An Open Letter To The Internet

Dear World,

I have not bought, nor am planning to buy, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Modern Warfare 2, Modern Warfare Reflex, Activision's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, That New Infinity Ward Call of Duty Game, Modern Warfare 2: Modern Harder, or whatever the fuck it's called now.

Stop asking about it and stop telling me about it.

That is all.

Chris Capel

P.S. It's not just because I'm in China and can't actually buy it either.

China Chris

Yes, I'm now in China, and bloody freezing it is too. The big shocker was both what I could and what I couldn't get. Could included Dairy Milk, Everlasting Gobstoppers (unavailable in the UK for many years but now officially available in every other sodding country I've ever been to), Steam (fortunately), plenty of English books and DVDs and the ability to order any one I fancied from Amazon UK or US.

Saying that, China only lets in a few English language films and games in each yeah. That being the case, why oh fucking why did two of those have to be the atrocious adventure game FBI Confidential and the Max Payne movie?!?

Still, I'm more worried about that second lot - the can'ts. I couldn't access this blog for example, and it took some tricky playing around to get that access back (and is very temperamental I've got to say, if you're reading this it's nothing short of a miracle).

I also can't buy games. DVDs and books? No problem, but games off Amazon? No way! Steam as usual won't let you buy anything abroad, so getting Left 4 Dead 2's going to require some creativity. Fortunately Direct2Drive is proving to be a saviour as I can buy and play things without hassle from there. I'll have a Dragon Age post up in due time.

Until then I'll sign off, but expect more fun from the Land of the Dragon... y'know, if they bloody let me see this blog.

- Chris Capel

Boredomlands and Dragging-on Age

(Okay, slightly unfair title as I haven't played either yet, but I thought it was too good to pass up)

Here's what this post is really about though. A few weeks ago Gearbox/2K announced that the PC version of Borderlands was going to be put back a week for "optimisation purposes".

This was a lie. Not only are stores getting the PC version at the same time as the console version, but it's clearly complete. People who managed to get hold of a legal copy in the confusion simply can't play it, as Securom forces them not to until the game's official PC release date - which was obviously put back for no good reason whatsoever. Why not go the whole hog and just shut people out from playing your game forever? They can't return their copy, so you'll get the money no matter what. Plus the criticism will be slightly less.

In a similar vein, i.e. delaying PC versions of games and then lying about why, Eurogamer previewed Dragon Age: Origins this week. Note paragraph 4 on the first page:

"...publisher EA started distributing a complete PC review version to press months before its release."

Um... excuse me? The game was finished for its original release date, then? The one you put back claiming Bioware needed more time to finish and polish the game? Bullshit. You (being EA) were terrified of the prospect of a PC game being released months before the console version. You were worried that console would feel left out and just ignore the game when it was finally released, or you were worried about that everyone would pirate it on PC and not buy it on consoles.

To 2K, EA, Bioware and Gearbox: fuck both of you. If Dragon Age had been released when it was supposed to have been I would've got the Special Edition and all the DLC. Now I'll stick with the standard version. And I'm not even going to bother with Borderlands at all now. Thanks guys, you just saved me a lot of money.

- Chris Capel

Brütal!

Yes, we're still here. I've been extremely busy since the last post (doing an English Teaching course, y'know), and the others, well, they're just... themselves.

Anyway, let's talk about some games quickly. In fact one in particular, since I've just finished it: Brütal Legend. After the fantastic Psychonauts (as featured in our Bare Essentials gaming list on the right) the ever-misspelt Tim Schafer and never-misspelt Double Fine have been beavering away on this big homage to the epic heavy metal music of yore.

Despite being advertised everywhere as a free-roaming/driving hack n' slash game, people are going to be quite shocked to discover that that's only the first hour or two. Pretty much all of the rest of the game is a genre that we PC players know exist but console gamers have never heard of, hence why everyone's wrongly referring to it as an RTS game. It's nothing of the sort: it's an Action Strategy game. The biggest comparisons are to Sacrifice and the Reaper third of Giants: Citizen Kabuto. You're right in the middle of the action, but you're commanding troops on the fly too.

