Excellent news!

And here is the video in question…

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Walkthrough Part 1

Walkthrough Part 2

Europe also gets the Dual Shock 3 this week. I’m rather glad I didn’t bother waiting, else Uncharted would still be sat on my shelf unopened.

Also on the horizon - the PlayStation Video Store on PlayStation3 and PSP (summer infact, if you live America - doh!). Nice video previews and HD downloads there. I’m sure it’ll take forever to come out in Europe, but then we do have PlayTV coming out at some point…

Shots taken and rejigged from Watch Impress…

This is a MASSIVE rumour. But the story goes a chap called Krystian over on the PS3 News forums was noddling his network, managing to poke his proxy, and then, er, replace some XML files the PS3 uses. He claims that since his cheeky fiddlings he can now download and install Home v1.0. Wow. Good for him. But his big wig boffin brain also reckons that, seeing as he can’t actually play it anyway, the fact it’s apparently sitting on a server somewhere, ready to download - must mean it’s due for imminent release. What a clever sausage.

Well - make what you will of it. But annoyingly, he posted the images on the forum, requiring membership and some god awful banner ads, so here are a few of them (Ew… He’s got an Standard Definition TV, must be a l33t haxxor). Head over to the forums if you want all of them though. I can’t nick them all, it’s too rude.

This last screen, shows rather well the fact that the client running in the photo states ‘v0.8.3′.
Oh, damn - that doesn’t make any sense at all - better shut up.

I like to think I’ve dug a little hole for myself in the SingStar online Community, so I’m pleased to see that my videos have been recognised by the official SingStar team.

Still - I’m looking forward to improvements. The SingStore is still lacking in updates, the ratings system doesn’t work most the time and I have not been able to post a comment successfully since before Christmas… But thanks guys

Well I did, and now I’m not so forgiving.

SingStar launched in the UK and across other major European countries on 7th December. The game is a triumph of SingStar gameplay with new-school web 2.0 style YouTube/MySpace community features. Plus, having purchased every single PlayStation 2 iteration of SingStar, in addition to this new PlayStation 3 version, I consider myself a loyal customer.
But that loyalty has not been rewarded in any honourable way, and I find myself in a rather frustrating position of having a great new game, but one that doesn’t really do what it says on the tin.

So, here are the 3 main problems:

Right now there are thousands of SingStar PS3 owners who want to download songs and spend money. And they get nothing in return for even asking.

I was kind of at breaking point today so I decided to make an online petition. I made an in-game video message, which read:

…hardly rude, eh? It got one 5-star vote was removed within 15 minutes… Which kind of sums up the whole ‘communication’ issue.
I’m not the only one though. Upload your own video with a personal msg to Sony in - and it wont be there for long.

So if you’re reading this and you’re an unhappy SingStar PS3 customer, then sign the petition and maybe someone will hear it.

Let’s hope someone somewhere is actually listening…

*UPDATE*

The petition has picked up a fair amount of steam in it’s first 48 hours. With over 270 signatures it’s clear this issue is very important for SingStar customers. A few sites have started to report about the petition too, which might help see that number rise further. The rather fine PlayThree.net has just posted an item about it, and PS3 Fanboy also picked up on it earlier today.

*UPDATE*

Well a full week after the petition and I managed to get a mention on PlayThree, PS3 Fanboy, Kotaku, The Guardian and Eurogamer.

After the snowball rolled for 5 days, Sony came out on Thursday to announce that there will be improvements over coming weeks. Eurogamer covered the article and mentioned the petition as a possible cause for their announcement.
It’s good that they responded, but it shouldn’t have come to this - a petition to get news to customers. And the update to the store of a small handful of mediocre songs isn’t exactly amazing, but at least it’s something.

Let’s hope the service sees further improvements sooner rather than later.

But the cherry on the cake are the community features. As you play the game, with the PSeye (a web cam) plugged in, SingStar will automatically record media for you like photos, videos and audio. This is great, as you can then save them and embarrass yourself at a later date showing off you SingStar party shenanigans. But go to ‘My SingStar online’ and you’ll be able to upload those, where people can then rate them or comment on them via your MySpace-style profile. It’s all utter, utter genius.

