As many people have rightly pointed out, I’ve not updated properly in ages.   This is mainly due to the fact that I haven’t come up with anything to write about solidly, especially with regards to my new style of writing that I’m starting to adopt.  Anyway,  I do one day hope to show off my Warhammer 40k models when I have them all properly assembled, but on that front, we’re looking at a few more weeks work.  I also have to upload some photos to Flickr relating to when I went to Holland, and also the first lot of pics in the photo competition I failed to enter months ago now, whoops!  I have earmarked some other locations in Southeast London to take pictures of as well, but I imagine it’ll be a while before I can actually upload those too!  It’s all a case of eventualities really.  I also finally got myself a Wii, so eventually, I’ll be playing about with the experiments that Johnny Chung Lee has put up.  All the more now that I got myself a second controller, and got myself a Bluetooth “nipple”, which is essentially a really tiny Bluetooth dongle that sticks out just a little, much like a nipple.  My laptop has the device installed and set up, so I can eventually play with it.  My laptop will more than likely end up being the main platform for using the motion detection as it’s handier to use with.  The only issue though is that I need to have Vista drivers.

I’ve also managed to get myself a T-Mobile USB Wireless Share Dock and a pretty nifty USB stick which also accepts a Transflash (Micro SD) Card, which impressed me.  Though at the moment, I haven’t tried it out yet properly.  However, I am hoping it’ll mean I can start doing more stuff outside as a result, such as live updates but I imagine realistically that’s a while off yet.  Anyway, I also have got myself a copy of the new version of  Space Hulk.  Those of you who both had the money and listened to those at the Games Workshop likely have 2 or 3 of them now; one to play, one to sell on (they could easily increase in value by 3 times in a couple years, meaning their value would be about 180, going by the standard pricing) and one for… erm, I’m not sure actually.  Anyway, the reason why they’re so valuable is because of the fact that the current run is the only run, and also it’s been 20 years since the anniversary of the last one.  There more than likely won’t be another one for a good 30 years or so now so this one will shoot up in value.  Getting 2-3 copies does hurt the wallet a bit though.  All the same, it is a worthwhile investment… it does way a bit though, but you do get a lot in it.  I’ll post up pics when I’ve finished assembling the figures… keep in minf they won’t be painted just yet though.

Moving into the educational sphere now, and I’ve been looking at returning to education at some point.  Despite the fact that there’s the strong chance of fees increasing next year, I  sill want to get myself a BSc.  Amusingly enough though, I was looking at a games design course somewhat local to me, just outside of London, but unfortunately for me, it doesn’t have anything to do with programming, which was the main area I failed in.  Not only that, it’s also a level 3 certification, whereas right now, I’m at level 4, so I’d be declined based upon the fact I know what is being taught… hell, I could most likely teach the students if I were actually able to focus enough!   Not to sound too cocky about it, but my design skills are pretty much beyond what my certication (Certificate of Higher Education) is, and my graphics skills are sufficient enough as well, as is my hardware knowledge.  My essay-writing skills are alright as well and would pick up when I actually commenced study again.  What prevents me from actually being able to use the CertHE to start at the second year of university is the fact my programming skills are teh suck atm, both in Java and Flash.  Granted, like the essay writing, I’d pick up a lot if I got a chance to refresh myself, but I’m so out of touch with both, I’d really need to go somewhere that allows me to refresh my Java knowledge, and teach me Flash (I never got a good grounding in it – perhaps one day I’ll tell you why I had such an aversion to it), while at the same time, helping me to progress past my CertHE.

Something tells me though that I may just have to teach myself Flash and Java to CertHE standard, if not beyond, which is by no means a bad thing.  It does mean that I’ve got a little extra help to rely on if I’m stuck when getting back into study.  And speaking of that, the one that takes my fancy is the one offered by Qantm; their Games Design & Development diploma course, as it enables me to do a diploma in 1 year,  as opposed to 2.  I could also do a BSc. the year after that meaning I could effectively get my degree in 2 years.  Best thing there is that I wouldn’t have wasted so much time trying to get back to my previous level.  I was going to start it next year, as I’d need tome to build myself up for full-time.  While I’m waiting, I can re-teach myself Java and Flash and anything else I need to do to make sure I’ve got at least my CertHE standard polished up.

