By Kieron Gillen on May 17th, 2009 at 11:21 am.
Sunday cometh. Hence we compile a fine and noble list of all the interesting gaming reading from across the list and strive towards an equally fine and noble day when I don’t slip into a link to a piece of pop music that’s been working on me over the same period. We really do try.
- We didn’t pick up on the Star slagging off social internet game My Queen. Thoughtshake did, and spoke to developers Blouzar about the controversy, and the actual game.
- It’s not just Walker who’s been obsessing over Thief this week. Jim has some thoughts about Thief and Thief 4 over at OffWorld.
- Gamasutra interview Ex-Blizzard Ex-Flagship Now-Cryptic Billl Roper. The juiciest stuff is on Page 3 where the conversation turns on why they left Blizzard – it seems they were trying to prompt a response from their owners on what was going on with the company, but their bluff was called. Fascinating.
- Phill Cameron does a lengthy, after-launch interview with Alexander Shcherbakov over at Game Set Watch. Lots of stuff about actual intent and developer stereotypes and all that. He gives good interview, does the Stalin-Vs-Martians lead.
- Simon Parkin writes about the lure of Gamer Points and achievements. A little of the psychology of the thing, a little of awesome achievements, a lot of fun.
- Hardcasual relaunches telling us about how 15 seconds of Modern Warfare creates 150 pages of idiots speculating and that playing Minesweeper totally doesn’t prepare you for stepping on a real mine.
- Edge Online do an article on the making of X-Com: Enemy Unknown. Which reminds me that it’s a tragedy that Julian Gollop isn’t in a Sid Meier-esque position.
- TIG starts an amusing fight when they post a parody video about people who whine on forums. But not as funny as this.
- Crispygamer talk to various gaming luminaries about how they started making games. There should be more of this kind of human stuff, I always think.
- Spent a good chunk of the week listening to Jay-Z’s The Black Album. It may not surprise people how much I occasionally empathise with Egocentric American Rappers. I too have 99 problems, such as writing a Sims 3 preview, playing some more Darkfall and seeing how much tea I can drink without causing terminal kidney malfunction.
Failed.
Uh-huh. So how is your time is Darkfall going?
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Good one this week :) cheers Kieron.
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My eyes will bleed in terror.
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Dammit, TakeTwo – give Gollops a large pile of money!
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‘in’ Darkfall, obvs.
Umm, can I be told that Simon Parkin isn’t the Simon Parkin what did children’s BBC and now does the weather on the regional news?
I already know that Chris Evans isn’t Chris Evans.
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Am I blind or is the first link missing?
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“Art should belong to the people”
Give it away for free then. A lot of indie developers do.
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@Celiah Ailey Vs Ky Ky Pre Match Commentary
Wait, what?
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Also, Bill Roper sure says “like” a lot.
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@Sagan, good spot, it is missing actually.
Its at “http://thoughtshake.wordpress.com/2009/05/16/my-queen-quibbles/”
Cheers,
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The Sunday Paperss? Has it always been like that and I have just failed to notice? Oh my.
I liked the achievements article, quite funny but had a valid point. I don’t think I’m too far gone yet… For instance, I don’t want to buy the Orange Box for my XBox just to get the achievements not available on PC. And I haven’t tried the gnome yet.
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I’m so glad neither Supreme Commander nor Eve Online nor Civ4 feature achievements.
The line “Who needs gameplay when you have ACHIEVEMENTS?” is just so true. First consoles screwed over our games by producing horribly ported versions of console crap, and now this..
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If you havin’ game problems I feel bad for you son, I got 99 problems but reviewing Darkfall ain’t one.
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From John’s (excellent) article on Thief:
Not completely true.. Garrett’s hitpoints drop down significantly every step the difficulty goes up.
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SoloraiderPVP is becoming something of an internet legend it seems. Truely an ambassador for gaming with great crossover appeal, they should give him his own tv show or something.
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Whoa, so Bill Roper and three other guys from Blizzard gambled by giving the offer “Let us in on the business end of Vivendi/Blizzard or we resign” and Vivendi chose to fire them?
They have some really intelligent and forward-thinking executives at Vivendi…
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What I do not get: why did Davidson & Associates sell? I mean, Blizzard was exceptional even back then. What was their reasoning?
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And after you’re done with Darkfall you can interview that Stalin vs. Martians guy proper.
