Gaming in a foreign land

Alright, so it’s just the UK, but still. I’m only here for a few months, but I’ve run into my fair share of difficulties trying to keep up on my gaming habit. It’s strange to say, given that gaming is a habit some people struggle to break, but the less games are a part of my life, the less I feel like myself.

Yeah, Europe blows.

I’m still keeping up with industry chit-chat, writing semi-daily for Kombo and Gamezone. The NGP looks amazing – I don’t see how Sony could screw this one up, though of course I won’t put it past them. I even got to play the 3DS again this past weekend at one of the public events they’re holding throughout London. My friends and I stumbled across it at the hip kids-street fair they hold at Brick Lane every Sunday. The little thing hasn’t changed much, and while it’s impressive, I can’t help but be more excited by the possibilities of the NGP. I’ve never liked 3D that much anyway.

Speaking of 3D, I can’t believe 3D movies here cost £15 – that’s almost $25. Dates are expensive, and tangled was cute, but hardly worth it. What was I talking about? Oh yeah..

So for one thing, Steam only works intermittently. That’s not entirely Steam’s fault, as my Uni (Goldsmiths College) purposely blocks the ports that Steam requires to connect. If Steam allowed you to mess with its connection settings a little more, I might not have this problem, but it is what it is. In offline mode, my games, paltry as the selection is (I’m on a Mac, naturally), tend to freeze up every few minutes. Steam support seems mostly stumped on this issue, though their most recent solution may have actually done the trick.

So PC gaming is finicky at best. Bringing a console would have been pointless – there’s no TV in my dorm, and the wacky power outlets they use over here would have probably fried my already-stressed out Xbox 360. Lugging my original, 80-gig PS3 halfway around the world would have been ludicrous, and as for the Wii, well, who the hell plays Wii anymore?

That leaves my PSP, DS and iPhone. The DS has seen practically zero use, despite a friend kindly lending me her copy of Golden Sun: Dark Dawn. I think the problem is that I’m just sick of the DS. I’m sick of the entire system. Flipping it open, the battery-draining sleep mode, my stupid scratched-up touch screen, dropping the stylus on the bus.. I just don’t feel like dealing with it anymore.

As for the iPhone, roaming is a bitch. It stays on airplane mode 100% of the time – I just can’t risk the charges if it decides to ignore my wishes and tries to send me my Words For Friends notifications or something. Mostly I just use it as an iPod now, and since most games tend to interrupt your music as soon as you start them up, I just don’t really play games on it anymore. I might, if there was a universal setting that prevented apps from pausing your music, but Apple apparently hasn’t thought of that yet.

So that leaves the PSP, which has seen the most use of any platform I have here. I’ve got a healthy library of games at my disposal: Birth by Sleep, Jeanne D’Arc (which has been on my pile of shame until now), Ghost of Sparta, and Persona 3 Portable. There’s a lot of variety there, though I think I’d be playing a lot more if I hadn’t brought Kingdom Hearts. I’ve been struggling to finish it for months, but it’s just such a stinking pile of crap.

I’ve actually got a pretty good metaphor for this: trying to be thrifty, I picked up a pint of Sainsbury’s (a general grocery store) brand scotch a few weeks ago. Imported Jim Beam and Jack Daniels are too expensive here, so I figured, why not? I filled up my flask and went to see a play (a normal day in the life of Mike Rougeau).

Do the math

But it turns out the stuff is awful – and my full flask has been sitting on a shelf, unused, for weeks. I can’t drink it, but I can’t bring myself to pour booze down the drain, either. The Sainsbury’s Scotch is preventing me from day-drinking – just like Birth by Sleep is preventing me from playing PSP. There are a lot of lessons to learn when you move to a foreign country.

I solved the flask problem by letting a friend drink all the scotch. Now I’ve got an empty vessel in which to pour whatever I want. I can’t exactly wait for someone else to finish Birth by Sleep for me, though. In fact, I may just write it off entirely so I can get to Jeanne and God of War – far superior games that I’d much rather be playing.

