Look Ma, no Cord! June 2, 2010

After enjoying Alan Wake, I decided to get a little funny with one of my favorite parts of the game.  This is the gift a friend of mine gave me for my birthday after I raved about what Barry Wheeler was wearing in the game for tactical purposes.  The lights are LEDs, powered by USB, in my pocket, something you can’t see, is a USB charger meant for cell phones and iPods.

As you can see, it works, no extension cord needed.  I might be able to pull off a pretty funny Halloween costume with this thing.

Whatever Happened To Whistle Blower Zero? June 2, 2010

About a year ago, a guy calling himself Whistle Blower Zero erupted on YouTube for 48 hours.  He claimed to be a former GameStop employee who for forty minutes ranted on about how broken the GameStop corporate structure was, and how that by basically turning themselves into Pawn Shops, they were making billions by selling destroyed and damaged products, and charging the same price for them as a new game.

He also charged them with scamming their employees out of their working money by refusing to pay them by check, and making direct deposit extremely difficult to get processed, instead giving them debit cards that was accepted by practically no one, didn’t work on ATMs, and had fees for every time you used them.  He was pretty certain this was somehow illegal.  I’m sure you’ll remember my earlier video the time I got a debit card of my own (and what I did after recieving it).  If you’re not going to use them to preorder games (and if you’re already a GameStop employee who could blame you for not wanting to), they’re useless, and you’re not going to be able to use the full amount on them unless you can specifically set the value of what is on the card to match the balance on the card.  This pretty much sounded criminal to him, and it sounds pretty criminal to me.  I’ve never worked for anyone who refused to pay by check, and employers that won’t seem pretty shady to me.

Instead of responding to his valid claims. GameStop made a phone call and banned all his videos from YouTube, which is unbearably easy to do in this day and age.  Eventually his whole account got banned and has not returned.

I have heard a lot of GameStop debates on the gaming forums of the web, and yet no one but me seems to remember this guy, or the claims he made.  GameStop hasn’t had to deal with them directly, since their plan obviously worked, by banning his videos then ignoring the guy’s claims, they figured he’d dissapear and nobody would remember him.  I guess they were right.

So, Whistle Blower Zero, if you’re out there, who are you?  Why did you do it?  Did you succeed?

Club Nintendo, Another Example of a Rewards Program Done Right May 30, 2010

I have been a loyal member of the Nintendo Fun Club…ahem, sorry, Club Nintendo, since the inception of the program in the US last year.  GameStop, pay attention, this is another example of a rewards program done right.

What makes a rewards program good is if it offers achievable prizes of value by buying something the consumer was probably going to get anyway..  By doing that it offers further value for your purchase, and can be the deciding factor between buying something now or later on when it may be cheaper, and can get the customer to continue to buy your products and not go to your competitors.

For each new game purchased for the Nintendo Wii or DS, you receive a certain amount of points (50 for wii games) that can be amplified by filling out surveys, or telling the club what you intend to buy and then actually buying it.  You also get points for filling out occasional surveys.  Like at a carnival, you can trade in these points for exclusive goodies you can redeem for no further charge, and if you make a certain point total in a year you can get another free gift automatically.

The good part is the majority of the exclusive goodies are not that high in points to redeem, with most of them requiring about 5 game purchases to redeem if you don’t catch any surveys (trust me, Nintendo easily makes five good games a year, and games like Wii Fit have a much higher value than something like Mario Kart).  Filling out surveys can lessen the amount of points required by as much as a whole game.  On top of that they’re expanding, and offering more exclusive goodies.  This year they are offering beautiful posters of the evolution of the art of Mario or Link, for free.

When I picked up Super Mario Galaxy 2 today, something I was going to buy anyway, I went over my point total for the year, and I was able to order that Link poster set.  Disney also offers something similar for buying their Blu-Ray and DVDs, recently I purchased a rare Oswald the Rabbit D23 pin from it (Can’t wait to play Epic Mickey).

GameStop is Starting a New Rewards Program, It Sucks May 24, 2010

GameStop has announced today that they’re replacing their overpriced Edge Card (they charged $14.99 a year for 10 percent off on used only games, you’d need to buy over a hundred used games to justify the price) with a free and paid reward program.

I have absolutely nothing against free reward programs.  Many retailers and supermarkets offer their customers free rewards simply for shopping where they would shop normally.  Coupons, discounts, and gift certificates are issued for free to program members, just for regular shopping at a store.  But this program looks like a pretty twisted version of much better programs just to exploit customers.

