The Guildmasters

I just bought my playstation eye today, after searching for the best price online it turned out that Amazon and Walmart had the best price at $32.82, I decided to get it straight from the store as we was going out anyway so we popped into walmart and it turns out the price was $40 in store, so now the fun starts.

We argued with the store clerk that you can’t advertise a product online at one price then advertise it in store at another price, it’s not ethical. Apparently they can do that but after we insisted on speaking with the manager he let us have it for the same price as advertised online, i’m sure they will adjust it soon though.

This means that Amazon is now the cheapest price for the eye.

* A sophisticated microphone with the ability to reduce background noise and focus on spoken word for smoother, more accurate speech recognition
* Faster frame rate for improved tracking, responsiveness and smoothness
* Two position zoom lens for close-up and full body options
* Free EyeCreate editing software, which allows users to save, edit and add cool visual effects to photos, video and audio clips
* 4 channel audio input – 16-bits/channel, 48kHz, SNR 90db

Tony:)

Well I decided to try a couple of the PSN download games and being a fan of pinball I decided to try this one, the full game is $9.99 which is a little on the expensive side for me but at least it is the full game and you can play online and it is trophy enabled.

First the machines, they are about as realistic as you could expect to find in a game, very smooth, lots of features once you understand them and where they are and very fun to play if you like pinball.

The one i’m concentrating on at the moment is El Dorado, because i’m going for the trophies it means really playing the machine, understanding the angles and knowing what the features are, i’ve only got two of the trophies on this one and there are at least four trophies that I know are going to be extremely hard.

Downside is it doesn’t look like there is a platinum trophy which is disappointing as if any game deserved one it should be this one. There are 24 trophies in all made up of bronze, silver and gold and i’ve managed to pick myself up 6 of those, all being bronze.

There are four machines in all and i’d say it’s only worth buying if like me your waiting on other games to come in the mail and you really want a go at some very hard trophies, it goes without saying you would have to be a person that appreciates the pinball game or your going to get fairly annoyed pretty quickly.

Overall this game is easily a 9/10 as it runs very smoothly, the balls act very naturally like a real pinball machine, the features are pretty awesome once you learn how to get them and it runs seamlessly, no glitches from what i’ve seen so far and a nice break from the norm, there is a free download demo of the El Dorado table and you can play that up to two and a half million points to give you a feel of how it plays if your thinking of buying this.

Zen Pinball: available from the playstation store on PSN

If anyone else has played this one i’d like to hear if you managed to get all the trophies, still waiting on Borderlands, seems by the time I actually get it number 2 will be out, lol, it’s obviously popular.

Tony:)

Ok I know this game is already two years old but I only got this one a couple of days ago because after doing a search online for the game with the most ps3 trophies it turned out to be Burnout Paradise.

At less than $20 it’s not a bad buy, another break from the norm I know but a fun game and a mindless sort of pleasure out of racing and smashing into other cars, it’s pretty realistic and there are a ton of road “quests”, time trials, takedowns, marked man and many more.

You have to work your way up through the licenses, you start off a beginner and via racing, smashing and taking off ramps you gradually upgrade your license, this will be a good game when you’ve spent days on a really decent RPG and your stuck on something and need a break for a day or two before returning to it.

I am disappointed in a few things about this game, sure it’s cheap enough but if your trying to do what I was and get all trophies then it’s going to cost you more. I attempted to play online and even though it let me register I couldn’t actually race online unless I purchased the Big Surf Island, that’s another $12.99 then there are tons of different cars to purchase ranging from $1.99 up to $5.99 and other party packs at another $12.99, basically if you wanted everything in this game it would cost a small fortune. I’ve always been against high price download content and I understand it from a marketing point of view as well as additional income from an already established game but there comes a point where I just think that some companies are just completely taking advantage, that’s my own personal opinion and not everyone shares this and that’s ok.

I have found out that if you purchase just the Big Surf Island it is possible to still achieve all trophies but I haven’t confirmed this, I just wanted those to know who haven’t yet played this and wanted it for the trophies you won’t get them all without some extra cost, some won’t mind but for me it’s another downer.

