July 2008
Too Human Demo for XBox 360 Impressionsby Shabbir on Thursday, 24th July 2008
The Too Human demo on XBox 360 was released during E3, and has now been made available to all subscribers of XBox Live. I started up the demo this afternoon, and firstly it took a while to load up. I don't know what it was doing, but the game just stayed at a blank screen for a few moments before showing the usual company logos and what not. First thing I noticed, was that the menu actually has a voice over, so when going into the options menu, a voice explains what each parameter (there are just a few) does.
Moving on into the game, and I was only allowed to select one class from a possible five. The class was called Champion, and to me seemed like a fairly stereotypical warrior. The problem with the game was that the control scheme simply wasn't intuitive. The triggers are used to fire your guns, one in each hand. To fight with your main weapon, the sword, you use the right analog stick. You simply hold it down in a direction and your character actually slides quickly to the nearest foe in that direction and continuously attacks it until dead, so long as the analog stick is still held.
The combat doesn't seem very complicated, since there isn't much you can do. It's guns, your main weapon, or when you kill enough foes, a special attack. It's pretty much like a button bashing action game with hordes of enemies coming towards you. The demo didn't really explore this in great detail, but the full game should allow you to customise your character by earning new equipment and also skills.
One major problem I had with the game, which also plagues a ton of other games, was the camera angles. They can't explicitly be controlled properly by the player, so you have to rely upon whatever camera angle they give you. At times they will be pretty annoying, since you can't quite see where you want. You can switch the camera to just behind your player whenever you want, but even then I'd prefer some sort of smart camera that follows you around and adapts to where you are and where your enemies are in the environment.
The game was originally planned for the first PlayStation console believe it or not, then Nintendo had some deal with Silicon Knights to try and bring it to their console before that deal somehow collapsed. Finally Microsoft came along and now have a deal to bring a trilogy of Too Human games exclusively to their consoles. I don't think Microsoft fan boys should be full of glee quite yet, since the game doesn't really play like anything special, especially considering it's been in development for a number of years.
Some Old XBox Live Demos and E3 Stuffby Shabbir on Tuesday, 22nd July 2008
I've been playing a few demos on my XBox 360 downloaded through Live, the first being Rez HD. I remember playing the original Rez back on the Sega Dreamcast. The Dreamcast was a pretty awesome console, and I still have it around somewhere, although it's collecting dust. The main reason I kept it was since it had all of the great fighting games on it such as Capcom VS SNK 2, possibly my favourite fighting game of all time. I've also got Rez on it somewhere, and I remember playing that games tons, as well as the PlayStation 2 port - I think.
Knowing that Rez came out on XBox Live Arcade (XBLA) was fantastic news, as well as the fact that it was tweaked for High Definition! I finally got around to actually playing the demo, which goes through the first level. It's exactly as I remember it to be, and really is an enjoyable experience. It's difficult to explain what Rez is, you're a mesh character flying through a mesh environment shooting at mesh objects that are your enemies. As you progress through the game, layers are added on to the mesh to create the environments. You really have to see screenshots or a video to get an idea of what it's like.
Another demo that I thought I'd give a go was the Quake IV demo. It's an old game, the demo has been up there for ages, but it's eluded me for a long time. After playing the demo, I'm not too bothered by the fact I didn't really make an attempt to play it. I was a huge fan of Quake back in the day, in fact it's what got me into gaming and particularly First Person Shooter (FPS) games. I even remember buying Quake II and then taking a couple of days off school to complete it! I also played the hell out of Quake III Arena on my iBook (yes, Mac version).
Quake IV returns to the story of the Quake series. So we have some aliens called the Strogg, who the military attempted to attack in the second game but were somewhat unsuccessful, except the character you played as who does a solo mission through the entire game to deactivate some big gun and kill some important monsters. Quake IV carries on from there with squads still attacking the Strogg planet in a second wave, and you play the stereotypical new guy.
The game plays too much on dark environments and attempting to spook you, however it doesn't really work since it's just not scary, and way too predictable. It's obvious when something is going to happen and anyone who played Doom 3 will see the obvious inspirations. It wasn't really an enjoyable demo, you play the first 15 or so minutes of the game regrouping with your squad and not doing many important things.
The next game that I played, which I may have mentioned at some point before, was Pac-Man Championship Edition. I'm a huge fan of Pac-Man and used to have it on one of my old mobile phones. Pac-Man CE adds a lot more to the original game - firstly the actual maze or whatever you call it, is larger. The difference between the original Pac-Man and this one is that only a few dots are there to eat, and more appear once you've eaten them - so it's potentially never ending instead of moving on to the next level. The tweaks do wonders to the looks of the game, and any fan of the original Pac-Man should definitely give this a try. The demo is limited to 3 minutes of the game, which flies by a lot faster than you realise!
