Cloud Gaming

I have long suspected, but recently had it confirmed to me, that soon 'Onlive', or a similar technology is going to take over the world.

For those who are unfamiliar with Onlive, it is a gaming service that changes the way that games are played and interacted with. The user has an Onlive console/modem plugged into their TV, and a control pad connected to that, not unlike a normal console. However rather than putting a disk into this console, it connects via the internet to the Onlive servers, where the games are hosted, and you play them, literally, online. The console sends your controller inputs to the Onlive servers, where the game is updated, and then receives back the pictures to put on the TV. All that the box under your TV does is send the controls, and receive back raw images to display, no actual processing takes place at all. This means that you can instantly play any game on the Onlive servers, and never have to upgrade your hardware. New games can be played as soon as they are available, there is no waiting for DVDs in the post or waiting for game files to download off Steam. Updates and patches are taken care of immediately, and you never have to worry about having to run that game at anything other than full detail, because Onlive take care of all the processing. Also available with the service is a PC app that allows you to do the same thing on an internet enabled PC, turning any computer at all into a top-spec gaming rig.

The moment that I decided that this method of game delivery would take over the world was when I realised that if sufficient bandwidth is available, you can play the same game on a top-spec PC or 50" TV as you can on an iPad, and using the same save games. So if you are addicted to Skyrim, but had to catch the bus to work, you can log off your TV console, log onto your iPad version of Onlive, and carry on the exact same game from exactly where you left off, with the exact same graphics.

This is a paradigm shifting tech, and the implications are very wide ranging. People are already moving away from the traditional mode of purchasing games, with direct-download services like Steam and XBLA becoming more and more popular. Onlive completely removes not only the need to buy new game disks, but also the need to buy new consoles, and if people are happy with not physically owning game disks anymore, it's only one step removed to not having any copy of the game at all, just the rights to play it. The days of console wars will be gone, all games will be playable on the same system, the only thing you will need to buy is a new controller if a new one is released. Games will no longer be limited by console hardware, opening the floodgates for larger and faster leaps in graphics technology.
After the games side of the business is strong enough, there is nothing to suggest they won't start offering other  services as well. TV, films and music are all already available to stream online, so it's not a big jump of the imagination to see the Onlive tech being adapted for that as well.

As a sales platform as well it is incredibly strong. Game demos are taken care of by allowing someone to play a game and then cutting them off after a certain time or when they've completed *this* much. Then purchasing the game after that is as easy as telling Onlive to add it to your library of available games, either as a rental, or a permanent purchase. They also run a monthly payment service that gives you unlimited access to a library of games. Piracy is completely removed, as the game can never exist anywhere but on the Onlive servers.

The drawback that most people will point out is the obvious time delay that will take place between sending instructions across the internet and receiving back the onscreen-images. This is clearly a problem, but as the internet gets faster, the delay will evaporate, and reports say that it is negligible anyway. Also, to counteract this delay, there is the fact that multiplayer lag is removed totally, as all the games will be hosted at the same server location. Another sticking point is that if your internet goes down, all your games are completely unplayable. This is a more fundamental problem, but as internet connectivity is fast becoming omnipresent and stable, and it's an issue that other services suffer from as well, it is something else that fails to be a deal-breaker. Motion-control gaming could be something that the service struggles with at first, as particular hardware is needed to play games with this control style, but there is nothing to say that custom peripherals will become available.

I really see this technology taking off hugely as it becomes better recognised and the internet gets faster. The world is already moving towards cloud computing, with offsite processing and file storage featuring more and more in our day to day lives. It will be a very interesting few years as Onlive picks up speed and tries to find it's place in the gaming ecosystem. If games production companies see the potential and embrace it (and there's no reason not to) we could well see a huge change in the way we consume games and other entertainment very soon.

Drumroll Please...

The news that has been a year in the making has just broken: I got a job.

After searching high and low for someone to give me a chance, I have been lucky enough to get a position as a 'Lighting and Rendering artist' at Red Star 3D. I first completed 2 fortnight long sessions of work experience with them, and have now been asked to stay on for a 2-month trial before becoming a permanent employee.

While it's not a job modelling for a games company as I had expected, I'm incredibly happy to be working there. The company is only 10 people, working very closely together to produce great 10 minute 4D films. 4D is wearing 3D glasses and having the cinema chairs shake, water squirted in your face etc. The type of thing that's typically seen in theme parks and leisure attractions. Joining such a close-knit team should be great fun, as the input everyone in the office gets into the films is huge; creatively and practically.

