Getting 'yer booty off PSN : A Huge Pain.. in 'yer booty

[UPDATE] Just now I finished download the game for the nth time.. this time the "current went off" only twice throughout the download, although I expected it to not work like all the previous times. I was staring at the "loading please wait" screen that comes before the installation starts(after which the error is usually shown) and after minutes of non blinkage, I was surprised to see that even after having 2 abrupt cut offs, the download started installing.

This is just great with one of the best timings, because now I dont need to buy the Rs.800/- worth Standalone version that has been released, and neither do I have to spend Rs.600 extra (an alternate plan that I thought up of) to increase my Internet's bandwidth by twice and download again, trying for complete download with no power cuts.

All is well and My bilind faith and continuos retries have paid off! Dont know if the problem of abrupt power cuts spoinling downloads has been fixed now though. Maybe thats the reason? (from FW 2.5) 

Let us just hope so.

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OMG Ratchet and Clank ?

I have been a big Ratchet and Clank fan ever since I first played the game. I always tried my best to get all the games ever released and play them (never cared for the Mobile ones though). You could say one of the biggest reasons I even bought a PS3 (and DS3) was Ratchet and Clank. So, yeah I think you got the picture.

Recently "Age of Booty" a small expansion pack to Tools of Destruction was released on PSN. I knew that I would get it the instant I saw the announcement at E3 '08. But never did I imagine that getting it would be that difficult.

With my friend's help I was able to get game from HK PSN store. After seeing its size was a whopping 2.8 GB, I told to myself "oh well, its only 24hrs of downloading", I was casual about it,because I was (and AM) playing GTA IV, which I know will easily take me more than 24 hrs to play, so I can always have the game download in the BG, hence not wasting much electricity.

Realisation 1.0

So I start the download and then start playing GTA IV, what do I see after a 2hr session? the percentage had not increased at all. After a bit of googling, I found out that GTA IV on PS3 doesnt support background downloading (unlike MGS and many other games). What did this mean ? well, now I had only one option.. turn on the PS3 "not for gaming" and just leave it like that to download stuff. becasue GTA IV is the only game I will be playing till I finish it.

Whats the problem?

Well, first of all, leaving the PS3 turned on for hours together, with no A/C and that too in a closed room is just too risky. Also, it feels like unnecessary current waste.

What did I do?

Well, I started watching movies on the PS3 just so that I can download things while watching movies, so there is atleast something got from turning it on (also that I will be using A/C when there). This time I realize another thing..

You cannot BG download when you are watching DVDs/BDs on PS3..

WoW, just what I needed :| Luckily , I have a lot of Anime and movies burnt on DVDs, and luckily PS3 supports them, so I started watching them.

Problems for Developing nations

I am from India, and as you all might know India is still a "Developing Country" what does it mean? One thing is that, in many areas you have constant power cuts, most of all, these are Random. Because of this thing, I was first afraid that such abrupt power cuts would hurt the PS3, but even then I kept downloading because "I wanted to play it"

So after many hours of watching anime (and also leaving it on , just downloading) the download was finally done. With great happiness I started the installation. only to see

What is this you ask? well, its a fatal error, where "Re-Download" is the only option. I've googled for it earlier, while trying to solve the problems of people in forums, but never actually faced it. Why did it happen? well, it was because of the "power cuts" that were happening whenever I was downloading.

There is this problem in the PS3 where downloads get corrupt if there is a power cut when you are downloading the file. I remember very well having power cuts while downloading demos, months ago, but never faced the problem till this time. Maybe its one of those "new features" that the constant firmware updates bring up.

What did I do then?

Well, just like any other fan would do, without a moment's thought, I started the download again..Not once, but 5 times!

Here is a small list of the downloads

1. Complete Download - Corrupt
2. PowerCut @ 400 MB
3. PowerCut @ 700 MB
4. PowerCut @ 200 MB

After observing all this, I started downloading only at nights, as per my friend's recc. power cuts are almost null at night times (you know, cause everyone sleeps and uses nothing electric) After a few nights of atleast 4 hrs download each, I reached 1.5 GB..

But as fate would have it "Current Wala" always waits for the right moment. It being the time when you can feel sad the most. As there was once again a very unexpected powercut @ the 1.5GB mark late at night, where I practically went mad.

How time was wasted?

In my 256K Internet speed (yeah, its another one of those "developing nation" thing) it takes me almost 50mins to download 100 MB. So thats around 4 GB of download that takes up easily 35+ hours of download.

So I've spent that much of time trying to get the thing working and its still not done, however, just in hope of current not going off again, I started downloading it again.

