Just when I think there is still nothing to blog about, rejoice in the magic that is XBLA, as we now have another top-down racing game in the pipeline - Bang Bang Racing, due to hit XBLA and PSN fairly soon.
I'm a complete sucker for a top down racing game, and while there have been a few interesting ones knocking around in production this in particular looks like it could be something quite special.
Maybe its just my age, but I'm more excited by this than any of the recent full price releases in recent years.
Talking of being old, I enjoyed a screening of Robocop on TV last night. Its a great movie for so many reasons... the characters, the storyline, the 80's coolness, the social and political satire - but it made me wonder why they messed up so much with a recent remake of a Robocop game on the original Xbox? The licence deserves so much more... but we at least do have the memories of the Spectrum version of the game, with its music which can only be described as FUCKING AMAZING. And for those who didn't know it first time round... here it is. Amazingly ahead of it time.
Wednesday, 30 November 2011
Friday, 28 October 2011
Faults, give-aways & memory
It had to happen at some point, it seems.
My bashed up old Xbox 360 Core unit that I bought on the cheap pre-owned (stupidly) the day before the new Xbox 360 Slim was released in the UK has given up the ghost and suffered the same RROD fate as most the others in existence. Wonder whether it is the last one left to do it in the world????
That makes it 3 units knackered - my original 20GB unit that got replaced under warranty, the replacement which I unsuccessfully tried to do the X-Clamp fix on, and now this Core unit replacement. That is approx £300-400 worth of consoles just breaking one after another after a matter of months through no other reason that being played (and not even that much!)
Yet the sad thing is that this is entirely normal. Microsoft has obviously fixed things somewhat with the newer chipsets and internal set-ups on the later Arcade/Elite & Slim versions, but I can't help thinking that (if I still had it), my good old 1991 Sega Megadrive would work 100% of the time if I flicked it on now regardless of how I positioned it under my TV or how much I played on it. Its a similar situation to today's mobile phones. I have the charge the battery of my HTC Wildfire S every single night - whereas my old Samsung G600 easily lasted a week between charges - why is the battery so insufficient? How is it that newer technology is far less reliable??
Fortunately, my lovely lady wife is getting a new mobile phone contract which conveniently had the option of having an Xbox 360 Slim 4GB + Kinect thrown in for free. Talk about good timing. ;) I'm sure I'll get away with just buying her some wool or a crayon or something as a thankyou... if only.
The fact that the console (plus Kinect even though we have one already) is essentially free shows how the world has changed since the early and mid 90's when I was getting into gaming. Those were the days where the thought of a games console being given away for free so flippantly was frankly unheard of.
I remember the Japanese Sega Megadrive (there wasn't really a particularly great reason for getting a Japanese one in all honesty) my elder brother and I got for Christmas back in 1990 (along with Golden Axe & Whiprush!) must have been an epic purchase for my parents to make. Likewise, the Sega Saturn that we got later in 1995 launched with a retail price of £399 without any kind of bundled freebies. Of course, mobile phones & incentives for taking out contracts simply weren't around back then, but there is no way that a games console would be 'given away' with any equivalent thing.
With this conveniently-timed free upgrade from an old broken Core unit to a brand spanking new 4GB Slim comes an frustratingly awkward decision on how on earth I can transfer the contents of a full 20GB hard-drive onto a 4GB Slim memory. It shouldn't be anywhere near as complicated as it appears to be if external storage wasn't so strictly managed by Microsoft. Why should I be in the position of - having bought a load of games off XBLA and having all the games, saves, profiles, music stuck on one now unusable hard drive - now needing to possibly shell out money for a shitty official transfer cable just because Microsoft doesn't feel comfortable or reasonable enough to let gamers use any kind of modern-day external storage devices that they use in every other data transfer application in the world??? Yes, there was always the option of forking out another £200 on a 250GB Slim version, but why the bollocks should I buy the same console for a third time??? Surely in any other market I'd be already classed as a golden customer, thanked for my loyalty to Microsoft and given a free god damn unit as an apology for the shitty customer service me, like millions of others, have had to endure?
Again, it brings me back to wonder why the glory days of the trusty Sega Megadrive - with it's big, indestructible instantly-loading cartridges with in-built memory - have not been improved on in terms of reliability. Maybe I should just sack it all off and get a Megadrive instead? I probably would if it wasn't for me being a tight git and needing to pay for it!