I personally will be getting fully animated scenes and setting up the lighting for them. This may sound dreary at first, but really is one of the most crucial parts of the whole process. Lighting can change a scene from day to night, rain to shine, and funny to downright creepy. In fact during my 2nd work experience there I was re-lighting existing scenes from the latest project, and it's amazing how much of a change you can make to the feel of the film just by taking a different approach to lighting.
I'll also be taking care of the rendering and compositing of my scenes, which means setting up the computers to change them from mathematical scenes inside their hard-drives, to full motion video images, another job that has a lot of responsibility.

The oddest thing about the whole situation is I've ended up back in Sheffield, over a year since leaving and expecting to move somewhere completely different. It's great to see everyone again, and to visit old hangouts, even if it does feel weird to be back. The office building we're located in is called 'Electric Works', and is pretty fantastic. There is a helter-skelter from the top floor (where we're based) down to the lobby, so rather than taking the lifts we can do that instead, makes for a great end of the day.

Hopefully after the 2 month trial is done, I'll be asked to stay on. It's hard to get settled in a place when there's that uncertainty over you, but I'll try to enjoy my time here anyway and work hard to impress and make myself invaluable.

Character Bio

Recently, a bunch of my friends and I began a Dungeons and Dragons campaign, and as such I had to create a character. I'm the type of person who takes this sort of thing seriously, so decided to write a backstory and some special rules for my hero, as I figure it's always more fun to play as someone with a bit of personality.
Our DM manages a Games-Workshop, so it made sense that we set our game in the 'Warhammer' universe. After a bit of thought I came up with a bio I liked and thought would be fun to play:

Name: Tzega Dreamcaster

Type: Eledrin Wizard (Controller)

Age: 17

Birth Name: Dogshite Shadowmelt

Dogshite was the 14^th child of the Eledrin couple: Esmerelda and Lucius Shadowmelt. His parents were drunkards and had been exiled from the Feywild after being caught stealing Moonshine from the shamans stores. Travelling across the sea they arrived at Marienburg where they each took jobs as barmen, remained alcoholics, and began a family. When their 14^th child was born they were both too drunk to think of a proper name, and in their drunken haze christened him 'Dogshite', as it was “hilarious at the time”. His first meal from his mothers teat was so alcoholic that he became addicted then and there, and was constantly drunk up until his 15^th birthday.

On the 15^th anniversary of his birth Dogshite went to his parent's tavern, where he would hide under tables and sneak drinks from passed out customers. As usual he set up camp in a shadow near the bar, and began to quietly quaff anything that was left unattended for more than a few seconds. Late that night, after enough alcohol to kill a large goblin, he was caught trying to steal a drink from a customer who wasn't as drunk as he had thought, and was being dragged out of the tavern by the scruff of his neck when he scrambled free and turned on his captor. Not really thinking, he punched his assailant as hard as he could, and to his great surprise the man turned into a trumpet. Seeing this the other drinkers in the bar accosted him, and held him down until the City Guard arrived and took him away to spend a few days in the cells while they worked out what to charge him with.

He awoke early the next afternoon, still drunk as usual, and reached out for his 'jump-starter' triple shot of Dwarven whisky. However due to being incarcerated, he was unable to get his waking hit, and began the slow and incredibly painful process of sobering up for the first time ever.

Eighteen hours later, the guards returned to his cell, and found, in place of the dribbling, speech slurring vagabond they had picked up the day before, a sober and fiercely intelligent young Eledrin, playfully sending showers of sparks from his fingertips. Their prisoner then eloquently explained to them that if he had stolen from and attacked someone then surely there would be a victim to present their case, and the lack of this elementary piece of evidence rendered him innocent. Upon being released, and pausing only briefly to collect his trumpet from the jailer, he made his way back to the bar, where he explained to his stunned parents that he was in fact a genius and had considerable magic ability, but had always been too sloshed to realise. Bundling up all his worldly belongings (a set of teletubby shotglasses, a tankard shaped like a teddy bear and 3 bronze pieces saved from the time he had accidentally walked somebody's dog for them) he left home, choosing then to adopt a new name (inspired by something he had heard a Japanese tourist saying): “Tzega Dreamcaster”.

