What's wrong with the games industry today?

This is what's wrong with the games industry today.

Why bother talking about the actual content of a game or demo, when you can nit-pick minutiae of frame rate, resolution, and pixels that no player will ever notice in practice?

That way, you can encourage both pointless system fanboyism that never gets anybody anywhere, and a worthless race for slight graphical superiority that also never gets anybody anywhere.

And while everybody's worrying about this shit, and spending hundreds of thousands of pounds on wages so that their game will be imperceptibly better looking, we can all just hope that enough staff are left over to make sure everything else that's meant to be in the game makes it.

I'm a self-confessed graphics whore, but really this has got to stop.

Oh, and go out and buy Batman: Arkham Asylum when it comes out at the end of the month. If the demo is anything to go by, it is a really good game. With some nice graphics.

They said "Captain", I said "What?"

Just a quick update to recommend an interesting article. Eurogamer has posted a postmortem by Jon Hare (ex-Sensible Software boss) on Sex 'n' Drugs 'n' Rock 'n' Roll.

It's a good read, mainly because you don't often get this kind of article on totally dead titles, and the postmortems I have read tend to be a little too much on the "there were a few minor issues, but it was generally all rosey and we pulled it off because are great" side for my liking.

Since I can't think of a developer I know who doesn't have at least one canned title in their past, there really should be more of this sort of thing, though I can understand that currently operating studios might not want to draw attention to their failures.

Fallout over Battlefront

Bah, why is it so cold and grey and miserable in the UK, when it is so warm and sunny and happy in other bits of the world?


Just before I went on holiday I completed Fallout 3, I just didn't have time to scrawl down some of my thoughts about it. Be aware that the next three paragraphs have some fairly major spoilers, if you've not got that far yourself...

I felt that the story had and ending that was pretty much a cop out, which tried hard to be dramatic and meaningful but didn't really turn out that way. The build up in the Citadel was good, and watching the robot being activated felt like something big was happening. The problem with the next section was that, although following the robot as it effortlessly carved its way towards the water purifier was cool, it gave me nothing to do but tag along. I had spent the game amassing a collection of decent guns, including fully repairing a nuclear missile launcher, but the robot had it all covered, leaving me to use my arsenal only when I got inside, and had to take on a handful of grunts, of the type I had obliterated many times before. It felt kind of pointless.

I also think the game let itself down once I reached the final dialogue section, and had to make "the choice". Stood there, I had a companion with me who could survive major levels of radiation radiation (in fact, this had been a major point in a quest earlier), but who suddenly got all philosophical about destinies - to the point that they were willing to force one of two people to die. Given that the companion had gone to great lengths to help me, and also prove how human they still were inside, this didn't fit right at all. And also made them come across as a completely petty arsehole.

Anyway, my character didn't die in the end. Which sort of highlights another problem with forcing life or death choices on a player in big sandbox story games - trying to force the player to interact with one specific character for enough play time proportionally so that the character feels important enough to save. My choice was either I die (me, who I had spent 80 hours in the company of at this point), or some woman who I had barely ever spoken to (I had maybe scraped an hour's interaction with her, since I found her to be a bit aloof) died. Which is no choice at all in the dog-eat-dog world of Fallout. I would have had more internal conflict if I'd been forced to pick between myself and the chirpy supply woman from Megaton (though I guess depending on your choices she could have been immune to radiation too). So it was quite nnoying that I couldn't keep playing. I guess they would have needed too much extra dialogue - pretty much everyone in the game world would have been affected by the change brought about by the end of the story. Though I seem to remember reading somewhere that one of the downloadable content packs will change the end of game story, to allow players to continue.

End of major story spoilers, if you've bothered to scan over them.

Overall, my favourite bits of Fallout were the non-story scenarios I stumbled on. For example, finding a village with three houses. The first two had very chipper families living there. Their chirpiness was suspicious, as was the nagging feeling that in a world of mutants, raiders and other beasties, these wholesome guys shouldn't have survived so long. An old man resided in the third house, who warned me to get out of town as fast as I could, and to look in the shed behind one of the other houses if I wanted more information. It turns out the town is populated by inbred cannibals who kill and eat everyone who ever visits. I managed to talk them out of killing me by pretending to have the same tastes as they did, but accidentally let slip that the old man had warned me. The families say they're going to have to stop him from meddling, and then start to walk towards his house. I spring into action and at point blank range pump shotgun shells into the backs of their heads. It seemed like the right thing to do to save the old man.

Though thinking back, I've now left two children and a defenseless old man living out there in the wilderness, so they're probably pretty fucked anyway.


