Have achievements changed the way we game?

There was a time when the rewards we gamers got from our countless hours of playtime were simple, a time when all we needed from our games was a high score or flashy cut scene to make us feel like we`d accomplished something with our hours of effort. Literally hundreds of hours were spent by gamers on the likes Final Fantasy or Gran Turismo or even more old school endeavours like Mario and The legend of Zelda for nothing more than a very impressive game save that no one outside of their bedroom would ever see.

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Well, it took more than a while but UK PS3 owners can now rent and buy films over the PlayStation Store by downloading them straight to their hard-drives.

The new part of the store launched at a Soho London party this week with a live performance from Little Boots and a set from radio 1 DJ Annie Mac in what essentially felt like a massive house party complete with crazy decorations similar to the zany indoor locations seen between programmes on Dave. The free bar went some way to keep everyone in the party mood too. In addition to the DJ rooms there’re several smaller ones with a few demo screens displaying the new store facilities, and taster screens of The Watchmen and Wolverine. Free booze aside, we at Game Hub were on hand to grab all the important facts for the launch of this long awaited service. So here’s our run-down and early impressions. Read More  »

Brendan Griffiths takes a look at some of the best upcoming games at the Leeds leg of the Eurogamer Expo including: Aliens Vs Predator, Avatar, Bayonetta, Dante’s Inferno, Dark Void, God of War III, Heavy Rain, Saboteur and Split/Second.

It’s not often that UK gamers get to go to an expo; it’s even less often that a show manages to climb its way north of London, so it’s no surprise that the Eurogamer Leeds Expo sold out in advance for its two dates at Saviles Royal Armouries Square for the 27^th/28^th October.

While the queue went around the building it didn’t take long to get in once the doors opened and despite the event being sold out it never seemed overcrowded in the two halls used. The gaming areas were made up of stools in front of TVs or playing stands like you might see in shops like Game and HMV. There was a mix of HD screens for each game. Some medium sized, others 50 inch monsters. Although, sitting on a stool two feet in front of 50 inches of brightly coloured Ratchet & Clank was a bit overkill, I had to lean back to avoid my face melting.

But on to the games I managed to get a bit of extensive time with. Read More  »

It's now common knowledge among most gamers that the Wii is primarily a box for parties, novelty games and the quirkier titles that make up your games library.  There's nothing wrong with this, afterall the 360 and PS3 have got the more serious end of the market sown up very nicely with quality game after quality game.  Nintendo have made a spectacular success and fortune out of what the Wii is and the latest addition to the Party Box identity of the Wii comes in the shape of We Sing and 4 USB microphones.

We Sing follows in the footsteps of Singstar and Lips and definitively brings the karaoke genre to the Wii.  Up to 4 players can sing along at a time (apparently the first time this is possible) and some pretty cool features looks set to bring the title alive.

Coming with 30 tracks at launch (though I would expect more to be available via download later) and spanning a range of genres, they will include: 

UB40 – Red Red Wine
Amy Winehouse – Tears Dry On Their Own
Charles & Eddie – Would I lie To You?
Sugababes – Girls
OneRepublic (ft. Timbaland) – Apologize
Pussycat Dolls - Don't Cha
Shampoo - Trouble
Spice Girls - Wannabe
Tasmin Archer - Sleeping Satellite
Moloko - Sing It Back
Lady GaGa - Poker Face
Coldplay - Viva La Vida
Lily Allen - The Fear
Tom Jones - Delilah
Kylie Minogue - Loco-Motion
Roxette – It Must Of Been Love
The Automatic – Monster
Duffy – Mercy
Madness – Our House
James Morrison and Nelly Furtado – Broken Strings Read More  »

The following story is based on real events. That’s the kind of quiet claim that might make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. Mostly it’s something reserved for films, but here it applies to a game, or rather, a real-world event that involved one.

