Hi all, just in case you’re an infrequent player of your Sony console and you’ve got a Playstation Network account you might like to read this.

It appears that PSN was hacked between April 17th and April 19th this year (2011), and account details obtained. Sony aren’t sure whether credit card details were obtained so their advice is, assume they were and keep an eye on your card statements and credit reports.

I mentioned in my review of Uncharted: Drakes Fortune that it was Uncharted 2: Among Thieves that got me in the mood to play the original game. I wanted to follow the story, so I’m playing the first one, but I’ve also had the chance to play some parts of Uncharted 2, so here’s a quick review of the second instalment of the Uncharted story.

To be clear, I haven’t played Uncharted 2 (UC2) to completion. I’ve played a number of chapters looking for Treasures and I’ve had to face the various foes that have been thrown my way in the process, so I have a pretty good idea of the game play etc.

UC2 builds on the excellent foundation of UC. The graphics are amazing, the sound is great and the game play continues where UC left off. There are some new moves and a slight emphasis on being stealthy (the crunch of your targets neck is oh so satisfying ) which just add to an already impressive array of moves and options.

I can’t say too much more without feeling like a broken record as I’ve just written a review of Uncharted… suffice to say, it is just like UC, but better in every way.

For example, the treasure hunt… like UC, hidden throughout the levels are a collection of treasures. These unlock bonus material and of course contribute quite substantially to the trophy collection. Unlike UC however, they can be hidden in high up places, only accessible after being shot down. And of course, many of them are secreted away in the most difficult to reach places in the levels. Doesn’t sound like a big change, but it does make it more fun when you get around to the treasure hunt.

Fighting… as I’ve mentioned, there is a stealthy element to the game, with some nice new moves to accommodate it. There are also new weapons, such as the riot shield… grab it, hide behind it and face your enemies head on, peeping out from the thing to pop them in the head. You can also aim grenades without peeking from your cover like you had to in the original. Again, minor tweak but it does add to the already great game play.

In conclusion, I gave Uncharted a maximum score of 10. To really do UC2 justice in comparison to UC, I should really give it a maximum of 11 as it really does take the Uncharted world to the next level. A fantastic next step in what I can only hope is a long series of games.

I know this is an ‘old’ game, but I’m sure there will be people who have just dropped onto the PS3 scene who haven’t played it, so here’s one of my characteristically short reviews.

When the original Playstation was around, there was only one game to play if you wanted to run around in deserted places solving ancient puzzles… that was of course Tomb Raider. Unfortunately, I’m guessing because of publisher pressure, the game lost what made it great after number 4 was released. 5 was just a bit too short if I recall correctly, and it’s outings on the PS2… best not to mention them (with one notable exception… Anniversary, which is of course a major rework of the original Tomb Raider). Why shouldn’t we mention them… simply because they lacked what made the game great on the Playstation. The control schema changed to accomodate more moves… the puzzles didn’t seem as tough… the games weren’t as long… I can’t quite put my finger on it, but they just didn’t cut it. So for many years now, we’ve been waiting for a game to take up the mantle and fill the void, and well… in my opinion at least, that game (or series of games) is here.

Welcome Uncharted: Drakes Fortune.

For those of you who are long time Playstation gamers, you will no doubt remember such classics as Crash Bandicoot and Jak and Daxter, produced by Naughty Dog. Well, they are the team responsible for Uncharted… a bit of a departure from Crash and Jak, but what a departure

I’ve owned this game for ages, but I’ve never played it. It took watching a friend play through Uncharted 2 to get me in the mood, and well… was I in the mood! I’ve just finished playing through for the first time on the Hard difficulty (if you play through on hard, you will earn the first 3 difficulty trophies and unlock the Crushing difficulty level, which I’m now playing through). It is hard. Your enemies take a while to kill, at times ammo is almost extinct and you yourself… a few shots and your on your way to an early grave.

