Limited Edition Podcast 29 - Could we be more Cryptic?
Feb 7th, 2010 by shuttler
In this Episode John & Matt discuss Cryptic, Champions Online and Star Trek Online.
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The iPad as a comic book reader
Jan 28th, 2010 by shuttler
Comics by comiXology concept from comiXology on Vimeo.
So yesterday Apple announced the iPad and whilst the device seems limited I think it strives ahead as a colour e-reader. Unfortunately Apple haven’t included a Comic-book publisher in the initial iBook store line up, but the device does support existing apps and will of course have new apps. A wealth of apps are available already with access to thousands of titles so this could be deemed as a very happy day for those of us wanting to go digital.
The video above shows us a mock up from comixology on how it could look. Thanks to Tim Daley for pointing this out to me.
Shuttler’s 2010 gaming thoughts (Part one - Video Games)
Jan 5th, 2010 by shuttler
Last year tested me as a video game player and rewarded me as a tabletop player. I took me nearly the entire year to figure out that I wasn’t enjoying MMO’s as much as I did during the previous year and it took me even longer to figure out why.
Games I enjoyed included City of Heroes, World of Warcraft, Free Realms, Champions, Lord of the Rings Online and of course Tabula Rasa which sadly closed in February 2009. 2 of those games I just mentioned I played in a regular static group which made them much more enjoyable in a social sense, but also this can unfortunately cause me problems in a game with not being able to keep up or level outside of a weekly play slot to get some experience gains. When i find i cannot partake or am holding back the rest of the group I often find myself returning to solo play and losing out on the social interaction which is why I love these games the most.
I looked at games I tried and left very quickly too in an attempt to work out what I didn’t like and avoid that problem in the future. I quickly realised that its the levelling and grinding i hate so much. Don;t get me wrong I am all about the journey, but being forced to gain experience to do more content doesn’t seem fun to me.
Games like champions, city of heroes and free realms let me drop in for as little or as long as I want and just get on with the enjoyment without pretending to be anything else. I carry out tasks, partake in social gatherings and explore. I simply ‘game’ without any pressure from anyone, I play with others when i feel like it and I enjoy it.
That’s all very well, but I still missed the static group, the band of brothers the formed posse of outlaws ready to take on the world! So I did something about it at the end of 2009. I contacted a few friends old & new and set about talking to them about the idea of a static group who didn’t play those characters unless everyone was on at the same time. Too simple? We all play at the same level for 2-3 hours on a Monday night. Nobody stays on late with that character or uses it to gain experience in the rest of the week. We all get to do the same content together and work as a team growing as one unit! We’ve found that it makes for more rounded character development. If i want to game when someone else is not on I can work on professions, crafting or exploring for achievements. I can play an alt toon and learn about another class. Honestly though I’m finding sticking to one character great and I get to learn everything all along the way its fantastic. Everyone in the group is happy to not leave anyone behind and goes of and plays other toons or does there thing until a Monday comes around when we are all available.
It’s unusual playing this way, normally a regular gaming group can want to forge on without a missing player and go off and do some solo quests and find themselves in a different level range, causing XP problems on the group or aggro issues due to too much power. We found a harmony a singularity that seems to work and I hope it lasts throughout 2010. I hope for the first time to reach a level cap this year. something I have never achieved!
So that’s my Static group fulfilled as for other social dabbling I plan to try Star Trek Online. Again playing with people I know, but with no self inflicted rules and not committing to a regular play session. Ever since Star Wars Galaxies I’ve craved the big I.P. game. I enjoyed SWG because it was exploration in a world I loved and that is all I want out of STO. I don’t care about mechanics i just want to pilot a ship and send an away team down to the planet surface in a world that feels both familiar and fantasy filled! It won’t be my holy grail of MMO’s but I’m sure it will be fun and that’s all I want out of it.
