Nami Bits 1

Hey all,

I haven't posted for aaaaagessss :(
But I made this! Yay!

Nami is my favourite character and I'm hoping to make a full series of them.

Until Dawn came along with her big mouth!

I play too much League of Legends, so I barely find time to play any other games which I can then go on to discuss with you. But an unusual thing happened lately, I started to feel that I had played TOO MUCH LoL! *Gasp* So I am going to take advantage of that and start a new game.

Hayden Panettiere is in this.

I chose Until Dawn, a survival horror by theme, but less Silent Hill and more Heavy Rain by style. I didn't know this (I hadn't read anything about it) and that possibly affected my judgement of the first two hours. I'm about 2 1/2 hours in and so I may have to come back to this when I am done and do a 'part 2', as I may be wrong about it!

*SPOILERS?* 

I'm not going to discuss specific story points, but I am going to discuss the form of the game.

I started playing Until Dawn with the lights off, it's one of those games; horror, scares, atmosphere, tension, right? The set up is more like a TV drama though, with a cast of main characters and an HBO opening sequence. The structure splits the game into 'scenes' where the different characters do their own thing and then reconvene, and after about an hour or so you get a 'Previously on Until Dawn' section, which recaps the story so far. I found this to be the singularly most annoying thing about the game. I had only played for an hour, did the developers REALLY think that I would have forgotten what had happened already? It wasn't like I had last played a week ago, I had JUST done it!

How do I make Mike into the biggest douchebag?

The cast seems to be made up of teenagers (though some are questionably in their 30's) and you get to play as each character from time to time. They have individual personalities and complex relationships with each other, which you can nurture or hang out to dry through your actions. (I have only just realised this, so now I am going to be angling for some Dragon Age style same gender relationships or something). Most of the characters are annoying dimwits though, so most of my decisions (see below) were based on that. It's set in a huge isolated ski lodge with NO PARENTS and the biggest bath you have ever seen, so it is time to 'party like porn stars'. Oh and to remember what happened here exactly a year ago when two of our friends went missing. Bummer. Conveniently we are all back together and there is no phone signal. Let's hope we all stay safe this time!

The first time the gang got together, such fun!

You really don't 'play' much of this game. There is a lot of pressing buttons when you are prompted. This gets mighty tedious, pretty quick, and the game is possibly too hand-holdy. If you enjoy opening drawers (who doesn't!?!?!) then you will love this game. Like many games with an explore element you have to find clues. You spot the shining white dot that signifies something to investigate, walk over, an X appears on the screen (yes I get it- dur) and once pressed your character will position themselves to open/pick up whatever you have found. But you have to press another button to do this. These characters are so dumb they can't do anything for themselves. 'You want me to look in this drawer? Sure, I'll just bend down and place my hand nearby. Let me know when you are ready for me to ACTUALLY open this drawer.' I press R2. 'Okily-dokily, let's open the drawer!' Maybe not so dumb that they can't open the drawer, but so dumb that they are not trusted to open the drawer without supervision.

Heroic, obviously!

Sometimes you have a time limit in which to press the correct button which does add a bit more energy and engagement to the game. I have never quite learned which side square and circle are on, much like I have never really mastered left and right, so there were some panicky moments when I scrabbled to press the right one (remember I was playing in the dark). When you wait so long for something to do which isn't just walking or opening drawers, these quick time events (QTEs) are sweet relief, but annoying when your hands and brain are out of practice and you fuck it up. When I finally got to shoot something I was all in a tizz because the controller wasn't inverted (my preferred style) and there is no option to do this. But when I realised that this isn't a shooting game, but is actually a 'point your reticle at a shape on the screen and click a button game' then that made all the difference and I could relax.

I can't wait for the sex QTEs though. They have been so tantalisingly promised but have so far not materialised. We just walked/ran in sheer terror really freaking far to a remote cabin and now I have to light a fire before I get some. I'm guessing that I will have to press some buttons to do that. FML. The one opportunity I had so far to kiss someone I chose not to because the guy was a dick.

I think they wanted to call it 'The Butterfly Effect'.

Along the way you are making decisions that affect the game- the butterfly effect (as we are reminded over and over through dialogue, imagery, game mechanics etc.) is very much a whoop-ass force here so you have to think about how you respond. Or not, it's my first playthrough so I don't really care about which ending I get. Sometimes the choices are too binary though, you only get two and they don't always cover exactly how you would like to respond, like telling Emily how incredibly loathsome she is.

So do I like this game? I decided I'd played enough for one session and wanted to turn it off, but in the same way that I would accidentally get drawn into the OC or One Tree Hill (despite it being overly dramatic drivel) I found myself wanting to watch a little bit more. Wait did I type 'watch'?

