GTA Slowcoach

I’ve had a gaming itch I’ve been trying to scratch for a little while now. I’ve wanted to get stuck into something meaty but my collection wasn’t really delivering the goods.

I’d nabbed the PC version of GTA San Andreas and felt dismayed by the array of unhelpful control keys it expected me to use. This prompted me to finally get a PS2 to PC controller adaptor so I could use my Dual Shock on the PC. Whilst waiting for it to arrive I slipped my GTA SA into the PS2…

..and it appears to have got stuck!

I’m really enjoying this (finally). I prefer the controls to the PC version and I now have a screen large enough to make use of the minimap sitting in the corner. I’m still zipping about Los Santos with a few missions to complete before the whole shebang really opens it’s doors – but I’m having a blast. To contrast this, I’ve also decided to start Final Fantasy X-2 which I bought in New York in 2003. I remember thinking how smart I’d been to get the scoop on my PAL gaming friends. And yet, two years later I’ve only just managed to get past the intro.

But, remember this, as you tear away the shrinkwrap at your new copy of God of War just remember who was beating you over a stick about it’s greatness back in March.

Digital Distractions

You have to admire the mindset of students sometimes. It appears that, for some project work, they?ve taken Ron Gilbert?s seminal masterpiece, wrestled with the Lucasarts legal boys (let?s face it, they don?t care if it?s not Star Wars related) and produced a little blinder!

Whilst on the theme of graphical adventures I’d like to point readers to an old article on Adventure Gamer. It details one adventurer’s opinions to produce a Top 20 adventure games chart. Unsurprisingly for a site dedicated to this type of game, it’s got plenty of written information on each game and provides a considerable amount of justification to the running order of the games listed.If you’ve never played an adventure game and are a gamer seeking something a little more thoughtful and substantial than you could do far worse than picking something from this list.

Another Friday, another letdown

After the soul-destroying non-appearance of my new TV last Friday I was hoping for an altogether more uplifting one this week.

My wife was planning on buying a new car later on in the year. Last Saturday we were out all day (which is why I needed the TV delivered on Friday) enjoying test-drives from the shortlist she’d prepared. The plan was to then watch the second-hand market and get the best deal we could for our preferred car and budget. However, we were made a ridiculously good offer on a car that was 8 months old and had the grand total of 425 miles on it’s clock. Additionally it was fitted out with all the trimmings. Although it was ?500 above our budget it was simply too good an offer to refuse and certainly beyond anything we’d have ever expected to see on the second-hand market. This was practically a brand new, top of it’s range car, for ?2,500 less than it should have been.

A quick update to our budgets, some phonecalls and we’d agreed the purchase. The plan being to be driving it away from the dealership on Friday night.

Well, it’s Friday morning and, thanks to extra paperwork from the DVLA relating to the transfer of our cherished number-plate we’ll have to wait until Monday or Tuesday of next week instead.

As a non-driver I’m not as disappointed by this as much as my wife is (she’d been VERY excited this week). It still stinks though and is a pretty glum start to the weekend.

To cheer myself up, I’m going to hunt down some alternative games news for my blog and cheer me and any readers up a little.

Ups and Downs

Work
Well, as it happens I’ve been fairly busy at work this week. This goes some way to explaining the lack of additions to this blog. Most of my time has been centered around bringing our new team member up to speed. It’s refreshing to go over ground that you feel so familiar with when you’re presenting it as new and interesting. It’s also good to get some novel questions from someone who isn’t jaded. Heck, I’ve only been with the firm a year but.. ..well, you know how it is.

Home
At home I’ve been spending time in front of my new TV feeling some gaming love from my three boxes. As my good friend reminds me – I could have got a bigger TV with the budget I had but I’m utterly satisfied with the end result and it’s the ideal size for the dimension of the room it’s going to stay in. Amtrak redeemed themselves by delivering before 9am the following morning in case you were wondering!

Live8
And then on to the OTHER events of this week. The UK’s been making some headlines haven’t they? I mean, firstly there was Live8. Sir Geldof’s pushy guilt and fund raising efforts doing the rounds. I have to admire the effort and principals of the man. Live8 didn’t appeal to me in the slightest though. In fact I was out most of Saturday and set a challenge to see just how much of the event I could avoid. I’m happy to report that I saw none of it and heard even less. Result!