Limited Edition Podcast #28 - ramblings
Jan 4th, 2010 by shuttler
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In this episode of Limited Edition recorded at the end of 2009 John, Matt & Stephen sit down next to the fireplace and talk rhubarb to see the year out.
Digital Media, Streaming services, Ebooks and PSP comic store becomes an interesting topic. Will 2010 see more from the digital distribution services?
John is tempted by the Judge Dread RPG and we find out that Matt quit playing CoH and that Stephen plays games that are 3-5 years old.
John’s playing World of Warcraft and is surprised that Mr T not only features in the game, but you can get mohawk grenades! The new patch and looking for group system is impressive along with the new quest helper.
Stephen continues his cutting edge gaming by playing Spiderman Web of Shadows. We FINALLY announce the competition winner and of course have a natter about comics.
What do we end up talking about as our last topic for 2009? Star Trek Online seems to take over the conversation.
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Limited Edition Podcast #27 - Games, Fun & Price
Nov 16th, 2009 by shuttler
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John & Matt return for another Episode of Limited Edition to talk about Eurogamer Expo 2009 and all the great games they saw.
They also talk about current gaming habits, which revolve around ‘fun’ for John & ‘price’ for Matt.
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Eurogamer Expo 2009
Nov 1st, 2009 by shuttler
So on Friday I headed up to the London Eurogamer Expo 2009 at Old Billingsgate. In what seems to be turning in to an annual event I braved the oceans, rail service and london underground to arrive at this years impressive venue. For those that didn’t attend last year the venue is definitly bigger and split across 2 Upper Floors and 2 Underground levels was indeed much more impressive. Meeting with the usual suspects and new friends we had an enjoyable day browsing all the titles and the usual banter.
You can see the video I took here. So seeing as this was a gaming expo I figured I should talk about the games….
Star Trek Online
I have to admit this was really high up on my must see list, I had already planned that being in the press queue would get us in early and that I was heading straight for it. Thankfully David knew exactly were it was (right by the entrance) and we headed straight over. The demo was split in to two parts of the same mission arc incorporating space and ground game-play. The first part consisted of fighting off 3 ships and once this was completed you headed (beamed) into a mission map and then in turn a planet setting.
The first thing that struck me was how pretty space looked, beautiful bright planets, backdrops, gas clouds along with the colourful warp emissions and phase blasts. I was welcomed with a pop up screen inviting me to complete a destroy the ships quest by a really nice character model. In the video I notice I described the game play as ‘twitchy’ I wasn’t using that in the right context at all the shooting is indeed lock on and fire all phasers with the space bar, I was referring to the fluidity of the ships movement in space. The gameplay had the fun of twitch but retained it’s traditional’ MMO game play. As you can see at first this was hard for me not to get shot, you have shield arcs which you need to protect, manoverability is the key here and fast is not always best. Second time around I kill all 3 birds of prey with more movement. I also noticed the menus had green, yellow, blue & red buttons marked with a,b,x,z like an xbox 360 controller which suggests you can use the pad on a PC and maybe even an xbox release as with other Cryptic titles like Champions Online.
After another LONG loading screen we beam into some sort of ship, warehouse or station environment map for some hand to hand combat. The rifles and phasers work well and the game play is simple for anyone with prior MMO experience. I did prefer using the butt of my rifle for hand to hand combat instead. The next part impressed me the most, beaming down on to the planet showed off more combat but the planetscape and the winds and ash looked amazing and felt very alien.
I’ll certainly pick this up based on the strength of the demo, to me it felt very much like the Star Trek universe and despite not knowing how it will stand longevity-wise I wan;t to give it 30 days if not more.
Global Agenda
The game looked great, another example (like Star Trek Online) Showing how great MMO’s can look. It seems this next wave of titles will move a step closer to the theory that MMO’s do not need to look worse than single player games. The part we played was very much an arena style combat and I liked this, but to me it felt like I was playing any generic 3rd person shooter. We were told that outcomes will effect the state of the persistent world, but I am not really clear how this will work out. Obviously some territorial control and Team Fortress style game-play.