Having left his home, he became apprenticed to a travelling Wizard, following him from city to city, learning as they went. Tzega found it hard to kick the bottle, often turning up to lessons drunk, but as the time passed he mastered the art of drunken magic, finding that he could perform spells equally competently whether intoxicated or not. However his decision making was certainly still affected, and on more than one occasion he and his master had to leave town in haste after Tzega drunkenly blared on his trumpet and then transformed the interfering city guards into mice.

After 2 years of tutoring, with all the wisdom of a 17 year old, Tzega declared himself ready to face the world alone and left his master in search of fame and fortune. He returned to his home city and declared himself available for hire, and this is where we meet him now...

Special Rules 

Alcoholic: Due to his past, Tzega finds it very difficult to be around alcohol or drinkers. When in a tavern or around alcohol, every 10 waking minutes he must take a will-power roll to see if he has a drink. For every drink he has had in the previous 4 hours he takes a -1 modifier on this roll.

Hardened Drinker: Having grown up with alcohol in his veins Tzega is unaffected by the normal rules of intoxication.

Drunk and Disorderly:
As he becomes more and more drunk Tzega's alignment moves from True Neutral to Chaotic Neutral. 0 drinks = 100% TN, 6 drinks =100% CN.
As he becomes intoxicated, decisions Tzega makes become increasingly random. Dice rolls decide his behaviour, with modifiers added for each drink consumed. 

Brass Knuckles: If Tzega ever kills a creature with a melee attack, roll a D6. On a 6 the creature transforms into a random brass instrument. For every drink Tzega has had in the last 4 hours, the number needed for transformation falls by 1 to a minimum of 2.

It's not very often I get to do creative writing like this, and I really enjoyed it. I plan to possibly write up the gaming sessions we have in the same style, so maybe one day I'll have a substantial body of work built around this character and his party.

Importance of moddable games

I recently bought StarCraft 2, a game synonymous with online dueling, and a game built almost purely around the attraction of it's deep strategy mixed with fast gameplay. However, since getting it I've probably spent less than half my time ingame actually playing StarCraft 2 as it was designed by Blizzard, the rest of my time has been taken up with player created custom games.

One of the attractions of a game like SC2 is the incredible wealth of custom maps and game modes that get churned out by enthusiastic amateurs. A lot of them are buggy, uninspired or just plain boring, but there are a lot of exceedingly fun ones as well.
The best example of a Battle.net based custom game exploding is the Wacraft 3 custom game: 'Defence of the Ancients' or DOTA as it's now known. DOTA basically invented a new genre of strategy game, and in some respects has become more popular than the game it was created inside. It is featured in international tournaments with thousands of dollars of prize money, the designer now works at Valve developing a sequel, and there are 3 fully released clones of it available for PC and consoles( DemiGod, HON and LOL), and .

Of course, as far as mods go, DOTA is one of the largest, but the most famous game modification (or mod) of all has to be Counter-Strike. A mod for the original Half-Life, developed by two amateurs, at it's peak it had three times as many players as it's nearest (studio created) competitor. Professional teams sprung up, earning their livings from tournament winnings and sponsorships, the most popular players began to release their own lines of mousemats and headphones, and matches were televised across the world. CS was bought by Valve, the developers of HalfLife, and republished and updated with their new 'Source' engine. However at the time of writing, the original CS is still the most played game on Steam, with more than even the record breaking Call of Duty: Black Ops:

Counter-Strike and DOTA are not the only games to have lead to commercial releases. Valve also released 'Team Fortress 2' a sequel to the incredibly popular Quake mod 'Team-Fortress' (which already has 2 other fan-made sequels), user made mods were shipped with the Civilization IV expansion pack, and Unreal 3 Mod "The Ball" was released on Steam as well.

Custom games and an active modding community can be one of the most important things I look for in a game these days. I know first hand that using mods can improve the life of a game, and also changes the prospects of buying a sequel. I asked a friend of mine if he wanted to play some 'Left for Dead 2', fully expecting him to have this classic game, but he replied that he had never bought it, he didn't really like the original due to it's short storyline and lack of replay value. "Lack of replay value? Did you not see how many custom maps, scenarios and entire campaigns were available, FOR FREE, all over the internet?" Granted the original game could be played through in probably under 10 hours, but with five minutes of searching you could add easily 10 times that amount of gameplay time. This was one of the reasons I enjoyed the first game so much, and was definitely one of my biggest considerations when deciding to purchase the sequel.

