The Lair of the Monkey

Whoa there fella, before you get the wrong idea, it’s not me defending the gosh-darn too expensive for us poor banditos PS3 (why the Old West? - ed).  Oh no.  It’s this guy.

Howard Stringer has gone on record as defending the PS3 price tag at Next Generation.  You can read the full article here (it is short - ed) but suffice to say he thinks you are buying into potential.  Hang on a second… potential.

Dictionary.com defines potential as the following: “capable of being, but not yet in existence, latent - ie a potential problem“.  Ironically, this is exactly how I see the PS3.  A potential problem.  Before you go shooting off about me being a fanboy, I’m not.  I like great games - and that’s it.  Doesn’t matter which format.  However, I will not help Sony win the technology ‘war’ with Blu Ray or anything else.  I want great games, but more importantly, as I keep badgering you lot about, I want great gaming EXPERIENCES.

Stringer, lets be honest.  Do you know of any one product at all that has ever lived up to ‘all’ of the potential it has?  No, me either.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying you’ve chosen the wrong horse in this race Howard, who knows, perhaps Blu-ray will be king.  However, I’ll sooner poke you in the eye (and face the inevitable American lawsuit) than pay £550 for your console.  It has potential yes.  Prove it to me and everyone else waiting, or may you fall off your very large, very generic Sony horse.

Development Diary - 10/06/2006
When I mentioned to Mr Butterscotch, the proud creator of this very site, that I was developing a complete game he suggested that I should keep a diary of my progress, my victories, my defeats and everything that lies between. As it happens I thought this was a very good idea, and upon seeing my interest offered to post the diary on The Lair of the Monkey.

I immediately jumped onboard, knowing fine well that I have a habit of starting so many things at once that I get swamped down and not finishing them for months, seeing the published diary as convenient tool to keep me focused and on track. Another benefit became apparent a couple of days later as coding began produce some results (just the basic underlying code of the game engine) and that was rather than take my usual cowboy approach of adding things as they come up I began to design and plan in more detail.

Maybe this is because other people will actually see my battle with addiction (yes, I know how much of a geek I am, but you can’t argue that I am not indeed L337) or perhaps I’m just growing as a developer, it being my job description nowadays, whatever the reason it can only aid the design and quality of the finished product. But what is the product you ask? Well the clever marketing answer would be, keep coming back to see how the product progesses over the coming weeks, but I never was one for the marketing side of things (leave that to me, we’ll make you rich yet - ed), leading nicely into… (more…)

Let me get right into it - there’s something that narks me about games. The method of control. Frankly no, I don’t particularly like using a keyboard and mouse. I’ll grant you that there’s no better control system for FPS games but is also feels quite devoid of sensation. Even the latest Logitech, ultra-sensitive mouse combined with a Microsoft natural keyboard doesn’t do it for me. So, what does?

Well, there’s the Xbox controller. It’s durable (that’s for sure), tough, dark, and has a cheap plastic heart. However, the original controller (before the controller S became standard) was absolutely massive. I want one just for posterity. And to laugh at. And to use as a deadly weapon, kept in my car. But seriously, that thing was huge. So no, I don’t think the Xbox has the perfect controller.

PS2 I hear you say. Well yes, the PS2 does have the dual shock. However ‘natural’ it feels (how can a lump of plastic in your hand feel natural? - ed), the dual analogues are pants, there’s too many buttons for some and frankly it hasn’t changed in years.

So, how about the GC controller? No no and no. Sorry, but one massive and one little button makes for a very stupid control pad. However, the analogue stick itself was amazing, and the overall comfort factor was quite high. (more…)

The Golden Joystick Awards are being run, you can vote now at: www.goldenjoystick.com.  Is this breaking news, I hear you ask?  Well not really to be honest.  However, the points I have to make possibly are.

For those of you not in the know, the Golden Joystick awards are voted for by gamers, so I guess in that way they matter.  They began in 1928 ha ha 1982, games appear in 17 categories, and will be streamed at www.computerandvideogames.com as well as being shown on Channel 4. 

So, “what the hell is the problem?” I hear you shout.  The problem is, no wait, the PROBLEMS are these:

• Ceremonies are back scratching, tedium-filled boozed up roll-outs for people you usually aren’t that interested in.  I’m guessing that this is no different.  Whilst if I was in the industry I’d be really happy to be at the awards, let alone receive one, I think that there’s something very odd about having an awards ceremony for a medium that really does require such a level of interactivity.  I hear last year’s viewings ratings was particularly poor - I wonder why?  Maybe everyone who would have watched was already there?
• This is a biggie for me.  I really do resent the fact that I am seeing an award ceremony (Yes, I’m happy I get to vote -ed) for a medium that is so niche (even though everyone screams it is massive) it does not yet appear regularly on a ‘normal’ tv channel.  I mean really, WTF?
• In other mediums, you have the stars.  They are on screen, and easily recognisable.  Does anyone recognise the devs of any of the companies barring of course the bigwigs such as Bill Gates or Shigeru Miyamoto?  Surely for games you need Mario etc accepting the award (Sarcasm doesn’t become you -ed)?

So, there you are.  I’d say three fairly sensible and large objections to this ridiculous scenario.  I’m expecting that for something which has an awards ceremony on tv there should at least be a programme of entertainment covering the subject matter.  Nonetheless, I like the fact that games are getting exposure… even if we will see the same games being trollied out at every upcoming gaming bash this year.

Links:

Grab the games you want to award from Amazon.

