PS3 Firmware 2.4 Dated

Firmware version 2.4 for the Playstation 3 finally has a date and that's July 2nd! Bringing with it the much requested feature of using the XMB in game and also Sonys version of achievements called Trophies. A complete run through of all the new features are in the videos below.

Playstation 3 Trophies



In Game XMB



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I Love The World

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Xbox 360 DRM Tool

Finally the issue of Xbox 360 owners being stuffed by DRM issues when they replace their console for whatever reason is no more. Microsoft came in for a lot of stick over their draconian DRM solution and rightly so. The problem being that once a gamer replaced their console or had it replaced under warranty, the games and content they had bought would only work while they were online and logged in with the gamertag that purchased it.

The Content License Transfer Tool announced last month is now available to use right here. If your console is replaced by Microsoft your licences should already be transferred for you and it should be noted that you can only use this tool once every 12 months, so you can't use it to constantly move content between consoles.

Join the Gameov3r FORUM today and log in as many times as you like over the next 12 months

Unanswered Questions

Gameov3r has been looking at the results of some recent market research carried out by Experian Consumer Research. The results of which I have no doubt will have you on the edge of your seat. Here are some extracts from the data.

More PS3 owners said that their friends were more important to them than their family... Xbox 360 owners like to recycle packaging more... PS3 owners find home decor more interesting than Xbox owners and more PS3 owners prefer antique shopping than Xbox owners.

The answers to these and many more of lifes most important questions can be found on their website. One question we couldn't find the answer to is why they asked these questions in the first place.

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Forum Down

We seem to be experiencing major problems with our forum today, the dreaded 'nodes' error message has returned. We're trying to reach support but their website appears to be down also at the moment.

Hopefully we'll be back up and running shortly. Thanks for being patient.

Visit the Gameov3r FORUM today (if it's working). According to the hosts it has a 99.9% up time... who are they kidding?

Play Zone

Gameov3r brings fantastic news today. Excitement like this hasn't been seen in these cellars since Cadbury brought back the Whisper bar. We were going to try and drag it out a bit longer but this needs to be heard... wait for it...

Ubisoft are launching a new Wii exclusive party games label! It'll be called 'Play Zone' and the first title will be called Sports Party featuring basketball, badminton, mini golf, croquet and much much more. It all sounds like mini game heaven to us and with Ubisofts track record on the Wii so far what can possibly go wrong?! Everything?

Sarcasm aside at least now you won't need to examine the game packaging just in case Ubisoft had anything to do with it. We can now all safely avoid any game labelled with 'Play Zone'. Take care out there Wii gamers.

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Firefox 3

According to our stats report most people access our site using the Firefox browser. So is anyone taking part in the Guiness World Record attempt for the most downloads in one day of the new version 3? If like me you may well have tried and that's exactly what you're still trying to do right now. I'm now trying from three different sites at once, two have so far refused to even start and the third is racing away at the lightning speed of around 1.5KB/sec. Happy memories of dial up connections have come flooding back and at this rate I should be running the new version by Christmas. Mozilla say their servers are currently churning out 14000 downloads a minute which is one huge amount of data. You can see the total downloads counter here.

Update: Things seem to have improved and I now have three copies :) At least I've done my bit for the record. Incidentally it claims Ad Block isn't compatible but I found these instructions here

Join the Gameov3r FORUM while you wait...

Free Non-Loader

From the number of news reports today it appears that the Wii Freeloader and Twilight Princess homebrew hack are dead thanks to new firmware update 3.3. Of course you can always opt not to download it although how long it'll be before a game forces it on you is anyones guess... and my guess is it'll be on the SSBB disc. I wonder where that leaves Datel and all the people who have purchased one already?

Check out the Gameov3r FORUM, in the words of Tony the Tiger it's grrrreat!

Anything You Can Do

Firstly an apology for the lack of posts lately. Holidays and work commitments have been difficult to work around and it may continue like that for the next few weeks.

Some more information is starting to come out on what Microsoft have up their sleeves for the Xbox. The title 'Lips' has been cropping up a lot lately and it's now revealed to be the Xbox answer to SingStar. In addition to the included 30 odd songs is a wireless microphone that features some kind of motion sensing which allows you to score points with your moves as well as your voice. You can also use and sing your own music apparently.

In another move towards trying to attract the more mainstream consumer, Microsoft are rumoured to be working on 3D avatars in a similar (very... very... similar) vein to Nintendo's Miis. You'll be able to create exactly the look you want, including hundreds of clothing options which sounds like micro-transaction heaven for Microsoft. It's possible they may be introduced into arcade and retail games as playable characters as well. I'm not really for or against the idea in principal, although if that's how they're going to look I must say I don't find them very attractive. Miis definitely have a certain charm these lack.

