The Time has come

We're breaking the weekend rule to bring you a special announcement. We are ready to announce that The Next Level UK has moved to a new home. Reasons for the move will be detailed at the new site. We have been working for less than a week to get this up and running and although everything on the site is functional, no doubt there will be some errors. So we are launching the new site in a open beta. We are going to be adding to the website throughout the weekend as some parts still need work, but we hope to be fully functional by Monday.

In the mean time, head over to the link below and sign up now! Those who sign up will be registering for more exciting things in the future. This blog is now discontinued basically, very few things will be posted here, if any.

THE NEXT LEVEL UK

Feature: My life and games...Part 5

In the final part of this feature, I look at PC's and handheld's

To read previous parts:

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4
  

My PC history is far more interesting than my handheld one, I know that much. The first  thing I owned which could be called a PC was an Amiga 500. For those that don't know, this was basically a keyboard with the computer built on the back, with a floppy drive in which games and the OS would be loaded. I was young at the time of being given this by someone we knew, so to me, it just was like they had took a Megadrive and plastered a few things on it, and instead of cartridges, used these strange floppy disks things.

I had a absolute ton of these discs, but many were simply one game spread out over various different discs. Examples of that were Monkey Island 1 and 2, absolute classic games, but had around 11-13 disks. Some games however were so small that various ones were contained on one disk. I remember I had a comedy winter sports game that you picked what you wanted to do by skiing to the event. Quite good for the time.

Actually starting the thing up was a hassle, as you actually had to turn on the power  brick (so don't moan about the 360's) and then I think you had to press something along the lines of Ctrl+Alt+Del (or the equivalent) as you put the game in and then it would load. Mine could use Megadrive controllers, so controlling the games was simple, but it used a stodgy 2 button mouse which wasn't that responsive.

For the time it was produced (long before I came to own one) it was an impressive piece of kit. It retailed at $595.95 if you were prepared to hook it up to your TV without the monitor, but looking back, its interesting to see how far we have come spec wise:

Technical specifications (taken from Wikipedia)

• OCS chipset. Later revisions of the chipset made PAL/NTSC mode switchable in software.
  • Graphics could be of arbitrary dimensions, resolution and colour depth, even on the same screen.
  • Without using overscan, the graphics could be 320 or 640 pixels wide by 200/256 or 400/512 pixels tall.
  • Planar graphics were used, with up to 5 bitplanes (4 in hires), allowing 2, 4, 8, 16 and 32 colour screens, from a palette of 4096 colours. Two special graphics modes where also included: Extra HalfBrite, which used a 6th bitplane as a mask that halved the brightness of any colour seen, and Hold And Modify (HAM), which allowed all 4096 colours on screen at once.
  • Sound was 4 hardware-mixed channels of 8-bit sound at up to 28 kHz. The hardware channels had independent volumes (65 levels) and sampling rates, and mixed down to two fully left and fully right stereo outputs. A software controllable low-pass audio filter was also included.
• 512 KB of Chip RAM.
• AmigaOS 1.2 or 1.3
• One double-density floppy disk drive was included, which was completely programmable and thus could read 720 KB IBM PC disks, 880 KB standard Amiga disks, and up to 984 KB with custom formatting (such as Klaus Deppich’s diskspare.device).
• Built in keyboard.
• A two-button mouse was included.

 

For those that don't understand it, it was not particularly comparable to anything that was out at the time I was playing. But I owe it to the Amiga for introducing me to Point and Click games, truly classic arcade games, and some truly poor ones as well. I also used 'Workbench' as limited as it was, simply to play around with, realising it could be used as a computer we only saw at school.

Eventually though after lasting nearly 12 years, some of the connections started to fail, and it ended up in black and white and with no sound (a theme of my breaking consoles). Still own it, still usable in fact, may have to try it out one day on my HDTV.....

