Since a year between blog posts would just be crazy I figured I'd should aim to have another post in before that occurs. That maybe if I started a few months early then it would give me plenty of time to finish writing it.
Anyway I now live in Montreal and I've finished on Dragon Age and I'm now working on Mass Effect 2.
That should be short enough for me to actually hit the Publish Post button.
I've been meaning to post about this for a while. I'm pretty sure I've already started a draft to something of this effect over at Facebook but then I saw something on Google's Blog that was spot on. As someone who recently moved and is wanting to know what is going on in my friends' lives then I can entirely relate to what they are saying:
What makes two friends feel "close" to one another? I'd argue that a big part of it is the small details that you know about each other. The funny comment your friend made about a billboard they saw while driving down the road, what they had for dinner, a person they ran into on the street, their comments about the movie they saw two nights before. Closeness often comes from knowing the small things, not just the big things. Distance makes knowing those small things harder. When you live together, either with your family or your friends, knowing the small things is easy. They get conveyed when passing in the hall, sitting down to a meal or just hanging out. It's effortless.
When you live apart, things change. Suddenly it takes effort. It used to take a lot more effort when writing a letter was the primary way to communicate over distance as opposed to email or IM or telephone. But, even with our current technology, it still takes work. As a result, we share less with our friends. And when we do share, we tend to share the big stuff (big shifts at work, major family events like birthdays or school milestones) and leave the small stuff behind. We start to feel less connected because we don't know the details.
And they are right, Facebook and such have the Twitter functionality of micro-updates but, despite the fact I laughed at Twitter when I saw it, it makes such a difference. When I read about little things they begin forming a big picture of what is happening and it keeps me that little closer to them. No one would email or call people to tell them about such minor things but it makes such a big difference.
I might not have been able to go to Utopia in Edinburgh but seeing a bunch of peoples' statuses about getting ready before the event; comments after the event and the collection of pictures and videos managed to keep me connected to their lives in ways that an email from a couple of them stating they had a good time never could have. Though seeing events like that, or a lovely friend's video recording of people saying little messages at Southport, bring up such a strange mix of happiness and sadness (sadness at not being there, I guess). It's a lovely thing though.
So basically, I ♡ the social web and I'm looking forward to the future of it.
It's moaning time! I went out and bought a stupidly large TV (which was quite expensive but not as expensive as our bed; so that's fine). I also bought a HDMI cable to connect my PS3 to said TV. It failed to work. The TV seems to assume it is picking up a signal and the PS3 seems to assume it is giving one but something in-between seems to stop it. Of course it could have something to do with the PS3 outputting a 576P (PAL) resolution and the TV expecting a 480P input. In any case it doesn't work. What does work (though only to 1080i :'( ) is the YPrPb Component in. So once again I'm on analog input. Given the fact I also couldn't get a HDMI->DVI cable to work probably last year so far this new era of digital goodness hasn't exactly been all that good. I'll try and borrow a HDMI cable and, possibly, a PS3 and see what's failing.
Anyway I was generally unimpressed with Sony's customer service. After them stating that the PS3 will work fine on 125V it doesn't (I've got a transformer though). They didn't mention the fact that a PAL PS3 doesn't actually have the option of choosing an NTSC output. I also tried to register a Canadian account of the Playstation Network (like they told me to) and have it reject because the email address is already in use (for my other, UK, account). So I gave up on that.
What I have been impressed with though is Metal Gear Solid 4. The polish of the cutscenes in that game are amazing. Though I don't always agree with the direction that game has taken (or even understand half of the references to the previous games) I'm enjoying the points I get to play the game (which is less than you might expect an interactive experience to have) and enjoying the many cutscenes in the game.
Well I was going to make some long post but, lets face it, that will never happen so I'll probably keep this short. I've been posting a bit of Facebook as Blogger has no idea of a friends only concept (with OpenID in place maybe it will come) but quite a bit has changed in my life and I guess that very business has kept me from posting.
I've moved to Canada last month to start work with BioWare. That time spent making demos really did pay off and I've been enjoying working there.
