It has been revealed to us that players will indeed use the X button in God of war 3.

@MusterBuster: @nerdlegend I can confirm: The X button IS used in God of War III. Go write an article!

Source: http://twitter.com/MusterBuster/status/10179526598

Consoles define this generation system used in gaming, Playstation 2, Xbox and Nintendo’s Gamecube are all last generation consoles, Playstation 3, Xbox 360 and Nintendo’s wii are next generation turned current generation systems. The industry seems to revolve around this, including PC gaming, which has the potential to adopt such a system with new graphics hardware and DirectX versions. This usually means that “next generation gaming” is all about improved visuals and performance, but surely if that were the case we would of seen progression in games just stop by now?

Unfortunately, real progression following this generation system seems to be done by those game developers using the new technology in and their ability to see holes in the medium to work them together, which is rare. More money is coming in and being generated by this industry each day, it is growing at extremely fast rates and this attracting investors and people who just want to exploit the industry for the money, see example A: Bobby kotick of Activision. This guy has pretty much come out and said in public that rehashing franchises yearly and milking them for all they are worth makes his investors happy, which is all he cares about, not the fact they inevitably hurt the industry he is making money out of, which will eventually come to an end thanks to him.

But that is side tracking slightly, what i’m trying to say is that as more Bobby kotick’s enter this industry we have seen a massive rise in games just wanting to take what has proved successful before and duplicate it, over and over. Surprisingly though, i would say that there are publishers and development studios out there that seem to generally care about the industry, while it is rare to find a publisher to care as much, they do realise what will ultimately pay off for them. High profile game developers typically don’t jump when a publisher says so, more the other way around. I’m talking about studio’s such as Naughty dog, Bioware, Kojima productions, Team ICO, to name a few. These guys enjoy making games, and the publishers know they are good at what they do – so they give them the freedom (and budget) to do as they want, and it shows. This may all seem very obvious, but what do all these studios (not just those that i named, many others) all have in common? They have all made games that have contributed to progression of this medium, and they are all franchises that have all served their publishers well over the years.

I wish it was as clear cut as saying that franchises that are milked for all they are worth eventually die off, but its hard to say that and it be true across the board, because it isn’t. Look at the sports games, they have been going for years, but there are other games that have suffered from this, such as Medal of honor and Need for speed, Medal of honor isn’t the worst example, but just look at the release list the earlier games were great, they started selling well and EA saw this. They demanded more of these games from the developers, quality slipped and the franchise was thrown around to make sure they continue to pump these games out, sales dropped off completely and brand recognition had disappeared. If you look at the available sales data for the later games in the series, and then begin to speculate on development costs of all put together and compare that to the potential success of a game or two that were given good developers, a good budget and enough time to complete a good game it starts to look like the, quality more than quantity is something that investors should research into when pushing on these games publishers to earn them their money back.

Coming back to those developers who are known for contributing to progression, and specifically Bioware and the Mass effect series. I consider this to be a real next-generation game when comparing this generation to the last, and for reasons beyond the graphics.  Here comes the upside to the industry growth and it attracting big investors, larger budget for better talent. We now have real writers, artists, animators and researchers coming in from other industries, i’m not saying game developers were bad at this last generation, but its hard to deny the talent that is being pulled into game development now is improving games. Bioware has always been good at creating fantastically believable worlds, great dialog and incredible stories. Thankfully, Bioware isn’t a developer who settles once they have something good, they are always progressing – Mass effect has all of the previously mentioned and has been obsessed with this world to a point where i have never been before. That, is my definition of next-generation games, developers that use the new features, such as better graphical possibilities, but also see growth in the industry and change or improve the way they develop their games, right down the writing and character development.

At first glance, our silly pre-conceptions of what an RPG tells us this really isn’t one anymore. Which when you sit back and actually look at it, you realise how extremely wrong you are.

I originally felt like this too, but after sinking 19 hours into the game (and extremely enjoying it!), i have found that this is probably what the RPG genre needs. The last decade or so, the large majority of the RPG genre has been dominated by games that have millions of skills, loads of loot and many non-combat tasks. But why does the genre have to be defined by this? Where in the name “Role playing game” say this is what this game should be like?

