Archive for April, 2008
Am I the only one *NOT* wanting to play GTA IV?
I’ve played GTA 1 and 2 and 3. I own GTA Vice City. I played it, quite a lot. It’s one of those games you kind of get lost in the side-quests quite often, and it was fun. I even own GTA Liberty City Stories on the PSP, but that was only so I could downgrade the firmware on my PSP to install a custom firmware, haven’t played it much.
The biggest hype around the big GTA franchise is the release of GTA IV on the Xbox 360 and PS3. OK, maybe the biggest hype about GTA right now is the fact that there are early copies (first PAL, then NTSC) of the game floating around on torrent sites, but second to that, it’s the impending simultaneous release of the game on April 29 2008, officially. A couple of GTA IV launch parties are even happening in the Johannesburg area (Arranged by BTGames, probably others too). And you know what? I couldn’t be less excited about it.
Rockstar aren’t idiots, that’s for sure. A lot (all??) of their recent games were met with controversy, either causing them to change the name of the game (As was the case for Bully on the PS2, that had to be renamed to Canis Canem Edit for PAL territories), or print new versions with edited-out content, or having to fight to get the game actually released in a country. But with GTA IV, it seems they’re just getting the whole “Gaming is escapism” thing a bit wrong. I don’t *want* to play a game where, in one instance in Australia, the game had to be edited to remove a certain part of the game where “the scene involves a weapon being inserted into an enemies private area during a mission”. A game that contains that kind of content is really no longer a game is it? It’s bordering on reality-simulator isn’t it? Even the war violence in a game like Call of Duty 4 is not as serious as what GTA has become.
I have to admit, I’m curious about the game, as I’ve seen screenshots and the game looks *good*. Really good. But not curious enough to fork out R650-odd for the game (More than R1000 if you want the special edition). I suppose my arm could be twisted to review a copy, as I try to stay objective regardless of my personal opinion on a game before even playing it.
AVGFree popup “spam”
Since starting the new job and getting an HP 6710b laptop with Vista pre-installed, the first thing after having Vista properly configured, was shrinking that partition right down and installing Ubuntu 8.04 Beta. But every so now and again I boot into Vista to do something. And not liking the idea of being forced to pay for a piece of software by a bunch of software delinquents and/or terrorists (Dumbass virus and worm writers/script kiddies), I run the free version of AVG anti-virus, written by Grisoft. I’ve not had a single problem with them ever (even on my home PC), and not a single virus has passed my way (That AVG or I know of, anyway…).
So surprise for me this morning, when, straight after an auto-update of the virus definitions on the laptop, I get this popup, advertising their “new” Internet Security Suite.
This just caught me by surprise, as I’ve never seen this with AVG before, and it’s probably buried somewhere in their terms and conditions that they can do this.
On the one hand I feel it’s a bit cheeky to do such blatant popup spam, which is something one would expect your typical adware/malware app to do. On the other hand though, I feel Grisoft is quite within their right to advertise their paid-for products to those of us that make use of their free products. I mean, their software is saving probably millions of people lots of time and money by protecting their Windows PCs from viruses. I’m still a bit undecided if I should just shrug it off as “OK”, or to be upset about. I’m leaning towards the former.
Wasabi Wii chip ordered
After my previous rant about NTSC games being much cheaper than PAL ones, I hunted around for somebody that can sell me a pre-soldered Wasabi Wii modchip soldered onto a Wii-Clip V5. I decided that the Wasabi chip is the way to go as it has less wires to solder (OK, this wasn’t a big concern for me, but still), and it also contained an easy-to-upgrade firmware process, when necessary. I didn’t want to end up with a chip that I couldn’t flash after getting that NTSC Mario Kart, and it doesn’t work on the chip.
I also decided that using the Wii-Clip V5 was the better option, even at the slightly higher price tag, as it allowed me to add the modchip to my Wii without doing any actual soldering inside the Wii.
Finally I managed to find a guy in the UK that would solder the Wasabi modchip into the Wii-Clip V5 for me, and ship it all to me at a reasonable rate. Jay over at Console-Chips was quick to respond on emails, and I pre-ordered his Wasabi Modchip Wii-Clip V5 pre-order bundle. I’ll update again once I get the chip. Should be in the next 2 weeks or so.
UPDATE:
Argh, OK, looking at the Wii-Clip V5 install diagrams (recently updated it seems), it turns out there’s a single wire that needs to be soldered inside the Wii. I really wanted to avoid having to solder anything inside the actual Wii console, but I suppose one wire is better than 9.
UPDATE 2:
Turns out the Wasabi chip is (a) not as upgradeable as advertised, and (b) in a bit of a short supply. See my follow-up on why I ended up getting the D2CKey intstead.
