So, I am playing Secret World

So, I wrote this post almost 3 years ago now... Why I won't be playing The Secret World

So much has changed since then!


Not only do I now have a computer which can run The Secret World quite nicely, they've made substantial changes to the game which make it far more playable.

Enemies are easier overall, and characters are tougher overall. This means although the grind and constant death are still issues, they're much less apparent now and you fly through the content at a much nicer pace.

There's a great in-game player created resource called "Sanctuary" where plenty of people can help you with various issues, and unlike other MMOs it's not full of bullshit politics and stupidity. The builds people share through this chat are really good, and learning how to construct good builds from the sharing of builds means there's less head scratching and more scary stuff killing.

My main character Johnny "PunkFunk" Barrett is now QL10, which is near the end game kind of build. I've completed the main story which was great, and just finished Issues 5,6 and 7, which were very fun.

If you've ever been interested in playing I suggest now is the time to jump on and give it a go.

The Secret World Ultimate Edition is less than $50, very much worth it.

Bioshock Infinite Review

Don't understand why gamers whined about the Mass Effect 3 ending, but praise the Bioshock Infinite ending... Seriously, that was "the twist"? I'll call it the Star Wars moment, so those not finished it won't know exactly what I'm talking about, but those who have will.

Maybe I'm hyper intelligent (which I actually refuse to believe despite all the evidence to the contrary) but I figured it out almost immediately from the start of the game.

The rest of the story was simply nonsense. None of the major enemies had the least bit of redemptive features. Most of them didn't even behave in accordance to the games story - logic. Bioshock had you actually feel for some of the characters, even if they were turds. This one I had no remorse in killing anyone, and no interest in learning more about them or their role in Columbia.

Sure, the relationship between you and Elizabeth is well developed, but it had to be. It doesn't excuse the rest of the crap.

As to the rest of the game...

The design is flawed, on many levels. For example, they give you a power and a door to unlock with the power and then YOU NEVER USE THIS MECHANIC AGAIN. Now, I'm no designer, but that's an incredibly basic design mistake. Another power is so brutally overpowered you rarely need any others.

There's NOTHING new in the level design. There's no actual puzzle solving. There's no thinking involved, for example, like in Portal. You just run through the levels and shoot.

You walk through corridors, then the area opens up and enemies come from off screen. They shoot at you, you shoot them back. If your shield disappears, you run away and then run back and shoot them back. On numerous levels I was walking around trying to find the last guy to kill so I could proceed. Fucking Star Wars Force Unleashed had that, and people sooked about it then, but just because Ken Levine and co do it, it's somehow acceptable? I don't think so!

I mean, fuck, the game has got a crouch function THAT DOES NOTHING! Use the button for something else... oh, that's right, there isn't anything in the game apart from shooting so there's actually no need for any other function. You can't interact with anyone, you can't interact with anything apart from what the game deems you to be able to act with, so there's no reason for it do anything, except crouch.

Yeah, ok, it looks pretty, but so does my cock, but there's no line of gamer nerd writers lining to suck my cock like they are Ken Levine's, so fuck you.

And to think, I could have purchased Sims 3 University Life and Sims 3 Pets have virtual keggers and with naked skin mods, directed my own XXX version of Animal House...

Bioshock Infinite gets 3.5 "fuck you gamer nerds" out of 5 "fuck you gamer nerds"

I made this! My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic for iOS

I made this!!!

My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic for iOS

Well, me and some very talented designers, artists, and programmers at Gameloft Auckland who worked blood, sweat and tears to get this done and looking as damn good as it does!

It's available on the iTunes Store now, so go get it "for your children" :D

My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic for iOS

Why I won't be playing The Secret World

Although I really enjoyed playing Funcom's The Secret World beta weekends, and really like the concept of three mystical organisations competing with each other to command the mystical and diabolic, and had similar feelings playing the game to when I played The Darkness and Alan Wake (two games I really enjoyed) I don't think I'll be playing.

1) Mostly because I won't have a computer to play it on between July 16 and probably end of July. As I'm moving countries (again) I can't really justify spending $50 on it for only two weeks of play.

2) My current PC runs the game like crap. I tried PvP and it ran like a dog - max 15 fps, average 5fps! :eek: (it's the same reason I can't play PvP in SWTOR)

3) I found it too grindy. If my main quest tells me I should go into another area, I should be able to go into another area and be able to survive. I found upon moving to Savage Coast I had HUGE difficulties with the quests. Even those I managed to complete, I never felt my character got enough experience to survive the next challenges. I realise that the exploration quests were turned off for the last weekend so my lvl was a little less than it could have been, however, it just didn't feel "fun" in the Savage Coast.

