Blog Posts from "Idolisides Blog Of Self Important Ramblings"

Activision Responsible For Modern Warfare 2 Delay, Not Steam

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 06:38:17 -0500

I'm getting quite a bit of heat reading some article and Steam forums about the Modern Warfare 2 Steam release debacle. Let me state this once: release dates have nothing to do with Valve/Steam!

Steam is merely a platform that publishers like Activision can use to publish their games and have some protection from piracy. It is up to the publisher to decide when the game is released.

Activision. Not Steam.

So all this hate branching towards the digital distribution service is quite unwarranted.

Now on the other hand, releasing a game in retail, which you then install and cannot play for two more days is very annoying. I can clearly see why some of the hate is going towards Steam for this.

PC World have published quite a informative article on how Steam is clearly to blame. It provides quite a few misconceptions on innacuracies that I would like to clear the air with.

Are they implying that Steam frequently crashes? I for one have had very few crashes with it over it's lifetime. I believe the writer is trying to imply the problems Steam had in it's initial launch with Half Life 2 in 2004. Well here's hoping they have improved something over 5 years...

Lets take another look at something that WAS Valve's fault. The L4D2 early demo access WAS delayed well over a day. This WAS Valve's fault and people were seriously angry over this. Yet, somehow because MW2 has alot of publicity and the general habit is to poke at Steam lately website feel they need to contribute un-needed facts to cash in views and publicity.

Rant over.

Update: I've just been told that the Retail versions of MW2 install fine and runs fine. So all this commotion only applies to the Steam exclusive edition. The release date is ultimately Activision's decision. There is no explanation why they delayed the Steam version. Needless to say, all the Steam hate is unjustified as the blame lies solely with the game's publisher.

Star Trek Online: Beta in 2009, Release possibly in early 2010!

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 04:40:07 -0400

In a new interview over at tentonhammer,

Good news! And as everybody knows full release dates are generally only three or four months after betas. Here's hoping my beta invitation comes through the mail

There's more to the interview, such as how Cryptic felt about the Star Trek fan base, developing the ground combat and how they are selecting applicants for the Beta.

Read the rest of the interview here: http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/75189

Star Trek Online: Player Progression Thoughts

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 14:00:15 -0400

In this edition's Ask Cryptik, a feature on the Star Trek Online community website where players pitch in questions, covers questions related to player character progression. As in how the user will boldly go forth and max out their character. Here's a few choice extracts.

Again, it's good to know that they are trying to get away from the usual MMO stereotypes, but I feel that the issue of repetition may crop up here. The Matrix Online had a similar system where you would go on either Assasination or Extraction missions, which mostly consisted of going from one building to another and killing some guys along the way, and finally talking to someone else to turn in the quest. It got really stale in a short period of time, and here's hoping that STO doesn't fall into the same trap.

To read more detailed answers on those questions, be sure to check out the Q&A page here.

The curse of DirectX 11

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 09:27:41 -0400

It's that time again when the genius’s over at DirectX come out with their latest version and the graphics card manufacturers go mental with advertising slogans mentioning the need for the latest version. This time being DirectX 11.

The problem with this kind of upgrade and promoting it is that trying to sell it through screenshots doesn’t really work. It previously happened over DX10 with comparison shots showing how amazing DX10 was over DX9, but unless you had extra sharp vision it was hard to tell the difference. The same is happening now with DX11, recently the latest Stalker developers unleashed some screenshots of Call Of Pripyat calling to people’s attentions how amazing it looked in the new format. And yet again I can barely tell the difference.

I’m not saying that DX11 isn’t a worthy upgrade or doesn’t make any significant improvements. It probably will be a vast improvement over DX10 in terms of dynamic power, rendering and programming. It will probably allow developers to do optimise their graphics code a bit better so it runs without too much processing power.

But that’s what the DX upgrades are for. It’s streamlining the code, not impressive effects. The pretty effects are all done by the developer, even a low cost game can have really impressive visuals because of styling. We are now exiting the age when graphical ability sells the game (Crysis still being the universal benchmark for new systems) and entering a time when game developers are making their games stylised as apposed to “oh wow, look at the realism”.

So game developers trying to show the impressiveness of a DX upgrade through screenshots is ultimately pointless. You see a few extra shadows, maybe a bit where your bump-mapping rendering is a little better. And of course ATI and nVidia are pulling out their new state-of-the-art cards and trying to push DX11 in the eternal race for graphical dominance. If you want to sell me DX11, show me that it will reduce my CPU load, that older systems will be able to run state of the art games. Show me the real improvement not some minor graphical tweaks which could easily be done in DX9.

Star Trek Online: Set Phasers To Excited!

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 10:21:53 -0400

I would have blogged about this sooner, but I've been waiting for more information. I'm extremely looking forward about this game. Set phasers to excited! Warp factor thrill! Beam me up anticipation! And so on, but my excitement if for several reasons:

1) I'm a huge, huge star trek fan. I'm bordering on being a full blown trekkie if it wasn't for the face my wife would make a disaproving face if I did anything remarkably geeky. My knowledge of most things trek wise is encyclopedic, let alone my DVD collection. I challenge people to quiz me in the comments section, I promise I won't cheat.

2) We need a decent space MMO. EVE online is okay if you like playing with spreadsheets and watching some vague metallic object shoot lasers at rocks for 2 hours. From what I've seen space combat in ST:O is looking very similar to Starfleet Command, which hands down was one of the best Star Trek games ever.

And how many MMOs generally fall into the "grind, kill these, level up character, continue", ST:O seems to be doing something different to the main stereotype of MMOs. You have ground and space based missions, and rather than upgrade your character, you upgrade your bridge crew and ship with different items/skills. These come into play when doing missions either in space or on away missions.

