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One thing I see quite a bit with game reviews these days is the criticism of games not being innovative enough. This makes me sad, as it casts a darkened shadow over the game.

I am of the opinion that game innovation no-longer comes primarily from the game-play. I’m not saying there is nothing new to find or do in a game, just that it shouldn’t be the main focus.

I think todays progress with games lay in the story.
A first-person shooter is a first-person shooter. A Real Time Strategy is an RTS. That is not going to change, sure little things might add to it (like the recent spate of RPG’s combining with FPS’s [a good idea imho]), but they are not going to change much.

Role Playing Games have known this for years, they have not really changed. What keeps selling them is new themes and stories. Even “new” games like Fallout 3 and Mass Effect that are RPG-FPS’s, they still have the same/similar leveling system, tech trees, and idea of “mana” (or biotich power, or something like that).

Now, these games all feel different and play different, but that comes more from the lush, detailed universe they are based in. They take you to a whole new world, and throw you into a rich story. And they make you feel its real regardless of how primitive our 2D monitors are.

Now, this idea, I think could work even with a strait shooter. In-fact it DOES work with a strait shooter. Look at the Halo. Halo, as a strait FPS is nothing that hadn’t been done on any platform before or since its initial release. What made it so good, and why people still play its SINGLE PLAYER to this day (Multi Player is a completely different kettle of fish), was how rich, detailed the story and world behind it was, and is. Halo Reach is going to be released soon, expanding still more on the story. And its not the open world of it that interests me (been there done that), or the combat (been there done that), or to see what new weapons/items there will be (pfft, jetpacks were so 1996). Its the story, and how it expands on the Halo universe that has me wanting to play it.

The idea of story is what has kept me playing through what some would consider truly horrific or average games.
Shadow Ops: Red Mercury, is a truly average game. Nothing special about it. But it ranks up there as one of my favorite games, simply because of its story.
Take a look at the screenshot that I’ve put up. How average does the game look even for a 2004 game?

The controls are clunky, you feel like your character is running through sludge. On slower machines the audio doesn’t sync up, the animations are clunky, there is some weird bugs. Heck at about 3 or 4 moments the game yanks you out of control and makes you watch some pre-rendered cut-scenes.

But the story and characters were really well written, and I honestly can’t wait for my next play thru.

That’s why I don’t shun a game based on a bad review. I will shun a game based on a bland story.

Now, who can’t wait for Portal 2?!

Who doesn’t like to fire up a freakin’ awesome computer game every now and then?

Let me cast your mind back to the late 1990’s. There were games released almost on a weekly basis right across the PC, PS1, and N64.
Times were good, and it didn’t matter which system you were on.

Recently, I had been feeling that games weren’t being released, or in as good quality, as they used to be. I guess its an “old” gamers thing, where nothing is as good as it used to be, and in all honstly this past year, for me as a PC gamer, looked bleak.

Then Modern Warfare 2 came along, and the news that the PC version of the game was being gimped. I snapped. I went out and bought a tone of games that had been recommended to me, MANY released in the past 6 months.

It was like my eyes had been opened up. Gaming wasn’t dying, the focus platform had just shifted. I’m not going to say that console gaming is the way of the future, its just where gaming is at, at the moment. Will it come back to the PC? Will it become more focused on mobile platforms? Will there be a new generation of consoles that it will move to? Only time will tell, but I shall ride this games wave now I’ve discovered where it is.

Oh, and for those who go “FPS can only been played on the PC”, that’s wrong, you just have to learn a new technique. Its not better. Its different.

Now as everyone here knows, for as long as I’ve been around games, I have been a PC gamer. Actually let me correct that, I’ve been a computer gamer. That is I play my games on a computer.

But recently, I’ve made a bit of a change to my gaming life. I’ve moved from playing all my games on the PC to most of my games on the Xbox 360.

Now, I’ve owned the Xbox 360 for quite some time, but I’ve never actualy played any games on it, besides Guitar Hero.
This was mainly because all the games I wanted to play were on the PC.

But recently, a lot of the games that I’ve been waiting for, or excited for, have been either crippled for the PC, poorly ported, or just delayed, and there’s also a bunch of games that just don’t make it to the PC.

So I’ve made the switch, and its been fantastic, I’m not being bored out of my mind with the one release in a blue moon, I’ve got a whole back catalog of games that I have never had access to that I can now play. I’ve been catching up on old titles like Assassins Creed, Prototype, Soul Calber 4, and the Halo series just to name a few (yes I know some of these are on the PC, but seriously, they are poor ports).

I’m also loving the fact that I don’t need Steam, or to enter CD keys, or sign up for a service to play my games. Just push my little X button, whack the DVD in the drive, and away I go.