Still focusing on games and in particular the industry, I’ve reserved my place for the AdventureX event in London, which looks to be pretty cool, as the main bloke from Revolution Software will be there, along with a few other guests, including the creator of Loom, Brian Moriarty although this depends on the interest in the event.  They also plan to show people how to use Adventure Game Studio (AGS), and DOG 3D, which I’ve never heard of.  There’s also a buffet there, although it costs extra.  The event itself is 20 quid for the 2 days, and honestly, it looks like a worthwhile investment, if even to make some games industry contacts.  On that note, I also plan to bring forward an idea I’ve had at the back of my head for a while now, ever since I was at university in East London.  In some ways, it’s a continuation of a site I used to own called Emulation Storm, and its (very) distant cousin, Game Phreeks.  While GP wasn’t mine, at the time it was owned by a former friend of mine, and ES was essentially the retro version of it.  Along with a couple of other sites – one of which still exists with its original name, the other has a slight change of name – formed Storm Netwerks.   At the height of Storm Netwerks, we managed to score a lot of press material for use in the site while we were at the Game Stars Live event in 2004, although admittedly, at the time I was more interested in the freebies and booth babes!  That event is actually why I’m in London in the first place, but more on that later.

Anyway, things happened, and GP lapsed into obscurity, while I did keep Storm Netwerks and ES running for a bit longer, before I dropped ES entirely and renamed Storm Netwerks to Stormhaven Networks.  Yeah, I know… similar names, but it’s different enough to consider it a new start.  That said though, there are still references to Storm Netwerks out there, especially as I used it in 2005 or 2006 for an event, so any references you do see to Storm Netwerks are more than likely me.  Xeno Storm started out as Storm Rain, before also getting a name change although StormRain Paranormal still used the old name, so I haven’t removed it entirely.  I’m very much connected to my past in some ways, to the extent that I’m still trying to gather up all the sites I was ever involved with, which I’ll eventually list on a site somewhere as I’m wanting to look back on how far I’ve come from the early days.   Anyway, moving on… Gamed Up, as I called it at UEL was initially started as a project for my Introduction to Graphics course when I was studying my BSc. in Computer Games Design(This is its current name, and pretty much exactly what I studied as well – I do hope that the module I failed has been improved!).  It was heavily influenced by vBulletin’s default template design, although instead of becoming a games blog and podcast like I intend it to be now, it was going to be a site aimed at education relatijng to the games industry, including How Tos, hints and tips with programs, interviews with figures in the games industry and a listing of courses, universities and games companies, as well as news relating to careers and education within the games industry.  As I put it at the time, Gamed Up was just a play on the term “clued up”, meaning that a person would be clued up relating to the games industry.

I may consider going down that route someday, but for now, I’m going through with the more recent idea I have; seeing as I have a few willing people to help me with it.  I’m also merging the forum of my games clan, the XSG into the forums as it makes perfect sense.  Seeing as general games were to be talked about on the XSG forums anyway, and Gamed Up is about gaming in all forms, the decision to combine them was done to reduce resources used.  I understand that some of my ideas may be a little abstract right now, but this is because I have a tendancy to write off the cuff at times, a practice that I will be cutting down on as part of my improved style.  I’m going to be using my academic writing skills to help with more coherance on stuff, and also some research.  That’s not to say that I won’t stop writing off the cuff entirely, but I do want to make my factual bits more seriously, so I can be taken a little more seriously when it comes to blogging.  Another reason why I’m being deliberately abstract is to protect my ideas in development, as I share specifics with only a handful of people.  Of course, that said, I usually have the domains for my ideas registered before alluding to them, so there’s already some protection in place for me!

Another couple of my ideas, which I’ll mention for the above reasons are the Techie Guild, which is a website for discussing current technology… or it could be a social networking site for the technical field, not sure yet!  One idea I do want to experiment with (and I am keeping this one secret till it’s up!), is that of a redux of the DiggerCast and although I’ll keep the name, I’m renaming it mainly to the Jammed In Podcast.  You’ll eventually find out why I named it that, but for now, everyone is going to be left in the dark, except for the people I want to talk to about it.  Lastly, I have an idea which is essentially a spinoff of the Techie Guild and also a development site for the Wii, inspired by what Johnny Lee has accomplished.  It would also handle development with the DS and GameCube (they do have a direct connection to the Wii) and also the GameBoy Advance.  The spinoff of the Techie Guild site is something called Passed the Present, where future technology will get talked about.  Why the odd name?  Well, for starters, Past the Present was taken and secondly, the idea still works because in talking about the future of things, we have “passed the present”.