In other news Microsoft are starting to fear they are running out of ideas to copy from Nintendo and Sony. Several employees fainted due to the pressure of trying to come up with an original idea and the offices descended into pandemonium. Calm was soon restored when a nameless employee caught wind of a press announcement from Nintendo about a product that may be possible to duplicate making only minor alterations.

Why not copy this and paste it on the GAMEOV3R Forum

Assassin's Creed

He's creeping me ooouutt!! You don't have to make an ass of yourself in public... do it on the GAMEOV3R Forum instead

Naked Gun GTA IV Edition

Frank Drebin: That's the red-light district. I wonder why Savage is hanging around down there.
Ed Hocken: Sex, Frank?
Frank Drebin: Uh, no, not right now, Ed. We've got work to do.

You take a chance getting up in the morning, visiting the GAMEOV3R Forum, crossing the street or sticking your face in a fan

I Quit!

Or more to the point... do you?

What is it with people who quit early when playing a ranked game on Rock Band online? Well, not only Rock Band but it's this game that seems absolutely rife with them. It seems that if you're winning by a reasonable margin at some point in an online game I reckon 50% of the time your opponent will quit the game early. It's almost like you have to make mistakes on purpose to try and make sure it's a close game right down to the last few notes. Although even then I've had people quit on me. I started off sending them messages but frankly I can no longer be bothered and they just go straight on to my avoided player list but it does spoil the game. This game is badly in need of a patch to introduce some kind of disconnect statistic or something similar to try and lessen the number of times this happens. It's not clear to me if there is any punishment for quitting early but I certainly don't seem to be awarded a win when it happens. Having reached the 20 wins at Tug of War achievement I doubt I'll be playing that mode any longer as it just takes all the fun out of it. I'm proud to say I haven't quit once as if I don't play well enough I deserve to lose, and I have done on many occasions.

So a message to all you quitters out there, (there's a lot of you and you know who you are!) in most games there's a winner and a loser and you need to learn to deal with both. What's the point of playing to win if you aren't prepared to lose?

Visit the GAMEOV3R Forum or if you're a quitter... don't bother

Cluckin' Bell!!!!!

I was getting pretty hacked off with GTA IV and my 360 a couple of weeks back. I would switch on the 360, sign into XBL, select GTA IV and wait for the game to load. The thing was that sometimes it simply wouldn't load. The screen would just freeze and the console would lock up. I'd have to either eject the disc to get back to the blades or switch off the cream coloured plastic bucket and start again. Sometimes the loading sequence would stop at the disclaimer screen and sometimes, more annoyingly the game would load and I'd start to play. 15 or maybe even 30 minutes game time later it would all freeze up. Incredibly annoying when I was in the middle of a mission, having not had had chance to save yet, or if I was on my way to meet a virtual friend. The virtual friend doesn't know that I stiffed him because my Xbox crashed. They'd think I was off living it up with someone else instead of them and they'd put a black mark against me in their little friendship diary.

This problem was routine every time I played GTA IV for a couple of weeks. I was so used to the problem occurring that I wouldn't start any missions or anything else integral to the story until the game froze once and I'd restarted. The fault never manifested itself more than once a session.

Thankfully I no longer have to shout "Cluckin' Bell" every time I play. I have found a solution that has eliminated this problem. If you're experiencing a similar issue listen up! You should listen up too Rockstar because something isn't right! I discovered the "fix" one day because I'd taken GTA IV out of the drive. I opened the tray, inserted the disc, closed the tray and the game booted up. I played with no problems at all. Since then I began opening and closing the tray to load the game every time I want to play and it works. Every time. No lock ups and no freezing. And do you know what? I have no idea why!

Come on over to the Gameov3r FORUM for solutions to all of life's problems*



*not entirely true.

Short Changed?

When Halo 3 was released there was such an uproar on the internet about the fact that it only runs at 640p and not what is regarded as a minimum for HD, 720p. The reason given for this by Bungie is that they made a trade off on the resolution to incorporate full range HDR lighting. Sounds like a bit of a cop out is what seemed to be the general opinion. Some comments suggested it's not a true next generation game because of it. Suddenly every man and his dog knew about developing a game and called Bungie lazy and untalented for short changing them 80p.

Having never played a Halo game before I didn't get swept up in the hype and kept clear of all the arguments... until last week. Being available for around £15 - £20 now I finally decided to pick up a copy and I'm glad I did. While it was a short run through in single player I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it and I was very impressed with the graphics. What makes it look so good? The lighting. Simple as that. It reacts absolutely perfectly and gives everything a believable solid feeling the likes of which I've felt in very few games. It seems maybe, just maybe, the developers really do know what they're doing. So for those still feeling like they're owed 80p here's my 2 penneth towards it (and this goes for any game using similar techniques)... try just enjoying the game and stop worrying that somebody with too much time on their hands decided to count the pixels.

Visit the GAMEOV3R Forum in full HD although sadly fancy lighting effects are not included