Blogger Upgrade

Not Related to gaming at all but with the blogger upgrade I've upgraded the template on this site. Let me know if you have any problems with it or such.

I bought Sin Episode 1 from Steam yesterday. One of the reasons for doing this is it was $15 which is a really good price; even for a short game. The second is that it's a Source based game and with all the problems I've been having with Half Life 2 at the moment I thought I'd see if I had with another game using the engine. I played it for about an hour and a half with no problems. Still something to do with Half Life 2 then. That's good as Dark Messiah looks good and I'm hoping it runs ok. Anyway Sin has been really good fun so far. It's not breaking any new ground on the FPS front but it keeps the pace well and has a good action feel to it.

Steam

I love steam; the way it burns through your skin... ok I'm really talking about Steam; Valve's online content delivery service which I have more of a love/minor irritation relationship with. At first I had an issue with not actually having a physical copy of the game but it wasn't really that much of a hurdle to overcome to realize that I don't really care about owning the box just the product and the idea of not needing to hunt around for where I left that DVD case appealed so I quickly got over that.

I was playing Half Life 2: Episode 1 with commentary on and recently it just started crashing for no reason. At first I assumed it was something to do with hardware but now I think it might be a regression in one of the background updates. This presents a problem since I didn't know about that update until I read the RSS feed I had on it and suddenly the game stops working without me knowing about it. Of course that's more of an issue with testing a patch rather than with the content delivery system.

I just bought X³ from Steam after moaning about a game working on it. I haven't actually had a chance to play it for any length yet. This is another point about Steam. All games I've bought (as far as I recall) I've preloaded so they have been ready for launch. In the case of X³ it was quicker than buying it from an online store but longer than going to a shop and buying it, taking it home and installing it from DVD. Still I am prone to buying things at 1am so Steam really helps this :D and given I'm looking to buy Dark Messiah on Steam rather than in a store then it is quite obvious I prefer it as a platform over traditional purchasing methods.

Level Design

I decided to get back to some level designing and attempting to create a map for Half Life 2 using the Hammer Editor. I've spent a couple of hours with it (just, not long at all) and it doesn't seem quite as friendly as the Unreal Editor which I previously used to create a map for Raven Shield.

Though developers are willing to put in extra time to develop maps the ability to quickly develop maps and change them is very important to professional developers and fans alike. Recently the Unreal 3 engine has been adopted by EA along with use in a few other studios. Maybe it's time I revisit that and see what I can do. However not before I play around some more with the Source engine.

Console VS PC

I've go through phases in my game playing of prefering to play games on a console and playing games on my PC. Recently the playing fields have been somewhat merged as I'm using my HDTV as a monitor so the visuals and sounds of both my consoles and my PC are the same. Consoles have a certain instant feel about them. You buy a game for a console and you know that it will run ok and that you won't have any problems installing the game to play it. On the other hand Keyboard/Mouse (and I know that is just an accessory) is still my choice of tool for FPS and consoles are still yet to really use that. On the other hand I tire of upgrade cylces and that realisation that games just won't run on well on your machine any more can be frustrating. Not to mention the plathora of config settings can mean that games just don't work on your system or that some background task is messing it up.

I've been more drawn back to my PC recently. That is in part because I've been trying my hand at some level design and that's something that isn't really available on consoles. Also I can pick up some games for my PC for £15 compared to £40 on an XBox 360 and that sort of price difference can't be ignored. Still saying that I'm very much looking forward to Dead Rising and a host of other games for my 360.

PSP PSOne Emulator

First post in a while but I'll try and post more regularly. Rumours of a PSOne emulator on the PSP? I think it is a bullshot; look at the game list: Final Fantasy VII. Even assuming they then put in redevelopment time to compress it to a single install (instead of three disks). I can't see it kicking in at less than half a gig (remember CDs are still quite large compared to Flash Disks) and you'd need a big chunky memory stick to store more than one game. Then again; maybe Sony hopes that you'll go out and buy a nice range of memory sticks to hold your games on.

What I've Been Playing

Quite quiet in the way of gaming again.

World of Warcraft

I had a go at World of Warcraft. It was enjoyable questing fun but didn't really draw me to a monthly subscription model way of thinking. I didn't really get into much of it though. I didn't try the instance dungeons or really group quest with anyone so maybe I was missing out on much of the fun. It's my first experience of massively multiplayer games in a long time and... it hasn't changed all that much really.

Dungeon Seige II (Demo)

Thought I'd give the demo of this game a go. We played the first one in Multiplayer mode for quite a while so I was looking forward to this one. I have to say they seem to have changed the weapon switching and spell system for the worse which isn't good at all given I felt the first game had done poorly there. I found so much of the gameplay similar to Diablo II it almost felt like I should have just been playing Diablo II instead. They have Skill Trees and Item Sets for example. Anyway one of the big wins that I'm hoping for is the ability to persist the server state for a multiplayer session which the first one lacked.

The Sims 2

My love/hate relationship with The Sims continue. I set up a couple of new families and tried to make them do their thing. I expect hearing tales about what someone's sims are up to must be more dull than hearing about what someone's pet has been up to so I'll refrain.

The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker

Still love this game and it's style but I got board looking for peices of the Master Sword so I put this game down again not long after I picked it up.

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

So after getting bored of sailing around in The Wind Waker I loaded up Ocarina of Time to remember the good old days of Zelda. The control system is a little poor in this one; perhaps it was because I had just finished playing some of the newer one. Anyway I got a bit of the way through it but it failed to really hook me so I expect it will sit on the shelf a bit longer.