Where this has come from is that, because Bioware has chosen to tighten up the shooter elements in the game and focus more on this in the game’s structure itself, people are calling it a shooter, not an RPG. But listen to this, what do you do in Mass effect? You play the role of commander shepard, you make his decisions, his decisions effect his world, you build him as a person, his reputation and his skills. That is definition of an RPG, you are playing the role of a character to such detail not explored in other genres. It does not have to follow this formula of, level up 25 different skills, collect thousands of items and grind your levels up, if you’re playing the role of a specific character in detail, such as in a game as Mass effect, then it is an RPG.

Hopefully other developers see this, and realise that for them to make a game in this genre, it doesn’t have to follow that formula and they can explore new gameplay techniques and overall game structures to employ in this genre to give it the much needed reboot. The crew at interactivedistraction (its a podcast… :p) slightly touched on this, and Travis made a good point on their last episode, give it a listen.

This daring title has much to live up to, says the millions of other people writing blog posts much like i am. But really, it is true and describing this game is hard, at least to do so in a unique way. But i’ll leave that for a review, if i do one. As you may know, there is a certain way to get the demo early, a quick search on Google will help you out with that, of course i went and found out this rather interesting method and gained access to the 1.7GB demo.

I’m not crazy about this title, but was always extremely interested, as i always am with games that aim to explore the limits of this medium. I never held the worry about it just being a game about quick time events, or it just being an interactive movie,  because i’m one who always enjoys a good story in a game, even if it is over-told and drawn out, such as in games like Metal Gear Solid 4. Well on to the demo, it has been described as the evolution of the point-and-click adventure games, and i would say that could be true, which should excite some old school gamers.

The gameplay by looking at videos looks shallow and seemingly, many people don’t understand why the decision to make a game this way. I wasn’t too concerned about this either, and i’m glad i wasn’t, because playing the game i can see why it is done this way. Contextual actions do make more sense in the controls than many other games, like doing a stick motion to pull something out of your pocket, holding different buttons at the same time to do actions that could be difficult in real life,  such as climbing up a muddy hill, or back down. The button sequences are make you work in a similar way the character is, holding down different buttons that pop up on screen in ways no other game has dared to, so that to me is interesting, very interesting.

As far as the story, voice acting and writing goes, most of that remains to be seen, but the two sequences provided in the demo also have me wanting to know where the story goes because the back story and history behind the origami killer seems fairly well written. Some of the voice tracks seem a bit out of place, sometimes cutting in too late or too early, but there were little sound glitches in the same spots that happens, so it may just be that and will be sorted in the final version, if not, i don’t think i’ll mind that much.

I’m still interested, not excited in the same way i’m excited for a game like God of war 3, but interested to see how this game performs, not only at retail, but in reviews and in my own final play through of the game. But so far, so good.

Apple's iPad

I’ll start off by saying i’m not really an Apple fan, but i respect their work, the quality and effort that goes into manufacturing their products is fantastic. Yeah, they may not be to my liking, but you can’t deny it is quality stuff they usually make.

They have been on a roll since the iPod, after taking years of savage beatings from Microsoft in the consumer computing market, they saw how to change the industry, could possibly even say the world by starting off the iPod revolution. They found their market, they kept making their Mac’s, but explored new areas, the iPod became a massive success, like i said, starting the whole digital music revolution. Then along came the iPhone, changed the whole mobile phone industry, and you’re an idiot to deny what I’ve said. Sure, they may not of been the first to do some of the major draws in their products, but they were the first to make them work with the mass audience.

This success in other areas translated to more attention to the Mac’s, sales picked up after Apple regained brand recognition and the quality risen due to this surge in sales. Still, i wasn’t really interested, i like the iPhone. But i’m unlikely to ever think about buying a Mac, because i strongly disagree with forcing people to use your hardware, i know why they do that and i also respect it. But i am a PC gamer, and locking it to the hardware adds another locked door in front of the games industry. I’m getting side tracked here, what i’m trying to say is that i respect Apple because they seem to treat their customers well and the products they make are of a high quality (even if overpriced). The last few years Apple have been the best they have been since their start in the industry, they got it – they understood their fans and knew how to appeal to the mass audience, but what is this? A slip up? To me, it looks like it.

Enter the iPad, great hardware, great concept – restrictive operating system. Thanks to this operating system, i have little problem calling it an oversized iPod touch with 3G capabilities. Because that is all it is, the same applications and the same interface with some extra pretties. Fine, they’re good in their own right. But the general expectation of a tablet computer is usually that it is a miniature computer with its main input being touch or stylus. I want to be able to do what i can do on my regular desktop computer on a tablet computer, yeah, obviously not as quick or as efficiently,  but still have the ability to do what i want to. This tablet would of been absolutely fantastic with a standard version of OSX on it, i would of been very tempted to buy it. But i’m sorry, i personally believe Apple has totally missed the point, they don’t get it.