Get it?  No?  Oh well, I tried.

Anyway, I do have other sites that I need to give attention, so don’t expect the above ideas to come to fruition just yet, especially as I need to reshuffle the existing sites a bit.  Such as proceding with the development of the new Therians dot Net site, the redevelopment of Stormhaven Radio’s site and the deployment of my portfolio site.  I’m debating deploying my blog site Altered Awareness now, sans sub-domains as it’s an idea that can be readily deployed, save for that issue and really the lack of providing subdomains is the only reason the site hasn’t been put up sooner!  I’ll eventually find a way to put in subdomains, but I think it’s just as important to get a userbase for the site up!  Perhaps unsurprisingly, Stormhaven Radio, when it comes back up, will be at the centre-side of all the sites that I’m developing, as I’m going to be offering a player for the station with as many sites as I can although that may take a bit for some sites.

Either way, I think for the forseeable future, I’ll be pretty busy with my ideas, although I’ll have the assistance of others too; consolidation of my ideas was also another way to make things simpler.  I do have the plan to make a multi-wiki website, but that’s again a while off, although keeping all my wikis in the one place with a single login will bring in many benefits.  However, I only have plans to do that with 4 wikis atm, as the other wikis that I’d have planned need either site integration, or do not fit into the theme of the “WikiNet”.  I could go on and on about my future plans, but really, I should just do them and then write about them when I have them up, so people can go look.  I do plan on making a mini-site for all my projects, or rather pages of all the  websites I’ve ever done, provided they’re still online as otherwise I’ll just leave a name up.  I also plan on linking together all my image galleries as well.  It’s no small task, sure but it’s worth doing, so I don’t have to keep on Googling all my sites!

Anyway, that’s it for now.  I’ll be back next month with a thought-provoking entry, albeit with some proper research, as opposed to research as I do it!

Now that the power cut is officially over and out of the way (man it feels longer than 6 days!), I can start to talk about the Monkey Island remake, along with Steam and Battle.net. I decided to expand the post because Steam is the method I used to download the game and right now, I’m fully starting to appriciate Steam for what it is; a good way of getting games without the storage overhead! I mean, it’s nice having a CD, but when you’re on the move, it’s not practical to carry a game with you, is it? I applaud Valve for releasing Steam in the first place. Granted, it may have initially started off a bit rocky (most new things did), but it’s starting to really become a great way of getting games, or storing some of the games you already have! For instance, if you add your Half Life or Gunman Chronicles key to Steam, it gives you Half life and lots of goodies… this was a pleasant surprise for me, as I unfortunately lost access to my original Steam account, so it’s on their system, but I’ve no way of accessing it! Either way though, because of the advent of faster broadband, the retail landscape has been changed – you can now download a DVD worth of content in a matter of hours, rather than weeks! Additionally, digital downloads reduce the cost of a product, seeing as the distribution and manufacturing charges have been wiped off; those for the box, manuals, the game media itself and transport costs. Altogether, this does make for a cheaper game.

Another aspect to digital downloads is that the download is just data, meaning you can’t break it! I’ve lost one or two CDs and ended up just buying a replacement, as it seemed to be too much hassle to return it to the developer (the media cost almost as much as the game would have – plus I was in Ireland the devs pointed to the UK which wasn’t that cheap to post to!). At least with this method, people can keep their media safe and also carry it around with them – all that’s needed is internet access. That certainly means less baggage for me anyway, seeing as my laptop weighs a ton! There are a couple of downsides though, at least for me… firstly, although I may physically have a particular game that’s for sale on Steam, I may not necessarily be able to add it. This presents a problem as I have to purchase an entirely new copy of the game for it to be on Steam. For a game like the X-Com collection, this was less of an issue, as I could offset most of the cost by saying that I needed UFO to complete the collection. Granted, it’s just one game, but it does make the overall cost feel a bit less. I also have my eye on the id software collection too, as the value of the games I don’t have are nearly the value of the pack itself.

