James' Ivory Tower

Waking Up is Hard to Do

2009-11-07T14:21:00.006Z

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

2009-11-03T00:38:00.003Z

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

2009-10-22T19:10:00.002+01:00

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

2009-10-18T01:06:00.002+01:00

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

2009-10-03T19:02:00.004+01:00

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.

PAX 2009: Something Part 2

2009-09-13T20:36:00.022+01:00

Friday was of course the first day of the show proper, so we got up earlier than we probably should have to give the exhibition floor a brief explore before attending Ron Gilbert's keynote speech. Not being much of a PC gamer back in the day, the Monkey Island series has nevertheless really grown on me recently, particularly with the fantastic new Tales of Monkey Island, so it was a great pleasure to hear Gilbert talk about the development of the series and the early days of the Lucasfilm game division, later Lucasarts. For some reason hearing people talk about the time before gaming was as huge as it is now really interests me; I can't get enough of the stories they tell about the bizarre conditions they had to work in, the clever ways they overcame the technical limitations to achieve their goals, and the startlingly offhand way they mention that they created entire software frameworks in their spare time. It's very inspiring, and for someone who doesn't know the first thing about coding, more than a little scary.

For some reason this year's PAX schedule wasn't quite as full of the live on-stage demos in the main theatre that took up such a large amount of our time last year, which on the one hand was a shame because they are always awesome, but on the other meant that we had more opportunities to discover games about which we didn't know anything. As such, much of the rest of this writeup will just be an overview of the games that we saw, sprinkled as liberally as I can with special events such as the NooBTooB gatherings. The first of these, though, was almost directly after the keynote ended, when Locke and I had an appointment with Telltale Games to interview Dominic Armato, the voice of Guybrush Threepwood from Monkey Island. Even though I've now landed a job working on the development side of making games, I still get a real kick out of doing journalist stuff for NooBTooB. I think the interview went well, Dominic is such a great guy it was very easy to talk naturally to him, and I will be able to post or point people towards the video of it soon. Whilst at the Telltale booth I picked up a nice poster of a Steve Purcell painting that they all signed and I plan to have framed since it looks so good.

Friday's show floor was packed with stuff to see, so let's get down to it. First off Locke played a little Left 4 Dead 2, describing it as being analogous to the transition from Gears 1 to Gears 2; largely the same game but with some well considered improvements and better level design. The two of us then moved to the Dante's Inferno booth, complete with a giant statue of Dante himself wielding a massive bone scythe. I wasn't really sure what to make of the game since it seems to be studying the lessons taught by God of War very closely, but my brother Andrew has since told me that it looks awesome so I'll take that to mean it's doing what it needs to. Darksiders, following its tiny but very impressive showing at last year's show, managed to do a 180 for both. This year eyes were drawn by a monstrous mechanical bull replica of War's horse, Ruin, and for which there was a sizable line to ride (that's me in the picture), but the playable game at the booth was from right at the beginning of the game, and thus not showing any of the Zelda-style elements that have me so excited about the game. Even so, it was looking a lot more polished than last year, and having a button that makes you grab enemies and smash them into pieces against the floor is as satisfying as it sounds. Before meeting up with people at the line for Ubisoft's stage demonstration, we spent a little time at Nexon's booth to check out Dungeon Fighter, which they seemed to have spent a lot of money to draw attention to since all the swag-bags had its logo on them, and the hall for the queue going into the main theatre had several of their banners up. The game will be a free-to-play side-scrolling online brawler in the same fashion as Streets of Rage or, more appropriately, Castle Crashers since it also has a lot of RPG elements. What struck me was just how good the game looks, consisting entirely of 2D sprites that reminded me of an SNK fighting game, full of character and detail. It's surprisingly fun, too, and the leveling, skills and different characters give it a chance to stay fun even after several hours. I'm looking forward to playing the beta which begins next week for people who picked up codes.

