Grand Theft Auto IV – Slow Start to the Game (GTA4)

When the package arrived from Amazon.com, I knew what was in it. Something that was sure to eat away many hours of my time the next few weeks. I opened it up, and there it was the new release from Rockstar Games – Grand Theft Auto IV or GTA4 as some will refer to it. I was part of the record setting first day sales and I was excited to try and get some missions completed in the short amount of time I had available tonight.


With only about an hour to spare this evening, I was thinking I could make a good start around Liberty City in the new GTA 4. Boy was I wrong.

It took about 15 minutes for the game to install the data on the hard drive. Why? I have absolutely no idea – it is obviously putting a ton of data on the Playstation 3 hard drive. However, why cannot the loading it be done in the background while playing the opening scenes or videos? To make matters worse, the great scenes that appear during the loading still continue to appear for another minute after the game data has been saved to the PS3. Only then does it go into the opening scenes.

And the opening is a great introduction although a bit long of the Grand Theft Auto IV’s main character, Niko Bellic coming into Liberty City aka New York City by a huge freighter. At the docks, he is picked up by his cousin Roman to stay with him at his castle in New York City. The only problem is that Roman has over exaggerated his American exploits to his family in Yugoslavia – there are no castles, sports cars, or women. Just a run down apartment and a taxi service to be exploited.

From there, you start the first couple of missions. In the limited time I had, I was only able to explore Liberty City a little while completing the first couple of missions. I immediately found the driving controls to be a lot more sluggish than GTA3 San Andreas as I made my way around town. I also found the opening scenes for each mission to be rather lengthy, perhaps that is just the start of the character development for the game.

However, just a couple of missions into GTA4 – nothing too exciting has happened – other than driving to a couple of locations and picking up people. I hope the game speeds up in the next couple of missions, thus far – while the graphics and stunningly improved from GTA3, the game play and story development has been disappointing.

Given all the hype around this release – and the reason that many of us purchased the Playstation 3 was for Gran Turismo and Grand Theft Auto franchises – I have been just a little disappointed with Grand Theft Auto IV. Let’s hope it gets better!

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Fixed! Gran Turismo 5 Download Failed Error for GT5 Prologue

With the release of Gran Turismo 5 Prologue (GT5), I immediately experienced an issue with my date and time settings (See how to fix here, as it is a precursor to fixing this problem) that was a little annoying. Shortly after I cleaned that up, I was notified that there was an update available for Gran Turismo 5. Not only did that not work, but it took me several tries and configurations to get it working correctly. Keep reading for the solution.

The sequence of events and the fix went as follows. If you are having a similar issue downloading updates for Gran Turismo 5 Prologue (GT5), I recommend following these steps.

1. Upon entering Gran Turismo 5 Prologue I was greeted with the following dialog:

An update is available. Your prize money will be carried over, but the update may result in the the loss of replay and saved data. Download the Update? When you begin the download, all unsaved data will be lost.

2. I click on 'Yes' rather than 'No' to start the update and the following transpired.

Preparing download. Please do not turn off the PS3 system while the HDD access indicator is flashing.

Downloading...

3. Then after 2-3 minutes, a dialog comes up with 'Failed'. Upon hitting 'ok' you are greeted with the message 'An error occurred during the download. Download failed.'

4. The download dialog boxes exit and you can go about using the system, but News and online play is not working.

I tried this several times repeatedly either by exiting the game using the PS button, downloading upon starting the game and by trying it multiple times in game.

One method that has been helpful for folks including me was by going to Options --> Miscellaneous --> Network. From there, start with clearing the cache by clicking on the start button. In addition, adjust the item for UPnP to Mode 2 from Mode 1. This adjusts the NAT and network protocols. While badly named, by changing to Mode 2 from Mode 1 has yielded the most successful attempts.

After completing the clear cache and UPnP network mode settings change, restart the game and attempt to download the game. After making the changes, on my second download everything worked great.

Hopefully this works for you -- if so, please let me know with a comment!

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Fixed! The Date and Time Settings Are Not Set Correctly for Gran Turismo 5 Prologue (GT5)

Gran Turismo 5 Prologue is finally here with great fanfare after an 18 month for most of us for this much anticipated release -- even if it is just a smaller release of GT5 Prologue. While we still wait for the full version, we can at least have a little fun with the version of Gran Turismo. While I just received my GT5 from Amazon.com, I am hopeful, the full version will be here for us next year.


Before I got started with my new game -- when I put my copy of Gran Turismo 5 Prologue into my Playstation 3 (PS3), I was greeted with an odd error on my console and GT5:

The date and time are not set correctly. Please check date and time settings

I was a little confused as to how it would be possible. Thinking the time was messed up on my Playstation 3 by hitting the PS Button, exiting the game and then going to Settings --> Date and time settings. Interesting, the time was set correctly, but Gran Turismo 5 still had the error.

I then went back into the game and again was greeted with the error:

The date and time are not set correctly. Please check date and time settings

After some checking, I figured out what the problem was. Gran Tursimo 5 Prologue requires that your PS3 gets it's date and time from the Internet. If your PS3 is not set to do this, then you will receive this error in GT5. Frustrating!