There are some good dramatic scenes (I would usually write set pieces, but interactivity is so low that they don't even count as that), the consequences storyline is an interesting one, there are some scares that genuinely made me jump, the voice acting is mostly very good and against all odds it has me hooked and I do want to finish it at least once. Women are subtly sexy and sexual without wearing next to nothing- because why would you wear any less? It's got to be pretty freezing up that mountain. Puffer jackets and body warmers, yes please.

I had a dream about that magnificent bath last night, so that clearly stuck with me.

Games I played when...I was 16

Playing LoL the other day I happened to be matched with a bunch of very pleasant chaps, and we decided to play a few games together. It's quite rare to meet people who are this nice and fun to be around online, so it was great to be able to get to know them. On talking to them a bit I learned that some of them were only 16, which made me feel mega old!

It got me thinking about the games I played when I was 16. I got my first PC when I was 16, and it was the family's PC so had to be shared. It spent a little time in my Mum and Dad's bedroom, and then eventually found it's way into the dining room. It had no internet, and it had a 486 motherboard, and (I think) 4mb of RAM. It ran on Windows 95 which was practically space-age at the time. I remember watching Weezer's Buddy Holly video over and over again, which I found easily because my other fascination with the computer was being able to open folders, create folders, move stuff and delete stuff (remember how the page of paper would disintegrate as it approached the bin?)

 

It was time I put the computer to better use. I wrote a play set in 1950's America completely in wordpad. And then I lost it. I used it to listen to Oasis CDs; I had a 100 years of the Daily Mail CD-ROM which I occasionally used for homework, and I drew stuff in paint (something all ages can relate to!)

But really I just wanted the computer to play games on! So in tribute to those jolly young fellas, here are the top 5 PC games that I played when I was 16. I have had to borrow some videos from YouTube for this, as I don't own all the games anymore. 

1. X-Wing

This was around the time when we were anticipating the re-release of the Star Wars films, and X-Wing filled that gap perfectly. You got to pilot an X-Wing and take part in missions that took place in the Star Wars universe. Rumour had it you could actually do the deathstar trench run, but I never got that far. About four missions in I was tasked with catching up with a freighter ship that was about to enter hyperspace. I could never catch it, try as I might. I have no idea what it was that I was doing wrong. I'd asked R2 to redirect all the power away from the shields and lasers and into speed, but I could never get there. The freighter would disappear off the edge of space and I'd have to return back to base embarrassed.

Watch this guy do a better job than me.

Skip to 2.51 to get to the game itself.

2. Doom

So violent! I can't believe my parents let me play this. Perhaps they had no idea that's what I was doing. I don't remember the music in my version, perhaps it just didn't work. So much stuff just didn't work back then, and I had no idea whether it should be working or not. Remember there was no internet to consult, and none of my friends played PC games :(

Anyway I'm pretty certain I used the arrow keys to move around, I don't think a mouse was involved. I remember the noise of the doors opening and what BFG stood for (tee hee hee).

3. Command and Conquer

Now when you watch this video you might be surprised by how low-fi and crappy it looks. But I see it and think- Oh Yeahhhhh! Everything about it seems so familiar like this is the only version of Command and Conquer. Those Power stations, tanks, APCs, soldiers- that's what all power stations, tanks, APCs and soldiers should look like. This was such a seminal game for me that any RTS had this to answer to first. How good is this compared to Command and Conquer? Hmm?

I loved the base building missions, not so much the 'protect this person' missions.

Skip to 1:07 for actual gameplay.

4. Age of Empires

A little bit of a cheat, I was actually 17 when I played this. For some reason we seemed to get this pretty quickly after it came out, which was unusual as my family had no idea about the latest releases back then. My favorite way to play was to set up a custom game of 20 minutes with 3 AI opponents. Then I would see who could get the highest score in that time. I just loved the base building part of the game so much that I could just do that over and over and over again. It also meant that I pretty much always won (tee hee). Who needs war anyway? I seem to remember that they removed this type of custom game in the sequels, and so the original AoE was a staple for me until it would no longer run on my computer :(

5. Street Fighter II

Just see how long you can watch this for before the music does your head in. For some reason we never had Street Fighter II on the Mega Drive (our console of choice) but we bought it for the PC. Controls-wise, I'm not sure if that made much sense. I did enjoy button mashing, but I can't say I was very good at this. My brother used to beat me, and that made me very cross.