Merriam-Webster define euthanasia as “the act or practice of killing or permitting the death of hopelessly sick or injured individuals (as persons or domestic animals) in a relatively painless way for reasons of mercy”.

Now, this may sound like an odd way to open an article on gaming but when you consider the meaning this is exactly what happened to the 2D games of yester-year that we all enjoyed. I’m sure you’ll agree that phasing out of 2D games over the early months of the 3D consoles could be considered “permitting the death of” because sadly the casual gamer, and many of the hardcore fraternity for that matter, believe that in today’s world of 3D, 2D constitutes “hopelessly sick”. Yes, they do still exist, but mainly in the handheld world, and if we continue to run with the metaphor, the gaming equivalent of a nursing home, the place games that are graphically far inferior are housed because of the lack of processing power in a hand held.

If game genres and styles have a natural lifespan surely it is a little ageist to state that it only lasts until the next generation comes along. I have always been of the opinion that new technology is a way to improve what already exists, not a sure fire way to forget it and move on. Surely the natural lifespan of a genre or style is until the day game developers have done everything they can with it, but unfortunately it seems that I am in the minority on this. (more…)

There is a major computer game design competition kicking off at Abertay University, Dundee. Dare to be Digital is now in its sixth year, and going stronger than ever. Previous entries have shown skill, development ingenuity and much promise. Keep an eye out for updates, as well as team members being picked up by companies including Lionhead, Microsoft and more.

Links:

BBC News report: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/tayside_and_central/5070998.stm

Dare to be Digital official site: http://www.daretobedigital.com

University of Abertay official site: http://www.abertay.ac.uk/

Related:

Women entering the games industry (BBC): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4634519.stm

Following on from my previous article, Dictionary.com describes fear as: http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=fear

My favourite descriptor of which is: “A reason for dread or apprehension“.  That being the case, I’d be interested to see which games we play actually match that.  Wikipedia has a bit of an interesting article on horror fiction - though it sadly misses out games, though that’s probably due to the emergent nature of the industry.

Anyway, lets cut to the chase.  I’m interested in what I think would be scary.  I believe I’ve got a fair idea of how some games could really crank up the fear factor, not least because of the fact that I’ve devoured horror in almost every medium for a long time.  Anyway, here are my ideas… As you’ll see they are original, weird and hopefully a little frightening. (more…)

I recently came across this article at Gamespot: http://uk.gamespot.com/features/6152338/index.html

As you can see, it is concerned with ‘Occult Classics’ - or rather games with a decidedly supernatural slant to them. The reason Gamespot ran the feature was due to the date, 06/06/06 - the devils numerals! Also by coincidence, the number of man… and actually meant to be 616, if you believe the current theories. Also notable for release on this date was The Omen 666 - the remake of the classic 1970’s horror The Omen.

For those who are interested, here’s an incredibly quick review: The Omen 666 is okay, but little more. The cast either overact their way to hell or are simply unsuitable for the role that they play, such as Julia Stiles as the clearly-too-young mother. I’m guessing this was meant to make her trauma look more realistic, but it was just poor. That and little Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick simply wasn’t menacing… much. Anyway, rant over about the movie, back to the games… (more…)

This article came about courtesy of a discussion I was having with my
flatmate and frequent Tekken buddy Fost. We were discussing the merits of
the Wii versus its’ competitors and Fost began to oppose my support of the
PS3 (not really a surprise in itself).

He claimed that the modus operandi of the Wii from Nintendo was that they knew they were never gonna rival all the souped up power and capabilities of the other machine and were just setting out to bring the fun back into gaming. This in turn got me thinking about the most fun games I played in recent years and how they were in no way
connected to gaming speed, awesome graphics, capacity and all those words we
“casual” gamers don’t really understand (given how much we play Tekken we’re kinda hardcore - ed).

The most fun I’ve had in any game in recent years for example is Donkey Konga on the GameCube. Or recently Buzz for the PS2. Hell on a more conventional front the game I played most was Ultimate Spider-Man, hardly a game with fantastic graphics (albeit in an attempt to replicate the look of the comic). Thinking back to why I got rid
of my own PS2 (besides needing the money) I realised that a large decider
was that games just weren’t fun, my greatest annoyance for example was Metal
Gear Solid 2, a game that in my opinion was about 90 per cent movie and 10
per cent actual gameplay (I certainly agree with that one - ed).

So what other fun times have you had with these zany games? Do you think Nintendo are right in their attempt to bring back the fun? Do you fervently disagree with me and get more enjoyment from newer and more complex games and systems? The floodgates are open, feel free to reply…

To my mind, I thought that the Wii…

…would have cheaper prices for its’ games than both the 360 and the PS3.  This was not an assumption, but was based on the information Iwata et al had been giving out both prior to, and at E3.  I’m not going to get into the whole ‘how do you value your games’ debate, but logically speaking if they cost less to produce (being on easier to work with software and not requiring the hottest graphic processing) then surely these reduced prices should be translated to the consumer?

I ask this, and yet what do we see here?  Yes, you can see a cool little promo video, but more importantly it’s a release schedule from the usually reliable Play.com.  The prices are all around £50.  This scares me.  As the Wii is possibly going to be priced very low, I would like games to be no more than this generation too… and yet this looks to be going against everything Nintendo originally promised.

Frankly, I’m dissappointed.  I can only hope that Play is wrong, and that we see the prices drop to a much more reasonable £30 online, £40 in store.  I haven’t and won’t pay £50 for a game, I’m not about to start now.  Come on Nintendo, keep good your promises and lets see how many gamers you really can capture…