Sites such as moddb.com have risen out of the need for aggregators of this custom content, with rating systems to ensure that the best mods get the most recognition and downloads that they deserve, and now entire games are created with the explicit aim of allowing the player to create their own content. The most well known example of this is 'Little Big Planet' and it's sequel. These are essentially game creation toolboxes, with simple controls and a very powerful interface that let players make just about anything they want.

Mods are increasingly affecting the game industry, with entire amateur teams being hired by studios, mods being shipped with official expansion packs, and new commercial games being based on popular mods more and more often. This wide-stream acceptance of game modding can only be good for the industry as companies now have a proving ground for new designers and developers, where the best and brightest can be clearly seen. The amateur creators also profit from the experience they gain and from the satisfaction of playing a critical role in a games development long before they ever join a full studio. And most importantly, gamers in general benefit from the wealth of extra content that becomes available for their favorite games. I hope that more and more companies encourage and allow people to add to their games, as it's one of the best things about the industry at the moment.

RePlay: Orange Box

With Portal 2 coming up fast I decided I'd like another run through the original, after all, it only takes about 3 hours to go through it, and I've now got a new PC to try it on. Going to my games shelf I took down the Orange-Box DVD, popped it in the drive, and sat staring at the installer. I ticked the box for the Portal install, then looked further down the list at Half-Life 2, ep.1 and ep.2 innocently sitting there. "Why not" I thought, "it's been a couple of years since I did a full playthrough, and it's one of my favorite games, I'll only play a couple of hours a day and make it last this time."

[Spoiler Alert]

Portal

One thing that always gets me about Portal is the massive amount of replay value it has. Other games I will decide to replay and maybe get bored after a few hours, or only continue with them because I feel I should. I've lost count of how many time's I've played through Portal, but even now, if I close it down to do some work or get food or something, I still get the yearning to be back playing it after a few minutes. It's not that there is loads of stuff to do, it's the same 18 or so chambers then the ending every time, it's just the satisfaction of solving those puzzles in the most elegant way I can is addictive like no other puzzle game I've played.
I've also noticed how much faster I get back into the habit of 'Thinking with Portals'. The first few levels never take any time at all, but in the past I have always had to think hard about some of the later ones, but not this time. This time I was able to look at the layouts and after a few seconds see exactly how to solve it. It's not that I remember the solutions (I do for some, but not all), it's that I think Valve have actually trained me into a real life Aperture Science Portal Operator.
Having watched the Portal 2 trailers again, I'm getting more and more excited for this new game. At first I was a little disappointed that we would be Portalling away indoors again, having convinced myself that the next game would be set in the open, wider world. Then I saw the trailers for the Gels, Lasers and suspension beams, and decided that Valve know what they're doing after all. Anyway, I'm now convinced that the long awaited HL2:ep3 will involve the Portal gun, and this will be my open-world portal gameplay. It explains the ep.3 delay: they're waiting for Portal 2 to drop, and at the end of ep.2 you are about to head off after the Borealis, an 'Aperture Science' vessel, so it all fits nicely.

Half Life 2

Having just got a new PC I was able to turn the HL2 settings right up for this playthrough, something that satisfies me in a wholly unhealthy way. Even though it was released in 2004, the game still looks great, better than some games I've played since then I'd say. A lot of that is down to the Source Engine, which is one of the best engines developed in the last decade. That's not to say it's flawless, there are a few parts that are downright ugly, with different textures bumping up against each other and other such problems, but these are the vast minority.