The one big demonstration of the whole weekend was for Splinter Cell: Conviction and Assassin's Creed II. For some reason I still have trouble getting excited about Splinter Cell, both in its old form and now the new direction it has taken showing Sam Fisher outside of his usual agency. The demo shown was pretty much the one seen at E3 and didn't do much to improve my impressions of it. Assassin's Creed II, on the other hand, is something I am looking forward to. The general tone of the demo was that Ubisoft had listened to a lot of the complaints coming out of the first game and tried to fix them, so there will now be more variety in the side missions, more tools at main character Ezio's disposal, and some linear segments to help break up the game. These last were particularly interesting to me, since they are apparently intended to teach the player how to use all the different aspects of the game, rather than finding one way that works for them and then using it ad nauseum. At the moment I'm no longer in a position to buy every big new game that comes out, and I have already earmarked my game spending for the rest of the year on other titles, but I'm still keen to play Assassin's Creed II at some point down the line.

Friday was brought to a close by Kicklefest, the now annual tradition of all the NooBTooBers attending PAX to gather in the retro console free-play room and play through Kickle Cubicle, for the NES, as well as just hang out, play games and eat pizza. Since I had already played a few levels of the game last year I took advantage of some of the games set up to play, including Steel Battalion with its hideously complicated and expensive controller, and Darwinia+ the Xbox 360 port of Darwinia coming out later in the year.

On Saturday morning we decided that we should spend the time needed to queue for the Borderlands demo, which had been thronged with people on the previous day. Some people in our party felt that the wait wasn't really worth it, since it was very hard to judge the game's qualities by jumping into a pre-existing character and playing for only a few minutes. I however remained optimistic about the game's blend of FPS and RPG sensibilities, and am looking forward to jumping into its cartoonish-styled world with three friends fairly soon. As the Modcast's arcade racer enthusiast I made a point of trying out Split Second, the upcoming title from Black Rock studio in which car combat is performed by causing certain effects on the track itself, such as the airport control tower collapsing across the track or a jumbo jet landing as the player speeds along the runway. It was certainly an interesting concept, and certainly fun to play on the single race I did, but I was left with a few concerns regarding how replayable the game would be after all the flashy explosions had already been seen.

By then it was just about the top of an hour, meaning Bethesda would be doing a live demo of Brink at their booth. Brink was probably the biggest surprise at the show for a lot of us; previously we hadn't even heard of it, but afterwards we all agreed that it was one to watch. The game is a first person shooter that blends Mirror's Edge-style acrobatics with a fairly deep class and leveling system similar to Splash Damage's previous title, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars. Players can at any time pull up a radial menu of different objectives that are dynamically created as the game goes along, and can range from primary objectives like escorting a target to simply switching class in order to balance out the team. Along side this another interesting aspect of the game is how it handles multiplayer. Whilst it is possible to play entirely with bots the game is very focused on cooperative play with up to eight players in your team. But, if you like that sort of thing, it's also possible to play the scenarios against another team of people. The action looks solid and the idea of another FPS RPG appearing so close to Borderlands suggests there may well be a rivalry for our money at some point in the future.

Another live demo that impressed us on Saturday was for Ron Gilbert's Death Spank, billed as Monkey Island meets Diablo, taking the humorous dialogue and whimsical style of the former and blending it with the addictive loot-hacking of the latter. I've become a small fan of this kind of game, and I really liked the presentation, but overall it'll probably come down to whether the game has multiplayer or not for me. The last game from Saturday that I'll mention was Dark Void, one of Capcom's latest attempts to make games that appeal to a Western audience, and I have to say I was very impressed. The game has something of an old B-movie style to it, featuring a protagonist in a leather jacket fighting flying saucers whilst blasting around on a personal jetpack. I really like arcade flying games, so I was pleased to find that the aerial combat worked very well. On the ground, the combat was very Gears of War, but in a good way, and I'll be interested to see how the 'vertical cover' aspect of the game shapes up.

NooBTooB capped off Saturday with a trip to Gameworks, the SEGA operated arcade/sports bar just across the street from the convention centre. As with last year it was a little disappointing, although this time it was because a lot of the machines were simply missing, rather than just broken. The highlight for me was probably the cooperative Hummer racing game, featuring a moving seat for the players, which I got to play with Blue (see embedded video). In addition, it was a real treat to see forum member cowlauncher show off his DDR moves, there's something hypnotizing about watching someone really good play that game.

