T H E 6 T H F L O O R

Life in 6 Land

Category Archives: Gaming

Games Developers Play

It’s rare I speak about the electronic entertainment industry since retiring from any sort of online game development or online game, I’ve also given up supporting many companies, such as Microsoft who still cannot get the XBox 360 right. In my tenure working on an amateur development team and rubbing elbows with some well known companies like id Software, Activision, Ravensoft and others I have lost some respect I once held for some of these professional development houses.

Since moving on from Urban Terror I have yet to spend any money on another PC game, nor have I built a new computer to support these high end fandango games that only seem to be getting prettier than anything else. I can’t speak for their game play, but after nearly 10 years of development on Urban Terror it became quite apparent that game play would always trump graphics. As we have seen in the past and will continue to see in the future, graphics will continue to sell games, not game play. Even games that should have never made it to retail will end up being found on retail shelves and not long after in the bargain bin.

Unfortunately many game developers continue to recycle their “franchise” products. This in my opinion is not what development is about. I feel that many companies seem to have lost that creative drive that bought us many unique and enjoyable games back in the day, DICE and their Battlefield series is one of the most popular. Another example is Call of Duty from Grey Matter Interactive/Activision. Both of these developers have been taking their series to the next level, but how is the game play? I believe as a franchise ages it can become chocked full of so many features that it actually detract from game play. I still feel Codename: Eagle was a solid game from DICE. Simple, yet enjoyable on a LAN.

Recently with the release Portal 2 by Valve (alleged) fans seem to do nothing but trash talk the game. This is typical of supporters to whine, “while hundreds of negative summaries complaining about unbelievably inane shit (source). This just goes to show even professional designers can’t get things right and fans continue to shell out their money for games and feel they are deserved something in return.

I do agree with what is stated in this article on Destructoid, “Of course, the people whining would still buy <insert game here> and everything else <insert company here> puts out without a second thought. No wonder they whine so hard — it must be difficult being such spineless, dickless chumps.” This was ALWAYS the case with Urban Terror development and all those chumps didn’t have to pay to play. It’s no wonder I got out of gaming.

Development houses will continue to develop games. While the actual retail market is undergoing a change, with boxed software slowly giving way to downloadable software, the quality of games continue to improve. I believe this is a trend that will continue to rise for years to come. Franchises will continue to spin new iterations and gamers will continue to overpay for under-developed software.

Wii Dare: Garbage!

What sort of crap is the electronic entertainment industry trying to pull on the consumer now? I guess I should know better after playing games from 1995-2008 and participating on an amateur development team for nearly 10 years. There are two features that sell games. Sex and blood. Much like the media, “if it bleeds it leads.”

Just what am I talking about? The game is developed by Ubisoft, who has some hits in the past on all gaming platform. Recent development of game called Dare for the Nintendo Wii (and PlayStation 3). What’s worse, it’s currently tagged as a 12+ game. Now look further into the game, better yet watch the trailer before reading further.

Now as I parent, I am somewhat appalled at the game with it’s “12+” rating. First, I would not purchase this for my son, nor would I expect him to play it any younger than 16 or 17 years old. Now the games is described as a, “a sexy, quirky party game that offers a large variety of hilarious, innovative and physical, sometimes kinky, challenges.’ Hmm, doesn’t sound something I would want my 12 year old playing.

What is even somewhat more surprising, the fact Nintendo has licensed it for release on their Wii. Nintendo does market with the “family” in mind, as parents look to connect with their children. I guess my generation, having grown up with video games have it a bit easier than my parents, since they were already in their late 30′s, early 40′s when personal computers and gaming consoles were developed.

I guess the Wii controller can now double as a working vibrator when connected to the WiiMotion Plus sleeve. I have read one parent’s comment that it is “harmless fun” and that it’s “just an updated version of spin the bottle.” I still find the game inappropriate for the rumored age group. The gaming site, 1Up reports the ERSB rating is pending.

I guess in a down economy it’s really no surprise at the amount of garbage that is being sold as “electronic entertainment” for both the PC and console market. As I said in the introduction, sex and blood sell, so it’s really no surprise that Ubisoft is attempting to make a quick buck off Dare. That, I don’t find surprising.

Urban Terror: Close the Door

Since leaving the development team and Urban Terror, nearly 2 years ago I have yet to return to online gaming. The motivations for my departure and retirement were purely personal. For me, I had gone as far as I could with development as it was quite clear the game would never flourish as I had hoped for during the early years.
It’s quite rare I even bring the name, Urban Terror up because it’s a part of my past and I have moved on, leaving the community, the web sites and activities to others in order to cultivate. I still have an informal tie to the community as I continue to hold the rights to the domain name.

