James' Ivory Tower

Making The Enigma

2012-02-05T21:09:00.000Z

One of my resolutions at the start of this year was to start coding some personal projects during my free time. I'm still learning a lot from the programming I do at work, but I decided that in order to keep expanding my skills I needed to build something from the ground up, if possible in a language other than C# which I now use every day. C++ was the obvious choice since it was the first programming language I learned to use, but I haven't actually used it for quite some time. My last major coding task aside from work at Mind Candy was my Masters project over the summer, written in Java.

Something that I'd been wanting to do for a while was recreate the workings of the German Enigma machine: it presented the interesting challenge of working out exactly how the encryption works, and also offered a function that could easily be recreated via the command line (one of these days I'll write a program with a nicer user interface, but today is not that day). I spent a couple of hours online reading about the actual mechanics of the machine and how it goes about translating one letter into another and formulated a design. Then, over the course of a few evenings (lamentably spread across almost a month) I brought it together.

The operation of the final product is pretty simple. Much like the original Enigma, it is designed to both encode and decode plain text communication between two users who set up the program in exactly the same way: the number of code wheels to be used, the type of wheel in each slot, and the initial rotation position of each. In keeping with the spirit of the original, and because I didn't really want to start dabbling in network stuff just yet, the program doesn't actually provide the medium of communication, only a way of concealing the plain text sent via some other means. In the original that means was Morse code; in my program, you have the choice of manually typing your message into the program or importing it from a text file.

I'm very happy with the result, and may actually use the program here and there if the mood takes me. You can download it from this link, but bear in mind that it will only work on Windows machines, and even then your anti-virus may throw up its arms about running a random program that you downloaded from the Internet.

If you do manage to get it working then: jmol aagdc, s'hi qeancvwub sdep dsyl jvzs gexiekyp ltwbxvlk cg rzgf xiwxw ge ajt rvyayu bbaomf (4:3,18;4,4;1,8;5,21)

In the Moshi Pit

2011-11-06T20:28:00.000Z

I was intending on writing a blog post about starting my new job as a games developer on some kind of significant milestone time. First it was going to be my first day, then the end of my first week. The first fortnight came and went, as did the end of my first sprint, and now I've managed to even miss writing something after a full month at Mind Candy. So, before I forget/get too busy again here I am talking about it.

As you can probably imagine, before the job started I was fairly nervous. This isn't particularly unusual for me, in fact quite the opposite. Irrespective of anything there's always part of me that things I'll start work and discover that somewhere along the line there's been a massive screw up and I've been hired for a position that I'm neither suited nor qualified for. When it came to anticipating a job focused on a skill that I only started learning a year ago, this feeling was intensified. Luckily the people I work with are really nice and never fail to help me in whatever task I am set, and I have even managed to do a thing or two on my own without completely destroying the game's codebase or forcing someone else to spend hours fixing something I've broken. Things are greatly helped by the general atmosphere in the office. As my brother Simon has pointed out, I've managed to get myself into an industry where casual clothing is the norm, but something you don't often get, even at a big company like EA, is lots and lots of free stuff. The kitchen at Mind Candy is always there if I feel the need for a couple of Oreos or a bag of Hula Hoops, and I'm really trying not to become addicted to collecting Moshlings, the little plastic figurines from Moshi Monsters that are set to be one of this Christmas' top toys.


The Moshlings that Ruby got me for my birthday. My collection has since grown.

The work itself has been quite challenging but enjoyable, and I have to say that when people in the office tested our as-yet unannounced title on Friday I got a real sense of pride from watching them play. Since I don't really have time to make videos or podcasts any more it's been quite some time since anyone has enjoyed something that I've contributed to; it's very nice to get that feeling back and hopefully it will continue once the game is unleashed on the public at large.

In other related news, I got my results back from Imperial a couple of weeks ago and was thrilled to find out that I got a Distinction in my Masters. Weirdly the result hasn't been something I've spent a lot of time thinking about recently what with the new job and everything, but it is nice to know that all of the work from last year paid off. Now I can look forward to my graduation in May, which is apparently held in the Royal Albert Hall. That's still a long way in the future though, so until then I shall see what else comes my way, and perhaps find time to write about it.

Where All Roads Lead

2011-10-05T22:47:00.000+01:00

So, Rome then. I went there with Ruby about two weeks ago and only now do I get around to blogging about it. I could use the old excuse and say I've been madly busy, but in all honesty in the week following our return I wasn't really up to a whole lot. For some reason it's only now, when I start having important things to do (like go to work every day) that I decide to tell you all about my time in the Caput Mundi.

Whilst it may be a terrible British stereotype to start off by talking about the weather, I think in this case it's worth mentioning: depsite the lateness in the year we were very lucky with the amount of sun we experienced during the week. Pretty much every day was hot, some days moreso than others, and the only rain came in the middle of the night after our first full day when we experienced an extremely violent thunder storm. Though you would hardly know it had rained the next day, the cloudless sky drying up almost all the rain before we left our hotel the next day.

That first day was just spent getting our bearings in the city centre, which of course meant that we managed to accidentally stumble across the more famous landmarks of Rome. Walking back past the train station from which we had come the previous night we found ourselves in the Piazza di Republica, and so went in to see the spectacular interior of Santa Maria degli Angeli. This was to be the first of a great number of churches that we visited over the week, most of which I don't really remember the names of (in part because over half of them seem to be called Santa Maria something-or-other). This particular one does stick out in the memory though, not just because it was the first that we saw, but also because of its size and the fact that it has two highly decorated meridian lines built into the floor, which of course appealed to my astronimical side. After a bit more walking we came out of a dimly-lit side street to find Trajan's Column before us, and behind that the ridiculous grandiour of Il Vittoriano. During our wanderings we took in views of the Palatine hill and the Colosseum, but decided to save actually visiting these places for another day.

The following day we decided to visit the Vatican. We had been warned that this is one of the major focal points for tourists and sure enough when we arrived the queue to get in looked massive. However, once again mostly by luck, we managed to do exactly the right thing and not head straight for the museums, containing the famous Sistine Chapel. After an unexpectedly short time waiting in line we climbed all the way up to the top of the Cupola above St. Peters, looking down on the spectacular views of the city (dominated by Il Vittoriano, naturally). At the bottom of the stairs we found ourselves in the vast basillica itself, which was really a sight to see. As I said before, we saw a lot of churches during the week, all of them richly decorated and seemingly trying to outdo each other in the level of detail and artistry in their interiors. St. Peters was simply in a different league to the others due to sheer scale, and we were even fortunate enough to get to see down onto most of it from inside the dome. It was only after a relaxing lunch that we entered the Vatican Museums, and because we had managed to avoid the crowds which I'm told pack the place out earlier in the day, we were able to take our time and thoroughly appreciate the entire collection of art. Unfortunately we may have been a little too relaxed, as we were made to hurry through the last few rooms because the place was closing. The sheer number of people milling around inside the Sistine Chapel meant that it took quite some time for the security guards to shepherd everyone out, meaning that at least we did get a good long look at the famous wall and ceiling images.

I'm going to be honest now and say that I don't remember the exact course of most of the rest of the days in nearly as much detail. At some point during the week (on Tuesday I think) we visited the Trevi Fountain, managing once again by accident to avoid a time when too many people were around. On Wednesday we did our tour of the Palatine, the Forums and the Colosseum, which was really incredible. As you can see from the photograph above there was an exhibition on Nero going on inside the amphitheatre which was very interesting, as were the regular features about the building's construction and functions.

We also visited the Spanish Steps, the Pantheon, the Campo de Fiori and loads of other cool and interesting places that I'm sure will spring back into my mind as soon as I look again at all the photographs we took. One day we took the metro out to the Transtevere region of the city and walked along the Tiber for a while. Another we decided to try and get away from all the other tourists, got a little lost when we went for lunch andfound ourselves back at the Trevi Fountain. The food was, as you can imagine, excellent, and by the end of the week we had both tried a large variety of pizzas and pastas. Ironically, despite our wide-ranging trecks through the tratorias of Rome, the best place we found was just down the road from our hotel. It was so nice in fact that we ate there twice!

In conclusion it was a wonderful, although very tiring week spent enjoying the sun and taking in the grand historical spectacle that is Rome. After the first couple of days both Ruby's and my feet were pretty sore from all the walking we did. The insect bites I got inside the botanical gardens didn't help much either! This was my first holiday visiting a place like Rome, filled with hidden historical treasures and baroque churches waiting for you to discover them. It makes me keen to visit some of the other historical cities in Europe, and maybe beyond...

Goodbye For Now, London

2011-08-22T22:57:00.000+01:00

Well, I've moved again. For such a long time it's been the Big Event on my radar, a mass upheaval involving the coordination of various different parties. On Thursday I had to walk five miles in the rain to tell my self storage company which day I wanted to move in on whilst still avoiding the congestion charge. Friday was spent cleaning the house from top to bottom, before watching a professional cleaner under the hire of our landlord do the whole thing again. Saturday afternoon saw Ruby and I driving back and forth across London with a car filled to the roof with bags, boxes, duvets and even a set of golf clubs. After all that, it's probably not surprising that I managed to sleep almost until midday on Sunday!

So today, despite being spent once again writing my final masters report, was actually quite relaxing. My desktop PC is currently locked away in deepest west London, so my laptop has been pressed into service (with the assistance of my LCD TV and a wireless mouse and keyboard). The little corner of my bedroom that is now my office, under the leafy ambiance of the skylight, will go a long way to making sure that I stay ahead of schedule with the report. I even had time to go for a swim in the afternoon, and to watch the highlights of England's victory over India in the fourth test.

As ever there is more to do. I must now start searching in earnest for a place to live once my job starts in October, and at some point arrangements will have to be made for the trip to Asia next month. One chore that's out of the way: my car is now Andrew's car. After four good years of service I find myself heading into a second year living in a city where owning a car is positively discouraged, so it's being sold to my brother as he starts life as a teacher in Ascot. I'm sad to say goodbye to a machine I've taken such pride in, but at least I know it's going to a good owner.

I'm looking forward to a lot of things at the moment: looking forward to when my report is done, looking forward to Thailand, looking forward to knowing where I'll be living at the end of the year. In the short-term though I'm quite looking forward to a quiet couple of weeks working at my parents' house.

Progress Report

2011-07-19T20:46:00.000+01:00

Since today I finished writing the progress report for my final masters project, I thought it would be a good idea to write something here as well, since it's been a while. Somehow I managed to miss out on writing about my awesome sailing trip to Croatia which is bad of me since I had such a good time, but I suppose if you want to know how the trip went you're best looking at the album I made on Facebook. Here's a good picture of me too, just in case that link doesn't work like I think it should.

Now is also a good time to update the blog because I'm just finishing up a very busy, fun-filled weekend, and I will shortly be off on another couple of trips, so better to talk about what's just happened before my memory starts getting overloaded.

The weekend events started on Friday night when Ruby and I went to see Metropole Orkest vs. Basement Jakks at The Barbican. I have to admit, I've never been very familiar with Basement Jakks' music, but I do always enjoy going to see a full orchestra play and this was an absolute treat, and more than once I found myself asking "Oh, so this is one of their songs too?" Not surprisingly though, my highlight of the evening came from the song I knew I knew, Where's Your Head At, made all the more enjoyable by the sight of the barritone Le Gateau Chocolat dressed in yellow high-heels and a giant ball of orange fluff dancing across the stage.

On Saturday I was finally able to give Ruby a treat that I had had booked for a couple of months: a champagne afternoon tea at the Rafayel Hotel in Battersea. The food was absolutely delicious, with a lovely spread of hot starters, sandwiches and sweets, plus a glass of bubbly each and a cup of tea or two. The weather was a bit grey and miserable, which meant that our view of the Thames wasn't quite as nice as it could have been, but on the other hand we did get to see many helicopters coming and going from the nearby helipad which was very cool.

The helicopters were in fact a good primer for what we got up to on Sunday, heading off to Swindon on the train to attend the Royal International Air Tattoo at RAF Fairford, meeting up with Ruby's friend Chris at the station. This is now my third air show, so I have seen a few of the planes on display before, but there's always a real thrill of seeing them in action. We all enjoyed the Hawker Hunter 60th Anniversary display, and were very impressed when we saw the aerobatics performed by a Chinook transport helicopter. The weather was a bit grey and rained a few times, especially whilst we were queuing to have a look inside the truly gigantic C-17 Globemaster, but it turned out to be worth the wait to see inside the mighty aircraft!

Yesterday evening we went to a Thai cookery class in Acton, at the Angela Malik cookery school, which is in fact just a kitchen behind a highstreet shop. It's been quite some time since I last had a cooking lesson, which was way back in the summer of 2004 (I think!), and this was also quite a different experience since the class was much, much bigger. Still, it was lots of fun to cook something a bit different, and the results were yummy (I finished off the leftovers for my lunch today!) Plus I learned a good deal about Asian cooking, picking up some very useful tips about how to heat a wok properly, which oil to use, brands of soy and fish sauce to look out for and so on. I really need to do more cooking from scratch; hopefully once my job starts I'll be able to. Hah!

Aside from all the fun stuff, work has been progressing along. After a bit of a nervous start to my project I can now see the path that I need to take to bring it home. There's still a lot of work to be done, but the actual hard part that involves me staring at a computer screen trying to figure out how I'm going to do something seems to be over. Keep your fingers crossed that I can turn in a writeup that does justice to the amount of work I've put in so far!

So, that's what I've been up to recently. On Friday we are all off on holiday to Devon, and directly after that I'm flying to Belfast to wish my friend Phil a happy birthday. More news soon!

Incidentally, the cooking class and the champagne treat were both things bought from Groupon. Ruby and I use it a lot and it's a really great way of finding cheap, interesting things to do. If you're interested, check out the website and let me know (I get a bonus if people join on my recommendation).

The Time Machine

2011-05-26T13:01:00.000+01:00

Last night I finally succeeded in that life experience goal that has eluded me for so long: going to a rock concert. In the past I've had a couple of near misses with tickets that my Dad has acquired but I've been unable to use, with acts such as Paul McCartney, Elton John or U2. My visit to London's O2 Arena last night was entirely of my own planning, taking Dad to see Rush, one of my favourite bands of all!

Not many people in this country have heard of Rush, and those that have tend to be, shall we say, of a certain age. Approaching the venue we encountered more than our fair share of beards, steel-tinted hair either receding or grown to longer-than-shoulder length, and of course t-shirts from innumerable other Rush shows or albums from the entire spectrum of their very long career. Luckily I wasn't the youngest person there by a long way; I spotted more than a few pre-teens tagging along with their fathers, dressed appropriately in band-specific garb. I think the most profound statement about Rush's fanbase came from the almighty queue for the gents' during the interval, whilst the ladies' was relatively empty.

Dad and I found ourselves sitting at almost the polar oposite position to the stage: directly in front and way up almost at the back on the highest tier of the stadium. Whilst this meant that we were about as far away from the band members as possible, we did have a good view of all the special effects and the video screen during the show. Suffice to say that the distance was not a factor when it came to the quality of the sound we experienced. The sound system in the O2 seems to be fairly impressive; the music was by far the loudest thing I had ever experienced, swiftly trumped as soon as the pyrotechnics started going off. The stage setup was very impressive, featuring a giant, movable, six-armed lighting rig hanging from the ceiling above the stage, as well as numerous plasma globes and other assorted time machine equipment surrounding the drum platform.

The show itself was absolutely incredible. The band opened the show with a couple of my favourites (Spirit of Radio and Time Stand Still) before moving on to several that highlighted the blind spots in my Rush catalogue. I feel the need for an album-buying spree soon! The highlight of the show for me came directly after the interval, when the band played through the album Moving Pictures from beginning to end, leading of course with their biggest hit Tom Sawyer and moving on to staggering versions of YYZ, Red Barchetta and the rest. Later on Neil Peart really showed what he can do with his extensive drum kit, shaking the entire arena with a drum solo that included his entire platform rotating on its axis to reveal a second, electric drum kit on the other side! The set was capped off with an epic encore of La Villa Strangiato and a reggae-infused version of Working Man, plus a video of 'backstage' featuring Jason Seagle and Paul Rudd's characters from the movie I Love You Man.

So overall, an amazing first rock show for me to go to; something tells me that few things I'm going to see in the future will be quite that spectacular. It was a very special night and I'm grateful to my Dad for coming along and experiencing it with me. Hopefully he wasn't too traumatised by the sheer volume!

