I was lucky enough to pick up a code for the latest game from Bizarre “I make lots of pretty looking”, but hard, driving games” Creations on the Xbox 360. When Weefz had stopped playing Mass Effect 2, Final Fantasy XIII and Heavy Rain, I fired up the multiplayer beta of Blur.

Several hours later we were still playing it, which for a driving game is a very good sign. So why were we still playing it? Well it’s simple, fun and quick to play. You don’t wait around ages looking for a match, the power-up icons are easy to see and use and you’re straight back in the game when you crash or get wrecked (i.e. your car takes too much damage). It makes the racing interesting from start to finish.

Also its easier to play than WipEout HD, so Weefz enjoyed playing it. Given all the races are over either 2 or 3 laps in the beta, you can swap quickly between people, if there is more than one of you. You don’t have to suffer 10 minute races. Also given Blur is essentially Mario Kart crossed with Project Gotham, it’s spectacular to watch all the power-ups causing mayhem.

Blur is also the most accessible game that I have played from Bizarre Creations. They have taken all the game mechanics from their Project Gotham racing games, like Kudos points for driving “with style” and made them, well, just more fun. You now earn fans during races when you use power-ups, inflict damage on other cars and drive with style. But since the focus of this game is arcade action, you don’t lose fans for crashing into walls, or not taking the perfect racing line. As a result Blur is a more enjoyable game.

My only criticism of the beta is that it only contains 6 tracks. These are:

• Barcelona Gracia “Passeig de Gracia”
• Docks “Pacific Reach”
• Amboy “Badlands Traverse”
• Tokyo Shutoko “Wangan-sen”
• Amboy “Devil’s Dip”
• LA Downtown “Downtown Loop”

So after a few hours, I did crave a bit more track variety. Although I did learn these tracks inside out, which meant I made full use of all the short cuts. And also this is just a beta and we are promised more tracks in the finished game. After playing this beta I’m certainly looking forward to playing the full game in May 2010.

And finally, I have a code to give away for the Blur multiplayer beta to the first (intelligent) comment on this post. So make sure you enter a valid email address and then I’ll send you the code to enter on http://www.blurgame.com/beta.

Blur is released on the 25th May 2010 on PS3, PC and Xbox 360.

Earlier on this month I reviewed Ubisoft’s excellent Assassin’s Creed II on the Xbox 360. I won’t be reviewing the PC version of this game, as I will never buy it because of Ubisoft’s idiocy.

With the release of the PC version of Assassin’s Creed II Ubisoft launched their new “online platform.” This platform requires your copy of Assassin’s Creed II to constantly validate itself with Ubisoft’s central servers via the internet. Any break, however tiny, in this connection will result in you getting kicked out of your own game. Yep, kicked out until the game can revalidate itself. Ubisoft is saying that the benefits of this online platform outweigh the hassle of your game constantly validating itself. These benefits include:

• Unlimited installs
• Play the game without a disk
• Save data that is accessible from multiple computers

According to Ubisoft’s marketing director, Murray Pannell:

We are aware that some players will not be able to connect to the internet but with the proliferation of WiFi, the majority of people can connect most of the time, so these instances should be very limited.

Quote via MCV

Personally I think this anti-piracy plan is myopic. I have no problem with Ubisoft wanting to have PC owners buying their games rather than just pirating them as they deserve to profit from their hard work. However, I do have a problem with a game that it stops me playing it just because my wireless connection dropped. When I buy a game I expect to be able to play it whenever I want, which I can on the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360 versions of Assassin’s Creed II.

Going back to Mr Pannell’s quote, that the “majority of people can connect most of the time”. I’m sorry, most of the time isn’t good enough. This is not an acceptable level of service. The customer buys the product, in this case £26.99 PC version of Assassin’s Creed II, and then the customer has the right to play then game at any time.

There is something I just don’t understand about both games and film companies. Why do they persist in making the legitimate purchases of their products pay for the fact they haven’t pirated them? If you watch a downloaded film from the internet, you don’t have to sit though the awful anti-piracy ads which infect DVD and Blu-rays.

Someone (via @jackschofield on twitter) has summed up perfectly the difference between pirating a movie and watching a legitimate DVD:

Does anyone else think that this approach is counter productive and just plain stupid? Stop pissing off people who buy DVD’s and Blu-ray with all this anti-piracy crap and put more content on the discs (e.g. behind the scenes stuff) instead.

So don’t buy the PC version of Assassin’s Creed II, buy the PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360 versions instead, otherwise you’ll miss out playing a great game.