Nintendo Wii PAL vs. NTSC ripoffs
Ignoring the fact that local retailers have minimal or no time for the Wii on their shelves (My local Toys’R'Us has space for Wii games on the bottom row of one of their 5 shelves for games), I am utterly disgusted at the pricing of Wii games when taking into account PAL and NTSC imports. We’re being ripped off on a *lot* (not all) of titles!
Take for instance a couple of examples I came across at one of my favourite local online retailers Take 2. They’ve consistently managed to get imported games and DVDs at great prices. Compare these titles and prices (as at writing):
Resident Evil 4 Wii UK PAL – R477
Resident Evil 4 Wii US NTSC – R303
Eledees Wii UK PAL – R581
Elebits Wii US NTSC – R197
Mercury Meltdown Wii UK PAL – R659 (On special for R333)
Mercury Meltdown Wii US NTSC – R204
None of these titles seem to have local South-African launched versions (on Take2 anyway, I can’t see them anywhere else either, but I might be wrong?), and after looking at some other titles, it seems we do get some titles at cheaper prices than the import prices, but there are titles that are still cheaper to import than to buy the local version. Looking at the list above (I’m sure I can find more), the price difference is huge (I recall actually seeing the ResEvil4 NTSC version for R200 or so a few months back at Take2)
Now, the fact that NTSC titles are cheaper doesn’t help us PAL users, but then again, it does pose the question of whether it’s now worth it getting a Wii Modchip installed, to unlock the region locking on the Wii? Moral and legal issues aside, paying R800 to have a modchip fitted, is so worth it if I’ll be saving between R150 and R400 *per* *title* that I buy the NTSC version.
What’s a game-lover to do?
Me? I investigated modchip options for the Wii. Turns out there’s some differences between consoles and chips and chip versions and stuff. Wikipedia helped a lot with its list of Wii modchips page. I have a D2C chipset Wii (newer ones), and that limits my modchip options to one of four or so chips: D2Ckey, D2CPro, Argon, Infectus and the new Wasabi chip. After doing some serious research, turns out the Wasabi chip is likely to be the best, due it’s ease of firmware update, and the minimal number of wires needed to be soldered.
Not wanting to do the soldering onto the Wii board myself, I looked at alternatives, and found the Wii-Clip. It’s a device that allows you to solder the modchip onto the Wii-Clip, and then just pop the Wii-Clip-with-modchip-attached, over the necessary chip inside the Wii Console, so no actual soldering required inside the Wii. Sounds like the better solution to me!
And the cost? Well, having the D2CKey fitted locally will cost R1000, due to the kabillion wires that needs soldering on the Wii.
Compare that to: US$39 (About R310) for the Wii-Clip V5 (Wasabi version) from www.ic2005.com with Free Shipping, and the actual Wasabi chip for about US$55 (about R435) on just about any of the Wasabi modchip reseller site (I’m sure there are many of them that do Free Shipping too.) So that makes R750 or so for a non-destructive modchip for the Wii, that will allow me to play US import games.
Sorted.
Decided.
Ordering.
Nintendo DS replacement casing
I recently had the joy of replacing my son’s grey Nintendo DS casing with a replacement housing (red) I bought from www.dealextreme.com (I actually bought a second Blue one too, just in case). At $7 a pop and free shipping, I didn’t see why not.
The experience wasn’t entirely as easy as I thought it was going to be. (One special Nintendo-type screwdriver necessary for first disassembly)
One unfortunately has to make some rather ugly marks on the original casing to take it off, especially the top screen’s housing.
Other than that, the whole thing comes apart quite easily, and the insides fit together very nicely, and taking it apart required only disconnecting the top screen’s ribbon cable and speaker cable from the bottom one screen, and no other removal of ribbon cables at all.
I did run into some issues though:
After putting the whole thing back together, I forgot the one little screw that secures the cover that covers the ribbon cable inside the hinge. The reason I forgot the screw is that the cover is in a separate plastic packet inside the box. Don’t forget that screw! It’s a pain to add it afterwards.
Another thing I had an issue with was after putting it back together, switching on the DS resulted in the normal ‘click’ for switch on, power to the screen very briefly, and then the DS would immediately switch off. After some serious googling and forum reading, taking about 2 hours in total, I found this was a common problem. And the fix? Well, the DS switching off was due to the ribbon cable that comes from the top screen not being fully inserted into the slot in the circuit board. I took the resistance the slot gave me as a sign that the cable was in far enough, but pushing the cable a little bit harder made it slot straight into the right spot, and voila, all was well.
All in all not a totally painless experience (My thumb and forefinger are still sore from the strenuous screwdriving I had to do with a tiny-tiny screwdriver), but in the end, with less than 90 minutes of actual hard work, and the replacement casing is installed, and all is well again in the world.
The replacement housing box comes with everything you need to do the full replacement, including all screws and springs for the shoulder buttons. Well worth it.
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