So The Situation Escalates

So it continues; after the court decided that the game (GTA; what else) was not a factor in the shooting of two police officers there is still a civil case going on to take any company (pretty much involved in any stage of the game) involved in the game getting into the shooter's hands. I find it interesting that:

The makers, distributors, and retailers of that murder simulator equipped Moore to kill as surely as if they had handed him the gun to do it.

Lawyer vows to prove link between video games and murder, The Register

If that is the case then why not take anyone involved in the production and distribution of the firearm used to court. Furthermore I'd argue that if you handed someone a gun and they then went on a killing spree then they have made an active choice to do that rather than to, as most people would, put the gun down. The game was not a tool; the person was mentally unstable to begin with. If you want to find a tool why not question the accessibly of a firearms to the population?

I also find it strange that they aren't just going after Take Two Interactive but also the entire distribution chain. I was disappointed to see that the trucking company that distributed the game from the warehouse to the shops wasn't included on the list. I'm also confused as to how you can sue Walmart and Gamestop for the game's distribution unless it was a Gamestop located within Walmart; I guess.

I'm not sure what is going to come out of this; I'm very interested to see.

Grand Theft Auto San Andreas: Part 2

Well it looks like the GTA has been blown out of all proportion. I see that the kids that are being protected from this polygon sex are the seventeen year olds as (quoting Penny Arcade):

The ESRB is suggesting that they may change the rating of the game to Adults Only, a category that by their own definition should see a great deal more use in a retail environment. This is great. Look at the descriptions for these.

MATURE Titles rated M (Mature) have content that may be suitable for persons ages 17 and older. Titles in this category may contain intense violence, blood and gore, sexual content, and/or strong language.

Or, as the rest of our culture calls it, "Rated R." Check out AO.

ADULTS ONLY Titles rated AO (Adults Only) have content that should only be played by persons 18 years and older. Titles in this category may include prolonged scenes of intense violence and/or graphic sexual content and nudity.

Penny Arcade

Interesting so I year separates the suitability of the game being vastly inappropriate to just fine to play. Of course it isn't just about that; the game is withdrawn as policy in many shops on account of this. It is very much a political thing.

It was interesting to see the reaction to all this. Even blogs of people who rarely ever move out of their own disciple have taken to talking about it.

The action has not stopped with Rockstar though. I was reading on Extra Life about articles mentioning Sims 2 content worse than Hot Coffee (the actual article). I'm not sure how you can define the extent of which someone has to mod a game before you should no longer consider that in any way part of the original game. In my mind it has to be one of the craziest rants that has ever had a press release but the media being what it is this might also take a life of it is own. VGCats had a interesting comic on the subject.

Retro Fortnight (Recently Played Games)

I thought I'd make my what I've been playing list a regular thing.

Lionheart

It's an old game from the disbanded Black Isle Studio who did do a range of really good games. I didn't feel this was one of them though. Lionheart failed to capture me much. The story seemed ok, a descendent of Lionheart in the world but where evil spirits had been released, but the actual character interaction and quests lead much to be desired pretty much just turning it into a click 'n slash game. I quick-saved where I was meant to quick-load and then just gave up.

Neverwinter Nights

A few friends and I tried playing Hordes of the Underdark (a single player expansion pack) online anyway. We had a few glitches but things seem to be going ok. There were a lot of complaints at Bioware that they released a single player only expansion pack. In all honesty I have single player roleplaying games that I can play; Neverwinter Nights is more enjoyable as a group and I felt it was a shame that the second expansion didn't accommodate that.

Burnout 3: Takedown

I've played the Party Crash mode of this a few times recently. It's a fun game. It's not quite as freeform as the second installment though and that's a pitty.

Dance Dance Revolution: Euromix

In an attempt to get a better rhythm sense and get a little healthier I've been playing this. With dance mats; of course.

Legend of Zelda: Four Swords

I've had this game for a while but I was waiting for four of us to get together with some GBAs for some Four Sword action. It was really good fun to play and I liked the simple graphics. They took me back to wanting to play some of the other Zelda series so you might see those on recently played later. There were a couple of issues though. We did the first stage then messed up saving. We figured we'd redo it and the second time my GBA's battery was running low so I paused and turned it of. The game sensed a player had disconnected and so ended the game! We couldn't be bothered starting it again so we played the Shadow Battle mode (PVP action) and then called it a night.

Grand Theft Auto San Andreas

The whole Sex Scenes in GTA: San Andreas has been predominant enough to make it into mainstream media. Effectively people are criticizing the ESRB system as a mod for the game allows a player to unlock some sex subgame. The current rating is (in the USA), I believe, an R and basically they want it set to some Adult Only rating which, as far as I can see is for the same age range as an R but lots of shops don't stock it or something.

The argument revolves around the fact that Rockstar North already had the code in there. Of course they may have had it in as they planed, but later dropped, the subgame. It's not officially part of the game, someone has to alter the code (even if only slightly) to access the mini-game so I fail to see how the ESRB can be criticized for failing to rate the game correctly as they can only rate the actually content they get to see.

I suppose the main point that I find worrying about is when I read things like this:

Once again, ESRB has failed our parents. This particular game has been known to include extremely heinous acts of violence, and now it has been uncovered that the game also includes explicit sexual scenes that are inappropriate for our children.

Leland Yee (Reported in the Scotsman)

That's the point isn't it? Why are you letting your young children play the game in the first place? I also find it sad that we deem extreme violence as better than showing some form of sexual act. That controlling some rendered models having sex is somehow worse than controlling those same models to beat a random street full of other models into a pulp.

I actually firmly believe that the GTA series should not be played by children I'm quite happy with games like it and Doom III actually falling under the BBFC jurisdiction.