Horrific

September 27, 2008 · Filed Under Articles · 1 Comment 

I sometimes like to believe that I’m quite immune to hype. Obviously, I’m not. I’m human (contrary to what some people believe) and just as much a sucker as the next person.

If I truly were immune to hype then there’s no way on Earth I’d have suddenly got the desire to own a PS3 (I’m not daft enough to actually go out and buy one yet though) having looked at some of the photo mode stuff from Wipeout HD earlier this fine evening. Studio Liverpool appear to have done an absolute phenomenal job on the look of the game and well, what can I say, I’m an absolute sucker for the pretties.

That’s absolutely nothing compared to how one small announcement can make me go from curious passive observer of a game to need, now in the space of a few short paragraphs. I’ve just been browsing my usual array of RSS feeds and the obligatory megadump from Game|Life came through. I’ll happily confess I was already ears perked up over Dead Space thanks to a number of fine postings from the good chaps at RPS (note to self: remember to put the links back up again this weekend) and some intriguing video’s but hey, no-one prepared me for this.

Yeah, that’s how easy I am. Put Dario Argento in a game and I’m sold. Even if La Terza Madre wasn’t quite the film I’d hoped (it was alright, started off well then went downhill towards the end), now Nigel Kneale isn’t about and Carpenter insists on making the same film repeatedly there’s only Argento and Romero left doing stuff I get genuinely excited about. Yes, I was the one person who really enjoyed Land Of The Dead - I’m pretending Diary doesn’t exist, ok?

Logically, I know it’s just a voice over. More that it’s also just a voice over in a version of the game I couldn’t hope to understand a word of with it being in Italian. It’s still Argento and that’s enough to get me a little moist in the nethers. And developers? I’d really like a game in an Argento style but I guess it’s not going to happen whilst games are still subjects of witch hunting even if our very own Matthew Hopkins is now out for the count-ish. A guy can dream…

Christ, I am easy aren’t I?

Also, this article needs more links embedded… :s

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Illustrated Tips For The Hard Of Developing #1

September 18, 2008 · Filed Under Articles · 2 Comments 

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Randomly Timed Links Round Up

September 17, 2008 · Filed Under Link Round Ups · 2 Comments 

Time for a quick look at some stuff that’s interested me and in some cases just plain irritated the gubbins out of my backside. I’ve long given up on making this regular as clockwork as I’m rapidly discovering that running RR and dealing with a small muppet takes up an awful lot of your time…

Let’s roll anyway whilst I idle the time away waiting for Mr UPS Man to return my 360 to me.

RROD Whistleblower gets the sack. As much as it’s not entirely surprising that this happened, I’m utterly befuddled by the news article here. It’s all in the last segment. I don’t know, it just seems like a complete cunt attitude to take. Sucking the corporate cock doesn’t begin to cover it - we all know that breaking an NDA is not a good thing to do if you want to keep your job, but fuck me, presenting the guy as an idiot for not towing the corporate bullshit line and standing up for something he clearly believed was the right thing to do seems well off the cuntery scale.

The TIGS Demake Competition - All the entries over a couple of pages. A couple of pages made up of pure awesomeness. Sterling stuff. I’ve already posted on RR frontpages about my love for Macarena Of The Missing but it bears repeating. It’s fantabulous and scarily has better voice acting than most of the mainstream games I’ve played in the past couple of years.

Space Giraffe - finally gets a long overdue guide over at Chez Llamasoft. Everything you wanted to know and more. Including the fact it’s not Tempest. Just in case you hadn’t had someone point that out to you yet. Bonus points for the Gridrunner+++ instructions on the announcement page: “move with this stick, aim with that stick, and collect the sheepies”

RPS on Mighty Jill Off - fab read for a fab game and it’s always ace to see RPS cover indie games (even when they’re not mine!). One step closer to the revolution, brothers.

