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 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...

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...

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....

The Next Level Update! 30/06/08

Once the Internet connection finally returned to my house (after making sure we'd defiantly paid the bill), I got a chance to look at some of the news that people are talking about.

 

Diablo Returns!

Blizzard have shown a Diablo III teaser trailer at their Paris conference over the weekend, and its got Diablo fans HYPED! The game appears to be using a 3D engine, but locked down at a isometric perspective, in keeping with tradition, as your can see in the video below. Taken from CVG here is a list of what we know.

UPDATE: Here's a list of what we know so far:

• Set twenty years after the events of Lord of Destruction and will be a similar length to Diablo II
• 3D game engine, but locked in isometric viewpoint
• Will be available for both PC and Mac. No console.
• Two classes confirmed - the Barbarian and new class the Witch Doctor, who can control minds and use pets. There is currently five.
• Up to eight players co-operatively at present. Co-op played via battle.net
• Diablo III will concentrate more on quests, story & events that previously.
• WoW-like hotbar implemented. Is possible to play just using mouse.

Looks pretty good so far!

Spore creatures hit 1 million

In just a week since its release, the Spore Creature creator has seen users create over 1 million creatures. How many of those are creatures with questionable design choices remains un-answered, but millionth creatures was just an average bug thing. A statement from Maxis' executive producer Lucy Bradshaw said,

"Maxis is excited, humbled and inspired by the explosion of creativity that we've seen with the Spore Creature Creator online," "I'm amazed at the creations I see getting uploaded to the Sporepedia, whether it's a realistic looking bird or animal, a 10-eyed alien, or something completely bizarre and unexpected like a creature that looks like a motorcycle." 

No mention of a certain type of creature then.... Spore is due for release on September 5th in the UK.

Someone's busy...

Apparently, EA have stated that currently 5 Battlefield games are in development. Battlefield Heroes' (the mostly free online shooter) executive producer Ben Cousins has spoke at the Paris GDC about their being various games in development, however most are being kept underwraps.

"We've got five [Battlefield] titles in development, which is more than you'd expect."
"We're actually developing a battlefield game with Neowiz for the Korean market and separate from Heroes,"

So that leaves 3, which many people are guessing means different battlefield games for each of the key home platforms, which means that they must either be substantially different, or are simply putting a spin on things. In other Battlefield news, Bad Company was released, and not long after people wanted to take the mainly online shooter online, they began complaining about dodgy servers for the Xbox 360 version of the game, including connecting to game and stat tracking.

Their fool proof method which is not really fix, more something to give them more time to fix it, is to turn your 360 off for 20 min's, then back on again. Almost as sound advice as Rockstar's guide to getting GTA IV to work on the PS3....

In other news...

Xbox 360

Microsoft are considering family friendly Halo games following some rather odd questions in a recent market survey. Box art has been released for Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts (erm, woo) and the 360 DRM tool for those with new consoles has been released, letting you play all that content you bought a while ago! Other than that and general game news, still a bit quiet on the 360 front.

PS3 and PSP

However, Sony are really beginning to show off their in-game XMB, which is due for  release some time in July, with a new video on the PS blog showing off the features, why on earth it took so long I don't know. Kaz 'Riiidddgge Racer' Hirai (sorry, I'm never going to be able to let that drop) has announced that as well as a Wii style weather and news channel things being released, there will also be a video store, which will be eventually cross-compatible with the PSP. There is also news of a few more games being ported for development, yet hiding behind all this, they released a statement saying that although it has begun to decrease, losses are still $1.15 Billion on the Playstation section....ouch...And God Of War 3 is apparently ready to show off at E3, which many speculate is the game that the BBC blogger caused such a stir about by claiming it was the best looking game he'd ever seen at a Sony event, amongst a few other people.

Wii and DS

Summer line up was revealed and its quite a long list, though I'm struggling to pick out many massive games in the line up, apart from of course...Kung Fu Panda and Pimp my ride....erm. Anyway, head over here to see the list, as its quite long! 2K are going to be using Havok physics for the Wii and Castlevania Wii is a 3D beat 'em up...randomly.

The Next Level Update- 23/06/08

Yeah, it's that time again, to find all those random news stories that should be in this blog, and put em in it.

