Games Are Not The Enemy

Original here:...

Sun, 29 Aug 2010 00:23:00 +0100

Original here: http://www.annathered.com/2009/11/01/tricked-or-treated/

It all went downhill after this.

Wed, 11 Aug 2010 20:45:40 +0100

Manhattan. A restaurant with a Korg. Man starts playing ‘Hava Nagila’. Kieron and I take to the floor with the other dancing tables, grasping at more and more people as we circled the room. The rest of the night… ? Kind of a blur.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFtv5qe5o3c

Incredible movie posters.

Sat, 31 Jul 2010 21:02:27 +0100

Incredible movie posters.

Dramatic sky of… drama?

Sat, 31 Jul 2010 12:47:35 +0100

Dramatic sky of… drama?

5 things I’m thinking right now

Sat, 24 Jul 2010 22:14:00 +0100

Inspired by Alice’s post, just some thoughts swirling around my brain box.

1. Social network games don’t take advantage of the medium at all. Well, obviously they’ve taken advantage of the userbase and that friends share situations. But, y’know, there’s not much out there that uses the reasons social networks exist, sharing what you’re /doing/, in a meaningful way: using the photos and text to create meaningful, playful interactions between friends. Send dares through the networks, challenges that can be scored on (“wear three hats”, “do a handstand in front of the Eiffel Tower”). Public and private challenges. Make a game out of the things people do on social networks. I’d make it if I knew where to start.

2. Digital cameras should come with achievements. Most camera manufacturers, quite rightly, focus (pun!) on making camera easier to use for the public. But cameras are about getting people out in public spaces, visiting important sights, recording amazing things. Come. On. They could teach people the basics of photography, or otherwise reward people for being somewhere amazing. Tying it in to Flickr would make me happier than Charles, here.

He’s never had a bad day in his life.

3. That more people know me as “Buck” than my given name.

4. DLC has been poisoned:at an event a few months ago, a blogger asked a developer if his future game would gave DLC. I don’t begrudge his question, but the assumption was that it would and that the company had already planned it. It used to be that post-release game content was a treat, an exciting and freeing way for the developers to explore what their game could do and reward their users with the content. For free. Now it’s a marketing tool (not got anything to say? Announce DLC before the game’s out: “2K Games Makes Another Hit with Mafia® II Downloadable Content”), and a weapon in the war between publishers and retail.

5. Minecraft! It’s like the action/adventure Dwarf Fortress. Every Friday the developer releases a new version, and doesn’t tell the players what he’s done to the game. He’s sold nearly 35,000 copies at 9.99 euros a pop. At quiet moments of the day, when I’m not at my PC, my mind drifts to the underwater glass dome I’ve been building.

Greek gods and free will.

Fri, 25 Jun 2010 23:33:36 +0100

I got very excited when EA’s Rod Humble walked on stage during their E3 conference. He looked uncomfortable, and he was clearly nervous. The silence he walked on to was telling: no raucous musical intro, and it was so quiet you can hear an audience member shout encouragement to him. He talked about Free Will, Greek gods, neurological experiments, and how this all applies to The Sims. He walked off stage quickly, leaving a video of his game playing. This is his presentation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Nf4-vofsrc#t=5m40s

The presentation almost didn’t happen. E3 is not a place for such discussions. It’s a show, an advert. You could almost hear the record scratch as Humble walked on. The conference did stall, but in a wonderful, beautiful way.

So I sent Rod an e-mail. I’ve never even talked to the man before, but my name and position holds some weight. I told him how well I thought he’d done, and thanked him for doing it. I told him I was reinstalling The Sims 3. He told me I’d made his day.

I heard today how my e-mail has gone all over EA. All the way up to CEO John Riccitiello, the man who walked on stage after The Sims video. It was used as proof that they’d done the right thing, an unsolicited thank you that landed in an inbox.

Next time a developer does something that makes you happy, let them know.

