Stranglehold

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.

Stuff

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).

It's Been A While...

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.

Oh Goody, Reinstalling Windows

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.

Top 10 Essential RPGs Follow Up

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 expert... on the subject of CRPGs? 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.

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.

Backwards Compatibility: An Update

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.

The March of Progress

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.