PlayStation 2 Refurb and HDD Mod

Riiiiight.

The early models of the original PlayStation 2 are... difficult. That's my PlayStation 2. It was "refurbished." Which is why it ended up in Goodwill with disc read errors. Last January when I first started this blog, I had bought a slim PlayStation 2. I ended up hating it and buying a fat shortly after. Since the slim PlayStation 2 has a flip top lid instead of a DVD drive with a tray, it has some problems. Hoping to prevent the disc swap piracy circumvention of the PSX (and even the PS2), Sony put two lid sensors in the slim. One sits in the front corner of the disc area and one in the back. This wouldn't be a real problem, except for the fact that the rear lid sensor doesn't stay depressed very well. I was putting a book on top of it to keep it from thinking that the lid opened, and even then it didn't always help.

On top of this, the PS2 slim has compatibility issues with some games. The original PS2's processor was 294mhz, with the slim coming in at 300mhz. This breaks a few PS2 games and the slim has more compatibility issues with original PlayStation games, you can see these games here. Really, the fat PS2 is anything but a downgrade.. not to mention out of the box HDD support (some PS2 slims support the HDD with modding).

HDD support is one of the lesser known features of the PS2. It was pretty well supported in Japan, with games featuring installs and caching to speed up loading. In the US, it was pretty much only used for Final Fantasy XI. There are US games which take advantage of the drive, but it's nowhere near what it was in Japan. We'll get into that later.

The PS2 is not a difficult console to work with, but it is finnicky. I think about older consoles like this somewhat like classic cars. You either can't be afraid to get your hands dirty, or you need to find a good mechanic who won't charge too much and will be honest with you. First, let's address one of the most blatant and annoying problems.

Not all PS2 games come on DVDs. Some come on CDs, particularly the earlier games. CDs come on blue backed discs and DVDs are silver/gold. I think everyone has a copy of Tekken Tag Tournament, and I think everyone has probably also noticed that playing the game results in a pretty horrible squealing noise coming from the PS2. I googled this and it apparently has to do with the fact that CDs read at 12x and DVDs read at 6x (those speeds may not be accurate, but CD is faster and that's what's important). The higher rate of speed causes the magnetic locking..top part.. thing of the drive to slip. There's a pretty ghetto solution going around:

Put tape on the top of the disc to give the the top part a better grip. Yeah.. I don't want to tape up all of my CD based games. If you look closely at that picture, you can see near the center of the disc that some of the printing has rubbed off where the spindle contacts the disc and it's even more apparent on my copy of Tekken Tag Tournament. This needs to be fixed if it's actually damaging the disc. Instead of putting the tape on the disc, I decided to put the tape on the top part.

Some simple painters' tape fixed the problem right up, and now I don't have to tape all of my discs like some kind of psychotic. I don't have to hear a banshee squealing anymore, either.

The next problem is the laser. Early models of the PlayStation 2 used the KHS-400B laser. This is the laser that lead to all of those infamous disc read errors. The first 3 revisions of the PS2 use the KHS-400B. The 400B was later retired in favor of the KHS-400C, a much more reliable piece of hardware. The 400C can go into most consoles with the 400B, but there are issues with the length of the flex cable which puts stress on it, causing a worse problem. Luckly, I have the 4th revision. It had a 400B in it, but the 400C goes in without problem.

I had originally replaced the laser with another 400B. It worked, but it had issues. CD based games started quickly, but DVD based games took a while to boot. In addition, there could be some hiccups with loading things fast enough. I got tired of it and decided to pop in a 400C. The 400C works much better. DVD and CD based games load in a similar time and there's no issue with loading assets quickly enough in game.

Don't forget to remove the antistatic solder.

The fat PS2's teardown is a bit more involved than the slim, but there's plenty of guides out there. Replacing lasers is pretty much the same for every console, though. Get in there, unplug the old one, drop the new one in. We've now addressed two of the most critical problems with the original PS2. Now, let's improve.

Here's the back of the PS2 network adapter. These are common as hell and cheap, too. The official PS2 HDD kit had a 40gb HDD paired with... just this network adapter. Well, the good news is that we don't need the official Sony kit. Those are standard connectors that any IDE HDD will have. There is a company that sells a SATA upgrade as well, which you basically just plug right into the existing network adapter. Their website is a little sketchy, though.