26

2011-05-06T18:21:00.000+01:00

This Wednesday just passed was my birthday; I am now 26, in the last year of my mid-twenties, and once again my birthday was overshadowed by other events in my life. Last year it was starting a new job on the same day, this year I was in the midst of exam season. I don't really mind though, because for every year that I've been busy on my birthday, there are the years where I get to take advantage of the May Day bank holiday.

Despite 26 not exactly being a significant milestone (it's not even a prime number, after all) this birthday did turn out to be pretty special. Ruby and I went for a wonderful sushi meal at Satori in Knightsbridge (see photo), and I was given some really nice presents and cards (plus, there are more still to come making their way through the postal system). I also got a really large number of messages from people I know wishing me well. Like, a really large number! By the end of the day it was a little overwhelming, especially for someone who's birthday is usually very low-key, and it really made me feel special to see so many people saying "happy birthday".

I'm not really the sort of person who puts too much stock in age, I don't feel particularly different to when I was 21, and I probably won't think much of it when I turn 30 (which is, after all, still a long way away). Once again it's been a very interesting year for me, with lots of new challenges coming from tackling a completely new academic subject, and lots of fun new experiences exploring London. The year ahead will of course bring lots of new things, most notably the fact that I'm going to start working at a games developer in October which is very exciting. In the nearer future plans are forming for the summer in between frenzied work on my final project, including a trip out to Croatia to do some sailing with my Uncle which I'm really looking forward to. There's light at the end of the exam tunnel, but I'm not there yet!

Just when I thought I was out...

2011-04-05T22:22:00.000+01:00

Once again I find myself in a situation I swore to myself I would never be in again: revising for exams. It may come as a surprise for some considering my academic record, but revising is probably one of my least favourite things in the world. As the time to my next exam shortens I always get very stressed out and start worrying about whether I've done enough; whether there's some vital little factoid lurking in my notes that I managed to miss. Luckily I do have a nice long break before the exams actually start in May so I'm not short on time, which is good because I have something else to hand in before then too!

Yes over the last couple of days when I should have been making more notes from the Operating Systems text book I took out of the library I've been researching the background paper for my project, which I will be working on over the summer. It's unassessed so I don't have to put too much effort into it, but a well written paper will set me in good stead for a well written final report. At the moment I'm worrying that it's not going to be long enough; I've not done many literature reviews in the past so I'm on somewhat unfamiliar territory. Still I should have it done and submitted in the next couple of days and then I can get back to the books.

Taking It Easy

2011-03-25T10:52:00.000Z

Yesterday I didn't get a lot done, and I really enjoyed it. After spending pretty much every week day for the past couple of months going on to campus and working normal office hours plus, it was great to just sleep in and spend the day doing nothing in particular. Having said that I actually did manage to be a little productive, but in a rather different direction.

Firstly I did a bit of research online and ordered myself a new phone. I've had my current handset for about three or four years now, and I've been on my current pay-as-you-go plan since my first mobile which was...longer ago than I care to remember. My excuse for not changing was that I never really needed to use my phone much; there's no better way of making a telemarketer from your mobile network rush to end a conversation like telling them you only top up your balance every couple of months or so. Now though I'm finding myself using texts more and more, and the ability to keep up with things like email and Twitter on the go would be nice. So I lumped for an HTC Wildfire from Vodafone which I think will suit my needs without costing me an arm and a leg.

My other productive streak for the day was sewing the buttons back on my smart jacket. At some point during a busy morning, the combination of rucksack straps and pushing commuters ripped a couple of them off, so with needle and thread borrowed from Ruby I set about repairing the damage. I think I did a pretty good job and found it immensely satisfying to fix something with my hands for the first time in a long while. I'll be wearing the jacket tonight for an end of term drinks session at Imperial College Union bar, this time being careful not to put the buttons under too much strain.

Before that though I do have a little work I need to do today. The next deadline on the horizon is the literature review for my individual project that will be occupying me over the summer. In their great wisdom, the Department of Computing has that particular milestone falling on the first day of exams, which means at least some time that should be spent revising will be used to work out exactly what a literature review is and how one goes about writing it. Today I'm going to start looking for relevant papers and building up a library of Internet links to useful information. Time to stop blogging and start work again!

Crunch Time

2011-03-16T10:41:00.000Z

It's week 10 of the spring term here at Imperial College, which means everyone is madly busy. Deadlines are fast approaching for the last batch of coursework that we were assigned, and on top of that Friday marks the last time we have to work on our group projects before they have to be submitted. Stress hangs in the air like fog and everyone's posture has assumed that trademark gallows humour of students all straining to get their work done. The computer lab is routinely packed to capacity from 10am to 6pm, so I'm very glad that my group project allows me the privilege of using one of the iMacs, so I can always get access to a machine to do my work.

This was actually taken on a Sunday. I wish I was joking.

Usually in these situations I get extremely anxious; I've come to the conclusion that it's a form of academic defence mechanism I developed back in York. Expecting the worst becomes the normality and I react accordingly, meaning that the worst never actually happens. Somehow now though I seem to be unusually serene about everything, possibly because I actually have the vast majority of my coursework done and dusted, leaving me free to devote all my time to the iPhone app (that is, when I'm not blogging about it!) I kind of need to wind myself up again so that I can pour all my efforts into the large amount of coding that still needs to be done to get our activity prediction algorithm functional, but I'm sure that'll happen later today when Adrian and I start another paired programming session.

It also helps a lot that a couple of appointments I was expecting to have this week have been pushed back a bit. When you're under the kosh of college work it's hard to think about anything that comes afterward, but I've actually had some good responses back from jobs I've applied to which means time invested in longer-term prospects than what my final masters classification will be. I'll be going in for an assessment day at Lionhead in Guildford in the next couple of weeks, and I have a second interview at Mind Candy fairly soon too. It's kind of a weird situation to have more than one application go this far at the same time. In previous experiences of searching for jobs, I would have exactly one successful application which ended up being the job I took on. Never before have I been in a position to potentially choose between multiple jobs. We'll see what happens of course, and there's a good chance nothing will come from either, but I'm keeping two sets of fingers crossed.

Banana and Pancakes

2011-03-09T16:15:00.000Z

When I rebooted this blog a couple of weeks ago I wanted to start writing more about stuff I've been doing, since the editorial comments about video games had somewhat dried up. Of course that meant that I instantly came up with some pretty good ideas for posts about video games, since nothing I ever intend to do goes as planned even if the results are pleasing. I will try to redress the balance since I've been doing a lot of cool stuff over the past few weeks, in no small part thanks to Ruby and her uncanny ability to sniff out fun, often free, things to do in London. Last weekend, for example, we had a South African feast at Shaka Zulu and went to do all kinds of Japanese stuff at the Bunkasai Festival.

I'll try to report more on those sorts of things as they happen in the future, but for now, here's a short post about the pancakes we ate yesterday. Shrove Tuesday is of course Pancake Day, the one day a year where you can eat desert as a main meal and not feel guilty about it. As my brothers never tire of reminding me, I tend to be a bit different to most other people when it comes to food, and my taste in pancakes is no exception. Whilst many favour the traditional plain, perfectly flat pancake, usually served with sugar and lemon juice, for the last few years I have made the sweeter, American style pancakes (also called drop-scones or scotch pancakes). It's not to be different, I just think they're nicer, less fiddley to eat and much more suited filling you up all on their own. It is my real opinion that one of the major disadvantages to living in the UK as opposed to the USA is that we don't have IHOP over here.

Luckily Ruby likes these type too so that's what I made yesterday (and will do again soon since we ended up with about three times more pancake mix than two people can eat). Usually I prefer maple syrup on pancakes, but for whatever reason there was none to be had in all the shops nearby. So Ruby stepped in with an amazing Gordon Ramsay recipe involving bananas. You can look at the recipe at this link, except Ruby's version didn't contain rum and ice-cream. It's really good, and something very different to have on pancakes. In fact it was so good we managed to eat all of it before I even thought to take a picture for my Shuttercal, so you'll have to make do with the second stack, served with cherry yoghurt.

Return of the Gung-ho: Is the 'thinking man's shooter' on its way out?

2011-03-03T15:07:00.000Z

A good example of what Doom does best

It's probably safe to assume that anyone reading this, gamer or not, will be familiar with Doom. It forms part of that mythical pantheon of gaming gods, including Super Mario Bros, Pac Man and Tetris, that were so important, so revolutionary, that even non-gamers know pretty much exactly what it is. Even Super Mario Bros can't say that it was mentioned in an episode of Friends! For a lot of people, Doom is the cultural touchstone of the first-person shooter; games played from behind the eyes of the protagonist, where the aim of the game is to kill enemies with different weapons. The games of this genre were characterised with a particular gung-ho attitude: pacing was high, story was usually minimal, weapons were ridiculous and loud, and enemies were as over-the-top as possible. When games like Quake and Unreal Tournament came along, focused on lots of players getting together in the same level and seeing who was best at killing each other, these attributes became even more pronounced and things got crazier still. Life was lived at break-neck speed, set against a soundtrack of heavy metal and rusty chainsaws. This was an environment where twitch reflexes were essential and shooting a rocket at your own feet to blast yourself into the air was a legitimate tactic.

The first-person shooter continues to be the most popular game genre, but things are different now. Twisting storylines and a gritty, realistic edge are the order of the day, even in games which aren't set in the real-world like Halo or Killzone. Floating medi-packs are replaced by recharging health, and the outlandish arsenal of plasma rifles and chainsaws replaced by realistic assault rifles and knives. It's hard to say exactly where the shift happened, but my theory is that the first Medal of Honor had a lot to do with it, showing in amazing cinematic detail the struggles of allied soldiers during the Second World War. It might sound like I'm complaining a bit about things but really I'm not; the modern shooter is the natural evolution of its louder forbears and answers the need for a more thoughtful combat experience. One only has to compare the success of Unreal Tournament 3 to Call of Duty 4 to see that attitudes have changed. There are some exceptions to the trend, most notably the runaway success of the cartoon-styled Team Fortress 2, but these are quite rare.

Same persective, very different game

But now we're seeing a small retro revolution. Last week saw the release of Bulletstorm, a first-person shooter that very much embraces the absurdities of yesteryear with its urging of the player to 'kill with skill' by finding as many different ways as possible to dispatch the goons in their path. It's hardly surprising that this game is the way it is, being developed by Polish studio People Can Fly, famous for the very old-school Painkiller series, and Epic, who's Gears of War franchise has managed to maintain some of the crazed bloodlust of the Unreal series whilst effectively defining a new genre of action game. That isn't all though. This year, Gearbox will succeed where so many have failed and bring Duke Nukem Forever to market after over a decade of development, and a few days ago Croteam announced that Serious Sam 3 will be arriving soon. It seems that like adventure games and fighting games, old-fashioned first-person shooters are set for a comeback.

Bulletstorm, being ridiculous

It's still early days yet, but there is a good chance that we might see more of this kind of game in the triple-A market before long. At present it seems like Gearbox are at the tip of the spear, not only reviving one of the cornerstones of old shooters but also giving us games like Borderlands and its 'bazillion different guns'. Gearbox actually bought the rights to the Duke Nukem name before starting work finishing Forever, so it's almost certain we'll see a brand new title in that franchise announced soon after the release. If titles like this are successful and show that gamers are in fact still interested in this kind of experience, we could be set for an explosion. It's something I'd like to see not just because I like these kind of games, but because variety is always a good thing in such a clustered genre and it'll be interesting to see how modern developers adapt the evolutions of the modern shooter onto something a bit more fast and loose.

So to answer that attention-grabbing question in the title, no of course I don't think the days of the more realistic FPS are numbered, but a resurgence of this older design philosophy might actually spur the genre onwards and upwards.

iPhoning It In

2011-02-25T22:33:00.000Z

At a risk of sounding like a broken record, I've been pretty busy this week. Luckily for once I actually have something to show for all this hard work. After spending all of Sunday in the computer lab bashing my head against the brick wall of my graphics coursework, a mere 15 minutes on Monday morning finally got everything working the way it should in time for the deadline. I always like to have things like that dealt with long before it's due to be handed in so you can probably imagine how stressed I was feeling. Whilst it feels nice to have passed another milestone, there is of course still more to do. I'm spending the weekend at my parents' house and I anticipate that most of the time will be spent hacking away at some Java for my Concurrent Programming course and writing my section of the second report for my group project.

I thought I'd talk a bit about my group project a bit since I've been doing quite a lot of it this week. The aim is to develop an iPhone app that reads in data from the device's sensors and can work out what you're doing (walking, riding a train, going down stairs and so on). Unfortunately there have been quite a lot of roadblocks along the way, including not being able to unlock the phones we were given and the general headache of getting through Apple's certification process. Over the last couple of weeks we've actually made good progress; our 'training app' is more or less fully functional, allowing us to log the data we need, and my friend Adrian and I managed to work out most of the kinks in our prototype of the final product this afternoon. There's still a lot of programming to do but, again, it's nice to have something to show for all the hours everyone has put in.

Aside from anything else it's been very interesting working on the other side of the iPhone app explosion. One is very used to seeing amazingly clever little pieces of software running on these smartphones, so actually digging down into the processes that make them work really makes you marvel at the creativity of some of these tiny developers. Hopefully things will go smoothly over the coming weeks as we approach the final presentation of our app as we start to step things up a bit and start integrating some fancy social media features.

So it's another busy weekend for me, but luckily I'll be in the comfort of the family home, enjoying the fresh coat of paint and new carpet in my room!

You Cannot Get Ye Flask: Where are adventure games going?

2011-02-18T23:11:00.002Z

So yes, I did say that I was going to write more about what's going on with my life at the moment, but I've been thinking of writing something about adventure games. Much like the fighting game genre, the old fashioned point-and-click adventure has been seeing something of a resurgence in recent years after almost a decade of silence. Today I read that Telltale are rebooting the classic King's Quest series, which means that now both giants of the adventure genre, Sierra and LucasArts, have their heavy hitters back in the game (albeit, both made by the same developer!)

Even in his own throne room, Graham constantly fears death

I'll always have a soft spot for King's Quest because they were the games that my school friend Richard and I used to play together when I went round to his house. Unfortunately, going back to them these days, they epitomise a good deal of what went wrong with adventure games. Whilst it is pretty hilarious seeing how many ways King Graham can meet an untimely and improbable end, discovering that you have to start the whole game over again because you didn't pick up an item that you needed two hours ago is never a good time. The series was massively influential, and offered players some really interesting and memorable stories, but chances are there will be some fundamental design changes in whatever King's Quest IX turns out to be.

It's quite funny that adventure games started out as one of the most punishing genres to play, requiring the patience of a saint and the lateral thinking of Sherlock Holmes (plus a good deal of imagination for ones based purely on text), and have now evolved into something that can easily appeal to more casual players. Once games like The Secret of Monkey Island decided to do away with no-win situations and player death, it encouraged players to fully explore the worlds that the designers had created. In some cases, this meant that designers could really pull out all the stops and litter their games with little jokes and easter eggs for the player to find, but in others it can lead to problems. Without the threat of death, the puzzles lying between the player and the credits have to walk a careful balance if the game is to stay interesting. Make them too easy and the player steamrolls through the whole game without any challenge, too hard and they'll stumble around for hours before looking up the answer online. The former situation can be accommodated with an interesting story or good dialogue, but that can only go so far.


Great artwork and clever puzzles make Machinarium memorable

It's fair to say that everything at the top of the line, under Telltale's experienced care, is going pretty well. Tales of Monkey Island was a brilliant reboot of a classic franchises that managed to capture the feel of the old games, and original titles like Puzzle Agent show that they don't always have to rely on that nostalgia factor to produce compelling experiences, from both a story and gameplay perspective. It's not just them either, my Steam list is currently chock full of great adventure games waiting to be played like Machinarium and Amnesia. What concerns me is the rest of the field. Whenever I go into a game store these days I can't help but notice that my old stomping ground, the budget PC section, is overflowing with cheap and cheerful adventure titles that I've never heard of. Having never picked up any of these I can't speak to their quality, but one only needs to look at the state of the Wiiware download service to see what over-saturation can do to a market.

It's great to see adventure games enjoying a flush period, and I'm really excited to see what Telltale has for us next. The expanded audience has its good and bad points for gaming, but in making a tired old genre profitable again makes up for at least some of the shovelware.