And sadly, this is where two things come in: 1. All types of Strategy game are much more at home on the PC because it's far easier to issue orders with the mouse and keyboard, a problem which makes ordering and controlling units very frustrating in Brütal Legend, and 2. Double Fine have no experience of this genre, and it shows.

They break one of the big Golden Rules of Good Gaming: if you get something new, useful, and vitally important, you need to be shown how to use it, and then be forced to do so to make sure you get the hang of it. Brütal Legend does not do this, and it doesn't do it often. If I hadn't been told by Kotaku that Rally Flags existed I never would've used them, and I never would've finished the game.

The style, humour, and story (despite an anticlimactic rushed ending) suck you in, but unless you're an Action Strategy Heavy Metal fan, you'll get frustrated fast. Brütal Legend's easy to fall in love with, but hard to love. At least for me.

- Chris Capel

Feudian Slip

I've mentioned before my plans to stay in China with my girlfriend for a while. I'll be going end of October, but my original plan was end of September - pretty much now. I remember when the date slipped due to various reasons, looking at the gaming release schedule and thinking "at least there's some damn fine consolation prizes".

What a great month. Bioshock 2, Dragon Age Origins, Borderlands, Alpha Protocol, Brutal Legend...

Of course, we know what happened next. Bioshock 2? Next year. Dragon Age Origins? November. Borderlands? Last day of October now, after I'd moved forward my travel plans since nothing was coming out October 30th previously. Alpha Protocol? Next year now very probably (although Sega are still baffingly tight-lipped). Brutal Legend? Despite my fervent predictions/hopes/demands, EA aren't releasing it on PC (yet). As my 360 ain't coming with me, I have to turn down a Tim Schafer game. I feel dirty.

Oh, I'll be playing most of them no doubt (unless they require some hideous online activation that won't work in China...), but this constant slipping does really bug me. Especially when it's unique to the PC.

Borderlands has slipped a week, only on PC. What the fuck guys? Surely you knew about all these technical things? And didn't you make the damn game on a PC? It works fine! And if it doesn't, how does just an extra week help?

Assassin's Creed II was never coming October, but it was coming November - now the PC version isn't. It seems like someone at Ubisoft made a mistake when they said it was coming out on PC at the same time as the console versions and they've only just realised. "Sacre bleu (they're French, remember)! Assassaaan's Creed Deux was announced as coming le same date for PC! PC games do not come out at le same time as le consolé, it just isn't Tour De France!"

This just in: Mass Effect 2 delayed on PC. "We were just kidding," explains Bioware. "We never thought anyone would take that announcement seriously. I mean, whoever heard of a PC game releasing at the same time as the console version?"

- Chris Capel

Back to the Front

"You will die, when I say, you will die... BACK TO THE FRONT!"

That's what Metallica once said and, at the moment, I feel like dying. It might certainly be less painful than the sciatica/back trouble I'm currently suffering from. At the moment, it is calm, but who knows when it might rage again. Right on deadline week too, sadly.

Also, I've been severely vexed by the atrocious state of our national health service, which has literally refused to provide me with an appointment to see a doctor because I, not having lived in my new flat for more than two weeks, don't happen to have a bill addressed to me. Funny that. Now I have to get the billpayer/landlord to write me a note before I can be registered.... which then takes 7 sodding working days to "process" and then AND ONLY THEN can I actually begin to even make an appointment! By the time I see a doctor, I won't be in any pain, so they'll probably refuse me a note....

What a fucking system.

DB

I never could get the hang of Thursdays

If there's one thing I love as much as gaming, it's the works of Douglas Adams. While Last Chance To See is probably my favourite (now being "updated" as a Sunday documentary with Stephen Fry which, sadly, isn't as funny because the team aren't quite as incompetent), no book series has had a big an influence on my writing as his most famous work, The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy. The five books, the two radio series, the TV series, and to a much lesser extent the incredibly hard computer game.

As I said, it's a huge influence on my writing - and so therefore my entire life. Hell, the damn book was even first published the day after my birthday!

