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Listen Review; Polygon’s Mini Map

23/5/2015

The way I use the internet has changed a lot in the last few years. Where I used to spend hours browsing through sites and spending my evenings reading up on the latest video game announcement or leak I’m now more likely to spend small amount of time after work cooking, cleaning or playing a video game to relax before bed. For a long time I felt out of touch with the gaming community, struggling to stay up to date with daily news and changes. This all changed in the last few months when I started listening to Polygon’s Minimap, which Polygon describe as “a daily audio podcast touring the latest news about video games, related technologies and culture”.

Presented by reporter Dave Tach, MiniMap achieves the same same level of succinct news delivery as a nightly news show aims for, while staying light, fun and informative. Tach’s clear delivery coupled with regular pauses allows the information delivered to really sink in and is one of the reason that MiniMap is so easy to comprehend.

I listen to a lot of podcasts, often using them to get the most out of time I spend doing chores or walking to work. While the range of subjects isn’t too varied, mainly revolving around history or video games, the level of attention needed by myself to fully understand what I’m listening to can change dramatically. Minimap is able to bring me all the important information I need in around fifteen minutes, everyday, grabbing my attention enough for the news to sink in without distracting me from other tasks at hand.

Polygon aren’t afraid to drop shows that aren’t working, with past shows like The Besties or Friends List getting the chop, but I’m hoping they keep Dave Tach working away on one of the best sources of daily gaming news with Minimap.

Have You Played Bastion?

20/12/2014

It's been along time since the award winning independent title was released, but I decided it was time to tackle my back catalogue and see if the game still holds up.

Sony still don’t know how to internet.

19/12/2014

After suffering from a massive breach in their security, Sony Pictures decided to shelve their (previously) upcoming comedy, “The Interview”, due to serious terrorist threats by a group of hackers. The group, suspected to be tied to North Korea and going by the name “Guardians of Peace”, have threatened to stage attacks on cinema goers; also stealing corporate information and the personal details of Sony Pictures’ employees.

With the terrorist threats treated with the appropriate amount of seriousness, many theatres refused to show the Seth Rogan and James Franco film that ended with the violent death of North Korean Dictator, Kim Jong-un.

Sony is definitely no stranger to cyber attacks and security leaks, with multiple breaches throughout their short history online. 2011 saw their online gaming network offline after a massive security breach, which included the details of millions of Playstation Network users.

Death threats and cyber attacks aside, Sony continue to fail to understand the internet, with the gaming community in the UK voicing outrage at a loophole in Sony’s “Anniversary Edition Playstation 4” lottery.

In an effort to stop resellers buying and selling the limited edition consoles on the secondhand market, Sony forced fans through a convoluted system with a Playstation trivia test, with the answer hidden on a large collage of Playstation characters. When someone clicked on the image of the answer, the “contestant” was then taken through to a page to enter details and the first lucky 100 people to enter their details are supposed to receive an email to purchase the title.

The problems and flaws with Sony’s system were immediately highlighted. People attempting to go through the correct channels were met with blank screens and loading bars, and it wasn't before long that successful applicants started sharing the link to the “secret” site. With many turning to forums, Twitter and Facebook, it didn’t take long for someone to take their frustration and turn it into a weapon.

Mischievous Sony fan Dean Wild quickly reverse engineered Sony’s Playstation Lottery and posted the program on his blog. Dean’s work around allowed anyone to obtain the “secret” URL needed to take them through to the application screen before the clue went live, requiring almost no effort on the part of the applicant.

Sony have once again failed to provide an adequate internet based solution. They buckled under the weight of legitimate applicants and allowed anyone with access to the work around a fast track. For Sony’s part, they have said anyone caught using the work around will not receive a console.

The Sony Pictures security breach and terrorist threats are deadly serious, with the failure to protect important information and provide Sony staff some security and stability.

Sony’s history online shows a general lack of understanding, not only of the internet, but also the abilities of the people using it.

Hands on Impressions; Size DOES Matter

16/8/2014

While researching Dundee’s annual gaming event, Dare to be Digital, I stumbled upon DOS Studios, a team of five who at at the time went by the name of Team DOS. They had just won the Channel 4 award at the eight-week event, which partnered them with Channel 4 who provided marketing and publishing support and a £25,000 prize. The win also netted them a shortlisting for the One’s to Watch at the 2014 BAFTA awards, which they went on to win in March. I scrambled to find anymore information about their game, at the time called Size DOS Matter, but struggling to find a shred of information in English (the team are mostly Norwegian and had some local coverage) I contacted Team DOS directly. I was excited for a chance to shed some light on the game, and CEO Mattis Delerud was kind enough to chat to me on two occasions.

