Mass Effect 2 Issues Unfixable

It seems that those who’ve found that they have issues with Bioware’s phenomenally successful Mass Effect 2 on standard-definition TVs are out of luck, with the developer indicating that a fix is impossible.

For those who’ve been blissfully unaware of the trouble, it seems that anyone trying to play Mass Effect 2 on a TV that doesn’t display in some flavour of high-definition (it seems that 1080p isn’t a requirement, you should be fine with 720p) has been having trouble with text. The issue stems from the face that the text in Mass Effect 2 seems to have been sized with high-definition TVs in mind, meaning that it’s so small that it essentially becomes unreadable on older displays.

Release the Beast!

Any gaming gizmo that can bring you back to the sheer innocent joy of heading to an arcade as a kid is alright by me (though maybe that’s due to my personal peak of gameplay being at around six years old, ever since it’s been one giant collection of uncoordinated losses) and with that in mind, the Hori Real Arcade Pro Premium VLX arcade stick looks like the absolute business.

Essentially it’s like you’ve tried to nick an arcade unit but only managed to get away with the control panel. Okay, it’s a bit of beast, we’ll give you that – and it should clock in at around €240 when it reaches here – but the impracticality of it is part of its charm. The dead leg will be worth it!

Sony Considering Charging for PSN

It seems that the rumours that Sony was seriously considering implementing a charge for the use of its PlayStation Network service weren’t entirely unfounded. Sony execs have admitted that the idea is an attractive one.

Word comes from IGN of an interview with Sony’s senior vice president of marketing, Peter Dille, who wouldn’t be drawn as to just whether or not Sony had already made a decision on whether or not it would charge for the service yet, but he puts paid to any lingering doubt about Sony wanting to monetise the service current service. If so, it could well be the beginning of a fairly fundamental shift in the console landscape.

PSP Go Hovering in Limbo

It seems that the overall response to Sony’s PSP Go, the solid-state-only version of its PlayStation Portable handheld games device.

It's a bit of a strange device alright...

Word comes from Engadget that Sony might well be considering something of a relaunch of the device after the lacklustre launch and the fact that the device seems to have managed to fade from the public consciousness incredibly quickly. It’s an unusual tactic, as it effectively announces to the more observant among your potential customers that things aren’t going quite as well as you might initially have expected them to.

Buffalo to Release PS3-Specific Drives

It seems that Buffalo is to launch two new drives, specifically made to cater to those of us using Sony’s PlayStation 3 console as a media player, and somehow, it seems an interesting prospect.

TGDaily is carrying word of the two new drives from Buffalo, news of which has hit in the same week as the announcement that Microsoft is to offer a 250GB external drive for sale, initially at least, only in Japan for its Xbox 360. Still, the drives from Buffalo seem a little heavier-duty than Microsoft’s offering, boasting fully 500GB of external storage for the Sony device.

Big in Japan Only – Xbox 360 250GB Add-on

Maybe Microsoft aren’t aware how many Xbox junkies there are around this part of the world as, for now anyway, they have announced that a new 250GB hard drive add-on which they have developed for the Xbox 360 will only be available as a stand-alone product in Japan for the foreseeable future. Kei Iwasaki, a Microsoft spokesman in Tokyo, says that the company has no plans to send the HDD across the globe.

The 250GB HDD Xbox add-on would find more than a few fans if it ever makes its way to Ireland.

Currently being offered in the Land of the Rising Sun and in some other foreign territories as part of a bundle with a new console,  the add-on will reach Japanese consumers  as an individual product in the middle of next month. More than doubling the storage capacity of the Xbox 360 Elite (which stands at 120GB), there’s plenty of Xbox addicts worldwide who would love to get their hands on this if possible.

PlayStation 3 Hack Released

It seems that the recently revealed hack for Sony’s PlayStation 3 has now been released to the web at large through the medium of the hacker, George “Geohot” Hotz’, blog.

With many questioning the veracity of Hotz’ claim that he had managed to hack the PlayStation 3, or simply to what extent that hack might be useful, it seems that the most sensible move would be to simply release the hack into the wild and see just what the community at large can do with it. Still, it’s well worth keeping in mind that this is the same man who originally managed to hack the iPhone.

Perhaps the most detailed (without being so complex as to be practically incomprehensible) writeup on the first exploit to hit the PS3 has come from Eurogamer.net, which quickly points out that,

Mass Effect 2 Sees Vast Pre-Release Piracy

It seems that Bioware’s upcoming sequel to its hit science-fiction RPG, Mass Effect, has been leaked to bittorrent sites, with many users rushing to illegally download the game before its release.

Mass Effect feels the mass downloading effect 😦

Word comes via TorrentFreak of the leak, which has apparently resulted in an inordinate amount of illegal downloads. Indeed, the figure was initially reported to be “more than 300,000” to be somewhere in the process of downloading or having already downloaded the game illegally. This is thanks, in no small part, to the fact that the first Mass Effect game managed to win such critical acclaim for itself.

OnLive Beta Shows off Remote Gaming

Gamers have been excited about the idea of OnLive for a while now, since the proposed subscription service would essentially allow for high-end performance without the cost.

It certainly looks the part alright...

Essentially, what OnLive offers is a service by which users pay to have remote access to a system playing whatever game it is they want to play. The simplest example is that if someone wanted to play a game like Dragon Age, they could do so simply by plugging the OnLive hardware into their TV and let the service handle the network magic needed to mediate the experience between the pad in the player’s hands and the Xbox 360 or PS3 off in the ether somewhere.

Mass Effect 2 to see Free DLC?

It seems that BioWare’s upcoming sequel to is hit role playing game, Mass Effect, could well see some free downloadable content made available at launch.

It might seem a strange thing to announce, but according to BioWare’s official twitter feed, the company won’t be charging for any launch day downloadable content available for the upcoming Xbox 360 exclusive. To quote the tweet that manages to have stirred people up so much, “Addressing rumours: BioWare will not be charging extra for any Mass Effect 2 content on launch day. More DLC details next week.”