This past week I haven’t been able to post much, and that’s due to my part in launching a new digital games magazine dubbed, ‘FirstLook’. Continue reading
Author Archives: gribb85
Free Soundtrack of the Week: Torchlight II
Runic Games don’t follow rules established by other developers. Their games are cheaper, designs are more ambitious and surprisingly their top-quality soundtracks cost absolutely nothing to download. Continue reading
Free Game Soundtrack of the Week: Nitronic Rush
Game soundtracks are finally starting to get the respect they deserve and rightly so. Now it’s not unusual for big releases to pack in a soundtrack CD along with a game or at least the means to download an MP3 compilation, by paying a little extra. Sometimes though developers and publishers are kind enough to release their work for free and that’s what this weekly blog spotlight focuses on. Continue reading
SimCity Waiting Woes and Admin Brutality
The term ‘beta’ has grown to mean less and less in the modern games industry. To developers the label is still an all important benchmark which indicates when a build is feature complete but still laden with bugs requiring further testing and optimisation, however for gamers the word ‘beta’ has become interchangeable with the term ‘demo’, ‘taster’, or ‘preview’. That isn’t a problem if a game is in a good state when it’s opened up to the public prior to launch, but if there are problems public perception can turn from excitement to pessimism in a matter of hours.
Brilliant Blackhawks Crash Sluggish Kings’ Party
The NHL lockout finally came to a proper end yesterday as the top teams across North America finally dropped the puck after months and months of delays. Unfortunately for Kings fans the day wasn’t exactly all it could’ve been as their team were resolutely thrashed at home, on the very same night they raised a commemorative banner to celebrate last season’s Stanley Cup success. Not exactly starting as you mean to go on, but the Kings are known for their sloppy starts and this 2013 season is no exception. Continue reading
Time for a Plug Tuesday: Pt 1
Most of the time this blog is ripe with new, fresh content for your game-loving senses, but occasional it’s updated with an article which is really just an excuse for me to plug some things myself or my colleagues have written for other websites…this is one of those times.
Quentin Tarantino and the Perils of Press Tours
2012 was a fantastic year to be a games journalist. There were plenty of amazing games released and as part of the pre-release tours for the majority of those titles many starstruck journalists, including myself, were fortunate enough to meet lots of interesting producers, directors, designers and voice talent. Interviewing such individuals is undoubtedly a perk of the job, but sometimes the nature of press tours puts a lot of pressure on the talent themselves.
Usually whoever is deemed important enough to be considered the voice of a game is sat in a room for hours on end with multiple journalists wheeled in and out every 15 or so minutes; some will be filming, others will be just recording, but whatever is said during these sessions is pondered over, played with and edited to produce the most interesting piece of editorial for readers, viewers or listeners.
That’s why sometimes odd comments, behaviour and footage can arise from these sessions as people are put in an artificial environment which can cause unpredictable and occasionally bizarre results – case in point Quentin Tarantino’s recent outburst with Channel 4’s (or more appropriately ITN’s) Krishnan Guru-Murthy. Continue reading
Some Motorsport Montage Goodness
Work has been absolutely crazy this past week due to my employer Cranberry Publishing launching the world’s first pre-order comparison website, PreOrder-IQ.com, but that doesn’t mean I’m neglecting my Gaming Goodness duties.
So today I’m going to do something a bit different and share with you one of my favourite YouTube videos of all time. A short montage which I watch when the work seems to keep piling up, with no end in sight. Now this choice may seem a bit strange, after all I’ve never actually gone to a Formula One race – hell I don’t even own a car – but seeing the lengths some human beings go to achieve what they’ve always dreamt of is kind of inspiring. Continue reading
The Importance of Gamer Guilt
In the blink of an eye the damage is done.
“Fucking first lap heroes!” a voice screams through my headphones.
“Race ruined already, brilliant” another sarcastically concedes.
Both of those unhappy chappies are talking about me, or more directly what I’ve done during the first lap of a Skip Barber race at Laguna Seca in the subscription-only sim, iRacing.
Even though the interaction between car and track is entirely simulated with pixels, models and algorithms replacing the nuts and bolts of rubber meeting road, the feelings of guilt are immediately real as I misjudge the entry to Laguna Seca’s beloved corkscrew section resulting in me clipping and spinning a fellow human driver ninety degrees, which in turn tangles us together creating an unavoidable obstacle for a trio of drivers behind.
Plenty of ‘New’ in New Star Soccer 5
I’ll be brutally honest…I’m addicted to New Star Soccer on my mobile phone. The mix of sports RPG with easy to pick up and play football has become my go to mobile game when I need to kill a few minutes, which lead me to wonder exactly what the ‘proper’ game would be like when played on a laptop with a controller.
Already my constant “oooohs” and “aaahhhs” have caused my girlfiend to scornfully tell me to “pipe down” on more than a couple of occasions.
New Star Soccer 5 is a mind-boggling evolution of the simply formula I knew, with you actually able to control players directly thanks to the new Sensible Soccer-like match engine that actually does a decent job of emulating Britain’s favourite professional sport containing almost exclusively big heads and bell ends.
Where the RPG aspects comes in is the ability to train your player, buy them special equipment like ergonomically designed shin-pads, so they can tackle better, or more obtusely a games console so they don’t find the journey to an away game so arduous securing more energy for when they’re out on the field. There’s a bunch of mini-games chucked in there as well revolving around the casino, horse racing and relationship improving match-3 challenges, and these actually have a bearing on how you perform on pitch with a high happiness rating drastically reducing the chances of you miss-kicking a ball at a vital moment.
Fluff your lines and chuck in every cliche under the sun, just like the real thing.
It all gets a bit ridiculously when you find yourself bartering over wages with your chosen team so you can secure a new sports car or train up a new horse for the track, especially when you realise you’ve become what you’ve always feared – a money hungry, fan hating ball-kicking monster, but hey this is the modern game.
Gaming Goodness 