I always find Half-Life games are some of the easiest to get immersed in, the reasons for this are well documented, but that doesn't make them any less true. Having a protagonist that doesn't talk, never does anything you don't command him to, and never leaving first-person view are a good start, but filling a world with likeable characters, with actual, persistent personalities that you end up caring about goes a long way as well. This is helped a lot by great character models, animations, and facial rigs, but even Dog is likeable, and he doesn't even have a face.
Speaking of Dog, he's one of my favourite characters in any game. It's not often you can have an NPC that only appears for a couple of minutes at a time, but during those periods moves the story on so much, and all without ever speaking. He is the very definition of a 'Deus Ex Machina', but at the same time valve have created a character with real depth.
At the start of episode-1 for instance, he enables Gordon and Alyx to get onto the Citadel by putting them in a car and pitching it across a 40ft wide chasm, and manages to do it with hilarious amounts of personality. And at the end of Episode-2, he just gallops off on his own round the back of the hangar and you think "oh look at Dog, isn't he funny just running off like a little kid" only for him to burst through the ceiling a few minutes later (albeit a few seconds late), and begin to pound on the Advisors so you can escape, again making him the saviour of the day.
As well as the great characters, the varied environments you move through during your time in the game are just superb. Ravenholm is soooo fantastic, in the way it's creepy and funny at the same time, and Valve have managed to make a place where you can not only learn to use the Gravity-gun effectively, but in fact the Gravity-gun is by far and away the best way to get through it. The zombies line up and parade through the narrow corridors towards you, just asking to be dismembered by a rapidly moving circular-saw at chest height.
The first time I played through I remember picking up teh gravity gun and chucking Dogs ball about, thinking, "This is cool, but I don't know why everyone has been raving about it so much, I was expecting a bit more". Then I moved into Ravenholm and chopped and blew up some zombies and again thought "Well, this is more like it, but still, I don't know why people are calling this the best gun ever." It wasn't until the Citadel, when the gun begins to glow blue, that I never, ever wanted to put it down again. The first time I picked up a soldier and tossed him into his friends, knocking them all down a 1000ft pit I knew I was in love. And that was nothing compared to standing next to a power-beam and grabbing energy spheres to bounce into a room full of combine, watching them all disintegrate to the sound of "paong-paong-paong-paong".

There is nothing I don't like about HL2 and it's episodic sequels, and it's easy to see why it's the #1 game on Metacritic (incidentally, the Orange box is #3, and the original Half-Life is #4). It still has huge amounts of appeal and continued interest, which you can plainly see at any Valve Q&A session. Gabe Newell must be sick of hearing "When will you be releasing Episode 3?", although as I discussed earlier I don't think it will be that far off now Portal 2 is imminent. Let's hope not at least...

A few games I've played recently: Indie Edition

As well as all the blockbusters I've been playing recently, I've also been trying my hand at a large number of indie games. Some of these were pretty rubbish, as is to be expected, but some were very good indeed. The one's I've enjoyed the most seem to be the ones other people have liked as well, which, it seems, is quite often the case.

BIT.TRIP BEAT

I got this in the steam "Indie Pulse pack" which was full of games that are heavily based on music.
I knew BEAT was popular before I played it, but hadn't actually seen any footage of it, and screenshots don't really do it justice. As soon as I started playing I knew it was something special.
It takes the classic pong gameplay, but instead of bouncing one ball between two paddles, you control one paddle, and there are lots, and lots of excitingly acting balls to bounce back instead. The way it took a mechanic I am so familiar with, altered it, and then synchronised the whole thing with fantastic music, struck a chord with something inside me and I fell in love instantly. To illustrate how much I became enamoured with the game, I actually called my mum into the room, just because I had to show it to someone, something I've never done before (and she's never played a game in her life).  It wasn't until my dad pointed out to me the background looked like something out of doom (on one particular section) that I realised there was in fact a background to look at. I had been so concentrated on the little squares flying towards my paddle that I had completely missed it. However sometimes when playing I totally zone out, and just enjoy the music, letting my instincts take over the pinging and ponging. All said and done, this title is simple in gameplay, graphics and concept, but the execution of all 3 is perfect for the game, and I can't imagine it being better.

Chime

I picked up Chime in the Steam '12 days of Christmas' sale, and it was a great addition to my library. It's a puzzle game in the same way Bejewelled or Tetris are puzzle games, and is a cross between the two. You have geometrically shaped blocks to place on the game board, and every time you make a 3x3 block, it begins to 'fill up', this takes about 3 seconds, and if in that time you can place another block or blocks to completely cover 1 edge, it will begin to fill again, but with the new blocks added to the volume. This continues until you miss an extension, at which point the block bakes down onto the grid, raising your multiplier. It's a high score game, and the best way to get points is filling the whole grid with baked blocks. The game is set to music, and each time a block bakes down it plays an eponymous "chime" based on its shape and position, meaning each playthrough has a unique soundtrack.
This game has the same addictive quality that tetris had all those years ago, and it's obvious that parallels will be drawn when you see the shapes of the blocks you play with in Chime. It's not as stressful as a lot of games in this genre, but at times you be be angry at your brain for not seeing a way to make this block fit in that hole quickly enough.
It's a lot of fun, and it's been a while since I enjoyed a pure 'puzzle' game so much, also the music in the soundtrack is excellent (that being said, I'm a big electronic music fan already) and the graphics very tastefully done, and fit with the style perfectly.