Special mention goes to: Minesweeper

Who would have thought that there was another Mine related computer craze that wasn't Minecraft. Preceding it by 21 years, Minesweeper was a classic. Pro tip for you all for your minesweeper speed runs- press both left and right mouse buttons to clear away more empty spaces.
Writing this blog made me want to play, so I searched for it on my computer- and it ISN'T ON WINDOWS 8.1! WHAT???? So I had to go here to play http://minesweeperonline.com/

Thank you minesweeper for all the hours. (Of fun, frustration and flipping hell).

I am better than this really, I'm just out of practice

Goodbye PlayStation Home

Today marks a sad event in video games history- the closure of PS Home. It happened just over an hour ago, and even though I wasn't a regular visitor I feel a great sense of melancholy.

Many people I know worked on Home and it became such a strong feature of their lives. From the animator who designed the 'running man' dance, to the designer who created Scribble Shooter, to the developer who voiced the elf in the Xmas Event 2013, and to the producer who loved Home like no other, nurturing it, communicating with fans about it, visiting it regularly.

She understood it's potential, just like many others did. A niche who were loyal to the end. A fanbase who had great times there, made friends and lasting loving relationships. They spent a lot of money there too; some are disappointed that they won't be seeing a refund. Such is the nature of digital content I suppose, whilst you might feel you own the item. You don't own the infrastructure that it needs to exist.

I messaged her last night to tell her that I would be thinking of her as she pressed the button to take Home offline. And this morning, I was. At 8am on the dot I thought of her, pressing that button and saying goodbye to a huge part of her life.

We are all sad that the closure of Home wasn't marked in a more commemorative way. This was left to the fans to organise themselves and I'm sure they did a good job of that. It just felt a little like Sony let Home slowly die quietly, rather than hosting a huge 'bon voyage' party and inviting everyone it once knew.

Even with that said, well done to Sony for taking a risk and for believing in it for so long. Just a shame that it couldn't continue.
Congratulations to London Studio for what you achieved. It is unprecedented and will go down in history, whichever way it is written.

Goodbye PSHome, you will be missed.

Meta-critic

Hey all!

Welcome back, to you and to to I.
Does absence make the heart grow fonder?

I haven't played a FPS in years. When League of Legends came along it occupied my gaming space like no other game had ever done before, and I found I had no time for other games. Gaming ceased to be my hobby, League of Legends became my hobby. Playing LoL, watching LoL, reading about LoL, patching LoL, trying out the new game modes, shopping for new skins and champs, stressing about ranked. You can see why it pretty much becomes a full-time occupation.

When I started streaming at the start of the year I started off with LoL, either NAMI TIME! <3 <3 <3 (for ranked games) or ARAM TIME! <3 <3 <3 (for ARAM, obviously). But as you know I got next to no views and I started to wonder what else people might like. I also had a bit of a hankering for Left 4 Dead 2. So I streamed a few games of this and it was 50% more popular than my LoL stream. As in, before I would get maybe 2 views, L4D2 brought me 3. Ah well. (I did get my first ever comment of "headshot!", but I didn't reply in time and they soon left.)

What I was most excited about though was the different game experience. I jumped into L4D2 looking forward to the more unrehearsed, panicky, fun moments that this kind of game can bring. After a while, LoL can feel a little formulaic in the way it is played. The pseudo-state of gaming enlightenment that is the 'meta' evolves and the game loses its random nature. New patches go some way to spicing it up a little, but it isn't long before a new meta emerges (just like the Highlander, there can be only one) and cuts the head off the old one. Now everyone must obey the new meta-king.

So I thought that playing L4D2 would be a break from the rigidity of LoL. The summer holidays to the dull but necessary term-time. It was certainly chaotic. It turns out that my friends had been playing this a little in lunch breaks and so had kept up a little practice. I however, had not played it in well over two years.

First challenge, press WASD, not QWER. This is harder than it sounds. QWER is so much more natural for a human hand. Perhaps FPS pro-gamers of the future will have evolved a strange claw where a sixth finger grows out underneath the middle finger and rests beautifully on S.  (Put your fingers on WASD to see what I mean.) After three seasons of QWER my hand had muscle memory and was afraid of change.

Next. Woah, where the hell am I looking? I remember I prefer my mouse inverted. Quick ESC to fix that.

Aaaaand let's go! It was fun! It was panicky! It was fun because it was panicky! But what's that I see emerging through the haze of jolly good freedom? No, surely not. No, it can't be! A meta! A bleeding meta. Just what I'd hoped to avoid. Turns out that the people who never left L4D2 have been secretly plotting and scheming to scientifically calculate the exact route; the exact moments; the exact hiding places; the exact weapons to take; the exact zombies to shoot and the ones to run past etc.

