A real, printed calendar that you can hang on your wall. People still do that, right? My mum does. So if you are over 40 I guess. The photoshop thread would have been a perfect source of money shots for the monthly photo, but they're too low res for print. In the end, I just made a couple of months using the amazing Chat Dragon and Whiskey Warrior by Dave Snider.
Here's a sample that can be used as a wallpaper.
February - Chat DragonMarch - Whiskey Warrior
These are low quality, but you can get the 1920x1080 version by clicking. I'd like to know what people think. Would people buy a physical calendar? Not necessarily of this design of course. My mum has three. In the same room.
In my last blog I was 140 hours in to Skyrim. I recently broke 240 hours, so I figured it was time to talk about it again. I took a break for quite a while due to some glitches and wanting to wait for the modding community to mature. The creation Kit isn't out until this tuesday, but modders have already done some amazing stuff. Before the landscape gets crowded I'd like to outline and give credit to what users can enjoy.
The modding community had a horrible reputation as being all about nude mods, and the notorious 'clean faces' meme here on Giant Bomb. It does an incredible injustice to the work put in to make the game better. I don't even object to those mods. Whatever you want to add to the game, that's what modding is about. When people see those however, they roll their eyes.
So, to combat this here are my favourite pre-creation kit mods.
Honourable mention to the mod Skyrim Online which is a WIP mod that essentially adds online multiplayer to the game, allowing you to enter another players world. I don't use it, and it is basic and very buggy at the moment but amazing that somebody has even done it.
Souls To Perks
There are only 80 perk points in the game, as your level caps out at 80, yet there are something like 250 perks in the game. With such a huge game you can easily max out your skills before seeing everything, and I think that is a shame. The abilities given by perks are powerful and even give you abilities you can't get otherwise. By having such a limited amount of points you are forced to min-max and not experiment/choose more of the fun perks.
Yummy, juicy souls...
This mod changes that. You can exchange accumulated dragon souls for perk points (which adds a nice choice between shouts and perks). The default is 10 souls for a perk, but you can change it to your liking and balance it however you like. I recommend 1, 2 or 5. Whatever works for how you play. It'll allow you to widen your play style and enjoy more of the gameplay systems.
An interactive 3D map was a really nice choice for the world of Skyrim. Old cloth style map was cool in Oblivion, but getting a better feel for the verticality of the landscape is almost essential in Skyrim. So why not go even further? There are quite a few really cool map mods to enhance your experience. Unfortunately, it seems like these two are incompatible, but they offer different things for different people.
One of the earliest mods for Skyrim, and an incredible idea. The map in the game loads low res meshes, but imagine the map being a camera zooming around the world. It functions exactly the same but allow you to zoom right the way down to ground level and see all the details as if you were there allowing more exploration and navigational possibilities. Plus it's pretty cool.
One of the first, and best, house mods. The stock houses you can buy in the game are fine, but often don;t have the best assets, layout or utilities. A WIP, this mod gives you a hideout that provides everything Dovahkiin would need. Luxury living, full smithing, enchanting and alchemy tools, copious storage and even a library. Accessible from every in-game house this mod will give you a decent place to relax, store your stuff and improve some skills.
Always a lot of visual mods for these games. Maybe the textures are too low resolution for you, or you just don't like the way they look. Texture replacements are as easy as chucking files in a folder, and don't even modify the game's files. Just be careful not to overdo it because you will get textures failing to load if you have too many high res textures.
Let me start out by thanking LordXavierBritish, the asshole who gave me this game after I 'won' his Photoshop competition. My prize? A wonderful game by the name of Secret of the Magic Crystals, available on Steam now.
We are about to embark on a magical adventure full of unicorns, elves, and low resolution textures. I wasn't sure what I was in for, but the startup screen gives me a great indication. You know you're in for a good time when graphics options range from 'Fastest' to 'Fantastic'.
I am going in to this game with no previous knowledge about the gameplay, the story or characters. What awaits us in Secret of the Magic Crystals? Wonder? Childhood innocence? Let us take a look...
Backstory
The game starts off with a slideshow describing the backstory behind the narrative, similar to other stellar games like Super Mario Galaxy.
Giant Meteors suck
Much like other modern games, Secret of the Magic Crystals initially deals with what seems like the apocolypse. As in post-apocalyptic FPS Rage, a giant meteor is set to collide with the earth, except the people in this world have escaped John Carmack blessing the land with Megatextures, and are instead spared the impact of the meteor. Which is the better of the two fates? You decide.
The meteor shatters in the Earth's atmosphere, and rains down magical crystals... if you believe the name of this game. In our world, astronomers might have noticed a giant meteor heading towards the earth. But this isn't your regular Earth with 'SCIENCE', this is MAGIC! Instead, these magic crystals are discovered by one old man, a university professor. Wait, professor? I guess in this world scientists are the quacks instead of mystics and psychics.
He believes the crystals have a profound effect on... wait for it... horses! Yes, of all the applications of magic crystals, horses are the only benefit of this incredible discovery. Hang on a second... nobody believes him? Impossible. Screw these students, what do they know?
Oh no! Ben Franklin here is cast out!
