Lunar Shards

Halo Reach
Platform: Xbox 360
Started: 2010
Status: Completed

I threw this game back in to play with some friends in a game of horse. Yup, the whole goal is to navigate some crazily designed levels by users only to blow your self up in the end? Thanks to Achievement Hunters, we now have an interesting way to play. Interestingly enough I don’t recall if we ever kept score since by 20 minutes in we’re so frustrated with the level and start cheating.

Arcana Heart 3
Platform: Playstation 3
Started: June 2011
Status: Ongoing

PSN finally came back up so i could finally redeem my PSN card that I got. I went ahead and picked up Arcana Heart 3 which is the 3rd game in an all girl fighting series. I have the first and liked it but we ended up skipping the second one. So far I’ve only gone through the game a few times but i’m having trouble with the last boss in the game in story/arcade mode.

Blazblue Continuum Shift
Platform: Playstation 3
Started: June 2011
Status: Ongoing

We pulled this out over the weekend to play around with. I haven’t practiced in a while so I’m really rusty with Noel and Litchi. We mess around for a bit and even got Bang’s super mode running. Man that’s a fast special!

Tekken 6
Platform: Playstation 3
Started: June 2011
Status: Ongoing

Another game where we pulled out to try it. My favorite is still Lili though I need to practice the combo I like to use. We played for a bit though since this was on my friend’s console, I didn’t really have any of my customizations.

Wipeout HD
Platform: Playstation 3
Started: 2009
Status: Ongoing

Ah Wipeout HD. The series itself has been a fun change of pace to the usual racing. With PSN coming back online, I had the chance to get Wipeout HD Fury for free through the welcome back program. One of the neat features in fury is pure combat where the goal is to deal enough damage to meet the goal.

Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor
Platform: Nintendo DS
Started: June 2011
Status: Ongoing

I actually restarted since I hadn’t played the game in nearly half a year. The game is vary much a Japanese Strategy RPG set in the Shin Megami Tensei series. The game seems to have branching stories which is neat and all. I’m only a little ways in but I’m going to try to finish it before moving on to the next game.

Mighty Milky Way
Platform: DSiWare (Nintendo 3DS)
Started: June 7, 2011
Status: Ongoing

My last game for the DSi before transferring everything over to the 3DS. The game is in the Mighty puzzle solving series in which you play a alien who’s ability is to destroy and create planets to allow her to navigate the maze. It’s a lot of fun and the last gem I found on the DSi. It’s by Way Forward Technology who’s working on the new BloodRayne game.

Excitebike 3D
Platform: Nintendo 3DS
Started: June 7, 2011
Status: Ongoing

The free game for the 3DS when the eShop opened up. The game itself is very much the NES version of the game with a 3DS twist. With the 3D turned off it looks like the original game on the NES but the minute you throw the slider up, the game changes perceptive a bit. The camera pulls back and what was once a 2D game has this very 3D effect going on with depth. It’ls unusual when you first see it and it did blow my mind since the only 3D game I have is Samurai Warriors which has a different use of the 3D.

Final Fantasy XIII
Platform: PS3
Started: 2010
Status: Ongoing

With PSN back up Saturday I decide to see if I could get further into Final Fantasy XIII and earn a few more trophies to sync up with. The stage I’m at is relatively easy but annoying if your in the wrong setup like I found myself in. Avoiding enemies in this area is difficult and I couldn’t beat the boss due to the damn Doom timer that showed up towards the end of the battle. I almost had him but Fang just couldn’t dish out enough damage. I may have to break open the strategy guide one more time to figure out how to beat him. I’ve been using it as weapon references and such but avoided looking at the boss tactics until after I’ve banged my head against the wall. Still… that strategy guide is a bit big compared to the other games. It’s about as big as oh… say the Exalted RPG book by White Wolf!

X-Men
Platform: Xbox 360 Live Arcade
Started: May 14th 2011
Status: Completed

This was out of no where. While over at a friend’s place we decided to run through the old X-Men arcade game. OMG… I suck at it! I knew I was bad at it even in the arcades but I seem to have gotten worse! I died more times then i wanted to count in that game. We played the Japanese rom which was even more embarrassingly bad then the US arcade rom. This is also the first time I’ve seen the later half of the game. In the arcades when i use to play it, we couldn’t get through stage 2 without spending a bucket load of quarters. The game is coin eater, and that hasn’t changed even in the XBLA version.

Soul Calibur IV
Platform: Xbox 360
Started: ??
Status: I think I finished my copy…

Rusty? Good grief, I forgot a lot of the moves. I couldn’t get Ivy to do her usual crazy attacks and couldn’t remember Kilik’s moves or Seong Mi-na’s attacks. Also it was the first time playing on the controller. I had always played on the 360 joystick I have. Talk about embarrassing when i couldn’t remember the block button. I had it programmed for my thumb on my joystick but on here, I couldn’t remember which one it was. I may break it out and practice a bit…

A while back I picked up a capture card from CompUSA to install into Miku with the idea of capturing content for youtube or for working with any future guides or whatever catches my fancy. I played with a number of ideas such as USB based capture devices but after reading the quality most of these USB based capture devices seem to be lacking in terms of bandwidth capabilities and required CPU power. It was about that time I stumbled upon the AverTV HD DVR. It’s an internal PCI-E x1 capture card but what makes it rather unique is that it uses HDMI ports. One which handles HDMI, and another which lets you use a break-away cable with just about every AV connection under the sun save coax.