The next PC which we had was Time PC in the year 2000. Satisfied the Millennium bug was not going to cause the end of the world, this computer was not a bad spec for its day, probably above average compared to my friends. It had for some strange reason a server grade AMD processor in it (Time were a bit strange back then in their computer building, hence it blowing up on me around three years later), 128mb RAM, graphics card etc etc. It handled all the games I wanted to play on it easily.

I was mostly into strategy and simulation games at that time, so played stuff like 'The Sims' and its expansions (one of the primary reasons for many computers breaking as the requirement specs got higher), Age of Empires, Empire Earth, (looks in draw) Star Wars: Force Commander (dear me that wasn't very good), Sim City 2000 and 3000.

 

Eventually, after playing Unreal Tournament which came bundled with the PC (along with quite a lot of other cow crap games, apart from Abe's Odyssey, and Flight Unlimited 2), I started to get into First Person Shooters. I mainly played the Star Wars Jedi Knight series as it was a series I enjoyed and were pretty good games to boot.

Anyway, after attempting to play Knights of the Old Republic on the PC and realising how dreadfully poor the PC had become when it refused to install because it was too crap, the PC took a downward turn. Everything from the HDD to the CPU broke, blew up, fried itself, it was time to get a new one.

Eventually we did. Not a gaming rig by any stretch of the imagination, but by this time I was more focused on consoles anyway. Standard specs, ran most things ok, and did allow me to go back and play some older titles on full settings, and made me realise that these games were better than I thought.

I'm still into games such as the Total War series, Sim City 4 (SC: Societies is pants) and Civ IV. My FPS love has moved over to consoles mostly, with this machine not being powerful enough to run the latest stuff, its easier stick with consoles.

There is a lot more about PC's I could tell you, but I'm probably already being accused of going on so I'll stop! But one thing I have learned is that unless you are dedicated to being a PC gamer, and not owning a console, and you build a gaming rig, that's all you have, as the speed tech moves and the way costs change, there is no way you can afford £200-£300 for the latest graphics card.

Now my handheld history is short, mainly because it really didn't interest me. I have  had all those random little pocket games, 10000011 games in 1 and all those brick puzzles. I've had a Game Boy colour, which is still in perfect working order, and the only games I had for that were Pokemon Yellow and Crystal, and the LoZ: Oracle of Ages and Oracle of Seasons. Those games were big enough to keep me happy, and still do today.

Why have I never got into Handheld gaming? I think its perhaps the quick turnaround costs of Hardware. I always contemplate getting one sure, from the GBA SP to a DS to a PSP, but never seem to get one. Mind you, I am thinking about a PSP at the moment, but that will involve me spending money. Reason being is that I need a handheld that allows me to do more than simply play games. I'm a fan of gadgets which combine things together, so if the rumours of a PSP phone are true, I may have to get saving. Although don't get me wrong, I love some of the DS games and think that the Final Fantasy remakes on it are very well done, but it just doesn't do enough for me.

That's it, well done, you've made it to the end. I hope these features have given you a idea about how my life has being connected with games, and I didn't have a point to prove when I've wrote these, its always nice to have a bit of a nostalgia trip. 

Feature: My Life and Games...Part 4

Its the penultimate part of this feature, and in this one, I look at the new generation of consoles.

Read Previous parts here:

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3

It was time I thought, that I actually got a console at launch, rather than waiting till it was a few years older. I wanted to be an 'early adopter'. Obviously this generation I had three choices, Xbox 360, Wii and the PS3. I contemplated the 360 for quite some time and for some quite valid reasons. The online system was much better than Sony's proposed PSN, more quality games due to its early release and was not as expensive as the PS3. Quite a lot of people I knew had it, so there would be plenty of multi-player options.

But, even though the 360 seemed the sensible options, I've never been sensible, and I wanted a launch console, so it was either the behemoth, wallet munching PS3 or the oddly named, waggle fun machine the Wii. At the time, no one knew how popular the Wii was going to be, no one could predict how many people would buy it, how many old folks homes would be organising Wii bowling leagues etc.