If you're into modding and whatnot, then you've surely heard of FMCB for the PS2. It exploits a memory card function to load custom code. I don't have anything against FMCB... but there's a better way. That's the HDD OSD mod and it is really easy. I actually used that guide myself. For actually playing games, there's a few different options. OPL is the best option, but I don't really like it aesthetically. Thankfully, there's HDLGame Installer. If you've never used a PS2, the memory card screen has these nifty little 3D icons for each game that are usually characters in the game animated somehow. The PS2 HDD uses this same interface, and it lets you install games to the HDD and launch them from the PS2 browser and associates the little icon with the game as well. Neat.

There's actually a lot of cool stuff you can do with the HDD mod. My favorite thing is probably the ability to back up memory card save files to the HDD (this works for PS2 and PS1 saves). For getting games on the HDD, WinHIIP is probably your best option even though it's a bit old. There's also a PlayStation emulator called POPStarter that you can use to load PS1 games on the HDD. HDD installation doesn't work with all PS2 games, but the compatibility is high. POPStarter doesn't work with all PS1 games either, but that's to be expected since it's an emulator. The HDD mod here is probably not for the faint of heart though, as it's not easy to work with in some regards. It's definitely more involved than an Xbox mod. On the other hand, it's not as pants shittingly terrifying as the Wii softmod with its risk of being bricked with anything you change on the system.

This video kind of shows what it's like. Now your HDD mod is working and you've put it in your PS2... but contrary to what everyone online said, it's not a very good fit. The official PS2 kit had HDD rails which held it steady. Obviously, we don't have that. This bothered me quite a bit as you could hear the HDD rocking around if you just slightly bump the PS2. Let's fix that too.

This is shielding from an original Xbox 360 HDD. It's pretty malleable, and already has holes drilled in it that will be the right size for the holes on any HDD. There's really not a lot of space in the PS2 HDD bay, so we'll just need to cut a thin strip of this and mold it to the side of the HDD and screw it in.

That's another 500GB Hitachi Deskstar like I used for the Xbox mod. You can see the strip there that I attached. I was planing on doing both sides, but this one side was actually enough to hold the drive firmly in place.

Now that PS2 warrants the refurbished sticker.

Just kidding, I removed it.

God of War (PlayStation 2) Review

God of War came out at a time when it was ripe to be ignored. The Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 were the worst kept secrets of all time, people were salivating over the next generation game consoles. God of War was a good enough game that it rose above and became a massive success. I even remember playing it at a friend's house back when it came out.

I'm a big fan of beat 'em up types like this, and God of War is a masterpiece of the genre. God of War doesn't reinvent the wheel, instead it perfects it. This is an approach which is often overlooked when creating games, and God of War deserves the highest praise for this.

The game follows the typical strong attack/weak attack/grab layout that is familiar to the genre and adds in magic for special attacks. Your weapons, the Blades of Chaos are pretty graphically impressive for the PlayStation 2 and their sweeping range makes combat a blast. God of War really captures the feeling of being Kratos. You feel empowered with the same rage that Kratos carries with him. The violence is so over the top that it almost borders on humorous at times, especially with the face smashing that Kratos delivers to the Sirens of a later level.

The game plays out in what I consider a pseudo-adventure game format. Areas loop back on themselves, and you do revisit areas but you're essentially in a linear progression broken up into levels. I first noticed this in the 2004 Ninja Gaiden on Xbox. There are puzzles and items collect, but they're compartmentalized and broken up. You won't be looking for items for some kind of end game push, what's in front of you is the only thing that's immediately important. 

For the most part, the puzzles do work well. They're never too obscure, but they can be annoying. A large part of the puzzles consists of dragging boxes, which is about as interesting as paint drying for the most part. In fact, I think this is the most recent game I've seen that has an excessive amount of box dragging puzzles. Positioning things right, getting to a higher ledge.. the puzzles are a bit of relic from the N64/PSX level. It's a small black mark on an otherwise fantastic game. In addition, the puzzles can get a bit of excessive towards the end of the game. It can make you long for the full on action from earlier levels.

One other complaint I have is the lack of similar bosses to the early Hydra battle. This was hyped enough that a demo was actually released with this boss battle. After that, you expect to see many more gigantic bosses.. but it doesn't really happen. There are a few, but it's not enough. It's incredibly satisfying taking down the big bads in this game. 

I've mentioned that the graphics in this game are pretty nice for a PlayStation 2 title. Kratos' character model is pretty high poly, and he's textured well. The enemies look nice, too. This seems to have been made easier by the game's setting. With its ancient Greece setting, all of the buildings are generally just made of large, plain gray stone blocks. This seems to have saved a lot of space and allowed for nicer textures for key environmental pieces and characters with the PS2's limited RAM. The game supports widescreen as well as 480p and holds up excellently.