The old man is then kicked out of the University for spreading his lies (we believe him though, right guys?) and retreats back to his home farm. There he grafts 2 pieces of jewellery for his grandchildren to raise horses on the farm, and that is where our grand adventure begins.
OMG... Unicorns!
With the important stuff out of the way, we now have control over the farm. In case you were already aware of the stellar translation this game has received, my fist click on the screen results in finding an elf guarding treasure (where you ask? Let's see if you can find it in this screenshot... cos I sure can't). "You have found the Rainbow! You have found the elf guarding the treasure at the Rainbow!" declares the game. Great...?
RAINBOWS!!!!!!!
Well, nothing happened. Moving on, pop up tutorials inform me that I am able to click on various elements on the farm and upgrade them or enter them. Surprisingly upgrading them actually changes the look of the structure. The farm is quite desolate and drab at the start so hopefully once I start earning money (there are coins in the corner of the screen) I can turn this place in to a palace.
The game instructs me to go to the stable, and inside I am greeted with my starting animal. A Unicorn! Morisa the Unicorn. Still a baby, it seems. On the left are some grooming tools so I take a brush and brush the furry unicorn to make it pretty. What? Don't judge me. After a minute or so of brushing my Unicorn explodes! What did I do!?
My Unicorn is a bit... 'special'
OK, disaster averted. The explosion was pixie dust or something, and my Unicorn is now an extra 6ft taller, muscular and has a giant head. It grew up? I guess the game is telling me now I can train my horse... or magic horse unicorn. Off to the corral.
Pony Traning
Sparkly Unicorns aren't my thing, I swear
At this point I have realised this game is a horse training simulator. Except MAGICAL. Considering you've been gifted with a magical unicorn beast and some magic crystals, you sure do some non-magical shit with it. Starting off by taking my Unicorn on a forest track which involves such mind blowing, MAGICAL feats such as jumping over twigs and branches.
The actually gameplay portion is similar to that of Rockband or Guitar hero, except here it is just arrow keys. When the horse passes under a giant floating arrow you have a 1 - 2 second window in which to press the arrow key. The the horse jumps over a trickle of water and some leaves. What happens if you don't press it in time? I don't know. The difficulty in this game is so forgiving that I got a perfect on every button press. At the end of the course it tallies up your score and with all perfects... 98%? Fuck you, game!
The other events are the exact same minigame just in a different environment. After a certain amount of activity however, your horse becomes exhausted and you must allow it to rest which is a great excuse to go feed it back in the stable or groom it. That, my friends is where my first day of adventure ends in this game.
More incredible translation
Like what you've read? Let me know if you want to see more episodes in my Unicorn training diary.
Giveaway
As a thank you for reading this magical adventure I would like to give you the opportunity to win a prize. I have a number of steam vouchers to give away. Exciting, no? No? Oh, OK. But still, discounts off games. Even Skyrim! Feel free to give something in return if you like but otherwise just post your steam name and what you want, and it is yours for the taking.
I feel like these end of year awards (especially from users) devalue the point of them. You should play these games. By limiting it to 5, or 10, you leave out some other games that you might want to include. Still unemployed, I've been playing a lot of games so I need to give props to those that I can't fit on a neat list.
The important thing is that I'm not saying...
HEY! YOU! THESE ARE THE BEST GAMES THIS YEAR AND EVERYBODY ELSE IS WRONG!
These are some games that you should at least TRY. Not every game is for every person, and I recognise that. By trying a game, and not just talking shit about it, you can at least feel confident that something is not for you, or it is how you discover a whole new world of gaming (strategy games blew my mind a few years ago).
Who would have guessed that a quirky, super weird DS game from Japan wouldn't sell well? What makes Ghost Trick special is the writing. Characters are memorable and insane, and the story goes of a cliff with batshit craziness. This game isn't interested in reality, or your notions of how a story should play out.
The presentation is very enjoyable and unique and the gameplay is novel (and can get very tough, if not frustrating). I'm not surprised many people didn't play it, but I will say here that you should try it. There is no other game like it
I didn't know the meaning of rogue like until hearing about this game, and while I see this is a more simplified version of that concept this game has so much more going on. A game session can last 1 minutes, or 30 minutes. Even played out until the end it isn't long but the game compels you to finish it over and over to see endings and the temptation of better loot.
Sometimes I feel like I get shafted because I pick up terrible loot, so I tell myself that next time things will be different. That conversation can repeat itself for a couple of hours because the gameplay is so compelling. The thing that holds it together for me is the aesthetic and tone. This game is completely messed up. Wearing your 'mom's' clothes and makeup, peeing everywhere. Loads of blood and poop. It is disgusting but justifies itself by being a messed up premise and setting.
Give it a go. It isn't expensive (99p on steam today) and even if you play it for an hour that is absolutely worth it.
This will be on a lot of individual's lists, and I put it here because I think everybody should try it. Even after a lot of time spent playing this game I can't decide if I like it or not. The difficulty and the exploration make playing this game rewarding and satisfying... but a lot of the design isn't as intuitive or well made as it could be.
While some elements feel budget, where Dark Souls really excels it is fantastic. I might scream when I die like no other game, and yet I keep playing. You might be able to tell already that I articulating why I both do and do not like this game poorly, which is precisely why I think everybody should try this for themselves.