How do you fix it? Easy, just go to your Playstation's main menu by clicking on the PS button. Then browse to Settings. Next to Date and Time Settings. Then Date and Time. Now select 'Set via Internet', click 'ok' and then your date is set.

Now go back into your Gran Turismo 5 Prologue game and you will no longer get the error. Additionally, you will now see the Gran Turismo calendar appear on the left side of your screen with the date of April 4th, 2008.

Who knows why the folks at Polyphony Digital required this setting as it does cause some frustration. At least you know how to fix it. If this fix worked for you, please let me know below with a comment!

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Motorola RAZR - Free Game Installation Guide from your PC

I have my "own" Motorola V3 RAZR phone since Ashley has her iPhone. And lately, rather than always carrying the hefty Blackberry 8800 around all the time I have started switching out the SIM cards between the two devices in order to keep my same phone number on Cingular / AT&T and lighten the load.

Given the heavier use of the phone, of course I have done some modifications to it. The most recent of course is adding games to the device. Since the Motorola RAZR and other Motorola phones are Java compatible, there are many games out there that are available -- some that are free, some that are not.

The installation of the games from your computer is a pretty straight forward process assuming you have the right tools. This tutorial will walk you through the process so that you can easily install games on your Motorola phone!

The example game being used for this demonstration is "Yet Another Tetris" by Alwin Ngai. The version installed is the latest 2.52.52 and it is only 13k in size. This game has excellent play and usability on the Motorola V3 RAZR and is much of the reason for my choosing it.

Here is the how to guide:

1. Obtain a copy of the Yet Another Tetris game. I obtained my from this page. Alternatively, the direct link the .jar file you want is here. Save this on your hard drive in a location you know of.

2. Use a P2K program like P2KTools. My installation guide for P2KTools is here.

3. Start up P2KTools and click on the 'Switch to...' icon and choose Switch to P2K Mode.

4. Click on the KJava icon on the left hand menu. Make sure you are in the connected mode with the green icon in the lower left hand corner. The screen will be blank.



5. Click on the 'Read' button to return the current installed KJava / Java programs on your Motorazr phone. Next click on the 'Install' Icon on the bottom menu.



6. Browse to the location of the Yet Another Tetris JAR file you downloaded to install the game on your Motorola RAZR phone. Click on 'Open' and the phone will begin the installation of the game.



7. After the installation completes, click on the save icon in the lower right hand corner. The game shows as installed on your phone in P2KTools.



8. Finally, click on the 'Restart' button on the top menu bar to restart your Motorazr phone. Once it is complete, you game is ready for use by browsing to Menu --> Games --> Yet Another Tetris. Java will fire up and the game will work!

Congratulations, you have installed your first Motorola RAZR game. Now you can install others by searching on the internet for Free Motorola RAZR games! Did this guide work for you? Let me know with a comment.

Also, this game is known compatible with the following Motorola models:
Motorola: A1200, A760, A768, A780, A835, C168, C257, C261, C290, C350, C350M, C380, C385, C390, C450, C550, C650, C975, E1000, E1070, E380, E398, E398B, E398i, E550, E680, E680i, E770, E770-Vodafone, E790, E815, i830, i930, K1, KZRK K1, L2, L6, L6i, L7-Vodafone, Motorola Q, Motorola Q Plus, MPX220, PEBL U6, Razr V3, RAZR V3m, Razr V3x, RAZR V3xx, RAZR V3xxv, RAZR V6, RAZR2 V9m, ROKR E1, ROKR E2, ROKR E6, SLVR L7, SLVR L7e, SLVR L7i, SLVR L9, T720, V1050, V1075, V171, V177, V180, V186, V188, V190, V195, V197, V220, V235, V300, V360, V360-Vodafone, V365, V3i, V3m, V3r, V3t, V3v, V3x-Vodafone, V400, V500, V505, V525, V525M, V535, V547, V550, V551, V555, V557, V600, V600i, V620, V635, V80, V975, V980, V980M, W220, W375, Z3

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My Second Life's First Impression. Original.

Well, I am sure this is not the most original title of them all. Probably at least 100 or more blog postings about the game Second Life and everyone's first impressions of it.

Is my perspective different? Maybe. I have been sitting up here in my hotel room in Mountain View, California and catching up on some blog posts (iPhone) and updating myself on my friends websites. Then browsed past my buddy Bill Moseley's home page.

Bill and I go way back -- read Elementary School here and have had a number of adventures that span a couple of decades, families, weddings, and friends. Now, Bill is an fan of Second Life -- and in fact, integrates the 'game' into his cirriculm at Pepperdine Univeristy and even teaches a course online for Second Life for educators.

Admittedly, Second Life has been for me what blogging was before October of last year (was that really a year ago?) -- something on my to-do list, but never important enough to pursue. So, tonight with a few spare minutes between emails -- I decided to finally check out Second Life. If Bill sees value in it, then I should definitely take a quick peek.