At this stage of the year I'd reflect that it's been three years since I took up dancing and what progress I felt I've made. Being in a new city in a new country has somewhat slowed me down. There isn't a modern jive scene here though what I've seen of hustle; it looks similar (not like there is a scene for that either). There is a small west coast swing scene which I attended an event for recently and a larger east coast swing scene which I've been getting involved in but I'm finding it a bit tough to be a beginner again (even if a lot of the technique can carry across). Still it looks like I can probably get something in every week now so that's awesome :D (not entirely since I'm going from three times a week to maybe one).
Well I might not leave three months between this and my next post. Maybe.
Now I'm going to use my blog in the more traditional sense. That is to just witter about what is happening in my life; well really to just talk about what a fantastic weekend I had.
I went to two fantastic dance events. Red Hot and Blue on Friday and a Ceroc Tea Dance on Sunday. Maybe it's the music, people or atmosphere at Red Hot and Blue but it felt like a bit of a weekender at home. It was lovely; I guess my only complaint was that we arrived quite late so I didn't get to enjoy it quite as much as I liked. The tea dance was also great; there were those few key dances that just made it wonderful.
We had my brother and sister over on Saturday night for Ultra-Boggle Extreme. It was meant to be an extended Boggle game but we didn't really play that much of it; maybe a good thing given how ridiculously good my sister is at that game. It was lovely to socialise with them though.
Other than that I finally got around to watching some of the Unreal Tournament III video tutorials (they came with Collectors Edition which I bought for these videos; otherwise I would have bought it on Steam).They were great; I wish I had these the first time I was working with the Unreal engine; it would have made my life much easier. Anyway; even though I haven't actually played Unreal Tournament III beyond one quick single player match I've very much enjoyed building a few levels with it (they aren't multiplayer balanced, more just playing with the editor).
Since I'm now on talking about games I also played some Halo 3; a bit of single player and my first multiplayer game. I've heard great things about the Halo 3 multiplayer and I thought I'd finally check it out. The great things are completely accurate; you start up the matchmaking and it has a Starter Playlist which takes you to a simple deathmatch game. It managed to match make me with three people; two of which had also never played it before and another who had played it six times and lost five. Maybe you can attribute that to the number of people playing Halo 3 but the ability to actually find other people, in a couple of minutes, who have a workable ping and have only just started is a real testament to the game.
Did I not say, earlier in the year, that I wouldn't post a What I've Been Playing? Well due to lack of any other blogging here I figured that maybe this post is something I might finish (it still took me days to get around to posting it).
I've been playing Company of Heroes and Burnout Paradise both of which, mostly, on multiplayer. Burnout Paradise's multiplayer component is great; it's really a great model on which others should base how to get into a multiplayer game. I'm looking forward to one of their forthcoming patches that include a lot of the stuff that is great fun in the singleplayer to multiplayer. The recent Company of Heroes patch includes team matchmaking (which seems to work ok) and the stability seems to be much improved with is great.
I played a bit of Kingdom Hearts 2 last night. I know it is upscaled on the PS3 (last time I played it was on the PS2) but… that game looks fantastic. Seriously the art style is fantastic, the character animation is great. It seems such a shame that new PS3 owners (with no backwards compatibility) won't be able to enjoy games like that.
I also bought Prey when it was going real cheap on Steam. I never really enjoyed the demo (I think I might have played it on the 360 so that might have had something to do with it) but I've been playing the full game and I've been really enjoying it. It pre-dates Portal in the use of a portal like system; though, in complete contrast to Portal, you don't have any control of the portal system. The portals are used by your enemies and the game world to send you around places. It also uses things like different gravity (including some that you control) and gravity walkways to send challenges at you in all sorts of strange angles. It also has this interesting art style which consists of a mixture of alien technology and organic material (which is unpleasant at times); since the aliens have teleported chunks of the Earth then there is also a blend of the familiar. Maybe it was the low expectations I had when starting this game but I've been impressed so far; I shan't go into any more as Shamus Young, over at Twenty Sided, did a much more in-depth look at it.
Rant time! I got Lost Odyssey on Monday and I'm still at the very early stages. Anyway I encountered the second boss fight (if you count the big, weird looking flame thrower, masher tank thing as the first). This boss is some big bird creature (not actually Big Bird from Sesame Street; though that would be interesting). You get to it by going up a mountain side finally hitting the top and cresting the hill into a long cutscene. The cutscene throws you straight into a boss fight.