Olympics
Yesterday Londoners got to stick out their chest and feel proud about being awarded the 2012 Olympic Games hosting honours. I was fairly chilled about the idea but as the day went on I just got more and more excited about the idea. It’s worthy of a seperate rant but I’ll just say I’m thrilled and hope we can show the world what this little island can do.

Bombs
And, less than 24 hours after that good news, a number of bombs exploded on the London Underground and another on a London bus. It’s headline news of the worst kind and the country is unified for an altogether different reason than the one of the day before. However, what we’re experiencing is something that’s happening on a daily basis in Baghdad and elsewhere and I think it’s worth remembering that these sort of atrocities are happening every day – not just in places that *I* happen to feel familiar with.

It’s a cowardly way of fighting and stands for nothing other than anarchy and suffering. As the UK hosts the G8 summit and enters discussion revolving around ending world poverty why are others looking to deliver their argument in such an ineffective and brutal way?

Amtrak suck

I think that says all it really needs to say.

The full story goes something like this: I’m replacing my small but wonderful 14″ gaming TV for something a bit bigger and meatier. Ordered it on Tuesday, paid for delivery, told to expect it on Friday.

Normally I’d just ask for Saturday delivery but it happens I’m going to be out most of Saturday helping my wife test drive a range of cars that we’re considering as a replacement for ‘old faithful’. So, Friday it is.

I somehow manage to book a day off work. I really don’t know how I wangled this one. There’s five people in our team. Two are on holiday on Friday and one was going to be away on business. I took the day off to wait for Mr. Amtrak to deliver my TV leaving just one guy to hold the fort!..

..which turned out to be a waste of time because Amtrak never showed. At five to six I call them (they claim to deliver by six) and the driver’s back at the depot and claims he couldn’t find me and called my mobile to ask for directions. Nuh-uh. No such call took place. My day off wasn’t necessary, I’ve lost a day’s holiday, I’m without my TV and if those buggers don’t deliver it before 9am tomorrow then I’m going to be one po’d guy.

The annoying thing is that I’ve been refraining playing games all week as I’m really looking forward to checking out Xbox, Gamecube and PS2 stuff on the big, shiny screen…

..there’s always my GBA I guess.

koffdrop.com

Would you believe it? Koffdrop.com was available. So why not?

Welcome!

…and breathe

I’ll get my gaming/technology news fix any way I can. Having got a Sky+ box at the start of the year and wandering through a few channels I’ve been able to spot a couple of TV programmes that are about videogames. Whilst I don’t have any experience making factual, news or technology focused programmes I have to say that what I see is pretty sub-standard viewing.

I’m not expecting a show to compete with the up-to-the-second news delivery that the Internet can offer. Nor am I expecting it to offer the level of detail that print media does. But what I see on my screen is pretty insulting to my intelligence and have to wonder who can find it appealing.

My primary gripes are:

Watching average gamers play games is not entertaining.
I adore watching speed-runs or videos of killer King of Fighter combos and examples of supreme gaming skill. I have absolutely no desire to watch a couple of kids or minor celebs waggle their thumbs accross a digital football pitch whilst attempting to score a goal by luck.

Padding out your show by presenting a semi-skilled semi to be followed up in part 2 by a semi-skilled final of Fifa just makes the situation worse. Yes, you’ve filled 12 of your 25 minutes of broadcast time but you’ve not done anything watchable.

Post play analysis of average gamers is not entertaing either
I don’t sit around navel gazing rethinking my ‘technique’ in Tony Hawks or 60 seconds of a Dance Dance game. Neither does anyone else apart from pro-gamers. Asking 13 year old Terry how they outsmarted their rival on Streetfighter isn’t really going to result in anything worth hearing because the answer isn’t real. Ask an expert, sure. Don’t ask some kid who got lucky – and don’t tell me it’s informative or entertaining.

