If you want to get online gaming working though your firewall there’s a really good online reference here and my specific grumble about having to open up a shed load of ports for EA’s Burnout paradise is documented in their support area.

To summarize, this is what I’ve got open:

General Playstation Network Ports, these always need to be open.

udp 3658
udp 3478-3479

Open these extra ones for Motor Storm

udp 3659 – 3660

Open these extra ones for Burnout

udp 3659
udp 9600-9699

If you to have a cisco pix, you’ll need to open an entry on your outside access-list, something like

access-list outside permit udp any any eq  3658

and you’ll need a static entry….

static (inside,outside) udp interface 3658 playstation3 3658 netmask 255.255.255.255

For lots of ports the access-list command supports the range statement, so

access-list outside permit udp any any range 9600 9699

But you won’t be so lucky with statics, you’ll have to add an entry for each port, I created a small bash shell script to automate the task…

#!/bin/bash
#9600-9699
for i in `seq 9600 9699`;
do
        echo "static (inside,outside) udp interface $i playstation3 $i netmask 255.255.255.255"
done

I then pasted the output into my pix. If you are having problems here are some references that might be useful are the cisco pix command ref and the pix nat guide.

The thing is my ps3 wallpaper has changed from yellow to green, now this wouldn’t normally be an issue as most gameplay happens in the evening and the screen changes to black by then, but looking at the wikipedia page for the XMB I’m in for some pinks & greens in the next couple of months…. not to my taste at all, it’s a shame that Sony don’t let you choose which colours the XMB scrolls through… ho-hum it was nice whilst it lasted, I wonder if I can find any cool animated wallpapers for my PS3?

The Associated Press: New Antivirus Software for Playstation 3
The company bills the software as the first of its kind for a home gaming system. It was released earlier this month as part of a PS3 upgrade and will be free until April.

This is a really positive thing to see; by the fact that there is a market there shows that “Joe gamet” is thinking about security , it’s a shame that sony aren’t giving this away for free but I guess that business .

A word of caution to our friends, please, please enure that you product doesn’t affect performance else we will end up back to the old days where the first trouble-shooting step will be to disable security *cry*.

Burnout Revenge Screenshot

Good playstation planning means you finish one game in time to start a new

I’ve finally got round to completing Jak3, I haven’t quite hit the 100% completion mark, but my 99% isn’t a bad effort, and there’s only so much “orb hunting” you can do before you get bored ! I’ve updated my personal playstation2 review section, and for those that have never got into the jak and daxter series I’d suggest you get started, you’re missing out on hours of entertainment !

I’ve also got a new game Burnout 4 (Revenge). I’ll follow my usual routine of saving the review until I complete (or get bored) , but I have to say, I’ve had the game on for 30mins and It rocks !!!!!! I’ve played burnout 2/3 before, so I already knew roughly what to do. The big different in Revenge is that you can hit traffic going in the same direction (in the past this was a wipe out) and you can use this traffic as a weapon – yep sod trying to win fair & square, hit a van hard from behind and it’ll catapult forward, if your aim is good you’ll hit your opponent and take the lead !
From first glance there is a variation on the race, i.e. do the tracks backwards, or getting quickest lap times, the only type that leave me cold is the launch your car into a cross-road for points – it sounds good on paper but it’s actually quite boring to play – especially compared to the high adrenaline races !

If you have burnout 3, you’ll enjoy burnout 4 !

This website just doesn’t reflect that, so I’ve updated the ps2 section to include all my games, not just the ones I’ve completed.

The ps2linux section has also taken the sideline until I have some content

Here’s a screen shot of what I’m playing at the moment

StarWars Revenge of the Sith

I hope my reviews help anyone who’s having difficulty choosing good games