Here's some of the things we know so far that will be in Star Trek Online

You can choose between Federation or the Klingon Empire to start with. Either side will let you have a customised character, possibly being a mercenary for the Empire's part.
Takes place in the TNG timeline, 30 years after Star Trek: Nemesis.
Different configurations of starships will be unlocked as you play, also every starship can be modified to give the user a unique look.
The galaxy can be explored, new systems being generated for users. So one player may discover a completely new starsystem before anyone else, and it will last on the galactic map. These new planets and systems can be named by the discoverer
Fleets are the game's version of Guilds
Missions will feature both scripted and proceduraly generated content.
There will also be dynamic events such as Borg invasions.
Space battles are similar to Starfleet Command, where your weapons will have limited arcs and battles depend on which way your ship is facing. Different shield banks will degrade so you have to keep thinking about your positioning and which systems you allocate power towards.
There will be PVP at launch.

From what I've seen of videos and screenshots this game is going to look good too. There's no release date set yet, but damn, I'm excited!

"Aft shields at 50%, main phaser banks firing! Hull breach on deck 16!"

Glee!

Settlers 7 Announced

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 06:22:26 -0400

As someone who is a big fan of the settlers series this excites me. Although this time I do hope they add a little more "self sustaining colony" rather than focus on military. You can view the trailer in the link below.

Some of the new features include:

- Rich gameplay mechanics: The deep building and production systems both allow gamers to expand their kingdom village by village, sector by sector, optimising their creation by fine-tuning production chains and transport systems.

- Variety of gameplay: Gamers will be able to choose the best path to lead their kingdom to victory around three main pillars: Military, by building strong armies and defeating opponents with shear military power; Science, by increasing their influence in the monasteries, gamers will be able to have access to the most beneficial technologies; and Trade, by occupying the best trade routes to become the wealthiest player on the map.

- An innovative victory system: new victory point system brings more tension and competition to the game. Victory points are awarded in many different ways depending on the choices gamers make throughout the evolution of their kingdom.

- Online Multiplayer: gamers will be able to play online and face opponents in classic adversarial and co-op teamplay modes. Online features include user-generated and downloadable content, in-game feeds, and various leaderboards.

- A new graphics engine and improved AI: A brand-new graphics engine will let gamers experience the beauty of their kingdom in a never-seen-before level of detail and more than a dozen AI profiles, each with unique behaviours, will add enhanced variety to the game like never before.

I'm glad theres alternative to military victory, taking some notes from Civ4 it seems. Let's hope this brings some of the charm back to the series which recent incarnations have lost.

Take Me To The Hospital - Now back up!

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 16:09:41 -0400

From anyone who remembers it, my Left 4 Dead video - Take Me To The Hospital is now back up on youtube.

Enjoy!

Breaking: Jedi Knight series now on Steam!

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 15:54:31 -0400

There are some damn good people working in the store department of steam, they just dropped the best Star Wars game onto steam, the entire series, for cheap!

The complete set includes:

Star Wars: Dark Forces
Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II
Star Wars Jedi Knight: Mysteries of the Sith
Star Wars Jedi Knight II : Jedi Outcast
Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy

All for £14 (GBP, work it out for your area)

My personal favourite, Jedi Outcast, you didn't just get a lightsaber straight away, oh no. You had to work for it, and when you have that first fight with one of the Reborn, oh yes! The only star wars game where i truely feel like i'm using a lightsaber. If you've not ever tried it out give it a go!

Get the set here

The PS3 Slim - Sony finally has a winner, at a cost...

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 06:00:18 -0400

It's well established the Playstation 3 has had a fairly lukewarm reception and the sales of the first console have reflected that. The launch was marred by a lack of decent gameplay titles, no backwards compatibility and high price. However now almost three years after it's initial launch, Sony's new "size 0" incarnation seems to have finally broken out to spontaneous applause.

With increasing news that sales of the Nintendo Wii are slowing down it's possible that the PS3 Slim is merely filling in the hole in the market that the Wii has failed to fill this last year, albeit with any decent games of it's own. More and more developers are now producing for the PS3, with high profile games such as Rock Band, Bioshock and Assassins Creed becoming available for the console, not just having exclusive PS3 only titles like Resistance and Little Big Planet.

Another factor in the PS3 gaining more market dominance is the fact it's still one of the cheapest Blu-Ray players out there. It's unlikely the high definition format will ever take over from regular DVDs but there has been an increase in sales over the last year. With the PS3 Slim's price drops it's expected that this will push Blu-Ray sales even further. With better dev support, lower price and a wide games range the new console will more than likely top the charts.

However this is something that should have happened years ago. Any other company would have dropped the console over the fact that the costs outweighed the gain. For the last three years the PS3 has sat on shelves as a bloated overpowered, overpriced machine that most people couldn't afford. In 2006-2007 no one saw the appeal of Blu-Ray and with the high-def war most were holding their breath to see who would be the overall winner between Sony and Toshiba. Sony insisted sticking to console exclusive titles which isolated their audience instead of branching out, which as a result meant people went and bought an Xbox 360 to play Bioshock until Sony saw sense and released it or PS3 a year later.

But now the PS3 Slim has found the break in the market is it too little too late? This seventh generation of console's is looking to last a lot longer than most cycles, having gone on for almost three years now. The new console has a few years ahead of it to garner sales and attract attention that the Wii and Xbox 360 have cornered. Will it be able to make a significant impact before the Xbox 720, Wii 2, PS4 or whatever the next step on the console cycle hits the market. In ten years when we're all playing Drake's Fortune on a PS3 emulator will it still have the same effect that Sonic 2 from the Genesis does today. The gaming world watches on with anticipation.

Black Mesa: Source, releasing this year!

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 13:21:11 -0400

For the uninitiated, Black Mesa: Source is taking Half Life 1 over to the Orange Box Source engine. And whilst you might think this is fairly pointless, let me just show you this trailer.

Cleaned yourself up yet? Yeh, this looks so much better than the original Half Life, possibly better than Half Life 2. And according to the developers twitter, will be releasing this year. Who here now can't wait to find the snark bile and ram the gluon gun into the huge four legged testicle. Yeh me, that's who!