Decisions like that are a lot easier to make. Of course, one thing I do plan to do is compare the prices of games on Steam over what they are retail. If they’re cheaper or the same price on Steam, I’ll get it there instead. I can’t fully move away from non-digital downloads though as It’s not very practical for me. That said however, if devs like Blizzard are also hopping onto the DD bandwagon, I’ll be happy. The new Battle.net has impressed me so far, and I’ve only just signed up! They now offer the ability to download a digital copy of their games, which is cool. My copy of Diablo 2: LOD seems to be a bit screwy atm, so this is a welcome method of downloading a copy of the media that should work! I think my WarCraft III expansion suffered a similar fate as well. One thing I am concerned about though is the fact I selected US English for StarCraft by mistake. Now, don’t get me wrong, I can understand US English fine, but I’m concerned about the technical issues more to be honest. I guess this just means I have to download a different patch now. Either way, I do appriciate the facility to download my Blizzard games. I’ve also just downloaded a system checker for StarCraft II, so I can opt into the beta, or at least try anyway. Either way, after much grief (the checker told me it couldn’t upload my system info), it uploaded it anyway. Now I’m not sure if it’s because the app is screwy, but I figure it uploaded the data the first time, or perhaps it did it after I moved my PC into my router’s DMZ… either way I don’t think I’ll ever know. But it’s done now, so I can rest easy. That said though, while Googling some ports for the app, I saw someone mention that 400GB is needed to participate in the Beta testing program.

Read the rest of the entry »

I stumbled across this a few minutes ago and thought I’d share it with others.  Unfortunately, as of yet I’ve not got myself a proper games blog (but it is in the pipeline), so I’m posting it here.  Anyway, although the title says that there’s a free Sackboy on offer, unfortunately they’re now all gone, much to my disappointment as I’d have liked my own one!  Instead, there’s a free Sackboy t-shirt on offer instead, provided you follow the requirements on the site.  Do keep in mind though that it’s only available to UK and Ireland residents, so anyone reading this not from any of the covered areas unfortunately cannot take part in this.

Anyway, here’s a pic of one of the 5000 Sackboys sent out (courtesy of a bloke named Josh who posted the pic on the comments page):

No wonder Stephen Fry went “Aww, bless!”

They’re selling one on eBay for 50 quid, but honestly, as much as I’d want one, I’d not pay that much!  I do agree with many of the commenters saying that they’re very well made.  I hope they’re gonna bring out one people can buy eventually, as I would most certainy get one!  Anyway, here’s hoping that I get my t-shirt.

And before I forget, there’s a new LBP DLC coming out which features stuff from Shadow of The Colossus, arguably the most gorgeous-looking (certainly the most rare!) game for PS2. I happen to have a copy and shelled out 20 quid (Euros, I think) for it a few years ago now. I’ve not properly played it (though I should soon!), but as a gamer, there’s a certain pride in owning the game.  Also, I signed myself up to ScrewAttack, at long last, so I’ll most likely be commenting on there.  There’s a blog on there, like there is with GameTrailers, but I dunno if I’ll be posting to it… I might just use it as a mirror blog for the main one I’ve planned, to get larger community coverage… I’ll think of something!

I’m only just after finding out that Tetris has hit the grand age of a quarter-century!  That’s just one year shy of my age!  Anyway, I remember Tetris as one of the first games I had for my GameBoy Pocket, and for that matter, still have.  It happens to be one of the most cloned games ever, and has appeared on multiple systems and has also seen a lot of remakes and also sequels and spinoffs.  For instance, there is at least one Tetris game for the DS out pretty recently and I’m fairly sure there is one for the PC that is more recent too, along with a mobile release.  And although I don’t have an XBox, I’m sure that it has one too.  So, not only has it appeared on practically system (illegally or not), it’s also become one of the world’s most recognizable games as well of the most influential.  I say influential as it seems that everyone and their dog has wanted to make a Tetris-type game.  If not that, then they’ve wanted to do Breakout, Pong, Space Invaders or Asteroids.  As well as being influential in their day, they have another thing in common; simplicity.  The games are simple to pick up and play.  All you need are the controls, and no more than 2 sentences to explain the game.  This also makes them accessible to the masses, which is why Tetris is still so popular to this day… although the game has been updated each generation, the playing principles remain the same.  This was supposed to just be about Tetris’ 25th birthday, but it’s evolved into talking about simplicity in games also, which to be fair is a logical progression.