Luminary Review

Developer: AeriaGames

Here’s a little secret about MMO games. What makes them good has nothing to do with design or gameplay; it’s all about the chat. Levelling up? Just a way to impress members whom you think are of the opposite sex. Exploring the world? Merely showing off to them your hard-earned armour and items. A tad cynical you might think. This view actually makes a game like Luminary, a free online downloadable MMO from AeriaGames, difficult to review. If chatting with other users, a pastime not directly controllable by the developers, keeps people playing, then the quality of your gaming experience is entirely dynamic. Manage to find someone to adventure and trade with who can speak to you without resorting to spiking their sentences with nonsensical numbers? Maybe they’ll be kind to you. You might actually enjoy Luminary. It, like all MMORPG’s that have come before it, relies too much on players being social in the absence of original game design such as unique worlds or interesting characters and quests. Rather than spend the time developing these features, creators of MMO’s concentrate on giving their players the ability to chat with/abuse each other with the minimum of fuss. In other words, push the game itself aside so they can blah blah blah. It almost seems as if the game itself is of secondary concern.

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There was a varied array of games on display at the annual Independent Games Festival Awards and this is a short review of the winners. The IGFA rewards innovation and originality in the many independent games made each year, with this years IGFA showcasing over two hundred new and innovative games.
 
The top award of $30,000 Seamus McNally award was given to the fantasy based game Blueberry Garden, created by Swedish games designer Erik Svedang with the unique point that all frames from the exploration game were hand drawn in their entirety which gives Blueberry Garden a very distinctive look from other games. A preview of the game can be viewed here. The award for the Excellence in Audio was awarded to developer Digital Eel's Brainpipe, with the audio being described as "ear tickling sound effects and immersive dreamscape music.” This was particularly interesting for me as I have always had a keen interest in the audio behind video games and believe this constant pushing of boundaries is an excellent way forward.
 
There were two awards for Data Realm's Cortex Command with the game taking away the Technical Excellence award and the much vaunted Audience award. The Point and Click category was won by another game featuring hand drawn frames in the Czech developed Machinarium. Read More  »

Here are the results from the BAFTA video games awards 2009:
 
Game play: Call of Duty 4
Casual: Boom Blox
Sports: Race Driver: Grid
Story and Character: Call of Duty 4
Strategy: Civilisation Revolution
Best use of Audio: Dead Space
New Talent: Boro Toro
Multi-player: Left 4 Dead
Best Technical Achievement: Spore
Original Score: Dead Space
Hand held: Professor Layton and the Curious Village
People's Choice: Call of Duty 4
Artistic Achievement: Little Big Planet
Best Action and Adventure: Fable II
Best Game: Super Mario Galaxy
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Dawn of War II is not an RTS game. Well, certain parts of it aren’t, anyway. Relic have been responsible for the hugely successful series which combined the depth of strategy in the Warhammer 40K Tabletop gaming with accessible Real Time Strategy conventions, and before Dawn of War II, this had barely changed. Even now, with the release of the new game, some things haven’t changed. Relic are probably still devoted to producing a plethora of Sims-like expansion packs for the game in the near future. Indeed, you can just see future content through its lack in Dawn of War II. No Chaos Space Marines, for example, means that they’ll be back in a separate standalone campaign. The fact is, Relic know that they’ve attached the perennially popular Warhammer licence to a successful gaming genre. Not only that, but they know how to milk it. A tad cynical, perhaps, but when the refined gameplay works so well, why complain? And that’s really the mantra of RTS gaming, staunchly upheld since the days of Westwood’s Dune and Command and Conquer series: don’t change what works.
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Throughout my years of gaming something has bugged me, I couldn't say what or how or pin it down to a particular game, it was just gnawing at me; and recently I finally discovered what it was with the bargain bucket purchase of Ninja Gaiden II (...contains strong bloody violence were the only words I needed to read, not exactly a poster child for gaming I admit...) and I was happily slashing, dismembering and eviscerating my way through the game when, in a moment if clarity, I discovered exactly what my bug was:

End of level guardians. Read More  »