My bashed up old Xbox 360 Core unit that I bought on the cheap pre-owned (stupidly) the day before the new Xbox 360 Slim was released in the UK has given up the ghost and suffered the same RROD fate as most the others in existence. Wonder whether it is the last one left to do it in the world????
That makes it 3 units knackered - my original 20GB unit that got replaced under warranty, the replacement which I unsuccessfully tried to do the X-Clamp fix on, and now this Core unit replacement. That is approx £300-400 worth of consoles just breaking one after another after a matter of months through no other reason that being played (and not even that much!)
Yet the sad thing is that this is entirely normal. Microsoft has obviously fixed things somewhat with the newer chipsets and internal set-ups on the later Arcade/Elite & Slim versions, but I can't help thinking that (if I still had it), my good old 1991 Sega Megadrive would work 100% of the time if I flicked it on now regardless of how I positioned it under my TV or how much I played on it. Its a similar situation to today's mobile phones. I have the charge the battery of my HTC Wildfire S every single night - whereas my old Samsung G600 easily lasted a week between charges - why is the battery so insufficient? How is it that newer technology is far less reliable??
Fortunately, my lovely lady wife is getting a new mobile phone contract which conveniently had the option of having an Xbox 360 Slim 4GB + Kinect thrown in for free. Talk about good timing. ;) I'm sure I'll get away with just buying her some wool or a crayon or something as a thankyou... if only.
The fact that the console (plus Kinect even though we have one already) is essentially free shows how the world has changed since the early and mid 90's when I was getting into gaming. Those were the days where the thought of a games console being given away for free so flippantly was frankly unheard of.
I remember the Japanese Sega Megadrive (there wasn't really a particularly great reason for getting a Japanese one in all honesty) my elder brother and I got for Christmas back in 1990 (along with Golden Axe & Whiprush!) must have been an epic purchase for my parents to make. Likewise, the Sega Saturn that we got later in 1995 launched with a retail price of £399 without any kind of bundled freebies. Of course, mobile phones & incentives for taking out contracts simply weren't around back then, but there is no way that a games console would be 'given away' with any equivalent thing.
With this conveniently-timed free upgrade from an old broken Core unit to a brand spanking new 4GB Slim comes an frustratingly awkward decision on how on earth I can transfer the contents of a full 20GB hard-drive onto a 4GB Slim memory. It shouldn't be anywhere near as complicated as it appears to be if external storage wasn't so strictly managed by Microsoft. Why should I be in the position of - having bought a load of games off XBLA and having all the games, saves, profiles, music stuck on one now unusable hard drive - now needing to possibly shell out money for a shitty official transfer cable just because Microsoft doesn't feel comfortable or reasonable enough to let gamers use any kind of modern-day external storage devices that they use in every other data transfer application in the world??? Yes, there was always the option of forking out another £200 on a 250GB Slim version, but why the bollocks should I buy the same console for a third time??? Surely in any other market I'd be already classed as a golden customer, thanked for my loyalty to Microsoft and given a free god damn unit as an apology for the shitty customer service me, like millions of others, have had to endure?
Again, it brings me back to wonder why the glory days of the trusty Sega Megadrive - with it's big, indestructible instantly-loading cartridges with in-built memory - have not been improved on in terms of reliability. Maybe I should just sack it all off and get a Megadrive instead? I probably would if it wasn't for me being a tight git and needing to pay for it!
Thursday, 13 October 2011
To be this good takes Sega ages
Like a huge mother hen, Sega has been sat on its lovely eggs, keeping them warm until they're ready to hatch.
Following up the recent neat Renegade Ops release, they have now unleashed the beasts of Treasure's Guardian Heroes AND Daytona USA!!!! - two genuine gaming classics - onto our laps. Its quite overwhelming, and does this signal the start of a real change in attitude from the company? Have they realised XBLA and PSN are too good an opportunity to miss???
We've all known that they have spammed the Sonic brand to the point of breakage over the last few years, and after the insipid release of the Dreamcast Collection I thought there was no way back for them. But after downloading and really enjoying the joys are Guardian Heroes last night, which has been updated and revitalised with loving care for a change, there is real hope for bringing the Sega love back into the world.
Its clear that they have suddenly started to listen to what their fans actually want. Daytona USA will be a conversion of the arcade game, not the inferior Dreamcast version. It means a fair bit more time and effort from them, but its going to make a lot of gamers very happy.