Possible Solutions

0.Keep Trying

I can always keep trying and maybe one day, like that scene from very other anime "I will believe" and then there will be no problems, or better yet.. I will believe so much that, even after powercuts the download will be work! ~the power of fandom~

1. Get a UPS

Well, First of all, people would say "buy a UPS", The thing is that spending so much money on getting only this download done, is a pretty, non economical solution IMO. I would rather rely on my luck than to spend more money to get it. As for everything else I will download after this.. I am guessing it will be under 1 Gb which I think luck will allow me to download.

2.Wait for fix

Seeing how frequently we get PS3 Firmware upgrades, I can only sit and wish that in the next upgrade they fix this problem. I mean, Sony cares about its customers.. right? no matter how much of a minority they are. Seeing that it has not been fixed till now (it seems the problem was there since many months) I feel we are being ignored.

3.Buy the Retail Version

Oh yeah, definitely.. once it comes out in India, with a proper (i.e not Rs.1499/-) price tag, I will be first in line to buy it. Well, hope it happens sometime soon, seeing that the UK release has been cancelled and the EU release is not known right now.

4.Move to some other country

Nope, I dont think that is going to happen soon.

Why The Dragon Ball Movie Will Break My Heart I

Well as and when I find more details trickling out on the web or by any other means, about the Dragon Ball live action movie, I'll keep posting them on this "mini blog" series. Here is the first of "X".

According to the new post on Kotaku, I just keep finding more and more reasons for my heart to get broken into pieces by the impending and nearing premiere date of it, on DVD/Blu-Ray or the big screen which doesn't make a difference.

*FYI* I'm a huge Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z and luke warm Dragon Ball GT fan, I was born within the same week or more like around the days that the original Dragon Ball anime was premiered in Japan. It was destiny... no wait, Dragon Ball chose me. XD

So some new pics have been released and from all of them, two just rip out my heart and dance the Jarabe Tapatio on it (Full House reference, watch it, it's a nice family show); not that the rest of images aren't crap because they are... MEGA CRAP!

First:

Piccolo, as seen in the "movie"

WTF?! OK, before just loosing it and as the image was loading I saw something white and said: "Calm down! Your a grown ass man!, it could be the turban Piccolo uses." The image kept loading and I saw the eyes and thought: "OK, too much white now but the eyes look menacing... cool :S ?." Anyone who has seen DBZ knows that all Namekians are nice but basically scare the life out of anyone just physically... kinda look like demons (Piccolo was at once affiliated with them and their leader Garlick Jr). After that just watching the rest of it loading, I was asking myself: "Why is that shiny black thing on his body?"; and then the gruesome truth appeared before my eyes, they had given Piccolo a spandex suit. To make it worse, a black "didn't you see the X-men movies and how dumb that was" spandex muscle suit.

By the end I wanted to know what the hell were Eli Damaskinos (Blade II) or The Ubvervamp (Buffy The Vampire Slayer) doing in the movie? I kinda knew that Goku and many of the human characters where going to get messed up from day one, but it really, really hurts when they do this to the cool/strong/few words/loner type characters from any story. I'm talking of the Vegeta's, Sasuke Uchiha's, Wolverine's, Sabertooth's and yes Piccolo's of the fiction world.

Second:

A Dragon Ball as seen in the "movie"

From this batch of images, this one hurts the most but not on a nostalgia value as the Piccolo image did, but more on common sense level. What is the name of the movie? Dragon Ball. Why don't the friggin Dragon Balls have stars on them. It can't be a huge budget expense, I'm guessing, if at least to get something right in the movie.

I really cannot believe that anyone whose name is affiliated in any shape or form to this sham even thinks this is a serious/"good decision for my acting career" movie. The director is just doing it to get a directorial seat push of some sort or publicity at a Uwe Boll type of "Their is no such thing as bad publicity" level. Of course make his way in the most mediocre form possible and using such a beloved story as his stepping stone through the Hollywood swamp.

At this rate and from whatever half-baked production is behind this blasphemy as my evidence, I'm guessing someone can put out a movie where the Nazis are the good guys and get a budget and support for it.

I'm not trying to sound like some angry nerd, I know that stuff like DBZ, Naruto, Bleach, Gantz (maybe), Blue Dragon cannot be faithfully recreated, but at least anime and/or video game movie should have some stream of decency and character behind them to make them more credible. Like, take the original idea and use stuff approximate to it, and if some things are particularly hard to do then twist the concept in another direction while keeping the spirit of what was originally intended. Thats not so hard.

Better yet, this movie could be great if they had stuck to the Dragon Ball idea but used an aesthetic closer to reflect Journey to The West (in the fantastical aspects of the Dragon Ball story), which is the classical Chinese novel from which the original idea of Dragon Ball cribbed from and has the look and feel of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon to it(aesthetically speaking).

Of course that's just an idea, but I think it would be at least a bit more decent then what the movie has become up to now.