I happened upon a conversation today with an individual who is still around the community and as I understand it, the community and the game are not the same. I can’t speak to that, but can only surmise the problems plaguing the community/game now. While I never had a direct hand in any development, it was the community who drove the game to the success it had upon my departure.

Of course the development team was at the core of the community, with talented individuals leaving their mark and moving on. The early years were truly the “best of times” for me personally. Being courted by id Software, visiting their offices, participating in Quakecon, jet setting to Los Angeles for E3, being featured on Tech TV are just some of the highlights I take with me. Of course those days are all in the past and rarely do I even cast a glance at the newest PC games on the market because it’s “more of the same.”

With that said, there is still something to say about those individuals who continue to support the game after so many years. I have a few individuals in mind who, through thick and thin stuck it out with the development team. Not sure if I were on the outside looking in, like I was with Action Quake II if I could have continued for nearly 10 years even with a game I enjoyed

Being in the rare position I was, between the community and the game I had a unique perspective and seemed to get opinions from everyone. For many, I was the voice/face/name of Urban Terror, but never did I attempt to take credit. While I was involved, I left the real development/design to the talented individuals that knew how to code a feature, or create a model, uvwrap it and skin it. I was highly impressed with those who were level designers, but that was not my calling.
Unfortunately, it was “never quite good enough” for some. The worst place to be the day of a point release was on the community support forums. This was my domain, a place I controlled and supported and nurtured from the beginning. It was a unique feeling creating a community from virtually nothing to a strong community of supporters we had when I departed. I was amazed at the success and the ride I had been privy to.

Maybe my departure gave rise to someone with new ideas and new blood to bring something into the community to improve the game. While some may disagree I took a lot with me the day I left. Much of the unwritten history left with me. Many gigabytes of files continue to reside on my archived hard drives that will most likely never be accessed again.

Most of all I remember the people, behind every alias, either in game, via e-mail or on IRC there is a person. I was fortunate enough to meet a small percentage of these people over the years. The strongest bonds were between the long standing development team members. The same can be said for the long time supporters in the community, the people I entrusted files or hosting to. There were some great people behind the scenes who rarely got a mention. Maybe they hosted files or ran a web site or always put in a word of praise to the community, game or development team. While I will probably never communicate with these individuals again, they were a special part of the community and one of the things I held close though out my tenure.

Often times I was referred to as, “not a developer” because I did not provide any content for the game. While that is a true statement, it could not be further from the truth. I was a development team member and played an integral role that was often overlooked. Many individuals involved couldn’t or wouldn’t do what I did over the course of 10 years. While not the most important aspect of the game or community, I brought Urban Terror to life though the use of shoutcasting, when online gaming radio stations were still in their infancy.

My use of the radio medium introduced a new dimension to online gaming that was rarely seen previously. I attempted to stress the importance of the community, wanting feedback and information from supporters in order to strengthen the radio show on a weekly basis. By far, the most important portion of the show, aside from my bad, 80’s music was the development team update. This was sometimes a futile attempt to provide up to the minute information about development.

The second part of this new medium was acting as a commentator during online matches. I spent many hours a week dedicated to my radio shows and broadcasts. It would have been enough to just cover the match, but our community was something special and they deserved more. I had a pre and post game report, as well as commentary and sometimes guest casters on air.

This, to me was my calling for the game and it went a long way in the community. Yet some failed to see the connection. In the end I was burned out, tired. Maybe it was the years of abuse I took never really striking back or going off, unless completely necessary. A few examples spring to mind. When I initially got involved I wanted to see this development through to a defined end. For me, that will never happen as I dropped everything in a blink of an eye and walked away, never to return.

But, as I said early on the friendships you make will last a lifetime. The memories remain, but may fade as years go by. For the most part these were good times, never great, but good enough to keep you going for just a bit longer. Hopefully those involved now have an idea of where the game came from and of those who came before.

What a Racket!

So I have been in the market for a larger hard drive for my Xbox 360, really the only gaming I do these days, even at that it’s spent playing FIFA. First person shooters have lost luster with the time I spent on Urban Terror. That is not to say there are not good FPS games out there, but something that is revolutionary and new, sorry don’t think so. My son and I stop by GameStop yesterday and I notice they have refurbished 120GB hard drives, so I inquiry about them. Hearing nothing negative I decide to spend $99 as opposed to the retail price of $149.99 for the same product new. Of course there is a kicker. The refurbished hard drive did not come with a transfer kit that includes a USB type cable to transfer your data. The other kicker, no retail stores locally carry the transfer kit. You can always spend $49.99 and let the Geek Squad do it at Best Buy. Talk about a racket!