Which means that nothing in the world pisses me off quite so much as people fucking with it.

The first screwing with is this latest re-release of the books. First off, why is it still so impossible to find a collection of the five books together? Especially in paperback? It's very easy to find a paperback collection of the first four books, but why would anyone buy that? It's missing the fifth!

The latest re-re-re-re-re-re-release is, once again, all five books separately. Even more stupidly, they don't go with the new book cover which I'll talk about shortly. This is obviously a money issue, but it's still ridiculous.

But some bright spark had the idea of giving away stickers with SciFiNow magazine to customise the books with official new "wacky" artwork that once again misses the point of the books spectacularly.

If you had some stickers themed on Hitchhiker's Guide what would they be? A big '42'? The words 'Don't Panic'? Dolphins? A totally black spaceship? A man with two heads? A man in a dressing gown? A Babel Fish? A snotty green lump-like Vogon? A slogan advertising 'Milliways', 'Stavro-Mueller Beta', or 'The Domain of the King Bar & Grill'? A bored-looking robot?

Here's what I got:

Yes, I couldn't be bothered to scan it in and just took this with my camera.

You'll notice that none of those things I mentioned turned up. Instead we have:

1. Some generic-looking planets with one attempting to be wacky.
2. A very generic-looking flying saucer spaceship.
3. A green drink that I assume is meant to be a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster but looks so generic it could be anything.
4. A cartoon cow that looks in no way alien.
5. A sandwich, which is one I could agree with - pity it's so small.
6. A number 37 raffle ticket, which I also agree with.
7. A pair of generic-looking sunglasses which I presume are meant to be Zaphod's Peril-sensitive pair but which frankly don't appear cool or imaginative in any way.
8. A fish bowl with a fish in it. If it had "So Long..." written on it I could accept it. If the fish was a small, yellow, leech-like and very odd Babel Fish instead of a generic goldfish I could accept it. It doesn't and I don't.
9. An electric guitar. This one puzzles me the most. The rest I can identify at least, as poorly designed as they are, but I can't think of a single guitar in the whole saga. Can some correct me? Maybe they were thinking of Red Dwarf...
10. This one is the real kicker: an analogue watch. This is the one that proves that whoever designed these stickers didn't give a shit about Hitchhiker's Guide. Anyone who's read the first book, listened to the first radio series, or watched the TV series will know that the whole joke here is about digital watches. Whoever pulled these stickers off Clip Art didn't know their Gargle Blasters from their gold brick to the head.

Oh, and there's the small matter of a new book coming out, not by Douglas Adams, which is being released on my birthday. Gee, thanks world.

- Chris "Pissed at Eoin Colfer and SciFiNow" Capel

Shh... Alpha Protocol release date, keep it under your hat!

Okay, now what the fuck is up with the release dates this year? First pretty much every game was delayed to "give it the time needed", or in Activision's case in a surprise moment of honesty, "not come out within three months of Call of Duty: Overpriced Warfare 2". While it's good that publishers are trying to thin out the number of games released in the always crowded Christmas period, they're all delayed to the same time next year - meaning the first few months of 2010 is going to be equally crowded!

To be honest, it's not the slipping, it's the ones that just slip out of my grasp that annoy me. I'll be going to China for a good long while on 23rd October, so that's the last possible day for me to buy a game from the shops. So when Dragon Age slipped from that week to just two weeks later, that made me annoyed. Oh, I'll still be able to download it (LEGALLY), but the install's about 20Gb with discs! Borderlands, if you slip too, I'll be ticked off.

But I'm more worried about Alpha Protocol.

Now I've got lots of hopes and worries about this game anyway. Right now the game is down for an 'October' release. That's just a few weeks away and still we don't have a proper release date.

Right now there must be serious arguments in Sega HQ about the game. They've been saying October all year, to slip it now will make them look incompetent and stupid. On the other hand, rushed release dates have spoiled all of Obsidian's other games and will get them some serious marking down if it happens to Alpha Protocol too.