My main reason for choosing to get a PS3 was because I could play the only game I wanted to for Wii LoZ: The Twilight Princess, on Gamecube as well, with some critics preferring the GC version, so I didn't really want to purchase the console on the grounds of one game. The PS3 meanwhile, had a lot more features built into it which I would use, and had backwards compatibility so I could play all the PS2 games which I owned (well most, it was slightly hobbled due to the software emulation). Another reason, a geeky one I agree, was that I wanted to use it as a personal computer as well, so I needed to upgrade the harddrive and install Linux on it (something I have done).

I got Resistance: Fall Of Man and Motorstorm at launch, though I originally wanted Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, but many Ubisoft games were mysteriously delayed for a month. I was also playing on a SD TV, which stunted the impact of the upgraded graphics, although I was still impressed withe overall scale of things in both games. I got nailed by a lot of 360 owners at school, and whereas I could see where they were coming from, I simply didn't care. Maybe they had forgot that the quality of 360 launch titles was massively below standard.

Don't get me wrong, me and countless others have all gone 'Oh no, not again' at some of the things Sony has done said, especially with the Sixaxis and their backtrack over having rumble in controllers. Promised games such as Lair turned out to be awful, with poor controls and a patch did nothing to aid its life and the way Sony tried to 'help' reviewers review the game didn't got down too well.

I've always tried to stay away from console related discussions regarding which one is best, as looking back, they have all at the moments at different times. I believe (with the exception of the Wii) that it matters even less this generation. Most companies release games on more than one platform anyway, simply due to it being expensive no matter what console you develop for. That said, I'm really looking forward to Final Fantasy XIII

Would I like to play on all three consoles, certainly I would, but money ain't a unlimited resource, and neither is time. I was speaking to some adult Wii owners, who were actually into games, and they were telling me about it and said that its fun, but wouldn't recommend getting one till it was sub £100 at least. And even then, I doubt I would have a extensive game collection on it. I would find myself buying games I already owned from the virtual console. Wii Ware looks promising, but not too convincing for a perspective buyer.

What for the future then. I expect that they will simply keep building and building more things on top of the machines, from firmware to peripherals. The Wii will probably be the first to get an upgrade, new version or a new console, but somehow I don't see Nintendo backtracking from the casual market. Maybe the PS3 will be made smaller, and possibly another model of the 360 will be introduced. But with price drop galore predicted at E3, its going to get very interesting.

Tomorrow, in the final instalment, I look at my PC gaming and the handhelds...

Quantum of Solace-First look

We're suckers for James Bond games, and with the sheer bulk of them in the last generation, they have kind of gone from OK, to awful to acceptable and back to bad again. Nothing has created quite the effect that the fabled Goldeneye on the N64 did.

Well, after changing hands a fair few times, the next game based on the film, Quantum of Solace looks the business. Using the COD4 engine, everything looks superb at the moment, with destructible environments and generally great effects that were first seen in COD4. Anyway, enough talking, take a look at this video from Gametrailers and see what you think, I'm actually looking forward to this Bond game.

Feature: My life and games...Part 3

I look at the last generation

Read previous parts here:

• Part 1
• Part 2

I spent a long time in the N64 era, played many of the classics many times. But around the Christmas of 2002, it was time to look at getting a new console. It was at this point, all my friends appeared to have PS2s. What what this magical black console. Being a stalwart Nintendo fan at the time, I found that if I was going to get any console, it would be a Gamecube. I was slightly driven by fanboyism I admit, this was before I developed my anti-fanboy rules in my mind. A friend of mine had a Xbox, but that was not for me, so it was between two consoles.

There was another console, the Sega Dreamcast, but this was truly the end of Sega, poor third party support, and once the PS2 got rolling, it was clear that the Dreamcast was released too early, with not enough power. It was home to some good games, and had some generally good ideas behind it such as online play, but unfortunatly, it just didn't work out for them.

My views changed however after going round a few friends after Xmas. I had mostly moved over to playing PC games at this point, and had moved away from consoles slightly (PC's are appearing later in the week). But three games seemed to change my mind from Gamecube to PS2. I saw within a short period James Bond 007: Nightfire, GTA: Vice City (a friends dad was playing on it) and Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.