The mind now boggles as to what other old arcade games or Saturn releases they may already be working on.... Panzer Dragoon series? Dragon Force? Scud Race? Burning Rangers?
Maybe if we all ask nicely it will happen...
We've all known that they have spammed the Sonic brand to the point of breakage over the last few years, and after the insipid release of the Dreamcast Collection I thought there was no way back for them. But after downloading and really enjoying the joys are Guardian Heroes last night, which has been updated and revitalised with loving care for a change, there is real hope for bringing the Sega love back into the world.
Its clear that they have suddenly started to listen to what their fans actually want. Daytona USA will be a conversion of the arcade game, not the inferior Dreamcast version. It means a fair bit more time and effort from them, but its going to make a lot of gamers very happy.
The mind now boggles as to what other old arcade games or Saturn releases they may already be working on.... Panzer Dragoon series? Dragon Force? Scud Race? Burning Rangers?
Maybe if we all ask nicely it will happen...
Wednesday, 7 September 2011
More-tal Demo Generosity
Wow - long time no blog. And just look at how naff that title is! I've clearly gone a bit wierd.
But, just like Eminem, now I'm back with a brand new rap. Or more accurately, a brand new post.
I was pleasantly surprised to see the new demo for Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection up on XBLA last night. Never one to miss an opportunity to re-live my childhood, a few minutes later the demo is downloaded and I'm off playing.
In a previous post I have raised my concerns over the generosity of some Indie developers in how much they show on a demo. While this Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection is a standard XBLA release, it seems the developers have forgotten about why a lot of people played & enjoyed Mortal Kombat - the fatalities.
The demo gives the player just 1 match-up on all of the 3 Mortal Kombat games (1, 2 and Ultimate 3), but all characters are available from the off. Therefore, with the relatively quick restart of fights it is completely possible to spend a fair bit of time just running through each of the characters on each of the games messing about doing the special moves and fatalities, babalities, animalities or whateveralities to your heart's content.
For me, thats plenty entertainment for a game that was only ever going to be a quick blast. No need to buy!
However, given I've got over 900 MSP burning a virtual hole in my virtual Xbox points wallet, I might actually invest a chunk in this decent value collection. Even if it is just to perv on the woefully pixelated Sonya, Mileena and Kitana and their lovely lycra outfits... which is unfortunately not quite as hi-res as this. Oh well.
But, just like Eminem, now I'm back with a brand new rap. Or more accurately, a brand new post.
I was pleasantly surprised to see the new demo for Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection up on XBLA last night. Never one to miss an opportunity to re-live my childhood, a few minutes later the demo is downloaded and I'm off playing.
In a previous post I have raised my concerns over the generosity of some Indie developers in how much they show on a demo. While this Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection is a standard XBLA release, it seems the developers have forgotten about why a lot of people played & enjoyed Mortal Kombat - the fatalities.
The demo gives the player just 1 match-up on all of the 3 Mortal Kombat games (1, 2 and Ultimate 3), but all characters are available from the off. Therefore, with the relatively quick restart of fights it is completely possible to spend a fair bit of time just running through each of the characters on each of the games messing about doing the special moves and fatalities, babalities, animalities or whateveralities to your heart's content.
For me, thats plenty entertainment for a game that was only ever going to be a quick blast. No need to buy!
However, given I've got over 900 MSP burning a virtual hole in my virtual Xbox points wallet, I might actually invest a chunk in this decent value collection. Even if it is just to perv on the woefully pixelated Sonya, Mileena and Kitana and their lovely lycra outfits... which is unfortunately not quite as hi-res as this. Oh well.
Saturday, 9 July 2011
Game snobbery
The great thing about the videogame indistry is that is all about opinions, but regardless of that I can usually understand why some people like a particular game, even if I don't myself.
But what really gets on my tits is 'game snobbery'. That is an entirely made-up phrase but speaks for itself. And with the launch of Earth Defence Force: Insect Armageddon on the Xbox 360 this week, game snobbery is well and truly back on the map for certain reviewers.
I must first point out that, in fairness, this release has received generally strong review scores from the world's media. I have yet to read any review as short-sighted as the ones that gave the prequel, EDF 2017, a 3/10 simply because of a dodgy physics engine.