Gameplay is fun, and the setting, premise, characters, music, aesthetics and boss battles are insane. This game enjoys it's own stupidity and absurdity. For that alone just give it a go. If you don't find it funny you might not enjoy it, but it isn't a huge investment.
A lot of people give the series a hard time for unintuitive design and not learning lessons from past mistakes. A lot of this is fair, and never bothered me personally but Dead Rising 2: Off The Record goes a long way to addressing these issues. There are checkpoints between areas and there is a sandbox mode.
These two reasons alone should give a lot of people a reason to check back in with the series and give it another chance. Missions are still timed (but you don't have to do them) and there are annoying design choices (animation still take priority over anything else).
I never expected to enjoy the puzzle part of a puzzle game so much. The story and characters aren't bad but they are incredibly forgettable. The 'combat puzzle' that this game presents is so satisfying when you get it right. Mastering the strategy in this game is rewarding.
A lot of people want or expect this to fail. I can see why, but at least play t first. I am not an MMO veteran. Huge fan of KOTOR, not MMOs. Playing this by myself I am really enjoying it. The abttle system isn['t that different from KOTOR, and all of the conversation systems and cutscenes are what you might expect from a Bioware game.
It has been fun playing with friends but as they out level me I have less and less opportunity to play with them. That is OK though because I have fun playing solo. Companions lower the burden and allow you to play with allies that don't have to be real people. Server queues can be an issue, but in general I am able to play when I want.
Give it a chance.
Best Phoenix Wright Game of 2011
I play Phoenix Wright games pretty much every day before I go to sleep. Considering there are only three of them that doesn't leave a lot of room for winners. I must have finished each of them 20 times and it is hard to choose. This category is needed because I play it so often that it is a series of games that deserves recognition from me every year, regardless of when it came out (plus I didn't start playing it until 2010).
And the winner is...
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Trials and Tribulations
So many great characters
As the end of the Phoenix Wright trilogy the story is incredible and wraps up a three game story arc really well. All questions are answered, dire situations are resolved and you see the characters and world in a different way than before. Godot, as my favourite character from the series, adds a lot to the game and provides a strong antagonist throughout.
While it is hard to match the plot of the first game this final entry to the series takes you across over 6 years and puts you in the shoes of 3 different playable characters, a first for the series.
1995/2009's 2011 Game of the Year
Chrono Trigger
(The only nomination...)
Chrono Trigger DS
New endurance run, more bitching. I hadn't played Chrono Trigger before and this was the perfect excuse to give it a go. Not owning a SNES meant I picked up the DS version, and I am glad I did. It seems as though the translation for the original was unfortunately rushed and that results in the sometimes funny, but generally bad text in the game.
The DS version features a new, more cohesive and literal translation of the game. The graphics looks great on a DSLite screen (not sure about the DSi as that will scale it a bit) which really surprised me. It looks crisp. Even now it still stands up as a fantastic RPG and I'm glad the Endurance Run inspired me to play it.
Game I didn't Get Round To
I bought so many cheap games this year that there is a massive pile of games I didn't get to finish or play at all. Worst of all is when they come out at the end of the year. How am I supposed to play them? Well, at least when I;m playing Skyrim I don't worry about not playing other games but they still stand out.
And the winner is...
Saints Row The Third
After hearing so much about this game on Giant bomb and from friends I broke down and finally decided to buy it. That was yesterday. I haven't put enough time in to it to be able to add it to my game of the year but the opening 30 minutes of this game are incredible. I get the same dreary open world shooter feeling that I do from the previous games or a GTA game but like GTA it's the things around it that I enjoy (characters, story, mind blowing missions/things happening all the time).
And Finally...
My Favourite Games of 2011
You might think my list is predictable, but I'm no hipster. Good games are good games.
I completed this in one 9 hour sitting because I could not wait to find out what was going to happen next. The best writing and best story in any game I have every played. Memorable characters, rewarding puzzles and beautiful graphics.
The facial capture technology is incredible, if not rough around the edges but in a rare occurance in graphics/animation technology it actually serves the gameplay. Unless you are going to try and subvert/break the gameplay by trying to 'game' the interrogation system, you actually have to pay attention to character reactions in a lot of cases. An adventure game for modern times. Thoroughly enjoyable.
The most satisfying combat system around wrapped up in Batman goodness with a new open world to explore. I disagree with Jeff's review, I think the open world really does add something (mostly to navigation but also allowing something as simple as gang territories).
Story is what I care about in Gears of War. I might be in the minority, but over 2 games I came t care about the characters with the amount of time I sunk in to the game. Seeing that story through to the end was going to happen even if the game was awful, but it helps that Gears of War is still thoroughly satisfying and great looking.
I enjoyed the aesthetic, the philosophical discussion about human augmentation and the ability to tackle situations in a variety of ways. The music is also pretty great.
I loved the Sandbox gameplay of the original Crysis (my favourite shooter of all time perhaps) and while that is scaled back signifcantly in this sequel it isn't unrecognisable. Characters were OK and the story kept me going along but I love the cinematic look of everything in these games.