Since the first time I had spoken to the team they have gone through a few name changes and have solidified what they produced and presented in Dundee. Their rhythmic, side scrolling action game is fun, bright, fast and loud. Size DOES Matter is an iOS essential.

In Size DOES Matter the player controls a square, neon block travelling from left to right along the screen. As the player moves along, lines of blocks travel from the right, each line separated by a gap that is either one, three or five blocks wide. The player is then able to choose the width of their block to coincide with the space between the approaching line, which also changes heights. The players goal is to change widths and height depending on the size of the gap, netting points and aiming for the highest score possible, allowing you to keep the “strikes” necessary to run through repeat, faster, more challenging sequences of the level. All of this is set to the rhythm of great music, with artists like Chipzel (Super Hexagon), Savant (Savant: Ascent) and Eirik Suhrke (Ridiculous Fishing, Super Crate Box, Spelunky, Hotline Miami).

Rhythmic games are normally built around speed and the players skill, earning points and bonuses for combinations and successful runs. Size DOES Matter isn’t trying to reinvent the wheel, but has managed to provide one of the best experiences of this mechanic available with a touchscreen. There are two inputs on either side of the display to change the height and width of your block, which are always responsive, leaving me to blame noone but myself and my lack of skill when a successful streak comes to an end. Controls are important for any game, but mobile games that rely on touchscreens need to get these right to stand any chance in Apple’s App Store or Google’s Play Store. Plenty of games get this so wrong that I end up putting them down; Size DOES Matter is not one of them.

As you complete each level you are given a high score, which unlocks harder levels with new music. The learning curve is steep without feeling extreme, and I felt like I had managed to become better at the game as I progressed. You’ll find yourself going back to some of the earlier levels and flying through sections that were difficult the first time around. A successful run through a level can end in two ways. On the first run you are given three “strikes”, which can be lost by mistiming or missing your block and hitting other blocks. If you manage to finish the level with these lives still intact, the track starts again with a faster, harder version of the level to complete. Mastery of these levels will give you super-high scores and can put you at top of the games leaderboard.

The game is smooth, loud and it looks amazing. The neon pops on the darker backgrounds, with the game moving smoothly across the screen. Timing your moves is crucial, but the game is smooth enough to make this process entirely reliant on the players fast reflexes and timing. There’s no bad hit-detection or muddied graphics obscuring your view, and while the screenshots make the game look busy, all the onscreen elements come into focus at just the right time.

No game is perfect and if there was one thing I could ask for it would be time. Whenever I mistimed a move or hit the gates heading towards me I lost a “strike” as well as my combination. On a long string of lines I wasn’t given the time to readjust and recover before being bombarded by blocks. I think that a mechanic that slowed down and allowed for a split second to recover would make my mistakes feel less like I needed to restart the level to succeed.

Currently on the UK App Store for £0.99, the game doesn’t support in-app purchasing at the moment, something I had asked about when interviewing Mattis which I’m glad has made it’s way into the full release. Size DOES Matter is full of content for the pound that you are spending, with fourteen unique songs by the contributing artists. It’s got great touchscreen controls, music that makes you smile and is perfect in bite sized gaming sessions or longer slogs on the sofa. There are some games that every iOS gamer should have, and I think this is one of them.

For all of Matt's coverage of the Size DOES Matter project click here

Hands on Impressions; Velvet Sundown

3/8/2014

Created by Finnish developer and publisher Tribe Studio, Velvet Sundown is a free-to-play, online, role-playing Dramagame, a new genre that Tribe Studio’s aim is to simulate real-world social encounters in a virtual world.

Playing as one of five characters on a luxury yacht, the player is given the history of the character and a introductory quest. Unlike quests given in other games, Velvet Sundown tasks could be considered personal ambitions or selfish goals. One character may want to have a good time, get drunk and get laid, while another is asked to keep an eye on the same character and report bad behavior back to their employer.

At the start of the game you’re given a set of items. These items are often involved in yours or another players quest and can be essential for them to complete their task. Without deadly weapons or pickpocket skills, players must obtain these items or complete your objectives by interacting with the four other players on the boat. While there are a small number of dialogue options available, the majority of these conversations are user generated, allowing you to role-play your character as deeply as you need to achieve your goals. Using your keyboard to type (voice options are currently only available to premium members) whole conversations to another player is the core game mechanic in Velvet Sundown.

Online multiplayer games can devolve into a pile of unstructured humanness: without a clear, universal objective, players can they turn on each other and turn the game into a primal frenzy of bad language and sexual innuendo. This is the thin line that Velvet Sundown treads.