Update 7th March 2010: Well it didn’t take long for this crappy DRM solution to prevent people from playing their game. There’s currently a problem with the Ubisoft DRM servers meaning people can’t play Assassin’s Creed II. Just buy any version of Assassin’s Creed II apart from the PC one. Then Ubisoft might come up with a less idiotic DRM solution. The post from acetken nicely sums up the whole mess:

Wow. Bought it for my brother for his birthday and now he can’t play it. Thanks, Ubi! You’ve made this a great weekend.

To quote the front page of Joystiq:
“Find a less abominable DRM policy.”

We’re done until you do. (And improve your tech support while you’re at it. It’s the worst I’ve seen yet.)

Has anyone noticed just how huge Chun-Li’s legs have become in the latest instalment of the Street Fighter franchise? They’re HUGE!!!!!! I know Chun-Li always had fairly large legs in proportion to the rest of her body, but they are considerably LARGER now. Perhaps she’s just been working out or taking ‘roids.

See, big ain’t they? It’s worse than that as what ever Chun-Li’s been taking, so has Cammy. Cue more giant legs:

So the graphics artists at Capcom clearly have a muscular leg fetish. Suppose they could claim that to beat up the boys, the girls need big legs. But that big? Ok, I’m not saying that all girls should be stick thin, far from it, but do you come across girls in real life with legs this big? Mostly no! Probably, unless you’re a weightlifter or a body builder.

Our intrepid female gamer correspondent Weefz had this to say, “F*** me, her thighs are three times the width of her head! I s’pose it makes a change from the usual T&A.”

Street Fighter IV is released on the 20th Feb 09 on the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360

I find myself strangely disturbed by Fallout 3 Gameplay video 4. For some reason, the chainsaw bayonet blood splatter in Gears of War is nasty but appropriate. This level of gore in Fallout seems plain Wrong.

I don’t know if it’s the slow-motion action or the exploding body parts that are more distateful. Perhaps it’s just that I always had the Fallout series pegged as “safe” and “funny” so this level of over-the-top violence is shocking. I also had Bethesda down as fairly innocuous, based on my experiences with Morrowind and Oblivion.

OTOH, I seem to recall that there was a good deal of comical cartoon splatter in the original Fallout RPGs. Is realistic graphic violence the necessary successor to cartoon violence?

Anyone out there played Priston Tale? I know it’s Korean but since our readers are apparently 12-17 and Asian, you never know.

Anyway, I ask because Priston Tale 2 is coming to Europe and I do love a good MMORPG. Have a quick look at the official Priston Tale 2 website and then come back.

Seen it yet? It looks pretty, right? Thing is, all the nice artwork is hidden behind mystery meat navigation. If you roll the mouse over invisible hot-spots on the site, you get a bit of art, or a gameplay trailer. Or a mildly-disturbing wallpaper showing a warrior-woman who has huuuuuuuuge breasts and not enough armour. No, I’m not telling you where that particular hotspot is. Look at some nice concept art instead:

I get what they’re trying to do – engage the visitor by giving us a bit of a challenge. I just don’t think it’s necessary or fun. I found a nice bit of male character concept art earlier but I’ve been looking for the hotspot for 10 minutes now and can’t find it. Aren’t pixel-hunting puzzles in games almost as universally derided as the quick-time event?

Now that I’m all out of Ace Attorney games, I have nothing to do on my commute. It’s about a 25 minute journey so I need to be able to save at short notice without losing much progress.

• I liked Trauma Centre but games like that are fiddly on a moving train.
• I loved the Ace Attorney games
• I hated Harvest Moon
• Animal Crossing was okay but ultimately leaves me feeling empty
• Same goes for Cooking Mama
• And Pokémon
• Don’t even bother with Brain Training
• I already have Tetris DS

What game should I buy next?

By rights, I shouldn’t even be drawing your attention to this game. I’ve decided recently that my silent protest at the ridiculous depiction of women in games is, well… too silent. I’d been hoping for some new quasi-realistic women to turn up in any game for the current-gen consoles so that I could praise the dev team. No luck yet.

So, at the risk of encouraging them with the attention, I’m instigating a new policy of pointing out games that, as a woman, I find laughable. Sometimes even offensive. Contrary to what you may think, I don’t really mind hentai or games like DOA: Xtreme Beach Volleyball. At least they’re upfront about their motives. I’m even fine with Elexis Sin, what with her being modelled after an actual living woman (ICBW). Sure, in Tomb Raider you spend an awful lot of time staring at Lara’s butt. However, it’s always suitably dressed for the prevailing weather.

No, the games that get me are the ones where porn-like women are totally irrelevant. Games like Conan with its stripper-style animation of rescued captive women [linked video NSFW].