The situation at Free Radical has led to some footage being leaked of their version of Star Wars Battlefront 3 (which has now been moved by Lucasarts to Rebellion, who did the PSP versions of the previous Battlefront titles). I'm not going to link to the footage here for fear of upsetting someone, but a Google search should probably do you right, it seems to have been posted in a few places now.

I found it interesting, not because it showed anything spectacular, but because it looked exactly how I would expect a next-gen (current gen? I get so confused) version of the Battlefront games to look. Which makes me wonder how it has taken so long to develop? Now, I have no idea how long FRD were working on it, maybe Lucasarts dragged their heels in commissioning the game, but this would seem strange to me too. The previous Battlefront games were hugely popular titles on Live (looking at the most recent figures posted by Major Nelson, it's the second most played original Xbox title, even now), so I would have expected the third version to be green lit pretty much as soon as 360 and PS3 kits were available, to give a couple of years development, and have the sure-fire hit title on shelves just as the consoles are maturing a little.

But apparently not. Anyway, if a decent Battlefront game gets released at some point, I'll buy it. I did love the first two on my Xbox.

It's not a time for kids really, Christmas

I do like Christmas. Lots of lovely holiday to catch up on games, punctuated at regular intervals by stuffing myself silly with food and booze, and meeting up with family. And the weather's so bloody cold nobody thinks bad of you for staying inside all day. I've had a couple of weeks off so far, mostly dominated by Fallout 3 which I'm enjoying more now than when I started (due to the incredibly amateur way I have ordered things for publishing I think the post about that won't have gone up yet. I am great at this, me), but still feels oddly hollow, like I'm just ticking off quests so that I can say that I've done them. Still, do them I will. And every now and then something happens that I enjoy a lot, such as killing everyone in the Republic of Dave for not letting me vote.

I have also managed to get a few hours on co-op Gears of War 2. I really enjoyed playing through the first one's story campaign because I did the whole thing with a friend. So far (just on the second main level at the moment) it's good, though doesn't feel as focussed to me - each encounter feels engineered to provide a different combat experience, or introduce a new weapon or element. Which is an odd complaint, I know - they would have been mauled by critics if they'd just left it as 5 levels of the same run and gun action as the first. But nevertheless it feels slightly "bitty".

While visiting family my Lego mad nephew found out that his uncle worked on a game based around Bionicle. At the time I hated the stuff, but looking at the sets he's been given by Santa, it seems that they've started to make some real effort with them. Anyway, the bits and pieces of information I could remember from five years ago paid off, and I was able to wow him with my knowledge of Toa names and elements. Then I got told there is a Bionicle game on the Lego website which is much better than the one I worked on, which might have been an innocent but cutting remark, if I didn't view our game as the worst thing I've ever done. So I just laughed along and later added another five seconds to my internal "how long have I spent feeling bitter about those six months" timer. Seven hours so far. You could play Bionicle from start to finish seven times in that!

Just before Christmas Free Radical Design went into administration, which must be a blow to their hard working staff. There are interesting stories coming out now, though, which often happens in these situations - people who kept quiet before for fear of losing their jobs are telling all now that they have nothing left. I'm sure the good guys will have no trouble finding new employment.

Right, I'm off to hunt through online sales and see if there are any bargains. I was expecting Left 4 Dead to be cheap by now, so I could add it to my pile of as-yet-unplayed stuff. But it doesn't look like it.

PS - Game of the year (since every website and blog is contractually obliged to provide such a thing) was Fable 2. Everything I was expecting it to be and more.

PPS - The banner image is from Kristmas Kombat, which is about the true meaning of the holiday season. No idea if it's any good, I just liked the picture.

Digital Pimp, Hard at Work

If anyone who reads this is in need of a professional writer, I would recommend James Parker. I've worked with this guy in the past, and his writing is top notch.

He also has a blog about writing in games, here, which is interesting reading. It's good to find something to read about the writing in games that isn't just trying to push the "we should be art" or "we should be films" angles constantly.

What's in a name?

I was recently linked to the Indie Gamer forums. It's an interesting place where a bunch of independent developers chat about stuff.

Briefly looking over their feedback forum I was struck by the importance of having a good name for your indie project. It's all very well for the "big guys", if they release a game called Kingdom Under Fire: Circle of Doom they have enough money to advertise it enough that it stands out a little. But if you're an indie publishing a game (especially on the PC where there are a staggering number of titles available) you really need to make sure the title grabs attention or sticks in a potential customer's head.

