Jam Enslaver Reviews...Command and Conquer: Renegade

The final part of my series on Westwood Studios takes a look at one of the developer's last games, Command and Conquer: Renegade.

Jam Enslaver Interviews...Dominic Armato

Here is the interview Locke and I shot with Dominic Armato, the voice actor behind Monkey Island hero Guybrush Threepwood, at PAX '09 in Seattle. It was really cool meeting Dom after hearing his voice so much recently, what with the release of both Tales of Monkey Island and Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition, and as I said before he was such a great guy, which helped me get over how nervous I was. I hope you enjoy the video!

Waking Up is Hard to Do

This week I've been returning to real life after spending a wonderful week in Oklahoma with my girlfriend Blue. Much like a dream it seemed to last whilst it was actually happening, but once it was over it seemed that the time was way too short. Now that I'm back in London and settling into the same old routine, whilst I'm constantly wishing I was still there, I am sustained by some great memories and a general sense of well being about life.

The real joy from the week was simply being able to spend time together. Probably the cruelest part of us having to go our separate ways after PAX was that we had literally an hour together, maybe slightly more, before having to say goodbye for the first time. Just being able to sit together watching a movie, go out to eat or hang out with friends meant so much after two months apart.

The first weekend was spent celebrating Blue's birthday, including a wonderful dinner made by her grandmother on Sunday, which gave me a good chance to get to know her family. It's nice to know that it wasn't just my grandparents who refuse to let you leave without first taking several containers of food.

Of course being in Oklahoma meant we also spent a good amount of time hanging out with Sunflower, he being the reason that Blue and I even met in the first place. We went out to eat a few times and took in the film Paranormal Activity, in preparation for Halloween, which didn't really affect Blue and me, but apparently terrified Sunflower, someone I had previously thought had managed to dull his sense of fright through overexposure. We also watched WWE Raw and Smackdown together, since both Sunflower and Blue are keen followers. I haven't followed wrestling for some years now, but I have to admit it was pretty cool seeing how much has changed in that time, and how much is still the same.

Midweek we went to Tulsa zoo which was good fun, on a nice day when it wasn't too busy and we basically had the run of the place. It was actually a bit strange seeing a place like that so empty, almost as though it was supposed to be closed, and even weirder with all the Halloween decorations everywhere. My personal highlight were the huge fish in the rain forest exhibit, but I won't deny the appeal of Blue's favourites, the still very young baby piglets in the petting zoo.

Our Halloween activities began on Friday when we went to a Dave and Busters for dinner with Blue's friends Paul and Candace. After dinner we decided to use the game cards for the attached arcade to get as many prize tickets as possible and perhaps take something away with us. As chance would have it, we managed to find several machines that were being very generous with their tickets, including one that erroneously paid out the jackpot when I played it, thus allowing Blue to go home with a brand new plushie elephant and a police baseball cap. After that we drove to an attraction called Psycho Path, a sort of ghost ride through the woods featuring a variety of dioramas and set pieces which were very well done and did make us jump a few times. It was really fun, despite us having to queue in the cold for a couple of hours beforehand, which was of course just another excuse to get to know each other.

On Halloween night itself we drove to Oklahoma City to see Blue's friend Vice in order to see a production of Sweeney Todd which I had been interested to see for a while, since my brothers played me the soundtrack of the movie. I really enjoyed it, but unfortunately I don't think it was Blue's sort of thing. I get the feeling she had more fun with our costumes, exceeding all my expectations with her Nazi vampire costume and even including me in the act by applying a prosthetic bite wound to my neck. I've never really dressed up for Halloween before, but it was so much fun I'm already giving thoughts to what I'll do for next year.

It was hard to leave on Sunday, but at the very least we did finally get the chance to hang out at the airport, something that was unexpectedly denied us in September when we found that we couldn't go through security at the same time. Our time together was so precious, I'm trying to hold on to every memory I have, and new moments keep returning to me like buried treasures. I'm already looking forward to the time when Blue can come and visit me here. It seems like a long time in the future, but I know it'll be worth the wait.

PAX 09: Something Part 3

Here is the last part of my PAX '09 writeup, arriving much later than I would have liked, but I thought I should post it before I write anything about my trip to visit Blue last week. I had actually finished it last week before I left, but hadn't had time to read through it to make sure it fit together properly, and didn't have the opportunity to do so until today.

Sunday was, as usual, a sort of cleanup day for the show floor. By then we had more or less seen everything that caught our eye when we first arrived, so it was all about filling in the gaps in our experience, and maybe unearthing some hidden gems. We were not disappointed.

A few people wanted to have a closer look at Scribblenauts, the DS puzzle game that boasts the ability to conjour any object the player can write in and allow them to use it to achieve their goal. The game has now been out for a few weeks, and some of the failings in its mechanics extensively discussed, but on the show floor, in the hands of a maestro like hp1703, it was amazing. The game seems to be at its best when the player is free to experiment with the vast tool-set, and can produce some hilarious circumstances.