So, what makes me think Uncharted can fill the enormous boots of the original Tomb Raider games… well, lets see…

First up the environment… the gaming environment is huge and the detail is amazing. The vegetation sways in the wind, you can almost swim in the rivers and waterfalls, and you can hear everything from the birds in the trees to the roar of the ocean waves. Now this is nothing new I know, but it just makes the game that bit more engaging and believable. And best of all, it doesn’t appear to be as constrained by an arbitrary grid as Tomb Raider does, meaning the surfaces and faces you walk and climb on can be curved, like real cliffs for example.

The Story… you play the part of Nathan Drake, a distant relative of Sir. Francis Drake, on his quest to uncover El Dorado using clues left by Sir. Francis. The plot starts on a boat as Nathan recovers Sir. Francis’ coffin from the ocean floor only to find it contains his journal, and our adventure begins.

The puzzles… whilst there aren’t that many puzzles, this doesn’t detract from the game play as you’ll very often be looking for routes through the environment and the best way to despatch those that stand between you and the ultimate prize. The puzzles that are there rely on you decoding the information in Sir. Francis’ journal to get the solution. Once you have it, you’ll probably have to battle the environment to reach a successful conclusion. In short, one of the things that made Tomb Raider great is back in abundance in Uncharted.

The graphics and sound… as I’ve stated above, the sound is superb. Have one of your enemies throw a grenade near you… you’ll have ringing in your speakers just like it exploded a few feet from you. And well, the graphics… whilst they aren’t photorealistic (who needs that anyway), they are certainly filled with the atmosphere of the area you’re in. From misty mountain slopes in the forest to the dark dank depths of an old bunker, you certainly get the feel of being there.

Difficulty… I played through on Hard difficulty (it has Easy, Normal and Hard out of the box, with Crushing being unlocked when you complete the game on Hard). I played to complete it, not hunt for all the trophies and treasures, but in doing so I’ve scored about 60% of the trophies and two thirds of the treasures. It was hard. I had some major fights and died many times, but thanks to the checkpoints in game, I never lost too much progress. But, if you die in the middle of a big fight and you’re doing well… don’t expect it to go the same way when you are resurrected at the start of it… after a while I found some of the enemies changed their tactics, and in some cases you won’t restart where you thought you were, so be prepared. As I said, I’m currently playing through on Crushing difficulty and it is a major step above Hard in terms of how difficult it is. In hard, you can take quite a few shots before being close to death… in Crushing… one or two and you’re nearly in the resus room of the local hospital. The enemies are tougher and appear to be a better aim, so it promises to be a much tougher gaming experience the second time through.

There’s not too much more I can say. If you liked Tomb Raider and have been looking for a replacement, or if you’re new to the PS3 and fancy a game that has you thinking about puzzles, strategies (you’ll need them for some of the fights you’ll have) and whether to take the AK-47 with 26 bullets or the M-4 with 27 bullets, then give it a go. I can honestly say I’ve not enjoyed a Tomb Raider style game as much as this since I last played Tomb Raiders I, II and III many years ago. Truly an excellent game which is why I’m giving it full marks.

Well, time for a quick review… this time, it’s the Pirates of the Carribean downloadable content pack for LittleBigPlanet.

Released on the 22nd December 2009, this is the first themed creators pack since the excellent Metal Gear Solid pack which of course provided the most excellent paint ball gun. This time around the theme is water.

Yes, thats right… Sackboy can swim

The pack contains some new creators tools in the form of new global options to control the water in the level, a global water object (similar to the global lighting object), a water switch and a scuba backpack allowing Sackboy to breath indefinitely underwater.

And to show off these new toys, a collection of 6 excellent levels based on Pirates of the Carribean.

All in all, an excellent addition to LBP. The new creator tools are great, and the themed levels are great fun, providing some new engaging game play and some good examples of what you can do.

My only complaint, I should point out that I’m not sure when these came in, is that some of the creators tools are now a pain in the butt. For example, setting the length of pistons etc. These used to be done using steps of 0.5. Now, they are done in steps of 1.0. You can still fine adjust things, but if, like me you work on logic using the medium grid, 2.5 and 7.5 are pretty common values and now setting them up takes a while longer than it used to.

But, minor gripe aside, this new content pack is well worth the small investment.