I know the name of the show I’m watching and I don’t suffer from attention deficit disorder.
Yes, your logo is nice. OK, so you’ve got some kid doing 3DSMax or Maya animations with it in. Good for you. But I *really* don’t need to see 10 seconds of your logo spinning around between every element of your show as wells as the ad-breaks.

I’ve not done a controlled study but I reckon there’s a good couple of minutes worth of self-indulgent logo-spinning done in these shows that’s totally needless and boring as hell.

Show some consistency with your attitude
Either you think I’m a kid who’s desperate to hear about Pokemon or you think I’m a teenager who’s desperate to hear some innuendo or footage suggesting Mario has a penis. It’s clear as hell you don’t consider any of your viewers as adults, that goes without saying.

Show more games
I don’t give a fuck about the presenters. I don’t need to see some egotistical idiot giving a 2 minute monologue about how he’s about to show you a game or how he travelled to this part of the country. Whatever you’ve got to say, you can say it in a voiceover whilst I’m viewing the game(s). Gamespot video reviews do this perfectly.

You’re not funny.
Seriously. If we want jokes we’ll ask or we’ll watch a comedy. If you GENUINELY have an insider joke that shows you truly understand our culture then maybe, MAYBE we’ll forgive you. Otherwise just don’t bother. Please.

Show more games
We love games! Show us more! If you’ve got a REALLY good scoop on some mega-exclusive then dedicate more time to it. Otherwise show us a minute or so of footage and move on. Watching games is less fun than playing them, so show us a little bit of LOTS of games.

We know what interaction is
Don’t invite us to phone in so you can give us a cheat for GTA:SA that everyone already knows. Don’t tells us to try this or that out here and now. We’re not taping your show and your delivery of information usually sucks so bad that we can’t hear you over whatever generic drum and bass crap you’ve got playing all the time. We certainly aren’t going to remember some web address or convoluted series of button-presses. We play games, we know how to interact with something. Just give us the damn games, ok?

DO show us stuff that magazines can’t.
Get into shows, have proper (not staged) interviews with industry figures. Show us areas of gaming culture (pro-gamer events, game music concerts, launches of new hardware). Don’t, for crying out loud, show us poor quality footage of Killzone with the goddamn IGN logo sitting in the corner of the screen.

Lay off the damn video effects and ‘trendy’ music
Your voice? Yes. The game’s SFX? Yes. The games’ music? Yes. Exciting drum and bass beats banging away whilst you spin a logo of your show around the screen to prove you’re hip, trendy and know what the kids want? No.

Oh, and show us more games.

A fair amount has been said about new games journalism and it’s presence in print and online. I’m still waiting for old games journalism to hit broadcast media.

Mind Melt

For some reason my head feels odd today. I think it?s due to my repaired specs. I had a minor problem with them in that one of the clear plastic nose-rests had snapped off. When I walked into the optician I didn?t actually expect them to break the glasses further. A week later, they?re back from .. wherever .. and I have fixed nose rests AND new arms. Dunno what that?s all about but they feel like they?re squeezing my head a bit too tightly. Time will tell.

Last night I watched Jack Bauer walk away into the distance after saving mankind as we know it (or the USA as the USA knows it, it?s the same thing) from evil people who are different from Americans. It looked like something right out of those old The Hulk episode with Dr. Bruce Banner trudging off with the weight of the world on his shoulders. Why do I watch this pap? We all know Jack?ll do it. We all know that he? got a hardon for the US of A that?d make Ron Jeremy blush.

All I can say in my defence is that, however preposterous 24 may be, it?s still infinitely more believable than Most Haunted.

I?ll leave you to draw your own conclusions from that.

I played through Area 51 on my PC last week. Really enjoyed it. It?s fun in the sense a B-movie that doesn?t take itself too seriously is fun. It?s production values aren?t up there with Half Life 2 (in spite of some cracking FMV and roped in ?stars? doing voice acting). The game is solid, trashy fun that delivers a nice earnest challenge. Unfortuantely, it continues Midway?s reputation of making shockingly bad narrative climaxes. Psi Ops was pretty terrible, this is fairly poor too.

