PS3 Slim and Blur Demo

I’ve gotten hold of a PS3 slim as part of a mobile phone deal as I’ve been having a niggling thought in my head that my PS3 Chubby is going to YLOD. There’s no one thing that’s been making me think it’s going to blow up, but it’s a couple of years old now, out of warranty and when my Xbox RROD’d it literally did it overnight, without warning, and despite the fact that it had hardly been used (Microsoft did fix it though). Over the past couple of months the PS3 has been used a lot more than the Xbox ever was and has been reliable……

Now, the fixed Xbox has similarly not been used much since the PS3 came in to the house, and that even has an intermittent RROD. So when the other half’s mobile phone contract was up we decided that instead of being screwed by the phone company as a loyal customer we’d see who’d give us the best deal. And one “free” PS3 was the winner. Kills two birds with one stone – negates the issue of YLOD for me and means that games in the house now only need to be bought on one format.

There is one fly in the ointment though, Spectact kits and Onslaught mode are on the chubby and I’m using the skinny. But that’s no biggie. Although I enjoy reading about Donncha’s exploits on Onslaught I don’t think it’s a big enough draw for me to warrant paying for it.

In other news, I downloaded the Blur demo and that’s been a great diversion from BFBC2 and shooters in general. One thing that normally turns me off racing games is that people who play them generally get a bit fixated and spend their time learning the courses inside out to the point that they don’t really need to look at the screen. When you race against those sorts they get in to first place never to be seen again. Blur levels the playing field as a much more casual racer by having the ability to screw up the people who are in front of you, in the lead, or even those behind you. And that’s all jolly good fun for people like me who don’t have the time or inclination to memorise tracks back to front.

So far I’ve only played it with one person on my friends list – Duck. He’s very good, pulling first place in most of the races we played while I generally brought up the rear. Not that it’s an issue for me as I was having fun, and that’s what gaming is all about to me. My stats for the game are 5 first places out of 45 races – that’ll do for me.

The only downside to Blur for me (if the demo is the same as the full game) is the time in between race finish and race start. From crossing the finish line to getting in to the next race takes about a minute – that’s a loooooong time to be in lobby for me. Hopefully the full game has a Quick Race option because I couldn’t deal with that amount of down time after every race.

And here’s a vid, because I’m nice like that

And check out Duck’s channel for more Blur and Race Driver Grid vids.

Peas and loaves

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Find me on PSN – evaDlivE

Xbox360 Overheating Problem Solved?

Recently Microsoft announced the release of the sexy 360 slim. Black and shiny (hmmm sounds like the original PS3….), more reliable and quieter than the original WHOOOOOOOOSH version. At this point I’d like to remind everyone that I am platform neutral so let there be no console wars here.

To make the console slimmer (and probably to save money too) Microsoft combined the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) and the Central Processing Unit (CPU) in to one super chip. That’s fine…… if you’ve got enough power and cooling to allow it to run efficiently.

Anyone who has ever built their own computer, especially one for gaming, will be familiar with the pitfalls and trade offs when choosing processors, cooling implements, air flow and optimisation. So for Microsoft to opt for an integrated CPU/GPU seems like a serious case of logic failure. Especially if they’ve done away with the WHOOOOOOSH that makes the Xbox such a pleasure to play using headphones.

But already there is a vid on YouTube apparently showing the new slim Xbox360 overheating. I say ‘apparently’ as there is no real info on the circumstances and although there are definitely lines on the screen, it is not clear that they have actually been caused by the Xbox rather than some other cause such as crappy connections, interference or maybe even some sort of subterfuge to denigrate the new slim Xbox.

If we take the video author at their word (and we have little other choice) then it looks like Microsoft have replaced one design flaw with another.

Peas and loaves.

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Find me on PSN – evaDlivE