Anyway, simplicity is why the Wii is popular (I imagine this has its own take on Tetris too), as the games are easy to understand and get into.  I’d even go far as to say that Tetris is perhaps one of the main reasons why some people became gamers.  Of course, you can still see the influence of Tetris in other puzzle games, even if it’s not obvious.  I’m pretty sure that Tetris was in the back of the developer’s heads for games like Peggle and Zuma, to name a couple of games I’ve played recently.  The major influence of Tetris in games like that is simplicity and accessibility, which is at the core of casual games.  Addictiveness is another factor too… how many of you can honestly say you haven’t looked at the clock and thought “just one more game/level and I’ll stop, and it turns into 3 hours?  I know I have had that many a time.  Granted, it may not be towards our birthday game, but it has been towards a game.  Another aspect of Tetris that is also recognisable is the music.  How many of you reading this remember the Tetris music, the A one?  I bet anyone who has played the game remembers it quite well.  It’s like the original Super Mario Brothers song; it’s catchy and hard to get out of your head, although admittedly, there’s not a lot of music in SMB, so it’s all most likely remembered.  For me, anyway the A Song is my most remembered song of tetris, apart from the main theme.  The B Song, while I heard it and know it’s there, I don’t remember quite as much.  I just read up about Tetris and there was a C song too… I don’t remember that at all!

Another large post!

Warning, this post is huge! If you don’t like reading large blog posts, you’re advised to avoid this!

The past half hour or so, I’ve been looking at many things… things mostly to do with how the human mind works and percieves things. I have to say, there’s quite an interesting amount of stuff there, and I haven’t even scratched the surface. First of all, we come across this article, which talks about the fact that schitzophrenics are not fooled by the “hollow face illusion”, with an included video. Essentially, the “hollow face illusion” involves — as you may have guessed — a hollow face. The article describes it as:

In the hollow mask illusion, viewers perceive a concave face (like the back side of a hollow mask) as a normal convex face. The illusion exploits our brain’s strategy for making sense of the visual world: uniting what it actually sees — known as bottom-up processing — with what it expects to see based on prior experience — known as top-down processing.

Anyway, it has been shown that those with schitzophrenia are not fooled by this illusion and see the concave face as what it actually is. The rest of us (including myself, which is interesting) see the conclave as a convex face, to the extent the nose sticks out! And even if you know this already, it doesn’t matter; your brain will still percieve the back side as a normal face. I found it interesting that I saw it like most “normal” people do, because I have a type of Autism known as Asperger Syndrome (AS). Now granted, I have been taught to act somewhat normal, but I do wonder if anyone else on the Autistic Spectrum will see things like normal people, or schitzophrenics.

Why I say this is because AS was once considered to be a form of schitzophrenia… see where I’m going with this yet? Good.  Anyway, if those on the Autistic Spectrum see things like a normal person, it would mean that Autism Spectrum Disorders affect different parts of the brain to schitzophrenics. That said of course, those who are drunk and under the influence of drugs see through it too, which makes you wonder what parts of the brain intoxicating substances hit, doesn’t it?

Post continues after the break… get a cuppa, you’ll need it!

planet rome.ro: a visit to id software, 1993

I’m literally just after finishing watching this video, which my friend Sean (of Spoofscript.com) showed me. The vid is a good half hour, but it’s definitely worth a watch if you’re interested in id Software and Doom. The above link is actually the blog entry, so if you want to watch the video, it’s here: http://vimeo.com/4022128.

One of the things that made me smile and also impressed me was Bobby Prince explaining one of the songs from the “lost episode” of the Commander Keen series; Keen Dreams.   I won’t be looking at that particular song in the same way again, and it has subsequently made me appriciate MIDI music more.  I’m not going to ruin the surprise, but suffice to say, once you listen to Bobby’s explanation while the song is playing, it makes a whole lot of sense… provided you didn’t know that already, that is.

Either way, it’s a fascinating look at id Software in their pre-Doom days and also in general.

Edit: Apologies for the big mess of everything… WP is being retarded and isn’t making proper separations