Everything under the Sun is in tune, but the Sun is eclipsed by the Moon.

• 12Dec 09

  A Mystifying Tale

  It is a fact not often overlooked that sometimes in life; things take a long time to achieve. For a prime example of this fact, I point you no further than Myst III: Exile, an adventure puzzle game originally released eight years ago in May 2001. I believe it was some time in the summer of 2001 I actually was given Myst III, by my Dad if I recall correctly. Way back then, we had a Windows 98 computer and dial-up Internet, and I wouldn't join this very website, or Steam, until 2005. Being 12, gaming for me was limited to only a small handful of titles: the irrepressible Theme Hospital, The Sims original (which had only just come out), some Disney Classic arcade games (Aladdin, The Jungle Book and The Lion King) which had been ported from the Sega Genesis, and then a variety of educational games from Dorling Kindersley Interactive such as The New Way Things Work (based on the book by David Macaulay), My First Amazing World Explorer and Castle Explorer. These last couple are lamentably forgotten games, and I intend to give them a look back of their own at some point. But quickly moving onward. The point of this posting is that I have recently only just managed to complete this game. Exile is probably the best of the Myst series of games, even though it wasn't developed by Cyan Worlds, who made the original Myst as well as the sequel, Riven. Instead, it was developed by Presto Studios and published through Ubisoft (or, as they were called then Ubi Soft). As in previous games, you play as The Stranger, a mysterious friend of the main non-player character, Atrus. Atrus is a member of the D'ni, who has the power to write books which people can travel through. Most of Exile documents your attempts to recover Releeshahn, a book which is stolen from Atrus' study by the interloper Saavedro at the beginning of the game.

  

  It is then up to you to follow in Saavedro's footsteps, chasing him through several different Ages, with the ultimate aim of getting Atrus' book back. All of the characters appear in-game through blue screen live-action performances, which are surprisingly dramatic. Saavedro for example is portrayed by Brad Dourif, who played Wormtongue in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, as well as Billy Bibbit in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Most of the game however does not involve characters, and makes use of your point-and-click traversal of 360 degree static, pre-rendered environments, which you must interact with in various ways to solve spatial and logical puzzles. To make the game atmospheric, there is fantastic use of ambient sound effects, such as the creaking of wooden supports or the whistling of the wind. This is coupled with what has to be one of the finest game orchestral scores there has ever been. The music instantly invokes everything Myst stands for: Intrigue, mystery and exploring strange new worlds. Each world also has its own unique feel. Edanna is an entirely naturalistic world, filled with plants and giant trees, whilst Voltaic is a dusty and industrial landscape. But I suppose what gives Exile that lasting greatness is that it is simply beautiful. Although all of the scenes are pre-rendered, there is something magnificent about standing on a rock outcrop, gazing at a sweeping ivory tower. My personal stumbling block to completing Exile had always been filling the airship in Voltaic with the correct amount and pressure of air. Previously, no matter what I did, the pressure would go too high. Thanks to the help of GameSpot's old game guide though, the airship successfully inflated. From there it was only a matter of finishing the end-game showdown before returning to Atrus. Now I have done so, I have this bizarre compulsion to play the game again.

  So, that's Myst III: Exile. Available in stores now!

  • Posted Dec 12, 2009 4:03 pm PT
  • Category: Games
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• 21Nov 09

  Tag the Sky, Catch the Wind

  Although extremely late (apologies, I've been busy! Plus, it was pretty hard to think up 10 facts), it's still here nonetheless. At least it is something to put in this blog to keep it from going stale. Yep, we're back where we were in March 2008, only this time we have to double the output of facts from 5 to a whopping 10, but for list purposes, they will be displayed in two lots of five. Yagr_Zero is this time the tagger, but I shall gladly acquiesce since I kind of like the recurring tagging fad, for spreading some neighbourly vibes. Anyway, it's certainly cathartic and something to fill idle time.

  1. There are several bands I feel rather guilty for liking, including The Carpenters (Got to be said; Karen Carpenter had an utterly fantastic voice), ABBA (well, obviously. Does anyone not feel guilty about ABBA?), BeeGees (Can't beat "Stayin' Alive" and the great "How Deep is Your Love") and Electric Light Orchestra. But my ultimate guilty pleasure is Rolf Harris. I danced to his album "Sun Arise" when I was younger, so I will always have a soft spot for him.
  2. Out there in the wide world I'm relatively shy. I've become more outgoing than I once was though, now doing various semi-important Media-related activities for my university Students' Union (to the extent that I had to marshal around 100 people for a newspaper meeting). However, I still actively avoid situations in which I feel uncomfortable, such as large bars or clubs. I'd much prefer a relaxing social afternoon tea. I should really have founded a Tea Society.
  3. I have an ambition to go into Journalism after I finish my degree, even though I realise journalists tend to earn a pittance. I first off intend to do some kind of postgraduate course in it somewhere, to get the legal business out of the way. However, what precise area of Journalism remains to be seen. I still have to decide between Broadcast, Print or Magazine (or even Online, as this site tends to exhibit).
  4. Lemon Barley Water is my favourite cold drink. Americans will likely have never heard of this drink, but be aware that although similar to lemon squash, this is not the same. It is made using the water from boiled, washed and strained pearl barley, which is then added to the rind of pulp of the lemon and mixed with sugar and water, before finally sieving and bottling to serve diluted. It is the official drink of Wimbledon Tennis.
  5. I've become rather addicted to watching The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Thankfully, in the UK we are able to watch it on E4, but few people actually do. Americans, if you want the truth behind your network news, I urge you to watch Jon Stewart. In fact, you might get more genuine news from watching his programme than from watching say, any of FOX News at all. Now that is saying something.

  

  1. Part of me has become gradually more and more fond of the idea of getting a console, mainly because I feel I am somehow 'missing out' on things. The family Wii is fine for casual gaming, but I never want to buy anything major for it. However, the biggest barrier to actually getting a 360/PS3 is the price. If I have to weigh up the idea of buying a £5 album, I know that deliberation on a console costing upwards of £100 would last for months (if not years). So I don't see any movement on that front.
  2. I have finally, just managed to finish Myst III: Exile once and for all. The game thwarted completion for eight years, thanks to an airship that refused to be filled with the correct pressure of air in the Voltaic Age. I remember that no matter what pressure I used, it simply would not be filled. So, I reinstalled the game and have steadily worked through with the help of GameSpot's 2001 Game Guide laid on the desk in front of me. That airship will haunt me no more! (Blog forthcoming on this subject).
  3. Despite my avatar, I am not a Communist. It's actually the Molvanian Trikolor (the Hammer, Sickle and Trowel), the Flag of the Republic of Molvania. It's a small, eastern European country… that doesn't exist. It was invented within a comedy fake travel guide, extolling many of the stereotypes of eastern European travel, and I find it hilarious. So much is my love of Molvania, I can sing the national anthem in both English and Molvanian (a language so complicated it takes 16 years to learn).
  4. My favourite novel of all-time is "The Catcher in the Rye" by J.D. Salinger. To me, the book is simply perfect, and I cannot really understand any criticism against it. Sure, it has almost no plot, but that isn't the point. For me, Holden Caulfield is a character who I wish I was actually good friends with, because I can empathise with what he has to deal with. If you haven't read it, you are essentially incomplete.
  5. I know some rather basic Latin, from doing a year-long course several years back. The sentence I usually can remember is "Caecilius est in horto, Quintus circumspectit", which should mean "Caecilius is in the house, looking at Quintus". Beyond that, I really can't recall anything particularly useful; it was mostly to do with grammar.

  And that's your lot. Since the tagging fad ended a few weeks back, there is little point in me tagging anyone (unless you want to be tagged, in which case, just pretend I have done so).

  • Posted Nov 21, 2009 12:58 pm PT
  • Category: General
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• 29Oct 09

  A Look Back: Point-and-Click Adventures

  If you find yourself reading this for a second time, I apologise. Some weird picture/HMTL errors were happening in the first version I posted earlier this week, and editing didn't seem to solve the issue.

  Many people still have great fondness for point-and-click adventure games. They were once the mainstay of PC gaming, until the first person shooter and role-playing genres took the helm and steered us out into the darker and more sinister waters. But still, the point-and-click has not died the death that many feared it might. In fact, recent years have seen a significant revival in what was once thought to be an unfashionable, out-of-date and essentially limited way of playing games. With titles such as Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbados Treasure on the Wii, the extended re-release of Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars on the DS and Wii, Ceville on the PC, and new iterations of the irrepressible Monkey Island just released (and re-released) on multiple platforms, it is clear that the genre is far from dead. But what did point-and-clicks have that so many games have missed? The answer is somewhat uncertain. What is clear is that no matter how their subject matters differed, they were always quirky, imaginative and fun, never really taking themselves too seriously, even whilst battling evil zombie pirates or solving fiendish puzzles devised by ancient civilisations. If you were to group a selection of modern first person shooters into a room together, you wouldn't equal even a quarter of the life and character which just one cIassic point-and-click manages to deliver.

  

  Zork I: One of the most famous game beginnings, ever.