Not a Master of Computers, just Computing

2011-02-12T20:33:00.005Z

Since it can safely be said that my masters course is the thing taking up most of my time these days, and thusly the principal reason for why this blog became so neglected, it seems like a good subject to start this new era of semi-frequent updates. One of the most frequent questions I'm asked by people outside my immediate friends, most of whom are themselves embroiled in the same academic exploits, is am I enjoying it. The succinct answer to that is of course yes, I am enjoying spending most days learning about computers and how they work. It can be a bit frustrating sometimes, like any subject that you throw yourself into, but the satisfaction gained from realising that some of the vast waterfall of information pouring into my brain has actually stayed there definitely outweighs the occasional "f*** you, C++" moment.

Actually as it happens those moments don't happen very much any more. Oh yes, in the early days of the first term I spent many late nights, head in hands, staring at what might as well have been Egyptian hieroglyphs trying to figure out what on Earth the weird messages the computer was telling me meant. Broadly the gist of them was that I had made some kind of error, and as such my code wouldn't compile, but it took some time before I started to get adept at understanding what these cryptic riddles were saying. Now though I think I can say that C++ is one of my stronger subjects in computing, which sort of makes sense. In my experience I'm pretty good at learning a system and then applying it to new situations (such as classical physics or maths), so once I have the rules for a programming language in my head it seems to stick nicely. It's all the peripheral facts that I sometimes have trouble with. I'm hoping that now I have one of the more popular programming languages under my belt, picking up one or two of the others should be relatively straightforward (although Objective-C seems to be putting up one hell of a fight!)

Aside from programming I am enjoying the other parts of the course as well. It was a very nice moment when we started to learn about assembler as part of our architecture class and suddenly have all the steps in the road between the program you see running on the screen to the physical bits that the computer's processor is seeing and reacting to. Graphics was something I was very much looking forward to learning, and was pleased to discover that it actually uses quite a lot of the stuff I learned back in my undergraduate degree!

Something I probably should have been aware of before I started the course, but has nonetheless still managed to surprise me, is how much work there is to be done. Last term saw a point where we had no less than five coursework assignments on the go, and this term any other free time we have should probably spent doing something towards our group project. There have been times where it was a bit hard to see the end of the tunnel, and with the prospect of having to revise for exams over Easter before commencing work on an individual project it's not like I can relax now. I actually bought a text book on Java to try and capitalise on the very short primer we had just after we came back from holiday in January, but as yet it lies unopened. That said I think I've managed to get used to the busy schedule and manage my time nicely, so I have been able to actually go out and do things as well as work (I'll talk about that some other time).

So in a nutshell, the course is very enjoyable despite being a little brutal at times regarding the workload. It really feels like I'm learning some things that I'll actually be able to use once I graduate, which of course was the ultimate goal in the first place!

It's been such a long time...

2011-02-11T12:04:00.003Z

Yes indeed, it's time for another half-arsed post explaining why I haven't written anything here for a while. As I'm continually saying these days (and in fact may have said the last time I came shamefaced to my readers asking for forgiveness) there's actually quite a lot going on with me right now, so my old excuse of life being a flat, beige expanse with nothing worth reporting still doesn't hold. I guess I could make the excuse that I'm so busy that it's hard to find time to blog about anything, but that's not true either.

To be perfectly honest, sometimes I forget I have a blog at all, and when I do remember it I find myself struggling to think of a good topic about which I can have my own style of one-sided discussion. Occasionally something will cross my mind that I'd like to spend a bit of time examining in more detail, but usually I get distracted by something more important than maintaining my self-image as an important video game blogger.

So today I decided to stop trying to write those kind of posts if nothing comes to mind and get back to why I started this blog in the first place: to let people know what's going on with me and how my life is going. In the years since I first started this thing I have more and more people with whom I'd like to keep in touch over the distances that separate us, so I'd like them to have an idea of what I'm up to even if I can't jump on Skype or Xbox Live as often as I'd like.

I think the key is getting into the habit of it. Recently I broke day 500 on my Shuttercal profile with a picture for every single day, something I'm a little bit proud of. That shows that I'm not so pressed for time that I can't put a little aside each day to do something a little creative, I just need to remember to do it. So with that in mind, I'm going to start writing (at least) weekly updates on here again just talking about life. In the next day or so I'll write the first one (this isn't it, I didn't want to turn over a new leaf in such a self-referential way) and I think change the layout of my blog. It's starting to look a bit dated and cluttered and I think if I spend a little time I can make some improvements.

I'll finish off this post by saying that this is all heavily influenced by two of the friends I was referring to earlier starting blogs of their own. You can find them at Trap Doors to Endless Wisdom and The rise and fall of the Gravehound. Two very different viewpoints on the world that I'm sure will be fascinating to read in the coming months.

Jam Enslaver's Top Ten Video Games of 2010

2010-12-15T11:24:00.018Z

2010 has been an interesting year for video games. Whereas in previous years there have been a handful of trully excellent games mostly clustered around the busy Christmas release period, this year we are finally seing publishers fully embrace the idea of spreading their games across the whole calendar. That's definitely for the best because there are a couple of games on this list that, had they come out in the last month or so would definitely have been ommited because I simply wouldn't have had the time to play them.

On the Modcast Game of the Year show we revealed our top three games of the year, so for anyone who's heard that the end of this list will look familiar. However, there have been so many great games this year that I felt the need to expand the list to a full ten. Here we go:

10. Deathspank
We start off the list with a game that doesn't do anything particularly complicated, but does it extremely well. Deathspank is a good old-fashioned dungeon-hack featuring a good old-fashioned lantern-jawed, bone-headed hero. Taking every opportunity to poke fun at the usually dour world of the role-playing game, Deathspank charges through a colourful and subversive fantasy land populated by killer unicorns, bitter old adventurers and useless artifacts of ultimate destiny. Combat is simple but fun, the combo system encouraging the player to find interesting combinations of the various weapon classes. There's a lot to like in Deathspank, especially the funny dialogue and catchy soundtrack, and it is well deserving of being on this list.

9. Minecraft
The work of (until recently) a single man and this year's run-away indie hit, Minecraft is the ultimate exploration of the idea of letting the player make their own fun. Thrown into a blocky world with no goals except what you set for yourself, the only challenge being to top what you made last time, Minecraft encourages you to dig into its randomly generated caverns looking for resources to either build great edifices above the ground, or improve your equipment for your adventures below. Or how about jumping onto a multiplayer server and becoming part of a community of craftsmen to see what everyone else has made today? The game isn't even final yet but it is already massively successful, and only notch knows what else we'll see in this great little game before he decides to put a bow on it.

8. Super Mario Galaxy 2
The original Mario Galaxy is a triumph of imagination, each level teasing yet more unique ideas out of the evergreen mechanics of the little Italian plumber. Super Mario Galaxy 2 is more of the same in the best way possible. When almost every level of the first game was a well thought out evolution, the only sensible course of action for Nintendo's designers was to continue the curve upwards to yet more crazy fun. With this comes a steeper challenge that means I actually haven't finished the game yet, and hence sadly means I can't justifiably put the game higher on the list. However, it admirably maintains and improves on the standards set by its mighty predecessor and is a must-buy for any Wii owners out there.

7. Enslaved: Odyssey to the West
I'm sure at this point most people are sick of hearing me talk about how much I love the Uncharted series, but hopefully when I invoke it when discussing Enslaved it will give some idea of the incredibly demanding frame of reference from which I am drawing. Enslaved's in-game acting and voice-over are on par with Nathan Drake's adventures, the characters as believable and realistic as their art design and the current hardware restrictions will allow. When entering into the game I was expecting a decent mashup of character-action combat, Prince of Persia platforming and third-person shooting action. I wasn't expecting the story to make good on its origins in Chinese folktale and keep me hanging on every word, every eye movement, every twitch of Pigsy's ear. Mechanically the game is fun but nothing special; narratively Enslaved is yet another showcase of the heights that performance capture can achieve.

6. Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit
2010 has been a bumper year for combat racing games. With Blur giving players a grown-up version of Mario Kart and Split/Second turning up the action-packed insanity, Criterion's latest offering actually had some stiff competition. But, as one would expect, Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit is by far the best racing game this year. Returning to the series' cops and robbers roots, players are given the keys to some of the world's most extreme vehicles and tasked with either evading the law or bringing the racers to swift, brutal justice. Armed with an arsenal including spike strips, road blocks, EMPs and helicopters, races become a tense battle fought at 200mph. Criterion once again nail the feel of driving, the cars presenting a tangible heft and jitter at high speeds. All this is wrapped up in the inovative Autolog, a Facebook-inspired social network that constantly presents you with information about what your friends are doing and where you might want to focus your attention next. Need for Speed is back on track.

5. Pac Man Championship Edition DX
It's quite funny how Namco spent so long trying to capitalise on the success of the original Pac Man with odd variations on the core mechanics or simply bizarre departures from even the twisted logic on which the series is built, but it was only recently that they struck gold with Pac Man Champtionship Edition. This year, the spin on the old yellow fellow gets a further spin and winds up being the most intense arcade experience of the year. Pac Man CE DX adds sleeping ghosts to the mix who, when passed by, will wake up and chase Pac Man. As time goes on more and more ghosts join the line until that sweetest of moments; the power pellet. The ghosts turn blue, Pac Man turns on his pursuers, and magic happens that taps directly into some primal part of the brain. Munching along the ghost train is an incredibly cathartic experience that never gets old. And now this action can be played out in various different modes on a generous selection of boards, meaning there's so much to do in this tidy little package. Who knows where Pac Man will go from here, but as of right now he's finally landed in a good place and long may that continue.

4. Red Dead Redemption
"From the makers of Grand Theft Auto" is the slightly misleading marketing slogan for Red Dead Redemption, and in retrospect maybe even be doing a disservice to Rockstar San Diego's western epic. Next time Rockstar returns to its crime sandbox series they might consider saying that it is "From the makers of Red Dead Redemption". The world of John Marston is vast and, necessarily due to the setting, largely empty, yet it never feels like that. As you ride your horse down a lonely dirt road vultures circle in the air, coyotes bark unseen in the underbrush, and off in the distance comes the sound of gunfire. Whether you decide to stick to the path or wander off to see what's up is entirely up to you, and you are well rewarded whatever your decision. The main storyline is well paced and expertly told, and the sideshows on offer are varied and, for the most part, actually worth your time. Track down bounties, play a few rounds of poker, break wild horses or just start a punch-up in the saloon. The game's pitch-perfect atmosphere, excellent shooting and engaging characters means that every moment spent in New Austin is a treat for anyone who's dreamed of being a cowboy.

3. Limbo
In a time when games are striving to stuff every frame with as much detail as possible, it's refreshing to see a game like Limbo do so much with so little. With almost no sound, no colour, no explicit story, and with a playthrough time of only two or three hours, the adventure of a little boy through a dark and dangerous world manages to be memorable in a way that the showiest blockbuster can never be. Exploiting the player's own imagination, Limbo simply asks you to draw your own conclusions as you keep pushing forward past the many hazards and challenges that lie ahead. Not afraid to be shocking, punishing or obscure, the game presents a hard-edged world in soft focus. There is nothing good here, the only escape is past the giant spiders, the bear traps, the feral children and the spinning saw blades. If you manage to penetrate Limbo's heart of darkness and make it out the other side you will be left with memories of an incredible journey that will stay with you long after it is over.

2. Darksiders
It's very easy to accuse Darksiders of being derivative. The easiest way of describing the game is to list off the other games that it takes mechanics from: Zelda, God of War, Gears of War, Panzer Dragoon. However, like a fine cocktail, Darksiders combines all these flavours into something great, wrapped up in a heavy metal, Heaven versus Hell fiction that I take as an extreme guilty pleasure. Playing as War, one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, the player must restore balance to the world by fighting and puzzling through a series of dungeons, collecting new equipment in order to solve more puzzles and so on. It sounds very familiar but when you consider that fans of this style of game rarely get something like this outside of Nintendo's platforms it starts to make sense. Combat is punchy and intuitive, nicely giving you a sense of power befitting War's status whilst still providing a challenge in later stages. The art style, the work of American comic artist Joe Madureira, is chunky and colourful, the characters bristling with detail and the environments shaming all those greying-brown post-apocalypses we've seen before. I have a feeling that Darksiders is destined to be overlooked for plaudits this year, but hopefully that won't stop Vigil from pushing on and making this a proper franchise. After all, we still have three more horsemen to go!

1. Mass Effect 2
It comes as no great surprise that my favourite game this year is the follow-up to the excellent but flawed Mass Effect. Gone is the clunky combat, gone are the repetitive side-quests set in the same three buildings, gone are the slightly awkward moments when characters would stand bolt upright staring at each other whilst having a conversation. In their place are a surprisingly fun cover-based shooting system, exciting side quests, all unique and properly scripted and paced, and dynamic cutscenes straight out of a movie that still grant the player the ability to dictate their ebb and flow. The universe that Bioware have created is like no other in video games: dense with the tiniest details, but facinating in a way that makes you want to see every one of those details for yourself. The new cast of characters are expertly crafted, the improved facial animations and excellent voice acting making each sparkle in their own way, and those returning from the first game feel like old friends at this point. There's a universe of choice out there, already showing your footprints if you import a save from the first game, and it's as gloriously well executed as you could want. Mass Effect 2 stands as a shining example of how to do sequels right, and anyone who plays it will be salivating to begin the next chapter of Shepard's adventures.

Update about a Lack of Updates

2010-12-14T10:47:00.006Z

As my brother Simon is very fond of pointing out, I haven't written in this space for quite some time now. Usually when that happens it's because nothing very interesting is happening to me, with life just cruising along in the same old way without too many troughs or peaks from which to report my progress. Of course this time I can't really use that excuse since life at the moment is pretty interesting for me. No, on this occasion I have the excuse that I've been busy, and not just with the unimportant matters like video games and sleeping in. Actual, legitimate academic work, the kind of which I haven't really been confronted with since I graduated more than four years ago (even longer when you consider that I didn't do much beyond muck around and have fun in the time between my exams and graduation).

My work is done, at least for now. I'm enjoying a brief respite between the last piece of my coursework being handed in and the beginning of the inevitable revision I'll be doing over the holidays in preparation for some tests I have in early January. Since this isn't really a lot of time to do anything very constructive (such as make another video), I thought I would turn to my neglected blog and write something interesting. What should it be? Well, since we're nearing the end of the year, and since I recently recorded a Modcast on the subject, I thought I would do a little writeup of my favourite games of the year. Something I have noticed since we stopped doing weekly podcasts is that I'm already losing the knack of talking fluently about a given subject, even about a game I really enjoyed. As such I probably didn't hit all the points I wanted to about every game I talked about on Sunday. So, look out for a proper eulogy to gaming in 2010 within the next day or so.

Not tonight though, I'm going to see Harry Potter.

Jam Enslaver Reviews...Theme Park

2010-10-19T22:24:00.003+01:00

That's right, I finally gathered up the time and energy needed to make another video review. Some people will recall that I started out the year with the aim of getting one of these done every month, a lofty aim that fell right on its face after the second month. I'm not sure when I'll begin work on the next one, I have a different project in mind that will be coming first. For now, though, I'm glad I finally tackled Theme Park. It's one of those games that forms the bedrock of my life as a gamer and I think I did it justice. There are a couple of things I would have improved from the video, such as including actual footage of the other Bullfrog games I mentioned. I actually own Theme Hospital and Dungeon Keeper 2, but since they are all the way back at my parents' house and I wanted to avoid delaying the video more than necessary, I decided to push ahead without them.

I hope you like the video, I'll have more stuff coming soon!

Back in the Big City

2010-10-10T18:38:00.002+01:00

So here I am again, back living in London. Moving in with Simon and Andrew has been the Big Event on the horizon for such a long time now, going back pretty much since I was accepted on my masters course, that it's kind of weird now that that milestone has been passed and the next stage of life has actually begun.

It took a bit of doing last weekend getting the house up to my exacting standards of connectivity. Even with my collection of extra long cables it was a bit of a puzzle getting the Internet connection from the phone plug downstairs in the kitchen all the way upstairs to my PC and Xbox in my room. Aside from that I still have one or two things still to sort out, most notably my pictures. The walls in my room are still a little bare, and I never feel like I'm completely moved in until I have my robots and pirates up.

The first week of the course went well and I'm having a good time meeting lots of new people. So far the course has been focused on teaching us C++ and how to do things in Linux. South Kensington is a really nice place to study, particularly compared to the grey concrete of York, and I just spend a really nice afternoon wandering around Hyde Park.

