Second hand minefield

Buying cheap games for the PlayStation 4 seems to be subject to a few more pitfalls than it is for the Xbox One. Clearly the PlayStation 4 sold a lot more units that the Xbox One and presumably it shifted a correspondingly higher number of games. This seems to result in an increased chance of ending up with either an imported game, or one originally intended to be part of a bundle. Or in some cases both. 

So far I have bought about 10 games for the PlayStation 4 from a variety of sources and three of them have turned out to be something other than the UK retail version I assumed I was buying. I have never encountered this issue when buying Xbox One games. I did once buy an Xbox 360 game from a charity shop with Arabic text on the sleeve, but it was only £1 and I knew what I was buying. Yes, the games I have received work and they are in English, but that's not the point. The issue that, due to the ongoing lock-down/pandemic, I am obliged to buy games online and I am not receiving the exact specification I am expecting.

Is it me?

Uncharted 4: A Thief's End for the PlayStation 4 is an enigma. This game gets almost universally good
reviews and is revered by lots of gamers. A quick look on Google tells us the game has a score 4.8/5 and a Metacritic score of 93%. Impressive stuff. User reviews offer gushing praise of the graphics, the story, the pacing, the gameplay and a hundred other things. One over excited reviewer goes as far as suggesting that there can be no better game or franchise: it is simply impossible. He writes IN BLOCK CAPITALS WITH LOTS OF EXCLAMATION MARKS SO IT MUST BE TRUE!!!!

With such glowing endorsements I had to make this game one of the first I acquired when I finally got around to buying a PlayStation 4. But when I played the game I was puzzled. The game I was playing did not justify any of the praise being heaped upon it. In fact, I began to think the game was…well rubbish.

This franchise is clearly a fist party IP attempting to occupy the console exclusive niche Tomb Raider vacated. Tomb Raider drove the sales of so many PlayStation and PlayStation 2 consoles that it is hard to blame Sony for trying the same recipe again. Yet, Uncharted 4 is definitely the poor man’s Tomb Raider. Yes, it looks great and I am sure that if you somehow cared about the characters it could be engaging; but the gameplay is virtually non-existent.

Let’s get one thing straight, this is the first Uncharted game I have ever played. I have never owned a PlayStation 3 and have absolutely no clue about the back story or characters involved. It does seem as if the developers have relied very heavily on gamers being invested in this franchise because, to those of us with no prior knowledge, it is very boring. Lengthy and numerous cut scenes are followed by short mundane episodes of gameplay (mainly jumping over roofs along a highly convoluted and improbable route) that I soon grew tired of.

 Unbelievable: I don't care about this guy or his brother

At least 10 people have been brave enough to leave 1 star reviews for the game on Google. One reviewer describes it as an “interactive movie” - which is a fair description in my opinion. Others cite the boring gameplay along with clumsy controls. One Amazon reviewer quite enjoyed the tortuous cut scenes of characters eating as it gave her time to file and polish her nails. So, it’s not all bad news. I notice there is a trophy for finishing the game in under 6 hours – surely a couple of the cut scenes last this long? Skip the cinematics you say? Yes I do, but they are so frequent that I just gave up and leave them to run whilst I make a drink or take a comfort break.

After all that negativity, I think its only fair to say that I have played much worse games than Uncharted 4. Despite some people’s comments to the contrary, I think the graphics are quite impressive. I also like some of the game mechanics and the puzzles are engaging. Little ideas such as playing Crash Bandicoot as part of a cinematic are nice touches that signal a great deal of thought on the part of the developers. However, none of these attributes justify the praise being heaped upon it. This isn’t a bad game, but it isn’t a great one. AND IT CERTAINLY ISN’T THE BEST GAME EVER.

Xbox One number 3

Secondhand fluff anyone?

So Xbox One number 3 finally arrived today. It was scheduled to arrive a couple of days ago but in the current climate I am not complaining at a slight delay. I've bought a few second hand consoles in my time and have learnt that the best thing to do is open them up and clean them out as soon as you receive them. Invariably consoles are full of dust that can inhibit cooling and cause issues with the optical drive. A quick inspection behind the side panel on this machine revealed that it was no exception. 

When removing the side panel I noticed it came off with almost no effort. Then I heard the distinctive rattle of small pieces of plastic inside the machine that suggested someone else had already been inside it. Almost every console I have bought from eBay has shown signs of being opened up previously. Whilst the warranty sticker on this device appeared to be in place, it had obviously been removed at some stage.

Undaunted I got to work with the torx drivers and removed the shell to see what I was up against. Happily there were no obvious signs of fault repair and the unit looked pretty good. The rattling noise was coming from a few small pieces of black plastic that were floating around in the case. Two of these pieces were clearly the legs holing one side of the internal speaker in place and another from the easily removed side panel. I wondered if someone had previously opened up the unit, failed to remove the side panel or speaker properly and abandoned their efforts before they caused even more damage.