And, this is nothing new to me. I had, way back in college circa 1996 I was pretty into one of the first MMO games, Subspace by Virgin Interactive. I had spent many a late nights with my roommate Josh Rhea battling and developing a little community with the folks we played with. It was fun, and passed some time. So, Second Life was not that new of a concept to me.

First, I created my online personality - Kenny Markstein - no creativity, I know -- it took me 5 minutes to find an available name. Then, I downloaded the application which takes awhile on a hotel's shared Internet system. After about 30 minutes, accounting for the initial download, install, and subsequent updates, I am prepared to start walking around Linden. If only it was that simple.

Let's just say after spending about 45 minutes running through orientation and never making it to the town of Linden, I am simply underwhelmed. Now, it may be my IBM T61 laptop with a Centrino Duo processor or not enough memory -- but the game was darn slow. So, wandering did not do much for me and it was really choppy. Not to mention that the screens would freeze a little when clicking on the learnings.

So, for now I am going to set Second Life aside until I at least return home and get it on my PC to see what the issue was. I'll report back and let you know how it goes.

How is your Second Life going? Should I look you up?

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Playstation Portable - PSP Tutorial – Fix your broken UMD drive door – Step-by-Step (Video)

Having a problem with the UMD drive door on your PlayStation Portable? If so, and you are having problems with your UMD disks staying put in your PSP or if your UMD drive door will simply not stay shut, then this is a quick fix that may help you out.

The good news is that it is not necessarily a fatal defect that requires you to return you PSP to Sony. Generally speaking, the latch the locks the UMD drive door is out of position and just needs to be adjusted. If this is your problem, then this tutorial is for you.

1. Inspect the silver metal latch with your PSP UMD drive door open. Most cases are that it is bent in out of position and is lower (down) from where it should be. When you close the UMD drive door, there is nothing for it to grab.

2. Lightly take your thumb and ever so slightly bend the back towards metal latch tab towards the top of the UMD door opening.

3. Congratulations. After this, your UMD drive door should close properly and also stay closed when an UMD disc is loaded. If it does not, attempt to adjust a little more and retry.

Note: That as when doing any modification or repair of a defect yourself on your PSP, be very careful and any mistake may void any remaining warranty.

In addition, below is a video I came across on Google videos which demonstrates the steps in the guide. See below for the video.

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PSP Tutorial – Replace your faceplate – Step-by-Step

Have you ever wanted to modify or replace the faceplate on your Sony Playstation Portable? If so, this PSP Tutorial with video demonstration is for you. This guide provides instruction on how to replace your Sony PSP faceplate whether it is cracked, broken, or if you are simply if you are looking to mod, modify or change your PSP.

Both a video embed below, and the written instructions are included.

Dis-assembly of the face plate:
1. Remove the screws to your Sony Playstation Portable (PSP). There are five screws that you must locate to remove your faceplate. It is important keep track of different sizes and colors of your screws as they are different.

2. With the face plate side down, pull from the bottom of the PSP up. The bottom of the PSP should disconnect first and then the top should snap off and be the last part to disconnect.

3. Remove the rubber pads covering the circle, square, triangle, x, and d-pad.

4. Remove the d-pad, as well as the circle, square, triangle, x, and d-pad.

5. Remove the bottom black button strip, which may glued down to your original Playstation Portable (PSP) faceplate.

6. Now you remove the rubber covering the analog nub & mechanism.

7. Finally, remove the analog nub & mechanism which requires the removal of 2 screws. These are different from first screws, so keep them separately. Be careful not to twist the plate as it may crack and make sure to keep track of the washer that covers the mechanism.

Re-assembly of the face plate:
1. Replace analog nub mechanism with washer, align the screws and tighten.

2. Replace the rubber nub on the faceplate and cover with the rubber.

3. Replace each of the circle, square, triangle, and x buttons back on the face plate.

4. Replace the d-pad.

5. Replace the rubber covering over the pads.

6. Replace the bottom button strip and reassemble your PSP.

Congratulations, you have changed the faceplate on your PSP!

Video of faceplate change:

Credit to Home Town Boy for creating the video.

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PSP Tutorial – How to fix a broken UMD disc – Step-by-Step

A common problem that has happened to several people, including myself is that your Playstation Portable’s (PSP) Universal Mini Disc (discs, disk, disks) is broken and needs to be fixed. In many cases, one might think that there is nothing that you can do and you are simply out of luck – you must re-buy that game another time. Think again! Here is a short step-by-step tutorial on how you can fix that broken UMD.

1. First you must obtain a demo disk so you can use it to replace your game’s UMD sleeve. There are several options for this, including magazines.

2. Carefully separate the case on the demo disc and remove the UMD CD that is inside.

3. Perform the same action on your broken or damaged disc that you are looking to replace.

4. Place the UMD CD removed in step two into the original complete demo disk.

5. Either tape (temporary) or obtain plastic specific super/krazy glue and affix the UMD disk together to complete the task.

Now you have a restored and completely functional UMD disk that was previously damaged or broken. Enjoy it!

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Rayman – Ravin Rabbids – Nintendo Wii First Impressions