The Gaming World Today

Xbox360 Apps?

2012-02-06T06:48:00.001-08:00

Apps, is the strange new popular name for software, popularized by the advent of the Apple App store’s introduction in 2008. I have written before about the popularity, the fashion of the word app and the need for millions of them on a platform, that isn’t what I want to talk about in this article. With the recent dashboard update the Xbox 360 has a shiny new apps category. This seems fairly puzzling as non game apps have been around on the Xbox since the last major dashboard update, they just didn’t call them that specifically. Twitter, Facebook, Zune and television services like Sky have been considered apps since the “new Xbox experience” update in November 2008.

What is new in this update is that the number of television apps has been increased and Apps as a whole have been given their own section. Microsoft have not specifically stated that this app store will expand beyond the type of social and content provider apps that are there at present. However, it does appear that they are laying the groundwork for an app store style environment on the Xbox360, possibly promoted by the inevitable rise of smart televisions and Apple TV. This move appears to be saying the Xbox 360 is in the same class of devices as smart TV boxes. Also laying the groundwork to compete if a market for apps takes off on Google TV or if Apple should decide to allow apps created for it to run on their Apple TV which is essentially an iPhone converted to a TV box and minus the touch interface, capable of running anything an iPhone 4 can.

The category of software that I would actually ascribe the name app to is small programs with a best fit on a smartphone. Software like Pages on the iPad I wouldn’t call an app it’s a word processor, similarly Angry Birds is a game, not an app. Semantics, I hear you cry, yes, it is, though it’s only a recent trend, a fashion, that had made every piece of software, regardless of its category an app in the first place.

The word app is short for application, which is defined by Dictionary.com as the use to which something is put, or also as a computer program related to a specific task. Looking at my own phone in front of me there many apps, considering the device is a phone, not all of them are what I would define as an app. Things like music, camera, gallery, camcorder, call history, messages settings, they are the basic functionality of a phone, and were there on simple menus before the days of apps. If any of these apps were missing the phone wouldn’t be selling very well, as it wouldn’t have the basic functionality of its peers. By my reckoning an app is an extra program that provides a tool for a task that isn’t necessarily phone specific and provides non telecommunications use or value for the user.

If all that stuff isn’t an app, then what is? Games, no, they were there on dumb phones as well. That leaves things like Facebook, twitter, flashlight, File explorer, maps, Endomondo, and net counter. It is these types of program that I could get behind the “App” model for.

Things like Endomondo which tracks workouts, plotting your run on Google maps, telling you the distance you travelled, how quickly you did it and how many calories you burned off. For a phone that is a pretty miraculous application for the device. It is also one that is specific to the form factor, it wouldn’t work as well on an iPad or more obviously a console. In this case I believe Endomondo to be an app because it adds something new to my phone that isn’t at all to do with the phones purpose as a communications device.

I remember buying up music production apps for the iPod touch when I first got one, they were nice, and sometimes very powerful. In the end I stopped using them fairly quickly as working on such a small screen was hard work, especially when there was a Mac with Garageband available. There is only so much music production you can do on the bus, maybe put down an rhythm idea or a chord sequence. While the software was fit for purpose, the device wasn’t the best fit for the purpose, it’s a bit like taking pictures with a tablet, it works, but isn’t really satisfactory.

What would be a good definition of an app? I’ll have a go. An app is software that performs a service or tool for the user that extends a devices basic functionality, while being a good fit for the technology involved. There are some wonderful examples of good apps, for the guitar player, having a chord reference book on the phone they carry around with them every day is wonderful. Google Maps is slowly evolving into a mobile global geographical reference that will enable anyone to find whatever they want, quickly and easily wherever they are in the world. Some pieces of software simply shine brightest on a 4 inch touchscreen, as long as you have signal from your network provider.

I’m afraid that Microsoft have bunged in an app store because it’s a fashionable buzz word, it’s as if they are elderly men trying to be hip with the kids, it rarely works. Looking at the Xbox360 there is already a games store, for full price and bite sized games. Applications like Facebook, twitter and Sky TV were already there. There was also the independent game store which included more app like software, in the form of drum programs, sequencers, timers etc. An app store like environment was already there and thriving, all they have done is make a label, without moving anything else around.

I realize I am being fairly negative and picky here, how about I make some suggestions that may be positive moves for apps on the Xbox360, or indeed any other console. How about an app that could be downloaded and installed, which would then read game data provided by the developers on the game discs themselves. The purpose being to provide a walkthrough or hint facility in game on the Xbox360 guide, (the pop up menu that is accessible during gameplay). What I am suggesting is an app that extends game functionality, allows people playing games to access hints when they get stuck from within the game without leaving it or using another device. Even some kind of directors commentary, find a section of a game interesting, press the guide and bring up a text file that details art choices or the designers thought processes. For social networking enthusiasts, an extension to the guide that grabs a screenshot of the game and uploads it with a comment to say Facebook for bragging purposes, or even say dropbox for reviewing purposes. I suppose it would have to be Windows Skydrive rather than Dropbox, silly me.

I have talked before about the possibility of releasing Microsoft Office onto the Xbox, allowing a mouse and keyboard to be used with it and positioning the Xbox as a serviceable solution to home productivity, that costs less than a standard PC. This doesn’t seem to be something that Microsoft wants to do. Maybe this is more to do with my irrational obsession of using every electronic device I own to write on. However, they are repositioning Kinect as a PC/Windows friendly device, so there may be more interest in the future for marketing the Xbox as more than just a games console, Maybe more of a budget PC-lite, that children could use to do their homework on as well as play games.

Metro on the Xbox360 dashboard

2012-02-06T06:47:00.001-08:00

Microsoft is a company that has in all fairness never been one at the cutting edge of innovation and design. Don’t mistake that for criticism, Microsoft have been responsible for a huge part of the evolution of the modern computer, however they have also been one of the biggest stumbling blocks holding it back as well. The core of their business is operating systems, they also produce some of the best productivity software out there. To be fair though the world would have been a different place without Microsoft and Windows, it may have been a better one, it may also have been much worse.

Without Windows to be better than, Linux and Mac OSX might not be as good as they are today. All operating systems crib a lot from each other it has to be said. It’s like inventing the wheel, there are many shapes and permutations that will make a wheel that moves, however in the end they are all just wheels.

Microsoft control the PC world, yet they seem to have no interest in the hardware, until the Xbox the only hardware they really dabbled in was mice, keyboards and the odd games controller. It has always struck me as strange that the dominant force in software has never dictated more to the dominant forces in hardware, like Intel and Nvidia. I know Microsoft have dictated to PC manufacturers, usually about minimum specification for running Windows, though they have never, to my knowledge explicitly stated that certain hardware is in or out this season.

With Bill Gates at the helm Microsoft alway seemed to be a forward facing company, Gates always seemed to be interested in ushering in the future, never quite focussed on the present. With Balmer at the helm, Microsoft seem to be treading water, denying the changes in the personal computing market until it’s too late to jump on the bandwagon. Mobile computing is on everyones lips at the moment and Apple have taken the lead with their iPad and iPhone. Google have Android and it is certainly a worthwhile operating system that can go toe to toe with iOS.

Microsoft have had mobile versions of Windows for years, and they were always fairly ignored in the grand scheme of things. I can’t talk about it, as I have never had a device that ran any mobile version of Windows, they seemed fairly rare in the UK market. Another thing that Microsoft never seemed to be keen on was having their products outside the USA. I might have bought a Zune if they were available for me to buy in the UK.

Microsoft seemed to realise they were being buried along with Symbian in the mobile operating system stakes and built a new version of windows for mobile platforms. Windows phone 7 was born and to all intents and purposes seems like a decent viable competitor. Again, I haven’t owned a Windows phone 7 device and in all likelihood never will. Despite my liking for trying out operating systems and software, I can’t see myself locking myself into a two year contract with Microsoft when iOS and Android are striding above it like Goliath's. Remember, it’s not about how good the operating system is at the end of the day it’s more to do with the quality and quantity of software developers working on the platform.

Like Apple before them, the mobile OS seems to be influencing the designers of the desktop OS. Apple shoved the launcher from iOS into Lion as the Launchpad, and told us using software full screen was the future. In a similar vein Microsoft are taking the Metro user interface style from Windows Phone 7 and applying it to everything they make. Now a clear design language and corporate identity between programs is a desirable thing. However, the question is, does the Metro interface have what it takes to power a phone, a games console and every desktop, tablet and other type of PC out there?

The Xbox360 was recently updated, it’s once yearly big refresh, which brings about a slew of new features to the console. How does Metro fit in with the console experience, is it a good fit or shoehorned in and giving everyone blisters?

Metro to me means rectangular primary colour squares on a black background, a minimalist look, with large fonts and a tendency for things to fall off the screen, which seems to be a hint that you should scroll the screen to the side to see more. The Xbox new look has grids of different sized squares in the middle of the screen and large san serif font text above and below. Much like the old blade interface of old, there are nine headings and using the controllers sticks or shoulder buttons will scroll left or right amongst them.

Many people complain about the amount of advertising on the Xbox360 dashboard. I haven’t really been that much of complainer on this front as the advertising was usually restricted to actual games which were available to try as demo’s or video content relating to games. With the metro look there now does appear to be more tiles devoted to adverts than before, though this may just be a side effect of there being more squares on screen at once that the older NXE version of the dashboard.

Kinect’s voice recognition has been beefed up and it appears that Microsoft are happy with it and allowed it to become part of the full dashboard, rather than a sideshow app that could be launched if you wanted to. For the most part now, Kinect is listening and ready to take an expanded range of voice commands. When it works, it works really well and it can really be a much faster experience to just tell Kinect what you want to see, rather than drill down through five or six levels of interface. It might be a side effect of me being scottish, having a terrible accent and being a low pitched mumbler of a speaker, but sometimes Kinect is on fire and gets it right every time, at other times you are left shouting xbox ten times in a row as it sits mutely ignoring you.

It does remain impressive though, and while the camera and depth sensing features of Kinect aren’t worth it, the voice control does seem to be something that is coming to computers in future, and in this case at least Microsoft are at the forefront of innovation.

Bing has been implemented in the form of a search function for your console and it’s content, along with all the content that is available to stream or purchase on Xbox Live. This is also voice controlled as well, though you are quicker typing it in with a controller than trying the get Kinect to understand what you are saying.

There are some new security measures in place, I haven’t been asked for my Xbox live password for a while, yet the console now sports the ability to ask for it on switch on.

The social aspects of the console remain much unchanged, though there are a lot of cosmetic changes. The only really new item is the introduction of beacons, which are basically flags to anyone viewing your online status that you want to partake in a certain activity or if you wish to be left alone. These beacons can be sent to Facebook as well.

Video has been given two different sections, one for television and one for video. The television apps are mostly for streaming television services. The video deals with movie and other content purchases and rentals. The Zune app has been a bane to me since it’s introduction, It is simply too slow, cataloguing content every time it runs and seemingly making finding content a chore. I set it to display by date and it continues to refuse to show me the last few game trailer I have downloaded without scrolling through a list of older content.

The games section is fairly unchanged, cataloguing the demos Xbox Live arcade games and full game installations you have on your hard drive. The music section contains access to any music you have stored, or should wish to purchase from Zune, also the streaming services that are available. The apps section I have talked about in a separate article, so I will direct you to that rather than talk about it here.

Cloud storage is one of the new features of an Xbox Live gold membership. I quite like the idea that my Xbox profile holds the save games of what must be over a hundred games that I have completed on the machine. The likelihood of me going back and playing anything again is slim. However, I do like the idea, that if I wanted to, I can go back and stick Oblivion in my drive and get back to where I left off. with the game completed and over a hundred hours of character building done. The thought that a hard drive failure could see these saves being wiped gives pause for thought. I read the news that cloud storage for profile and saved games was coming to the new dashboard with interest, hoping that it would mean I could have my saves stored locally and also in the cloud, much like achievements are already.

You are given the choice of enabling cloud storage, if you do you are given 511mb of space. I expected the console to backup my saved games to the cloud. Why would I expect ease of use? Silly me, to copy a saved game, of which I have hundreds, you have to select each one individually and copy it, a four stage process, not including scrolling around the huge list of games. The problem seems to be that arcade games and DLC are stored in the same place in the console. Therefore a simple copy all couldn't be used. The directory it seems has all your dlc and arcade games in it and mine is sitting at 28gb.
If Microsoft wanted to impress me they could write an app to sort out what was what and back up only the saved games for everything automatically. Because it simply isn't worth the hours it would take to copy each one individually.

Initial impressions suggest that this is a cosmetic upgrade for the most part. Bringing the Xbox into the new company colors of metro, with Kinect being given much more emphasis. Initial impressions suggest that I will use Kinect much more, the ability to just say what you see to navigate is for the most part now actually quicker than a controller and fairly fluid. I am disappointed by the lack of automation in cloud storage backup and will probably end up not bothering to use it. The beacons appear to be more a social networking gimmick than useful. The metro style is unoffensive on the eyes, and while it is pretty, it is nothing more than a coat of paint and paint isn’t what matters.

The dashboard is slow, there I've said it, maybe it’s my internet connection, struggling to load all the thumbnails and images. Maybe it’s my NAT setting of strict which my torturous BThomehub refuses to change. I spend a lot of my time when moving between content menus on the dashboard watching the little swirly loading icon. Possibly a low graphics version of the dashboard could be enabled for those with slower connections, or simply the desire not to see the video and static adverts. All that would need to be done was a plain text version of the advert and the dashboard would be slicker and subscribe more to that minimal design ethos, while also keeping the advertisers happy that their products are being advertised.

Another thing that annoys the hell out of me is how many button presses it takes to download free content, when seeing a free trailer on the game video section it takes around six button presses with a wait for loading in between to get it downloading. This is simply bad design, if the content is free, then surely one press while the video is highlighted should download it in the background. If something costs actual Microsoft points or money, then the multi stage are you sure process should be followed as it is currently.

PS Vita "Doomed I tells ya!"

2012-02-06T06:46:00.000-08:00

Since the Japanese launch of the PS Vita there has been a stream of bile spewed from some corners of the media. Sales figures have been terrible they wail, the earliest versions kept freezing, even concerns about the reliability of the actual hardware itself. The handheld appears to have sold around 400,000 in it's first few weeks of sale. Depending on who you listen to this is either terrible or cause for jubilation. Of course unless you work for Sony and are on a performance related bonus, then the sales figures shouldn't really be a concern for the gamer. Maybe it's just the speed of global news these days. I can't recall anyone ever caring about how many PSP's got old in Japan on it's first day back in 2004, incidentally around 200,000.

Sales of a video-game platform do affect the user, I’m aiming at fanboy pundits, (like myself) when I am suggesting that they shouldn’t be so interested. The armchair analysts who cheer when Microsoft stock rises and Sony's falls are praising a deaf God, unless they all have shares in either company. That said, if a platform sells well, it attracts developers and more games are made, increasing choice and driving prices down though competition. Conversely, if the platform sells poorly then developers don't want to take the risk selling to a portion of a tiny user base.

A quick trawl through the headlines on the PS Vita section of News 4 Gamers sees around six out of the first thirty articles proclaim that the PS vita is dead, dying or in need of saving. Why is this the case, it is simply too early to tell? There are many gamers out there who feel that a console somehow lost if it doesn't sell more units than rival console makers. I have no love for the PSP as a gaming platform, yet I know enough to believe that Sony were pleased enough with it's sales. Despite piracy, the failure of UMD as a format and the rampant success of the Nintendo DS, they decided that the handheld console business was profitable enough to have another stab at. The PS Vita’s launch is something that will cost the company lots of money initially, they obviously feel it to be worth the risk and will make them money in the long run.

If any change has made itself evident in the PS3 generation it's the fact that multi-platform is the only way large publishers want to play the game. Exclusives are a business model of attracting custom to a platform that isn't simply isn’t so viable for the third party involved anymore. Unless of course the developer is owned or funded by the platform holder in the first place. Microsoft seems to have given up on the exclusive model for promoting the Xbox360. Gone are the days where they courted previously exclusive Sony bound franchises. They could not care less anymore as long as the games come out on the Xbox360 as well as every other platform under the sun.

For handhelds the exclusive has never been quite as important. However, the launch of the 3DS showed Nintendo, that without games to distinguish it from their still viable DS platform, there was little reason for users to upgrade. The promise of better hardware and 3D itself didn’t seem to be enough. It was only with the release of Mario Kart 7 and Mario Land 3D, maybe even The Ocarina of Time that sales started to pick up. Sony have a few big guns in their launch line up for the PS Vita, though only Uncharted attracts me without reservation. The promise of a Call of Duty iteration, playable on a handheld with little difference from the PS3 version will likely be the killer app for the Vita among the more mainstream minded gamers.

So why is there this groundswell of doom mongering against the PS Vita? It seems to have sold fairly well to me, there are likely limited numbers, as it seems Sony have been rushing the device to market before Christmas in attempts to gain Christmas sales and keep their launch date promises. The PSP sold less in a similar period according to Wikipedia.

My first thought is that the gaming media have nothing much else to write about in regard to the device. There has been a lot of coverage of the handheld and it’s capabilities before launch, reviews aside there isn’t much article mileage from the launch other than sales figures. Couple that with the game release drought brought on by the entertainment industries insistence on releasing everything in October and November. Which leaves a two month spell where there is hardly a game release worth speaking of. It seems that the rash of negative articles about the PS Vita is simply due to frustrated writers with a lack of subject matter to fill the pages of the gaming media.

There is also the possibility that bias is creeping in slightly, many media outlets are controlled by parent companies, and while bias is something that they wouldn’t ever want to tout openly, Sony competitor owned websites may be more positively encouraged to post articles that present glass is half empty type articles on the sales figures of the new handheld.

Like the 3DS the PS Vita is in for a rocky ride, the sales figures aren’t going to be astronomical. Handhelds are an acquired taste, never really reaching the same heights as consoles, tending to be used by younger children or those with long commutes on buses or trains. The situation is unlikely to change, the 3DS will sell more, the smartphones will continue to encroach on handheld territory. The recession isn’t going to help any company sell electronic devices.

All this won’t stop the PS Vita selling similar numbers to the PSP and likely turning in enough profit to keep Sony happy. Sony should stick to their guns with their usual games marketing strategies. I feel they should also have a go at placing the Vita as more than a games machine. Stressing it’s social and media capabilities, web browsing, Facebook and twitter. Most people don’t believe an iPad to be just a big screen video and MP3 player, why not market the PS Vita in the same way? Nintendo had success with the Wii in older and female demographics due to their slick advertising and software choices. A bit of spin on the PS Vita might go a long way towards the sales and profile of the machine. Of course Sony needs to be mindful that games are the main focus and not lose sight of that in the way Nintendo did with casual gaming and Microsoft seem to be doing with Kinect.

Is Fanboy a term of abuse?

2012-02-06T06:45:00.000-08:00

It's a small town and we all support the team!

In a recent article I made a little jibe at a friend of mine who prefers Apple products. He took this quite badly, well, I suppose I did call him a total Apple Fanboy. What surprised me was his reaction, which was swift and about five hundred words long. He seemed mainly concerned with the word choice rather than the implication. Fanboy, it seems, is seen as a derogatory term these days.

I suppose the term invokes images of some obsessive Star Trek fan, who instantly dismisses every other television series and defends any criticism of Star Trek to the death. This is a dated image, net least because Star Trek has been in decline for many years now. Since the failure of Enterprise to keep the torch burning, Star Trek has all but been forgotten as a television phenomena and is seen only through the infrequent movies. Star Trek did inspire incredible lengths of devotion and anyone who has seen the documentary, Trekkies, will understand, and if you haven't it's worth it for a laugh.

My friend felt that a fanboy's opinion is invalid simply because they have been identified as a fanboy.
"Oh, don't worry about what he says, he's an Apple fanboy, he's biased."
Now to clarify, my friend owns an iMac, an iPhone, an Apple TV, his wife has an iPhone as well. Oh, I nearly forgot, he does have a laptop that runs windows, which belongs to his company. I on the other hand, in my house have an iMac, two Mac minis, two iPad's, two iPhone's, two iPod touches, two iPod nano's and two really old iPod's. If anyone could be accused of Apple fanboyism it should be me, rather than my friend. May I just stress that I have a wife and a son, those are not all my personal devices.

Certain corporations seem to attract fans, note I didn't say fanboys there. What is it about Apple and maybe even Sony that attracts people to be loyal and become unpaid brand ambassadors? First and foremost, producing the best product for the job in hand is the number one gold standard. Apple have had a long history, not all of it stellar, what they have done right in the past ten years is make products that are best fit for purpose, while being stylish and desirable. I didn't say affordable, they have made products that work, and marry elegance of form with elegance of design and functionality. They also work at the luxury end of the market, providing products that people expect to pay more for as a premium of quality. At least in the desktop and laptop market, in the mobile market they compete fairly evenly on price.

Competitors have aped Apple and competed on the usual "bigger, faster, more" mentality. Some people will see Apple's goals, others won't, that is just life and Apple are making enough money and are mature enough to realize that they can't please everyone, so let's just focus on pleasing the people who get it. That in no way implies that the people who get the Apple ethos are right, or superior. It just means that they are a fit for the company, or more precisely, the company makes products, that fit a lifestyle. A lifestyle that a large proportion of the population would like to aspire to. This “one size fits all” attitude that the user should adopt the Apple way of working or go elsewhere doesn’t always fit, and those who chafe against Apple tend to chafe against it in a big way.

Historically there was a bit of rooting for the little guy going on. Microsoft ruled the PC operating system world and was fiercely defensive of it's position. This gained Microsoft a reputation for bullying and absorbing competitors, while also making them the "man," who obviously needs to have it "stuck to" at every opportunity. Those days are long gone, while Windows is still the number one computer operating system, there are huge inroads being made by Google, Apple and all the various iterations of unix out there in the PC OS market. The phone, tablet and personal media player worlds are dominated by others and Microsoft are indeed the outside chance underdog in those areas.

Is there an analogy at work here to supporters of sports teams? I am not a fan of any sport, so forgive me for not knowing how these things work. I presume that someone should support the team that is local to them however that doesn't seem to be the case with football, maybe it's because my local team is a small irrelevance. It seems to me that people tend to pick a team that they like, or their father liked, I don't know, as I said it isn't my thing. The point I am trying to make here is that geeks also seem to feel this call, the urge to support a team and root for them, show their pride and trust in their work. Only for the geek the teams happen to be, mostly faceless, monolithic, multinational corporations, that don't care if the supporter lives or dies, only that they give them their money in return for their products.

Apple used to be the underdog to Microsoft in the Operating system market, the tiny, though competent competitor, David to Microsoft's Goliath. I used to love the Mac back in the 1990's. I happened to end up in training which let me use a Mac extensively, I loved them and would have told anyone back then that they had a better operating system than Windows. Things have changed a lot since those days, and while I wouldn't be without a Mac running Lion, I wouldn't be without a PC running Windows 7 either. Is fervent Apple fanboyism simply a symptom of the passion that geeks gained by rooting for the competent underdog earlier in life?

I doubt that this attitude has persisted, there are likely those like me and my friend who have grown up with that ancient fight. There are still too many Apple and Google fanboys on forums who can’t be even in their twenties yet, for them, this old feud has no relevance, for them it’s all iOS versus Android.

Another factor in company fandom seems to be identification with specific people, the more charismatic the public face of the company the greater chance there is for loyal fans to be bred. The contribution made to the devices and operating systems we use may be large in the cases of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. At this point in time i think it is a disservice to thousands of people’s work to suggest that they are the creative be all and end all of their respective companies. It does seem to me to suggest that a figurehead who people can see and identify with can help breed this fan mentality. There are a lot of companies who make great products that you never seem to see fanboys for, like Asus and Samsung. Maybe that is because they are Asian, i’m not being racist, it’s just that I am on the wrong side of the world and language barrier to see the outpourings of their fans, if there are any. Disclaimer, I have in my families possession, an Asus Transformer, three Asus Netbooks and three Samsung HDTV’s.

I have written before about console fanboyism, amongst Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft fans, it tends to be youthful, born of unjust flaming and biased media sites looking for advertising revenue. It’s fun, though ultimately a game that most tire of after a few years. My friend took umbrage to being called a fanboy, though what is wrong with being a fanboy? If a football fan who was devout in their following of a team like Rangers or Celtic was called a fanboy they wouldn’t blink an eye. Why then do geeks take umbrage to the name? Does it imply that the person is biased, spinning and irrationally defending every move and product their chosen company makes. Is it somehow shameful to have a preference for an electronics company, the forever geek angst of enjoying something that isn’t going to be a good social admission in front of a woman?
I don’t believe that fanboy is a swear word, I also don’t believe it to be the healthiest state of being either. There are facets of Apple products that are great, there are facets of many other companies that are good also. While I like certain Apple products, I also like Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft and Google software and hardware as well. I have been accused of being a jack of all trades and a master of none, working the same way on every device and not learning the intricacies that can really make them fly. Maybe so it’s a valid point, maybe I just choose to work in my own way, not let the device shape my work. In short, to choose one company and limit yourself, it’s simply well limiting, and I thought we were all out to expand our horizons and try it all?

Infinite Tits!

2012-02-06T06:44:00.001-08:00

Bioshock Infinite is in the news for more unusual reasons than one would expect. The focus is a response from Irrational games boss, Ken Levine on certain “aspects”, ahem, of the leading lady in the game. Bioshock infinite is a game that I am looking forward to, I have been a fan of Levine since I played System Shock, way back in the bygone era when I was a PC gamer.

I played Bioshock on the Xbox360 and while I appreciated the story, the moral choices, the depth and complexity of the combat. I have to confess that I found the game to be a case of smash the bad guys with anything I had left, die and re-spawn. Like most games where death isn’t penalized by a restoration of enemies and their health, I become lazy and simply do enough to get by. If you don’t have to work hard at getting through a game you aren’t challenged. That is strictly my subjective opinion and I know of friends who loved it, they even used the guns in the game, I used a few plasmids and a wrench.

The point me showing that i’m lazy and just muddled through was to illustrate that Bioshock was the kind of game that allowed the player a lot of choice in the way that you approached the combat. There was the traditional, huge, good versus evil choice in harvesting the little sisters or letting them go. There was also the choice to scavenge for gear and build and buy ammo, or use the plasmids, which to be fair really needed the little sisters to die to become really powered up. I felt that I was penalized by refusing to harvest them, ending up bashing big daddies over and over again through many reincarnations with my wrench.

I bought Bioshock 2, and with it not being developed by Irrational games, I figured it would be an expansion pack cash in, that could wait until I had finished other more interesting games. I’m sorry to say that it is still waiting in my ever growing “to be played pile.”

When Bioshock Infinite was announced I was very impressed with the initial media presentation. There were traditional trailers and a long gameplay segment, that seemed to play like some kind of interactive cut scene and showed an awful lot of promise for a great game to come. There were many elements that impressed me, the fact that the player is sent to the flying city to rescue a girl who will be your artificial intelligence companion in the game. There seems to be a huge potential for interaction between the player and his powers to augment and work with Elizabeths to cause massive destruction and mayhem. The skylines and the whole sky city itself are huge sci-fi crossed with steam punk inventions, that promise great combat gameplay possibilities. Like Bioshock before it, there are huge combinations of tools of destruction given to the player, a sandbox type arsenal in a linear corridor environment.

There is also the story, Bioshock had a few novels worth of plot contained in its hours of gameplay. The brainwashing and manipulation of the main character, Rapture and its creators, the corruption and ultimate descent into chaos. Then there was Adam, Eve, the Big Daddies and the little sisters, not to mentions the various psychopaths that ruled areas of Rapture like Cohen and Steinman.

Bioshock Infinite looks to have a similarly deep story, with the city and its civil war, The Songbird and Elizabeth. Who is Booker and why is he in Columbia trying to steal Elizabeth away from the Songbird who appears to be her jailer? All of these plot threads will be unravelled in the game and I fully expect to be surprised and delighted by the complexity revealed. The controversy comes from the physical appearance of Elizabeth, who is depicted as a skinny waif of a girl, all huge manga expressive eyes, with a black ragged bobbed haircut. She is shown to be wearing a long almost puritan blue dress, which comes to just above her ankles. On top of which she is wearing a corset. The problem it seems is that the only piece of flesh showing apart from her head and hands is her cleavage, of which there is rather a lot. Levine has stated that people are focusing too much on the bustiness of Elizabeth, something he claims not to have put much thought into.

In the interview he claims that Booker and Elizabeth are traditionally attractive people because in society we are conditioned to enjoy entertainment which presents us with mostly attractive people in the larger roles. Simply put it is well known that sex can sell a product, if a half-naked lady or man can be put on the cover of something, then men and women are likely to find it more appealing. They are then more likely to have a look at the product, as the marketing people will testify, if someone bothers to pick up your product, there is a good chance that you have their interest and maybe their money.

What puzzles me about the whole thing is why did Levine bother to give her the corset and the almost nipple slip inducing low cut top? He claims in the article that as an a.i. companion, Elizabeth needs to be recognizable and locatable a lot of the time to the player. He suggests that her costume is designed to be easily discerned from the other characters in the game due to her distinctive colour and presumably her flowing skirt. It is to be hoped that he doesn’t mean the huge, almost bare breasts on the poor girl.

My instinct suggests that there is a reason for Elizabeth’s dress and her looks, one that we will come to find out during the game. There is something about the relationship between Songbird and Elizabeth that seems to me more like twisted love, likely unreciprocated by Elizabeth herself. Songbird seem to not just be a strange birdlike creature, he may have been, or still is human. Will it turn out that Songbird, was once a man, a man that was in love with Elizabeth, and she with him, a relationship that has now soured after both have gained unearthly power. Does Songbird keep Elizabeth in that special dress, the one she wore when they first met, is he trying to recapture a time when she reciprocated his love?

Anyway, I digress, I always thought at first that Levine was messing with the audience in a huge way. On first seeing Elizabeth, I thought that she was supposed to be a childlike creature or an adult trapped in a child’s body, akin to the little sisters who were older than they looked. I have since found out that she is supposed to be twenty years old.

I speculated that Levine was playing with the audience by providing a sexualized child, exploring quite a dark issue. Akin to challenging the child beauty pageants that see very young girls in makeup and provocative dresses. It is certainly an odd issue to be exploring, and certainly something that would have been a first for video-games. Levine is no stranger to controversy, after all the central choice issue in the original Bioshock was resisting the benefits given to the player by choosing to murder the little sisters, compared with the hardship the player would endure if they chose the moral choice and let the little girls live.

In summary I think there is more to Elizabeth’s cleavage than simply selling of sex and appealing to the baser instincts. I predict that her dress will be explained during the game, and then become clear. The comments by Levine about disappointment of the user-base's focus is simply him trying to deflect possible negativity, though of course no press is bad press. If he came out and said that her dress was significant to the plot then he would invite thousands of people to speculate. Internet speculation about plots is not a good thing to invite as thousand of people will pitch in their ideas and this can easily lead to the correct story being guessed long before the games release.

Ethical iPhone

2012-02-06T06:43:00.001-08:00

A recent New York Times article about the overseas factories that build products for Apple has created quite a stir. The article told of President Obama and Steve Jobs discussing what it would take for Apple to bring it's manufacturing back to American Soil. The answer was simple, there isn't anything that would accomplish that task, as there simply isn't the skills and capacity in the America of today. Some have stated that yes, well, that's true, because people shouldn't live in dormitories at their factory and be herded out of bed when Apple want overtime. Is it too morally comfortable for Apple to have their products built by Foxconn, and remove themselves by one step from the inconvenience that large amounts of people work long hours, for little pay to produce their profit.

The issue is a thorny one that sinks deep into the morass of world economics, where developed countries find labour for much less than it costs them in their own country, simply because western society demands a less work dominated lifestyle. Ethics itself is a huge subject with lifetimes spent on the pursuit, bluntly though, ethics is simply the exploration of right and wrong, and the types of behavior that are acceptable in a society. How much does an action impact on the society and is that impact positive or negative. China is a society with a vastly different culture, religions and history to the USA, therefore, standards that apply in each country are culturally religiously and even morally different.

The conditions described at the Foxconn city, where workers live in dormitories at the factory, eating and sleeping in company facilities sound to the Western mind like some kind of slavery or prison sentence. Of course social models are very different the world over, the nuclear family of a male and female adult, living with their children until the age of eighteen. When they cast out to find a partner and repeat the process is far from the only social model in town. There are variants on communes and extended families all over the world and all over even our own UK history. For British or American society to be outraged over what may be perfectly fulfilling social models in other countries is just plain narrow mindedness. As long as there is choice, as long as these workers can hand in their notice, then the conditions and lifestyle of the Foxconn workers are their own business, not ours. If there is labour malpractice going on, then it is up to the Chinese government and Foxconn make better not Apple.

In certain societies, especially the Japanese, work is given a much higher concern than it is in the western models. British people tend to base their assessment of their own happiness through what they do when they aren’t at work. They work only as the means of procuring money, with which to live and indulge in pleasant pastimes, it’s a very deeply engrained attitude in the West. While other cultures place much more weight on the happiness that a successful career can bring to someone. Pride in ones work, satisfaction of a job well done and feeling good about a hard days work are all present in British society, though it’s getting less socially acceptable to boast to your peers abut it.

Possibly it’s the thought of possessions that fills people with horror about the dormitories at Foxconn, and the small wages. How can these people buy their cars and house, iPhones and HDTV’s? How can they fill their homes with catalogue products and get themselves into thousands in debt on their credit cards? Buddhism has a bit to say on the subject of possessions and the root of unhappiness. Maybe the Foxconn workers have the right approach, fulfill only the most basic of needs, heat, food, shelter, and leave the happiness to some other route than the emptiness of consumer greed.

The question a concerned President, focused on the welfare of the American people, asked of Steve Jobs was a valid one. While Job’s answer was fair enough, if the skills and manufacturing base aren’t present then it is only logical for a global company to go to the people who can do the job. Apple and Microsoft are American founded companies, yet they both use Foxconn and others to build their products. Should they be made to feel guilty about this, should pressure be made on them both to plough some of their profits into the education of workers, the infrastructure of their country?

Wouldn’t it be aspirational and inspiring, a reward in itself to educate their own home grown workforce, build their own factories and supply chain from the ground up in the good old motherland? The answer to that question really happen to hinge upon where you are in the world. I’m British, should it matter to me if my iPad or Xbox is built in China or the U.S.A? Neither changes my experience, or likely the price of that experience. If the product is to be built at home, whose home are we talking about, yours, mine or someone else’s entirely? The whole idea of paying more for a product built at home is laughable to a British citizen, we tend to pay more for products built in china, shipped to America then shipped to us. If there was fairness in the universe then the increase in cost to build an iPad in America should put it up to the price we pay in the UK for it anyway.

There are many mentalities to approaching a business, there are those passionate individuals who make something they love. Strive to create the best product they can, using all their profit to make improvements and pass on savings to their users. Their employees are happy, in innovative workplaces, that nurture talent and build an environment where excellence can grow. Yes, I know, can you see the pigs flying by as well?

There is also the other way, the company that brings money to bear on a product that is already out there. Builds factories to churn out adequate, cheap plastic products, with employees that are nothing but numbers and treated as such. Hired and fired with no regard for human feeling. The company that treats it's customers with disdain, sees them as a target demographic and employs analysts to better target that 18-40 male market. When all the focus of a businesses is on the need to make money rather than the need to provide some “bright burning” product or new idea that makes peoples life better.

Maybe it’s not as clear cut as that, life rarely is, I’d not like you to think I believe it to be as simple as that. There is more of a process going on, a fact of life, a rite of passage. Something that inventors, no, simply just people, who choose to produce a product have to go through. It is as if the act of producing something and selling it invokes a fundamental path in motion that is extremely hard to resist. As companies grow bigger decisions about products start to affect lives, in the form of workers in some component factory. As more and more people become involved the dynamics of group management come into play and things turn ugly.

Bill Gates and Steve Jobs may once have been idyllic dreamers with good ideas and the drive to do something about them. During the journey they both stepped on other peoples toes and learned the hard way that dreams have sharp edges. That ultimately their own interests needed to be considered, otherwise, someone else might have taken their empire and dreams away.

The current UK row about bankers salary highlights the concept of business with a social responsibility. Banks have arguably caused some of the economic problems with their high mortgage lending in the past. The bailing out of the Royal Bank of Scotland by the government with forty odd billion of tax payers money certainly seems to have made, only fair, the demand that the bosses of RBS don’t get their huge bonus until that forty odd billion is back in the public purse. These bosses can leave and go to a bank that will pay them their bonus if they like. I am sure there are thousand of bank workers under them willing to take less pay and likely do as good a job, nobody is irreplaceable.

That said there is credit where credit is due, I'm not suggesting that people with vision and drive shouldn’t be paid well for their work, nor am I suggesting that a factory assembly line worker should be paid huge sums for their less cerebral labour. It comes down to the honest valuation of labour, those who take charge and guide, those that create, compared with those who simply perform a role that would be the same the world over. Secretaries, cleaners, drivers and production line workers, that work for Microsoft, could easily move to Pepsi the next week and carry on. Software developers also to a certain extent, though with more fuss I would imagine. The people who create, those who design, put their work out their, take the time and effort to drive something into being. Those are the people who deserve a little more of the fruits of their labour.

Capitalism is usually described as the free market, where chaotic forces of supply and demand decide the future, where survival of the fittest is the maxim. This survival of the fittest sees companies shirk social responsibilities in the pursuit of profit. If Apple and all the others didn’t use cheaper labour and the huge manufacturing industry in Asia, then their competitors would. Samsung and ASUS are Asian to begin with, if American companies didn’t use Asia then the Asian companies would soon leave them for dead.

It might make people feel warm and fuzzy to demand home made products and that Apple take a smaller profit in return for making products on American Soil. If Apple were to turn around and invest hugely in American factories, American education, would they be able to compete before say, Samsung has run them into the ground in the free market where the survival of the fittest is everything? Isn’t it racist to want Apple to build in America, is there something wrong with Chinese workmanship. Maybe the call should be for improving the working conditions of people everywhere in the world, rather than bringing industry back to America?

Busywork

2012-02-06T06:42:00.000-08:00

Games are an enjoyable pastime, a good way to spend your free time in a challenging yet relaxing way. Unlike a movie where one sits passively and is soaked in the story, beauty and soundscape of the creators, gaming is an interactive pastimes. Like building models of the Colosseum out of matchsticks, it requires patience and some skill. Some of you probably rolled your eyes at the thought of someone building models out of matchsticks, yet it isn't really all that different from people creating huge cities or levels in games Like Minecraft and Little Big Planet.