4) I don't like the skill system. Well, I do like the system, I think it's great that you can make a character in almost any way you see fit, but I think the slowness of accumulating points is very off putting. If you've got an exponential system that means you have to pay more points to go up higher ranks in the skills (so, to grow your pistol skills you have to pay 1, then 2, then 4, then 7, then 9, then 12 etc), then you should be getting more points more often as you progress, but this isn't the case in TSW.

5) Not being able to reassign points is a major put off too. I suspect this may have simply be turned off for Beta, which is fair enough, but there are some skills which are just worthless to certain builds or play styles, and you only get a feel for them after playing.

I may return to it sometime in the future, but with Guild Wars II coming out in August, I really don't know if I'll have the time or money to play it.

7 Years of LA Noire development hell

IGN have a great and disturbing article about Team Bondi's LA Noire 7 year development cycle.

It features responses by Brendan McNamara, who is the typical egotistical management type.

I'm sick of dealing with management fucktards like McNamara. I’m butting against it daily at the moment and I’m sick of it. There may be a bit of projection onto McNamara in this rant, but he’s not the only person who acts like he does in this industry… ;)

But if you ask me, “whatever it takes” means getting rid of egotistical arsehole pricks like him out of the games industry.

However you cut it, running your staff into the ground is NOT a good management plan, nor is it good for maintaining an industry.

I don't buy into the argument that it's due to the competitive nature of game development. I know people in the finance and defence software creating business - software which is worth billions of dollars and far more important than games ever could hope to be - and they positively baulked when I told them the crap hours for the crap pay we put up with.

How is this environment good for a competitive and sustainable industry? You can't develop and nurture creative skills in this kind of environment! How are you meant to have people who are strong leads if you burn everyone out and they leave after a year or two? People will leave for other studios overseas, where at least pay if not conditions are proven to be better. However, more often people leave the industry altogether, choosing to go into fields which pay better and are not as demanding on their time and sanity as games. All that talent, skill and knowledge has left the industry. Is it any wonder every bloody game is almost exactly the same now days?

And where is the industry left after this scenario, repeated time and time again? After the closure of studios and mass exodus due to McNamara and others “management skills”, a lot of casual / indie developers have popped up as a result, and yes, a few are making some great games, but is this really a sustainable industry? Will these startups be around in a year or two? Will they be around after Facebook dies (and it will die just like AOL and all those others died) and iPhone development costs increase with the continual revisions to the devices hardware?

I have a very strong suspicion these studios will vanish when the cashcow of iOS and Facebook games comes back to reality, and we'll lose even more talented people.

And lastly, this is directly to McNamara and anyone else who thinks the same way: it is not your game, you egotistical fuckstick; It’s every single person on that teams’ game! It belongs to everyone who works on it. And I don’t give a fuck who you are - Brendan McNamara, Sam Houser, Cliff Bleszinski, or Jesus Fucking Christ; if you’ve got a producer and leads, then help those people PRODUCE and LEAD - that's how a good producer/director should work.

Don’t give me this “I’m passionate about games” bullshit either – those people who are making $50,000 a year working 12 hour days plus weekends are passionate about games. Just because you’re on $200,000 jetsetting all over the world trying to get finance for the next game doesn’t make you any better, clever, or talented than the team you’re working with.

comments on violence makes me want to punch something!

This "psychologist" talking about violence after the Stanley Cup;

Quote:

[PEOPLE] spend countless hours exposed to incredible violence through TV, video games and movies. "I'm not surprised at all that the very same people who've grown up on a steady diet of observing and playing violence are then intrigued to watch it when they see it in person. ... There was a large number of people for whom this was a spectacle, an event to be observed and maybe laughed at and to participate in very, very minor ways in these activities," he said. ... Their behaviour was "entirely consistent" with how they're expected to react to violence on TV or in video games, he said.

http://www.thenownews.com/technology/Stanley+riots+come+this/4962998/story.html

FOR FUCKS SAKE THEY WERE JUST WATCHING A GOD DAMN LIVE ICE HOCKEY MATCH AND HE BLAMES TV AND VIDEOGAMES!?!?!?

Seriously, people are going push their agendas despite all the overwhelming evidence against them, so what's the point in asking about anything, any more?

Every weekend, sports are played.

Every weekend, teams lose.

Every weekend, fights occur because of this. Often, these fights turn into riots.

And yet it's the first impulse of a psychologist when asked about how this can arise is to blame violent TV, movies and videogames?

Not the fact that people become so invested in that sport because they've got nothing else in their lives to be passionate about?

Not the fact that commercialism and competition have devolved so much that we can no longer enjoy a game of sport, but rather have to become so heavily invested in watching a team that we feel negatively when they lose - something we as fans and viewers have absolutely no control over - in other words the classic human dilemma of feeling hopeless in the face of an uncaring environment?