The built in SingStar community features, as far as I know - are unrivalled in any other game. They’re just awesome. My SingStar Online embraces the community who love SingStar so much and reward them with the ultimate platform for showing the world their talents (or non-talents).

I’ve just spent the morning making chin-videos of singles by R.E.M, Blink 182, and er, that song ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’. Not to mention, donning an Afro-wig and using my Rock Band props to jump around like a raving idiot to Chelsea Dagger by The Fratellis. Around the time I posted this, I had 2 videos in the top 10, rated 4.5 stars!

SingStar PS3 is an absolute triumph and will be keeping thousands of people entertained for many years to come. It was worth the wait!

Oh and a big shout out to the guy with a beard dressed up as Macy Gray. You ROCK!

It’s a busy week! I’ve only just got Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock and Uncharted: Drakes Fortune (amazing game) and then Rock Band turns up. Then SingStar. And next week it’ll be Unreal Tournament III. Not to mention the Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare double XP weekend tomorrow. MotorStorm’s Devils weekend pack is also available and I still have not given Eye of Judgement a run for it’s money.
Too many games at the moment! Sigh…

Still, suffice to say: Rock Band is amazing. A game where you can sing, play drums, play lead & bass guitar *and* do all those things with four people in your lounge. Or online!
Drums are most certainly the new best thing ever!

Caroline and I have been giving it a proper thrashing, her on vocals and myself hammering the drums.

Did I read that correctly?! It seems that Remote Play will be getting a very decent upgrade soon, that enables it to switch the PlayStation 3 console on and off remotely, from anywhere in the world. Great news. I can now officially keep all my PlayStation store downloads in check from wherever I am (without leaving my PS3 on at home and worrying that the house will burn down if it overheats…).

So when can we get it? My guess is that this next Remote Play feature will be bundled in the features for the magical PS3 2.0 firmware.

During the night at the Tokyo Game Show, Sony announced their new PlayStation 3 controller, the DUALSHOCK 3. Undoubtedly, their decision to bring out a DUALSHOCK enabled SIXAXIS was due to overwhelming demand from consumers (+1).

Phil Harrison once, ‘famously’ said: “Now, rumble I think was the last generation feature; it’s not the next-generation feature.“. Yes Phil, whatever you say…

The good news is that gamers ‘upgrading’ to a DUALSHOCK 3 SIXAXIS controller will get updates to let the best of their current games library work with rumble.
Let’s have a look.

Existing games like Resistance: Fall of Man and MotorStorm really stand out that list, along with WarHawk, Super Stardust HD and Heavenly Sword. Future games Uncharted: Drakes Fortune, Devil May Cry, Metal Gear Solid 4 and Haze are clearly going to benefit from having DUALSHOCK. Fantastic. But… where is GT5 (Prologue) on that list?

Engadget managed to get themselves a hands on with the DUALSHOCK 3, see what they thought.

Heavenly Sword developers, Ninja Theory were also there to talk about development on the game and Andy Serkis just happened to pop in unannounced also, which was very nice of him. He gave a little talk on his role in the game and the importance of character performance within next gen computer games. Nice chap.

Anyway - to be perfectly honest I’m off to bed so here are a few snaps from the evening… And thanks to those guys at ThreeSpeech for the event.

This room is lovely. Big TV. Sofas that are actually beds, in disguise. And pillows the size of baby elephants…

Munny!

Big shiny rounds thing, always a winner.

The new Ratchet and Clank game. Very slick.

Unchartered: Drakes Fortune. Another very good looking game upcoming on PS3… Plays well too.

It’s a robot (in disguise).

Look! It’s Andy Serkis. In one part of the photo he’s a slobbering corrupt & evil king, and in the other part he’s enjoying a glass of white wine…

The night wraps up with some friendly chit-chat and some magical tables possesing the very best in beer theft abilities (by the time I had finished taking this photo my beer [sitting on the table there] had vanished!)

This is the pit of joy. A 50″ Bravia. Comfy cushions. And awesome surround sound. Just look at those B&W PV1’s tucked away either side of the stage there…

Unbelievable. A filthy haxxorz Guitar Hero II follow up to Tay Zondays Chocolate Rain, entitled ‘Chawklit Reighn’.

Amazing.