The Lair of the Monkey

For those of you who haven’t seen it yet, you simply must look at www.gamevideos.com.  If you’re at all interested in seeing industry people (1up.com guys and gals - all great by the way) actually discuss the entertainment medium (and defend Metroid 2 amongst other things ha ha) then go here.  You can see the 1Up show, along with some very crazy home made mod vids, trailers for games and much much more.  Go on folks, check it out.  It’s well worth a look.

This is the first in a new section of The Lair of the Monkey - game inspired retro-ness.  This week, I been mostly playin’ (in a Westcountry accent obviously) the rather good Soul Calibur 2.

This is, for those who don’t know a long-running series.  We had Soul Blade on the PS, then Soul Calibur on Dreamcast (some would say the definitive and best), then this version on the PS2, Xbox and GC (the format I have) - then finally Soul Calibur 3.  In Soul Calibur 2, each home console had a special character.  On the GC it was link, the PS2 had Heihachi and finally the Xbox had Spawn.  I found that generally the new characters were a little overpowered, but that didn’t spoil the gaming experience.  Oh no.  Not least because at its’ heart Soul Calibur 2 is a nail-bitingly exciting hardcore beat-em-up.

Two combatants face off with weapons, the objective being to hammer the other into unconsciousness.  Characters range from the Samurai Mitsurugi to the pirate Cervantes and everything in between.  Monsters such as Astaroth and Necrid also appear in the game, each with their own unique fighting style.  In total there was (I think) more than 16 characters.  A good selection by anyone’s account.  Arenas were varied, with exploding floors, quicksand, ice and ring-outs all available.

For negatives, there’s only really one, and that is there can be a small element of button bashing in order to achieve victory, as well as it being clear that throws are evil.  Just like in Tekken (that’s why we play to the no throws rule - ed).  On the whole though this is a great game to revisit and one I’ll enjoy doing so time and again now that my friends have experienced the ‘new stage’ of fighting games!

The Emperor, Uriel Septim, is dead. I alone have been given the task to find out where his only (illegitimate) son is, and ensure his ascendancy. So, what’s the first thing I do after receiving a medallion to give to the guy? I of course tell the guard of the Blades what I have. Surely this is a ‘d’oh‘ moment in gaming history. Why on Earth would they give a criminal this, even if the Emperor had seen him in dreams? Why do they just let me wander out with ne’er an offer of any help? Why don’t they tell me where I could find the son? Well that’s easy. Only the leader of the Blades knows that!

So, leaving the dungeon I finally get my wish. I walk to the outside. I must say, it is truly magnificent. For those of you not blessed with a lush and green countryside maybe you’ll appreciate it even more, I don’t know. I do know however that I live in the suburbs in England and so have to drive to get to the countryside. Oblivion, on that note, brings it right here to my desktop in a most beautiful way. At least it was beautiful until I was being savaged on the backside by wolves. Everyone will tell you that ‘random battles‘ are somewhat of a pet hate of mine, but given that you can see the enemy perhaps it’s not so random really. Either way, I had a rather Benny Hill like moment of charging up an incline whilst a wolf, a crab and a bandit all tried to snap at me. Why they didn’t fight amongst themselves I’ll never know. (more…)

Unfortunately, I was a complete idiot and totally failed to get tickets to the EIEF.  This wasn’t my fault 100% given work etc, so I’ll just have to apologise about the total lack of gaming news over the past few days.  Instead I’ll have some updates coming soon including the next day of Oblivion as well as my findings on Guild Wars.  Also coming up is a feature on a fighting game I haven’t mentioned in a while… No you at the back, not Tekken!  In the meantime, check out another article of mine at Gadzooki here.

Kotaku have the story about another viral marketing site from Microsoft and possibly with a connection to Razer - or maybe the other way round. Anyway, you can find it here and as you can see not a lot is happening yet. A logo and some other stuff, but not much really. It reminds me of the rather good marketing that Microsoft used with Ilovebees. Weird, but very effective and aimed just right at the target audience. Halo was then ferreted out by legions of somewhat mad fans. Or was that just me? Who knows. Anyway, Master Chief went on to have a long and successful present and no doubt future console experience.

Going on from here, evidently Microsoft is doing well with the whole marketing gig. Nintendo on the other hand… Well oh dear. Just look at this criticism about the Wii’s name. Shame on you. Or wait, shame on them. They chose it. They still insist on using the same old IP’s - okay the games are good and successful, but come on. Gaming has changed from the day-glo colours, the bright and rather silly animations. Or have they? Frankly yes, I think they have. Gaming has become much more sophisticated. Don’t get me wrong, I think the Wii is however going in the right direction. I’m not talking about games being about a million button presses and impossible difficulty. In fact, the Wii knows what is going on. It has a sophisticated user mechanic in the form of the controller.

Don’t get me wrong, I like Nintendo. I like my GC. However, I have more games for my Xbox. Nope, I’m far from a sheep, but the gaming experiences are more varied. However, interestingly, I have probably played the game of Super Monkey Ball 2 on the GameCube. No marketing really. Nothing special. Not sales to jump through the roof about. Nonetheless, it has mechanics to die for. Simple. Move the monkey in the ball to the end goal. Skill is all it takes. Pure, simple gameplay. I love it. For me, you can keep your best campaign in the world and all your marketing of ‘generic shooter x’. I’d rather be shot. Give me Super Monkey Ball 2 and I’ll show you what games are about - marketing or otherwise.

