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Things I did while the PlayStation Network was down

• Got offered a job during a Windows Server classroom course
• Thought about that for a week or two
• Called back and got an interview appointment with a free plane ride
• Went on a week’s vacation to Edinburgh, Scotland with the family
• Had a poop on the Loch Ness ferry
• Went up to Tromsø for the interview and got the job
• This Sunday I’m moving out of my parents basement and resettling 1150 kilometers up north

Now I wonder what I’d get done if Xbox Live ever went down.. Wife and a dog?

Daft Punk - Derezzed (Guitar Cover)

Rethinking Super Mario Bros. through the medium of portal guns

The music rights paradox joke

Don’t get it? Go read up on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4′33″

Mad Men intro meets Portal 2

Going off the grid

In what’s become my bread and butter fix between the big game releases: the Xbox Live Arcade and the PlayStation Network has evolved over the last years into a constant, relentless stream of new and great little games. And I love the breadth and continuity of these weekly releases, but sometimes you just get tricked by that smell of newness and end up downloading games that makes you go “meh” after 10 minutes.

Now that we’re midway through the month of April, we’ve already come into that dull summer period in gaming when the big releases are few and far between, and the onslaught of great new titles doesn’t really start again until late August.

So what do you play then?

I just started tearing into the backlog of games I’ve piled up, going back to that old last-gen stuff..

Putting down the Xbox 360 controller and dusting off my PlayStation 2 and Wii lately has been a nice experience. Going offline and back to the world before the constant interruptions and meta-levels of patches, achievements, instant messages and notifications feels as refreshing as turning off your cellphone and nesting down to read a book. It’s just you and the game, in a two-way symbiosis.

And man, that feels great.

Swapping Dragon Age for Dragon Tattoos

Following my big February Dragon Age binge, I’ve lately been getting myself into the Yakuza series.

Ever since I haphazardly tried out the Yakuza 3 demo a year or so ago and was blown away by its simultaneously bizarre and down to earth qualities, I’ve been meaning to dig into the Yakuza series - but it’s taken me a while to get a hold of the first two out of print games as well as dig my old PlayStation 2 out of storage..

All the Japanese wierdness and street brawling gameplay aside, the intricate chapter-based videogame-novel storytelling in these games is what hooks you. I’d imagine, skipping the first game would be like starting to watch The Sopranos a couple of seasons in, missing out on all that crucial background and referential info.

So, last week I dug my PlayStation 2 out of the dusty cupboard it sat in and hooked it up into my current HD gaming setup. After some upscaling to 720p via my A/V Reciever, the 6 year old “Yakuza” actually doesn’t look half bad. The cityscape of Kamurocho must have been the definite peak of PlayStation 2-era graphics.

It’s just a pity the first game only came out in Europe and America with a goddawful English voice dub. I mean, the game is still awesome, but so much for authenticity, eh? Luckily they stuck to the original Japanese voices from Yakuza 2 onwards..

Just hear for yourself (there’s a Yakuza Clan meeting about 2 minutes in)