With EDF 2017 being very much a cult hit, a lot of the hardcore followers were merely begging with fingers crossed that the new developers wouldn't mess up what made the original so good. But importantly, the reasons why the original was so good were actually very much linked with its limitations.
Not make sense? Let me explain.... one of the best aspects of the original was the complete mayhem and destruction possible. Lets make no mistake, it is mayhem & destruction beyond any other game out there. But of course with that comes some kind of sacrifice - in this case less than ground-breaking visuals, at least on a technical level. If mayhem and destruction is what the essence of the game is all about, why should this sacrifice matter one bit??
Its a bit like saying the fastest Formula 1 car doesn't have a nice roof to keep the rain out, or enough room in the boot for your weekly shopping. Of course it would be lovely having all these things too, but if it makes it perform worse then isn't it missing the point?
And it is just this that certain reviewers have already started to forget for the new release. "Insect Armageddon’s third-person killing spree doesn’t offer much in the way of cutting-edge graphics or varied mission structure, but its single-minded arcade simplicity is also its greatest strength." (Official Xbox Magazine, US, marked 6.5/10) Does this game NEED to have cutting edge graphics? And what does the phrase 'graphics' encompass anyway? Does loads of enemies on screen & huge scale not count? Look at this screenshot - is it really just me that thinks this looks beautiful?
At least I'm not the only one with this opinion... I stumbled upon this comment on a forum that seems to have been bang on with my thoughts....
"You know, this is a much better game than 6.5/10.0 or even 77/100. It seems like it's being penalized for exactly the smart decisions of what to leave out that make it so much fun, so easy to just hop in and play, or play just a single mission (or two... or three... or... what time is it?).
Rant over - lock & load.
But what really gets on my tits is 'game snobbery'. That is an entirely made-up phrase but speaks for itself. And with the launch of Earth Defence Force: Insect Armageddon on the Xbox 360 this week, game snobbery is well and truly back on the map for certain reviewers.
I must first point out that, in fairness, this release has received generally strong review scores from the world's media. I have yet to read any review as short-sighted as the ones that gave the prequel, EDF 2017, a 3/10 simply because of a dodgy physics engine.
With EDF 2017 being very much a cult hit, a lot of the hardcore followers were merely begging with fingers crossed that the new developers wouldn't mess up what made the original so good. But importantly, the reasons why the original was so good were actually very much linked with its limitations.
Not make sense? Let me explain.... one of the best aspects of the original was the complete mayhem and destruction possible. Lets make no mistake, it is mayhem & destruction beyond any other game out there. But of course with that comes some kind of sacrifice - in this case less than ground-breaking visuals, at least on a technical level. If mayhem and destruction is what the essence of the game is all about, why should this sacrifice matter one bit??
Its a bit like saying the fastest Formula 1 car doesn't have a nice roof to keep the rain out, or enough room in the boot for your weekly shopping. Of course it would be lovely having all these things too, but if it makes it perform worse then isn't it missing the point?
And it is just this that certain reviewers have already started to forget for the new release. "Insect Armageddon’s third-person killing spree doesn’t offer much in the way of cutting-edge graphics or varied mission structure, but its single-minded arcade simplicity is also its greatest strength." (Official Xbox Magazine, US, marked 6.5/10) Does this game NEED to have cutting edge graphics? And what does the phrase 'graphics' encompass anyway? Does loads of enemies on screen & huge scale not count? Look at this screenshot - is it really just me that thinks this looks beautiful?
At least I'm not the only one with this opinion... I stumbled upon this comment on a forum that seems to have been bang on with my thoughts....
"You know, this is a much better game than 6.5/10.0 or even 77/100. It seems like it's being penalized for exactly the smart decisions of what to leave out that make it so much fun, so easy to just hop in and play, or play just a single mission (or two... or three... or... what time is it?).
Rant over - lock & load.
Thursday, 9 June 2011
Multiple choice
People say life is about the choices we make. Albus Dumbledore, from those Harry Potter books, said; “It is not our abilities that show what we truly are. It is our choices.” While Dumbledore probably never intended this quote to be used in relation to video games, it rings true all the same.
Before the days when every child plays videogames the board game ruled. One particular favourite was 'Game of Life', where you had a few opportunities to go one way round a section of the board or another. One part you had the option to go over a hill, or maybe just go alongside it... just me that finds it oddly fascinating?