Now, don’t for a second think that I’m thinking “oh the controller controls the game as good as a mouse and keyboard”. Because I don’t. For FPS the PC controls will always be more accurate. That doesn’t mean that the controller doesn’t work. After a little practice, I’ve found that aiming, and movement can be quite fluid in 360 FPS games (don’t know about PS3, I’d imagine it would be the same).

There’s been some discussion on the AtomicMPC forums about in-game advertising in PC games (for some reason, this doesn’t seem to be an issue in Console gaming).

First of all, yes the screen-shots of in-game adds are from a free game that uses add revenue to keep the servers going. I just wanted to show some in-game adds and Quake Live was the quickest game I had on-hand that had adds. Also, sorry for the low textures, as I said, I was in a hurry so left the details turned down.

I’ll copy and paste my argument FOR in-game advertising, and expand on it a little.

QUOTE (SquallStrife @ Oct 16 2009, 10:40 AM)

QUOTE (DasBok @ Oct 16 2009, 10:57 AM)
Probably.

Maybe I’m ok with it, ’cause I’ve been expecting it for a while, it was always bound to happen, ever since Half Life 2 came out, and was tied into steam, I’ve been expecting it.
And I honestly don’t think its a bad thing. The advertising is generally out of the way, and companies like the TAC can get a message out, but in a way that doesn’t really affect game play.
I know that the revenue probably doesn’t reach the developers, but I’d like to think that a small part of it goes into maintaining servers, and possibly making it into the packages that they use to fund new games. Heck, it probably does go strait to their pockets, but that doesn’t REALLY affect me, so it doesn’t bother me.

I can understand the whole “principal of the matter” argument, but at the end of the day, if your still buying and playing the game, then that argument has no weight, they will keep releasing games in such a way, and I’m really only seeing this argument from PC gamers, I’ve seen in-game advertising, AND advertising on the Xbox360 dashboard, and you pay $80 for Xbox Live. And I’ve never heard a 360 owner complain about adds in a service/game they play for. (Yes, I know that’s a “they are ok with it, so why arn’t we?” argument).

One other thing I’d like to point out, to me, these adds make me feel more immersed in the game, especially if its based in modern times. An add for “coke” or another product, heck maybe even a TAC one if its a racing game, its something I identify with, and it sucks me into the world more.

And I honestly believe that. I believe that in-game adds can be a good thing. I believe they ARE a good thing. They really do help suck me into the virtual world that has been created. For example, in say Modern Warfare 2, if I see an add for some made up fizzy beverage, I know my minds gonna go “hang on, that doesn’t exist, this isn’t real” and the suspension of disbelief is ruined. But if that same billboard has Pepsi, in a way that I’ve seen it whilst driving around in real life, or on TV, then my minds going to go “quick, get behind cover, I DON’T WANA DIE!”

The fact is that adds are a part of our every day lives. We can’t avoid them, even if blind. So why not have some form of advertisements in game worlds that are meant to mimic real life? And at that same time, why not use real products?
Sure someones going to be making money off of it, but if you were the developer, or publisher, or advertiser, are you going to tell me that you REALLY wouldn’t do it?

Also, if in-game adds really annoy you that much, then don’t play games with them. The excuse of “but I still want to play the game” doesn’t hold up, its similar to the argument of “I can pirate games because I can’t afford them”. It helps no-one and doesn’t make a point.

Quake Live has done adds good.

Well, the TAC has.

All the TAC adds for motorcyclist safety have been along the lines of “there’s no re-spawn for motorcyclists” and “Motorcyclists need more Armour” amongst other things.

Really smart idea IMHO.

Check my example at the red Armour on a CTF map.

So last night, me and Nick decided to catchup and play some console games, started out with the awesome Halo 3 ODST, and we got a respectable score on it. My God it is so much fun, both the singe player and the brilliant mod Fire Fight.

Next we moved onto the Wii with the brilliant Mario Kart Wii for some old time gaming. Caitlyn came out and joined us, and it soon degenerated into us yelling at each other and generally making fun of each other like we usually do.
Then Caitlyn started getting into a reminiscence mood, and was trying to remember a level she claimed “might” have been from the original Halo, and after a long time of her failing to describe what the map looked like, and us loading up all three Halo games. She finally went away and drew a few lines on a piece of paper.

You can see this piece of paper down the side here.

Now, how much of a bloody nerd must I be to know exactly what Caitlyn was talking about from a simple drawing like this? And yes, I was right, we loaded the game up, and sure enough, it was the map that we remembered (it wasn’t in Halo).