This sounds like a pretty terrible idea, since the point system is far too high and the rewards are far too cheap to justify so high a point value for the goods offered.  You get ten points per dollar spent on new games, and twenty points spent on used games.  There are a few bonuses offered, like points for signing up and points for your birthday.

The rewards range from coupons for $5-$10 off purchases ranging from 4000 to 8000 points to even free Xbox 360 controllers or Turtle Beach X11 headsets for 40,000 points.  So you get five dollars off for every 400 dollars spent?  You get a free 360 controller for spending 4000 dollars there?  That’s rediculious!

Now, if you want to know a much better program, Best Buy offers a program that gives consumers gift certificates good for anything in the store just for spending money there.  If you become a member of their Reward Zone, you get one point for every dollar spent, and if you have a premium account or credit account you get an extra percentage on top of that.  250 points equals a free five dollar gift certificate, and they do add up, you can use them on anything you buy.  They also will send you free coupons, usually once a month in the mail, and while those do have restrictions (like 10% off only on games, movies or music), they’re free coupons!

New Piece of the 3D HDTV Puzzle is on Shelves! May 24, 2010

I was in Target yesterday while my friend was getting a coffee just looking for a deal on any games, I didn’t find any, but what I did find was a lot more valuable.

I had mentioned previously for you earlier technology adopters who visit the site, 3D HDTV will only be possible if you had a 3D HDTV, a 3D Blu-Ray (or game) player, a 3D HDMI cable, and 3D Glasses.

Well some manufacterers have released TVs, but everything else on the list has not seen release yet, now another piece has come out.

Vizio has done something pretty impressive.  They’re selling a next-generation HDMI cable that is not outrageously priced!  Previously unheard of, a manufacterer of cables is not overcharging for them.  The new cables are HDMI 1.4, support 120hz and 240hz (depending on model), ethernet, and 3D.  I’ve seen bitrates listed on those cables as high as 10.2Gbps.

I wanted to buy a pack of these from the manufacterer, but I guess everyone universally thought this was a good price, because they’ve sold out online.

The final piece of the puzzle, the 3D Blu-Ray (and game) support, will be released by Sony along with their 3D Sony Bravias which will be coming out next month.  The PS3 will be fully 3D Blu-Ray compliant with a recently released firmware update, so if you want a player now, buy a PS3 (if you don’t already own one).

Remember, you will still need to buy 3D glasses from your TV manufacterer.

Looking for 7.1 Audio Content for Your New Home Theater? Go Through your PS3 Shelf May 11, 2010

I spent this last weekend building an entire next generation home theater system for my room.  I already had a 1080p native 120hz HDTV, but while playing LEGO Rock Band I knew I was missing the immersive audio experience only surround sound could provide me.

Back when DVD was the king, I had a 5.1 audio reciever.  When I upgraded to blu-ray the reciever was obsolite and I ended up pulling it and putting it and the speakers into storage, where they’ve mostly been collecting dust.

I had the speakers already, and a subwoofer, and I knew they’d be compatable with a new reciever anyway (saving me some money), so I went on newegg and got a fantastic deal on a home theater reciever.  I figured all I needed was a reciever and maybe some extra wire, and that would be all.  Turned out, my whole room needed to be upgraded.

I was now requiring power from seven different sources.  TV, reciever, subwoofer, Xbox 360, wii, PS3 and HD-DVD adapter, so I needed to buy a heavy duty power strip.  I also needed to buy a much larger TV stand.  Easier said than done, TV stands are mostly designed to be as horrible as possible to electronic components.  Most are overpriced and entirely enclosed.  If you put an Xbox 360 inside an enclosed enviroment and leave it running, in all likelyhood your whole house will burn to the ground pretty quickly (your 360 will likely red ring first but it will keep running).

I figured with so few movies supporting 7.1, even on blu-ray, the need of seven satellite speakers was low.  I figured the five I already had were going to be adaquate, but to be forward thinking, I made sure the reciever supported 7.1, DTS-HD MA, HDMI, and Dolby Digital TrueHD (and of course uncompressed PCM).

I was pretty right about the 5.1 being standard on my movie shelf.  All of the Blu-Rays I had were native 5.1 in some way, either through uncompressed PCM, Dolby TrueHD, Dolby Digital, and DTS-HD MA.  Very, very few movies I had were 7.1.