I was amazed at the scope and size of Vice City and couldn't believe the way that the FMV's blended into game in TTT and the likenesses of characters in Nightfire. It was kind of a random thing that made me think 'OMG the PS2 is amazing', but it did. So for my birthday in March, we got one. Now I did something very dangerous, left the PS2 game buying strategy in the charge of my parents. Basically meaning that if the box art looked pretty good, it was chosen.

Thus the games I had were:

• X-men: Next Dimension (comic book based beat-em-up)
• 007: Nightfire (alternative film-like game)
• LOTR: The Two Towers (based on the film)
• LOTR: The Fellowship of the Ring (based on the books, truly awful)
• Gungrave (anime shooter)
• And for my dad- GTA: VC, though of course a snuck a play...

So, some good, some bad, and some truly awful. I managed to amass quite a collection of PS2 games over the years, and having never traded any in, I still have all the really poor games I have bought over the years. Using the Dualshock 2, although I had used it before, was much more comfortable for long playing session that the N64 pad and *shock horror* I could access all the buttons without changing my hand position!

But, although I enjoyed some Sony based franchises, I longed to play The Wind Waker, Super Mario Sunshine and various other games which had made their home on the 'cube. I remembering entering a competition to win a ton of Gamecube stuff and hoping and hoping that I would win (silly I know). Therefore, I bought one of eBay for quite a small amount of money. It came with a few games, and as I did with the N64, I developed a small but fairly quality collection of games. For the small amount I did have, I had quite a long playtime of them all, which is all you can ask really.

So, looking back, was this the best part of my gaming so far. Possibly. I certainly improved my knowledge of everything massively, and often practiced writing reviews on games that I had played. I got better at a greater variety of games, expanded into different genres. If anything it was much more varied than the N64 days and maybe because of the sheer amount of second hand games that were available for the PS2. Whatever happened, I know it shaped what games I play now.

Coming tomorrow: PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii...

Soul Calibur IV, Impressions...

Soul Calibur IV is the latest in the fighting offerings by Namco, and takes the series onto the PS3 and 360. Much has been made of the games, female characters specifically *cough* 'enhancements' *cough* (sorry one of those jokes had to be put in somewhere), possibly the most disputed being the addition of Star Wars characters in the game, as some kind of major marketing ploy perhaps. Yoda is appearing in the 360 version with Darth Vadar in the PS3 one, with Starkiller, the apprentice out of Lucasarts 'Star Wars: Force Unleashed' being in both. (see the Darth Vadar stage in the video below, if you can ignore the shouting people).

Being a fan of the series, I looked forward to this game, so lets take a look at what we know is on offer in this next game. From screen shots released yesterday, we can see that the majority of the modes from previous games are in the game, such as character creation, arcade mode, single player mode, VS mode, museum and a comic. Going on past SC games, it's likely that the single player may evolve into a strange text driven, choice adventure, or maybe even proper cutscenes this time!

The roster has been updated slightly, with the SW characters I mentioned before and a  few new faces, with previous characters being given the HD makeover and various other little bits and pieces. According to a variety of sources however, it appears that even in the completed builds Namco are showing journalists etc, character's appear unbalanced (no in power not the other way), quite badly. Lets hope Namco get it sorted out.

Another part of the SC franchise which has always shone is graphics, and from screen shots we've seen, this year is no exception. Audio has been improved, with a grander soundtrack and even better cheesy voices. Graphical effects look sharp and vivid, with animation, although still a tad rough in some videos I have seen, looking more realistic to previous games. Stages look distinct with varying uses of light and textures and the character models themselves looking very detailed. But, what is the price the users have the pay for all these graphics....

...Quite a bit according to Kotaku (amongst many) as rumours of a install as large as 6.5GB have been quoted, with a 2GB save file for PS3. 360 owners don't get away with it either, as rumours are also going around that you need a HDD to play it, and if your with a 20gb one, its going to vanish pretty quickly.