The boss fight, for me, pretty much went you've got to be kidding me
while
it proceeded to rip my characters into tiny little bits. I had previously seen a save point before the boss which you can't reach due to triggering a cutscene before you get to it. I wondered, with baited breath, if it would make me do the whole mountain again. Thankfully the game designers had thought of this and put an respawn point just before the boss; yeay! sensible game designers. I tried a few more times; each time the bird showing me that immortal is really a relative thing and that my character, who apparently has lived 10,000 years up until now, is as fragile as the next guy. So I thought Why not go back down the hill and do some level grinding rather than hit the cutscene?
So I did; after many pointless battles making my way down the hill I went and healed up in some conveniently placed empty cabin before saving and making the trek back up the hill again.
Once again my characters stood on top of a hill. Thankfully I discovered a way to skip the cutscene so I skipped past that to fight the BoD. I got further but it still kicked my not-so-immortal immortal ass. The Game Over words hauntingly appeared before the dialogue for Retry/I Can't Be Bothered Any more came up. I hit Retry and… was put back to my little cabin. Maybe the playtesters were just better than me but surely someone went the same direction as me back down the hill and many fights later? Maybe I wouldn't be so annoyed with the checkpoint logic not being set up to allow for it being invoked again if it wasn't for the fact that I can see a save point when I go into the cutscene. I got annoyed with the prospect of climbing the hill again (after doing some more of the grind) so I gave up for now.
I wonder if this has a place in Ernest Adams No Twinkie Database?
The thing is, some games, like Call of Duty 4 do such a good job of checkpoints that you don't even pay attention to things like saving. Unfortunately for these games the designers getting it right means that no one really even notices what a great job they do. It's only the games that frustrate you that you notice how bad it can be.
Well, I haven't been very good at keeping this blog up-to-date really have I? I recently thought about
posting a What I've Been Playing but then I figured Who really cares?
so I didn't
bother. It's not like I'm going to go back and read it to remember the good ol' days when I finished
Mass Effect or such. I sometimes think I've got insightful stuff to talk about about
a game but then I can never be bothered typing that rather than just play another game.
I've also thought about writing about dancing but again stating I've been really enjoying dancing at this or that
event
probably doesn't interest many of my few readers anyway.
Therefore I'm somewhat at a loss what to write about. In an attempt to give some focus to both myself and this blog
I've considered writing development notes on my current game project. I've pondered doing this in a sort of
Rolf Harris Can you tell what it is yet
sort of style where I focus more on the little picture rather
than the big one. I hope I actually get around to starting this, perhaps it might be interesting. Umm... to someone.
Other than that I've written a few more scripts and mods and I'm actually hoping to release a few of those this year. I've got a couple of ideas for other things I'd like to do this year and, with any luck, I'll actually get around to those too. I'm hoping that it will be an interesting if fairly infrequent posting this year so for those of you that visit the site every so often just use a feed reader already :D.
Oh and: Happy 2008 everyone!
So with the much delayed release of the PS3 version of Stranglehold I got the Collector's Edition sent from the USA. After having some issues with the delivery company giving one of the two parcels to the wrong address (and they would have given the other one, the one with the game in to the wrong address too had it not been for the fact that the person didn't pay the customs duty tax) I got the parcel and could play the game. I've been really enjoying it, it's not the best game ever made but if you wanted the gun play from Feng Shui (or I guess HK action films which it is based on) in a computer game this seems like a good place to find it. I'm a bit disappointed with them stating the game is in 1080i on the back (though that might be the movie) as it isn't and my PS3 doesn't seem to like doing 720p correctly on the HDMI->DVI link. I'm also disappointed that the movie can't be played unless you start it in the game (though I knew you couldn't play it on a standard Blu-Ray player) mainly becuase it lacks the great controls the PS3 has. It also is the dubbed version with no other language or subtitle options.
Saying that it was still worth the wait (rather than just getting the XBox 360 version) for Hard Boiled. It's still, IMOHO, the best Hong Kong action film I've ever seen.
Anyway I'm still failing to blog. I've got half a write up of a weekender in September (which was awesome) and such to finish, at the rate I'm going I'll have another one to write about as well. To add to that it has taken nearly a week to actually post this rather than have it in draft.