Whilst browsing around the Microsoft booth again whilst others tried out the free Left 4 Dead 2 machine that not many people seemed to have realised was there, I came across The Misadventures of PB Winterbottom. This is to be an XBLA release early next year, and seems to be going for the same appeal as Jonathon Blow's Braid did last year, as well as using some of its gameplay mechanics. Playing as the eponymous stuffy old gent, one must collect all the pies in the 2D environments by using a combination of platform dexterity and the assistance of a number of clones of yourself, set up by performing an action with the 'record' button held down. Clones can be used as moving stepping stones or spring-boards when swinging their umbrellas. It was an interesting little game, sporting an aesthetic similar to old silent movies, and scratched an itch that has definitely gone untreated for some time.

As the Modcast's racing game guy I decided I needed to give Need for Speed: Shift a try, despite never really getting in to any game in the series before. This is the attempt by EA to make the game appeal to a more hardcore simulator crowd, aping some of the familiar sim features of games like Forza and Gran Turismo such as extensive vehicle customisation and a stricter driving model. Unfortunately this isn't really the type of racing I enjoy, and I couldn't discern that it was doing anything to make itself stand out when the two heavy hitters are just about to stand off against each other.

Somehow I got separated from the group for a bit, and so checked out the League of Legends stand. For some reason clones of Defence of the Ancients, the venerable and much loved mod for Warcraft 3, have been gaining popularity recently. Stardock's Demigod arrived last year, and recently the closed beta for Heroes of Newerth was available. League of Legends is another of these role playing strategy games, in which the player controls a single hero unit in the midst of an RTS-like battle populated mostly by AI characters. As they were gearing up for a live match that I didn't have time to stay and watch I didn't see much of the game itself, but I did come to understand that the game does take a few steps further away from the DOTA formula than HoN, and may even allow novices a bit of an easier time by initially limiting the choice of hero and providing guidance on how to play each type.

The real hidden gem of the day came in the form of Elemental: War of Magic, which offers nothing more complicated than a very well rounded and thoughtful singleplayer 4X experience, along with the most comprehensive customisation tools I had seen in a very long time, with the promise of a robust infrastructure to allow the more creative players to share their content. The game has a very Lord of the Rings look to it, but manages to differentiate itself by morphing the world into a cloth map dotted with pewter miniatures if the player zooms out far enough. The developer promised that the game would still be compelling even in this abstracted view, reflected by the beta being cloth map only. We had high hopes for this game, and that was without even seeing any of the real-time combat.

The last official day of PAX was wrapped up with dinner at The Cheesecake Factory, one last chance to sit down together with a proper meal and just hang out for a while. As usual the food was excellent and the waiting staff very accommodating considering the size of our party. They even let me order alcohol on my UK driving license, which caused some problems last year.

As I said before in the first part of this writeup, this year we had decided to budget a bit more time around the main days of the show for just doing non-gaming things. Thursday had been the zoo, so of course with our free day on Monday we had to check out Seattle's most famous landmark, the Space Needle. And as luck would have it, it was Labour day and the last day of a Seattle music festival called Bumbershoot, meaning there was a full fair set up around the base of the Needle, and a bit further away some large crowds watching the live music. The place was bustling, but not packed, and it didn't take us long to get tickets to go up the Space Needle. It's a fascinating construction and is surprisingly spacious at the top. The view is amazing, even on the rather grey and drizzly day that we visited. I was very surprised to find a free-to-use telescope on a stand on one side, looking out at the down town area. In the UK something like that would definitely have required you put a coin in. When we came down again we explored some of the attractions at the foot, although sadly because it was raining there was very little enthusiasm to go on any of the rides. We meandered through a little knickknack shop selling various souvenirs, and Blue and I got our picture taken in front of the world's largest Lite Brite. This might have been more impressive to me if I hadn't had to ask what a Lite Brite was, but it was still nice to have a memento of the day, and I'm still wearing the free wristbands we got.

Tuesday was a shorter day since our departures were at various times, meaning some of us would have to part ways in order to get to the airport on time. Even so, we still had time to wonder around the Pike Place market one more time. The spare American dollars burning a hole in my pocket motivated me to track down one of the clay ocarinas, stamped with the Zelda Triforce symbol, that we had seen earlier in the trip, but sadly the stall selling them was not there on that day. As we walked to the bus stop, towards those hard goodbyes that even then I couldn't predict, we passed by the Maximus Minimus again, still playing The Beatles, but this time it was Something, during the song's beautifully sad guitar solo that played out as we waited to cross the road. It seemed like a fitting ending to what had been a great holiday with my friends. Little did I know that some of the worst moments, and one of the best moments, were mere moments away, ready to for me to associate them with the song forever.