So I am not sure what I will be doing. I know for a fact I won’t pay someone to do it for me. I thought about buying a new 120GB hard drive, using the software and transfer cable and then returning the hardware to the store. The last option is to buy one off any number of Internet stores. But $20 to get me a cable for something I will only use once. Not sure I like this idea either.

One would figure there would be a way to transfer saved game data to a temporary drive, like a flash drive and manually move it from one hard drive to another. The more I read, the less likely this sounds. But here is a nugget from the transfer kit manual, “Dispose of the cable in accordance with the Disposal of Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment guidelines in your Xbox 360 Warranty manual (Volume 2).” So let me get this straight, I am supposed to throw away this cable AFTER I transfer my data. MS also doesn’t consider this an Xbox “accessory.” Whatever!

Hopefully a friend of mine who purchased an ‘Elite’ ordered their free cable/software from MS and transferred their data over from an older, smaller hard drive. If not, I am back to square one on what direction to go. This seems rather ridiculous to go through, especially these days with technology being what it is and the fact that the 360 is USB 2.0 compliant. I guess this is MS being the proprietary little bitch. Not as if this is anything new. I won’t get started in all the other accessory (WiFi, anyone?) that is overpriced for what it does. What about the fact the 360 only came with 1 USB port on the back of the unit? Guess I was supposed to shell out $50 to get their USB hub, so I could add media content on my one 500GB hard drive.

Okay, enough bitching from me. All of this is to be expected because it IS Microsoft we are talking about here. The same company who still can’t fix my damn Xbox 360 from the “red ring of death” from occurring. I give it under 6 months and I will be filling out the paperwork and shipping my Xbox off to Texas again to be fixed. Maybe I should send it COD to Bill Gates and tell him to fix his shit before selling it to the public. Then if that were the case their operating systems would have never gotten off the ground and we would all be hailing Steve Jobs and Apple.

Point Blank Review: Battlefield 1943

Since my “retirement” from software development I have never return to that community or any other online computer gaming. I have lost all desire because software developers are very uncreative these days. It seems that everything that could be designed has been and the first place a developer looks for a “return to glory” is in the past. Look at the lineup from id Software, Doom, Quake, Wolfenstein. Many other titles from other developers are developed in the same vein.

I believe the last good game I played was from Dice, titled Battlefield 1942. Although in my opinion BF1942 was not as fun as Codename: Eagle, but ’42 was a well done game. Being out of gaming, I was rather excited to see Battlefield 1942 (yes that is a typo) available for the Xbox 360. What I didn’t notice at the time, until I spoke to my buddy in Los Angeles, that this was was actually called Battlefield 1943. It was a new and updated version of 1942 some years later.

I was torn, so much for having faith in Dice as they have now regressed and moved backwards in order to redevelop their last good hit. I am no fan of the console controller, they are just terrible for FPS games, especially a fast paced online BF1943 or any other game. So my aiming leaves a lot to be desired, it is not as accurate as the popular keyboard/trackball (or mouse) combination that is so common in the gaming community.

After realizing 1943 was a remake of 1942, some of the thrill was gone. Yet the game is visually stunning, given the technology running in the Xbox 360. It does seem that is what sells games these days and not game play.

As for the game play, there is really nothing much to report. Some of the movement over the terrain and up hills is smoother than I recall. I found myself not getting stuck on objects when operating a tank, for example. One new addition that adds to the game is the ability to blown up portions of buildings and structures. You can run over fence, through buildings and it seems to really add bit of pizazz to the game.

Flying was easier in the PC version. Both sticks are required as is the trigger button for your throttle. The left stick is used to help make a coordinated turn by using the rudder. Personally I don’t think it works all that well and you find your aircraft slowing way down to make a tight turn. But the planes are a bit more balanced in this version versus the PC version.

I have only put in a few hours but I am enjoying my experience. I think the air raid feature sucks, but Dice did the same type of thing with their crappy follow up, Battlefield 2 with the artillery strike. I could not pass up the opportunity or the price to check it out.

Unfortunately one of the things Dice or any other developer cannot get rid of with programming are the asshat players. Just like the previous community I was involved in there are many who just ruin the fun and enjoyment. I am sure this is will be my deciding factor when I loose interest in the game. Way to go players!

I recommend it though for the Xbox 360, it is worth the small price tag.