I have been playing Assassins Creed Brotherhood in the last week, I bought Revelations and suppose I should play them in sequence, it would only make sense. There should be shame on me for neglecting a game like Brotherhood as I have enjoyed it immensely. During my play-through of Brotherhood I mused on what made it better than the first Assassins Creed game. I have always liked the series as a whole, I found the story compelling, loving how they use Desmond to make video-games plausible as he is essentially playing through his ancestors life in the animus as he tries to find out what happened in the past. The whole Templars versus Assassins saga seems a bit tired, however the revelation at the end of Assassins Creed 2, with the alien speaking directly to Desmond through Eizo was first class story telling in my opinion.

Thinking about the content of the first game there was a huge and detailed environment with the trademark of the game, the stylized, death defying, parkour clambering of the main character. The assassinations were always better in your head than in practice for me. I found that sneaking around was never my forte, and I always ended up being detected and fighting off hordes of guard and running for my life. Which I suppose was part of the games design, Altair using his skills to evade squads of guards chasing him through the ancient streets and rooftops. The combat was always interesting, it has evolved as the games progress and is now a much quicker more satisfying affair.

The meat of the game for the more careful player was essentially sound, it was the vegetables that let it down. There was a fair bit of repetitive activities to be done in every area and while all games have one foot in the repetitive camp, certain games give much more of a sense of repetition than others. If I knew why that was I think I would be worth more than I am, suffice to say Assassins Creed suffered from reviews cursing it with the sin of being repetitive.

All games are busywork, they are tasks that keep us busy, occupy our time. Occasionally you play a game it feels like seconds have passed then you look away to find that it's five hours later in the real world. The question I want to try to explore is why are some tasks fun, some work and others tedious. It seems, to me, that the answer to that question might be a good lesson for game designers to learn. Since Brotherhood seemed chock full of side tasks I decided it would be a good game to mull over the question of what type of busywork is the kind that keeps you playing for hours compared to the kind that has you reaching of the off switch.

The synching of viewpoints is a hangover from the first game, essentially a clamber puzzle straight up to the top of a high building. At the top of the tower an eagle flyby of the hero shows off the graphics engine, before the trademark leap of faith into a bundle of hay. Which of course would end up in disaster if ever tried in real life, thought it is undeniably impressive looking. After the first game this did seem to get a little repetitive, which is probably why killing a specific captain of the enemy and then burning the tower to free the area of enemy influence became included. There were still some synch towers, though they were added to with a bit of combat and variety.

Dotted around each district of the city were a variety of shops, these shops could be used to buy weapons, health and other supplies for Eizo as usual. At the start of the game most of the shops are derelict and shuttered. Eizo can pay with his own money to renovate them, this means that a portion of the takings is sent to him, which he can collect from the bank. This makes it possible to buy some of the higher powered armor and weapons later in the game. Of course to get more money Eizo must buy up all the shops. Essentially all that needs to be done to get a large bank balance is look for the shops as you pass through areas and renovate them when you see them.

The biggest busywork time sink and the riskiest in the game surrounds the introduction of other assassins into the game. In part one there were other assassins surrounding Altair. In part two Eizo was really a lone assassin, Brotherhood changes all that by allowing you to save citizens who are in trouble with the guards, they then pledge to help and become assassins. This allows you to use them to fight with you on missions and rain down arrows from the rooftops at the guards. So far so good, however there is a static menu screen based mini-game that allows you to send groups of assassins all over the map to perform jobs that have been given to this new assassins guild. You don’t get to see the missions or any action, you simply allocate who is to go, they then carry out the missions and gain XP. This leads onto another menu based screen where you tinker with the weapons and armor of these assassins and allocate skill points as they gain them from the missions.

With the game being sent in 16th century Rome, there are of course many famous landmarks, these can be bought and count towards Eizo’s renovation of a Rome run down by Borgia rule. There is also an aqueduct that can be repaired, this allows the reaching of some hard to get at synch points. No sandbox game would be complete without the obligatory collectibles to scour the map for, and of course the feathers, glyphs and flags are there in abundance for those who can be bothered to collect them.

It seems to me that a task must have progress, if it looks like you aren’t getting anywhere then you lose the will. If progressions is indicated by the ability to do more with your characters, then the most dull menu based tasks become desirable. The assassins can really help you in a bind, it makes the game much more stylish and easier if you work on your assassins. Yet the actual method employed is quite dull when looked at in isolation.

The factor that seems to make time fly appears to be the complete absorption of attention, the sucking in of thought and planning with any kind of task. For example moving and organizing large numbers of units in a real time strategy game, or just building something complex in Minecraft. Maybe it’s not the actual tasks, it’s the momentum and being able to package them up into a believable whole, that the user feels immersed in. The feeling that each little tiny task is building towards something bigger. Of course the core game needs to be sound at heart, Assassins Creed hasn’t always been there, but on reaching it’s third and four iterations it seem to be achieving greatness.

Broadband in Stasis

2012-02-06T06:41:00.001-08:00

Broadband in Stasis

An article from the New York Times was brought to my attention via journalist Ngai Croal. In the article a company which appears to have been using something like carrier i.q. to spy on users without their knowledge, tracked over a million users over a one day period. The findings were that certain extreme users, consisting of just one precent of those tracked were consuming seventy percent of the data traffic.

The article went on to suggest that these users are dominating the consumption of a particular resource. There are even examples given of oil and gas consumption, i.e. in the USA which has less than five percent of the worlds population and consumes twenty three percent of the worlds daily oil production.

The article then went on to explain the situations and developments in technology that have led to the state of play. The finger seems to be pointed at video consumption over mobile networks, along with web browsing and email. The old jolly Rodger was also raised and aired in regards to file sharing of presumably copyrighted content.

The article didn't seem to have much of a point to make beyond the headline, that one percent of mobile phone data users are generating most of the traffic. The implication is that these users are clogging up the data highways with their bad habits and poor old Joe Normal can't manage to surf for his football scores because that pesky, nerdy extreme user is at it again watching Skyrim dragon ownage videos on you tube.

The article even goes on to relate a story from a mobile network that deployed new infrastructure to cope. Implying that this was something born of desperation and great burdensome cost to their own pocket, not, you know, what they should have been doing all along.

A quick google search for BT boss salary takes me to a guardian article from May 2010 where it appears strike action was threatened when the boss of BT then Ian Livingston, was awarded a six percent pay rise and the workers only got two percent. It is no wonder that broadband and mobile networks creak under the stress of traffic when they are not upgraded in line with the demands of the user-base. BT made one billion in profit in 2010, I wonder how much of that will be used to build new network infrastructure?

The situation is similar to the historical development of road networks, the current limiting, capping and otherwise hobbling of the pioneers and early adopters of technology is short sighted at best, and downright mercenary at worst. Back in the days of horses and carts the roads were much smaller, as car use increased roads grew along with the demand. The way that network operators seem to be working today is to ignore the millions of new smartphones that are flooding the markets with their promise of slick video playback and desktop like web surfing. It is akin to keeping the roads in the same state as they were when cars were a rarity and refusing to build new roads when suddenly everyone has a car and wants to drive to work for nine am.

Why should users be saddled with more cost when they pay forty odd pounds a month for their contract? Why is it that you can get huge amounts of call minutes, texts but not unlimited data contracts? Oh that is right, the call and text networks are separate entities, that only struggle under huge demands at times like Xmas and natural disasters. The data networks are under nourished and it's no wonder that they creak under even vague demand.

The real shock in the original NY times articles is that data networks in the UK are taxed by such simple demands of a tiny amount of people. 10,000 people watching you tube at one time brings our 3G data network to their knees? I find that more shocking than penalizing the people who actually have the audacity to use the brave new digital always online future that the networks themselves advertise to us when they want us to enter a two year contract with them.

I don't think what I am suggesting is unreasonable, all I would personally like to see is the return of unlimited data. Truly unlimited, not fair use, no hobbling at peak times. I want BT and any other company involved to build enough roads with their billions in profit. Instead of paying three million of it to a single executive.

Any legal use by a user is fair use, those who embrace the internet age, then use it to obtain their music, movies and games by completely legal means should never be made to feel as if they are taking away from the others around them. When we drive our car along the road we are courteous to other car users and keep in lane and go at the correct speed limit. We would also expect our council to plan and build new roads when they allow developers to build new housing estates etc.

Network operators can't have it both ways, they can't sell us on promises of a service that includes the ability to watch streaming content on our mobile then complain when we do so and seek to penalize or overcharge those who do. The problem that they seem to be trying to bury their head in the sand about is the future marching towards us, where the extreme user of today will multiply exponentially. One day soon everyone on the bus will be watching streaming video instead of just that one geeky looking guy.

References
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/06/technology/top-1-of-mobile-users-use-half-of-worlds-wireless-bandwidth.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/may/26/btgroup-executive-pay-bonuses

VGA announcement roundup

2011-12-30T11:48:00.000-08:00

The Spike TV Video game awards are fast becoming the second biggest point in the year for reveals of new information about upcoming video games. E3 in the summer and the VGA's in the winter, with this in mind, I decided I would have a look at the trailers shown.

Metal Gear: Rising: Revengeance

This game has many issues, some of which I have written about previously. The tortuous development process, it seems, has not been kind to this game. Since the last trailers shown it seems like Kojima productions have wandered off to do something else instead, like some kind of ADHD child. It appears that Platinum games have stepped in and taken over the helm here.

Platinum games are good developers, they make novel and entertaining games. What they don't seem to do quite as well is story. Vanquish's story was an utter mess, I haven't played Bayonetta much more than the demo, even though I own the game, and Madworld was just silly gory dumb fun. It does not seem like a wise marriage to give a game series known for it's convoluted story, with long emotional cut scenes to a developer that appears stuck at the emotional maturity of a ten year old boy when it comes to storytelling.

I don't imagine that this is exactly what the producers are seeing, they have many art assets and even cut scenes already made. Plus a melee fighting game they can hand over to developers who have much experience with melee fighting games. Platinum will be able to make a cross between Bayonetta with Vanquish's graphics, plus have bucket-loads of gory sword fighting with people being diced. It will sell on that premise alone and most of the rabid Metal Gear fans will buy it anyway due to the franchise involvement. They will whine about it, but hey the money will have changed hands, in the end that is all that matters to the companies involved.

The trailer itself was the usual mix of daft samurai type nonsense with the musings on war that seems to accompany Metal Gear Solid. Raiden it seems will fight his nemesis Vamp in the game, and we see them facing off against each other. The game looks like any other hack and slash melee combat game. The slicing seen in the old trailers where Raiden was shown chopping fruit appears to still be in place, with a more simplified mechanic. It looks like that once you wear an enemies health down, you go into a bullet time type mode where you can slash the analogue stick wildly and be rewarded with dicing the opponent fruit ninja style.

Transformers Fall of Cybertron

The trailer shown is a pre-rendered sequence with high production values. In it we see the Autobots in trouble again as the Decepticons wreak more havoc on the surface of Cybertron. Optimus Prime is shown carrying a wounded bumblebee and things look bleak, we even have transforming into a dinosaur to look forward to.
This is just a teaser trailer, and announcement, however, if the game keeps up the good work of the last iteration I am down for a day one purchase.

The last of us

The trailer starts with a view out of a window, everything looks pleasant for a second, then as the camera pans inside, we see things are far from normal. The room looks dilapidated, there is a freshly dead man, bleeding profusely on the bed. A young girl runs past into the corridor, thumping can be heard upstairs. She runs up as if ready to give assistance, drawing a knife, she finds a bearded man fighting with another hooded man. The first man gets the better of the hooded man and either kills him or knocks him out.

The pair seem to know each other and the girl is told to search the downed man.
As the girl is searching the body some people run towards the room, making animal like snarling noises, are they zombies? The man grabs the girl and they hide in the next room, the monsters come in and start attacking the downed body. The man gets a revolver out and gets ready to attack. As he does one of the monsters hears him cock the gun and attacks first. The creatures head is wildly deformed. It grabs for the man, and the girl stabs it in the back, distracted by this the creature gives the man enough time to shoot it.

They run from the building, the man firing back at pursuing enemies. As they get outside the camera pans past them and out into the deserted, derelict, overgrown streets.
The girls voice narrates and she tells of how the man told her that the streets used to be full of people going about their lives. She, it seems, was born into this disastrous world and knows no other life, suggesting the disaster that occurred happened at least about fifteen to twenty years in the past.

The game is being made by Naughty Dog, which I believe, is a guarantee of quality. The trailer is introducing a mood and a feel, the older surviving male could be a Nathan Drake, the younger hard nosed, surviving girl I feel, will be the main character. This could foreshadow some co-op type gameplay where you take control of one or both of these characters. Maybe the girl for climbing around and the man when it comes to fighting and shooting. That’s sexist, I know, though she does look the more agile and acrobatic of the pair.

The game could be open world or it could be linear, at this point in time it's fun to speculate, yet unproductive. I am looking forward to more information on this game, and it's safe to say that it is a definite pre-order. Quite a lot of forum chatter seems to indicate a bit of zombie fatigue, can't say that I feel that way myself, there is always some fatigue or another going around. Vampires are passé and done to death one month, now it appears that it's the turn of zombies to be given a rest. Maybe by the time of release zombies won't be at quite such a saturation point.

Fortnite

The trailer shows some rather cartoonish characters blowing up a shop and gaining entry, they seem to be going looting. They then come to a blueprint type structure, which is then built in time lapse photography. A black blob like monster rises from the ground while they are building and steals the camera, it is shot for it's trouble. Time moves on again and it is night now, we see the characters firing up a generator in their fort and closing the gates. Monsters then arrive, with skull like faces, gunshots can be heard as a monster picks up the camera and leers into it.

Speculating on the trailer, it appears that players have to gather resources by day to build their fort, in order to survive the zombie attacks at night. A sort of cross between horde mode in Gears, Tower defense and Minecraft. Again we don't know what type of perspective the game will have, or how much action will be down to your fort design or your skill with a gun. I have to question wether this will be a full price £40 game or a downloadable £15 game. Also the big question is whether it will be solely multiplayer or will there be a single player campaign.

Diablo III

The segment shown sees a voice over talk of wars as angels and demons clashing. A girl wakes and we see this is her dream. She is in a large castle, an old man is with her. She tells the old man that they need to get him home, he is working on translating something and tells her that he needs to finish. He is worried about the forces of hell and what they are about to do.
The ground starts to shake, the old man tells the girl whose name is Leah that it has begun. A fireball shoots from the sky and lands in the room, knocking the pair off their feet. Leah gets to her feet and finds that the fireball has blown a huge whole down into a fiery abyss, the uncle is nowhere to be seen.

I would rather have seen some gameplay, this game is in beta at the moment, people are playing it out there in the world. I can't get excited for cliche story scenes, sorry Blizzard, please try harder.

Bioshock Infinite

An acoustic song with a breathy sad vocal, scenes of Columbia, hungry and sick people lying in the streets amongst the grandeur of the flying city. As the trailer progresses a montage of action scenes if shown, some we have seen already, like the bell tower landing in the street and the zeppelins firing down from above. These are mixed with new combat scenes showing gunplay and people flying around on the skyhooks. It seems that one of the reveals here is the face of one of the bad guys, it looks like we see someone in a bird suit, though it looks smaller than the giant Songbird that was seen chasing and fighting previously in trailers. Is this the pilot of the Songbird?

Again this game continues to keep up the high standard that I think will make it likely to be the best game of next year. I am really looking forward to playing this game, there is no need for further advertising or hype, just deliver the game to us now please and thank you Irrational Games.

Hitman Absolution

This appears to be a trailer made up entirely of in game graphics, which is to be applauded these days. The trailer shows Agent 47 entering a building and taking out the usual array of guards in gory fashion. He appears to be heading for a woman, we are unsure if he is rescuing her, or if this is his target. The woman is taken away by the guards before he can reach her. The final scene shows many guards pointing guns at a lift as the doors open. The lift is empty and the lights go out, then gun flashes illuminate Agent 47 as he mows down the guards.

It looks decent enough, previous games were quite good fun, with almost everyone else in the stealth genre abandoning it, it seems that IO interactive are being very brave or very stupid, time will tell.

Mass Effect 3

We see Shepherd talking to a Krogan, they need to get to a large spire seen in the distance. Enemies appear near them and the Krogan goes to fend them off. Shepherd starts running towards the spire. This appears to be a breathless suicide dash type sequence. The environment is a desert city, a large centipede type creature rises from the sand and attacks a huge Reaver that is shooting at Shepherd. As Shepherd approaches the spire the reaver and centipede continue to fight.

I have too much invested in Mass Effect to not play the final part of the game, however Bioware seem to be really dropping the ball on this one as far as story and alterations to gameplay go. I liked the first one, the second dumbed it down and this looks to be more like Gears of War, hang on, no that's an insult to Gears. More like Quantum theory (Look it up, not that many people played it.) than the space based Rainbow six style, with huge interactive story RPG elements gameplay of the first one.

Command and Conquer Generals 2

This game is obviously a year and a half, maybe two years away, we aren't getting to see much at all. This looks like a high production value, non game rendering, it shows lots of tanks shooting each at each other in city streets. Which then pans out to show the aerial view more normal for Command and Conquer, interestingly the game appears to be using the Frostbite engine. Colour me unimpressed, though there is room in my life for strategy games, I used to be addicted to Red Alert, it's been a while since Realtime strategy games excited me. Maybe this one will be the one, though i am not holding my breath.

Rainbow Six Patriots
Tapping into the vein of discontent with the worlds financial systems and the fat cats who leech from them, this game seems to be treading some uncomfortable ground with it's story. I have to applaud Ubisoft for doing this as I don't think I have been looking forward to a game story as much as this one in a long time.

While the cause may be just, the methods are not, we see the Patriots, the terror group who are attacking the Wall Street elite, enter an office and strap a bomb to an executive. They then toss him out the window and detonate the bomb in the crowded streets below. I doubt blowing up the people you claim to be helping and represent is the way forward for a terrorist group. Anyway, the Patriots are the bad guys and you as a Rainbow team member will will be perforating them en masse come release of this game. Which, by the way, I can't wait for. Disappointingly the trailer ends with 2013, which is a shame, i'd like to play it sooner thanks Ubisoft, please employ more developers, you know you want to!

Alan Wake

I enjoyed Alan Wake at the time, though it was a very forgettable game. While it's story was clever, it didn't resonate all that well with me, which was surprising because it should have given it’s subject. The gameplay was decent enough, however after the first few encounters it never felt like anything else happened, you spent the entire game in the dark, fighting the same dark figures. While this complaint can be leveled at any game, Alan Wake just felt much more repetitive than many other games.

This new trailer seems to suggest that this game will be more of the same I’m afraid to say. I thought that Alan ended up as some kind of competing spirit of the lake with the darkness that was already there. How can he be back out physically running around in the world again? I am sure there is an explanation, after all the enemy could move things around and possess people.
I’m not sure about buying this, and for those that know my game buying habits this is a big deal. There would have to be some hook or promise to get me to come back to Alan Wake, we will have to wait and see what Remedy come up with.

The Amazing Spiderman

The trailer shows that Oscorp is making robots to guard New York against some kind of biological attacks that are talked of and not shown here. The robots, it seems, are not going to be our friends for some reason. A news broadcast shows the machines running amok and attacking people and buildings. Spiderman is seen swinging into action, then a huge robot drills out of the ground, we see Spiderman fighting it, as if it is a huge boss battle. It is too early to tell on this one, it looks more like a quickly made licensed game, to coincide with the movie release, which we all know does not usually bode well.

Tony Hawk and Tekken were also shown, and I suppose if you can't say something nice you shouldn't' say anything at all.

Shape of the game

2011-12-30T11:46:00.000-08:00

There are cycles to all things it seems, the Lion King taught young children about the circle of life, who are we to argue with Disney? So, armed with the knowledge that we are all part of a great circle, how does this apply to the theme of the moment? I read an article where the future shape of games was discussed. The theme appeared to be that in the current economic climate the old models of gigantic fifteen hour first person shooters was over. Essentially as a question that boils down to do people want Skyrim or Angry Birds?

I am beginning to think I have some kind of greed complex, or maybe a desire to overstretch myself. I quite fancy playing Angry Birds and Skyrim, maybe a bit of Modern Warfare 3 followed by Cut the Rope. For me these games are simply that, just games, I am beginning to wonder if that is a symptom of age? Have I been around the circle and am seeing things come back around again?

The desire to make smaller, casual games, and have them become episodic, it seems to me, is nothing more than a symptom of the economic situation. Developers are feeling the pinch, as budgets rise to compete with the powerhouse yearly episodic titles like Modern Warfare and Assassins Creed, the price of failure is greater. If your huge budget game does not do amazingly in the sales wars, then there is a good chance that the gamble taken with the money to create the game will not be repeated. The publishers and investors simply won't tolerate a critically acclaimed game that flops in the crowded market. There will be no further cash given out for the well meaning developers, no matter how much they have learned, there will be no more cash for another try.

With this in mind it isn't surprising that the developers are making noises that the publishers are pushing up from behind the scenes. They want to see the end to the model that currently doesn't seem to be working. They also see success in for example the mobile phone market of things like Angry Birds. A game that doesn't push any technical envelopes, doesn't have any really coherent story, and the levels can be knocked up fairly easily, for an audience that seems to lap it up and pay for the same game over and over. Don't mistake that for a swipe at Angry Birds, I love Angry Birds and have bought and paid for each of it's iterations on several devices plus paid for the mighty eagle as well. I have played Angry birds for longer than some AAA titles on console and with that idea in mind, it occurs to me that I would have or should have paid £40 for the privilege.

Angry Birds is a fairly good example of what I like to call the convergence effect. Angry Birds was the right game, at the right time, the stars aligned, it was cute, it was what was needed on emerging smartphones, whose controls didn't suit current dual analogue stick gaming trends. Simply put, Angry Birds was lucky, it fell into it's success by accident, there is no other explanation, there are hundreds of games in it's genre, most of them were free flash games. The App store explosion and it's affordability made the convergence phenomenon, it could equally as easily been one of any number of other games that rose to the top of the App gaming pile.

What have developers learned from Angry Birds and it's peers? That basic games sell on smartphones and remakes of Doom sell only on nostalgia. There is a market for what could be called big budget games on smartphones, Things like Dead Space and Infinity Blade have done well. At the back of my mind, at least, runs that thought that this would be so much better if I was using a traditional controller to play with. Dead space, for one, I struggled more with the controls and getting it to do what I intended than anything the necromorphs did. Infinity Blade was a good example of a huge budget engine game that got retrofitted to the control scheme and basically turned it into an on rails movie with random swiping of the screen. I bought both for the iPad and went back to playing Angry Birds fairly quickly. It isn't that people like that simple retro game model on smartphone's merely that the control scheme dictates it.

What I would call a basic game, something like space invaders or pac-man, something with 2D sprites and simplistic gameplay mechanics evolved because of hardware. The shape and form of games was closely dictated by the power of the hardware they ran on. The business model for delivery has changed each time a new media for game storage was created. I remember when I first started being interested in computers and games, actually typing in lines of basic code from magazines like "Your Sinclair." The move to actual media like cassette tape, then to cartridge, CD, DVD, BLU Ray etc. allowed games to grow. There was an almost direct correlation between the availability of the storage space on the media and the power of CPU's and graphic cards to push polygons.

For most of the 80's and 90's platform games and side scrolling shooters ruled the world. People complained of being tired of platform games and top down or side scrolling shooters the way people complain of being bored with First person shooters today. There have always been attempts to bring 3D game to life, however it was John Carmack who seemed to single-handedly dragged gaming out of two dimensions with his work on Wolfenstein, Doom and Quake.

Once games designers freed themselves of the shackles of 2D they were loathe to go back. In the early noughties anyone making a 2D game would have been looked at as if they were insane. There are exceptions, I am talking generally, 2D and basic game-play games never totally went away. Like an infinite amount of monkeys producing Shakespeare, there are always a given amount of fans of anything at all in the world. Some people I think just like obscure things to be different from everyone else, though, that is their choice, and all power to them for making it.

The current resurgence in fairly basic gameplay 2D games rose with the smartphones and the new marketplaces found on games consoles. Console makers realised that online downloadable games were an opportunity too good to miss. Microsoft it seems can be given much credit for the rise of smaller downloadable games through their Xbox live Arcade. This forum exploded along with release of the console, fueled by titles like Geometry Wars, which was originally included as part of the big budget AAA title Project Gotham Racing 2.

It seems to me that twenty something developers, not old enough to remember, are looking at what they don't even realize is the past and thinking it is the future. Games don't need to go backwards, however, they also need to remember their roots at the same time. The market has opened up room for retro 2D games to see a new and justified lease of life on smartphones. The market is there now thanks to great internet infrastructure for truly episodic games, that allow people to only buy the next section of the game when they are ready to play it.

What shouldn't happen is for developers to imagine that this is what everyone wants, if I have learned anything in life from Abraham Lincoln, it's that you can't please all of the people all of the time. If something like Modern Warfare 3 is taking all your sales then that is just the school of hard knocks smashing down your door. If you can't compete with Modern Warfare at its own game then should you just give up? No, I don't believe that is the answer either. Investors should realize that some money is better than no money, budgets should be carefully managed and realistic expectations made. Surely it is just as profitable to have a stable of ten smaller games that sell reasonably well and keep everyone involved in food and clothing, than to try to compete with game franchises that gobble up super human profits.

On-live to beat piracy?

2011-12-30T11:45:00.000-08:00

A while back I wrote an article talking about the Chrome OS from Google. In it I discussed the opinion that the infrastructure of the world, especially the rural part of sunny Scotland that I inhabit, isn't anywhere near approaching readiness for such a futuristic concept as a totally online, cloud based computer operating system.

Such a luddite attitude is fairly backwards thinking, I wasn't saying there is anything wrong with the concept. I quite like the idea of a thin client that I hold in my hand and the heavy grunt work of securing and storing my data being done by a corporation that is to be heavily penalized for lack of security and loss of data. After all if I store my stuff at home on hard drives they might be susceptible to failure or accidental formatting. Recently one of my friends mistook my two terra-byte storage drive for the two gigabyte SD memory card I asked him to format. It also means that software and media is held and maintained by the companies who produce it. This means you can buy rights to use it, but don't have to install, update and otherwise maintain it on your machine. Your upgrade to a new machine is also less of a chore as you only have to sign into your new machine and everything will be as you left it on the old one.

Chromebooks aren't setting the world alight as far as i can tell, the fact that I can’t tell is telling. Google, Samsung and Acer aren’t disclosing sales figures, what figures that are floating around indicate around the 50,000 mark. Which can’t be pleasing Google or their hardware partners all that much.

I am usually in the queue to try out a new operating system and it's associated hardware. The desire to this isn’t as strong with Chrome OS. It simply presents the user with the Chrome web browser as it runs on almost every other operating system. the only difference is that there is no way to quit to anything else, the idea being that everything runs in the browser. I tried some of the early builds of chrome compiled by a tinkerer called Hexxeh to run on my Asus EEEPC and found it fairly agreeable. As previously mentioned I still find myself moored in the realms of the physical. Having your data on a drive that is physically present is too ingrained to let go of easily.

Last time I wrote about cloud services, I talked about how music and video content producers must see the cloud. The possibility to give the user the same experience as watching a movie or listening to a music track, without them physically having a copy is their golden ideal. If the user never gets to keep a copy, they can't make a copy, at least not as easily. It is no wonder then that content producers want us to move in this direction.

As mentioned earlier this is not a one way street in favor of the content producer. The user is freed from buying storage and organizing it, freed from worrying about backups and data loss when devices break down. They don't have to clutter their house with cases filled with DVD's, or physically deal with discs and players. They just buy gadgets that fit their cloud platform of choice and are then free to access all their purchased music and movies where-ever they are.

The real point of writing this article was to consider the future of the games industry in the face of the increasing removal from reliance on physical hardware that the cloud represents. The games industry is already in a state of flux at present, the changes in fashion in computer hardware of late are making the crystal ball of the future very cloudy (pardon the terrible pun). Tablets, smart phones, Chromebooks, traditional netbooks and laptops are making the traditional model of a desktop PC seem quaint, somehow, antiquarian.

Into this mix comes cloud gaming services like OnLive, which promise PC quality games on a plethora of devices, including your HDTV via a small black box, or your phone or tablet. Basically just a controller and software with a need for a display, Onlive runs the games on a server somewhere in the cloud and streams the video to you, relaying your inputs as you make them. To me this sounds impractical and likely to lag badly, yet I am keeping my opinions to myself here, as I have not actually tried it out for myself in own home.

The advantages, as long as the internet provider you have can supply the bandwidth, and not penalize you for the amount of data marathon games sessions will involve, are legion. For the user, there is no need to go out and physically buy and install the game or for that matter download gigabytes of game content. Also no need to update the game with patches as they become available, that will be done on the server end by the games developers. Traditional PC gaming is an expensive affair, with a steep technical learning curve. With onlive you get the benefits of the best hardware, upgraded at no cost to you, without having to wrestle with graphic card drivers and other PC and windows mysticism.

For the games publisher the real dream advantage is that the games code doesn't ever leave the safety of server farms. I realize that this is a long way from being the present day reality, there are still going to be console and PC discs on the shelves, which are an avenue for piracy. What the industry executives see is the future where you don't ever have the games code on your own piece of hardware, only see the video of your play-through. You can't copy a game that you never have a copy of in the first place. You also can't resell your copy of the game to one of those leech like game store chains, who greedily take more profit for themselves from the second hand sales of games.

Not owning what you purchase is a difficult concept for many people, music and movies are never yours, that has always been the case. Buying a movie only gives you the right to watch it in your own home. Your rights to do much more with it are still severely restricted. I am beginning to wonder if this is the reason we are not seeing new consoles from Sony and Microsoft just yet. Are they waiting to see how the early pioneers of cloud gaming fare before they commit themselves to the road? The problem with that is that they might miss the boat and leave the market to Onlive or one of their competitors. I feel that it will be a long slow battle to change the mindset of the public beyond the early adopters and technophiles who eat up these kind of concepts. It is almost like some sort of Buddhist anti-possession philosophy, versus the capitalist hoarding of modern society. Interestingly enough Onlive are offering a free trial, maybe it's time to see if it works out?

Online pass sell by dates?

2011-12-30T11:43:00.001-08:00

Online passes have been in the news recently, specifically those provided by Electronic Arts. It appears that some online passes have expiry dates, specifically mentioned is Dragon Age II. It appears that some people have bought the latest iteration of Need for Speed and found that their pass had expired when they entered it. This seems to have been a problem with the system and those hitting this issue have had their code replaced.

The shock here is that the codes themselves have an expiration date at all. Online passes are codes that come in the box of new copies of games and need to be entered before the online features of the game become available to the user. The idea being that the original purchaser of the game should see no problems with their experience and be able to play as normal. However, should that user trade the game in the next purchaser will not have the online pass and won't be able to access the online features.

Second hand game sales are huge, nobody is denying that people have a right to sell games they have played and may never want to play again. Nor is anyone suggesting that users buying second hand games are doing anything wrong. What is wrong is the wholesale embracing of game trade ins and used copy sales that brick and mortar game retailers have adopted in the last five to ten years.

Some game stores put used copies in more prominent positions than new, they actively ask you if you would prefer a used copy rather than a new one. They are making more money from this practice and to be honest you can't blame them. This issue has got to the point that publishers and developers are seeing a problem. They see the sales figures for their game and obviously are seeing that there are more sales than they are getting paid for. I don't know the figures, though it's possible that if a game sells say one million new copies, then those new copies could circulate around the game stores multiple times. Would you personally be happy that your game appears to have sold three million times and you only got paid for one million of those copies?

The passes were designed to combat the problem, second hand buyers got a fully functional single player game, though if they wanted to play the multiplayer component they had to go online and pay for a new online pass code. The idea was met with a general wailing and gnashing of teeth, which it seems any notion other than giving away games for free is met with these days. Personally the online pass hasn't done much to upset me, I don't buy second hand games, I quite like the idea of rewarding the people who make the games I play. I know only a portion of the money goes directly to the developers themselves, like any entertainment industry there are others, just and unjust who get their cut.

I can't see any reason for the inclusion of an expiration on these online passes. Games do have their time in the sun, and most console games with mediocre multiplayer are barren wastelands even a year after the games launch. If the developers have dedicated servers and other infrastructure to maintain that is costing them money, then you can see the force in closing down older games multiplayer sides. If I were to buy a game new five years after it's launch, a stretch I know, but bear with me. I would expect the online pass to still function, what I wouldn't expect is to be getting that many other players to play online with. If a games multiplayer has expired then that is an unfortunate fact of life, some things are popular, some things aren't, live with it and move on. If I find that the online pass has expired, that just seems silly, shouldn't I be able to redeem the pass, even if I am redeeming something worthless? It was sold to me, it shouldn't expire as if the contents of the game box were perishable!

This means that those who buy games new, say a year after their release will have to be careful of the online pass. This is Electronic Arts absolutely shooting themselves in the foot, I buy many games, I usually buy them new, on or around release, I have limited time to play games and I have plenty of games that I bought new over a year ago which I am still getting around to playing. I do not want to clear my backlog and get to a certain game to then find that I can't play the online portion due to an expired code.

The message that this policy seems to be sending to gamers is that a game that is over a year old should not be bought new as there is a good chance you will have problems getting to play the online portion. Gamers shouldn't be directed to the used game aisle under any circumstances EA. With this move you are putting obstacles in the way of gamers who want to give you their money rather than the retailers.

Metal Gear Falling

2011-12-30T11:38:00.001-08:00

For a series that is obviously long running and multi-platform, it appears that gamers of a certain generation appear to consider Metal Gear a Playstation or Sony related franchise. Undoubtedly the franchises golden years were founded on Sony machines, Metal Gear Solid one and two were both huge games for the PS1 and PS2. Metal Gear Solid 4 was a huge exclusive for the PS3.

For a gamer brought up on Sony machines Metal Gear Solid and Final Fantasy are synonymous with the Sony brand. However the problem comes when you move outside the field of view of the gamer. If you look at the industry from the eyes of a business man, you know the people who are quite rightly only interested in making money. The people who are doing a job and have no passion or interest in the games themselves as artistic endeavors. Then you don't even consider brand loyalty as a consideration, unless you are the brand, and Kojima productions and others like Square Enix are not in any way shape or form a part of Sony. With that in mind why would you limit your market, why would you make a game for only one console on the market when you can make it for as many platforms as you have the staff and ability to create for.

Now while online forums are only a small vocal minority, they tend to be the type of minority that influence the herd. Media manipulation can sell a game, exciting trailers on rotation on the correct channels, magazine and billboard adverts can sell many games. The thing is that that sort of traditional advertising costs money. The buzz of a word of mouth campaign by excited gamers is free.

Metal Gear Solid: Rising was announced on stage by Hideo Kojima at a Microsoft press briefing. Now if you aren't well versed in the lore of the fanboy and console feuding then that sentence won't mean all that much to you. If on the other hand you are one of those people who enjoy supporting the team, then it has an awful lot of connotations. For the Microsoft fan, it was a huge coup, the creator of a major Sony exclusive, appearing on the enemy stage. Announcing that the next game in the series would be multi-platform. For Sony fans it was a gross betrayal, the loss of yet another long running exclusive franchise to the enemy.

For this betrayal there have been endless battering in the more fan war orientated blogs and press against the game. Strangely enough Kojima himself appears untouchable and gets absolved, as if he is being buffeted by the executives and deep down he would really want to stick with Sony products exclusively. First the Sony fans were desperate to make it clear that everyone knew Hideo Kojima himself wasn't developing the game personally. He would be overseeing the game and only giving final rubber stamp of approval. The fact that this game would see a more action focussed style of gameplay also meant that it wasn't really a Metal Gear game.

The game has seen relentlessly bad word of mouth, with every trailer being met with scorn. So much so it appears that the game was in danger of being cancelled, and has been taken back to the drawing board, before being given to a different development team. Like Ninja Theory before them, when making an exclusive game the fan buzz is endlessly positive, when making Heavenly Sword, Ninja Theory could do no wrong. One multi-platform game later and the Sony fans seem to believe every move on the developers part is a crime against nature. Of course taking over a long running fan loved property and rebooting it, is always a exercise in fanboy trolling from the start.

The point I'd like to make here is that while pleasing the fans is always a consideration, Kojima needed the money that could be made from a multi-platform game, however, they came out and announced it in a really poor way. If Kojima has announced Rising as a standalone game for the Xbox360 as an exclusive, I believe it would be out already and probably fairly successful. They relied on the goodwill of fans towards Hideo Kojima to pave over the wound of going multi-platform, imagining that Sony fans would not turn on the man considered a genius.

The Sony fans have not turned on Hideo Kojima, they have divorced him from the game. Rising now exists in some alternate world where it can be bashed with impunity and does not deserve the slightest bit of attention. The fact that it is now being made by Platinum games makes it even easier to bash, they made a Wii exclusive don't you know? They couldn't even be bothered to make the PS3 version of Bayonetta themselves!

Rising will still sell reasonably on the PS3, for all the fanboy noise, they usually still buy the things they find offensive and make all the noise about. It will sell reasonably on the Xbox also, although not quite as much as it would have it had released on schedule. Most Xbox360 users aren't that interested in exclusives, they aren't used to getting that many. What is wrong with this picture, is that, yet again, creators are being dictated to by considerations of money, business and the pressure from fans. All of which I feel publishers and executives should be doing their best to insulate their talent from. Let them work in a happy vacuum, where money is not a bother and they imagine that the fans love them. Making a game by committee is never a good choice, developers considered genius should be left to make the game they want to make, after all haven't they earned that right?

Mario Versus Peta

2011-12-30T10:32:00.000-08:00

Peta are an animal welfare organization, a private company, funded by donations. They have around 300 employee and operate in many countries. Their slogan is "animals are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on, or use for entertainment." They campaign to change the attitudes of the public and raise awareness of concealed practices being carried out by companies on animals.

So far so good, there are many companies out there farming animals in horrific inhumane conditions so that we can have burgers, make up and fur coats. I have no problem with Peta shaming McDonalds into spending a little more of their profits on making the life of their cows and chickens better than spending it on Ferraris for their senior executives.

Recently Peta ran a campaign on their website, the campaign features Super Mario. Mario has a history of collecting power ups during his games which give him temporary extra powers. These powers include a mushroom which makes him bigger, a flower that makes him go white and shoot fireballs, etc. The object of Peta's wrath is the tanooki suit, which it appears, in later games at least, where the graphics are better, to turn Mario into a furry suited cute teddy bear with a long stripy tail. This tail can be used to swipe at enemies and extend the length of Mario's jumps.

Now I can see where Peta were going with this, at first glance it appears that Mario is wearing an animal fur suit. Presumably the Mario team didn't intend the connotations that Mario is wearing a real fur skinned from some poor Tanooki. Maybe they did, I don't know how Japanese culture views the wearing of fur? Peta appears to be trying to educate any children who may be influenced by the plumber’s fashion sense of their views on the issue. Firmly stating that Mario is in the wrong to be killing an animal for it's fur to wear, even if presumably it can give him Princess saving super powers.

