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!