Dirty One

The next step was to remove the shell and rinse it with soap and water. I then set about removing the terrible sticker that read "Supreme" on top of the case. When I saw the listing for this machine I was suspicious this sticker was hiding a horrendous scratch or even worse, a crack. However as I set to work with my wife's hair dryer and peeled back the sticker, I realised there were no defects and this was simply a previous owners idea of a cool decoration. Who sticks stickers to their Xbox? Why? And why something as lame as this?

Inside the Xbox I vacuumed around and cleaned down the motherboard with isopropyl alcohol. I then detached the fan and gave it a good scrub before checking the optical drive for dust before beginning to put everything back together. 

When it comes to reassembling an Xbox One I have a nemesis: the antenna. For some reason I find it really difficult to attach the antenna back to the Wifi/Bluetooth board on top of the inner case. I just can't do it. I can attach the ultra fiddly ribbon cable for the soft touch buttons on the front panel with relative ease, but the round fastenings for the antenna always spell my doom. Having huffed and cursed for a few minutes I finally go the whole machine back together and set it running. 

The restored Xbox One

Invariably, this is the point that I run into issues and so it proved on this occasion. I pressed the power button and nothing happened. I had tested the console before stripping it down so I knew it should be working. Clearly I had done something wrong. After a great deal of tinkering with the ribbon cable and re-fitting of the front panel I gave up. 

I decided to say that the broken power button was actually a safety feature designed to prevent the accidental power switching most Xbox One owners will be familiar with.

Having turned the unit on through repeated presses of the eject button. I set it off downloading updates and all of the usual stuff you have to do when setting up a new console. After about an hour or so I accidentally pressed the front panel and, yes, you guessed it, the unit powered off. My theory is that there was some moisture remaining on the button or ribbon controller after the cleaning and once it dried out the problem went away.

When it comes to reassembly of your Xbox One I can recommend this guide as a useful starting point. For teardown you might want to look at this video.

In control

I've been looking to buy another Xbox One for a few weeks now. Whilst trawling through eBay auctions I saw quite a large number of "Day One" edition consoles listed. However, not many of these "Day One" auctions were actually complete. Most listings had the correct console (and some even include the Kinect that was originally part of the bundle) but many were missing the controller. One of the distinguishing features of a "Day One" package is the unique controller and it seems like a stretch to claim your console is a "Day One" edition when a vital component is missing.

Anyway, my musings about controllers got me to thinking about my own "Day One" controller which had been stored in the loft for many years. I'd put it away as it had begun malfunctioning about a year after I received it. For some reason the controller had taken to getting so hot I could barely hold it, the batteries would drain in seconds and it would refuse to connect to the console. I bought a replacement controller and promised myself I would fix the "Day One" controller at some point in the future. About six years passed and the controller remained undisturbed with no prospect of a repair.

However, whilst preparing for the imminent arrival of my latest Xbox One (number 3 - don't ask), I came across my old controllers and decided to attempt some sort of resurrection of the "Day One". It occurred to me that the replacement controller I purchased back in 2014 is the same type as the "Day One" version. These pre-2015 versions lack the 3.5mm audio jack and the parts could be interchangeable.

Now I'm sure someone with far more skill than me could pinpoint the fault on the board of the broken controller and solder in some new components to repair it. However, I decided to employ the technique that all mobile phone repair services seem to use and chose to simply replace all of the innards and call it a "repair". 

A quick YouTube search led me to some truly terrible videos of incoherent people disassembling controllers with all the grace of a drunk clown. I eventually stumbled upon a video made by someone who actually used a torx driver rather than jamming a flathead in and once I muted the sound we were good to go.

Both controllers came apart quite easily, but rather than just jam the screwdriver through the warranty sticker I chose to peel it back and then remove the screw. This has nothing to do with the warranty (which has obviously expired long ago) but I just prefer things to look smart if possible. Peeling the stickers that hide screws is a habit I got into when I used to modify 360 controllers (more of that at a later late) and I decided to continue with it. 

The two features that separate the day one controller from all other pre-2015 versions are the unique face plate which reads "Day One 2013" and the D-pad which has a grey chrome finish rather than the standard gloss black. Thus I simply took the shell off the working controller and applied the "Day One" top shell and D-pad. Once reassembled I was left with a fully functional "Day One" edition and a busted pre-2015 controller. Not a bad trade off.  

As a postscript, I need to mention that my internet searches for Xbox "Day One" have led me to an annoying discovery. It seems that, unbeknownst to me, there was more than one version of the launch day bundle. I bought my console from Amazon and noticed it included FIFA 14. Now I'm not very interested in FIFA (my obsession ended with the disappointment that was 2005 on the original Xbox) and I didn't play FIFA 14 past launch day (I hated it). Despite having no interest in the game I thought it would make a nice "freebie" and accepted that this was the launch bundle.

Now I find that there was a bundle that included Forza Motorsport 5, a title I bought separately for £45. For some reason it didn't occur to me that there would more than one launch bundle. But hey ho, it's not the first time EA have taken me for £45 - I'm looking at you FIFA 2005.