  Point-and-clicks slowly emerged out of the pictureless void of solely text-based adventures. A coloured screen (ok, usually just black and white), and some interesting lines of text were all there were to propel your imagination. There were many great text adventures for the taking; 1976's Colossal Cave Adventure (or simply Adventure) was the first truly interactive fiction game, established the adventure game genre, and required a whole 300k of memory in order to run. It immortalised the command "xyzzy", and quickly spread across the ARPANET (predecessor to our beloved Internet). However, it was the Zork franchise which really started the whole ball rolling (beware of those Grues!); which was a product of Infocom. In fact, much of the success of interactive fiction can be laid at the feet of Infocom, who took the genre to new heights with such titles as The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy game, Bureaucracy (also written by Hitchhiker author Douglas Adams), Planetfall, Enchanter and the fascinating A Mind Forever Voyaging from 1985. AMFV featured remarkably few of the typical puzzles and comedic elements which are normally associated with adventure fiction and was much more story driven, being one of the few wholly serious text adventures, which addressed many political and social issues. Visual graphics began around the release of Mystery House in 1980, and colour graphics with Wizard and the Princess the same year, both from Sierra On-Line (which would eventually become Sierra Entertainment, now very sadly eaten by Activision-Blizzard). Of course, these being extremely early graphics, it was basically a series of 2D lines shaped vaguely like something, all of it static, and the 'colour graphics' were just lines in different colours. Controls in both of these early types of game were entirely text parser; a series of typed inputs such as "get" or "go west", et cetera. However, Sierra would go on to see more success with greater picture quality displayed in titles such as the memorable King's Quest, starting in 1984; the first 3D-animated game. The key to the invention of graphics was that it eliminated the need to "look". Instead of reading what the player was seeing, the player could see it clearly for themselves.

  

  Maniac Mansion: I wish I knew what was going on here...

  The Apple Macintosh can be credited for inventing the point-and-click interface in the first place, using images instead of text to perform many actions. When it launched in 1984, it didn't take long for the system's innovative styIe of control to be used in games. That same year, Enchanted Scepters invited the player to search for the elemental sceptres of Fire, Earth, Air and Water, and return them to the appropriate forgetful Wizard who had mislaid them. The pictures were all static and the gameplay was still heavily text-based, but when the text called for player interaction, you needed to click on areas of the picture in order to proceed. The text would say whether an item could be picked up, and then clicking on the picture of the image would do so. It might seem extremely simple, but it was a giant leap forward for games design. In 1985, Déjà Vu was a mystery-based Mac game which completely eliminated any text parser in favour of point-and-click, and started a series of long-running MacVentures. LucasArts entered the foray in 1987 with Maniac Mansion, stunningly rendered in full 16 colours; a game which still has a solid and dedicated following to this day. It also established the SCUMM (Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion) engine and programming language which LucasArts continued to use in many later adventure games. The next year Sierra also began making point-and-clicks, starting with the sinister Manhunter: New York, a game set in the then futuristic 2004 where Earth has been enslaved by terrifying alien Orbs. It was an important turning point for Sierra, who until that point had made normally very family-friendly games.

  

  Myst: Incredibly complicated environmental puzzles await you.

  It was at around this time, at the end of the 1980's and the beginning of the 90's, that point-and-clicks had their renaissance. In 1990, The Secret of Monkey Island landed. The game is primarily remembered and continually cherished for its witty dialogue, memorable plotline and a host of cIassic characters, many of whom would make appearances in later Monkey Island instalments (Stan and LeChuck, alongside both Guybrush Threepwood and Elaine Marley). The real leap forward at around this time was the adoption of the CD-ROM. Instead of having to cart around a box full to the brim with assorted floppy disks, a CD could store much more information, allowing for a greater variety of bitmap graphics and a longer overall game runtime. 1990's Alice: An Interactive Museum was inspired by Lewis Carroll's cIassic novel, and featured the player wondering around a number of rooms hunting for clues of how to escape from Wonderland. The game made use of pre-rendered, 3-dimensional environments and some live-action video (with the help of a little programme called Macromedia Director), which meant it required a staggering 5mb of disk space. The game which represented a huge leap with 3D-rendered graphics and digital immersion was the original Myst, released by Cyan Worlds in 1993. Myst has been vaulted for several reasons, namely the relatively high quality graphics from a first-person perspective, the immersive atmosphere, and the complex environmental puzzles. It was also at this time that Hideo Kojima jumped onto the adventure games bandwagon, first with Snatcher in 1988, a cyberpunk story, and then the hard science fiction Policenauts in 1994, the latter of which has never been officially released outside Japan.

  

  Bad Mojo: Enjoy pretending to be a cockroach? This is the game for you.

  There were still a slew of slightly more typical point-and-clicks during the 90's. The Monkey Island series continued, reaching what is thought to be the pinnacle design with The Curse of Monkey Island. 1996's Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars is widely recognised as one of the finest adventure games ever, whilst the game spin off to the film Blade Runner is a master cIass in exactly how to weave a new story into an existing film's structure. The seeds of the Sam & Max game series also took root; even director Stephen Spielberg experimented with the genre in his LucasArts game, The Dig. During this period, the point-and-click nature of gameplay was altered slightly, normally to using the directional keys in order to move about, and then continue to use the mouse to interact with the environment. A game which used control scheme this to fantastic effect was the psychedelic Bad Mojo, featuring a creepy premise and mildly disturbing setting, loosely based upon a novel by Franz Kafka. There were also downright frightening titles, including Sanitarium, where everyman Max Laughton suffers from amnesia and fights to escape from an archaic insane asylum. Another which springs to mind is Sierra's Phantasmagoria, the first adventure game to use a live actor in video.

  

  Tales of Monkey Island: The always intrepid Guybrush consults the Wind Gods.

  However, during the mid to late-1990's and into the early 2000's, the adventure games market began to steadily decline, as consumers felt the ripe desire for action with their adventure. Its death was partially brought about by the development of excellent first person shooters such as Doom and later Half-Life, but also the idea that the point-and-click interface, which was typical for adventure games, was old-fashioned, outmoded, and was soon going to be history. The future was online, where players could interact with people internationally and usually kill one another in various ingenious ways. The advent of multiplayer games across the Internet was irrelevant to the most of the adventure games genre, since it was by necessity a wholly single player experience, where you assume the role of the story protagonist. After Escape from Monkey Island in 2000, LucasArts eventually cancelled all other adventure games they had in production. The main reason was probably due to the fact that someone in management had reasoned it was safer to invest in Star Wars-related games, rather than take bigger risks with adventure titles. Most of their adventure games staff were dismissed, and the dream seemed to be over.

  

  Machinarium: Mechanics in a beautifully fantastical world.

  But it was not, as some had imagined, the end. Cyan Worlds forged on with Myst sequels, and by about 2005, the adventure market saw a few signs of grassroots renewal. Whilst not a point-and-click, the innovative Fahrenheit re-imagined the adventure game genre, bringing it gradually back into people's imagination. Many developers who had been at LucasArts ended up at Telltale Games, allowing for the rebirth of episodic Sam & Max story arcs, as well of the development of new titles such as the interestingly named Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People. In the last year, LucasArts themselves have expressed an interest in returning to their roots, with the digital sale of some of their back catalogue titles such as Loom through Steam, and rerelease of The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition, which includes voice acting and a revamped design in tandem with the original game. They have also licensed Telltale to produce a new episodic story in the Monkey Island saga, with Tales of Monkey Island. The Wii and the DS have also opened the door for a new kind of point-and-click, using the either Wiimote or the Stylus in place of your mouse. Zack and Wiki: Quest for Barbados Treasure for example put this control scheme to good use.

  So, there seemingly is hope for the future of point-and-click adventure games afterall. Indeed, the Indie developed, traditional point-and-click Machinarium was just released whilst I was drafting this look back. To finish, I somewhat paraphrase The Who by asserting; "The point-and-click is dead they say: Long live the point-and-click!"

  • Posted Oct 29, 2009 7:07 am PT
  • Category: Editorial
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• 8Sep 09

  The Reprise

  Can you hear that in the distance? Is it the unmistakable sound of Beatlemania approaching around the corner? I would reason to think so. They seem to be everywhere at the moment: in the newspapers, on the radio, on television. If you live in Britain, I would suggest watching "The First US Visit" on BBC iPlayer, it's utterly fascinating. And of course, now appearing in a video game near you. I personally hold no current plans to buy The Beatles: Rock Band. I only have a Wii, and whilst it is coming to that platform, I don't want to shell out the £150+ in order to get the instruments, etc., irrespective of platform. Even if I went for the budget pack, it is still £99. It's just too expensive, and I haven't the cash to spend, especially considering if I wanted to by The Beatles actual remastered albums, which are released also released tomorrow. Still rather undecided on that front as well. Perhaps a Christmas present is beckoning. Anyway, what has been happening, what has been happening! Well, not a huge amount. I've had a great holiday in the South of France, and know I'm wiling away the final weeks before university begins again. Yes, I'm doing some work on my dissertation as well, don't remind me. Have been playing one or two things of well. After getting The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition on Steam, I felt very nostalgic for Monkey Island and so installed and played through The Curse of Monkey Island again. I think that Secret is definitely improved by voice-acting, but Curse still takes the prize for being the best Monkey Island. The dialogue is the best; the puzzles are fiendish but not terrifying, and the most aesthetically pleasing art styIe. I really want to play Grim Fandango, but naturally LucasArts have refrained from re-releasing that over Steam at the moment.

