Its been a strange week. Everything feels different. As I'm currently spending less time in front of my PC, I've made a habit out of having to rewind chunks of House Season 6. Sorry Greg, but the patient cases aren't enough to hold my attention. (Can anyone honestly understand all that medical mumbo-jumbo?) Browsing the web on my iPhone has become something of a mini-obsession. It's just so convenient and effortless. I couldn't justify buying an iPad, but if there was ever a guilty pleasure..
Quickly changing topic here, but check out the L.A Noire trailer from Rockstar. This looks set to be a Game of the Year contender, with its innovative face morph and lip syncing technology. Looks like a mix between Heavy Rain and GTA IV. Mark your calenders for May 17th!
Back onto the iPhone buzz. I've also been gorging a bit on the Apple Store. Cut the Rope, Angry Birds and Pocket God are amongst the credit-card-denting culprits, though at less than €1 euro a pop, who's counting? Clearly designed toe be played in short bursts, this is handheld gaming at its finest. Makes you wonder how Nintendo and Sony will justify charging up to €49.99 for 3DS and PSP2 games, when such frighteningly addictive little games are available for peanuts. With emergent tech such as Unreal Engine for iOS, paving the way for more 'blockbuster' mobile gaming, will we begin to see a shift in consumer buying behaviour over the coming years? The all-conquering DS series is for the first time, in danger of being knocked off of the top. With the impending release of the 3DS, I think Nintendo are positioned nicely to dominate this space for a while yet, but with the evidence on show and how more and more 'triple A' studios are getting behind mobile gaming, the shift might come sooner rather than later. You only have to try 'Infinity Blade' on iOS to be convinced. Not to mention browser based gaming growing in strides.
No doubt the 3DS will sell like hot cakes, but unless Nintendo address the massive pirate business that has effectively killed software sales for previous DS iterations, I can see studios being somewhat reluctant towards producing the goods. Anyway, competition is always good and even Nintendo could do with a bit of a shake up.
So I've ordered a refurbished PS3. My ill conceived attempts at fixing my borked 40gb model over the weekend, resulted in a blunt screwdriver and a cracked chassis. Never been much of a handyman. It will set me back €160, but hey, they are replacing it with a 120gb Slim, so I can't complain. I'd eventually need one later in the year anyway, what with The Last Guardian and Uncharted 3 pegged for release. My reasoning behind shelling out, came down to timing and the gravitational pull of one game. Little Big Planet 2 was released last friday as I'm sure you are all aware. I like the first one but never really got into its seemingly over complex toolset. I found it a bit tedious and didn't have the patience for it. Things have changed since then and since it was revealed last year, I found myself toying with the idea of creating some content for it. My biggest gripe with the first game, was that no matter what you created, it always ended up feeling like Little Big Planet. The toolset has been expanded so much so that you can now create a game from practically any genre imaginable. Check out the 'Afterburner' video below. The possibilities are breathtaking.
I had a chat with my brother earlier and after throwing some ideas back and forth, it looks like we will work together on a Little Big Planet project. He's quite a talented writer (Would have written the CI script, but his new born baby got in the way!) and is hugely into cinematics and direction so it could be a great little collaboration. I'm practically salivating at the thoughts of getting my hands on this. There is the fear that it might not stick with me, as with the first one, but my thought process and methodological way at approaching things has vastly improved since 2008. It will most likely be built on a short schedule, what with Dragon Age 2 on the horizon amongst a pluetora of other things and as variety is indeed the spice of life, I plan to dabble my hand in as many different tools and platforms as possible. I would love to do more Dragon Age content, but I will have to weigh up my options and try and pick the most beneficial route.
So a week has passed since the release of Craggy Island. I must say, I miss working on it. I miss the assurance of knowing exactly how I would spend my evenings and days off. I hate not having a plan or something to think about excessively. Boredom really isn't good for me. I've also realized, that for the time being at least, I enjoy making games more than I do playing them. Feedback for Craggy Island in general has been far better than I had ever imagined. To think that there has been hundreds of people who have sat down and enjoyed something that I have created, is a feeling that is hard to describe.
Dinner is ready, so I'll leave it there. Oh, one last thing. I have applied for a the position of 'European Marketing Assistant' for Riot Games, the studio responsible for the fantastic 'League of Legends'. It's a free-to-play, tower defense-style PVP game, with Blizzard-esque artistic qualities and ferociously addictive ability based gameplay. You can buy the full version to unlock more characters and it uses a micro-transaction system for unlocking more content. I implore you to check it out, I'd love to find the time to play again. You can download it and start playing now. You can also play versus AI if you aren't into multiplayer gaming. Anyway, the position was advertised via gamedevelopers.ie, it sounds like a fantastic opportunity. The job is based on 15minutes from where I live too.
Over and out.
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