WAH! Last night at Erics. - Peel Session wonderousness from the lovely Pete Wylie, rock star, treasure and genius that he is. One of my favourite moments of last year involved a conversation with Mrs Bob over the telephone which consisted mainly of her saying “you’re standing outside talking to the Pete Wylie and you’re ringing me?”. Bless her.

Club Penguin GDC Stuff - courtesy of GameSetWatch. Linked to mainly because a friend of mine has hell with his sisters daughter being obsessed with the place. Interesting stuff anyway and if Disney would like to buy MR for a rather whopping sum, feel free!

Part 3 of The Gruniad Peter Moore interview - “we were trying all kinds of classic Rare stuff and unfortunately I think the industry had past Rare by”. Dude, I’m sure that happened around 1985 and no-one actually noticed that since then, they’ve just been sticking big eyes on things and hoping it’d sell. Incidentally, I miss Uncle Clive.

Colours - Dear fucking god, it looks like we got off light from the Gizmondo charade. Lord knows who writes this shit (the game, not the review), but they must have been pissing themselves surely? Please don’t tell me it’s serious…

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Deadeye

September 10, 2008 · Filed Under Reviews · Comment 

I’ve waxed lyrical about the beauty of Deadeye before now so I’ll save you the indignity of my gushing once more. It’s probably the best Galaga-esque game that doesn’t bear the Galaga name out there in my not so humble opinion. It was a bargain at a couple of your Earth quids. Frankly, it’s an even bigger bargain for the grand old prize of jack diddly squit and you’d be a fool indeed to knock it back.

So yeah, Deadeye. For nowt. Your score to beat, should you choose to accept it: 20311160

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Design Design Design

September 5, 2008 · Filed Under Articles, Featured · 2 Comments 

I’ve mentioned an awful lot of times recently my love for the more simplistic vector approach to graphics, clean lines and high speed gaming is something I utterly adore. When I were a lad and the humble Speccy were in its prime (enough of that - Ed) there was a pair of companies that were responsible for me developing this love.

Whilst I’m sure a lot of people got hooked on the vector look courtesy of Battlezone or Star Wars, this wasn’t for me. For a start, there wasn’t really that much in the way of arcade action to be had in a crumbling industrial town with unemployment on the rise. There was only really the one leisure centre in the town anyway and that had Scramble. We did have an arcade, I might add, but it was more the kind of place parents warn you away from than encourage you to dive inside.

For me it was the games of Realtime Games and Design Design that got me hooked on vector graphics. Now, Realtime’s 3d Tank Duel I still claim is the most impressive home port of Battlezone that existed during the eighties but Design Design? I’ve just realised that I don’t think I’ve mentioned the beauty that is Simon Brattel’s Dark Star on this blog before which is quite forgetful and unforgivable of me. The sheer speed of the fucking thing at the time was (well, I guess still is) fucking amazing. No, don’t just listen to me here - have a go yourself. (I’d normally do a WoS link, but I can’t get the site to load right now so have something a bit more competitive).

One of the truly wonderful things about Dark Star (aside from just being plain phenomenal) was the amount of control over the game Simon Brattel built into it. As much as is possible is user configurable. You have 4 game variants, 6 difficulty levels ranging from easy to “pretty damn devastating”, you can configure the brutality and frequency of the enemy missiles all the way from none to (again) “pretty damn devastating”, varying levels of sound effects and even have different display modes. It also features a wonderful high score table and one of my favourite sets of instructions ever:

Fly around the universe. If it moves shoot it. If it doesn’t, shoot it anyway. If it’s square - fly through it.

Utterly fantastic. Even if the tunnels were cunts.

Anyway, the purpose of this post isn’t just to eulogise over how fantastic Dark Star, Design Design and the work of Simon Brattel is/was (although that is something more people should mention, honourable props to the Good Reverend Mr Campbell for his YS Top 100 write up many moons ago) but to also mention that Mr Brattel has now dug out a ruck of his old source code for the games and put them online. Which is awesome.

Also, have some related links:

Design Design Source Code
Crash Interview
Noddy’s Guide To Game Design

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