We also decided it would be cool to every few nights to get a Halo PC game happening, just for fun. If its just us three. Or if any of you want to join, then that would be brilliant.

Oh, and yes, we did also play some Halo 3 in multilayer. Defiantly better than Halo 1 on the Xbox, so much fun. Love doing races in the ATV’s, and some of the new weapons are just awesome fun to try and use. (Single handed playing ftw).

Definitely gonna have to get a Gold subscription for my 360 so I can play Fire Fight, and Halo 3 online.

I should probably make a start of Gears of War, and Perfect Dark as well.

The map was Torlan from UT2k4 btw.

Yo, long time no update!

Been a little crazy recently, and havn’t had much time where I’ve been able to just sit down, write, or do other general stuff.

Heck, take a look at the IRC stats, my lines per day for this month are way down, to non existent! So I figured I would go through a bunch of different things.

First thing I’ll talk about is another rant about drivers.
Specifically drivers of big cars. No, I’m not talking 4×4’s. I’m talking 4×4’s, Van’s, station wagons.

Now, I know some people need vehicles like that, but for the love of God, can you PLEASE learn how to drive them. So many people seem to have trouble reversing out of a car park with them.

This isn’t a case of me ranting about people in big cars without driving them myself. I drive both a Ford EB, and a Volkswagen Van (an old early ’90’s white tank thing). And I have no issues throwing them around Frankston city, or other small road places. I can also park, and get out of parks, regardless of size and position fine with both of my vehicles.

Oh and that brings me to another thing about cars. 90% of 4×4 owners shit me. Now I know that some people actual use 4×4’s for what they were designed for. Going off road. And I know some people have 6+ kids for some mental reason.

What shits me is the amount of people I see driving them, who will never take them off-road, and will never have more than 2 kids in the car.

Its stupid, a big 4×4 doesn’t make you safe, infact most 4×4’s have safety ratings lower than alot of small cars (go check www.howsafeisyourcar.com.au).
When on the train back from Bittern about 12 months ago, someone was sitting accross from me, talking to a friend about their cars (yes I was listening in, I was bored). She was talking about how, on a farm, they just drive about the in their station wagon, but when they go into the city they take the 4×4 “because its just safer”.

It took all my self control to not yell “No! Its less safe, you just clog up the streats with your big arsed car like you take up all the seat with your big arse! I hope a truck hits you so you can see how unsafe it is!”

Anyway, enough about cars.

Games time!

I’ve started playing a tonne of Fallout 3. I did try the game out a little bit ago, and I was just treating it as an on-rails shooter, and quit shortly after nuking Megaton.
Recently, after learning a bunch of cool stuff that you can do in it, I reinstalled it to give it another shot. And oh my God, I’m having so much fun (yet somehow, even after disarming the bomb in Megaton instead, I’ve still got a negative karma).
But my oh my, what an awesome game.

Now, I know I’ve ranted about Quake Live before, but that game is just pure Gold, unless you play it as much as The Muffin. Hes over it now, but if you see how many games hes been playing a day for the past 2 weeks, thats understandable. Mental. I mean, I love the game, but maybe 1 or 2 duels, and a few CA games is enough for me a day (can’t stand being in one thing for too long).

Life / Work

As you may have guessed from my last post, stupid professionals shit me.
I’ve been doing some office and network maintenance work for a local company who have just opened, and my God, working with the “communications experts” (read guys who install phone’s with multiple lines, and that’s it), is an absolute nightmare.
They have no freakin’ idea what the hell is going on with everyone else, and enjoy getting in the way of everything.
I wans’t the only one pissed at them, the new buisness owners were pissed off too.

Oh, and then there are the people who work for them. They seem to deliberatly go out of their way to break everything.
No, I’m not going to give you permision to install ANOTHER photo editing program, ONE is enough. No, I’m not going to let you change the clock to a different time zone so you know when to call your boy friend, why? BECAUSE YOU ARE AT WORK.
Oh, and PLEASE stop pulling cables out the back of the computer and leaving them out, I really hate going under that desk. Yes, you can do this, this and this, no you can’t access your bosses private files, please jump into a fire and DIE.

This is only the first 20 minutes, I’ll re-edit it once i get the rest, hope Ycros is happy now!

All the way back in 2006, I started my journey into University. And there I met Craig. By mid-year, disapointed with how the IT@PE group were handling social things, we decided to try and organise a LAN party.

It failed. Hard. We cancled it a day before the LAN was ment to run. We had 6 people interested.