It’s frustrating to have to sit back and watch a  game like Dead Space 2 come and go while I twiddle my thumbs across Europe. There’s ads for it plastered all over the subway. I’ll also be missing the launch of the 3DS – another thing I can’t seem to get away from, yet won’t have access to until months after everyone else does. And as grateful as I am to have Steam on my Mac, the cross-platform library still blows. Left 4 Dead 2 and Deathspank are pretty much it. The first thing I’m doing when I get home (besides grabbing some In-N-Out) is firing up Demon’s Souls.

I do like to complain, but – and I’ll be honest here – there are worse places to be, and I know I’ll get to resume gaming soon.

iPad as a gaming device: massive fail or will prevail?

By now, we are pretty much all aware that the heavily hyped iPad is nothing more than a super-sized iPod Touch. Whether you’re disappointed, overjoyed, or couldn’t care less, the fact remains that with the veil removed, people are at last talking in tangible terms about the device’s potential.

the future of computing?

Blake Paterson writes on his blog Byte Cellar that he “guarantees” that the iPad “is the future of computing.”

I will go out on a limb right now — and I don’t think I’m going all that far out there on this one — and say that in five years, the “computer user” who calls Apple their brand of choice will be using an evolution of the iPad and not a Macintosh.

While I’m not as starry-eyed as Paterson, I think he raises a few goods points, and he may even be right. The iPad will have the benefit of running all existing iPhone/iPod Touch apps at their native sizes or in an enhanced “double pixel” view, which, according to Kotaku, looks “surprisingly sharp”.

iPhone Developers ranging from Pocket God‘s (which just became the first app to surpass 2 million downloads) creator Dave Castelnuovo to Andrew Stein, the director of mobile business development at Popcap (a studio that already develops games for a variety of platforms) told Joystiq what they thought about the possibilities for pad gaming.

Dave Castelnuovo says iPad "Pocket God" will need "more characters on the screen and bigger environments"

Some developers are planning to build versions of their games specially tailored to the iPad’s larger screen, increased resolution and revved up processing power. Others are remaining cautious, waiting to see whether the device becomes a must have, a niche gadget or an all-out flop.

Jason Franzen, creator of iPhone game Kern, speculated to Joystiq that the iPad will be used in different places and at different times than the iPhone, and therefore will provide a different gaming experience.

It is important to distinguish the use paradigm of each. When traveling, I will still carry an iPhone AND the iPad – to read and access the web. I may have an iPad at home, but not at work. I will be able to reach my iPhone while driving, but not my iPad. These dynamics paint very clear use distinctions that developers should cater to. For us, the plan will be to build experiences specifically tailored to each device. Beyond the obvious differences in screen sizes, the depth of engagement is also quite unique between the situations that the iPhone is appropriate for (say, a quick taxi ride or on-the-go breakfast) and the iPad will be. Sitting at home on the couch or waiting at the airport lounge, a user can be more immersed and the gaming experience should be tailored as such.

"I Dig It:" check out that control stick

So maybe developers will finally be able to make a virtual joystick that doesn’t feel like it’s caked in drying peanut butter. The best iPhone games yet, in my opinion, have been the ones that favor simpler controls while featuring strong artistic elements like stylistic graphics and unique premises.

I Dig It (and, to a lesser extent, its sequel) scratch my itch for exploration, item collecting and goal achieving, while relegating all the controls to a single finely tuned virtual joystick (a notable exception to the rule that says these suck). Beat It! is a drum beat mimicry game set over a busy and colorful backdrop, making it a rhythm game unlike any other. Hook Champ‘s retro inspired graphics, addictive gameplay, constant updates, and easy to use, but difficult to master single-tap controls have made it my favorite iPhone game yet.

In other words, I’m not interested in the latest game that’s pushing the poor device to its limits with cutting edge high resolution textures or dozens of enemies on screen at once. If I wanted those, I would whip out my PSP or even my DS. Yes, I’m a gamer, and not a casual one. As such, I’ve pretty much seen ‘em all, and what I’m looking for on a unique platform like the iPhone/iPad is creativity and ingenuity. Would any of the games I mentioned be better on a larger screen, or with more detailed graphics? Maybe. But I probably wouldn’t play them as often; if I’m sitting on my couch anyway why wouldn’t I just play a console game?