The campaign is in fairly poor taste if it is aimed at children. I do understand that they are trying to convey that there is a harsh world out there, where people are extremely unpleasant to each other and animals. The main thrust of the campaign is a flash game where you play as a skinned Tanooki, dripping in blood as you chase Mario through a blood drenched representation of the usually primary colored happiness of the Mushroom kingdom. The game is an appalling dull, keep on going and don't get hit by the screen as it relentlessly scrolls to the left type of affair, while you jump over the usual obstacles found in a Mario game. The game isn't the point, you aren't meant to play it, just get the message. That while Mario is a cute child friendly game, even he is, likely unwittingly, prolonging the cultural attitudes, that the wearing of fur is acceptable and killing animals for human use is an abused sin, not a right.

My first impression here is that while Peta were looking for publicity, and while no publicity is bad publicity for them, it seems that most people are likely to side with Nintendo and edge Peta into the wrong, not on the issue, but their treatment of it. Is it possible to be insensitive when pointing out the insensitivity of others? Well yes, someone may be doing something inherently wrong in your eyes, that doesn't mean you are entitled be as offensive in return!

It seems that the use of Mario has hit a nerve, with statistics suggesting that 250,000 people interacted with the game in the first day or so of it's release. Peta have backpedaled under intense media scrutiny and suggested that the publicity stunt was a joke. Nintendo for their part have been quiet, a statement from them on the issue merely states that Mario has transformed in his games into many things over the years. None of these transformations imply anything other than their function in the game.

Certain organizations, seem to feel they always have right on their side. In the case of Peta, who obviously believe strongly in their cause, they tend to be the kind of people who don't listen to the other side of arguments. They don't usually have to, when they are talking about people who breed animals in tortuous conditions, or only for their fur they are unshakeable in their opinion and conviction that they are right. In this instance they aren't talking about gigantic corporations or barbaric gangs of fur merchants. Well, Nintendo I suppose qualify as a gigantic corporation, though they have little to do with any exploitation of animals. What peta attacked here was a piece of thousands of peoples childhood, a still relevant cultural phenomenon. Mario is an inoffensive primary colour piece of childhood, what Peta thought would be a soft target jumped on their head and bounced off with a cheery wave.

Cool to hate!

2011-12-30T10:31:00.001-08:00

In recent years there has been a backlash building against the Call of Duty series. COD has quite a long history in the world of gaming, with iterations released every year but one since 2003. The boom period for world war 2 first person shooters came and went, far too many competitors saw gamers overexposed to the setting. Medal of honor, Battlefield 1942, Wolfenstein, Brothers in Arms and Hour of Victory, to name just a few, made Infinity Ward reach for a new period in history for their next game.

The choice was wide open, and mostly well trodden, future or past, there were games out there already making their mark. They chose the present and Modern Warfare was born, to say it was successful was an understatement. World at war was a misstep, though not a serious one, the rest of the meteoric rise of he brand is well documented. Today the COD brand makes more money than any other entertainment product in any field, not just video games.

With this status COD joins the ranks of mainstream entertainment, no longer a nerdy past-time. This has resulted in most internet denizens proclaiming it the worst game ever created, an affront! How could any self respecting developer churn out add on packs for the same game, year after year displaying no talent whatsoever they cry! This obviously isn't the case, COD games are usually great first person shooters, they have their flaws, all games do. If any games sequels are nothing but add on packs, then all of them are, that argument is a dead end applicable to all game series, not just COD. What really is wrong with COD? The answer is nothing, it simply isn't the done thing to like the most popular choice. There must be a name for this phenomena, I couldn't find one so I decided to examine it.

When a piece of entertainment reaches a critical mass and garners a specific amount of fans, it appears to reach a tipping point where it becomes more popular to complain about it than like it. Does this cultural phenomena have its roots in individuality? People like to feel distinct from every other bag of water, protein, fat and other assorted minerals on the planet. When in reality we all seek the love and acceptance of our fellow sacks of organic compounds. This desire for individuality it seems directs us to seek modes of dress that are different from our peers, listen to alternative music than what is popular and profess to like the most impenetrable books and movies.

Elitism also rears its head here, it is generally accepted that the more complex a piece of work is the better it becomes. If everyone likes something then it must mean that it appeals to the lowest common denominator. Certain people can't abide being lumped in with the proles, if something has a massive amount of fans then it must be generic and bland. Hence the games are painted as the same core, with bland rehashes of the same maps over and over again. In the same way that critics have told pop stars off for using the same three chords, movie directors for the same explosions and car chases.

The complainer is essentially telling the world that they have a broader pallete than you proles. That you wouldn't know a decently written piece of music, or a well crafted game if it smacked you between the eyes. The people who complain about COD are vocal about the problems with COD, yet you won't catch them letting slip what it is that they actually do like. It is easier to destroy than it is to create, it is easier to find fault with established works than suggest improvements. The complainers have thrown stones for so long they have started to enjoy it, and can't find a way out of that rut.

The next consideration here is cool factor, the ineffable face of cool is something that can't be scaled. Something is either cool or it isn't, and even that status can be revoked on societies whim. Hipsters, if such a creature exists, flit from new entertainment experiences to the next sucking the cool from them like vampires. If they slow down they risk becoming unstuck, like sharks, needing to keep moving forward.

When a new piece of entertainment appears, something that those concerned with it genuinely feel is new, they take ownership of it. For example, A band arises from a small town music scene, the locals are the first to hear, they get it, love the music. Years later those people are special, because they were in on the ground floor, insiders, who may even know the band personally. Eventually that wears off as the band are never back in the small town, everybody and their dog has their album from iTunes, when these insiders used to get a copy from the band themselves. Eventually the circle is complete and this super fan realizes they are nothing but one of a million fans and that ownership turns to frustration and hate.

Does age play a part, is the hate of all things popular simply a phase everyone goes through? Hating the world of the peer group you don't belong to, or the entertainment landscape your parents inhabit. A damaging and caustic phase that a large portion of the world seem to inhabit at any one time. It would be easy to lay the blame on the teenagers for this, though it isn't only limited to teens. There are plenty of forty and upwards people who are unable to label something unpalatable to them as anything other than the most offensive thing on the planet.

There is another possibility that influences this hate machine, the media. Media is big business, there are companies behind most of the large print and web based media outlets. Could bias in the media have influence on a whole franchises future?

COD is bigger than the ability of an army of naysaying hipsters to dent it's status as top dog at present. One thing is certain though, COD has flipped into the "cool to bash" category. While it will have another few years of high status and record earnings, the sound of that indie band from the small town tuning their instruments can be heard, the insiders are already proclaiming them as COD killers.

Community Woe

2011-12-30T10:29:00.000-08:00

What does the label "gamer" mean to you? Some gamers, those who like to call themselves “hardcore” especially, seem to see the label as a badge of honor, and identity. You often see read of people on forums divulging their history with video games, listing the systems they have owned since they began gaming. Along with teary eyed stories of the time they completed Jet Set Willy or Final Fantasy VII depending on their age.

We all like to imagine ourselves as being experienced and knowledgable in the hobby of our choice. People who have been playing games for a while, quite rightly, feel justified in their knowledge and skills regarding video games. With all that shared history and common knowledge, you would imagine that a gathering of gamers would be an amazing party filled with great conversation and camaraderie. The reality is that for the most part any gathering of gamers will see little gaggles of friends talking solely amongst themselves, while the others are objects of scorn, who might as well not even be there.

Some of this might stem from the fact that traditionally gaming has been a solitary hobby, where the gamer spent most of his time alone, immersed deeply in single player games. While this is a huge stereotype, I think deep down many gamers might acknowledge that their social skills aren't necessarily the sharpest. I am not suggesting that this is a hugely bad thing, social skills might be useful, however, they are not the be all and end all of the human condition. While gamers social skills may not be the sharpest, they have other attributes and aren’t stupid people. Social skills are mostly common sense, suggesting that when a gamer needs social skills, they can pull them out of their bag of tricks quickly enough.

Going online is the equivalent of going down the pub for a gamer. During a round of most first person shooters you might expect to put on a headset and chat to a variety of like minded gamers. All interested in the same things, ready to chat away the time about the merits of the game that is being played and other games that they love. Occasionally it turns out that way, sometimes you can meet a random group of gamers and discuss the gaming issues of the day in a calm and measured fashion. More often than not though, you can expect to be called a million insults, the conversation descending into screamed abuse until you just turn off your headset and pretend these people can't communicate with you. Even then you occasionally get the odd text message sent across the internet to inform you of how much you have mucked up someone's kills to deaths ratio with your noob ways, of course that is the polite translation.

It isn't just online where you can come across this issue of gamer geeks being unable to get along. In my own social life, I am known as someone who is good with computers. People often ask me to fix issues with their computer that run the gamut from utter incompetence, to genuine hardware meltdown. It seems that most people know one of these amateur tech support guys or girls, the problems seems to come when these tech support people meet each other. It seems possible that a kind of superiority complex is inherent or bred into all people. A situation that leads to a kind of verbal sparring until one tech support guy blinks and reveals that they don't know as much as the other. Is it possible that geeks are only happy once they have demonstrated that they are the biggest nerd in the room. The equivalent of a group of guys in a gym having to know who can bench-press the most weight to create some kind of social pecking order.

Is it this socially constructed, more civilized equivalent of two dogs snarling at each other until one backs down that governs how gamers interact and become friends? Can there only be one alpha dog in a group of gamers, the one who has demonstrated the biggest brain or the best skills.

Examining my personal relationships with other geeks, I can see examples of this. One of my friends defers to me in almost all aspects of computer tech, though occasionally tries to argue certain points, while in gaming his skills are superior to mine. This allows compatibility due to each of us being able to claim superiority in a certain arena. Another friend is a total Apple fanboy, which allows commonality, as long as I remember to praise Apple, things get a little frostier when Android or Windows get mentioned.

The last example I want to invoke is a guy I met through a friend, who was a huge gamer/computer geek. The problem with what should have become a friendship was that neither of us was willing to back down on arguments. He had his opinions as did I, for example, he was of the conviction that the PS3 was light years more powerful than the Xbox360. Now while I don't have much of a preference for either, I do spend most of my gaming time on Xbox360 due to the larger number of my friends who game on that platform. I argued that while I thought the PS3 more powerful theoretically, in practice the difference is negligible.

He became forceful in his arguments and I realised that this was never going to work. While he was interesting and good company, he refused to ever let someone else's opinion be acknowledged, having to keep his alpha dog persona intact. Suffice to say I don't talk to this person anymore, not because I want to be the alpha dog, it was simply his inability to ever change his position that wore me down. Believe me, I tried giving in, allowing him to believe he was right. On some occasions I knew he was genuinely mistaken on specific facts, it can be wearing believing in someone else’s reality just to be friendly.

People ask why gamers are horrifically rude to each other online, be it in forums or rounds of Call of duty. People ask why there is a huge cheating community on games like Modern Warfare. In my opinion it is this alpha dog mentality that leads gamers to cheat their way to making their online identity look as if they are alpha dog. It doesn't matter that they are hopeless at Modern Warfare, they just want it to look good when their friends check out their gamertag and find that they are whatever level of prestige is the highest this iteration. The fact that Modern Warfare 3 displays the level of all previous iterations of COD will have them scrambling to cheat their way to the top in the older games, a stroke of marketing genius on the part of Activision if you ask me.

Modern Battlefield

2011-11-23T06:32:00.001-08:00

Ever since Battlefield 3 was announced to be releasing in the same time-frame as Modern warfare 3 there have been industry people trying to square them up as gladiators duelling to the death. Call of Duty has became something of a phenomenon in recent years. Since the release of COD 4 Modern warfare, the franchise has climbed to stratospheric heights. The multi-player FPS has always been a popular genre, with the iteration of the COD engine introduced in Modern Warfare, Infinity ward seemed to hit a sweet spot on consoles that attracted 10-50 year old males like bees to flowers.

Modern Warfare was a slick game, it ran at an amazing 60 frames per second, and it's motion captured animations seemed to put it a step ahead of most other games out at the time. It also seemed to win the hearts of console multi-player fans, taking over from Halo and Gears as the most played game on Xbox live. Activision have always been about franchise building, understanding that while the franchise has it's time, it burns twice as bright as new intellectual properties every will. Tony hawk, and Guitar Hero made huge money for Activision before they inevitably ran out of steam.

Activision were already committed to the path of yearly versions of COD before the success of COD 4 Modern Warfare. Created and curated by Infinity Ward, the engine was loaned to Treyarch giving the two developers two years to make a COD game. Releasing them between each other meant that a game that had spent two years in development saw a yearly release. The world war II shooter was a tried genre, by the time COD 3 was released. The writing was on the wall, gamers were sick of Word War 2 shooters and Halo seemed to have the sci-fi war genre covered. Treyarch continued to do the period pieces, leaving Infinity Ward to cover the current time-frame. Even this plan was abandoned after he lacklustre fan response to World at War. This saw the next Treyarch outing, Black Ops, come much closer to present day, being set in the seventies.

COD and Battlefield are essentially both FPS games, though Battlefield has always included vehicles and planes in it's game-play. COD 3 flirted with vehicles, and there have been a fair few vehicle sequences in COD over the years. It is still fair to say that Vehicles are Battlefields domain. Battlefield also promotes more team orientated thought than the average COD game. While COD will reward the more thoughtful and tactical player, there are an awful lot of run and gun players.

The question as to why people want to face the games off against each other has to be asked? Why would anyone need to choose one or the other? Why wouldn't the dedicated FPS multi-player fan not buy and play both? The answer is that the media loves to have little competitions, pitting such things rock bands and movies against each other when there are concrete figures, such as sales to prove a winner. The other reason it seems is that people also like to choose a side, root for the underdog, defend the champ, roar the team on to victory. Also of course to talk smack in forums and school playgrounds.

One has to wonder why Electronic Arts have entered Battlefield into this contest? They obviously believe they have a good enough product. I am sure executives and developers at Dice feel they have a better game on their hands, that isn't in question. COD is a phenomenon though, a cultural anomaly, that can't be recreated, these moments/beats in history are usually hit by accident. People and product in harmony, those seeking to hang on the coat-tails of these anomalies tend to succeed only as a distant echo of the original stratospheric product. If you want some proof, ask Sony how the Move is going for them, not quite as stellar as the wii-mote!

Someone, somewhere, paid to be cleverer than me about marketing, must have realised this! They tried to reboot Medal of Honor as some kind of COD beater with little result, why would they do this to Battlefield? It only seemed to hurt the Medal of Honor franchise? Electronic Arts, should have been happy enough to release their game in a different time frame from COD and allow their game room to breathe in between the COD juggernaut's assaults. The only thing that is certain about fads is that they will end, some sooner than others, it is a sure thing though, that every fad eventually comes crashing down. Activision may have sewn up the lucrative Christmas period for this and the next few years, however, will it still be likely that Modern Warfare 5 enjoys the same success? Why don't we go and ask the makers of Guitar Hero about that?

There is also the old adage that no press is bad press, Battlefield 3 will gain a lot of column inches by being compared to Modern Warfare and keep it's name on the lips of a lot of people that may not have considered buying it previously. Even if, as seems likely Battlefield loses in the sales war, it's media profile has been raised dramatically.

Other questions are raised by detractors about COD, while I am on the subject of that game. It is suggested that the multi-player game is all run and gun, newbies with no tactics. When a game is popular there are always hundreds of newbies playing, those complaining should remember that gaming is a fun hobby for everyone, and if they find themselves playing with unsatisfactory opponents then they should use their experience and knowledge to find a way to play with a better calibre of player. The online community is just like any other community, only it's faceless and anonymous, we all know what that means. It means people say and do things that they would never consider in real life, basically no manners and it's easy to lose your faith in humanity after just an hours play. The state of online etiquette isn't something that can be laid at COD's door, there were racist, sexist abusive morons everywhere online before COD.

One thing that does bother me about COD is the age range playing, almost every game has been an eighteen certificate in the UK. However, being a parent I have been asked by my 12 year old son to play COD and Battlefield. I was very resistant to this, and my son actually experienced bullying at school because he wasn't allowed to play any COD games. I see this as a failing of the developers to responsibly gauge their audience. I know that the audience loves COD as it is, though wouldn't it be more responsible to pitch the games story and blood content to the twelve or fifteen rating. The violence in the cuts scenes of the campaign are I’m sure what gain the games their eighteen ratings, as the actual multi-player violent content isn't half as bad as some games that get fifteen ratings. There is a perception that there would be an outrage if the next COD game was placed at a twelve rating, however, in the end I think it would be better for the morals of society and hardly dent the sales at all.

One final issue seems to be trotted out by those who dislike COD, they suggest that the game is a yearly add on pack and that nothing much has changed since COD 4. Activision does like to milk the franchise, the yearly instalments, the map packs every three months. Now they have introduced their Elite package which is basically asking for another forty pounds a year from COD fans. Most COD fans are quite happy to pay this, after all a typical COD gamer, and I know a few, buys only a few games a year other than COD. Their Xbox or PS3 may as well be the COD device in the corner of their living room. For example, they might buy an Xbox to play COD and the only other expenditure is the yearly game and map pack. To these people another forty pounds for a subscription and the chance of new maps early isn't even a question.

Some people think that Activision are milking the same game engine, over and over, with an add on pack campaign, and maps that should be free. These people are likely those used to the models of the PC where map editors are common and modded games the norm. What these people don't realise is that they aren't the target audience, and while they may be a vocal group they are the minority. Kind of like the people who recognise that the fighting and nonsense surrounding the X-factor talent show is just a pantomime staged for the media as part of the show. Nobody really cares that these enlightened individuals are smart enough to see the strings. Everybody else is just enjoying the show for what it is, and that makes you a po faced killjoy and they, the fans, basically, don't care!

Uncertain Future

2011-11-23T06:31:00.001-08:00

There has been some debate in recent months about what companies and products will make up the next gaming generation. Quite a bit of this speculation has hinged on the forms of hardware that the future will deem appropriate. There are a myriad of candidates and theoretical forms of hardware from all sorts of electronics companies.

The cloud computing thin client idea has been firmly claimed by On-live and while I find it interesting, I know well enough that my little dank corner of the universe sees relatively poor internet provision. Any games systems or even operating system that places all it's eggs in the internet and it's bandwidth isn't going to be a winner for me at present. That seems to be all that needs to be said on cloud gaming for me, a deeply personal view I understand and a sad state of affairs. However, it will be the state of play for a lot of people and while those that have great bandwidth will not see it, it will be the pivot around the uptake and therefore success of Onlive and cloud gaming as a whole.

The prospect of Onlive is a good one in theory though, as it frees me from having to buy ridiculously powerful PC's to play on and maintain. This expensive chore is abdicated to them, while I pay them a monthly fee and don't have to care about graphic cards and SSD speeds, or finding the money to purchase said items. The infrastructure has spoken and I can't have the shiny baubles no matter how attractive they are.

With cloud gaming out for the next five years until BT sort themselves out, the question of the other hardware opportunities needs to be addressed. Tablets are the in thing at present, everyone likes the idea of a tablet computer, even girls it seems. That isn't meant as sexism, though I know that it is, I am merely stating my surprise about this. I recently saw a Facebook posting from a female work colleague stating that she was excited about getting an iPad for Xmas. This really is testament to how smart-phones and as an extension tablets have penetrated into the mainstream market.

Does this mean that tablets are the future of games? Well much as I enjoy the odd game on my iPad I don't see it as ever totally taking over the gaming mantle from dedicated consoles or the PC. I have tried Real Racing, being played over Apple TV and it is indeed good fun. I have sat and played Super Scribblenauts from my iPad on the HDTVand had fun. The ability to play games at home on the big screen and then whilst out and about on the tablet itself is a great feature. Android is about to go one step further than Apple and allow controllers to be connected to their devices as well as being able to play on HDTV's. The future may indeed be tablet shaped, as this ability to play on the big screen at home with your controller and while out and about also is tempting.

What I think will limit this tablet takeover at present is the age old heat problem of graphics cards and processors. It may be possible today to slap intel core i7's and Nvidia GT550 graphic cards into a tablet form factor, the problem would be that the tablet would need to be held with asbestos gloves, tt would also cost around one thousand pounds. While you can get much better performance from consoles and PC, I can't see the die hardcore gamers taking to tablets as the serious future of gaming. The tablet may well one day become the dominant force in mobile gaming, I can see it eroding away the traditional portable niche from Nintendo and Sony. The 3DS and the Vita will let us see in the coming year how much that future is already in place.

The last alternative is to keep the status quo, for Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo to keep on going with the console arms race and the PC to continue to keep it's hardcore gaming niche. Nintendo have already tipped their hand, revealing the Wii-U as a hybrid between the tablet future and the traditional console. Even if the tablet controller is a terrible mistake, the Wii-U can still function with all the current Nintendo controllers, like the Wii-mote and classic controller. Sony and Microsoft as usual appear to be waiting for leaked information and spy reports on what the other are doing before they commit to specifications of their new systems.

The fact that the next round of games which some might call launch titles for a next generation have been announced as coming for current generation consoles, I think says a lot about when we will be seeing the next generation of games consoles. The fact that GTA V and Halo 4 are coming for Xbox 360 and PS3 suggest that the people behind the scenes don't believe that a new console is necessary. The investment not worth the slight blip in graphic fidelity that would come with a new machine. After all the costs of designing, building and launching a new console in uncertain economic times is a big gamble.

Especially in a time when the hardware future is uncertain, nobody could have predicted the runaway sales success of the Wii this current generation, which would give anyone pause for thought. Who would have predicted that that least powerful by far console of the three would sell the most! Could the ground be knocked out from under the big three hypothetically speaking by someone like Apple or Asus. Imagine seeing them taking over control of the gaming world with the Transformer Prime 2 and iPad 4 that could theoretically exceed the power of any new Nintendo, Sony or Microsoft console.

Imagine Sony spending similar budgets in research and development to make a PS4 then building millions of them ready to launch at huge cost, only to find that they sell about 100,000 in total. Thwarted they watch in horror as On-live takes over the mass gaming market with an exclusive release of Modern Warfare 4! The public ultimately have the say in whether a piece of hardware lives or dies, if the seemingly uncontrollable hive mind of public opinion and pop culture don't take to your piece of hardware, it will sink without trace, no matter how wonderful it may have been specification wise.

Traditionally console cycles have been five years apart, Moore's law working it's magic to make the graphic jump in fidelity worthwhile. While any new console built from existing PC hardware today would make for true 1080p visuals with more polygons on screen, would it really present enough of an upgrade incentive. Game engines also have to evolve and it seems that while graphics are improving, they aren't improving fast enough at present.

It feels a little like the evolution of the PC in the past back in the days of 386 and 486 processors, into the age of the Pentium chips from Intel. For a while back then in the nineties there was a slow pace of graphical improvement. Games went from things like Wolfenstein to Doom to Quake, this graphical increase was incremental and slow. Then, all of a sudden dedicated graphical processors appeared on the market and allowed games to jump up to much higher resolutions. The almost overnight change in PC gaming was like the difference between night and day. I remember playing Quake at launch and enjoying it immensely, I still remember picking my jaw up from the floor after seeing the difference that installing a 3DFX Voodoo card made to the game once it was patched with OpenGL.

That little trip off topic was supposed to suggest that the same thing seems to be happening with consoles and PC's at present, graphics are improving, though at a slow pace. That sudden shift, the change factor, is missing and it feels like the industry is treading technical water waiting for that eureka moment to come.

Kinect, tool or entertainment?

2011-11-23T06:30:00.001-08:00

Kinect is one year old, so I thought I’d reflect on my experience and opinion of the device since it’s arrival. Kinect for me is more of an actual talking point than a physical activity. I am a motion control sceptic, I'm sure that I have went on record many times to suggest that while motion control has a valid place in gaming, it should never be the total focus. Games have a long and rich heritage of development over the last forty odd years. To throw away because a new technology arrives which at first seems more natural than the accumulation of many years of technological development is simply stupid. Mouse and Keyboard, controllers, racing wheels and arcade sticks, all have evolved over the years to a point where complex FPS games are easy to control.

Cutting aside any obvious jokes about the fitness levels of gamers, games like Kinect adventures and Kinect Sports will tire even the fittest individuals out quickly. A gaming session to me is more about relaxation than a workout, that isn’t to say that the ability of a gaming session to be a workout isn’t a good thing. It’s just that I do enjoy sitting down when I want to relax and playing something like Gears of War 3, slouched on my couch with my controller in hand. When I want a workout I will cycle to the gym and lift weights.

I have written about the Kinect and the way the tinker community out there have embraced it. Providing all sorts of wonderful applications, most of these seem to be independent of the Xbox 360 however, built on community created drivers for PC. Microsoft, to their credit didn't pursue or dissuade these people, they embraced this groundswell of enthusiasm and ran with it, producing their own freely available SDK for Kinect.

Major Nelson posted an information sheet press release on twitter today, Microsoft, it seems quite rightly, want to boast about the success of kinect. Over ten million units have been sold and that is also a record breaking achievement for the fastest selling consumer electronics device in history. There were also proud boasts on the uses Kinect has been put to by companies and modders. Including a gesture based surgical operating room application, gait assessment of senior citizens, rehabilitation for stroke patients and skill building for autistic children. There was also the promise for the future that 200 plus commercial applications are being developed using kinect, in 25 different industries in 20 plus countries.

While Microsoft as a whole should be pleased with the success of Kinect, I feel a lot of this boasting is missing the point, the point being that while Kinect has been a phenomenal success for Microsoft, it hasn’t been a phenomenal success amongst gamers. I thought it might be illuminating to look at the sales of Kinect titles.

Kinect Adventures 10.68 Million
Kinect Sports 3.33 Million
Dance Central 2.24 Million
Kinectimals 1.06 Million
Your Shape Fitness 0.97 Million
Kinect Joy Ride 0.91 Million
Sonic Free Riders 0.52 Million
UFC Personal Trainer 0.15 Million
Sesame Street Once upon 0.02 Million
Gunstringer 0.05 Million
Rise of Nightmares 0.08 Million
Dance Masters 0.09 Million
Just Dance 3 0.05 Million
Dance Paradise 0.04 Million

Roughly twenty percent of the 50 million odd Xbox360 owners bought up Kinect around Launch, they obviously bought some software to go with it. It appears at first glance to suggest that while initial launch games fared well, subsequent second generation titles have failed to pass even the 100,000 mark. It will be interesting to see how Dance Central 2 and Kinect Sports 2 fare in the second year of Kinect.

It seems then, that the only decently selling games for Kinect have been Dance Central and Kinect Sports. I’m not here to debate the merits or otherwise of selling a million copies of a game, and I am sure half a million copies is classed as a runaway success. On the other hand I am also fairly sure that Sega can’t be happy with the performance of Rise of Nightmares, the supposed Hardcore gamer Kinect game.

Microsoft know that Kinect isn’t a resounding success with the hardcore gaming crowd, and while it is making money with the casual crowd it isn’t igniting the same fever that saw the Wii rise to 88 million sales. The Kinect non gaming story has always been one of intrigue and amazing potential. I doubt there is a gamer out there that hasn’t looked at something modders have done with Kinect and been impressed. From the 3D modeling, to Making statues of yourself in Minecraft, From helping the blind get around, to letting robots navigate around autonomously. Kinect is simply a camera, but it’s a depth sensing, infra-red camera that has some clever software. While that doesn’t sound like anything more than a webcam as detractors have suggested, the results of the communities tinkering have shown that there is something of interest to the world in Kinect.

Microsoft have seen this, and quite rightly have taken this as their standard, I would like them to take this further. Make the transition fully and make Kinect a PC badged Window’s peripheral. Stop flogging the dead horse that is motion gaming and let developers get on with making controller based games. We don’t need Fable controlled by Kinect, and I will reserve judgement on how moving my squad around using voice control pans out in Mass Effect.

There was money to be made in motion gaming, that time arrived with the Wii, both Sony and Microsoft struggled to catch up. I am not saying Playstation Move was a failure, though I am suggesting it wasn’t as resounding a success as Sony hoped it would be. Without the strange fascination of the modders making headlines and interest about Kinect I feel it would also have been left in the curiosity pile of video game history.

Let Kinect become a PC thing, in reality it always has been. Leave gaming to the likes of Epic who I applaud for standing up to Microsoft and not having Kinect shoehorned into Gears of War. Innovation in gaming hardware and technology is out there, for example the Gadget show recently spent around half a million creating a hugely impressive full immersion chamber for first person action games. I feel that while that chamber was incredibly expensive to build, lessons can be learned from it and the technology made for a far smaller price. While it may not ever be a home item, I am sure there could be a niche for the resurgence of the arcade where people come to gather and play video-games at a price per session.

Gamefest notes

2011-11-23T06:28:00.001-08:00

I went to Gamefest in September, I took a fair few notes, on looking at them I realised there was around 2,500 words, some of which might be of as much value as anything else written on this blog. So it thought I would post them here, there isn't much opinion or comment, just the facts of what I saw on the two days of the show.

Mario kart 7
The game actually looks graphically better with a higher polygon count than the Wii version, though I realise that this may be an artefact of the small screen. It's pure Mario kart, simple arcade carting fun. The biggest obvious addition is the hang gliding, which see you fly off huge cliff edges and auto transform into a glider to float down through obstacles and coins back onto the track.

There are also underwater sections which see the action slow slightly and look pretty.
I didn't get to see too much of it but the kart customisation sections appeared deeper than previous games with changes to wheel size etc.

Super Mario Land
There were four sections available in the demo. The first was a fairly normal 3D Mario level squared off hedges and White ledged gardens. there were goombas and fire spitting plants to avoid. I saw some new goombas with bobcat tails, that rotate and try and whip you with their outstretched tail. The usual platforming, with hidden ledges to find, extra coins and little side bonuses.

There are switches that extend wafer thin platforms out in patterns and just as quickly as they unfold they close up again after you. One of the levels shown featured these extensively. The game seems to be more Mario 64 than Mario galaxy. Though a lot of the design and puzzles have been amalgamated from the history of Mario, there seemed to be no round planetoids in evidence.
There was a level which takes place on ships, the kind mostly seen in Mario Galaxy, which was a side scrolling level, where you had to keep moving or be crushed.

Kid Icarus
The section I got to play was a space harrier style flying section. The graphics were the best I have seen on the 3DS so far. There was quite a satisfying beam weapon that the kid can employ. I got to land and control the Kid in a corridor moving around shooting at one point, which seemed harder to control but looked like it could be fun.

Metal gear solid 3D
Seems to be fairly decent the face buttons double as a second analogue stick. The game play seems to be the usual metal gear style and the graphics are decent, reminiscent of the PSP version.

Dark souls
I only had a short time to play, there were only a few demo stations and there was a long queue, dying seemed to be you cue to give the controller to the next person in line, so as I said, I didn't get a long time with the game. It seems very similar to demon souls, graphics are decent, melee combat was the only option seen in the demo due to time. In the time I played I found enemies jump out and surprise you, archers is inaccessible places designed to cause you trouble. There was also a huge dragon flying around the castle which it seems you will have to eventually defeat.

Inversion
This is a game that is being published by Namco Bandai, though I am sure I heard the developer correctly when he said it used an Engine from Sega. The game is a third person shooter in the gears of war vein, though it probably has more in common with Quantum Theory. Gravity is the main feature of focus in this games attempt to stand out from the crowd in the third person shooter genre. The idea being that you can be shot at from all angles with enemies running around on the Walls and ceiling, also some Dead Space style zero gravity action.

The story concerns the invasion of Earth by a race called the Luttadore. They are the aliens with the advanced gravity controlling weapons who come to Earth, seemingly looking to use the human race as slave labour for whatever nefarious cause they are employed in. The hero is an ordinary man caught up in the chaos, his wife is killed and he spends the early part of the campaign looking for his missing daughter.

I watched a live play-through of a section of the game by one of the developers. The levels have a ruined feel with large areas of lava suggesting that the Earth has really been torn up by the gravity abusing weapons employed by the aliens. During the play-through he informed us that the game would be fully playable in an online co-operative mode. Much was made of the gravity weapon which causes enemies to float up out of cover. I noticed that there was a lot of destruction to certain aspects of the environment, and also the character models lots their limbs and heads in a gory fashion. The enemies can also use the gravity weapons on you, making you flip to the ceiling or float around in the open for a period if hit by the beams.

Ridge racer unbounded
I saw another developer play-through of Ridge Racer unbounded, which seems to be a cross between Ridge Racer's crazy drifting style of driving and Burnout and Split Second. Lots of damage to other cars and the environments. The game is also the first Ridge Racer to come to PC and will have a level designer included, as well as the usual multi-player options.

Spiderman : edge of time
This seems typical of the superhero games from Activision in recent years. Square rooms, and bland melee fighting, with lots of moves, though only one worthwhile one. Spiderman at least can use his webs to swing around to a decent extent. The game has simple puzzles, get a key smash this and smash that to progress. What does seems interesting is the time aspect, you seem to be involved with a story involving Spiderman at different periods in history. For example destroying a mutant experiment in the past with one Spiderman changes the future making the future Spiderman's life easier by removing said mutants from history. There was a long tunnel run with awkward obstacles to negotiate. Spiderman has different powers in each time zone, for example, his attack in one time is mutant like, while more slick in the future. I sound quite down on this game, though in truth I enjoyed it and played it for quite a while. It isn't going to shake the world, but it will be a decent game.

Skylanders
This seems to be a game that involves Spyro the dragon, though he has been teamed up with a bunch of other characters, in what seems to be a blatant rip off of Kameo element of power and Diablo. The tasks appear to be split up between charactersm which means that you change character in accordance with the task at hand.

In true Activision fashion the chance to grab more money from their customers has been researched to perfection. The game comes with a base unit, a circle of plastic shaped like a castle tower. On this base you place a figurine of the character you want to use, which then switches to that character in game. Three characters will come with the game, the starter pack, children will be able to buy new figures and placing them on the base will see them unlocked in the game.

The figures have some kind of connectivity with the base and memory of their own. This means they can be taken to a friends house and you can play with your own customised character. This also works independently of platform, for example a character levelled up and customised on say Xbox360 would be brought into the Wii version just as easily.

On playing there were some nice ideas, like tortoises which go into their shell when approached and then can be moved around like rocks to get to objectives. The graphics do look very much like Kameo, almost every object seems to have a similar art style, which is too much to be a coincidence. Kameo was done by Rare, though I suppose it's possible that the art director came from Rare to whoever is making this for Activision.

Disney universe
I watched this being played by some random children selected from the audience. The game looks like a Lego game and seemed to play quite similarly. The characters are basic generic shapes and they then wear a cloth costumes of a Disney character. The characters are a cross between Sackboy and Lego figures. The levels of the game are taken from Disney movies, such as Hercules and Monsters Inc. Monsters Inc was shown and the level was taken from the door factory seen near the end of the movie. Four players can play at once with all the usual push and pull of the screen and dodgy perspective of Pseudo platformers. This game will be a huge hit with those seeking to give younger players some fun and for adults to game with their children.

Journey
I found Journey standing lonely and unplayed, a very strange looking game from the makers of flower. The game is quite spartan in it's visuals, though it has a certain minimalist beauty, that reminds me of Shadow of the Colossus. You play as a possible female creature in what may be a red Burkha, situated in and unknown desert. There are ruins of what looks like an eastern civilisation in evidence, the level of destruction makes it look as if these ruins haven't seen life for hundreds of years.
Pressing X makes a wave of light come from the character which changes any of the rags of carpet that are flying from the ruins in ragged strands. These come to life and allow you charge to jump higher than normal. At some points you come to standing stones and walking past them lights them. Once all are lit a White robed figure appears and opens the way forward. You then progress to a new level. There seems to be no enemies so far, only the flying carpets to manipulate to open the way to what you need to do to progress. In one level you make red carpet bridges between broken towers of a bridge. In the next you follow flying carpets to a ruined building, that was where the demo ended, and I have to say I was hungry for more. The graphics are nice, crisp and clean with a water like feel to some of the desert sand.

Modern warfare 3
Forty minute queue which wasn't that bad. Then into a room with pits of consoles while queuing a large screen shows a live demo of what we will be playing.
It's a survival mode with two players against waves of varied enemies. the map is a Paris street environment which is up to the usual COD standards. The graphics don't look much better, though the animations for enemies seem better. The game-play is fun and frantic as usual. If a player is downed then they can be revived by the other.
Got a little patch and a poster for playing. They were really strict about no pictured even going as far as to get me to delete one I had taken, from my phone.

Skyrim
No actual hands on game-play here, which was a shame, only the chance to get a nice bag with Rage on one side and Skyrim on the other. The video shown was an edited version of a presentation that had also leaked it's way onto you tube. For all of the disappointment of queuing for ages to see what I could have seen on you tube, it was still fairly impressive stuff.

The Skyrim engine always renders only what you can see and get to in the game. What may be a painted backdrop in most games can be walked to and climbed in Skyrim. The detail close up is superb, the trees and plants being fairly detailed for a console game. The snow and tundra environments are crisp and clean with a look that makes you feel like it might be winter outside.

There is a control system employed that uses right and left triggers for each hand and many different weapons can be used in combination. For example a shield and sword, magic and a sword or magic in both hands. A healing and an offensive spell for example could be assigned to left and right hands. Some spells can be used in combination for greater effect. There is also the voice. Which is a language of the dragons that can be learned and produces offensive magical effects.

There are one hundred and fifty hand built dungeons in the game, with an extensive perk and upgrade tree system. This uses the stars as it's basis and supposedly the players destiny is mapped out in the stars. There are also thirteen sets of standing stones that can activate perks that last until you switch on a different set of stones. The item system shows you rotatable, zoom-able renders of each and every item, some puzzles depend on this. For example a door has three symbols that need aligning to make it open plus the key. The key itself has the pattern on it's underside and can only be seen by rotating the key.

Some combat is shown and it looks very deep with lots of ways to mix up the varied attacks. Huge mammoths and giants are shown and also the dragons. The dragons fly around realistically and breathe fire or ice at their enemies, they also come down and melee attack. At one point one of them picks up a giant and takes it up high into the sky then drops it to it's death. The conversations with characters are voice acted on their side and you choose responses from a set of text options.

Prey 2
All that could be seen here was trailers, the first trailer is live action, it shows a couple on a plane. The man is mucking around with a video camera, there is a Marshall on the flight and the camera owner seems to be trying to covertly film him.
A strange light comes from outside the plane turning night into day. Then it appears that an alien has teleported onto the plane. The Marshall starts shooting and the alien starts firing back with weapons that break the plane. Everything starts shaking and going crazy as if the plane is spinning. The video camera, which we realise is our eye here, is being tossed around and flung all over the cabin. The camera is sucked out of a hole in the plane, as it drops we see a huge glowing circular shaped spaceship above the plane.