Initially many reviewers were okay with the device and some recommended one called Black Magic however the price of the Black Magic capture card was very high. Almost 2x to 3x higher. Sure this only captures 1080i maximum resolution but i’m not going to be capturing 1080p video to begin with.

I ended up snagging the capture card and started playing with it. It’s a neat device overall. The bundled software does a decent job capturing game content from my Xbox 360 though I haven’t tested the PS3. I’ve read multiple sources that you are unable to capture it through HDMI due to the copy protection signal that the PS3 outputs over the HDMI cable. There are work arounds to using the HDMI method or I could go with the analog loophole (i.e. Component cables).

Here’s a test capture from card at 720p

If you look carefully there is an obvious compression issue which could be youtube or it could the the codecs. The video was captured as an H.264 format and it seem to look fine on my monitor before uploading. In either case it captures the action pretty nicely.

The card is also capable of capturing screenshots which is great.

Fable 3 HDD Installation Screen

Fable III - Princess Main Character

Here’s the link to the product for any that are interested.

Compusa: http://www.compusa.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=5523203&CatId=3493
Newegg: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815100049&cm_re=HDMI_capture-_-15-100-049-_-Product

So instead of getting to Final Fantasy XIII last night, I ended up fighting with a fickle piece of hardware. No, the game ran the opening fine but my audio system would only output normal stand ran the movie while fiddling with my audio. At the same time dropping into every Audio/Video forum to figure out if there’s a particular problem with my setup. I originally bought a Pioneer HTS-GS1 some time ago. It’s a lovely system. Everything plugs into the sub woofer and the control panel sits away from the sub-woofer via a sorta wired panel which has the nice Xbox 360 look to it. It was built with the Xbox 360 in mind anyway

The system is suppose to do DTS and Dolby Digital 5.1 which is why I got it. My previous system, a Klipsch GMX D-5.1 was giving me problems towards the end with the sub-woofer popping when I switched sources and also the fact there was no remote to the entire bloody thing. Would require me to get up and examine the disc base to change to any other source. It’s a nice system if you are using it with a PC or something where the disc model is close to you but not if you have to getup and reach over past the TV just to change a setting.

Anyway, the system Pioneer system is suppose to be able to auto detect the audio format coming from my system, PS3 or Xbox 360. In normal operation it’s suppose to use Dolby Digital when playing games or movies but for some reason the system refused detect it right and instead ran stereo mode. I must have missed this the last one or two times I watched something but I immediately caught it when i had to pick up one of the rear speakers my cat knocked over when I got home. No sound. My first fear was, oh great, she broke it! But then I realized it had a quiet buzz of a powered speaker but no sound. I immediately started messing with the remote seeing if I accidentally dropped my system into stereo only. Dropping into my PS3 menu, I found that DTS 5.1 was disabled. Odd, this system supports DTS 5.1 so I selected it and went back to the game’s opening. Still nothing. I switched the system to Dolby Pro-Logic but that wasn’t the right setting either. It’s suppose to have a DTS or Dolby Digital lighting up on the panel.

So I pulled out Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow and started to test with a blu-ray movie that I knew worked on the system. Well past tense was right. It did work the last time I watched this movie. I like it, it’s cheese but it’s my kind of cheese :3 Well, as it turns out the movie had the same problem. I switched over to my 360 and had the same problem too while attempting to use wings of Honneamise to test the 5.1 from there. Same problem which was odd. I hit the forums for a bit then decided to directly patch my system into the PS3 instead of passing it through the TV. I had read along the lines that TVs even though they accept HDMI inputs may not pass 5.1 digital sound data out of it’s optical port except from a cable source.

I did the same tinkering routine as I did with the previous setup but no luck. It seemed odd because the system gave me far less choices in as far as audio options that I can use. DTS and Dolby weren’t detected properly either which was odd. I ended up watching the movie almost 1 and 1/2 times before I found the problem. I switched the movie from PCM Linear to Bitstream and my audio system went “Hey! That’s a Dolby Digital signal!” and switched over to Dolby Digital mode. For the love of… the setting was in a hidden away inside a menu while watching the movie. I ended up dropping in FFXIII after I turned off the audio system and back on to clear the Dolby Digital and yup, game fires up in Dolby Digital mode. WTF… Seriously? What’s the point of having multiple HDMI ports on a TV if the optical output won’t pass the audio channel to the sound system properly!? Gah! Now I have to buy that HDMI A/V cable for my 360 just to get proper digital output from that system. I’m going to do a bit more research and call my uncle. He’s a bigger audiophile then myself.