Ludo’s Playlist

Hello! It has been a long while since I’ve posted anything on this here blog. My games writing has moved to Gaming Daily and The Reticule leaving MVH a little quiet. Meanwhile I figure this frees this site up to let me write about other stuff that occupies me from day to day. This is a bit of a mammoth post about a Spotify Playlist I’ve been obsessing over for the past couple of days. I took a song from each of the artists I’ve listened to over the past year and added them, and then arranged them into an order that made some sort of odd sense when listening to it. Descriptions of each track lie below. There were a load of artists I couldn’t find on Spotify, but many are on there. Feel free to suggest music you’ve been into in the comments thread, I’m always looking for new stuff to listen to. Here’s the link for your audio pleasure:

Ludo’s Playlist

Right, let’s get started.

Avatar Demo Impressions

The Avatar demo is out so I though it was time to strap on some space marine gear and dive into the neon jungles of Pandora to take the fight to the tall gangly blue Na’vi on their own homeworld. Imperialism, hurray!

Gaming Daily

A quick note to say I’m now writing stuff for www.gamingdaily.co.uk!

New things will appear there every Thursday, I’ll still be writing here as well of course, probably about Dragon Age which, like some sort of evil giant B-movie blamonge, has absorbed me completely and refuses to let me go.

 

DRAGON!

Here’s an image I entered into a competition to win a free copy of Dragon Age which, sadly, did not win. But no matter! In honour of the imminent release of Dragon Age, about which I’m painfully excited, this image shall occupy the top of our blog feed for a bit. It’s name is Maliferous the Wrathful Wrecker of Worlds. It’s a she.

Left 4 Dead 2 Demo Impressions

The Left 4 Dead 2 demo just clawed its way out of the cold earth to entertain the general public with its unique brand of frantic, zombie-slaying goodness. I went charging through the hordes, guitar in hand, and can report that there are quite a lot of zombies. And they bleed. A lot.

Journeys in Love

The sun rises, and seems to set the world on fire.

I have no idea what to do. All I know is that there’s an indicator at the bottom of my view pointing me to the nearest base. Reaching this place shall, for now, be my mission.

Left 4 Dead Map Screens

I’ve dived head first back into mapping for Left 4 Dead after becoming frustrated with the whole thing a few weeks ago. I came back and started the sewer sections, this time taking ages over each area. I’ve been looking over the Valve official maps, all of which have been generously made available in the game files to poke and fiddle around with. The first thing you notice opening a Valve map is how much damn detail there is in every single section.

Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay

Vin Diesel’s inimitable growl introduces you to Riddick.

“The dark,” he rasps, “is where I shine.”

It’s the voice of a man who’s about to kill his way out of the highest security prison in the Galaxy.

Butcher Bay is a concrete monster that descends kilometres below the planet’s surface, a high security centre built to hold the toughest convicts alive. Nobody has ever escaped before, but the folk who built the prison evidently didn’t anticipate containing the likes of their latest inmate.

The Gaming Intangibles

American sports commentators have a wonderful expression that they use to describe a general sense of ‘where the team is at’. The team’s morale, how well they gel with their coach and their sense of team spirit are all referred to loosely as ‘the intangibles’. It’s a term reserved for those elements that can’t really be measured, but which undoubtedly have an impact on the team’s performance.

I’ve been thinking about the intangibles in games, those small elements that, while difficult to quantify, can help to elevate a title from being simply pretty good to something great.

Mounted Bald

I’ve started this article three or four times before, and failed to follow through, Mount and Blade is one of the hardest games I’ve ever tried to explain the appeal of, it’s graphics are five years behind the times, it’s quests are repetitive, it’s dialogue unimaginative, it’s world derivative, but god help me, I love it. Why? The short answer is ‘the combat’ but the truth is far more complicated than that.

Journey beneath the cut to see me fail to explain why.