I'll wrap up this post here and save Sunday for the last one. Apologies for how long it took to write, one of the things we apparently all took away from PAX was suspected swine flu, so I've been laid up for a while but am just about recovered. Hopefully part 3 won't take this long!

PAX 2009: Something Part 1

2009-09-11T17:53:00.001+01:00

And so, Penny Arcade Expo is over again for another year. A whole year before NooBTooB descends as a group on Seattle, to enjoy gaming together, make noise in crowded rooms and generally stand out as one of the best communities on the Internet. Just three days is not long enough to spend with such amazing people. Even adding an extra day and a half on either end of the official PAX timeframe seemed all too short when those of us going to the airport on Tuesday said goodbye to Locke, Gameshark, Veri7as and Ar7emis at the bus stop, or when Gravehound and I had to watch Sunflower, hp1703 and Blue walk through the terminal security barrier without us. hp tweeted shortly after that he didn't remember parting being so hard last year, and in that he is absolutely correct. I can't be certain as to why that is, but something was definitely different.

Ironically, the extra time we got to hang out with each other outside the show probably made things harder. Last year those of us who attended were kept occupied almost the entire time, visiting panels, walking the show floor and helping out with official NooBTooB events. This year, though, we had more time to actually bond with each other. Our trips to the Seattle zoo and the Space Needle allowed us to relax a bit and get to really know each other, rather than trying to madly dash around trying to fit everything in. Secondly, the fact that more people were able to come changed things a lot. The obvious absence last year was Sunflower, leaving us one host short of a full Modcast contingent, but him aside I was happy that our core group was larger and felt like more pieces of the jigsaw puzzle were in place, including some pieces I never realised would be so important. Even though some of us talk every day, it seems like a pale substitute to what we had over the weekend in Seattle and I miss everyone terribly.

But enough focusing on the fact that my best friends live thousands of miles away. Let's talk about the good times we had at and around PAX, which began for me at about 9.30pm on Wednesday evening when I was dropped off by the airport shuttle outside the Red Lion hotel and was greeted by cheery shouts from a party already begun, seated at a table in front of the Elephant and Castle, bizarrely enough a British pub that seems to specialize in giant deserts and beer made close to where I live in London. Aside from Gravehound who flew in from the UK the day after, I was the last to arrive, so I was able to meet those I would be sharing rooms with all at once. It was great to see Veri7as, Ar7emis, Gameshark, Locke and hp1703 again after such a long time, and to be able to put a face to wrtswoopes, and her sister Lacey who was bold enough to make the journey too. I was very nearly floored when I realised the man walking up the stairs towards me, offering to take my bag, was Sunflower, for so long just a voice without a picture, and later a series of photographs that I could never be sure of since many featured him wearing various different cosplay outfits. But it was definitely him, still the same friendly guy, grumbling about something (in this case the nasty multicoloured nachos he had ordered). Sitting next to him, understandably tired and a little reserved around so many new people, was Blue, Sunflower's friend who I had enjoyed playing many a round of Horde with in the past, and who I had wanted to get to know better for a while.

Opportunities to get acquainted (and reacquainted) came soon as we ate and then later organised ourselves into hotel rooms. As with last year we over-stacked the two rooms with people to save on the bill, and unlike last year I actually took my turn on the floor a couple of times. My night job has really messed with my sense of time, so by now I'm used to waking and sleeping at completely different hours from day to day, thus meaning my jetlag was no worse than those who hadn't come so far. As it turned out, some issue with the booking meant that one of the rooms only had one large double bed, instead of the two beds we had asked for, so even with the addition of a cot there were many places to be taken on the floor. I didn't find it too much of a bother, the Red Lion seems to use some fairly comfortable carpeting, and the hardship probably helped everyone bond a bit more (except maybe Gameshark, who cheekily managed to get the cot all to himself more times than everyone else put together).

