The Benefits of Low Tech...

If you're not aware of it, most computer games use advanced features on graphics cards and, since these graphics processes occur in between the main board and the monitor, all you see if you try to remote into your computer and play them is a black screen. Sure you could loop the video output back into a video capture board and look at that remotely, but then you introduce an intolerable amount of lag. Trust me... not worth the effort.

I just got done writing my review of Game Dev Tycoon for the PC and, while there's not a way to play Steam games on iPhones or iPads, the graphics requirements are low enough that you can remote into a computer and play it remotely, using LogMeIn, for example.

I actually made use of this while reviewing it. I played it on my gaming rig, primarily, but I also used LogMeIn to play it on my iPad and even my iPhone. Up until the very late stages of the game, the pacing isn't too frantic and there aren't a lot of things going on at once, so it's reasonable enough to play on touch screen devices.

On StupidGamer.com's"The incestuous relationship between games journalists and PR"

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The following is a reply to an article on StupidGamer.com:
 The incestuous relationship between games journalists and PR

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I agree with everything Jeff Rivera said... to a point. What people have to realize (and remember) is that most game PR and game developers love games. They are gamers who found a way to earn a living while keeping involved in videogames. Members of the gaming media also love games and, often, have future aspirations of getting into game development or PR in the future. Some aren't just casual friends and acquaintances; some play games together online. The simple fact is that PR people are going to be more forthcoming and friendly with those who are friendly back, show interest in the product and, yes, are impressed by a given game. Something to bear in mind when it comes to previews, however, is there may still be changes made later, so a preview may point out the good points and gloss over the weak spots - especially if there is talk that those areas are still being worked on.

I have been flown in to press events where a nice spread of food was made available to everyone and seen a few members of the press sneak off with PR people to get some "real food" as Jeff Rivera recounts. However, I have also overheard a local journalist condemning other members of the media for flying in, accepting accommodations and eating the provided food, accusing those members of the media as being, "on the take," and "obviously biased." We'll presume for the point of argument that the local guy brought his own food, paid for his own gas and didn't accept anything from the company. For the sake of argument.

Do large mega-corporate gaming media outlets get scoops? Sure. Is this unfair? Of course not. If you went to work for the mega-corporate gaming media outlet, you too could get some inside information. If you start your own mega-corporate gaming media outlet, you could do so on your own terms. If you can put your opinions and analysis in front of bazillions of people, you'll find that people will shower you with money, gifts, perks, scoops... and be oh-so-concerned about your personal opinion. Why would those companies give an exclusive to a small site with a limited readership when they could give it to a mega-corporation who, for enough money, will say whatever they want? The only reason is that with enough elbow-rubbing, yea-saying, schmoozing and bribery, the resulting message is worthless. The first time some poorly-made game gets glowing reviews, it sells a lot of copies and the game developers, publishers and PR people are pleased with their sales, if not their product. As this happens more and more, however, the gamers will start to distrust the mega-corporate gaming media outlet. Soon, it doesn't matter what they say, because no one believes any of it, anyway. Then the mega-corporate gaming media outlet finds that their ad revenue begins to fall off, as fewer people think it's worth it to buy the magazines for the screen shots and look for other websites with information on the game. The problem is, companies want to control what gets said about their games, so behind every news story is a carefully crafted press release - the same press release is typically behind every story that comes out at the same time, regardless of the media outlet.

It would behoove PR companies to find ways to select some unique "mini-scoops" to divide up between the various media outlets they deal with. This could be details on character classes, character or vehicle models, game modes or even just unique screen shots. If every site had its own unique information, rather than the same press release, games would get more coverage and gamers would actually find useful information from reading articles from the game on multiple websites. In this way, the various media outlets could all get their little something "extra." Would it take effort? Sure, but the results could be coverage that's more valuable to the game companies, the media outlets and the readers. And the mega-corporations shouldn't get too bent out of shape; they still have their big scoops to tell everybody about.

So what's in an MMORPG?

I recently had the agonizing pleasure of reviewing Gods & Heroes: Rome Rising. I love the game; it's almost like it was made specifically for me... but, I'm not everyone, and there were some features that people tend to expect from an MMORPG that it doesn't have out the box. Mind you some of these are specifically mentioned as upcoming features in the FAQ on the game's official website, but they're not in the game at launch.