I've been busy playing games; notably The Orange Box and Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts though with a bit of Civilization IV thrown in for good measure and trying to finish my second Neverwinter Nights module which is going fine but still needs quite a bit more done.
After The Orange Box was released I stopped playing Team Fortress 2 and moved to Portal first instead. It's short but it's really, really, good fun. I love the sense of humour in the game, done mostly through the voices (it's amazing how something like a turret can seem silly just by adding some dialogue to it) and the ending was delightful. Some really strong scriptwriting, which is strange for a puzzle game. Though I haven't finished Half Life 2: Episode 2 it reminded me of what fantastic pacing Valve stick in their products. The diversity of game given its basic first person roots really shows off the designers skills. One minute you'll be driving around at breakneck speeds and the next you'll be holed up in a house trying to fight of a force of Combine, or trying to craw through a trench to avoid turrets. A lot of the fights seem really re-playable too with lots of choices about trying to out-manoeuvring you opponents (or get in a car and try and run them down). I noticed that Zero Punctuation covered this, his take is awesome.
I've had some really good matches on Company of Heroes as well. The two new armies have been really interesting to play with. I love the Panzer Elite, their fast play is a different style to the entrenching that I probably did more in the original but it works really well. What didn't seem to be working well was Relic Online servers that seemed to be having issues getting anyone logged in, it was funny to see the game names move to something expressing annoyance at that fact though. It really annoys me that they don't have any sort of direct IP connect or other fall back. Will they still be supporting this game in 10 years? I was, a fair while ago, playing Total Annihilation (which has only recently be crowned by Relic's games for me). Their online lobby is long gone, if it hadn't been for direct IP stuff we'd have been screwed. It's good to provide people with backup in the event that your service isn't working.
Other random news that I was reading was Halo 3 being blamed for slow month at the cinemas. Halo 3 was predicted at around 3 million sales over the first 12 days in the US. With a population around 300 million this accounts for around 1% of the population that might be staying at home instead. Are you sure the reason people aren't going to the cinema is because there isn't anything worth watching on at the moment? (Speaking of which after I failed to post this I watched Resident Evil: Extinction... humm).
So it's been a while since I've posted, I've put a few things into draft but I just never get the time to finish them. I'll try harder :D.
Anyway I was going to post some drivel about how great Team Fortress 2 and how awesome other games are is but I'm going to post some other drivel instead about the new PS3
So a new PS3 model is out. This one is cheaper, which is great. What's awful about it, though, is the lack of any backwards compatibility with the PS2. Apparently it no longer works due to the removal of the Graphics Synthesizer, the final PS2 hardware component in the PS3. This is bad for me because it means that Sony will probably take focus away from their backwards compatibility which means less titles will be ported. This is bad for new consumers as there is a great range of PS2 titles that they won't be able to play on their new console. This is terrible for Sony because they've lost the plot. Seriously if they don't see the PS2 as a potential in road to the PS3 then they've been so consumed by their own hype about the next generation that they can't even see the fact that the Wii is destroying them in terms of market share. I had a plan a while back to give my mother my PS2 for her birthday and buy a couple of the casual games she might enjoy on it. I'm sure my parents, with the HDTV they have might be looking for a Blu-Ray player at some stage. The PS3 would be a great all around upgrade option from the PS2 except now it isn't. The PS2 has a huge install base, why the hell are they throwing that away?
I found the quote:
The new model is no longer backwards compatible with PlayStation®2 titles, reflecting both the reduced emphasis placed on this feature amongst later purchasers of PS3, as well as the availability of a more extensive line-up of PS3 specific titles
fascinating since I got my PS3 in July and most of the things I've been playing on it is PS2 games. Maybe it's that September bunch that are all about the new games but for me throwing away the extensive back catalogue of games that's on the PS2, along with the general confusion surrounding the different PS3 models (3 with varying levels of backwards compatibility in the US) makes me think that Sony aren't really sure what direction they are going in. Whether they can put in complete software emulation for the new breed I don't know, they certainly don't claim they have any plans to.
Update: Actually Edge's online thingy managed to chase this up:
The sheer numbers of PS2 titles available, together with the increased complexity of using a software only solution for each and every title means that to ensure accurate software emulation for the majority would be technically challenging, time consuming and costly.