It looks also that they are paying alot of detail to the environments, such as Black Mesa itself before the accident. The labs look alot more intricate and detailed. The development on this borders on the insane because its looking alot better than most commercial releases. And no doubt they have Valve's blessing.

Keep your eyes open for this monster of a mod, possibly the mod to end all mods.

Scribblenaut Battles!

Sat, 12 Sep 2009 11:33:18 -0400

So i've had a chance lately to play on the new scribblenauts, and in a few days will be playing the full thing. But rather than a fully fledged review (which I will do later on) I thought i would present something a little more unique.

Yes, the real reason people will waste their time on this game is too see sharks devour drowning tax collectors, or have a priest with a tommy gun lay waste to zombies. So whilst i had a few minutes with the game i hastily improvised a few combinations to test out.

Butcher Vs Pig

Predictably the butcher won, turning the helpless pig into a nice joint of pork

Cow and Pig Vs Zombie

The zombie came out the winner here, killing both the cow and pig and eating the remains too

Police vs Burgler

Policeman won, then confidently walked away, knowing that justice had been served

Satan Vs Priest In Tank

This suprised me, i assumed that the priest, full of devil hate would unleash his tank's firepower. Instead he ran away driving the tank with him. Coward. Oddly enough Satan couldnt kill him inside the tank. Result, draw.

Taxman + Machete Vs Wolf

I the taxman assumed he would cower away from the wolf, but i guess the machete gave him strength. They ended up killing each other, double KO.

Rick Astley Vs The Hydra

Duel of the fates! Never has such a pairing fought like this. Actually it was pretty rubbish. Rick Astley danced for a bit, then when the Hydra growled at him, he vanished in a puff of smoke. Never gonna give you up, yeah right! Lies!

Keyboard Cat Vs a Nuke

Although not really a fight, I felt a good sense of satisfaction watching that damned cat blow up.

Watch this space for a full review of Scribblenauts coming soon. Also possibly a bunny with a pancake on it's head, if i can figure out how to glue it on....

Buy The World! Monopoly City Streets

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 06:27:34 -0400

Oh! Hello, didn't see you come in there, well get out! I own your house, your road and have demolished everything to build a sewage plant on your childhood park.

In a suprise coalition between Hasbro, Google and OpenStreetMap (Marvel/Disney eat your heart out) the two companies have conspired to bring out a very large scale game of Monopoly, except it really isn't monopoly at all...

You know those facebook games you play such as Mafia Wars and Battle Of The Bands, where you don't really do anything at all except wait day by day for your money to increase so you can buy the next Gun Upgrade/Guitar. It's like that, but on something that resembles Google Maps. It's a slow game, but one that with time, will let you own entire towns, cities, and with some cunning, entire countries.

You start off buying individual streets, the game recommends you buy the one you live on (to which I have, i'm not sure if this means I actually own the real road now, but I'm going to pretend I do. Neighbours prepare for eviction). You can buy houses on the roads you own and day by day (real days sadly) you get increased income. There are also chance cards which can either place nice schools and parks on your properties, or add waste and sewage plants reducing their worth

The real skill according to the games rules is in trading streets and negotiation. See a street you want? Put in an offer and see if the other player accepts. If they don't accept, get a good Chance card and slap an condom factory on his school. At present time I own six streets in my home town of Great Yarmouth. Its going to be interesting as some people own some of the streets I want such as the seafront road and the road which my local pub is on. Give me time, the whole town is going to be mine, MINE!

Sadly this game is only going to be open for about four months, it's a kind of testing phase to see if this kind of game is popular, which apparently it is. Although it's rife with cheating. People creating multiple accounts to spread money around, flash buying entire villages with phoney accounts to gold farm money in. Apparently there is going to be a server reset soon, which means i'm going to have to very quickly get my old streets again before some damn commie gets there first.

Click to try it out: http://www.monopolycitystreets.com/

Hats? Hats! HATS!!

Wed, 12 Aug 2009 03:44:40 -0400

This is probably going to be the quickest blog in all of hellforge as I have work in 40 minutes but...HATS!

Being the huge TF2 ***** I am I can forgive them for not giving us any actual classes for these awesome additions. And apparently theres 18 of them. My personal favourite is the Pyro hat by far.

Now this is only day 1 of an "apparently" classless update but we've known Valve pull a fast one before and rumours are going round that the engineer will have some form of Zeppellin which I can only assume will make the Penny Arcade Engi Corps happy.

P.S. I still don't have any hat

Insert Finger Here - The Wii Vitality Sensor

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 14:39:58 -0400

In a recent interview Reggie (that president of Nintendo America) said, and I quote "Vitality Sensor can be the next Balance Board". I have one response to this...

Now I should know better than to pick on a peripheral released by Nintendo. The WiiZapper has faded into a gate of oblivion. WiiFit is only supported by about three games and the less said about the VirtualBoy the better. But I consider the Vitality Sensor a pretty unique peripheral in this respect.

Now take the myriad of attachments released for the Wiimote. As crummy and useless as they are, in the right frame of mind you can at least imagine your holding a golf club whilst hitting the ball in the rough. And with the WiiFit board at least the potential is there to increase gameplay ideas, even if no-one really uses it for anything other than balancing and step exercise. I mean, where the hell is my Time Crisis Wii?

But, a sensor which detects your pulse rate. How the hell can anyone build a gameplay idea on this? Have Mario jump on a goomba's head when your heart beats. Have Cooking Mama spoil her pancakes because your pulse jumped too high and it scared her? Or maybe just had one of the androgynous advisors from WiiFit jump in tell you that you are going to die in five years because you have an erratic heart beat.

It's outrageous, who even came up with this idea? Was it you Reggie? Are you getting jealous of being in Miyamoto's shadow? Want to be the big boy now. Fail, GTFO.

Idol's July Ramblings - Valve's Plot, The Half-Crap Game and MotionWhy?

Sat, 11 Jul 2009 14:55:41 -0400

Welcome to this months ramble where I jibber on yet again about things that intrigue or just plain piss me off. Seeing as I still haven't managed to get a job yet I'm quite annoyed so here we go...