In other good news I've actually found the time this week to start work on a new video review. Progress has been very good and it should be ready by next weekend. I can't deny that it's been fun getting back into video editing, so I need to start thinking about what to do once I'm finished with this one. Next week I'll be into a regular schedule of classes so I'll get a better idea of how much time I'll have between studying. Hopefully I'll get some time to be creative between programming assignments.

PAX 2010 Part 5: Gameworks, Gateau and Goodbyes

2010-09-15T21:03:00.004+01:00

Last year, on our free days before and after PAX, we went to the Seattle Zoo and the Space Needle. This year, possibly because we couldn't be bothered to find another suitably touristy thing to do but probably because we were happy enough just hanging out, we just went to Gameworks instead. Whilst it was a bit annoying that our plans for Sunday evening were scuppered by the place being otherwise engaged, it actually resulted in a pretty good night in the short term, and in the long term meant that the number of broken arcade machines when we finally did get inside on Monday was much lower than usual. So we had a good time playing Gauntlet Dark Legacy, air hockey, Pop'n Music and having friendly games of Extreme Hunting 2.

Another little tradition of PAX kept by those of us still in Seattle on this last day is to have dinner together at Cheesecake Factory. Experience has taught me that when going to Cheesecake Factory that if I actually want to have cheesecake I need to have a game plan. The food for the main course is always so good that by the time desert comes around I'm just too full to really enjoy it, so this year I resolved to keep the first part of the meal light. It worked, to a certain extent, and as a bonus I think I found the other tastiest thing on the menu, a delicious blue cheese and pear mini-pizza thing. After that, and after bidding farewell to another group of friends who were leaving that afternoon, we made our way back to the hotel and ended up playing Race for the Galaxy for the rest of the night. Good times!

It's always a sad day having to pack up the last of the free t-shirts and posters that have accumulated in our hotel room over the three days of the show. Even the sunflower looked miserable, although that might be because we hadn't watered it properly in almost a week! After a rather tense period at the airport going through security where we got separated, eventually we found ourselves, once again, sitting around the food court at SeaTac as one by one we had to say goodbye and head for our different gates. As fate would have it, the last two guys still with me were my Modcast co-hosts, Locke and Gravehound as we waited for our different flights going from the same gate. We filled the time with a little game of Carcasonne on Locke's iPhone.

Flying out last, I was eventually left there alone, contemplating a new set of great memories and the extremely long journey ahead. As I said when I started writing this, I had the best time in Seattle this year, and the reason for that was because the emphasis was less on what we did and more on who we did it with. On the Modcast we often get asked for advice from people preparing to go to PAX for the first time. I think on reflection, the best thing I can suggest is to take friends. The games you queue up for hours to see on the show floor will be filling the bargain bins before you know it, but good friendships stick around for life. I can't wait for next year!

PAX 2010 Part 4: Punching, Panels and Podcasts

2010-09-14T22:21:00.004+01:00

Sunday is usually a very busy day on the show floor as we all suddenly realise that there's still so much that we haven't seen and only one more day to get it in. This year was a little different for me as I felt I had already wandered around quite a lot, mostly because there hadn't been that many panels that I wanted to see, and thus the time lost to queuing was greatly reduced. Draco and Swoopes expressed that they were going to the Gearbox panel later on in the day, and I decided that since getting in to the Duke Nukem Forever booth would still be impossible I should go along too to see if I could glean any details. But before that we still had some time to spare, so off we went to see if there was anything else left to find amongst the crowds. hp and I took the opportunity to pose with an amazing replica of the DeLorean from Back to the Future, set up to promote the forthcoming game from Telltale.

It was surprising to find that, much like Kinect, there wasn't too much of a line to play the Playstation Move. Given how much emphasis was put on these motion control systems at E3, but how many questions were left to the many of us yet to get our hands on the new hardware, I had anticipated that these booths would be among the busiest. Regardless, after a short wait I found myself with a glowing ice cream cone in each hand sampling The Fight: Lights Out. Having watched people ahead of me flail around with limited success I resolved to use as simple, deliberate motions as possible to give the game a fighting chance (no pun intended), but the result was still very underwhelming. The amazing fidelity of motion capture on display when the Move was first unveiled a year ago, allowing the designer to naturally write his name in mid-air, was severely lacking in a piece of boxing software that fails to properly understand that I'm trying to punch my opponent in the face. That isn't to say that the hardware isn't up to snuff, but the early software really doesn't seem to take advantage of it.

Moving on we watched hp try out the inFamous 2 demo, whereupon we discovered that, yes, this game plays much like the first one but with even more destructive lightning powers. I was very pleasantly surprised when I played the first game, so more of the same wouldn't hit far from the mark, and the prospect of trapping screaming citizens of the sequel's new setting in a massive electrical tornado has me very excited to play the game. The addition of a lightning rod for a more fleshed-out system of melee combat is interesting, but from hp's diagnosis doesn't add a huge amount to the section of the game he played. We also took a bit of time to watch Swoopes play Disney's Tron Evolution, the tie-in to the much anticipated movie. The mixture of combat, light-cycle racing and Prince of Persia-esque platforming mean that the game is obviously trying to be a jack of all trades, and what we saw seemed solid enough. However, as with most movie games, this is unlikely to set the world on fire when it comes out.

By then it was time for Draco, Swoopes and I to head over to the Sheraton and get in line for the Gearbox panel. Of course there was a lot of talk about Duke Nukem, which Gearbox revealed they had completely bought from 3D Realms, and it was very interesting to hear Randy Pitchford talk about how the game had come to be in his hands after being officially cancelled several months ago. Sadly, there was no gameplay, no details about the game, only a promise that it is real, and it will be coming out in 2011. I'm getting a bit ahead of myself though, as the delegates took great pains to talk about all the projects Gearbox is working on, including its continued support for Borderlands, Aliens: Colonial Marines and the Brothers in Arms franchise. Overall it was a very entertaining panel, and afterwards Mikey Neumann was good enough to sign Draco and Swoopes' copies of Borderlands.

Grabbing the last opportunity to walk the exhibition hall before it closed for another year, the three of us found ourselves in the very last group playing Brink. For those that don't remember, Brink was the big revelation at the show; a first person, class based shooter furnished with an incredibly versatile movement system called SMART (Smooth Movement Across Random Terrain). I have to say that for someone who hasn't really felt the need to jump into any of the latest competitive FPSes to hit consoles, the game was a lot of fun. Our limited play time meant I didn't really get that much of a feel for SMART, but the shooting feels good and the classes are all definitely useful. On the defending side we managed to successfully beat the team of 12-year-olds on the other side, and I can safely say that Brink is definitely worth the hype we gave it last year.

After a somewhat disappointing dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe, those of us still remaining in Seattle entrenched ourselves in the bigger hotel room to record an extra special edition of the NooBTooB Modcast, going over everything we had seen and done at the show. If you're interested, the podcast can be downloaded here and goes into a lot more detail on everything PAX has to offer than I can muster in these blog entries. It's definitely worth listening to, especially for those in attendance who fell asleep mid-way through. You know who you are! For my writeup of the last days of our time in Seattle, Part 5 is on its way.

PAX 2010 Part 3: Beards, Banquets and Brad Shoemaker

2010-09-13T20:17:00.004+01:00

Saturday morning started bright and early with us bursting into thebgbb's room with the intent of shaving Locke's beard. After walking around for two days looking like a homeless person, the magnificent specimen he had been wearing on his chin had to go, so he set himself up in the bathroom with a time-lapse camera and soon the deed was done. Not before trying out a few interesting styles, of course.

There was an ulterior motive for getting up earlier on the second day of PAX. After seeing the immense queues for Dragon Age 2 and Duke Nukem Forever, a few of us decided that the only thing for it was to get in line early and hope for the best. We hadn't counted on the verve of some of the attendees to see these games, and so shortly after splitting up to find the ends of our respective lines we quickly gave up hope of seeing the games and found other things to do. Those of us marvelling at just how strong people's desire is to see Duke Nukem after all these years found ourselves in just the right place to watch a demo of The Lord of the Rings: War in the North, and interesting action-RPG with a healthy focus on cooperative play. Coming from the studio that made Baldurs Gate: Dark Alliance, it could be one to watch.

Moving on we had a short stop-over at the Mortal Kombat booth where we managed to get most of the surrounding crowd very annoyed at us by getting much to loud and over excited whenever anything happened. The game certainly has a good sense of style, but being a complete novice at all things related to fighting games, I really couldn't say if the new game is taking the right approach towards reviving the series. Moving on to the Bethesda booth, hp played some Fallout New Vegas (not surprisingly, he reported that it plays like Fallout 3) and then the two of us tried some co-op Hunted: The Demon's Forge. I hadn't heard a huge amount about this game before the show, except to say that it's Gears of War with a fantasy setting. That's a more or less accurate description, and unfortunately the game doesn't seem to adequately address the problem that there are no guns in fantasy settings. Playing as the barbarian character I felt that the melee combat was slow and cumbersome, and the limited spells didn't really improve matters. Hopefully the game can be polished before release, as the idea of asymmetric co-op (the other player controls a lady archer with completely different abilities) is a good one.

Lunchtime found us back at the local mall to witness a mighty challenge. In his youthful naivete had said that he could take on and beat the McDonald's 100 nugget challenge, so we all gathered round to watch his progress whilst we ate our own, more modest meals. Despite a valiant effort, he only made it to around 30 or so, whereupon Gravehound proclaimed that he could do better despite having already eaten. Perhaps forgetting what had happened to his shoe two nights previously, he plunged head-first into the rapidly congealing nuggets and actually managed to match Draco. In order to prevent an unpleasant scene, the contest was quickly declared a draw before either could get more chicken down their throats.

Back in the exhibition we took a bit of time to check out some of the indie games on display. Everyone was very impressed by Monaco, a four player heist game with a very strong retro style. Whilst games tended to descend into a joyous chaos, the different abilities of the various classes suggest that there could be a real art to mastering the game's many challenges. Locke and I tried out Retro/Grade, an interesting little game that uses a guitar controller. The fiction behind the game is a little contrived, involving travelling backwards through time to make sure history happens as it should, but the long and the short of it is a Guitar Hero game where jewels also come from the other side of the target area and must be actively avoided. A novel idea, certainly, and honestly any more uses for the myriad plastic instruments most gamers have in their homes are always welcome. Retro City Rampage, an upcoming WiiWare game, is another in the current trend of celebrating gaming's roots, in this case mixing Grand Theft Auto with an 8-bit art style and references to match. For such a small package there's a lot of content crammed in, and this could very well be the game that makes me actually buy something from Nintendo's download service.

A few of us lined up at the Ubisoft booth to play Assassin's Creed Brotherhood, the multiplayer pseudo-sequel to Assassin's Creed II. Having played it, I'm still not convinced that the formula of being given another player to wipe out whilst simultaneously dodging your own hunter will make for compelling play in the long term, but from what I've heard since there may be more to it than that. I really hope so because I adore the main games in the franchise and wouldn't like to see something mediocre come out under the same label.

The last game I'll talk about from Saturday is Guild Wars 2, having spent a bit of time talking to one of the developers at the end of the day. I came to the realisation a couple of years ago that I simply cannot justify the expense of an MMO subscription; the way I play games means I always end up paying for a game I rarely play. This is what made the original Guild Wars such a good fit, since it had no monthly subscription. What I've seen of the sequel has me very excited, mainly because the game will more closely match the experience of other proper MMOs by populating the areas outside of towns with about 100 or so real players, and creating massive scripted events that anyone nearby can take part in. It also helps that the game looks incredible, and so I'm actually quite glad that Guild Wars 2 still has no release date since that means I don't have to think about upgrading my PC just yet.

The plan for Saturday night was for everyone to meet up at Gameworks, the large bar/arcade across the street from the Convention Center. Unfortunately Sega were having a corporate event inside all night, making it hard to get in, so most of us just headed back to The Elephant and Castle to drink and make merry. Ar7emis was once again on hand to challenge everyone's tolerance of alcohol, and I'm happy to report that I managed to hold my own. A good evening was further enhanced when it transpired that Giant Bomb's own Brad Shoemaker was trying to have a quiet drink inside. I can only apologise to Brad for us taking up most of his evening, even after the mood seemed to swing towards going home, and hope he understands what a thrill it was to meet him in person. Knowing how shy he is, especially when confronted with lots of people, I felt very sorry for him when Fuzzy went to get the Green-Man suit. I've probably said too much, so I'll just let the picture speak for itself!

So that was Saturday, quite a busy day all told. The story of PAX 2010 continues in Part 4.

PAX 2010 Part 2: Cosplays, Kinect and Cake

2010-09-12T16:06:00.008+01:00

After a rather late night, we decided to take it easy for the first day of the show. Instead of heading straight over to the contention centre to attend the keynote, this year given by industry veteran Warren Spectre, we decided to go in the opposite direction and have a leisurely breakfast at the market. Managing to get himself together with admirable speed after spending the night under the sink, Gravehound got himself dressed up in a very impressive rendition of Henry Hatsworth. Doubly so when you consider that he had to pack that pith helmet into a suitcase and carry it with him across the Atlantic.

Once we had suitably refreshed ourselves we started exploring the expo floor, assaulted as we always are by the sheer scale and volume of treasures to discover. It was commented more than once over the weekend on how big PAX has become; over the three years that I have been to the show the main floor has just about doubled in size, and the contingencies necessary to accommodate all the various side-attractions have become more and more extravagant. In 2008 I can remember attending a Relic panel for the highly anticipated Dawn of War II that was packed into an odd corner of the convention centre next to the escalators. Those days are definitely behind us, with the show making complete use of all the space in the Washington State Convention Center.* The general consensus was that we really don't want it to become any larger; the lines for the most popular games meant one either had to be at the expo doors when they opened in the morning or else give up any chance of seeing them that day. I really couldn't tell you anything about Portal 2 or Duke Nukem Forever because, honestly, I have better things to do with my limited time in Seattle than stand around waiting all day.

So we picked a direction more or less at random and headed off into the throng of fellow nerds to see what we could find. As luck would have it, the first thing I got my hands on was Motorstorm Apocalypse, the upcoming third game in a series that, thanks to its predecessor Pacific Rift, I'm very fond of. The post-apocalyptic setting and apparent refocus on a linear storyline had me a little worried going in, but within seconds of the flag dropping on the demo I was sold. Motorstorm has always been about challenging the player to maintain control amongst chaos, and with the addition of devastating scripted events and the unpredictability of the roving gangs of bystanders, some of which will try to jump on top of the player's vehicle and hang on for dear life, fans are definitely going to get what they want.

After a short stop at the Lucas Arts booth, where I watched Dracomaster play the Force Unleashed 2 demo, we found ourselves at the Kinect booth where the queues were surprisingly short for Dance Central and Kinect Sports. Dance Central is probably the best application of Microsoft's motion-control system that I've seen so far, and when I played it as a backup dancer for hp it was definitely fun, but still I'm not convinced that it's worth investing in the hardware. Seeing Swoopes and Draco flail at each other in the boxing game did nothing to change my opinion that there is still no truly compelling software for Kinect.

hp and I had a go at Power Gig: Rise of the Six String, the Rock Band/Guitar Hero-style game who's main draw is that it comes with a real guitar with real strings that can be played independently of the game. It's certainly an interesting idea, and an obvious answer to the criticisms that games like this are nothing like playing the real instruments. As someone who only has a passing familiarity with real guitars I found the transition extremely difficult, but hp (who has more experience than me) said it felt pretty good. That was more than could be said for the game's drum kit, which paradoxically has you breaking beams of light instead of striking real drums. Regardless of the logic behind increasing the realism of one instrument whilst completely abstracting the other, playing the drums when you aren't physically hitting anything does not feel good. Luckily, Power Gig will be compatible with all other available hardware.

After that it was time to head over to see the live demo of Rage, id Software's latest new first-person shooter. It's difficult to say much about Rage since I have a feeling that a large part of its merit will come from the sheer scale of the world that it puts you in, which clearly isn't going to come across in a 30 minute hands-off demo. What we saw looks impressive, especially from a technical standpoint. It was easy to forget that we were seeing the Xbox version of the game such were the quality of the graphics. Rage is definitely poised to re-establish id as the people to push forward the capabilities of the current generation of hardware. Other than that the shooting looks solid, and it'll be interesting to see how flexible the crafting systems are.

