Planet Sillicon

Professor Layton and the Eternal Diva

By blog on Jun. 4, 2010.

Professor Layton and the Eternal Diva, the movie, will ship to our fair shores this September!

I noticed a link on IGN to a review of the movie, and with great trepidation clicked. I was surprised to see that there were only two real gripes with the film, and one of those is a little unrealistic in my mind. Basically, the review suggests that the only two downsides to the film are an overreliance on CGI, and that the production values aren’t as good as Miyazaki and that sort.

I really didn’t expect the film to be as good as a Miyazaki, so that isn’t a problem for me, though the CGI gripe is something that could really bother me, to be honest. I really can’t stand the modern cartoon industry’s overuse of poor CGI, not when there’s such good CGI out there as well as really great traditional animation. If Pixar has shown us anything, it’s that CGI can be fantastic. The new Ironman cartoon, however, shows us that CGI can be really, really crap.

Apparently there’s even puzzles during the film, and the art style is most of the time very faithful to the series. I have to say, after thoroughly enjoying both of the Layton games that I’ve played on the DS, I’m really looking forward to picking up a copy of the film.

There’s something so… nostalgic and quietly humorous about the series that I think could lend itself to film, if done well, but I do think suits the gaming medium more. The sense of exploration, and being the director of that exploration, is a large part of the fun in these games, so I’m not sure how well that would be done in a film by comparison.

Still, the closing comments state that it’ll put a smile on your face, and really, for a fan of the game and someone who’s aware of how terribly game to film crossovers are, that’s a nice assurance.

A long, long awaited sequel

By blog on Jun. 4, 2010.

It’s been ten years. Ten, long years, and I’ve not even played the first one! But Shogun 2: Total War has been announced!

Ten years ago, a game development company called Creative Assembly created an awesome battle simulation game called Shogun: Total War. It was an awesome game, where you commanded armies as a Daimyo and tried to take over the entirety of Japan.

Sounds pretty damn fun, right? Well, from what I’ve heard it was fantastic. Unfortunately I didn’t hear about the game when it was released, too busy with other titles I supposed, and I didn’t get to it before it looked pretty bad on my system. Not to worry, I thought, Creative Assembly will surely be making a sequel, right?

CA went on to make Medieval: Total War, Rome: Total War, Medieval 2: Total War, Empire: Total War, and Napoleon: Total War in the intervening ten years. I thoroughly enjoyed both of the Medieval titles, however Empire was not very fun for me as the time period was far less interesting and I didn’t enjoy the sea battles, and I didn’t play Napoleon at all. I’d sort of given up hope of being able to play an updated version of Shogun, so I’m very happy to see CA going back to where it all started and making a sequel for it.

The teaser trailer has no game play featured as yet, however the visuals included fit perfectly with the art style of the time the game is set – somewhere between 1450 BC to 1600 BC – and are really very well done.

So I’m counting down until this game is released, though I’m thinking I’ll have plenty to fill my time with Civilization V shipping later this year. That title I’m so incredibly excited about, along with Diablo 3 though there’s no firm release date on that one yet.

30 hours into RDR

By blog on Jun. 3, 2010.

Red Dead Redemption. 30 hour in, and what a great 30 hours it’s been!

I meant, initially, to do a post to say how I was going every ten hours or so, but as you can see, that didn’t happen. I’ve been playing quite solidly for the last five or so days and I’m thoroughly enjoying myself.

I’ll start with the only negative to the game, then go through all the positives. I very much dislike the duelling process. Seriously, this is the only game mechanic that feels completely unintuitive and unfairly difficult. There’s never a good in-game tutorial for the process, and it all feels quite arbitrary to be honest, but that’s my only real complaint with the game.

In terms of graphics, the game is beautiful. I’m playing on the 360 and the game runs very smoothly, the load times are short, and the entire world is streamed. There aren’t any loads between indoors or out, and there’s never a hitch to anything. The look of the landscape and animals is really very amazing, though character models could be a little less ugly.

In terms of game mechanics, there’s so much here to appreciate. Riding a horse is amazingly accurate and so is running around on foot. The ‘Dead Eye’ shooting mechanic works very well, and I’m thoroughly enjoying being a crack shot in the wild west of yore.