They have made it clear that you cna buy the box without a subscription and play in shooter style matches, but adding a subscription gives you access to the territorial stuff. I am concerned that it will very much just be a fancy lobby system without seeing more from the developers. I’m going to look in to this over the next few days.
Nvidia 3D Vision
Two types of 3D systems were on offer at the Expo. Avatar the game has the 3D coded in to the game and then you play it back in 3D mode on a 3D TV which was a JVC prototype and when you put on the glasses (the same ones you get when you watch UP or Coraline at the cinema) the game really does jump out at you and look very impressive. However the Nvidia technology looked much better, maybe it was the smaller screen and higher resolutions, but this tech works with a 120HZ monitor, glasses and software. 400 titles work out of the box and it will attempt to make any game work. A simple racing game looks wonderful as you get the depth of the steering wheel, speedometer and dashboard then look up to the window as another car passes you it really adds another layer of realism to your gaming.
New Super Mario Bros Wii
To many peoples surprise this was another favourite of mine, whilst action adventure & shooter titles are two-a-penny a good platform game is hard to come by. Mario does it well and this Wii version is no exception to the franchise. Taking a step back to it’s roots with 2d game-play and the usual coin grabbing, mushroom eating affair with some nice new touches and level design Mario fans are in for a treat. Co-Op play for up to 4 players means this will be a ton of fun and reminded me of the fun had in Little Big Planer Co-Op at the last yearss event. This is a must have title for me over the next few weeks when it’s launched.
Other Stuff
Of course plenty of other stuff took my eye and ears with the terrible rock band renditions going on downstairs. God of War 3 looks really nice and if that comes with the re-mastered original games on the PS3 launch as promised then I will be getting that too.
Dragon Age looked great, although I wish I hadn’t seen it on all 3 platforms as I am now torn to which platform to get it on. The PC version looked fantastic naturally, the PS3 version looked washed out and frankly horrible and the 360 did a great job of looking nice on the console. I probably would have been happy to have played it on the 360, but seeing the beauty in the PC edition made me wonder if I need to leave the sofa for this title.
The indy games section was a ton of fun as always and I could happily spend a whole day in there. Great to see Plain Sight back again and closer to a release date with the added bonus of a Mac client! For more from ‘us lot’ or indeed ‘that lot’ from the Eurogamer Expo check out these other bloggers…
Eurogamer Expo 2009 Video
Oct 31st, 2009 by shuttler
Eurogamer Expo 2009 - Star Trek Online, Global Agenda & more from john nicholson on Vimeo.
I’ve deliberately left this ‘rough round the edges’ to show you how fun these days out are.
The Star Trek Online bit is a bit long, but stick with it to see what the ground game play looks like as I think it is worth the wait.
You can also go on to hear about global agenda and the pricing models they have chosen.
Great fun and I’ll do a proper write up when I am less blurry eyed….
From here on out video games are about FUN for me!
Oct 31st, 2009 by shuttler
OK so that title sounds kinds obvious, right?
Of course video games are about fun, why else would we play them. Well the truth of course is that they can become tiresome and sometimes feel like a chore if we continue to play them even though the company is good (in MMO’s) the keeping up and slaving away ruins the fun at times, for me at least.
So I made a decision. I am going to play games that are fun to me, not because they are new and shiny or because others are playing them. I am going to pick out titles I enjoy and enjoy them, no longer will I feel guilty about my game hopping habits. If that is what I need to do to maintain a level of enjoyment then so be it.
Of course I miss my static group, they are fun guys and gal’s to play with. I miss them, and naturally catch up with them in more casual games (mostly xbox live). I just can’t get enjoyment out of committing to a regular play night and this is what was missing for me. I’ve always been erratic in my gaming and this used to be OK before the MMO market was saturated hell I am pretty sure everyone I knew played SWG and SWG alone. Once that went bad, the influx of games grew and grew and people were either split across games or playing many games throughout the week. It was no longer easier for me to log in to 1 game and guarantee someone I knew would be on.