Some game names from that forum are: ZoX Universe. Mech Builder. Core Fighter. Magic Farm. Azgard Defense. Runes of Avalon. Empire of the Gods. Covert Warfare. Destiny Architect. Battle Forces Online.

You could easily combine any of those with a colon, and it'd be no better or worse. ZoX Universe: Destiny Architect. Runes of Avalon: Battle Forces Online.

I've started to come to the conclusion that if you have a good game you need a name that's either: incredibly short and snappy (but still manages to describe some aspect of the game) like Fez; or something long and strange sounding (but without a mass of x's, y's, or z's) along the lines of Professor Layton and the Curious Village.

Anything else and people like me will look at the name and never even bother trying to find out more about your hard work.

PS3 Buywatch

My current PlayStation 3 bundle purchase requirements:

• Some form of backwards compatibility, for the girlfriends Singstars at least (look, they are hers, and you certainly will never caught me singing Barbie Girl). I thought I remembered reading that the new Singstar was going to have this, but apparently it doesn't. Status: No.
• Any two of: Ratchet & Clank, Uncharted, and Singstar (look, it's for my girlfriend), bundled with it. I've had a look around, but I can't find a suitable bundle of games anywhere. Status: No.
• Two DualShock 3 pads, since I don't want spare shitty pads lying around the place, and I certainly wouldn't want to be saddled with any when I know the DS3 is just around the corner in Europe. Status: No.
• Under £300 for the lot. Status: Yes.

Put that into a big whirry machine, and you get the answer that ..... this weekend I am 25% likely to buy a PS3.

Come on Mr Sony. Just tick the other three boxes (or possibly just two of them, but especially the first one. I can't stress how important that is to the acceptance of this purchase in our house), and you'll have yourself an extra £300 in your back pocket for getting a few beers in on Saturday night.

Message for box artists

Yellow sports cars driving away from an explosion at a slight tilt, with the game's title angled up to the right above, look cool! But then, I guess you already know that...


Also, if your game's cover looks the same as your competitors, it's not really going to jump off the shelves.

In the middle of our street

Majesco have announced a game called "Our House" - probably some sort of "just like the house-building bit of the Sims" thing for the Wii.

I found the press release disappointing, mainly because when I heard the news I was expecting something with a Madness license - surely a hot IP for video games. Just think of the possibilities: Our House (a Sims clone), Driving in my Car (a racing game obviously), Shut Up (a small-time crime thing set in London), Uncle Sam (the inevitable WWII FPS in the range), Baggy Trousers (a Bully rip-off), and .. er .. probably others.

Someone get me Suggs' agent!

"More than 4000 still pictures"

Sony have announced a new 16GB memory stick for the PSP - "Users can store up to 110 minutes of high-definition video recorded in 1920 mode, almost 6 hours of HD video when shooting in 1440 LP mode, and more than 4000 still pictures in 10 Megapixel resolution."

What people are really going to use it for is their massive collection of pirated PSP games. Which will further shaft software sales on the platform, and end up turning more devs away from it. Great move.

I wonder how many PSP games have ever broken even.

Xbox Dead more like, am i rite?

Having a unified online system like Live, as opposed to having every game do their own thing, is a great idea. When it works. Unfortunately Live is undergoing some troubles at the moment (apparently due to an influx of new users, which suggests that either a staggering number of Xboxes were sold this holiday, or that the system was perilously close to falling over anyway).

I say at the moment, because despite Mircosoft's assurances that it's all back to normal now that Christmas is over, as of today it's still a very hit and miss experience.

What I find baffling is the way the systems are spread out. For example, I can log in to Xbox Live, but the bit of Live that tells my friends I'm online might not work. I can log on to Live Messenger from the computer, but my Xbox is stumped by it. Marketplace is a no-go zone - most of the time it's telling me that I'm not connected at all. Apparently XNA is also flaky, insisting that some users aren't online (despite them being able to see their friends' activity).

Most annoyingly, the bit of Live that tells games that there are title updates available is working, booting me off Live until I've updated them. But the bit of Live that actually holds and installs the upgrades is screwed, so I'm unable to play any of those games. In the case of Xbox Original titles this means that I'm completely unable to play the game, even offline (the message tells me that apparently the game won't work on my Xbox, despite it being fine a couple of days ago).

Microsoft has promised all users a free Arcade title to make up for the trouble - though usually this means a particular title is made free, rather than just giving all users 800 free points, so bad luck if you've already bought the game they're offering, and let's all just hope that it isn't a stinker.

This afternoon I would have settled for just being able to play games that I have already bought, on the online network I have already paid a subscription for.