During the playthroughs of Velvet Sundown that I joined (each “episode” is roughly 45 minutes) the experience swayed between interesting and funny to boring and gross. During the better games all five of us attempted to achieve our objectives, staying in characters and generally behaving like non-playable characters (NPC) from an open world game. Role-playing as a former mobster, one player spoke in broken English and drunken slurs the whole time. By the end of the episode we were laughing and all agreed that we had fun, with some of the other players announcing that they had created their own goals. This is probably the best example of what Tribe Studio wished to achieve with Velvet Sundown. It was far from the experience of my next game, with all five characters standing in a circle exchanging the same story and ending with two players leaving for the bedroom, one player leaving the lobby, their character standing lifeless in the corner while another player and myself waited for the timer to finish, our objectives now unobtainable.

Other players are the key to your success and this means you can often find yourself faced with someone who’s only goal is to ruin your game. Because the goals and objectives are personal and not the same for everyone, other players can simply not play along or sit there swearing at all the other players. Velvet Sundown does a great job at combating this by allowing to accept or decline conversation with other players. You can freeze someone out who isn’t joining in on the fun and wants to ruin things for others, leaving them with the option to play along or exit the game.

Velvet Sundown is interesting. It’s like a third person game of Cluedo without the safety net of being in the same room as the other players. You have to invest time to talk to other players and trust that they are willing to do the same for you. If you’re not being a jerk, this game can be a lot of fun.

Currently available on Steam, you can play Velvet Sundown for free.

The Wii U's Age of Enlightenment.

23/6/2014

My earliest gaming memories are of coming home from kindergarten and playing Super Mario All-Stars on my sisters Super Nintendo. I grew up on Nintendo, moving on to the Nintendo 64 and owning a Game Boy, Game Boy Pocket and Game Boy Advance.

This gaming monopoly was broken when I received a PlayStation for Christmas in the early 2000’s, but I continued to rally behind my original team. I waited with bated breath when Nintendo announced that they were working on Project Dolphin, the codename for what would be the Nintendo GameCube. But then Sony released the PlayStation 2. My allegiance was shattered, set in cement by a PlayStation 2 for christmas and some time spent with Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4. The next time I’d own a Nintendo console would be in 2008 when my sister sold me a Nintendo Wii. My relationship with my Wii was rocky, and I eventually succumbed to trading it in when Sony refreshed the PlayStation 3 and I purchased a 120GB Slim.

This month I was excited about a Nintendo console. It’s not a new release slated for 2015 or a secret project. It’s the Nintendo Wii U and the future promised to me during the latest Nintendo Direct.

The Nintendo Wii U was released in the end of 2012 and was heavily criticized for using underpowered hardware and launching with a poor line-up of playable games. Ridiculed and kicked to the gutter, Nintendo saw extremely poor sales, with the company changing their sales forecasts and pricing in an attempt to stay relevant. For the first year of it’s life things looked dire for the Wii U, with fears of Nintendo becoming the next Sega amongst calls for Nintendo’s President Satoru Iwata to resign. With the world telling you to stop making consoles and start selling software on smartphones and tablets, it would be hard for the company to get out of their slump, but not impossible.

Just when all seemed lost, Nintendo started to pull themselves out of the mud with Mario Kart 8. The grandfather of franchise racers returned to blow the start of 2014 out of the water, and helped the Wii U see an 666% sales increase in the UK alone. Critically and financially successful, Mario Kart 8 seemed like the only game worth getting a Wii U for. One game doesn't save a console, but Nintendo’s upcoming line-up might.

Nintendo Direct is an online presentation that streams directly to the public and stars leading figures from the company talking about Nintendo Hardware and Software. Usually boring and awkwardly Japanese, the latest Nintendo Direct renewed my interest in the company and everything that it’s doing or plans to do. With a pinch of nostalgia, Nintendo are using familiar characters and franchises coupled with impressive gameplay videos and new ways to interact with existing characters and the worlds they inhabit. Creating levels with Mario Maker, leveling up characters with the Skylanders-like, Amiibo and returning to Hyrule in the new Legend of Zelda is just a glimpse into the crystal ball.

It seems like the perfect time to purchase a Wii U. The poor start to it’s life has lead many retailers to advertise the console and it’s accessories below recommended retail pricing, with the consoles and bundles selling from anywhere between £100-£220 pounds. Pricing like this takes it out of the sights of Sony’s PlayStation 4 and Microsoft’s Xbox One, and brings it in direct competition with quasi-consoles like the Ouya. But where the Android based console market appears to be stalling, the Wii U may be in the perfect position to strike.

