The biggest games of the summer have launched. Grand Theft Auto IV and Metal Gear Solid 4 have found places on the shelves of millions of gamers and all is well and good. Or is it? What will you do when these games are finished, in your eyes? Is there more to be had this summer, or is it time to pull out the ol' SNES and finally master that F-Zero track? Maybe even crack out the ol' NES and finally realize games have become much simpler since the days of Battletoads?
We've always got plenty of use for our PS3 -- it's playing our movies, music, and anything we've got stuck on our external hard drives. There are a ton of games to rent and even more in our backlog. While there aren't any big releases until later on in the year, we'll be plenty busy until then. Want to know last week's poll results? Take a look after the cut.
It's time for one last push for Metal Gear Solid 4. Really, nothing else this week was as big or important as finally seeing the release of one of PlayStation's biggest titles. So now that you've had some time with it, what do you think? What are your impressions of the game?
If you're leaving a comment in addition to voting, make sure you remain spoiler-free for all those who may not have gotten nearly as far as you. This is one game where not knowing where the story will go is a very important part of the experience. Speaking of experiences, last week's poll results deal with your experience in purchasing the game. See how many of your colleagues were out at midnight with you, or how many of you are sitting back with a scowl, as you ignore the game completely.
It's another poll! The Poll Police are asking a pretty obvious one this week, as the PS3 faces its most ambitious software release so far (arguably). Metal Gear Solid 4 hits the streets on June 12, with some lucky souls getting copies early somehow, and we want to know if you're going out there to get it when the time comes.
We know we'll be out there for the midnight release -- even if there isn't one, we'll still sit outside our local gaming store and claw pitifully at the door until we're either chased away with a broom or given a plate of hot cereal and welcomed inside. Although, it's over 100 degrees where we are, so hot cereal could be replaced with "breakfast ice cream". It exists, surely. Last week's poll results are up next, so why not take a look at those as well?
The Poll Police were off on a quest to protect and serve at a wedding last week, so consider yourselves off the hook for any unnecessary polling shenanigans. This week, however, we have a new issue to ask your opinion on – and by new, we mean something we've heard over and over again. A new firmware is on the horizon and with it, rumors of its contents. We've heard in-game XMB access, 2-D trophies on the XMB, murmurs of Blu-ray movie playability on the PSP, and more. None of it is confirmed and most of it is heresay, but there seems to be a lot of faith in this round of firmware rumors. What's your take?
Personally, we're feeling pretty good about this one. The firmware is supposedly scheduled to hit at or before the launch of Metal Gear Solid 4, so the timing would be rather convenient – a flagship PlayStation title with some sought-after features launching right with it. Sounds good, but is it too good to be true? Give us two weeks. Last week's poll results are after the cut, also.
This week we learned that Haze will demand you to free up 4GB of space on your PS3's hard drive so it can eliminate load times from the game completely. The internet set itself on fire when Capcom revealed Devil May Cry 4 would come with a PS3 install as part of the deal, but there's been little hubbub over this game. Is it due to its PS3 exclusivity? Either way, we want to gauge how you feel about these constant installs and if it's impacted your hard drive space at all.
We just slapped a 350GB hard drive into our PS3's at the Poll Police Headquarters, so we're not hurting for space. Our wallets, on the other hand, are a bit frazzled. Still, those who purchased a 20GB machine will either be forced to make a similar purchase, or selectively delete and re-install older games. If you want to see last week's poll results, they're right after the cut.
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.
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.
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.
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