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21 Apr 06
Well, it's late at night and my eyes are bleary. In case you're wondering, that's a good thing. I've been struggling to tear myself away from Sword of the Stars. It's addictive. One more turn, one more battle addictive. I can see some flaws (that hopefully will be fixed by release), but there's no denying that the game's fun. I'd explain further now, but my brain's turned to mush, and I need to get some sleep. I think we'll have a pretty good preview. Expect at least part one next week.
If you need something to keep you occupied, there's a new demo out for our game of the week. It's Rise & Fall: Civilizations at War (official site) from Stainless Steel Studios. Rise lets you lead one of four great ancient civilizations (Greece, Persia, Egypt or Rome) in a classic RTS with a twist. Each nation has two heroes that the player can control to lead their troops into battle. They're promising over 80 unique units, naval battles and special hero abilities to spice up the action. Balance your need for civilization with the military demands of protecting your empire. Look for Rise & Fall around June. Look for the demo at the Usual Suspects.
Jason
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20 Apr 06
I, like most people, have a love/hate relationship with Microsoft. One minute they can be utterly brilliant. The next they're clueless. I think everyone would like to see more of the brilliant.
I have one quick example with a solution for them. When you have Xbox Live and a 360, Microsoft encourages you to use a passport account. Part of that account includes hotmail and an MSN space. Both of those are effectively areas of hard drive space on the internet.
The Xbox 360 has limited backwards compatibility done through emulation. Most of what's available works very well. The problem is the amount of the library that works. However, if you want to play a XBox game on your 360, there's no way to transfer your saves from your Xbox to your 360. The devices both use different memory cards that aren't compatible. There are complex work arounds, but that shouldn't be necessary.
It seems simple to me that with some minor dashboard updates, Xbox Live could be used to make it simple. You could upload your save to your MSN space. Then you could share it with friends or just download it back to your 360. You could even have it tagged during the upload as a transfer to the 360 so the next time you log on with that 360, the save automatically downloads. It seems simple enough, but this is the same company who though you didn't need background downloading on your 360. You have nothing better to do while waiting for that 750 MB demo to download than to watch a progress bar, do you?
Jason
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19 Apr 06
I can feel it. You know it's not becoming. I can feel the green energy radiating from you now. Some of you don't even know you're doing it. It's ok. I've been there too. There's that game out there. It's something really different. If only you could get your hands on it and see if the reality matches your dreams. But no, some jerk on the web who doesn't even know what he's talking about gets it. A near final build no less! Today, I am that jerk.
Yes, a precious copy of Sword of the Stars resides snugly on my hard drive. First I should point out that I have not been authorized to give out copies to anyone. Don't bother asking. However, there are things you should ask. In fact, ask away about what you want to know about the game. I'm sure you recall our interview with Martin Cirulis. If you're like me, his enthusiasm sparked an intense interest in this game. He's shared a lot of information, but there's a lot more to the game. He's busy working on the game and wouldn't necessarily answer questions he'd like you to find out for yourself.
I, on the other hand, am here for you. There are a few things I'm not allowed to disclose, but everything else is fair game. So send me your burning questions. I'll test out your theories. I'll run the game through its paces and report back.
Don't worry. Even if you snub me in your anger, I'll still be working on a detailed preview. I'll report back with screenshots, details and impressions. You'll know what I think of the game.
Oh, by the way, thank you. Sure, sometimes the site becomes a grind, but knowing you guys are out there reading keeps me going. It's your support that keeps me going and gets me to the fun times like these. Thank you.
The irony right now is that I can't post this. Time-Warner is busy doing some 'upgrades' on internet access service. They're trying to do it during down times, but it always seems to be when I want to connect like right now. Oh well, I'll get it posted eventually.
Jason
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18 Apr 06
I like Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter (GRAW) on the Xbox 360. I'm just not adapting as quickly as I thought. I didn't realize the original PC game had left such an impression on me. The urban environment is fun. The enemies react in fun and interesting ways. Enemy snipers are still incredibly annoying. I do have to give the designers some credit there. Your AI teammates are very good at taking out snipers.
The game is beautiful. The sound is immersive. The speed of action feels good. The camera shake when bullets are whizzing around you or smacking into your cover is a great effect. Cover fire seems to work as it should (though coordinating it with your teammates seems a little harder than it should be). Watching your team move just looks right. It's fun to play around with the UAV to gain a little situational awareness.
It's a great game. There's just one thing that keeps bothering me. The last Ghost Recon I played was Island Thunder. I was truly bad at it most of the time, but I loved it for the constant tension. Approaching every building or window was a thrill. I was always prone scoping around looking for movement. Then I'd figure out the best approach and use the map commands to coordinate my attack.
I messed up a lot. I kept replaying missions. I kept retrying assaults. But it was always fresh because I had so many options to try. I had a big open map, lots of equipment options, lots of tactical options, lots of fun.
In GRAW, the maps are so beautiful that they're tiny. They're loaded with details, destructible objects and terrain changes, but the zones aren't that big. The first time I called up the tactical map and saw an objective on the other side, I mentally prepared for a long, hard slog. Then after rounding a couple of corners, I was there. I couldn't believe it.
It's not that there isn't a lot to do. It's just that I keep finding myself shocked at how limited my combat space is. I can't count the times my HUD has gone wonky to indicate I'm leaving the mission area. My next object is just around the building in front of me. I choose to go counter clockwise and get yelled at for leaving the mission zone. The map only lets me go clockwise. I really like the game. I just miss my wide open spaces. Er. Scratch that. Wide open spaces are killing fields. I miss my big maps. I think I understand some of the Thief fans better now.
Jason
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17 Apr 06
Happy Tax Day. Well, actually, it's Happy Patriot's Day. It's only regional, but, at least people celebrate it. Tax Day is more of a good riddance. I suppose it would be less painful if the government tried to spend money well, but it's spent by politicians and bureaucrats. Then there's the fact that no matter how much we send them, it's never enough. Ah well, render unto Caesar.
Speaking of money, did you see the latest report on in game advertising (Gamasutra link)? Over $700 Million predicted by 2010. That would be great news if A) it meant cheaper games and B) the ads didn't suck. I'm pretty much resigned on 'A' since publishers have been singing the 'higher development costs' for this generation song loud and long. I've already discussed my thoughts on that.
What about 'B'? That's the thing that gets me. If you have product placement in a film or TV show, the director gets to figure out how to do it without interfering with the vision of the scene. Yes, labels might be larger and carefully placed, but they don't jump in out of nowhere and hit you in the face. With games, the ads are shoe horned in and rarely match the design or style of the game.
It's not that hard to fix. Publisher's should decide early on if they want ads in the game. Ad selling companies should provide standard plug in tools that can provide hot spots as the levels are being designed. Lighting, prominence and visibility values will be calculated by the plug in. Those values will help determine ad rates.
Advertising text and concepts will be submitted to the publisher. The layout will be done by the developer's artists to match the fonts, style and feel of the game. There will be an approval process. The publisher can override the artists, but the developer always gets the first crack at the ad designs.
Advertising monitoring will be an opt in process only. Usually the incentive will be a slight reduction in price for the availability of monitoring data. Bonus content could also be used. For safety reasons, only adults will be able to opt in on monitoring.
Annoying advertising doesn't sell. If buyers aren't making money, they won't buy ads. Do this right and everyone wins. It looks like there over 700 million reasons to get it right.
Jason
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