So... Yeah.
I am lazy. This blog should be updated more (Kind of a recurring theme now that I think about it).
Maybe I should get someone to prod me every few days to write something.

I can't think of anything else to write at this point in time. Which is stupid, because I will think of something incredibly interesting when I go to bed and won't end up writing it.

I have a project I may start working on in the nearish future, maybe I'll write about that when something happens.

Damnit

I said I was going to actually update this blog often. Oh well, looks like I failed at that.

So,
Saw Quantum of Solace today. Awesome. Just Like Casino Royale, except with less poker and more explosions/car chases. I thought it was especially cool the bit where *SPOILERS* he was listening in on the meeting the members of Quantum were having at the opera. Oh and I especially liked how the antagonists all drove hybrid cars. That was golden *END SPOILERS*

Also, Left 4 Dead came out yesterday, making me wrong in my last post where I said that it would take forever to be released. The game looks fairly awesome. I played a bit of it at the eGames Expo last weekend, and it was brilliant. Shall be picking up a retail copy for myself at the end of the week when I'm in Melbourne. And when I do, I shall be able to be reached via steam as Mickiscoole if anyone is up for a game.

Anyway, I'm off, I need to get myself an internship position before next year, so if any of the 0 people who read this blog know of any Software Development internship positions in the Melbourne area preferrably, for 2009, you should comment.

PC Gaming Alliance

For once, I may have to disagree with the fine folks at RPS.
The PC gaming Alliance is exactly what we need.

Disregarding the facts of piracy and system requirements, the one thing that the consoles have over the PC is a unified marketing department. Of course the masses are going to flock to the console when they're being swamped with advertisements for xbox this, Playstation that. So what we need is game makers and hardware makers to have a unified voice about the advantages of the PC market, which will bring around the gamers who bought an xbox because they heard that CoD4 is for 360 on some TV commercial or billboard or something.
And coverage of the PC market has seemed to go down. Not quite true - it's just that the console coverage has gone up, making the PC coverage seem smaller.

The fact that they have a vested interest just means that they will be actually making an effort.

Anyway some other things:

• Valve are planning on updating All their games to The latest version of the Source engine, beginning with Day of Defeat: Source and CounterStrike: Source and (according to an email I recieved from Erik Johnson) the singleplayer games. This update will also include Steam Community features such as statistics and achievements.
• I wish Army of Two would come out on PC. Many people dislike it, however I think that the whole issue of PMCs (Private Military Companies) makes for a good setting for a game. Add that to the fact that Left 4 Dead is now officially a Valve Software game and as such will take absolutely for ever to come out.

Also, hello to the 3 people who have visited my blog (although its likely you'll never read this).

Blogging

So I've been planning on writing a blog post for a while, however I always come up with the ideas for the post while in bed trying to get to sleep - and then forget to write them the next day.

Or if I do end up writing one up, it sounds much less awesome when typed up as opposed to the insanely inspiring speeches that I think up in my head.

I shall try to post more often

Menu

Why do menus in games always suck? They should be more fluid, rather than clicking on a button and waiting for the menu to change. Some games are as bad as DVD menus.

I do like the Assassin's Creed way of going about menus - I won't go into specifics as it could ruin part of the game for those who haven't played it - but I will say is that it fits. The menu text is believeable and 'integrated'.

I feel that many game developers just ignore menus in games. I could see how this could happen, with the concentration on the actual game itself - but surely they could do a bit better.

I stopped playing battlefield games because I absoluted the 'out of game' interface.

New year

I've noticed that for the past week or so people I know all seem to be saying 'this year' when referring to 2008, which is weird, as usually it is people saying 'this year' when referring to 2007 in 2008.

Jeff Gerstmann

I don't pretend to know what happened concerning Eidos/Gamespot/Jeff Gerstmann. And neither should you (unless you are Jeff Gerstmann or happen to be his boss at Gamespot).
It really annoys me when everyone (or a large amount of people) jump to conclusions. That's what has happened here. So many people just assume because Eidos is an advertiser at Gamespot, the bad review is the reason that he got fired.

What if it was just a case of bad timing? He could have been fired because he was stealing Post-it notes, or viewing NSFW pictures on his work PC, which could also explain why Jeff hasn't made any form of comment on the issue, because the truth might be embarrasing.

Mickiscoole out.

Tv Show

Many games these days are using "cinematic approaches" to art, music and general design, that is, making them epic like movies. My question is this, why are no studios making games that are in the style of television shows?

I think a tv-show style game would rock. Let me talk you through some of the ways a style like this could be implemented.

#1
Licenced music. Now I know that licenced music has been used before in games to great effect (GTA), but never in the way that TV shows use them. Take the recent show "Chuck" for example. It uses clips of licenced music over various action scenes etc. Not the whole song, but only a select part that fits in with the scene which only goes for a select amount of time.

#2
Mini-Cliffhangers and "Ad Breaks". Think of the each level load point as an ad break, and each level as a "segment". Some TV shows, such as "24" have miniature cliffhangers all the time, before and after adbreaks, and especially at the end of adbreaks. A mini cliffhanger could entice the player to play on even after the load, which can sometimes give the player time to think that they could be doing something else with their time. And rather than a simple "Loading" label on the screen, the load could be used more productively, a great example of this is the load screen for Team Fortress 2 where it informs the player of their statistics. Load screens could even literally become "Ad-breaks", as ingame advertising is becoming more and more prominent these days, and I for one would rather see them in a load screen rather than in game, so I have the option of ignoring them.

#3
Split Screens. These could be used to great effect when showing things happening in parallel in a game. Currently most games use some sort of radio to communicate to the player what is happening in parrallel, but split screens could be used to great effect to communicate not just what one other person is doing, but multiple people. It could even only take a second, and is much easier for the player to comprehend the entire situation, as following along on a radio conversation is often difficult.

#4
TV Style camera angles. "Gears of War" was very popular, one reason being that it made use of some fairly cool camera angles, for example when sprinting, the camera would move much closer to the ground, which looks VERY cool. TV has its own style of camera use, depending on the type of program, and it works. It works very well. So why don't we attempt to translate it to video games? the translation worked well for the cinema style, so it stands to reason it should work for TV style also.

Anyway,
Mickiscoole out