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The Black Album is fantastic! See also the excellent Danger Mouse mashup.
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Why are all the gaming luminaries white men?
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chaos and rebelstar are way better games than anything sid meier has have made.
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I’m not sure if that Minesweeper article exactly falls within the bounds of what I’d call “good taste”.
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Check out the Grey Album by Danger Mouse for the original awesome mashup. I don’t really like remixes that much, but it’s pretty objectively great.
Edit: looks like someone beat me to it. Do itttt
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Bloody hell Kieron, get yourself some decent hip-hop!
http://www.myspace.com/muhsinah
http://www.myspace.com/afta1
http://www.myspace.com/onra
(And yes, Meet The Spy is indeed fabulous. Valve’s best yet, roll on Thursday. I haven’t touched TF2 in months, and this is definitely enough to get me to try it again.)
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Nitpick: In America, the first X-Com was subtitled UFO Defense. It was called UFO: Enemy Unknown in Europe.
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“The juiciest stuff is on Page 3 ”
Something else to add to the reading list Kieron? :P
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From the SvM interview: “the creators are just as intelligent and funny as their game.”
Ouch.
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This was a particularly great week for Sunday papers.
I loved Julian Gollop’s games as a kid. Chaos and Lords of Chaos were two of the first games I really got into. Rebelstar II was also brilliant, loved the whole Aliens feel to it and the firing system where your view traced the bullets was genius.
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I appreciate Jim’s trying to acknowledge Ion Storm’s role in PC history by tying it to the Thief article (And they and LG share a lot of course). But as a Thief fanboy I feel obliged to chuck in that they can’t really be given equal reverence in any discussion of the Thief series.
The open ended city idea was part of Looking Glass’ plans for Thief 3 when they closed and an engine was in development to handle it. And the “city” segments from Thief DS, if you joined them all together, would fit easily into any one of the big city levels in the previous two games.
Just so people know, anyway.
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Re: Grey Album. Almost linked to it actually, but decided against it. Have no idea why.
Chris: Distinct lack of egotistic African-American gentlemen shouting, man.
KG
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That’s the point Kieron, lets not go encouraging black criminals now, eh chaps? :P
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But I was in the mood for grandiose tales of macho! You’re recommending me Belle and Sebastian when I was in the mood for turbonegro.
KG
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By the way; Is that Darkfall video from the “FOOOOOO! Urogamer! I will not buy your magazines! I will pre-patch fire kick you!” guy?
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That’s the chap.
KG
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Would you say he was representative?
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Kieron, If u are playing Darkfall… buy bags, It helps organize the inventary. And If you need help, just ask in “Race Alliance”, people is very helpfull there. Since you are a newbie, you will be stuck killing goblins, If you get attacked by reds, try to teamwork with the other newbies, you have nothing to lose, and the reds his gear.
The game is much like a Gym, where the basic task is to let your character levelup macroing. There are much more options once you join a guild. The player cities are the awesome (you feel the ownership, is like a small town where you know everyone, and every once in a while, stuff “grown” from the ground has is built / enhanced ).
Also, good luck. If sad you have to play the game now, the relation eurogamer – darkfall is tainted, and most people will be negative (well.. almost the ~9000/H/H/H a megazillions players have declared the WAR to eurogamer[1], you probably sould not joint that guild ;-) )
[1]
http://www.mmorpg.com/photo/ebc9f713-351d-4647-b0be-660d6bbdfdbb
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At the very least Joanna Newsom, but Belle and Sebastian? Crikey Kieron, put the testosterone away! ;)
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Tei: As a matter of interest, as a player, how do you think the last patch has effected macroing?
KG
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I thought the DF devs didn’t want a re-review after all?
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Yes, they didn’t. But it’s not actually up to them.
KG
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Kieron: “As a matter of interest, as a player, how do you think the last patch has effected macroing?”
Reduction total on the typical guy shotting to the sky. It will change the way guilds macro, but don’t stop it.
I think afk-macroing is part of the culture now.
And there are people swimming at nigh… on all cities.
I don’t see macroing as a problem. I like his effect on the world, it feel full of people and activity.
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Many good reads here. Thanks again.
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KentuckyFriedGamer:
Shigero Miyamoto, Hideo Kojima, etc
For the west the best answer is probably percentage of population plus percentage of population wealthy enough to afford a PC (and be interested in the PC) back when those luminaries were getting their start.
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