The Eye of Judgement, well what can I say…. I saw what I thought was a bargain, which has turn out to be quite an expensive hobby.
I was in the High Cross in Leicester the other Sunday morning, and popped into PowerPlay while waiting for the Apple store to open. I notice sat on a shelf on it’s own a game called “The Eye of Judgement”. The box didn’t have a price on it, however it came with the Playstation eye in the box too, me and C agreed that we wouldn’t pay anymore than £40 for the game, as the camera was £23 on it’s own. We took it to the counter, and the guy said “it’s not on the system”, let me find a price for you, then I can add it, then you can buy it. We agreed to let him do all this while we popped to the apple store.
Upon our return the poor lad seemed to be having the worse day of his life, apparently he’d been on holiday for a week, and this was his first day back, however while he’d been away, they’d upgraded the EPOS system, and it was running dog slow, and half the products were missing. He asked us kindly if we’d give him another 10 mins to sort the system out and he could finally give us the price.
We wondered of, (can’t remember where as I had a small 6 day hangover from the Tallinn stag do) and returned around 10 mins later, they guy had finally got the game on the system, and it was £30, bargain !, While I was there I picked up a copy of Ghostbusters for the PS3 (blog to come)
The thinking behind the game was as follows…..if the game is crap, it’s only cost us £7, as the camera is £23…however we didn’t really need a camera, as the one we got in “Your In the Movies” on the Xbox360, and this worked just fine of the PS3.
Anyway, we finally got home and unboxed. You get the Playstation Eye, a stand for holding it on, the mat, a pack of the 30 starter cards, and a bonus 8 pack of card.
The game itself rocks !, The best way I can describe it, is the 3D Chess type game you see R2D2 and Chewbacca playing in Star Wars, but using your TV to project the creatures.
Now personally I’ve never used trading cards or got involved in the whole trading card world, and to be honest didn’t think this was one of those types of games (I know, I should have done my research…but it did seem like a bargain)
The game basically plays, but you get 2 mana each turn, each card has a specific mana value, as well as health, and damage points. Each card is either Earth, Water, Wood , Fire or Biolith, you place each card on the map, and get positive and negative reactions based on the placement.
Quick YouTube Vid
Now the game is fun, and defiantly worth the £30 we spent on it, but to be honest, after a couple of hours of playing, we started to get used to the cards, and quite frankly a little board of the same cards. I had a quick google for somewhere to buy them from, and everywhere was sold out…so ebay it was !
Found a guy selling a full set 1×3,2 and 3…so the bidding war started, and ended on Friday night….£46 later, I had all 3 sets ! Woot !…this did however drive the price of the game up a little…well to £76 !
Luckily for me, they ebay guy was lightening fast with the delivery and I had all the cards on Monday. Got home, downloaded the update for the cards….which took over 3 hours, and we were finally ready to play with the new decks…..wrong !…to use the set 2 and 3, I had to buy the DLC (Downloadable Content) to unlock these…Grrrr !…and that was another £11.99 from the Playstation store.
Finally after downloading we were able to play, and it was fun fun fun….well until it started to get dark outside…..wtf you may be asking, what the hell as the light outside got to do with a game your playing inside….well I’ll tell you. As I guess it is with most people, my lighting in my front room is pretty dim, as this is the room I watch all my movie, and play most of my games. Even with the main light on, it’s light enough, but obviously not light enough for the Playstation Eye to pick the details on the cards. So there we were, £88 down, a handful of brand new shiny cards, but not enough light in the room for the eye to recognize them…Booo !
All in all, it is a very fun game, and if you buy it for nothing else but the playstation eye, it’s defiantly worth the £7 for the game..and if you live anywhere near me, I’ve got loads of duplicate cards you can have
Around Christmas time I bought a Sony PS3, with a 40Gb hard drive, feeling this would be more that sufficient. Over the past couple of weeks I’ve found myself having to delete demo, audio and video file, just so I can install games.
Last weekend I bought Ghostbusters (blog coming soon), but was unable to play the game as it insisted on installing content to the hard drive before I could play, so time for an upgrade.
Basically, there is a small plastic plate on the bottom, you remove this, your then met by a crosshead screw, remove this, pull up the small metal handle and the drive slides to the right…remove the drive. The drive is held in by 4 screws remove these, replace the drive, and reverse the above steps.
I then fired up the PS3, and was met by the prompt of “New Hard drive, would you like to format”, selected yes, and 30 seconds later I was met by my normal PS3 dashboard, checked the system setting, and I had 465Gb free ! Success !