So on to more E3 stuff. I haven't been following a whole lot at E3, possibly because there actually isn't that much going on over there. However, XBox Live has been updated with content from E3, including various videos for Resident Evil 5, Gears of War 2 and Fallout 3. So let me go through my impressions of these three games:
- Resident Evil 5: The game looks a lot like RE4, which isn't a bad thing at all. RE4 was an awesome game, and the change from the dark environments to a random Spanish village was a huge leap for the series. It allowed new environments to be used and gave a completely different feel for the game, which has now been incorporated into RE5. For those who don't know, RE5 takes place in Africa, however plot details are still thin at this point. There is a cooperative mode in the game where two players can play the game at the same time, since there's a second character to accompany Chris Redfield. The game is due next March worldwide, and from what I've seen so far it really is shaping up to be a great game.
- Gears of War 2: Sequel to the best FPS game on XBox 360 in my opinion (yes, it beats Halo). Gears 2 seems even more polished than the first game, which is pretty difficult since the first game looked very slick. The gritty look and feel of the game has been carried over with a few more shades of grey, and other dull colours! The main thing however, is that the gameplay looks very enjoyable, just like the first one. The action that was shown at E3 seems exciting and the game plays just like the first one, so I'm really looking forward to it.
- Fallout 3: This is probably my most anticipated game this year. I'm a huge Fallout fan and love the narrative and atmosphere in the games. The third promises more, and this time using Oblivion's engine. The game has been put into a first person perspective, rather than the third person isometric view used in the first two games. At first I was skeptical at how this will work, and how it will drastically change the feel of the environment. However after watching some gameplay footage and trailers, I can see it working and regardless, I'm excited about the game anyway simply due to the open-ended scenarios and plot.
iPhone 3G Released, E3 2008 Underwayby Shabbir on Tuesday, 15th July 2008
The new iPhone 3G was released last week, and instead of the grand launch Apple were expecting it was hit with lots of complaints, mainly to do with the activation process. The servers, reportedly from O2 (the sole network provider in the UK for the iPhone), were put under enormous strain by the success of the launch. Apple have stated that one million units have already been sold (the first iPhone took over 70 days to sell this many). While sales are good, it seems pointless in purchasing a phone and then effectively not being able to use it, since it hasn't been activated. Apparently, there are still users that are unable to use their brand new iPhone 3G!
I own the first iPhone, just a regular 8GB version. With the launch of the new iPhone, there is a software update available for existing iPhone and iPod Touch users, version 2.0. Currently I'm on version 1.1.4, which works fine for me. Officially, upgrading to version 2.0 will make me lose any applications that I have installed through third party sources, using Installer. Also, my iPhone is unlocked and jailbroken (so I can use any sim card, and also I can install third party programs on it). While I know version 2.0 can be jailbroken, there are still numerous bug reports, so I guess I'll hold back for now and see how things turn out.
In video game news, E3 2008 has started and there have already been some interesting announcements. The main ones that really stood out for me were:
- Final Fantasy XIII was confirmed for XBox 360 in Europe and America, so it's no longer a Sony exclusive in these regions! Massive news considering the majority Final Fantasy titles have been Sony PlayStation exclusives since Final Fantasy VII (there have been smaller iterations of the series on Nintendo DS and other consoles, but not XBox 360).
- Gears of War 2 was confirmed for a release date of 7th November 2008.
- Portal: Still Alive was confirmed for XBox Live Arcade, it contains the original Portal and some extra puzzles (no further details were given). It's said to be an exclusive, but it's unclear whether this means console exclusive, since it can still be released on Steam for PC (a likelihood to me).
- Resident Evil 5 for both PlayStation 3 and XBox 360 was confirmed for a release date of 19th March 2009.
- Fable 2 for XBox 360 exclusive was confirmed for a release around Octoer 2008.
Microsoft have also gone for a cross between Nintendo's Mii characters and Sony's Home idea, and are allowing players to have their own avatar in some 3D cartoony way. I'm not sure what the point of this is, since to me it seems to be a waste of time to develop. I'm sure there will be some sort of interativity and communication with other users using this avatar. This is incorporated into the new dashboard design.
There were a few other things, like new colour controllers (green and red) as well as Microsoft partnering with Netflix to offer online rentals onto the XBox 360. The coming days of E3 will let us see what Nintendo and Sony have to offer as well as any third party titles that will pop up.
Return of the MacBookby Shabbir on Saturday, 12th July 2008
But continuation of the Eee PC! That's right, even though I got my MacBook back last week, I'm still opting to continue using my Eee PC. Why? Well for now, it's doing the work that I need to, and it's so light that it's just too convenient not to take to work. Why should I burden myself with a MacBook and charger when I can take something half the size and weight that's doing the same job? A pretty easy choice for me considering my journey each way is at least an hour and a half!