The second trailer shows that the Marshall has been rescued from the plane crash and is now on an alien world as a battle hardened bounty hunter, with a whole host of high tech weapons. He jumps from a rooftop and uses thrusters to break his fall at the last second. The Marshall lands in a street next to his prey who has some bodyguards. The hero shoots them all with ultra efficient style and the prey runs. The hunter tries to snare him with some kind of taser bolus but misses. Some other enemies try and help the prey and are shot for their trouble. The prey jumps on a moving train to get away though the Marshall manages to get on only just. Eventually the prey is caught and a teleporter type device used to send him to jail. Some more enemies arrive and the hero gets ready to use high powered rockets that are shoulder mounted. A huge dinosaur enemy joins the fun and the screen goes black as the shooting starts.

Uncharted 3
Queued for half an hour for a ten minute round of multi player, it was good fun though. Desert level, in which a sandstorm comes though in the middle to make it hard to see what is going on. The game demonstrated it's usual good blend of third person shooting and verticality.

Saints row 3
The booth was kitted out like some kind of purple night club, which was quite atmospheric. You were dropped straight into the game with no preamble. Which was ok, though a little structureless. I managed to hijack a car and drive it around. The driving felt much less fun than previous saints row games, with lumpen steering and loads if inertia. More Simulation than arcade, though don't get me wrong it's not Gran Turismo.

The guns have the same selection wheel as before, allowing quick changes according to which guns have ammo left. My character had only twin machine pistols which were fairly destructive. When driving the car seemed to want to jump over other vehicles, which didn't seem realistic but was spectacular. This was probably the point as saints row has always been about the whizzes and the bangs and flashes, rather than the realism and perfection of physics.

I didn't get to see any of the cut scenes with their distinctive brand of over the top silliness and violence. Saint row is a game with it's tongue firmly in cheek, maybe showing some of that might have been better than leaving the player to their own devices in an open world for only ten short minutes. At least they could have spawned a jet near the player half way through.

Ghost Recon Future Soldier
I got to play a ten minute round of four on four multi-player, the game is third person with cover, much the same as previous iterations. The world looks a bit square to be honest, the map design seems a bit too cookie cutter compared to other AAA shooters, though that might just be early version graphics.

Instead of grenades as default there were EMP grenades which knock out the trademark electronics that show you where enemies are and outline their location. Also knocking out the friend or foe identification making it hard to keep track of who is who.
The action was fun and frantic in a small map, there were objectives though basically everyone concentrated on shooting each other and ignored the objectives. Which seemed to include hacking something to capture the flag.

Skylanders, Shameless money grabber, or what the children want?

2011-11-04T06:31:00.000-07:00

I became aware of the game Skylanders at Gamefest in Birmingham in September, barely a month before it's release. I suppose that is a testament to me not being the target demographic for the game. It seems to be squarely aimed at the under ten audience, with advertising targeted onto television kids channels like Cartoon Network.

At Gamefest there was quite a large section of the Activision stand devoted to the game, with lots of stations for free game-play. A large portal type structure had been erected, which features in the game. Squarely front and centre in a huge glass display cabinet the main hook of Skylanders was on show, the toys that are used to play the game.

The game features an abundance of characters, more than thirty in total. As you would expect in a game where character switching to fit the occasion is needed you start with one or two characters and are expected to unlock them by the end of the game. The difference here is that characters can only be unlocked by going to a physical retail shop and purchasing the likeness of that Character with real money.

The plot of the game sees these characters being sent to Earth, when a magical core of light is destroyed by the villain of the piece. This now means that the Skylanders, who are here, in our hands in frozen form, must be placed on the portal to send them back to the Skylands to save the day. They do this by finding all the pieces of a new Core of light and building it, thwarting the evil Chaos who is the villain of the piece. This is a cue for much breaking of the fourth wall as characters talk directly to the player who is referred to as the portal master.

The Skylander figures as essentially tiny RFID chips which contain detailed data about the character they represent. The characters level, modifications and health are all stored by the figure. If you take the figure to someone else's house and play on their game, your level and statistics come with you. The figure even knows that it is away from it's home game and registers as a visitor. This feature is also platform agnostic, a figure levelled up on the Wii can be taken and used in the Xbox360 version of the game. To switch characters in game you simply take one Skylander from the portal and put on another, want to play co-op, simply place a second Skylander on the portal beside the other. I can only go by my own experience and use my son as an example. He absolutely loves the physical toys and having a pile of them sitting beside him and swapping them back and forth as he plays, trying out all the various characters.

The game-play is a variant of the Diablo/Torchlight formula, with the Skylanders venturing forth from a hub world to clear out dungeons and return with an item they need for the core. Combat is mainly melee based, though some Skylanders have projectile weapons. As the Skylanders progress they gain experience points, which level them up making them stronger and more resilient. They also gain money, which can be used to purchase upgrades giving them new attacks etc.

So far so good, the game represents a crossover between what is essentially a range of toy figures and the video-game world. This isn’t a new thing, there are lots of toy figures of video game characters that have no actual interaction with the game. These figures have the added depth of providing character transfer between different versions of the game, which will really help children if they want to take their character to another child’s house. All they need do is take the figure, no need to worry about taking save data from machine to machine, or carting hard drives around.

The problems start when you realise that Activision are up to their old tricks. The Skylanders are grouped by elemental class, Fire, water etc. There are eight classes and there are secret areas that are only unlock-able by a character of that class. Now these areas aren’t extensive, maybe a small puzzle room and a chest with loot. The penny starts to drop when you realise that while you get three characters with the game, you will need to shell out for another five Skylanders to unlock all these bonus areas. The next moment of dawning comes in the later boss battles, where you find that they are designed to wear your Skylanders down. Fairly unavoidable waves of random fire are flung at you between fights with evil versions of the Skylanders. This is where you realise that the Skylanders are extra lives for these encounters and you will need a fair few of them to survive and complete the game.

It is possible to play through the earlier levels again and level up all your Skylanders to level 10 and makes things easier. The fact remains that to complete the game without extensive replay before the last boss fight you will need far more than the initial three Skylanders. Nobody is forcing you to buy the figures to complete the game. I am sure with enough levelling you can complete the game using the initial three figures, and not need to buy any more, however to see all the secret rooms, you are going to have to buy at least five more Skylanders.

Some have suggested that this is a shameless money grabbing exercise on Activision's part, however having witnessed the target demographic and his appetite to run out and buy Skylanders I have to say they Activision are only providing what the public want with this game. You can’t call something a shameless money grabbing tactic when the tactic is exactly what the target audience seems to go mad for, all Activision are doing here is providing what the audience wants and the audience seems to want to spend money on toys that help them play games.

The issue I find fascinating is the character storage concept used here, while not new, I found myself wondering if it could be used in other RPG games. Having say a memory stick like device that allowed platform agnostic character data to be carried around between your friends houses.

I know it’s possible to recover gamer-tags and sign in to PSN on your friends consoles, even carry your Xbox profile on a usb stick. However, I can’t help thinking it would be more fun to bring your character into your friends games physically. Imagine bringing your Shepherd character from your Mass Effect 3 into the Co-op in split screen at a friends house, just by plugging in a little statue of Shepherd into the console.

In the end I am aware that this is all about feel, the method of getting data transferred is irrelevant as you could easily have this data stored online. Is it irrelevant though? Isn't satisfaction often based on feel and how something is achieved can mean everything to the feel of it.

Save our pause function!

2011-11-04T06:29:00.001-07:00

There was a tweet that appeared on my twitter feed a little while back, something that was supposed to have came from Peter Molyneux. I follow Molyneux's twitter feed and this came from another account named @PeterMolyneux2, so it is highly likely that the tweet had nothing to do with Molyneux himself and more than likely came from a random member of the public.

The tweet in question was:

Imagine a game where 3 pauses and it's game over. The game plays door bells, ringtones etc trying to make you accidentally pause the game.

I read this and it instantly got my hackles up, It seemed like something Molyneux might consider, breaking the barrier between game and reality. Breaking the so called fourth wall, making outside events part of the game. however, in this case I found the idea to be totally annoying. I spend a lot of time writing down my thoughts and notes about what is happening during a game. If I couldn't pause to write, I don't think I would want to play the game. What happens if Molyneux implemented this in a feature in a game that I did desperately want to play? Well, trust me, the review score would reflect this feature I assure you of that.

The only people that this feature would be of any use to are children in the middle of the long summer holidays and the unemployed. Both groups who have little to get in the way of their gaming time. I am not trying to downplay anyone with nothing better to do than play games, I am jealous of them. I don't have the luxury of a lot of spare time in which to play games. 168 hours in a week, 56 of them spent sleeping, 38 spent working. So that automatically only leaves 74 hours of spare time, which is roughly 7 hours in a day where I have to juggle the needs of a wife, child, parents, friends, shopping, cleaning, gardening and a multitude of other distractions that aren't gaming.

The demands of being an adult with children are not usually sympathetic with the demands of playing video games. Even if I get a reasonably long spell to play in, I can't be guaranteed to get to spend it uninterrupted. With this in mind there are quite a few conventions in video gaming that simply aggravate the gamer dad's out there. I remember playing Star Ocean : The last Hope, on the Xbox360, which was a game that I quite enjoyed, despite all its story quirks and over the top characters. The worst thing about Star Ocean was it's totally sparse save game system, to save your progress you had to find a specific save point. These were few and far between, sometimes hours of game-play stood between you and the ability to save the game and turn off. I remember arguing with my wife about leaving the console on for hours because I had to leave for an appointment and just couldn't find a save point in time.

Multi-player gaming is another unforgiving medium for those of us with responsibilities. Some games have penalties for leaving early and you can also incur the wrath of team mates who then give you negative feedback through the consoles reporting system for cutting and ditching on them in the middle of a game. I'm sorry, if my five year old falls and splits their head open on the garden path I am not going to finish the round of Battlefield before going to see what is going on!

The world of check-pointing and save spots is a fairly console specific invention, coming from the world of PC games with their save anywhere, any-time attitude, it took quite a bit of getting used to. I can't tell you how many times I used to long for the old quick save button you used to find in games like Doom and Half Life. It isn't even that console specific architecture prohibits the ability to save at any time. I recall an FPS called Timeshift on the Xbox360 which allowed instant saving at any time with fondness, despite it being an average game.

Some console games use the lack of checkpoints as a tactic to artificially inflate the time it takes to play the game. I have lost count of the amount of times I have suddenly found a lack of checkpoints halfway through a game, forcing you to endlessly replay difficult sections that you might have passed much more quickly if they had stuck to the check-pointing conventions from earlier in the game.

So, basically, to anyone who thinks it may be an wonderfully innovate new tactic to remove the ability to pause from a game, I say this. Wait until you have children and see how much you like it if you can't pause the game for fear of losing progress when the children start using real crayons on your iPad. Also, it's time to start the campaign to reinstate the quick save at any time function, let's stamp checkpoints and save markers from the gaming world once and for all!

My first game show

2011-11-04T06:28:00.000-07:00

For many many years there have been just a few game shows that made the press, it appears to me, that in recent years they are breeding, PAX, E3, Tokyo game show, GDC and Eurogamer expo, loads of them. Ever since first hearing about E3, I have always wanted to go to a game show and decided that it might be time to take the plunge.

Of course E3 is the biggest show of them all, for the most part it seems to be only open to the worlds press. So it's fairly likely, me not being a member of the press, that I might never ever get to go to it. It seems prudent then to set my sights lower, I have always wanted to visit Tokyo and one day I will and combine it with a visit to the Tokyo games show. That won't be happening for a while though, due to financial considerations, that is it costs far too much. When I read about a games show called Gamefest that was happening in Birmingham, I decided that it might be a good one to dip my toe into.

Birmingham is still a good two hundred miles from me, and it took a three hour train ride to get there, which also meant that a hotel stay would be needed to make it worthwhile. When I arrived I had certain expectations of a games show. Crowds of people milling around booths, lots of swag, key rings posters, pointless stuff really. Yet I expected to walk away with bags full of junk like mouse mats, pens, post it notes and other junk, just like I do with the nursing conferences I have attended in the past.

I also expected to queue, though I hoped that queuing for hours wouldn't be too prevalent. I hoped the people manning the booths would be developers, maybe even names I had heard of. After all Cliff Blezinski was due to be at Gamefest, maybe there would be some other names of note. There were also the expectations of outrageous statues and booths manned by scantily clad booth babes. Oh and games of course, I wanted to be able to see and play games that were coming out in the coming months and even further afield.

How did the reality compare with my admittedly small scale game show? Well the queuing seemed much more outrageous than I thought it would be, there were signs on the Modern warfare 3 queue telling people that there was a 3 hour wait from that point. Now I like MW3, I don't like it enough to wait 3 hours in a queue to play it for a fifteen minute multi-player round. I managed to get in early on the second day and only had to queue for around forty minutes for my session with Modern Warfare 3. I also got to see someone play the game-type we were about to play while we were waiting.

The security around the Modern Warfare booth was huge, with an awful lot of people checking to see that nobody was taking pictures or video. I tried to sneak a video and a woman actually asked me to delete the video. The game was due for release in a month or so, there was little chance that any footage I shot would be any different from what people could see already online. Nor would the footage be of misleading early work as the game is almost certainly nearly finished and this demo would surely be very near retail code. I fail to understand why showing the game to thousands and letting them actually play it, is fine, yet they can't record their experience.

The booths were smaller than I thought, there were plenty of grand statues, especially from Nintendo with their giant Link and Skyward sword bird things. The booth babes were in slight evidence, I have to say I find it offensive to be sold something using sex when it has nothing to do with the product. The booth babes were more uncomfortable than titillating, almost as daft to interact with as the people in Mario and Sonic costumes. Maybe that tells you more about me than it tells you about booth babes. There did seem to be a fair amount of men all too eager to get their picture taken with them.

Some games were just out on show, able to be played with little fanfare, while the bigger games were locked away. Some booths were only too happy to allow pictures and video to be taken. The staff manning the booths seemed to be hired for the job, not actual employees of the developers. I wondered if they were given even the most minimal training, any questions that were trickier than that which could be read off crib sheets were unlikely to be answered.

There were some actual talks from what seemed to be actual developers, yet if you wanted to play some of the bigger games you had to miss these and stand in queues for hours to get your shot. I did attend a few of these talks and they were fun and informative, one developer even fielded a few tricky questions.

I came away from Gamefest slightly disappointed, I am sure it isn't the biggest show, and am sure that others shows might be better. The essential experience seemed chaotic, and most of my time was spent in a queue playing Angry Birds on my phone. I did get to play some pre-release games, though only for a very short time. The swag was very noticeably missing, there was very little in the way of give-aways.

I don't know if this was a specific symptom of Gamefest, which is run by the Game shopping chain. The booths were not selling games, and the only place you could buy a game was at a version of the “Game” shop, set up in the middle of the hall. It might be that the swag was kept to a minimum so that people would be more inclined to buy things at the shop since they were walking out of the hall with nothing.

The whole experience made me feel like nothing more than a number, something money is made from. When you read about the experience of game shows on large gaming news sites, you are getting the experience of the insider. The ones allowed behind closed doors and given plenty of time to play the games. They don't have to queue for a long time, to play for a short time, they get to speak with the developers as they are the ones interviewing them. For the man in the street, I was firmly left with the impression that all that was wanted from me was my money.

Is Japan the centre of the video game universe?

2011-11-04T06:27:00.000-07:00

I read recently from several different sources that Microsoft appear to have given up the fight to make the Xbox360 a success in Japan. My immediate reaction was, well, isn't it about time? The Japanese gaming population seem to have taken to Microsoft consoles the same way the West adopts tablets made by manufacturers other than Apple. Microsoft spent a lot of money on Japanese development, funding games like Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey, as well as securing timed exclusivity of games like Tales of Vesperia.

Despite their best efforts, Japan remains impervious to Microsoft's cries for attention. This has been the case, this and last console generation. While Microsoft seemed to think it was important to have a go at cracking Japan, I also got the impression that they weren't entirely bothered. I wasn't, why should they be, sure the money would nice from sales, it is a good market to be in, though really, who cares? Aren't huge sales in America and Europe good enough?

Judging by the reactions of quite a few people that I have been reading maybe Japan is a big deal. I have been hearing all about Japan as the spiritual home of video-games, a Mecca, the place where it all began. It seemed like people were saying that you couldn't really claim success in the video games industry without cracking Japan.

Personally I felt that the idea of Japan as the home of video games was a slightly puzzling notion. Though in today’s climate I thought maybe younger people might think that way. Sega, Nintendo and Sony have been dominating forces in video games for around thirty years. For those brought into the world in the last twenty to thirty years, I could maybe see how they think Japan is the font of all video game goodness.

I decided to examine a few ideas and see just how much of a force Japan is in video games. Firstly I looked way back into the past to see where video games were created. Back to the source if you like, where it all began. Strangely enough it wasn't Japan, video games were created by a man named Ralph Baer in 1966, he was a German National, living and working in New York. He created Pong as part of a project in display technology, a man Named Nolan Bushnell took the idea and ran with it. Bushnell created a company called Magnavox which produced the first commercial games console called the Odyssey. Well that is a point to me, video games were created first in America. Though it didn't take long for the Hong Kong and Japanese electronics companies to get in on the act and make consoles to compete.

If Japan didn't create games, then maybe it's importance lies in it's market share? I looked around for figures on the video game market and found numbers from 2008. These numbers showed that Japan has a twelve percent share of the video game market with a population of one hundred and twenty million. The USA has forty percent of the market with a population of three hundred million.
It could be argued here that the population difference is what makes these figures look odd, even adding another two hundred million onto the population and taking the market share up to thirty percent doesn't help. I don't know, how scientific that is I’m not a statistician, point is, it still doesn't make the market share up to forty percent. This means population size isn't a good argument here, if Japan was the spiritual home of gaming then wouldn't the adoption rate of video games be higher among their population? Further damning evidence shows that the United Kingdom has twelve percent of the video game market with a population of sixty million. That make it two points in my favour.

The next point is video games mind share, essentially how many games in the top ten all time selling video games are Japanese. Figures for video game sales are not the easiest things to obtain for the man in the street. After some fairly extensive searching I could only find figures that were fairly platform specific.

This meant that games sold on more than one platform weren't well represented. For example I could find out that Call of Duty sold so much on Xbox360 and so much on PS3 etc. but not easy overall figures for a specific game like Call of Duty Modern Warfare on all platforms it was available on. When you look at the biggest selling names in gaming you begin to see that a lot of them are Japanese in origin, Mario, Pokemon, Final Fantasy, Gran Turismo. However strong growth is occurring in recent years with franchises like Call of Duty, GTA and Halo. It is also a reflection of the diversity in the video game market that titles like Wii Sports Resort and Nintendogs also sell in the region of 20 million copies. The results are fairly clear though, I have to concede a point here and give Japan the kudos for producing an awful lot of the video games in history that have made the gaming world what it is.

Final score seems to be two to one in favour of Japan not being as important as it once was. Western games are becoming as popular as the giant Japanese franchises of the past. While Japan isn't an irrelevance in the gaming world, it's importance is in question. The thought process that a console needs to be accepted in Japan to be a success seems to be blown out of the water. The Xbox360 has made huge strides into the mind share of the planet this generation, it has done this without any help from Japan. The lesson Microsoft seem to have learned is that it doesn't matter about Japan, will we even see them launch the successor to the Xbox360 in Japan at all? You couldn't really blame them if they just didn't bother!

Death of the single player

2011-11-04T06:25:00.001-07:00

I read an article on Eurogamer which told of a presentation from Sony, in which a consultant named Mark Cerny and President of worldwide studios, Shuhei Yoshida, talked about the future of gaming. Picked out for spotlight in the article of what I am sure was a much larger talk on the future of games was what appeared to me to be an alarming notion. The press spin was strong here, yet the message was clear, Sony's top brass seem to feel that the single player game is in decline. Going far enough to suggest that the single player only game might vanish in as short a time as three years.

I almost immediately went on the defensive, since I love single player gaming and don't want it to vanish. I enjoy multi-player games at times, though the genre is far from my favourite. On further reading into the article, the sensationalist headline was revealed to be a bit misleading. What Cerny seemed to be saying is, that in the age of almost universal online connection, which is only going to increase, he sees purely single players games becoming a rarity. He suggests that games will become more like, for example, Demon's souls, which is a game that has a social element to what is mostly a single player game. In Demon's souls the player can see messages left in the world by other players, at some points the player can see what happened to other players. It is also possible for other players to enter your game and help or hinder in some ways.

I haven't played Demon's Souls, I own the game and have had a wander through the first few areas. I just haven't got around to actually playing it fully, the perverse nature of it's difficulty serves only as a barrier to entry for me rather than a call to a challenge. I might get around to it someday soon, hopefully before it's sequel arrives.

It appears that Sony see this friendly cooperation as something to explore in the future of games, to include similar and future ideas along these lines into games of the future. This got me thinking about the social side of gaming, we all know what it's like when we join a voice chat channel full of gamers. There are endless rants about the screaming teens and younger, swearing, racism, sexism, the whole gamut of human vileness. Poured out in anonymous safety, where people can be as big an idiot as they can manage without fears of repercussion. If people aren't calling you a noob and an idiot they are accusing you of cheating. Quite frankly, online interactions with people are best kept to shooting first and ignoring the vile spew that comes through headsets. I believe this is the reason that most online games of any kind of popularity are adversarial shooters.

People can be always be found lamenting the lack of teamwork in tactical shooters. There are a great many people who want to have fun, chat and meet new people who enjoy the games they do. The problem is that they are hard to find in the cesspools of people whose only vocabulary seems to be curse words. Why should I want to open up my single player games to the world of the online trolls?

I remember when Little Big Planet launched that there were fears about the content that people would upload. Almost instantly huge penis creations began springing up. Like most things though, even those that love a good penis joke get bored of them quickly and I hope nowadays Little Big Planet is a smut free zone, though somehow I doubt it.

Sony it seems like the romantic ideal of people getting together, being mature and creating and enjoying their content. There is nothing wrong with that notion, it should be encouraged, though surely they are aware of the uses that most people put communication technology to. Sex always rears it head eventually, with girls being hounded and pestered by groups of males looking for sexual gratification.

The question of whether the single player game is broken and needs fixing needs to be asked? I am of the opinion that single player games are fine the way they are. Recent Sony examples like Infamous 2 and Resistance 3 only go on to prove my point. To be honest, sometimes I quite like the fact, that when I am playing a single player game, I am alone and nobody from the outside world is going to break character and be an idiot. Immersion is a concept that games developers strive for, why should I want Dave from Glasgow appearing in the middle of Mass Effect and telling me that noobs suck or something equally inane.

I would like to hope that in this future where all games will have social features there will still be an off switch for this social side, so that crabby old loners like me can stew in their own juices locked away from the world.

Dedicated Hand-held's Versus the Smart-phones

2011-11-04T06:24:00.001-07:00

Portable gaming hardware has almost been a constant in the games industry, pretty much since its inception. Personally I remember playing arcade games first, then small dedicated one shot portable games devices with games like pac man and space invaders. Long before I ever owned my first games console there were myriads of portable devices. It seems that the comfort of our couches and the big screens of our televisions have lulled us into thinking it has always been this way, that games are the domain of the home, with portable gaming seen as some kind of second class citizen. This attitude has possibly arisen due to the leaps in technology that left the portable market behind due to the sheer bulk of the electronics involved. Put simply console and PC games had better graphics and bigger games due to the sheer power of their hardware. Portable games hardware always stayed a generation, possibly two, behind consoles it seems.

Nintendo have been leaders in the field of portable gaming for a long time now, their Game boy and DS systems consistently selling very well. Sony entered the field with their PSP and have faired well, but not enough to eclipse Nintendo. There have been other manufacturers in the portable market, Sega for example, though as with Sony, Nintendo have always been the ones to beat.

The current revision of the Nintendo portable flagship, the 3DS seems to be having a bit more of a struggle than usual. Sales of the device have been much lower than Nintendo would have liked causing them to slash the price to within hailing distance of the original DS price. Some might suggest that the inclusion and perceived tent-poling around 3D is the problem, as a lot of people aren't at all that interested in 3D. Despite the best efforts of the electronics industry to push it upon us as something inevitable and something we should be excited aobut.

Others point to the rise of mobile phones, specifically the iOS and Android devices as the reason for the slowing in sales of the 3DS. I wanted to examine that notion and see if it actually makes any sense. The mobile phone has become much more than it's name sake, originally a device designed only to make phone calls from anywhere you happened to be, however it has evolved into much more. Like some kind of Star Trek style borg collective, the mobile has ate away at markets traditionally the reserve of other classic electronic devices. Cameras, mobile music and video players and PDA's are all but dead markets, absorbed and taken over by smart phones, then left for dead. I know there are still thriving markets for these devices, such as cameras, however, these are the markets of the enthusiast that have always been there. The average man in the street is likely more than happy enough with the pictures their phone takes and doesn't need to spend one and a half thousand pounds of a Leica camera.

Games are also one of the endangered markets that the smart phones are keen on assimilating into their collective. For a long time now people have looked at iOS games and said that they are just bite sized little casual games, that you get what you pay for when you pay 69p for a game. For the first few years of the app store it was true. Control was always an issue with iPhone games, gamers used to buttons and joypads, mice and keyboards were hampered by slick glass screens with little purchase. Like all things though, if you give them time, people will start to come around or find ways around the limitations. Bigger games are appearing on iOS. Things like Apple TV connectivity will allow and almost Wii-U like experience with an iPad in the coming months.

For a console to be a success in some people's minds it needs to have a killer app, a game that is insanely popular, exclusive and sells millions. iOS and Android don't really have that many of these sort of games. Infinity Blade springs to mind, though I doubt that many people would call it a killer app. Angry birds is the next best thing, it's not exclusive, being available on almost every platform out there, though most of it's sales have been on mobile devices. The insanely popular and selling millions idea certainly fits, Angry birds, it seems has sold over 200 million copies. I'm not certain, yet to me, that seems to be a record for a single game. I think the only device that Angry birds isn't available for is the the Nintendo DS, which strikes me as an ironic example of this whole argument.

Putting Apple aside for a minute this seems to be the way of the mobile phone market, smart and dumb phones alike. Games are available for everything, no platform specificity of any kind. Angry birds encapsulates that ethos entirely. No matter what phone you have you can probably find a version of Angry birds for it if the hardware is capable. I'm not saying that multi-platform gaming is exclusive to mobiles, just that it seems more at home there.

Sony are about to enter the hand-held gaming market war with their new PS Vita hand-held. It does look like an interesting device, fusing all the good things about the PSP and the iPhone with a next generation coat of paint, all dual sticks and more touch-screens than may be slightly necessary. I think the essential problem here that Nintendo and Sony are missing is the reason for this Borg like assimilation of everything by mobile phones.

People are squishy bags of bone and meat, clad in fabrics of varying strength. Fragile and flexible, we move around all day getting into various positions and being exposed to rain and sun. These factors mean that the electronics we carry must be small enough to fit easily into pockets and be resilient enough to stand up to the rigours of life. Mobile phones by their very definition are small devices that are supposed to be carried with us at all times while we are outside the house. The reason that mobile phones will win out over dedicated hand-held games consoles is that the mobile is supposed to be with us twenty four hours a day. The hand-held is a bulkier proposition that needs to be kept in a bag for fear of breaking it when we sit down. People like that their smart-phones, which can do everything are with them all day, it saves them having to carry around another gadget, worry about it's batteries or where to put it when the rain suddenly starts.

The 3DS is bulkier than the average iPhone or android phone, and sometimes I worry about stressing my HTC desire which usually nestles in the back pocket of my jeans. If I take the 3DS out of the house I can fit it in my back pocket, but rarely do, for one thing I can feel it creak when I sit down. The PS Vita certainly doesn't look like it would fit in any pocket I have and I wouldn't feel comfortable having it with me all the time for fear of breaking it.

Another part of the equation is that while smart phones are as expensive, or a lot of cases more expensive than portable gaming devices, they also tend to be insured if you have them on contract. Sit on a rock and smash the screen, no problem a trip to your providers shop will see you walking out with a new phone or at least getting it fixed free of charge. If you smash your 3DS or PSVita you are on your own unless you have taken out specific insurance for it.

Sony appear slightly smug about the 3DS launch, and well they should, they have a device with good selling points, no reliance on 3D gimmicks and dual analogue sticks. Another thing that Nintendo are trying to rectify after the fact when they really should have known better than to release the 3DS without dual analogue sticks in the first place. The question Sony needs to be asking is where do people actually play hand-held games these days?

Personally I can't find that space in my life, I know I am not representative of anyone other than myself, but I just can't find a good time for mobile games. I drive myself around, so no time when travelling, I can't play games at work, I can't see the point of playing hand-held games in my home, not when I have PS3 or Xbox360 games to play instead. I do understand though that for someone with a long commute in a train or a bus, hand-held games are great.

For this reason I feel that Sony's strategy of suggesting that PS vita games are deep home console style experiences won't work. The mobile is the domain of the quick game, a game that can be played for a minute or longer if you have the time, a game that can be snapped closed in a second and equally restarted in a second, games to be played in the moments when you are in a queue or waiting for the bus.

On the occasions I have been outside playing on my PSP I have sometimes found myself struggling to reach a save point in a game so I can attend to something happening outside the game. It seems that Sony could take a lesson from, for example, iOS games, which can be closed and opened easily and still keep track of a players progress. Anything that hinders the interruptibility of mobile games needs to become and thing of that past, it seems to me at least that neither Sony or Nintendo are even thinking along the lines of making instant on or off a feature of their hand held systems.

Like the camera hand-held gaming won't go away, it will become the preserve of the enthusiast, and as such will likley see much lower sales. I predict that the days of the PS Vita and 3DS selling 50 and 100 million odd units will be a thing of the past. I predict that their sales will be spread out amongst the thousands of smart-phones and tablets that vie for our attentions.

To voice chat or not to voice chat, the question is answered

2011-09-08T05:04:00.000-07:00

Since the dawn of multi-player online gaming, voice chat between players has became an increasingly important part of multi-player gaming. Since games began it has always been good fun to socialise while playing. Two player games and split screen gaming have always seen players compete and eventually co-operate with each other. When the distances between players began to stretch it became important to find a way to communicate easily with each other.

In early PC games like Doom you could enter text to communicate with other players online in the multi-player world. As technology progressed in PC gaming, third party solutions like Xfire and Skype provided ways for gamers to communicate as if they were in the same room as their friends without costing money in phone calls.

The Dreamcast was the first console to have in game chat as an option and the PS2 was retrofitted to allow it in some games also. With the dawn of the Xbox Microsoft ushered in Xbox live and it’s well developed ability to do in game chat on a wide range of games. Microsoft didn’t stop there and the Xbox360 was born with a fairly large set of communication features to complement it’s system wide friends list and messenger type application support.

When I first bought an Xbox 360 at launch it was my first foray into owning a Microsoft Console. I had a PS2, one or two of my friends had Xbox’s but I didn’t see enough of a draw to shell out the money for Microsoft's console, though I did come very close to buying one. My friend who owned the Xbox previously wanted to try out the new chat features and I was hooked from the first time. It felt like I was basically on the phone to him the whole time the console was on. No matter whether I was on the Xbox dashboard, or in any game the private chat channel kept on being a rock solid link.

We began to chat every time we were playing on the Xbox360. Sometimes while we were playing the same game, together in multi-player co-op or adversarial modes, mostly just to chat while we played quite different games from each other. The Xbox dashboard and in game guide have both been revised heavily since the launch of the console. I doubt I would recognize the interface and features that the console launched with. I remember painfully that there was no background downloading on the console when it first launched for example. However, it really did show that Microsoft were a software company primarily in the completeness and dedication they have shown to the Xbox’s system software.

The PS3 launched in the UK a year or so later than the Xbox360, I was excited for the Playstation 3 and was there at my local game shop at midnight to pick one up along with an extra sixaxis and a copy of Resistance fall of man. The wallet stung that night I can tell you. The first thing that I missed about playing on the PS3 was not having my best friend's company as I played. Now of course this was easy to solve, I could just turn on the Xbox360 and start up a private voice chat. There didn’t seem to be much point though, the PS3’s first year of games was fairly anaemic. This saw me get deeper ingrained into the Xbox360 groove for the second year in a row.

I kept on at my friend and with games like Killzone 2 and Little Big planet on the horizon he eventually relented and bought a PS3 as well. Now I was aware that the PS3 didn’t have cross game chat, it was hard not to be. In the never ending fanboy flames of the console war, Cross game chat had become a feature that the Xbox360 had and the PS3 did not. Sony had claimed it would appear in a future update. The whole war between the PS3 and the Xbox360 system software was long and arduous. The PS3 had much less functionality whilst playing a game than the Xbox360, even at launch. Background downloading, the ability to play your own music while playing a game and of course the ability to chat independent of the games own multi-player chat system became important fan arguing points.

My friend and I finally had a PS3 and a PS3 game in common, Killzone 2. We tried to play it, in a naive way we expected it to be just like the Xbox360. We expected to be able to talk to each other at all times whilst playing. After much searching and wailing and whining we managed to get into the same game at the same time. We still couldn’t talk, I thought that we would be able to chat all through the game, yet we could only hear each other speaking when we were close by, within earshot of each other. Now this might sound like pettiness, yet my friend who is much less tolerant than me hated it and suffice to say we have never played multi-player on PS3 again. He traded in Killzone 2 without completing it. Not my opinion, far from my opinion, on a different planet from my opinion. Though it is an example of the feeling generated by coming from one console with an exemplary voice and multi-player connection system, to one that is left up to each developer to sort out.

During this time-period cross game chat became a strong plus point that the Xbox360 had against the PS3. So much so that every update to the PS3’s firmware became challenged for the lack of cross game chat. Sony were fairly silent on the issue, claiming they knew that fans wanted it and to be patient.

Rumors came and went about the status of cross game chat, one rumor which seems to have turned out to be true was that of course cross game chat was possible. The problem was that implementing it would break a lot of the PS3’s back catalogue rendering them unplayable unless they were heavily patched. Even if they were patched to work, the rewrite would be significant as the cross game chat implementation meant that memory, that the game expected to be free, would be used and maybe even a ground up retooling of the engine code would be needed to get the game to function in the same way as it did before the Cross game chat implementation.

This it seems is obviously why cross game chat never materialized. Sony fans began a spin offensive against cross game chat. Basically saying that it was a poor idea as it killed teamwork in games. Why would you want to talk to someone who was playing a different game to you anyway?

This is missing the point in epic proportions and basically spin doctoring a failing point of the console. Yes it’s a minus point, no it’s not that important, but it is a strength of the Xbox360 and Sony fans just need to give in graciously to that home run from Microsoft.

The worst thing about all of this is Sony’s attitude, they basically knew from around 2008-9 that cross game chat was never going to be implemented. They let fans continue to whine and gripe about it, never really saying if it was coming or not.

While doing publicity for the PS Vita, which unsurprisingly enough Sony have baked in enough operating system memory to be able to do cross game chat. It seems that Sony are finally ready to admit that cross game chat won’t be coming to the PS3. This little admission is not that big of a deal. Everyone who uses a PS3 as their main gaming machine probably started using Skype or something like it on their phone or PC to get around the PS3’s limitations. That is if they even thought that voice chat was something they wanted to do. A lot of people never got used to having it, and will not miss it. There are those who are genuine in their hate for the way party chat’s spoils team communication in team based multi-player games.

The message is fairly clear, a lot of angst and fan-boy feuds would have been negated and forgotten a long time ago. All Sony had to do was turn around in 2008 and tell people that cross game voice chat just wasn’t possible for the PS3 as they had designed it. In the end they kept quiet, which is almost as bad as outright lying. The first rule of PR should be to avoid lying to consumers when they ask for a feature that the competition has. If it isn't and wasn't going to be a possibility, they should have been honest and gracious and admitted the fact. Maybe if they had told PS3 fans that Skype on a Sony phone was free and essentially the same thing as cross game chat, they might have actually sold some phones as a result. Instead they created a raft of bad feeling and an excuse for the Xbox fan-boys to have a field day.

Hollywood Star equals Game Star?

2011-09-08T05:03:00.000-07:00

I have noticed an increasing trend in the past few months, which appears to be snowballing at speed in the last week or so. In the movie industry actors and actresses portray a role on screen. Their entire being is focused on making a character written by the authors of the screenplay to life. The actor is chosen for their looks, their screen presence. Their fit with the character on the page, also their ability to emote, change voice patterns and mimic accents.

In short, in a live action movie the actor becomes the character, makes it their own creation and what people see on the screen is the result of the actors hard work. For this reason stars became the objects of fan scrutiny, their life outside of the movies they appear in, subject to media attention.

Big Hollywood stars attract legions of fans, who may even travel halfway across the world to see just the houses they live in from the safe distance of the huge walls that keep those very fans out. Stars have to be careful in public and can't just pop down to their local supermarket for fear of causing a riot. This means that interviews and public appearances for the star and their public to interface have to be created. Panels at things like Comic-Con, the red carpet at the Oscars, Attending the Première of their movies. All rigorously controlled environments where the Star can be seen by their fans, and not worry that they are going to vanish under a crush of stampeding people who all want to get close.

Big stars are used to giving interviews, knowing that possibly anything they say will be recorded by the press and used around the world by every media outlet that has interest. They are used to talking in public and giving politician like answers to questions. They know that there is a huge appetite for the person behind the role. Most big stars are easy on the eye, and they know that a lot of people are interested in them for their looks. The key thing is that the following they have is focussed on a real live, living breathing person.

Now to the point, I have noticed an increasing focus in the gaming press about the actors who play the roles in video games. This felt fairly new to me, probably because of the slow evolution of games over the past twenty years. In the eighties video games were the domain of eight bit sprites. If there was speech or sampled sound it was sparse and short. As technology developed it began to become possible for the dialogue in games to be spoken, this was due to CD-ROM and the huge leap in storage space it brought.

This led to the need to actually have people speak, you know, someone to read the lines written by the game developers. There weren't any writers employed in games studios in those days either. Everything was done by the coders and artists. Why? Well that was the way it had always been. Games with verbal dialogue arrived and it was new and it was shiny. Everyone liked it, for a while. The more discerning began to notice that the dialogue done by Bob the level designer wasn't quite up to the Latest Pixar movies' standard of acting.

This led to bigger studios actually hiring proper actors to do the voice acting. Things snowballed and executives inevitably decided that star power might fuel a games popularity. This led to a list of Z-list actors and actresses appearing in badly digitised FMV games. The industry has developed significantly in the intervening years up to the present. Voice acting isn't a maybe, it's an essential in mainstream disc based console games releases. Motion capture of face and body performance is needed to compete in the top five percent of the video game industry. If your game doesn't have good voice acting talent, realistic animation of characters and excellent facial work to bridge some of the uncanny valley. Then there is no way you are going to compete with games like Call of Duty, Uncharted and Gears of War.

With this in mind it appears that at gaming events and in interviews, instead of us hearing from the coding people like John Carmack, or the guru's like Peter Molyneux, we are beginning to see the actors who play the voice part of the characters take more of a role. People Like Nolan North and David Hayter who have made good careers in Video game acting.