Did Stephen Fry just out Little Big Planet 3 on twitter?

I love Stephen Fry, and follow him on Twitter, and he just mentioned this:


Off to do some voicing for Little Big Planet. Then lunch and QI. Only three more recordings and the 16 of Series 9 will be done.

Has he just outed Little Big Planet 3? Or is this for the PS Vita?

Either way, I'd LOVE to do a game with someone of Stephen's talent!

All of the Above...

There's a pretty funny site called Fat, Ugly or Slutty, which reveals the darker side of gamers.

Gamers, mostly girls, post the rude, nasty, sexist and racist posts they get from the more moronic and inbred type of gamers that inhabit virtual space.

I must admit I've managed to pretty much avoid this type of shit through not only being male, but mostly through playing with people on my friends list on Xbox Live, and by joining The Older Gamers about 8 years or so ago.

I can't say enough good things about TOG, and although I've been completely pissed off with some of the more ignorant comments in The World Around Us (discussions of news and issues) forum, particularly in relation to immigrants, I realise some people are just uneducated or close minded, and there's not much I can do about it.

But moreover, those people are in the minority in TOG, and when it comes to accepting people for who they are, even the most pigheaded of those in TWAU are in fact great people.

But there was this one time about 2 or 3 years ago that some random sent me a picture of his junk on Xbox Live.

I have no idea why.

Obviously I reported him, but honestly, if you're going to send pictures of your junk to people, at least have something to show. I've never felt inadequate in that department, but if this guy was an "average" male, then I'm in porn star league.

So thank you, random Xbox penis dude! Your obvious inadequacy made me feel superior.

Clint Mansell to score Mass Effect 3

There is a rather long but very awesome interview with Clint Mansell – former member of Pop Will Eat Itself and composer of film scores Requiem for a Dream, Moon, and Black Swan, on The Quietus

Unspoilt by Progress: A Conversation with Clint Mansell

(thanks to Amy for the link!)

He mentions in it that he’s doing the music for Mass Effect 3.

Do you do much work for other outlets like computer games? Mike Patton, for example, has most recently voiced The Darkness.
CM: I'm doing a video game this year actually. Mass Effect 3. Funnily enough, talking about Mike, we've exchanged emails about the possibility of doing a show featuring the Quartet and people they've collaborated with. It'd be a Kronos show, with different rooms for other people to do their thing, then bringing it all together. It's pretty cool-sounding.
I'm definitely interested in different outlets – that's one of the reasons I get involved in short films. It's not so much that I can experiment as it is to be in a situation where nobody's looking over your shoulder. Short films are usually made by young people and they've got ideas I can bounce off. They can take me in a different direction.
So in a game, the character might arrive at a big boss and you have to have a piece that can quickly become dramatic.
CM: That's what I'm figuring. As I was saying about Public Enemy and re-working old hip-hop tunes for Requiem, and kind of re-working old ballet tunes for Black Swan, with something like Mass Effect you're more like a DJ, with all these elements. You've got the holding pattern, then the big explosion where you need the score to kick in. Then you need to take it off on a tangent. You've got all these different elements that change depending on what the player does. You have to figure out an overall symphony, but be able to break it down into component parts. You can bring the pain when required.

Considering the previous Mass Effects count in my top ever games, this purchase was a given, but this makes it a pre-purchase for sure, especially if the soundtrack comes as a bonus feature!

Softography

Here's a list of the games I've worked on since 2003.


Krome Studios Melbourne:
QA on Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole on PS3, Xbox360 and Wii
QA on Game Room on Xbox360
Assistant Producer on unannounced and cancelled Wii title
Assistant Producer on Transformers: Rise of the Fallen on Wii/PS2
Lead QA on SceneIt? Box Office Smash on Xbox360
QA on Star Wars: The Force Unleashed on Wii
QA on Hellboy: Science of Evil on Xbox360 & PSP
QA on The Clone Wars: Lightsaber Duels on Wii


Krome Studios Adelaide:
Senior QA on Star Wars: The Force Unleashed on PSP
QA on The Legend of Spyro: The Eternal Night on Wii
QA on The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning on PS2

Ratbag / Midway Australia
Lead QA for Ratbag Games Tools
QA on Wheelman on PS2 (cancelled)
Lead QA on Speedway Sprintcars (PAL) on PS2
QA on Saturday Night Speedway on PS2 and PC
QA on Dukes of Hazzard:Return of the General Lee on Xbox


15 games and 1 set of tools. Not bad for a 7 year career that includes two layoffs in two different cities

Top Games for 2009

My top games I've played for 2009 would be:

Fifa 10 (xbox 360)
Such an amazing representation of the World Game.

Batman: Arkham Asylum (PS3)
Great game. Lots of fun and some great characterisation.