The plot is actually quite compelling, and I usually don't get too invested in these sort of ancient time epics. Ares, the god of war, has launched an attack on Athena's city of Athens. Athena asks that Kratos kill the god of war by finding and using pandora's box. Kratos has been serving the gods since he called upon the god of war to kill his enemies when Kratos was faced with defeat. Kratos has a very particular bone to pick with Ares (and a reason for his ashy white skin), but I won't spoil it as it is a bit of a shocker if you're not familiar with the lore of the franchise.

The game's music is also stereotypical of your average ancient epic type of movie. I must note though, that there is some ambient synthesizer music that is absolutely fantastic. It first appears in the later stages of the game when you're close to pandora's box and continues to be used throughout. It almost sounds like Vangelis music, and would be right at home on the Blade Runner soundtrack. It sounds odd, but it really fits with the awe of the environments.

God of War is an excellent game. It's one of my favorite PlayStation 2 games that I've played so far, and I fully understand all of the hype that it has now. This is a game that is worth a play, nearly every second is enjoyable. Ninja Gaiden retains top action game honors in my book, but God of War comes in a very close second.

The Score: 9.5/10

Why does Nintendo get a free pass?

There's been a lot of Nintendo love recently. A lot. I couldn't tell you why.

Maybe I could.

Mostly, I'm confused. Are we all talking about the same Nintendo here? I don't think we are. The Nintendo that everyone is talking about is a fun company, focused on the core gaming experience. They only make the best games, and every hot Japanese game is certainly coming stateside.

I'm not familiar with this Nintendo. The Nintendo I'm familiar with is a far different company, and they'll have to do a lot to convince me otherwise. The Nintendo I'm thinking of promised big things for the Gamecube, and then trickled out about one good game a year (two if we were lucky), while forsaking third parties. The Nintendo I'm thinking of ignored a stunning amount of excellent import titles for the DS and the Wii.

Thanks, XSEED!

Think back to only a few years ago. Operation Rainfall was coming out in full force, trying to get the Wii some support. A group of fans were pushing Nintendo to support their own console. This is depressing. It's especially depressing when you consider that the games in question (The Last Story, Xenoblade Chronicles and Pandora's Tower) were all either already localized by Nintendo of Europe or were in the process of localization. Nintendo managed to ignore this for quite a while, and if I recall correctly, they even made an announcement saying they would have news on Xenoblade Chronicles only to go on and announce that they were not releasing Xenoblade Chronicles. Holy shit. That's the customer service equivalent of leading people to the gas chamber.

Someone at Nintendo of America managed to figure this out, hit the OH SHIT button and get Xenoblade Chronicles released at Gamestop. Nintendo of America never publicly acknowledged Xenoblade Chronicles again. Everyone else loved it. I loved it. It was an incredible game. And...? Xenoblade Chronicles was successful enough that Gamestop reprinted it. No one knows what that initial allotment was, but it was big enough that Gamestop charged $120 for it used (the second hand market outside of Gamestop was even higher at times) and then did a new print run. And Nintendo of America never commented on it.

Sure, Nintendo has said that they'll be getting back to "core" gamers. Sure, Nintendo has shown off Xenoblade Chronicles X. The catch here is Nintendo of America. Nintendo of Japan can do all they want to get back to core gamers. If the geniuses over at NOA decide it won't fly though, it won't. Just like Xenoblade Chronicles almost didn't.

MONADO MONADO MONADO MONADO MONADO MONADO MONADO

The Last Story was also an excellent game. After Xenoblade Chronicles did well enough to warrant massive prices in the used game market (implying everything sold out, economics 101), Nintendo said "fuck no" to The Last Story. XSEED came to the rescue and released The Last Story. They were generous enough to do it in quantities that the game could easily be found in. It was well received, and it seems to have sold well also.

XSEED is not a major company. They published a game that NINTENDO ITSELF published in Europe and did more to make it available and promote it than Nintendo of America did. I understand that Pandora's Tower was a pretty mediocre game, but I still want to get a copy. You see, I like the Wii. A lot. I really do. I think it's a great console, technical shortcomings aside (it really is a fucking mess). But Nintendo of America did its fans a disservice. They did nothing to support the system when Nintendo of Europe was doing it. I don't place all of the blame on Nintendo of America.

I also blame this man:

Calm the fuck down.

It doesn't matter how much of a creative visionary you are, everyone shits the bed at some point. Remember when The Streets released Original Pirate Material? They (he? fuck you.) also released Everything is Borrowed. You cannot base your console around the whims of a quirky guy. 