Funny, how rapidly things become fashionable. “Everything comes around,” my mother tells me. Growing up and even now, I sometimes found myself being ridiculed for wearing anything gaming, comics, or “geek” related. This ridicule never bothered me. “Yeah, I spend my free time playing games and reading comics and I love it!” These were my feelings but others viewed my interests as “un-cool” or “weird.” My friends and I didn’t care as we felt this “lameness” separated us from everyone else. This is what made us different and in our own world cool. For in our world, we were judged not on the price of our clothes, but by our high score. We viewed each other not by our athletic achievements but our DPS and respective levels. Recently though, with the emergence of games and comics becoming more accessible and mainstream, either through TV shows or movies, “geek” apparel is seen everywhere. My school, for example, features such people dressed in Marvel shirts or other themed shirts found in Wal-mart and one has to wonder: “When did this become cool?” Read More  »

Recently Microsoft have been making classic games from various formats available for download via the Xbox Live Market Place; these include such prestigious classics as Golden Axe, Double Dragon and Sonic the Hedgehog. It was while browsing these games that I came across something from my past, something that still manages to instill fear into me........Doom. The original Doom. Now, Doom is sixteen years old this year and it hasn't aged well, the graphics are blocky, the enemies simply pixelated, the sound effects are basic, but you know what? Its still fantastic. It still has that unsettling air about it, the array of truly bizarre enemies from shotgun toting dudes with crew cuts to free floating giant red...things. The gore and messiness as you cleave a fireball breathing beastie in twain with a chainsaw reminds you that controversy regarding video game violence is not a recent phenomena. It is without doubt the most important video game ever conceived – without it there would probably be no Counter Strike, no Call of Duty, no Quake, No Unreal Tournament; it championed and paved the way, it is the iconic first person shooter, it lay the foundations for network multiplayer gaming and from this spawned the term 'deathmatch' forever synonymous with the first person shooter genre. Read More  »

With the media over the past couple of years jumping on the anti video game bandwagon when it comes to attaching a meaning to crimes of varying seriousness, we have to ask ourselves, how are children under the age of eighteen getting their hands on these games? For an example of how many of these kids are playing games that they aren't old enough to own, I suggest a short visit to the Gears of War multiplayer lobbies. Its astounding. Now Gears of War is an eighteen rated video game. Slicing someone from head to toe with a chainsaw bayonet is likely to give a game that kind of rating. If that isn't enough, the nice red 18 slapped all over the box is a dead giveaway. Its eighteen therefore nobody under the age of eighteen should be playing it. Its a simple concept but one that is not being heeded by parents it seems.
 
The first line of defence is the games retailers which have a legal responsibility to check and if necessary refuse to sell games to individuals if they aren't convinced they are of the correct age. I have seen this occur in person in my own local games shop and I commended them for their action. You wouldn't sell a copy of Maniac Chainsaw Orgy III to a child would you? The same criteria must always apply to video games. Games are rated for a reason and its to keep children from being exposed to the adult elements that make up video games as more and more 'realistic' titles are produced. Grand Theft Auto 4 has you whacking drug dealers, murdering gangsters, shoot outs in a strip joint and gunning down cops to retrieve bags of drugs. Not exactly the sort of game I would want any younger members of my family playing but one I fully enjoy. Read More  »

The little white box of the Nintendo Wii doesn't have too much to look at, but it still pulls in a crowd. Ball-IT, a Finnish company, is hoping to compete with the Wii using the same tactics. They have produced a small, little squeezable ball, filled with sensors that can interact with TV screens, computers and mobile phones which they hope will revolutionize the way we play video games.
 
Established in 2005, the Finnish company Ball-IT "aims to become a global leader in the development and production of motion controlled gaming solutions. These solutions include enabling devices and modules as well as core software components for implementing consumer-level User interfaces."
 
Although many other companies are also trying to come up with the next Wiimote-like controller, none have a product like Ball-it. "Ball-it wants to become the non-keyboard standard for remote communication with your screen." By using Bluetooth the golf-ball sized peripheral can interact with most other Bluetooth capable devices. The ball has wireless sensors built in and can sense geomagnetic fields, orientation, direction, speed, air pressure and acceleration, something that no other competitor has been able to do.
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