I've been playing around with MotionPlus the last few weeks and feel, well, this is technology which hasn't been developed properly yet, but has potential. Tiger Woods just feels like the normal Wii-golf games with a little extra sensitivity into your angles and such like. Grand Slam Tennis just plays terribly, half my swings missed, my player tended to make retarded moves and do backhands when I was clearly swiping in a forward motion. But these are software things, the one game available which uses it best at the moment is Disc Golf in Tiger Woods. You actually feel like your throwing a frisbee. I suppose Sports Resort will show off the M+ in full but it seems wasted at the moment.

The problem, I feel, is that this technology should really have been in the Wiimotes in the first place. Bringing out an enhancing peripheral only confuses the market and makes game developers reluctant to produce for it. More to the point what added benefit does true 1:1 movement aid game immersion. The problem with the Wii is that game developers feel forced to put in shake movements for the Wiimote which doesn't need to be there, Marvel Ultimate Alliance being the main offender there. With M+, it seems that Nintendo are trying to make up for lack of original content. It's a good idea on paper: Improve controller accuracy and make money in the process. But what it actually does, is that it forces game developers to add in pointless features and segregate their customers who don't want the M+ peripheral. Maybe this would have worked better on the next generation of consoles that Nintendo brings out. Maybe keeping the Wii as it is for now and improving the technology for the next generation could have been a better idea.

For now, this tech is new. I could be wrong and every developer will embrace it and produce stunning games which make the user feel really immersed in to the game. But instead, I see about a hundred shovelware casual games and hundreds of frustrated Tiger Woods golfers as they find out how terrible at golf they really are.

Idol's June Ramblings: Windows 7, Grand Theft Auto 4 and The Sims 3

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 14:35:13 -0400

I'm going to do this new thing once a month, where I pick out three various subjects from my life and write about them, often ranting about how good, average or terrible they are, in this very order. In this months edition I cover Windows 7, GTA4 and The Sims 3.

I was quite interested in hearing about the Sims 3, which has a traits system for real personalities, and features like the open neighbourhood. It sounded quite good. Well here's what it's really like: It's the Sims 2, with less stuff.

I'm thinking the model EA (not Maxis, they died years ago) is using goes something like this: "Let's ship out the game with the basics, and then pillage their wallets for meaningful content". Honestly, whoever came up with idea of "micro transactions" should be shot. It's a horrible way to influence the gullible into giving up money by scraping out content from a game and having the public buy it back. I bet there's a thousand insurance executives out there snapping their fingers and wondering why they didn't think of it first.

It's to be expected. EA has done it before with the previous incarnations of The Sims, but this time when you play, you'll feel abused. At least with the transition from the original Sims to version two we had a nice 3D camera and a lot of detail put into the actions and the way the Sims reacted. This time, it seems as though EA took all the animations and reactions from the Sims 2 and copy and pasted it into the new game.

For instance, when painting or making food, your little automatons make vague hand actions and the item magically assembles itself. Surely now we have the technology to accurately have the Sims paint brush strokes? Or perhaps crack a real egg with, you know, physics. Maybe put some effort into the traits, rather than having an evil sim have an "Evil Shower" why not have him cutting holes in all the condoms in the house so your flatmate impregnates the girl next door.

No, all that will probably come from the Sims 4, which will contain two hairstyles, one chair and a nice little popup saying "Visit the Store now to actually play the game!"

Rant over, see you next month!

Nurse! He's Crashing! - My Life As A Computer Surgeon.

Fri, 05 Jun 2009 04:18:54 -0400

Somewhere under the myriad of veins that pulsate through the computer is something about to go wrong. It could happen anytime, to anything. Something i've always thought of is that the modern computer is like the human body, evolved through time to better fit the needs of the environment. Its CPU heart and hard drive memory work in quite a similar fashion to organic nature. So when my computer starts throwing fits on the floor, dribbling inane mess all over the screen I can't help think that when i pull out the screwdriver i'm about to perform lifesaving surgery.

Sometimes the parents are to blame. I had one come in, suffering from fatigue and not working very fast at all. Often collapsing in the middle of the day. He was in a dreadful state. Basic cooling, messy cables, brain not even been defragged once. So i got out the ECG monitors and had a look.
This boy had been messing around on the dark sides of the internet. Down the back alleys of dark websites. And what was worse, he had not been using any protection. I feared the worst. After a few basic tests, these fears were confirmed. He had web AIDS. There was nothing i could do.
His heart had been overloaded with too much processor use, the brain was overloaded with redundant files and bulky files. His nervous system couldn't take it, often stalling and clogging up. He didn't have long for this world and several days later passed away into the realms of the digital afterlife.
"Why" i cried in the rain staring at the sky, "Why had he not just installed Avast! He would have been alive today!"

These are all true stories, my computers hard drive did fail recently. My last computer had memory problems and my mother's old computer died quietly in the night, surrounded by family and loved ones.

Get Out The Rake and Pruning Tools, it's time for Plants Vs Zombies

Fri, 08 May 2009 19:56:40 -0400

Anyone who is familiar with Popcaps arsenal of games will know that they have the brightly coloured addictive appeal of a rabbit on mainline methodone. They are basically drugs for people with spare time or individuals who want to avoid work. Plants Vs Zombies is no exception, but it's worse, it makes Heroin look like MnM's.

Part of the reason is that Popcap has taken everything that is good about every other game they have made, and just put all that goodness into one game. Honestly, i cannot fault PvZ, there is nothing wrong with this game. And that is absolutely remarkable!

Now agreed, it doesn't have the strategic depth of Supreme Commander or the fast paced thrill of Call Of Duty 4, but it absolutely does what it sets out to do. Provide fun, which is the point of gaming in the first place.

Say what you like about Popcap, they found their place in the gaming market. Perfect for the newcoming gamer, and nicely addictive for the hardcore gamer who wants something simple to pass the time. The mix of bright coloured puzzles and simple gameplay takes you back to a time when gaming wasn't all Sales Ratings or Parental Guidance. Simple fun little puzzles that the whole family can enjoy.