The Nintendo 64 had a weird controller, but it was practical. The Gamecube put form over function and it failed the system (those miniature discs pushed a lot of 3rd party devs out, even from ports). The Wii put a control gimmick as the primary control scheme and it failed. Now we have the Wii U... and I honestly don't know how the fuck you're supposed to control it.

As far as I know, it supports...

-The Wiimote and nunchuck (along with the classic controller and all variations in-between)

-The Wii U Game Pad

-The Wii U Pro Controller

Holy fuck. I get that the Game Pad is the primary input for the first player... but what do the other people typically use? Is it the Wiimote? Is it the pro controller? I honestly don't fucking know. Does it vary by game? Are you just supposed to play alone?

I honestly think Miyamoto is a problem for the company moving forward. There are a lot of Nintendo franchises, and a lot of them are ignored for stupid reasons. Take F-Zero. F-Zero GX is one of the finest arcade racing games of all time. I absolutely loved this game, and it was one of the few Gamecube games that I really truly had a great time with. I would go so far as to say that it brought me joy. We haven't gotten a new F-Zero since. Why? Because Miyamoto thinks it needs a new control scheme.

Holy shit guy, you can't reinvent the wheel for every fucking game. I get it, you're ambitious. You want people to interact in games with new ways and that means a stupid controller that has no practical applications outside of one game. So, stop it. Knock it the fuck off. It doesn't work. I can have a million different gaming experiences on a PlayStation or an Xbox and I do it with the same controller.

Oh, wait, I forgot another Wii U control method.

This is purely for Super Smash Bros for Wii U (what the fuck kind of a name is that?), and they promptly sold out. To which Nintendo basically shrugged and said "that sucks." Eventually the outcry was loud enough that they went "fuck it, fine, have more" but it's just ridiculous. Does Nintendo hate money? Look at Sony and Microsoft. If they release a peripheral it's never just a one run thing. Sony and Microsoft sell out of things, and then they say "we're working as fast as we can to get more to market." They don't say tough shit. They try. They understand that fans want something.

It's almost like Nintendo is bothered by fans. They seem to have a "what do you want?" attitude instead of "what can we do for you?"

I don't trust the Wii U and I don't trust the 3DS. They both had poorly timed launches. They're stuck in between, and unlike the DS and the Wii they aren't flourishing. I would love to play Bayonetta 2, but the Wii U isn't going to make it and I'm not going to spend the money on overpriced hardware (marginally better than a 360 or PS3 with a much higher cost). There's already rumblings of a new Nintendo console being worked on and typically once those rumblings start coming from legitimate sources they come true sooner rather than later. They messed up and they know it. The New 3DS is less of an incremental console that most can ignore (like the DSi) and more of a full fledged upgrade. This is basically the Game Boy Color to the Game Boy, and Nintendo is doing their best to pretend it isn't so.

Nintendo is still just as shifty as they used to be and always have been. Don't be fooled by amiibos and Super Smash Bros., they're still just as out of touch as they have been.

I'm also still bitter about Last Window: The Secret of Cape West not coming out on DS in America. And fuck you European exporters, $60 is pretty steep for a DS game. Seriously, play Hotel Dusk: Room 215. PLAY IT. Then weep for Last Window.

The Virtues of Using the Original Format In a Remake and Digital World

I prefer vinyl, movies on film and playing games on the original console. Some call it being a snob but I think that there's something to be said about getting as close as possible to the original experience. Computers let us have everything now. I dislike emulation, yet I've got several ROMs on every computer in the house if I feel like running through a few levels of Castlevania really quickly. I've got an iPod loaded with hundreds of albums. Most of my consoles are modded so that I can play any game I want whenever I want. But for the most part, I don't.

"WHY THE FUCK NOT?" you bellow, as your monocle falls out and you spill your tea. Well, let's talk about that. Everything that goes into a game is a part of a presentation. From the console that you're putting the disc into to the controller you're playing it on, this is part of the experience. The case artwork, the disc artwork, all of this sets a precedent for what you're about to experience.

I've been playing God of War, so let's talk about that real quickly.

Here's the box artwork for the PlayStation 2 version. This isn't necessarily excellent box art but it tells you what you're in for. This is a game of furious violence and grandeur. Kratos looks up to the challenge, but hesitant or burdened.  The disc art carries a close up of the same image and the pages of the manual look like they're printed on old paper, with chaotic sketches showing the enemies.