Flotilla

This is another game from Steam; the "Indie Air Pack" to be precise. At first I didn't play it as the screenshots seemed quite ugly, and I had to pretty games to be playing. However I later booted it up, and suddenly remembered that graphics aren't everything, and in fact it was quite pretty now that I really looked at it and my god it was fun.
The graphics, while not cutting edge by any means, are designed to be purely functional, and when you add in the classical soundtrack and leisurely pace of the game, it all creates a very pleasant and peaceful playing environment.
It is a space combat game and as the title suggests you control a flotilla of ships and fight against enemy fleets.  Combat is turn based and "There is no up in space" and you should remember that. You can move your ships in any direction, and point anyway you want while doing it, which is a refreshingly honest way of playing space combat. There are only a few different types of ship, each has strengths and weaknesses and it becomes apparent fairly quickly exactly the best way to use each, which is very satisfying.
The whole thing is tied together by a very quirky but often hilarious adventure story. Each playthrough of the story is made up of semi-random encounters and lasts (depending on how long your battles take) between 20 and 45minutes, start to finish. It's worth getting the game for the limited story alone, just to see how much fun playing an entire story-arch in a lunch break can be, and to meet some of the personalities inhabiting the galaxy with you. These range from mercenary-cats and casino owning owls, to deer in charge of the interplanetary police.
There are online leader boards, and while getting a high score will often be dependant on what encounters you  get in the story, it is fun to see how you match up with others playing the game, something which kept me coming back.

A few Games I've played recently: Pc Edition

After the unprecedented success of my last post (a comment!) I feel I should continue the list with the Pc games I've recently played and enjoyed. This week I'll talk about the large, studio-made games I've been playing.

In a world containing GT5's 1000 unique cars, a game that only has a single type of car shouldn't really be anything to get excited about. If however that car is an F1 car, and the game lets you race it through a complete season including testing, quali and racedays, and the opposition on track are actually named after the real life drivers, then I get very excited. honestly one of the best bits of the game is the fact that it's all fully licensed. Outbreaking Fernando Alonso is much more fun that outbraking "Player 2", especially as I'm a McLaren fan.
The racing itself is brilliant as well, the tracks are beautifully realised and the difference between driving on slicks and wets in the rain is monumental. Thankfully codemasters included their brilliant 'replay' system, that lets you rewind a few seconds if you make a mistake, something that is invaluable when you put it in a wall after 15 laps of Monaco (I'm not sure if I've ever concentrated as hard as I did during that race). It's a game that I'll keep coming back to, just for a race now and then, and certainly more once the new F1 season starts. I now have an intimate knowledge of all the tracks on the calendar, and it makes watching races on TV much more fun when you know exactly where the braking points and racing line are on a corner.

Just Cause 2 is just plain fun. It has lots of problems, but if all you want to do is run around a HUGE island paradise, blowing stuff up, this is perfect.
The storyline is a bit sketchy, but it really takes a backseat to just creating chaos on the island. Creating chaos is actually the aim of the game, you gain chaos points by blowing things up and disrupting the government, and racking up enough of them unlocks the next storyline quest allowing you to progress in the game, but creating the chaos points is reward enough in itself.
At one point while I was playing, I attacked a military base on a motorbike. I drove the bike as fast as I could towards the gates and at the last second jumped off and opened my parachute, floating gently over the walls while the bike rammed into a petrol tanker and exploded, killing 3 guards. I landed on a roof, threw a few grenades before grapple-hooking'ing my way up a tower, and then hijacked the helicopter the government had sent to kill me in mid air. I then used the helicopter to destroy the remains of that base, and another, before I was badly damaged by another enemy helicopter, so I jumped out of mine, grappled onto the new one, hijacked it and flew off, while the burning remains of my original aircraft fell to the ground and exploded, destroying a jeep full of soldiers.
Just seeing and experiencing the island is a good enough reason to play the game. It is the most massive open world I've ever seen and takes probably 20-minutes to fly across in a helicopter (to run it would genuinely take a day). It varies from thick jungle to snowy-mountain-tops and there's an enormous city, complete with skyscrapers you can climb and base-jump off. There are also 3 airports (that I found), oil-rigs, harbours, nuclear bunkers, factories, and literally hundreds of villages and towns dotted around the landscape.