Thursday being our first full free day, we first went for our customary piroshkis from Pike Place Market, which were of course as delicious as always as we sat in the public place overlooking the harbour, gathered in wonder around hp's giant doughnut (seriously). On our way to the market, we encountered something different from last year in the open space on the corner of Pike and Second street, a large van selling food called Maximus Minimus, done up to look like a gigantic mechanical pig. We passed it several times over the course of the weekend, and each time it was blasting out Beatles hits. I want to say it was I Want to Hold Your Hand that first time, but I might be making that up. We took the opportunity to once again visit the 'nerd store', home to comic books, board games, RPGs and all sorts of pop-culture merchandise, which left us all pondering the eternal question: Who would win in a fight? A unicorn or a narwhal?

Thursday was also our trip to the zoo (yes, we're all still children inside), something I hadn't done for at least a decade. I think the most impressive animals were the bears, kept in a large enclosure with a surprisingly low fence that had us speculating what exactly was preventing them from escaping. Another highlight was the red panda, which we spent the entire day saying we were going to next, but only actually arrived at just before we left, only to find a seemingly empty enclosure. A little patience was paid off by what has to be the most ridiculously cute animal I have ever seen. Despite the name, a red panda is actually a sort of large raccoon with reddish brown fur and a huge fuzzy tail. Something worthy of note was that all the animals were very active, with only a small number evading sight by being too still. It made for a great day out, and I can recommend the Seattle zoo to anyone with an opportunity to go. The zoo was also the first scene of the three new foods I tried whilst in America, Sunflower giving me his corndog, which it turns out tastes like toad-in-the-hole, but in a handy stick form.

Thursday night was capped off with Locke teaching us how to play one of the boardgames he brought with him. Smallworld is a very simple Risk-like game, in which the objective is to collect the most gold across eight ages (i.e. turns) of a fantasy world inhabited by various different races and species. The great thing about it is that it has almost infinite replay value due to the random nature of the races, each being randomly assigned a prefix at the start of the game. So for example, in the first game we played I drew Underground Dwarfs, able to instantly travel to any space with a cavern, and collecting double gold for each mine I controlled. The other games we managed to play throughout the holiday were Shadows Over Camelot, an amazingly fun cooperative game where you must work together to complete various quests, but always be mindful that one of your number might be a traitor, and Cosmic Encounter, which I won't comment on because I made the mistake of teaming up with Gameshark, which seemed to have the effect of everyone wanting us to lose from the very start. I'm only just getting into that untapped realm of the boardgame beyond old favourites like Monopoly and Scrabble, so I was very glad of an opportunity to sample some of its delights.

This post is already massive, so I'll draw the first part of my writeup to a close for now. Look out for part 2, coming soon.

Also from PAX, my Burrito-Cam

2009-09-11T09:03:00.002+01:00

My full writeup of PAX is shaping up to be something of a monster, so to tide you over until I'm done with it, here is a video I only saw about a day ago. One time on the Modcast Sunflower commented that I sleep like a burrito, probably referring to this picture taken last year at PAX 2008:
This year, on the first night in the hotel, the others apparently set up a hidden camera to catch me in the act. Here is the hilarious result, please watch all the way to the end, and remember I had absolutely no idea the camera was there until I got home and saw it on YouTube:

On Returning from PAX

2009-09-09T17:09:00.004+01:00

I just got back from Penny Arcade Expo, sitting at my parents' computer before being given a lift back to the station so I can get back to my place in London. Thus I'll save a proper writeup of the trip for when I'm home and haven't spent almost nine hours on a plane (spoilers: it was better even than last year).

If you're curious now about what I did over the last week or so, head over to Locke's YouTube channel where you can see all the video diaries he made for us.

Here's a little sample:

Goin' to Seattle!

2009-08-29T17:38:00.003+01:00

We have a bank holiday on Monday here in the UK, meaning I only have one more shift before I'm off work for a week, heading to Seattle and Penny Arcade Expo. PAX is growing into one of the largest gaming events in the world, distinct from Tokyo Game Show and E3 in that it is run entirely for the gamers, as opposed to the press. Over the three days there are seminars, panels, on-stage demos of upcoming games and of course, the show floor to wonder around. It's also become the setting for the annual NooBTooB meetup, where we all come together from the four corners of the globe, IRL instead of through the forums.

