NPD Day

14/11/2008 Olly 2 Comments

I know I really shouldn’t care about them. As an owner of all three consoles it doesn’t matter in the slightest which outsells which because I can buy the games wherever they end up going. Particularly so with American numbers, given that I don’t live there.

And yet… NPD day is like Christmas every month.

At about 11:30pm on the second Thursday of the month you’ll find me refreshing NeoGAF, waiting for someone to post the freshly released numbers and the fanboys to come out to play. The NPD threads are a smorgasbord of gloating, graphs, desperate spinning, meltdowns, animated GIFs, clever Lord of the Rings analogies, historical revisionism, and a terrifying glimpse into the psyche of those with an emotional investment in a brand when confronted with the oft-bitter truth of cold, hard numbers.

I consider this my soap opera. While some rush home for the more socially acceptable pleasures of Eastenders or Hollyoaks, or even the WWE for those men for whom puberty was a purely physical exercise, I like to pore over launch-to-date and year-to-date figures and to know exactly how the PS3 is tracking compared to the GameCube. Seeing just how someone will try to spin the worst numbers into a positive is infinitely more exciting than finding out who killed Liam.

I’m not a smoker or a heavy drinker, and I don’t do drugs, so this can be my vice; my secret shame. I hope I’m not the only one who doesn’t care but somehow really does.

Editorials, Games, PC games, PlayStation, Xbox

When Worlds (at War) Collide

08/11/2008 Olly Leave a comment

It wouldn’t be the first time that it’s been suggested that some people at Infinity Ward may not be too keen on other developers messing up working with their colossally successful Call of Duty franchise in the name of annual updates, Activision becoming the new EA and all that, but this is hilarious.

The Infinity Ward community manager, Robert Bowling, made a post on his blog criticising the tendency of one of the Activision producers on World at War for making unflattering comparisons between the new game and the IW games. Here are the choice quotes:

First of all, you didn’t work on “previous Call of Dutys”, so don’t talk as if you’re down with how / why things were designed the way they were. Second, you’re completely fucking wrong.

[…]

A rule of thumb I like to use is…. when promoting your game. Promote YOUR game. Don’t compare it to another game, or reference what OTHER games did in the past, pitch YOUR game. I mean, you have lots of cool things you could talk about… like Nazi Zombies….

Can you guys please stop interviewing this guy, talk to someone who actually works on the Dev Team at Treyarch and knows what the fuck they’re talking about. Not Senior Super Douche Noah Heller from Activision – who apparently has never played the game and doesn’t even work at the developer.

That is awesome.

You have to love the dig at the Nazi zombies – for those who don’t know, there is literally a mode where you must defend your position against waves of undead German soldiers (video) – because I couldn’t believe that when I saw it. In a game that’s already treading a fine line with its depiction, however accurate, of Japanese soldiers in WWII, I can’t help but feel like that mode was pushing a boundaries of taste just a bit.

This is hardly Wolfenstein with its BJ Blazkowicz and Mecha-Hitler; the Call of Duty series was originally about being a more realistic gaming depiction of World War II by having the player not be the lone, Rambo-like hero but be one of many. So much for that idea, then…

Games, Impressions, Xbox

Fable II is Amazing

04/11/2008 Olly Leave a comment

Ladies and gentlemen, we have an early frontrunner for my 2008 game of the year.

It wasn’t long ago that I wrote about the poor state of Japanese gaming, with particular mention of how the RPG genre was thriving in Western hands thanks to its splicing with more mainstream genres, and Fable II is an ideal demonstration of this. While JRPG developers are seemingly content to remake their sacred cows until FFXIII comes and shows them what to do next, Lionhead has picked the best tropes of the traditional RPG and discarded the rest, replacing it with cherry-picked elements from straight action games and thereby opening up a staid and traditionally hardcore genre to a new audience.

Fable II

Its simplicity is one way that it does this. Far from over-simplifying things, the controversial one-button combat – actually more like three buttons, to be fair – takes the battles away from both turn-based menu-digging and the mindless slashing of something like Oblivion. The closest comparison I can think of is a fighting game, thinking ahead as you input a three-hit melee combo followed by a rifle blast to the chops and a quick blast of fire to give yourself some room, all with only three different buttons. There’s no memorising button combos for certain spells provided you take the time to get used to how the spell-charging works, and it means combat never becomes a chore.

There’s now a minimal penalty for death, which is a small hit to your experience, and this coupled with the lack of levelling – although you do get more powerful as you trade experience for enhanced stats and spells – means that you’re never fighting the game to progress and it’s not a game that’s likely to sit unfinished because you got stuck.