So, Plants Vs Zombies is basically about arranging your plants (which shoot stuff) infront of zombies wanting to eat your brains. Sounds simple, and it is. Yet, like all Popcap games, hides that level of indepth skill deep in the core mechanics so well that you start to scheme up different tactics without realising it.

Unlike typical Tower defense games where you set everything up before you unleash the horde of "insert name here" bad guys, your on a timer. You have to collect sun which is unleashed at intervals from your sunflower plants or from the sky and use that to build up your base. With the pressure of random zombies pouring down on your house, structure and defensive alignment becomes top priority.

The real charm of the gameplay environment comes not from how the game works, but how it looks. Zombies come in all shapes and sizes and act differently. Had they just been alternates on the same zombie, ie House Of The Dead, the public would have been nonplussed. But seeing a full bobsled zombie team ready to run down the ice at your triple peashooters fills you full of joy and fear.

The fun with Plants Vs Zombies is not the Tower Defense element. Its the planning and working out which plants should be on your team. It's finding out which plants you should then dig up and replace mid match whilst thirty odd zombies are munching through your defensive nuts. It's desperatly trying to save up some sunlight for a peashooter whilst the last zombies makes a beeline for your house.

And ontop of that Popcap thow in another 20 odd minigames based on the main game, which easily provide another five times worth the entertainment value.

Honestly, i had no idea what i was getting into when I pre-ordered this. I just assumed Popcap = Fun. I had no idea this would hook me for 11 hours in 2 days. And i'd only just recovered from Braid.

Try the demo, you won't regret it.

Team Fortress 2: The RPG

Thu, 30 Apr 2009 09:49:24 -0400

Slightly worrying news has emerged that Valve is re-thinking the way that Team Fortress 2 works. Having the unlockable weapons was one thing but signs are pointing to the team adding RPG elements into the popular shooter. This interview with Robin Walker seems to confirm some of the rumours coming out.

So what can we expect five years down the line, well here's a few theories, most of them disturbing, all of them rumours.

Levelling weapons - The weapons already have a cosmetic level on them, which most people thought were cosmetic. But signs are pointing to people being able to level up their weapons and have related bonus damage etc. Giving people a clear advantage.

Armor/Equipment - One thing we know is coming is helmets, the latest patch added a slot for it on the character equip menu. RW states in the above interview that it will be cosmetic (for now) and that they don't want to change the character silhouette (which they spent a good deal of time explaining). However if they start to add statistics and attributes to the armor, we may see some imbalanced gameplay.

Grenades/Other Items - The Bonk! and Sandvich are clear ideas of items that can be equipped sans BF2 style. A dark rumour is that Valve may be bringing back the nemesis of the classic Team Fortress, the grenade. Choosing your loadout at the start of a round isn't a game breaking system, but adding grenades would be...

This new system is looking like Valve want to explore new territory with their shooter, moving into the realms of making customisable characters with stats and attributes. Let's hope they know what they are doing and include a Vanilla Mode just incase they make the game so radically different it becomes a completely different game.

But then is this any different from adding unlockable weapons like they did a year ago. Back then many people were lamenting the addition of "game breaking additions" that turned out to be quite fun, even if grinding achievements did put some people off.

I trust Valve to know what they are doing, they've never steered me wrong in any game i've bought from them and I hope this is not the first mistake they make

Slight Disclaimer - the term "Valve" and "Mistake" is part of personal opinion, other people may assume Valve have made many mistakes, well, that's up to you.

Shovelware and Nintendo, How Accessibility Became Tiresome

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 19:52:42 -0400

No gaming platform in all time is exempt from the horrors that are bad games. Where there is opportunity, there is a chance to take it and make it into something terrible. Over time the amount of terribly bad games has increased to almost soul destroying proportions. With some titles purely being generated in an office meeting somewhere filled with people whom gaming means a quick game of pool after a stiff drink...

But it's easy to see why it does get made. Companies want money, impressionable people want meaning or desires based on their current obsession. The cash cow ****s so hard on this occasion they've had to call the vet.

Why has this came about? Well it's all to do with Nintendo's new strategy after the Gamecube off being accessible to everyone in the family. Not just the hardcore fans but people who want to gain something from gaming without realising they are doing it. As happy and fun as this seems this leads to shovelware.

Now that Nintendo has introduced everyone and their mother to the world of interactive gaming, the company excecutives have just jumped on the opportunity to sell them useless garbage. The average mother of a Wii obsessed gamer will easily jump on game other than saying "oh hey, we're on the Wii now!"

Every console has it's failures in games. But the real case of shovelware comes from making your console accessible by all. The more people interested, the more crap games produced. If there is a niche market, generally the games get more attention in order to sell.

I'm not saying this is always the case. The Wii and the DS have some brilliant games; unfortunately, the ratio from good to bad is outshadowed compared the other consoles in this generation.

Zeno Clash - From Weirdness With Love

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 13:54:03 -0400

Sometime after coming out of the looney bin for my time in Braid, I didn't think i was ready for another mind bender. Steam pops up with it's healthy update message sporting the words "new indie source mod", and who doesn't love a source mod? I booted up this "Zeno Clash" and the following ensued...

Needless to say, this guy wasn't happy to see me. This isn't a normal game, it's not a normal FPS. Whoever made this game was on some pretty hard drugs. Not just "ooh wow everything is big" drugs--I mean stuff that makes you see through time and into dimensions that no mortal man dare look.

The characters freak me out in this. Theres a person with a ball for a head holding onto it by spikes who can only walk in a straight line, theres another one who tries to be invisible by plucking out the eyes of anything that can see. Great towering created with gaping mouths and brachiosaurus necks stomping around surreal deserts. Diamond statues move about like a geletin snake in a night filled void of moving rock and electric storms. The less said about father-mother, the better.

And this is in the first hour of the game...thusforth my brain packed it's stem and left...