My question is this? Why would I want to be a fan of a person who does one small part of what makes a game interesting to me? They are a big part of the character they play, yes I will grant that. Yet the army of coders, artists and animators are the ones who made the character I see in the environment they appear in. I don't want to read an interview about the thoughts of a hired actor who read a script fairly well in a booth. I want to know the thoughts of the writers and directors of the game.

I have to confess here that I feel the same way about a movie. I have less interest in what say, Jake Gyllenhaal has to say about Source Code, than Ben Ripley, the writer of the screenplay. I am not trying to downplay these actors, they do provide a great boost to the characters when they play them well. A huge part of Nathan Drake's appeal is the excellent voice acting of Nolan North. The character could be very different if someone else had played him. Crucially though, Nathan would have looked exactly the same, and performed in his virtual role in the game as he does, without North playing him. His voice would be different, I might not have liked it as much, but I doubt it would have changed things significantly. Uncharted would still be a huge important blockbuster game and one of my favourites.

Maybe some of the interest by developers to use voice actors at conventions and in interviews is that it frees them from having to do it. A lot of developers might feel fear at standing up in front of hundreds of people and talking. The hired actors might be able to perform a script of what the PR department want to say much better. Not every development company has someone like Cliffy B around to be the Tony Stark of video-games.

I wonder when they will blame the London riots on video-games, oh look....

2011-09-08T05:02:00.001-07:00

The recent London riots were appalling, examples of the thin veneer that we call civilization peeling back and revealing the gaping maw of anarchy. Anarchy like that seen in wartime, the places where humanity takes off the mask of kinship and co-operation. Regresses to a primitive, selfish state, of out right aggressive destructiveness, protection and benefit of the individual and their interests at any cost.

Some of these riots seemed to be simply chaos, people suddenly finding that there was nobody actually stopping them from taking what they wanted from the shops. The realisation that there was a lot more of them than there is police, and unless the government wants to sanction massacres there wasn't that much the police could do to stop them. Of course these people have been captured on a multitude of video and photographic equipment, from mobile phones to police cameras and a lot of them will be brought to justice. News reports also show that these crimes are being taken very seriously and given disproportionate sentences in some cases.

As I have written about at length before, the media loves to use bad news to attack it's pet hates, with video-games being a big pet hate of a fair few people it seems. The London evening Standard ran a front page headline which states “Children as young as ten inspired by video game among the looters.” It appears that the paper edited the story for the next edition which removed video game references, hopefully as a response to protest from readers. The original story named Grand Theft Auto, and it appears the reference came from a policeman who was interviewed. He is said to have suggested that, in his day pac man was all the rage and now it's Grand theft auto and all the kids want to live it. Now this was one man's observation, hardly insightful or indeed helpful analysis of the riots. Yet another example of media outlets eagerness to point the finger at the door of something they don't partake in or understand.

This example of video game blame looked like it was going to be quickly quashed, the paper retracted and only the quick noticed the original story. Then an article appeared by a woman who hosts a TV show called SuperNanny, one Jo Frost, 41 years of age. The article had the headline, “I can fix the teen rioters”. In the article Jo actually makes some decent points. I will summarise.

She says that the cause of the riots is multi factorial, rise in divorce and single mothers, lack of authority in schools, no enforcement of drug laws. She advocates some fairly tough measures on electronic tagging and curfews for young offenders. Suggests that time spent with children by parents should be increased and that corporal punishment is never the answer. She suggest that eviction from council properties of poor tenants, along with the expulsion from schools of repeat offenders is harsh but of benefit. The children being sent to a special school, where they can't disrupt others education and provide poor examples, while they can also be given special attention.

She talks of gang culture and it's substitute family natures, suggesting that family is failing and breeding gang culture. Though in the same paragraph she suggests police should be allowed a tougher line on gangs. She finally suggests a six point plan with emphasis on communication, interaction, nutrition, praise, education and discipline.

Now some of her points as I said are fair enough, she does seem to be coming from a fairly militaristic strong arm approach, and I am not about to debate the merits or otherwise of what she is saying here.

The surprising thing here for me, is her blame on video games, reality television and sexually charged music videos. Exploitation and a rise in promiscuity are blamed on reality television and the music videos. Games are given the biggest lash, suggesting that video games are addictive, with graphics so realistic that you can't tell them from reality. Jo it seems needs to actually see a few game in action, something I doubt she has spent more than a few seconds doing. Maybe a nice round of Wii sports golf? She goes onto question the the power of life and death that games give to their players and the desensitisation to violence. She then quotes research with no references that suggests men becoming aggressive and lacking in empathy after fifteen minutes exposure to a violent game.

Now I am not going to argue, aggression, desensitisation, ego and power, all are affected by games to some extent. However, in a balanced adult, well at least an 18 year old one, one hopes that it can all be put into perspective and processed. Games aren't the only medium with violent abhorrent content, movies and novels have always carried the most horrifyingly violent content. Games are not alone, if games cause the things Jo suggests, then so to do movies and literature.

She can't single out games, it just isn't fair to pick on one medium with violence and leave out the others. She also goes on to suggest proper age ratings and prohibition on the sales of games to those under the age deemed appropriate. If she had spent one second actually researching for this article she might have known that the video game industry has it's own ratings and also complies with the BBFC ratings as well. Game stores are like any other store who sell 18 certificate goods, they try, sometimes it's hard to judge age. Some people are asked to provide proof of age, some lax shops will sell to anyone, this is the same for movies as it is for games. Strangely enough books don't have age ratings that I know of. I wonder if a young child would be challenged if they walked into a book-store and tried to buy a copy of American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis. By the way, for those who don't know the text, that book is one of the most violent novels I have ever read.

In short, Jo's article was actually fairly balanced, yet it used the soft target of games to increase it's chance of being read. Pandering to those with the opinion that games are somehow different from any other form of entertainment. In an article that suggested parental involvement and ownership of their responsibilities, I found it disheartening to read Jo blame a medium, not the parents who allow children far too young to experience it.

New IP versus the release schedules

2011-09-08T05:01:00.001-07:00

Recently, on twitter, one of the presenters from Inside Xbox in the UK, Dan Maher, tweeted to bemoan the fact that Shadows of the Damned and Child of Eden hadn't done well with their sales figures, suggesting that this was a sad day for new intellectual properties. I read this tweet and agreed with him, then I remembered that I hadn't bought either game myself. There was a reason for this however, a purely financial reason.

There were simply too many other games for me to buy, something had to give and these new intellectual properties were the ones to get sidelined. Looking at the month of June there was LA Noire, Duke Nukem Forever, Red Faction : Armageddon, Infamous 2 and The legend of Zelda the Ocarina of time that quite simply ranked higher, in my personal opinion, as purchases for the month.

I only buy four games a month these days. The height of my "Still to be played" pile steadily increases despite this limiting move. I simply don't have the time to play the games that I can afford to buy. Some may be raising their brow at that confession, it doesn't make it any the less true. If the opposite was true and I could only buy one or two games a month then the case for either Shadows of the Damned or Child of Eden would have been even more grim. I can't imagine any serious games fan passing up the chance to play Infamous 2 or the 3D remake of the critically judged best game ever. In order to play a possibly short kinect game, or the admittedly interesting, yet fringe creation of two legendary game designers.

I settled the arguments I was having with myself about what to buy, by looking ahead into July and finding that there was a scarcity of releases of any kind. The Call of Juarez: The Cartel being the only release that interested me. Which was good news because it meant that Child of Eden, Shadows of the damned and Fear 3 got a look in, becoming month late purchases for me. This still meant that Hunted : The Demon's forge and Alice : Madness Returns have been cast into limbo, to maybe be picked up one day from the bargain bin, if they are lucky.

From the perspective of the man in the street, i.e. me, you begin to wonder what the publishers and developers of these games were thinking of releasing these games all together. Do they really expect gamers to shell out for for nine releases in one month? The answer is obviously of course not, they expect the gamers to buy their game above all the other games out there. Why shouldn't you have confidence in your own product, if you don't have it no one else will. It seems that June is one of the three or four months of the year that publishers have chosen as the release dumping months.

I realise that it probably says more about my collection, completion OCD urges than it does about games developers and publishers, that this annoys me. I can't help but wonder why releases are not spread out throughout the year. After all there are fifty two weeks in the year, why not look at the field, assess the runners and riders and release your game in a week when nothing else is coming out. I do understand that there are probably more than fifty two games released in a year. I have trouble accepting that there are more than fifty two games that I will want to buy and play in a year. After all I rarely buy racers or fighters, and there are huge swathes of the industry that simply aren't for me, like fitness and pet simulations.

So why don't publishers spread their wares out nice and equally, for the hardcore lifestyle gamer to enjoy in easy purchasing bites? The answer is fairly simple, not everyone is a hardcore gamer. The now typically 30-40 year old, who can afford to buy all the games they want. An awful lot of gamers are under the age of twenty and can't buy everything they want. An awful lot of people who buy games only buy the titles that interest them, such as Call of Duty and Battlefield, or sports games like Madden and Fifa. A lot of people who buy games only buy them in the winter. Like fair weather cyclists, there are cold weather gamers. Who only buy and play games in the depth of winter, forgoeing gaming, for the horrors of the outside world, when the sun orbits closer to their patch of dirt.

The most popular business reason for releasing games in a huge clump around September, October and November is that these months are the Christmas buying season. Christmas sees more sales in those two or three months than the entire year of other months put together. Even a poorly selling game in that Xmas season, might be blessed with more sales, than if it released at any other time of year. Putting it bluntly, this is usually because friends and family are buying for others and not everyone gets the memo that Call of Duty is the one that little Johnny wants in his stocking.

If this is the case, and Xmas is the best time to release your game then why doesn't everyone just release their games then and be damned? Apart from being weird, there are other reasons why this isn't practical, I presume the business and financial side of paying developers and all the other staff involved sees a publisher needing to release a set amount of games in a financial quarter to stay afloat. This is probably the reason why certain months of the year are designated as special months. January and February are quiet months. Possibly because everyone has already released their best and brightest games in the prior months. March is where things kick off again. First quarter's release month? The pattern starts again with April and May being fairly quiet, and the splurge of releases in June, another quarter. The summer is the dead zone, which is all fair and well, it does give the hardcore gamer a chance to catch up. Then we come to the Xmas period which starts in September and goes on until November. Here we can expect every major publisher to saturate the market with a wealth of powerhouse titles.

Looking ahead to this year we Have the essential, can't live without games like Gears of War 3, Battlefield 3, Modern Warfare 3, Uncharted 3 and Skyrim leading the all out assault on our wallets. Vying with these are the likes of Saints Row the third, Batman : Arkham City, Resistance 3, Starfox 64, Legend of Zelda : Skyward Sword, Dead Island, Forza 4, and Halo Combat Evolved Anniversary in no particular order.

I remember there being similar conversations each year when good games, that happened to be new intellectual properties got lost in the Christmas explosion. Games like Mirrors' Edge and Enslaved released in the Christmas window and similarly got lost amongst the noise. maybe publishers experimenting with new intellectual properties should avoid these crowded months, if they are taking a chance on gamers buying into a new intellectual property then maybe they should take a similar chance on releasing out-with the peak release times. Why not release a game in August or January? The games don't seem to be fairing well in peak months, why not see if gamers are prepared to buy in January? Hardcore gamers might well be interested in continuing to play games in the summer. The summer months may be all about going on holiday and getting out and about in the good weather, that doesn't mean that people who play games as a major pastime are going to completely abandon their hobby for two months of the year.

Next time an intellectual property flops hard, I don't want to hear about it unless it came out in January or August. Asking people to take a chance on something new, while there is a large amount of well known familiar and likely better games to buy in the same time frame, is asking too much!

Patently trolling

2011-09-08T05:00:00.001-07:00

In the last year or so more and more stories have been in the news regarding companies fighting it out over patents. A patent is the right to exclusive use of an invention in return for public disclosure of that invention. It runs for a limited time, usually twenty years. Certain ideas are not subject to patents, for example treatments for the human body or business methods. Once the inventor in question patents an invention they can sell and distribute the invention and more importantly prevent any other entities from doing the same. Alternatively they can ask for a license fee in return for others being granted the right to use the invention in their product.

Patents are obviously good things, if someone invents an amazing product, once it's patented a gigantic monolithic corporation can't steam roll over the top of them and make their product without legal redress being available to the patent holder. Patents ensure that the people who have an idea get to keep control of the idea and hopefully be the ones to make the money from it, if there is any to be had.

In recent years large companies have been seeing convergence in several high technology markets. The MP3 player, camera, video camera, Dictaphone and Personal digital assistant have all became the smart phone. Of course, some of these more so than others, there will always be some market for high end versions of each individual product. However, for most people, having a phone that can take pictures and plays music, means not having to carry around so many gadgets.

For the people that make gadgets, it seems that with increasing convergence there has came increasing competition and similarity between each others all in one slabs of glass and plastic. This has caused a rash of patent disputes and calls for licensing money between major electronics and software companies.

Naming names is easy enough to do, though meaningless, as they are all at it. It seems that it is unavoidable, like some kind of arms race. Companies are suing and counter suing each other in attempts to make each other back down or negotiate better deals with each other in markets where they compete with each other. Apple recently lost a suit regarding play lists to the tune of eight million dollars. Oracle and Microsoft are obtaining licensing money from companies using Google's android operating system for what can only seem to be actual patent infringements as large companies like HTC and Samsung are paying up. Apple is engaged in many suits against companies like Samsung and Motorola regarding similarities to their mobile phone interface designs, again all in response to the traditionally mobile companies’ attacks on more phone specific patent infringements.

Companies have also started to catch on to the idea that their patents might be worth money to the interested parties. Nortel recently sold their patent portfolio to a consortium of big name companies Including Apple, Sony and Microsoft, who outbid Google for the patents, which will probably be used as bargaining chips in future patent disputes and deals.

While this sort of bickering and behind the scenes squabbling is not really annoying end users too much, it likely is adding to the price of our technology. After all, the large sums of money changing hands here, have to come from somewhere. The most despicable part of the patent law world seems to be when it comes down to patent trolls. The name patent troll was coined by a once CEO of Intel in 2001. If there is a way to make money, people will find it and it seems that a new, totally legal, company class has been created in the last twenty years. The patent troll is a front company for a gaggle of lawyers who buy up patents from bankrupt or hard up companies, who are seeking to make money from their patent portfolio. The patent trolls buy these and then sift through their patents and look for anyone who is infringing on those patents. They then sue the company, who will have to pay costs and defend themselves in court. If there is any chance that the patent trolls have a case then most companies agree to pay licensing fees and stay out of court, as it will probably be much cheaper in the long run.

The worst thing about these patent trolls is that their companies buy up patents with no intention of developing or manufacturing the product in question. Most of these patent troll companies have no other business interests other than pursuing licensing fees on their patents.

The polite or politically correct term for these companies is non practising entities. One of the more recent news worthy stories regards a patent troll called Lodsys, who have a patent for in app purchases. They have been suing various small fry app developers around the world for infringement of their patent. Interestingly enough, they haven't been brave enough to target larger developers like Electronic Arts or Rovio, or even went after Apple themselves. One can only infer that Lodsys prefer to go after small one man outfits, who will be so scared of being sued that they will agree to send Lodsys a share of their meagre profit from their apps.

It appears then, that this twisting of the patent system will only end up stifling new innovation. If inventors have to negotiate a minefield in order to get their products to market then it can only mean that some products, with the potential to change the world might never see the light of day due to some patent troll suing the life out of them.

The solution seems simple, though of course those who are raking in the millions will seek to block any change in patent laws. Ideally non practising entities should have their right to keep a patent stripped if they don't actually use their patents. Put simply, a company that holds a patent should have it's right to hold that patent revoked, if they are not able to show any sort of manufacturing base, or actual products to show for it. The patent should then come up for auction and parties that can actually do something with it would take over the rights.

It could be argued that this would mean an inventor who makes an invention and patents it, then after two years can't find funding would then lose their patent. I am not suggesting that someone who is trying to make a product be penalised, only those companies who are making it their business to patent troll be penalised. This wouldn't even end the practice, only make it harder for the trolls, as their patents would last for two years instead of twenty. Leeching off the hard work and ingenuity of the creative community is nothing new, though I do wonder when someone in power will stand up for what is right, rather than the power of greed.

Low level power

2011-09-08T04:59:00.002-07:00

I have a problem, a flaw, a personality disorder of sorts, don't worry, i'm not entirely crazy.
The flaw I’m referring to is trying to do too much, be a Jack of all trades and consequently a master of none. I have always written song lyrics and wanted to be a musician. Learning to play guitar, bass, drums and piano over the years to various levels of poor musicianship. I have always wanted to be a writer, writing novels, reviews and articles which revel in obscurity. When I was in my teens, in the 8-bit era, I wanted to make games, and was a competent basic programmer. I could write games in basic to the level of clones of things like Arkanoid and Manic Miner.

There comes a point in life, when you realise that you aren't going to be able to do all this. You have to find time to parent children, nurture a relationship with a wife, keep yourself fit, oh and the damn housework. Something has to give, for me it has been music and programming that have been sidelined, though not entirely given up on. That was a long winded way of getting onto the assertion that I know a fair bit about ancient 8-bit era coding. Even going as far as to write a simplistic space shooter in machine code on a BBC micro.

I read an article by a Bungie employee named Andy Firth, in it he talked about his own work practices. Describing how he entered the industry early on when there were very little high level tools and if you wanted something done you had to make it yourself. Had to know the architecture and the nitty gritty of any system you wanted to write code for. He goes on to talk about hiring new staff today and their lack of understanding of what he feels are the low level necessities like memory, cache management and fixed as opposed to floating point numbers.

From the outside looking in, with a little bit of knowledge, which is a dangerous thing I know. He seems to be basically saying that these new kids have it easy and they don't know the hardcore stuff that he does. With the reliance on off the shelf technology in games today, you can see his point. Unreal Engine, Source, MT Framework, IdTech, all engines that are for hire. Direct X, Open GL, application programmer interfaces that make low level stuff easier to accomplish. Tools like Maya and all the software available like Physx and also for motion capture that makes coding, animation and artistic design much easier. There is still an awful lot of skill needed to produce a game using high level tools, don't get me wrong.

The man has a point, however, with the complexity of today’s consoles is it possible for one person to know enough to accomplish low level coding intimacy at the cpu instruction set level. Is it even possible, I don't know? Of course a team is needed to make games and that is why everyone in a team should bring a specific skill to the table, the right tools for the right job. Does it make for a better game though if everyone on that team is a nuts and bolts low level guy?

If one company makes a game using off the shelf products compared to a company who code everything from scratch will the end user notice the difference? Is it similar to the difference between 720p resolution movies and 1080p? A distinct difference, but not one that people notice easily, or care enough to pay more for.

This started me thinking on one of the most annoying public relations trends in the industry. Companies, who have deals with one of the main console manufacturers, that make head line news quotes about the power of the respective consoles. It used to be a fairly one sided affair on Sony's side of the fence, though, I have noticed Microsoft try it occasionally. Almost all first party Sony studios will deliver the line when an exclusive game is due for release, watch for it, it's like a game in itself. In interviews they will spout that their game is only possible on PS3 due to it being an amazingly good machine. The other chestnut is that our new game uses all the power of the PS3 whereas our last game used only sixty percent, or something like that.

For example, recently Ken Levine has talked up the PS3 in regard to Bioshock Infinite, as if making up for the sin of releasing the first Bioshock as a timed exclusive on the Xbox360. Dan Greenwalt from Turn 10 has been reading the corporate script, spouting the usual rhetoric. Basically that each time they make Forza they learn something new and make it better, getting more and more power out of the Xbox360. He also dug out the Sony PR play of suggesting that the Microsoft first party studios are like a gang of friends, ones who hang out and drink beer together. Suggesting that Lionhead and Epic have been giving them tips. I know Epic aren't a Microsoft first party studio, though I imagine that when talking about Gears of War, they are damn close.

Taking Mr. Firth's complaints about the state of the industry and it's over reliance on pre-built technology, with a lack of knowledge in the ultra basics of coding. Could it be said that any developer out there is actually pushing these machines to the limit. Is it possible to get one hundred percent of the PS3's power using off the shelf tools and engines. Could it only be possible to say that full power was achieved after writing ones own engines in machine code, from scratch and revising it over a period of many years?

Now I understand that possibly an engine like Unreal Engine is exactly that, an engine that has been written at a low level and revised for many years. My concern there is that the engine is cross platform, is the PS3 version of unreal engine written with the purest low level cell instructions? The engine revised to take advantage of it's multiple SPU's? I don't know the answer to these questions, though I do understand where Mr. Firth is coming from and hope that his attitude is an example of Bungie's philosophy for the future. Suffice to say if it is, I am looking forward with great anticipation to Bungie's next game.

Fables of jumping the shark

2011-09-08T04:59:00.000-07:00

I read an article on Gaming irresponsibly about Fable the other day. It made me think a little about the Fable series as a whole and the direction it has been taken in. Lionhead studios is a company led by Peter Molyneux, a veteran game designer who has a long and fairly well respected career in game design. He rose to fame with a company called Bullfrog who made games in the eighties and nineties, they produced a string of innovative and ground breaking games including Populous, Syndicate, Dungeon Keeper and Magic Carpet. Molyneux moved on to form Lionhead studios after Bullfrog was absorbed by Electronic Arts. Lionhead released Black and White to critical acclaim then Fable for the original Xbox in 2004.

The greater proportion of games that Molyneux has been involved with are cerebral games, based on God like management of people or organisations, theme parks, hospitals etc. Of course there is a fair share of action games in the back catalogue as well. After the release of Fable, Lionhead were purchased by Microsoft in 2006, who it seems have placed Fable as one of their tent-pole Christmas period exclusive games for the Xbox 360 console. It appears that Lionhead were given a two year development schedule to get a decent Xbox 360 engine together and tasked with producing an AAA game ever two years thereafter. The fear of new intellectual properties seems to be strong with Microsoft and Fable has been churned out every few years since. We are now past Fable 3 and heading for a Kinect spin off named Fable: The Journey.

I don’t intend this to sound like a bad thing, there is nothing wrong with Fable as an intellectual property, the game has many features that make it great. The Fable series has always been strong on story, yet it is a story that concerns only a moment in time for the descendants of the heroes of Albion. All three games have centred on a main character, one of a genetic line of magical people who have much more ability with magic and strength than the average dweller of Albion. In this respect the stories are as open as say, Final Fantasy to encompass anything Lionhead feel like. As long as they follow a few core concepts, it will still feel like a Fable game.

I love the environments, while not being a truly open world, it does feel like it in a lot of ways. It is more are series of nice sized locations joined together by a loading screen. Yet Albion manages to feel like a place I know like the back of my hand despite that. The role playing game elements have been scaled back, gone are the multitude of items and weapons. The need to carry potions to make sure you stayed alive during battle has vanished and player failure has became a fairly non penalised affair.

The central core of all the Fable games is choice, The hero can be good or evil and their choice is reflected in their appearance. By the end of the first two games you character becomes an angelic or demonic apparition. The third game limited this to flashes of your true nature during combat. Like most games with a good and evil scale the player tends to pick their choice according to their own motivation almost before they start playing. A lot of people if they really like the games will play it twice and choose each side of the coin to experience the most from the game. This of course means that the choices presented become much less difficult and more obvious depending on which side you want to stick with. Fable knows this and has strived to make the choices a little less clear cut, in Fable 3 the choices when you become ruler of Albion became choices between two evils or between survival and betrayal of those who had been supportive of you earlier in the game.

Personally I enjoyed Fable one enormously, its combat system felt fresh and it’s story was fun. Fable 2 was a next generation Fable and also a much more simplified game. It did seem to suffer from a lack of content, feeling short. The story was less impressive and Reaver was such an annoying character, especially in the scenes at the very end of the games story.

Fable 3 it appeared got everything mostly correct, well apart from the insistence of having no menu screens and replacing them with a little home you could teleport to at any time. In this home all items and options available to you were shown as if in storage in your own personal mansion, complete with butler. It was a nice idea, and it worked well, though after prolonged play it felt slow and I found myself longing for a menu instead of walking around my armoury and treasury.

Since the first game it seems that Lionhead have been trying to make an RPG that is more accessible to the mainstream or casual gamer. RPG’s do have a reputation of being complex and geeky, even amongst a subculture of geeks. The question of whether RPG fans want their RPG’s to be less complex and more mainstream friendly is I would imagine a resounding no. Quite a lot of people like the complexity and depth associated with RPG’s, it’s what attracts them in the first place. I can't help but imagine that the shift in the industry towards the huge profitability of the casual market has influenced this choice rather than a real desire to simplify RPG's.

While Fable has seen its combat simplified, its weapons condensed and items reduced to almost nothing it still maintains a large set of features that make it as complex a game as you like. The owning of property and relationship options are there if you like them. For example the emotes that see your character gurn and dance for peoples amusement don’t really need to be indulged in, they are optional to a large extent. You will have more fun with the game and access more of its concealed nuances if you buy up all the land you can. It can be fun exploring getting married and having children, though the experience is very basic.

The last entry in the series felt to me to be a pinnacle for the designers, it felt like Fable one and two were practice runs and they had finally got the formula right with part 3. As previously mentioned the story needs only a place in time and a hero, Albion can move forward with the times, and most likely even back if need be. There is no need to be mired down by continuity or recurring characters, though Theresa the narrator appears to be making her role the common thread in the newer games.

Fable three had the combat perfected, the world felt like it had been realised to the best of the teams technical and artistic abilities. The story was strong with the hero leading a rebellion against their sibling’s tyrannical ways, only to find the greater threat after they take the throne for themselves. Fable has some flaws, yet it is a game I am ready to purchase with each new release.
The original article that prompted me thinknig was concerned with the dilution of the hero aspect of the games and the announcement of the Kinect based Fable: the Journey.

I have spoken about creative freedom in the video game industry recently with regards to first party companies owned by the giants of the industry. It does appear that as the economy suffers, the ability to innovate and take risks shrinks with it. I can’t deny the sense of this, after all people have to eat. At the end of the day survival is more important than being able to say you created a new genre and brought something truly new and exciting to the world. A something that only a few thousand people buy, will see the developers closed down overnight.

Motion controls were brought to the PS3 and Xbox360 and it seems that both companies are determined that their respective add ons are supported. This leads us to Fable: The Journey a Kinect controlled Fable game. I have to be honest, while it looked like one of the better Kinect games shown at E3, it still looked to be an appalling change of direction for the Fable series, akin to the now industry standard jumping the shark moment of creating a karting game involving your franchises' characters.

I will probably buy “The Journey”, I might even enjoy it, I don’t know, it’s too early to tell. I can’t help thinking that it is going to damage the reputation of Fable as a series and that is a shame when it appears with the last iteration that they were finally perfecting the formula. Looking at Molyneux’s history I sense a midnight flit from Lionhead only for him to rise from the ashes with a new independent studio.

The 3DS drops its price

2011-09-08T04:57:00.000-07:00

The 3DS is getting a price reduction, from £230 to £170, a cut of £60. This is coming less than six months after the launch of the console. As a day one 3DS buyer the news comes and goes with barely a response. I have become, accustomed, to galling price cuts in the video games sector, it’s the price you pay for being far too keen to play the latest games and systems long before they are released.

I remember buying an N64 and finding that the price dropped significantly just weeks after I had bought it. This was before the days of the Internet as we know it today. If the net existed then I would have been aware of rumors and hints that the price was coming down and waited. Or most likely I wouldn’t, since I have always been too eager for my own good.

It is one of the immutable laws of consumer electronics that every item will release new onto the market at the highest price the manufacturers think they can get away with. They will then work on making the device cheaper if they can manage. As manufacturing techniques improve and new technology appears, the device, as it matures, can be made far cheaper than when it was first designed. For a while the manufacturer can enjoy charging the same price for hardware that now costs an awful lot less to make and consequently make a big profit.

Eventually the market for the device at that price dries up and a price reduction is necessary. This can easily be done as the device is now being made much cheaper than at launch. The company gets to look all charitable, yet keep the same profit margin.

Occasionally though the market pressures lead to a console getting a price cut earlier than the company would like. Sony certainly would have liked to keep on selling the very costly to make PS3 at it’s original selling price. Yet, market forces seemed to dictate that Sony couldn’t keep on selling it at that price when Microsoft and Nintendo were running away with the current generation. Reducing the price of the PS3 didn’t help, Nintendo still ran away with this generation. It is safe to say that the Wii took the crown for the cheap and cheerful gaming machine for casual gamers. The hardcore will gripe and moan about the PS3 and Xbox360 being better machines, but in the end they were behind in the sales race.

While gamers are happy with game-play over graphics, and love a game that doesn’t sell well. At the end of the day the day the companies need to make profit, loss means redundancy and less games in future. Nintendo it seems knew all about the fickle nature of gamer loyalty. They haven’t always been winners in the sales game, though their hand-held consoles have never been challenged.

This arrogance was shown in the 3DS launch, the machine arrived and wasn’t what the hardcore gamer wanted. Personally, all I wanted was a new DS with faster processor and more memory. I got that, and I got a 3D gimmick, which while actually being better than I thought it was going to be, has it’s flaws. It takes a bit of getting used to, not being able to move around as freely as you like while playing for fear of loosing the angle and seeing double.

The 3DS launch seems to have been a poorly timed affair, with most of the system selling games being missing in action for the first year of the consoles life. Christmas will be a bonanza, with Mario, Starfox, Kid Icarus, Metal Gear Solid. Yet the perception of most consumers at launch was that there weren’t any good games for the machine. Yes, the Ocarina of Time remake is stunning, yet it came too late to prevent the no good games complaint.

This seems to have been noticed and a lot of consumers seem to be waiting until Xmas or until their current DS dies. With Nintendo’s good hardware reliability record, that could be some time away. It seems that there wasn’t that much of a compelling reason for the main DS audience to change over to the expensive 3DS. Nintendo forgot that the people who buy DS’s are mostly parents of younger children. It is mainly a child's console. Much more so I imagine than any other. The PSP never gained any purchase on my 11 year old son, yet his DS is surgically grafted to his hand. He loves the 3DS, yet cheerfully moves back and forth between the older DS and the 3DS. He simply doesn’t care enough about the 3D or the improved graphics to stick with 3DS games. Why should he, there are only two or three that are worth having just now?

The sales have obviously been less than stellar from Nintendo’s point of view as well. It can only be in response to the price matching that Sony have done with the PS Vita that has led to this price drop. Nintendo simply can’t afford to let the go to gaming machine for parents be the new Sony machine. They have survived through console lean periods on portable sales in the past. The Wii has served them well this generation, though there is nothing little in the Wii-U to create the same impact or fad that served the Wii so well. A console with a tablet grafted on will not catch the technology fearing older generations nearly as well as the Wii’s motion gaming did.

Nintendo it seemed began to believe they could do no wrong, the 3DS launch appears to have been a slap in the face and wake up call. One that at least they are doing something about, however this something is going to create ill will with the very hardcore gamers who always support Nintendo in the lean times. The thing about those gamers is that they are like abused sufferers of Stockholm syndrome. They alway come back for more, no matter how bad Nintendo are to them, Nintendo after all have the fix they need.

The announcement that quite a few NES and Game boy advance games are going to be made free will go a little way to soothing the rage that will no doubt be vented in forums. The inflated prices of virtual console games will probably reflect the same price that has been dropped. I will download these games as they are given, will I play them all, probably not, they will be downloaded though, on principle.

The question now though is should Nintendo be trusted with the initial price of the Wii-U that they would like me to purchase thank you very much? Should I wait six months before buying this new console, just in case there is another cold feet price drop bonanza. Frankly the thought of paying 60 less is much better than having a bunch of virtual console games that I probably will never play or have played to death long ago.

Gears of Version 2.5

2011-08-12T07:15:00.000-07:00

A while back there was a tweet from Cliff Blezinski, the producer of Gears of War, which made me consider his plight. He bemoaned his lot as creator in chief trying to please everyone in his role. There are almost as many pitfalls for a game designer making a sequel as there are for one making a new intellectual property.

Let's look at story first, there is a real possibility of hugely hyped games falling flat on their face. Too Human being the biggest example in this generation. Touted as a trilogy, it looks like we will never get any pay-off on the elaborate universe created around Norse Mythology, that looked to me to be fairly intriguing. I would like the next two games in the Too Human trilogy, simply because I hate starting a story and never getting to the climax.

If you didn't plan for a sequel in the first place then it can be hard to retrofit and plan a whole new story. Gears looks like they had a good idea it would be a success and the story was non committal in it's finality. If it had bombed then it could have been left as it was. The success is history and the non total destruction of the locust was no accident, allowing them to come back strong, with a new retooled story, that fairly bristled with openness for further sequels.

The rules about sequels in Hollywood movies have been long established. The story should have parallels to the first but be sufficiently new. Look at Star Wars and Back to the Future as examples, all follow their new plots logically but have action sequences that echo the previous movies. Death Star destruction and getting the Delorean to 88mph for example. In games the same rules can apply, people want what is familiar, they also need a new story that gives novelty but doesn't break too far from earlier iterations.

Does Gears of War 2 achieve this, well yes I suppose it does, they essentially retold the same story, and gave it a darker end while setting up for part three. There was also a revisiting of previous action set pieces giving them a fresh coat of paint, in addition whole new sequences were introduced, like being swallowed by the giant excavator beastie.

The next pitfall for a sequel is timing. I need only point to Left 4 Dead to explain everything I want to say about this issue. Valve simply didn't wait long enough before announcing Left 4 Dead 2. The resulting clamor about the game left a bad taste in the mouth of the main Left 4 Dead fan-base that had nothing to do with rotting corpses. This is the most unfair criticism a sequel can have heaped upon it, to suggest that it's nothing more than a short expansion pack rather than a sequel. Many recent games have had this tag applied, Left 4 Dead 2, Halo ODST, Rainbow Six Vegas 2. All were classed as 1.5 versions of their forerunners.

If a game uses the same game engine a year later after it's previous release, only really changing the maps and character models is calling it an expansion pack unfair? Things like Call of Duty and Assassins Creed are now churned out as yearly franchises. Would the single player campaigns in these yearly sequels be better off being sold as expansion packs or DLC. The boxed expansion pack is a thing of the a past really, and DLC rules the roost, yet DLC is something that has never been well defined in it's console iteration.

Gears of War at least takes on a two year development cycle, the Unreal engine is one of the prominent game engines in use today. Two years makes a difference to the engine and also makes a difference to the content of the game. Time really does show in a game, well, productive time anyway, not the wasted time seen in games like Duke Nukem Forever or Alan Wake. If changes and improvements to the game engine count towards making a game new rather than an expansion pack then Gears gets a tick in that box as well.

The next criticism of sequels comes when people see or read about changes being made to the game. Mostly this sort of criticism stems from the multi-player community of a game, although the story can also prompt these kind of outrages. For example I enjoyed Mass Effect one and almost all of Mass Effect 2 until the final boss made an appearance. The boss and indeed the whole reveal in the games story made Mass Effect into a cheap sci-fi comedy, instead of the state of the art sci-fi masterpiece I was enjoying.

Changes to multi-player that cause aggravation are usually centered around weapon balance. The Gears beta it seems caused a fair amount of angry voices about the new weapons and neuterings of others. Making changes to a sequel it seems is like dealing with a schizophrenic, if you change things you will cause an effect no matter what, even small changes can have huge effects. On the one hand a change will provoke admiration or contempt in varying degrees. Yet on the other side of the coin if a game comes out and no weapons or game-play changes are made it will be scorned for being more of the same, bringing out more expansion pack claims.

It seems that someone making a sequel must be prepared for these criticisms, if they make a game that is too similar to the last they will be pulled up about it. If they change the game too radically they will also incur the wrath of the fan-boy. What is the answer then, it seems that you are damned if you do, damned if you don't. Should someone like Cliff Blezinski blaze his own trail, after all people have liked what he has done with the game so far, why not trust his judgment?

Everyone has an opinion, and each of us differ in our opinions, if you were to plot them on a graph you would likely see a consensus in the middle and statistical outliers coming out trailing off into the distance. Those outliers might be a vociferous minority, should Cliff listen to them, of course not. If anyone is to be listened to then it's the majority close to the center line of the graph that express similar opinions. You can't please all of the people, and frankly pleasing the unappeasable fan-boy shouldn't really be considered by game developers. Keep on with your own vision Cliff, in the end you should make the game you want to play. Hopefully five to ten million other people will want to play it as has happened with the past two installments.

The remake wagon

2011-08-12T07:14:00.001-07:00

One of the things that took me by surprise at E3 was the announcement of the remake of Halo Combat Evolved. The game will be updated to the current Reach engine it seems and while keeping the campaign more or less exactly as was will give it a current engine technology coat of paint. Now ten years in the video game industry is a long time and there will be a generation of gamers who have come into the gaming folds who have never played Halo CE and for them this will be the best way to play what is now an aging game.

I have no issues with the remake of combat evolved and enjoy playing older games which have been revamped to take advantage of current graphic fidelity. The whole thing is starting to become a bit a landslide trend however.

There are lots of these high definition remakes out there and incoming. The shadow of the colossus and Ico collection is also one that I am looking forward to. I have played quite a bit into Shadow of the Colossus on PS2, but never finished it. The inclusion of trophies will encourage me to get back to it and also I get to play Ico which is a game I never got the chance to play. However, do we really need bandwagon jumpers like Tomb Raider, splinter Cell and Prince of Persia collections? These games while decent were never particularly loved by gamers in a way that attracted their own cult following, well, maybe Tomb Raider ten years ago. Things like the aforementioned Ico and Shadow of the Colossus are still talked about today in hushed tones of admiration and respect. Other games in this category include games like Beyond Good and Evil. These games tended to get huge media and fan support, yet never set the charts on fire due to their originality and maybe a lack of resonance with the mainstream at the time.

Other games that get this sort of respect are things Like Final Fantasy 7 which according to fans is long overdue a remake. Final Fantasy 7 was one of the best JRPG games ever made and while it has been long superseded, it's trailblazing story and cinematics still hold a lot of emotional baggage for those that played it in their youth and enjoyed it.

Movie remakes have been with us for many many years now, with remakes often appearing less than twenty years after the original film was released. Everything from the Thing and Hellraiser to Short Circuit and the Jetsons are in some kind of development at present. Remakes are a fact of Hollywood life today, as is multiple sequels. Some remakes are excellent and produce a vision of the story that far surpasses the original, some are total clunkers that make you wonder why they ever thought they could do better than the masterful original. Usually special effects can be much better than they were twenty or thirty years ago and maybe it's possible that a movie like say the Last Starfighter could be remade today and get much closer to the original vision.

The reason for remakes and sequels is obvious, if the first film generated a profit it also generated an audience. If that audience liked the movie they will go and see the sequel. With a remake you have the audience that the first movie hooked, who will go and see the remake. You also get the younger people who hear the buzz about the remake of the movie and come and see it to see what the fuss is about. It is the prior history of the remake or sequel that acts as a free advertising budget for the movie. New stories with new actors and actresses don't have any free hype associated and consequently are much more of a risk. The same applies to games, as we endlessly bemoan the number of sequels, there arises the HD remake trend that games companies are obviously cribbing from the movie moguls.

