Nvidia Advert

Nvidia hired the mythbusters team to create a demonstration showing the superiority of its new GPU over older models, and they come up with something truly cool.

I just recently came back to Nvidia as they launched the 8xxx series and I haven't looked at ATI since. Yes, yes, no brand loyalty me :-)



found via Super Punch

Street Fighter IV

I am sooo looking forward to this game now, especially after this review from EDGE.

The fact that they have made the inputs a little bit more lenient and the whole look of the game I think has convinced me to make a proper investment in the game. Might end up getting it for the PS3. Will get it along with some nice Hori arcade sticks if they still 'ave 'em as well.

Just watching the above trailer brought back memories of guys coming round my house back in the early nineties to play SFII Turbo. Sometimes we had up to 17 people all in my room waiting for their turn.

I was never VERY good at it, but I could at least hold my own against most people. I wonder if the benefit of age and more gaming experiences would have helped my SF game somewhat. It doesn't matter even if it doesn't though, I am sure I will have a blast generally anyway.

This is not gaming related...

but Don LaFontaine, the trailer guy (and I am sure he also must have done a few game trailers, and has definitely inspired some others) died yesterday from complications related to pneumothorax. The world is definitely short something now.



Once you see all those movie trailers he had done it really hits you that he birthed a proper legacy.

R.I.P

This is so nice!

ELA in Love at First Byte from Fernando Sarmiento on Vimeo.

I would love to see a videogame with this art style and feel. The colours are just too nice! Maybe even with the FMV to go with it. Would be cool and subversive to have a modern videgoame out with graphics like this and cutscenes involving real people again. Only Command and Conquer seems to be keeping the flag flying. Well, them and Kojima in his introductory sequence to MGS4.

But, with regards to the art style itself, it just reminded me of TRON and Rez all over again, but with a richer colour palette. Rez was the last game in recent memory to push the envelope on vector graphics and such and was all the better for it. Would be nice if more game developers were to make games with this sort of 3d pixel vibe to them. Maybe even with more muted colours. The thing that I quite like about the colour selection in this video is that you can believe that it doesn't take place in a computer world (a la Rez and TRON), but just in a strangely animated one.

Found via super punch and made by Pepper Melon with more info on the short here

Nostalgia

I was just going through the posts I put up on my first proper gaming blog way back in early 2004 (or maybe even late 2003!) and I realised I actually had some good ones.

I will be posting them throughout the week so that the blog will at least see some daily activity. I might tweak some of them for grammar or whatever, and some of them I think started some ideas that have shaped my thoughts on games and game design, so those ones I will probably want to go over and maybe develop some of them. Oh, and I will keep the original titles as well, so please forgive some of them.

Anyways, here is the first one, and it occured at the time that I had just gotten seriously into online gaming via xbox live. I actually like the style I had back then. don't think I still write like that anymore, and in some ways it is sad, in others at least I can say that I have moved on.

MEMORIES OF THINGS PAST

I woke up quite late today after a night of vivid dreaming. The first thing I heard was the sound of gunshots.

My brother was playing Resident Evil on the Gamecube. Seeing him do this just reminded me about how much fun I had with that dinky machine since I got it at the Japanese launch. It made me think back to why I had stopped playing it religiously and now measured my gaming experiences by the amount of time spent on Xbox Live!

Last summer, I lost all the data on my memory card. It contained every single save I had since I got the machine. At least, every single US save. Goodbye trophies from Super Smash Bros.! Goodbye Wind Waker! Sayonara PSO, Timesplitters and tons of other game stuff. Even my beautiful replays from Super Monkey Ball on Expert mode...*sigh* When I realised it was all gone, through an oversight on my part (I mistakenly agreed to wipe the contents of the memory card while I was about to play a Japanese game)I just lost interest. Then, I got an Xbox. Life became about getting as lost as possible in the worlds of Vvardenfell, Halo, and the skies of Panzer Dragoon. I never even gave my Gamecube more than a second glance in those heady days with Mr. Driller been a slight diversion to the cube's delights. Even Mario Kart only kept my brother and I playing till we unlocked all the cups. By now though, PSO had come and brought with it all its addictive goodness.


Now though, my brother has gone to the back of the mansion and is at the tombstone that requires the arrowhead to get through. It's all coming back to me. I tell him to go back inside and go upstairs to get it from the room with the mirror and the two zombies. It feels cool.


