Finally! Something the Officers of Opinion can have pride in taking votes for has come to pass. Perhaps some of you are not aware of the most recent GameTrailers debacle, but it goes something like this: a new racing game called GRID got its chance at a video comparison on their site and from the video posted, the 360 was implied to have more dynamic and compelling footage. The PS3 version seemed like a prettied-up last-gen borefest. However! GameTrailers used PS3 footage for both sides of the comparison. Watch the above video, ripped from their site with some added narrative, to draw your own conclusions then tell us what you think.
First off, thanks to everyone who alerted us to this. The comparison video and all related comments have since been removed from their site, which is a telling sign they've recognized something had gone wrong. Whether it was their evil ploy foiled or an error in creating, posting, or citing the console for the video, we'll probably never know. But mass opinion is often heralded as universal truth for some odd reason, so your vote really does matter. Last week's poll results are also posted, so give them a look as well, if you're interested.
Speaking to Destructoid, Aaron Greenberg, Director of Product Management for Xbox 360 and Xbox Live, added fuel to the red-hot fanboy fire when discussing PS3's upcoming lineup for 2008. Greenberg's statement is certainly going to inspire some truly extraordinary comments from PS3 and Xbox 360 fans alike. While he is a Microsoft spokesperson, we wonder: do his complaints have merit? Read on:
"I know a lot of folks enjoy watching the console wars and we would never underestimate our competition. But answer to your question specifically, didn't Sony promise all of this last year including Home as well? We have been fighting Sony's promises from the day we entered the market and if you remember at that time it was all about PS2 being an online cybercity with partner announcements from the likes of RealNetworks and AOL. Then three years ago at E3 they showed what PS3 games would supposedly look like with the Killzone 2 video, that we are now learning will ship four years later. That means that we will have shipped Gears of War and Gears of War 2 before they can even get Killzone out the door," he said. "Think back to GDC 2007 when Sony promised to leap ahead in online with the Sony Home unveil. Here we are two years later and multiple delays for a product that appears to have little to no buzz. Where are the achievements? The friends list integration across all games? Where is the long-promised video store? Where are all the other products using and networking with their CELL chip? How come Blu-ray did not result in better games? What happened with Sixaxis and rumble? Where is the complete 1080p game library we were promised? If Blu-ray as they said would be such a catalyst to PS3 console sales, then why have PS3 sales over the past couple months not seen any lift since the format victory?"
Certainly, being a Playstation devotee has been frustrating. The system has been plagued by a slow start, and a number of key delays. Home and in-game XMB continue to be promises that have failed to materialize. This is a "ten year life cycle" on Sony's part -- but should that mean we should wait so long for the good stuff?
It's sort of sickening on the Poll Police's side of things -- we dig and dig through muck all day to uncover bits of news for your consumption. What makes this sickening is the recent trend for our fields o' news farming to get inundated with threads about people's problems with Grand Theft Auto IV. We don't mean problems in the game, beating a mission, or the like ... we mean the frequent freezing issues, console destruction tales, or horribly unstable online component. We know Rockstar has admitted to a few of these problems and issued their own hackneyed fix. We want to know if any of you actually did this just to play the game. We're not judging you. We're just curious.
A patch would be nice, but instead, we get to delete pretty much everything on our PS3 to make the game work? Sounds pretty pathetic to us, but hey, ostensible perfection demands sacrifice, right? Don't get us started. Last week's poll is after the jump, so check out those results while we have your attention!
It's still the buzz around the internet, despite the reviews trickling out for Grand Theft Auto IV. We're talking about Metal Gear Online, of course. While it shouldn't be taken as canon, the Poll Police have noticed people on their PlayStation Network buddy list citing their thoughts of the beta in their comments. Some enjoy it, others do not. So, as protectors of personal opinion, we ask you your feelings of the beta so far.
We'll probably be writing a big impression on the beta ourselves in the coming days or weeks -- so look forward to what we think as well! Of course, ours are only as valid an opinion as each and every one of you. We'd hate to pretend ours are more important when that's obviously foolish. Anyway, if you're curious about last week's poll related to Konami ID's, check out the results after the jump.