I've also populated my 16GB SDHC card with episodes from Prison Break. At the rate I'm going, I'll be finished with the first season in about a week! I'm about 10 episodes in and enjoying just as much as when I first saw it. It's a very gripping series with a good plot. The escape plan isn't the most original in any way, however the way everything has been thought out is impressive. It's pretty surprising how clear the screen on the Eee PC is, and how usable it is. When I'm at home, I usually plug it into a 15 inch TV/monitor I have on my desk for convenience and to not damage my eyesight too much. I've already got an external mouse, but I will probably purchase an external keyboard too. The keyboard does definitely feel cramped, but it's certainly usable.
Previously I mentioned that I wanted to install WINE, however it seems like quite a bit of hassle to get it working, and just for a few things that aren't a necessity in anyway. The main reason I wanted to install it was to play Windows games, namely Baldur's Gate and Warcraft III, however I can skip out on those since it's not as if I get the time at work to play games anyway. And when I'm at home, I have my MacBook and XBox 360.
No more MacBook for now :(by Shabbir on Wednesday, 2nd July 2008
I finally reluctantly handed in my MacBook for repair on Monday evening after work. The mouse button really didn't feel great, and since I use my Windows partition pretty often (for work and also to play a few games), I need that button! Strangely, the trackpad cannot be used for clicking by tapping it, since it's unsupported when dual booting into Windows. Therefore, having the mouse button working properly is pretty essential for me.
So I'm now using my Eee PC as my primary machine, doing my programming on here too. I've done it before, but attempted to first install Windows just to give it a try. Unfortunately the installation wasn't successful, so I restored the original Asus Eee PC's operating system Xandros (a distribution of Linux). I may try get an external disc drive and then install Windows, since I was attempting to install from a USB drive before.
A strange error I've noticed on the Eee PC, which happened in Xandros Advanced Mode, is when attempting to copy from/to an NTFS formatted external USB hard drive. For some reason, the File Manager simply crashes after approximately 30 seconds of transferring data. However, since I've restored and am only using the Easy Mode for now, everything seems to work perfectly with external hard drive. This is really strange, since I've restored my Eee PC before and external hard drives always seem to cause some sort of problem in Advanced Mode. It could be an issue specific to my machine, since it certainly doesn't seem to be a common problem.
A big issue about the Eee PC is its somewhat limited hard drive space. Firstly however, it's not a proper hard drive, but an SSD (Solid State Drive). These are very robust and can survive a lot of knocks and so forth since there are no moving parts in the drive. However the Eee PC I have only has a capacity of 4GB. The way the drive is partitioned, you won't have that full capacity. In fact after a full restore, the default OS takes up about 1.4GB and I have 1.2GB available (the rest going to random stuff like restoring capabilities of the OS and who knows what else - it's just partitioned in a very weird way). However to be honest, if I'm just using it casually and even for certain coding-only work (leave out any graphics), then the machine fairs well.
Fortunately there's an SD card slot on the side to expand the memory. I've been using a 2GB card but impulsively purchased a 16GB one for no apparent reason. My initial idea was to install Windows and have all the applications run off the SD, but seeing how smoothly the Easy Mode of Xandros is working, I now see no immediate need to switch. However I may install a utility called WINE, which allows Windows programs to be installed and executed on Linux distributions without the need for installing Windows. Since at the moment there aren't any real games to play on my Xandros distribution, I wanted to play Warcraft III since I'm in that RTS (Real Time Strategy) mood. Once my MacBook returns, I'll be diving into Star Wars: Empire at War.
Without my MacBook, I can't relax as much since I can't play the few games I have installed on it. So instead, I began to rewatch Prison Break from the very beginning. I returned the Heroes Season 1 Part 1 that I had rented, and without a DVD drive, I'm not going to rent anything else yet. So instead I decided I might as well watch something on my hard drive, and Prison Break just seemed to appeal.
The beginning episode wasn't as dramatic as I remember it being, however it's still interesting enough. I definitely remember the first season being the best, and the second being the worst of the three seasons so far. The writer's strike plagued the third season with many delays which interrupted the flow of the series, however I still look forward to whenever Season 4 airs since I really believe there's going to be a very different feel to it.
On the XBox side of gaming, I will be trading in Condemned: Criminal Origins very soon. I cannot really play it much more since it's simply not an enjoyable experience. I will probably continue with Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare for now and complete that (that's right, still haven't finished it!) before moving on to Condemned 2: Bloodshot. I've also got Mass Effect on my playlist, which I really can't believe I've left for so long. Unfortunately that's what happens when you have exams and then go straight into working full time...