Fat Princess is a great strategy game with good artwork and excellent humor. Not to be missed on the PS3 and coming soon to the PSP from Supervillain Studios.

In order to really test out if PS3 wifi is slow or if it was my network, I set out to do some testing. I used speedtest.net for all my tests including those run from within the PS3 web browser. Be sure to set your PS3 web browser home page to be a blank page as you need every drop of memory available or else the browser will crash during the testing.

PS3 WiFi via Airport Extreme base station with 80% signal strength

And it’s complete garbage. This was actually faster than what I tested over the weekend when I was only getting 1500 kb/s which prompted more testing and a solution.

PS3 WiFi via Airport Express repeater with 100% signal strength

I used an Airport Express plugged in next to the PS3 and set it up to repeat the main WiFi signal from the Airport Extreme. This basically boosted my PS3’s signal strength from 80% to 100% when the repeater was online.

The results aren’t stellar by any means but show a 30% improvement in speed. Why? Signal strength is really the only thing I could see that changed. The WiFi technology deployed by Apple is the same across their products so it’s not a WiFi base station issue from what I can tell.

PS3 Ethernet via Airport Express repeater

I then decided to plug the PS3 directly into the repeaters ethernet port thus removing the use of the PS3 wifi card altogether. To the PS3 software I’m effectively using a wired connection when in truth I’m still using wireless.

And this is when it hit me. Sony has either A) put a crap WiFi card in the PS3 and/or B) use a crap driver to control it. Plugging into “ethernet” gave me the output I would have expected via WiFi. I pay for fast service and this is what shows in the test.

MacBook Pro WiFi via Airport Extreme base station

Finally just to show I’m not crazy, I tested my MacBook Pro running wirelessly directly to the Airport Extreme base station with no repeater.

It came back even faster.

If any PS3 owners would like to try running some of these tests please do so and post your results here. In order to get the image file off the PS3, be sure to save it from the web browser then transfer it via a USB thumb drive or camera memory card.

Sony, fix your sh*t. This is ridiculous. People have been complaining about this since the PS3 launched yet it’s been ignored. A modern piece of technology should not have such craptastic WiFi speeds.

So this year I’ve taken a completely different approach to my game purchases although there have been a few slip ups. I’ve focused mainly on quality titles and I’ve only purchased games on 3 platforms so far this year out of a possible 6. I’m making this list to remind myself of what games I truly want to play this year and that I’ll only be buying those games. There is some wiggle room, I’ll allow for a total of 6 game purchases outside of the list. So far I’ve already spent 3 of those.

The Buy List

Playstation 3
• LittleBigPlanet
• Hot Shots Golf: Out of Bounds (bought)
• Metal Gear Solid 4 ¹
• Grand Theft Auto IV (bought) ¹
• LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures
• SingStar
• Civilization Revolution
• SOCOM: Confrontation
• Fallout 3 ¹

Playstation Portable (PSP)
• Downstream Panic (bought)
• Patapon (bought)
• God of War: Chains of Olympus
• Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII (bought) ¹
• NCAA Football 09 ¹
• Secret Agent Clank
• N+ ¹

Nintendo Wii
• Mario Kart Wii (bought)
• Super Smash Bros. Brawl (bought)
• Animal Crossing Wii

Nintendo DS
• Civilization Revolution

Xbox 360
• Banjo-Kazooie 3
• Gears of War 2

PC/Mac
• Mass Effect (PC) ¹
• Starcraft 2 (Mac) ²
• Spore (PC/Mac) ³

The challenge will be to see if I can hold myself to buying only games on the list. This is the first time I’ve tried to really limit what games I buy. We’ll see how it goes. So far I’ve bought a few impulse games. The only one I really wanted was a good basketball game. At least I bought it while it was on sale.

The Impulse Buy List (5 of 6)

Playstation 3
• The Bigs
• NBA 2k8
• MLB ‘08: The Show
• Karaoke Revolution

Xbox 360
• LOST
• Naruto

PC/Mac
• Sins of a Solar Empire (PC)

1. These games aren’t 100% for sure purchases. There is a slight chance I won’t buy them due to not enough time to play them, poor reviews, or lack of interest once they’re released. I won’t swap these games for other titles so it’s either the game on the list or nothing.
2. Can’t believe I forgot this one on the original list. Who knows, it may not ship this year anyway.
3. Forgot this one as well. Sort of up in the air on this one but it looks very interesting.

Microsoft is promoting one of the worst consumer unfriendly DRM schemes ever produced. Read the following threads below to get a more detailed view on the issue. Microsoft has yet to fix the issue or publicly acknowledge they are working on a solution.

• Can’t play any XBLA games offline after RRoD (This thread is 141 pages as of this writing)
• Carcassonne expansions fail to load
• Golden Axe won’t registered as paid title (All Sega XBLA titles have this bug)
• Puzzle Quest DRM bug causing it to stay in trial mode
• Truth Serum – Digital Rights Management DRM

To mainstream media outlets: Get your heads out of the sand and start taking objective views towards video games. How about discussing the options that parents have for limiting mature content on game consoles instead of playing into the fears of the masses.

If you buy digital content from the Xbox Live Marketplace and your Xbox 360 dies due to the known issues of “red rings of death”, you’re rights as a consumer will become SEVERELY compromised.

Just thought I’d point this out.

Simple; Microsoft is either not business savvy (debateable but doubtful in this case) or they’re developing their own portable console that will launch with a version of Halo. I really can’t think of another smart reason for canning a Halo game what was obvoiusly going to sell a ton of units given the DS’s installed base.

Only time will tell but I hope we see a portable Halo in the next year.

Bomberman Live! was released today for XBLA. It’s one of the best Bomberman games I’ve ever played and that’s saying a lot. I’ve pretty much played them all after the course of it’s 20+ year history. Saturn Bomberman is still my favorite. XBLA is missing the rideable creatures and team play but otherwise it’s perfect.

In my quest for the next cool casual game, I stumbled upon a game named fl0w. Fl0w is a thesis project from Jenova Chen. The game was built in Flash and is available for download for PC or Mac or can be played in a web browser.

What I found most interesting about fl0w was how easy it “flowed”, which was really the point of the design. And what is even more interesting is that the game will be made available for Sony’s new PS3 console. I’m glad it’s a flash based game because honestly, I’m not buying a PS3 just for fl0w.