I was happy that all the system settings were still intact, and all that was missing was any game data.
I then spent the rest of last night re-installing all my games, as everyone seemed to have an update it wanted to download, or had the option to install to hard drive (which I think is a brilliant idea, and glad they’ve finally copied the 360 way), and set downloading all my DLC (DownLoadable Content). With all games that could be installed, all the DLC downloaded, and all games updated I still have over 400Gb free !
I do however have a slight annoyance, I know I could have done a full system backup, and restore, but instead decided to just backup my save game and do a fresh install (far to many years working in the computer industry), however there were a number of games that wouldn’t allow me to copy my save games till memory stick. Street Fighter 4, KillZone 2, NFS Carbon wouldn’t allow me to back up the save games, Street Fighter I can understand as I person could unlock all characters, and then hand around the save game to every man and it’s dog. NFS Carbon, I wasn’t too bothered about this, as I was only 2 races into the game, but the one that really annoyed me was KillZone 2, as I was about halfway through this extremely hard game…..oh well rough with the smooth I guess.
a, it has a 900 degrees steering wheel
b, it has a clutch pedal
c, it has a 6 way gearbox with reverse
d, I have a lot of racing games for the PS3
So one drunken night (last Friday), I decided to finally take the plunge and buy it. This Tuesday it turned up, and OMG, I cannot believe how good this thing is.
First thing I noticed was the build quality, this thing is solid as a rock.
The wheel itself, feels very realistic, with the smooth 900 degree motion, and a leather covering, it make it feel like your driving an actual car.
Next the pedals, each of them has a different pressure to emulate brake and clutch, and feel really realistic.
Finally, the shifter, I guess this is the thing I’m most impressed about. In 1 mode, you have a realistic 6 way gearbox with reverse, and in the other way you have a simple up/down gear shifter. On the shifter section there is also DPAD for navigating games menu systems, and the 8 controller buttons.
Although the above is fantastic, and I can’t express just how impressed I am with them.
I do however I have a slight issue, I have nowhere sensible to clamp this (I know, I know, I should have thought about this in advance,…..but I was drunk). Currently I have this clamped to the table in the front room, which is ok for the time being, however with it only being about a foot from the floor, I’m sure I’m going to get a spinal injury, as I’m currently hunched over attempting to reach the pedals and steering wheel.
As you’ve probably guessed, this explains the Playseat A1GP. I thought, as I’ve got the Wheel, pedals and gearshift, I thought I might as well go the full hog. After much research, I decided on the Playseat A1GP, this seat is designed to work with the Logitech G25, it has the screw mounting points for pedals and wheel to fix them in place. I had to buy an addition component to mount to gear shift to the side of the chair, however now everything is fixed.
Now the whole thing is bolted together, words cannot describe how realistic this thing is, with games like Gran Turismo and GRID, you have the option for the full 900 degrees steering, which is as close to driving a you can get.
If you have a spare £600, I can highly recommend this setup, it gives a whole new lease of life for my driving games.
More images below
This controller work on the PS3 and PC, and a list of games that will that will make use of it’s full features can be found at the below link
Transform your racing experience into a virtual Monza. Feel your car’s weight shift and tires slip as you navigate corners, thanks to the powerful, dual-motor force feedback transmission. Quickly select the correct gear with either the six-speed shifter or the F1-style paddles. Wrap your hands tightly around the real leather wheel, and slam on the steel pedals – gas, brake, and clutch. You’re not playing games anymore, you’re racing.
Control
Dual-motor force feedback transmission: Experience quiet, powerful force feedback effects. You’ll feel every bump, bank, and curb, recreated with remarkable fidelity.
Six-speed stick shift: Quickly select between six forward gears and a push-down reverse gear. Or switch to sequential shifting mode.
900 degree wheel rotation: Turns 2 ½ times, lock-to-lock, to accurately replicate real steering dynamics.
Metal gas, brake, and clutch pedals: Control your car intuitively with sturdy, true-to-life pedals.
Two paddle shifters: Keep both hands on the wheel while changing gears.
12 programmable buttons plus D-pad: Easily map game functions to your preference with the powerful software.
Comfort
Hand-stitched leather: the 28 cm (11″) wheel is wrapped in real leather to help keep your hands comfortable during long racing sessions.
out to be quite an expensive hobby.
Around Christmas time I bought a Sony PS3, with a 40Gb hard drive, feeling this would be more that sufficient. Over the past couple of weeks I’ve found myself having to delete demo, audio and video file, just so I can install games.