Obviously they've done the number crunching and felt any increased sales of PS2 games aren't worth their while; or any PS2 to PS3 cross-sales aren't worth pursuing. It's a shame as there are still a few PS2 games I've got on a to buy list and the fact that they are discontinuing the lines that have the ability to play them means if I do need to get another PS3 then I'd be screwed.
Argh! So I got a new Graphics Card yesterday. It's sort of a stop gap solution before I finally join the ranks of PCI-E and I was hoping it was going to fix the crash issues I have with Source based games. I followed the suggestions found on Valve's site with no luck, I figured maybe it was an issue with my old graphics card's memory. One upgrade later and the new graphics card with the recent driver from ATI's site installed later and I started Team Fortress 2 again. About 3 minutes later it crashed with the same issue. Damn!
Then hidden in the mists of the steam support site there was the fact that Games freeze when running on ASUS motherboards. Oh, I've got an Asus board, maybe that's been it all this time. What's the fix? Upgrade your BIOS? Right you are. Apart from a brief time spent trying to get DOS to work for the firmware tool (before realising it was the wrong firmware, glad I didn't try to flash that on) I upgraded it on Windows.
Everything seemed to go fine except when I went into Windows it just rebooted at the end of its load. Nothing logged or anything, it just constantly did that. I could get into Safe Mode and I could load a Ubuntu Live CD just fine so it didn't appear to be a borked BIOS. I figured I'd try restoring Windows from the disc. Bad move! That copied the files went to the now finding your devices bit and crashed out. Then it would go back in, try and find the devices and crash out. It would do this until I got suitably annoyed. Which wasn't that long after it started.
Next up was reinstalling Windows from scratch. That went fine, obviously whatever driver causing Windows to crash and burn wasn't there in the first place. Great! A fresh version of Windows with none of the patches, apps or games on. Time to start the patching and installing again! Yeay. I was on SP2 when I had finished for the evening. I installed the newest GC drivers and that caused the machine to crash (maybe that was the problem in the first place but strange it only happened after the motherboard was upgraded). Rolling back to an older version seemed to work fine, at least I hope it is.
After all that, 6 hours later with my evening gone, I started up Team Fortress 2.
It crashed.
Jay recently posted an article about when great games cease to be great which I think is a bit related to the essential RPGs post a bit back. It seems linked to me as the initial question, which perhaps I failed to answer in my post, was What games do you feel that someone really should be familiar with to be considered an
I pondered this because I'm not really certain that someone needs to have played Final Fantasy IV to really know about the Active Time Battle system that was used there-in. It's been used in other games subsequently, I many cases better, and someone who played a derivative is no less aware of this technique than someone who played the original.expert
... on the subject of CRPGs?
My original list has some games that, personally, were great landmarks in my CRPG experience but aren't particularly fine examples of the genre or bring anything new to it (such as Phantasy Star III). Someone who wanted to learn from previous RPGs would probably do better to look elsewhere for solid gaming experience. The immaturity of the genre in the early years perhaps lead to very primitive story-telling technique and, as I'm no longer a teen, I'm not sure how well these games will hold up to scrutiny. I've certainly found that playing through some of the early Final Fantasy games on the GBA. Bad UI only furthers to put annoy people who have come to expect a smoother play experience from their games. Of course in the article about great games ceising to be great Jay argues the opposite, that it is fun. I'm quite sure that some games will never lose some of their charm. Perhaps the storyline is still strong and the mechanics bearable enough to put up with continuing or maybe nostalgia over the game drives me to play it where a new player would give up (maybe the best way to test this is to try a few of the games others listed that I haven't played and see if I enjoy them).
Of course if it isn't the mechanics that we are playing the old games for (if we argue that just an awareness of those mechanics rather than the origin is enough) and we are happy enough with the concept that most RPG plots are variations of a big list then what do the old games offer us? Perhaps nothing more than the right combination of mechanics and plots with a story that keeps us involved and characters that appeal to us (for whatever reason that is).
