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Rest in Peace, Tom Clancy October 2, 2013

Posted by Maniac in Editorials.
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It is my unfortunate duty to inform all of you that writer Tom Clancy has died at the age of 66.  While I’m sure many of you remember him for penning the books that would become blockbuster movies like The Hunt for Red October or Patriot Games, his work has also inspired many of the most popular video game series of all time including Rainbow Six and Splinter Cell.  He has been heavily inspired by the trials and tribulations of our day, starting with penning books inspired by the events of the Cold War and moving in the more recent years to books that have talked about cyberwarfare and international counterterrorism.

After Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six made a huge impact in the PC market, I decided to give his original book Rainbow Six a read during my sophomore year of High School, and I have to say I loved every word.  What an ending!  After reading Without Remorse that summer, I decided to read every single one of his Jack Ryan books, and I spent most of my free time in High School and my first year of College reading every single one of his fiction novels,  It was so cool that he chose to include a small follow up to Rainbow Six by including the characters from Team Rainbow in The Bear and the Dragon.  His final Jack Ryan novel, The Teeth of the Tiger, was something I read every break I had from working the summer it was released.

Today, his name still lives on in entirely new game properties coming out from Ubisoft, like Tom Clancy’s The Agency, which was announced at this year’s E3.  Rest in Peace good sir.

Playstation 3 Firmware 4.50 Released October 2, 2013

Posted by Maniac in Game News.
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For those of you who may be trying to log into the Playstation Network today, I just want to inform you that Sony released a new firmware for the PS3 some time last night.  The newest firmware for the PS3, version 4.50, adds a lot of new features to the PS3 along with the usual bug fixes and optimizations.

You will be able to disable the visibility of trophies on your PSN account.  You will still be able to unlock trophies during gameplay, but you will now be able to remove the visibility of certain trophies you have collected.  This will prevent other players from seeing your trophies when looking up your Playstation Network account.  The new firmware will also bring automatic background updates to all PS3 users.  Previously this was a Playstation Plus only feature, but now it can be used by any PS3 owner.  Finally PS Vita owners with a PS3 will now be able to transfer data and games wirelessly between their PS Vita and PS3.  Previously, in order to transfer games between the two platforms you were required to use a USB cable.

A lot of these updates can be really useful to a lot of players.  When Sony announced the PS4, one of its selling points was that it would stream automatic firmware updates and game patches while in standby, saving players from having to delay their gameplay to download firmware updates or the latest game patch before they can play.  I know many in the gaming media have complained about having to perform PS3 system updates before gameplay sessions, but you would think people who write about games for a living would know when the most recent PS3 updates were out, and update their PS3s in advance.

The WiFi transfer process between the PS3 and PS Vita certainly sounds a lot more convenient than USB game transfers, but depending on your home network, this could be a slower process than USB is.  However, if you’ve lost your Vita’s USB transfer cable, this must be great news.

You can read all the official details about the new update here.  Firmware 4.50 is required for Playstation Network access.