After lunch at Chipotle we did some more looking around. Even though I've been sitting only feet away from it at work for the past couple of weeks, I had my first hands-on time with Criterion's Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit. It feels like Burnout, which is all I was looking for, and all I can really say since I didn't get much of a chance to try out the cops 'n' robbers modes. Speaking of places I've worked, I had a go at Vanquish over at the Sega booth and was almost immediately blown away. I haven't really been paying too much attention to Vanquish since it was announced, but having played the game I can't think why that could be. The combination of a Gears of War-esque third person shooter mixed with the insanity of the people who brought us Bayonetta is extremely potent, and the added dimension that rocket-sliding adds to the genre makes me keen to play more when the game comes out next month.

Walking over to the Xbox Live Arcade area I played some of the Hydrophobia demo. This is an interesting game; long in development and platform for a new technology for representing water flow in games. The first impression I got was that the game is very impressive for a downloadable title, a third person shooter that one wouldn't be shocked to find on a full retail disc. It did feel a bit rough though and it was fairly easy to become disoriented in the maze like floating city where the game is set, so I'll reserve judgment of the game until they say its finished (which won't be long now).

Towards the end of the show we made our way back to the hotel in order to queue up for the live recording of The Giant Bombcast, a show that I'm a huge fan of. Seeing the Giant Bomb guys in person is always fun (I had had a brief chat with Ryan Davis on the show floor earlier in the day) and their show never fails to entertain. The evening was capped off with the traditional NooBTooB joint playthrough of Kickle Cubicle in the console freeplay room, accompanied with pizza and cake. Whilst not eating or watching the playthrough, we amused ourselves by playing some Rock Band (apologies to anyone deafened by my rendition of Fat Bottomed Girls) and hp showed me the ropes in that old favourite Tecmo Bowl, despite my primitive knowledge of American football.

Sleepy from a long day on our feet we went back to our room to say goodnight to a good first day on the show floor. Check out Part 3 to see what we got up to on Saturday!

*Yes, I'm aware that I keep switching between the two ways of spelling 'centre'. This is what happens when you're enough of a pedant to keep the original English spelling whilst also honouring the proper name of the WSCC

PAX 2010 Part 1: Shots, Sitcoms and Sunflowers

2010-09-11T16:39:00.014+01:00

Penny Arcade Expo has been such a massive event on the horizon for such a long time, it feels a bit strange now that it's over for another year. Once again I returned home with a bag full of swag from the expo floor and a mind full of great memories. I'm going to be honest, as I set off for the airport on Wednesday I had a couple of doubts in mind. Of course I was very much looking forward to seeing all my friends from NooBTooB again, but considering everything that happened last year it seemed unlikely that this year's trip could even come close. My anticipation of the event was also coloured slightly by the fact that I knew some of our number from last year, in particular Sunflower and Blue, weren't able to make the trip. Whilst it was sad that they weren't around, I can say with confidence that PAX 2010 was the best time in Seattle I've had so far.

After more than 16 hours on the road, including a two hour layover in Houston, I was pretty shattered when I finally found myself in Seattle. Over the last year, the city completed its Light Link Rail system going from the airport in Tacoma all the way to the downtown area. Whilst I was very glad of not having to spend money on a shuttle to the airport, after such a long journey my brain wasn't quite up to finding my way from the station to the hotel, particularly since this year we elected on getting rooms at a different place. So it took a bit of wandering around before I found myself on the steps of the Sheraton, exchanging hugs and greetings with Locke and Gameshark who just happened to be standing right outside. Before long I was reunited with everyone else; Swoopes, Gravehound, Veri7as, Ar7emis, hp1703 and Fuzzy (who I was meeting for the first time, as this was his first PAX). A lot of us were very tired, so we spent the evening playing a card game called Race for the Galaxy in our hotel room.

One of the best ideas we had from last year's PAX was arriving a couple of days before the show and leaving a couple of days after, since it gives us a nice buffer to settle in, acclimatise, and just do random non-gaming things. The most important and hallowed of these traditions is having piroshkis from the little family bakery at Pike Place market, and exploring the various stores. Something that caught my eye was a cool belt buckle in the shape of a union jack, and since I needed a belt to carry my new camera case on I had one fitted for me. Other interesting purchases from the day included the shooting script for Inception from the nerd store, and a huge sunflower to substitute for our missing friend.

Once back at the hotel, we went up to the 33rd floor to see some more old acquaintances, Jaadus, ATheiss and thebgbb who had somehow managed to get themselves into the most amazing room. Seriously, it looked like the set of a sitcom (for which hp and I frequently pitched lines and ideas over the course of the week) and was a great place to hang out and play board games. Along with more Race for the Galaxy, I had a go at a game brought by thebgbb called Kung-Fu Fighting, which is really easy to pick up but a lot of fun. bgbb also showed off some very cool 3D printouts he had made himself.

Dinner for Thursday night was a big meetup for everyone from NooBTooB who had made the trip at the Rock Bottom brewery. Unsurprisingly it took a bit of time for such a large party to be seated, but after a bit of waiting around they found us a place and a hardy soul to take our orders. After my annual ritual of discovering I had left my passport back at the hotel, requiring me to go and get it before I could order any alcohol, I had a very tasty schwarzbier, which is a bit like a cross between a stout and a lager, as well as some pretty good nachos. After dinner a few of us went the short distance down the street to our old favourite The Elephant and Castle. In a turn of events that may or may not have started off with Ar7emis suggesting that we all do shots, the night ended with Gravehound sleeping under the sink in the hotel room bathroom with one of his shoes, shall we say, put beyond future use.

He managed to bounce back surprisingly quickly the following morning, which is where I'll pick up the story of PAX 2010 in part 2.

Summer Sunshine and Other Stuff

2010-08-02T19:28:00.004+01:00

It's gotten to the stage where my family are starting to comment that I haven't written in my blog for a very long time, which is true. I do have a valid excuse though, two in fact: firstly I've been pretty busy, and secondly there hasn't been all that much to write about. Work carries on more or less as normal; about a month or so ago I was moved to a different project for a while so I've gotten to know a new group of people, which is nice. In my free time I've been making my first attempts towards learning C++ for my Masters course, which is going pretty slowly. Hopefully with a bit more practical experience I'll be able to get a better grip on it, there's a certain barrier to comprehension when it comes to reading a computer language out of a book.

Last week was our annual family summer holiday, which is always a highlight of my year. This time around it was doubly welcome since I had to miss out most of last year's stay in Lime Regis due to work constraints. Our destination this year was a fairly large holiday cottage near Honiton in Devon, and we spent the week playing board games and quizzes, eating out at some excellent pubs and restaurants, and relaxing in the hot tub. Everyone agreed that it was definitely a place we'd like to go back to, so with a bit of luck last week will be the beginning of a new era of memorable holidays.

This week finds my social calendar surprisingly full, with two nights out at the cinema on the cards (Toy Story 3 as a family tomorrow and Inception with Andrew the day after). On Friday I'm flying to Belfast to spend the weekend at Phil's house which I'm really looking forward to, it's been quite some time since I saw any of my friends from York.

Lastly, as a few people who read this are probably aware of by now, I entered the world of online dating a couple of months ago. When I last wrote here I was debating with myself over whether I would take the plunge, and I'm very glad I did. I've already met a very nice girl called Sara, but after a couple of dates we decided that it would be better for us to just be friends. So my search continues, but so far I'm enjoying the experience.

So that's what I've been up to, not a whole lot as you can see. Come October that'll change, of course, as I move to London with Simon and Andrew and begin the process of becoming a computer scientist. It's also weird to think that PAX 2010 is only about a month away, I'm sure there'll be lots to talk about after that!

A Much Overdue Update

2010-05-17T13:54:00.004+01:00

It's now been a month since I started working at EA. I know that because it's almost time for me to renew my four-week bus pass. I had actually intended to write something about how everything is going last weekend, but it was just too sunny to be stuck in front of the computer when the loungers beside the pool were calling to me. Today it's not quite as hot but still feeling quite summery, after some rain, so we're inside again.

The time has passed pretty quickly, so that must be a good thing. Having grown used to the way things were at my old job, occupying a much nicer position at EA definitely helped to ease me back into working after such a long gap. Working within a development studio, as opposed to being inside a dedicated testing centre, is like night and day (if you'll pardon the expression). Since there is a lot of creative talent around, and furthermore a lot more permanent staff members, there's a level of trust and responsibility that you just don't find in minimum-wage jobs that force you to do night shifts. I actually have my own desk now, and my own testing equipment. I get to choose when I eat lunch. Heck, I get to sleep at night and work during the day. These are things I didn't have at Sega . The fact that in my first week I was in several update meetings about the producers' aims for the developer makes me feel a lot more valued.

Not least amongst the perks of this new job is that I got to meet Jeff Green again this week. For those who don't know who he is, he used to be the editor in chief of GFW Magazine and host of the legendary podcast GFW Radio (or The Brodeo to its fans) before moving to be a producer at EA. Nowadays he's the editor in chief of EA.com, and he was over in England doing some video interviews of the staff for the website. I had previously met him at PAX in Seattle back in September (there's a picture of me with him on facebook somewhere) so I went over to say hello. I fully expect I'll see him again next September, and I fully expect that he won't remember me.

Aside from working I've been pretty busy finishing off the Myst series, although I still need to find the time to make the bonus episode showing the alternate endings. Now that that has drawn to a close I'm starting to prepare myself for some proper video reviews. Eagle-eyes will have seen that I've been screwing around with Dosbox over the past week to try and get Theme Park running, and I recently purchased another game on eBay that I need to dedicate some play-time to before I can write anything about it. It's an N64 game, so you can imagine that there are a lot of questions about whether it still holds up. Both of these games are very dear to me and I want to do them justice; Theme Park was the first PC game I ever owned, and I still have fond memories of giving myself infinite money and making the most incredible roller coaster the world has ever seen.

It isn't easy finding the time to work on stuff like this, of course, now that I'm working. However even in the free time I have I've suddenly been inundated with games that must be played. My latest purchase has been Split/Second; very much a dumb fun game that involves racing cars through city streets whilst stuff explodes behind you. At first I wasn't sure if I liked it very much but a couple of hours spent on Xbox Live racing against other people has salvaged it from the rather unbalanced single-player experience. Aside from that I'm anticipating a lot of good multiplayer with my friends this weekend. hp1703 and I finally managed to get into Uncharted 2's co-op modes a couple of weeks ago, something that I'm anxious to repeat since it's a ridiculously good time. Additionally, Epic have decided to give everyone playing Gears of War 2 triple XP over the long weekend, so I'm sure a few rounds of that are in prospect. If that weren't enough, Locke has gotten me back into League of Legends again which I played for an hour or so last night and am keen to play with him.

So that's pretty much what I'm up to these days, back into a routine that works for me. We got a post card from Simon and Andrew the other day, and the next significant event will be in mid-June when they come back, so there's that to look forward to. Maybe other stuff will pop up that I feel like covering on this blog, but in the shorter-term, here's to a great long weekend!

Jam Enslaver Plays...Myst Episode 08

2010-05-16T14:10:00.002+01:00

The last official part of my series playing through realMyst is here! As you can see when you watch the video, Myst's trademark enigmatic style carries through all the way to the ending. Instead of a nice conclusion to the story and a roll credits, the game casts you loose with a handful of vague references to the greater story to come. Of course to make any sense of it, one would have to play Riven: The Sequel to Myst, and even then I have my doubts.

Although this is the end of the game, I will be making one more episode in which I explore the alternate endings for the game. I'm sure they'll prove entertaining.

Riven is available on Good Old Games so I'm sure another video series lies at some point in my future, but for now I think I'm going to try and make some more review videos again. It's been too long.

Jam Enslaver Plays...Myst Episode 07

2010-05-09T20:15:00.002+01:00

It seems that we're drawing towards the end of my voyage into Myst, with some very interesting stuff suddenly coming to the fore in this latest episode. Since I started working this week it's been more difficult to find the time for things like this, but I'm keeping up.

Finally! 2.0

2010-04-29T14:39:00.002+01:00

A couple of days ago I reached 20,000 Xbox Live gamerpoints. The achievement that put me over the milestone was 'Prison Escape' from Assassin's Creed II. That's a bit of a strange coincidence considering that it was the first Assassin's Creed that got me to 10,000 points.

Jam Enslaver Plays...Myst Episode 06

2010-04-27T22:09:00.003+01:00

Whilst playing through Myst, I was always anticipating this episode. One of the most enduring memories I have of the original game was the time I spent mapping out the labyrinthine underground railway at the end of the Selenitic Age. Today I finally reached that point, and thus passed into the unknown. Up until now I've always been on somewhat familiar territory with the game, through half-remembered sessions of playing the game when I was younger. As of next episode, everything will be entirely new to me.

Jam Enslaver Plays...Myst Episode 05

2010-04-22T11:05:00.003+01:00

Episode 05 of my journey through the ages of Myst sees me drawing close to finding the last of the red pages, but will my voice hold out long enough to solve the puzzle of the rocket ship?

Yes, I'm starting to turn out episodes of Myst more regularly now, and hopefully for Episode 06 I'll be able to upload the video directly from the computer I used to make it. As you can probably infer from the fact I'm still doing Internet stuff, I'm not in Bali. The sudden lifting of the airspace on Tuesday night didn't quite come soon enough for Alice and me, our earliest possible departure date having been pushed to Tuesday next week. Since that would have meant we would arrive in Bali on the Thursday, and then have to fly back almost immediately, we decided to give up. As you can imagine I'm disappointed to not be going, but the situation could have been a whole lot worse, and it's honestly nice to know I won't have to deal with air travel again until well after this whole mess has been sorted out.

Jam Enslaver Plays...Myst Episode 04

2010-04-17T00:18:00.003+01:00

Since I'm hopefully going to be out of the country for the next couple of weeks, assuming Iceland can figure out a way of not being on fire, I recorded a new Jam Enslaver Plays Myst episode for you all. I had some trouble getting the video processed on blip, which is why it's at a lower resolution than normal.

On the subject of the ash cloud, if you haven't been keeping up with my Tweets, the story is that my flight tomorrow morning was cancelled today. I managed to get things sorted out with the airlines, so I'm now scheduled to leave on Tuesday afternoon. I'm keeping my fingers crossed, but ultimately there's not a lot more that can be done. Keep watching the skies, but make sure you wear goggles!

Achievements Unlocked

2010-04-13T16:36:00.002+01:00

Ever since Microsoft introduced the idea of 'Achievements' in games, they have inspired much debate. For those not familiar with the concept, Achievements are awards granted for performing certain specific actions in a game that are linked to the player's profile and can be viewed by others. These actions can vary from the most mundane accomplishments (such as finishing the game) to very specific and creative ones (like honking the noses of ten zombie clowns in Left 4 Dead 2). Following on from the original system on the Xbox 360, Sony has implemented a similar Trophies mechanic in games for the Playstation 3, and many PC games bought through the Steam digital distribution network have their own Achievements. They are, in short, now a major part of video games.

The major issue of concern about Achievements is on how they affect the way people play games. In the past the only reward players got from meeting the goals set in games was the actual fun of the task itself and the satisfaction of accomplishing something. Nowadays though, people are worried that it is the quest for more Achievements that is the driving force behind play, rather than the simple appreciation of the game. The appeal of Achievements is hard to quantify or even explain, but it is certainly there. A few of the people I know as gamers actively seek them out, looking to get as many as possible from every game they play. Most of the people I know, though, aren't quite as dedicated and are usually happy enough to collect the easier Achievements, sometimes making the extra effort to get the more difficult ones if the game is good enough. On the 360 Achievements each have an associated point value (usually ranging from 5 to 20) that contributes to the player's overall Gamerscore, so there is of course the appeal of having a higher score than your friends. However, even though I know that I have little chance of catching up to my closest friends (I'm slowly approaching 20,000 points, which at this point isn't very much), I still feel the compulsion to grab all the Achievements I can. It's mysteriously addictive, possibly tapping into that collector's instinct that many of us have, but even that doesn't make much sense. I very rarely go back to look at my previous Achievements, or those of my friends. All it seems to be is a desire to make that fairly arbitrary Gamerscore keep going up, and even then I still like to get Playstation Trophies or Steam Achievements which don't contribute towards my total in any way.