The actual fighting mechanics of the game are quite fun, if not frustrating when being ganged up on. Theres a nice satisfaction landing a strong punch on a masked bird man and seeing him fly into his friends, bodies sprawling on the floor. Controls are very easy to learn if you can get past the fact your teacher is already dead and dies quite a melodramatic way.

Although nothing new, the main aspect of this game is what weirdness will come next. Playing through it seems as though each new level throws some new visual and mentally baffling display to wash through the torrent of imagination. And the best part, it's fun, almost addictive in nature.

I have every sympathy for the partners and loved one's of the people who made this game. Their continued suffering and delusive behavoir must be the reason why every other game company refused to see their design images. Instead, they all banded together to freak us all out.

Battle Of The Free Shooter: Quake Live vs Battlefield Heroes

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 11:31:10 -0400

Since I'm wasting my free time staring at my Steam games page waiting for either Zeno Clash or the L4D survival mode I thought I'd scrawl some inane wisdom about the two new free FPS's. I got into Beta for both recently (Albeit Quake Live is pretty much out of beta, but like GMail, they don't want to admit it) and thought I'd weigh one up against the other.

To contradict any means of narrative I was hoping to form in this article I will state that these games are completly different. Quake Live is a futuristic twitch reflect first person shooter wheras Battlefield Heroes is a cartoony objective based third person leveller. "But Idoliside" I hear you cry from the neighbouring meadow, "if they are completely different, how can you compare them?". Well, like any shooting game no matter the objectives the basic core of both games is still the same. The enemy is over there, shoot him, preferably before he shoots you. If you get shot first, you die, and start again.

The other factor is both games are part of this "Play On Any Computer Hardware" also known as POACH. A new line of thinking by game developers who realise that not everyone can afford expensive computers or want something better to play in their lunch break than Peggle which, addictive as it is, won't satisfy your killing appetite.

There are quite a few games these days which can POACH. World of Warcraft can POACH, Counter-strike can POACH, Audiosurf can POACH. Okay are we tired of that anagram? I'll stop now.

Back the meat of the situation (I'm hungry, okay? I've not eaten for a while) these two games fill a new niche market in computer gaming for people with a short attention span or some crafty time to spare whilst the loved one is otherwise occupied. A quick 15 minute game can do much to relieve stress when you can storm a Nazi occupied flag post or plant a succesful rocket at the feet of a walking Eyeball.

Quake Live offers a good ranking system and many superfluous awards which don't mean much other than increasing your ego a little knowing you have the "Kill 10 people before dying" award. Other than changing your character model everything else is still essentially the same as Quake 3. And that's good because Quake 3 rocked and having an updated version for free does well to help the shooter.

Battlefield Heroes offers a similar ranking system and awards but does something no-one really wants...micropayments. You can buy clothing and abilities for your "Hero" which you can either pay for instantly or spend many hours gettings awards and XP for. Most of these buyable objects are cosmetic but generally seeing anything I have to pay for in a "free" game tends to put me off quite a bit.

Nethertheless BF:H is quite a fun little shooter. Everything is quite accessible and theres no hard mechanics other than moving and shooting. Even the flying is simple and easy to do with some practise. Its a game aimed at people new to Online Shooters (I don't call it an FPS because its in Third Person) because everything is very easy simple and quite calming in a way. The bright happy colour put me at ease as I throw a stick of dynamite towards the allied scum. Yeh I went for the Axis, if its going to be cartoony and fun then theres nothing better to play than the evil dictator twirling his walrus moustache.

Quake Live however is the complete opposite. This is a pro game. There's no creeping around the issue here. If you've never played an FPS before and want it easy, don't try here. You have to know the maps, the gravity variable, the time it takes for a plasma bolt to travel 300m so you can lead your enemy into the shot. I've had easy games, but they were against the uninitiated who tended to camp rocket spawn points. And all the time the proverbial big brother of Quake Live is watching, and judging, then putting you in a different arena based on your abilities.

In conclusion I think I have to give Quake Live the upper hand here. It's been released first, already has a good established game structure through essential 10 years of playtesting and doesn't try and brainwash you into buying outfits and guns for your character that can potentially tip the balance of the game.

You have to give both DICE and ID credit here, they've released two good games which could have been charged for and instead let them go for free with nothing but positive responses. No faffing about with patches, no big installs and extremely accessible. It's clear from the thousands of people playing these games that POACHing is the way forward. And the less you have to pay the better.

Now it's time I cooked some dinner and start wasting time before I go and slaughter zombies "en-mass" or punch some crazy elephant dude with a log.

Braid - Or How I Stop Worrying And Learned To Love Timetravel

Mon, 20 Apr 2009 12:16:35 -0400

At the moment, I'm reaching for my packet of Ibuprofen as a stupid jigsaw piece stands tauntingly behind a door, on a ledge the other side of a gorge-- a location unreachable by any of my attempts to jump. At the bottom of the crevasse is a set of spikes on fire, which seems logical. A small creature is being fired across into the fire. The key for the door is at the top of the cannon--it glows green. I have no idea how I'm supposed to do this.

Then I try reversing time. . . which also reverses upon itself when I walk backwards, and accelerates when I move forwards. Yeah, I can feel a headache coming on.

This is, by far, one of the most engaging, fun, unique and challenging games I have ever played. It beats Portal--yes, it's that good. No game has challenged my lateral thought in a long time, and Braid is one game that--on the surface--looks like a simple platformer. Nothing can compare to actually playing it and trying to stop yourself from running into the same little critter no matter how many times you rewind and try again. Oh, and don't get me started on the shadow and multiple time actions gameplay mechanic. . .

The artwork is stunning, too. The story states you are rescuing the princess but the tone of the music and art direction suggests this is something with much more depth--methinks some kind of drug induced catastrophe, but I'll complete it first before I come to any conclusion, if I can first recover the drained giblets of my brain back into my head to form a conclusive thought.

Oh, and the first boss battle--I loved. It was brilliant; you had to drop these chandeliers on the boss's head. It had five lives--you had 2 chandeliers; he could defy time--the chandeliers couldn't. Didn't take me long to do this and it was amazingly ! (Yes, I said funtastic, like all those kids TV presenters on so much speed.)