About month later, we decided to give it another shot. Craig set us up a fancy website, with a black background, and green tables. It looked horrid, but it summed us up. We needed a name, and after much brain storming with a good friend of us both, Mr Luke “Misc” Alabaster, we came up with the name “GreentubeLAN”, this after falling over many names, all of which caused us to keep cracking up with laughter as we kept getting weirder and weirder with names. Untill we relised we kept comming back to GreentubeLAN.

I think those who were trying to study at Monash Peninsula Library were thankfull we made a decision.

So after a meeting with a cool guy, who to this day, I only remember as “Andrew”, who did leasing on the venues at Monash PE, we finally got settled to use the “Upper Deck Cafe”, and we started the signup. We relised we needed help, and grabbed Michael to help us with the admin.

The LAN came around, 20 people showed, it was fantastic. We had SBS on the plasma showing soccar, we had lounge couches all bunched up with a TV (the TV was never used for NES games, infact, it remained off and the plasma on). I ran a Quake 3 tournament, we all played some Counter Strike. Some guys played UT2k4, whilst others played Americas Army. Nick had a case made of wood.

It was so good, we ran another one, not even a month later. We again go the Upper Deck Cafe, we had a few of our future regulars make an appearance. Matt ran people over in GTA:SA, and we had people scrambling over tables to get to the late pizza. Michael waltzed.

We also screwed up. Too few people with a watchfull eye lead to a fuse blowing, a entire cafe’ fridge turning off (and food in it going bad), a automatic door stuck, and a coffee machine that wished it had never been made.

We wern’t allowed to use the Upper Deck Cafe’ anymore.

However, I remembered a good friend of mine, Daniel. He had offered me a Scout Hall once before, back in the day. A quick phone call, and wham! We had a hall.
Whilst Craig was testing some servers, he met some people who would go on to make TanLAN, down in Traralgon. They decided to come along.
We had the slowest LAN to date, seirously, it was like 256k ADSL. And do you know what? It was fantastic. We ran a UT2k4 competition, we gave awards for the “worst computer” in the looks department. We gave some guy an Action Man doll ’cause he was good at Counter Strike. It was good fun.

Then we ran into GTL4, same venu, huge heat. We had fans going, and it was still bloody boiling. So much, that by 10:30pm, we had all moved otuside to sit around a campfire site (sans fire), sipping cold drinks, and talking. One of Daniel’s friends got the first lable of “bloody hell” when he turned off the V8 Supercars server, after taking 60 minutes to set it up.

GTL5 came around. We were all calling the LAN GTL by now, I still have no idea who cameup with that acronym, even tho it makes sense. It was small, quiet, and had Painkiller. It was really a setup for what was to come.

GTL6 came around, our 1st birthday. We put Wanko in a corner (no he doens’t get a link), we had sponsors from Intel, ATI, NOS Computers, and even some stuff Craig bought at MSY.
We ran a Quake4 tournament, Luke won a gatwatch, “bloody hell” won a orange intel jacket, and Wanko won nothing.
We also had a huge arse chocolate cake. I mean REALLY big, so big it had to be brought down ’cause it wouldn’t fit into the fridge. It had green icing.

I could go on, but the list is almost exactly the same.

Why am I writing all of this?

Well, GreentubeLAN has technicly closed its doors, without actualy closing them. But for now, you can rest assured that there will be no more open to public LANs. All that is going to be left is private invite only LANs.

I would just like to thank everyone who has ever come to a GreentubeLAN. Wether you came to one, or came to all of them. We arn’t big headed enough to say “they were so good because of us”, it was because of you, those who came to the LANs that made them so much fun, and gave us and everyone else so much enjoyment.

We would also like to think everyone who has helped us in any way with the LANs, from our own parents and partners, to Andrew and all the other little guys. You made it all posible, and we are forever greatfull for everything that you did for us.

So now, with DLC, SanLAN, Respawn, and a number of others around, will you ever be able to LAN with the GTL crew again? We would like to hope so, we have plans on attending any LANs in our area that look like fun, and there might be future invite only GTL events, that we will run (hint hint to those reading).

Again, thanks.

Photos:

GreentubeLAN 5
GreentubeLAN 6
GreentubeLAN 7
GreentubeLAN + DLC 2

Videos:

GreentubeLAN 1

GreentubeLAN 3 and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6bgaodSUcY

GreentubeLAN 5

GreentubeLAN 6 (includes cake!)

GreentubeLAN 7

Just trying to do some reasearch here, and if anyone can help me, that would be brilliant.

I’ve been searching and searching, and from what I can tell, it seems that Quake has bene in use longer as a compeditive game than Starcraft.

Please, if anyone can correct this for me, brilliant, otherwise the masses at Games Bootcamp are gonna be told Quake started it all.

Cheers