Dragon Age is another huge game, but in a different way. I have currently played about 32hours, and I'm at 27% completion. It's good, clean, RPG fun, and I've really enjoyed fighting my way up towers and down dungeons. The storyline is good so far, nothing spectacular, but it's keeping me playing which is no mean feat considering how much time it can take up. The combat system is solid: you can either play real time, or pause the game during the combat and issue commands before restarting it again. So on easy battles you can let your party get on with it themselves (you assign tactics to each of them, so they know what to do in any situation) and in harder battles you can stop/start second by second, micromanaging every spell and ability. This variation means you can relax and concentrate on exploring a lot of the time, but when you need to win a tough battle, there is enough depth for you to dive in and make sure the right enemies go down early, and everyone gets healed.


Another game that deserves a mention is Mafia 2. This storyline driven third person shooter is really good, and very well made. The game creates a fantastic 1950's feel, with the costumes, cars and music absolutely spot on, and the casual conversations you hear the public having help to immerse you even further.
The storyline itself is fantastic, I was genuinely excited by the twists and turns that it takes you on, and at times it felt more like a movie than a game, with great voice acting and a terrific script. The shooting is fun and satisfying, and the fist-fights are well designed.
It markets itself as an open world game, but I really didn't find myself exploring that much apart from when I had to go somewhere to complete a quest. I suppose it is a credit to the writing that I felt the need to progress the story all the time I was playing, rather than venturing out to steal cars and cause havok.


Next week I'll write about the indie games I've been enjoying lately. Steam had a sale last week, and I stacked up on loads, some better than others.

A few games I've played lately

I'm very aware that no-one reads this blog, but decided that in the interests of my future self I should make an effort to record some of the things that go through my head while I'm playing certain games. Actually these are more like the thoughts that go through my head shortly after I've finished playing games, seeing as I'm writing them now and not while I have a joypad in my hands...

I recently bought a Wii, and along with it a raft of new games to play. Also, having just finished university, I figured now was a good time to buy a new PC in order to do more "work", and of course by work I mean play new games at their most beautiful.

On the Wii side of things I have really enjoyed Mario Galaxy 2, Zack and Wiki, and Red Steel 2.


I'm not going to say anything that hasn't already been said 100 times about Galaxy 2.

• It's probably the best platformer I've ever played
• The variety of the levels is outstanding, and even if something is repeated later in the game, it still feels fresh
• The worlds you get to explore are amazing, and the way gravity is used is inspirational.

Zack and Wiki is a great puzzle adventure to play though. It has elements of the old Lucas-Arts games, with the point/click and the humour, but at the same time feels brand new and original. It's quite unlike anything else on the Wii, and while the later puzzles are fiendishly difficult, at no point did I feel like giving up as solving them was too much fun. It may look like it's for kids, but the puzzles are certainly geared more towards teenagers and up.

It's a while since I played a puzzle game that really made solving it so enjoyable. If you can avoid looking at walkthroughs and persist in solving the puzzles yourself, it's one of the most satisfying games you'll play in a long time.

I probably enjoyed this game as much as I did because it was so different to the two above. After spending hours bopping Goombas and solving puzzles, running around with a Katana and a pistol, killing ninjas, was a nice change. The story was fairly poor, but as a means to an end it worked fine, and was more than made up for by the motion controlled sword fighting. While the sword fighting is a long way from 1:1 action, and rather substitutes gestures for buttons, it's still a great way to play, and you do get out of breath after a long battle. I enjoyed the exploration aspect, and while the upgrade system is fairly basic, learning new moves and techniques certainly kept the game feeling fresh even after hours of combat. 

Handpainted Mill

I decided that I needed to improve my texturing, without using photographs as a base like I usually do.

Having recently played through Torchlight I had a good idea of what I wanted to make, a building in the same style as you see in that game.