However, there's one day in October that Gamestop is touting (Amazon UK's saying 4th Oct) and that's 27th October. In no way can Sega release an RPG using a Bioware graphics engine and style on that day, for the obvious reason that Dragon Age comes out a week later. No matter how different they are, Bioware are a known quantity for most people. PS3 owners burned by Mass Effect will want to see what the fuss is about, 360 fans of KOTOR and ME will consider it a must-have, and PC owners know Bioware pretty well by now.

So, yeah, don't release Alpha Protocol a week before a Bioware game, Sega. Release it on or before 23rd October, they're the best dates.

- Chris Capel

The Devil Vs The Tingler

You know, I was ready to come here and do a big post about Bobby "CEO of Activision, Blizzard, Sierra, and Hell" Kotick's latest affront to gaming, in which he claims that people are happy with existing franchises and you don't need new IP. But then I started worrying about my immortal soul.

Now, this was going to be a big rant about how Call of Duty isn't that old a franchise really. Furthermore if people don't inevitably get bored with a franchise some company will come along and do it better and more excitingly - which is exactly what Call of Duty did to the formally popular Medal of Honour franchise. Finally, if you don't create new games, where are these magic "old" franchises coming from?

But you know what? I'm not like that. I wouldn't even call Mr Kotick the stupidest most money-grabbing arrogant over-confident CEO prick who's ever put stupid word to mouth. Let's look at his exact words:

"A small segment of very vocal gamers say everything has to be new and different every year. Actually, people are happy with existing franchises, provided you innovate within them."

You see, perfectly reasonable. It's totally true about innovating with franchises. Look at Super Mario for example, he's been going strong since the '80s and people still get excited about his latest games.

Unfortunately, Activision doesn't innovate. Modern Warfare 2, as good as it may be, is not going to innovate. The most innovative thing about World At War was the Nazi Zombies mode, and that only came with one map. And as for Guitar Hero... don't make me laugh.

The most innovative game from Activision this year was, surprise surprise, an original game: Prototype.

More to the point, we're happy with innovation in existing franchises. I agree with that statement. I'm looking forward to Thief 4, Fallout: New Vegas, Deus Ex 3, Doom 4, Mass Effect 2, and indeed Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. The trouble is I'm more looking forward to Borderlands, Dragon Age: Origins, Rage, Alpha Protocol, Scribblenauts, and Batman: Arkham Asylum (technically a franchise, but the first in a proper Batman series anyway).

Oh, fuck it, what am I on about? This guy's Satan and he's only saying this stuff to make excuses for pumping out the same shit every year and inflating the price for each instalment. Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 in 2011 will cost £70, you mark my words. Go back to Hell, Kotick.

Bobby Kotick pictured in his usual office under the Earth's crust.

- Chris Capel

Wot is Welsh?

Wales. Yeah, apparently it is in fact a real place inhabited by like five or six people. I'm as surprised as you are. I always thought "Welsh" was just a funny accent, and a word you might use to describe the clearing of your throat, but apparently it's a real language that people actually speak. In the mythical land of Wales. All five or six of them.

Anyway, apparently the five or six people in Wales who actually speak this strange language, "Welsh", would like a particular popular computer game to be translated into their native language.




So, I find myself wondering...of these five or six mythical "Welsh" people, how many of them actually speak Welsh? And how many of those don't actually speak English?


- Brax

Genesis of the Tingler

Here is my online name's origin story.

I wish horror films were still made like this. It certainly deserves to be counted as one of the Top 20 Most Dangerous Films ever made. Out of that list, it's the only movie that's ever physically attacked the audience!

I fucking love Plants Vs Zombies

Anyone who's been on a game site in the last couple of months can't have failed to notice the ads for a crappy game called Evony. Not that the game itself is worthwhile in any way (being a shit Civilisation rip-off that charges you for play), but the ads themselves have actually drawn more criticism than the game itself. The game doesn't even really feature women at all, let alone Nuts models to save.