I even get a buzz from driving up the M6 where it and the M6 Toll merge northbound - you have the option of going up a hill if you are in the right hand lane or going alonside and joining a little further up the road if you stay in the left and centre lanes - yet it all meets up together merely half a kilometre up the road.
I'm not talking about gaming decsions such as seen in the likes of Fable and Mass Effect here - of course those such games are all about choices and how each one effects the character and story - but I'm more interested in the more simple & straightforward multiple routes that a player can take in many games, those that end up at the same location regardless of which way you go. Importantly, these different paths also have to be physically taken - simply choosing which way to go by selecting it from a menu (as seen in Guardian Heroes, Probotector/Contra Hard Corps for example) isn't good enough.
A classic example is on Outrun. If the route through the game completely changed based on the first decision of left or right, then it wouldn't be half as fun. It is the way you can always 'meet up' again later down the line that I find strangely appealing. Likewise, the player has to actually physically manouvre their car either down the left or the right lane to take them to the next level - there is no 'break' to the action. Golden Axe 3 is another good example - there were occasional opportunties to take a different path through the level & game where the player had to jump down into different playing field to carry on a different path.
One of the most comprehensive multiple path games is San Francisco Rush 2049, which I mainly played on the dear old Sega Dreamcast. I absolutely loved this game, and while it could be argued that this was practically a free roaming driving game based around a 'map', the core racetrack is well defined, so I found having so many multiple paths was mind-blowing. Hydro Thunder shared many of these qualities too. Well done Midway...
And finally, not to be forgotten, the alternative route shouldn't ever really be simply a 'short-cut'. Sure, there is always an element of risk & reward, but some of best alternative routes actually have no benefit to going on them whatsoever - in fact the best are just there for the sake of it and may actually take more effort and have less benefit (Super Off Road, I'm thinking of you...)
So here is to the alternative path - in my eyes arcade gaming's most underrated thing of genius.
Before the days when every child plays videogames the board game ruled. One particular favourite was 'Game of Life', where you had a few opportunities to go one way round a section of the board or another. One part you had the option to go over a hill, or maybe just go alongside it... just me that finds it oddly fascinating?
I even get a buzz from driving up the M6 where it and the M6 Toll merge northbound - you have the option of going up a hill if you are in the right hand lane or going alonside and joining a little further up the road if you stay in the left and centre lanes - yet it all meets up together merely half a kilometre up the road.
I'm not talking about gaming decsions such as seen in the likes of Fable and Mass Effect here - of course those such games are all about choices and how each one effects the character and story - but I'm more interested in the more simple & straightforward multiple routes that a player can take in many games, those that end up at the same location regardless of which way you go. Importantly, these different paths also have to be physically taken - simply choosing which way to go by selecting it from a menu (as seen in Guardian Heroes, Probotector/Contra Hard Corps for example) isn't good enough.
A classic example is on Outrun. If the route through the game completely changed based on the first decision of left or right, then it wouldn't be half as fun. It is the way you can always 'meet up' again later down the line that I find strangely appealing. Likewise, the player has to actually physically manouvre their car either down the left or the right lane to take them to the next level - there is no 'break' to the action. Golden Axe 3 is another good example - there were occasional opportunties to take a different path through the level & game where the player had to jump down into different playing field to carry on a different path.
One of the most comprehensive multiple path games is San Francisco Rush 2049, which I mainly played on the dear old Sega Dreamcast. I absolutely loved this game, and while it could be argued that this was practically a free roaming driving game based around a 'map', the core racetrack is well defined, so I found having so many multiple paths was mind-blowing. Hydro Thunder shared many of these qualities too. Well done Midway...
And finally, not to be forgotten, the alternative route shouldn't ever really be simply a 'short-cut'. Sure, there is always an element of risk & reward, but some of best alternative routes actually have no benefit to going on them whatsoever - in fact the best are just there for the sake of it and may actually take more effort and have less benefit (Super Off Road, I'm thinking of you...)
So here is to the alternative path - in my eyes arcade gaming's most underrated thing of genius.
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Yes, the plot is pretty non-existent, and it lacks big beefy sidekicks who embody some ethnic stereotype but still break down and cry when their deep deep personal tragedies overwhelm their deep deep beefy manliness. And those are both plusses, but it's still getting dinged for subtracting unnecessary things. It's exactly what you want from a $40 game. Perhaps this artful minimalism would have been more palatable as a download game?"