Then I checked my game shelf.  I hadn’t updated a lot of my PS3 games in a while, and I decided to pop them in and download the new versions.  Uncharted 2: Among Theieves‘s version 1.7 update alone took about 5 minutes.  Then I started going through the audio options in Uncharted 2.  Dolby, DTS, but then I saw Uncompressed PCM 7.1 on the list.  Wow, that was really nice of the developers to include that.  The surround tracks really gave a whole new level of atmosphere to the game’s visuals.

I figured this had to be a fluke.  So I decided to go trophy hunting through another recent Sony game I had, Infamous.  This also had uncompressed 7.1 native audio.  I tried an older one, Heavenly Sword, which doesn’t even support trophies, and it had 7.1 uncompressed audio too.  Now, I already knew that God of War 3 supports 7.1 from several user posts in the game’s official forums.  Heck, even the platform’s bomb Lair has a 7.1 audio track.

So that’s a stack of games for a single platform that natively supports a superior sound system.  However, Sony doesn’t post audio specifications on the back of their packaging anymore.  Best I could notice was look for a Dolby or DTS logo on the back near the copyright information.  Best I can get in my Xbox 360 games is last generation Dolby Digital 5.1, and since my 360 is so old I don’t even have an HDMI connection on it to use audio and video, I have to use a last gen optical connection to get all my audio output.

Please Sony, if you’re going to include HDTV support specifications on the back of your game boxes, also include your audio support specifications.  I know you’re looking for things to rub in Microsoft’s face, you’ve got something and don’t even realize it.

FYI, I had tried Heavy Rain when calibrating the system, it maxes at 5.1, which is why I figured at the time that 5.1 audio was standard.

Bright Falls Alan Wake Websiodes Behind Schedule on Live May 9, 2010

I’ve been glued to my seat waiting for Alan Wake‘s release next week.  I was so happy when I read that the game’s prequel would be a weekly live action series released to Xbox Live.  Well, that series is seriously behind schedule.

After the first two episodes of Bright Falls were released the day after it was scheduled, and the third episode was never released last week.  Today, the fourth episode was scheduled to be released, and it has not been yet.

The official Bright Falls website however has seen its episodes released on a regular schedule, the Tuesday of the week after what was supposed to be the initial Xbox Live premere.  Well Xbox Live has not premered one episode of the series yet, usually someone else is able to get their episode up on time way after Xbox Live should’ve released it.  Who is the guy on Xbox Live managing this content?  Is he an idiot or something?

The fourth episode was scheduled to be released today on Xbox Live.  It has not been.  Currently the final two episodes are scheduled to be released next week, just prior to the release of the game.

LEGO Rock Band Music Transfer: Is ALL this Really Necessary? May 9, 2010

I picked up LEGO Rock Band a few days ago at Best Buy for several reasons.  One was the low price, another was my nostalgia for LEGO, and the last was the ability to transfer the tracklist to Rock Band 1 and 2.  Being very familiar with the transfer procedure for Rock Band and RB: AC/DC, I excpected a similar procedure to transfer the songs.  Boy was I wrong, and let me tell you, the hoops they make you jump through just to be able to play “Ghostbusters” in Rock Band 2 almost makes it not worth it.

First off, there is no licence transfer option or disc download option like in Rock Band.  There also is no 25-digit Xbox Live key like in Rock Band AC/DC, what you have is something infinatly more annoying.

If you want to play LEGO: Rock Band songs on other Rock Band games, you have to first pull out a one time use key from the disc case.  Try redeeming it on Xbox Live and you’ll just get an error.  No, you have to take that key and register it to the Rock Band official website.  From there, you choose if you want the exchanged key for either Playstation 3 or Xbox Live (and if you choose wrong by accident you’re on your own), and you then get your 25-digit key.  Redeem that code.  Does that download you the songs?  No.  Does it patch the game so you can transfer your songs from the disc to your HD?  No.  All it does is patch the game so you can spend ten extra dollars to download the entire track pack from the Rock Band Store.  All 1.26GB straight from Xbox Live, which will probably take you about a half hour and you’ll need to be connected to the internet the whole time.

Does it really need to be THAT complicated for me to spend ten dollars to download the tracklist to my HD?  I paid five for the tracklist of Rock Band 1, and that downloaded from the disc, no codes were needed.  A patch sure, but that installed automatically.  Was this to prevent the rental market from swapping discs around?  There is no rental market for games anymore.  Was it to prevent resales?  Well I can assure you resale value of this game is probably zero now.

Please stop doing this, you tried it, it didn’t work, don’t put it in Rock Band 3.