So precisely two rounds after starting to have fun, I stopped. I was getting killed left, right and centre. When I played as an infected, I couldn't find anywhere to spawn; either getting popped immediately or spending my whole time chasing the survivors through the level until the ultimate embarrassment pops up- You are too far away, press E to respawn :( Oh god. I fail at staying alive. I fail at being re-animated.

So onto my next game, Dirty Bomb.

It's a battle based team FPS, with no sign of zombies despite the radioactive threat. But it is new, hurrah! No meta yet, and hopefully never. It's currently in Beta and should be out very soon. I have only played the Objective maps in casual mode but so far I love it. I still am finding WASD difficult, and killing people is not really my speciality, but Dirty Bomb is very inclusive. Come one, come all!

Can't shoot but can press E every 5 seconds? Welcome :D
Don't have a clue about what's going on but can follow your teammates around? Welcome :D
Get confused when you are revived but know that you can press Q for an airstrike? WELCOME :D

It's hard to read, but I'm getting 5XP for putting an ammo pack down here.
You get even more if someone picks it up!

The reason this works is because you get points for practically anything you do that helps the team. The game is so generous in its rewards making it such a positive experience. Even if you are bottom of your team you have probably still racked up 1000+ points, so you know that you are contributing. The games are quick and so before you have done too much wrong it's onto the next map for a fresh battle.

So, for me, right now, Dirty Bomb is a real joy to play and I can't wait until I can run around with friends in there. Thank you Splash Damage/Nexon.

LoL might have to to contact my PA to find a gap in my schedule.

Someone silence that streaming child!

Hey!

After the disappointment of languishing in Bronze 4/5 for the majority of the 2014 season, I have turned my attention to a new challenge. I'm still playing too much LoL, but now I want to share it with the world.

I have been playing around with the idea of streaming games. I like the idea of sharing game experiences (you will know that from my earlier posts), and streaming seems to be the next logical step.

I've watched a few streams of pro LoL players, particularly Krepo and Kev1n and I have enjoyed the level of interaction that this can bring. You can watch them, listen to them, react when they react, join in on jokes and even chat with them (via the chat box, which you type into).

A lot of people use this to goad the person playing, some say offensive things and get kicked, but a lot of people just join in an have a jolly old time.

So it looks fairly easy to do. I have a computer with my game on, internet connection, a headset and a webcam.

What else do I need?

1. An account with www.Twitch.tv. There are other streaming platforms available, but this is the one most gamers use.
2. A program to stream your games. Twitch suggests a few; I went with OBS (Open Broadcaster Software). It is both free and seemingly unlimited in its features. You will need a tutorial to help you set it up though as it is a bit complex.
3, People to watch you. This is what I have struggled with so far. I have had a maximum of 3 people watching me, but no one typed anything into chat, so I guess they could have been some kind of bot.

I'm still learning and trying to overcome the silliness of talking to myself, so I will keep my progress updated here.

If I get more than 3 people watching me I will let you know :D

What have I been up to?

Well, I haven't posted anything for a while!

Got to get back on track and have a little think about what I've been up to since JANUARY! (oops)

I've been learning to code, just a little bit, in JavaScript. So far I have drawn a plate of food, a box with the word 'rug' on it, a frog's face and a pig.

All created in code :D Very proud of myself.

The pig was supposed to resize proportionally, but at the moment it doesn't. I have so much more to learn :D. I have been doing this through Khan Academy and the tutorials are pretty straight forward to follow. You get achievements when you compete tasks too, and you know how I like collecting those :D

So I need to keep going with the coding. I'll keep you up to speed with my next amazing creation!

Cute Picture

Not really an official post, but just a quick one while my game is loading. I won't do too many of these I promise.

This is my cat Fleur watching BoTA with us before Christmas. She just loves LoL.

<3 <3 <3

Cuteness out.

Gaming Holiday

Whoop! Its the Christmas holidays and that certainly means that I have a lot more time on my hands to do a lot more gaming :D.

Except I will be away from my beloved League of Legends for a whole week whilst I am visiting family and I'm sorry if I come across as all teenagery, but that sucks.

Nevermind, there will be other things to play. LoL season 4 doesn't start until January anyway; I am itching to get back stuck into soloqueue though.

So currently on my playlist is Lego: Marvel Superheroes on PS4. This is an old favourite and I'm sure you all know the format. Just that this time it is enormous! You have the whole of central New York to run around and I'm starting to think that it might actually be bigger than Fallout 3.