Here's the cover to the remastered version:

5 FULL GAMES of sad lion hands in 3D. This takes away from all of the games. I get it, it's supposed to be a budget way to play the older games in the series in an enhanced quality. You've lost part of the presentation.. part of the experience. Picking the game from a menu is much different than being thrown directly to the flaming title screen with Kratos staring back at you. You lose the intensity, you lose the knowledge of what you're about to experience each time. You lose the anticipation and the excitement. It cheapens the game knowing that it's now just stuffed on a disc with four others in the series.

I'm honestly not fond of the HD remaster trend, either. It's running at a higher resolution yes, but typically the textures are untouched and there are other unfortunate changes. By far the worst remaster I've seen is for Resident Evil: Code VERONICA X HD. It's less of a remaster and more of an aborted remake. The game no longer runs on its original engine and instead runs in Capcom's MT Framework. They attempted to add in dynamic lighting where the original game's was mostly static. It's horrible.

In the original version of the game, you could see quite well to the end of the hall and the lighting had more of a blue tint. That creepy doll way in the back was much more prominent, constantly looming. The lighting changes make the game look absolutely atrocious, with colors constantly appearing over saturated. In addition, they attempted to add some sort of depth of field effect and a grainy film filter. The depth of field effect is completely broken because as you know... Resident Evil has static cameras. Though this game was in full 3D and did feature occasional camera movement, it isn't dynamic. The result is just that your character sort of goes out of focus once they move too far away from the camera. It's lazy and sloppy. The cutscenes weren't re-rendered either, resulting in a macroblocked fuckery. The only textures that were re-done were the character's faces; if you look beyond their faces in the in-engine cutscenes, you'll see a blurry compressed mess. No one should have any faith in the Resident Evil Gamecube remake's....remake.

Granted, most HD remakes don't fuck up like this but in this case, you're better off with the Dreamcast version. The console's VGA output is beautiful and scales very well on HDTVs. Too often, said remakes make slight tweaks to the game. Altering difficulty, removing framerate issues.. but even those are part of the experience. Hell, I don't always stick to the original format but that was a pretty extreme case. In its original state Castlevania: The Adventure is borderline unplayable. Using an emulator significantly altered my experience.

Since I mentioned remakes, let's talk about remakes. Since we're already talking about Resident Evil, let's talk about Resident Evil. The original Resident Evil, in my opinion, is a masterpiece. It's one of the finest games ever made. I'm talking about this version:

That's right motherfucker, the Jill sandwich version. With the really bad voice acting. The game is brilliantly paced and everything just works incredibly well. Even the tank controls. You see, that's called atmosphere. You didn't used to be able to do anything you wanted in games. Games weren't always Grand Theft Auto. They had rules; the very nature of a game. That bad voice acting? Wonderful. It was clearly intended to be a pretty serious game but I love b-movie type things and I can't help but have a soft spot for the game. They had good intentions but they reached beyond their means. It's charm; it's character. Sure, the REmake for Gamecube fixed that. It made the graphics better. But it lost its character in the process. It became a grim horror movie taking itself way too seriously. It lost its soul. It wasn't the creators' original intent anymore. It was made bigger and louder, just because it could be. Not necessarily because it should be.

Let's talk about emulators as well. They're terrible. Accuracy has become more of a priority for recent developments, but it'll never be enough. bsnes does a good job at getting closer to how the console actually runs, but I don't think I've ever heard a Super Nintendo emulator that did a good job of recreating the sound. The Super Nintendo's sound chip has a very smooth sound. It's easy on the ears. I'm not quite sure how to adequately describe the particulars of what I mean, but we'll go with the coin sound in the Mario games. It sounds jagged and sharp on emulators, where it sounds smooth on the console. 

This is true of emulated games on consoles as well. I've encountered quite a few strange glitches in Sonic 3 on the Xbox 360 version that I know don't happen on the console version. How? Because I've beat that game hundreds of fucking times, that's how. Just because it has some sort of endorsement or approval of the original developer means nothing for performance. The only real way to ensure a similar performance would be by porting the game with the original source code. Unfortunately, the original source code is frequently unavailable and even then it wouldn't guarantee a 100% perfect experience. 

Using the console itself is even an experience. Picking up a Banjo-Kazooie cartridge and pushing it into the N64 then sliding the power button up and picking up the three pronged controller creates a vastly different mindset and mood than holding down the guide button on a 360 controller and going into your game library and pressing A. The difference in the analog sticks makes movement feel different. The difference in the shape of the buttons makes the timing feel different. Don't take this as an excuse for people who say they just can't play a game that's on PlayStation on an Xbox though. They're just mad they lost.