Maybe it is just me that doesn’t get it, but at this point, i’d rather get a HP Slate if i were to go for a tablet computer since it comes with unrestricted Windows 7, not great, cause its windows, but at least i would be able to do as i please.

Sony have just release five new stunning 720p God of war 3 screenshots.

No, not really. But we all know that over the last year or two, we have seen previous Xbox 360 exclusives coming over to the Playstation 3 with improvements. The xbox 360 was then labelled among the core gaming crowd as a machine for beta testing future Playstation 3 titles. That may be partly true, but look closely at what Microsoft has been doing to Sony. Sony have been doing some pretty bold and risky projects this generation in attempt to bring them back to the top, they’ve been great ideas, but not all of them executed very well.

Take home for example, had a great concept behind it, but the final execution wasn’t great to appeal to the masses. Don’t get me wrong, they have done pretty well with some of the stuff they offer there, and have a nice community. But Microsoft, everyone mocked them with the Avatars, but what they did there was kind of look at why people were hyped up for Home and took the simplest method and experimented, people, specifically the mainstream audience like to have something they can customise and represent them online, we see this on social networking sites, forums, everything with user profiles, that was the first step. The second step was looking at how people customised their Avatars, Home again, people proved they are willing to buy clothes and items for their virtual avatar, so Microsoft streamlined and copied that idea, once again, it worked.

Third step is what we come on to now, Microsoft Game Room. One of the potentially coolest ideas behind home was getting together and playing some games in the same space while chatting to each other, things like fun arcade games. We got around three arcade games to take to our apartment and have one person play through the entire home universe over all regions. Microsoft saw this potential and created Game room, it is essentially a mini home space to play and challenge your friends on arcade games. They claim there will be thousands of games available to buy over the next three years. One of the best features? They’re nearly 100% cross-platform with Windows PC, buy them on Xbox, play them on your PC, earn all achievements on either, and they will carry over.

Just finished watching the Microsoft CES 2010 press conference with the same excitement i always do after watching one of Microsoft’s press conferences. But i don’t get it, it rarely ever follows through with me, all these new features and the games rarely ever impress me as much as i would of expected. I am consistently disappointed by it, everything seems so cool and am always thinking to myself that this will be the year i use my Xbox 360 as one of my main gaming devices. But it just never is.

So what is it? Is it me allowing Microsoft to hype me up with their impressive presentation and PR speak? Is it me being genuinely impressed? Or maybe it is just some pre-conception i have  made about the Xbox 360 that it isn’t ever likely to be one of main gaming devices? Have i already doomed myself not to enjoy the console? Because i hope not, because even though the constant disappointment in the games may warrant it, there is quality content coming to that machine that i may receive better had i not already decided what the Xbox 360 means to me. I am always extremely optimistic about gaming, i am that person who has faith in things everyone else thinks will fail, especially when it comes to gaming, always looking forward to PC, PSP, and PS3 games, and am rarely disappointed, but i am the same with the 360, and it doesn’t work.

As an example, that new Retro Games room announced for the Xbox 360 and Windows PC is an extremely cool concept and it already sounds like they have leapfrogged what Sony was trying to do with Home with the arcade games for your apartment, which i thought was going to be one of the coolest parts of home. Then i think of the games, Splinter cell and Mass effect 2 – two games i am really looking forward to, but then the barrier hits again, i am going to buy them on PC. So that leaves Halo: Reach as the only retail game i may be interested in buying for the Xbox 360, so on the surface it looks like it will just be another year for the 360 and me, does that not warrant the pre-conceived conception about the console i explained above?

I’m still not sure what point i’m trying to make while writing this, other than what stops me from enjoying the xbox 360? Even as i post this, i am still very excited for the new additions to the 360 this year despite knowing the things i have said above. This can be received as ridiculous fanboy rubbish if you wish, i know how easily it could be perceived as. But that is not my intention, it is to ask the few people that might read this post on the various forums i plan to post it on, what they think my problem is. I only want to enjoy the console, i paid for it, and plan to continue investing into it.