Contrary to my regular posts, I don't really have a problem with this game, and no philosophical issue to mull over. It's just good fun.

Flying can be a bit tricky, and sometimes it isn't 100% clear what you have to do to advance but for a quick pick-up-and-play it's definitely recommended.

This game was featured in Jon Snow's infamous interview with Charlie Brooker on the PS4.

(I'm sure you've seen this, but you could watch it again!)

In my previous post about Brooker's programme 'How Video Games Changed the World' I argued that video games didn't need this kind of history/beginner's guide documentary because there were plenty people out there who already knew that stuff and we are ready for a programme which will go beyond that and treat video games as more than just a novelty for kids and nerds.

A friend suggested that my argument was null and void because Jon Snow's hapless attempts at even understanding the cut scenes (let alone playing the game) illustrated how un-mainstream they were.

So during this holiday, I will carry out my own experiment and see how my Mum and Dad respond to Lego: Marvel Superheroes. Is everyone of that generation so far removed from video games that they genuinely seem frightened of them?

Or was Snow just trolling Brooker, and us?

Merry Christmas!

How Videogames Changed the World

So how did video games change the world? Charlie Brooker’s prime-time documentary was definitely highly anticipated, and after watching the Brooker vs Snow unterview on Friday, I thought that this would be his chance to speak to a willing audience who had no intention of interrupting him.

But did it answer the question it posed? Did we learn why video games are a really important cultural medium?

Here’s 7 reasons why I felt it unfortunately missed such a huge opportunity to really get to grips with why everyone should start to take games seriously.

1. The Countdown Format

Completely unnecessary and misleading. I would have much preferred it to be structured around theme, or (putting my teacher hat on) argument. What does 25 mean? What does 1 mean? Are we that dumb that we can’t understand something unless it is given a number? (And yes I understand the irony here, I have given a reason for my numbering though.)

2. The History of Videogames

When are we going to move on from Pong? Do we really have to start with that everytime? Whilst video games are still a relatively young medium, if we really want to discuss why they are so pertinent to 2013, then we need to discuss games now. The Pong section was very long in comparison with other more recent games, and I just don’t really feel it added much context.

3. Nostalgia

Why did this potentially groundbreaking documentary have to resort to talking heads telling us ‘how great’ a game was? It couldn’t help degenerating into an ‘I Heart’, full of remember whens and fuzzy memories. This is the kind of cheap television that Mr Brooker has previously slammed, and it is hard to take it seriously once it adopts this style.

This documentary could have been seminal itself, but it seemed to chicken out at the last minute and pander to the (supposed) audience. It was Saturday night, 9pm, on a terrestrial channel after all. I’m sure (and I hope) that this was because some commissioning editor didn’t quite get what it was Charlie Brooker was trying to do, and thought they knew best about the format; so I don’t completely blame Brooker, but was the prime-time slot really worth selling out for?

4. Labrinth’s Tekken contribution.

I loved his contribution to the section on video games music. The idea that his (very popular) songs have been influenced by videogames was an example of how they have changed the world, but it wasn’t really developed and taken seriously enough. However, I really don’t see why we needed the part about him using Tekken moves in a fist-fight. If we are going to say that video games do prompt and suffer from copycat behaviour, then don’t we need to address it a little more and no just laugh it off? Ah the memories...

5. Twitter at #1.

This was a brave move. It is a really interesting concept, and I can see Brooker’s point. But putting it at #1 feels like a gimmick. The gamification of RL is there to be seen, but there are better examples that won’t make the audience think that this isn’t just something that videogames fans have made up to flummox ‘outsiders’. Perhaps Brooker could have discussed something like Nike+ first, and then sashayed into his ‘ahah, blam!’ moment.

6. Contributors ‘fake memories’.

This is more a personal gripe, but I wasn’t too keen on contributors who are clearly not old enough to have played Space Invaders around the time it came out telling us what it was like. There’s no problem with them speaking in the present tense in this case. If we want to speak to people who aren’t already fans of videogames, then we shouldn't speak to them in a way that makes them feel like they aren’t welcome unless they were there in 1978.

7. The Title.

The programme gives itself a tricky job when posing such a grandiose question. Unfortunately it was too distracted to ever give a coherent answer. Too much factual information and memories,  and and not enough argument.

Now surprisingly enough, I still really enjoyed the programme, despite my gripes. That’s because I too am a person that enjoys going ‘oh yeah!’ about each game mentioned (except Elite, I didn’t know that one...) The nostalgic angle is very enjoyable, but I wanted to be educated as well as entertained, and I feel it missed the mark. What could have been a remarkable moment for video games seems to have been lost.