Here’s X-Blades, an upcoming anime hack-and-slash which falls straight into the offensive pile:

Introducing Ayumi…

This charismatic heroine is a fearless treasure hunter who has often used her gun blades to fight her way out of seemingly hopeless situations.

See the X-Blades website for more character info. Here’s a picture of Ayumi.

Nice T&A pose. You know where else you can find women who pose like that? In newspapers. On Page 3 [also NSFW]. Quite apart from the fact that she looks about 14 years old, I suppose Ayumi ditched the chainmail bikini because it was too cumbersome, right?

Perhaps I’m not being fair, choosing a promotional wallpaper image. Here’s an in-game screenshot from the media section of the website:

Classy character design, there. Of course, being a kick-ass sword-and-gun-wielding heroine, Ayumi needed to be rescued by a man. Here’s Jay.

Jay is an adventurer like Ayumi and can also be found on the Temple Island. He rescues her from a deadly trap, tries (without success) to free her from her curse and attempts to support her in her fight against the Powers of Darkness.

And his picture:

Note the buffed and manly pecs. Marvel at the well-endowed codpiece. Gasp at his sexy revealing G-string.

No, wait. In my dreams. Us hetero ladies don’t get to play with hot men. I guess it might threaten the developers’ collective masculinity.

I’m not saying that the solution to female objectification is male objectification. It would just be nice if most (not all) character designers could get their heads out of their collective asses for five minutes and think about a world that contains people who aren’t white, male and aged 15 to 25. There are a lot of us out here, also with games consoles. Between us, we have a crapload of money and we’re not spending it on you.

I wonder why…

Welcome to the 4rd instalment of Blog Banter, the monthly blogging extravaganza headed by bs angel. Blog Banter involves a cosy community of enthusiastic gaming bloggers, a common topic, and a week to post articles pertaining to said topic. The results are quite entertaining and can range from deep insight to ROFLMAO. If you are interested in participating, contact bs angel for more information. Check out other Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post.

“We thought it was a phase that you’d grow out of.” Sound familiar? Well, these are the words spoken to me by my parents when discussing the topic of videogames. Grow out of what exactly? What’s wrong with playing videogames for the rest of my life, they aren’t just for kids you know?

When Christmas 1984 came around my parents bought a BBC Model B Microcomputer for my older brother. Didn’t make much difference whose it was as I took to it like a fish to water. Little did they know what they had started. My journey into the world of videogames had begun. Yay for parents.

Now fast forward 23 Christmases (yuk, I feel old now). There I was sitting in my parent’s living room playing Sonic and Mario at the Olympic Games on the Nintendo Wii with my girlfriend. The rest of my family were sitting on the adjacent sofa looking distinctly disinterested in my rabid wiimote flailing and even turned their collective noses up at Wii Sports (but it was made for old people). The overriding feeling was that adults should be playing with children’s toys at their age, unless it’s with another child. Then it’s all ok, as you’re playing WITH the child and not acting AS a child.

Even in 2007, when the games industry officially overtook the music industry in terms of overall revenue, the sight of an adult playing videogames is still viewed as fairly childish behaviour by a large section of society. Sure there are plenty of children playing videogames. You only have to spend some time on-line using Xbox LIVE to witness many, many teenagers communicating via a mixture of swear words and grunting. However, these teenagers only account for 28.2% of gamers. 47.6% of gamers are aged 18-49 with the remaining 24.2% aged 50+ according to a recent report by Entertainment Software Association (ESA).

Now that I’ve been playing videogames for 23 years now, I’m the average gamer (33 years old). From Elite on the BBC Model B to Army of Two on the Xbox 360 (mmm, not a great game but the most recent one I’ve played) I’ve enjoyed every minute. So that makes me a gamer and an adult. I must be very childish then? Err no, in fact for many aspects of my professional life playing videogames has actually helped me in performing medical procedures (e.g. endoscopy or colonoscopy) as they have developed my hand to eye coordination.

We need to get over the fact that videogames aren’t just for children. Now more than ever they are played by adults, like me, who aren’t your stereotypical gamer (long hair, poor social skills and personal hygiene). If only the rest of society, in particular politicians, would start behaving like adults towards the games industry and the gamers themselves, we could start making some progress. Or maybe I should give up on that idea and go binge drinking down the pub and start smoking in order to be treated like a “grown up” adult in today’s screwed up society.

Check out these other Blog Banter articles: The Average Gamer, Silvercublogger, shinybento, Unfettered Blather, Boom Stick Brigade, Gamer Unit, Zath!, Man Bytes Blog, Game Couch, Video Game Sandwich, Delayed Responsibility, thoughts and rants, Hawty McBloggy

I am not a beautiful and unique snowflake. I don’t get a thrill out of seeking out the unknown and unpopular. For the most part, I am a mass-market consumer with a few odd customisations.