I'd like to take one last, very belated opportunity, to thank everyone again for making PAX 2009 such an unforgettable trip. It really sucks that we all live so far away, but it's always comforting to know that you're just on the other side of MSN or Xbox Live. Actually spending real time together was a fantastic wakeup call that I shouldn't be taking anyone I've met through NooBTooB for granted. So until we see each other again, let's stay connected and play some games.

Hitting the Road Again

It's been a pretty good week for me so far, getting myself collected again after a rather stressful period last week where I was feeling constantly ill and unable to sleep when I wanted to. I've been sleeping and eating properly, getting back into my exercise routine and generally feeling good about life. This has been helped by my videos going up on Retroware TV and actually beginning to generate a bit of ad revenue (not enough to live on, exactly, but it's money I wouldn't have had before) and that has me more keen than ever to actually get some of the ideas I'm having for my next review down on paper. Work is a bit tedious at present but I'm staying positive about it; nothing to do with the game itself, more to do with the circumstances under which we have to test it.

Tomorrow morning I'm going to be flying to Tulsa to visit my girlfriend Blue, in order to celebrate her birthday and Halloween. I'm obviously very excited about this, not just because I get to spend time with Blue, but also because this will be my first American Halloween where, TV informs me, they take it a bit more seriously as an event. Thus I'm not going to be around much next week since I'll be offline, and I won't be on the next two episodes of the Modcast (although I will be hanging out with Sunflower for a while as well). I should be able to keep up with Shuttercal, and occasionally I might be on Twitter, but aside from that I'll be gone until November starts. See you then!

Jam Enslaver Reviews...Now on Retroware TV

As I mentioned in a recent post, my videos can now all be found at Retroware TV, a great website focused on videos about older video games. All my old stuff can be found there in one neat, easy to access page, and whenever I actually get my arse in gear and make a new one, it'll show up on the site a couple of days before YouTube.

I was completely thrilled to be asked to become part of Retroware TV's lineup, since I had already become familiar with them through the outstanding Happy Video Game Nerd show, one of the more recent influences on my videos that made me strive to put a bit more substance and back-story into my reviews. If you're interested in retro games at all, I can highly recommend taking a look, in particular at Retroware TV's own show, Video Game Take-out, which covers portable games, and of course the Happy Video Game Nerd.

Another Clever Title Explaining That This Is A Post About What I've Been Up To Recently

After all, there are only so many ways of saying "Update"...

So, what have I been doing? Well, I'm just about recovered from whatever mystery illness I had a week or so ago. It's definitely nice to not be weirdly conscious of your stomach the whole time, and it's meant I've been able to actually get back to enjoying work. I really felt like such an ass when I told people that I was having a bit of a tough time at work when I sit around playing video games all day, but the fact is that sometimes it can be pretty dull. This week was better though, in part because I was able to take charge to a limited degree and apply a bit more structure to what I was doing.

Outside of work I've been editing the videos we took at PAX where we interviewed as many NooBTooBers as possible with a set of seven questions. It was a pretty big task, since it required a lot of chopping up of videos into very small clips, but it was definitely worth the effort. Hopefully that video will be posted on one of NooBTooB's YouTube accounts soon, along with the Dominic Armato interview.

Speaking of videos, another bit of exciting news is that after almost two years my video reviews have been noticed by a website, Retroware TV, who will be featuring my videos as soon as I can get them reuploaded to a different video hosting service. It's nice to have some recognition outside of NooBTooB (which will of course still be getting my videos as well), especially from a place like Retroware TV, which I was already familiar with through the Happy Video Game Nerd reviews, probably the biggest influence I had when I decided to step up the amount of background information in my videos.

With all that going on it might be a while before I get around to writing up the last part of my account of PAX, which is a real shame because the iron has gone very cold in that respect and I'm left pretty much going off the brief notes I took whilst at the show. There are still some parts that naturally will stay with me forever, but I was very pleased with the level of incidental detail I managed to work into Part 1 that I won't be able to carry over to the conclusion.

I'll also take this opportunity to draw attention to two other new things I've started doing. These are daily, so if you're craving a bit of content from me you need only direct yourself to them. The first is that I've started playing Animal Crossing on my Gamecube again, taking a bit of creative license with the way I interpret the goings on in town, and have been providing a daily update on how things are shaping up on my Twitter page (you can also see all the updates in the sidebar to the right on this blog). The second is that I've signed up to Shuttercal, a great website that lets you upload a photograph every day for people to see, slowly creating your own calendar. It's a very convenient way of keeping track of what people get up to, and gives me motivation to actually learn to use my fancy camera now that I'm forced to manually adjust the settings myself. You can get to my Shuttercal page by clicking on the logo in the sidebar (underneath the Modcast logo).

So there we go, that's what I'm doing these days. As I said, I'm going to be busy preparing my videos for Retroware TV for the next week or so, so don't expect much activity on the blog until then.