Less Than Daily

v 4.03: proof if needed that not all roleplayers lead interesting lives

PS2 Online

Since I’ve owned consoles (think the SNES was my first … bought just for streetfighter 2 🙂 there have been some great games, but the only ones that I’ve still been playing Long after release (other than the Streetfighter 2 games) are the football ones.

Prince of Persia is a FAN-tastic game, but once you’ve completed it.. you’ve completed it .. every match you play in a football title is different, but you soon learn how to beat the console, so it gets too easy..

But then they invented ps2 online .. now every match you play Really is different, you very rarely play the same player twice (unless you seek them out) so you’re up against different tactics and skills every time … I’ve barely played Fifa 2004 offline, but online it’s addictive.

In recent months I’ve bought a number of PS2 games that are great .. but I never get to play them cos my entire PS2 time gets taken up with Fifa 2004 online.  Games like Hitman, 13, True Crime, I own but have played for no more than 20 minutes each… all great games tho.

The only problem (apart from crappy connection issues) is cheats … there are 2 main cheats in the online game.

The offside cheat:  if you get a free kick, your opponant can get all his players to run straight up the pitch before you get a chance to take the kick, so as soon as you do kick the ball you’re offside and they get a free kick instead.  This is annoying, but not fatal..

The disconnect cheat:  If you disconnect during a game, it counts as a 2-0 loss to you .. so if people are losing a game by more than 2-0 .. they’ll often disconnect, cos the 2-0 default is better than the true score.  But it screws your scores cos altho it counts as a loss to them, it doesn’t count as a win to you.

Because of these cheating tactics, I decided to buy Socom 2 last week.

Don’t see the connection?

With Socom 2 you get a headset (which you can’t buy separately), which means that when people cheat against me in Fifa (assuming they’re wearing a headset too .. which a lot are), I can tell them just exactly what I think of them.  Yay 🙂

One side effect of this is .. Socom 2 online is so good I’ve barely played Fifa since I got it.  Playing a terrorist trying to stop the Navy Seals from rescuing my hostages is just so much fun 🙂

Here’s what some Passing Idiots had to say:

  1. Fluffy avatar
    Fluffy

    Pfft.. that’s the reason I never liked online stuff whenever I’ve tried it.. too many people being gits..

    Oh.. and that tridion thing sounds like some scary big brother thing.. I bet work is watching everything you do!

    Fluff

    Reply
  2. PrinceGaz avatar
    PrinceGaz

    Before you entered into the brave new world of online gaming with your PS2 (complete with dedicated hardware), did you not enjoy online play with a variety of games on your PC?

    Maybe I’m PC’centric but online play on consoles has always looked like a very poor second to what some PC games have had for years.

    And with PC online play, known issues generally get closed in a few days at most (with yet another patch to download) rather than being something you have to live with.

    I’ve given the Tridion site a once over, I haven’t seen anything yet that would cause a Red Alert with flashing lights and sirens were it something installed on “my PC” in the workplace, personally I’d just ask the IT department (or nearest equivalent) in your organisation how it will help you carry out your job.

    Reply
  3. PrinceGaz avatar
    PrinceGaz

    “… If you type “jhxx45-8?8/*fgf5%—-000NUDE!!” immediately after winning level five, Pacman will perform level six entirely naked. …”

    ummm, your information thing at the top of the page seems to have said something wrong, how can you type stuff into pacman? I’ve learnt lots of useful stuff in the past from it like making grizzly bears friendly by picking up their cubs, but that particular entry seems to be incorrect.

    Reply
    1. mcphee avatar
      mcphee

      Note from 2024: It took me a moment to understand this out of context comment. It is referring to the “Lie of the Day” feed I used to run at the top of the site.

      I think I want to bring that back.

      Reply
  4. mcphee avatar
    mcphee

    I’ve done a bit of online pc gaming, worms armageddon was good, but other than that ..

    The trouble is, the pc just isn’t suited for games, it’s great for word processing and blogging, but games are the domain of the console.

    The important point about keyboard / mouse combinations is that that’s what pc gamers have HAD to get used to .. because that’s what pc’s have come with since the days before they were used for games.

    Consoles have been invented specifically for games, and so have the controllers. Controllers are something invented especially to suit gaming, rather than just something you have to make do with.

    Reply
  5. PrinceGaz avatar
    PrinceGaz

    Well its generally acknowledged by all gamers that the keyboard/mouse combo is far superior to a gamepad for FPS games in particular, and I can’t imagine a gamepad being superior for strategy or RPG where you need to point to individual objects on screen quickly/conveniently.

    Yes for any sort of driving or flying game, and a large number of arcade or action games then a gamepad is better. Which is why I’ve got one for my PC. Unfortunately theres a lot of very poor PC gamepad designs out there which is something I found out about too late as mine is awful, but there are some excellent ones which are every bit as good as console controllers and often have other useful things like force-feedback, a throttle control for flight-sims etc. You pick a model that has the right mix of controls for what you play.

    A full range of other controllers like joysticks, wheels, pedals, even dance-mats are also available and supported in the appropriate games so it would be wrong to say PC gamers have to make do with keyboard/mouse. For some odd reason many (most?) PC gamers don’t own any other controller which I find very strange.

    I’ve always considered it the other way around, that console gamers have to make do with a gamepad which is very unsuited to all those genres I mentioned at the start.

    Reply
  6. mcphee avatar
    mcphee

    Strategy games I’ll give you are better suited to the pc, but not FPS .. maybe in the old days, but now that consoles have at least two anaolgue sticks as well as the d-pad, I much prefer FPS on ps2 to pc. It just works so well, with one stick to move and the other to aim.

    And whilst you can get joypads for the pc, that’s not really an indication that pc is better for gaming, more that the pc has found it neccesary to follow the console.

    So whilst mouse suits strategy games or simulations, the console pad suits pretty much everything else.

    And yeah you can spend vast amounts of money on joysticks to suit particular games (throttle control etc) .. that’s an advantage .. if you’ve got the money .. but whereas console games are designed to suit the console pad .. pc games have to be designed to work with a whole range of variants, not just the controllers, but also totally different pc setups. SO the game can never be produced to be optimum on any one system, they have to fudge it so it works ok on all. On the consoles they can design the game to work perfectly on the console .. because everyone will use the same equipment to play it.

    Reply
  7. mcphee avatar
    mcphee

    and don’t get me started on playing on a monitor instead of a huge widescreen tv.

    And also with monitors you generally have to sit right up close to it. With consoles you can sit on the bed and play the game at a more comfortable distance.

    Reply
  8. PrinceGaz avatar
    PrinceGaz

    Heh. I thought of replying again earlier but decided it would be futile. We’ll have to agree to differ 🙂

    Reply
  9. mcphee avatar
    mcphee


    <g>

    Reply

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