Looking back at my list most of the games there are because the characters appeal to me (Baldur's Gate II, Final Fantasy VII and Planescape Torment); the setting appealed to me (Arcanum, Fallout 2 and the creepy System Shock 2); the storyline appealed to me (Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic). Leaving Phantasy Star III (which, along with the first and second, brought me into the whole CRPG), Neverwinter Nights (which didn't have the same level of emotional depth as Baldur's Gate II but was the first game to bring a good multiplayer CRPG experience to me) and, Oblivion which appeals to me on so many levels, maybe it hits the exploration part just right (I love it but I can't quite place why, perhaps a few years will tell whether this really is the case). So maybe, with that in mind, old games still appeal just as much to us because they are as strong, for all the right reasons, as new games are.
I previously through in some of my thoughts on Backwards Compatibility, I finished God of War a while back on my PS3. Yes, I know that it seems silly that I got a PS3 basically to play upscaled versions of PS2 games on but God of War didn't work in my PS2 properly (and it's freakin' awesome). Anyway was given a 1 dot thing out of 3 dot things which basically means that it Should play on PLAYSTATION®3 with noticeable issues
. If that's what 1 dot thing means then well done Sony's backward compatibility team. There were some artefacts generally at loading and a couple of times in the game but that was it. On the other hand playing Prince of Persia on the XBox 360 (which is binary in its compatibility) had it running in what looked like less than 4:3 ratio, suffering slowdown and crashing. Since my girlfriend was playing it at the time I ended up going for the (cheap) PC triple pack which also means I can play the other two as well.
We'll see whether I'll filled with rage again depending on how God of War 2 runs since I've ordered that. It's not listed on their Backwards Compatibility list but others have had some success according to the unofficial list; I'm pretty sure Sony should keep their own list up-to-date though. Ah well if it doesn't work I can always hope my PS2 fares better with the sequel than the first game.
I'm too busy playing BioShock at the moment to really care :D.
Oh and since it is vaguely related the very funny Zero Punctuation covers the console war.
Update: I've now played God of War II but, at the time of writing, it isn't listed in their backwards compatibility list. Now there are some games I have that I haven't tried but you'd think Sony would check out their new titles and add them to that list since I nearly didn't buy the game based on the fact that the fact it isn't there suggests it doesn't work. No problem yet, it seems to run beautifully.
I recently took part in the Valve's Steam Summary which basically just posts your system information to Valve. They then post that online which is probably a good cross section of the slightly higher end of the game playing market (I expect Steam users are probably a little bit more hardcore gamers than a standard cross-section). Looking at the results it appears that my machine is at the lower end to mid end of the spec (there are a few people who appear to be running Steam on toasters). One of the reasons that I love consoles is the lack of upgrade cycle (well there is an upgrade cycle for a new console but it is a much slower cycle). However the fact that I do some development means I still want PC games that have editors rather than their console variants and the fab thing about upgrading your PC is suddenly a bunch of your games look better (I'd love to run Company of Heroes at full graphic settings).
I gave Bioshock's demo a go on my 360 and then my PC and... well lets just say I'm going for the 360 version. I suspected as much when my machine just hit minimum specs for the game and Rainbow Six Vegas (another Unreal3 game) doesn't run great either. A while back Kotaku posted the system specs for Stranglehold which, among other crazy specs, required 2GB of RAM. I'm already planning on going for the PS3 version but looking at the Steam survey (at the time of writing) 4,650 out of 1,092,762 have 2GB or more of RAM. That's less than half a percent, it's not exactly a storming market, is it? There is something to be said about it not mattering how good your game looks or plays if no one can actually play it.
I've not been a fan of Gamespy's Lobby system (I mentioned this in a post a while back) so I wasn't overly delighted to hear that the next Unreal Tournament is using it. Using it for PC/PS3 cross play is fine but since I'll probably get it on the PC (for UnrealEd and, given my PC spec, the inability to play it) then I can't wait to have a user name produced by randomly mashing a keyboard (though saying that my PS3 tag and XBox 360 tags have resulted in nearly the same pain) and happily knowing that it doesn't link to any other friends list I built up from other games using the GameSpy system.
I haven't tried the PS3 multiplayer system as it stands now. I've seen it identify my contacts are online but I haven't actually tried starting a game with it. I'd be interested to know how well it works. For my PC I looked at Playxpert (which I didn't have any contacts for but seems fine) and Valve's Steam Community (beta) which also seems great then it seems a shame that we can't use one of these. Of course Epic might choose to interact with such APIs so that you can seamlessly go from your desktop straight into a match you've been invited to, it would be great if they did.