But what of movies and music, since I mentioned it? Film is a better format than digital. No question about it. Hollywood wants you to think otherwise so they can save a buck. When the Wizard of Oz was remastered for Blu-Ray the original negative was scanned at an 8k resolution. This is a movie that came out in 1939. Avatar came out in 2009 and was filmed in digital at a 2k resolution. In a few years when 4k becomes the standard, Avatar is going to have a lot of evidence of macroblocking and compression artifacts (read: it's going to look as shitty as the movie is). When The Wizard of Oz is released in 4k, it's going to look even better than the Blu-Ray. An entire generation of movies is going to look like shit because Hollywood wanted to save a dime.

Want to know the advantages of film? Watch this:

It's simplistic, but it gives a good overview of the advantages along with some side by side comparisons. The Level 1.1 and 1.2 Dragon Ball Z Blu-Rays were incredible... and then they got cancelled because fans didn't like the film grain and the fact that it was 4:3. So, instead we got another cropped atrocity that had digital noise reduction applied like it was nobody's business.

Vinyl is more subjective. From a technical standpoint, CD has advantages. I believe vinyl is a more accurate reproduction of sound though. I won't go into all that, but if you're buying your music in MP3 format from online stores, you're robbing yourself.

Too often we're just okay with things. By doing that, we're robbing ourselves of something. Next time you want to play a game, why not pass on the ROM and emulator? Why not look into getting the actual console? Next time you want to see a movie, why not go see it at a theater that shows it on film? Oh, wait, you can't. Bad example.

My point is, just because you can get it easier and run it in a higher resolution with an emulator it doesn't make it better. Just because you can download a song on iTunes for a dollar doesn't make it the best bang for your buck. Just because you can make your movie in HD doesn't mean you should. Embrace the experience. Spend the money and treat yourself. Look for the best way to watch a movie, listen to a song, play a game. Enjoy the art as it was meant to be enjoyed.

Uncharted: Drake's Fortune (PlayStation 3) Review

Uncharted seems to be the PlayStation 3's crown jewel, so I made this my first target in setting out with the system. I'm a fan of Indiana Jones and the bits I've seen of the Uncharted games seemed to follow in that vein. The game certainly looks the part (and does its best to be), but it doesn't quite meet those aspirations.

I remember Uncharted being that game. The killer app that was supposed to turn a console's fortunes around. It does a pretty good job of coming close to that. The graphics are still impressive, even for a game from 2007.

The character models aren't as good as anything we have now, but the environments still hold up well. In playing this and some other PlayStation 3 games I've noticed that a lot of games use pretty low texture resolution with the lighting sort of pre-applied to the textures. This isn't as much of an issue in Uncharted since you're never really close enough to many objects to see this, so it all works very convincingly.

The story for Uncharted focuses on Nathan Drake, the self proclaimed descendent of Sir Francis Drake. When the game opens Drake has tracked down Francis Drake's coffin, which contains a diary seemingly pointing towards El Dorado, the lost city of gold. Instead, Drake learns that El Dorado is actually a gold statue which was hauled away by the Spaniards to an island in the pacific. Drake heads to the island with a reporter named Elena who is trying to film a documentary.

Unfortunately, the characters never really feel fleshed out. They have enough personality to stand on their own, but you'd always like to know a bit more. Uncharted hurtles forward like a Hollywood blockbuster, so there's never really any time for that. Naughty Dog did their best to make Nathan Drake a ringer for Indiana Jones, but he never quite has the qualities to pull of the arrogance in a charming way. Elena is about as interesting as a wet rag and unfortunately, our villains are as well. The story never really rises above serviceable, but the lore surrounding El Dorado that the game creates is an interesting twist.

Uncharted plays out as a third person adventure game. There's a fair amount of platforming here, which works very well. You'll be scaling walls, swinging on vines, doing... adventurer stuff, I suppose. It would've been nice to have a bit more platforming, actually. There's also a puzzle element to the game. These are very poorly designed. They're not bad, they just make you feel like an idiot. I'm not a fan of games constantly pandering, but there are certain things that are sort of expected with puzzles in games. Some kind of indication of what exactly you should be doing.

You're right, idol. I probably shouldn't have sex. Shia LaBoeuf be damned.