PES 09 comes out of nowhere

Quite a few of us were thinking that PES had gone into hiding after quite a poor showing last year, 08 was far better than the next-Gen versions of PES 6, but various issues plagued not only the PS3 version, but 360 as well. The developers reportedly put this down to their current engine they were working on did not agree with next-Gen hardware.

But PES has recently arrived again, with its 09 edition apparently having massively improved graphics, new moves, better control elements and key online features, mind you, having a online feature that worked and did not require about 15 different ID's as most Konami games do would be a start.

Knifes linked to games

The well known quiet and rational Boris Johnson (.....) now the Mayor of London, has  managed to link games with yet another form of violence. Nevermind the fact that society in the UK has gone down the pan, he claims that as well as 'drug addled celebrities', violent videogames are also to blame for the rise in the knife culture.

Of course, this is not he first time Mr. Johnson has come out against video games, he wrote a piece in The Telegraph last year claiming it was "time to garrote the Game Boy and paralyze the PlayStation". Perhaps so, but perhaps focusing on the more underline causes of violent crime by youths, as in maybe the fact they know they nearly always get away with it. Actually no, scrap that, lets go play Manhunt.

Spore porn is banned

I'm not surprised, but not long after the Spore Creature Creator was released in order  to help populate the Spore world before the game's release later this year, various creatures with questionable shapes started appearing. Partly fuelled by PC Gamers attempt at creating one, people went mad creating creatures in the shape of everything from swear words to appendages. EA have now taken action, sending emails to users who have abused the T&C's, saying their account has been flagged and could possibly be banned. So it doesn't look like a nation of porn stars will be taking over the galaxy...sorry guys..

Stuff Section

PS3 and PSP Stuff

Quite a lot for the PS3 this week, with firmware 2.4 being confirmed for definite meaning in-game XMB and trophies on their way, and 2.36 making everything a bit more stable...Also, PS3 is storming sales in Japan, mainly down to release of MGS4, SCEE president David Reeves has said that the PS3 will eventually outstrip the PS2 lifetime sales and for Sony, restoring game and TV profits is a priority. Shame, not too much game news.

360 News

Apparently, Command and Conquer 3: Kane's Wrath appears to be coming along well, the world debut of Cod5: World Of War was released on XBLM and MS want to be the first with Xbox 3, 720 or whatever they are going to call it. Their E3 line up has also been leaked, with 'Lips' a Singstar esque karaoke game amongst the games going to be on show.

Wii and DS Stuff

Quite a few new titles for DS have been shown, such as Ninja Gaiden DS, Bleach: Dark Souls and a few others. A Mum has developed a screen protector to save TV's from flying Wiimotes after seeing hers being destroyed and more Mums have gone crazy in Asda for a cooking game for the DS, which contains over 250 menu ideas and step by step recipes. They have sold around 10,000 copies in the first hour and apparently its still selling really well. The future for DS?

GT4 Endurance Race Blog

Hello, the day has finally come for our 24 hour endurance race, we're going to be posting updates regularly so keep an eye on this for our thoughts of what's happening today!

11:40: Well, just getting everything set up at the moment, getting ready to record the podcast with no plan whatsoever! Here are some pictures I took as we were getting ready.

11:50:Waiting for the crew to arrive, listening to dramatic MGS music get us in the mood, will probably hear it later.

14:39:Podcast done, slight problem however. None of us can remember the password or username for our podcast hoster...whoops....

15:00: Would start now, but still got to delay it, aiming to film some intro shots soon. Found an alternative way for the podcast to be posted, will be here soon! Hell, I may go into stressed mode soon.

15:22: We're getting there, podcast on its way, should be starting around 4ish, going to be a long long time. Filmed some introduction scenes and we're almost ready to go.

15:22: Here's the podcast, with the second segment. (podcast has now been moved to a seperate post)

16:38 We are around 30 minutes into the race, Josh is driving. We had some serious Tyre problems in the first few laps and by the time we had fixed it we were in 6th place and a whole 6 minutes behind first place. Still, we have enough time to catch up...

16:55 We are now in 5th place and approaching the one hour mark. The new tyres seem to be working fine and we are establishing a pitting routine.

17:01 Wahey, we just hit the one hour mark. Only 23 hours left to go then...

17:20 More good news, after a number of fast laps Josh has got into 4th place and we are now on the tail of the 3rd place car. Currently we are managing to pit every 3rd lap which is not ideal because most of the AI can last longer than us.