  

  So I've mainly just been playing more Oblivion (I still haven't finished, plus I felt compelled to start a new game), and I also took BioShock for a spin around the block. Since I got my new graphics card I tested the game out in native resolution, and it certainly does look gorgeous. BioShock 2 really does have its work cut out in order to make the grade. The original also had an improved the frame-rate as well, so I've enjoyed zapping splicers in Objectivist-inspired underwater decay recently. Also made me realise what a fantastic character Andrew Ryan really is. If anything, I want Andrew Ryan in BioShock 2; I think it wouldn't be BioShock without him. It really brought home his "A man chooses; a slave obeys" revelatory speech. In video games, we're all slaves to the designer, following him down the path he has crafted for us to experience, to arrive at the finale he planned and prepared, before finishing off the game in the way that was expected. I think it will be a long while before we have a video game in which the player can be truly free. Even in free-roam environments, whilst it is your choice where you go, what you encounter will still be planned, and expected. A final note, concerning certain competitors in the GameSpot's All-Time Greatest Hero Contest, all I can say is that I was disappointed that Max Payne was skipped over entirely (most complex emotions of any video game character), and that JC Denton and Guybrush Threepwood lost so badly to Leon S. Kennedy and Wander. That's all; make of the rest of the contest what you will, irrespective of the seemingly widespread voting fraud. I no longer care who wins. I'm sure AT&T will be happy whatever the outcome.

  "Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies." Honore de Balzac.

  • Posted Sep 8, 2009 2:54 pm PT
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• 3Jul 09

  The Glorious Fourth

  As in Greenwich Mean Time, 4th July has begun, I can tell you that nothing is happening over here in Britain. 4th July is just another normal, average day. However, hats off for the Yanks, who will be enjoying their Independence Day today. I personally celebrate Independence Day, partly because I like celebrating national days for countries I'm not a citizen of (Australia Day! ), and partly because one day I hold a dream of one day living in the United States. Ah, can you believe E3 was this time last month? Time does fly. Anyway, now that the exams are over and I passed my second year, I took advantage of the spare time by chopping wood, stripping wallpaper, mowing lawns, ripping up floors. And in amongst the physical manual labour, I also got the opportunity to play some games. First off, I'd like to talk about World in Conflict. Superb game. Being someone who was born in 1989, I already know how important that year was in terms of international relations. The Berlin Wall came down, the Cold War was coming to a close, and a number of other important events also occurred. It is fun to contemplate if it could have happened any differently, and this is what World in Conflict does. Instead of the Soviet Union crumbling apart, they mount one last vast, desperate offensive campaign, invading Europe and the mainland United States. The gameplay itself is fun and engaging, and features some of the best multiplayer I have ever had the chance to play. It's so good in fact, even when you loose you don't care, because it's just that fun. There is no resource gathering; it's just pure, unadulterated action. I suggest reading my review for the full lowdown.

  

  Next came some more Fallout 3. I bit the bullet and bought some more of those mysterious Microsoft pseudo-money things, with which I got the rest of the Fallout 3 DLC's that are available at the moment, and I have still enough remaining to get the fifth and final one which comes out later this month, called Mothership Zeta. Overall, Point Lookout, the fourth DLC, is probably easily the best of the bunch. There is an actual open wasteland area to explore, a good selection of missions, and generally it feels a lot more like Fallout 3 should. Broken Steel is also the other DLC which is really worth it, because raising the level cap and extending the main storyline give the game a bit more weight. At the other end, Operation: Anchorage and The Pitt are moderately disappointing, mainly because they are just so linear. It's one mission after another, and then you're done. In Operation: Anchorage, you can't even return to the area when you finish the questline (not that you'd particularly want to anyway). It seems that Bethesda got slowly better at developing these packs, because they have got significantly more enjoyable with each one released. So, if you already own Fallout 3 and want to get some DLC, I recommend Broken Steel and Point Lookout. Only get the other two if you are a completionist. If you don't own Fallout 3, wait for the Game of the Year Edition! It will include all five packs as one, and will save you money in the long run.

  

  Finally, The Sims 3. My sister bought this for herself, and so I naturally snuck into her room one day and borrowed it for a time. I'm in two minds about it. Part of me prefers The Sims 2 for a number of reasons. For one, in The Sims 2, you could create your own towns, place your own lots and fully customise what the neighbourhood looked like with trees, rocks etc. You could also name the streets, or import neighbourhoods from SimCity 4. However, in The Sims 3, there is only one town of Sunset Valley out of the box, and one another town available for download if you register the game online. You cannot create your own. Within Sunset Valley, you can move the houses and families around, but you can't move the lots themselves, rename streets or change what the neighbourhood appearance is like. Sure, these are minor parts of The Sims, but I found it fun. Another thing I dislike is that for several types of community lots, you cannot see what is happening inside. When children go to school for example, they go to the school in town. However, they simply enter the building, and then spent the intervening time hidden before emerging again. The same is true of all jobs as well, where Military employees will go to the Army base and Politicians will work at the City Hall. There are things I like though. The neighbourhood being seamless means that it is possible for your Sims to cycle down to the local shop to buy groceries, and then cycle round to their friend's house and invite yourself in for dinner, all without a loading screen. It feels more natural and I suppose realistic, but the game strips out several things which The Sims 2 and even The Sims original did. I'm going to hold off on making my final judgement for now though.

  Anyway, I hope you enjoy your Independence Day wherever you are.

  • Posted Jul 3, 2009 4:24 pm PT
  • Category: Games
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• 6Jun 09

  To the Convention Center! E3 Awards

  One day late I'm afraid, I was rather busy on Friday and didn't have time to write this up then. But now, the end has come ladies and gentlemen. The curtain has fallen on E3 for another year. The show is packed up, and the staff are heading back to their respective offices. Overall, I was extremely impressed by this year's show. There was a huge selection of games; the overall feel of the event returned to its pre-2007 state of being louder and more exciting; and overall I think it will have to go down as one of the best in recent years. Some of my favourite moments include; the variety of technical hitches which occurred with the live stage show feed, and the reaction this often garnered within the chat room (fear, anger, sadness... ), the entire Ubisoft press conference which dragged on and The Beatles: Rock Band stage show. Just generally the talk within the chat room was bizarre, amusing and downright crazy, but certainly worth it. Kudos must be given to both JodyR for arranging it, and Caddy06_88 for lobbying for it.

  I also want to say a big thank you and well done to everyone who made E3 both possible and enjoyable throughout. Special thanks must go out to the GameSpot staff who managed to put together those great stage shows for three whole days. I'd also like to take this opportunity todraw attention to Giant Bomb's great trio of E3 podcasts, including some excellent guests (Paul Barnett!) and comments, which offered a lovely condensation of everything that happened at the show. So, it's at this point that custom dictates that it's time to distribute the awards. Below are my picks for some imagined E3 awards. Feel free to debate the various merits of my choices, but keep in mind that they are only my opinions, and have no reflection on the relative greatness or badness of the games themselves. The nominee's are in lists of five, from which the winner and runner up is chosen.

  Special Achievement
  Best New IP
  Alan Wake - Winner
  Brutal Legend
  Heavy Rain - Runner Up
  Singularity
  The Saboteur

  Biggest Surprise Announcement
  Castlevania: Lords of Shadow
  Final Fantasy XIV Online - Runner Up
  Left4Dead 2 - Winner
  Metal Gear Solid Rising
  Super Mario Galaxy 2

  Most Impressive Press Conference
  Electronic Arts
  Konami Corporation
  Microsoft Corporation - Winner
  Nintendo Company
  Sony Computer Entertainment - Runner Up

  Best Exhibited Game
  Assassins Creed 2 - Winner
  Mass Effect 2
  Modern Warfare 2
  The Beatles: Rock Band - Runner Up
  Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

  

  Dubious Honours
  The 3DRealms Award for Best Game We Didn't See
  BioShock 2 - Winner
  Dead Rising 2 - Runner Up
  Fallout: New Vegas
  Gran Turismo 5
  Mafia II

  The Politician's Certificate for Biggest Waste of Time
  Imagine Games at Ubisoft conference
  James Cameron's Avatar Ubisoft talk - Winner
  NCIS cast crash GameSpot Live, Day 2
  Satoru Iwata's Wii Vitality Sensor talk
  Ubisoft Entertainment's entire conference - Runner Up

  The Needlessly Complicated Shield for Most Bizarre Peripheral
  DJ Hero mixing turntable - Runner Up
  Microsoft's Project Natal
  Sony's unnamed motion controls
  Tony Hawk Ride skateboard
  Wii Vitality Sensor - Winner

  The Big Rigs Trophy for Worst Exhibited Game
  Dante's Inferno
  Dark Void - Runner Up
  DJ Hero
  Red Steel 2 - Winner
  Spyborgs

  

  • Posted Jun 6, 2009 3:49 pm PT
  • Category: News
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• 4Jun 09

  To the Convention Center! Day Three

  You can look forward to a slightly shorter exposition today on everything that occurred on Wednesday. The big press conferences were over, but both Square Enix and Konami were still eager to pitch in with their own ideas. The tale end of E3 is always less exciting than the beginning, but there is still some important news emerging. The second day of GameSpot's stage show also exhibited a vast amount of titles, normally with an accompanying live demo. So there is still definitely enough to sink your teeth into.