Yes I will be getting back to RPG’s very soon but I said i’d write the review on Cabela’s Big Game Hunter 2010 after getting a couple of days of fun from Cabela’s Outdoor Adventures 2010.

Well I actually liked this one better than the last one, this was more fun and took much longer to get all PS3 trophies, you can complete this game in a day but if you really want to complete everything, which means all gold medals, all mini-games and all PS3 trophies or XBox360 achievements then it’s going to cost you two or even three days.

This game doesn’t spend too much time on the aspect of searching for your hunt like the previous game, your pretty much directed to where your animal is going to be, the focus here is more on your accuracy, ability to work out the best vantage point and maximize your points for each kill.

Compared to the last one there wasn’t as much in the way of weapons, you didn’t get a bow, just a crossbow, one pistol and a few rifles. There wasn’t a trophy for using each weapon so you didn’t really have to worry about switching too much, although there is a trophy for killing so many with the crossbow, pistol and muzzleloader rifle.

The hardest trophy by far, for me anyway, was finding at least 90 animal signs, that was a pain as I had to play through the entire game a third time to find those, which gave me the platinum.

This game I found much more realistic in the way the animals fell when you shot them, I actually got drawn into really trying to get the prize trophy in each group, the one animal in the herd worth much more than the rest and was actually disappointed if I got a bronze or silver.

As it turns out another PS3 trophy (or achievement on xbox360 ) is to collect all gold medals.

Some of the animals in this game were great, I really enjoyed hunting a buffalo and being able to creep within 20 yds for the challenge kill.

One aspect of the game which actually took me by surprise was when told to hunt a bear, a mountain lion or leopard, I really had no idea that they would attack you. I thought I would stalk a grizzly bear and shoot him from a distance but when I came across him at the waters edge there were no “vitals” showing, so I shoot this big grizzly and he looks up and gets really angry and starts chasing me, now i’m panicking as I had no idea what to do, then he jumps all over me and now i’m button mashing to sock him in the mouth with my rifle, four or five shots later and lots of paw prints on my face (presumably), he goes down, leaving me thinking “what the hell just happened? How cool was that?”

Well without going on too much if you liked Cabela’s Outdoor Adventures 2010 then you’ll probably really enjoy this one, it’s a lot of fun.

One other thing that was really fun was the mini-games you come across during the game, most were shooting ducks but there were also rabbits, foxes, and hares. It’s actually pretty funny shooting the rabbits and hares, rent it just for fun.

If you want to check out my review of gamefly just click here, I noticed blockbuster has started game rentals too but there are more expensive than gamefly and gamefly does have “keep” prices on many of their games which are quite often cheaper than the stores.

There was something I got wrong in my last review on Cabela’s Outdoor Adventures 2010 and I mentioned that this one Cabela’s Big Game Hunter 2010 had over 50 trophies, there is actually 28 trophies in all, 27 plus the platinum.

Ok my latest exploit isn’t my usual RPG, in fact it’s not even an RPG, it’s a shooter. Now don’t give me a hard time on this, hear me out ok.

I was waiting for Borderlands to turn up and in the meantime i’d added some games purely because they had trophies, I am a bit of a trophy hunter and I think it’s a decent feature on the PS3 system, I actually get a kick out of seeing those pop up trophy messages in the top right hand corner of the screen, it’s like acknowledging that you’ve actually achieved something, like a pat on the back for doing a good job.

Anyway one game which was added to the list was a hunting game called cabela’s outdoor adventures 2010, now I already see the criticism but it was initially put on the list first because it had trophies and second because a couple of my boys wanted to play it too.

So, while waiting for Borderlands to show it’s face this Cabela’s turns up first, so I give it a go, and yes, you guessed it, it happened to be a half decent game, not my thing at all but it was a bit of fun, really.

It actually only took me around 8hrs to complete the main story mode and another 2 hours to complete trophy mode, which makes it one of the easiest games to achieve a platinum trophy for your PS3 collection if your a trophy hunter.

Ok a bit about the game, at best for those like myself it’s a break from the norm, a bit of fun and I think if it was any longer than it was it wouldn’t have been enjoyable, sorry to those fans of Cabela’s that wish they were longer but I think the balance was perfect.