I urge anyone who likes Platforming games to try this, and then spend the remaining days lying in a bed being cared upon by state-funded nurses as your mind slowly drifts off into a place where furry brown dinosaurs tell you that the Princess is in another castle, which is a house, which has jigsaw puzzles, and red haired scientists. . .

Excuse me one moment, I need to have a lie down.

(Idoliside spent the next five years in a Puzzle Complex Recovery Center, attempting to jump off furniture and rewind time. Several nurses were injured and a small dog was flattened)

OnLive - The death of Retail Gaming?

Tue, 24 Mar 2009 08:16:43 -0400

If you haven't heard of OnLive (or cloud computing) yet, it's an online service where you can play any game at full spec on your computer, regardless of your computers system specifications. How is this done? Streaming.

The service is basically a server somewhere in the world that is running the game, you simply log on and play the game, and have the video from the game streamed to your computer. Essentially an interactive Youtube video, but with games like Crysis and Need For Speed.

Can this replace retail gaming? Is this the end of buying games and scouring the system specs to see what you are lacking? In some regards it is, but other ways it isn't. The plus for this system is that it will attract non-tech savvy gamers and console buyers who don't want to deal with installation or spending hundreds on computer parts. On the downside, we lose any control over things like modding and relies on our internet speed.

Here's a little advantage/disadvantage list:

Advantages:
* Even a 1Ghz EeePC will be able to run high spec games
* No installation needed, saves hard drive space
* Can effectively eliminate DRM and Piracy

Disadvantages:
* Bound to be laggy, problematic for the initial launch
* No control over content of the game, essentially a hard DRM
* Low internet speeds will have problems

In theory this can eliminate retail games, but I think we are a long way off that. Several things come into consideration. One is how the company handles pricing and distribution of these games. Overpriced charges and crappy support is bound to put people off using this offer. The established base of PC games is a factor too, I personally like having the games on my hard drive, if there's a problem I can solve it. If the game goes wrong on a server 2000 miles away, I don't really have any say in the matter.

It's ambitious and partially a good thing. But it won't destroy the PC and console market just yet. In about 10-15 years maybe, these first five years will be the most important time for this distribution method (much like Digital Distribution five years ago). Time will tell.

A Small Guide To Wii Peripherals

Sun, 22 Mar 2009 15:52:43 -0400

Attachment devices for the Wii have been in existence for pretty much as long as the Wii itself, mainly existing as a cash cow for the compulsive buyer. But how many of them are useful, and how many are purely money making plastic tripe? I take a look at some of the more interesting peripherals to see how effective they are.

Now I can see how this would be useful. Playing pool on the Wii with just the Wiimote is actually quite difficult. Having this attachment can improve your shot and aim in the game much the same way a real pool cue works. However there is one major flaw--it blocks the Infra-Red transmission, which is required to aim your shots. So this finely moulded pool cue to help your game yet stop you playing is the best example of Epic Fail in a peripheral.

Useful • Feels like a pool cue • Alternative for a lightsaber attachment
Rubbish • Stops IR transmission, making the device useless. Fail.

Backlogs of Games

Tue, 10 Mar 2009 08:17:49 -0400

Now here's a reason to curse Steam. Those darned weekend deals taking small increments of my money and adding to the vast library that is my Steam games list. But now i'm going to make amends, i'm going to play through all these games before i buy anything else (with possible exception to the next weekend deal, i know i'm weak).

What i want to know, is what games do you have on your lists that you've yet to complete, despite them being installed/sitting on the shelf for so long.

My list of uncompleted games:

Assassin's Creed

Commander Keen

Dark Messiah Might And Magic

Doom 3: Ressurection Of Evil

Eets

Gravitron 2

Heretic

Hexen

I-Fluid

Indigo Prophecy

Lego Batman

Lost Planet

Master Levels Of Doom

Max Payne 2

Multiwinia

Penny Arcade Adventures 1

Quake

Quake 2 Mission Packs

Return To Castle Wolfenstein

Stalker: Shadow Of Chernobyl

Sam N Max Season 1

Spear Of Destiny

Stubbs The Zombie

Titan Quest

Trials 2

Unreal Gold

Unreal 2

Vampire: The Masquerade

Wolfenstein 3D

X-Com: Terror From The Deep

What's happened to Duke Nukem Forever?

Mon, 02 Mar 2009 17:20:08 -0500

Ok so let me take you back in time a bit. The year is 1997, im blasting around in Quake 2 and slowly curing the hilariously ill in Theme Hospital, i pick up the latest PC Format and see that, low and behold, Duke Nukem Forever has been announced, hopefully to be released soon (with at the time CnC Tiberium Sun, which was delayed till several years later). Having loved Duke Nukem 3D to bits (especially modding in the Build editor) i was keen and eager to play this latest installment.

So I waited, we all waited. Nothing.

The year is 1998, i'm playing Worms Armageaddon and slaying Romulan filth in Klingon Honor Guard, and the DNF team have switched to the Unreal engine (which at the time was the most stunning thing us PC gamers had ever seen), so we expected the team to have a delay transitioning to this new engine. 3D Realms said the game would be released in 1999.

So I waited, we all waited. Nadda.

The year is 2001, Serious Sam has taken Duke's crown as the most badass FPS and Max Payne teaches us how to do a gritty crime game. The 3D Realms team have switched to a newer version of the Unreal engine, released a few tidbits of footage at E3. But still, it's been 4 years and this is all we have. Valve time is one thing, 3D Realms would have God himself looking at his watch.

So I waited, god bored and went back to Counterstrike.

Nothing significant is heard about this game until 2007, 6 years after the E3 footage. The internet has come and revolutionised a whole bunch of our lives, Valve has released several delayed games, World of Warcraft has arrived and given millions of people reasons to leave their normal existances. I'm running around in Rapture after small children with precious Adam. 3D Realms decide to rear their heads and give us a few measly shots of 3D Duke pumping iron.

