Archive for the ‘gaming’ tag

Gaming 7 - Modern Warfare 2 and getting into the industry

Posted at 11:05 by bit-tech Staff with 13 comments

bit-tech Staff
Better late than never they say, but clearly 'they' have never worked in publishing... Anyway, apologies for not getting this up earlier - some naughty podcasters and heavy deadline schedules have delayed us. Still, it's worth the wait as Harry, Joe, Rich and Clive talk about that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 review.

Subscribe in iTunes
Subscribe to the RSS feed
Download the MP3

Read more

Written on 18th November 2009
Tags advice, call of duty, cod6, dedicated servers, games industry, gaming, gaming podcast, modern warfare 2, p2p, podcast

Free Games I Like: Gravity Bone

Posted at 10:43 by Joe Martin with 2 comments

Joe Martin
Gravity Bone is by Brendon Chung, an indie developer I’ve long been a fan of and who has made some of my favourite indie games ever. Gravity Bone is his most recent and complete game, as well as the most stylised and striking.

Like most of Chung’s games, Gravity Bone exists without any exposition or context. It just is and everything in it relies on inference, with explicit instructions being very rare and a streamlined level design ethic ensuring the common sense is all you need to play the game. Every game also contains a wicked sense of wit that makes them worth playing even if you hate everything else.

Gravity Bone is about a hitman or a spy, who goes around doing spy-type stuff. There’s but two missions in the game, which takes about ten minutes to finish. The first is a straightforward introduction with no real challenges. The second is where all the gameplay is, but I won’t spoil why.

Read more

Written on 18th November 2009
Tags blendo games, brendon chung, free, free games i like, games, gaming, gravity bone, indie, spy

Free Games I Like: Black Shades

Posted at 08:25 by Joe Martin with 1 comments

Joe Martin
Black Shades isn’t a new game, it’s just a free game that I really like. It’s basically the opposite of Hitman, but reduced down to twitch shooter basics and presented in a typically indie way.

Rather than playing as a hitman, Black Shades casts you as a bodyguard for a VIP who's wandering aimlessly through a crowded city. It’s your job to protect him from the increasing number of assailants who will try to kill him.

What distinguishes Black Shades from that old trope of the FPS escort mission is that the VIP is pursuing a random path through a city which is basically an infinite grid of buildings. Also, the assassins who come from him are randomly generated and will use a variety of weapons and approaches. Oh, and nearly everyone in the city looks alike too – grey and white polygon figures.

Read more

Written on 17th November 2009
Tags fps, free games, free games i like, games, gaming, indie, iphone, iphone gaming, mac games, shooter, wolfire

Free Games I Like: Home

Posted at 12:21 by Joe Martin with 12 comments

Joe Martin
Another short post for another short game – Home is a tiny pixel-art game from Increpare about what it’s like to fall apart, bit by bit.

There isn’t a huge amount to say about this game as the entire experience lasts just five minutes at most and the artwork and mechanics on show have been streamlined to the extreme. Everything in the game has been trimmed down until all that’s left is a clunky orange graphic that would look outdated on a Spectrum.

The idea is simple: your name is Charles and you’ve just been put into an old people’s home. Your life is simple and easy, which is good because you’re not really capable of much. All you have to do is manage your four simple needs; food, friendship, going to the toilet and getting a good night's rest. Simple.

Read more

Written on 12th November 2009
Tags art, download, free games, free games i like, games, gaming, home, indie, mac games

Free Games I Like: Small Worlds

Posted at 11:51 by Joe Martin with 12 comments

Joe Martin
This blog post will be, like the game it’s about, small. I don’t really have a huge amount to say about Small Worlds, which was developed for a recent Casual Games Competition with the theme 'Explore', other than that it’s a remarkably elegant and effective piece of pixel-art brilliance.

A game which only ever alludes to having a deeper plot, Small Worlds opens with a single line before jumping to the gameplay – “There is too much noise”.

The gameplay itself is simple. At the start of each of the five levels the viewpoint is zoomed in on you – a small red line with a pale face and zero animation. The aim of each level is then to find the exit, which returns you to a hub level before you move on to the next world. There’s no fighting, no skill trees and no enemies. It’s just a gentle and rather lovely paced matter of exploration.

Read more

Written on 5th November 2009
Tags art, free games, free games i like, games, games i like, games i own, gaming, independant, indie, jayisgames, pixel, small worlds

Games I Own: Deus Ex 2

Posted at 12:46 by Joe Martin with 9 comments

Joe Martin
Deus Ex 2: Invisible War is a game which gets a bad rap whenever you see it discussed among PC gamers, who inevitably love the first game and loathe the sequel. To be honest though, I never thought it was half as bad as anyone was making out. If approached with reasonable rationality and not the more obvious optimism, the game actually held up quite well.

Yes, Invisible War had issues. It obviously suffered from attempts to bring the series to consoles. The tiny, insular and empty levels. The universal ammo system. The constant load times and clunky, overly rounded feel of the engine – these were all issues that dogged the game and deservedly so, but slamming Deus Ex 2 for not living up to the legend of it’s predecessor is easier than fist-fighting with a one-armed toddler.

Instead, I prefer to think of the good things about Deus Ex 2 – the things it did better than the original. Believe me, they’re there.