  Square Enix Press Conference
  Square Enix naturally concentrated on Final Fantasy quite a bit. It was also a much smaller affair to the other conferences, taking place in a small theatre, and only lasting for 45 minutes. The majority of the Q&A session was basically directed at FF13 and FF14, with nothing else the company might be doing really addressed. They also mentioned that the PS3 exclusive would also come into PC as well, so it cannot technically be said to be a genuine 'exclusive'. They are also considering bringing it to Microsoft, although I expect that will be after the exclusive period at Sony ends. There was no other footage of FF14 Online, besides the trailer shown at Sony conference the day before. The team consisted of Hashimoto, Tanaka, and Komoto, who answered a variety of questions concerning the Final Fantasy franchise, and where they planned on taking it in the future. Very few specifics concerning FF14 were actually discussed, and it felt like the game was still really in pre-production, rather than half-complete. They answered the questions about FF13 more openly, mentioning that there would certainly be call-backs to previous games in the series. Overall, if you weren't interested in Final Fantasy, it was quite dull. On the flipside, the Final Fantasy addict certainly got their fill of news.

  

  Konami Press Conference
  Konami on the other hand, went mad with Metal Gear. Hideo Kojima was there again, and talked about four titles, three of which were Metal Gear; MGS Peace Walker, MGS Rising (also to PC!), Metal Gear Arcade and, interestingly, a new Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, coming in 2010. Metal Gear certainly looks like a bread winner, and Castlevania attracted considerable attention. They are also continued to work, bizarrely, on a Saw game. Personally, I couldn't think of many more deplorable games (Manhunt I suppose), but to each his own. Up next was Dance Dance Revolution (solitary cheer in the crowd, also coming to other consoles), which is still certainly a dancing game. You dance in rhythm, you get points; that's the way it goes down. There was also a DS game called WireWay (defeat the aliens and save your love!), Deca Sports 2 (more sports mini-games), as well as Silent Hill for the Wii and elsewhere. Overall, Konami had a pretty impressive résumé, but what was missing anything that excited me personally. Again, it was mainly for Metal Gear Solid fans, and possibly Castlevania ones as well. Probably more impressive overall than Square Enix's Final Fantasy obsession.

  Stage Show Day Two
  Stage show yesterday was a full-length event, showcasing many games. I watched most of the second half (due to being downstairs for a rather good barbeque for the first half), but there were some interesting games. The Secret of Monkey Island special edition is a re-release of the original, which can be played in both updated and original styIe. The updated version will have new graphics, total voice acting, and more Monkey Island music. It will be possible to jump between the original and the updated version in game at any time, which looked excellent. Assassins Creed 2 also looks really great, with the setting of Renaissance Italy really working very well. Ezio is an equally frightening character to Altair, and doesn't actually begin immediately as a trained assassin. Modern Warfare 2 looked equally exciting, and it seems that Infinity Ward keep on making great shooters. There were many other things, but I can't remember them all.

  That's all today. Tomorrow I will round-off with the final day, and give my concluding thoughts. Any preliminary ideas? This may have been one of the best E3's ever, and this is not simply clichéd hyperbole. It's been an incredibly dramatic show, and a great return to form.

  • Posted Jun 4, 2009 11:31 am PT
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• 3Jun 09

  To the Convention Center! Day Two

  Welcome back! If you're already up to your eyeballs in E3-news, you haven't seen anything yet. Yesterday threw up an equal, if not greater amount of news compared to the day before, in the space of only a few hours. This was the first official day of the show, and the floor was open for all to wander around. If anything, it is possible to say there is too much news to handle in one go. So please, only read this blog in bite-sized chunks if you suffer from a weak temperament. I cannot be held accountable for any incidents of information overload.

  Nintendo Conference
  Overall, my reactions to the Nintendo conference are decidedly mixed. It seems that Nintendo are attempting to incite and keep "The Core" interested (their core fanbase), what with New Super Mario Bros., Metroid Other M and Super Mario Galaxy 2 all on Wii. In fact, I personally called this game at the end of 2007. On the last GSUK Podcast of '07, I remember that my suggestion that there would be a Super Mario Galaxy sequel was dismissed out of hand. Well, I was right in the end! There will probably be a Legend of Zelda for 2010, although no details were announced. Spirit Tracks and Link's cool train is still coming soon. The DS had a couple of titles, including COP (where you get to play a police officer, expectedly). There is also a Dead Space prequel, called Extraction, slated for the Wii, which will show how the USG Ishimura came to disaster. However, there was still the same mix of casual, pick-up-and-play titles, such as a new Wii Fit, Wii Sports Resort, other fitness games, fashion games for girls, and a bizarre peripheral called a Vitality Sensor, which essentially looked like a blood pressure device. What game this would go with is uncertain, as nothing was shown alongside, but I would guess the next Wii Fit. They also showed off Motion Plus, which is supposed to make the motion sensors more specific and controlled. Nintendo want to make these extremely lucrative games which rake in the case, but at the same time they don't want to alienate "The Core". I feel that what Nintendo needs is something new. And I don't mean a rehashing of an existing franchise; I want something which is brand new, and untried (maybe The Conduit is going down the right street). That will get me excited about Nintendo, but nothing I saw made me excited this year, or last year. Their numbers are still very impressive however.

  

  Sony Conference
  Another whirlwind ride similar to Microsoft, Sony had an equally impressive raft of game announcements, including Uncharted 2, MAG (which essentially looked like a larger version of Battlefield 2), Agent (something new from Rockstar Games), Mod Nation Racers, Dante's Inferno, Lost Planet 2, Final Fantasy (with the announcement of number 14, as well as seeing 13), God of War III and The Last Guardian. Announcing FF14 before even releasing FF13 seemed just weird to me. The PSP also had a huge number of titles, with LittleBigPlanet and Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker (Hideo Kojima is hotfooting between Microsoft and Sony; he must be pleased), set in 1974 prior to the events of MGS3. Gran Turismo will also come to PSP, and GT5 is still in production, apparently. Assassin's Creed 2 got a live demo, with the new character being named as Ezio Auditore da Firenze. Renaissance man Leonardo da Vinci is also going to be a major character. The PSP is also getting a makeover in the form of the PSP Go (Surprise surprise! Who saw that coming?), which will retail at $249. Sony, not to be outdone by Microsoft's Project Natal motion controls (or non-controls, if you will), showed off their experimental, as yet unnamed motion controls, which can detect motion in 3-dimensional space. Some of the controls looked a bit weird in the tech demos, but the archery looked more impressive than the archery which Nintendo had shown off from Wii Sports Resort. Overall, I was more surprised by the Microsoft conference, but Sony definitely was not slouching.

  

  Stage Show Day One
  GameSpot's coverage kicked off with a look at The Beatles: Rock Band, with the Harmonix crew playing "I Saw Her Standing There" and "Here Comes the Sun". Looked just as good as it had done at the Microsoft Conference. Splinter Cell demonstrated the same demo again (and looked just as impressive), Brutal Legend is still crazy (as is Tim Schafer, probably) and Doug Lombardi from Valve talked about Left4Dead 2, but didn't actually show any new footage aside from the trailer seen at Microsoft. It was apparently playable at the booth though. Mod Nations Racers came and again showed their easy to use track editor, and God of War III is certainly still God of War; gratuitous violence and all. We now all know how to kill a Chimera effectively. Also there was MAG, Ratchet and Clank, Heavy Rain (still looks fascinating), Forza and Guitar Hero 5. In rounding off for today, I rate the Big Three press conferences in order as Microsoft, a close second Sony, and then Nintendo. Overall, it seems the gaming industry is going in interesting ways. ESA President Michael Gallagher delivered the Keynote Address this year, and was extremely optimistic in seeing the industry riding out the recession. I'm probably inclined to agree with him.

  That's your lot for Day Two. Tomorrow's update is likely to be a bit smaller, due to the main press conferences being over, but I may bring you some news out of Square Enix and Konami, and certainly more dispatches from the stage show. Time now for a barbeque!

  • Posted Jun 3, 2009 8:53 am PT
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• 2Jun 09

  To the Convention Center! Day One

  Hopefully this will the first of four such blogs summing up all of the news coming out of E3. Today, I will attempt to rundown the Microsoft, Electronic Arts and Ubisoft Press Conferences. Naturally, I will be unable to mention everything, but I will endeavour to get through everything as smoothly as possible. Right, let's kick off then, shall we? There is quite a lot to get through. It was information overload on the first, pre-show day. It was just mental how much news was released at once.

  Microsoft Conference
  Overall, I was extremely impressed. There were no business numbers whatsoever. During the first hour, there were more game announcements than you could shake a stick at and a few others you couldn't. There was a new Halo: Reach (solitary Halo cheer out in the crowd), another Halo called ODST, Metal Gear Solid franchise for the Xbox 360 (the new game is Metal Gear Solid: Rising, Raiden is back apparently), Alan Wake (yes, which finally has a firm release date of Spring 2010, and overall looks quite impressive, I'm excited about it), Modern Warfare 2 (which looks exactly like people had hoped), Crackdown 2 (Jeff Gerstmann called it!), Crysis 2 and most surprisingly, Left4Dead 2. I was expecting news of Portal 2 or Episode Three, but not L4D. Normally Valve has a much slower turnover, so I'm wondering if Left4Dead 2 will be more like an expansion and less like a sequel. There was of course, The Beatles: Rock Band. They had even brought out all the surviving band members and relatives; Dhani Harrison, Olivia Harrison, Yoko Ono and Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney. Got to say, I'm pleased with what I saw. I liked the look of the game, and I'm glad that they are keeping the playful sense of psychedelia which The Beatles had from 1966 onwards. The game looks, and of course sounds great. I've agreed with the ten tracks they've announced so far (Bang! My prediction came true; Back in the U.S.S.R. and Get Back were there), and they also announced that whole albums would be available for download, starting with "Abbey Road". You will also be able to sing in harmony, just like the band originally did. So the Beatlemaniac in me is very pleased for the moment.