Since then, we have heard literally nothing other than a few scarse trailers, screenshots and the 3D Realms team promising us the game will be out soon. Well sorry if i don't sound to optimistic but sod it, i don't care anymore.

Are we seriously thinking this game is actually coming out, and is it even going to be significant. Duke 3D back in 1995 was an amazing game for the time but that kind of gameplay just isn't relevant anymore. Multiplayer and innovation seems to be the way to go, and the idea of the butch machoman on a one man crusade against unknown aliens is quite an old fashioned stereotype to gaming.

But then I've been known to be wrong, this could be a fantastic game and may actually be released in the next five years. But it being relevant anymore, i doubt it.

And now, some Left 4 Dead machinima!

Sun, 22 Feb 2009 16:30:53 -0500

EDIT VIDEO ON VIMEO: Stupid youtube took it down for copyright infringement so i put it up on Vimeo, sorry i can't embed it here, ive tried. Heres the direct link!

So i've spent the last few days working on this video, partly out of boredom and partly to add my piece to the wondeful world of machinima. So here it is, the antics of Zoey, Bill, Louis and Francis set to the Prodigy's own Take Me To The Hospital from the new album (which you should go and buy because it's frankly amazing).

http://vimeo.com/3354092

Enjoy!

Quake Live Opens Up!

Sat, 21 Feb 2009 05:07:39 -0500

In a few meagre days all the public can play the retro experience that is Quake 3 (or Quake Live as their calling it now) for free. Now I'm going to have one of my first old man moments (I'm a mere twenty four but still...) and I'm appalled that I'm calling this a "retro" game.

I remember back when I was young and scouting out the latest Quake 2 player models and mods hearing about Quake 3 for the first time. It's hard to believe that was ten years ago! And it still looks gorgeous.

But it does make me wonder what other games I've passed through in time that are considered retro gold. Half Life, Unreal Tournament, Tribes...they're all in there, gaming legends each to their own right. And i remember each one being released, now I know how the original arcade gamers feel when pac-man was released on Xbox Live Arcade.

But anyway, I got invited into the beta and played it a handful of times and I have to say, this is Pro-gaming. You can schedule tournaments for Call Of Duty, Counterstrike and UT3 all you like but until you've been railgunned from the opposite side of the map by a huge eyeball moving at 50mph you know you're in pro town.

Every bit of it is still as classic as it used to be, when you jump in, don't be suprised if you get destroyed, and quickly. Oh and Doom character for the win...Master Chief can suck my BFG...

The Rise And Future Of The Media Centre

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 07:00:20 -0500

If there is one thing that currently annoys me at the moment is that I can’t just watch what I want, when I want. Especially not in Great Britain which seems to be slower at keeping up with media trends. But something that has caught my eye is the rise of the games console as a media centre. These small little boxes we keep stashed away under our television are slowly beginning to edge away our DVD players, Hi-fi’s and Set-Top boxes as the main means of entertainment. In the USA this is already the case and I hope to explore the history of how this came about.

History

Back in 1994 when the original Sony Playstation was released, it started one of the most successful trends in console gaming by switching to the CD-Rom format instead of the cartridge format. The added bonus of this which could have easily been left out was that the console could also play Audio-CDs. This sparked the revolution of using games console to play other media formats. When the Playstation 2 was released in 2000, it was bundled with the ability to play DVDs and CDs and people began to consider replacing their existing players with the console variant. In 2001 the first Xbox console was released it came with a small hard-drive installed. This allowed the user to rip music from CDs and play them in-game as well as connect to a local PC for media streaming. But the true advent to modern media centres didn’t come until the Xbox 360. The Xbox 360 allowed users to play files from USB devices or external media such as video files, photos and music as well as from tradition media formats. But this paled in comparison to Microsoft moving to the true digital domain by opening up its online video store. It was the first console to allow buying and streaming video content on a console and also allowed HD versions. Later on the newly launched Playstation 3 adopted a similar service and the major television companies began to take console viewing as a serious option to standard broadcasting.

Online Services

These days it has become the standard to buy and watch entertainment content online. From perusing Youtube for funny clips or using Hulu to watch latest shows, it’s becoming clear that online content is the way forward. But at the moment it’s not too accessible for the average user who wants to sit down after a hard days work and flick on the “tube”. By having all your needed media services in one box, this transition becomes a lot easier. Although the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 have gone along way to go in establishing this new format, there are still a few things missing. Piracy is a major problem for entertainment and the one thing the major companies need to do is address this online. The main reason TV shows and music are pirated is because they are difficult to obtain or simply overpriced. By creating a fluent online service with reasonable prices, people will be less inclined to pirate shows and buy the media itself. Especially if they can integrate it into their lifestyles.

Future

I can fully see the next generation console embracing every aspect of entertainment.

- It will play digitally downloaded games as well as retail games (although I can see these dwindling out).
- It will be able to connect to the internet and browse your favourite sites. - It can connect to an On-Demand TV services and even automatically record/download your favourite shows similar to Tivo.
- It will alert you to your favourite band’s releases and integrate a full audio player for your listening pleasure.
- Can store your releases online in a database similar to Steam so you never lose what you buy, you just re-download.

With these integrated all you will need underneath your television is one box, whether it be Microsoft or Sony or something new. DVD and CD are two of the biggest formats in media but with these advances they will become less popular, CD sales already seeing dwindling profits compared to MP3 sales. We have the technology now, it’s up to the companies to implement it.

(on a side note, this isn’t specifically a good thing. Personally I love my DVD collection, it looks good on the shelves and we would lose that aesthetic pleasure of physically looking for something to watch. Entertainment shops would close down and people would lose jobs. Also the public would get lazier as no movement would be necessary, but then the same fears were said about the remote control back in the 1970s.
I don’t have a media console, just my PC and that satisfies me for everything I need and probably won’t ever own a media console. But this is a niche market that not everyone would want to have. People need something easy and accessible to everyone)