A lot of people have been clamoring to get a spot in the Metal Gear Online beta and for the most part, everyone's been allowed. A few hiccups with broken codes, but Konami has vowed to help those afflicted by such misfortunes. The Poll Police are on a quest this week to see how your experience signing up for this event has measured up compared to the horror stories circulating on PS3 forums worldwide.
On a personal experience level, this Officer of Opinion had quite a bit of difficulty, but only in the sense of patience. Peer-to-peer updating was slow and destroyed bandwidth for most of a day, then navigating Konami's clogged site was a test in perseverance, but it all went swimmingly if the factor of time was removed. What happened in last week's poll? The mystery is solved after the jump.
Well butter us up and call us biscuits, because the PS3 is on a roll. Forgive us; we're hungry. IGN hosted a poll recently that had very simple terms: which console should win the current-gen race? Between the PS3's smaller install base than the competition and its still fairly sparse selection of games (they sputter out slower than ketchup from a glass bottle), we would never have anticipated the poll to swing so wildly in favor of the PS3.
Yep -- the PS3 has been declared the winner of IGN's poll. According to savvy websurfers, the PlayStation 3 should win the console race. Since we're biased, we guess it's a moot point for us to say we agree.
This poll from headquarters isn't the most exhilarating topic to be sure, but there are some people who have been crying for a PlayStation Store redesign basically since the console launched. We aren't expecting any riots to break out over this event, nor any torch-carrying flame-blasters to incite some sort of fanboy war in regards to store designs. But we've been wrong before. So we ask you, are you excited for the PlayStation Store redesign?
We'd love to hear your reasoning in the comments section -- what's bothered you about it so far? Why is the old one fine? Why not? You get the idea. If you're curious about last week's poll, check out the results after the jump.
The Poll Police, for the record, have no say in what Konami and Kojima Productions ultimately place on their boxes for the release of Metal Gear Solid 4. However, we can poll the heck outta the intertubes to find out what you, the readers and potential buyers, think of the released boxart image. Go back and look at the old Metal Gear Solid boxes. They all have very cool sketches on them -- original drawings of characters, or whatever. They were, pun intended, solid. So we ask you: would you rather that trend continue, or are you glad to see a more "real" picture on the box of Metal Gear Solid 4?
Whatever your choice may be, you have to remember that it isn't what's on the outside of the case that matters, but what is inside. The game. Even if you turn away in disgust at the sight of the boxart on store shelves, you'll take it home with you and love it because you know behind that art is a treasure trove of Kojima genius. Speaking of genius, how was last week's poll? Take the jump to find out.
It's another opinion piece much like when we asked how your Warhawk purchase would go down. The rules are simple: the Poll Police met up with the Karma Kops for coffee (they're not the best at spelling) and discussed how most people would get their Gran Turismo 5: Prologue fix. We know over a million Blu-ray copies were reserved in Europe, but how about the rest of the world? Are you more interesting in downloading the game or buying the Blu-ray?
We don't have much of a personal take on this one, because it is a tough call. GT5:P isn't quite a full game, but it's so much more than a demo. Because of that, buying it in either form is roughly equal in our minds because it's not full price and it's not a full game. But it sort of is. It's a conundrum, but as long as we get to play it, we're happy. Are we happy about last week's poll results? Take the jump and find out.
The Poll Police have noticed a trend on the streets of video gaming lately -- certain titles seem to make their living off of downloadable content. They pass off their retail disc to their customers and inundate them every week with more and more content to keep them coming back for their next fix. It's a problem that doesn't really bother the Poll Police, but it raises an interesting question. We've found three major offenders and want to know which of these culprits you find to have the best and most content available. Since this is a very time-sensitive poll, it'll be interesting to see if the results are different in a few months.
We noticed also that one or two of the above titles have recently opened their doors to a swarm of new stuff, sometimes with their own personal stores with content available for purchase. The key word in this whole generation is "purchase" -- you pay upwards $200 for Rock Band when it comes out, but every week you can spend a couple dollars more on a handful of songs. How much will you spend over the course of a year? When thought about, it's really quite ridiculous. Sort of like the results from last week's poll. Check them out after the jump.
