OK, so I’ve been away from my own blogging home for over a month now, it’s not that I’ve not had anything to say, I’ve had a post waiting for a while now but there’s a couple of reasons I put this post off. First, since I started this blog I haven’t really talked about web development at all, so I kept telling myself not to do more games posts until I at least do some web dev content. So thats my first excuse. Second, I’ve just been busy/lazy playing and reading and coding and even being sociable to blog. Pitiful excuses, indeed.
But anyway, now I have too much to talk about so I’ll be hitting this blog with another barrage of games related content. In my drafts I currently have a few thoughts on time, games, completion rates and achievements, which I hope to cover in one post. I’m also going to talk about Steam and the Source Engine on the Mac and finally I have, at least for now, a review/rant to spit out on the game series I love to hate, Assassin’s Creed 2. In fact I’m hoping to make at least one of these an audio and/or video extravaganza!
Recently I watched a very interesting video by my even more very good friend Rockers Delight on the topic of control standards within games. I’m a bit of a stickler when it comes to accessibility, so this video struck a chord with me and resulted in the following comment (used and fixed for errors, with permission from Rockers Delight. Thank You!). I recommend you check out the video first.
I’m in two minds over control schemes. As people of the web (I’m reluctant to use any words beginning with D), we welcome standards, we LOVE them and wish that everybody would use and support them (yeah, I’m talking to you Internet Explorer). Many things seem to have become standardised in games, such as analogue stick use, triggers to fire or to accelerate and brake. It tends to be the face buttons that get juggled around just to piss us, the users, off.
I wonder whether it’s developers thinking that *this* is how we want you to play our game but the logic for us as players is non-existent. I hate jumping, for example, between two FPS games with entirely different schemes, it always leaves you asking WHY!? Is it a cock fight of who knows best, has no one ever got together and had some kind of discussion and thought… “This is a good idea?”
While I think that all games, especially within the same genre, should be set to a standard default control set up, I personally believe that game controls should be totally customisable in all games. Sure analogue actions will have to be tied to analogue buttons but I, as a user, should be able to swap these buttons and sticks to do my bidding. Maybe I want to play southpaw, maybe I’m disabled and I don’t have full control in either hand. By denying even a basic configuration of controls, developers are limiting the accessibility of their games, the console on which they are played and the industry as a whole. Sure, control set up screens are not only a UI nightmare but potentially a very complex idea to put to the user, but if no-one tries, how is it ever going to get better?
Yeah, console developers are trying to get rid of the controller all together at the moment (I still believe this is a pipe dream for hardcore games) but this won’t make anything better. In-fact it could make things worse, muscle memory, flailing limbs, different games requiring you to tie yourself in different knots. Same problem, larger scale. C’mon developers, get together and pull your fingers out of whichever orifice you have designated as your ass and sort this out, for all of us.
So there you have it, this topic is a bugbear of mine and I could (and probably will) go on about it at length, given the chance. What do you guys think? I urge you to head over to Rockers Delight’s Blog subscribe to her feed and join the discussion!
Over the last couple of weeks, I have gone crazy for Valve Software. I even put down Final Fantasy XIII mid way through, a game I was waiting to play for months, just to pick up The Orange Box on the 360 and play through the whole Half Life 2 (pre-Episode 1) campaign again.
What made me do this? Well, first off, I love the Source Engine. Ever since it’s first release in 2004 with Half Life 2 on PC the Source Engine has held a place close to my heart, it defines everything I love about games. However, recently I have become a Mac user and while I own the Orange Box on the 360, I miss the trusty mouse and keyboard combo while playing gems such as Half Life 2, Counter Strike: Source and Unreal Tournament 3. While I could play these games with Boot Camp or some kind of Virtual Machine it just never felt right to me installing Windows on a Mac, I’d feel dirty. I digress.
A teaser image from Valve prior to the Mac announcement.
The second reason I’ve had this itch is the recent news from Valve regarding the imminent release of Steam on the Mac along with the Source Engine. Yes, thats the Source Engine, not some kind of virtual machine running the Source Engine but the actual engine itself, running natively on a Mac. This, is awesome and I think it’s going to change the way a lot of developers and publishers think about the Mac as a possible gaming platform. If this goes well, and viewing Valve’s track record I think it will, this will pave the way for anyone and everyone to include the Mac in their development cycle.