Had a download of Gamespot Complete?s stab at the Gamespy client and found I couldn?t log in. I was that disgruntled with the whole thing that I couldn?t even be arsed to check out the support forums. I kinda assume that if they email me to check out their ?sneek peek? then it should be ready for checking out. Looks like I?m wrong.

Elsewhere, the TGN chat-room is alive and well. I yanked out my web-interface at pointed it at the new server. Looks like the triv-bot is still winning fans. Considering half these chatters are frothing at the gash for next gen gaming technology they?re really happy to play a simple game of online trivia. Go figure.

TGN Chatroom

My final observation of this wittering drivel is focused on the PC version of GTA: San Andreas. The game seems pretty much identical to it?s PS2 counterpart. Indentical that is, with the notable exception of having to install it and select video resolutions.

So, Rockstar haven?t made any noticeable improvements to this epic title and I can understand that. What I can?t understand is why a game that was originally played comfortably on a 2-stick, 10-button controller now has key-mappings for about 60 controls.

I have a festering rant about TV videogame programs but I?ve droned on long enough for today. Look out for it later in the week.

Ketchup

There were actually a number of things I found quite blogworthy in my trawl around the interweb yesterday. However, my pesky full-time job got in the way of it all. So, to the thousands of you that read this, here’s a summary in classic News at 10 format:

BONG!

Rail congestion charged proposed
In a ‘so absurd it could only come from British politics’ kind of way, it now appears that the success of London’s road congestion charge is to be considered for rail. Surely, rail congestion has increased (God knows how, I can’t see how they can cram more sardines into those tins) because of the road charges. Now Alistair “I don’t actually use public transport” Darling is saying the same concept will solve rail’s woes?

I suspect the plan is to alternate between hiking up road and rail charges so that poor commuters endlessly ping-pong between the lesser of the two evils.

What I’d really like to know is where all this extra money is going? I see charges always on the increase but I don’t see it being spent.

God I’m glad I don’t commute through London any more!

BONG!

Bastardtris
You know how you’ve always suspected that the ‘next piece’ display in Tetris is ALWAYS giving you the worst piece possible? Well it wasn’t. This new Linux version of Tetris on the other hand, uses complex algorithms and geeky science to make your block-falling experience as painful as possible.

Government bureaucrats worldwide have expressed an interest.

BONG!

Command line for the web
For those of you who recall typing commands to get results (Try “Format C:”) you’ll like this. It looks like Google but behaves like CMD. Typing “gim Lara Croft” does a Google Image Search for Lara Croft. Faster than clicking. Brain not included.

BONG!

Videogames-in-the-news hat-trick!
The Good: Videogame teaches kids conflict resolution
The Bad: Official – Parents ignore videogame ratings (until it’s too late)
The Ugly: Senator Denounces Game Still Under Developement

BONG!

Someone likes my words and has requested 300 on a regular basis (hey, it’s a start)

BONG!

SPOnG.com have new screenshots of Shadow of the Colussus and expanded gameplay speculation.

BONG!

That’s the headlines. Update at 11. Goodnight.

Battlefield 2

With Gamespot giving the new game a 9.3 rating and Gamespy offering a perfect score to EA’s latest offering it seems that even the EA bashers may have to keep tight-lipped about this one.

The best thing that we can say about Battlefield 2 is that even when it’s at its worst, it can still be as much fun as its illustrious predecessors. However, when you experience Battlefield 2 like it’s meant to be played, with everyone working together and using real-time voice chat, the game quickly becomes unlike anything else that you’ve played before. When it’s at its best, Battlefield 2 elevates online gaming to whole new heights. Put simply, this is a thrilling and revolutionary game that just has to be played to be believed.

Can anybody blame EA for being so keen to hold onto Digital Illusions? Is there any major publisher that would act differently?

I never played the original but I was certainly aware of it’s power to convert lunchtime CounterStrike players over. I guess I’m just not sharp enough at FPS games to make a worthy contribution to a game such as this. Heck, the last FPS I can remember truly enjoying was Quake 2 in network deathmatch mode. I liked the purity of it and don’t really think too much of all the added features that are offered in today’s efforts.

Still, the quote above (from Gamespot) certiainly compells me to check this one out. As if I need another excuse to spend more time at the PC!