I read an article recently about a poll in the guardian which wanted readers to vote for the best novels that never got made into movies. A personal favorite author of mine Iain M. Banks won with Use of Weapons. A book that I love, however, I'd rather see a few different books of his made into movies first. Why not not start at the beginning with the culture books and work your way through? Consider Phelbas would make a great space opera epic I feel. The point here being that there are an awful lot of wonderful stories out there in the world that haven't been made into movies or indeed games.

If the publishers and executives feel that prior knowledge and hype is necessary when making a game why not tap into the hype that is created by those that actually read books! I fear the answer to that question is that there isn't enough hype from book readers because the amount of people that read novels is dwindling. At least the amount of readers that read the genres that get made into blockbuster movies and games.

Of course this trend of reissuing older games on newer systems isn't anything new. Since the release of emulators like MAME on PC people have been playing and loving the games of their youth. Legally on consoles there have been retro remakes available since the Xbox360 and PS3 got their respective stores on-line. Nostalgia is a wonderful sales tool and retro remakes allow for nostalgia without the entirely terrible graphics. Is something like the God of war PSP remakes for the PS3 a bridge too far though? The Ghost of Sparta PSP game was only released in November 2010. Not even a year old and now remade? Milking the audience or providing the game to the wider PS3 audience who may not own a PSP?

I am all for the remake when it is justified, when the game is truly old and well loved. If the desire to play it again is tempered by just how ugly the graphics have become. Then by all means produce a glorious remake that will keep the game and it's story alive for a new generation. While pleasing the old fans at the same time. If your desire to remake is motivated by bandwagon jumping and money, maybe you should leave it alone for another few years.

Piracy, yet again!

2011-08-12T07:12:00.000-07:00

Piracy is in the news again, this time it's because of comments in an interview by representatives from Team Meat, the makers of Super Meat boy. I never played the game, don't know entirely why not, it had a good buzz around it. Maybe the art style put me off, but I never even bothered to try the demo. Probably not what Team Meat would like to hear, though why should they care they seem to have made a decent amount from the game.

In the interview the creators talked about Steam and Direct 2 drive, both download stores for PC games. Steam has a bigger audience than Direct 2 drive, and this seems to have been born out in the comments. The joke centred around tiny sales on Direct2 drive, and then went on to praise Valve for being a good partner. Microsoft were also named with suggestions that working with Valve was friendlier and got more prompt responses from their business discussions.

The hierarchical structure of Microsoft is something that is long joked about, basically bureaucracy on a huge scale. Rigidity has it's place in an organisation, however one that can't adapt will see it's business taken from them by smaller more nimble companies like Valve. The problem here is that as more and more business is taken the small company eventually bloats and becomes less adaptive as a result. I suppose this is one of those circle of life things they educated us about in the Lion King.

It was the final quote presented from Team Meat that made me sit up and consider. They basically suggested that 20,000 copies of Super Meat boy that had been pirated were in some small way acceptable. The fact that someone out their downloaded the game without paying and played it was seen as essentially advertising. That person might actually like the game, maybe they will tell a friend about it who might buy it! Maybe they will blog about it and propagate viral pleasantness about the game to the world? Maybe they will, maybe they won't!

Maybe with piracy being an inevitability, this is the way to think about it? As I am sure I have written about before. In the days when the internet was shiny and new, when an MP3 was something that only the deepest and most dedicated nerd even remotely new the functions of. I downloaded music illegally, along with games and eventually movies. There comes a tipping point in people's relationship with themselves, when you actually realise that you can't achieve mastery of the information world, when it become obvious that there are too many books to read, too many songs to listen to in one lifetime. One person can't watch and appreciate every movie ever made in their lifetime. You can't play every video game!

When that moment flips past, usually around 30-40 years of age you begin to slow down. Savour things, slough the wild excess of youth. The excess that saw me download hundred of movies I never watched, songs I didn't listen to and games I didn't play. That is truly what ends piracy, also the fact that someone who gets to the age of thirty can afford to pay for their own music, movies and games. Those that reach that age and can't well, i'll leave you to draw your own conclusions there.

Piracy as a lost sale doesn't really sit well with me. The point I am trying to make above is that sometimes, because I could, I downloaded stuff that sounded cool, I didn't always get around to using it. If a movie is downloaded to a hard drive and never watched has a crime been committed? Other than a waste of bandwidth? To Team Meat I suggest that out of all those people who illegally downloaded Super Meat Boy, a good proportion will not have played past the first level or two and would probably have been better off downloading a demo.

Some will have played further, some might even tell their friends, some may blog. That number will be very small. A pirate download isn't always a lost sale, by the same token it also isn't an advertisement. It seems to actually be a fact of life, a force of human nature. A symptom of a lot of people's need to obsessively collect. To have a collection, a repository, even if they never actually realise that they do anything with it.

Piracy is wrong, but like most wrong things, they are not going to go away, and trying hard to quash them only does more harm than good. especially if Sony's recent troubles are anything to go by.
Ask yourself the question next time you think about downloading something, do I really want this? Am I just taking it because the act of taking is so easy. will I uses this piece of media? If I like it, if it touches me, should I not thank the creators of this piece of media.

If you love music, if it touches something in you, makes hair rise on your forearms and neck. If you watch a movie and it makes your chest heave and your jaw clench in that manly not going to cry manner, then didn't it move you? If you play that game with your friends every night online and love it more than any other game you have ever played? Shouldn't you give even a little money to the people who spend their days bringing it to you? Sure there are leeches in every industry who take their share of the pie, that doesn't matter, a portion of the money goes to the souls who touched yours, if you provide for them they will keep on providing for you!

Overworked and underpaid in the video game industry?

2011-08-12T07:10:00.000-07:00

Recently LA Noire was released, I bought it day one, though have yet to find the chance to play through it. While a friend visited he played through the first hour or so in my presence and it looked like it could be an intriguing game. The second interrogation started to grate as we kept getting sent back into the room to get the desired result without any real idea of how to do it. I must admit that the repetition was beginning to annoy, though maybe that was more due to my friend's insistence on not taking anything seriously and trying to shoot NPC's and run over as many pedestrians as possible.

LA Noire isn't really what I wanted to talk about, it's more the business practices of Team Bondi, the creators of the game. There appears to be a lot of smoke on the Internet regarding the mis-management of the game's creation and treatment of staff who worked on it. Various people who were fired, or left Team Bondi have exposed that incredibly long hours were expected on the project from the start and staff were told that they basically conformed to this or left. It is alleged that the company head constantly undermined and confused the various departments and caused more trouble and work than was strictly necessary.

In various industries mis-management is a constant, when I think of the video games industry or indeed any other kind of creative industry, I don't imagine that there are hundreds of levels of bureaucracy. I work in the wonderful world of the NHS in the United Kingdom, which is a bureaucratic nightmare. There are an awful lot of managers in high grade positions who seem to have no function other than to provide directives from on high to people who actually do the real work. These managers aren't able to perform any of these jobs themselves. Yet their role is to provide rigid frameworks, that are mandatory, for the nurses and doctors who actually know their jobs quite well thank you very much. In my naivety I imagined that a creative industry would have no room for bureaucracy and each person involved would either be contributing or jettisoned. It seems that this leech like level of management is present in all industries.

I imagine that in a games company there are core staff, those who have the ability and the confidence to create something from nothing. Those people can't do all the work by themselves, though possibly given the time they could. These core staff, who aren't all coders, there will be artists and business people in this group, will form the backbone of the company. Imagine a band like Green Day, they have three core members, though in recent years there have been an increasing number of musicians who are seen playing live and touring with the core three. They aren't in the band, but are employed when needed.

Games have changed and something like LA Noire needs thousands of man hours of work. For a games company to hire and retain all of those staff members all year round is too expensive. This means that there are a certain number of jobs that are essentially nomadic in the games industry. The point here being that there isn't any fat, no excessive people who don't perform any useful function. Games companies aren't answerable to some government who wants to implement some useless directives so they can score political points, that in the grand scheme of things mean very little. I have to wonder why in such a world where workforce can be increased or decreased as the situation changes is there a culture of acceptance of insane working hours?

The movie world sounds similar, cast and crew move from production to production. As one movie finishes another is starting somewhere in the world. Hence my idea that this is a kind of nomadic life. Also not one for people who like to be rooted in one place.

Yet there are example of stories throughout the last ten years of overworked employees complaining about what amounts to essentially a bad attitude from higher management. Surely the first rule of management is to get the best from your employees. To treat those that are capable and competent well, to foster a working environment that is suitable and conducive to making good work. Possible many of you reading that last statement haven't stopped laughing yet, i'll wait. People are people, being awful to each other seems infinitely easier than being excellent to one another as Bill and Ted would advocate. Why is it that thi is the case? It seems to me, that in workplaces where people are having fun and enjoying their work, the work they produce in the end is fantastic, for example Pixar and Google. Of course people will be lazy, and not everyone has the sort of work ethic that sees them work simply for their own enjoyment. Maybe it's the type of person that is a workaholic, the kind of person that finds pleasure in creation that causes the problems in the first place, when they conflict with those who see work, as well, work.

Regardless of whether a person is self directed and able to create and manage their own workload, or if the person needs the direction and structure imposed by a hierarchy. There is still the question of working hours and how they are rewarded. A workaholic tends to focus on work with and almost Autistic grasp. They also tend to have less emphasis placed on their family and non work time. The five day week and working day of around eight hours, evolved because it was a reasonable compromise. The work got done, people still saw their family, had two days off to do with as they pleased. Overtime was also a concept that evolved because sometimes the work does not get done when it should and extra man hours are needed.

Games have these times in their creation when extra work needs done, for example prior to release. Deadlines are unfortunate facts of life, sometimes self imposed, sometimes imposed by investors or publishers. It is reasonable then, to sometimes expect a little more from employees, to ask those that want to do overtime to do it. People who are invested in a project that is essentially their lives work will want to expend extra effort, that isn't in question. The workaholics will be there all night anyway, because that is just the way they are.

What seems problematic is when for whatever reason those in power at a company seem to expect their workers to expend extra effort all the time. Labour laws are designed to protect workers from company heads who sit in an ivory tower while their workers toil their fingers to the bone in pursuit of the companies profit. Working time directives limit how long a person can be asked to work, they don't limit how long a person can work if they see fit.

How does it get from an occasional extra weekend shift to being expected to work every day twelve hours a day. I presume it's a combination of the autistic workaholic leading by example and creating a culture of keeping up with them in the workplace. Is that the reality of the interior of some software developers offices? People working around the clock and scared not to for fear of their job? Aren't there unions? inspectors?

Like every industry there will be good examples and bad examples of these practices. I'd like to believe that my games are being created by people who love their work and enjoy doing it, it usually shows in the final product. I'd also like to hope that these people are paid by the hour and if they are working all this overtime they are getting paid handsomely for it.

Team Bondi seems to have been in difficulty for quite a while, with rumors of bad management, being over budget and parting ways with Sony as publisher of LA Noire. It's possible that the game had a difficult gestation, leading to this climate within the company. Possibly now that Team Bondi's management have learned some hard lessons about what it takes to produce a huge blockbuster game, they will be better prepared and treat their employees better next time. Of course such rumors will be in the back of the mind of anyone seeking employment. Maybe only those desperate for a job will take a position a with the company. Is it any wonder that those who can pick and choose their place according to their ability will have nothing to do with Team Bondi? Maybe inexperienced or ill-motivated staff produced the companies issues in the first place, combined with managers who treated people like automatons.

Business is business, yet treating creative people with respect will have it's own rewards, a good manager should know this and have it in the forefront of their mind. If the Funcom example of employees being relocated from one country to another and then being fired quickly is anything to go by then the Team Bondi aren't the only ones who need to work on their people skills.

On balance though there may be another side to the story, it's possible that maybe these employees are just lazy! complaints of 12 hour days and long working weeks are nothing compared to the insane hours that some doctors work. In my hospital some of the junior doctors never actually seem to stop work. Myself I work 12 hour days, though admittedly only four days a week. When someone isn't fitting in and working well in a company they will find many excuses as to why things are going wrong. Maybe someone in this insane workaholic convention at Team Bondi just wasn't cutting it, got fired and is now making a stink about something other than the real reason they were fired.

Possibly we will never know, unless the management of Team Bondi comment, the fact that they haven't lends even more credence to the unprofessional attitude of the employees concerned. If Team Bondi's manager was really as inexperienced and unprofessional as is made out, then he would probably have put his foot in his mouth by now.

Kindle Glossary

2011-08-12T07:08:00.000-07:00

At Christmas time I bought myself a Kindle, it felt vaguely like some kind of admission of defeat. As a lover of technology the e-ink and the ability to carry around hundreds of books in a tiny package, not much bigger than one paperback, is very appealing. I really wanted to try out reading on an e-ink screen and when I saw the Kindle in the flesh, it just looked great. Reading on it is so much like reading from paper, you actually forget that this is an electronic device in your hand, it just feels like holding a sheet of paper in some fancy plastic holder. Alright, it's smoother and a little grayer than paper, yet it's still nothing like reading from a monitor, or say an iPad.

My head said yes to the Kindle, though a part of me wanted to cling on to the thirty five or so years spent reading and loving paper books. Holding them in your hand, the feel, the smell. Placing a bookmark when you are finished for the session. Being able to see at a glance how far through the book you are and how much is left to go. Being able to read the last page of a whodunit if you wanted to.

As an aspiring author part of wanting a book published is to be able to hold it in your hand, a finished product. See the heft of your four hundred odd pages, see the cover, your name emblazoned across the front. To go into a random bookshop and find your book beside the others. It's a fantasy I know, but if e-books become the norm I will never be able to do that. Imagine how someone like Stephen King can sit copies of all his books on a shelf and take up a good portion of the bookshelf. Wouldn't it be a good feeling to stand back and look at your work in such a tangible form?

As you can see, e-books for me, have some baggage. I have read a few books now on my Kindle. I missed being able to show someone the cover easily. Moving around the book is too slow and clumsy to be practical. I tended to keep the page fixed firmly to where I was reading. I read on my breaks at work and people often ask what I am reading, I missed being able to hold up the book and show them the cover. For a few weeks I missed the ability to know what actual page of a physical novel I was on. The Kindle shows a percentage complete indicator at all times when you are reading. Page numbers are impractical because of the differing font sizes available. However I did realize that bringing up the menu shows the actual physical page number you would be at in the normal print book.

Currently I am at the stage of liking the Kindle and e-books, though I don't want the printed novel to ever vanish entirely. Having a book collection is nice, though the storage space needed is vast and some of my really old books are looking fairly rough. I have the Narnia books which I read when I was around ten years old, they are yellow, fading and smell vaguely of some kind of spore. I think I understand where people who still love Vinyl records are coming from. I have to say I never understood why people liked vinyl, it was big, wobbly, easily broken and crackly. Though now having paper books threatened in the same way I think I understand their plight. It's shared history and habits of a lifetime that are being torn up and erased by a new pretender, that at first seems unnecessary.

I can tell you that holding a Kindle is easier than some of the huge pointy sharp heavy hardbacks I have read. It doesn't flap closed when you are trying to eat your dinner while reading. You don't have to bend the spine giving it that read through crinkle that paperback spines get.

Now to the actual point of what I wanted to write about here, one of the good features of a Kindle is that you can have a lot of books with you. I think everyone without exception will have read a book and came across a word that they didn't know the meaning of. The Kindle of course comes with English and American dictionaries as two of it's default books. The Kindle can look up words in the book you are reading when you highlight them in these dictionaries and give you the meaning. It's a great feature, how many times have you wanted to do this and been to lazy to get around to it, remaining ignorant of the word.

I started reading a book called "The Windup Girl by Paulo Bacigalupi recently. It's a futuristic novel set after global genetic plagues and the end of natural resources like oil. The book is set in Bangkok slums, and features a fairly authentic, so I'm informed, portrayal of the culture, religions and customs of the area. As you would expect there are quite a few words that don't translate, like Wai, Khrab etc. Partway through the book I thought, let's see if the dictionary has some of these words, so I know for sure what the author means here. Imagine my dismay when the Kindle's dictionary came up blank.

I did eventually find out that to wai is to place one's hands together and bow slightly in respect, though I had to go to the computer and Google it. During a conversation with a friend about this he suggested that maybe Kindle books should have a glossary attached, so that the dictionary can be augmented to allow the books you buy to add their real or imagined words to the dictionary. This way the author could have any words that aren't in the Kindle dictionary defined in a separate file that would transparently work with the Kindle to make any made up or non-English words have their definition available.

Imagine something like A Clockwork Orange, which uses a plethora of slang that exists only within the book's world. Well I suppose Droogs made it into the common consciousness. Wouldn't it be handy for science fiction and fantasy novels to include their own definitions of their made up vocabulary.

Like a custom user dictionary on your phone or computer, your Kindle would grow it's vocabulary in line with your taste in reading. I like the idea of my personal device that knows a "neural lace" definition from an Iain M Banks novel along with the meaning of existentialism when I ask for it. Make it so Amazon, and I won't be a patent troll about it either.

Games that reduce crime?

2011-08-12T07:07:00.000-07:00

A recent article I read suggested that games may actually be responsible for a fall in crime rate, according to a recent study it seems. The article didn’t really give any details about the study, merely detailing the main headline rather than going into any great depth on the methodology or sample size of he study. Suffice to say the finding that games actually decrease crime, is one that can neither be confirmed nor denied by this particular study, and of course the recommendation would be for a bigger and more robust study to be performed.

The headline was eye grabbing and the concept fairly alien to most people. Gamers know that games don’t make them any more or less violent than they already have the ability to be anyway. A game won’t warp or change your psyche. If the seed was there already it will have a chance to grow into a flower composed of misery on it’s own. Younger minds may be swayed by violence at a tender age and I have already written a thousand odd words elsewhere on this blog about the irresponsible parenting that allows under tens to play Call of Duty online. That sort of irresponsibility may have an effect on a developing psyche, however to suggest that a game is any more damaging than a violent novel or movie in these circumstances is splitting hairs for the sake of an agenda.

There are elements of the press who have attacked violent video games relentlessly in the past. Some of these people continue to add their video game agenda to every violent news story. Every time there is a mentally ill person who goes on a shooting rampage you can predict with clockwork regularity who in the media will dig up the persons history with games and attribute their atrocity to a life of gaming.

This attitude is thankfully on the wane with an increasing amount of academic research going into gaming that provides a positive counterbalance to these Luddite attitudes. This sort of mentality is akin to suggesting that violent movies should have been banned after the first killing that imitated a horror movie. It seems that the tabloid press has been up to these sort of games for a long time. Latching onto atrocities like the Jamie Bulger incident in Liverpool where a two year old boy was abducted and tortured to death by two ten year old boys. The tabloids attempted to link the killing to a horror movie called Child's Play, even though there was never any evidence that the two boys had ever seen the movie. Horror movie or video nasties as they were called at the time, got an awful lot of negative press. Again the attitude was that the movie was to blame, not the parent who would let ten year olds watch the movie, or neglect to police their viewing behavior and inadvertently let them see it.

I also believe that the age of the population has a lot to do with it. As a forty year old man I feel that I have grown up in the age of computer games. Since I can recall there have been computer games in some shape or form around me. I believe the poor attitudes to gaming come from those who are older than forty. Better attitudes are in place today because more and more people have grown up with games in the world. In another thirty years I think we will see these types of crusades in the tabloids die away as the people who write for newspapers will be of the generation that grew up with games in the world. While the current generations that saw games come into widespread use after their twenties can never adapt. Their mindset just isn't able to accept gaming as something other than a useless frivolity, when these people have retired from their media positions is the time when the media will change.

There are also the dirty money chasers who have made careers and fortunes out of pursuing video game manufacturers through the courts. These shameless attempts to line their own pocket at the expense of companies, who are only trying to make products that their audience want to see is blatant exploitation.

The article seemed to suggest that the main reason games decreased crime rates was by the method of keeping people who may be likely to commit criminal acts off the streets. If they aren’t out and about, at a loss for things to do with their time, they may not commit acts of theft or vandalism as a result. Games achieve this effect by keeping them busy and focused on other things. Who would have thought that the same crack like addiction to games Like World of Warcraft, that sees Korean children being starved to death by neglectful parents, having some sort of positive effect on society.

I started to think about gaming and how it makes me feel, a lot of people suggest that a session of shooting and blowing things up releases frustrations. Personally I don’t really agree with that idea, though I can see how some do. I occasionally feel more frustrated after a gaming session, though that tends to be more about bad game design. I come away from good games with no such increased frustration levels.

There are also skills that are improved unquestionably by gaming, problem solving, spatial awareness, hand to eye coordination, strategy, tactics and leadership. It’s quite a long list and some games today are also educational in their own ways.

There is also social interaction, and while some communities online can be hotbeds of anonymous insults and rampant stupidity of all denominations. There is also some good to be discovered buried like diamonds in the strata of chaos. There are good friends to be had and the cooperation and camaraderie that is only found through shared experience and adversity.

Gaming is above all a form of entertainment, and like all forms of entertainment there needs to be drama and the best form of drama is conflict. Without conflict most human narratives become humdrum and boring. All forms of entertainment sing hymns about our own darkness as a race, not just games.

I wonder how long it will take the tabloids to write up their “burn all the games” stories in relation to the current atrocities in Norway. The real insanity at the root of the evil performed by Breivik is something unknowable. There is no rational way for a sane mind to approach his thought process and no words that can repair the damage done.

Guns are designed to cause death, they warp space around them with the possibility and ease of termination of any living soul. If guns weren’t as easy or even possible for Breivik or indeed anyone else, to ever have and hold, would there be a road for these atrocities to arrive by? Of course there would, people have killed each other every since there have been people. I can’t help but feel that maybe an insane man might have killed less people if he hadn’t been able to get his hands on the automatic weapons that he was able to procure however.

Fanboys, yet again!

2011-08-12T07:05:00.000-07:00

I read an article today on a site called Airborne Gamer, the piece suggested five reasons why someone should buy Uncharted 3 over Gears of War 3. It seems that the article was in response to a similar article on an Xbox site that wrote about the opposite scenario. Both articles it seems were a thinly disguised fan-boy attack on both consoles as well as Gears and Uncharted. For sake of the word count I will only talk about the PS3 article, it seems both are much the same and both equally as silly.

There were five reasons, first was the suggestion that Uncharted has more replay value. Now, the campaign length in both Uncharted and Gears games felt reasonable enough to me. Every game can be played through quickly by speed runners and some gamers take longer than others to complete a single player campaign. Game length therefore is a subjective thing and no game can really be given an arbitrary number. As far as unlockables, there is nothing in gears and Uncharted to find other than tags and treasures. Both games seem fairly similar to me in these respects. Decent length campaigns and the same collectibles.

Gear Multi-player is attacked next for lag and glitching. Well I don't really play either game online so I can't really comment. However, on the occasions when I have played them, they have both functioned reasonably well. All dedicated players of an online game start to find faults once they are familiar. Gears 2 underwent a smear campaign when it was launched due to some connection and lag issues which were patched fairly quickly. It seems that notion has stuck in the PS3 fan-boy collectives mind.

The next reason is that Uncharted has a better engine than Gears. Now this is maybe a valid point. Uncharted's engine is a good one, however it is an engine of smoke and mirrors and playing online shows these faults. Play uncharted multi-player and look into the distance, is it in focus? No, because it's a snapshot texture of the geometry that can be panned really quickly. Move quickly and everything slips into low resolution textures. Gears on the other hand renders the environment the same way all the time. Resulting in better fidelity when things are frantic. Looking at still screen-shots Uncharted has better textures and better geometry, moving though it's a different story.

Better single player is one of the author's argument, well that is totally subjective, and I am not even going to dignify it with an answer. I enjoyed both single player campaigns Gears 1 and 2 and Uncharted 1 and 2.

Then comes the twist, the author turns the tables and suggests that if you only own one or the other of the consoles then buy the game that is available on either console. They then go on to attack fan-boys in general and suggest peace love and understanding.

While the article may have been written this way from the start it does smack of someone post writing getting cold feet and changing the tone while still keeping the message. The message seems to be fan-boy fighting about Gears and Uncharted is silly, however, by the way, Uncharted is better because it is! Na Na!

I have written before about the fan-boy and the genesis of the fan-boy. I occasionally rise to fan-boy bait and feel irrational about gaming news. It is not something that I think any of us are above. We all have our pet likes and dislikes. Sony irritate me more than Microsoft at times, Nintendo occupy their own weird dimension. The possibility of having the Wii-U as my primary gaming machine if they launch the next console generation first and have a year or so on Sony and Microsoft’s next machines fills me with a kind of fascinated dread. I have always owned all Nintendo consoles, though just for their exclusives, playing multi-platform games on other manufacturers systems.

The point I want to make is that games are games, no matter what marketing department wants you to play them on a specific system from a specific manufacturer. Most hardcore gamers consider themselves collectors and connoisseurs. Why would a connoisseurs limit themselves to one specific area of their passion? Ask yourself this, Gears and Uncharted are both great games, both demand your attention and playtime. To miss out on either of them due to some kind of perceived loyalty to a monolithic corporation that is only interested in your wallet is just silly.

Imagine if this kind of fanboyism existed in the movie world! Would you not go and see the New Spiderman movie because the money for it's creation was put up by Sony rather than Paramount, the faceless monolith that you love? Would you only by Books published by Harper Collins?

Now I understand that money comes into these decisions. However, most children get a console at Christmas time, there have been five Christmases with these three consoles on the market. If you discount the Wii as being irrelevant in this matter then that is even more years. Even the poorest person could have saved the money to buy both a PS3 and an Xbox360 in those five years. Buy the console second hand if you have to. There really is no excuse for not being able to afford the machines. Same with the games, both are coming out within a two month period of each other. Save and buy one, play it and enjoy it, when you have the money, buy the other. There is no need to bash one game or the other simply because it belongs to the opposite team.

It will inevitably happen, watch around Gear's release for a score of articles proclaiming game breaking glitches, poor single player game length and many other such slurs. Then watch the same happen with Uncharted as the opposing fans bite back for revenge, with the same silly petty concerns magnified into glaring faults. Also look out for people spamming the comment sections of forums with spoilers, a particularly irritating trend. It is no wonder the world is such a mess, when not even entertainment can exist without some people wanting to turn it into a fight between sides.

Disparity in reporting styles

2011-08-12T07:02:00.000-07:00

In the past few days I have read some articles on mainstream media sites on the subject of untimely deaths. Both of these deaths have been attributed to video games in some way. The first article was on the site of tabloid newspaper the Sun. In the article a 13 year old girl appears to have died after suffering an acute asthma attack. The parents tell of how the girl, who appeared in perfect health, but was a known asthmatic came home from school and played with her Xbox. She appeared well, then went to the toilet and emerged in a state of collapse. It is unclear from the article, yet it appears reading between the lines that the girl suffered a hypoxic cardiac arrest following onset of an acute asthma attack. She was resuscitated it appears by paramedics and put on a ventilator, however it appears she was already brain stem dead and the life support was turned off after the family had said their goodbyes to the unfortunate girl.

This is a very tragic death, and I have nothing but sympathy for how the poor family feel at this tragic time. What I do have issue with is the reporting of the circumstances, the headline of the Piece was “Anna-Lee, 13, dies as she plays Xbox”. You can instantly see what the tabloid is inferring here, they are suggesting that video games are bad for our children. Implied is the image of a hugely obese child who died because she was so unfit after sitting for years on end playing video games and not getting out to play in the sun and having exercise.

The problem here is that Anna-Lee might have been playing Xbox, yet from her picture she looked to be of normal height and weight, not obese. She might have been playing Xbox, yet Asthma can not be triggered by video games. Asthma is an allergic reaction, caused by dust, smoke, pollens, not pixels and controllers. The girl died after playing with her Xbox, however, she in no way fitted the profile of an obese child with cardiac problems like the article seems to be suggesting.

It's a sad indictment of the tabloid newspapers that the untimely death of a young girl from asthma isn't newsworthy enough unless you add some kind of villain to the piece. Poor old Xbox happened to be mentioned and the angle of attack was found. This story wouldn't have existed if she had been watching tv before she died. Television is too old to be the villain for these types of journalism any-more. Video-games are still considered fair game by the tabloid press.

The next article on the BBC news website had me almost ready to declare a witch-hunt scenario when I saw the Headline, “Gamer, Chris Staniforth's death blamed on DVT”. Then I read the article and kudos has to go to the BBC. The article tells the story of 20 year old man who died from a Pulmonary Embolism. This happens when a clot forms, usually in the leg veins of someone who is immobile for long periods. A deep vein thrombosis or DVT clot can then travel through the bloodstream until it gets clogged in veins that are too small, it just so happens that the first narrowing in the circulatory system after the leg veins is the lungs. These clots block off circulation to large areas of lung tissue and the resulting ischeamic disaster is usually fatal.

The articles focus is on the father of this poor man, who is campaigning to increase awareness of DVT among gamers as a result of the untimely death of his son. A noble cause, and an understandable one. If anyone has a right to be angry at video-games in general then this father is the man. It is heart warming to read then that he has no issue with games, he just wants to promote awareness and try and get across the message that long gaming sessions like those his son partook in can have fatal consequences.

There is no argument here from me, the message is spot on, four hours immobility is enough to produce a DVT in otherwise healthy individuals. Game sessions should be no longer than an hour without being broken up by some kind of break where the legs are stretched. I know a lot of people go in for marathon game sessions, I have been known to play for quite a few hours at a time myself. I understand the psyche that allows people to sit for eight hours at a time playing a game. I just don't have it myself, I find that I have to take a break every hour or so anyway. I just can't seem to concentrate for much longer than that without getting restless. I tend to get up and make a coffee or go and do something else anyway, then come back to the game later for another hour or so session.

It didn't actually come as a surprise to see two different media outlets report on similar stories in a totally different fashion. The Sun tried to add an angle that it thought would gain readers and sensationalise a simple tragic story. The BBC tried to report the news as it was, despite being given the angle of attack on a plate. They had the gamer, who sat for 12 hours playing games, who was likely overweight and just didn't take the bait. I searched on the Sun for their take on the story, it seems they missed the opportunity to cast stones at video-games on this occasion. Their story about Anna-Lee might have been better served by missing out on video games entirely, they could have used Chris' unfortunate story in it's place and been remotely justified in their approach.

Both deaths are sad and untimely, gamers can learn from Chris and build in some more breaks and physical exercise to their routines. From Anna-Lee's death the world only loses a bright future.

Uncharted 3 Beta impressions

2011-07-16T04:33:00.000-07:00

I loved Uncharted one and two, both wonderful games, cinematic in their game-play and story-lines. A great cast of believable action movie style characters, voiced by some of the best actors working in the video game medium. The games' engine is superfluous and to be honest it's the only game to my mind that really shows up the Xbox and leaves it wheezing in the dust. The shooter game-play is varied, and the platforming does not get in the way by being an easy and fun diversion.

Uncharted 3 was an inevitability, just like there will be another Call of Duty and another Halo. Uncharted 2 added multi-player to the mix, and while I played it's beta and enjoyed it my multi-player gaming is focused on my friends. My friends tend to play on the Xbox360 and tend to play things like COD and Rainbow Six. Left to my own devices I don't tend to play multi-player games, I have a pile of single player games as tall as me to get through. Still the news that there would be a multi-player beta for Uncharted peaked my interest, it would be a chance to see the new game in action on my own PS3.

Now as usual access to betas these days needs hoop jumping, I have written before about how much I dislike this competition or pay-wall approach to giving out an advertisement for a retail product. This time the beta would be coming to all who wanted it, which is great and as it should be. There was a caveat though, if you wanted it a week or so early you could buy Infamous 2 or be a Playstation plus subscriber. The Playstation plus isn't something I would consider, I simply don't buy PSN games, as I don't have time to devote to them. I bought Torchlight and Beyond Good and Evil recently on the Xbox360 and haven't even booted them up. It would be stupid to pay for PSN plus and get loads of content that I'd not get around to.

Infamous 2 on the other hand is another story, I had a day one pre-order for Infamous 2 and the game was sitting ready on my shelf. This supposedly meant that I could get the beta early. I was slightly wary as there was no sticker or indication on the Infamous 2 box about the beta, and there are usually stickers plastered on about these things.

I read on News 4 Gamers somewhere that the beta would be available on the PSN store, so when I got around to it after life getting in the way on the 28th I booted up my Playstation 3 and tried to sign in. No joy, it seems that there is a system update. No problem, I have two PS3's so what I usually do is download the update from the Sony website on my Mac. I use this method because it saves two downloads of 180mb, as there are two PS3's in the house, mine and my son's. Also the download speed using my PS3 is slow, this is due to some unfathomable NAT issue that I have given up on long ago.

I tried to install the update on my PS3 from a memory stick, though this time I had troubles. I thought the update file needed to be in an UPDATE folder, though I had forgot that this also needs to be inside a PS3 folder as well. Silly me, half an hour of head scratching before I managed to work it out.

I then went to the store and tried to locate the beta, since it was new and a big deal, I imagined that it would be in the big advertisement pages, though I couldn't find it. After much searching I found it in the PSN plus section. It wanted me to be a member before I could download it, and I don't really want to do that. I decided that I would try Infamous 2, I have been part of console beta's before that launched from inside the game they came bundled with. Maybe this would be the same. I slotted Infamous 2 into my PS3 to find that the game needed to download a patch of 108 mb before I could get it to boot to see if there was any mention of the beta in the menu. The PS3 informed me that the patch would take an hour to download. I have written this article up to this point since the download started and it still says there is twenty-five minutes left. It's eleven o clock at night, oh well.

Eventually the patch updates, and I get to boot the game. After playing for around twenty minutes, it's a great game so far by the way, I find that there seems to be no mention of the beta. Back to the web browser I go and try to search for the way to get the download through Infamous. I find to my horror and embarrassment that I didn't need to put Infamous 2 in, nor download it's patches. The code is in the box, silly me! Who looks at manuals anyway? A quick trip to the store and the 1.6gb download is on the way. It's now around midnight and I am definitely going to bed as the 1.6gb will take at least four hours.

Night Night, impressions of the beta tomorrow now it seems. Good morning that was a quick night, are you refreshed? I go to the PS3 and find that the download has arrived, it takes 3 minutes to install, which was actually a nice surprise as I thought a 1.6gb install would have taken longer. I press start and sign in, expecting disaster at every step, though there is none, it did take an age to connect but managed to.

I'm in, actually playing Uncharted 3 multi-player, well after I agree to the user agreement terms. On the options screen you get a chance to change your characters looks. There are three character models available, Drake, Sullivan and a generic looking Cole McGrath type treasure hunter. There are also perks, taunts and emblems to define your character with. The clothes on the character models can be changed to different colors.

There are five game modes available in the beta so far, there are more, they will be added in rotation each week with patches. Team death-match, Free for all, Three team death-match, Hardcore and Co-op arena.

I try team death-match first, it takes a while to find some players to play with, though that might be more to do with my BT Homehub's ability to decide what NAT settings it likes from day to day.
A video plays in the bottom right hand corner of the screen while matchmaking is going on, I can't help thinking that maybe if there wasn't a video being streamed, the matchmaking might go quicker. It may be possible that these videos are already on the hard drive, I can't imagine they are actually being pulled down live. It would be fine for those with great internet speeds, hellish for those that don't.

I get into a game and all previous concerns about this beta experience are wiped and erased. I put on my headset and there are actually other players talking, even though most of them are talking unidentifiable languages.

At first I struggle to remember all the controls, though they quickly come back. It's a joy to control Drake again, his loping stumbling gait, with wobbly camera bring it all back quickly. The graphics look great as usual. I love having a proper cover system in an online shooter, though I forget how much quicker real players swarm and flank you compared to a.i. The change of perspective is a welcome breath of fresh air coming from playing mostly Black ops multi-player in the past few months. I enjoy the first round so much I keep on playing team death match for another round and get to see a new map.

It seems that there are two maps in the beta, chateau and airstrip. Both are quite large maps with lots of height to allow for the clambering element of the game to come into force. I can imagine a lot of the COD faithful coming to this game and getting wiped out by Uncharted 2 players who have gotten used to climbing up and over things to gain height advantage. The airstrip map has hangars and cargo storage areas, with a few open areas. It isn't quite as nice looking as chateau, though I think it will be a good multi-player map. Chateau is also a nice map based on a ruined chateau, it is more reminiscent of the Uncharted 1 style of architecture.

The free for all game mode is fairly self explanatory, it's you against everyone else. Three team death-match is six players in teams of two facing off against each other. It is interesting in that it forces you to work with your team mate. Being able to spawn close to your team makes for keeping you in the action much more often. If you don't work together you end up alone in a crossfire from the other two teams.

The next mode I try is Co-op arena, as this is a mode that I actually enjoy a lot. When I played I had two other players with me, I don't know if this is the maximum or not. It's basically your user controlled group against waves of a.i. enemies. There are little objectives that change throughout the game. At times you have to just survive, at others you have to be standing in a rectangle defined by the game to make your kills count. Most fun was when you had to go and take a treasure from one point to another on the map. The player carrying the treasure moves slowly and can only use a pistol. This means the others have to protect him. Hardcore mode essentially removes a lot of the features that aid you in the game.

There is a cinema mode which is very similar to those used in games Like Halo and COD Black Ops. It works well and it's fun to look back over your games and see what was going on around you and play with the great view of the action that the free camera gives you. As is now common with multi-player games an almost RPG like progression system is present, seeing you gain money in game for certain actions. This allows you to level up, as you do so new rewards and perks become available, such as being able to re-spawn into the game quicker or run for longer. Such a system is a transparently obvious way of keeping players playing for longer. It works though as we all seem to love being able to say we are scaling the heights of such ranking systems.

This is only an account of my first impressions with the Beta, i'd like to be able to say that I recommend a purchase based on the beta, though I think I would recommend a purchase even without seeing it. Uncharted is more about the single player for me, though you can rest assured that I will be trying very hard to get my friends playing this game so that I can keep on playing. The disappointment of not being able to play the game on the day of the beta release and having to wait until the next day was forgotten instantly. I am almost ashamed to have the first half of the article still attached. I did consider deleting it. Though I think all parties concerned need to know that there was confusion, even among someone who fairly regularly keeps up with gaming news.

The name of the game

2011-07-16T04:32:00.000-07:00

The announcement of the new generation Playstation portable by Sony last year was universally welcomed I think. The PSP was a nice machine, though a flawed one. The lack of dual analogue sticks always handicapped it. The UMD drive was slow compared to the flash memory on it's competition. Sony's insistence on charging the Earth for UMD movies killed a potentially huge market that Apple have since cornered. UMD's bundled at no extra charge with DVD's would probably have still made a profit and maybe a hugely different shape to the market today.