You get to go through four states in america to hunt pretty much every creature you can legally hunt, you gain access to a wide variety of rifles, shotguns and even a couple of bows (which was fun), a hundgun and some special accessories which make the hunt that much easier, a treestand to shoot from up high, some bear and deer scent to attract the beasts your going to kill, some cover spray so they can’t detect you so easily and so on.

The story mode is fairly straightforward and you can’t wander off too far without a tree blocking your way or water you can’t cross so you will always come across the animal your supposed to be hunting.

Most of your PS3 trophies you will obtain by following the main quest but there are a couple that you could easily miss, like one trophy is for killing animals with each weapon, sounds easy but it’s easy to forget to change your weapon that you just recently unlocked, so as you obtain a new rifle or shotgun then try to use it.

Another trophy which seemed easy enough was use iron sights only, well I looked and looked and couldn’t find no iron sights, what it actually meant was take the sights off the gun so you just use the iron sights of the gun.

All in all a pretty good game, enjoyable, not too long that you’d get bored of it, a decent bit of fun and another platinum trophy under your belt. Not a buyer unless you really love these kinds of games but a definite rent.

If anyone decides to give it a go and gets stuck just let me know and i’ll help you out as there are about two or three hidden areas which could be easy to miss, mostly on the opportunity hunts.

I didn’t want to write a review on Assassins Creed 2 until I completed the game 100% which is the reason for the delay. Played on the PS3 system i’ve achieved 100% of the whole game including all trophies, collected all feathers and treasures, found all six assassins tombs and unlocked the extras from UPlay.

As always I started out by renting the game but by the fourth day playing I decided to pay the keep price because it was that good.

I’ve got to say this has been the most satisfying game since Resident Evil 5 and Oblivion, I thoroughly enjoyed playing this game and even when I only had 3 of the 100 feathers to find it didn’t become frustrating, I actually enjoyed travelling back over previously played areas taking my time trying to find them.

Playing Assassins Creed 2 has actually made me put the first one on my rental list as I never played that but I now want to play it just to find out how the previous story played out.

This is not a lengthy game, you could probably complete the main storyline quests in a few days, but this is one game that would actually make you feel like you cheated yourself if you didn’t complete everything, it is that kind of addictive play again and there are extra rewards for completing most of parts that are not essential, you don’t have to collect all 100 feathers but if you do you will be rewarded when you get 50 and again when you reach the 100 plus you’ll get the relevant trophy/achievement.

There is so much I want to tell about the game but it would definitely spoil it for those who haven’t had a chance to play this game yet.

Without spoiling any of the story I will say that there is some amazing graphics in this game, the buildings, the countryside, water, people are all very much as real as it gets when it comes to gaming.

There are a total of 22 weapons in the game all of which you’ll want to collect and show off in your villa, there are many different moves you can perform as an assassin such as a kill from below, a kill from above, a kill from a hiding position, disarming an enemy and using their weapon against them, you can steal money by pickpocketing in a crowd and even search dead bodies to recover items and money, you can throw your enemies bodies from high buildings or just hide them in haystacks or throw them in the water, you can dodge, run, walk, climb, jump, hang, throw knives, either singularly or multiple knives to kill two or more enemies at once and much more.

You can ride horses outside towns in the countryside, steal or borrow boats to travel the waterways and talking of riding horses, anyone who has played Oblivion and thought it was cool to ride a horse, horses are so lifelike in Assassins Creed 2 they make Oblivion’s horses look plastic ornaments, the movement is unreal, I spent nearly an hour riding when I first got on a horse and had to call everyone in the house in to check it out, the horse neigh’s, rears up, turns, gallops and will even throw you if you run into a crowd.

This is one of the few games I recommend buying and it’s one of the few that is actually worth the price.

If nothing else you should at least rent this one, I rent my games from gamefly and if you decide to pay the “keep” price it’s usually a little cheaper than buying from a game store, you can check my

gamefly review out here,

well worth it with rewards thrown in if you stay a member.

If you want to buy the game you can purchase it from amazon which I again recommend and I use myself. You can check my thoughts on

amazon here

.