Let me explain; early in the game, a character (Sully) who is helping you lights a sort of giant torch on fire with a cigar. This in turn causes a lantern on the ceiling to light as well. In front of you is a giant pile of wood that it appears you can move out of the way somehow. The lantern on the ceiling is chained; logically, you can't shoot it down. Uncharted doesn't really give you hints or a clear solution. Sully makes some kind of a statement about burning the wood pile to get through. I immediately start looking for something to light off of the main torch thing. There's a lot of different objects in the environment, so the lantern is not the immediate choice. I wandered aimlessly for a few minutes until Sully says "try shooting the lantern." So, I shoot it. It doesn't break or fall down, it just sort of drops a bit of burning wood and it sets the pile on fire. Not only was this not intuitive, you made me feel stupid. I spent a fair amount of time looking for another way, then you just insult me with the answer.

Not all of the puzzles have the same absent-mindedness to their design, but there are a few. I think the key to making a good puzzle is to make it just obscure enough, but also just obvious enough. Then you feel clever, you're getting something done. That just wasted my time and made me feel stupid in the end.

The rest of the game plays out as a third person shooter. There's a fun variety of weapons, but ammo can seem a bit scarce. For the most part, you'll be hugging cover and popping out to take shots. The shooting mechanics aren't the best. Your targeting reticule is a bit large and touchy, and it can be hard to get a good shot on an enemy. In addition, they take a lot of shots to take down. Some real bullet sponge business. This wouldn't be as glaring of an issue, but Uncharted isn't really a long game. It took me about 7 hours to finish. Moving through the levels doesn't take long, the only real hold up is the enemies. Once you're in an area where you're being attacked, it's wave after wave after wave of enemies. You're likely to die once or twice just because of the volume of enemies and the fact that they never stop coming. They just kind of upped the enemy count to pad out the game. It's sort of weird. With all of the bodies laying around at the end of some segments I think Nathan Drake may be a more prolific killer than Max Payne.

That difficulty padding applies heavily to the final boss as well. For the most part, he's an average shot. However, if you're popped out at a specific time he will shoot you in the head without fail, every time. It feels cheap and it's very annoying. It's especially odd as there's really nothing else in the game resembling a boss.

Forced motion controls!? NO WAY!

The controls can occasionally be frustrating. Using the Sixaxis control to balance on logs is annoying but it doesn't come up too often. This is also one of those games were buttons are context sensitive. There were a few times where I ended up hopping over a ledge to my death inadvertently. Surprisingly, the platforming goes off without a hitch. Everything with the game comes together when you're scaling walls. There are some odd design choices; in particular, a scene where you're riding with Elena on a jet ski. If you want to fire, you have to come to a complete stop to use your weapon. This obviously opens you up to being immediately fucking ruined with a rocket launcher.

It sounds like I have pretty heavy criticism for this game, but I did end up enjoying it quite a bit. It's just brainless enough that it's enjoyable to come back to and it's just clever enough to make you want to come back. This is one of those games where you know the sequel will rectify every single nitpick and make it all better. Time proved that to be right as Uncharted 2 was a blockbuster when it came out. I've got it sitting on the shelf, and I'm working my way to it. Uncharted: Drake's Fortune can be had for very cheap, and it's worth the 7 hours.

The Score: 8/10

Repairing the PlayStation 2's PS1 Fuse with a Resettable Fuse

First things first... this isn't a PlayStation 1 fuse. It's a PS1 fuse. That's what it's labeled as on the motherboard.

This sucker is also the destroyer of worlds if you anger it.

The PS1 fuse is there for the power and eject buttons. If you've never opened a PS2, these are a nightmare. They're attached by a ~8 inch ribbon cable to the motherboard. The actual power and eject buttons are connected to the top of the case, meaning you have to walk on eggshells every time you open the PS2.

This fuse blows at the slightest disturbance. I blew mine out just doing some routine maintenance. I found that I had a V4 PS2 and not a V3 as I thought, so I bought a KHS-400C laser since they're reputed to be more reliable (it does seem to be). Anyways, while I was closing up the system I didn't have this ribbon cable seated well. It was slightly off, which shorted the cable and blew the PS1 fuse.

Shitty. Without the PS1 fuse functioning, there is no way to turn on the PS2 and use it. I don't like how easily this fuse blows, so I wanted to negate any future issues. I considered bridging the fuse, but if it blows that easily, this seemed like a bad idea. Enter resettable fuses. They don't blow like traditional fuses, and they're widely used in modern electronics. Opening any recent game console, you'll see resettable fuses everywhere. As always, Wikipedia has the rundown.

The PS1 fuse for a V4 PlayStation 2 is a 400 miliamp (or .4 amps) fuse rated at 12 volts. I couldn't find a 400mA 12v resettable fuse, so I bought a 400mA 60v fuse. The voltage really doesn't matter here, the amps do.