  

  Steven Spielberg provided the backdrop for the new tech developments in the show by announcing Project Natal, which is "games without a controller". This will apparently offer games where your body is the controller, in full-scale motion capture. There will also be advanced voice recognition, so you can control your Xbox, play games, and do everything basically without using any kind of control. They said, rather scathingly, "this isn't the kind of game where you end up on the sofa using pre-set waggle commands", which prompted groans from the audience. They are just in tech demo at the moment, but it certainly looks extremely interesting. The Wii might have started motion gaming, but this looks like it is taking it to the next step. Peter Molyneux certainly sounded very excited by it. There was also this extremely interesting idea that there will be truly interactive characters, the first one being a boy called Milo, which will react to how you talk to them. The character becomes like an AI, not just merely pre-programmed, but able to interact realistically. This will be a fascinating leap if they can manage to make characters which we truly feel emotional connections to. They also announced some hardware updates for the near future, including Last.fm, Facebook and Twitter on the Xbox (Innovation! Innovation I tell you!), and Sky TV in Europe giving downloadable films like Netflix does in the US.

  Electronic Arts Conference
  In just three words: a little disappointing. There were some interesting things there, but other things seemed bizarre and unnecessary. Naturally there was The Sims 3, which is still just as much The Sims as The Sims 2 was. There were a raft of idiotic games for young girls, many the names of which I can't remember, butI can recall Littlest Pet Shop Online... Yeah. What did interest me was The Saboteur, which is set in Nazi occupied France (yeah, the Second World War again! Who would have thought of such a great place to set a video game?). They've opted to use this Sin City, black and white sparked with bright colours look for the city of Paris, which looks quite cool. Mass Effect 2 is also already announced, with Commander Shepard (remember, it's the way you say it) returning for another intergalactic jaunt. EA Sports took up most of the show with their selection of sports titles, but there was also the highly bizarre game Brutal Legend (Jack Black included as standard with all purchases), and APB (All Points Bulletin), which is essentially Grand Theft Auto Online with punked hair. The big geekish moment was when the Jedi Council of LucasArts trooped in to announce their MMO, The Old Republic.

  

  Ubisoft Conference
  How can you describe the Ubisoft press conference? It wasn't like a conference; it was more like watching some kind of elaborate torture device being used, like in Franz Kafka's "In the Penal Colony". What was it lacking? Well, many things, but the number one thing was games. There were approximately four or five games talked about in over two hours. There were highlights (or lowlights) though. Director James Cameron talked about his new film, "Avatar" for what felt like over half an hour, and it felt like he could have gone on much longer. He just would not stop, and I felt that my life was passing me by whilst attempting to listen to him. I didn't learn anything about the game from the talk. The international footballing superstar Pele (how did they swing that?) managed to successfully fill a technical glitch by thanking everyone who had ever been interested in football, because the game in which he was going to be in will be awesome, apparently. In fact, Assassins Creed 2 wasn't until right at the end, and that was the only genuinely interesting thing there. When they eventually got to it,there wasn't even a live demo. Red Steel 2 looked exactly like Red Steel. The rest was a horrific mess of boring fitness, young teenage kitsch and other rubbish such ideas. Two demos, but the rest were just dull pre-rendered trailers. I wish I had just gone to bed after EA.

  Any Other News
  How about a new Monkey Island? How about The Secret of Monkey Island re-released in updated and original styIe? I'm glad LucasArts haven't entirely forgotten about their old back catalogue of point-and-clicks, when they are so focused on Star Wars most of the time. Final Fantasy 13 is also coming in Q1, 2010, for the Final Fantasy fans out there. Also, a new Splinter Cell: Conviction, where Sam Fisher is going to go all Max Payne revenge-styIe on us for the murder of his daughter. Tonk Hawk is still skateboarding, with a new board controller. Forza 3 will arrive in October, and the sequel to No More Heroes is still shaping up. And that's just about it for Day One. I feel exhausted just talking about it. Today, we can look forward to Nintendo and Sony, as well as the first day of the GameSpot stage show. The action never stops whilst E3 rolls around.

  • Posted Jun 2, 2009 7:50 am PT
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• 26May 09

  The Pre-E3 Tea Party

  As the political system of the United Kingdom is currently rocking under a huge scandal and is facing extreme scrutiny, lets turn to the joyous event that is the hastily upcoming Electronic Entertainment Exposition (I know it's Expo, I just like calling it otherwise ). Back from the ashes of the E3 Media and Business Summit last year, this year's show will return to its pre-2007 state of being loud, large and generally open to the public. It is a general upsizing for all attending, though not to the size of the record-breaking 2005. So if you can show a moderate passing interest/connection to the video gaming industry, and you happen to be in Los Angeles next week, it might be worth heading over to the Convention Center and seeing if you can squeeze through the doors. The notable absence from the show will be Atari Interactive. There seems to be a general uncertainty as to why Atari aren't going, but it isn't the same reason that Capcom Japan aren't there showing off Dead Rising 2. They will not be their because of the swine flu "epidemic", although when Nintendo is flying people out from Japan with no problems that excuse doesn't seem to entirely hold water. According to the all-knowing Wikipedia, GameSpot's booth will be situated in the West Hall, where Sony and Nintendo will be, alongside Activision Blizzard, Bethesda and THQ. Microsoft will be in the South Hall, as well as Square Enix, Ubisoft, Eidos and Electronic Arts. The American cable channel G4 will also be broadcasting live from there. Consigned upstairs will be the likes of LucasArts and Majesco.

  

  What will be their gamewise? Well, for the most part we have no idea. That is kind of the major point. However, we do already know about some things. There will be a lengthy and impressive list of sequels; Assassin's Creed II, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, BioShock 2, Just Cause 2, Lost Planet 2, Marvel vs. Capcom 2, Mass Effect 2 and Modern Warfare 2 (the Call of Duty name has been dropped). A few PS3 exclusives should also be shown off, such as Heavy Rain (which is still in production), God of War III and Uncharted 2. MAG will also be back again, after being announced at last year's event. Microsoft is also sure to have something up their sleeve, as will Nintendo. Glancing at the list of things Nintendo has already announced though, it looks like they aren't deviating from their very profitable line of casual pick-up-and-play titles. Mario & Sonic at the Winter Olympic Games (the Vancouver Games aren't even until next February!) and Rabbids Go Home show this, although there is the unexpected blip of The Conduit (a futuristic FPS for the Wii) lurking in the background. I personally want to see how BioShock 2 is shaping up, what The Sims3 is doing differently to The Sims 2, and if any news concerning Deus Ex 3 will emerge. It will also be interesting if Alan Wake emerges from his catatonic sleep to give some updated news concerning that game, since it is now shaping up to be the next vapourware record holder.

  What are you looking forward to seeing at E3? Do you think this show will be as good as previous years? Leave your ideas below, and wish me luck in my exams coming this and next week! (although not on E3 days, thankfully).

  • Posted May 26, 2009 8:57 am PT
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• 1May 09

  Normandy, Bob Dylan and Graphics Cards

  I'm rolling all available blogs into one, in order to appropriately round up the past few weeks. A fortnight ago I returned from Normandy. It was extremely interesting to visit so many famous places related to the Second World War in such a short place of time. I must have visited half of the locations featured in both Call of Duty 1 and 2. I think the most moving part of the whole visit was a visit to the American Military Cemetery at St. Laurent, which is positioned over Omaha Beach, where the bloodiest fighting of Operation Overlord took place. The crosses are neatly spaced out, with each cross perfectly aligned with every other cross in the cemetery, so no matter which way you look; they are always in perfect formation (see my picture, below). The beautiful view out over the sea; the manicured lawns and flowerbeds, and the layout mimicking that of the National Mall in Washington D.C., give it a very peaceful atmosphere, like a country garden. Also, the remains of the battery at Pointe du Hoc are quite incredible in their own right, since the entire area is studded with craters, due to the heavy Allied bombardment which preceded the attack. Despite the damage and the age taking their toll, you still get a sense of how difficult it must have been to assault (the 2nd Rangers Battalion had to scale a cliff some 100ft high). All of it really allows you to appreciate how important the invasion was, and how dangerous the consequences of failure were. Rather ironic how we have turned the bloodiest conflict in human history into a 'fun' activity to play.

  

  Next, last Saturday I saw Bob Dylan, live at the O2 Arena (inside what used to be the Millennium Dome, now just called The O2). He and his band sounded mainly great (although there were some sound system issues, notably with the reverb on the drums), but the main problem with the O2 is that it is so vast, from where we were sitting; Bob just looked like a matchstick man wearing a snazzy hat. There were no big screens, so we were forced to look at him almost exclusively through a pair of binoculars my Dad had thankfully brought along. Bob also showed the audience hardly any love, by not speaking at all until near the end of the show where he 'introduced' the rest of the band. He was playing electric keyboard and harmonica (always gets a cheer), whilst guitar was handled by someone else. His voice sounded just as strong, gravelly and superb as ever though (if you are a true Bob Dylan fan, you will accept that whilst he has a rubbish voice, this is part of what makes him so great). He also played a good variety of songs, both modern and old stuff (although he didn't play anything from his brand new album). The audience at the O2 Arena were quite appalling though. Throughout the entire performance, people were getting up to go and grab food and beer, constantly walking up and down the aisles like this was some kind of football game. Overall, I would give it 4 stars out of 5. Overall it was probably hovering around 3 stars, but an extra star is added because it was, afterall, Bob Dylan. The photo is one someone took at a previous gig this year. I was much too far away to take anything worthwhile.