Fortunately though, PopCap have noticed all this and responded in the best way possible with their latest ad campaign for Plants Vs Zombies:

- Chris C

I© Own™ ¥our $oul

Without wanting to sound like a stereotypical idealistic student-type with nothing better to do than whine about the many injustices of the world, I'm going to have a good old whine about one of them

Patents and IP and all that shit.

While, as an aspiring writer, I find myself frothing at the mouth over any tale of plagiarism, there is a limit to that which I believe one can claim ownership of, at least in terms of ideas and intellectual property.

Not too long ago, I read the following piece on Kotaku, detailing a patent for drop in/drop out coop gameplay, and it made me think. What if, back in the day, id had decided to patent many of the FPS gameplay mechanics that Wolfenstein and Doom made so popular? What if someone had patented the idea of looking down and seeing your own legs while in a first person perspective? What if someone had patented the idea of weapons with alternate fire modes? If everyone owned every gameplay concept, gaming history would be a hell of a lot less interesting.

I remember playing one of the Broken Sword games, and marvelling at its installation process and the fact that, rather than have me sitting there bored, it gave me a little mini-game to play while I waited. This was a fantastic idea. Not only was I mildly entertained and distracted during the lengthy installation, but I couldn't help but respect the developer's attention to detail and dedication to the spirit of entertainment. And that was the last time I saw such a mini-game. For years I wondered why nobody had caught onto the idea of installation/loading screen games, until someone told me (think it was Steve) that they couldn't. That somebody owned the idea. Somebody whose games I didn't generally play, and who clearly could not be arsed with the idea anyway.




I'm all for the protection of intellectual property...but surely there's a line to be drawn between protecting your interests against those who might simply steal from you and profit by it, and jealously warding off competition 308 to the point of shitting 311 on anyone who might prove to *be* competition by claiming ownership of concepts that are, when you think about it, borderline abstract. It's a wonder nobody has patented the first person perspective really, or the presence of characters with both left and right legs...or, hell, simply the concept of "a computer game".

Can you imagine how many writers would be fucked if similar things happened in the literary world? Nobody could ever be "inspired" by the works of other writers, for fear of being mashed into the ground, legally speaking, by some publisher who had once patented the idea of "a person or group of people who live through a dramatic series of events, learn important life lessons, face overwhelming odds and eventually prevail". Hell, they'd be lucky to write a prologue without discovering that someone owned the concept.

You know what? Here's mine:

I'm gonna patent the idea of an omnipotent supernatural entity that created the universe and everything in it, occasionally interacts with mankind by means of miracles, magic, angelic visitations, burning bushes and ethereal voices, may or may not have a beard and lives in the clouds surrounded by annoying fuckers that play harps incessantly. Ergo, I own god.
In fact, no, wait...fuck it, I'm gonna patent reality. Ergo, I AM god.


In other news,
experts have been discussing the possible repercussions of advanced AI, such as viruses that mimic human interaction with the digital world for the purposes of identity theft, or the "Skynet Scenario", as I'd like to call it;

"a runaway chain reaction of machines capable of building ever-better machines."

Of course, they're a bit late. In my opinion, Skynet has already planned our downfall in the form of Conficker.


- Brax

Why F.E.A.R. 2 Was Crap

This wasn't in it.

- Chris C

Rage Gives Me Rage

Way to alienate your entire fanbase, John Carmack:

Game is being developed with controller first in mind (X360 pad on PC version demo'ed) because Carmack says, "...the largest chunk of our market's going to be on the consoles."

Gee, thanks id Software!

Furthermore, reading all the information on that website, one thought came to mind (apart from things to do with every single copy of Wolfenstein and Carmack's arse):

"Isn't that Fallout?"

- Chris C

I'msorrywhut?

So here I am, having vanished yet again (due in no small part to University cock-ups and my subsequent need to hide in a small hole and play games until 5am). I survived not only another week being molested by Dave and Steve at PCZ, but also the worryingly obsessive 105 hours spent in Fallout 3 (more on that story later).

In the meantime, I just thought I'd have a good short bitch about something.

Bioshock team's next project more "ambitious" - Kotaku


Uhuh. "More ambitious" than anything they've ever done? "Substantially more ambitious than Bioshock"?