So, with this unexplainable hold that Achievements have over us, are they adversely affecting the way we play games? The arguments for both sides usually go like this: On the one hand you could say that Achievements are distracting, an unworthy goal that cheapens the finely crafted experience intended by the developer by rewarding the player for an activity that should be its own reward (such as progressing through the story, which these days is usually rewarded with an Achievement per chapter completed). On the other hand, Achievements that are well designed can inspire new ways of playing the game, squeezing more value and entertainment out of the existing mechanics. Did you ever try to get a car up to the top of a skyscraper in Crackdown? There's an achievement for it. Some can even be used to teach the player the finer points of gameplay. The flip-side of getting the player to try fun things that they might otherwise not have thought of is, of course, that Achievements can also get players to do boring, frustrating or other not-fun tasks that they would otherwise have not bothered with (I'm looking at you, Assassin's Creed flag collecting).

What do I think? Well, it's a little hard to say. I really can't deny that sometimes when thinking about what platform on which to buy a game I'll go with the 360 version just because of the Achievements. However when I'm actually playing the game it's quite rare for me to forget the story entirely and just want that gold star that says I beat the game. They can definitely enhance the gameplay experience, and they can hinder it too. Here's a good example of this dichotomy from the closing chapter of the outstanding Mass Effect 2. It won't be spoiling anything at this point to say that the entire game leads up to what is frequently called a suicide mission, and it was revealed before the game came out that this applied to absolutely every one of the characters involved, including the player-character Shepard. Through your actions and choices it was possible for any member of your team to not make it through in one piece. Mass Effect is a series that has excelled in the areas of storytelling and character development, so by the time I embarked on that final mission I had already established a good sense of personality from all my team mates and had grown quite attached to some of them. However, I also knew going into the mission that there was an Achievement for making it through the suicide mission without any crew members dying. Thus when it came down to the wire and I had to start making potentially fatal decisions, was I feeling the pressure and stress of being the leader because I was concerned for the safety of the excellently fleshed-out characters that I was responsible for, or because I wanted that Achievement?

Honestly it was probably a bit of both, but is that a good thing or a bad thing? The presence of the Achievement took me out of the experience a bit, keeping part of my mind on a fact that reminded me that this was just a game I was playing. But it also attached a lasting consequence to my actions, something that would be remembered and recorded for all to see after I had finished playing. Did that consequence increase the tension of that final chapter in a way that no amount of good writing and voice acting could?

Like them or not, Achievements are a part of games now and will continue to be as the medium evolves. Let's just hope that developers continue to think about how they implement Achievements, making them interesting, funny, unusual or just complementary to the experience.

Off for Easter

2010-03-30T21:31:00.002+01:00

As I said in my last post, there won't be a new episode of Jam Enslaver Plays this week since I'm at my parents' house in preparation for our annual break in Dorset for the Easter weekend. I haven't really been up to much over the past few days, just relaxing and enjoying my time off. For the first time ever I went to watch my brothers play football yesterday, and today I went with Andrew to see Shutter Island. I've also been sucked right back into a Pokémon game for the first time in over ten years.

Apologies for the short post, I'll put a longer one together once I get back from the south coast!

Jam Enslaver Plays...Myst Episode 03

2010-03-23T21:03:00.001Z

Further adventures in the world of Myst. This'll be the last episode for a little while since I'm not going to be at my computer next week. Enjoy!

Jam Enslaver Plays...Myst Episode 02

2010-03-16T22:03:00.002Z

This is episode 02 of my Let's Play series of realMyst. Today I venture into the first of the books that I found, and explore the age of Stone Ship beyond.

My Search is at an End

2010-03-13T10:54:00.004Z

On Thursday morning I was woken by the phone. Usually I hate that, it's possibly the worst thing to be roused by since it not only jolts you awake suddenly, but also requires that you get your mind together quickly in order to talk to another person. In this case I didn't mind so much, though, because it was a nice lady from Electronic Arts telling me that they were all very impressed with how I did at my interview on Monday, and would I like a job? I of course said "Yes."

It's obviously quite a relief to have found a new job, especially one that seems like a step up in a few areas. It's nice too, to know that my time at Sega at least meant that I can now successfully apply for jobs that previously would have been out of reach due to lack of experience. I won't go into details of what I'll be working on, partially because I haven't received my contract yet so I'm not sure what I can say, and partially because I don't really know anyway. Suffice to say I'll be working at EA's offices in Guildford, starting in about 6 weeks' time.

What will I be doing in the mean time, you ask? I'm currently trying to set myself up with a sort-term internship doing general IT work (always useful to have more experience), and I've got a couple of trips next month that I'm looking forward to. Aside from that I'll be making a lot more Jam Enslaver Plays Myst episodes since the first one went down so well, and seeing about ploughing through Dragon Age which I started this week.

So in conclusion, things are looking up. I still have some things to sort out, like moving again, but it's nice to know I don't have to keep looking for a job any more.

Jam Enslaver Plays...Myst Episode 01

2010-03-11T11:30:00.002Z

The triumphant return of Jam Enslaver Plays, in which I play a game and prattle on about what I'm thinking in an attempt to be amusing. Myst was a breakthrough adventure game that created some big ripples in the world of PC gaming, a game I remember fondly but never actually got that far in. Playing the nice 3D remake of the game, it holds up very well, so let's embark on a journey into its pages.

My Cartoons, A Retrospective

2010-03-06T13:46:00.007Z

Since I've managed to procrastinate starting my new video project all week, I thought I'd share something with the Internet that I made a long time ago. I'm not sure how many people will know this, but there was a time a few years ago when I fancied myself as something of a cartoonist. This was mostly due to the time that I read the excellent Pre-History of the Far Side, in which Gary Larson tells the story of how he started out not even being much of an artist. I was pretty much in the same boat, I really couldn't draw (and still can't), so I was inspired to give it a go and get some of my ideas down on paper.

These efforts didn't really come to all that much, but I did post some cartoons I drew on this very blog. To save you having to trawl back to a post from about four years ago, here they are. These first two actually made up my personal page in my sixth form yearbook, which is in retrospect a bit of a shame because they really don't represent me very well. Still, I'm still quite fond of them.

This next is probably my favourite. I can still remember coming up with the idea on late afternoon at work, waiting impatiently for 5.30 so I could get home and work on it.
This last I'm not so pleased with. I drew it around the time that I bought the first Guitar Hero game for the PS2.
So that's my official back catalogue which you may have seen before. However, a couple of weeks ago I found one of my old diaries (from my days in York when I still needed to keep a diary), containing a few of my old scribblings. It seemed a shame that none of them would ever see the light of day, so now for the first time ever, here are the cartoons that I never finished or just didn't get around to posting online. I've done a little bit to clean them up, mostly replacing my terrible hand-writing and spelling, but the actual drawings are as they were, mistakes and all (except in the diary I used blue ink!) I'll start out with the one I think is the weakest, a rather awful pun on the lyric from Metallica's Enter Sandman.
This next was inspired by my family's regular Easter breaks at The Knoll House Hotel in Dorset. One of the main fixtures of these holidays is the hotel's pitch-and-put golf course, where I have spent many an hour honing my own particular style of the game. In the early years one of the recurring problems we had was a shortage of tees, since we only ever had a few and they tended to get broken a lot. As such, I imagined what it would be like if the Apollo 14 astronauts had the same problem.
I'm still pleased with how well I managed to recreate the lunar lander, probably because it was in an episode of The Clangers that I saw a lot when I was young.

I'm not sure where the idea of this next cartoon came from. I guess I just made the connection between the story of the Israelites using trumpets to bring down the walls of Jericho and one of the most famous trumpet players of all time.
I'm not sure why I drew the gates of the city as being open, that doesn't really make much sense.

I have a feeling that this next cartoon was drawn during the period that I was reading Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle, although that isn't saying much because it took me a couple of years to work my way through all three volumes. A lot of the story revolves around Isaac Newton's interest in turning lead into gold.
If you look closely, I even drew a dollar sign on the robber's bag!

Speaking of Newton, here he is in the next drawing looking very sad. Like all the worst jokes, this really requires a lot of explaining. It was drawn around the time that the second year Physics students of York were finishing up the summer term by writing essays, one of the requirements for which was that they had to be of a publishable standard (i.e. good enough to be printed in a real physics journal) and display their references in a very specific way. We spent so much time making sure we got this right that there were times when it almost felt like the actual contents of our papers was secondary to their presentation, which got me thinking of Newton. After all, he wrote his Principia in Latin, which wouldn't go down well with many of today's editors!
Lastly, a little doodle about one of my favourite games, complete with a pun that doesn't work if you read it out loud.
It's important to note that when I drew this the pears were just supposed to be standing next to each other. However, I'm sure that a couple of my friends won't fail to notice that they appear to be positioned in a way that is very reminiscent of certain stories you can find about the Gears of War characters if you know where to look. You know who you are!

So, that's the sort of stupid stuff I used to draw. I'd really forgotten about most of these, so it was fun seeing them again and remembering the parts of my life that created them. After so long it's hard to tell if they're even funny, but hopefully you at least found them interesting. I'll try to get back to making things I'm good at as quickly as possible.

Jam Enslaver Reviews...Darwinia

2010-02-28T12:35:00.003Z

In my latest video, I review Darwinia, one of my favourite games ever.

Hopefully I'll be updating more often in the coming weeks as I start work on another video project. I often get a lot of people asking me to do more 'Jam Enslaver Plays...' videos after my short series playing Condemned. Well, I think I've found the right game for a new set of videos, so look out for that very soon.

Eep!

2010-02-13T14:01:00.002Z

Over the past few days, separated from my consoles and gaming PC, I've been playing the 1983 dungeon-crawler Rogue. Quite often when reading about old video games, one comes upon the phrase 'Roguelike' when describing a game, without much explanation as to what that means. So, when it came up recently due to the release of the new Wii game, Shiren the Wanderer, I resolved to try out this cultural touchstone to see what it was all about.

I won't go into too much detail of the game, partly because it's so old and partly because it's incredibly simple. But the salient points for the purpose of this post are that every time you start a new game, all the elements of the dungeon are randomised. This includes the overall layout, the position of treasure and monsters, and the effects that the different types of potions, rings and wands have on the player character. The game seems to have some checks and balances in place to keep things fair, but aside from that anything goes.

As such, how hard the game is at the start can vary a little bit. Sometimes there aren't very many enemies on the first couple of levels, meaning the player doesn't level up as fast as they might like and therefore making later battles more challenging. However, on one particular game, the exact opposite happened. In the first room!
I realise that that picture probably doesn't make much sense, so let me explain. Capital letters are enemies, so the Bs are bats, the Es are emus (yes, emus), the K is a kestrel, the S a snake and the H a fearsome hobgoblin. Sitting right in the middle of all of them is the smiley face, me, and next to that a couple of potions, a scroll and a piece of armour.

So basically, without even moving, I found myself sitting in the midst of more enemies than you typically encounter on an entire floor of the dungeon. Needless to say I died, and never got to see what the armour or potions were. The randomness of Rogue is a great way of making you want to play again and again, but sometimes it can be a little harsh!

Back to the Light

2010-02-08T15:08:00.002Z

And so another chapter of life draws to a close. Friday morning saw my last shift as a tester at Sega, followed by a very enjoyable big breakfast together with my fellows. As you can imagine, it was a time full of rather conflicted feelings. On the one hand it's very disappointing that less than a year after losing my first job I find myself back looking for work, and it's a shame that I'll not be seeing a lot of the friendly faces that have grown so familiar through the long nights spent crowded around tiny televisions playing Sonic and Sega All-Stars Racing. However, as I think I've told basically everyone by now, I really hated working nights and even after a few days going to bed at night I'm feeling a lot better.

At the moment things are looking pretty good for me on the job front. Taking advantage of the many contacts my Dad has built up over the years I have a couple of leads that might yield something, and I even have an interview tomorrow morning for a very interesting company. Losing the Sega job so abruptly has somewhat changed my perception of jobs in the games industry, so as well as looking for something similar I'm thinking about other career avenues. Nothing is certain yet, I guess we'll just have to see what happens.

In other news, yesterday was the Superbowl (in case you didn't know that), so once again I spent an enjoyable night watching the game and chatting to my friends on Skype. If you were one of the many Brits who stayed up to see what all the fuss is about, I can't stress how useful it is to have people who actually know the sport intimately on the line to answer questions and provide insight. On our end, the UKers in our party provided commentary on the BBC's charming attempts to fill the large amounts of air time freed up by the channels' inability to show adverts, of which there are many for the Superbowl. As a bonus, the game was very engaging, with the rather risky tactics of the Saints providing some interesting talking points. I'm looking forward to watching again next year, and can't help but wonder if my life will see as many differences between now and then as it did since last year.

Jam Enslaver Reviews...Golden Axe Warrior

2010-01-31T15:05:00.002Z

Apologies for the lack of posts recently, as usual that's been caused by not much really going on with me (at least, not things that I really want to write about here). People who know me personally will already know that things haven't been going very well for me over the past month. Suffice it to say pretty much all the optimism for the new year from my previous post has basically evaporated. I might write something about that fairly soon, but in the mean time here's the proof that I am at least keeping up with my resolution to make videos regularly.

Goodbye 2009

2010-01-03T16:28:00.003Z

It's almost time for my Christmas break to end and for me to settle back into the normal routine of work and trying to stave off insanity by playing too many video games. The time has been spent mostly just relaxing and enjoying having no commitments, but sadly it must come to an end. Whilst I'm not really looking forward to going back to London and switching back to my nocturnal schedule, the new year starting does make some much anticipated events just come into view on the horizon. Family holidays are planned, games have their release dates, the end of the Night Shift is roughly known and it won't be too long before I get to see Blue again. Whilst I'm looking ahead to what 2010 will bring, I thought I'd give a little thought also to what 2009 had in store for me.

Usually I'm not one for this kind of retrospection, mostly because there isn't actually all that much to talk about. Thinking about it, I began 2007 almost exactly the same way as I ended 2008, the only real difference being that I had moved into my own place in Farnborough when my job moved. That is a fairly big change, but on the whole it didn't affect my day-to-day life all that much, and so things were pretty uneventful. 2009 on the other hand saw some very dramatic changes.

Firstly I was laid off at the end of March and spent three months searching for another job. I enjoyed my time working for Helios; the people were friendly, the environment pleasant and the pay good. Even so I think it was for the best that I'm not doing it any more. As the time drew on I was less and less able to see myself doing that as a job for the rest of my life, so in a way I was a bit relieved to be let go. Starting to work at Sega this year, earning far less money and living in a much smaller place in London, is a lot more risky, but also has more of a future to it. Whilst it's impossible to be sure whether I'll always be at the same company or not, at least now I seem to be on the right track, doing something I actually want to do.

The other major change in my life was meeting Blue at PAX in September. It has brought both joy in the form of someone with whom to share a special connection that I have never before experienced, and sorrow in the reality that most of the time we cannot be together. It certainly hasn't been an easy time, but again it feels like I have swapped an easy but ultimately unfulfilling way of living for one that is more than worth the extra emotional investment.

So here's to 2009, a year of great changes for me. It'll be interesting to see what comes from them in 2010. In addition, I'm also going to commit to being more creative in the new year. I've been very lazy recently in making my video reviews and I want that to change, particularly since having them featured on RetrowareTV. I don't usually make new year's resolutions, but I want to release at least one video every month for the next year. Feel free to complain at me if I start to slack off!

Merry Christmas, Everyone!

2009-12-25T12:26:00.003Z

Since it's Christmas day, how about a little treat and I actually update the blog, eh? Once again I apologise for not being more regular in putting stuff up here, and I can't help but notice that it's almost been a whole month since the last post. I really hate it when that happens, but recently I've been feeling the strains of working funny hours and just haven't had the energy or inclination to be creative. This week, though, I've been at my parents' house for my Christmas holiday and taking full advantage of both not having to work and sleep when I actually want to. It's made a world of difference and I'm now more keen than ever to get myself changed to a different shift at work; no word on that yet but I'm confident there won't be a problem with it.

As you can imagine, things have been pretty relaxed here for me over the past few days. Plenty of time has been spent playing games, including Batman Arkham Asylum (which I gave my brother Andrew for his birthday in November and still I have a hard time getting him off it) and of course The Beatles Rock Band. I've also started to get into a new card game that I was very generously given by Modcast listener thebgbb. It's called Age of Heroes, a fantasy solitaire game thebgbb is currently trying to expand beyond its limited release over ten years ago. Once I managed to piece together what the actual rules were I started to really enjoy it, having at one time taken most of my gaming fix from playing Windows Solitaire and keeping track of my scores and times.