I was able to go last year and it was amazing, and knowing that has me doubly exicted for this year. Aside from the actual planned events, both PAX- and NooBTooB-organised, meeting the forumites is one of the great parts of the meetup, and this year I know that some very significant people who weren't able to make it last year will be in attendance, not least Sunflower, my Modcast co-host. Learning an important lesson from before I will be arriving in Seattle a couple of days before the show itself actually starts, meaning I'll have some time to hang out with people and get to do some non-video game related stuff with them, including maybe seeing some of the city beyond the piroshki shop in Pike Place market (pictured behind hp, Gameshark and Locke). Locke has been fretting for the past couple of weeks about which of his many board games to bring.

If all goes well, I'll also have a little bit of journalism to do. Last year, and probably this year, a few of us tried to get as much coverage of the show posted for those who couldn't make it. This year things will be going further as NooBTooB is starting to get big enough to be on a number of press lists for interviews and such. I've been asked to interview some people from Telltale games, the makers of the Strongbad game and the new Tales of Monkey Island, so that's something to look forward to, particularly talking to Dominic Armato, the voice of Guybrush Threepwood.

My other goal from the show may sound like quite an odd one: don't take away too much free stuff. Last year my suitcase came back completely stuffed with free t-shirts, posters and other swag (including a Vaultboy hand puppet). I don't have room for any more of it on my walls or in my drawers. On the other hand, I will be looking out for something to go on my shelf, a figurine or something from the wonderful nerd emporium that we found last year. I'm not sure of what or whom it will be, but I have a little money earmarked for the purpose.

So to those coming this year, I can't wait to see you all and have some fun in Seattle.

Jam Enslaver Reviews...Lands of Lore: The Throne of Chaos

2009-08-23T11:34:00.002+01:00

It's been a bit longer coming than I would have wanted, but finally I have the third part of my Westwood retrospective video series completed and ready to be watched. Since Lands of Lore pre-dates Command and Conquer by three years, and thus came out before I really started playing games, I thought this video would be a good opportunity to dip into some of Westwood's history. It's a rather strange to think that a company so closely associated with an intellectual property of its own creation could begin life exclusively porting other people's games, and then making licensed titles. But then again, that's how they ended up making Dune II, so maybe it isn't all that surprising.

I plan to do one more video in the Westwood series which I'm starting to research. Hopefully I'll be able to complete it in about a month or so, but things are going to be busy in the coming weeks (particularly with my trip to Seattle for Penny Arcade Expo) so there's a chance I'll fall behind schedule.

A Landmark

2009-08-12T20:02:00.002+01:00

Just a quick post to say "Hooray!" at reaching 400 subscribers on Youtube. Apparently my extended absences without much explanation hasn't put off a bunch of people from signing up to my videos over the last couple of days. If any of them have made it over here, hello! I'd be very interested to know where you all suddenly came from.

I've managed to get in some good time with the next game this week, so it should be ready by the end of next week.

Grinding the Gears

2009-07-31T18:57:00.002+01:00

This week has been the first opportunity that my American friends and I have been able to consistently get together in the evenings and take advantage of my new working hours. Coincidentally, it's also the week that the latest expansion was released for what has to collectively be our favourite game to play together, Gears of War 2. The Dark Corners downloadable content is a pretty hefty package, featuring seven new multiplayer maps and even a 'deleted scene' from the campaign mode to play through. Since Gears 2 add-ons have in the past been just three or four maps, it's not surprising that each night this week has found me staying up until the small hours exploring the new content. As usual, it's fantastic, each of the new maps bringing something completely new to the multiplayer.

Sadly this will be coming to an end soon. The family summer holiday will be next week, but this year I will be missing out due to work. I'll be heading down to the holiday cottage this weekend, which means an early start tomorrow and thus no Gears tonight. Following that, I'm going to be working nights for about a month or so, which puts me in the strange situation of being the one working after my fellow NooBTooBers have gone to bed, as opposed to the other way around. Still, I'll be getting Fridays off, which will give me some time to play games, but for the most part I'll be gaming solo for a while. Not really a bad thing, though, since I have tons of stuff to play that hasn't moved at all this week.

We'll see how well I do with the new schedule once it starts. Hopefully the lack of sunlight won't have too much of an adverse effect.