Just thought I’d post a little note to anyone thats dropping by for LittleBigPlanet information… I’ve been a tad busy with work and other stuff, so I’ve not had much time to post anything. I am however working on a fairly big set of levels and some more stuff for the tutorials section, so stay tuned

Yehaa and hooray for Sony. Those of you who have been blighted by the ’80022D11′ error when syncing trophies may like to upgrade your systems firmware to 2.60. One of our systems had the issue with one of our accounts, but the 2.60 firmware has fixed it.

As a quick recap, the issue appears to arise if you changed the password or email address associated with a PSN account using the XMB account management tools after installing a 2.5x firmware, and prevents you from syncing your trophies.

One system backup and a firmware update later and the problem has gone. However, you may find that some games still don’t gain trophies. A good example might be Uncharted: Drakes Fortune. We tried gaining trophies but they didn’t register. This is an abuse prevention mechanism. You won’t gain trophies from old game saves. So, pain in the ass time, if you want to gain the trophies for games that didn’t originally ship with trophy support, then you will more than likely have to start playing them from scratch.

Since network play is an important part of the PS3 experience, having a keyboard to chat with is almost essential, but who wants a hulking great USB keyboard sat by the side of them when gaming just to chat quickly… not to mention the USB cables dragging around the place. Enter the official PS3 wireless keypad.

Now, I’m not the chattiest of people when I’m gaming, but I am developing various levels for LBP and so I want to be able to name stuff and provide descriptions… using the on-screen keypad is, to put it mildly, like pulling teeth. It’s slow, cumbersome and just downright annoying and for the reasons I mentioned, a fullsize USB keyboard is just not an option so I was mightily pleased when I saw these little babies on the PS3 website.

The CECHZX1GB (UK Model) as it’s known is a small, lightweight Bluetooth keypad that clips onto official PS3 controllers. It provides quick access buttons to get at your messages, and also doubles as a pointing device by way of a touch sensitive area on the keypad. Whilst it’s small and the buttons seem tiny, operating it isn’t as bad as you might first imagine. I’ve made only a few typos courtesy of my sausage fingers, and well, compared to the on-screen keyboard it is infinitely better.

So are there any downsides? Well, I’ve only been using it a few days. Being rechargeable there is obviously the issue of battery life, but it does go into standby to conserve power. The only downside to this is of course it has to reconnect to the PS3 when you want to type some more, but that doesn’t take too long (a few seconds, if that). The unit itself was charged when it arrived last week and has yet to require a refill. It obviously goes without saying that the more you type, the shorter the recharge interval will be, and I suspect using the pointer mode will drain the juice substantially quicker. The upside however is that, like the controllers themselves, it can be used whilst charging by simply connect it using a USB cable.

One of the questions I had when I purchased them (notice plural) was how they connected to the PS3 and whether you could use multiple units at the same time. The answer is they have their own Bluetooth capabilities (which incidentally you can use with other Bluetooth capable devices – I can state that they work with the O2 XDA Orbit) so they connect to the PS3 with no regard for which controller they are attached to. So whilst you can use multiple units at the same time, they will all type into whichever message box has focus. It would have been better, IMHO, if they worked like the controllers… first on is number 1 etc. and were then paired with the corresponding controller number.

So in conclusion, these are a great little addition to anyone’s PS3 setup, but because they don’t pair like the controllers, I’m only going to give them a rating of 9.

A word of warning… do NOT change the email address or password on your PS3 using the XMB account management options (as far as I can tell this applies to any firmware version from 2.50 onwards). There is an increasing number of players who are reporting that when they do, they start getting this error. Once that occurs, it seems the only fix is to wipe your profile and lose your game saves. Some people only report a trophy sync error, but others… as I say are resorting to the deletions of hours of gameplay to solve the issue.

This is hardly an acceptable solution, so SONY… get your bloody finger out and get a fix for this. We already have one account that is broken… how long before the other breaks! We are running firmware 2.53, and have changed the email address associated with an account after installing 2.50.

• Blu-ray.com
• Playstation.com (Europe)
• Playstation.com (US Forums)

Update:- The 2.60 firmware update appears to fix this error for a large number of people. See this post for more information.