I am a hardcore RPG gamer, having cut my virtual teeth on the Gold Box D&D and Buck Rogers games. You wouldn’t know it if you met me in a pub. I could talk for hours about the people around us, your life, drinking games, English weather… all sorts of normal sensible things. But in the back of my mind, I’ll be thinking about going home. Firing up the TV. Figuring out how the hell I can beat that first Demon Wall. (FYI, you need to grind up for the Quickenings)

I loves me the RPGs… but I’m a solitary gamer. I don’t talk about myself. I don’t bring games up in conversation. I don’t need or want other people to play with me. All I want is to be left in peace to explore strange new worlds, seeking out new life and new civilizations.

So, if you want to really understand me, you’ll have to play an RPG. Planescape: Torment, the greatest RPG ever created. I mean it. What’s not to love? It has a wise-cracking floating skull. It has a useful journal system. It has the novelty of progression through NOT killing things. But most of all, it has meaning and depth and emotion.

Play it for the consequences of immortality, both glorious and tragic. Play it for the odd philosophy of belief and how it shapes the world. Play it to meet a cast of characters as yet unrivalled in the games industry. Hell, play it just to meet Annah, the hot be-tailed tiefling. She’s awesome and takes no crap from anyone.

Play it, and you’ll see a huge part of my childhood. This game has everything I love about fantasy.

[Image taken from GameSpot. Sadly, I no longer have a copy of the game to make my own screenshots]

Blog Banter is a group of bloggers passionate about anything and everything video games. We enjoy getting together once a month to write about the same subject. You will be amazed at the different viewpoints so many people can have on the exact same topic! If you are interested in participating, contact bs angel for more information. Enjoy all of our articles.

Silvercublogger, The Average Gamer, Game Couch, thoughts and rants, Delayed Responsibility, Boom Stick Brigade, Boom Stick Brigade 2, CrazyKinux’s Musing, Gamer Unit, Draining Souls.net, 8-Bit Brigade, Zath Games Tech, Arm the Flag, Hawty McBloggy, Lou Lantos

I hate recruitment. Job interviews make me incredibly nervous. Normally I babble like an idiot without really being able to focus on where my speech is going. This week I tried a different tack – I stuck to concise on-topic answers and when the 4-strong panel started nodding and writing things down, I stopped expanding on my answer. As a result, I am “guarded” and “low on client empathy” :P

Even worse than job interviews are those psychometric tests and assessment days that are so popular among banks for their graduate recruitment programmmes. Multiple-choice personality questions? Shoving a bunch of 20-somethings into direct competition and making them work as a team? Urgh.

I propose that we do away with these sorts of assessments entirely. Instead, all candidates should be made to play through the whole of Portal.

No, I’m serious. Stay with me here… no spoilers, I promise. See, the advantage of Portal as a recruitment tool is that it guides you through the mechanics of the gameplay. It’s completely newbie-friendly; there are no stupid QTE sections, the controls are simple and unlike, say, Final Fantasy, you’re never dropped into a situation that’s way too powerful for you.

Once you’ve been shown the basics and “thinking with portals”, you’re left to progress in your own time and put together the skills you’ve learned in order to solve practical puzzles. This is where the game becomes extremely useful as a microcosm of the decision-making business environment.

I finished playing Portal and then watched several other people do it. In doing so, I noticed three distinct styles of play.

The Brute Force Approach

Brute Forcers don’t really get the hang of thinking with portals. Unless forced to do otherwise, they stick to the most familiar options – walk through walls or fall from ceilings. The first solution that comes to mind will be a tried and trusted standby. If it doesn’t work, repeat and run faster this time. Only after many failed attempts do they start considering the differences between this environment and the last.

Advantages: Quick to act.
Disadvantages: Slow to try new things. Not good at creating innovative solutions.

The Analyser

Analysers stop and look around before doing anything. They consider a range of possible solutions before trying one out. If that doesn’t work as expected, they’ll take into account any new information and try something else.

Advantages: Careful, thorough decision-maker. Likely to come up with new ideas.
Disadvantages: Slow to act. Familiar problems may be solved slower due to overanalysis.

The Chancer

A chancer will guess based on how similar to to a previously-solved problem the new puzzle appears at first glance. They won’t necessarily search to see if anything is different. If the most “obvious” solution doesn’t work, they’ll try a few different ones. Only after exhausting the known repertoire will they start to analyse a new situtation.

Advantages: Quick to act.
Disadvantages: Can proceed rapidly down the wrong path. May not notice problems until it’s too late.

What do you think? Is your in-game decision-making process different from real life?