Life Rebooting

2009-07-28T01:13:00.004+01:00

Time for another update, it seems, since things are starting to get into what I will hopefully be considering 'normal' for the next few years. I spent last Saturday making one final trip up to London in my car to carry away some things that were just taking up space in my new flat, and now that the Internet is up and running I can say that my move has officially ended. I'm sure there are many more things for me to sort out: companies to inform that I've moved, routines I need to restart in this new location and so forth, but I'll take those as they come. I've begun calling my new place "The Safehouse", because I happen to be playing two games right now that feature a lot of them, and because this place is still feeling a bit like my outpost in the big city.

Speaking of things I need to get going again, remember those Internet videos I used to make? I should really start doing that now that I have the time and facilities. Well, I have the time in theory. In practice I'm steadily working my way through all the Internet stuff that I went without for those two weeks that I was offline. Mostly podcasts and the Giant Bomb Persona 4 Endurance run, plus Top Gear of course. Even so I will make an effort to put aside these selfish pursuits in favour of getting some more content out there. Despite my promises to myself I still have not played the game that is next in line for the Westwood series.

One thing that should make it easier for me to have time for video making is my sudden need to economise. In changing jobs and locations things are going to be a lot tighter for me when it comes to non-essentials. Whilst it's debatable whether video games are essential or not, the fact is that I really don't need to buy any more, at least not for a while. I have a more than sizable backlog of quality titles to keep me busy, and now I actually have the motivation to stay my wallet when I'm looking at that copy of Red Faction: Guerrilla on the shelf. I have a plan, as I usually do, for what games I will buy for the rest of the year, and hopefully I'll stick to it.

It's amazing to think how much life has changed in such a short time. I think living in London is going to be very interesting, so let's see what the future holds...

Edit: I also intend to make a video of my new flat for NooBTooB Cribs, so look out for that soon!

Uprooting

2009-07-10T18:48:00.004+01:00

I'll try to stop neglecting this blog for long enough to write about why I've been too busy to write anything in it recently, a nice change from not updating because nothing has happened. I'm now about two weeks into properly working for SEGA, so I have more or less completely adapted back into a working routine. This was probably made easier by my unusual working hours allowing me to get up fairly late in the day, but on the other hand it hasn't been very much fun travelling two hours to and from work. I'm really enjoying the work, by the way, and I'm getting on well with the people I'm working with. I can't talk about what it is I'm working on, but I will say it is certainly a game I will feel proud to have contributed a small part to once it is released.

My time in the evenings has become very precious, hence the lack of blog posts. This will change shortly, though, as I have managed to find myself somewhere to live in London, greatly reducing the size of my commute. It's a nice little studio apartment in West Kensington with easy access to various important things like a laundrette and the Tube. Moving house is always a busy time so at the moment I'm looking forward to getting settled in and having everything working. That won't be for at least another week, though, when the broadband is supposed to be turned on. Whether that happens or not is far from certain though, BT reminding me how much I dislike dealing with them today by cutting off the Internet from my old flat a week before I said they should.

What that means is that I'm going to attempt to move everything I need into the new place tomorrow, which will be quite the undertaking. Luckily the place is furnished, so it's only my desk and various electronics that need shifting, but still I have to drive to London and find somewhere to park in order to get everything set up. Maybe if I put my posters up first it'll seem like home more quickly.

A Job, Finally!

2009-06-24T15:00:00.005+01:00

So, just in case the news hasn't spread to everyone already, here's what's going on with me right now. Last week I finally found a new job, and was lucky enough to be hired by SEGA as a quality assurance tester. So far I've been in for two days of training and am excited to get started. This week though I'm at home, so the real work will only start on Monday. What's going to be interesting is that I'll be working the late shift, running from 3pm until 10.30 at night, which will make things a bit difficult socially for my friends in the UK, but will allow me to play more with my North American friends.

This new job also means that I won't have nearly as much time to make video reviews, especially at first as I get into a new routine (and sleep pattern!) and begin searching for somewhere new to live. As such, I'm going to put the Westwood series on hold for a while until I've found my feet and can properly plan out when I can start working on it again. I'll be moving around mid-August, and I don't see myself getting much reviewing done before I've settled into my new place. Sorry if anyone was looking forward to that, but I'll try not to let the hiatus last too long.