Anyway, this isn't an article written to attack the PSP, that ship has sailed a long time ago and the next generation portable is on the way. When Sony showed the machine they gave it a codename, the NGP, short for next generation portable. At E3 this year they tried for an announcement. As usual the leaky ship at Sony had told everyone the name weeks before E3, at least they got to confirm the rumor on the stage.

Personally, for me the name sounded a little pretentious, vitality and life, not usually subjects I associate with gaming. Maybe more suited to a Wii exercise bike peripheral than a portable games system. People will either call it the Vita or the PSV, which sounds very like saying PSP anyway. I think I actually liked NGP as a name more. The reaction to the name seemed to be generally unfavorable. Not that people care that much, it's not as if the name will prevent people from buying it. Seeing Uncharted running so well on the Vita made me determined to own it day one, no matter what it was called.

I started to think about the names of gaming systems in the past, were they really all that much better? If Vita isn't a good name for a system then what is? Let's have a look at the history of console names and see how Vita fares in comparison.

Nintendo first, they are very literal with their names, Nintendo entertainment system, Super Nintendo entertainment system, Nintendo 64. There doesn't seem to be much imagination going on with those name choices. I suppose the question here is do people want imagination and invention with their console names. It becomes a very subjective thing as to whether someone approves of a name, when it is less literal and more evocative. Nintendo then seemed to change tack with the Gamecube, which again was literal but slightly more imaginative. Finally Nintendo seemed to lose their mind entirely with the Wii. Now I understand that in Japanese the word Wii has a much different meaning. It has no meaning in English, yet it's close to wee, which is a common slang name for urine.

Now naming your console after urine I would imagine isn't the association they were going for. I know that even among English speaking countries there are many differences in the language. For example fanny means a different thing to British people than Americans. Obviously Nintendo have PR divisions that research these things, the only thing I can infer from that is that they didn't care about it or it's only a small part of the market that has that negative connection. I have heard plenty of wee on you jokes about the system, and not always local. It looks like the Wii on you jokes are only going to escalate when the Wii-U arrives.

Sega were always fond it seems of evocative names, power words that are associated with mainstream macho culture. Master system, Genesis or Megadrive in Europe, Saturn, Dreamcast. In their heyday Sega were mainly in competition with Nintendo, it's possible their power word names were a response to the literal nomenclature of Nintendo. It seemed that Sega were listening to a PR company in their name choice, one that believed gamers were all 14 year old boys impressed by explosions and breasts. Again it illustrates the fact that if you use a word like master or mega in your name it hits different associative notes in the minds of the people you are trying to sell to.

Sony it seems have used the least imagination in their names, three consoles with the same name and only a number to distinguish them. The Playstation portable again an obvious and easy choice. Playstation itself is a reasonable name, so maybe that is why they have stuck with it. The words don't really have that many associations. Play is synonymous with fun, and everybody wants to have fun. The station element conjures the image of a place, a point of access to fun. They obviously understand the building of a brand name after their long years in consumer electronics. The name Playstation, in some quarters, is used in substitute for the word video games. That used to be the case with Nintendo as well, it wasn't unheard of to hear people say that they were going to go play some Nintendo. That mantle was passed on to Playstation for a time.

Microsoft have taken to the above mentioned policy of calling their console by the same name in each iteration. The Xbox then the Xbox 360 have built the brand name into public consciousness. Again the Xbox name is practical rather than evocative, consoles are boxes after all. The X in the name is an attempt at evocative, cool branding, Generation X, the X factor, that certain something, the essence of cool, success and desirability. As names go both playstation and Xbox are utilitarian but decent, probably why both companies stick with them.

Looking back at naming history then seems to show that associative words are in the minority. subscribed to by the console manufacturer that crashed and burned from the console industry. The most successful choices if a name of a product actually does affect anything at all seems to be a utilitarian choice, something descriptive of the actual object with less focus on the emotive and associative words. Playstation Vita will do fine, they have the buzzword, but they also have Playstation, which means that the brand name is still in focus.

Of course naming has been proven to have no significant effect, if it could sink a console then I imagine the Wii would have been affected. In my experience people sniggered at the name at first, after a few years it became accepted and sales figures for the Wii suggest that a console name means very little in the end.

Sony E3 Press Conference

2011-07-16T04:31:00.001-07:00

Sony seem to like quick fire jump cut montages, showing lots of games at once, where you barely have time to notice what game you are looking at before they are on to the next. It almost becomes a game of identify the game clip, with Sony testing your knowledge. Maybe they think you will get a little endorphin hit from knowing that you correctly identified all the pieces of their puzzle. All of this obscures the games, yet gives some kind of street credibility with the kids, using thumping tunes. Anyway, the montage shows Uncharted, God of War, the NGP, and all the current Sony hardware.

Jack Tretton appears on stage, apologizes for the hacking, though in my opinion he should be encouraging us to go out and find the people that are doing it and burning their computers and sending them to jail. Of course political correctness won't allow that, some snide asides to the press for reveling in the hacking debacle a little too much, good boy, you tell them. He tells the audience that all the games shown here will be playable behind closed doors, I'd rather they put up these demos on the PSN to be honest.

Uncharted 3 is first up on the games front, A live demo is shown with a Naughty Dog employee playing it live on stage. Drake is on the deck of a large passenger liner in the midst of lashing rain and stormy waves. The demonstration continues showing Drake sneaking inside the ship and stealth killing a few people. He then clambers around a platforming area and gets to a cargo hold. Here he is ambushed and a cut scene shows him letting off a grenade and starting a gunfight. Explosions rock the boat and compromise the hull, the area where the gunfight is taking place starts to fill with water. The ship then pitches on it's side as it capsizes and Drake is swimming for his life.
Getting out of the water Drake is trapped by falling debris and needs to quicktime button hammer his way to safety. The demo ends in suitably explosive fashion.

A multi-player beta will come in June, A new trailer shows more about the single player game and it all looks great. The new female nemesis is shown, and it is reinforced that Nathan is seeking the Atlantis of the sands this time around. Chloe is back as is Sully and Elena.

Insomniac staff appear and show us Resistance 3, it is set four years after Resistance 2 and Cappelli is the hero, though I wouldn't rule out Nathan Hale's reappearance in some shape or form. The Chimera have won the war and there are only little pockets of human resistance left. Another live demonstration shows a fight going on in a devastated street. New flying bugs are seen which seem to be giving health support to the Chimera are seen. Portable force field cover is seen. The scene skips on and the hero is being chased through the ruins and a huge boss is stamping on houses nearby. The game does look great, the art direction looks a little more dirty and gritty than previous games, it does look more like Resistance one than Resistance 2 in tone.

Remastered versions of the two PSP God of War games are coming for the PS3, on one disc and the Shadow of the Collossus and Ico collections are shown again.

Sony are again hammering the 3DTV drum, Sony see gamers as a technologically obsessive bunch, and as such probably early adopters. This means that gamers are always targeted as easy meat for Sony's new products. Shoehorning 3D into everything started last E3 and this one it seems it to be no exception, despite the price barrier being too high for the reward with 3D gaming. Obviously Sony have seen the sales figures and learned that 3D is too expensive for most PS3 owners, to this end a clever move is announced. Sony are to sell a Playstation branded 3DTV, 24 inches in size and bundled with a set of glasses and a game. The Price will $499 in America, so we can probably translate that to £500 pounds in the UK. Quite steep, but not as steep as the £1,000 - £1,500 for a proper sized 3DTV. The most interesting concept described here is that with two player games on the same console, this television will remove the need for split screen gaming. Both players will get their respective version of the full picture sent to their set of glasses. Of course this will necessitate the purchase of another pair of 3D glasses. I don't suppose Sony would be unhappy about that idea now would they?

Move in now in focus, NBA 2012 is shown and a famous Basketball player is trotted out for the amusement of the crowd. Move is shoehorned into this game, and I'm sure a controller will probably be a better option. The next game is Medieval Moves, it's a move based third person combat game that uses swords, shields, bows and arrows. A long game-play demo fails to impress me, last years Sorcery game looked better, where is Sorcery by the way? Infamous 2 is going to have Move features in it's mission editor, as is Little Big Planet 2.

Now it's trailer time for upcoming games. Starhawk is first, it shows a futuristic world where cowboy styled cyborgs battle each other, lots of players, robot exoskeletons, vehicles and aircraft. It looks like space combat will also be involved as the trailer zooms out into space at the end.

A trailer for Sly Cooper 4: Thieves in time shows Sly being chased to his hideout, only to pull off a mask and reveal a Gecko.

Dust 914 is shown, this is a massively multi-player online game which will connect in some way to EVE online. The trailer shows Killzone style first person shooter combat. The camera pans off out into space again, suggesting that the battles involved in with Dust are part of a larger world linked to the EVE online game.

Bioshock Infinite is shown, again showcasing the mobility around the flying city using the rail system. Ken Levine comes on-stage to try and convince us that he's a previous Move skeptic and is now an evangelist for the product. His reasons about controllers being a barrier to entry and wanting to remove all barriers to people playing his game sound plausible, though it all rings a little false. Ken informs us that Bioshock Infinite will have move support, and Irrational games are making a game for the NGP. Also the PS3 version of Bioshock infinite will have Bioshock one included on the disc.

A few quick extra content on PS3 announcements are given, people give Microsoft a hard time about this, yet it's Sony that seem to be making more and more of these deals. I suppose they aren't really a problem. If I want a game on a particular system, a little bit of extra content on the other won't make me change my mind. Saints Row 3 will have Move support and exclusive content. A Star Trek game will release with the new movie, it will have Move support and extra content on PS3. It looks like a Mass Effect style third person shooter. SSX will have an exclusive Mount Fuji map on PS3. Need for Speed : The Run will have 7 exclusive cars on the PS3. Battlefield 3 will include Battlefield 1943 free on the disc.

Kaz Hirai comes on-stage and talks about the PSN outage, apologizes again, discusses the Playsation suite for smart-phones briefly. The NGP is officially renamed as the Playstation Vita, we saw it last year, and are reminded of all the features, front touch screen, rear touchpad, twin analogue sticks, cameras front and back, microphone, wi-fi and 3G connectivity depending on model. An announcement of partnership with AT&T in America goes down like a lead balloon. There is mention of Sony's version of the street pass type features which is called Near.

The important stuff is finally arrived at and we are shown Uncharted : Golden Abyss running on the Vita and it looks absolutely perfect. Touchscreen options are there to change weapons and can be used to make the clambering sections easier by just touching the hand-holds you want Nathan to grab onto, also swiping gestures instead of quick-time. The best part is that the gunfight's look great and are easily controlled, using dual analogue sticks and triggers.

Ruin from Idol Minds is an Action RPG in the Diablo / Torchlight style. In addition to the main game players have castles of their own that can be invaded by their friends. Loot and experience can be used to make your own dungeon harder to storm. The game seamlessly saves on PS3 and syncs to the Idol Minds servers, then when you turn it on and load your character on the Vita you will be at the same point in both versions. The idea is described as a continuous client, I wonder if you get both PS3 and Vita versions as a package or if you have to buy them separately.

Modnation Racers shows it's use of the touchscreen to draw tracks and edit them. Tracks made and playable in the PS3 version of Modnation Racers will work on the Vita version. Interestingly Wipeout on PS Vita will be able to play online races with the PS3 version.
A trailer for the vita version of Little Big Planet shows touch screen controls, gyroscope features and editing using the touch screen.

Street Fighter Vs Tekken is shown, with a trailer comprising mostly of cut scenes. Then a Capcom representative plays the game live on stage and shows that Cole from Infamous will be a playable character.

Another dance music infused jump cut nightmare video Montage shows Little Deviants, Pool, a Naruto game, a Loco Roco type game, Super Stardust, Reality Fighters, Everybody's Golf, Tennis and Dynasty Warriors.

All that remains to do is tell us when and how much? You can almost see the audience getting ready to cringe or wince in pain at the price. Surprisingly the Vita isn't as far off as it might have been indicated previously. Sony are still a little vague here, yet it seems that the portable will be released somewhere in the world at least by Xmas 2001. Most likely Japan, though a worldwide launch hasn't been confirmed or denied. The price is to be £230 for the wifi version and £280 for the 3G model.

Nintendo E3 Press Conference

2011-07-16T04:30:00.001-07:00

Nintendo's E3 promises to be a big one, while we won't see their new console this year, we have been promised that we will be getting an announcement of the new console at least. The show opens with a montage of video from Zelda, a large orchestra is playing music from Zelda live and it's grand stirring stuff. Miyamoto comes on stage and speaks through a translator. In a cringeworthy display of indulgence, that I suppose he has earned, he gets the orchestra to play jingles from Zelda while he acts out the motions.

Eventually business is got down to, Links Awakening will be coming to the 3DS store. The remake of Ocarina of time will be releasing as he speaks. There will be a free game called Legend of Zelda 4 swords to celebrate the anniversary. A gold wiimote will launch with Skyward Sword when it comes. Speaking of which it is revealed that Skyward Sword will be launching at Xmas 2011. The orchestra that is there will be travelling the world playing a concert based on the music from the games. There will also be two CD's of music, one will be free to those who register Skyward sword on club Nintendo. The other will be available to buy, and will be a recording of the orchestral concert.

Satoru Iwata comes on stage, the CEO of Nintendo, he give a speech about the goals Nintendo had with the DS and Wii, of expanding the gaming populations. How they tried to erase barriers to play, and in doing so it seems made a divide between these new gamers and the traditional hardcore gamer. He informs us that this time around Nintendo want to make a console that will appeal as much to the hardcore as it does to the casual gamer. He tells us that he wants to have deeper games, that appeal to the hardcore, while not alienating casual gamers, a deeper but wider appeal. In a stunning display of teasing the audience, he tells us that they are going back to the 3DS before revealing the new console.

A video shows Nintendo's roadmap for 3DS launches in the future. Games shown in non-game-play trailers are Mario Kart, Starfox, Mario, Kid Icarus and Luigi's mansion. Reggie Fils Amie arrives on stage to tell us more about the games.

MarioKart looks great, almost exactly the same as the Wii version, added here are hang gliders, which pop up from the back of the karts when a large drop is jumped, Monster karts and underwater tracks. Importantly the game is due out for the holiday season.

Starfox 3D is shown, it can uses the gyroscope in the 3DS to fly the ship. It also uses the camera to take a picture of the player and replaces the characters faces in the little in game video calls from your wingmen. Four player multi-player is promised.

Super Mario 3D is announced, it looks like a full on Mario platform adventure in the Galaxy style, though maybe more in the Mario 64 vein than Galaxy. It is due out Christmas 2011.

Kid Icarus Uprising is shown in game-play trailer form, there are multi-player three versus three battles. An augmented reality card battle game is being bundled with the game. Though extra cards can be bought.

Lugi's mansion 2 is announced, using the torchlight and vacuming game-play from the old Gamecube version.

Nintendo also want to remind us that third party games are actually available for the machine. Should you not be happy enough with everything they provide. A montage shows a huge list of upcoming games. Including, Resident Evil Mercenaries, Mario and Sonic and the winter Olympics, Ace Combat, Tetris Online, Cave Story 3D, Resident Evil Revelations, Driver : Renegade, Tekken 3D and Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater 3D.

The newly installed 3DS store is mentioned, a Pokedex with spot pass and AR features along with an Excitebike remake will be free downloads for the launch of the store.

Finally the meat, though the 3DS line up is actually very good. It's time for the Wii-U, which is revealed as the name of the new console. The console itself is very much like the Wii, a small white box with a disc slot on the front. The controller looks like a Samsung Galaxy tab with a controller embedded into either side of it's bezel. This controller will be able to play the Wii-U games without a TV over an unnamed wireless method. The controller has a touch-screen as well as all the controls of the current classic controller. It also has a gyroscope.

A trailer shows all the possibilities they envision using the new controller. The ability to keep on playing when a parent wants to watch something else on tv. The touch-screen tablet can be used to draw on and an art program is shown with someone drawing a picture of Link. It's notable that a stylus is seen being used, yet also finger touches are shown. Is the screen resistive or capacitive, or are Nintendo going to bundle a capacitive stylus? A game of Othello is shown with two players using the touch-screen, and tipping the device to clear the board for a new game. Baseball is shown in very rough mii style prototype graphics to illustrate that you can look at the tv through the tablet screen and aim at things on the big screen. In this example you aim where to pitch the ball. Then you use the tablet to catch the ball using the gyroscope.
A player is seen placing the tablet on the floor and a golf ball is shown on it's screen, the player then swings a wiimote and hits the ball. A balance board is shown interfacing and using the tablet screen for tv free use of Wii-fit. A gun attachment shows the tablet being used as a viewfinder on the gun to shoot, the nunchuck is seen as the trigger. A face-time video conferencing applications is seen in use. Web browsing will be available on both the television and the tablet screen. Media from sites like You Tube will also play on either screen. The tablet can hold extra screen information during games, for example a touch screen inventory for RPG's. Most importantly a Zelda game is shown which looks to have graphics at least on par with Xbox360 and PS3.

Back on the stage Iwata makes plain that the feature of being able to play games on the tablet screen is one Nintendo are proud of. I don't know if I am just spoiled, I have my own place to go and play games if someone else in the house wants the television. My son does use the main tv to play games on and there may be the occasional friction, however, I don't see it as a strong selling point. The idea is fine, I often find myself sitting with my iPad just being social and sitting with the family while they watch something family orientated and I dip in and out while surfing, or doing something else quietly on the iPad. This new console would allow for that sort of experience, and will presumably be cheaper than and iPad or other tablet.

One final quick announcement is the suggestion that after the developers duties are done on Kid Icarus the team will move on to a 3DS and Wii-U version of Super Smash Bros. It is implied that games will be able to be played using interconnectivity between the hand-held and the console.

Reggie comes back to tell the crowd that they will get to play eight interactive demo’s on the show floor using early developer hardware for the Wii-U. This will be to illustrate to us what the new machine's controller combinations are capable of not to show the machine and it's graphical prowess. A video is played suggesting the machines graphical capabilities. A bird flies over woodland and lakes, the trees blossom as it lands on a branch. The bird knocks a blossom off into the water and fish nudge it, then one jumps out of the water eating the blossom. The Graphics look nice, not over the top stunning but certainly besting current PS3 standards.

The interactive demo's are next, Reggie tells us about Super Mario Bros Mii, which allows Mii's to be used to play in a Mario game. One is a multi-player game for four players, one is chased and has to evade the others. The hunted player has the advantage of a mini-map on the tablet screen. Shield pose is described as a multi-player space game where one player is being shot at by two players using split screen on the television and the other has the tablet. It is stressed that these are prototype mini games to illustrate the types of game-play that will be possible using the combination of the tablet and television.

It's now time to talk about the launch line up, though it's early days still Nintendo have scored a big exclusive from Travellers Tales in the form of Lego City Stories. This promises a Lego city on the scale of something like a Grand Theft Auto open world. It will be available for the Wii-U and the 3DS. A video show some thoughts from leading third party developers who are all pledging support for the new Nintendo machine. From this we can expect games from EA, THQ, Ubisoft, Warner Brothers, Namco/Bandai, and Irrational Games. Games shown to have incoming Wii-U versions are Darksiders 2, Tekken, Batman Arkham City, Assassins Creed, Ghost Recon Online, Dirt, Aliens Colonial Marines, Metro Last Light and Ninja Gaiden 3.

From the trailers we can see that Tekken has the feature for doodles and drawings to be placed on the characters clothes, taken from the tablet screen. EA boss John Riccitello comes on stage to gush about the Wii-U and tell us how Nintendo are opening up more to third party developers than they have done in the past.

Final words from Reggie reminding us that Nintendo are consistently the people who take risks with console and game design and push innovation in the industry. In a way he is right, Nintendo aren't always right in what they do, sometimes they aren't always at the forefront of innovation. I'm sure it could be argued however, that they have done the most out of any company to stimulate new design in the gaming industry.

Microsoft E3 2011 Press briefing

2011-07-16T04:27:00.001-07:00

The show starts with Robert Bowling from Infinity Ward on stage playing Modern Warfare 3. After some comedy controller connection glitches the demonstration gets underway. The player is underwater as part of a diving squad. It appears that they are swimming through a submerged tunnel which would normally contain roads and traffic. The player cuts through a grill and is swimming in a larger volume of water, mines are being dropped, the radio chatter suggests that the player is heading for a Russian target of some kind. An enemy submarine passes overhead and the player places a mine on it's side and detonates it. This forces the submarine to surface and the squad storms onto it and breaches inside. The sub is in New York, at the south end between Wall Street and Liberty Island. There is full scale war going on with ships and planes shooting at each other and the city is on fire. Into the sub the squad goes and eventually gets to a control room where bullet time sequences lead into the disarming of nuclear missiles. The squad then escape from the sub and a dinghy driving sequence through the chaos leads to them being picked up by a helicopter.

After the demonstration a representative from Sledgehammer games comes on stage and tells the crowd that they are happy to be working on Modern Warfare 3. Is this their way of letting us know that Infinity Ward aren't doing the game alone and it is a joint production? We are reminded that Modern Warfare 3 DLC will still be released earlier on Xbox360.

Next game to be shown is Tomb Raider, again a live game-play demonstration. Lara is found hanging upside down, captured by natives on this strange island she has been shipwrecked on. The puzzle requires her to swing on the rope so that the counterweight moves into the way of a fire and burns through. This pitches Lara down a shaft and she is badly injured in the process. Pulling a spike out of her flesh in gory fashion. She moves through the caves and finds a dead friend, then the native attacks and she flees.

Some of the new game-play elements are shown, a view that highlights important objects. There seems to be much more focus on moving objects in the environment, rather than the usual game-play which involves negotiating the environment. A pulley and winch is used to open the way. There is some Prince of Persia style sliding and then a quick-time button press fight with the native which sees him crushed under rocks. The demonstration ends with Lara overlooking a bay filled with shipwrecks from different time periods.

Peter Moore appears on stage to talk about Electronic Arts Sports games, looks like the Microsoft people are going to shoehorn Kinect into these games as well. Tiger Woods, Madden and Fifa are getting the Kinect treatment.

Mass Effect is shown and it has Kinect voice support, the game looks great, not a great advance over part 2, and surprisingly the Kinect integration looks like it might work well. It will be used to supply voice commands to squad members,with no motion control thankfully. Dialogue in the cut scenes will also be recognized when you speak it aloud.

Ubisoft now show a trailer for Ghost Recon, the trailer shows a group of ghosts taking out a camp full of enemies in under a second using a bullet time like sequence. It seems that the game will feature the use of camouflage and robot drones. Kinect is also being used, though it is a side feature, not the main meat of the game that it will be used in. There is a feature called gunsmith which allows you to view and assemble weapons using gestures. A firing range is simulated with these customized weapons and aiming and firing is done via gestures. All future Tom Clancy games will feature Kinect in some way.

Xbox live is getting new features, a new Dashboard interface seems to be taking cues from the metro interface used in Windows phone 7, it seems that this design is going to be used in everything Microsoft, from phone to Windows itself. You tube will be available on the Xbox Dashboard.

Bing search is being brought to the Xbox, which means you can search your own content and the available marketplace content using voice commands. Sky TV in the UK is also expanding its internet Television service. This new dashboard update as usual will be available in the fall. UFC the fighting show will be available in the USA and allows for betting and social features as well as just watching the fights.

Cliff Blezinski and Ice T come on stage and demonstrate Gears of War 3 live on stage. Marcus and the gang are on a ship being attacked by a huge sea monster. It is breaking the ship apart and chewing on the deck. Marcus shoots at some spider like creatures, then goes up onto the deck showing us a robot exoskeleton that can be driven and used. They are called Silverbacks and are basically mobile cover with emplaced guns. On deck the action is interspersed with lots of little cut scene and the eye of the monster needs to be shot out. Locust appear on deck running interference and eventually bombs are dropped onto the monster from a bridge above the ship to end the demo.

A trailer is shown of a game called Ryse, this was announced last year with a live action trailer and the working title of Kingdoms. It seems that it is a Roman empire age Kinect game, which instantly makes me think that I will not enjoy it at all.

Halo one is being remade for it's anniversary, finally we get to know what 343 industries have been up to and it shines through with the total lack of imagination and sense of adventure that seems to run through Microsoft as a whole these days. There is no explanation as to whether 343 industries have made a new game engine or simply just updated the environments from the old game to Bungie's current Reach engine.

Forza 4 is shown in trailer and we are told that it is due by Christmas.

Fable: The Journey is shown, this appears to be an on rails Fable mini game. A trailer is shown, in it we see a very Lost like black smoke chase the narrator of the Fable games, Theresa, through a forest. She gets onto a horse drawn carriage being driven by the player character, who we are at pains to understand isn't one of the Fable heroes, just an ordinary man. The trailer ends and a game-play demonstration is shown. Gesture commands are used to drive the carriage and fire magic bolts. I wonder when Fable Kart racing will be released? Molyneux looks like someone has crushed his soul showing this live on stage. I wonder how long it will be until he leaves Lionhead to start a new company or tries to break Lionhead away from Microsoft?

Minecraft is coming to XBLA exclusively and will have Kinect features.

Kinect Disneyland Adventures, is a Kinect game which acts as mini game child friendly game and tourist promotion material for the park itself. The park has been modeled for the game and can be roamed at will. Instead of rides there are mini-games based on Disney characters. Hopefully the queue experience will not be reproduced.

Kinect Star Wars is shown, and I wish they hadn't. To be honest the target render they showed last year looked better and it looked really basic. The game seems to be a series of gestures where you move in a horrible fashion from enemy to enemy and wave your hand at them. There looks to be no real sword tracking. Being really brutal the Playstation Move is a much better fit for a Light-sabre game and this looks like it will only sully Kinect, Lucasart's and Microsoft's reputations. Horrible graphics and repetitive game-play are the only things I can take away from this showing.

Tim Schafer from Double Fine appears to talk about Sesame Street: Once upon a monster, which is a pre-school set of Kinect based mini games using Sesame street characters to teach numbers and letters. For it's target audience it does look fairly innovative.

Kudo Tsunoda appears on stage to talk about Kinect fun labs, this a free forum Microsoft are giving to the authors of Kinect software. The various interesting Kinect demonstrations that are submitted to Microsoft will be made available for download for free on the fun lab page. They have achievements and include a variety of non game related fun. One example takes a picture using Kinect and tries to make an avatar for you. Pity they didn't let you use this new avatar as your actual avatar however. Another example lets you hold an object up to the camera and take a picture of both sides of it. This is then turned into a 3D object which then does some fun little virtual pet style interactions. A hand tracking sparkler simulation looks fun also. The most interesting this here is that it will be available right away for everyone to try out.

Kinect Sports Season 2 is announced, which will include, baseball, skiing, golf, darts, tennis and American Football. The game will now feature voice commands, which will allow you to for example change clubs. I'm not sure if Rare are behind this one, which raises the question as to what they are making?

Dance Central 2 is announced, adding voice control in addition to a truck load of new songs.

Microsoft have been known to keep a final reveal until the end of their E3 shows. This one is no exception, Halo 4 I suppose is as big as it gets as a new game announcement, yet I feel absolutely no excitement over the reveal. It was sort of inevitable that the Halo franchise wasn't over. The creation of 343 Industries told us years ago that Microsoft weren't ever going to leave their biggest game to rest for a few years.

A trailer is shown, Master Chief is brought out of suspended animation by Cortana on the ship we saw him drifting through space in at the end of Halo 3. The ship is exploding and breaking up around him and he flies weightlessly through the ship out into space to witness their approach to a huge forerunner style structure. The game is suggested to be a tent-pole release for Christmas 2012.

The E3 guessing game

2011-07-16T04:25:00.000-07:00

It's always been fun to guess what the big three console makers will do at E3, as each year they do their best to upstage each other. It isn't always about the big three and there are countless other companies at E3 trying to make their case for your attention amongst the gigantic noise bombardment of information that is E3. Not wanting to be left out I'd like to have a stab at hazarding some guesses at what we will be seeing next month. Maybe even giving some opinions about what I'd like to see happen, yet know won't. In order to be somewhat systematic, I thought I'd go through the bigger companies in alphabetical order.

2K Games
While Duke Nukem Forever will actually be out in the wild when E3 starts, I don't think it will be the biggest star at E3 for 2K. The focus is about the future year at E3 and Bioshock Infinite will be star of the show. With it's cinematic game play and likely deep and satisfying storyline. Ken Levine is known for solid games, with great thought provoking story lines. Bioshock Infinite promises to be his best game yet and I think it will be a game that will make huge waves at E3.
That isn't to say that Duke Nukem will be forgotten, nothing on Earth could live up to the hype of that games long history. The backlash will be strong with Duke, yet I think Gearbox will come out of it smiling and the game will sell a reasonable amount of copies. Whether anyone will be talking about it six months after it's release remains to be seen.
The Darkness is an interesting intellectual property, and while the first game was average, I enjoyed it for what it was. The Darkness 2 should certainly provide a decent storyline and more weird game-play mechanics. Spec Ops The Line might get a showing, which looks like a decent third person shooter. XCOM is also a candidate for a trailer, rebooting old franchises into this shooter heavy climate might see a surprise hit.

Activision
Modern Warfare 3 will no doubt get some kind of game-play demonstration at the show. The affiliation with Microsoft might still be in effect which will continue to displease the Sony crowd. The real questions about this installment of COD is how will Infinity Ward cope after the defection of senior talent that the management implosion created. Will this continue to be the improved version compared to Treyarch's content only installment every second year. The engine development was always suggested to come from Infinity Ward, will this new shaped version of Infinity Ward be capable of improving the engine or simply creating new standardized story lines and environments? Where do Sledgehammer games fit in and will Kotick implement any new money making business models as he has been long rumored to want to do?
Prototype 2 should get a showing, while the first game was fun and it's story showed some promise. I have my doubts about seeing it stretching to provide a decent sequel. The virus with intelligence concept was nice but confused in the original, maybe they can find a good direction for it, or more likely just rehash it in another city with new people to turn into boss monsters. The game-play was good fun, though, like all sandbox games, the mission variety is always a problem. Somehow in an FPS shooting loads of enemies and running through a corridor world never seems to get repetitive. Yet in a sandbox game missions just feel repetitive quickly, for example the first Assassins Creed. If someone can work out why Sandbox games feel that way then they might have the secret ingredient to making a hit if they can overcome it.
Activision will also show some comic book properties, Spiderman and Xmen most likely.

Bethesda
Skyrim will be the focus here I imagine, with hopefully some live game-play on show, another trailer is likely. I can't imagine that there will be any great reveals here, we all know what we are getting here and it's what the people want, there's no need to be fancy or change the formula. The people that buy RPG's will be there day one, no matter what Bethesda do, to be honest they don't need to show anything other that the fabulous first trailer, it sold me instantly.
Prey 2 will be around, though to be honest after the lackluster first effort, which squandered it's Native American links in a game defeating respawn death animation, that took out all need to be skillful from the game.
Id will hopefully be showing something of Rage. I hope it isn't a game engine tech demo and Carmack has managed to provide some kind of decent game with storyline this time.

Capcom
It will be interesting to see what Ninja Theory have done with their reboot of Devil May Cry. The reveal trailer seemed to backfire with fans of the game and didn't really seem to attract anyone who wasn't already a fan. It will be interesting to see if Capcom have got cold feet and issued some new directives to Ninja Theory.
Resident Evil will be front and center, with various home console and mobile versions of the game to show off. I am happy to purchase any Resident Evil game and am interested to see the 3DS version. I need something good to play on my 3DS.
Dead Rising will be in evidence probably in the form of it's remastered Frank West version of the second game. You have to hand it to Capcom for their ability to milk a franchise until it hurts.
Dragon's Dogma will be there I imagine, a sort of Monster Hunter hybrid game, it's certainly something I'd need to see more of to form an opinion.

Codemasters
Bodycount is the new game from the creators of Black, well until there was a falling out it seems. It should be a decent FPS to look forward to unless the developers have fought too hard amongst themselves.

Deep Silver
Dead Island might actually show us some game-play, will it be better than Dead Rising or just a rip off?

Electronic Arts
The sports games will get their time, they don't get any of mine. Madden, NHL, NCAA, FIFA, yawn. Other long running EA franchises like the Sims will be in evidence.
Now to the games that might interest me, Battlefield 3 it seems is going to get poked into the role of COD beater, why we need a COD beater I'm not sure. Aren't Medal of Honor and the Battlefield Franchises making enough money? Why do they need to make more money than COD does for Activision? I'm sure if all I wanted was to make money I'd be investing in Activision rather than EA and there is your answer I suppose. I'm not interested in their billions, I'm interested in games and I want three franchises that have some variety rather than one homogenized common denominator mess. On the other hand I'm sure Battlefield 3 will be a great game and I'm looking forwards to actually playing it.
Mass Effect 3 might make some kind of trailer or game-play appearance. I hated the ending of the second game, it cheapened everything that I loved about the games. That doesn't mean to say that I don't want to finish the story, it's just that my passion for the story went from high to negative numbers in the space of a final boss battle.
If I was still playing PC games I might be excited for the Old Republic, I don't and I'm not.
Harry Potter's final cinematic installment will see an new game, the last one promised a Gears of Potter experience, and it failed miserably. There was potential, though I will need to know that the potential has been realized before plumping down any money for another Potter game. Oddly enough the Order of the Phoenix game was the best Potter game. Pity they abandoned all effort for the Half blood prince on that Sandbox style of game-play.
Need for Speed keeps on keeping on, I can't get excited about racers, sorry.
Insomniac and EA have a multi-platform game cooking and it will be interesting to see if they can produce a great new Intellectual property.

Konami
More Silent Hill, does anyone care?
Metal Gear Solid Rising might actually arrive someday. It's been two E3's for it and it's a bit overdue to be honest. The 3DS Metal Gear game might get shown, though if it takes another two years to arrive why should I care?

LucasArts
Star Wars Kinect, ARRGHHH!!!! Why should I care? Even Nintendo are abandoning motion control with their new console it seems. Will it take Microsoft and Sony another few years to get the idea that the Wii was a moment in history that has passed now, a moment that can't be captured again with the same tactics. Kinect has been interesting, but the interesting stuff has all been prototypes of applications that won't bear fruit for many years. A Star Wars game for Kinect should have been here on the day of Kinect's release, this will be too little too late. I am open to seeing what is shown, though it will have to be stunning to get me to part with the cash.

Microsoft
I think a new Xbox exists on paper, a theoretical target render trailer and a hollow plastic box is all that is needed to hold them until another E3 where they will have to actually produce a real life silicon and plastic working model. Xmas 2012 launch World wide? I think it's possible, though they will have to make sure that there isn't a repeat of the red ring of death debacle.
Games this year will of course include Gears of War 3. Enough has been shown of Gears, what with it's trailers and beta to make any fan happy. I'm down for a day one purchase. I don't need to see too much of Gears at E3. What I do want to see is new games, new intellectual properties, even new studios. Microsoft need to show the Xbox faithful that they are as committed to the Xbox as they are Windows, Office and Windows Phone 7. We need Microsoft Game studios to announce a huge expansion program.
Forza 4 will maybe make an appearance. The Crytek exclusive has outed itself as a Kinect game, thus killing any interest, same goes for Dance central and the waste of Rare's time that is Kinect Sports 2.
Three Kinect games and two sequels are a poor showing in anyone's book. Lionhead need to cook their games for longer than Microsoft have been giving them. Fable 2 and 3 felt like they should have been one game, though their game engine is working well. Lionhead will probably show a teaser for a new IP, though I hope we won't be seeing an Xmas release date for at least another eighteen months.
Rare will announce a New game as well, likely the much demanded Killer Instinct sequel. Not sure if Nintendo own any trademarks here, if they do I imagine a spiritual successor, with similar look and feel only with all new characters and mechanics.

Namco Bandai
It seems that the noise of E3 is too much to be heard over, this is maybe why Namco/Bandai had an event recently where they set out their stall. Ace combat's Soul Calibers, Ridge Racers all get new installments. Along with Tekken the now fashionable version where fighter games get their rosters pitted against each other. Street Fighter seems to be the roster to beat and it's the Tekkens gang's turn.

Nintendo
Project cafe's announcement will overshadow everything else at Nintendo's show I imagine. Some have suggested that Zelda: Skyward Sword will move home to Project cafe. I doubt this will happen, there will be a big franchise announcement of a flagship game for Project Cafe, I doubt it will be Zelda or Mario though. Possibly a New intellectual property, Nintendo must be mindful of the franchise milking they are routinely accused of.
The 3DS is an nice hand-held gaming system, though it's one that is in desperate need of some good games. Zelda is coming and I predict there will be a raft of new games announced for the hand-held. Animal Crossing, Metroid and Mario are all likely candidates. Joining these teaser trailer candidates is likely to be Kid Icarus and Mario Kart showing some game-play.
The most interesting part of Project Cafe will be the debunking or confirming of the rumors. Will there be the expensive touch screen controllers? Will there be some new as yet unseen gadget or gizmo to unveil. Are Nintendo abandoning the casual market and going back to pure hardcore gaming? I doubt they will abandon the casual market entirely, though their system it seems is going to be more hardcore orientated this time around. Maybe hoping to trade on the goodwill the Wii got from the casual market and pull along the casual Wii owners into this new generation. I predict that the fitness, music, art and cookery genres that Nintendo nurtured last generation will see fresh installments on Project Cafe.

Sega:
I'm not sure how relevant Sega are anymore, I haven't really enjoyed many of their games for a long time. Sonic is something they need to let drop, though it may be the one thing that prevents them from drowning. There is apparently a Mario and Sonic sports game about the London Olympics coming. Though to be honest that thought does nothing to excite me and even my eleven year old never got into the Earlier games in this series. Every new Sonic game promise a return to glory days which simply is an impossible task. There was a time for Sonic, it's passed and Sega need to just let go.

Sony
I think Sony are the least prepared out of the big three to launch a new console. If Nintendo and Microsoft do so their hand will be forced. This current generation Sony suffered from being a year behind Microsoft. The PS3 failed to produce games that were instantly and obviously superior to the Xbox 360 and it cost more. While the PS3 has done well to come a close second to the Xbox360, it speaks volumes about the mind-share that Sony have in the games market. There are an awful lot of twenty something gamers for whom Sony is the only real console they have ever gamed on and they intend to keep it that way. For those of us who don't actually care what lump of silicon and plastic we use to play the games on Microsoft came from a disaster last generation to almost deposing Sony this generation.
Playstation's tend to be oddities of design, using cutting edge expensive CPU'S and RAM, they usually always incorporate the latest designs in storage media as well. There simply isn't anything out there to build a new Playstation around at the moment. Super HD will struggle as an awful lot of people continually fail to care about 1080P HD. There isn't really any new Disc format to tout onto the market. Nothing stunning in CPU design either. A new Playstation now would just be an upgrade and not an evolution. Microsoft have never been shy about Xbox's just being PC hardware baked into a console. A new Playstation is the least likely thing that we will see at E3, I am willing to bet. Of course if Microsoft announce a machine as well as Nintendo the story will need to change fast. If both of the competitors consoles are new generation and their games are obviously better than the PS3's then Sony will have no other option than to change strategy and bring a new console.
I am sure the NGP will see a lot of exposure at the show, possibly even being playable by the press without being chained to some poor girls waist like Nintendo did last year. Games for the NGP have already been announced, though I am sure there is room for more games on the launch line up. Uncharted and Call of Duty float my boat for the NGP and I will be watching with interest regarding specifications and price of the hand-held.
Sony has always been out there getting more games made for their consoles than Microsoft have done in the past. This year should be no different. I expect the Last Guardian, Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One, Resistance 3, Starhawk, Twisted Metal, and Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception to all make strong showings.
Santa Monica studios, makers of the God of War franchise can't all have been sitting around twiddling their thumbs for the last few years. I am not sure if they will have been making a new IP or another God of war. It's too big a franchise to let go, not when there is much more prequel or in-between territory to mine for Kratos.