I am going through a gaming fallow period. Being online is fun and all that, but only about four people out of all the people on my friends list make it worthwhile. I had more fun playing all these single player games offline. Or just messing about on Super Smash Bros. with my flat mates. Those days were cool. Of course, I am not saying that Live or online gaming as a whole is without its strong points and its allure, after all I already have a copy of FFXI waiting to be installed on my PC, and NWN is also probably only going to be played online. Overall though, I think that I play games for the experience of gaming. Getting lost in a world and having it affect my own environment as well - the theme tune for a level coloring my memory of summer for example - creating a dialogue, both spoken and unspoken between me and a group of friends, even if they don't play videogames.

Finishing the Fight

 

I finally got my mitts on Halo 3! Yes, yes, I know this is probably old news for most people with 360s, but it is still quite an achievement for me, and getting it was almost as interesting as playing the game itself.

Basically, I went to every department store and electronics shop on the Island in Lagos asking about it, and like I detailed in an earlier post, most people don't even seem to stock 360 games, let alone having Halo 3. I was about to give up and look to the internet and my hit or miss credit card to help me get it when I went to the NuMetro Media store in the Palms shopping mall. By this time, I had given up on getting Halo 3 in any of these stores and was just looking for a control pad (they didn't have any by the way) when one of their sales reps came up to me and asked what I was looking for. I told him that I was looking for an xbox 360 pad. He looked thoughtful for a second or two and then told me to wait for him. He looked like he was going to the back of the store and so I just said in passing that if they also happened to have a hidden copy of Halo 3 somewhere in there, I would want to get that as well.

He then asked me whether I wanted a PAL or NTSC one and I told him either. He went away and left me with my hopes actually raised and when he came back with both his hands empty I was disappointed. He then told me to come back at 1pm. I looked at my watch and saw that the time was 12.30pm, so I told him this and said that I would just wait. He then told me to give him my number and that he would call me when the stuff was there. So I did so, asking him when he thought they would be available, and he said the next day.

And so, I left.

I went back about the same time the next day (Saturday) and I saw him. He told me that they still weren't there, but that he would definitely call me once they were available. So, I went back home again, getting ready to attempt the internet purchase option. On Sunday morning I got a phone call from a number I didn't recognise and it was the guy from the store! He told me that he had the goods and that I could pick them up that day. Thinking that all I would have to do is drive down to the store and go get them, he then confused me by asking where I lived. I answered automatically and told him that I lived near the mall at Lekki Phase One then he told me that he could bring it to me. At this point it dawned on me that when he told me that they would be getting the Halo 3 and the control pad soon, he was talking about himself and his side-business (or PP - Private Practice as they say). Well, Halo is Halo and so I got in my car and met him at the entrance to the estate. I parked on the side of the road and he got into the car with a black polyethene bag. I thought for a moment at how this must look like such a shady deal being executed. Anyways, he brought out the Halo (which looked to me almost like it had been hastily re-shrink wrapped by Alaba boys), paid him N13,500 ($114) with a big sigh and drove off. I had already picked up a game pad from another store and did not have enough money to buy one more. I am planning to pick up two more pads from a store near my office. They are offering them for about N6,000-N8,000 ($50-$67) which is still a damn sight better than the N10,500 they are asking for in the department stores.

Anyways, long story short, I got my game, and I have been playing for two days now on Heroic. Africa has been glassed and I am on my way to kick the ass of the people who made it necessary. The Flood. The game looks really nice, and I prefer its visual aesthetic to Gears of War which I also finished recently. Halo's art design is a bit subtle in that it appears to be really just generic space marine tosh, but on closer inspection, there really is a lot of work and artistry put into it. And at least I can tell the difference between a Brute, Elite, Grunt, and marine at a glance unlike in Gears of War where everybody looks like they are on the same steroid regime.

The game is also quite nice too so far. :-)

World Cyber Games Championships...

And Nigeria is participating! How this flew under my radar I have no idea. I think I remember reading about a competition, but since it didn't involve any games I play or am interested in, I just didn't pay too much attention. Guessing that that is what it was.

I am quite pleased at this development, although I wonder how well we will actually do given our track record for assuming we are GREAT at something only to find out that we are only wonderful relative to the others around our neighbourhood. Will still be an interesting experience however. Wish I had the time/excess funds to go to Germany as my visa is still valid.

According to the official Nigerian World Cyber Games (Wow! I don't believe I just typed that) website, the games available for representation by us are - Need for Speed, Age of Empires, Warcraft and Fifa 08. If I had seen anything on Halo 2/3, I might have actually considered going on a training regime with a team in order to see about participating. Even if we get our asses handed to us over there (which is most likely), it would have been very fun.