"Beat It" is a unique rhythm game

That said, entire genres that are passable at best and complete crap most of the time on iPhone and iPod touch, like first person shooters, action, and adventure games, might actually work a lot better on a platform on which the virtual d-pad doesn’t have to take up a quarter of the screen just to be usable. But this also means that many developers will be forced to backpedal from whatever they might be working on and tweak existing games’ UIs for the larger screen. Take Gameloft’s well received iPhone shooter N.O.V.A. Kotaku got a chance to play it, along with several other existing iPhone games, on the iPad at the unveiling event last Wednesday.

N.O.V.A. in particular, did not make the transition in the control department very well. Gameloft was one of the iPad developers on stage that promised a version of its Halo-esque first-person shooter tailored for a larger screen. It was easy to see why. Trying to hold the iPad, tap its screen, control the software d-pad with one’s thumb, and pan across it with one’s fingers just didn’t work very well. It was uncomfortable and awkward, a problem made more apparent by the weight of the iPad versus that of an iPhone.

Will the updates that many games will require take the form of free add-ons, paid DLC, or completely separate apps that will require even those who already own the game for a smaller platform to re-purchase for use on the iPad? It’ll be interesting to see what route developers will take and what’ll eventually become the standard model.

"Hook Champ:" simple, elegant, pure fun

James Brown, creator of popular casual game Ancient Frog, told the iPhone gaming bloggers at Touch Arcade that he plans to release small, incremental upgrades to the game in the short term, improving certain textures and tweaking the screen dimensions to enhance the experience on the iPad. He also plans to release a separate, iPad-only version in the future, one that will presumably take fuller advantage of the system’s strengths.

Kotaku, like the majority of gaming sites, has some serious doubts about the iPad’s potential to overcome the massive wave of apprehension that seems to have washed over the gaming community since its revelation.

Does anyone besides this guy actually want this?

If your consumers still need a computer and a phone, needs which you already can fill, what room in their wallet, their bag and their life is there for a semi-portable, semi-desk-ready tablet computer? For gaming or otherwise?

At this point I have to agree with them, although I’m still hopeful that developers will step up to the plate and deliver something I haven’t thought of yet: a unique, creative experience that can only be possible on the iPad. I don’t know what that is yet, but if I did, I would be a game developer instead of a writer. Judging from the amazing games that have somehow managed to float to the surface of Apple’s bloated, garbage-filled ocean of an app store, someone out there probably already has an idea that will have me sold on this thing in no time.

Apple’s January 27 Event

Apple is holding an event tomorrow, and rumor has it they will be revealing their much discussed new tablet computer. Tons of people are looking forward to the launch of the new gadget, which those in the know are hoping will bolster the e-book business and steamroll portable gaming.

the possibilities..

Not everyone is starry eyed over the prospect of yet another must have Apple contraption. Boston based professor and journalist Dan Kennedy writes in The Guardian that the tablet will become just “another gadget to lug around.”

The problem is that the iSlate, rather than making our technological lives simpler, instead amounts to one more object – one more thing – that we have to lug around. It won’t replace our smartphone. And the virtual keyboard ensures that it won’t replace our laptop, either. Do we really need a third internet device to carry with us wherever we go?

Boston blogger Steve Garfield is excited about the potential the so-called “iSlate” has for e-book reading. Explaining that he spent a year writing his book, Get Seen, and adding links to supplementary videos and web sites, he writes:

I’d love to see a tablet version of Get Seen that allows the reader to watch the videos inline while reading, AND visit the websites I mention in the book.

He then goes on to speculate that the rumored iLife ’10 should include an all new “content creation platform” that would allow people to “easily create and share documents that combine text, audio, video, links and webpages” for use on the tablet.

Garfield isn’t the only one who is looking forward to a boost to the e-book market. The Boston Globe reports that Barnes & Noble shares have gone up due to rumors that the company will have something to do with the new product. “Such a product from Apple could challenge Amazon.com Inc.’s Kindle e-reader and give a boost to the publishing industry,” the Globe writes.

If Barnes & Noble gets in on that action, it will surely be a blow to their competitors. Hopefully all will be revealed when the event takes place tomorrow.