After a bit of googling I thought it would be fun to make a small fantasy mill with a water-wheel on the side, so I did.

I did all the textures in Photoshop using my tablet and the model is about 600 polygons. I'm pleased with it, and have certainly improved by doing it.

Masters Passed!

Today I received the great news that I have passed my Masters with merit, which is a bit confusing; I didn't even know there was a 'merit' grade...

I've now updated my CV, webpage, LinkedIn etc.but am still only vaguely aware of the fact I never have to go to uni again. I was probably ready to finish uni and start a job about 6 months ago, 5 years is a long time to study the same subject, and I can't wait to get to use everything I've learned (although hopefully not too much of the programming).
Highlights of the last few years include my time in Germany, the games design modules, and Dare to be Digital. It's interesting that these are where I had the most fun, but are also where I learned the most...

Masters Completed

A couple of weeks ago I submitted my last piece of Masters coursework, namely my dissertation. While not as massive as my undergrad diss. this one was still a lot of work, and was done in about a third of the time due to spending the summer in Dundee.
I had some great news in that we were allowed to submit 'Grrr!' as our group project, so hopefully our marks should get a boost from this. Uni were very accommodating when it came to Dare, shifting modules around and allowing us to use our game as a submission, as well as helping us during the application process, so I thank them for that.
Marks are still a while away I expect, but in all honestly I'm in no rush to get them, am just happy to have finished the course and am looking forward to getting a job. A task that hopefully shouldn't take too long, but could end up being a real slog.

New Grrr! Trailer

I cut together a new Grrr! trailer, and uploaded it to Youtube for the whole world to see:

Award winner at Dare to be Digital

Well I'm back from Scotland and had a fantastic and very fruitful time.
In the end the game we made came out brilliant, and got great feedback at Protoplay (the exhibition) from the audience and also the judges.

As a result we were awarded the [Adult Swim] award for creativity and unique gameplay!
A superb prize for the team, but also the best outside the top 3 for artists. This made us one of the 5 teams to come away with a prize from DTBD 2010, something we're all very proud of.

Other news about the competition is that our team was one chosen to be featured on a Channel 4 documentary about Dare to be Digital. So over the last 10 weeks we got followed around, interviewed and got to play our game on a cinema screen while they filmed us. It'll be 3x30minute shows being broadcast in spring 2011, and should be brilliant to watch, as by then I'll have forgotten all the stupid stuff I said on camera and can get embarrassed all over again.

All in all it was an amazing experience, met so many great people (competitors, mentors and staff) and got the chance to make a game I can be really proud of.

Dundee 2010

So I got the incredible news yesterday that my team and I; 'Bears with Jetpacks',  have been selected to goto Dundee for the 'D2BD' competition!

It's so relieving after all the work we put in to get to this stage. This summer now holds an amazing opportunity to create something that we can be really proud of and also to meet and learn from so many other talented people.

The competition starts on the 7th June, so we really don't have that long to prepare but I'm sure we'll be fine. We are already well set up with our concepts and gameplay demo running, so we can get started on the prototype as soon as we arrive in Scotland.

Some very exciting times ahead, hopefully I'll come out the other end of this summer with a huge amount of experience and possibly some life changing contacts. Whatever happens it's sure to be amazing.

Dare to be Digital

People in the games industry reading this will probably know about the 'Dare to be Digital' competition, anyone else will most likely never have heard of it, but rest assured, it's a big deal for people in my position.
They can explain it better than I can:

"Dare to be Digital is a video games development competition for extremely talented students at Universities and Colleges of Art. Teams of 5 students, usually a mix of artists, programmers and audio, assemble in a development hothouse for 10 weeks to develop a prototype video game, receiving daily support and weekly training sessions from industry specialists."

The reason I bring this up, is that I am entering along with 4 other guys from uni. Our group/studio is now collectively known as 'Bears with Jetpacks' and we're currently working on our application. Happily my group is made up of people I've worked with on a game over the last few months (Stefan, Amila), one guy I've worked with for the last 5 years (Tom) and someone who worked on a game with him for the last few months (Mark). So we're a pretty tight-knit bunch, and have a very real chance of getting to Dundee with our collective skills and areas of expertise.
For sake of security I won't outline our game idea yet (applications are in on Friday) but will put up our pitch and concept art as soon as we know no-one will steal the idea (and they would, you just wait till you see it.)