  

  Finally, yesterday I got a new graphics card for my computer. It's a Radeon HD 4830, replacing my old Radeon X1600. I felt like treating myself to something, and this card was a quite good price. It has been built by XFX, who are apparently a "gaming-centric" graphics card manufacturer. So far, I've tested Fallout 3, which was running on ultra high quality, and it was almost beautifully smooth. I've also tried Oblivion, which also looked pretty neat although a bit jumpy in places (the auto-sensing quality didn't work for some reason, so I just set everything to max), as well as Half-Life 2 (benchmark that it used to be) in native resolution for the first time (1280x1024). Seeing that again reminded me why Half-Life 2 is such an incredible game. Buying the graphics card in the first place was partly to try and upgrade my computer so that it will be able to play GTA IV. The bad port of it means that many people, ever with powerful computers, have had severe problems with it. I'm considering holding off until the re-release it with patches included in the box. I'm very much disappointed in Rockstar for that; the ports of all the previous games were excellent. Maybe I should go for World in Conflict instead. This new card will apparently support DirectX 10.1, so if I installed Vista I could get the benefit of those antistrophic smoke effects (Ooh, how exciting ).

  • Posted May 1, 2009 1:04 pm PT
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• 7Apr 09

  I Am Here

  

  You may recognise this bridge vaguely. It is known as Pegasus Bridge. It was featured in a certain video game called Call of Duty (where you had to capture and defend it from the Nazis), and was a strategic bridgehead which the Allies captured during the beginnings of Operation Overlord in 1944. Paratroopers silently glided in, and had to hold the bridge against the German tanks until reinforcements arrived later in the day. I'm staying in the town nearby, called Benouville, and am generally exploring the various D-Day beaches of Normandy, including the one my Grandfather landed at on D-Day Plus 3; Juno Beach. I would write more, but this keyboard is of the bizarre French AZERTY layout, making 'a' in a very unhelpful place, and it is exceedingly difficult to type. Expect a more detailed update after I write it on the laptop and then paste it over. Most ridiculously, this computer blocks Facebook and Twitter, but thankfully not GameSpot. Right now, I must go to bed, for I am thoroughly exhausted.

  • Posted Apr 7, 2009 1:21 pm PT
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• 28Mar 09

  Payne to the Max

  What?! This was an unexpected bolt from the blue. Forget about Alan Wake (who is in a coma), are we about to say hello again to the grief-stricken NYPD Detective Max Payne? His reasonably unsuccessful recent film aside, Max Payne remains at the forefront of Third-Person shooting, both the classic original and the great follow-up. The news is that Max Payne 3 is being developed by Rockstar Vancouver, who were responsible for Bully (Canis Canem Edit outside North America), and is due to be released Q4 this year. Remedy Entertainment (who were responsible for Max Payne 1 & 2) are still slaving over the barely breathing corpse of Alan Wake, who we have seen neither hide nor hair of for many months (vapourware anyone?). Apparently, the game will also be set outside of New York City, unlike predecessors. Point number One: James McCaffrey must return to voice Max. He's been the voice of Max from the beginning: it wouldn't be the same otherwise. Point Two: Graphic novel storyboards must also return. Don't be tempted to do full-out graphical cutscenes all the time; it just isn't necessary. I'd want a Bullet Time which was more like Max Payne 2 style, where you could go into a room and mow down a gang of bad guys, Max all the while slowly down until he's just a blur. Shootdodging was also more satisfying. It will be interesting to see which of the two endings from Max Payne 2 they decide to continue off from (playing on different difficulties brought a different final ending).

  

  I have always maintained that Max Payne, the character, is one of the most detailed and realistic video game creations ever to emerge out of the ether. He isn't just a killing machine (although to be fair he does kill an awful lot of people); he's driven by horrific survivor's guilt, a desire to uncover the ultimate truth, and most of all, love. He feels a lustful desire for Mona Sax, but also has to balance the deep guilt he senses at abandoning his murdered wife. I would hope that this successor follows suit in terms of characterisation, and refrains from simplifying Max into just another 2D creation drafted from a piece of paper. If the official site is anything to go by, Max has let himself go a bit (unfashionable beard and all). This does seem to be a year for reviving series which haven't been seen for some time. Deus Ex 3 is also hopefully coming along sometime soon, and the limited trailers for Mafia II have looked pretty good as well. It's always dangerous adding to well known and well loved series, but if it is done with appropriate care and attention, you can really add something new and interesting, which also fits in well with the existing games.

  In other news, since I'm back at home for the Easter holidays I've been having fun updating my family's Wii (the recent update to 4.0 did some things apparently; all I noticed was the SD menu), as well as trying out Wii Fit and the balance board, which my family had got hold of a month ago. It's moderately good. I could see it improving certain areas of fitness, notably balance, posture and flexibility (the Yoga exercises are certainly very good). The jogging is a nice idea, and if you actually try properly is quite tiring, but it is the easiest exercise at which to cheat (just wiggle the Wiimote at a steady rhythm). My Wii Fit Age has jumped between 35 and 20 (my actual age), and my BMI is at the lower end of "Ideal", so I don't think I'm doing too badly at the moment. I also got my Dad Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09 for his birthday (which was yesterday), so I'm sure he'll be enjoying that soon, if his obsession with Wii Sports Golf is anything to go by.

  • Posted Mar 28, 2009 11:24 am PT
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• 8Mar 09

  Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey

  *Note: gbrading is a Beatlemaniac. He has a copy of every album, knows the lyrics to all their song by heart, and has watched all of their films (even the bad ones). Whilst he holds it as fact that The Beatles are the greatest band ever, this does not prevent him from appreciating the greatness of other bands such as Pink Floyd, The Who, The Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin.*

  I still frankly cannot believe that by September, a music/rhythm game will emerge dedicated to the musical catalogue of The Beatles. I had long ago written it off as a pipe dream: something that would never happen in my lifetime. Apple Corps have carefully guarded the music of The Beatles like it was the Crown Jewels in the Tower of London for so long, that the 1987 CD versions which have been the standard for over 30 years are only now being remastered (and are due coincidentally, to be also released this year). I am still of the opinion that a major reason behind this game coming to fruition at all is because Michael Jackson, who owns the rights to almost all of the back-catalogue (save for a few early songs with McCartney manages), is now in rather dire financial straits (thanks to his various lawsuits and criminal prosecutions). So, in order to regain some capital, he authorised production of the game. I personally think that both Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr would have been happy to see something years ago (whilst I'm sure Yoko Ono and Olivia Harrison would have complied as well). It has taken so long because of the great secrecy and prestige which still surrounds the music.

  Note the title if you want an idea of the relationship between The Beatles brand and the Rock Band brand. This is not Rock Band: The Beatles, as Aerosmith and Metallica had to settle for when they teamed up with Guitar Hero. The Beatles inevitably get the top billing (certainly displaying a rather 'holier than thou' attitude), and are merely deciding to acquiesce to being part of the Rock Band family for their joint venture.

  

  Apparently the game will consist of 45 master tracks, ranging from their first album (1963's Please Please Me) to their last (1970's Let It Be). I'm going to predict that the starting point for the tracklist will be almost everything that was included in 2000's chart-topping compilation 1. Let's then take away Eleanor Rigby (it won't be included since it's only strings and singing) and Yesterday (only acoustic guitar) as well as possibly The Long and Winding Road (piano, orchestra). Let It Be, despite having lots of piano, is sure to be there because it's got George Harrison's guitar solo in the middle. I can imagine The End being included, since it has a drum solo (Ringo's only drum solo, if you discount the opening of What You're Doing from Beatles For Sale), as well as several overlapping guitar solos. Back in the U.S.S.R., Helter Skelter and Revolution (not 1 or 9) should also be there, due to their heavy guitar, drums and vocals. I actually wouldn't be surprised if they made the decision to include most of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album (leaving out Within You Without You and She's Leaving Home). Some songs that will definitely not be included: Mr. Moonlight, Honey Pie, Your Mother Should Know, When I'm Sixty-Four. Finally, there are two songs I hope that will be included which are usually overlooked: It's All Too Much, from Yellow Submarine album, and Rain which was only released as a single. Nobody has ever made guitars sound like George Harrison made them on It's All Too Much, and Rain is the first song ever to have backwards vocals.

  At the moment the game's official site is simply a placeholder of a bit of looping studio chatter, and a CGI image of Abbey Road's Studio Two, where you can sign up to the mailing list. I also predict the adverts for the game will either have Get Back or Back in the U.S.S.R. in them. I'm sure of it. The title song of this posting will definitely be in the game, for sheer comedic value (plus, the song is actually great). A cowbell attachment might also be useful.

  "Good afternoon, I'd like to welcome you to the rehearsal rooms of The Beatles entourage and their fifty press officers." John Lennon.

