Breaking news (this must be what it is like to work for the BBC).
The Chancellor (UK Finance Minister) today (22 June 2010) announced that the planned tax break (I'd blogged about this before) for the video games industry in the UK has been axed with immediate effect.
I think that this is a short-sighted move that could hasten the loss of skilled gaming industry personnel overseas (hello Canada). As a high-tech industry, gaming is a growth area, exactly the type of knowledge-based industry that the incoming Government had said they wanted to support. I haven't seen any industry comment as yet (the announcement was only an hour ago) but it is unlikely that they will be thrilled, given how long they have lobbied Governments of varying hues for such breaks over the years.
Tuesday, 22 June 2010
Monday, 21 June 2010
Super Mario Galaxy 2 - Nintendo's help for casual gamers
I purchased Super Mario Galaxy 2 on 11 June, the day that it was released in the UK, from Game (having been suckered in by the tin moneybox they were offering for pre-orders - my love for gaming tat knows no bounds). It is absolutely fantastic, the best game I have played all year (a list that includes God of War III and Red Dead Redemption, both themselves candidates for game of the year). This isn't a review, though - that may (or, frankly, may not - there is a World Cup on, you know) arrive in the coming weeks. Rather, I'd like to highlight what Nintendo has done in the game to 'train' the new gamers that the Wii has brought to gaming in how to play a 'proper' videogame.
And that's what SMG2 is (even though it has some motion control) - a proper videogame. There's a hero, a heroine and a boss. One of those gets kidnapped by one of the others, who has to be rescued by the third (no prizes for guessing which role is played by which character). There are bad guys who can be killed by jumping on them and there are stars. Always stars. Long-standing gamers will recognise the template - essentially unchanged for over twenty years - and will jump (or should that be double-jump?) in without even a second thought. The wider audience that the Wii has brought to gaming, who have been used to 'Just Dance Out Megamix Petz - Samba Edition', don't have this prior knowledge. They don't know, unsurprisingly when you think about it, that jumping on a turtle will kill the turtle and then allow you to use the shell as an underwater propulsion device - and all the other myriad gameplay devices present in a Mario platform game.
Nintendo know this and, possibly driven by lower-than-expected sales of the first game (it sold a lot - nearly 9m - but not as a percentage of higher-than-expected sales of the system itself - 71m and counting), have packaged the game with a 'How to Play' DVD. Most casual Wii games are literally 'pick up and play' - you don't need instructions when using a Wiimote as a tennis racquet, you just use it as you would a tennis racquet (I imagine - I've not lifted a tennis racquet this century). That is not the case with a traditional video game like SMG2.
Any Mario platform game's gameplay is the distillation of over twenty years of development. Expecting my mother-in-law, to choose a casual Wii user at random, to just pick up and play it is unrealistic. While at first glance the DVD is a bit patronising, I think it is a sensible approach from Nintendo and, at the very least, it is heartening that they are still producing core games, while at the same time trying to bring the new audience along with it. Even the choice of physical media is aimed at these new users, who would, I would argue, be less likely to use an online manual.
It doesn't stop there either. Throughout the game (and I'm 40 Stars in, so two thirds of the way to rescuing the Princess or one third to 'full' completion), there are signposts (literally) giving short, written instructions to the player, or larger signposts that launch a video clip showing exactly how a manoeuvre should be completed. This player-assistance reaches its zenith with the 'Cosmic Guide' (a kind of shadow version of 'Rosalina', from the first game), who appears after a few failed attempts at a particular sequence, stating that she can offer some help. If you take her up on this, control of Mario is handed over and the player watches as the level is completed on autopilot (you can jump out of this at any time and regain control). To prevent this making the game too easy, any star that you collect in a level where you have used the Cosmic Guide at any point, will be bronze, rather than gold (I tried it once - just for research, you understand).
Nintendo has received a lot of flak from core gamers this generation over its pursuit of non-core gamers but it tried to compete with Sony in the last two generations on a purely gaming basis and was soundly trounced on units sold. Microsoft, a huge money-bucket of investment, joining in last generation (and fighting out with Nintendo for the title of first loser) also cast doubts on Nintendo's future viability as a gaming hardware developer. The Wii marked a change in emphasis for Nintendo, in trying to make gaming attractive to non-gamers (as there are significantly more of them than gamers) and it has been wildly successful. However, I think that the attachment rate (units sold by games sold) for these new gamers, shows that they aren't a sturdy platform for future profitability. Nintendo need to school them in the ways of traditional games and the 'gaming stabiliser wheels' in SMG2 are, hopefully (for those that wish, like me, that there will still be games of this type in the future) a way of doing this. How successful this approach is, coupled with how many units this game sells, will have an influence on how many more of these types of traditional games Nintendo will develop in the future.