So at the moment things are nice and quiet. Being of Czech descent we do a lot of festive activities that most people reserve for the day itself on Christmas Eve, so last night we put up our decorations, opened our presents and went to church for the midnight service. Although, this last is less ancestral tradition, more not wanting to get up early to attend the service on Christmas morning. Today is therefore another lazy one until we leave for Christmas dinner at my aunt and uncle's house this afternoon. Until then I'll probably amuse myself by sorting through the contents of my stocking (yes, we still get those!) and setting up the Playstation 3 that Mum got Dad for Christmas, if only to encourage Andrew to start playing inFamous so I can get some more time in with Batman!

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Jam Enslaver Reviews...Command and Conquer: Renegade

2009-11-27T17:59:00.003Z

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

2009-11-12T08:14:00.003Z

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

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!

Crazy Crazy Nights

2009-04-18T22:45:00.003+01:00

This evening I'm winding down a bit after a busy couple of days. I've had pizza, beer, ice cream, apricot schnapps and about three hours sleep; there have been fun times and potentially difficult times, and now I'm ready to get a bit of rest.

Things started off on Friday afternoon with my leaving party at work. It occurred to me a little while ago that I haven't actually mentioned this here, and that I may not have actually told everyone I thought I had, but I lost my job about four weeks ago. I had worked at Helios as an analyst for well over two years, but sadly the current economic squeeze was eventually felt even in our little microcosm. I'm sad to leave, but I'm taking this as an opportunity to re-examine what I want to do and try something new. It was an amazing two years, and as I said in my little speech during the party, I couldn't have asked for a better place to work for my first real job. It was nice catching up with people after being out of the office for a month, and hopefully I'll be able to keep in touch with them in the future.

Later that night, NooBTooB held its first official Microsoft Community Event, where several people from the forums (myself included) had their Xbox gamertags posted on the Gears of War 2 website for all comers to join us for a game. This unfortunately meant that for those representatives in the UK, the night began at 2am and went on for another three hours. Despite that though it was a ton of fun; we met some really great people, which came as a surprise for those of us familiar with the usual denizens of Xbox Live, and enjoyed some very closely fought matches. Early indications show that the event was a terrific success, with a ton of the people we played with signing up for the forums. Thanks have to go to Sunflower and quahgg for setting the whole thing up (and anyone else who was involved, I wasn't so I'm not 100% sure), and to the other representatives, particularly my fellow lobby-mates SmokestormX, hp1703 and Ashgooner.

The following morning, which after such a late night would usually not have seen me at all, it was off to London for the NooBTooB UK Meetup. The plan was for anyone who could make the journey to come to Funland in the Trocadero Centre in Piccadilly Circus on Saturday and just hang out for a few hours and enjoy the arcade. My intention in setting the event up was to provide a venue for the UK forum members to meet in real life without having to make the annual pilgrimage to Seattle and Penny Arcade Expo in September, and was both surprised and pleased with the response and the final turnout. About 16 people made it down, myself included, and we had a great time exploring the veritable Akihabra that lurks just behind Piccadilly's buttoned-down facade. Leading up to today my main concern was that we would exhaust all the arcade had to offer after a couple of hours, making the trip a bit of a waste for those who had to come far. Luckily though Funland is absolutely incredible; four floors of amusements of every different type, from the latest releases like Street Fighter 4 to bizarre anomalies such as the Warioware-esque attention-deficit-minigame collection that Magenta and I encountered. Several of us captured video of the event, which I will be putting together next week. Until then I leave you with our group photo, mid-'yow' of course!

Video Review Update

2009-04-14T11:03:00.004+01:00

Also, an update on the status of my next video. It's way behind schedule, in that I still haven't absolutely decided what game I will cover. It's rather strange that even with a lot of time on my hands recently, I've not made any progress with a video. I'm not sure why that is, but I will seek to rectify that this week.

EDIT: Good news, everyone! The game has been selected and successfully tested to make sure I'd actually be able to get footage for it. I won't be able to actually do any work on it until next week, but I will have some time to stir what I want to say around in my mind and perhaps come up with some bon mots.

It's like gravity, in a way

2009-04-13T21:13:00.002+01:00

Just a quick update since I haven't posted in a while. I'm just back from my family's annual Easter break in Dorset, staying at a hotel that we've been going to since when my brothers and I were little. As usual it was a very relaxing time following a familiar schedule of delicious meals at the hotel interspersed with pitch and put golf and visits to the spa. In between these I managed to get a good amount of time trying to finish my book of Conan stories, which I've been working my way through for a good long time now and I'm keen to move onto something different. I'm now into the last couple of entries in the collection, the ones Howard never finished and were only published long after he died.

The effect of this sudden high level of exposure is a yearning for what got me into Howard's tales in the first place: Age of Conan. I froze my account with the game months ago having not played it for too long to justify continuing the subscription. This was mainly caused by the people I had initially intended to play with dropping out for one reason or another, and whilst I had a great time working alone to get myself enough gold to buy a horse, I wasn't really making use of the whole open-world aspect. It's a shame because AoC was and probably still is an extremely good game, and I'm very tempted to pick it up again and try to make some online friends from Hyboria to adventure with.

But, things are moving in another direction. Sunflower, for reasons best known to himself, has just jumped back into Final Fantasy XI, after a break of several years. Since the game will be free from a number of the things that made AoC a rather expensive undertaking for me (the Square Enix game is region free and offers a free trial period), there seems no harm in trying it out. We'll see what happens, but if once again I find myself without anyone I know to play with, Age of Conan will be there (hopefully).

Cooking! Moo Goo Gai Pan

2009-03-28T14:20:00.002Z

A bit of a late posting here since I actually cooked this on Wednesday night, so apologies for that. I'm going to be honest and say the reason I chose to make moo goo gai pan this time was its funny name, as well as the fact that it doesn't require any hard to find ingredients. I was also a bit lazy this time by just having plain noodles since I didn't fancy scraping them off the bottom of the pan again. The recipe I used for the chicken can be found here.

I think the most significant factor into how well this recipe went was actually the instructions themselves. Firstly the quantities were double what I was using, which always causes problems, but also the recipe seemed to be somewhat incomplete. Two cups of water were called for in the list of ingredients, but never actually used. I guessed that they were for the marinade, but in the end only used half a cup. In addition, even when I did halve the amounts of cabbage and mushroom there was way too much to even fit in a sauce pan, let alone contribute to the chicken without smothering it. So a couple of adjustments had to be made on the fly, and with that in mind I think it was a great success. Unlike the previous dishes I've attempted, this had a very subtle flavour. For all the world it reminded me of chicken and sweetcorn soup in its gentle sweetness.

Sorry for the short writeup but there's not much more I can say about it. Mum has now lent me a Ken Hom book that should provide me with more ideas for what to make next, which will probably have more reliable instructions.

Motivated Buyers

2009-03-22T14:01:00.011Z

Have you ever bought a game, not because you particularly wanted it, but because you wanted to support the developer for doing something that you felt was good for games as a whole? Or, as is more likely, has the idea of encouraging new and interesting ideas been one of the major factors that tipped you over the edge when it came to buying a game that you were interested in? I certainly have. Just this week I bought two games on launch day with the thought in the back of my head that games of their type and quality needed my support. The first was Madworld, the new ultra-violent, Frank Miller-styled brawler for the Wii, part of a small but very much appreciated effort from Sega to provide the increasingly disenfranchised hardcore gamer with some use for their console. The other was Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure, an ingenious mixture of platform and puzzle game for the DS, representing the latest of Electronic Arts' titles seemingly aimed to shrug off their bad reputation for being the annual sports game factory that they once were. Whilst I was eager to play both, when deciding to buy rather than rent the deciding criterion was pretty much that these games being successes would be good for games in general, and that my pounds would eventually pay dividends with more games like this.

In a way, Madworld and Henry Hatsworth are very much alike

It may seem strange for a consumer to apparently put the well being of a big faceless corporation at the forefront of their buying decision, but this is far more than the traditional blind faith of a fanboy. For some, the outlook for the 'hardcore' gamer may seem increasingly bleak. Video games are no longer the preserve of those of us that read specialist magazines, visit enthusiast websites and generally keep ourselves abreast of all the latest developments and future releases from the video game scene, nor have they been for a long time. In addition to Nintendo's new expanded audience the concept of the 'gramer', people who will religiously purchase the latest version of the big brand titles, Halo, Call of Duty, Madden, but never buy anything else, is not a recent one. By pushing themselves into the mainstream, these titles can guarantee a return for publishers regardless of their critical reception. Halo Wars is still riding fairly high in the UK sales charts (Source: Chart Track) almost a month after release, and it's safe to assume that a good part of its performance is due to the branding, despite being completely different from the other games in the franchise. I'm not saying it's a bad game, only that the fact that it's good doesn't really matter. As those of us 'in the know' about the hidden gems become a smaller and smaller fraction of the market being chased by publishers, it raises a problem for us. Whilst it's all well and good to vote with your wallet, what do you do when your money is just a ripple in the surging river?

Okay that's not true, they are completely different in every way

Some of the biggest news coming out of the end of 2008 was that EA's recent push for new IP was rewarded with a significant drop in profits for the year, whilst Activision Blizzard, the company looking to 'annualise' all of their big titles, made a killing. It can be quite frustrating to think that when a company like EA actually responds to years of criticism and makes an effort to change, the core gamer audience simply isn't big enough, or maybe even cares enough, for such a move to pay off. At the end of the day, making games is still a business and publishers will always follow the money when push comes to shove. As a business EA will only stand so much punishment before they have to change back to the ways that made them the juggernaut they are today, no matter what the vision of the man at the helm.

So what's to be done? To be honest, I don't have a definitive answer, but I suppose the best approach is to stay positive. After all it's pretty clear that a lot of big name developers are gamers too and are going to continue to make games for us. I doubt very much that you'll see Cliff Blezinski's Imagine Gearz or Gabe Newell's Personal Trainer any time soon. If you really care about this sort of thing, don't give up. Keep supporting the titles that deserve it, be vocal, be passionate about what you love. If hardcore gaming is destined to become a niche when compared to the rest of the games industry, let's remember that we are still responsible for the contents of that niche. I'm not saying don't buy the big name games in favour of the underdogs, just that your 'vote' does matter. It will only be when gamers stop being passionate about the games they love that developers will start to question whether it's worth their while making these games for us., and we certainly don't want that.

Cooking! Szechuan Beef

2009-03-19T17:21:00.002Z

This is coming a bit later than usual, since last Friday I was having my hand forced by some chicken that needed using. But never fear, it's time again for more oriental cookery. Beef is often the meat I end up going with when my family and I go out for a Chinese, since that's usually how our plan of attack gets laid out. Those familiar with the HSBC ads from a couple of years back will know that the Chinese way is to provide way too much food, whereas we British like to leave clean plates. As such each visit to a restaurant involves a planning session in which we try to get a good variety of orders in for everyone to share. Szechaun beef is always a safe option, so I thought I'd try my hand at it.

The recipe I used can be found here. For a change I decided to accompany it with some plain chow mein, the recipe for which is here.
The whole process ran pretty smoothly, which was partly thanks to noodles being much easier to prepare than rice (although they leave an even worse mess in the pan). By necessity (from shopping as Asda) I wasn't able to get flank steak and had to settle with their generic, thin sliced frying beef which was a bit tougher than I would have liked but was still tasty. For the 'pea pods' that the recipe calls for I went with sugar snaps, which worked well with the red pepper to offset the spiciness of the pepper pods (which I used slightly too much of) and garlic.

In making the chow mein I was careful to use as little oil as possible, but still it turned out quite greasy. I think the key here is to use thinner noodles so that they crisp up a bit better, rather than just absorbing the oil.
So there you have it, another successful Chinese meal. Now that I've covered the three basic meats in some styles that I'm familiar with, it's time to branch out a little and see what else there is to make.

Jam Enslaver Reviews...Eternal Darkness

2009-03-16T23:39:00.003Z

Wow, it's kind of hard to believe that this is my 21st video review. Somehow it doesn't seem all that long ago that I started making them. I think I've come quite some way since then, especially recently since I've started to smarten up my editing techniques and try to inject a bit more energy into the reviews.

Eternal Darkness is an interesting game for many reasons, but one of the most personal is that its ingenious approach to horror was good enough to keep someone like me who doesn't really like being scared playing all the way to the end. It was interesting playing it again after so many years. Everything was very familiar and quite comfortable, but at the same time I was seeing it in a new light, having read a large amount of H.P.Lovecraft since then, which heavily inspired the game. Knowing the source material allowed me to see deeper into the influences of Lovecraft's work on the game, and I hope I articulated them well in the review.

Cooking! Sweet and Sour Pork

2009-03-07T16:16:00.003Z

Week two of my oriental journey through dishes most real chefs could do in their sleep sees me tackle the perennial Chinese sweet and sour sauce. Just to make it a bit more interesting than the stuff I was served from vats at school I went with pork rather than chicken, and of course accompanied it with egg fried rice. The recipe for the pork can be found here, and the rice is still here, although as it turns out I might have needed to have read through that one again as I forgot a couple of important ingredients this time around.

Chopping board, creating a false sense of preparedness

In fact, concentration didn't seem to be my forte last night as I managed to not only turn the rice into a bland mush by omitting the soy sauce and pepper, I also accidentally began stir-frying the pepper with the spring onion (prepared for the rice, not the pork) instead of the regular onion. This resulted in a hasty removal of the offending scallion from the frying pan and digging around in the cupboard for an onion still fit to eat (somehow Asda's onions only last about a week before going dry and wrinkly). This in turn caused me to fuse some of the waiting pork onto the bottom of the hot pan, and meant that during the crucial phase of frying the pepper and onion the kitchen was filled with the smell of burning meat instead of the delicate aroma of lightly cooked onion.

Sweet and sour sauce thickening, and the onions and peppers ready to jump back in

Anyway despite this the final product came out well, the rich sauce covering up the flavourlessness of the rice. I'm actually not a big fan of pork due to its texture and ease with which it becomes dry, so it was nice to be able to cook something for myself that uses it in a way that plays to its strengths. I'll definitely be doing this again, maybe trying out adding the raw pepper at the end and letting it heat up rather than stir-frying it at the beginning, since it became quite bitter during the process. For next time I'm going to try something with beef, and one of these days I'm not going to be able to get round deep frying something. Until then, sticky pineapple residue washing-up time!

Cooking! Kung Pao Chicken

2009-02-27T22:11:00.002Z

Cooking is something I enjoy, but don't talk about a lot it. This is partly because I don't do it often enough (at least not properly), through a combination of my time in the evenings being very precious and just laziness. But I have resolved to change this, and this is part of that effort: making posts whenever I put in a special effort to make something. This week: kung pao chicken!

Chinese food is a great favourite with my family; given pretty much any excuse we're all off to our favourite Cantonese restaurant for a delicious meal. I've never really tried my hand at making chinese food though, aside from the old student favourite of frying some chicken in soy sauce to make a stir fry. Last week I did a little test-run by making some egg fried rice, and after discovering how easy (and tasty) it is, I went the whole hog and made a full dish from scratch.

You can have a look at the recipe I used here, and the egg fried rice is here. It's actually not that complex, and as usual the hardest part for me was actually tracking down the ingredients. Despite being about the size of my entire street, Asda had no szechuan pepper corns or rice wine, for which I substituted the similar-but-not-the-same Japanese sake. They were even out of corn flour, but luckily it turned out that I still had a huge packet at home (I really don't remember why).

Chopped vegetables, next to the marinating chicken and tea cup full of sauce.

This is the first time I've ever cooked anything with chili peppers in, and the amount required for the recipe had me a little worried that it might be too spicy for my tastes. Particularly after I did the inevitable and tried a tiny bit of raw chili, followed hastily by a glass of milk so I could actually continue.

The interesting part of this recipe is that it requires several things to be happening at once, particularly if like me you're also making fried rice at the same time. For some reason this is one of the more appealing parts of cooking for me, maybe because it sort of turns it into a challenge of timing and prioritisation.

Simultaneous cooking!