Woah, very controversial statement, right? Well, i like RPG’s, but i’m extremely picky ones i play. For the longest time, i have been without any real RPG’s that i have been able to invest into and enjoy the story of. Then along came Mass effect, which at first thought wouldn’t be for me, since i couldn’t get into that during the introduction to the game. But i fought my way through that, and really enjoyed it. Bioware really take care with the writing, the voice acting and especially the back story and that is something i really appreciate and is essential for me to immerse myself into these games. So Mass effect lead me on to a game i’m really enjoying, that is Dragon age.

I can’t even remember an RPG on this level that i have enjoyed, must be 4 – 5 years at least. But seriously, if Mass effect 2 hooks me like Dragon age has, then my above statement really is true for me, Bioware has saved the RPG genre for me,  and hopefully these games do good, so other Western RPG developers copy these formula to making a great RPG, because i hate not having an RPG to play. I suppose this is a good opportunity to gush over Dragon age. Well, I’ve been taking screenshots again, and even though the console versions apparently don’t look that great, i love the look of the PC version on maximum settings. I’ve got two characters, my warrior (first image) and my mage, the below image. The combat in the game can be a bit iffy, many of the actions are not on buttons you’d expect them to, and even have 10 hours on each character, i’m still not used to it properly, but that is really just the controls, the combat itself, i’d have to say is actually pretty good.

If you like RPG’s, buy Dragon age, it really is a good game. Great story, fantastic voice acting and dialogue and good levelling and loot system.  Another great surprise of 2009, wasn’t sure if i would like this game for some reason i can’t even explain, but i did, and still am. But yeah, saving the RPG genre? outside my own little bubble? Not really, but for me? Yuh!

Look here, i have just put together a system for this post, which in terms of performance and longevity, will wipe the floor with any of the current consoles. All for less than £600, i could go for much cheaper than that using the Core 2 Quad series, and less powerful graphics cards and it still be a more powerful gaming system than those silly consoles. But i went with the new P55 chipset for the i5 processors, and one of the better graphics cards out there for the price, will run everything on maximum settings.

Click for full size version

I paid that amount of my PS3 when i bought it, a games console, it plays games and blu-ray movies.. whereas with a PC i can do much more than that. So there is more value to be had it in from that perspective. Then, we actually come on to gaming, there are valid complaints against PC gaming, such as some people not liking the lack of any universal system and games not always working on different hardware configurations on release. But feel free to challenge me when i say this, because this is just an opinion but, on the PC versions, you get:

1. Better graphics – Higher resolution, better quality textures, control over Anti Aliasing and Anisotropic filtering to bump them up well over what a console could run those games with and now extra graphical effects that the consoles won’t ever be able to support. Like we are seeing with DirectX 11, we won’t see the equivalent on consoles till the next generation of consoles at least.
2. Better performance – Being able to a game to match your display’s refresh rate (most commonly 60 hz, so 60fps) greatly enhances the feel and gameplay of a game. Many console games, aside from Racers and Call of duty run at 30 frames a second, many console gamers won’t really see the fuss, but once you go and play all games at 60fps or above if your monitor supports it, then go back to console gaming, it seems like games feel slow.
3. Better control – Yes, keyboard and mouse isn’t for everyone – but that is the point, you can use absolutely anything you want on PC, you’re not locked to any control methods. I know,you have things like FragFX on the consoles to kind of simulate a keyboard and mouse, but it doesn’t work properly, its slow, laggy and unresponsive since it is just a remodeled controller.
4. Better control over your games – You can mod your games, add new content, share your content easily, create your own community within an online game by hosting your own game server, administrate and moderate your own servers, everything!
5. Decent voice chat – I don’t care what anyone says, the voice chat on consoles is terrible, the quality is just unacceptable, especially when you compare to services like ventrillo, Skype or teamspeak.

Oh and, i’d like to say, YOU DO NOT HAVE TO UPGRADE YOUR VIDEO CARD EVERY FEW MONTHS. You know, like everyone seems to say you do. An 8800GTX, came out around 3 years ago, still outperforms a console and will run pretty much everything on the highest settings.

Then, the game prices – steam does sales regularly through the year, there is pretty much a game on sale all the time, and even if they’re not – pc games are still cheaper. But look at the recent sales for the past 8 days on steam, the special day only ones. There has been hundreds of games with money off during this time, not just a 10% off or so, but from 50 – 88% off on not only old games, but new games released within a few weeks of that sale!

CLICK TO ENLARGE

There are some very valid complaints against PC gaming, but not all of them are true and most of them are greatly exaggerated. Think about it next time you open your mouth, because i’m not trying to convert you all to PC gaming, just to inform you that you might of been talking rubbish the last time you mentioned PC gaming.