And if you have a Wii and don't yet have this game - buy it now!
And that's what SMG2 is (even though it has some motion control) - a proper videogame. There's a hero, a heroine and a boss. One of those gets kidnapped by one of the others, who has to be rescued by the third (no prizes for guessing which role is played by which character). There are bad guys who can be killed by jumping on them and there are stars. Always stars. Long-standing gamers will recognise the template - essentially unchanged for over twenty years - and will jump (or should that be double-jump?) in without even a second thought. The wider audience that the Wii has brought to gaming, who have been used to 'Just Dance Out Megamix Petz - Samba Edition', don't have this prior knowledge. They don't know, unsurprisingly when you think about it, that jumping on a turtle will kill the turtle and then allow you to use the shell as an underwater propulsion device - and all the other myriad gameplay devices present in a Mario platform game.
Nintendo know this and, possibly driven by lower-than-expected sales of the first game (it sold a lot - nearly 9m - but not as a percentage of higher-than-expected sales of the system itself - 71m and counting), have packaged the game with a 'How to Play' DVD. Most casual Wii games are literally 'pick up and play' - you don't need instructions when using a Wiimote as a tennis racquet, you just use it as you would a tennis racquet (I imagine - I've not lifted a tennis racquet this century). That is not the case with a traditional video game like SMG2.
Any Mario platform game's gameplay is the distillation of over twenty years of development. Expecting my mother-in-law, to choose a casual Wii user at random, to just pick up and play it is unrealistic. While at first glance the DVD is a bit patronising, I think it is a sensible approach from Nintendo and, at the very least, it is heartening that they are still producing core games, while at the same time trying to bring the new audience along with it. Even the choice of physical media is aimed at these new users, who would, I would argue, be less likely to use an online manual.
It doesn't stop there either. Throughout the game (and I'm 40 Stars in, so two thirds of the way to rescuing the Princess or one third to 'full' completion), there are signposts (literally) giving short, written instructions to the player, or larger signposts that launch a video clip showing exactly how a manoeuvre should be completed. This player-assistance reaches its zenith with the 'Cosmic Guide' (a kind of shadow version of 'Rosalina', from the first game), who appears after a few failed attempts at a particular sequence, stating that she can offer some help. If you take her up on this, control of Mario is handed over and the player watches as the level is completed on autopilot (you can jump out of this at any time and regain control). To prevent this making the game too easy, any star that you collect in a level where you have used the Cosmic Guide at any point, will be bronze, rather than gold (I tried it once - just for research, you understand).
Nintendo has received a lot of flak from core gamers this generation over its pursuit of non-core gamers but it tried to compete with Sony in the last two generations on a purely gaming basis and was soundly trounced on units sold. Microsoft, a huge money-bucket of investment, joining in last generation (and fighting out with Nintendo for the title of first loser) also cast doubts on Nintendo's future viability as a gaming hardware developer. The Wii marked a change in emphasis for Nintendo, in trying to make gaming attractive to non-gamers (as there are significantly more of them than gamers) and it has been wildly successful. However, I think that the attachment rate (units sold by games sold) for these new gamers, shows that they aren't a sturdy platform for future profitability. Nintendo need to school them in the ways of traditional games and the 'gaming stabiliser wheels' in SMG2 are, hopefully (for those that wish, like me, that there will still be games of this type in the future) a way of doing this. How successful this approach is, coupled with how many units this game sells, will have an influence on how many more of these types of traditional games Nintendo will develop in the future.
And if you have a Wii and don't yet have this game - buy it now!
Monday, 7 June 2010
iPad - a game changer?