It is truly a leap of faith that Valve are taking with this development but I think it will pay off big time and bring on a golden age of gaming on the Mac. Apple’s eyes have been opened to the potential value of games recently with the flood of gaming apps on the App Store, hell they even market the iPhone and iPod Touch as a gaming platform now. They have to be watching this space with interest, especially if they want to reach out to that market with their computer products.
The fact that all future games from Valve will see simultaneous releases on Windows, Xbox 360 and Mac (Portal 2 being the first release of this kind, Q4 2010) is huge as it is but add that to the announcement that PC and Mac players will share the same servers and be able to play with/against each other is EPIC. Mac users will be sharing the same experience as PC users and not have to worry about empty, Mac only servers. Then, thanks to Steam Cloud, you get to carry your game licences and save games where ever your Steam ID goes, whether it be on a Mac or PC. Again, this is huge, the transition should be seamless and those of use who have made the big switch can enjoy top quality games once again with the good old mouse and keyboard.
On the web design front, the new Steam client for both Mac and Windows will be running on Webkit and will therefore have the potential to look awesome and it already does if the recently released screen shots are anything to go by.
Screenshot of the upcoming Webkit powered Steam.
The only thing not clear to me yet is whether Steam Play will work retrospectively with any previous Steam purchases, I really hope this is the case but I don’t think it will stop me if I have to re-purchase Counter Strike: Source, I want it that much. Left 4 Dead 2 is also on the cards, I’ll be able to battle the zombie horde with my PC gaming dad! Awesome!
So, Steam Achievements on future Mac releases, easy licence management with Steam Play, transferable save games with Steam Cloud, in-game voice chat, friends lists, server lists… shit yeah! Can you tell I’m excited? Are you? Let the Mac gaming revolution begin!
Yeah, that is the first Mass Effect I’m talking about and yes, I’m more than a little late to this party but there is a reason for that. Typically, I’ve not been the biggest fan of western made RPGs, I’ve often perceived them to be complicated, Dungeons ‘n’ Dragons, dice rolling affairs. And while I think that the majority of them still are like that (Oblivion, Dragon Age), I was recently talked into buying Mass Effect from the Xbox 360 Classics collection by my good friend rockers_delight.
The suggestion came during the pretty big build up and hype of the second game in the series, which was due for imminent release. I was asked if I was going to be getting it but after saying it wasn’t my cup of tea, I was told that this one was different, it was more action based, besides it’s in the classic range so I could pick it up cheap-as and had nothing to lose. So, how did it go?
Well, let’s just say Mass Effect isn’t just a funky name. It’s mass does effect you. Yes, it’s a big, big game and at first it is quite intimidating but once you realise that every side quest that is thrown at you is recorded and kept track of in the Codex via the Start Menu, meaning you don’t have to remember who did what, who said what, what they want, where they were and all that jazz, it totally, totally draws you in. Leaving you with a lust for more, to play more, to “just do this side mission” and I love it when a game does that to me, despite the trouble it gets me into. And the best thing is, you can’t get lost in this game or get yourself into trouble for leaving the main quest, no matter how many side missions you choose to do or when you choose to do them, you can pick up the main plot at any time and not feel hurried. This is all down to that magic Codex, it knows where you are up to in every mission and side-mission, it even highlights new missions and your most recent progress in each one. That, to me, is a gift. It’s what kept me coming back and it’s what stopped me from getting lost or overwhelmed with stuff to remember.
Saying that, the Codex wasn’t the only thing that kept me coming back for more, it was the story. Yeah, the romance plot was a bit… tacked on and possibly awkward or rushed (by the way, I totally don’t get the media storm that surrounded the “sex scenes”, porn? Please, you can get more pornographic imagery by Googling ‘cottage cheese’) but the story as a whole was pretty damn awesome, epic even. Not only the overarching plot but every minute detail and back story of not only your squad members but their cultural, political and planetary backgrounds. Again, epic.
So, yeah. I think it’s safe to say that I really enjoyed Mass Effect on my first play through (which got me 580 gamerscore, not bad for 40 enjoyable hours), however, it wasn’t all perfect. The game does take a few hours to find it’s rhythm, especially with it’s combat system, which to an FPS fan was just totally alien to begin with (it just clicks after a few hours) and I will admit that despite the Codex I did feel very overwhelmed at first but like I said, once you realise what it is there for, it takes all of the pressure away and lets you enjoy the game at your own pace. With all of this in mind I look forward to giving Mass Effect another run through before I make way for the sequel, mainly to see the alternative ways that I can push the story forward but also just to see how many more achievements I can get (yeah, I’m a gamerscore whore).
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