Basically I feel that if a bunch of tech heads take half an hour to work out getting over the network, sorting out logins and actually getting to play the game then it doesn't hugely bode well for the growth of a multiplayer community.
Over at Tales of the Rampant Coyote Jay listed the 16 Essential RPGs. I thought I'd give it a go myself, there is quite a bit of overlap with his list but then it's likely that there would be. I've also only done ten, I've been conditioned to base 10 scales though I salute Jay and his hexadecimal ranking :D.
there is a super-villain who hates everything(though it has that too).
So there you go, what would other people place in their top 10/16 RPG games that should be played?
I was interested to read that Warhawk server cluster is using racks of PS3s. The obvious dig is that Sony just has heaps of PS3s lying around their offices. Seriously though, I get that you don't have to rewrite/recompile your code to work on other systems and can just use the same retail version you are giving the consumers but surely there is a better way to do it than this? I mean the cell processor was designed for rack mounted servers. I remember the reading about a cell based blade a while back, you'd think this would be a good way forwards for them.
Furthermore your interface either has a web system (which I doubt the released version has) or you have to get some poor sap to hook the system up to a screen to alter settings.
Anyway it just seems a waste, to me, to have something that includes components for graphics acceleration and a blu-ray drive to be used to run the headless job a dedicated server has.
This post was in draft for some time, I basically felt it was some half formed thoughts. It still is... I'm hoping for the other half soon :D.
I was waiting in the Soarin' ride queue at Disney's Epcot a few weeks ago. It was quite a long wait but was entertaining due to the fact they had some cinema screens set up with games on. Basically they just used a machine vision system to try and pick up on the general movement of the crowd to play some games. Some involved trying to keep thing in the air or breaking objects apart. Others involved racing using a consensus system to determine if the crowd is tell the bird to fly in a particular direction. It was enjoyable but more interestingly it was fascinating to see how many people were getting involved in it (though I guess a dull queue is pretty much the best way to get a captive audience).
It must be interesting developing games like this, designed to be played in the space of a few minutes that should be accessible to all. Of course their were points it seemed to be failing to pick up on people's attempt to play the game but then we aren't paying for it. Currently the Wii seems to be suffering from the controller just not having the fidelity for some games, better design will probably address this (not in increasing the accuracy of the controls but just insuring the games take this more into account) but perhaps that doesn't really matter. After playing Wii Sports I may not have found the controls perfect but the nature of the games never lead that to being a problem. I've recently been playing Super Rub-A-Dub which uses the SIXAXIS controller. Again the control system isn't exact but that's part of the fun of it. As long as that doesn't become a point of frustration then it is fine.
There is quite a debate in the games industry about this. With the current success of the Wii lots of people have looked more at drawing in the casual market. Gamasutra recently had some analysts opinions on what the other systems need to do to pick up the casual market. However The 1up Yours podcast, I felt, made a good point that Sony should probably be looking to position the PS2 as the casual games system. With EyeToy, Singstar, Guitar Hero and Buzz they can push a cheap entry system with a bunch of casual games already available. With the exception of Guitar Hero I think all these work fine on the PS3 ensuring that they can continue to push that system as well (as the upmarket version that also includes a Blu-Ray player and such). Perhaps that extends the life of the PS2 beyond what Sony really want but it also provides a system cheaper than the Wii to push at the casual market that could provide Sony two areas to move forward in.
People in Edinburgh are lucky in the fact that we get the festival at our doorstep every year. Of course often we are too busy moaning about tourists being everywhere to actually attend any festival events. I think actually enjoying the festival yourself is a great way to alleviate this. I've done festival events in years gone by but I'm trying to do a few more this year (though I still haven't booked them). Unfortunately the Edinburgh Interactive Festival doesn't seem to be running any public talks as it did in past years (just cheap short talk events rather than paying a fair chunk for an event I'd have to take a few days from work to go to). Though the talks they are having do look interesting and fairly diverse.
Anyway so hopes that I can attend more than three shows this year. I'm just back from seeing Famished, a Victorian zombie musical, which was fabulous from start to finish. With my girlfriend's interest in the Victorian era and my interest in zombies then it was an obvious choice and even with high expectations I came away really enjoying the show.