SO skip forward a million years and I am in my 30’s and want to get more enjoyment out of my gaming. Sounds simple? Well it was?
First decision in this process was for me to find a casual title. Naturally my love of comic books made me persist with Champions Online (something I originally disliked in Beta) I’m glad I persisted because I enjoy it now in a different light. I jump in casually for a few hours find a nice pick up group and can solo away if needs be. The game looks odd to some people, but I see it differently it’s not pretending to be anything clever it’s just being a fun environment to hang out in. At first I found it harsh, but once I turned off those black lines it got a whole lot better. Does it offer anything new over City of Heroes? No in fact it feels different when you play it. So why am I playing this instead of CoH with my friends? Well I am busy on the night they play so I figure find a gaming group who are playing Champions only and then I can find people all the time and also I get to play a game that does feel new. There is something about being part of a game from the beginning and watching it grow (or indeed fail). The Halloween event looks to be a good one if you haven’t tried champions you can log in for free over the Halloween event and I encourage you to do so. If you tried it in beta, try it again!
So after deciding on my ‘fun’ MMO I looked at other things to keep me occupied. My wife bought me the excellent PSPGo, sure it got some bad press, but the lack of UMD’s is great to me and the titles coming out recently on it like Monster Hunter, Gran Turismo and Possibly my favorite current game GTA: Chinatown Wars keep me occupied lots. I haven’t properly enjoyed a GTA title since Vice City, that setting was again more fun to me with its 80’s style and brightly coloured environment and sense of humor. China Town Wars goes back to it’s original over head roots and had some really fun mini games to make it more interesting whilst retaining the GTA game play. Driving the little micro machines around feels very cool and the almost comic book style of the cut scenes look great! Surprisingly I like the little drug trading elements. It adds a micro marketplace system to the game and you could easily be the gangster equivalent of an EVE Online trader in this title. It’s also got me thinking more about MMO’s on these platforms as the text looks readable, the thing has online play and a microphone built in and the game draws so much on screen at once it has to be possible!
After playing Arkham Asylum I figured I wouldn’t get a better single player experience this year, that may be true to a point but Uncharted 2 came along and totally surprised me. This game is legendary in that it retains a tomb raider style of game but throws in fantastic shooter elements and gears of war cover and shoot style combat along with Prince of Persia acrobatics. Elements of splinter cell creep in with sneak em up tactics too. As you play all these styles of game a decent story unravels and the exciting pace of the game makes it feel like a summer blockbuster movie.
2 great titles in a row for me, surely not? This cannot be beaten I must be out of games that are fun and good this year. Out of nowhere comes Borderlands, I mean seriously this game was very low on my radar. The week before it launches I pickup some chatter on twitter about it and look at it. It looks to be my perfect game. People have tried to do FPS 7 RPG hybrids before. To me they never quite feel right they are either too much in one direction and not enough of the other. This takes the prize and works. Even fallout 3 whilst being good, felt like you had to VAT’s your way through that game. The shooter element in this feels great, the game play feels like a MMO with great loot and weapons and quests. It really is something special and the Post Apoc environment really is one of the best I’ve played in. Playing this co-op with a few buddies made me realise that fun can be found in groups with friends again and we had a blast. Covering each other, healing each other, shooting, ducking for cover, jumping in vehicles and bombing around really was awesome. I struggle to admit this, but I wish MMO’s were more like this game; maybe it’s the fact the massive element is missing. Do I want more instances in my games? The fact is with our static group and no others in the way it was a ton of fun. No spawn camping, no hassles over loot or any of that shit. Just good old fashioned ‘fun’ <– There’s that word again?