The story line is also quite good, though being forced to help out the Mexican government for as long as I did, knowing full well they’d betray me any minute, was rather annoying. I did like the slight supernatural inclusion of The Funny Man, who in my opinion was the devil.

The music and ambient sounds of the game are very good, the only exception being the music in Blackwater, which is strangely irritating and too often ominous with no apparent reason save some ambiguous notion of ‘civilisation being bad’ sort of thing. Getting off the train in the game and having that harmonica play, just like so many Western movies was just such an awesome introduction to the game.

Well, I’ve written enough for now, back to the game! I’m into the Tall Trees area, and doing missions around there!

No more Malazan

By blog on Jun. 3, 2010.

No more Malazan for me!

I’ve been toying with putting down Dust of Dreams and taking up another series for a while. Another book might make me appreciate the characters of Malazan again, or something like that. However some aspects of the story were picking up and I was looking forward to seeing where it ended up, so I kept reading.

I’ve put up with a lot from this series and this author. Of the top ten most horrific things I’ve ever read in fantasy, this series would have to have eight places on that list, and the other two actually had merit in the series in which they appear. Erikson has a talent for being a sadistic ass that is often seen in overdrive in these books. But I stuck with it for eight and a half books, and at about half way through book nine, and the ‘Hobbling’ of Hetan, I’ve quit the damn series.

That’s right, Erikson, I was really enjoying the books. That’s right, I did feel that the story was worth the horrible crap you seemed to take pleasure at putting in there. The gratuitous and vile acts, especially towards women and children, that have gone on through this series have been beyond what I’d put up with in a film or television series, but I kept reading because I liked a lot of what was going on. I really enjoyed the immense scale, the inclusion of so many Gods, and the army themselves, the Bridgeburners and the Bonehunters were awesome, well, save the psychos included for no apparent reason.

But yeah, at that one scene, I hated Erikson with a vast and deep passion. I felt violated by the horror of what I read, and thanks to Erikson I’ve read some horrific stuff. So, that’s it. I’ve tried to find a good synopsis of what happens through the book, and I’ve figured out much of what happens, though many of the story lines could use further filling out. I’m not going to buy or read the final book, either, though I will again read a synopsis of it online.

Okamiden

By blog on May. 21, 2010.

I’ve been looking at this upcoming game and it is quite appealing, I have to say.

There are elements from a few previous DS titles that seem very strong in the Capcom title. When I first viewed the trailer it immediately struck me how like Phantom Hourglass the game play was, as well as the cell shaded visuals.

Now, I’m not saying that any cell shaded visual game is like Phantom Hourglass because it’s cell shaded, but it’s the almost puppet show aspect to the visuals. The roiling waves in the background in the opening scene have that sort of feel to them. Of course, the actual game play is also very Zelda reminiscent. The collaboration of the wolf and the boy and the fact that it appears necessary for them to perform attacks together to get past certain parts of the game makes me think strongly of the game-play of Spirit Tracks. I suppose any fantasy DS adventure game is going to immediately bring to mind Zelda, and the comparisons made as a result. The audio of the voices actually reminds me very strongly of Animal Crossing, a sort of jumbled sped-up dialogue where nothing is discernible as a language.

From what I saw the game play looks quite fun, and though I’ve not played any of the Okami games before, it doesn’t seem to be something that’d hinder my enjoyment of the game. A quick read of the Wiki outline of the story and I’m set to go!

On a completely unrelated note, I was cleaning out my desk and found my and my SO’s old mobile phones, which we intend to sell, and I have to say, I love a service that makes it so easy to recycle these sorts of items. When it comes to recycling the energy saving light bulbs or fluorescent lights you’ve got to truck all those things into a local retailer, which in our case is the nearest post office, but that’s still not close. But with this, I just called them and they sent me the envelope! Now, I don’t expect much cash from this, which is why people often think these sorts of mobile phone x change things are scams, because they’re expecting more cash based on the site and it’s high figures for certain phones, but let’s face it, how many people are trading in top of the line products? So why should someone’s four year old mobile phone bring in more than a few pounds? I’m just happy to be able to recycle it without having to drive down to my local post office to do so!

Baldur’s Gate

By blog on May. 20, 2010.

That’s right, I’ve gone back even further!