Looking back on this week in news, the Poll Police found an overwhelming number of people bringing their cards to the table and leaving their two cents when Microsoft spouted off about the irrelevance of Blu-ray and the life Digital Downloads would bring to the world. As was stated in the post, digital downloading is nice, but disc-based mediums like Blu-ray deliver full 1080p, uncompressed audio glory. As an officer of polling justice, the menus and extra features located on a single disc are nice (and why buying a disc is sometimes more exhilarating than downloading a series online through less sincere methords). What do you, the people of PS3 Fanboy Town, think of this "future"?
We'll leave our opinions in the air until next week, since we do our share of downloading and purchasing. Time will tell what the future holds, as that's just something we can't avoid, but being able to predict what it will tell us is a fun diversion from the snail's pace that truth seems to approach at. What about last week's poll? Take the jump and find out.
The Poll Police are technically on leave this week, as there is a break in the spring for their studying activities, but they still feel obligated to interrogate you, regardless of your schedule. Not much happened in this week worthy to gauge reactions or expectations news-wise, so we're going to take this opportunity to see how we can better serve you. We posted somemetareviews this week, something we hadn't done for several months, and we'd like to know if you'd prefer we did that for games we can't get around to review ourselves. More or less if you would rather have something to read about a game, even if it's just a compilation of early review scores.
We enjoy writing them, but don't think about what we'd want you to answer. What's important is if you find metareviews worth your time to look at when a game is released, but we didn't have the time to review it ourselves. That's it for that. Check out last week's poll for the unsurprising, but humorous, result after the jump.
Welcome to another edition of the Poll Police, where we interrogate you mercilessly to discover what you want, what you think, and how you think it -- so long as your answer is something we came up with. Unfair? Probably. Silly? Probossibly. This last week, we got wind of so many games getting release dates our heads are spinning. We've lined 'em up below and it's your job to tell us what you're most anticipating.
The clear winner to many of you may already be decided -- slapping Metal Gear Solid 4 in any poll sort of lays a heavy bias on the results. Or does it? We think the results might not be exactly what you expect. If you want to check out last week's poll results, feel free.
Another week, another visit from your local precinct's Poll Police. Grammatically unsound, ethically clean, and legitimately insane, we ask you questions that you answer and react accordingly. This past week, the Poll Police were on a trip to the Game Developer's Conference. Through the many sites you undoubtedly visited, you got enough information to have vicariously attended the event. So, what did you think?
Sony didn't have a very large presence, but we got enough stuff to keep you in the loop. Even if you aren't a Sony fan, there was definitely a lot of great information presented by Microsoft and third party companies to keep you on the edge of your seat. GDC wasn't the biggest announcement center for non-US companies (Microsoft seemed to blow its wad of titles all in one presentation), but it gives us the notion that the Sony Gamer's Day coming up will really let the PS3-related announcements shine bright. Last week's poll result, as always, is past the jump.
When we say "aftermath" we mean after the supposed end of the war between two rival HD formats for the time being, or something. It's been circulating around the streets that Toshiba is ceasing any more HD DVD player manufacturing and the Poll Police have heard this is the end of the line for said format. Now the police are curious: the harbingers of internet justice want to know how you reacted upon hearing the news so many Sony fanboys have waited for.
It's not meant to spark any flames ... we simply want to know how you reacted to the news. Personally, the staff at the Poll Police headquarters nodded our heads with our usual cautious optimism, laced with a hint of surprise at the sudden announcement. Curious about last week's poll? Sure you are. Take the plunge and see the results.
Speaking to Destructoid, Aaron Greenberg, Director of Product Management for Xbox 360 and Xbox Live, added fuel to the red-hot fanboy fire when discussing PS3's upcoming lineup for 2008. Greenberg's statement is certainly going to inspire some truly extraordinary comments from PS3 and Xbox 360 fans alike. While he is a Microsoft spokesperson, we wonder: do his complaints have merit? Read on:
