E3 2010: Microsoft Keynote impressions. Part 2: Kinect

For the sake of length this article has been broken into two parts, for a look at the rest of the keynote check out part 1. 

After the Halo trailer its was time for some hands on time with Kinect. Ron Forbes was demonstrating how we will be able to use the new technology with the existing dashboard; to log onto his account all he had to do was wave, within about a second he was logged in, a second wave bought up a simplified version of the 360 menu. The new 'Kinect Hub' menu allows everything to be selected by moving your hand around, if you pause over an item for a few seconds it will open that item, so far so EyeToy, things get more impressive though with the introduction of the voice controls, to enter a command he first said "Xbox" this bought up the command phrases for the applications, he then said "Zune" and was taken into the Zune menu, it all happened very quickly and didn't seem to have any noticeable lag. He then started up a movie, using his hands again he showed off how easy it is to fast forward and rewind with simple hand gestures, as well as some precision tuning. We also got to see some simple voice command examples such as "Xbox, pause" and "Xbox, play" both of which had the results you'd expect from those commands, again without any noticeable lag, he then demonstrated using voice commands to switch to music and used similar controls there as well. 

We were then treated to a demonstration of Video Kinect, this was always going to be the hardest part to sell of all the features and I was surprised how much time they dedicated to it, the video quality was very good, and there were a few neat touches such as being able to see the weather information for the area the other person was in and the ability to being up videos to watch together. The coolest feature was the use of Kinects motorised base for head tracking, when the person moves out of shot the camera follows them, it was very cool to watch, and was the highlight of a segment that otherwise screamed 'webcam chat'.

This was followed by what can only be described as mixed news depending on what country you're from, if you're from the States rejoice because you'll be getting ESPN for free if you have Xbox Live Gold, if you live anywhere else in the world I'd hold back on that excitement because this is looking like Netflix all over again. Anyway, for those who will be getting it the ESPN option looks fantastic, access to 3500 sporting events, either on demand or live and most of which will be in HD. Again Kinect offers voice control and includes some clever features such as being able to call out who you are rooting for and have it logged against all the other people who are watching live, as well as being able to participate in some trivia quizzes or even request a replay! All ESPN.com features will be available when watching a game as well.

Kudo Tsunoda walks on stage, and he wasn't wearing sunglasses! Only kidding, of course he was wearing sunglasses... He explained that he would be our anchor for the Kinect section of the keynote, and then left the stage, leaving in his place a little girl. She called for her pet tiger cub who excitedly bounded onto the screen, the entire segment was absolutely adorable. She demonstrated how she could tickle it, or make it do tricks, then in a cruel twist she hid from the poor animal, at which point he pressed his paws against the screen and looked around for her, whining, the girl jumped back out and the little tiger cub got really excited. I realise how silly this all sounds but it was a really cute demonstration of the Kinect's tech, towards the end of the demonstration she giggled "go and get your jump rope" she didn't say it in standard voice command style as everyone else had previously, and yet the tiger came back with a jump rope clenched between it's teeth. Its worth pointing out the the graphics were really good, the realistic but cartoony faced tiger was fantastic, this looks like a toy you're going to buy for yourself but pretend it's for your daughter, trust me. After a further play with the tiger it was time for the heart warming scene to come to an end, Kudo returned to the stage and explained that the game is called Kinectimals and will feature 40 pets and 30 different activities.

Next up we got to see Kinect Sports and Joyride, the observant among you may remember that Joyride was announced last year as a free title for XBLA, no idea if it will still be free but it's Kinect only now. Kinect Sports had a rather cool feature where you could hype up the crowd on the title screen, there's absolutely no purpose to it at all, but being able to initiate Mexican waves and get a stadium going wild just by lifting your arms is something that most gamers secretly aspire to I'd imagine. The actual game mode they demonstrated was the 200mtr hurdles, and basically involved running on the spot and jumping when your avitar reached the hurdles. The graphics looked fairly good again, and it it's always nice to see support for the Avatars, but it is really just a minigame compilation much like that other motion controlled sports game with 'Sports' in the title. The other sports included in the final release are Bowling, Boxing, Table Tennis, Volley Ball and Javelin.
Joyride made similar use of Avatars and simplistic gameplay, steering is handled by holding your hands in front of yourself as if holding a fake steering wheel, you have to push your hands forward to boost and move your hips to drift, it is possible to do tricks by posing when your car is in the air. It didn't look very good as far as graphics are concerned and the way Kinect had been implemented looked lazy, these two were by far the least inspiring of the Kinect titles.
The next title that was presented, Kinect Adventures!, just managed to avoid being dropped into the uninspiring category by having a couple of cool features. Again the game centres around mini games, and essentially involved jumping on the spot in a variety of different game locations, the most impressive feature was the way the game instantly split into splitscreen mode when another player jumped into the play area, it also took pictures during gameplay and presented them in the way a rollercoaster does at the end of the ride, but this is something EyeToy games have been doing for years now. 

When the Ubisoft logo appeared on screen I felt a faint twinge of excitement that we might have gotten to actually see a 'proper' kinect game, the excitement faded away instantly when the trailer began and it became clear we were looking at some kind of fitness game. The actual title of the project is called Your Shape: Fitness Evolved, and despite my initial reservations it actually ended up looking really impressive. The games demonstrator was Felicia Williams, Ubisoft's international brand manager, when she stood in front of Kinect she was rendered as a 3d orange model stood in a room filled with brightly coloured exercise balls, she was able to interact with these and kicked a few away to demonstrate this. The system then began to do a comprehensive scan of her, this was cool, but also kind creepy, there was something very Terminator about the way it showed a skeleton under her skin and the started reeling off statistics about her body. She explained that this scan was so that the system could remember her, base routines around her body shape, and so that it could customise the menus specifically for her, sure enough all of the menu items were placed within her reach, its a small feature but it was very intuitive. The first real activity had a virtual instructor next to her on-screen orange model, it was simply a case of doing the same movements as the instructor, just like a workout video, unlike a workout video the game provided feedback such as 'you need to lift your knee higher' to make sure she was actually doing the exercise right. Next up was a block breaking combat game, this placed a grid in front of the player and it was a simple case of kicking or punching the blocks away, it looked really responsive and fairly fun to do. The final part of the demonstration revolved around yoga, in the same way as before the game advised on how to adjust her pose to best match that of the instructor, it was possible during this to see the estimation of where the game thought her bones and joints were, it did look very accurate. 

Next up the Harmonix logo flashed up on screen and we were treated to a girl playing their new game Dance Central, it looked a lot like the Wii game Just Dance, but with a lot more potential. The girl's dancing was incredible, but it was hard to tell if the character on screen was replicating her movements or doing some pre-canned animations, regardless the game did look a lot of fun but also very daunting to someone like me who has no type of dancing talent at all. Harmonix CEO Alex Rigopulos then walked out on stage and explained that Dance Central is the natural progression from dance mat games of the past, he's probably right and I can see this being a massive hit with the Just Dance style crowd, he then ran through a few of the artists who will feature in the game; Lady Gaga, The Beastie Boys, No Doubut and Mia, a lot of the songs in game will feature the dance moves featured in their music videos, hopefully that means we'll be re-creating the Sabotage video in the near future from the comfort of our own homes. The character models look like they have been lifted out of the Rock Band, the HUD features a boom box that fills with stars and displays the score multiplier  as well as a rotating wheel on the right hand side of the screen that shows the current and upcoming dance moves, it is in essence a dancing version of Rock Band. Finally my fears of humiliation in the world of bedroom dancing (take from that expression what you will) were laid to rest when another member of Harmonix demonstrated the 'break it down' mode which takes every dance move and in a method similar to Your Shape advises you on how to change your posture to achieve each step.

There will be 15 titles available for Kinect when it launches November 4, all but 2 of which look like they are going to be sports / fitness games. This was the most disappointing aspect of Kinect, the technology looks very solid, but there aren't any release titles to excite core gamers, in fact a couple of the titles that were up on screen looked like standard Wii shovelware, hopefully there will be some innovative must have titles soon after release.

Things started to look up when the Star Wars theme started to play, and I can happily admit that I was getting pretty excited about what was going to follow. My excitement was burned away ina  few seconds by some awful pre-rendered on rails footage of a Jedi swinging a lightsaber that seemed to be just tapping stormtroopers on the head causing them ragdoll into little piles. There wasn't any indication of how the the game will control, but judging by the over the top nature of the animations its fairly safe to asume we'll thrusting our arms forward to use force powers and swinging them to use the lightsaber/ wiffle ball bat. The trailer concluded with Darth Vader stepping out of an imperial transport and swinging for the protagonist, hopefully everything on display was just a quick pre-rendered mock up of how the final mechanics will work.

After the Star Wars trailer two members of Turn 10 come on stage to show off what again looked like a tech demo for Forza Kinect (no actual title was given). The driving was far more solid than that seen in Joyride, and was handled in the same way with outstretched arms on the steering wheel, in a rather impressive touch when the person playing turned his head the head of the in game driver turned as well thanks to the head tracking technology. The graphics were undeniably up the the usual Forza quality, although the gameplay was a very simple matter of passing as many cars as possible, it was a good demo of how the tech might work in an actual racing game, hopefully this will be a part of Forza 4 and not a stand alone game. They then cut to a Ferrari sat in the middle of a desert, again Kinect's head tracking features were being used to allow the user to look around the car, when he leaned in the camera leaned in for a closer view, when he crouched down the camera couched down and by holding his hand over a feature of the car he was able to bring up a little cutscene that gave details of that feature such as the angles of the headlights... which looked a lot better than it sounds! The best moment of this section if the demo was when the he walked round to the side of the car, reached out and opened the door and then was able to get into the car to look around the interior. The rendering inside was fantastic, and the head tracking did allow for a lot of interaction and exploration of the vehicle, the demo ended when he started the engine, but it did look unlikely you'd be able to actually start driving the car once you were inside.

That bought the Kinect presentation to a close. As I mentioned earlier the technology looks utterly fantastic, it's a really exciting device and has the potential to make a big impact on the way games are played. Unfortunately it wasn't put to very good use at all, there seems to be a lot of focus on ditching the controller and playing catch-up with the Wii, hopefully some developers will realise that features such as voice recognition and headtracking would really compliment a lot of existing genres. Imagine an RPG that was able to read expressions and react to voice commands or a first person shooter with head tracking, throw in some 3D glasses and there is massive potential for something amazing to be done with this technology. As soon as we possibly can we will be getting some hands on time with Kinect and we'll let you know our impressions.

If you haven't already done so, don't forget to check out part 1 of the Microsoft Conference for a look at some of the core gaming experiences coming out soon. We will be covering the EA, Nintendo and Sony conferences as well, so keep checking back for more E3 news throughout the week.

A Convenient Solution To An Impossible Gaming Problem

I think 2000 went a little something like this.

It's terrifying to think that the year 2000 was an extremely daunting ten years ago now! My memory is a little fuzzy, but I'm relatively sure it was a simpler time for me back then, I didn't have to maintain this cool beard for starters and my gaming was happening solely on home consoles, the very concept of using a PC for gaming seemed way too complicated, installing a game? Pah! Had I not been a stubborn teenager I would have known that actually the PC was offering experiences way beyond what my Playstation was offering, especially when it came to Deus Ex.

A few years later I was wearing glasses, and therefore had all the necessary qualifications required to start PC gaming. Deus Ex was the first game that I bought for my super powerful gaming PC (featuring a staggering 64MB of RAM and a blazing fast 300Mhz processor) and I was absolutely blown away by the experience. In all honesty at first I was terrible at the game, I spent the latter part of the training mission having been liberated from my legs dragging my stumps towards the goal desperately hoping that I wouldn't be spotted by more angry robots. The game offered a lot more scope than I was used to, I could have hacked the robot, tried sneaking past it, or stood in front of it while it filled my knee-caps with hot lead, and while the option I chose was not the wisest it did provide me with my first gaming introduction to location based damage. Imagine my surprise later in the game when I was scolded by my boss for going into the women's toilets earlier, or when a character reacted to me having already having completed an objective before it had been issued instead of just going into a pre-recorded mission brief when I approached him. In fact Deus Ex completely changed what I came to expect from games, it had presented me with the ability to carefully plan attacks or completely bypass combat, and given me control over the dialogue and outcome of the plot in a genre that I had until then associated with running head on at enemies holding the trigger, and once I'd been presented with a such variety by one game I started to wonder why more games weren't giving me this sort of freedom. The bar had been set incredibly high, even Invisible War, the sequel to Deus Ex, failed to live up the the standards of it's predecessor despite being a fairly good game in its own right.

Now Eidos Montreal are resurrecting the franchise with a prequel called Deus Ex: Human Revolution. It's a daunting task for sure, I am certainly not alone in my high regard for Deus Ex, and many others like me are desperately hoping that this game will finally be the exceptionally high quality addition to the series we have been waiting for the last ten years. This must have been at the forefront of their consciousness when creating the trailer that was released recently, as it truly is a thing of beauty, the obvious stand out area is the high quality of the pre-rendered visuals, they may not be reflective of the final product, but it provides a clear look at the artistic direction Eidos Montreal have settled upon. It looks like a fantastic combination of Ghost In The Shell, Blade Runner and The Dark Knight, and would probably make an exceptionally good stand alone movie in its own right. Some have criticised that everything looks more advanced than it did in the original game considering it's a prequel set 25 years beforehand, but to be fair we have better technology in 2010 than they did in the original's interpretation of 2050, so this is completely forgivable. Having a strong art direction and an exciting cinematic trailer is all well and good, but it is the gameplay that will make or break Human Revolution.

The recent gameplay demo certainly has put a lot of fears to rest, and while it was a strictly hands off presentation the spirit of the original Deus Ex seems to be alive and well. There is no pre-set way to complete a mission, if you want to infiltrate a building how you'll do so is completely at your own discretion, burst in the front door guns blazing will work just as well as talking your way in or sneaking in, or maybe a combination of all three. Whatever option you settle on you'll have to be prepared for the consequences, the violence may result in a character being killed who may have proved to be useful later on in the game whereas the stealthy option may mean bypassing this person all together and will result in a completely different interaction with him at a later stage, those who believe that there is no situation that can't be resolved with conversation will find that they open up an even greater array of options depending on the course the conversation takes. There has been a fairly big revision to NPC dialogue which some may find a little frustrating, gone is the simple list of dialogue options presented in the original, in its place is something more akin to a mini-game the developers are describing as 'sparing dialogue' where the player has to read the NPCs expression and try match their response accordingly. If the player re-enters conversation with the NPC (assuming they haven't upset them to the point of turning violent) the dialogue will be completely different, so there won't any repetition or cheating by coming into the conversation pre-prepared.

The ability to add augmentations to your character to enhance their skills has always been a big part of the Deus Ex series, this hasn't changed any in Human Revolution, in fact they will be an even more of a focal point than ever before. Stealthy players will be able to equip abilities such as x-ray vision, stealth suits, or maybe even a couple of handy arm blades for some wonderfully brutal stealth executions. Those hoping to bust some heads will be able to chose from augmentations that allow them turn their arms into rocket launchers, or as was the case in the demo a 'claymore' augmentation that allows them to turn themselves into a human mine, which proved rather useful when jumping into the middle of a large crowd of enemies. As the 'skills' option from the original has been removed there will be a greater element of balancing to the way augmentations can be applied, the player could choose to have lot of low powered abilities or they could instead choose to specialise in a select few. It appears that for every feature Eidos Montreal have removed or simplified they have made sure to improve upon an existing one.

The game is certainly looking really impressive at the moment, although it is a little to early to call it either way for sure, but that hasn't stopped a lot of people online deciding that the simplified dialogue options and occasional switch to third person will make this game will be the worst thing ever. As I have mentioned before it is easy to feel a sense of entitlement from a series that we hold dear, and it will be nigh on impossible for many to look at Human Revolution with objectivity. Everything I have seen so far however does look absolutely amazing, it seems possible that unless Eidos Montreal make some incredible mistakes of the next six months Deus Ex: Human Revolution may finally be the game that is able to meet the most of the fans expectations.

Play Me A Story

Recently I discovered an amazing piece of literature, a weighty tome that held the answers to many questions that had been plaguing my mind; how the world was the world created? How will it end? If I hold Ctrl and Right Click what will happen?

Of course all the literary scholars among you will know that I'm referring to the incredible instruction manual for Sid Mier's Sim Earth. Not so long ago you would feel short changed if a PC game you purchased didn't feature over one hundred pages, partly this would be because it would be hard to work out on your own that B+Y+Alt = Walk Forward, but also because this is where the meat of a game's story could be found. However, despite liberal use of expository paragraphs in these gargantuan manuals PC gaming had the upper hand in presenting games as a medium for story telling for a long time, and it is only in the past ten years that home consoles started to surpass their all powerful brethren.

Generations ago on consoles such as the NES there would be no clues in-game as to why your 8-Bit dude was making widows of hundreds of  lady goblins, any story would be explained in broken English in the manual, or would have to be left to your own imagination. Even the home gaming power house Super Mario Bros. had no in-game explanation of what was happening beyond "our princess is in another castle", for all we knew Mario could have been an assassin tasked by the princess to commit numerous acts of regicide in a brutal coups d'etat that left countless brown mushrooms squished and turtles de-shelled. Maybe developers were too busy pushing the gameplay side of things to get too wrapped up in the intricacies of story telling, or maybe back then the media wasn't up to the task. Gaming has come a long way since those days, now more than ever the medium is poised to weave plots far more complicated and intricate than anything you'd be able to find in a booklet, the focus is no longer just on gameplay. Alan Wake, Red Dead Redemption, Mass Effect 2 and Heavy Rain are four games that have this heavy focus on story telling, they also happen to be some of the best new releases available on the two major platforms. What is fantastic about these games is that they each deal with the task of telling tales in very different ways, but none of them feel inferior to the others.

Alan Wake is a fully guided experience, it's no surprise that a game about a writer has a lot in common with reading a novel, in that the story isn't open for interaction; the player has no more control over the plot than a person reading has when running their finger along the page. This may sound like a negative statement to some, but the story is so carefully paced that interaction would have done more harm than good. The story also relies heavily on mystery and suspense, the torment that Wake experiences is not optional, there's no 'be badass' button to press, all the player can do is continue to steer Alan down this path. The lack of interaction creates a far better sense of the unknown, not having to a preconception at the back of your mind as to how you want things to play out adds to the foreboding and claustrophobic atmosphere.

Red Dead Redemption takes a similar format to Alan Wake, the plot is pretty firmly fixed and doesn't allow any interaction. However outside of the cutscenes the player has complete control over the characters personality, if they want John Marston to be the most notorious outlaw in the west then they are free to do so, similarly they are free to turn him into a shining beacon of honour and justice. Often the sub-plots will allow moral choices to be made, for example they can choose at one point to give to a nun collecting money for an orphanage or they could choose to tie her to the back of their horse and go for a little ride, then loot the corpse. Neither of these decisions will effect the way or the path that the main plot takes, the morally just player will be on the same quest for revenge that the wicked outlaw is on. Thankfully the characters and writing of these set moments are so fantastic that it doesn't feel like a burden that you have no say in what is happening.

Heavy Rain evolves the concept even further; the player has control over the characters actions and dialogue throughout the game, and is able to effect the plot in small ways, but there are some elements that will remain the same regardless of their actions. The plot always plays out in the same way; the identity of the Origami Killer is going to be the same on every play through, the order of the investigation will always be done in the same way, there is no way to adjust the flow of the game. As with the Red Dead Redemption and Alan Wake this doesn't harm the game in anyway, the linear nature serves the same purpose of driving everything forward to the exciting conclusion, if anything the game would be much less fun if in the first few minutes you could point out the killer and bring it all to an early and unrewarding close.

Mass Effect 2 presents story telling in a completely different way, there are a few moments that will happen regardless of player input, but the vast majority of the plot is in the hands of the player. Every line of  Commander Shepard's dialogue is under direct control of the player, as is the order and outcome of the missions. All of the major decisions are made by the player, it is at their discretion if Shepard commits genocide, who he is loyal to and ultimately who lives or dies in his crew. Despite being able to choose how the adventure plays out the story of the game doesn't feel fractured, and still captures the same immersion as Alan Wake's 'set in stone' plot.

As I mentioned previously these four games are some of the absolute best titles available at the moment, and despite being so different from each other in their methods, have some of the most engrossing plots in gaming today. It should also be noted that all four have extremely high quality voice acting and direction, and that goes a very long way in making the experience more engaging, take a look at the newly released Alpha Protocol for an example of a decent plot let down by unenthusiastic voice work. They also have something else in common, they are all incredibly enjoyable games just to sit and watch, a viewer without the interaction can get as much pleasure from the experience as the gamer. The days of the single player straight up no-brainer game are coming to an end, as consumers we expect more for our $60 / £50. The production values of games are meeting and exceeding those of major films, so it is only natural that the quality of the experience should meet that of a major motion picture.

In fact some game plots are so fantastic they could be turned into full blown novels, and while they're doing that they could print the controls in the back of those novels and put them into the games box...

Play. Create. Share.

Most gamers will think at some point during their digital lives 'I could have done this better' or 'what I would have done would have been', it's one of the unwritten rules of gaming. Of course for the majority of people who have these thoughts they will always remain thoughts only, programming requires both time and effort, something that games also require. Maybe this is why games that allow us to easily generate our own content are so popular, we can shape assets of an existing frame work, but retain the feeling of control over our creations. It is this spirit of freedom that Sony has plans on embracing with the games that fall under their 'Play. Create. Share.' banner, and currently features two of the most impressive titles on the PS3; Little Big Planet and Modnation Racers.

Little Big Planet currently features over two MILLION user created levels, that's the equivalent of over 55 thousand copies of Super Mario Bros (Ironically about a million of those LBP user generated levels are World 1-1 from Mario). It goes without saying that while that's an impressive figure for advertisers to throw around, the actual number of quality levels numbers in the thousands, which is still insanely impressive. The level of innovation that the community has shown is frankly astounding, from the offset there were levels that took the creation tools far beyond the games intended platform gameplay, such as The Little Big Computer with it's mind boggling mess of wires, magnets and switches that some how formed a fully working calculator. Every log in to the game will reveal hours of new content, the relative simplicity of the controls mean that LBP is in many ways the ideal party game, with four players even the worst levels can be insanely entertaining. The majority of the 'bad' levels are more a case of being unfinished and unrefined rather than being awful from conception, and this is in part due to the complexity of the tools. While it is possible to create basic levels fairly simply, mastering the provided tools requires a lot of time to be invested to create something that can stand along side the best levels.

Modnation Racers, the latest addition to the PCS series takes a far more user friendly approach to creation. The tools are deep enough to allow hours of time to be put into the creation of a single track, but the tracks made in a few seconds don't stand out as the game has some really clever auto population options to flesh them out. The scope for the variety of game types is limited strictly to racing, but this focus actually works in the favour of Modnation, allowing people to refine their own perfect racing experiences, and the wonderful thing about it being a racing game is that it severely limits the number of world 1-1 remakes we'll be seeing. Some prefer to make 'traditional' kart racer tracks with sweeping corners and shortcuts, some are recreating real world circuits, and others are making highly challenging twisty precision driving courses. The character editor is also being used in really creative ways already, there are some fantastic Helgast as well as other classic characters from gaming, even the least customisable element of the game, the Kart editor, has far more options than most racing games. 


While Little Big Planet is perfect for creating platformers and Modnation is perfect for creating racing games Little Big Planet 2 intends to be the best at both, and then some. In LBP2 the focus isn't on creating levels, it's on creating games, creations will be able to be packaged together and released online as uninterrupted coherent gaming experiences. An example of the games potential to be more than just a platformer are 'Sackbots'; programmable NPCs who can be tweaked and adjusted to fit into whatever style of game you'd like to make, they can act as bystanders, enemies or allies, with AI routines and actions designated by the creator, meaning no more cardboard cut-outs providing instructions or rolling menacingly towards you on wheels. The far more adjustable camera will also play a big role in how creations turn out, turn the camera on it's side and you've got the potential to make a vertical scrolling game, or maybe you fancy yourself as a bit of a director and want to create your own cutscenes, by combining Sackbots with customisable camera cuts you will be able to flesh out your creations with as many cutscenes as you like, or maybe you want to skip the game part entirely and just make movies? That's an option too! It's still fairly early days at the moment and there will no doubt be a lot more exciting features being revealed fairly soon, but even from the small amount Media Molecule have announced so far it looks like LPB2 is going to be an utterly amazing game.

It's not just official Play. Create. Share games that are getting in on the fun, initially the concept of a Toy Story 3 game reeks of a quick and cheap cash in, but when you hear that Pixar are working extremely closely in the development of the game it's hard not to be a little intrigued. Essentially Toy Story 3 is going to feature a LBP Lite mode called the toybox, that allows users to create and customise their game world in the same way that we see Andy playing with his toys in the movies. The tools aren't as deep as Little Big Planet or even Modnation, but they serve as a wonderful introduction into the world of user generated content. The 360 has an often over-looked indie game called Kodu, which offers a wealth of options for creating a variety of games with complex AI routines and objectives presented in a bold and easy to understand interface. There are many more games on the horizon that offer present a lot of customisation options no matter what your creative skill-set may be, and while they may not all fall under Sony's Play. Create. Share banner, it is a mantra that more and more developers are taking note of. It's an exciting time to be a gamer, its an even more exciting time to be a creative game.

Indie Games Reviews: Pixel & Avatar Boogie

The indie games section of the 360 is a brilliant idea, although one that seems to often be overlooked. Anyone with some programming knowledge can use Microsoft's XNA tools to develop a game for the Xbox 360 or PC, the ease of use of these tools means that the number of games is growing at an amazing pace, currently there are over nine hundred game available for download. With such a large catalogue available there will understandably be quite a variation in the quality of titles available. Here at S&N we will be playing through as many of these games as possible and reviewing them to help you pick out the best bargains the indie games section has to offer.

Arkedo series 03: Pixel – Arkedo
240 Points

Aww, he's so cute... I mean... 'Grrr when's Gears of War 3 out?'

There are few better ways to spend your money than on Pixel, it is without a doubt one of the best indie games available on the 360 and rivals a lot of the full Xbox Live Arcade titles. Arkedo are a French developer responsible for developing a couple of full retail releases for the Nintendo DS, including Nervous Brickdown, an innovative take on Breakout. It doesn't come as much of a surprise then that Pixel feels like a professional product, from the quality of the visuals through to the precision of the controls every element of the game is so perfectly refined. The first thing you'll notice when you jump into a game and take control of the titular cat Pixel is how how fantastic everything looks. The graphics are presented in a faux retro style reminiscent of the original Gameboy , with everything made up of large glowing pixels consisting mainly of shades of blue. The graphics are simple but endearing, Pixel the cat is one of the cutest videogame characters I've ever seen, no mean feat when you consider that he is only about 10 pixels tall, and his crouch animation alone is almost worth the cost of the game.

While simplicity is the biggest strength of Pixel, it's not without a a few unique ideas, at certain points progress will be blocked by an obstacle that seemingly can't be passed, at these times it is possible to bring up a magnifying glass and zoom into objects on screen, when zoomed if you play a small maze mini-game based around the pixels that make up the object, these are quick and extremely straight forward but bring some variety, when you take into account that there are various treasures throughout the game world to be found in this fashion as well, it adds a great deal of replayability.

Given the low cost of the game it's inexcusable not to pick this little gem up and give it a go, I imagine even the most hardened of gamers will find their hearts melted by the charm this game oozes.

Avatar Boogie – Highbrow Games
80 Points

50 Avatars dancing at once looks pretty cool

Avatar Boogie is sadly not a Dance Dance Revolution clone featuring giant blue aliens and glitterballs made of unobtanium, but is in fact a screensaver style application featuring dancing characters. The primary appeal of this application (game isn't the right term) is the ability to use your own user created avatars, at least it would be the appeal if you were actually able to do so. Due to the restrictions set by Microsoft relating to the use of avatars it is not possible to use your own characters in this application at all, which unfortunately diminishes the appeal almost straight away. But lets not focus on what can't be done and instead on what can be done, up to 50 randomly generated Avatars can be taken to one of 3 environments, and will perform either a selection of randomised dance moves or can be organised by the user. There's no denying that 50 little avatars doing individual dances is entertaining, but it's not something you'll want to sit and look at for an extended period of time. There are five built in songs included with the download and each song has a unique dance routine that goes along with it, again while entertaining these songs are only intended as brief distractions, as the game supports playing music direct from the consoles hard drive. There doesn't seem to be any automatic recognition of the beat of the songs that you choose to play, but the BMP can be set manually to sync up with your tunes.

There's no denying that Avatar Boogie makes for a good screensaver or replacement to the usual swirly light visualiser at a party, and it certainly creates a talking point. However it is these talking points that also highlight the aforementioned shortcoming of the application, how much more would be garnered from actually having representations of the party goers up on the screen? Sadly until there is some change to the Avatar restrictions Avatar Boogie will be held back from its true potential.


If you are an indie developer and would like your game featured, or if you have a tip for an indie game for us to look at, please contact us at juststuffandnonsense+indietips@gmail.com

Short but sweet - Splinter Cell Conviction Review

Splinter Cell is back after over 2 years of being AWOL

I'm a coward, a man who is afraid to stand up to you but will stab you in the back first chance I get, literally. At least that's what a psychological examination of my gaming persona would probably be, I'm always a rogue, a thief or a sniper, usually all three if a game will give me the chance. Considering this revelation it will probably come as no surprise to you that I am at my happiest when playing any game that caters for a stealthy approach. The Splinter Cell series has always been a good outlet for these sneaky desires, even though I tend to accidentally walk into the person I'm sneaking up on ninety percent of the time. During that other ten percent however I'm an unstoppable killing machine, which isn't necessarily a good thing in a game that rewards non lethal takedowns, I suppose that's the cowardice again in that I'd rather slit a guard's throat out of fear he may discover me later (probably when I run right into him) than let him live. Hours of careful planning go into these killing sprees, watching every guard's patrol root like a hawk and spending countless deaths just learning what approach to take, while all this recon work may be worth it during the well oiled carnage that follows, there were times when creeping slowly down the same corridor for the hundredth time can get a little boring. Splinter Cell Conviction must have heard my sighs because, for the most part, it is an extremely exciting and enjoyable experience even when having to repeat the same parts again and again.

Mark & Execute is by far the best new feature

Conviction was originally due for release in November 2007, but was pushed back for extra development time because of another Ubisoft stealth action game; Assassins Creed. Apparently when the Splinter Cell developers played Assassins Creed they knew that they were going to have to radically shape up their product as it had been completely outclassed and would have looked outdated when it hit the shelves. Thank goodness they made this difficult decision, the time allowed them to take a step back and look at Splinter Cell as a series from a completely different angle. The intention had always been to make protagonist, Sam Fisher, the ultimate bad ass, but its hard to seem like a lethal killing machine when he has to spend hours in the shadows deciding what to do next. Jason Borune and (the new) James Bond were two examples of the sort of character they wanted Fisher to become, both are in essence sneaky characters but you rarely see them pause to consider their next move, they are always progressing forward, ducking into and out of shadows briefly between lethal and accurate takedowns. The new system born from this inspiration is the ability to mark targets for execution. Tapping the 'mark' button while at an enemy adds an arrow above their head. This allows the player to keep an eye on enemies even through walls and other obstacles, and new level of awareness means that it is far easier to plan strategies while on the move. After performing a hand to hand stealth kill, the ability to execute is unlocked. This turns the arrows over the enemies heads red, and with the press of another button, Sam skilfully picks off any targets that are tagged. It's a simple addition that encourages stealth but can also bail you out of a lot of head on confrontations. It is also probably the best feature to ever grace the series, in any previous Splinter Cell it would be nigh on impossible to drop into a room of five guards, land on one of them and score perfect headshots on the other four in the space of a few seconds. Its a really empowering experience and no matter how many times I used it during the game, I couldn't help but grin ear to ear every single time. There will be times when things go wrong and even the mark and execute system can't save Sam from being discovered, in these times the last known position gameplay mechanic kicks in. When an enemy spots Fisher, a silhouette appears in the position that the enemies think he is in. This visual clue allows players to quickly slip around and flank them. It obviously doesn't work in the open, as most of these times you get spotted usually end in an instant hail of bullets, but when you accidentally peak out of cover and get spotted, it becomes a useful if not revolutionary tool. Tools and gadgets are a staple of any Splinter Cell game, although they have been scaled back considerably for this outing as there are no terminals to hack or any locks to pick, again these are decision that have been made to keep the pace of the game as brisk as possible, and within the context of the story it makes sense that no longer working for the government considerably scales back the cool toys at your disposal.

Even the mission objectives drip with style

The story is pretty standard stuff but as it is being presented in such a stylish manner, the basic plot never becomes a sticking point. One point in particular, the interactive interrogations and transitions between scenes are extremely slick and at times it feels like you're taking part in a Hollywood blockbuster. These transitions are an example of how much Splinter Cell Conviction oozes style, everything that would usually be presented in a mundane way in any other game is done with buckets of flair. Mission objectives are projected in huge letters onto the sides of walls and cars, button prompts hover above the relative objects when you approach them, and the game has a very distinctive visual style. About ninety percent of this game is in black and white, whenever you slip into darkness all the colour bleeds from the world and you are creeping around in monochrome environments with just the enemies and important objects left in colour. It looks extremely cool and gives the a unique look, but it brings up the same problem from the other Splinter Cell games when wearing the googles, in that you're looking at an extremely attractive game through a black and white filter, and sometimes can't help but feel you're missing out because of it. In general the graphics are good but certainly not amazing, but as with every other element of the game, they are enhanced by the unique style and creative direction. The audio department is probably the places where the least tweaking has taken place, the score is brilliant, combining the trademark audio style that Amon Tobin brought to the series in Chaos Theory with some very Bourne Identity-esque music. Voice acting is generally top notch and thankfully, Michael Ironside has returned as the voice of Sam Fisher despite rumours that he may not have. Other characters are a little less impressive with one of the games main villains sounding like he is giving a pantomime performance. At times I was expecting him to don a top-hat, twiddle a moustache, and give a good old fashioned 'mwahahaha' laugh, which in retrospect may have actually enhanced his role.

Co-Op is a lot of fun if you have a buddy who has your back

Despite (mostly) quality voice acting, it's really hard to get emotionally invested in any of the characters in this plot as it's over so damn quickly. There is a tendency for games to be quite short these days, but even by modern standards Conviction falls short, clocking in at a rather uninspiring 5-6 hours. I'm a firm believer that if the time is well spent it doesn't matter how long a game is, and I did really enjoy my time with Conviction, but this actually works against it. I just wanted to keep on playing and the time spent with the story, it just didn't seem long enough. Outside of the story, there are a few other modes that extend the games lifespan such as a 5-6 hour co-op story to play through either locally or online. Its a cool feature for sure, but if they had tacked on the option to play through with an AI buddy it would have greatly extended the lifespan and enjoyment of the game for singleplayer obsessives. A couple of other multiplayer modes, such as hunting down a certain number of foes without being seen, can be played solo, but these aren't enough to justify coming back again and again. Chuck some human players into the mix and these modes are a lot of fun, and while they're not quite as good as the spy vs merc option from the last three Splinter Cells, they will certainly keep multiplayer fans entertained for some time to come, especially given Ubisofts promise of free DLC every week for the next few weeks.

Despite a few short comings, Splinter Cell Conviction is still the best game in the series to date, and the easier access mission structure and gameplay elements will certainaly make this an ideal game for those who have struggled with the series thus far. It may seem like a dumbing down to hardcore fans, but the trade-offs are in the name of a faster pace and generally more enjoyable and exciting experience are more than worth it. If you're only planning to play Conviction in singleplayer I'd have to recommend that you rent the game first, as most hardcore gamers will be able to breeze through the story in a single sitting. But if you're going to play a fair bit of mulitplayer and have a good buddy you trust with your virtual life in co-op, I'd say buy this game without a second thought.

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Sony chooses middle ground in motion wars

It's GDC time again, and while babies everywhere sleep easily knowing this doesn't stand for the Giant Dingo Convention, the rest of us are enjoying hearing the latest gaming news. The biggest reveal thus far has been Sony's motion controller, with a lot of footage and details released on the device itself as well as many games that will make use of it.

The peripheral is officially called Move after the trademark request on Arc was alledgedly denied, elements of the proposed name remain the form of suspisciously 'A' shaped logo which will no doubt receive a touch up to look more 'M like' before the final release. Visually Move has a very unique design, the obvious stand-out feature being the glowing orb that sits on top of the the device which changes colour based on the environment. Using a 3 LED array the orb will change to whichever colour stands at the best contrast to the background, like an inverse chameleon. Games are also able to adjust the colour of the orb, making it flash with the muzzle flare of an on-screen gun or match the colour of a spell being cast. Other elements are more in keeping with Nintendo's motion control set up, such as the second controller which features a control pad and thumbstick. Simplicity seems to be a key theme, the number of buttons is considerably less than those on the Wii remote and Nunchuck, and 1:1 motion detection is available out of the box without the need of any add-ons. A Playstation Eye camera is used to detect the movement of the device as are built in accelerometers, a nifty bonus over the Wii is the fact that these accelerometers are able to approximate the location of the controller in 3D space, the example being used by Sony is a player still being able to move the camera around in a shooter even if the orb is temporarily obscured. Since a camera is being used rather than an IR sensor the move will be able to track head movement and facial expressions, although we will have to wait until future games to see this implemented. How all of these features will work outside of a showroom environment is yet to be seen, the nerdier among you will no doubt recall that Sony don't have the best reputation when it comes to being truthful in their presentations, but if they can be trusted then the device looks like it has the potential to do everything the Wii does, but better.

Physical controllers may soon seem somewhat redundant if Microsoft's Natal hype is to be believed. Allegedly Natal will not need any physical controller at all, the device will be able to look at the person stood in front of it, recognise them as an individual, and react perfectly to every movement they make with exact precision, as well as being able to interpret their facial expressions as emotions, understand their vocal inputs and generally revolutionise everything we've come to expect from game as a whole. That said, the nerdier among you I mentioned earlier will once again be recalling that the grandest promises of the device have been made by Peter Molyneux, who has possibly the worst reputation in the entire gaming industry in the area of hype to delivery ratio. While the Move's technology may not be as bleeding edge as Natal's, Sony decision to be playing in the safes zone seems to be perfectly calculated, they've managed to beat the Wii at it's own game, but without breaking the mould from what people have come to expect their motion controllers to feature.

There are a couple of major stumbling blocks Sony still have to overcome as yet before they can official declare Nintendo flipped over with their weak-spot exposed. Firstly the Wii has established itself as the market leader and a name synonymous amongst mums everywhere with virtual bowling and fitness, Sony went to a lot of effort to separate itself from the more childish connotations of gaming, and now it has to backtrack over years of work to lure in the casual market. The other major point of contention will be pricing, the announcement was made that Move will cost less than $100, but they shouldn't have to announce it will be less than one hundred bucks, everyone is expecting it to be less than that, a LOT less. The wording of this statement has lead many to expect a $99.99 price point. Considering the target audience will be unlikely to own a PS3 already it will be hard to convince people not to just buy a Wii instead, especially as Nintendo's console already has a large back-catalogue of games already available.

Speaking of games, unsurprisingly these are what will make or break both Sony and Microsoft's attempts to venture into the world of mad flailing instead of button pressing. No matter how innovative a control method may be if there aren't any games to justify using it then it will never succeed. The Wii has an insane amount of shovelware, something Nintendo seem to be aware of as the 'Nintendo Seal of Quality' is now just the 'Official Nintendo Seal' and the requirements to earn said seal are far from strict. Is it worth disenfranchising your loyal customers by throwing open the gates of the kingdom to every shovelware producing publisher in the name of appealing to the casual market? Sadly the answer is a resounding "yes" judging by the profits being posted by Nintendo. If Microsoft and Sony can embrace the casual market while still focusing on providing their loyal fans with the quality games they have come to expect then they may well be able to have the best of both worlds. And while both Move and Natal have the potential to be fantastic gimmicks and could provide some interesting and innovative ways to play some types of games, to regard them as anything more than quirky experiments at this stage would be a big mistake.

The legend of a god called War

I'll get this out of the way first, yes Darksiders borrows heavily from other games, in fact to say borrow seems like an understatement; "copies and pastes" is a more accurate description. The Legend Of Zelda, God Of War and Panzer Dragoon are the main contributers to this game, and with a rich original sample like that how can you go wrong? Here's the part where you expect me to say 'somehow they found a way' or something similarly negative, but the truth of the matter is that you genuinely can't go wrong.

Darksiders opens with a brilliant FMV introducing us to the war between heaven and hell, when humans are created the two factions forge a pact of peace and maintain a constant balance until the day comes when the seventh seal is broken and judgement is passed on all three factions. It's all very biblical and presented in an appropriately dramatic fashion, and provides a great back story for the events that are about to unfold during the game. Essentially what happens next is that Armageddon starts before the allotted time, and only one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse is summoned; War. The blame for premature anhiliation falls completely on War's shoulders, and you spend the game playing as the horseman as he tries to find those truly responsible.

The first gameplay segement is the tried and tested gaming hook of an abilitease section. Allowing players to experience the apocalypse first hand as the very disorientated horseman War, this scene has to be one of the highlights of the game and is a great introduction to the games universe. People run around disorientated, flying demons clash with helicopters, the forces of hell and heaven brawl through the streets and creatures taller than skyscrapers stomp around causing havoc. Fully powered War is exactly what you'd expect from a horseman of the apocalypse, all powerful and unyielding to even the largest of enemies.

The only downside to this section is that it's very short and a rather linear experience, and while it's true that the main game is pretty linear, short is not a word that can easily be attached to it. Not that being linear is a negative point by any means, there is plenty of room for exploring within the confines of the path forward, and the constant direction helps keep pushing the compelling narrative forward. The game takes somewhere in the region of 15 hours to complete, although admittedly around an hour of that consists of some game lengthening backtracking.

The puzzles very quite wilding in their time sink status, many of them will be instantly familiar to anyone who has played one of the games this title borrows from, for example at one point you will be tasked with lighting a torch by throwing your boomerang through some fire first, although in this game the torch is a leaking gas pipe, and the boomerang is a very large throwing star, the fire is still fire but then some classics can't be messed with! Some of the later puzzles are far more taxing however and can certainly push you in a way that many games fail to do so these days.

Graphically Darksiders is very impressive, and isn't afraid to use a wide colour pallet, and it's extremely gratifying to see a post-apocalyptic world with more variation than shades of greys and brown. The character models seem to be inspired by World Of Warcraft, but in a nice twist the few human characters seen at the start of the game are all realistically proportioned, making the super natural humanoid characters look especially imposing. Special note needs to be made of the demon Samael, who is in my opinion one of the coolest looking demonic characters to feature in gaming, despite sticking to every cliché in the book.

Overall I'd recommend Darksiders not only to anyone who has played and loved any of the Zelda games over the years, but also to anyone who is looking for a lengthy game with some challenging puzzles and buckets of personality. It's only apt that a game that borrows from some of the most popular franchises in gaming's relatively brief history be summed up an an extremely popular expression: truly Darksiders is a game that is easy to pick up, but oh so hard to put down.

Darksiders is available now

2009: The exclusive review

World exclusive, first hands on with 2009. Nothing draws ire from me more than seeing a wall of magazines, all featuring the same image on the cover, all proclaiming to be the only place in the entire galaxy where you can find the information contained within. If being a poorly written mess based on five seconds experience is what makes them unique, then maybe they can make that claim with a clear conscience. Something that doesn't grind my gears however is the yearly tradition of summarising the entire year in just a few bullet points. It's not been the most eventful of years, nowhere near as prolific entertainment-wise as 2008, but that's not to say it's been a bad year by any means. So Join me as we take a look at some of the ups and downs of 2009.

Worst Comic

Ghostbusters: The Otherside

IDW Publishing - Andrew Dabb, Steve Kurth

Back in 2005 Andrew Dabb and Steve Kurth bought us the Ghostbusters: Legion comic, it was never going to be as good as the films to which it owes it's name, but it was a pretty dern good take on the fiction. Four years later Tom Nguyen and Keith Champagne released their take on Ghostbusters, and boy they couldn't have been further from the mark as to what makes an

enjoyable story, and I don't just mean an enjoyable Ghostbusters Story. Somewhere during the design process it was decided that the best course of action would be to kill the Ghostbusters, and then spend the majority of the run with them trapped in purgatory. The attempts at humour fall completely flat, the plot spends several issues just wandering in circles and the artwork, while impressive, feels wasted on such an embarrassing plot. If you feel like some self harm Ghostbusters: The Otherside can be found here.

Best Comic

Dark Reign: Dark Avengers

Marvel - Brian Michael Bendis, Mike Deodato

The Secret Invasion is over, and despite not receiving the best reception the events that were kicked off in it's final pages are now in full swing in the Dark Reign story arc. This January we got to see exactly how Norman Osborn being in one of the most powerful government offices in the world would effect the entire marvel universe, starting with earth's mightiest heroes: the Avengers. So far Bendis hasn't disappointed, some of the greatest villains from the Marvel universe such as Venom and Bullseye are now members of the team, and are having to get used to living to their roles as the heroes they are disguised as. Not only that but Osborn has now set up his own team of Dark X-Men as well, further sending ripples through the Marvel Universe. The art is absolutely fantastic, the story is interesting with the fantastic idea of the former Green Goblin being in control of the country, it has a great pace to it and the dialogue has Bendis' usual touch of humour. The are so many books available in the Dark Reign series so far, you can get started with Dark Avengers here.

Worst Movie

Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen

Paramount - Michael Bay

According to Metacritic the first Transformers film received a mixed reception, falling on the side of generally favourable. The sequel unfortunately was nothing but a disappointment, and quite possibly a contender for worst film of the decade. Its often been claimed that Michael Bay can't see the difference between a good plot and special effects, and this films makes a very good case for that opinion. The other hot point of contention was the possibly racist undertones through the film, which regardless of it being intentional or not still generates bad publicity for the film. The misguided attempts at humour fall completely flat (farting robots, anyone?) and the motive of shifting as much merchandise as possible is brazenly kept on display. Adding a much expanded role for Megan Fox, quite possibly one of the worst actresses ever to be on film, into the mix was the final nail in the coffin.

Best Movie

District 9

Sony - Neill Blomkamp

District 9 was extremely well received by audiences at Comic-Con, and went on to be equally popular at the cinema. A sci-fi film and a political film, most people are able to find something that pleases them with this wonderful piece of art, be it the sheer brutality of some of the more violent scenes or the message of apartheid and race that (barely) hides beneath the surface.Visually the film is magnificent, with the effects taking a more understated approach, especially when in comparison to the aforementioned Transformers 2. This subtle and naturalistic approach makes the effects more believable, and greatly enhances the viewers immersion in the experience . From a nerdy media fan its also interesting to know that the writer/director was extremely briefly attached to the Halo film, suddenly it doesn't seem like such a bad idea does it?

Worst Game

Rogue Warrior

Bethesda - Xbox 360, PS3

It seemed only fair to exclude the Wii from this category, as the jury is still out deciding if shovelware really constitutes as games. Although the point is completely moot as Rogue Warrior was able to be so unashamedly bad that it makes shovelware titles like Cheggers party quiz look like a gift from the gods. For a large portion of the year I was confident that Leisure Suit Larry: Box Office Bust was going to be the game I would be crowning worst game, but then out of the shadows game Rogue Warrior with a pocket full of foul language and a campaign that is shorter than some Disney films. While Larry is definitely the worse game in pretty much all areas, it never felt like it was aspiring for more. Rogue Warrior on the other hand was developed by Bethesda, let me repeat that; Beth-"Elderscrolls, Fallout 3"-esda. As consumers we have come to have very high expectations from the people who develop our games, however when they release enjoyable titles and then try and slip something awful out discreetly and charge full retail price for it, tolerance quickly dissipates. Please refer to my previous post for a more on the quality of the writing in the game.

Best Game

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

Naughty Dog - Ps3

There is only one negative thing that can be said about Uncharted 2, it's a PS3 exclusive. Such a wonderful game should be available on as many formats as possible so that everyone regardless of their hardware of choice can enjoy it. Hell it should be available on DVD format too, so even non-gamers can participate in the exploits of Nathan Drake. Quite simply Uncharted 2 has the best graphics of any game to date, with the most expressive and emotive characters, best looking locations and absolutely beautiful animations. The plot is wonderfully well written, part Indian Jones, part early X-Files, with moments that genuinely cause laughter, an experience that is very unusual in the world of games, thanks in no small part to the amazing voice acting by all involved. Hollywood has struggled to capture this sort of magic for many years. I really cannot sing enough praise for this game. PLAY IT!