Specifically, Gods & Heroes currently has no PVP gameplay. You can't attack other players, period. You can play alone or you can work with friends (or strangers, for that matter) to go up against more powerful enemies and to conquer the dungeon areas, but you can't attack other players. In most MMORPGs, there are generally two sides (factions) and you select which side you are on when you create your character, then there is generally some provision for attacking other players from the other faction, and often even a "duel" option that allows players to challenge other players to a fight, on an "opt-in" basis. Some games have specific servers set up for PVP gameplay, which essentially means that you've opted in by creating a character on that server. Gods & Heroes doesn't offer any sort of PVP gameplay, even though one of the character classes in the game is Gladiator. Since the "bad guys" faction are NPCs and all players are Romans, I don't see how Faction PVP could be easily worked into the game, but I can imagine the gladiator arenas being brought into play, which could be a nice way to handle duels.

Also missing from Gods & Heroes is any crafting or harvesting, although both are planned post-launch features, and Magnolia bushes can already be found and the act of harvesting them can be performed (although I don't think you actually gain anything from it, just yet). When I play games that have crafting and harvesting, I will do a decent amount of it, but I don't typically make it my focus, so I can't say I missed it much.

So, the question comes down to what exactly is needed for an MMORPG these days? IS PVP gameplay a must-have? Does a game HAVE to have factions? Are crafting and harvesting important MMORPG activities or just ways to keep easily bored players busy? If I can get new items and armor from enemy drops and/or by buying it from vendors, how important is it that someone in Colorado can make a tunic for me, when it comes down to it?

This is just questions, without any real answers, but it seems to me that a lot of "neat" features that have sprouted in MMORPGS have gotten swept up into the common recipe, without necessarily deserving a permanent place as a staple of the genre.

As for Gods & Heroes: Rome Rising, what has been delivered so far (at launch) seems like it has very little focus on the online aspects. It seems like it could have been a perfectly good RPG, without being an MMO. As it is, the value of the game for a player who likes Gods & Heroes with just its current features is reduced by the fact that you have to pay a monthly fee and the fact that, should the game not prove to be popular enough and the servers get turned off, then you can't continue to play the PVE parts, because the game requires a backend server to run.

So, thoughts? Is PVP a must-have for an MMORPG? And what of crafting? harvesting / mining? auctions?

LittleBigPlanet: To Infinity and Beyond...

So, I just got done writing my review of LittleBigPlanet 2.

It is truly an amazing game...

LBP2 allows you to tweak gameplay enough that you can now make levels of a variety of types of genres. Want to make a side-scroller? Go ahead. An old school Space Invaders type game? It's not only possible, but part of one of the levels in "Cosmos" (in the main storyline) actually features this game mechanic at one point. You can ride on things, manipulate gravity, make set pieces invisible, make your own music... and make it interactive... all without having to know anything about programming.

The Community is coming out with some cool things. I am impressed with some of the things I'm seeing and hope to make some levels, myself, and do an article on the experience at some point in the future.

LittleBigPlanet 2 could really be a "game changer" (pardon the pun). How can a "tweaker" be satisfied with a typical tweaker game when a precedent has been made for a game that lets you make your own whole games with in-game editing tools without downloading anything extra... and all on a console? I won't be surprised to see the next wave of game designers referencing LittleBigPlanet 2 in some future interviews, when asked where they got their start.

There's a lot of creative power in LBP 2, and it's made as accessible as one could possibly hope. The game also allows you to use DLC from LittleBigPlanet. And, to top it all off, it includes Sackboy's Prehistoric Moves on the disc. All these, combined with the fact that I can't see anything wrong with the game at all... and the fact that LBP2 is a major improvement over LittleBigPlanet, which, itself, received a 100% has lead me to award LittleBigPlanet 2 an unprecedented 101%. I don't know if my editor will let that stay, or if it will get 'normalized' down to 100%, but, just in case, I wanted to state, for the record, that LittleBigPlanet 2 is nothing less than stellar and should be a must-buy for anyone with an Internet connection and a PS3 who thinks they might be interested in making games.

Modding Gratuitous Space Battles

I am a gamer, a tinkerer and a programmer. This led me to dabble in game development (I started my own game development company, but that hasn't gone anywhere... where does the time go?) and to try my hand at modding videogames. While some major videogame companies will create a game and then make editing tools available so players can make their own maps, scenarios or what-not, my favorite games to mod are often games by indie developers which don't have game editing tools, but do little to nothing to obscure their art assets and other interesting files. I enjoy spelunking through the files to find out what makes a game tick and then changing those files to customize the game.