This game terrified me, and I love that. Unfortunately I had a series of technical failures early in the year that meant I got 3/4 of the way through the game and had to stop, then start over at the end of the year. I'm glad I saw it through to the end.
I'm just going to say it. One hundred and forty hours is a long time. A really, really large amount of time. I am not proud of how much I have played this game. As a friend of mine pointed out, that is 10 hours a day for fourteen days (2 weeks). I lost my job over a month ago and apart from looking for work, I haven't had anything to do.
Kids, listen up. Not having a job sounds great, because you can sit around and play games. It's not. You need money, but more importantly you need a sense of place in the world. Something that gives you meaning, and justifies why the world bothers to support your life. Sitting around and playing games isn't a fulfilling life.
Anyway, let's get to Skyrim. This is how I felt when it was announced. I made fancy headers based on the main line quest log glyphs, because I think they look great. This was formatted for blog view, not thread viewing but ehhhh.... what are you going to do?
Dovahkiin, Dragonborn. Such an iconic image.
I miss Cyrodil already...
I played The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion a hell of a lot. Over 500 hours of gameplay across 6 years and two platforms. It was the first time I felt fully immersed in a game world, where it was believable to a point where you could just live in the world. You could get a house, walk around town. Shop. Make friends. Eat. Train skills in a realistic way (level by doing). In the last year or so that I've been playing it I have had to mod it extensively, as a lot of the graphical quirks of the engine do not hold up, like most products early in a console generation.
Morrowind didn't do anything for me, purely because up to that point I was a console gamer and even though it was available on xbox it contained a lot of bad elements from porting and not what I would call user friendly. Maybe if Morrowind had made more of an impression on me I would have given it more of a chance and wouldn't have been so blown away by Oblivion, but I consider it a formative experience from my teenage years and don't think I have lost anything in the process of skipping the first fully polygonal Elder Scrolls title.
The game opens with you deep in Skyrim. Literally. You're being carted to your own execution already in Skyrim with your past being explained only briefly in passing (you were trying to cross the border for some unknown reason... allegedly). Events that you didn't know about are already well under way and the game doesn't go out of its way to patronise you because the characters in the world talk as if events such as the civil war are common knowledge.
As the player, there is something satisfying and immersive about slowly piecing together a timeline and a history of the world around you through books and dialogue and not having the game open with "Hey, let me break down exactly what is going on". It is part of what I feel is a way of introducing the player to the idea of talking to every character you meet and exhausting all of the conversation options. Information becomes a commodity to be gained through interaction. It is essential to understand the world, but also progress through items and quests. As a long time Oblivion player there is no way I'm not going to talk to every single character anyway, but it is an interesting example of immersive game design.
I name my RPG characters after Phoenix Wright characters
In Oblivion I felt the only real race and class people should play as was high elf. As the most gifted magical race, they have an advantage in magic and if you are a mage you can do anything. Any deficient aspect of your character can be supplemented by creating a spell or brewing a potion whereas a warrior is a warrior. This leads to some very interesting experiments involving stacking of spells and potions that allow you to run faster than the game can load, and jump above the game world in a single leap.
This doesn't hold true in Skyrim. Character race and class don't really matter as the bonuses are negligible, there is no spell crafting and potion effects are very limited (plus they don't stack). That said, I still picked high elf because that is what I enjoy. So, of course the first thing I try to do is break and exploit the game as much as possible. Leaving the starter dungeon at level 20 because of sneaking around and attacking my companion at the start, putting arrows in his head, slashing away at my friendly tutorial guide who has given me no reason to assault him over and over again.
Despite the levelling and class systems being radically different from previous Elder Scrolls titles I haven't felt constrained in any particular way. I play how I want and at my own pace. At level 58 I have spent most of the game as a mage, and progressed through 140 hours levelling just a few skill trees. The lack of spell crafting really limits my options as far as my options go but again, in Oblivion all I would use that for was to exploit and break the game. Just because I could. I wanted to see it break down.
All it took in Oblivion was getting Azura's star, summoning the top level daedra, capturing its soul, summon bound daedric armour, damage, drop and repair it to get completely weightless armour, enchanting each armour piece with 20% chameleon and that's it. You have broken the game. You are now permanently invisible, nothing will attack you. I don't think this is the reason spell crafting was taken out, but it helps streamline the game and forces you to play a more rigid path where the pace of progress is consistent at the higher levels as well as at the start.
As suggested by trying to break the game, I play fairly stupidly. That's not to say I'm bad at it, or make poor gameplay decisions. I mentioned this earlier, but I love the feeling that my character is living in the world. That makes my style of play in to a routine, much like real life. Clearing out dungeons and exploring is my job, and at the end of the day when I have finished I come home, say hello to my wife, unload all my shit and go to bed.
I have a horrible compulsion where I have to keep one of everything, and so I store everything in my house after each dungeon cleared then sell the duplicates. This adds so much unnecessary inventory management that I can't really fault the game for. It isn't supposed to accommodate my play style. This results in a very methodical and predictable pacing to the game where I have a regular cash flow and regular inventory of new items coming and going, and also the rate at which I can complete quests.