I bought an iPad last weekend (please insert your own 'more money than sense' joke here). I think it is a fantastic piece of kit and it is now my primary device for surfing the net, reviewing my RSS feeds and reading/sending email. Or accessing IMDB while on the sofa, having had a 'what's he been in before?' moment while watching TV (who'd have thought that someone from Sky 1's 'Dream Team' would next turn up as the big villain in 'Flash Forward'?). A better of way of putting it would be to say that it is my leisure' device', with my laptop being my 'business device', used for drafting documents (though Pages is available as an App) or anything that needs printing out. Drafting with the touchscreen keyboard is fine in short bursts - this blog post has been wholly drafted on my iPad, with the Blogpress App - but if I was drafting anything more weighty, I'd still be reaching my my MacBook.
The iPad isn't perfect but it has proved even better than I thought it would be. Magazines and comics look great on the screen and, if enough publishers chose this as a distribution medium, I think it would become my primary method for consuming them (take note 'Future Publishing').
But this is a videogame blog, so I suppose I should talk about its gaming performance. I've had an iPhone for a year and, while I have some games on it, as a gaming platform it is hampered by the small screen and lack of buttons. Some games that don't require constant contact between the player and the screen - Angry Birds, for example - work very well but many, more action-oriented, games - such as iDracula - have virtual 'buttons' (used to control the on-screen action), on the touchscreen itself, a technique I do not think works very well. I'm a pen-pusher and, as such, have never done a proper day's work in my life, giving me the dainty hands of a Jane Austen heroine. When manipulating virtual buttons during iPhone games, however, it seems as if I have the crushing fists of a cage fighter, obscuring a third of the screen as I go about my my ham-fisted quest to die as quickly as possible.
That is not the case with the iPad, as the large screen can easily accommodate a few virtual buttons without risk of the player obscuring the touchscreen. I've returned to the afore-mentioned iDracula and found it far more enjoyable than on the iPhone, even with some pixellation, as the buttons (and my hands) don't clutter the on-screen action.
All the games I have on iPhone have been uploaded onto my iPad and, for the most part, they work well. You can either run them at their original resolution, with the game then appearing as an iPhone-sized rectangle in the middle of the iPad screen, or you can increase its size, which is enough to fill the iPad screen. The latter option does result in some pixellation, which does no favours to text-heavy games but is passable for games such as Angry Birds that have minimal text. A special mention should given to Metal Gear Solid Touch, a game I bought for the iPhone ages ago but didn't get very far with, due to 'big hands' hands syndrome - it was automatically maximised for iPad, with no pixellation. Still not a great game but it was a nice to see.
Angry Birds actually has an HD version, optimised for iPad but, if you have the original, I don't think it is worth the extra expense (£2.99, as opposed to the iPhone version's 59p), as it works perfectly ably when upscaled on the iPad. It is worth noting that your progress on iPhone games won't always be transferred when you sync the game to the iPad - some do (Beneath a Steel Sky) and some don't (Angry Birds). For those that don't, you will have to start from the beginning again, which isn't really a problem for something as immediate (and short-burst) as Angry Birds.
The one native iPad game that I have bought so far is Real Racing HD, a spruced up version of an iPhone game that relies on the device's accelerometer for the steering, with the iPhone (and now iPad) effectively becoming the steering wheel. It was £5.99 and I'm a little disappointed with it, though appreciate its technical prowess. Apart from anything else, holding the heavier-than-you-think iPad like a steering wheel is a feat of endurance itself for long periods. The game looks like a higher resolution version of an early PS2 game and it plays reasonably well within that limited purview but isn't, control method notwithstanding, a particularly revolutionary game.
And revolutionary games are what I want from the iPad. I believe that it is a truly viable mobile gaming platform (something that I don't think that the iPhone is, for me anyway) and I hope that developers can harness the unique qualities of the iPad to deliver some great games. I'm particularly hoping for a truly accessible RTS title but I hope that the development community will deliver far more innovative games than just that. I won't be selling my 360, PS3 or Wii anytime soon (well, I've not sold any console I've ever owned, so that's a misleading claim) but I think that the iPad has the potential to be my mobile platform of choice. Mobile-ish anyway - the size of it would tax the BFG's pockets...
The iPad isn't perfect but it has proved even better than I thought it would be. Magazines and comics look great on the screen and, if enough publishers chose this as a distribution medium, I think it would become my primary method for consuming them (take note 'Future Publishing').