Digital Dreamscapes

2009-06-16T23:02:00.003+01:00

Darwinia is so far my main candidate for the Modcast's 'Late to the Party' 2009 award for an amazing game that we only got around to playing this year. Recent games of Company of Heroes have revealed that the tactic that works best for me is a good old fashioned meat grinder, so a game in which individual units are worthless so long as you complete your objectives would of course always resonate with me. Coupled with some healthy doses of virtual world nostalgia (air strikes are provided by space invaders, whilst Tron's famous recognizers act as your engineers) and the retro art style, this is a game almost impossible not to like.

The game draws itself to a brilliant climax, seeing the usually peaceful Darwinians rise up in strength to rid their world of an infectious virus. The only flaw with this spectacle for me was that it came too soon. I consumed Darwinia in large chunks and it was all over a bit too quickly, leaving me unwilling to see the end of the Darwinians' slow march to freedom.

This week I decided to put a bit of time into the multiplayer pseudo-sequel Multiwinia, but only against computer opponents for the time being. Whilst the mechanics are actually quite different and there is no actual story to progress through, I find that the fierce civil war of the Multiwinians is just as arresting as its forbear. And like its forbear, it is very photogenic. I do like a good screenshot, so here's one I took today and is now taking up pride of place on my desktop (I recommend clicking it to see the full-sized version).
I'm especially pleased with the sight of the battle between the reds and the blues through the trunk port, as well as the looming monument beyond the dark forest. I could really spend as much time looking for good pictures in Multiwinia as I do playing it.

Waiting for the Rapture

2009-06-15T23:49:00.002+01:00

Video Games | Darksiders | E3 09: Vengeance Trailer HD

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

Darksiders was definitely my most pleasant surprise from PAX last year. A mixture of Zelda dungeons with a God of War combat system, all set against a very biblical end of the world. This trailer came out of E3 a couple of weeks ago and has me more excited than ever to actually get my hands on the game.

Jam Enslaver Reviews...Nox

2009-06-13T00:54:00.002+01:00

My second video in a series covering the lesser known games of Westwood Studios tackles Nox. The fact that Nox actually runs on my PC without any trouble is actually one of the reasons behind why I decided to do this series. The copy I have actually isn't mine, it really belongs to my friend Jon who lent it to me years ago saying how great it was. After being stoned to death by urchins within about five minutes of starting (apparently the extremely simple controls got the better of me that day), I dismissed it as stupid and took it off whichever computer I had at the time. Thus it sat on the bottom shelf of my bedside table in my parents' house for about nine years until I found it again a couple of months ago and decided to give it another shot. I guess this is another example of making sure to give a game a thorough examination before giving up on it.

I'm going to take longer producing the third part of this video series than I did the second since I need to get a good amount of time in with a game that I have never played before but should really be covered by these reviews. I can't put a definite timeline on when I'll be able to actually start working on the next video since right now it's hard to say how much time I'm going to have (still waiting to hear back from that job interview).

Slightly Obscure Westwood Games Part 2 Update

2009-06-09T16:10:00.002+01:00

In case you're eagerly waiting for part 2 of my video series covering lesser-known Westwood games, here's a little update. So far the week has been very busy; today I went up early to London for a job interview (I think it went well, more information at the end of the week) and yesterday was filled with random chores like taking my car to be serviced and getting a haircut for today. As such, the video won't be ready for another couple of days. The script is done, but I still need to record the audio and capture the footage. My best guess for when it will be ready is Friday.

Until then, in case you haven't already seen my Twitter about it or gotten wind of it from some other source, and were perhaps wondering what on Earth we were talking about during the latest Modcast, here's Giant Bomb's take on the Nintendo E3 press conference.

Jam Enslaver Reviews...Emperor: Battle for Dune

2009-06-03T01:47:00.003+01:00

Maybe it's a mistake to release a new video during E3 week, but hell if I didn't work hard over the past two days to get this review finished so I'm putting it out.