So, am I looking forward to SCIV...Hmm, tricky one that. On one side, I enjoyed past games and find the weapons mechanics refreshing, but don't really think adding tonnes of extra characters (Kratos of God of War fame is also rumoured for the PS3) doesn't really wash with me, I thought adding Link etc to SCII was daft. I'll probably get it, being a bit of a SW fan and liking SC, but its about time this series focused solely on the fighting and less on top heavy characters.....

Feature: My Life and Games...Part 2

I look at the Saturn, the PS1 and the N64

Read previous parts:

• Part 1

In the last part, I focused on my time warped early years, but now we move on a era to the beginning of the end of Sega and the arrival of Sony as a force to be reckoned with.

Personally, I only knew 2 families that owned a Sega Saturn. As one of the first consoles that actually had CD-ROM capabilities built into it, and being made by Sega, it originally looked quite promising. The problems with the Saturn during development, as it was originally meant to be a cartridge based, 2D system, but was hastily changed, hence the poor quality of some of the games.

From what I remember, the Saturn pad was a juiced up Megadrive one, with more buttons and shoulder buttons. I remember being massively impressed with the Saturn years ago, after seeing Tomb Raider 1 for the first time, a crazy pseudo 3D isometric game called Bug!, and a random, albeit strangely fun game called 'Clockwork Knight', although it looks much easier now than I remember it.

The main issues I found with the Saturn, or remember was that there was not that many brilliant games for it, or at least, no ones which my friends owned. I'm no expert on the Saturn (contemplating picking one up soon though...) but I do remember enjoying it for the time it had.

Then it all changed. It was at this point I made probably my first personal choice towards what console I would own. My cousin's family sold the Saturn, for a sweet pea or something, and bought a PS1. From somebody who thought a Saturn looked great, the PS1 blew me away. My auntie was really into Tomb Raider at the time, and watching TR 2 and 3 was incredible, it all seemed so vibrant. We played loads of different games for this, from Final Fantasy VII (I remember we named all our characters after Pokemon characters, ah good old times) to MGS 1. But, when I had a opportunity to have a new console, I switched to Nintendo.

Whereas the PS1 used CD-ROMS and had modern sounding soundtracks and FMV's, the N64 uses backward cartridges, had a blocky exterior and a weird control. But I still had one, and didn't regret it. My uncle attempted to tell me 'You could have loads of games for the Playstation, etc etc', but my argument was that the graphics on N64 had much more colour, vibrancy and overall looked better, different, but in my opinion (at the time, I've seen some dirty looking 64 games and some colourful PS games) the graphics were better.

The first games I had for it was Banjo-Kazooie, a classic I replay to this day, and Star Wars: Shadow of the Empire (I was a bit of a Star Wars geek, so naturally I had this).

I played Banjo much more, and became a bit of a expert amongst friends on the game, often being asked to help them out through certain parts. Although my N64 collection was small, it was certainly well played, and most importantly because I wanted to play it. Although I had many more games for Megadrive, and then later for PS2, I spent so many hours on the Ocarina of Time, Super Mario 64 and various others. My cousin probably only complete about a quarter of his PS collection, not due to lack of skill, but to simply having some good, and some very poor games. I completed all but one, and that was due to lack of skill!

Coming tomorrow: The disappearance of Sega, and the arrival of the Playstation 2, Xbox and Gamecube...

Gran Turismo 4 24hr Endurance Race-Feature

Here it is, proof of the fact that we did spend that long on that game, Gran Turismo 4.

We had decided a couple of months ago that we wanted to create a series of video game challenges and the idea of the 24hr endurance race was the first that sprung to mind. Finding a time to do it in was a challenge in of itself, but eventually we did and so what followed was 24 hours of virtual racing.

Click the link below for the HD version.

The Next Level GT4 Endurance Race Challange from The Next Level UK on Vimeo.

Feature: My life and games...Part 1

I look the earliest generation I can remember.