  • Posted Mar 8, 2009 1:01 pm PT
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• 1Mar 09

  Sympathy for the Devil

  Thanks to my two month long support request with Bethesda Softworks, we have successfully managed to solve the crashing issues I've had with Fallout 3 (it was ATI's Catalyst Control Centre all the time!), meaning I have been finally able to play it without issues. So I've been taking advantage of the time to play through with 1. Games for Windows Live active so I get the achievements (which is nice) and 2. start a new game as a bad character. You really can create very different characters in Fallout; everyone from a saintly saviour to the pinnacle of evil. Compared to Oblivion (which I will continue to do, by the way), it is actually a lot easier to play as an evil character for various reasons (beyond this point may lie spoilers most evil, reader). You can't really get much more evil that detonating a nuclear bomb in the middle of a town full of people, simply because Tenpenny thinks it ruins the view (although in fact, you can hardly see Megaton from the balcony of Tenpenny Tower). Further, it's quite satisfying to dispatch swift justice upon the Wasteland's more irritating characters (Dave at the Republic of Dave, Dukov, Victoria Watts [speaking of her, how on earth does she find you in the Wasteland? I was once all the way out near the Dunwich Building, and she came waltzing up out of the blue] etc.), and there is usually quite a bit of loot on their corpses. I suppose the downside is that you might often forego a quest for the satisfaction of killing them (which I why when it came to crunch-time for Megaton, I made sure I had stolen just about everything of value from the town).

  

  It is actually quite amusing enslaving people, since they are always completely dazed into readily putting on the slave collar themselves. I didn't feel guilty about enslaving Arkansas (sniper in Minefield) or Susan Lancaster, but I did for Red (Big Town's medic). Generally, there are several memorable encounters that have happened in The Capital Wasteland. Below I thought I'd just highlight a few of my favourite (or least favourite, as may be appropriate):

  1. Giant Radscorpions: One ordinary sized (still huge) Radscorpion is bad enough. But the giant kind are frighteningly fast and even worse, they always seem to travel in pairs. Don't like the look of them, and never like the feel of their stings.
  2. Raiders: The delirious shouts of "Aha! It's killing time!" never cease to get old. Neither does the satisfaction of watching the raider's arm fly off after being struck by a sledgehammer (or with Bloody Mess, the aforementioned raider being pulverised).
  3. Lazlo Radford: A random man who is always hostile, and just arbitrarily begins shooting at you with a Railway Rifle. He and another random hostile called Sam Warrick (sniper) seem to be friends. Not particularly dangerous, just interesting.
  4. Deathclaws: Fast, and mean. They can pounce incredible distances. Whilst the Dart Gun will cripple their legs, they remain a menacing force due to their very dangerous claws (which naturally, bring death).
  5. Chinese Remnant Forces: Found exclusively in Mama Dolce's Food Distribution in Arlington National Cemetery. Prior to the Great War, it appears that they had been using the factory as an undercover base of operations. They are also the organisation responsible for the looping fragments of People's Republic of America Radio.
  6. Talon Company: Waging a seemingly never-ending war against the Super Mutants around the ruins of the Capitol Building, Talon Company are mercenaries with an evil agenda. They are normally heavily armed, and generally are a tough opponent.

  P.S. The Rolling Stones = Unrestricted Awesomeness, in case you were wondering.

  • Posted Mar 1, 2009 3:15 am PT
  • Category: Games
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• 10Feb 09

  Beginning of a New Age

  So, just about three years late, I have picked up Game of the Year Edition of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, mainly because 1. I had finished my exams and deserved a treat and 2. Having Fallout 3 inspired me to get Bethesda's other big release (despite the fact that still, the bugs with Fallout 3 continue). And this has meant that I have been this time sampling the sights and sounds of the Province of Cyrodiil, which I gather is part of the continent of Tamriel. It has to be said, Oblivion is better than Fallout 3. The environment is more dramatic, there are a ton more characters (although all of them are voiced by the same small group of actors, but that just shows how much voice work had to be got through), and overall it is more engrossing. You can look at a bookshelf in someone's house and you can read a few pages of every single book there, if desired. Fallout just didn't have that level of detail. And so, with the country groaning under literally centimetres of snow, it was the ideal time to play the game. I'd just like to highlight some of the thoughts I've had whilst playing (be aware that beyond this point lay spoilers most treacherous, reader):

  

  1. The Adoring Fan. His bright yellow hair, irritating voice and general uselessness (apart from carrying a flaming torch at night) make him a brilliant sidekick. Devising interesting ways to meet an unfortunate end is always satisfying (pushing him gently off the edge of Dive Rock is wonderful, plus it doesn't count as murder).
  2. The various Counts and Countesses of Cyrodiil are sometimes difficult to visit. If they're not sitting on their thrones, they might be wandering around restricted areas of their castles, or else not in the town at all. And the Count of Skingrad is impossible to meet with (unless you understand why he is impossible to meet with, of course).
  3. My favourite town is Anvil. It feels very Mediterranean, being on The Gold Coast. Plus, Benrius Manor is a great house at a good price (although it initially comes with some problems). Least favourite would probably be Leyawiin, because it always seems to be raining or foggy when I'm there. I don't actually recall visiting on a good day.
  4. Why am I the only person in the whole of Tamriel who has the bravery to actually bother to close these Oblivion gates?!
  5. Things are expensive. I've got into the habit of taking anything that is worth a good amount of gold and selling it as soon as I reach the nearest merchant. If anything looks bigger and better than my old stuff, I'm taking it. The first time I saw a Fine Steel Longsword I thought "Wow! I must have it." But then a little while on along comes an enemy with a Silver Longsword, or a Dwarven Longsword etc.
  6. The speechcraft mini-game is just weird, not very fun, and doesn't really work too well. A good old charm spell always does the trick. In this sense, the Fallout 3 speech decisions work a lot better. Plus, it is irritating that you only occasionally ask actual questions, rather than most of the time just posing topics which people respond to.

  

  And I haven't even touched the Shivering Isles expansion yet. I have swum over to the little island in the middle of the Niben Bay off the coast of Bravil, but I decided to finish the main story before I went to wherever the door leads. I did think it was rather silly that the Game of the Year edition doesn't include the other plug-ins as well (Horse Armour etc), since you would think it would be sensible to bundle everything into one. I'm not complaining though, with the reams of content I've got for my time and money so far. I also seem to be lugging round lots of Alchemical ingredients, because whenever I see a plant I haven't a sample of yet, I am compelled to pick it. I should really convert them into some useful potions to either sell or use. Also, lockpicking is totally impossible (another thing Fallout 3 is better at). I had to invest it a good open lock spell quite early on, because I was routinely breaking all of my lockpicks.

  In other news, it's my Birthday today. Huzzah.

  • Posted Feb 10, 2009 12:14 am PT
  • Category: Games
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• 24Jan 09

  Back to Square One

  The simple things you see are all complicated,
  I look pretty young, but I'm just back-dated.

  *Looks at today's date and the date this account was created. Sighs nostalgically.*

  A very Happy 4th Anniversary to me. And this year, as last year, it is falling right in the middle of the exam period. Two down, two more to go, and it has been alright so far. I just remembered at the end of the day that it was tradition to write a blog post for my anniversary, so I got this up with less than five minutes to go. I have mainly been playing Fallout 3 recently, but also diving into some Battlefield 2, which I recently acquired (more on that another time), as well as revisiting The Movies, which I had been previously unable to play due to various computer woes. Thankfully it runs great now though, and I've been making one or two films. The same can sadly still not be said for Fallout 3, and even though Bethesda Softworks have released their patch, it didn't address any of the crashes to the desktop. So me and Bethesda Support UK are slowly grinding through the possibilities of what it causing it, before they will eventually concede it must be an application error and release another patch. I can see it now, in big letters on the Fallout 3 website. The patch will be called; "Dowloadable Content: Operation Anchorage" (which, I've got to admit looks interesting in itself). It will most likely fix the original game, but you then won't be able to play the DLC. You must then await the second downloadable content pack, and so on, ad infinitum. What, me, cynical?

  

  In fact, as part of trying to solve my Fallout 3 crashes, I am now an Xbox Live/ Games for Windows Live member, despite not having a 360. I am creatively entitled gbrading over at xbox.com, if you feel the urge of adding me (please do, I'm lonely ). Several things I immediately disliked about xbox.com. First, if you don't want to shell out however much is 20 Microsoft Points in real money, you cannot change your gamer picture past the random selection of preset ones Microsoft offers you, and second, how you cannot create an NXE Live avatar online. I suppose the second one is understandable, since Microsoft's immediate goal is to make you purchase an Xbox 360, before their secondary goal is to make you buy an Xbox Live Gold Membership. I'm sure its been said a thousand times, and I normally try not to venture into a System Wars-ish area, but the idea that you have to pay to be able to play multiplayer games on the Xbox seems utterly ridiculous to me. If Battlefield 2 or Team Fortress 2 forced me to pay each time I wanted to play, I doubt if I would have even bought them in the first place. It basically follows the guiding principle of MMO's; charge 'em for the original game, and keep charging 'em for as long as possible. So, at the moment there is very little to look at on my gamertag, and I fully suspect it will stay that way for some time. The only achievements I can actually get are for Fallout 3, and I haven't actually enabled GFWL for the game yet. I'm frightened it might do more harm than good.