I can't think of any other way to play the game, because if I've learnt anything about Bethesda RPGs it's that at some point I will need an item. This way, I will probably already have it back home and just need to fast travel instead of hunting it down. You know what though? It's boring. Anyone else (yes, even you, reader) would go insane playing this way but I just can't help myself. I feel like it's a testiment to how good this game is that I am willing to put up with my own stupidity.
Despite all this self sabotage, the game offers an incredibly rewarding and immersive experience. The vistas in the game are beautiful, characters and objects are well modelled. There is some beautiful lighting and weather effects, which is appropriate considering the amount of snow and sunrises over mountains you'll be seeing. Textures definitely fall short when examined up close, but as always thee games are about scope, the bigger picture. You should be looking out over miles of tundra and thinking "that mountain in the mist over there... I could go there if I wanted to" not "compression artefacts are preventing me from enjoying this game".
There have been countless jaw dropping moments either because of funny encounters/bugs or impressive quests and enjoyable writing. About 40 hours in I had my first giant on dragon fight, and to see these two juggernaughts go head to head is something I just cant get in other games. Everything is so scripted in most franchises, but Bethesda made their name on open world with very loose scripting. I would happily watch a giant club a dragon to death again anytime.
Amazing landscapes
It sounds like I am giving Skyrim a free pass, but I'm not. The game also falls short in some minor ways that I didn't expect. I don't care what they say, this is still the gamebryo engine. Either that or the programmers recreated all it's quirks and bugs perfectly. It has to be modified, there is no way it was created from scratch. I have experience much less bugs however, compared to Oblivion. That game (without the unofficial and official patches) is so broken and unenjoyable whereas the worst I have experienced is not being able to progress through a quest stage or an item stuck in my inventory.
After 140 hours I am still discovering new places (I haven't even been to 2 of the major towns yet), facing new enemies and even hearing new voice actors. It's strange that this amount of content can be packed in to a game in 2011, where everyone complains about DLC and games being too short. The internet would have you believe that publishers are constraining game development so that experiences are shorter so that you will buy DLC and maybe that is true. I can't say that is never the case, but Zenimax just let Bethesda make the game they wanted to make and it is enjoyable, massive and in many ways the best game they have ever made.
I didn't think it would be possible to surpass my experience with Oblivion. Like I said in the opening, I spent so much time with that game and as a result I started to think that it was one of those experiences that will always be the best because it was the perfect game for that time in my life. Skyrim has made me feel fully confident that I was worrying over nothing, and that I can still form a connection and have intense experiences with games even in a difficult time of my life.
Dragons are pretty badass, I don't know if you've heard...
I have to mention dragons. I'm sure everybody is sick of hearing it, but they are an important part of the story and world. Who cares though? All I care about is how good they look and animate. Their scripting is dodgy at times because they have certain attack patterns and now that I have broken the game by having unlimited magicka, the scripting bugs out when you have a dead flying dragon that spontaneously explodes when it feels like landing.
The best moment in the entire game for me was the first time I shot a dragon out of the air with a dual liughtning spell. It spun around, crashed to the earth with such momentum that it slid for 50ft and left a huge groove in the ground. Was this a completely scripted event and I was supposed to shoot it down? I didn't care. IT. WAS. FUCKING. AWESOME.
FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT!
A friend who has been keeping away from this game for the same reason why I had to have it came over, and after pointing out the ridiculous and humiliating 140 hours listed on steam was blown away by how the dragons moved and looked. It is easy to become jaded about this kind of thing, but it is a spectacle when a dragon circles overhead, lands on a roof and tries to burn you. How can they top Dragons in The Elder Scrolls VI? Especially when they also have giants here offering two exciting enemies that provide so much entertainment when you catch them fighting.
Thanks for reading. I know this is long, but I needed to write something about my experience.
Been quite a while since I wrote a blog. Well, 3 weeks doesn't really mean quite a while. A lot has happened though. Lost my job, had the humiliation of going to the Job Centre. My PC very quickly went from failing to boot to not working at all, and after a week I finally ordered new parts, built it back up and now have a working PC again.
Who cares about that miserable stuff though? We have VIDEO GAMES to talk about!
Batman Arkham City
I game on PC a lot, but if you were listening to the Whiskey Media Radio Show a few weeks ago you'll know I have a stupid console collection. I like to game on both and when a multiplatform game like Arkham City rolls around I tend to go for the PC version for the obvious reasons. Graphics, framerate, options, modding. Unfortunately, the price I pay is sometimes day one hassle, technical problems and DELAYS.
My stance on the matter is usually that they delay the PC version in the hopes that impatient people will buy the console version, if they can, so they can boost their day one sales on consoles and negate PC piracy for those waiting to pirate the PC version on launch. In this case I heard they were late for certification, so I will give them the benefit of the doubt, but with such a digital focused market on PC games should be delivered promptly and things like delays and regional differences should be going away. It benefits everybody to do so.
So I can't buy Batman. Even though I will have to wait, I probably wont be able to buy it when it comes out either now due to just losing my job. Instead, I decided to do a design for Arkham Asylum, my favourite game of 2009. I figured it would be fun to pretend it was an old novel instead of a game. Let me know what you think.