Ouya and other Android based consoles promised quality gaming for roughly £100, but failed due to limited developer support and a tiny user base.

I could see the Wii U being the perfect companion to my PlayStation 4, which still lacks an exclusive, console selling title. Worse still, I’m currently building a gaming PC, further voiding my need for a next-gen console. What I really want is a console that I can have fun playing. I want to sink into something bright and fun, with the option to play by myself or with someone else. Nintendo might not know how to make fantastic console’s, but at the right price and with great software, the Wii U may be set to make a comeback.

My Interview with Olli Harjola Developer of the Swapper

30/4/2014

During the the recent Curve Studios Showcase I got some hands on time with The Swapper and also got to chat to the games original developer Olli Harjola and asked him a few questions.

If you knew it (The Swapper) was going to console, is there anything you would change?

Olli: Not really, I think I would have been scared and removed this puzzle (referring to someone playing one of the quicker reaction time based puzzles on the main TV)

It’s a good puzzle man, I like it

Olli: Yeah, it’s not a problem on consoles.

When you were building the game, did you expect it to be as big as it was?

Olli: Well, not really. Our marketing sucked. We didn’t do that much (marketing), it really helped us a lot that we did Indie Fund. (Indie Fund is an independent group working with developers to release their titles on their own terms, see indie-fund.com)

There’s no target with that? They just let you go?

Olli: Sort of yeah. It’s a different thing if you run out of money, you have this awkward conversation…But this game was really small, we were still living from our student apartments.

I’ve spoken to other developers in your area (Olli’s from Finland) and they have good infrastructure (for game developers). Did you find that when you were building the game that there were people around you doing the same thing?

Olli: I think that the infrastructure we have in Finland doesn’t really support this kind of game. It’s really business focused. If you go to them with a game like this, they are like “why doesn’t this game have micro-transactions?” I'm like “f@#k YOUUU, f@#k you guys”. they don’t really understand game development as an art form, they think of it as a business and that sucks for me.

Do you find different people reacting differently to it (the Swapper), like you see people really getting the puzzles?

Olli: Yeah, for example Otto, who was mostly a level designer. While I was doing more general designing, programming and art, the reason he started working on the game was that he tried the game. We were in a lecture in Uni and I was just writing the game, and he was asking me “what game is this? can I try it?” he said he really enjoys puzzle games. I was like “sure, yeah go for it”. Then I saw him playing the game and was like “have you designed this game or what?” because he was so fast. I thought he has some kind of special ability. I asked him make a couple of puzzles and we started working together.

Do you find the Playstation 4 version and the playstation Vita version pretty much identical or are there slight graphical differences?

Olli: Yeah, I feel that this version here (Vita). For example we don’t have the blur here, one of the reasons is that it wouldn't be running as well if we had it there. This game is already really pushing the hardware to it’s limits.

Yeah, i play it on a 13” MacBook Air.

Olli: (laugh) Yeah, it’s not really supposed to be on those things. But I think removing the blur on the vita wasn’t a problem. I think it actually makes sense because the screen is a lot smaller, like on here (the TV displaying the Playstation 4 version of the game) your eyes aren’t blurring but on the vita screen it doesn’t really need it.

All images courtesy of Curve Studios and are taken from the Vita version of the game.

Battlefield Death Shield

14/4/2014

YouTuber, Jackfrags, has released a video today highlighting a massive issue with Battlefield 4. Calling it a “Death Shield”, Jack has discovered that newly downed soldiers will act as a shield for other enemy players.

The revive system in Battlefield 4 lets you resurrect dead teammates within a set time period. Jack has discovered that when the soldier is in this revivable state, bullets, projectiles and grenades will not pass through the area that the downed player would be standing (the players hit-box) if still alive. This effectively shields other players standing behind the downed soldier.

Battlefield 4 has had multiple patches since it’s release last year, but with more than six months passed and issues like this still present in the game, it’s still difficult to recommend it.

#Recon; @EX1LEDFPS Gaming clips of the week.

11/3/2014

Sorry Matt is away in the land of Koala's and the worlds greatest animal the Duck Billed Platypus, so I'm (Paul) just updating the Recon feed with a new video from Ex1LEDFPS. Its a montage of some pretty cool kills mixed in with some of the random things that can occur while online.

BF4 Tips and Tactics: Being the Siege at Shanghai (Battlefield 4 Gameplay/Commentary)

15/2/2014

EX1LEDFPS shows everyone how to become the siege of Shanghai. Great tips for getting through the harder M-COMs. Also, cake.

Take a look at this video on YouTube:

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