  • Posted Jan 24, 2009 3:57 pm PT
  • Category: Technology
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• 6Jan 09

  It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Gaming) or: 2008 in Review

  Welcome readers to this (apparently) annual event of some kind held here in the glittering heart of... the internet. Presented in Glorious Technicolor for your viewing pleasure. In gaming, we can look back and think of the beginning as though it was yesterday. Fifty-six years ago, Alexander S. Douglas created OXO, the first computer game to use a graphical display. Essentially, it was a simply game of Noughts and Crosses with a short source code; a deceptive game where if played correctly, you can force a draw every time. However, this essentially was the beginning of computer gaming. How far we have moved in fifty-six years; almost literally leaps and bounds. Below is a roundup of my year based solely on the games I experienced, so if I miss something, it is simply because I didn't play it. I also include games which were not released this year, but I bought this year.

  Highlights
  Fallout 3
  Just brilliant, as long as it isn't crashing. Easily my favourite part of this game is just exploring the landscape without any given quest in mind, and seeing what I stumble upon. Throughout the treacherous Capital Wasteland, there exists everything from frighteningly fast Giant Radscorpions to towns built on crumbling freeway flyovers, Enclave Eyebots broadcasting their jingoistic propaganda, abandoned military installations taken over by murderous raiders and ruined radar towers hopelessly repeating old Morse code messages. All in all, it combines to create a fantastic atmosphere, and the environment is so huge it is easy to become engulfed. I'm fifty hours in and still haven't finished the main storyline yet (although you could do it much faster). I hope that Bethesda will release a patch very shortly that should stop the various crashes that are spoiling what is otherwise an excellent game. My game of the year.

  

  Audiosurf
  For such a small game, it delivers a huge amount of replayability. Literally any song you own can be raced upon, allowing you to compete in online scoreboards for the best results. Whilst the method of calculating these scores can feel slightly random, it is still very entertaining to fly down The Velvet Underground's "White Light/White Heat", zigzagging between various coloured blocks. Considering how cheap it is, this is a worthy addition to any collection.

  Fahrenheit (Indigo Prophecy)
  A distinctly strange game. There is really nothing else like it. It's not really totally fulfilling, but it does present an interestingly different way of approaching gameplay. It's got a variety of issues which hamper enjoyment (such as frustrating button mashing), but the overall plot is gripping enough to keep you entertained until the end (although the ending itself is a bit slapdash). Overall I'm glad I played it, both for the plot and the experience, but after two runs through there isn't a whole lot to encourage you back.

  Lowlight
  Half-Life: Blue Shift
  This can really be summed up in one word: disappointing. Everything about it languishes in the mediocre. It is short, unexciting and features nothing which wasn't already in the original Half-Life. Whilst Opposing Force added several new things which made that game have a reasonable amount of value, Blue Shift does not. Further, the brief campaign throws a million headcrabs at you, but not a single Zombie of any kind. I'm currently playing through Opposing Force, and that is a much better expansion to opt for (although at the time of writing it is suffering from a game-breaking bug mid-way through). Only bother getting it if it's exceedingly cheap.

  Any Other Business
  Got a Nintendo Wii
  Over the holidays I've been sadly playing Wii Sports to death, with my "Wii Fitness Age" (not the same as Wii Fit) jumping from 57 to 80, and then to a respectable 27. I have a feeling that it's not entirely reliable. My Dad is totally addicted to Golf, and when anyone asked if they wanted to play something, my Dad would chip in, "only if it's Wii Sports Golf, intermediate holes". And to be fair, he's actually pretty good at it as well. Two things however: Baseball is really difficult (or I should say, hitting is really difficult, pitching is a doddle) and Tennis can be infuriating. You never know if you opponent is going to spin a forehand or backhand at you, and the Wiimote seems to know whether you are in the correct position to return it. You can cheat at Bowling and Golf, but not at Tennis. Hopefully will get around to buying something else for it in the near future, although it has had to remain at home whilst I'm at university.

  Cool BioShock T-Shirt
  Finally, I just wanted to show off my very snazzy BioShock T-Shirt I got free from 2K Games. I managed to win it in a competition via their forums, to celebrate the PS3 release. I think it's very stylish. That's your lot for now.

  

  • Posted Jan 6, 2009 4:18 pm PT
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• 26Dec 08

  Christmas Day... Take Two

  Today I have been celebrating Christmas, all over again. Yesterday was only the rehearsal of Christmas Day. Earlier in the week, my entire family apart from myself was struck down by the virulent Norovirus, which causes projectile vomiting amongst other equally unpleasant symptoms. Thankfully, I managed to avoid infection due to a combination of luck and good hygiene. However, my grandmother, who lives quite a while away in Devon, was extremely reluctant to come up to be with us until all of them were totally free of symptoms, since we wanted to avoid getting her ill at all costs. By Tuesday, when the rest of the family were still spluttering and moping about, it was looking like Christmas with my Nan would have to be cancelled. However, by Christmas Eve evening they had all improved quite a bit, and a plan was formulated. My Dad would drive down on Christmas Day, collect her and bring her back, and then we would all have the full Turkey dinner with our elderly next door neighbour on Boxing Day instead. Thankfully I was able to persuade my Nan to come, and so in the end Christmas wasn't cancelled after all. The spirit of Christmas lies in family, not presents.

  

  That isn't to say we didn't do some opening of presents on the real Christmas Day. I was given quite a plethora of books, such as Barack Obama's "Dreams of My Father", J.K. Rowling's "The Tales of Beedle the Bard" and Anthony Horowitz's "Necropolis". I also got a Beatles mug, an assortment of clothes (such as a Pink Floyd T-shirt), Pink Floyd's "Atom Heart Mother", and an excellent new coat. However, maybe best of all I think was the present I got jointly with my sister: a Nintendo Wii. It is the first games console I have ever (partly) owned. Well, this really was a turn up for the books. I really hadn't been expecting my parents to buy myself and my sister a Wii complete with extra Wiimote and Nunchuk. I set it up today and successfully connected to the internet, and then we all made fools of ourselves playing Wii Sports to death. As sad and clichéd as it may seem, the picture about really was my family today. My Dad nearly broke the light fixture when jumping (for no readily apparent reason) during tennis. My Nan even got a strike in bowling. I'm going to make my family promise not to buy a game for it without my permission, because I really don't want to end up with a load of rubbish games for the Wii which will only deliver minimal entertainment. In other news, a roundup of the year should be coming relatively soon.

  • Posted Dec 26, 2008 12:17 pm PT
  • Category: Games
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• 15Dec 08

  Dear Hearts and Gentle People

  After successfully finishing my various essays (although some were slightly shorter than I would have liked) I have been exploring the sights and sounds of greater Washington D.C. And overall, I think the game is fantastic. The only really negative points I can think of are 1. The wide variety of crashes and minor visual bugs that occur and 2. The slightly weak first-person shooting that is done outside of VATS. Whilst Bethesda have told me (in several support emails) that they are currently working on a patch which should hopefully solve the crashes (although they haven't put a date on it), I think that many of these errors could have already been ironed out through more extensive playtesting. Rushing to meet deadlines always brings forth these problems. Look at the PC version of GTA IV, which was pushed through too fast and has significantly suffered in the main release build as a result. While these errors can always be fixed by patching, users should be able to expect a fully playable game on release out of the box, not something which feels slightly unfinished because of errors.

  

  Anyway, back to Fallout 3. When it isn't crashing, the first thing that hits you is that the Capital Wasteland is huge. Standing on a hill, you get a view across the rolling arid fields and crumbling buildings, the wrecked and collapsing freeways straddling the landscape. The main Wasteland is just one vast expanse, stretching from the outskirts of D.C. out into the countryside of Virginia and Maryland. The various districts of the city itself are only accessible via the interconnecting Metro system, due to the collapsing buildings that have blocked the pre-war thoroughfares. It's important to realise that this is a representation of Washington D.C. and environs, not a recreation. Due to the extremely cool retro-futuristic setting (imagining a future as predicted in the 1950's), the area has developed very differently to real life, not really expanding past its size in the 50's, thus leaving an interesting variety of towns, villages and other settlements in the area where today there is simply urban sprawl. Having visited Washington D.C. myself I can also say that in terms of scale the length of the Mall is too short and the remains of the White House (which apparently suffered a direct nuclear hit) are in completely the wrong place. However, when you think about it as an alternative history, these things can easily be explained away.

  

  Aside from the wide variety of quests, one of the joys of this game is just exploring the area. There are a multitude of abandoned buildings, derelict Metro tunnels and interesting places to visit; everything from a town made of the remains of planes from Washington Dulles International Airport to the damaged remains of the Lincoln Memorial. Just wondering through these districts is both interesting, and challenging. If you were to try to traverse Dupont Circle for example, you would have to contend with land mines, feral ghouls, insane raiders and maybe even super mutants scattered about the place. Thankfully, this is usually easy thanks to the Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System (VATS). With a certain number of Action Points, you can pause the scene and target the individual limbs of a person, before pressing go and letting your character let rip in a cool slow-motion cutscene. It's rather more satisfying than the underpowered first-person shooting, which only feels alright when you reach a higher character level. Overall it's still very good fun though.

  A final note; the title song should have been included in the game itself, instead of just the trailer. It's fantastic.

  I love those dear hearts, and gentle people,
  Who live and love in my home town.

  • Posted Dec 15, 2008 7:34 am PT
  • Category: Games
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