Gaming started quite early for me. Although my parents were never massivly keen gamers apart from arcades in pubs they always tell me, but they always seemed to own consoles. Although i was too young to remember, we have owned a NES, which suffered from a broken cartridge thing, then a SNES, but they sold that before I was really old enough to play it. God damn that was annoying, learning that I would have to wait till about 1999 before my first proper encounter on my own with a LoZ game. Anyway, my first experience with video games would be at my cousins,who owned the older style Sega Megadrive, the larger less sleek looking one (still working apparently). My uncle was the one who played the games, we often watched as he failed miserably at Shinobi and attempted to complete Sonic 1.

So, my first real time I can remember holding a pad was quite an interesting one as we didn't actually play the game. I remember me and my cousin sitting and pretending we were playing Sonic, where in fact it was just the rolling demo at the start, don't know why we never pressed start, well, it seemed we were winning all the time! Anyway, eventually we worked out what the pads were for and so began games.

After pestering my parents for some time, we ended up getting one of our first megadrives, the 2nd version, so was smaller and sleeker but seemed to have a fair few more problems regarding connections but thats another story (one that will probably appear later). We had most of the games which were actually suitable for my age back then, such as Sonic, Micro Machines and various others. But also I had more extreme games (for my age) such as Jurassic Park and Ecco the Dolphin (quite a dark game for those who have played it to the end). Though, being quite young and being one of the more interesting 2 player co-op experiences was Mickey Mouse- World of Illusion.

I feel I need to donate quite a bit of time to this game. It was the first to introduce to games where you had to work with the other person to finish the game. Mickey and Donald traveled through the world, not really any particular aim other than to get home. Each playthrough, depending on whether you played as Mickey or Donald or with co-op took you through alternative levels or simply different ones. This may sound primitive now, but at the time for me, it was very immersive.

I was initially heartbroken when my Megadrive lost all sound, but we suddenly ended up with a new one, that came with even more games. These included a few games which i really wasn't ready to play at the time such as 'Alien'. Not a great game, but scared me back then. I also realised not all games were good, after playing Batman: Returns, with the most hobbled control scheme ever, one of which I spent many a afternoon trying to work out.

It was also strange not having any save games back then (minus for a few RPG's, the Megadrive had very few games which saved, annoyingly), you played the beginning of games over and over again. Another thing was that annoying was that the control pads were very strange, with only 3 buttons and start (with a d-pad obviously), limiting control methods.

Back then, I was not really into reading magazines and the internet was a no go, so I really only knew about games from going round family and friends, this often meant that everyone ended up with very similar games.

At this moment in time, the Megadrive is packed away, with a problem with the audio connection...again....(blame RF connections), but it will be down at some point. But, if you own the games, it is legal to download and emulate them, but if you don't own them, and have the downloaded files for more than 24 hours, you're being naughty!
Tomorrow, Saturn, PS1 and N64....

Admin's Message

Hello there. Basically, over the weekend, the blog's html code got corrupted along with the widget code, meaning that most of it needed to be started from scratch. We set up a test WordPress blog for 2 reasons 1. So it could act as a beta test for our new website which is currently in development and 2. So it could act as an emergency blog if the main one (at the moment this one) went down for some unknown reason. Posting will continue as normal for the moment, and we will announce the website once we are into a beta test with it. Hopefully soon.
Thanks

The Next Level UK team

The Next Level Update - 07/07/08

After a crazy weekend, here's the TNL update.

Noal Gallagher blames game for knife crime

Speaking to BBC newsbeat, oasis frontman Noal has claimed that rising knife crime  amongst young people can be blamed on yes, you guessed it, videogames. Nevermind the fact that many other forms of media promote violence, Gallagher says that violent video games desensitises young people to violence. He does not mention any particular game but says it is 'very, very scary'. I can't blame him for making his anti knife crime views known, what with a spate of horrible stabbing's recently, but I believe there are other things to link it too rather than video games, society in general would be one. This mainly comes from when he was in Liverpool recently and saw news stories about it every night. he goes on to say

"People say it's through violent video games and I guess that's got something to do with it, if kids are sitting up all night smoking super skunk and they become so desensitised to crime because they're playing these video games...".

