Home Weekly - SCE Announces Complete Revamp

Hello to all and welcome once again to Home Weekly, bringing the latest news and updates for PlayStation Home.

Latest News
Starting of this week's edition is a huge announcement from Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA). An article posted on blog.us.playstation on Tuesday (August 23rd) announced news that the way Home is to be divided and sectioned will be changing and become far more focused around themes and moods to suit the user. Each of the main space's will now be classed as a 'district', with there being a total of four districts all being linked to the central 'hub'.

The four districts are 'Sportswalk', 'Pier Park', 'Action District' and 'Adventure District'. Each one offers a unique style and experience that is designed to be suited to the user's mood. For example, the 'Action District' is designed to have dark, urban themes that are based around the feel and style of horror, action, FPS and general shooter games. Being almost the complete opposite, 'Pier Park' offers a bright, light hearted area based around indie, puzzle and arcade games, which the district's aesthetic being styled around that of a sea-side fairground. The 'Adventure District' is said to be that of a dense jungle, presumably to be in connection with titles such as Uncharted. Finally, 'Sportswalk' is to be as the name implies, the area for all things sport. With sports based minigames as well as links and features connected to real life sporting events and games.

Pier Park

As well as the areas all featuring their respective games and styles, they are also to include vendors  and virtual stores relating to the district as well as other links to relevant entertainment and things of interest. As yet another added bonus, the central 'Hub' will also add numerous new features to the overall experience of Home. These features include, quests, community events and UGC (User Generated Content).

So far though, this has only officially been announced by SCE America, with no word as of yet from SCE Europe, but I am sure that Europe as well as Japan and other regions will likely receive the same revamp, if not, something similar.


Updates and New Content
Moving onto this week's latest update from Thursday, August 25th and the latest batch of content has been added. The first thing is the addition of a weapons store to the Dead Island space. Next up, Diesel have announced their next items to be offered on Home. The announcement itself can be read in a the weekly Home update post from SCEE blog manager James Gallagher, the link for which can be found below.

Following on from this, it appears that Lockwood Publishing have once again been hard at work to deliver their latest offering, the Silicon Lounge, a personal space which is designed around the Sodium universe. The new space is said to be a "neon paradise" which is perfect for meeting with friends and partying. The space also includes a number of unique features including an integrated Lockwood Gift Machine as well teleporters to Sodium2, SodiumOne and the Sodium Hub, making this a must buy for any fan of Sodium and the creations of Lockwood.
As well as this they have also just released the Double Time clothing range, which is styled around the madness of paintball warfare, with all items being available as being 'clean' or coated in paint.

Moving to more musical based releases and a set of both clothes and items have been released to celebrate the release of 'Welcome 2 My Nightmare', the latest album from rock and metal legend Alice Cooper. The items include various props and outfits as featured during his latest tour, all of which can be found in AAA.

Going back to game-focused releases and Konami have released new clothing items which have become part of their Retro Collection. The new clothes allow users to dress their avatar's as either Death, Dracula or Alucard as featured in Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. All of these can be found in Threads.

And finally, for the last item on the list of updates and new content is that by popular demand, Baseline Battle has indeed returned to Home Square to coincide with the US Open.


Also, here is of course all of the links relevant to this edition of Home Weekly:
PlayStation Home: More Zombies and Alice Cooper - James Gallagher - EU Blog
The Next Evolution for PlayStation Home - Jack Buser - US Blog
Sony announces massive changes to PlayStation Home - The Gadget Show - Channel 5


So, that's all for what is now last week's news PlayStation Home. As an added piece of news from myself in the next month or so, I am hoping to begin to create regular video content for the YouTube Channel, including Home Weekly in a video format. You can expect more information about that soon. Once again it's time for me to sign off. So, I've been randomthings and thank you very much for reading. I hope to be back soon.

We have moved (YouTube Channel) - A quick update

Hello all and welcome back. Firstly, I am sorry for not putting out Home Weekly over the weekend, but I've had a combination of the PS3 not connecting to my network and then having no internet all together (and the first problem is still ongoing). Regardless, I have been contemplating this for awhile and have now decided to follow through with the idea of removing the current YouTube channel and setting up a new one in it's place.

While there isn't anything wrong as such, there are a few minor things I would like to be able to change with can unfortunately only be done by creating a new channel. The first is that I entered by age wrong, so I couldn't display that without being frowned upon and the second is simply the channel username. "itsimplyrandomthings", which of course when broken down would read as "it simply randomthings" instead of "its simply randomthings". So, for those rather small reasons I have now created a new channel in it's place.

For the new username, I have  dropped the "imply", making the new name "Itsrandomthings".

I unfortunately was not able to save the previous DiRT 3 videos before removing the old account (which was due to my stupidity) and I currently have no ideas on what I will next begin uploading or even when. In the meantime, I will still use it as a way of tracking any YouTubers I am interested in and follow and a way of you to see what I am following.

So, I guess that's all for this quick update. I have of course been randomthings and thank you very much for reading.

Hackers runing older games - Bad experiences on Call of Duty 4 and World of War

Hello all and welcome once again to Analog Gaming. Now, as I mentioned yesterday, I do intend to cover this week's home content over the course of the weekend and I still plan on doing so tomorrow. But in the meantime, I want to mention something that has truly angered me today whilst playing online.