But if the measure of an RPG is its towns, which is a theory that I definitely subscribe to, Fable II is right up there with the best. Coming off a spell in the wilderness to find a nice little hamlet to do some shopping and rest up has always been the best part, and good ones will guarantee that an RPG lives long in my memory, whatever flaws it may have – who didn’t love Skies of Arcadia despite the obnoxious random battles? The feeling is the same in Fable II, showing off just how beautiful the game looks. Continue reading Fable II is Amazing →

Editorials, Impressions, Movies & TV

Bond and the Evil Shaky Cam

02/11/2008 Olly 1 Comment

I saw Quantum of Solace last night, and as someone who wasn’t wild about Casino Royale – good but overrated – I enjoyed it a surprising amount. Craig’s Bond is still an unbelievable badass and Quantum is set up as a cool Illuminati-cum-terrorist group that could become an awesome adversary over the next couple of films.

But, as the title of this post suggests, my biggest problem was how the bane of the modern action movie has infiltrated Bond. The last two Bourne films in particular were horrible for it, and Casino Royale, despite cribbing an awful lot from that series, thankfully managed to resist it, ending up looking classy and old-school for it. Bourne is rough around the edges, but despite the new rugged look Bond is supposed to be like that; Bourne wouldn’t look right in a dinner jacket and bow tie just like Bond wouldn’t look right with the cameraman having a seizure.

Quantum of Solace, though, has a new director who apparently couldn’t resist. There’s a fight early on between Bond and someone else in a suit, and because the brief for the cinematography apparently consisted of “point the camera at them and wave it around”, I literally couldn’t tell who was hitting who for most of it. Yes, it might look ‘kinetic’ and be more down with the kids, but I like to enjoy the excellent stunt work and fight choreography more than MTV music video editing. The sooner this rubbish goes out of fashion and they remember how to use a steadicam the better.

Unsurprisingly, the only time the camera stayed still in this one was when it was showing off another Sony phone.

Still, I enjoyed it and will be seeing it again this week. I want one of those tables that MI6 has more than anything, and when you see it I’m sure you’ll be the same.

Games, Impressions, PlayStation

Some Thoughts on LittleBigPlanet

01/11/2008 Olly Leave a comment

Angry Sackboy

So I finished LittleBigPlanet yesterday. Yes, yes, finishing the story mode is only a part of it, but I think we’ve got a while to go before the community levels are even close to the standard of Media Molecule’s later stages, so I’m working on the assumption that I’ve seen the best that the game has to offer for now.

When I dabbled with the beta I complained about the floaty and imprecise controls, and in fact they did end up getting me killed more times than I’d have liked. But despite that, I still came away with a very positive impression of the story mode. The level design is often exemplary, full of secrets and with some incredibly creative use of the same tools that anyone can use. It’s been a while since I played a good old-fashioned platform game and when I was in the zone with this one it was a wonderful game. The fact that everything in the single-player was made with essentially the same tools that ship with the game shows what potential is in there, and I’ll certainly be revisiting the game down the line.

Now admittedly these are early thoughts, based on about five hours spent working on my themed level – more on that when I’ve got something presentable – but I’ve been disappointed by certain limitations of the toolset. There are clearly more functions than can comfortably fit on a controller, and as such it felt clumsy a lot of the time. Just go a few menus deep and see how often the function of the right stick changes as you move from menu to menu – if you’re modifying something and want to rotate the camera for a better look you have to quit out of the PopIt completely, then make sure you’re in hover mode, which is the one situation in which the right stick can control the camera. Continue reading Some Thoughts on LittleBigPlanet →

Editorials, Music

Proof That the Daily Mail Ruins Everything

29/10/2008 Olly Leave a comment

I’ve been mystified about how the current controversy over Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross’s comments on the radio have been blown out of all proportion. What started as an admittedly crude but funny joke that was probably always going to provoke an apology somehow escalated into an official comment from the Prime Minister, debate in Parliament, the suspension of the presenters involved, talk of police involvement, and ultimately the resignation of Russell Brand.

But it was when I read this timeline that it became apparent who was responsible: my arch-nemesis, the Daily Mail. As if we needed more proof that it ruins everything…

What struck me is that when the controversial call in question was aired there were two complaints out of 400,000 listeners, and those were over the language (exact quote: “He fucked your granddaughter!”). Being that it was late on a Saturday night and also that there’s no fixed watershed for radio anyway, those complaints wouldn’t have been upheld.

But when it was reported in the Mail five days later complaints flood in, eventually reaching 27,000 at the time of writing… eleven days after it was broadcast. Clearly those people didn’t listen to it – the most they could have done is downloaded the podcast episode by choice – so why on earth are they wasting time complaining? Could it be another pile-on when the Mail smells blood in the water after someone on the BBC does something controversial? Hmm…

Admittedly there’s the argument about the licence fee and people objecting to ‘their’ money being used on this stuff, but I object to my money being used for assorted BBC shows, for different reasons, to be fair, including Strictly Come Dancing, Last Choir Standing, just about any other talent/singing/music show, Songs of Praise, and more. You know what I do? I don’t watch them and I certainly don’t lodge complaints having not seen them. Crazy, I know.

I heard the prank call in question on the podcast last week and thought it was funny, if possibly a bit tasteless, but you hardly listen to Russell Brand for insightful political discourse, do you? With any luck he’ll find a slot online or on satellite radio where the technological barrier keeps out the busybodies.