I can see me getting a lot of game play out of Borderlands, Champions and GTA: Chinatown Wars, but today I picked up something else I absolutely could not resist DJ HERO. I have enough plastic instruments to fill a landfill, but this one still tempted me for many reasons. The first one is the music and style. I used to and still do DJ. Started in my bedroom then progressed to parties and stuff and really enjoy it. I gave it up for bit, got a bit rusty and then moved all over to digital formats and started getting back in to it. Naturally DJ Hero is a more obvious choice to me than guitar hero. The other reason is the size of it, its far more suited to being stashed away in a lounge or bedroom making more like to be used than something that gets put in another room or cupboard. I was worried it wouldn’t have the same charm as GH. GH makes you feel like a rock god! You pick up the plastic guitar and you do feel like you are playing it. How could this possible be done with something that requires 2 sources of music matched together and still feel fun and like you are actually doing it. Well I can certainly tell you it does, in fact because it’s relevant more so for me. 3 tracks down the screen, the usual rhythm game affair. Green is the left turntable, Blue is the Right and Red is effects you can trigger. Sounds too simple? That’s what I thought, that were the cross fader and turntable comes in to it. You don’t really have an equivalent of the strumming in DJ Hero, you trigger the ‘notes’ as they come down the screen and you don’t need to strum in time. The challenged comes from other elements in the form of the cross fader which as the green track moves left you fade left, the blue right you fade right and when they are both in the middle it has to be too. Sounds easy, but gets hard when you have to do fast cuts and fades and spikes in a mix master style. The turntable also adds an extra bit of fun with scratching you perform by holding down the same coloured button and scratching the turntable and releasing, again sounds easy but again with the fades and other stuff gets tricky, plus some scratches have to be in certain directions too. Euphoria and FX knobs do similar things like star power and the whammy bar and make for a great game. The tracks and mashups are good and I can’t wait for it to receive downloadable content as it has brought back my love for Rhythm games.
I’m also going to spend more time on games like Free Realms, Fusion Fall & Wizard 101 to keep my attention span amused along with the excellent Torchlight for my diabloesque fix.
No idea were my gaming will take me next, but Eurogamer Expo showed me a thing or two so watch out for that post & video next!
It’s that time again! Eurogamer Expo 2009
Oct 27th, 2009 by shuttler
This time last year was a very exciting time for the UK gaming, blogging and podcasting community we finally found a decent UK Gaming Expo.
It was around this time both my cohost Matt and I had started playing regularly with our static group consisting of friends, podcasters and such. Stephen (Rockjaw) and James (Spaff) had ‘left’ NCSoft and got the gig of putting on Eurogamer Expo 2008. We were naturally invited up and met with Vanhemlock, Jon Shute, Peej, Melmoth, Zosoz, Oueddy and more to play some games and do what we do best, chat about games in the pub!
I’ll embed the video from last year so you see what we got up to, mostly the bit where Tim & Jon play Little big planet co-op, but also the bit where we found an MMO!
Limited Edition - Mini Video Blog 3 - EuroGamer Expo 2008 from john nicholson on Vimeo.
This year is bigger and better and we have friends made over the last year joining us who I look forward to seeing again and meeting for the first time. In 2 locations back to back I’m already getting excited for my visit on Friday because Laird HexDSL is already on his way and keeping us informed.
I’ll try and keep you updated via my twitter, grab some audio/video and see what happens.
Looking forward to trying Star Trek Online, Global Agenda & Dragon Age along with the excellent indy games.
Limited Edition Podcast #26 - Matt’s AWOL assumed off gaining aggro somewhere!
Oct 21st, 2009 by shuttler
We are back! Matt is AWOL, probably laying down birdseed, playing tabletop or indeed gaining aggro! Stephen joins me to chat comics AND games, it’s good to have him back.
James of course comes out from behind the counter in his comicshop to talk to me about Hellboy.
The Batman: Arkham Asylum Contest is still running! Leave us an iTunes Review to be entered in to the draw to win a copy!
Check us out at www.yellowspandex.com on twitter @shuttler @rockjaw @teppotastic email podcast (AT) yellowspandex (DOTCOM)
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