The Command and Conquer games will always hold a special place for me, since seeing the original in action at my friend Richard's house is one of my very earliest gaming memories. But when I started thinking about making a video about C&C, it struck me that Westwood actually made a whole handful of games that don't really get talked about much. Since there were a couple that I'd played in the past, I decided to create a sort of series of reviews and tackle them all together. Emperor: Battle for Dune is a good place to start, seeing as it took Westwood back to their roots as well as being the last RTS game produced by the studio.

Now of course the challenge is to keep the videos coming for parts 2 and 3 (and maybe 4, depending on whether I can play enough of a particular title in time to write about it). It's going to be tough, especially with Infamous sitting in my PS3, but it does feel good to work hard at something again. Expect to see more soon.

A Personal Best

2009-05-14T15:45:00.004+01:00

Despite what my Modcast cohosts would have you believe, I'm not a particularly avid bowler. When compared to my two brothers who usually make up the competition I'm distinctly average, happy to take a victory now and then, and most of the time satisfied to simply break 100. I can at times work out a nice consistent line, but I lack the strength to use anything heavier than a 10 pound ball, which costs me precious momentum and usually results in a pin or two left standing even after a throw that went exactly where I intended. This is why I don't talk much about bowling here: I never do anything particularly noteworthy whilst playing it.

Until today, that is, when I played with my old school friends Advait and Richard in our final activity together before Richard flies back to China. After our first game, where I broke my old record and scored 149, I somehow managed to get a perfect run going for the first five frames, ending up with a 184.
I actually have a feeling that my brother Andrew once bested this score, but even so this is likely to be a personal record that won't budge for many years. Why I can't bowl this well against Simon and Andrew is beyond me; I guess today the pins just decided to fall well for me.

Edit: Advait sent me another picture. I had no idea, but apparently I do a flamboyant finger-point when I bowl.

On Bad Accents and Employment

2009-05-11T18:34:00.001+01:00

Apologies for the lack of updates but at the moment nothing particularly exciting has happened recently, aside from me turning 24 which I seem to remember intending to write about on the actual date. Somehow the wonderful Chinese meal and going to see Wolverine with my old school friend Advait took my mind of Internet matters. I don't see my friends from way back all that often, so it was nice to hang out with not only Advait but also Richard and John when we all went out on Friday to see Star Trek. I think I'm missing something about that film; I liked it but didn't think it was anything sensational, whereas pretty much everyone else loved it. Maybe I just didn't see enough of the original series to see how it captured the feel of the good old days. I've heard tell that James Doohan wasn't much better at being Scottish than Simon Pegg.

Aside from that, not a lot going on at the moment. My search for employment continues through the unfathomable waters of graduate recruitment schemes, filled with hidden reefs of rejection that will snag even the most qualified of navigators. Hopefully a couple of recent applications will bear fruit. Unfortunately luck plays quite a big part, especially these days, but I will persevere and expect things to change for the better soon.

Jam Enslaver Reviews...Freedom Fighters

2009-04-27T19:31:00.004+01:00

Ah Freedom Fighters, forever tied in my memory to my first year at University. This was the second game I bought in York for my then new laptop, and the first for which I actually bought myself a mouse to play it with (I had borrowed my friend Phil's in order to play Jedi Academy).

This is another video trying to draw attention to a game that didn't get the success it deserved. The game was innovative, well designed, and for the time played amazingly well. It has dated a bit but is still so much fun to play.

In terms of the video itself, this is one of my more conservative efforts for a while. There's very little editing trickery, just scenes from the game put together. The only part that I actually did anything to was the opening, which I redubbed with different music and my own sound effect for the jet flying overhead. Maybe if I'd have thought about it, I could have put Jesper Kyd's soundtrack in a more prominent position by redubbing the music over the whole video, but that would have taken a bit more work and right now I actually don't have a lot of time. I'm happy with the way the video turned out, and hope that it will encourage more people to track this game down.

NooBTooB UK Meetup 2009 Video!

2009-04-24T19:05:00.002+01:00

Here's my video summary of what was a truly excellent day out with the UK chaps from NooBTooB. I'll definitely be organising something similar again next year. Enjoy!