I have been addicted to this game for some time now. I find it really hard, but the loot whore in me sees death as an opportunity to get better stuff next time. I have spent 7 hours with this game already and it cost so little. The art style, music and gameplay are all fantastic. I need to get over my addiction though, I can't keep playing and failing. Then again, there's another game I could say the same thing for...
RPGs, Punishing and Otherwise
Despite sucking at this game, I made this hog my bitch
I'm like Vinny. I have to play a game series from the start. Something with a deep immersive world deserves it. Sure, I could jump in to Witcher 2 but why would I deprive myself of what a lot of people say is a great experience? After a slow start, and my PC destroying what I had played, I am thoroughly enjoying it. Slow build up but there are so many quests and a lot of well delivered and not so well delivered dialogue.
I also bought Dark Souls while my PC was busted. It isn't as hard as I thought, but I am still being destroyed. Not much to say. I die a lot.
Tangentially, Dead Rising 2: Off the Record too. I enjoyed Dead Rising 2, I enjoy this, I paid £13 for it. Can't complain for that price. Frank is a fun character and like Brad said, it is the best Dead Rising game. Sandbox mode is what a lot of people wanted, and the only problem is you cant find keys in it but you cant do everything else. Level up, get money, find combo cards and... kill zombies.
Might as well post the Dead Rising 2 poster I made a few months ago since we are talking about it again.
Only a week since my last blog. Not much has happened, except Gears of War 3 being released. I also got paid for the first time. As is tradition, first paycheck means a stupid purchase which I will be getting in to shortly.
Happy Birthday Dave!
It is Dave's Birthday today, and as a creepy tribute people are wearing hardcore dave as their avatar for the weekend. Get involved!
Roughly 6 weeks ago SuperGiantGames released the Bastion Soundtrack for digital download and physical album, including a signed version. Despite never using CDs beyond ripping them for my iPhone, I ordered a signed copy of the physical album and you will be pleased to know you get an immediate download of the digital version. Considering it took 6 weeks to arrive, that was a good idea as I have listened to it for hours in that time.
My lovely signed album. Great artwork!
I have quite a few pieces of gaming memorabilia, and it's good having one of the best gaming soundtracks among my collection. I love Jen#s artwork too, so seeing the cover makes me happy.
Rock of Ages
A quick note, since I bought and completed Rock of Ages. An incredible, silly, funny, unique game. It is, however, incredibly short with little replay value and a tiny almost non-existent multiplayer community. As long as you go in to this expecting to be entertained, not rocked to the core and getting value for money you should be good. It's not difficult and you will blow through it but it's worth it.
Gears of War 3 Epic Edition
As I said earlier, I got paid for the first time. I am a self employed graphic designer on contract at the moment and got paid for my first month of work. As is obligatory, I made a stupid purchasing decision. I really wanted to build a new PC but with bills and small debts that isn't going to happen, so I decided to go smaller. It was a stretch for me to buy the regular edition earlier this week, but by trading it in for the Epic Edition I got as much as I paid for it. A fair trade for once.
The box is HUGE
At £100 this is an expensive edition of the game, and is essentially the 'limited' edition in a much larger box, and a statuette of Marcus Fenix. I am a sucker for nice packaging and everything about this is higher quality than I have come to expect from games. As Jeff mentioned, the Styrofoam packaging has symbols etched in to them. The box is felt and feel nice to the touch. It also contains a load of junk such as the Hammer of Dawn schematics but the real meat of this edition is the COG service medal (which feels really weighty and solid), a high quality art book and the massive Marcus statuette.
The case looks like the disc given to Marcus by Prescott
The statue is simultaneously larger and lighter than I imagined it would be. There is a lot of detail on the figure and unlike a lot of figures the face is accurate to the game model . Oddly the lancer he holds is detachable, and I don't know why. You have to slot it in place. I guess you could hold it and pretend you are a giant soldier. Anyway, I will leave you with a photo I took of it (including a cardboard backdrop that comes with it) that I took with my iPhone. Terrible quality, I can never seem to take good photos with it. Until next time...
Been a busy time for me lately. Got my first job coming out of university as a freelance graphic designer. Not as sexy as it sounds, believe me. I haven't had a lot of time for games as a result but I'm finding the time occasionally. As always I keep up with my daily design and have done a few videogame related ones which I will post here.
Hardcore Dave Says...
As I said, I do a daily design blog where I make something every day. I started January 1st and plan to go to the end of the year. I am at Day #259 at the moment. As you can imagine, ideas start to get thin. I also don't have any time to dedicate to these now that I have a job, so I take what I can get. One Saturday I decided to make a silly T-Shirt design featuring an illustration of Hardcore Dave.
Still my favourite quote
The idea behind the design is that it was simple for people to paint over what I wrote under Dave and type their own, without having to hand out an editable PSD. Then Vager comes along and writes a script so that people can simply type what they want Dave to say and the image is created. Along with MisterChief he created the website hardcoredave.com where they made it super simple to create and share your own making it a hit with the community and even Whiskey Media Staff members. God knows why.
