I’d buy one. Especially if Dave Winer and company design it the way it’s meant to be - which I know they can. On the software side I think something could come of hooking up with Songbird, the free, open source, cross platform player. It would probably be much easier to adapt the source, develop an extension or work directly with the Songbird team to provide the software needed to manage subscriptions on the device. So how about it Dave?
Monthly Archive for November, 2006
I’ve always had this urge to make games, it’s something that dates back to my old Spectrum ZX days and the programs you could write in basic and record to tape. Since then I dipped into ‘Click ‘n’ Play’ from which the seminal Helicopter Attack Trilogy was born, a series only seen by a few individuals for a good reason - goofy humour, tons of inside jokes and cheesy midi music (yeh!). Someday I’m sure I’ll find that game again, it’s probably on a CD or floppy somewhere.
Moving closer to the present day I looked into C++ with DirectX and OpenGL, all of which seemed overly complex for what I wanted to achieve. Windows programming in C++ is just plain dumb, there’s no logic to the code you write, you feel like your repeating yourself and most of the API names are meaningless.
So after much dipping in and out over the past few years it seems like a solution has arrived that I can actually get something done with in a relatively short period of time. XNA Game Studios Express is now on its second beta and has become a really powerful tool. By providing the framework needed to handle the game (the game loop, controller support, etc) I can concentrate on actually deciding how high my stick man can jump. Over the weekend I was able to quickly put together the aforementioned stick man giving him the ability to run around and shoot fireballs.
It’s great to see managed code finally make its way into the game world, sure, people have been making games in Java for years but it always seemed so wrong on so many levels. With XNA you have the power of DirectX without all the C++ crap that usually goes with it.
Hopefully I will have my first prototype done this weekend. It’s a nice change to say that.
Congratulations are due to Nex on getting their debut album out the door. I’ve known Ed for a long time (birth) and he and the rest of the band have worked extremely hard and sacrificed a lot to achieve this. As I’m sure those who have listened to the album will agree it’s really paying off. It’s a strong mixture of metal and punk stylings with catchy riffs and a raging pace. Particular highlights for me include text speak sung in chorus (yes, it’s true) and Ed laying down the best ROARS I’ve heard in ages.
Nice one guys, See you on the tour!
I have been milking Gears of War all weekend. Got through the entire campaign in several long sittings and enjoyed every second of it (apart from the odd Berserker encounter ;-)). Strangely for me as soon as I was done I jumped right back into it, upped the difficulty and joined a co-op as Dom. The fact that I wanted to play this again straight away unlike anything else should speak for itself.
Oh and by the way if your going to play single player you may as well do so by just starting a new co-op game. This way as you are going through the game other players can jump in and help you out. You retain the saved progress and it might help you in some of the tougher fights.
UFC had a half decent show on Saturday if not up to the standards set by the last three seasons of Ultimate Fighter finales. It’s what we expected going in as they were coming off some of the lowest ratings and worst episodes they have had in a while. The few memorable things on the show were the crazy finish to the Pete Sell vs Scot Smith match and the terrible judges they have in Nevada
The Middleweight final ended in a split decision and some strange scoring. How any of the judges could have had either man winning every round is beyond me. It was not a clean sweep by either guy and to call it 30-27 is just wrong.
This was one of those fights where the current judging criteria isn’t enough and needs to be made more specific. There were barely any take downs, barely any connecting punches but a whole lot of countering and maneuvering. Depending on if they thought Lytle’s defensive success was more important then Serra’s offensive failures could have thrown the fight either way.
Mike Goldberg hinted at a sudden death round (is that really the best term when they are trying to be mainstream) but of course we didn’t get one. It’s debatable if that would have helped or not because usually when a fight is heading for a decision there’s no stopping it.
Anyone realise there was a Pride show on Sunday? No me neither and I have no interest in seeing it. They are really going to have to pull the stops out at the New Years and in February shows to stop the sinking ship.
Ahh this takes me back.
Neverwinter Nights 2 is probably as close as we will get to a true follow-up to the Baldurs Gate series. It’s surprising, unexpected but deeply satisfying that this is the case.
Many people (myself included) expected a single player campaign that had more in common with its prequel than Bioware’s earlier games. The original campaign, while lengthy, served as more of an example of what the toolset could do rather than the epic tale across the Forbidden Realms that many fans were hoping for. Here we have quite the opposite.
While Neverwinter Nights peaked after it was released in subsequent expansions and community developed modules, here Obsidian have unloaded everything and developed an engaging plot driven CRPG to rival Knights of the Old Republic.
Sure it has well documented issues such as a poor camera and performance problems but these fall away and become secondary as you begin to get deeper into the game. One thing that has given me confidence is Obsidian’s commitment to produce patches, something I wasn’t so sure about after their last game (blame Lucasarts).
For me it takes the best parts of Baldurs Gate (party based combat), Knights of the Old Republic (story and characters) and the original Neverwinter Nights (toolkit and multiplayer) to create a game that’s compelling, fun and hard to close down. And the best thing of all? Open up the toolkit and it’s just the beginning.
Finally took the plunge and bought an Xbox 360 this week. I was toing and froing about it but it basically came down to the fact that Gears of War is out this week and now I can afford to run the console.
Had a good weekend of play on PGR3 which came bundled and as I’m sure all 360 owners will agree Xbox Live is by far the highlight of the system. It’s the simplicity of playing quick games, joining up with your friends and chatting to them through the headset that makes all the difference.
If you want to add me to your friends list my tag is j0hn00 or just send me yours in the comments or by email and we will hook up online. On Friday I will be able to chainsaw you in the face :-).
It’s awesome. Great graphics, cool gameplay and one hell of a kick ass chainsaw. Only had time to squeeze in 15 minutes on a 4 vs 4 team deathmatch but I got a really good idea of how it feels and plays. It’s very polished all round and is definitely looking like the kind of system seller Microsoft were after this Christmas.
Not sure if I will have time tonight but I am gonna try and get back down to the bullring later and put some more time in. I would have really liked to try out single player but the deathmatch will have to do for now - in all its fantastic bloody glory.
Anyone in Birmingham tomorrow or this weekend be sure to check out the Xbox 360 demos happening at the bullring. I’m definitely going to check it out tomorrow, can’t wait to play some Gears of War in my lunch break!
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