami's... well... it's basically a rip off, but there must be a nicer term for it. version, I guess? anyways, it was released in Japan way back in February, but the official north american release isn't until March. what's ridiculous about it is that Lords of Arcana, Square-enix's "version" of monster hunter is set to be released... January, I think, in North America. granted, two different studios handeling localization, but still. LoA was just released a short while ago in japan, and will be released here before God Eater... kinda weird, huh?


also, in honor of the new Harry Potter movie:

no one is actually reading this, you're all busy playing COD

here's a generally neat little write up on Ice-T and his gaming habits. worth a look.

but, since it focuses on COD mostly, I'll talk about that. See, I liked the original, WWII COD games. they were always solid games. however, I'm not really a fan of the modern warfare series. for me, it's the story. sure, the gameplay is there, but I just can't dig the story in them, the second one especially. it just... doesn't work for me. their writing and plot just feels so, I dunno...
granted, most people don't play COD for the story, so I'm in the minority in complaining, I guess. but, I haven't played Black ops yet. it looks good, so I might give it a spin. granted one of the few things I've seen for it is someone shooting Castro in the face, so I guess they're diverging from history a bit, huh?

It's like there's a party in my mouth, and everybody is throwing up....

okay, so 've been dragging my feet with the blog lately. I'll have something new up soon (been playing Valkyria Chronicles 2 for the PSP lately) but until then, here's something to listen to. found it on another blog I've been following. check it (and them) out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAtpj1szoOE
http://ofmiceandboxfans.blogspot.com/

I could have used a bad pun, like lyin'head.

so, what's my problem with Lionhead and Peter Molyneux? well, it has a lot to do with them promising a lot, and not delivering. plus, the DLC issues, which I'll deal with now. see, I'm not the oonly one in my house that played Fable 3. I share my 360 with my brother, and he's been playing through it too. the game came with special day-one bonus content, it's relatively minor, I think it's some clothes and a weapon, or something. but, see, Lionhead did something jerky with their DLC this time. it's not just console locked, it's profile locked. what I mean is, whichever profile enters the code, gets the DLC, but anyone else on the console can't use itm, despite the data being downloaded and installed to the system. do you see how this presents a problem? since he entered it first, I lose out on content. the only way to get it, would be to buy another copy of the game.
yeah, not gonna happen.
it would be even worse with the collectors edition, which contains an extra location, and likely some other things, too. not to mention all the preorder codes for special weapons. now, my question is why? why do this? what's the problem with letting people on the same console use the DLC? the only logical reason I can figure is greed. it's not like you can move the DLC from the system, so why profile lock it?
plus, they purposefully removed at least several dyes, if not other content from the game with the intent of offering it as DLC later, among the dyes removed was black. a basic color. black. why? why take out something you clearly intended to have in the game (there's obvious space for it on the shelf with the dyes)? aside from greed, and making us want to buy it. this isn't the only time lionhead has pulled this, either. with 2, they removed Knothole glade, only to offer it later as DLC. kinda a shitty business practice. it's cheap, and disrespectful to the gamers that already bought a half finished game.
not to mention all the content Peter Molyneux said would be included with the second, which never made it in. I purposefully avoided any press for 3 just cause I didn't want to hear what was supposed to be included, but never would be. also, where's my Hobbe statue, Peter?! I paid extra for the special edition of 2, and got almost nothing for it!
but look, all of this is just my opinion, an obviously negative one, but just an opinion. I'll get back to posing something a little more positive soon. but, until then, screw you lionhead. seriously.

in which the dog is even more inbred and retarded

okay, so let's talk fable 3. I'll likely divide this up into 2 parts. I'm gonna start with the game itself, and the next post will be about lionhead in general, and the DLC issues.
so, why did fable 3 piss me off so much? well, it's just... it's like half a game. I once saw someone describe it as an expansion pack, and that's what it feels like. it's like they didn't quite finish it. there's a LOT of bugs and glitches. half the time, the breadcrumb trail (the thing that's supposed to direct you to quests) doesn't load, and sometimes it point's you in the wrong direction, just because of how they implemented it. it wasn't perfect in 2, but it seems to have actively gotten worse. I've had villagers freeze in place as I'm dragging them around, and monster spawn in place, and just not move, until I shoot them. it lags, horribly at times, but in fairness, my X-Box is a little old by this point, so it MAY not be the game. however, it's the first game in recent memory that lags like this. the dialog and subtitles will occasionally just cut out, too.
but, that's just the game in terms of programming and design. story-wise, it falls completely flat. the first while of game, up until about the halfway mark is really good, and I found some of it (surprisingly) compelling, it feels like they put all of their creative energy into that part, and everything after just sort of trails off. the ending is just... disappointing. the last boss isn't bad, but it isn't a challenge in the least. I had more trouble (which is to say very little) with the fights leading up to the boss, than the boss itself. which is really disappointing. I'm of the school of thought that the last boss should be the biggest, and hardest encounter in the game. it should be a challenge, it should be... epic. yet, this was bland. and the story just falls at that point. once you've beaten the boss it's just... over. no explanation of why it defeats the big bad, or why it's all over, it just is. it leaves you longing for something more... complete. and, I thought Fable 2's end was lacking, this was worse, which surprised me, as I thought that impossible.
oh, and let's not forget our furry, inbred friend, the dog. the dog didn't work great in the second one, but it was a good start. why they chose NOT to work on the dog, I'll never understand. he runs in circles, can't hind dig spots, and barks incessantly. he's either always underfoot, or nowhere to be seen. he embodies the worst outcome of what they were trying to accomplish. over the course of playing it, I grew to really hate the dog. at about the 30th dig spot, I wanted to put him in the hole and bury him.


oh, and it pains me to hear John Cleese used to shill lionhead's DLC every third time I go into the sanctuary. it's disgraceful, and cheap.

now, despite ALL of that, it's not a bad game, per say. it's just really really... unpolished and unfinished. it's DEFINITELY not worth the current price. maybe $30, maybe. but not nearly $70, if you're lucky. near $90 or $100 if you go with the collectors, which I don't recommend, mostly because of the DLC issues, which I'll talk about next post.

basically the point from leaving bowerstone on the ship, to just after you deal with Logan after the revolution.

Like a Sloth

so, it should be pretty obvious by this point that I'm pretty lazy. I haven't updated in how long? really.... I should try harder.
anyways! I picked up and have been playing Fable 3. good so far, but I'm wary. Fable 2 was supposed to have tons of stuff that never came through in the actual game, so I'm keep ing my hopes low for this one. to be honest, Fable 2 just really fell flat for me.
still playing FFXIV too, just not much to say about it. a version update will be coming in November that's supposed to address a lot of issues that people have had, so that should make things better.
I'll try to think of something else to post soon.