I’ve been playing Baldur’s Gate II, as I said the other day, but it struck me that I’ve never actually played the original game. I’d actually bought both in a special edition collector’s pack, but upon instillation of the first game, was told in an error message that my copy of the game could only be played in North America.

Yeah, nice one. So I put it in a draw and ignored it for a few years. Well I felt inspired the other day, so I got the discs out – only two of them, as opposed to the original six or seven in total – and loaded it on up. I got the same error message, but I researched it this time and found that BioWare had released a patch to correct the issue.

So with the game patched, and my 3D acceleration on my video card turned down to non-existent, I’ve actually been playing the game. I’m playing it full screen on my 1920×1080 screen, in spite of it’s original resolution of 640×480. At that resolution, if I play the game windowed, it’s just too tiny to see anything. So it’s huge and pixelated, but it’s nice to be able to see everything.

So far I’m noticing that it’s a heck of a lot harder than BGII, for a start you begin at level one, as opposed to level seven. You also don’t get access to a full party straight away, and you can really suffer in fights. I’m playing a Mage, and I started the game with one Magic Missile. You can imagine how many times I’ve reloaded thanks to one or many of my party members dying!

It’s great to see the origins of great characters that I know from BGII, though. Minsc with his witch, Dynaheir, and Jaheira with her husband Khalid. Imoen is very different, too, and it’s sad to see what has happened to her in the later game. All in all I’m very much enjoying myself, and enjoying the tougher challenge!

Nintendo at this year’s E3

By blog on May. 20, 2010.

Nintendo is apparently planning a pretty good line up at this year’s E3.

It’s looking like it will be a pretty big year for Nintendo, and I’m interested to see the reactions after E3 is over. In terms of hardware, Nintendo is going to be showing the new 3DS, which will be great for those of us who are hanging out to see more details of this latest handheld. Nintendo is not the only company going for broke with the whole 3D thing, but theirs is the one that is portable and doesn’t require any peripherals. Quite frankly I’m still very leery of the whole thing, and hope I’m presently surprised.

Software is the key thing for Nintendo this E3, with more information expected on the Wii titles Conduit 2, Epic Mickey, Lost in Shadow, a remake of Metroid: Other M, and of course, the big kicker, Zelda. I pretty much don’t care one little bit about any of the games save Zelda, so I’ll talk about that a little. For the last year we’ve not heard anything on the game. At all. Pretty much since one piece of concept art was released, and a hint that perhaps Link won’t have a sword in this one, we’ve learned nothing in twelve long months. Now, I cherish Zelda games, so it’s pretty frustrating to wait that long with nothing… until now! Or, well, E3. Nintendo has said that they will be showing a great deal on the new Zelda title, including story-line, setting, and a brand new control scheme. I enjoyed the last Zelda DS title, even though trains weren’t really my thing, and I also enjoyed Zelda: Twilight Princess an awful lot, but I’d love to see a soul-sequel to Ocarina of Time, if perhaps with some of the grittiness of Twilight Princess thrown in.

The DS is set to get some groovy new games, too, with Dragon Quest IX, Golden Sun DS, Okamiden, Super Scribblenauts, and Pokémon Black and White. I’m actually quite interested in a few of these games. The Dragon Quest series has been a very enjoyable one, and Golden Sun has also caught my eye. Okamiden has some very cute visuals, but Super Scribblenauts has no interest for me at all. I found the first game tedious, so the second doesn’t seem like a great idea. The Pokémon games are a little interesting, because I do usually give the new ones a try. But I keep asking myself, why? Aren’t they essentially the exact same game? So not sure, but still interested in learning more about that one.

My old neighbour

By blog on May. 17, 2010.

He’s a lovely chap, but he’s currently worried about being sued, of all things.

Basically, I’ve got this great old neighbour, who must be sixty-five or so, but he’s still completely all there. He’s one of those neighbours that will just help out, without being asked.

Like on one occasion when my SO and I were unexpectedly out of town for a week – issues with her dad’s health – this neighbour picked up all our mail for us to make sure it didn’t look like no one was there all that time. On another occasion he saved me and a bunch of other people from getting parking tickets when the street was being patrolled by a particularly avid parking inspector. You know how they mark your tires with chalk? Well, one day, after pretty much everyone had been hit with a ticket for one reason or another over the past few months, he waited until the parking inspector had gone around the corner, and went with a bucket of water and a cloth and wiped the chalk marks of each and every tire on our block… on both sides. It was so awesome my SO and I bought him a big fancy new pot planter in the shape of a rustic wooden bucket. I wish I could have seen the look on that ticket inspectors face!