What, you mean like...System Shock 2?


- Brax

We don't care about the young folks

Now this caught me by surprise. I'd been looking forward to Call of Juarez: Bound In Blood for a while and I've nearly finished it. In fact I'm fairly certain I'm on the last level,
ominously set in the same fort I bitched about recently. I was also really enjoying Fallout 3, which is still very new. Plants Vs Zombies also took up a bit of my free time too.

And then, out of nowhere, I got hit with a retro vibe. Instead of finishing Call of Juarez, I've returned to Return To Castle Wolfenstein. Instead of killing Super Mutants with my dog friend in Fallout 3, I've got back into the Clone Wars in Republic Commando. Instead of killing Michael Jackson as a zombie (ahem) I've insulted pirates and enslaved monkeys in Secret of Monkey Island.

Of course I'm blaming LucasArts for most of this. Releasing a load of their old classic games of Steam along with a really cheap Special Edition of one of the greatest and funniest games ever made? Sold. Wolfenstein's Activision's fault though, delaying the game for two weeks and reminding me how much I preferred RTCW to Medal of Honour.

Now with Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 up to fifty-fucking-five pounds I'm actually looking forward to Raven's attempt.

Although I'm sure I'll get halfway through it and start playing Blood instead.

Coincidence?

Turns out I'm actually a German writer, journalist, actor and model. Won a few awards too. Who knew?

Wait a minute, that's the life I want! DAMN YOU PHILIPP TINGLER!

Smug git.

- Chris 'Not P. Tingler' Capel

Dragon Age, by... who, again?

Here's an interview with Bioware's Ray Muzyka about Dragon Age: Origins.

Here's what I was thinking while watching it:

The Witcher, The Witcher, The Witcher, yeah right, you said that about Mass Effect, The Witcher, The Witcher, we getting a story or something? It looks like a MMO! A book, like The Witcher, backstabbing Bioware saying its just as good on consoles when you just said PCs were the only platform getting the quest editor, The Witcher, is that a console screen in the background? The Witcher... ooh, October 23rd? Cool!

- Chris Capel

Merge For The Kill!

Developers, merge and form Devastator!

Sorry for the crappy Transformers reference, I'm just trying to put a lighter spin on June Merge Week as it's beginning to be known.

First Bethesda purchases id Software yesterday, today EA staples together Mythic and Bioware. Tomorrow Valve is becoming 2K Steam.

So what does this mean for us? That some great developers aren't as independant or free from publisher messing around as we'd hoped? I think that should be obvious now. Ensemble Studios never made a bad game that wasn't successful, and Microsoft destroyed them. Irrational Games sold their souls to 2K to make Bioshock a success, the game paid for it, and they're not even allowed to touch the sequel. Westwood and Bullfrog got devoured whole by EA, and all they'd done was make great genre-defining games. Lionhead have lost Peter Molyneux and must surely be on their way out. Rare is now making casual games and 360 avatar clothing.

I'm more interested in what will happen with the games. I doubt Bioware will change much, but poor Mythic feel like they've just been trodden on. I'd hoped EA were past this stage. Bioware have already made their mistakes.

It's the id Software buyout that has me raising my eyebrows. They've been with Activision for years, and it's obvious they don't like what that publisher's become now. Even Rage is still down for being EA published instead. I'll give John Carmack some due for being honest, but mostly to this quote:

"We're not going to change the kinds of games we make…. It allows us to accelerate the growth of our internal studios, so we can focus on making all of our internal games as opposed to working with external partners where there has been a step down in quality..."

Heh. Not liking the look of Wolfenstein either, John? Still, about damn time. Doom 3 came out five years ago, and all we've had since then are ports. Rage isn't due out until next year, and it's looking... unexciting so far. Maybe if id stop worrying about making a new engine from scratch for every game and hoping to rely on licensing to keep them going (which backfired with the D3 engine), and instead work on making games, maybe they wouldn't be selling out. And hopefully now they'll stop getting Raven to make their games...

Oh, and 2K Boston's days are numbered. You know I'm right.