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.

A Weekend of Guild Wars

Guild Wars and all of it’s expansions can now be found for about £25. Dante and I have had a rocky relationship with MMO games, and while I’m still fairly convinced that the addictive properties of levelling and the social elements allow a lot of these games to get away with some pretty horrible quest design, I was tempted enough to pay up out of curiosity, as Guild Wars has always had a different take on the genre.

The Death of an Adventure Game

Herein lies the ghost of an adventure game that never was. Rather than let hard work stagnate alone in a folder on my PC I thought I’d give the assets some air and let them run free in the boundless back garden that is the Internet.