Anyway, he was out this week, and I was talking with him yesterday, and he tells me that he was at an event at the local retirement village where some of his friends are living now, and that on his way home he stopped at some traffic lights as they were turning yellow. Pretty normal. Well apparently a young ‘lady’ was behind him and she didn’t want to stop, apparently she thought they could get through the yellow light before it turned red, and in the course of this thinking, rear ended my old neighbours car.

Bad enough, but apparently then she got out of her car – after they’d both pulled over – and started shouting about claims for compensation because of the ‘car accident’. My neighbour told me about this and I’ve suggested that he see his solicitor just in case, but that this sounds like yet another car insurance fraud in the makings.

The ‘lady’ didn’t have insurance, but thankfully my neighbour does and it’s covering the small amount of damage to the back of his car, but still, it really annoys me to see him concerned about something like this when he did nothing wrong. Wherever you are chav girl driver, I point my finger in admonishment at you and hope you’re ashamed of yourself!

Those scanners

By blog on May. 17, 2010.

I felt the need to write about them again…

It’s interesting to see what can happen when these things are ill-used. We’ve had them for a while, but in America they’re only just starting to use them around the country. Two incidents so far have caught my eye, and make me think serious adjustment needs to be made.

In the Miami international airport, the technicians who are to view the images produced by the scanners were being trained to use the machine, and to do that, one of them had to step into the machine for the other’s to view the image. This lead to the supervisor of the fellow who stepped into the scanner made a comment to this fellow’s colleagues about the poor man’s small genitals. This lead to his co-workers griefing him for at least a month, every day, until he took a police baton to one of them in the car park.

Some news articles suggest the poor guy has been sacked, other’s that he’s on suspension pending an investigation, and that an investigation into the co-worker’s actions will also be going ahead. It’s no wonder why he didn’t report the issue when his damn supervisor started the whole trouble.

The other incident is closer to home, with a Manchester security guard telling his fellow female security guard that he ‘loved those gigantic tits’ after she inadvertently walked through one of the scanners. That man’s been issued with a warning by the police, but quite frankly, I don’t think that’s enough.

In both cases we’re seeing people who are entirely far too irresponsible being given access to very private information. The co-workers in Miami and the idiotic security guard in Manchester all give further credence to the idea that these scanners are completely messed up.

The only way that this can work, in my opinion, is if the UK and the US adopt the same scanning software implemented by the Dutch which eradicates the need for human eyes to view the images. The software ‘looks’ for anything that’s suspicious and then alerts those who need to know, but no person is viewing the images.

This is the only fair way in which these scanners can be implemented, in my opinion.

Red Dead Redemption

By blog on May. 15, 2010.

What an awesome game it’s shaping up to be!

So, the game is set to release on our fair shores in less than a week – May 21st – but I really want to play this game right now! Dammit! Well, in lieu of being able to actually play, I’ll write about it.

It’s hard to pinpoint what exactly makes this game stand out… there’s a few things that really make me very excited to play it. For instance, it’s finally a sandbox style game from Rockstar in which you don’t have to be a bad guy. You don’t have to be the scum of the earth organised crime sort. Sure, you can still be a raving bandit who preys on the weak, but you can actually be the vigilant good guy who kicks that first guys ass, too.

There was always a special place in my heart for a certain aspect of Morrowind, which relates to this game as well. I really enjoyed searching for, and searching through, shipwrecks. I loved feeling like I was hunting down some awesome treasure. Now, sure, in Morrowind what was usually waiting in a shipwreck was pretty much crap on a stick and a Lich thrown in for good measure, but in RDR there are treasure maps, and you have to use your knowledge of the local landmarks to find said treasure. To me that’s an absolutely fantastic inclusion that I can’t wait to get right into.

Other aspects of the game that is very appealing is the grittiness. Rockstar seem to have really tried to recreate one of the most turbulent areas in American history, and I for one am looking forward to walking on in there and makin’ thing a little calmer. Maybe it’s all those awesome old Western films I’ve seen, but I really can’t wait to get in there and kick some serious ass.