PSP holds strong in Japan

Following a bit of a mad week for Sony, good news for the PSP over in the land of the  rising sun. Facing increased competition from the Nintendo consoles, the PSP has managed to hold on to the top spot, down just 500 units on the previous weeks. This may show an increase in popularity for the PSP as a platform, with quality releases such as Final Fantasy VII crisis core and Japan favourite monster hunter boosting sales. Following the massive boost of sales of the PS3 following the release of MGS4, sales of the platform have decreased again, but Sony will still probably be quite happy, as even they have admitted that the PSP is 'doing better than we hoped'

PSP - 58,861
Nintendo DS - 48,884
Wii - 48,480
PlayStation 3 - 17,973
PlayStation 2 - 7,673
Xbox 360 - 5,104

Sales data compiled by Media Create.

J Allard CXO

Poor J Allard, after been shifted from one project to another, one being the Zune (poor guy) he has now been given the fantastically made up role of...Chief Experience Officer (CXO). What that means is that

"As Chief Experience Officer (CXO) and Chief Technology Officer (CTO), J Allard is  responsible for the technical architecture and user experiences related to products and services of the Entertainment and Devices (E&D) division. Allard works closely with technical leaders across the company to align E&D product teams with Microsoft's overall services strategy and product architecture, and drives the technical and design agenda to deliver Connected Entertainment experiences for consumers. With a unified approach and his personal passion for the possibilities of digital entertainment, Allard manages the E&D design group and also oversees an incubation team that scouts new opportunities for the division."

That was a lot, don't know whether that means he's going to be back into the Xbox biz, where he did a eccentrically good job, and developed a rather strange cult following. We need more bald dudes on stage now Phil has left Sony.

No More Brain Training!

Nintendo have announced they have no plans to make more Brain Training games , down to the fact the first two still make loads of money. Speaking to trade magazine MCV, Nintendo marketing director Dawn Paine said

"The idea behind More Brain Training is that people can move across to it once they have played the first one, and vice versa, and are looking for new challenges and training exercises,"

Basically, that because the Brain Training games are still doing so well in the charts, it seems silly to do any R&D into making any more. Mind you, with Dr. Kawishima (sp!) himself being ripped off by it all (apparently) I'm sure he's not keen for any more to appear.

GTA crime spree

Quite a widely reported story, as the Internet loves flaming on idiots, and who can  blame them when they are this idiotic. Siding with Jack Thompson and co, six clever teenagers have gone on a late night crime spree in Nassau county, New York. there first attempt at game emulation had them mugging someone, robbed a motorist and smashed a van with a bat, wow they even kept with GTA weapons.

"It was determined that they were emulating the character in that Grand Theft Auto game, going on a crime spree,"

Nassau's Det. Sgt. Anthony Repalone told press, following them admitting that they were trying to portray those out of GTA. What a clever way to spend your time, go back and play the actual game, rather than attempting to imitate it.

Site Issues

We are having some issues with the HTML templates for this site, we are working as quickly as possible to try and fix this but in the mean time we apologise for the appearance of the site.
In the meantime, we have set up an emergency blog site for your use here, we hope to have this blog fully functional soon. This is also a preview of our new site, currently in development.

UPDATE: The blogger site is now fully operational again.

The Next Level Podcast- 4/7/08

In this episode of The Next Level podcast we celebrate independence day as well as discussing all of the news from the gaming community and talking about upcoming changes to the site. (Running Time: 1:03 hrs)

Download

Changes...

Coming soon is a podcast, in that podcast, somewhere, will be lots of information about the future of The Next Level. Keep a look out for all this new information that will appear on this post, adding more information once we know what is happening. This is being quite extensively planned, hence the lack of posts at the moment, don't worry, we will be putting content up soon after the weekend of plans!