Something else I've picked up about cooking is that having a good soundtrack helps increase the enjoyment a lot, especially when cooking alone. My digital radio has taken up residence in the kitchen now, since I haven't used it in the sitting room for a couple of months, allowing me to cook to the melodic sounds of Planet Rock radio. The finished product was pleasing both to the eye and the taste buds. Despite the fact that I didn't really leave the rice with enough time to cool before frying it came out with a nice nutty flavour, and the various ingredients for the chicken all sat nicely together. As I should have guessed, the fierceness of the chili was calmed by the cooking process, leaving just the slightest tingle in the aftertaste.

The finished article

So there you have it, my first real effort in a while to get back into cooking. I'll try to get another in next week, probably Chinese again since I have a ton of ingredients left over. Time to face some sticky, sugary, burned-on-ricey washing up.

Still No Rest

2009-02-21T17:06:00.002Z

As I've heard a couple of people say over the past week or so, since when did February become November. Usually the early part of the year is a barren wasteland for game releases, well-prepared gamers sustaining themselves on the chestnuts saved up during the time of plenty around Christmas or truffling out some hidden gems from their backlog. I was quite looking forward to some spare time to clear my own list, including several games I bought on a whim, or on the cheap, that I've not yet unboxed. Darwinia, Dungeon Keeper 2, Commandos 3, Space Rangers, Supreme Commander, GalCiv, Titan Quest; all games that I've barely touched but I really want to play. And that's to say nothing for the other goals I keep setting myself. Finish Call of Duty 4 on Veteran, actually finish the original Half Life, get some time in with the two games LoveFilm sent me.

But this year it isn't to be, seemingly. Yesterday we had the arrival of two games that would not only be well at home in the crowded pre-holiday release window, but also stand to cause significant waves in their respective genres. Street Fighter 4 stands to re-popularise the fighting genre in the same way that its venerable forbear once did, and Dawn of War 2 is taking the similarly tired, stagnant or esoteric real time strategy genre to new and interesting places. And if the palpable depth of both these games wasn't enough to fill the time, also released on Friday was Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection (or The Mega Drive Ultimate Collection for those of us who know the console's true name), containing over 40 classic games to try, including two full sets of Japanese RPGs.

All this is making it harder and harder to decide which titles to pick up. It's a cruel twist in the life of a gamer. When you're young you have plenty of time to get to grips with the games you have, but can only afford to get very few, meaning that each decision must be tortuously considered, all the options weighed in meticulous detail. On the other hand, those of us old enough to be able to afford whatever game we want are not spared this choice, since free time is so limited. The solution is of course to stop buying new games, an ideal I've been striving towards for a while, but haven't gotten anywhere with yet. It would probably be easier if there weren't any new games I wanted released, which as I said above, is becoming a rarer and rarer occurrence. Oh well, I'll just have to be firmer with myself, and hope that come March we'll start to see things quieten down again. There's a possibility that publishers will be averse to releasing anything worthwhile in the shadow of Resident Evil 5, a game I have little interest in playing.

At least, not yet anyway.

Jam Enslaver Reviews...Star Control II

2009-02-19T12:40:00.003Z

After a few weeks work, I'm finally done with the first of my more in-depth videos, and hopefully the extra effort that went into producing it is apparent to people other than myself.

Just a little production note: making that Beyond a Steel Sky video has cost me more than just an evening's frustration. Because of the way I had to capture video for it, I had to disable my second monitor, forcing me to squash the video preview window of Vegas back onto the primary screen. This seems to have had the adverse effect of changing some settings on it, meaning that some video clips appear to be a different shape in the preview than they actually turn out to be. Hence certain parts of the Star Control II video have very small, black bars at the top and bottom. Not a major problem, but it's something I'll need to fix before moving to my next project.

Beneath a Steel Sky Mini-review

2009-02-10T12:34:00.002Z

I made this video last week but haven't gotten round to posting it up here yet since it's not really a 'proper' review. Sunflower has done an amazing job over the past week or so in organising a contest with GoG.com, asking people to submit short view reviews of the games in their catalogue, and this is my entry.

I think I have a good chance of winning but there have been some excellent entries which can be seen here if you're interested.

Last night I spent a good amount of time working on my next full video, for which I'm aiming to really raise my own standards of editing and presentation. I think that the small amount that I've done so far reflects that. I've also taken the opportunity to address an issue that is raised against videogames at large, which I probably won't be doing all the time but should feature every now and again. The video won't be done for a good couple of weeks, but progress should be faster from now on since the only task I really have left is to play the game and capture footage. This will still take me much longer than the couple of evenings that I spend because of the nature of the game.

NooBTooB Superbowl XLIII Online Party!

2009-02-02T12:53:00.002Z

The Superbowl is an odd event in the calendar. For the whole rest of the year no one outside the USA really cares about the NFL at all, yet when the time comes for the Vince Lombardi trophy to go up for grabs it becomes a world-wide television event. American football fascinates me because it's a game that I'm yet to learn the full rule set, and so each viewing is a new opportunity to try to parse some subtle nuances from what appears to be a giant, spandex-clad dog pile. This year I decided to make use of the friendships I've made with people in the know about the game, and so come 11 o' clock hp1703, Sunflower, Locke, Smokestorm and myself were all gathered in a Skype conference call to watch the big game together.

It hardly needs saying that spending four good hours talking to this wonderful group was a fantastic time, particularly listening to Sunflower and hp talk smack to each other (Sunflower rooting for Pittsburgh whilst hp was supporting Arizona). It was also extremely useful to have some natives to the sport on hand to explain the game. If nothing else I learned what a play action is. An interesting quirk of us all watching coverage from different parts of the world was what happened during the breaks. Sunflower and hp watching on NBC kept us filled in on the absurd and absurdly expensive ads being shown to America, whilst Smokestorm and I were keen to convey the rather stretched coverage from the BBC. In a game where commercials are so important, providing coverage on a channel that by law isn't allowed to have any, as well as having little experience punditing on the sport, results in some hilariously unnecessary conversations that even a complete novice like myself could tell were just designed to fill space.

It was also interesting that the American TV footage was subject to a significant delay (hp hypothesising that this was an FCC regulation to prevent swearing on live television), whilst the BBC coverage of the same pictures wasn't. This allowed me a rather limited ability to predict the future which proved useful, particularly in preparing everyone for the shock of having Bruce Springsteen knee-slide his crotch directly into the screen.

In the end the game was a pretty good one particularly, as is often said over here, for the neutral. Some very impressive plays on display, particularly Larry Fitzgerald's 30 yard run to put the Cardinals ahead with three minutes to play having been down 13 points at one juncture, and the amazing catch in the end-zone by Santanio Holmes in the dying moments of the game to bring it home for the Steelers. I have to say it was probably the most exciting American football game I've seen yet, and with the company then present it was definitely worth staying up to see. A great night all round and I hope we can do the same next year.

Grammar Rage!

2009-01-30T20:10:00.002Z

As supermarkets go I don't exactly consider Asda to be the sharpest witticism on the page. Amongst the biggest UK retailers I see it more as one of those kids sitting at the back of the class talking to its friend Iceland and flicking bits of paper at Waitrose. However, I do expect it to do better than this:

I was half tempted to cross out the offending word and correct it, but a) I didn't have a pen and b) there are about a million checkouts, such is the nature of Asda, each with an identical sign, so my efforts would have been rather futile. Of all the things people say this one really annoys me, simply because it sounds so wrong. How do people not know they're making a mistake when the sentence is clearly not happy?

Finally!

2009-01-26T22:52:00.003Z

Right this minute I finally got my gamerscore up to 10,000 points. I'm not the fastest achievement point scorer, and I'm pretty lazy when it comes to getting some of the harder ones, but I did set myself that as a target. Now I can get back to only thinking about them when they're right there for the taking. The achievement to take me over this magic number was Defended of the People: Damascus, from Assassin's Creed, which I think it a pretty good one for the milestone as it represents several hours worth of work. Plus I got to kill literally hundreds of multicultural guards in the process, which is a bonus.

RPG Reloaded

2009-01-23T18:38:00.003Z

As people who listened to the most recent episode of the Modcast will know, this week I finally took my dice out of retirement and played a bit of D&D. Part of my new year's resolutions was to meet some new people in real life; my online social circle continues to grow ever larger, but I figured that keeping in touch with my uni friends through various channels (including Diablo 2) wasn't quite enough to say that I had anything resembling a normal social life. So last week I ventured over to the Alder Valley Games Society's first meeting of the year and watched with keen interest as the game was played. They seem a friendly group with the usual mixture of people (mostly guys between the ages of 18 and 35), and one was even kind enough to lend me a copy of the core rules for the 4th edition of the game, meaning that this week when I went back I wasn't completely at a loss as to the workings of the game.

Of course, creating a new character is always quite an involved process in any pencil-and-paper RPG, so the only actual playing of the game I took part in, aside from the usual debating about what to do next, was a single check against my dungeoneering skill. Hopefully it won't be too long before my dwarven battle axe gets its first run in combat.

It's encouraging to hear that the club is in such good health that soon the D&D game will need to split, such are the number of players. Being the novice of the group I was very open to being part of the splinter group forming a new game, particularly as Dark Heresy of all things seems to be the popular choice. Maybe Nihilus Khan will be returning to action along with my dice and rulebook.

Speaking of Warhammer 40,000, yesterday I downloaded the Dawn of War II multiplayer beta, so I'll post my thoughts on that soon.

Jam Enslaver Reviews...Micro Machines 2

2009-01-18T22:03:00.003Z

Well as it's now 2009, I guess it's time to start up on the videos again. I never actually owned Micro Machines 2 but a couple of my friends did and I will always remember it as one of my favourite multiplayer games. As I've said before my aim from now on is to start talking about games that require a bit more time investment from myself, but I figured I should get my first out as quickly as possible just so that people don't think I've given up. Now that I've got my eye back in, it's time to tackle some games with a much more epic scope.

Back in the Swing of Things

2009-01-11T21:40:00.003Z

Well, it was a nice break whilst it lasted, but of course the time came when I had to stop sleeping in until 1pm and get back to work. It's been fairly busy over the last week but I think I'm acclimatising at an acceptable rate and should be back to a comfortable level soon. Today we recorded our first normal Modcast of 2009 and it feels good to be getting back into that routine.

Something more out of the ordinary that occurred this weekend was a visit from my old uni friend Phil Salter, who was down south attending a course at the University of Surrey. We didn't really do anything special but it did allow for us to eat out a couple of times, which is something I rarely do, and get some games played together. Since Phil is hard at work on his PhD he hasn't been online much over the last couple of years but as soon as we got together in old-school Unreal Tournament, it was just like old times. Plus we sampled the best of the local multiplayer I could think of on my various systems, including Gears 2's Horde mode, Omega Five, Little Big Planet, Age of Booty and Geometry Wars 2. Phil bought himself an Xbox recently so I'm very eager for him to get on Xbox Live and play with my more often.

As for the year ahead, I have a couple of aims that I'll go into more detail with later. One of these is to start work on more videos, as I promised, and I will begin next week.

Merry Christmas to All

2008-12-25T12:22:00.002Z

Merry Christmas to all my readers. I hope the holidays find you in good cheer and good company. So far Christmas has been wonderful for me. A nice quiet affair with Mum and Dad, Simon and Andrew, including all our usual traditions (such as a slightly unwilling rendition of Away in a Manger before presents on Christmas Eve). I'm very thankful for once again having the opportunity to spend Christmas with my loved ones.

If you fancy a break from your loved ones, be on the lookout for the special Festivus episode of the Modcast which should be out sometime today. And in its own little holiday miracle, The Behemoth has finally released a patch for Castle Crashers! I'm looking forward to jumping back into that game very soon.

Merry Christmas! May your checkpoints be frequent and your health potions plentiful!

Boss Key as DLC?

2008-12-18T00:47:00.002Z

When looking back on 2008, and in fact on the current gaming generation as a whole, one of the most significant changes to the world of games has been the rise of downloadable content. The Summer of Xbox Live kept players buzzing with excitement during the usually sparse release period in the middle of the year, the PSN started to push the boundaries of what we expect from downloadable games with the likes of Wipeout HD and Burnout Paradise, and more and more retail games invited their players to invest more for an extended experience. As retailers continue to devote more and more shelf space to used games, any means of getting players to hang on to their discs will become an increasingly vital part of developers' and publishers' strategies. Already this year we have seen Mirror's Edge and Tomb Raider Underworld using DLC as part of their marketing before the game has even shipped. Recently IGN published an article addressing some of the concerns that gamers will have going forward, but the recent release of the Gears of War 2 Combustible map pack has once again brought another issue to the fore: are developers screwing us over?

Worries are that developers will begin to deliberately hold back content from the retail version of a game in order to squeeze more cash from players who want the 'full experience.' The Combustible Map pack was released less than a month after the release of Gears 2, and other content such as Fable 2's Knothole Island and Fallout 3's Operation Anchorage have been announced in a time frame that many feel suggests that work was well underway before the full games were done. Many felt that Tomb Raider Underworld's story felt rushed and unfinished towards the end, and not far behind was speculation that the promised DLC would offer the true conclusion to the game. The remarks of Epic's own Michael Capps, suggesting that developers could recover some money from rentals and the sales of used games by limiting the true endings of games to DLC, prepaid with new copies but costing extra for secondary sales, have set the alarm bells ringing and message boards yelling. This isn't helped by the approaches taken with other aspects of games. Many balked at the idea of paying for some extra level-ups in Tales of Vesperia or for cars in Need for Speed that could be unlocked for free by playing the game. More still couldn't understand why they were being offered useless costume packs for their characters in Dead Space and Ninja Gaiden 2 that in generations gone by would have either been secret unlockables or just non-existent.

In the end, it all comes down to value. I was perfectly happy to download the new Gears maps because I know I will gain a considerable amount of fun from them. On the other hand, I was happy with the amount of time I spent with Fable 2 and don't feel the need to pay for more content. The initial release was a complete experience for me and it's nice that others more captivated by Albion's charms have the opportunity to take it further. The fact is that developing and publishing a game are lengthy and complex processes that requires considerable planning ahead, and some vocal minorities may need to come to the realisation that they are not entitled to everything a developer produces. However if they wish to keep gamers on side and avoid alienating their core audience, developers need to be far more transparent about how new content for games comes about. Studios like Valve and Criterion are showing the way in both their balance of payed and free updates, and in their transparency of the design process. Goodwill is a fickle thing, particularly amongst gamers, and companies like EA and Namco need to remember that if they want to start reaping benefits from used games, they need to make continuing to support a game an easier choice for us.

A Goodbye to Oliver Postgate

2008-12-13T22:53:00.004Z

I'm sure a great many people in the UK were saddened this week to hear of the death of Oliver Postgate, legendary children's television writer and storyteller. It's a testament to the quality of his works that even a child of the 80s like myself grew up watching Ivor the Engine and The Clangers despite them being over 20 years old at the time. Looking back at the old shows now, it's amazing how well they still hold up.

A large part of that has to do with the writing. Children's television is often overly simplistic and patronising, but with Postgate's work there always seems to be a number of subtleties that elevate the stories beyond what you would expect. The Clangers teaches many important lessons about teamwork and cooperation, whilst The Sagas of Noggin the Nog revolt against prejudice with their friendly dragons and helpful sea monsters. I even once heard someone break down the cast of Bagpus as being a commentary on the class struggle. Even taken at face value the tales woven have a very distinct charm about them. Much like Postgate's narration style, the tone could be serious, lighthearted, or sometimes both at the same time. Even when when being battered by a storm in their voyage to the edge of the world, Noggin's men still had time for hot buttered toast. It should not be understated how much Postgate's voice plays a part in the stories' continued appeal. A haunting, melancholy tone that somehow still always sounded familiar and warm, lending the words a certain gravity and importance.

I can highly recommend that you take in some of Oliver's work. The Complete Sagas of Noggin the Nog are available on DVD and very much worth watching. Below is an episode of Ivor the Engine that I hold particularly dear, it being one that my brothers and I had on VHS and watched over and over.

I Love Teamwork

2008-12-02T12:38:00.003Z

Lately I've really gotten into Valve's new cooperative shooter, Left 4 Dead. It's very refreshing to have a game so completely focused on four people working together to achieve a common goal. Even better, that goal is to survive a zombie apocalypse. The above video is a good example of what can happen when someone forgets that for games like this it's better not to have anyone assume command. Especially when they're an annoying kid who shouldn't be playing the game in the first place. Make sure to watch to the end for the satisfying conclusion.

Okay, now watch the video again, but mentally substitute the name 'Borders' for 'Butters' and imagine that the brat is Eric Cartman. It works scarily well.