Anyway, seems as though Whiskey decided to pick it up as an official T-Shirt, except instead of Hardcore Dave Says it just says Duder. You can buy yourself one of these fine T-Shirts over at the Whiskey store. Oddly though, I knew nothing about this. As of yet Whiskey Media hasn't made any contact with me at all. I've emailed them but nothing back yet. I find it highly irregular, seems weird that I wasn't even asked if they could do this or even ask for the files.
You can represent Hardcore Dave is public now
Dead Island TNT Shirt
Well, the first episode of the new TNT format was crazy. The guys seem to have fun with Dead Island, and it's a shame the community wasn't directly involved. The truck on truck action was too much for me to take though. After the "Truck Rich" phrase was uttered somebody on tiwtter suggested a T-Shirt based on that, so I obliged. Like I said, I do a lot of extra design work and I run short on ideas. Don't look at me like that.
The 4 trucks represent Patrick, Jeff, Vinny and Brad. It's a silly throw away meme design but I thought it was a funny TNT. On the subject of the game, I'm really enjoying it. A friend bought me a copy on PC and it's a lot of fun to use the analogue combat to rip zombies apart. I don't enjoy the co-op much because there's zero patience and I like to look around for items and quests.
Posters + Designs
I've done some videogame designs recently. If you look back in my blog history you can see many, many designs I've done based on games but I'll post some of the recent ones here.
Gears of War 3
Locust are savage
I cannot contain my excitement for this game. Gears of War blew me away early in the Xbox360's life and has become a flagship title for the platform ever since. With good reason. It set so many standards for third person gameplay, handling, controls and cinematic quality. A lot of people dismiss it for it's generic nature, limited colour palette and dudebro attitude. None of that ever bothered me, and I'm glad because I've had a great time playing with friends over the years.
I don't really have much to say about the game because I haven't played it beyond the beta, but I am replaying Gears of War 1 & 2 in preparation and the first thing I do when I get off work Tuesday is go and play this game. Assuming the post arrives while I'm out and I actually get the game. Just wanted to let people know... I think this game is pretty cool.
A lot going on at the moment. Start a new job on monday. Not exactly looking forward to it. Being greeted in to the wonderful world of self employment and taxes, don't understand a thing. Other than that: games!
Oh, and I also just cancelled my Whiskey Media Premium Membership. I pay monthly, and I think it's good value for how I use the sites but I should be getting a free years membership from Dave soon. Can't wait to see the new subscriber benefits soon.
Dead Rising 2 Poster
I have had this idea for a long time... at least, I think do. I tend not to write ideas down so they escape me for a long time and resurface. With nothing else to do for my daily design #218 I decided to do it while I had the chance. Surprise, surprise. Another minimalist game poster from me. I love Dead Rising 2 though. I created an impressive guide on the forums with the help of the community, and uploaded screenshots to the site of every combo card in the game. I like it a bit too much, maybe.
My first export read "a game by CAMPCOM", a stupid mistake. They don't even make games, they are a gay boutique.
Bastion Soundtrack
If not for Giant Bomb's close coverage of this game, I may not have heard of it. I let most XBLA releases pass me by (though I own a lot of them). I loved the game, and felt it had some oddly powerful story moments despite being unabashedly 'gamey' throughout. Zia and Zulfs song (and the combo song for the credits) blew me away and really made the respective sections of the game more enjoyable.
Beautiful artwork. Nice headphones, Kid
People have been clamoring for a bastion soundtrack and SuperGiantGames delivered. I purchased a signed copy of the album, and while I wait for that to arrive I also got a digital version (which is all I really needed, but I want that album art by Jen Zee). Some great tracks, and even a bonus track of the narrator singing in his rough smokey voice. I suggest you go and buy it if you are a fan of Bastion. $10 for digital, $15 for CD.
Possibly my favourite song on the album.
FarmVille
Not going to talk much about this. I love the idea of resource management so I decided I'd try and play along with the interns. Having influence on the site, even if it is a competition between interns, is kind of cool. I already do everything I can on the site contribution wise so this is just an extension of that. I managed to do better in 1 hour than the inters did this whole week which isn't surprising given the circumstances they are under.
I don't intend to play much each day. Less than an hour. I'm also not putting any real money in to it at all. We'll see how it goes.
Dawn of War II
Completely separate from the Space Marine Quicklook, I decided to pick up Dawn of War II again. I bought Chaos Rising, but I cannot import my save as I had to format my drive so I am playing through it again. I am also playing it with 2 separate friends in a co-op campaign meaning I have 3 campaigns on the go. It is tiring. I wore myself out playing almost 15 missions 3 times and I just can't play it anymore. I think I will just have to give it some time and come back to it.
Dawn of War 2 is a great game though, I just dont think man was meant to play that much.
Soon my pretty... soon...
Thanks for reading. Leave a comment below, have a cup of tea. Whatever you want.
Despite still not having a job and my graduation ceremony soon, it has been a packed week. Full, mostly, of indie games. I tend to collect them in my room, filling the floor and tripping me up in the night when I go to the bathroom.
Illustrations
I talk about this quite a lot, but I have still been keeping up with my daily design blog. It has become soul crushing and something of a chore at times but passing day #200 makes me feel like I accomplished something. There have been quite a few lately, so I thought I'd post some of them here. Only 2 game related ones for now. I have been trying to cut down. Some Journey fan art that was retweeted by thatgamecompany, and a design concept for a T-Shirt.