Pre-Installation

There's not enough clearance on the board for the resettable fuse to stand, so I trimmed the legs quite a bit and laid it down. Since the fuse is blown, you don't need to remove it; the current isn't moving through the fuse, so soldering either end of the fuse to the other will bypass the blown fuse. I left the original PS1 fuse in and soldered the resettable fuse to the sides of the fuse. This made life considerably easier since the original fuses are surface mount components.

There it is all installed. I trimmed the legs down to where they bend inwards. It was the perfect size to fit right against the edges of the original fuse. I had concerns about this working even though it was completely sound in theory. I reassembled everything and...

Perfect!

Now I can get back to Final Fantasy XII. I did have a working PS2 slim, but I really hate that thing. Plus I'm very attached to my HDD mod now. I'll do a post on setting all of that up soon.

Xbox Mod Adventure: Part 3

Now that the difficult things are out of the way, on to the easy stuff (depending on skill level).

First is putting on a more user friendly dash. I prefer an older version of XBMC with the MC360 skin. I think the newer versions of XBMC are a bit more style over substance.

Fantasy football team name + The Sacko for some smack talk.

There's a few different ways to get XBMC as your main dash. A more popular option is to set it up with a shortcut XBE that will change boot priority for dashes, but I just deleted UnleashX and dropped XBMC in. I figure this leaves less room for error and I felt ballsy enough to do it since I had XboxHDM running anyways. If you don't have XboxHDM and your EEPROM, you probably shouldn't do that just because you'll be screwed if you mess it up.

I left UnleashX on the Xbox and put it in the applications folder. UnleashX is a good way to rip games, so it's a useful dash to keep around. Honestly, there's not a whole lot UnleashX can do that XBMC can't if your Xbox is only softmodded. So, I ripped all of my Xbox games with UnleashX which did not take too long (probably averaged out to about 12 minutes per game, much better than ripping games to the PS2 HDD), and added about 30 more games which I downloaded.

If you're downloading games, you'll need to FTP them to the Xbox. Filezilla is a wonderful option for this. If you don't have a crossover cable then you can share your wi-fi connection through your ethernet port and connect your Xbox to your computer that way. You'll then be able to check the IP address in XBMC (or on the main screen in UnleashX) and start moving your games over.

I ended up putting 82 games on the Xbox. There was still a fair amount of free space as well, but I think I covered most of the Xbox essentials. I also put on quite a few emulators. This is a pretty good list of what's available. 

These were the emulators I ended up putting on. There's a few MAME games, a full NeoGeo set, full Gameboy/Color/Advance sets, full SNES set, full NES set, full Genesis set and full 32X set. The Nintendo 64 emulator has about 100 of the games that work best with the emulator. After all of the games went on, there was still over 200gb left. Plenty of space to add more MAME games and get a healthy collection going for a PlayStation emulator, too. The NeoGenesis emulator is actually pretty cool, as it will run genuine Sega CD games from the Xbox's drive. Sort of a novelty thing, but I tried it out.

I also added DLC for all of the original Xbox games that had it and applied title updates as well. You can no longer download the title updates or the DLC since the original Xbox Live servers went offline, but some kind souls created installers with all of the content that you can download and run. They'll install the DLC and sign it to your console.

A lot of that content is multiplayer only... but all is not lost. Most multiplayer Xbox games had LAN options... which you can tunnel over the internet and play with other people. Enter XLink Kai and XBConnect. These let you tunnel that connection and play online. I use XLink Kai semi-frequently for Halo 2. This is the most common game people play, but I've managed to get people together to play some Tony Hawk 2x as well (awesome). I prefer XLink Kai's interface and the fact that it has a native OS X client. XBConnect has a much more serious crowd, which can sort of interrupt the fun of just getting online to play.

Anyways, this Xbox is done.

It needs to be cleaned though. A lot of consoles seem to favor these ridges in their design for some reason. Dust likes to sit in those ridges but it's not a problem.

I take a paper towel, wet it and then use a credit card to run it along the inside of the ridges to get the dust out.

Now it looks brand new and it's better than ever with a 500gb HDD and tons of games.

I traded this Xbox to my friend for a 120gb PlayStation 3 slim, Max Payne 3, Uncharted 3, Call of Duty: Ghosts, Sports Champions, two DualShock 3 controllers, two Move controllers and the PS3 camera. He was having issues with data becoming corrupted on the hard drive and didn't want to mess with fixing it, so he bought a PS4 and wanted a way to play some older games.

This Xbox was actually finished and the exchange was made a couple of weeks ago, so I'll have some PlayStation 3 stuff up soon.