As I am sure some of you are indeed aware, I do have rather mixed opinions of the Call of Duty series, with varying thoughts on just about all aspects of the games, but while playing online today something struck and shocked me. The issue was that of the multiplayer portions of the games, more specifically for Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and Call of Duty: World at War. I had previously heard of the current state of the multiplayer of World at War a while ago from various YouTube channels and directors, but it wasn't until today when I actually played the game for myself that I truly began to understand the state of the situation.

Moving to the point I am trying to make, I am simply shocked what has happened to the competitive multiplayer in both games. They now appear to be nothing more that a congregation of hackers, with a number of players now using in game hacks to give themselves various advantages, such as increased weapon fire rates (e.g. a grenade launcher attachment firing at the rate of an M4), increased player movement speeds and even some players flying around the map and others being invincible.

Now, of course, this is not the case with every match I entered and not every player was using such hacks and mods, but it was a number great enough to disrupt the gameplay for myself and others. In my personal opinion it appears that since both games have now become old and only played by a handful of people, that the developers and companies that were previously tasked with up keeping a modest, fair and enjoyable service and experience have now moved on to monitor new games in the series.

I can understand that this should be their priority to an extent, but I honestly do not expect to enter a team deathmatch on Countdown to find that four of the six opposing players are firing grenade launchers like assault rifles, not dying after using all of my ammo from an M249 SAW and a M9 only to find they had taken no damage and have also been able to accumulate a total of 137 kills between them, which is far over the score and kill limit.

After playing that particular match and then two others which were with honest, fair players, I then moved on to World at War only to find the situation was similar, with insane weapon firing, speeding tanks and flying Russian soldiers.

I can understand that this is most likely not the case simply with the Call of Duty series and possibly many other series have fallen under similar circumstances, but I feel that firstly, the players who are using such hacks and mods are little more than a disgrace to the gaming community and that the companies in charge of running such games have failed to deliver their product fully to many customers. I am sure that the older Call of Duty games in particular still generate great amounts of profit and money for Activision and it's developers in terms of first-hand sales, so I was to today have bought a copy of either Modern Warfare or World at War and then gone online to be met with the monstrous mess that is the multiplayer... Well, I would be discussed and conned out of my money.

I can further go on to say that Modern Warfare 2 also met a similar fate earlier into it's life, with 'speed hacks' and 'boosting lobbies' having been around not long after the game's release. It makes me wonder as to what should be done about such problems and as to when a developer should no longer actively support and monitor their game's online status after it has been released. Is a year after release too short a time period? Should online maintenance be later be passed onto another company perhaps?

To use the same analogy as used by YouTube gaming director Gunns4hire, 'console gamers all drink from the same watering hole'. We all use the same servers and services, whereas PC gamers have more freedom as they can host private servers and can actively use mods within such servers. On consoles though, we cannot really do that and if someone or even a group of people were to break rules, or not play the way the game is intended to be played, well, it simply ruins the game for everyone else.

Overall, I am just wondering that can be done about this, or even if something should. I just feel that events like this can ruin a game for new players, potentially effect long term first-hand sales and spoil the enjoyment for returning players.

So, I do believe that I have said everything I wish to on the matter and have put across my thoughts. I guess it is now once again time for me to sign off by saying that I've been randomthings and thank you very much reading.

Back once again...

Hello to all and welcome back once again. I would like to apologise for not posting in the past month or so. There has been a few different reasons for that, with the main one being illness and the other being the fact that I am a self-confessed lazy bastard.

Anyway, moving on. During the past few weeks I have actually had the chance to play a few of the recently released XBLIGs, some of which I will cover this week. I've also been considering making a few changes to the posting schedule, including possibly posting every other day, which I hope would making things more manageable for myself as well as meaning I should be able to create more in depth and meaningful posting, being able to spend two days working on an article, instead of just one.

As well as all of this, I have indeed been playing a few retail releases although, none of them brand new. Firstly I have begun playing through Burnout Paradise on Xbox, having complete the game numerous times on the PlayStation 3. The second title I have been getting my teeth into is Crysis 2, which I can only comment on by saying it is simply a marvel and anybody who cannot see the point in, or justify the console version of the game is nothing more than insufferable idiot.


Lastly, I would like to give a few shout-outs to various people. Firstly, to Sean Doherty of Freelance Games, the creators of Starchon and now also of Trailer Park King, another XBLIG title. I hope that Trailer Park King is a huge success and I also look forward to giving my own opinion on the game.

Secondly, I would like to mention one of the latest up and coming YouTube channels I have come across. The channel, MrSpoonfool, is a mixture of both PC gameplay and recent gaming news. MrSpoonfool himself set up the channel only last week after deciding to move channels. Many of the video series featured on the newer channel having been continuing over from the older one.

And here of course is a few links relevant to everything:
Freelance Games
 Trailer Park King - Xbox Marketplace Online
MrSpoonfool - Youtube

So, I guess that's all for today. I hope to be back at some point over the weekend to give a quick look at this week's Home updates and news. Then next week, I will likely be focusing in XBLIGs as I have a few I wish to look at. I've been randomthings and thank you very much for reading.