(And before anyone chimes up with "it's just your connection is flaky" - the network test on the Xbox runs fine, and confirms that I am connected to Live. Or what's left of it.)

Representin'

I had a play of the demo for Frontlines: Fuel of War recently. I thought it was quite good - a nice take on the Battlefield "capture point" mechanic, but in single player. In particular I liked the demo level, and the way it allowed you to go off the beaten track, and rewarded you for finding good routes to flank the enemy positions. The tank bit was rubbish, but it was also over much more quickly than the good bit.

So overall I would be looking forward to the full game. I say "would be", because I noticed a disclaimer on the title screen with words to the effect of "this demo is not representative of the finished product".

I'm not sure what to take away from that since the demo seemed quite finished, I wouldn't expect to see the finished game being a formula 1 racing sim, for example.

It seems like someone at THQ has no faith at all in the demo - they're second guessing that you won't like it, but are trying to persuade you to buy the game (despite knowing that you probably wouldn't like that either).

Or possibly they mean that the full game isn't one third rubbish tank bit.

Nice bit of recruiting

Call of Duty 4's multiplayer message of the day from today. Made me chuckle - Infinity Ward is a very cool developer.

Imagine all the babies

I can't tell if it's me who really doesn't understand, or Ubisoft. To me, this range of games is borderline insulting. But then maybe young girls don't care that they have stereotypical 'girl' interests, and which game publisher wouldn't happily shit out "Imagine Washing Up and Doing My Laundry, and Get Me a Beer While You're in the Kitchen?" if they thought they'd make money out of it?

The advertising blurb says that they are

A range of games specifically created to match the interests and ambitions of today's young girls. Aspirational.

Is "having babies" really something to aspire to? When asked in school what they want to be when they grow up, how many young girls respond "my ambition is to be happy while cooking"? I could get along with the quote slightly better if they'd picked careers to make games from, but half of these aren't jobs, and sound to me suspiciously like indoctrinating young girls into a lifetime of domestic servitude*.

I don't know, maybe I'm just really upset that no-one will ever make "Imagine Being a Slightly Fed Up Games Designer".

* And I understand that being a housewife is a tough and demanding role - I certainly couldn't do it. But these titles are each pinpointing one specific part, as if being a housewife is clearly too much unless handled piecemeal.

I'm quite excited about E3 this year.

Not because of any particular announcements (though stuff like a release date for Mass Effect, and confirmation that the Europeans will actually get the video marketplace is nice).

No, I'm mainly loving it this year because I didn't have to work my ass off preparing a demo.

Hooray! (And also commiserations to those who did.)

Reasons I don't like Edge magazine

I could write a year's worth of updates on the subject (especially given how few updates I did last month), but this article pretty much sums it up.

1. Polls of "best games ever" are worth less than the paper they're printed on. Because at least when it was first pulped there was chance that the paper would be used to publish something useful or life-changing, like a treaty on world peace, or the Eastenders 2007 Annual. Instead that once noble tree has given its life so that people can get angry on their internet about how their favourite game scored one lower than a game they're not even terribly keen on.
2. I've just found out they gave both Halo and Half-Life 2 ten out of ten. I can't remember without checking (and that's far too much effort) if I've ever gone in to this before, but Half-Life 2 must be the highest rated first person shooter that got half of the genre-defining fundamentals very wrong (it was, at least, in first person). And Halo's good, but it's not that good, and I'd be surprised if you could even find someone at Bungie who thought otherwise.
3. The editor says things like "it worked brilliantly well". The editor.

(And yes, it's been ages since I updated. It's been a busy time at work, and then the only thing that I got really interested in about the games industry in the last month is somthing I can't possibly talk about. Boo.)

I told you four was a more 'next gen' number

So it seems that both Haze and Halo 3 will have four player online co-op. Lovely, I'm very glad that this is catching on.

Playing through the co-op campaign of G.R.A.W was the best thing about that game, and I enjoyed Gears of War more than most people I work with because I played the entire story in co-op (which meant that I could laugh with my friend during any of the annoying loading cut-scenes).

I would love it if companies made the extra push to get their co-op perfect, though. The ideal situation is being able to play through the regular single player campaign in co-op, but only if you still get the full experience. Rainbow Six: Vegas messed up in this regard since co-op stripped out all of the cut-scenes, so if it was your first play through it would make no sense at all (admittedly, its story wouldn't fit co-op all of the way through, since you start off alone, but I've already written about that cock-up I think that is in a squad-based game). Failing that a dedicated co-op story (even if it reuses assets from the single player).