PS3 firmware 2.40 released-Mixed response

The massive anticipation that people had for firmware 2.40 for the PS3 has been overshadowed by the lack of support that developers (at the moment) have given it. Many forum users are complaining that the in game music doesn't work as games don't support it, very few of the settings work, only one or two games have any trophy support whatsoever and overall it has failed to meet some peoples expectations that it would bring the PSN in line with XBL.

I downloaded it first thing this morning, and have not had any trouble such as people claiming it has bricked their PS3's etc etc. I kind of knew that it would be limited in use, and that the only real decent feature of it would be the fact I could send and view messages during gameplay and if my network had broke, I could sign back in.

At this moment I believe there are two available games (which have been patched up as well) which definitely support trophies, Buzz: Quiz TV and a updated Super Stardust: HD. Now both of which are good games, I recommend if you want a good arcade style shooter for PS3 that doesn't cost many pennies, get it. But seeing as I don't own either one of those games, I have not being able to check out the trophy menus, or the sound they make when they have been earned (which is the most important thing I know...).

Here is the list of games which will apparently support trophies:
BUZZ! Quiz TV
LittleBigPlanet
MotorStorm Pacific Rift
NBA 09
PAIN
PixelJunk Eden
Resistance 2
SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs Confrontation
Warhawk

Now out of that list of 9 games, only 3 are out at the moment, and I went on Warhawk for the first time in a while this morning, and apart from the fact it was deserted, no trophies popped up for me, whether you have to be good or anything is another story, but not even in the trophy menu, so I'm thinking that it needs a patch. It also did not allow custom soundtracks.

Since Sony are playing catch up, it would of at least being nice to allow voice chat in game, cross game invites, and various other things to allow the service to work that bit better...That said, it now has a clock, so no more staying up claiming 'I didn't know the time'.

Edit: And a few things which I forgot to mention. There is now a little music player, which makes navigating tracks a lot easier and on the quiet, they have updated the playstation store, and now it is as fast as it should be and a few more navigation options.

Civilisation: Revolution Demo

Played the demo of this recently (big console one, not yet played the DS one), and after looking forward to it quite a lot, on starting up the game, I was left feeling quite disappointed. Now I'm aware the demo is quite limited in features as its a demo, yet it still didn't quite make me think this is the next generation of console strategy games.

To start with, they have decided to fit in with the 'console crowd' by having crazy characters attempt to guide you through the games much simplified interface. Taking a leaf out of 'The Sims', the main character takes you through each section and although it gives you choices over whether you want to listen to his random babbling of nonsense whilst a text message explaining it comes up with the help message. This character changes costume occasionally and is often pushed out the way by other Civ's leaders, barbarians and other people that pop up.

Control-wise, it has been simplified fairly well to the console's pads, with using the 2 analogue sticks to select units and move units around and the shoulder buttons being used to move between cities. Speaking of cities, although mine were fairly small and undeveloped, unlike in the early game part of Civ 4 for PC, micro-management has pretty much gone with your workers just generally working on cultivating the land around your city.Another thing that takes away from the game on my part (maybe unfairly comparing the audience of the console and PC version) is that once you have finished building a building, unit or project in a city on Civ 4, you were asked what you want to do next. On this one, I realised that for most of the game I played all of sudden I'd built a substantial army of warriors, but my city had become a bit of a slum.

Combat wise the game is pretty much identical to Civ 4, with the standard 'chance of winning' depending on a variety of factors and you have an ability to improve units not only from gaining experience, but from from finding a Knights castle etc. Also, with a group of three units of the same type you can link your units together as a stronger army.

Overall, Civilisation: Revolution did not impress me massively. But perhaps I am being unfair, for the basic console user who does not like the complexity of the PC version, or for a Civ veteran who simply wants a less intensive experience for their console, it is a good purchase, but personally, I think fireaxis bowed a little too low for the console fans, by not including basic voice acting like the Sid Meier from the tutorial in Civ 4, I also noticed some strange screen tearing issues, but hopefully that should be cleaned up for the final game.

For those looking to get into the Civ series for the first time, or if you simply want to play this series in a different way, you can pick this up now for PS3, 360 and a portable version for DS.