Read more

Written on 21st October 2009
Tags deus ex, deus ex 2, eidos, games, games i own, gaming, hybrid, invisible war, ion storm, not as bad as you'd think, perquod, queequeg, sequel, trivia

What Happened To The Flight Sim?

Posted at 09:59 by Antony Leather with 24 comments

Antony Leather
Cast your mind back to the 1990s. Chances are if you were in to PC games at the time you remember playing a flight sim, or at least some kind of game that involved a set of wings and a propellor or afterburner and some machine guns or missiles.

Fleet Defender, Aces over Europe, Red Baron, Battle of Britain, Hind, 1942: Pacific Air War, Air Warrior 3, Apache Longbow, Operation Overlord. I could go on for quite a while before I have to mention Microsoft Flight Simulator which was just a drop in the pond. But this isn't a list of flight sims released in the last 20 years, it's that of those to hit the shelves in a fraction of that time in the 1990's when the PC gaming isle in your average Game store was a little longer. It was also crammed full of flight sim titles.

So what happened? In case you haven't noticed, flight sims have been listed in the endangered species list of PC game genres for several years now. With the demise of ACES Studio, the guys behind Microsoft Flight Simulator, the longest running game franchise on the PC, there are but a handful of companies actually left in the genre now - and even fewer produce combat flight sims!

Read more

Written on 14th October 2009
Tags 1942: pacific air war, aces over europe, air warrior 3, apache longbow, battle of britain, flight sim, fsx, game, gaming, hawx, hind, il2, joystick, leet defender, operation overlord, pacific fighters, red baron, simulator, xplane

I'm Only Stupid Because I Know Too Much

Posted at 12:09 by Joe Martin with 17 comments

Joe Martin
I was playing Professor Layton and Pandora’s Box yesterday (in the course of writing the review) when I had a moment of utter brain failure. It’s embarrassing to even admit it, that’s how stupid it was of me.

The question was; if you have a rectangular piece of paper and fold it so that there’s an extra centimetre on one side and then you fold it the other way with a centimetre extra on the other end, then how far in millimetres would it be between the two creases when the paper is unfolded?

It’s a simple, easy question and the game gave me three spaces to write a number into. I quickly scribbled my answer down; 100mm and was told that was incorrect. Baffled, I got a piece of paper out and tried it out – measuring the gap as one centimetre. Again I put my answer in. Again; incorrect. It was only on the third go that I slapped my face and realised that there were only 10 millimetres in a centimetre – not 100. I was being a moron and had been led astray by the fact that the game gave you three spaces to put an answer in, not two. I’m an idiot.

That then got me thinking (as best as I was able anyway) about how my brain is stuffed with useless information that I use everyday and all the actual useful stuff that I never need to know has trickled away over the years. It’s ironic and twisted, but I can get more use out of game memory than I’d ever get from remembering how to do trigonometry properly.

Read more

Written on 8th October 2009
Tags adventure, deus ex, games, gaming, handheld, i am stupid, i know too much, joe being stupid, maths, mystery, no one lives forever, nolf, pandora's box, professor layton, puzzle, question, riddle, sin, thief

What Makes You Quit A Multiplayer Game?

Posted at 14:24 by Joe Martin with 51 comments

Joe Martin
Those of you who listened to last week’s Gaming Podcast will know that, between the filthy jokes and my off-mike laughing fit, we talked about our lunchtime gaming habits – specifically COD4. We play every lunch time and occasionally after work too, with ‘we’ being most bit-tech, ComputerShopper and Micromart staff.

In the wake of our most recent after-work game an interesting dilemma presented itself though and we schedule our next big match for November 10th. The day that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 goes on sale. Thus is was asked; do we carry on playing COD4 for the time being, or do we switch over to the sequel?

Strangely enough, only two people said that they wanted to switch to the new game. Many reasons were given – shortage of funds, can’t be bothered to install, PCs that won’t run it, etc. My own reason however was simply that I wasn’t ready to leave COD4 just yet and don’t feel I’ve got everything I can out of it.

Read more

Written on 6th October 2009
Tags call of duty, cod4, games, gaming, gaming podcast, joe being confused, left 4 dead, modern warfare, multiplayer, mw2, podcast, what makes you quit a mul

Gaming Podcast 4 - The PSPgo, Dreamcast and future of RTS games

Posted at 14:01 by Podcast with 12 comments

Podcast
The fourth Gaming Pocast from the CustomPC and bit-tech team, again hosted by Joe and this time with Clive, Mark and Antony joining in for plenty of discussion about the latest events in the games industry across all platforms.

This week they discuss the future of the Japanese games market, why none of them will buy a PSPgo and why the Dreamcast was so great. Also, rants about the evolution of the RTS genre and a chance to win a copy of Zeno Clash, plus the usual reader mail.

If you've got questions you'd like to see answered in the next podcast feel free to send them to the usual address or drop them in the forums.

Subscribe in iTunes
Subscribe to the RSS feed
Download the MP3

Read more

Written on 1st October 2009
Tags competition, download, dreamcast, facade, games, gaming, gaming podcast, indie games, japan, left 4 dead 2, podcast, pspgo, rts, strategy, zeno clash




Mobile Phones

LG Arena ReviewHTC Magic Review

Compare over 250 mobile phones &
52,000 deals!



Broadband

Mobile Broadband

Compare over 100 broadband & mobile broadband deals online!