By Plagiarize , 1st October 2:00 am
I used to be a PC centric gamer. Sure, it seems like nowadays I spend more time blathering on about consoles and portables, but PC gaming is where I cut my teeth. Fuck, it’s where it used to be at. When Doom hit, and not long afterwards, when CD-Roms hit, the PC was *the* gaming platform. With Doom, PCs finally had a title that not only looked better than anything consoles had been doing, but that consoles couldn’t do. It didn’t just get people to take the PC seriously as a gaming platform, it told people that it was where gaming was at. Online gaming, networked gaming, masses of space to store audio and video compared to anything else…
Of course, PCs didn’t keep that advantage. Usually, with the start of each console cycle, PC games are left looking rather shabby next to what the new consoles are offering. It takes a couple of years for enough people to have more powerful hardware in the PC world, and for developers to actually give a crap about fancy stuff graphics cards can do. Right now we’re unquestionably at the time where PC games are better looking than console titles… and it’s unquestionably not going to last.
» Read all of “Consolification: myth or thing that isn’t a myth?“…
By Plagiarize , 25th September 2:15 am
This week saw the release of the new Serious Sam 2 demo. As someone who has long loved the series right back to the very first ‘test demo’ of the first game, this was a moment of great excitement for me. The charm of the series has always been it’s shameless in being a video game. There’s no pretence here. Stuff happens in Sam because it’s fun. They aren’t being serious at all, despite the name of the game. It’s about having hundreds of enemies attack you at once in vast open spaces, and ludicrously wacky enemies, weapons and secrets. Enemies spawn out of nowhere. It’s never been a secret or a problem because the game has a highscore, a ship’s cannon as a weapon, and headless guys with bombs for hands that scream as they run at you. Headless guys that scream.
Now, regardless of the fact that I loved the demo, a large number of people don’t. It’s way too short, certainly when compared to the last two demos. The Second Encounter demo had a good couple of hours of gameplay in it. One to finish it and then another to play it through on co op. It is considered by some to be the best demo ever. The level in the demo contains stuff that wasn’t in the full game and some people consider it to be better than any level in the full game. Anyway, as a result of the demo for Sam 2, a lot of people cancelled their pre-orders for the game. When people said ‘but it’s just a demo you can’t judge the full game on a demo’ they said ‘isn’t that what a demo is for?’. And it is… but you still can’t judge a full game on a demo.
» Read all of “The Problem With Demos…“…
By Plagiarize , 16th September 4:56 am
I know that Aelon.net isn’t a news site so much as a place for comments, editorials, reviews that sort of thing, but today, a monumental thing happened. TellTale games acquired the game rights for Sam and Max and will be working together with Steve Purcell to make a new series of episodic adventure games with the license. This isn’t just good news, it’s the best news I’ve heard since I heard that LucasArts were making a Sam and Max sequel in 2003. They cancelled that and revealed finally how much they had gone over to the Darkside.
And with that I stopped playing LucasArts games. I haven’t bought or played anything they’ve done since, and I won’t. It’s not even like I’m missing out on much. Sure occasionally one of their Star Wars games is great, but I’ve as much interest in playing another Star Wars game as I do in playing another World War 2 shooter. Been there and done that over and over again. Not going to waste hours of my life doing it again however iteratively better it might be.
But the triumphant news today could well be the first time an internet petition achieved something.
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By Plagiarize , 2nd September 2:00 am
Every now and then I feel like I need to write a tirade about the closed minded videogamers I run into from time to time. Just to get it off my chest you know? The trick is finding ways new ways to do it. What hasn’t been done before? I always love getting my teeth into the whole ‘Nintendo are kiddy’ debate and have probably written a novel’s worth of material to the contrary. How’s about that old chestnut about gamers expecting things for free, and completely failing to understand the whole business side of gaming? That’s a good one actually, but another time.
We could do sequels and film tie-ins… that’s good too, but one I can’t really get behind. A good game is a good game regardless of if it’s a sequel or a tie in and I know plenty of my favorite games fall into those camps.
I feel like being more subversive today. Something to annoy people. Maybe a brief about how console games are so much better than PC games and how PC gamers need to wake up, and how PC game players need to broaden their horizons? A bit too Penny Arcade perhaps. No, I want to do something a bit more… me… I guess.
So, how does this sound?
Gamers are destroying gaming.
» Read all of “Gamers Know Best?“…
By Plagiarize , 24th August 4:55 am
Way way way before anything was announced about XBox 360 pricing, or indeed before the system was unveiled, it was heavily rumoured that the XBox 360 wouldn’t ship with a hard drive so as to minimise the amount of money Microsoft would lose on every XBox they sell. Indeed, when it was unveiled the hard drive was shown as detachable, it led many people to predict two price points… $299 and $399 one with and one without.
Then, it was finally announced… and it seems like the gaming world started to bitch about it. What I don’t get, is why.
Hear me out on this one.
» Read all of “XBox 360, 2 SKUS and a Lot of Whining…“…
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