I would dearly love it if all co-op was drop-in / drop-out as well. Again, Gears of War nailed this perfectly, since the second player and AI-controlled Dominic are interchangeable, allowing you to enter a friend's game no matter what's going on. I had heard Crackdown also had this pre-launch, but the actual system it has turns out to be fairly annoying. If you select that yes, you will let the second player join your city, it boots you out to the menu, and then forces you both to re-spawn. It must be for some technical reason, since I can't understand why any designer would chose this over just allowing the second player to spawn themselves in.

Anyway, Free Radical is one of the few companies that I trust to deliver. Though they still haven't gotten back to me about my three year old job application. Bastards.

Make a note in your diaries.

What? No! They've got to be kidding. They can't release three great and involving games on the same day. What the hell are they playing at?

Seriously though - either Play's telling porkies and these aren't all coming out on June 1st, or someone somewhere needs kicking in the head for scheduling three sure-to-be-great games against each other. One way or another there's something rotten here.

Is there anything wrong with the PSP?

An interesting article on Gamasutra, asking this question of a few of the industry's top people (that last bit was sarcasm by the way, I've never heard of any of them or their companies, but I'm sure they are all very important people - they must be good since for the most part I agree with them).

I find it interesting anyway, since I've spent a fair bit of time with Sony's handheld, and done my own haphazard research into what people do and don't like about it. Most of the points raised in the article I agree with, but this is one I often see brought up.

the market is showing that you must develop a game specifically for the portable platform and not just repurpose console [i.e. PS1] games

It's just not really true. The biggest selling games on the PSP are, for want of a better phrase, 'repurposed' console games (crueler people would say ports, but those people are talking out of their arses). What Konami released a Metal Gear game that was pitched towards being a handheld title, the fans went mental, demanding a 'proper' Metal Gear game be released (which it was, in the end).

A lot of the detractors don't really seem to grasp that there are more uses for a handheld console than just when you're on the move. Most people only have one television in their living room, and quite a few spend a lot of time away from home for work. These people (or at least the ones that play games) would like to play exactly the same games as they do on their PS2 when they're at home (or when their partner isn't using the TV to watch Soapstars Dancing on Ice).

So what do I think about the PSP? I honestly think it's a great piece of kit. The UMD drive was a bit of a misstep, since it's the seek time that causes most of the bad loading times for which the PSP is infamous (though I'm not sure what else they could have done - even now it would be crazy to make a download-only handheld, let alone a couple of years ago, and cartridges would be very expensive if you're going to fit a whole UMD's worth of stuff on). I think it would be nice if the games were a bit cheaper (no matter how much work goes into a title, in people's minds it's still "only a handheld game", so by definition not worth as much as console software). And I wish Sony would get their arses into gear with the online store so that I can download PS1 games without a PS3.

This will not end well.

Dave "Not the Games Animal one" Perry has apparently created the largest game development studio in the world, with a whopping 20,000 professional, enthusiastic, and talented staff. Or maybe he's just collected e-mail addresses on the internet, but I think that's much less likely than the first option.

Using the tried-and-tested "infinite monkeys" theory Perry plans to create a jaw-dropping, World of Warcraft-beating masterpiece. And certainly not just "WoW, but with like, planes and cars, and dinosaurs, and ninjas, and pirates, and it'll be awesome".

The 1998 PC game Half Life spawned an entire industry when fans created a modified (mod) version of the title, called Counter Strike.

I now realise that my games history is incredibly shaky, since I was aways under the impression that CounterStrike had essentially been created by two talented and driven people, whereas apparently it was the result of some kind of horrific forums-and-media circus.

A professional team of artists, programmers, designers, and audio staff will build the MMO but the creative impetus will come from the users.

Sucks to be the paid designers in that little group. What the hell do you know about finely tuned weapon balance, you schmuck? WoW_is_gay_309 has just posted a poll on the forums and 573 people agree with him that "the M16A2 rifle is, like, way underpowered, in real life it does more damage", so get it sorted to his satisfaction - or you're not going home this weekend.

"accepting that the combined intelligence of all these people is far beyond your own."

I almost agreed with this, then I remembered he was talking about MMO players. Still, even with all my negativity, it's good to see that they are entirely confident in what they're doing, safe in the knowledge that out of their expected 100,000 developers they will definitely get a lot of good ideas. I mean, it's not even as if they've got a back-up plan, in the (obviously extremely unlikely) chance that all of the submissions they get are utter fanboy toss of the highest order.

But he also said there was a back-up plan in place, if the contributions from gamers prove disappointing." If they deliver zero, we can still ship a title," he said.

Oh. Never mind.