Higher resolution versions are on the blog, and let me know what you think. I love reading comments. I do so much of this stuff and I often hear nothing back from anyone, good or bad.
Here are some other designs from the past month or so, including a harry potter poster and my favourite drink in the world: tea.
Gallery
Half Life
I have owned all of the half life games for quite a few years. Half Life 1 is not for me. I have never enjoyed pre-2000 first person shooters. I will not attribute the floaty control and style of shooting to it being dated, it just doesn't suit me. First person platforming sucks. I can't hold it against Half Life 1 in the same way as Duke Nukem Forever. It was released in 1998, not 2011. It does feel dated in very arbitrary ways but
Yep, that sure is a corridor.
So far the lack of explicit narrative is really killing my desire to finish it, the guns aren't much fun to shoot, the loose and floaty control really hinders the platforming, and I suck at the game so I fall to my death and get killed by enemies a lot. The worst thing of all is the lack of autosave. I have lost hours of progress because the game puts it on me to save all the time. I take it for granted that games checkpoint themselves so frequently. Autosave is a very welcome trend, and I look forward to not having to quicksave every 30 seconds after I finish this game.
I can't blame Half Life for everything I don't like about it. A game from before a time when I started to really enjoy and appreciate them. A lot of the criticisms against it most likely apply to games I did enjoy from the same era, but I have no nostalgia, no appreciation, no love for the half life series. If I had played it 13 years ago I might feel differently, but I didn't.
I will finish it though, and move on to the rest of the games.
Indie Madness
Through Steam sales and Xbox Live I have picked up a lot more indie games than I already owned and didn't play.
Starting the show with a show stopper. I first saw this game on Building the Bastion, as I'm sure a lot of people did. Jen Zee's artwork is the first thing that captured my attention. As a designer, I can only hope to ever come close to anything she created for Bastion. Unfortunately, the bright, colourful, cartoony nature of the art style gets put in the 'indie camp', some people even going as far to dismiss this 2D illustrated style of a game as being easier to produce.
The Kid
The problem I have with a lot of modern big budget games is that they fail to have a unique visual identity, like a brand would. That is why the internet is ablaze with comments about games feeling 'generic'. Indie games by nature have to possess unique and attractive art styles to stand out from bigger budget games and their contemporaries. That doesn't mean big budget games can't do the same. I am not talking about 'realism' or realistic art styles. That can still be used with a visual identity or brand. Mass Effect 2 did it successfully, I feel, over it's predecessor.
Back to Bastion, I am having a great time with it. Everything about it feels very well put together and hand crafted. No area feels copy and pasted, the combat is fairly dynamic and they mix up the enemy types and spawns to make encounters feel different. My favourite thing so far is the song 'The Singer', well, sings when you find her. It is beautiful, and I hope I can own it some day.
The passive, almost ambient nature of the story works in it's favour and ends up being much more powerful than leading the player through cutscenes. Narration plays an important role in doing this, and Bastion has shown me the most impressive use so far. I could listen to The Stranger's voice all day, and the game obliges by having him convey the story as well as dynamically comment on events and gameplay behaviour.
I haven't played too much of this so far, too many games. It feels very much like Splosion Man, which is great. Already frustrating, which is how I felt about the first. I like that though. Much better visuals than the first, with varied backgrounds and loading screens. I still hate Twisted Pixel's awful copy and paste menus. UI is important people. It won't cut sales, so is often neglected. Just make a nice menu, please?
I bought this along with Breath of Death VII. Comedy, when it isn't funny to a particular person, can be offensive. People get angry about comedians and TV shows that do not appeal to them. The particular style of comedy in Cthulhu is laid back enough that this isn't as much of an issue. I didn't have to laugh out loud every time they broke the 4th wall or made a weird RPG convention joke, but it adds a lot of flavour and lightheartedness to an all too serious genre.
Some surprisingly pretty artwork
There is a quicklook up on the site for you to see for yourself, but I highly recommend it to anyone curious. For the low, low price you can hardly go wrong. Having finished it this week the game is a decent length. It goes on a bit too long but that may have been my eagerness to finish the game. The gameplay doesn't change, you just get more powerful. The challenge only ramps up near the end, but the challenge isn't the reason to play this. The story, dialogue and characters are what makes this game special. They wrote custom dialogue for each individual set of drawers and bookcase in the game! That is attention to detail, beyond what I would expect.
I don't know why I bought this, but I am glad I did. A side scrolling 2D RTS is not something I have ever encountered before. They streamline a lot of RTS concepts such as unit and base building, as well as economy. Instead of buildings everything built works like an upgrade, you just select it from a menu and after the 'build time' you can start unit production.
There's a lot going on sometimes
What I didn't realise, however, is that units are entirely automated. Once you have built a unit they march from left to right and attack anything they bump in to. To compensate for the automated nature of the combat they give you the ability to use a large variety of magical abilities to aid your units and kill the enemy. Another indie game with a great artstyle as well. It is a shame that a lot of people dismiss these as glorified flash games, having been spoiled by free games created by extremely talented developers who go on to make these kind of indie games.
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