Andy is the second-most prolific writer here, but is prone to extended periods favouring gaming over writing.
Boy, these are exciting times we live in! Two games in development on ATR. Maybe we should get a stall at E3 this year.
This build not only contains the promised ability to walk, but also a light source. User testing has revealed that some gamers are afraid of the dark.
The game is after the link and as before you’ll need the Unity web player to view the game.
I’m sure you’re all very excited to here that development on AC’s AC: the RPG has begun. Build 1 is after the link. You’ll need the Unity web player to view it. At the moment, there is only blackness and you can’t look around or move, not that you’d be able to tell if you could. Build 2 will include some fancy features, such as the ground and walking.
If your new year’s resolution was to watch more The Colbert Report, then you’re set. It is now being broadcast, ad-free, on ABC weekdays at 7:30pm. And, more importantly, is also on iView.
A month of xbox live for a dollar. That’s value I can’t refuse. You, however, may decide to refuse it when you find out that buying it gives MS the right to charge you for a year’s membership when the month ends unless you make a nice long call to a guy in India who can’t understand why on earth you’d want to cancel something so wonderful as an xbox live gold membership.
I also couldn’t refuse Guitar Hero 3 with a wireless guitar for $74. Possibly not the best course of action for someone trying to pay off a credit card, but I felt like the gods of Buying Day were smiling on me when I got home and found the Halo 3 theme free to download for GH3.
I’ve played two minutes of Red Faction: Guerrilla and I think I’m in love. Ever since playing UFO: Enemy Unknown I’ve longed for a physics-based fully destructible world to smash up. Buildings in UFO could be destroyed but parts of the building would be left hanging unsupported in mid-air. It tended to break the immersion.
But not this game. My first action in game was to walk up to a concrete wall and smash a hole in it with my hammer. Sweet, I think as the wall leans and falls on top of me, pinning me to the ground. This is going to be excellent.
In my effort to post all the links in the notables thread, I’ve neglected the review column so here’s a blog post to rectify that. It’s been a conficting month. This quote from Eurogamer sums up my feelings “it’s now perfectly possible to love Sonic and wish he was dead at the same time.”
Dawn of War 2 is fun, and I haven’t even tried the co-op yet. I like the new focus on action, the rpg leveling up and no base building, but I have pangs of longing for the classic rts style. The missions are faster as a result, since you no longer have to build a base before leaping into the action. This makes multiplayer tougher, because there is now more emphasis on getting the right starting build and keeping your units alive. Lose a couple of squads due to poor unit selection or inattention and you won’t have the forces to take back the Strategic Points before the match ends.
Squads are treated as one entity like the first DOW, which makes handling large numbers of troops easy, unless one of your heavy weapons units gets involved in close combat. The rest of his squad then un-deploy their weapons and walk slowly into help him so their squad can entirely be involved in melee, because they’re the three musketeers apparently. Given that they have no qualms firing into a close combat fight at other times and that their firing damage is so much higher than their melee damage, I find this vexing. Telling a squad to teleport to an area that is out of the range of part of the squad can confuse them too.
The game is pretty, but it’s been some time since I played the first one, so it’s difficult to compare. There are some techinical issues though. The game would crash after every other mission, after the autosave had kicked in, so you wouldn’t lose anything except the time taken to restart the game. While only mildly annoying, that’s been patched out thankfully. Any remaining crashes are the fault of my computer.
Also the install screen looks like this:
As our regular Who correspondent is AFK,1 I’m stepping in to relay this important news. Some guy called Matt Smith has been cast as the new Doctor, replacing David Tennant whenever he decides to leave.
Having seen Tennant replace Eccleston, I think I’ve got this being a Who fan thing down. First I’ll say that I don’t care for the new guy’s foppish hair, and that he could never replace the current Doctor. Then perhaps I’ll moan about why Tennant has to leave and savour the last episodes with him. Sometime next year, when I see the new guy in action, I’ll initially hate him for replacing Tennant but quickly change my tune and decide that the new guy is the best ever. 2
BTW, Nanowrimo fell on its arse around here. Probably should have thought of a plot before I started writing. I wrote two chapters just by introducing new characters before I gave up.
Also, did you know that parking inspectors can give you a ticket if you’re lying down in a parking spot?
Ok everyone, it’s one week until November, so you know what that means.1 It’s almost time for the First Annual NaNoWriMo! You don’t know what NaNoWriMo is? It’s National Novel Writing Month. Don’t be put off by the misleading title,2 the aim of NaNoWriMo is to write a 50,000 word novel by the end of November. Here’s the faq.
So you’ve never written a novel? Not to worry, just dive right in. The only requirement is some kind of writing device.3 Here’s my profile, so all I need now is an idea for my novel. Please leave your ideas what I could write about and glowing reviews of my novel in the comments, and enjoy the magic of writing in November.