But this is a videogame blog, so I suppose I should talk about its gaming performance. I've had an iPhone for a year and, while I have some games on it, as a gaming platform it is hampered by the small screen and lack of buttons. Some games that don't require constant contact between the player and the screen - Angry Birds, for example - work very well but many, more action-oriented, games - such as iDracula - have virtual 'buttons' (used to control the on-screen action), on the touchscreen itself, a technique I do not think works very well. I'm a pen-pusher and, as such, have never done a proper day's work in my life, giving me the dainty hands of a Jane Austen heroine. When manipulating virtual buttons during iPhone games, however, it seems as if I have the crushing fists of a cage fighter, obscuring a third of the screen as I go about my my ham-fisted quest to die as quickly as possible.
That is not the case with the iPad, as the large screen can easily accommodate a few virtual buttons without risk of the player obscuring the touchscreen. I've returned to the afore-mentioned iDracula and found it far more enjoyable than on the iPhone, even with some pixellation, as the buttons (and my hands) don't clutter the on-screen action.
All the games I have on iPhone have been uploaded onto my iPad and, for the most part, they work well. You can either run them at their original resolution, with the game then appearing as an iPhone-sized rectangle in the middle of the iPad screen, or you can increase its size, which is enough to fill the iPad screen. The latter option does result in some pixellation, which does no favours to text-heavy games but is passable for games such as Angry Birds that have minimal text. A special mention should given to Metal Gear Solid Touch, a game I bought for the iPhone ages ago but didn't get very far with, due to 'big hands' hands syndrome - it was automatically maximised for iPad, with no pixellation. Still not a great game but it was a nice to see.
Angry Birds actually has an HD version, optimised for iPad but, if you have the original, I don't think it is worth the extra expense (£2.99, as opposed to the iPhone version's 59p), as it works perfectly ably when upscaled on the iPad. It is worth noting that your progress on iPhone games won't always be transferred when you sync the game to the iPad - some do (Beneath a Steel Sky) and some don't (Angry Birds). For those that don't, you will have to start from the beginning again, which isn't really a problem for something as immediate (and short-burst) as Angry Birds.
The one native iPad game that I have bought so far is Real Racing HD, a spruced up version of an iPhone game that relies on the device's accelerometer for the steering, with the iPhone (and now iPad) effectively becoming the steering wheel. It was £5.99 and I'm a little disappointed with it, though appreciate its technical prowess. Apart from anything else, holding the heavier-than-you-think iPad like a steering wheel is a feat of endurance itself for long periods. The game looks like a higher resolution version of an early PS2 game and it plays reasonably well within that limited purview but isn't, control method notwithstanding, a particularly revolutionary game.
And revolutionary games are what I want from the iPad. I believe that it is a truly viable mobile gaming platform (something that I don't think that the iPhone is, for me anyway) and I hope that developers can harness the unique qualities of the iPad to deliver some great games. I'm particularly hoping for a truly accessible RTS title but I hope that the development community will deliver far more innovative games than just that. I won't be selling my 360, PS3 or Wii anytime soon (well, I've not sold any console I've ever owned, so that's a misleading claim) but I think that the iPad has the potential to be my mobile platform of choice. Mobile-ish anyway - the size of it would tax the BFG's pockets...
Thursday, 3 June 2010
Mario Power-Up energy drink & Animal Crossing toys
Regular readers will know that I love gaming ephemera - stick a gaming theme on any old rubbish and I will be working my way to the front of an orderly queue to buy it.
Imagine my excitement of seeing this in my favourite quirky tat shop, Artbox (www.artbox.co.uk)
I'm hoping that I'll become invincible when I drink it, or possibly twice my usual size (it isn't a diet version).
It's my daughter's birthday at the end of the month. She's a fan of Animal Crossing on DS and she'll be getting the Wii version for her birthday. She'll also be getting these, that I got from Forbidden Planet (a short walk from Artbox in London's West End) -
Imagine my excitement of seeing this in my favourite quirky tat shop, Artbox (www.artbox.co.uk)
It's-a me - reskinned Red Bull...
I'm hoping that I'll become invincible when I drink it, or possibly twice my usual size (it isn't a diet version).
It's my daughter's birthday at the end of the month. She's a fan of Animal Crossing on DS and she'll be getting the Wii version for her birthday. She'll also be getting these, that I got from Forbidden Planet (a short walk from Artbox in London's West End) -
No Tom Nook, unfortunately - too busy counting his money
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