Dragon Age: Origins (PC)
So deep and involved. I'm still playing through it for the second time!

Mad World (Wii)
Violent and funny, with a cool and different art aesthetic.

Special mentions to:
Assassin's Creed 2 and Modern Warfare 2.

The worst would have to be:

Indiana Jones and the Staff Of Kings (Wii)
Such terrible execution of the Wiimote. So many times I was doing ridiculous gestures where a button press would suffice.

My Brute

Here's a fun little flash game for you all!

My Brute!

Type your name into the box to create a Brute, and battle against my brute for internet supremacy!

Top Shit of 2008

Yeah, I know it's a little late, but here are my top ten lists for 2008

Top 10 Video Games (all formats)
There are many games that maybe should be on this list, but I simply haven't played them so can't make judgement.

1. Fallout 3
2. Fifa 2009
3. Left 4 Dead
4. GTA IV
5. Saints Row 2
6. Grid
7. Fable 2
8. Civilization Revolution
9. NHL 09
10. Braid


Top 10 CDs
Again, these are CDs I've listened to / own / reviewed.

1. The Bamboos - Side Stepper
2. Baobinga & ID - Big Monster
3. CW Stoneking - Jungle Blues
4. The Heavy - Great Vengeance and Furious Fire
5. Sharon Jones & Dap Kings - 100 days, 100 nights
6. Downsyde - All City
7. Belleruche - The Express
8. Mr Scruff - Ninja Tuna
9. Primal Scream - Beautiful Future
10. DubXanne - Police in Dub

Been busy!

Yep, ok, so it's a long time between posts, but lets take stock of the situation...

My landlord's garden is dying because I haven't had time to water. My dishes from last weekend are in the sink. I haven't cooked my own dinner in a week, and any left over food is going off.

I've got 3 games to review, 6 CDs (mind you, 3 are singles) and I've only played one game and listened to the albums maybe twice each. Haven't even copied the singles to my ipod yet...

I paid for 3 months for Age of Conan and have played in once in the last month. I got Spore and have played it for maybe 2 hours.

I haven't been to a club in months, nor taken any pictures at any events.

AND

It's 7:30 on a Friday night and I'm still at work, waiting for a build... It takes about an hour to play through all the modes, once. And I'm working on one day of the weekend again.

Yes, I'm aware it's close to ZBR (zero bugs recorded) and that means it's crunchtime, but I've been working 12-14 hour days for the last 2 weeks now... still getting bugs!

And no doubt fuckhead reviewers and internet chat room cunts are going to diss our game because it introduces Avatars and tries to make the xbox more friendlier to a wider audience.

R18+ in videogames and why we will never see it.

A lot of people blame Michael Atkinson's stance on videogames, and he is the only AG who went against the popular vote, and claims that he will again.

But something else I discovered about the process of ratings.

Here is the Classifications and Community Standards report from 2007

This is compiled by Galaxy research to determine if people believe ratings are working and are fair.

Here you can see exactly how many people are polled to see if Australia's classifications are up to community Standards.

I'll spell it out to you - 1,516

1,516 people determine the position of the 7 Attorney Generals when it comes to things like what should be rated, how it should be rated, what kind of ratings should be included, and those 7 AGs then go and make laws based on these findings.

1,516.

There are over 21 MILLION people in Australia.

1,516 is not even 1% of the population!

And to top it all off, these bastards have the nerve to go and say it's only "a vocal minority" want an R18+ rating for games.

Last time I counted, 3,708 (the amount polled for the widely quoted statistic that 88% of people want and R18+ rating for games) was greater than 1,516.

In Sydney? Look for me in Time Out!

If anyone reading this is in Sydney, be sure to pick up Time Out magazine as I'm now writing game reviews for them.

My first review will be of Enemy Territory: Quake Wars.

RIP Gary Gygax

RIP Mr Gygax.

Without you I wouldn't have made the friends I have made or be the person I am today.

And I'd probably be worse at math too!



Gary Gygax - creator of Dungeons & Dragons dies

The rattling of dice across tabletops around the word falls silent today with the news that co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons and TSR, Gary Gygax, has passed away at the age of 69. The news came via the forums of Troll Lord Games, who publish Gygax's Lejendary Adventures and Castles & Crusades sourcebooks, delivered via his son Ernie Gygax. He died in his home, having been in failing health for some time, suffering several strokes and a near heart-attack. Gygax was an inspiration to the gaming industry, with his work directly or indirectly influencing entire genres - role-playing games and MMORPGs specifically. Gary Gygax may have passed on, but the legacy he leaves to gaming will live on forever. Rest in peace, Dungeon Master.

(from Kotaku)

The Most Poweful Person in the World

This is beautiful.