I recently reviewed Gratuitous Space Battles: Collector's Edition, and enjoyed it quite a bit. In fact, I asked Psibabe to request it for me after seeing an banner ad for it and checking the game out. The idea of creating my own space ships and then pitting fleets of them against a rival fleet seemed like it would be fun, and the fact that you have to predetermine your tactics before the battle begins, by giving your units "Orders" only sweetened the deal, in my eyes. However, I was a little bit disappointed to find that I was only able to outfit my own ships from the included hulls; I couldn't design ships that looked like whatever I wanted.

This was quickly alleviated, however, when I poked around the files. I was quickly able to locate where backgrounds were kept, and just as quickly able to use Google to locate some amazing deep space photography I could use as backgrounds. I was able to find where the name randomizers were located and very quickly able to follow the format of the name choice list to make my own, adding in one for Star Wars names, Klingon Names, the elements, and US Battleships. The existing randomizers could be modified just as easily.

I also located the images for the ships. These came in three flavors: the ship itself, the ship with battle damage, and a burnt-out hull. A few minutes on Google and I had found a good top-down image of the Millennium Falcon. I cropped, rotated, cleaned up and scaled the image to match that of an existing Crusier (the Rebels' Minotaur) and created my own damaged and burnt-out hull versions. I then replaced the files for one of the ships with my own versions (and moved the original copies into a different folder structure for safe keeping) and voila! The Minotaur hull now looked uncannily like a Corellian freighter that any scruffy-lookin' nerf herder might own.

This was all well and good, but this ship simply putted around the battlefield. I expected a bit more speed from the Falcon, so I copied and edited one of the Cruiser engines. I started with the top notch engine and from there, added a zero to the end of the speed value, bumping it up a level of magnitude. I saved that with a new name (I christened it the "Infinity Drive") and loaded the game up to give it a test. It was there, it looked just like the engine I'd copied it from (I didn't change the icon), and... it was locked. Nice. The game keeps track of what you've gotten access to and if anything new shows up, it's locked until you buy it with "Honor" (a "currency" gained by winning battles decidedly). This wasn't a problem, as I had already cloned and modified a level, upping my budget but not modifying the enemy forces, resulting in a major victory and enough spending cash to finish unlocking whatever I had left to unlock at the time. So, after buying my engine, I swap it into my Millennium Falcon and give it a spin. It's faster. (Duh - about 10 times faster) But, somehow... it's still not quite got the "oomph" I wanted. No problem; I exit the game, add another zero at the end, save my engine and return for another shot. This time, the Falcons (betcha can't deploy just one) are out-pacing the fighters. I gave a few of them orders to "Keep Moving" and let them loose on a much larger opposing force and watched gleefully as everything that shot at them missed woefully. My fleet of Falcons were pretty much spinning like tops, but they were making swiss cheese (you know, the kind with holes) out of the enemy.

That's where I stopped. For now. I had finished my review, and as a game reviewer, I rarely get to revisit even my old favorites. However, I think I might look into creating an expansion pack for Gratuitous Space Battles... or, perhaps, an editor of some sort. It would be a nice game dev-ish programming project. Oh, and, no... don't expect to see me come out with a Star Wars expansion pack... I believe in licenses. What you roll up and mod for your own enjoyment is one thing, but selling - or even giving away - someone else's intellectual property is just wrong. I am sure that (if they decided to) Lucas Arts could make a much better Star Wars expansion pack for Gratuitous Space Battles than I could.

At any rate, it was really interesting to see how dynamically coded Gratuitous Space Battles is. Getting a level to show up in the level list is a matter of making a level configuration file and putting it in the correct folder. Adding a random name generator is as simple as duplicating the format with your own list and saving it in the right place - the name that shows in the game is the filename of the random name file. Simplicity itself. The backgrounds are easy to simply drop in. The ships images are easy to add, and, once in place, some animations (such as the particle effects on the damaged ships and the parts of the broken hull rotating aimlessly - and separately) are simply taken care of behind the scenes. The engine I made showing up to be bought is another example... this game has a lot of automation in putting gaming assets in to play. This makes it really easy to mod - for the player community or, for that matter, for the developers.

For the joy of playing and ease of modding Gratuitous Space Battles, I say "Kudos" to Positech Games!