17:41 Josh took 3rd place but then crashed almost immediately afterwards allowing him to be overtaken and put back into 4th place. Eventually he pulled back into 3rd position and then overtook the car in front thinking he would be in 2nd place but it turned out he had only lapped the car in last place.

18:30:Josh is here, and phew that was fairly tough, but not as boring as I thought it would be, now we eating our food and supporting Matt!

19:44: Matt has beat my lap time of 7mins by 10 seconds. He's going OK, not far off first comparatively.

20:06: Just been playing around with the camera, recording little updates of whats been going on, got quite a lot of footage at the moment, should be able salvage, oo I don't know, about 5 mins of good footage from it. And he's nearly about to overtake.

20:12: Someone looks determined, don't they!

20:42: Matt has repeated my mistake by forgetting to pit, he struggles round a lap and gets overtaken in the process...silly boy. Well, in his last action before I take over, lets see if he can pull us back in front.

20:44: Time for me to get ready to go.

20:53 Matt is here again and I'm very tired after my rather dramatic 2:30 hour stint in the car. You'll be glad to hear that I did manage to pull us back into first place so all that's left for Josh to do is keep the lead.

22:53 Well we over a quarter of the way through the race, we are firmly in first place and so far have completed 55 laps of the track. Right now, the end seems a very long way away

23:40: Yes it does seem a very long way away now. It's Josh again, and its nice to have a bit of a break, but I have to do that 4 more times at least...phew.

00:33: Boy it's late here, we've now all switched over to 'GT Time' as our late night pizza and coolant (soft drinks) need to be sorted out, Matt is still going, although is zoned out completely.

09:39: Hello again, good morning and all that. Matt is racing at the moment, got the hard part out the way, the night shift was very difficult. At the moment we are 17 hours and 38 minutes in, and are in the lead. And this morning I was greeted with a copyright notice from EA themselves, lovely.

10:15: Apart from Matt's occasional moaning that I seem to be rigging the time to make him go longer, we're getting through it. My next session should be my last and Matt will be crossing the finish line. Hopefully. In the mean time, sleep depravation causes incredible stress at my broken Internet connection, its being a pain.

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This post basically stopped then for various reasons and we will be posting more in-depth looks at the event soon. But we are really tired at the moment, so all the media etc will be sorted out either on Thursday or Friday.

A gamers trip to the supermarket

Went to [insert brand name here] today, mainly to get supplies for the 24 hour deathathon on Tuesday, but I also, being a gamer, a took a look at some of the games they had on show. Oh they were classics. It makes me laugh as someone who knows a little bit about games (not that I'm special or anything, most people would be interested) when good games, but old ones, are priced at similar prices, or lower, as those made on a shoestring budget with all the programming prowess of a kitten.

For example, on one particular PC game section, both Rome: Total War, Medieval: Total  War (not the newer one) and STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl were priced at around £5-6, which is pretty good deals if you don't own them, especially the total war games, but below that, 'AIR FORCE [[LOCK ON]]' (yes, was wrote like that) with cover art which would deemed below standard by a  nursery assistant, was priced at £8. This may not seem much, but I remember seeing it a while ago, priced even higher.

A problem that that I and many others seem to suffer from is a deep feeling of sadness when games we know are excellent titles, Final Fantasy XII and Okami and hidden behind 'Hard Rock Casino' and 'Super Kart F1', with a price point which matches them. Why, why, why. But, although we are talking supermarkets here, and I expect to see budget crap around every turn, but this is also becoming the case in mainstream game shops.

Can this be blamed on the Wii's casual influence. Partly I suppose, as games are generally being sold to more and more people, and this includes junk like Wii Party. I was going to buy some and see what they were actually like, but would prefer to wait till, I don't know, a good game comes out perhaps.

Kick the ball with 500% more realism...

It's begun again, the annual FIFA announcement comes as FIFA 09 is coming with 250 key improvements following a first look from Gamemaster Magazine. The games due out in Autumn, the usual time for the FIFA and PES releases are. But this year, with it being very close last year, will FIFA overtake PES as the 'Footballers Football game'.

Many of the improvements for FIFA don't seem to just be the usual gimmick they bring in with each game, some work better than others. They seem to be generally improvements in making the game of footy better, for example an increased responsiveness, quicker, soother passing and various other animation improvements, to make the players appear less like bow legged puppets and more like actual humans.

