Apple: What are they smoking? Also, Sony and gigantic software updates.

The iPhone could use a few things. I dunno, copy/paste comes to mind. A few thousand other things.

Apple just released 2.2.1 for the iPhone 3G. It’s a 246MB download. It claims to fix some things:

  1. Improves the stability of Mobile Safari
  2. Fixes an issue where some images saved from Mail do not display correctly in the Camera Roll

Okay, so… what? 246MB software update. Fixes what, two shared libraries? And we need to do a monolithic OS install for that? 246MB worth?

While I’m on this topic, Sony is guilty of this crap as well. My Playstation 3 just got an update (2.6) that was really large (140MB) and here’s what that gave me:

  1. Photo Gallery Application – support for the new Photo Gallery application, which gives users a fancier way of organizing and viewing photos stored on the PS3. Sort of. It’s crap, really.
  2. Support for DivX 3.11
  3. Guest Viewing of the PlayStation Store – provides guest access to PlayStation Store, enabling non-PlayStation®Network members to browse the storefront’s downloadable content, including games, game trailers, and demos, along with more than 4,200 movies and TV shows.

The best part of this update? The Photo Gallery application then needs to be installed separately from the XMB, after you update your PS3’s firmware. “To install the Photo Gallery application, go to the Photo section on the XMB, select Photo Gallery and press the X button.” Seriously, what the hell is it with these guys? I mean, my PS3 seems at times to be a progress indicator machine. Don’t even get me started on Playstation Home.

Meanwhile, a real software company like Microsoft can roll out incremental tiny updates to the Xbox 360 that are 1-3M and are pretty darned fast. The only huge update was when they replaced the entire OS with the new NXE. That was less than 128MB, still smaller than the PS3 update and about HALF the size of the iPhone update, and that replaced the ENTIRE OS with all new functionality.

Come on, step up Apple and Sony. Holy crap already.

February 6, 2009 | Kurt Koller | Tags: , , | No Comments »

Burnout Paradise adds restart option in February update

burnout
Burnout Paradise is a game I played a whole lot when it came out. It’s also a game that I haven’t sold off because of the amazing downloadable content that Criterion has supplied, all free.

Since most of my gaming happens on the Xbox 360, I have also racked up a bunch of achievements, as of right now 850/1050 gamerpoints worth. The achievements that I haven’t obtained out of the core 1000 are for anything related to Burning Routes. There is one burning route per model of car, and it involves just hauling it open-throttle style across the map from some point A to another point B, usually set far apart.

There are a few reasons that I haven’t done these. One is that I didn’t do any burning routes as I advanced my license, and now that’s pretty much all I have left. Completing a burning route, driving back to the garage, changing cars, driving to the starting point for that car’s burning route, then repeat for 80 or so cars. Since I’ve completed everything else in the game, I can’t really work it into gameplay, so it’s really tedious.

Another reason is a combination of two things. One, Burning Routes are hard, one crash and you’re liekly not going to do it. Two, there is no restart option.

Imagine that for a minute. You get in a car, do a long race across this gigantic map, and near the very end someone pulls out in an intersection and you crash. Now that you’ve blown it, you have to just sit for a moment until the game registers that you’re no longer interested, or go to the finish line and lose. And then you have to drive all the way back across the map to the starting point of the Burning route and start again. It’s torture.

Some people defend this game design decision by saying that it fits in with the open world philosophy and that anything else would be “jarring” or some other mealy-mouth fanboy crap. However, when an online race starts all players don’t have to go driving to the starting line, instead you’re suddenly warped to the starting line from wherever you are, and no one seems to complain about that.

Anyhow, I think it’s crap, and I’m not the only one.

Crashy Smashy image by JackBlade

Crashy Smashy image by JackBlade

Criterion is finally addressing this in one of two downloads available February 6th. One of the updates is the Party Pack, which is paid content and will add some kind of crazy festive party mode.

The other update, the free update, adds the forementioned restart. It also tweaks car handling and some of the game modes so they’re more balanced. For instance, the Stunt Run counter has been tweaked to start off slower and then speed up with each multiplier. Like all change, this will likely upset a large number of people and result in flamewars in many forums.

I might just dust off my copy and finish up those Burning Routes and get my Criterion license now that the game has been fixed.

Anyone is welcome to FR me on the Xbox 360, my gamertag is Minimalist360.

January 24, 2009 | Kurt Koller | Tags: , | No Comments »