OK GO’s new video, allegedly all one take. Beautiful...

Sun, 20 Jun 2010 17:55:43 +0100

OK GO’s new video, allegedly all one take. Beautiful stuff.

PCGamer.com relaunch - A review.

Sun, 20 Jun 2010 16:37:38 +0100

11/10 - www.pcgamer.com. POW!

(thb, this is just a test post to check out ScribeFire)

The worst thing I've ever done in a game

Mon, 31 May 2010 22:59:00 +0100

The worst thing I've ever done in a game:

I wrote this for PC Gamer’s blog. I was wondering about games I used to play, and why I don’t touch them anymore. Usually it’s apathy, but in Halo’s case there was a very specific reason for my quitting.

I took off, and it was awesome.

Wed, 07 Apr 2010 01:04:19 +0100

I took off, and it was awesome.

A test time lapse I made using Just Cause 2. There are a few...

Tue, 30 Mar 2010 00:15:00 +0100

A test time lapse I made using Just Cause 2. There are a few errors: I didn’t switch off Steam friends, and the one shot every 15 seconds time frame missed some amazing storm effects (during that dip in light in the middle of the day). The process took about 45 minutes to record.

Renaissance Man

Sat, 27 Mar 2010 17:51:00 +0000

Standing on top of a snow-covered mountain, a ruined military base still smouldering behind me, my reward is a green smear on the horizon.

I explore in games. I’ll head off towards an interesting cluster of pixels to see what they resolve into. It’s a disappointing hobby, for sure, as games and developers rightly focus on the tangible awards. There’s usually not room to take into account curiosity.

Just Cause 2 is different. It’s full of little details: fly under a bridge in a plane and Rico will comment on how awesome you were. Manage to squeeze between bridge struts and an achievement pops up.

Just doing shit is how I found the object. I was in a plane, seeing how closely I could follow the ridge of a mountain, when I glimpsed a strange, segmented burst of colour below. I banked the plane and spun around, angling the camera to see below.

I smiled.

I looked at the map and memorised where to return to. The plane cost money, and abandoning it would be somewhat wasteful. Besides, this was an adventure for the daylight.

I decide to visit the next morning. You can just make out the marker, left of the sunset and the crosshair. 9 km away is the island with my goal. I figure if I start out now, using the parachute and grappling, I’d get there by sun-up. I also figured I’d accept any distraction, save for needless fighting, the game threw at me.

The sun recedes on the horizon. From up here, the full heft of the Just Cause 2 engine is on display. Shadows drip across the world below, the golden sun spilling a yellow bulge across the horizon. Something catches my eye.

An abandoned religious relic, stuffed in the trees away from the road. Just Cause 2 is clearly designed to be viewed from the air.

Night falls and the atmosphere changes. It’s more likely to rain at night, and the urban areas are easier to see. That glowing smudge is a city, probably big for most games, but it’s a tiny part of the Panau landscape. It feels close, but at gliding pace it’ll take a while to get there.

Wind turbines. There’s something I have to try.

Glurg. The grappling hook attaches Rico to any object in the game. The blades of the turbines are tricky to grab, but when you do you’re rewarded by a sickening merry-go-round ride.

The sun pops up. Do games need rewards other than a sight so spectacular it had me checking how many flight miles I had? Scores, numbers really, are too heartless. I don’t need to be +1 up; I just need to feel something.

The final approach. Over this hill, after 9km and a day/night/day cycle, the goal awaits. Excited? Nervous?

You can only yank your chute up so far before it the upward momentum is nommed by the god of gravity. Rico can easily climb, using his grappling hook to scale objects.

This is a game about regime change and explosions. You’ll fight a dictator, destroying huge buildings, killing innocents and the guilty alike. What could be down there?

A motherfucking hot air balloon.

Awesome!

Whee!

You prime the burners with “E”, and steer by running in the direction you want to go.

If you want to try, I’ve marked the location on the PDA.