So, can this overtake what many people presume to be the perfect footballing game series, Pro Evolution Soccer. Well personally after playing PES 2008 to death, I think it can beat it. I was one of the poor people who played PES 08 on PS3, and it was a hobbled mess of slow FPS. With this FIFA promising better animation and collision, that actually relates to the player, this could well knock PES of its shaky top spot.

I player UEFA Euro 2008 recently and was surprised at how much I enjoyed it. As I've always played PES, and thought FIFA was a complete waste of time, it seemed that UEFA was as good, if not better than PES. Now obviously, if they have rebuilt the engine and completely gave the interface a redesign, PES may be OK, but I reckon with the improvements, such as my favourite 'realistic tumbling' (where players fall over basically) FIFA could really give it a run for its money.

FIFA 09 will be coming this Autumn, on every possible platform in existence, possibly even the Atari 2600

Ah Nostalgia…

(Due to various internet connection based issues I've been having, this is a older blog post from another Next Level blog)

I recently was having a very slow and quite boring weekend, so thought it was about time I went back and replayed ‘Legend of Zelda The Ocarina of Time’ for what must be about the 4^th time now. But seeing as it was also a lazy weekend, I didn’t unpack the old N64, but played it off my special edition disc that came with the Wind Waker (not to be confused with the collectors edition disc that had the Majora’s Mask on that’s different, but does have the OoT on it) for the Gamecube. I contemplated having another go at the master quest, an unreleased version of the game with much more confusing puzzles and more difficult enemies. But I wanted the purest version of the game, without getting the cartridge, so went for the original.

I always have a problem with going back and playing games that I loved years ago. Sometimes it’s the feeling of ‘I wish I could feel the same way about it as I did when I first played it’. That feeling of ‘Wow’ and the curiosity that went with playing games for the first time, especially with the LoZ series. Sometimes though, I look back through rose tinted specs and my imagination makes a far better game than the developers did (I swore that the graphics were better etc). I was braced for my latest play through of the game to ruin it for me. I was surprised.

OoT holds up remarkably well, remembering it was released around 1997. The graphics and colours are filled with life and it still has the enchanting musical score that I remember. Sure the text based narrative gets a bit weary at times, especially with the voice acting common in even bargain basement games now, but it doesn’t really matter when the actual story is as well explained as it is.

Recently I have had trouble sticking with story driven games, especially Final Fantasy XII. As good as that game is, I could almost sense every twist and turn that was going to happen and unlike its predecessors, I never felt really encouraged to find out what would happen next. But somehow, I still find OoT has a story that makes me want to keep going. This might be because the series has never focused on developing characters throughout the story, but leaves that side of the story to you. You’re a little lad in a green tunic off to save Hyrule for a Princess and the game encourages you to think of the people as though you really know them, not by forcing a distinctive personality into them. Obviously there’s much more than that, but the story takes a look at the world as a whole, and you never feel like your just trying to get to Link’s personal aims, but to save the world.

So this got me thinking. Why has a game which is highly regarded amongst gamers as one of, if not the, greatest game made so far, stayed so young in character. Maybe, I thought it was because Nintendo has kept the formula rigidly the same in some aspects and different in others. The text for example is still there, and the little yelps made by Link still exist. But many different environments and characters are introduced keeping the general re telling of the same story fresh.

Or it could have been that this was the first game to really capture a sense of scale and adventure, in epic 3D. Sure Super Mario 64 was a great game, but you realised that you were a little Italian plumber in a blue dungarees. OoT simply looses you in all its secrets and curious people to the extent that you can play the games for hours on end and still go back for more (I was hooked for weeks on the fishing mini game). The game also has points of emotion, beautifully conveyed and reflects the almost naivety of the player, including this almost hidden scene (slight spoiler warning and the music isn’t from the game) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6XMKtjtvaM . The dungeons were expansive and challenging and without going on for hours, the game is brilliant.

So I’ve just completed Dodongo’s Cave and will keep picking it up and playing a bit more when I get chance. In the meanwhile I’m still looking for where I can find a copy of LoZ The Twilight Princess for Gamecube. At least now I can go and play some old games without being scared into them being rubbish compared to what I remember…