Square Enix
There will likely be some Kingdom Hearts announcements, I think, the third home console game is long overdue. There are endless portable versions for DS and PSP, and the 3DS is likely to get some Kingdom Hearts fun.
On the Final Fantasy front there are several games in the works, there is the continuation of XIII and most likely the announcement of a remake of VII for the NGP. A VII remake has the potential to print money for Square Enix thanks to the huge cult reputation of the original. Even a half hearted effort for the new Sony hand-held would make a huge amount of cash for the company and at least they might get asked about something else instead.
Eidos have also got a few games in the works, Deus Ex is on it's way, and while recent showings have had rather wooden animation, they do look interesting. The reboot of Tomb Raider should also be making an appearance as will a new Hitman game.

Tecmo
Ninja Gaiden III might be in evidence, though this one isn't exclusive from the start so nobody will care about it in the slightest.

THQ
No doubt Red Faction will be touted, as will the really rather enjoyable guilty pleasure that is Saints Row the third. A sequel to Metro 2033 will try and make us care.

Ubisoft:
The milking and dilution of the power of the Assassins Creed story will continue it seems. Nobody will care about Call of Juarez. Driver is still there somewhere, along with Ghost Recon Future soldier in limbo. Ubisoft need to give the Assassins a rest and stick to what they were good at, solid tactical shooters. There is some rumors about a third Far Cry. I 'm not too excited about that one, after the mediocre second game. While the first ones story was average and hokey, the seconds change of plot jarred entirely. These games have no identity, Crytek doesn't make them anymore, meaning that the engine isn't even a talking point. From being one of my favorite large publishing companies in the past few years it looks like Ubisoft have been taking to many notes from Activision.

Warner Bros
Batman: Arkham City and Gotham City Imposters will be shown. I am looking forward to Arkham City, the other game doesn't interest me. I love my single player too much to give much time to an online only class based shooter.

Artistic Compromise? Creative Freedom?

2011-07-16T04:23:00.000-07:00

During E3 it became fairly clear that while Motion gaming has failed to set the hardcore gamer's heart a flutter. It does draw media attention to products that have essentially remained unchanged at their core from the days of the NES. A consoles primary function is to play games. They can all now keep up with the multimedia crowd, yet at heart a console is a box under the tv that connects to a controller and plays games.

I'm not sure if Sony and Microsoft, even Nintendo are aware of the depth of feeling growing between the casual and the hardcore audience in gaming. I get the impression more and more that hardcore gamers are getting really sick of motion control being pushed. I know that I personally haven't enjoyed Kinect or move to any great extent. They are novelties, nothing more. They won't replace the controller in gaming at present, I'm not saying that there isn't a better way to play games. I'm not saying that motion control isn't the way forward. All I'm saying is that Move and Kinect aren't moving and kinecting with me, forcing the issue isn't going to make me change my mind either.

At E3 this year both Sony and Microsoft devoted large portions of their time to showing Kinect and move features in games. In the aftermath it was allegeded that Microsoft are demanding developers include Kinect functionality to their titles. Not an absolute requirements to control the full game, just to have features like voice control and maybe some little gesture controllable sideshows. This means that Microsoft will be able to put the little "better with Kinect" sticker on more boxes and hopefully sell more Kinect sensors.

In the comment sections of several articles it was suggested that Microsoft are stifling creative freedom by imposing conditions on developers. Of course these Sony supporters then went on to suggest that being a Sony affiliated developer would see unlimited creative freedom. I decided to examine that idea and look at the undertones of company policy that seem to leak into the public eye from both companies. I didn't really want to include Nintendo here, as they seem to have the policy of ignoring third party companies entirely.

Let's look at Microsoft first, the most obvious examples of their developer relationships is with the games companies that they have acquired. Rare, Lionhead and in retrospect Bungie. It seems that all of these companies are told what games to make by Microsoft. Rare being the most obvious example. Their output post acquisition has seen a slow evolution. Kameo and Perfect Dark Zero were more like the Rare of old. Slowly the casual focused, family friendly policy has crept more to the front with the Viva Piñata games. Rare it seems became primary developers for the Avatar's integrated into the Xbox 360 dashboard. Then onto Kinect with Kinect Sports. Many people see this change of policy as something that is forced upon the Rare team, it might be, it might not, nobody can say for sure other than Rare themselves.

Lionhead also, it seems, have been changed by their relationship with Microsoft. Molyneux didn't look happy to be showing an on rails Kinect fable mini game at E3. Their PC output has been curtailed to allow the Xbox 360 to have more exclusive output. I also get the impression that Molyneux would like to do something other than Fable. I may be totally wrong, as I say unless the people here involved comment then I am only guessing.

Bungie it seems were so tired of Master Chief that they sought to leave the control of Microsoft and jumped into the arms of Activision. Is Bobby Kotick really a better controlling influence that Microsoft? Looking at these companies, it does seem that Microsoft have a dictatorial approach to the management of their artistic talent, possibly this is why Epic have remained independent. If rumors are to be believed Microsoft have approached them with intent on absorbing them into the collective.

It seems there might be a point here, if you want to make a game for the Xbox 360 it seems that being a third party is the best place to be. Microsoft are happy it seems to provide the forum to advertise third party products, which in turn promote the Xbox 360. Yet when they call the shots they appear overbearing and over prescriptive.

How do Sony fare? Are they really the place for an independent game studio with a dream to go to for help, support and funding? A quick look back through the recent years of a few major Sony owned first party studios sees a similar picture. It might not be quite as pronounced as the Microsoft stranglehold though.

Insomniac have been churning out the Ratchet's and the Resistances, now they are moving to Electronic Arts for their new IP, a multi platform game called Overstrike. I'm not inclined to believe that everything between Sony and Insomniac has been harmonious over this decision.

Sony it seems are just as guilty of Microsoft over the shoehorning in of features that Sony are trying to foist on the masses. Both Move and 3D have been heavily promoted by their use in first Party Games. Motorstorm, Killzone 3, and Uncharted 3, all of these games it could be suggested have had the royal decree handed down from above to provide promotion for these Sony products.

There is also the history of Sony first party studios downplaying the competition with comments about how their game is only possible on Playstation. Also the old chestnut that the last game in a series only used fifty percent of the Playstation's power while this new iteration will harness the full power of the beast. That particular Sony PR nugget has been trotted out since the days of Tekken on the PS1. Sony took their competition bashing to new heights with their Kevin Butler advertising campaign, which it seems they have finally given up on.

While it seems that both companies are guilty of their dictation of policy to the artistic talent, it must also be remembered that in a lot of cases these companies are investing heavily. When you give someone a large amount of money it remains in your vested interest to make sure that they aren't squandering it on a game that is unlikely to see a return on the investment.

David Jaffe has been in the news again, talking about Twisted Metal not being the game he wanted to make at this point in time. Which seems a strange thing to say, since he wants us to buy it in a few months time. His point it seems is that he wanted to make a new IP but needs to eat, and after Calling all cars failed to set the world alight he felt that Twisted Metal was the game that would keep a roof over his head.

Sitting at home being an armchair pundit about games means it's easy to ask people to take risks. When it's your job on the line and future career, the safe bet is always the one to take. There is a long history of great artists who didn't have the most financially secure and comfortable life. There has to be balance, there also has to be a compromise. The hardware makers want to sell their hardware first and foremost. Surely it isn't too much to ask a company that will make their living from producing games for your platform to promote the accessories you want to sell this year?

It seems that maybe Microsoft's corporate culture is a little more stifling than Sony's, yet both, it seems, have their conditions to impose on developers. Is it naive to suggest that any multi million pound entertainment product is free of interference from those people whose job it is to oversee the profitability of the endeavor. The movie and music industry have seen executive interference as a permanent feature, why should games be any different? It might not be right or desirable, but unless you are self financing the entire creation yourself, then compromise of artistic integrity is something, it seems, has to be endured.

Apple WWDC Conference 2011

2011-07-16T04:14:00.000-07:00

Each year Apple holds a conference where it announces changes and educates OSX and iOS developers on these new changes. There are many lectures for people to attend and lots of Apple staff involved in the creation of the two operating systems present to speak with and learn from. Steve Jobs and his staff provide a Keynote presentation which summarises most of the new enhancements. This presentation is also used to announce new features to the press as well, so making it a fairly interesting event for those interested in Apple software. New hardware tends not to be shown here, as the focus is primarily for those who will be creating games and applications in future using these new features.

First to be shown was the upcoming new version of the Mac operating system OSX Lion. Steve Jobs promised many new features in the release and of course does not have time to go through them all onstage. Apple have chosen to present the most important new features in their eyes at the keynote.

Multi-touch gestures have became ingrained in those who use iPads and iPhones. The pinch to zoom, and swiping back and forth feel like intuitive ways to use a computer. Apple have seen fit to bring these gestures to Lion, by the use of the magic track-pad scrolling content, zooming and swiping will all be built into the OS from the ground up. While I feel that this idea is actually quite nice I resent the fact that I now need to by a few magic track-pads along with my purchase of Lion itself.

Full screen applications are another idea taken from the mobile OS. The idea is that focus and productivity may rise when the work itself is the only focus on the screen. Using the aforementioned multi-touch gestures swiping on the track-pad from side to side will sweep through running applications. Things like Safari will run full screen allowing more screen real estate for content.

Expose will also be changing, getting three finger swipe gestures to let you see everything that is running. There will be a change to the order of the view, instead of just making all windows visible, the windows will be organised into categories.

Changes to the Mac App store include the ability to create Apps with in App purchasing, which previously has only been possible on iOS. Push notifications are now allowed and updates can now be part of the App rather than having to download the whole new App again each time there is an update.

Launchpad is a new version of the current application folder on the Mac. Instead of just having your Apps in a folder and clicking on them, you will have an iPhone style set of icon tiles, which will work in exactly the same way as the iPhones'. Currently there is something similar if you have your applications folder in the dock. Clicking it brings up a panel with the applications icon's. All that is being done here is adding the iOS interface which is easy to control and understand. Also very familiar to those who have iOS devices. Four finger pinches bring up the launchpad at any time allowing you to choose an application to launch.

Resume is another feature from iOS, and I suppose a good one. If you close an application currently it will revert to a default state when you run it again. Resume will mean that the App will close then open again at the exact same point you left off. This ties in with the next new feature, which is autosave and versions. Any productivity App such as Pages can now automatically save and track a document using a Time Machine like interface to allow you to revert to earlier versions or even copy and paste to the current version from an earlier version. It seems to me that it will take a bit of getting used to for those that are used to the current systems. However, for new users who tend to end up losing their documents by forgetting to save it will be a boon.

Airdrop is a method of sending files between two Macs on the same wireless network. It will present an image showing the names and avatars of Mac's on the network and sending them a file is as simple as dragging and dropping.

The Mail application is now much more like the iPad version, adding conversation views which splits up the messages for better clarity.

It is revealed that Lion will only be available as a digital download. There will be no disc version available. It will be bought from the App store on your Mac and install itself over your current version. The download will be 4gb and it is priced at £20 in the UK. It will be released in July.

I don't quite know how to feel about this, OS's have always been things that come on a disc, and you format your hard drive to install a fresh clean copy. Maybe that is a hangover from Windows? I would like to have a copy available in case of hard drive failure. I know that I have a disc with Snow Leopard, and could install it onto a new hard drive. Then I would have to download Lion again and install it. Call me old Fashioned if you like, I would prefer to have a disc with Lion on to install it and not bother with installing two operating systems to get back up and current. I am informed by third parties that it will be possible to take the downloaded files and burn them to a disc yourself. I suppose this is a satisfactory compromise if it is possible.

Next on the agenda is iOS, which will be going up to version 5. There are lots of figures trotted out, and it's amazing that there are now 25 million iPads sold. IOS 5 will have around 200 new features, again only a few important ones will be shown at the keynote.

Only having and iPod Touch and iPad myself I don't have much trouble with notifications, apparently it annoys the hell out of iPhone owners. It seems that some eye the Android notification system with a green jealous eye. Having an Android phone myself I can say that it's not entirely brilliant, though it does seem better than the iOS method of just flashing up one message that goes away, losing the message when you have multiple messages at once.

A new notification centre is announced which borrows the swipe down from the top interface idea from Android. This new notification centre will allow you a lot more control and management options for your notifications. I suppose I will continue to not need this, until I cave and get an iPhone next contract upgrade.

Newstand it seems will be an iBooks style app for subscription magazines. Keeping them all in the one place and organising the updating of content.

Twitter will be integrated into the operating system at a low level, allowing you to tweet pics directly from the camera App for example. Images from twitter avatars can be imported automatically into contacts.

Safari is getting a feature called Reader, which takes away advertisements and present only the pertinent information from web pages, in an easy to read way. I can see this annoying advertisers, and putting programs like Instapaper out of business.

A new reminders system will allow lists of reminders, and also location based reminders. If like me you have a wife who wants to know you have got somewhere safe, you can have your phone remind you when you get to the location automatically.

The camera App now allows you to take a picture using a button on the lock screen, which means you won't miss something unlocking your phone and finding the camera app. Also the volume up button is now a context based camera shutter button.

Mail is changing slightly, with new gesture controls and the dictionary now being available for you to look up a word.

A new Split keyboard feature will keep those people who use their thumbs to type while holding the device happy. Not for me though, I use a real keyboard, like real men.

One of the most important features is the ability to have an iOS device without a computer. After the introduction of iOS 5 you will not need to plug an iPhone for example into a computer to activate it. Nor will you need it to backup and sync your content. There is a new wi-fi backup and sync feature, which will upload all your devices settings and content to Apple's cloud storage. This means that you will have a backup, and also get updates just by plugging your iPhone in to charge at night, of course you will need to be in wi-fi range.

Ever since I bought my iPad I have wanted to suggest to those novice computer users, that are always bringing me Windows based laptops to fix or clear of malware, to buy an iPad. I think an iPad would be adequate for their needs, which are usually just email and web browsing, music and movies. All of which the iPad can now do on it's own without any PC or Mac backup.

There are also delta updates available now for Apps and iOS itself, which means you won't need to download the entire App or firmware again when all that changes is a few lines of code.

There will be additions to game centre, mainly for the addition of turn based online multi-player games.

Imessage is the big reveal, a messenger service that allows chat, and pic sharing over Wi-fi and 3G. This will probably annoy the carriers. Will work with Ipad and Ipod touch also.

IOS 5 is revealed to becoming available in Autumn of 2011.

Steve Jobs comes back to the stage to talk about iCloud, he shows us pictures of the huge data centre Apple have been building in California. The purpose, it seems, is to keep backups of all the user data from the millions of iOS devices that now don't need to have a computer backing them up.

Mobile me, the much maligned cloud service from Apple is being retired and basically a lot of it's features are now going to be free parts of the iCloud synch and backup service. Calendars and contacts will synch from Mac to iPhone and between say iPad and iPhone if you have them linked on the same iTunes account. Applications, books, music and movies that are bought on your acount for one device will be sent to the others if they support it. Backup of all documents and data from Apps will be done once a day when the device is plugged in and connected to wi-fi. All iWork apps will do this and developers can also add it into their Apps. If you buy a new phone as soon as you enter your iTunes user details everything will be synched.

If you take a pic on your iPhone it will also be sent to the cloud, where it will be kept there for 30 days. Enough time for you to transfer it to a computer. The cloud copy will expire, though presumably it won't vanish from your phone. Users get 5gb of storage for free, which does not include your Apps, music or movies. Since Apple have the originals already stored in the cloud anyway. There was no direct mention at the time, however it appears that more capacity can be purchased.

The final item revealed was iTunes Match. This is a service that costs $25 dollars a year, and allows you to have your iTunes library scanned and any songs that you may have ripped yourself added to your iTunes Library. This means that they will then act as if you had paid for them from iTunes. Meaning that you can re-download them, and have them pushed to all devices. Basically a backup service, should you have a catastrophic data loss on your main hard drive and lose your library you would be able to download the whole thing again at no extra charge from iTunes. Obviously if you don't keep up your subscription to match then this right would be revoked

The software's new clothes

2011-05-31T16:06:00.001-07:00

App, short for application, what an interesting dissected little syllable. App has become a catchall term for everything these days, and there is allegedly an App for everything as well. Where did this re-branding of software come from, where is it going, does it even matter?

The term app was made most famous by Apple when they introduced the App store to the iPhone. For sake of argument I am going to define what App means to me. When I think of an App, I think of a program that runs on a mobile platform to provide new functionality to that platform. I don't want to say that Apple were first with Apps, they weren't. Devices like the Palm were the first mobile computers I owned that you could buy software for. They might not be the first, they were for me. In the later days of the devices you could download these apps to your computer and install them on the device.

Along with this definition I have some prejudices about Apps, when I think of an App on a mobile device I think of a small program that is designed for a simple task, or a very very specific task. I don't think about things like Photoshop or Microsoft Word when I hear the word App used. These gargantuan products of thousand of man hours are full fledged applications crafted over years of evolution, effort and user feedback.

Ever since Apple created the App store and it's wild success App has taken on new meaning and connotations. Today everything is an App, software developers are falling over themselves to call their software, huge billion line programs Apps. Why? Well because it's a word that caught on in popular culture and became a buzz word. Games are Apps, Word Processors like Pages are Apps, Twitter clients and web browsers, everything is an App.

Apple saw that the App store was a success and had altered the basic fabric of the technology world in some fundamental way. Like any good company they sought to consolidate and build on that success. Their advertising for the iPhone focused on the App store and the catchphrase "There's an App for that," was born. They also moved the App store concept to the Mac desktop OSX as well.

This was a controversial move, while you could now browse an awful lot of Mac software easily and buy it using a slick and secure online store, there were downsides. One thing that has always annoyed me about iTunes and the App store is the user reviews. Have a look at some of them, there are plenty of one line, this sucks, type missives. Mixed in with the super positives sent in by the developers, along with the just plain befuddled who aren't exactly sure what they were buying in the first place.

Some user reviews are helpful, most are conflicting and just plain misleading. There is also the cult of the update types who always seem to want more and more from the developers. Their entire reviews seem to focus on what they want to see in the next update. In the case of games there needs to be a never ending stream of new levels sent out each day, completely for free. They only spent 60p on the damn thing, yet it appears that some people want the developers to work the rest of their days, making new content for that pitiful sum. I don't want to see these user reviews stopped, I would like to see them moderated a bit. Perhaps the first reviews shown are balanced reviews from the low and high ends of the scale. Hide the confused, the lovers and the haters away where they can only be seen by the morbidly curious.

The amount of apps available on an app store seems to be taken as a measure of success. Well, at least as a yardstick to trip up the competition with. Oh look at your app store, what's that? Three hundred thousand apps, well mine is over one million. This obviously doesn't take into account that there might be a hundred fart apps on there, amongst all the star wars and Simpson sound sample players. Quality of apps it seems isn't a goal, it's quantity all the way.

That sort of thinking allows the quality of a platform to fall, why should I care about a million apps if I would only actually want or need around twenty of them. Think about your own iOS or android device. Do you actually have more than twenty apps that you use regularly and couldn't do without? Remember not to count the stuff that comes installed as standard, i.e. calendars, music players, calculators etc.

With the Android market in heated warfare with the iOS app store, and the battle yet to be joined by Microsoft in competition with the OSX offering, where is all this going? We will have App stores on every platform, and they will be filled with loads of nonsense. Finding the gems amongst all the rubbish will almost be as hard as finding good software when you just had to google search for it in the past.

Of course Apple and Microsoft will be taking money to put your App at the top of the search list and to promote your wares on the staff picks and new and noteworthy sections. Never mind the cut that the App store is getting for distributing the apps.

As it stood in the pre app generation software was just generally available, you had to find a store that stocked the app or buy it from the actual website of the vendor. It required more work to find the piece of software you were looking for, and there was always the dross out there that you had to sift through. Nothing has really changed except people's perceptions and expectations about App stores. I'll give the ground that paying for things is easier when I can use iTunes vouchers. Hacking is getting worse, I'm glad I didn't give my credit card to Sony.

Games are games, business software is actually an application in the old sense of the word. Programs that tell your the weather for the next few days are just fluff, they hardly even qualify as software. It's like the emperors new clothes, everyone loves the app and the App store, yet nobody notices that it's getting increasingly hard to find good software.

When there are fifty twitter clients and all of them have big positives and negatives in the reviews are you really going to try them all? What if the random one you chose isn't the best though, it's going to nag you now isn't it?

Spoilers

2011-05-31T15:55:00.001-07:00

Recently there was a leak of information from Infinity Ward regarding Modern Warfare 3. This isn't really that surprising, Modern Warfare is a huge franchise, sales of the entire Call of duty line are over 50 million worldwide. This is a big franchise and as such news about these types of property can mean huge ad revenue for games industry news websites. Who can blame any company looking to profit from gaming news for publishing juicy insider information like this when it lands in their lap?

Does the spoiling of the storyline matter in a game like Call of Duty? It's a shooter, the story is usually a thinly veiled excuse for sending soldiers to different environments so that they can be blown up. Typical multiplex, summer blockbuster friendly stuff, these stories are fun, yet are unlikely to resonate with people in the same way as story lines from your typical RPG or something like Bioshock.

I didn't read the leaked data, didn't even click on it, I prefer to remain spoiler free for any game. For a while now I have been avoiding looking at too much information on any given game. I think it began around the time of Killzone 2. So much was written about that game and so many videos were shown before it's release. When I actually played the game, I felt for about a third of it, that I had already seen it before. A feeling of deja vu came over me because I had already seen someone else play through the level. I knew what to do and where to go, it was as if I was replaying a game I had already completed a few months ago.

Since that game detracting experience I have resisted going to sites that show the first hour or so of a game, or huge chunks of game-play. If I am not sure about a game I still check out game-play footage but don't watch too much of it for fear of being spoiled.

This begs the question about game play, can it be spoiled? How can you spoil something that is essentially a game, a set of mechanics which change shape due to the positioning of enemies and environments, your own skill and participation, which can be different every time? Some retro style shooters for example can't be spoiled can they? Is there a road map for a game of Geometry wars, where random enemies spawn and every game is slightly different?

The answer I feel is yes, for any given person there is an approach that they will take. Some players are more cautious, some more gung ho and reckless. Some games dictate the approach, for example, a tactical shooter like Rainbow Six urges caution and planning. While older instalments of COD rewarded recklessness, with their ever re-spawning enemies. A person brings their own pattern into the game, that pattern then dictates how they play games, which will mean that even fairly random games will always take on the shape and structure of the player.

When I play an FPS I employ similar strategies learned from previous games in the genre. A good game is one that challenges your preconceived ideas of what an FPS is and makes you learn to play in a different way. For example games that don't have regenerating health, like GRAW for example force you to be much more careful. Games with interesting variety in their mechanics, for example, Bulletstorm forces you to play differently than in COD for example. Conversely a poor game is going to be one that feels similar to every other shooter you have played before, no matter how good the graphics, you can't escape the feeling that you have done it all before.

Spoilers are a strange and fascinating thing, there is something alluring about knowing more than the rest of your peers. I remember being deeply involved in the TV series Lost. Wondering all the time what the final mysteries of the island would be. I used to read message boards about the programme, where people would ponder and pore over the story, coming up with all sorts of weird and wonderful theories. Actually most of them were better than the actual, it's just magic, deal with it ending that was shown. Maybe the writers should have just listened to the die hard fans and gone with a fan direction! They couldn't be sued, they would just have to say that the fans guessed the ending on the message board. There are hundreds of stories that we can all see the ending of, miles before it comes. Like music, we have needs, fashions, that dictate the flow of our chords. Give shape to the tune, it's not too much of a leap to align story telling to that concept. People don't like it when the bad guy turns nice or the good guy dies.

With Lost being shown in America before it made it's way here, spoilers were everywhere in the discussions on the message boards. They became hard to avoid and I found myself reading episode synopses before seeing the actual episode. Did that detract from my enjoyment of the episode? For a while it didn't, then after a few series I began to shy away from the spoilers. Knowing what was going to happen next lost it's appeal. I found myself wanting to enjoy the episode fully. With previous movies and TV series I didn't care, it was like a little sea change in my attitude that just told me to enjoy the series as it was meant to be. Knowing the answers became less important with Lost and I enjoyed the journey, which in the end was the best part. After the rather poor destination was arrived at that was glaringly obvious, maybe that was the life lesson in Lost, the journey is everything and the destination only the end.

For me then, spoilers are a curious territory, like a reformed addict I can see both sides of the fence. I suppose my message here is that spoilers ultimately leave you feeling like the experience is second hand, half of the fun removed. The shock value taken away, maybe a little of the fun of exploration and discovery in the case of games. It may be rich for a former spoiler junkie to lecture on the abstinence from spoilers, yet that seems to be what I’m doing.

Project Cafe

2011-05-31T15:41:00.000-07:00

Nintendo, it seemed, hoped to surprise the world with the announcement of a new console at E3 this year. As it is in every walk of life, the ability to keep secrets is a lost art. Various leaks have sprung from the good ship Nintendo and they have admitted to the world that, yes, a new machine is in development and will be shown in a working form at E3. Not content for the surprise to be taken away the world press have donned their private detective hats and have attempted to dig out the truth from obscure manufacturing plants.

It also appears that Nintendo have been providing developers with information, possibly even development kits. The bigger media outlets may also have been shown the machine behind closed doors under non disclosure agreements. This hasn't stopped the leaking of pictures and even video onto the net. These videos and rumors may be misdirection from Nintendo itself, or more likely they represent the inability plug leaks.

So what are these rumors, well the new console is expected to have a three core IBM power PC chip at it's heart. On paper that sounds similar to the Xbox360, though one would imagine that this processor will be of a faster and newer design. Graphics duties are rumored to be handled by an AMD R700 GPU. There is no suggestion of hard drive storage being included. Going by previous Nintendo form on this area, it is a believable rumor.

The Wii didn't have that much storage capacity, roughly 256mb, which, when compared to the PS3 and Xbox, is scarily small. In practice though it didn't really need more. Those who wanted to own the entire virtual console Library were able to copy the games onto 32gb SD cards and slot them in and out. It appears that Nintendo believe this policy to be sufficient. In the world of bigger faster more, that we seem to be living in, numbers on the specification sheets seem to be the be all and end all. Nintendo didn't play that game with the Wii and they are on top of the console industry right now. Similarly Apple don't play the numbers game with the iPad2's memory size, and they aren't doing that badly against the newer Android tablets that all sport twice the memory of the iPad2.

With the Wii Nintendo made a cheaper console, one that's specifications were poor compared to the other players in the market. What they did have was a gimmick in motion controls. The Wii was a vehicle for a strategy that positioned Nintendo outside the traditional hardcore gamer market and opened the console up to a largely non-gaming audience of women and more mature players. The hardcore gaming community howled and wailed at this slight. Nintendo didn't care, they were rolling in the cash from sales of the Wii, bought largely for the bundled WiiSports. They didn't care if these casual players didn't buy another game, or even play with the Wii after a few months. They had their money and they couldn't make the Wii fast enough for the first few years of it's life to catch up with the demand. The hardcore gamers only needed a few bones thrown their way to keep them sort of sweet, despite all the bluster on forums. Those same moaning gamers were there for the Mario and Zelda releases the way they had always been.

This sideswipe at traditional console values worked this time for Nintendo, a company pale and weak from living in Sony's shadow for two console generations. Would it work a second time? Nintendo has a generous advantage going into this new console generation. They have full coffers and much more advantageous they have good mind-share in the public eye. Some of those casual gamers might have left their Wii in the cupboard and forgotten about it, however, there will also be some who got into gaming in a big way. There might also be a good proportion who remember Nintendo with fondness and will be interested in a new machine if pitched in the correct way to them.

Nintendo have a choice now, they can essentially go into this new generation with the same strategy as last time. They can make a console that is only slightly more expensive to make than the Wii was, keep motion gaming as a focus and essentially stick to the same course. Alternatively they could go the Sony route and produce an all singing all dancing super machine. One that is expensive to build and will be a loss leader like the consoles of old. The third direction is to go even further into the left field and make the console centered on some new technology gimmick that will take gaming in a different direction much like the Wii tried to. Maybe eye goggles to take us in a VR direction or an update of wearable power glove like controllers.

It seems that they are playing it safe, moderately powerful, better than current tech by say twenty percent. A gimmick in the controller, though not a left-field one. A price that will be affordable yet profitable from day one. A traditional console, though one that will likely be able to use Wiimotes for motion gaming.

Reading between the lines it appears that Nintendo have listened to what Sony are saying about the PS3 having a ten year life cycle. Seeing how well Microsoft did having a new generation machine on the market a year before the competition, it looks like that is their strategy. Bring out a machine that doesn't cost the earth to make or for the user, yet is slightly better graphically than the PS3. That way they capture the gamer who wants a next generation console and maybe even get a two year lead in sales for the next generation.

Microsoft and Sony will be forced to enter this new generation, I believe that both Sony and Microsoft are able to do so and will, if Nintendo force their hand. The race to market will probably be won by Nintendo, though I fully expect Microsoft to announce a console at E3. If Microsoft do so Sony will likely announce a new machine at the Tokyo Game show or earlier.

If other rumors are to be believed Nintendo are going to produce a gimmick for this new machine in the form of a controller design that appears to be a crude cross between touch screen tablet and dual analogue many buttoned controller.

This design would allow in game information to be displayed on the controller instead of HUD, or full screen menus. There is rumor of the ability to send the display for split screen gaming to each individual controller. For example a game of local four player Mario Kart, where each player sees their screen displayed on their controller as well as on the television. The touch screen is also open for developer defined controller interfaces, providing great flexibility for user control.

On the downside for this touchscreen hybrid controller is the cost, touch screens aren't cheap and the controller might cost a great deal more for a second controller than current generation standards. Especially if Nintendo are showing off four players using them in their advertising. There is also no real hook for the casual player in such a device, in fact it appears to be a retrograde step for a company that suggested that casual players found the dual analogue stick a barrier to entry, surely this controller has more complexity?

I am excited by the fact that the new console generation is kicking off, the current generation is getting long in the tooth, despite what Sony have tried to brainwash us into believing. I want new consoles from each of the big three, this is going to be an exciting E3, though I am not getting my hopes up for getting my hands on a Project Cafe at least until Christmas 2012 here in the UK.

iPad 2 Impressions

2011-05-31T15:32:00.000-07:00

Buying any electronic item has always brought with it the prospect that the item you have spent your hard earned cash on will be superseded by a newer model. If you want to avoid that particular pitfall then it's best to avoid electronics and specifically computers entirely. Most mature electronic markets have regular update cycles and it's fairly easy to live with the fact that your Laptop for example will have a good two to three years of relevance before it's time to stump up for a newer model. Hell some people buy a computer and never ever think they will have to upgrade, most of these people will then ask me to repair said computer.

I wasn't an early adopter to iOS devices, one of my friends bought the first iPod touch when they came out. While I was impressed with the video and certain other feature of the first generation devices it wasn't until the App store came into full swing that I was tempted to buy my own. I bought an iPod touch, the second generation one and loved everything about it. I liked that, in such a small form factor, it had good video playback, music and even sophisticated software that could create music along with some very nice games. I considered buying an iPhone when it came time for contract renewal on my phone. I ended up with an android device due to the fact that wifi tethering wasn't an official option on the iPhone at the time.

While I liked iOS as a platform I always found myself wishing that the screen was just a little bit bigger on the iPod touch. You can imagine my reaction when the iPad was announced. I promptly put my money where my mouth was and pre-ordered an iPad. When it arrived it was exactly what was expected, a big iPod touch. I never really understood that as a criticism of the iPad, wasn't that what most people wanted? Didn't they find web browsing on the iPhone or touch as cramped as I did?

My iPad became my most used computer overnight, web browsing was easy and fast. Why wait for a few minutes to look up something on a whim while your desktop machine boots? Just pick up the iPad and be on the page you want in seconds. I like to write, and have owned a succession of portable devices for my writing for many years, from Psion's to Palms and net-books. The iPad took over instantly as the device of choice and I have produced probably more than one hundred thousand words on it in a year. The iPad coupled with a portable Apple keyboard is currently serving me well. I would like a better solution from Apple for transferring files over wifi without having a few pieces of third party software in the way though.

With this background out of the way I found the announcement of the iPad 2 to be quite disconcerting. As a long term PC gamer, I had thought that upgraded faster processors and graphic cards would never excite me again. I'm experienced in the art of spending large sums of cash and seeing the associated change in performance making me wonder if the money was wisely spent. I became so disillusioned with PC gaming that I haven't been back to it since the release of the Xbox360. Nowadays I'm firmly a console gamer and my PC is for, well not much really, it's rarely switched on, especially since I got my iPad.

Why then, was I caught up in the hype of the iPad 2? I liked the iPad, that predisposed me to getting any future iteration of the product of course. If you buy and like a product then of course the announcement of an upgraded model is good news. However, the iPad is an expensive beast, coming in at around five hundred pounds for the 32gb wifi model which is my version of choice. The joy of hearing the news was tempered by the fact that I didn't have five hundred pounds just sitting in my back pocket ready to spend on an iPad 2.

Things change though, and I was soon presented with the chance to spend said five hundred pounds on an iPad2. I jumped at the chance and received my machine a few weeks after the launch date in the UK. How did I feel on receiving my shiny new iPad2?

First impression was of the physical hardware, especially when I could take it out of the box and sit it side my side with the iPad1. It is really slimmer and neater than it's older brother and built to exactly the same high quality standards that you can expect from Apple products. The thing that bothers me about the iPad is that it does cost a lot of money and I can't bring myself to carry it out and about without a case. The thing about a case is that it instantly changes the aesthetics of the iPad, makes it look more like some ancient windows tablet. Adding bulk and clasps and sticky out bits that are actually quite handy. It makes it look uglier though, there I said it, to make me feel like I can stop holding the thing like a sheet of fragile glass I have to make it hideous.

In other disconcerting news the iPad2 is actually hard to hold without a case as the slim edges cut into your fingers much more than the thicker edges of the first generation. So, not off to a good start. The beauty, for me, needs to be hidden in an ugly case so I can feel less anxious, and the thinness that Apple are so rightly proud of makes the thing begin to feel like a cheese-wire.

The next most obvious change is the cameras. These allow you to take video and still pictures with the device and while these are welcome I can't see myself using them that much. I won't bother to talk much about the resolution of the still images as I am not a photographer by any means. The video does come in at HD resolution and seems adequate, especially for any task I might put it to. The main use here will be for Facetime, which is something that I actually do use on my iPod touch, so that's it made redundant from a job that it was actually very good at.

There is a live video manipulation program present called Photobooth, which allows all sorts of crazy filters to be applied to video and it's fun to play with for about five minutes and nothing more. iMovie is a big iPad2 specific app, which doesn't cost that much. It seems fairly powerful for simple editing tasks. Though it isn't a patch on the desktop version, unlike Garageband, which, while limited, seems more fully featured than iMovie does.

In normal use the iPad2 doesn't seem that much faster than the iPad1, that is until you move towards games. Same as the PC in my earlier comparison, it's not until you start to play things like Real Racing 2 and Infinity blade that you see the benefits of what is under the iPad2's sheet of sensitive glass. After both games were updated for the iPad2 there were huge performance boosts. Real Racing in particular runs buttery smooth, especially when there are lots of cars on screen. Infinity blade adds better textures and anti aliasing. You can really see the power of the iPad2 in these games and they are quick fixes, not games built for the ground up for the iPad2.

For me one of the biggest new features of the iPad2 is the ability to have the screen display on any hdmi equipped display, not just video like previously on the platform, the entire screen at any time can be shown. This makes the iPad2 with the hdmi adapter an excellent portable presentation solution. Games in particular can take advantage of this feature. Real Racing is the first, it shows all the menus and an in game map of the track on the iPad's screen and the actual game-play without any heads up displat clutter on the television. This means you are holding the iPad2 like a steering wheel and watching the television screen for very home console like experience.

A friend of mine has wondered aloud why I would want this feature, surely if I want to play home console games then I should just play them on my Xbox360 or PS3? He is right of course, the iPad and iPhone aren't built to play full scale console games, just because they can isn't really that good of a reason. The lack of dedicated tactile buttons and analogue sticks means that most games fudge their controls together into something that works barely, or the game is built around the touchscreen. There is an impasse that won't ever be resolved here. For games to work with a controller, Apple would need to weigh in and produce one and make it mandatory. Apple won't do that, they barely acknowledge the ability to connect keyboards to the iPhone. They like the fact that the iPhone is all you need in your pocket to get the full use out of it. In short accessories are frowned upon it seems.

If the Xbox360 was a stallion for gaming, then the iPad is kind of like a donkey, it can do all of the same things, but why would you use a donkey to accomplish what the stallion could do straight away. Sure you could fit wheels and rocket boosters to the donkey and it could get from a to b as fast as the stallion, but if you have a stallion available why not just use it.

At least that is the argument presented to me by my friend. He is right of course, I wouldn't sell my Xbox360 and use the iPad solely for gaming, even if Apple did produce a proper bluetooth controller. I still have to say I like the hdmi display mirroring feature, and hope that more iPad games will provide support for it.

After backing up my iPad1 and syncing the iPad2 using the same account it looked and felt exactly the same. There are only a few new features and most of those aren't things that I want or need my iPad to do. The graphic and CPU speed boosts are welcome, I am sure in future there will be some nice games to play.

The increased memory does improve the iPad experience slightly. I did notice that when switching between applications an awful lot more of them resumed from the place they were last closed. Scrolling around web pages quickly sees much less of the checker boarding of the iPad1.

In conclusion the iPad2 is a great device, the problem I am having with it stems entirely from the fact that I already had the first one. The differences between the two are mostly under the hood performance differences and it's not enough to make general use feel that different. In short if you don't own an iPad then it's the best tablet out there, either version. If you own an iPad already then I wouldn't recommend buying a new one for another year and the inevitable launch of the 3rd generation. Note to self, two yearly upgrades make more sense than yearly, as per Moore's law.