After reading the hilarious posts of Steve Hill such as this gem, I was inspired to write about my very own adventures, which whilst not being half as amusing, sure should be an eye opener to some of you as I approach games either by the book or totally bizzarely - as evidenced here.  I probably think too much or something.  Anyway, without further ado, here’s the first of what will no doubt be many days adventuring in Oblivion.  Before you think ‘oh this place is going down the swannie (or some other bizzare colloquialism - ed) then it’ll be only a semi-regular feature, rather than a mammoth uncontrollable beast that I feature every single play session.  So here we are.

Day One in Oblivion

Hmmm, well the first part of the game requires me to make a character.  After looking at the options, I decided on a wood elf.  Unfortunately the character was a rather ugly fellow, so I had the pleasure of mucking around with his face a lot (and I mean a lot) until he looked a little bit like me.  Or perhaps Elijah Wood.  Either way, he’s much more appealing than the rather mock-human face that was frowning at me previously.  Having fixed his face, I then set up the options.  May as well have HDR etc.

(more…)

For those of you who missed it, I highlighted in my post here that I really want to go to the EIEF this year.  That is, the Edinburgh Interactive Entertainment (Games in other words) Festival.  However, I have a major problem in that in previous years, you could wander up and buy a ticket on the door.  Unfortunately I was too late to get a press pass, and now I’m struggling to find even two consumer tickets (one for my photographer and the other for myself).  I need some help people!

It says on the official site that you can get a hold of them at the Gamestations in Scotland - this is a problem as whilst I’m in the North of England - I’m sure those of you in London think we’re just north of Norwich or some such - it’s not like I could just hop on a train and be there in five minutes.  Well I could just hop on a train, but it’s more like one and a half hours.  Anyway, stop it, that’s besides the point!  I really need at least two tickets to the venue, ideally more (four preferred), so if anyone can help please email me here.  Cash will be paid.  Alternatively, if you’re a lady I’ll take you out to dinner if you like in exchange for tickets… As long as it’s relatively easy to get to where you are.

Kotaku has recently featured the fact that Sony has trademarked and made official the spelling and semantics of the PS3 - to whit, they have decided on PLAYSTATION 3.  That’s right folks, capitals all the way!  The reason being, the original was meant to be PlayStation but no-one went with that… I mean a capital right in the middle of a name?  Oh would have used that anyway?  Regardless, they’ve also got PS3 down, unlike PSX and PS2, which were both unauthorised trademarks purportedly…  Yes it’s been a slow news day folks

Anyway, no, I don’t think the Playstation 3 will sell well, and nope I won’t be buying one.  I think it’s overpriced, not that interesting and frankly will become popularist with or without my support.  So bedgrudingly I suppose I’ll have to like it.  I’ll still be getting a Wii at Christmas though!  In saying that, I can’t mention all of the nex-gen consoles and leave out the 360 so I’ll say that thanks to my new laptop, I can get Oblivion and not have to fork out for one!  Then again, I was playing PGR3 at the weekend and it was quite fun…

Recently, I had the pleasure of interviewing Mack and Mesh.  For those of you who don’t know, they run the cult (although not cult anymore because it’s too popular - ed) games site MackandMesh.com.  On said site, you can see various videos, but mostly of Mesh playing various first person shooters and being very scared indeed.  Frankly I think they should put this on TV, and I’m sure alot of you guys and gals would agree - not sure if Mack and Mesh would though!  Anyway, they are two top notch guys from the North of England much like myself, so I simply had to get them on here.  Well, without further ado here we are:

First, would you like to say a little about yourselves as an introduction?
 
We have both been playing games now for a very long time, especially Mack as his gaming dates back to the Atari console days.  We are very easy going people that can usually get a laugh out of anything, our sense of humour is almost identical which is why we get along I suppose. 
 
1) When did you start Mack and Mesh, and did you think the concept would be as popular as it has turned out to be?
 
We started M&M when Doom III came out.  Mack had the game and found it to be quite scary and knowing how much of a pussy I was in scary games he invited me over to have a go. It was so funny that Mack decided to video it and then put together the first Doom video.  The video was put on the forums for a laugh and within 2 days it had over 25k viewsand by the end of the week it was over a million, we were shocked
 
2) Did you guys enjoy watching others play?  Obviously the concept of Mack and Mesh is a little different as you are watching someone play as well as watching the game.
 
No not really
 
3) How does it feel to be somewhat gaming celebrities? (more…)

No, I haven’t gone all art-farty (I already am - ed) but I do think that this is a great idea.  The technology “renders any digital photograph to look like a painting” then “in real time the digital image responds to best suit the mood of the viewer“.

How does this relate to games?  Well for a number of years now games have given the option of an adaptable difficulty setting (Unreal Tournament had this all those years ago), whereby the game would be tougher or lessen up on you depending on your level of skill.  The core gameplay mechanics remained the same. 

I’m not arguing here that games are art - I’ll look at that in another essay-length post - but obviously something that is adaptive to the user can only give a greater experience.  Not only that, but it is something that only the area of interactive entertainment can provide.

Imagine for example that you’re playing a new platformer and keep missing a jump.  The physical camera inbuilt into the console sees your frustration, and thus makes it easier to make the required move.  There may be some aspects of a game you find tedious - a system analysing emotional states would allow you to skip them.

Some games, such as Oblivion, use open-ended gameplay enough to allow you to take on what you like, and leave out what you do not.  In this way we’re clearly moving toward a vision of the future.  I guess this is why I love level editors, game creation tools, freeform gameplay etc - my experience is left in my hands.

So, is this the future?  Or is it more a case of each of us moving to persistent worlds, a la World of Warcraft?  Is there a best of both worlds (pardon the pun - ed)?  Only these mad Glaswegians have the answer…