Remember that new fangled idea you were throwing around about five years ago? The one where you made short, cheap games at a regular pace rather than expensive, long-term releases? 'Episodic content' you called it. Well, i was wondering... what the heck happened? :P

Half Life 2 released a whopping six years ago and we are yet to see the elusive third of its episodic expansions after all this time. Such a delay may indeed have caused Valve some problems as, if we're being honest, the Source engine isn't the grahpical powerhouse it was six years ago, and the third and final episode in the Half Life 2 series would be hard pressed to blow us away if it were released now, alongside games which have advanced technologically a great deal over the course of this generation.

So where does that leave us Half-Life nerds? While i'd be glad to play the latest episode even if it looked like an N64 game, I can't help but acknowledge that Valve are surely aware of the issue and, giving their track record for quality, might even be unwilling to release a game in their cherished Half Life series which doesn't exceed our expectations in every way.

What with all this Fuse madness getting me all hot and bothered, i decided to spend some time creating some achievements of my own. Prepare for their inevitable integration into most mainstream releases any day now:

50G The Jack Attack - kill at least 300 enemies while dying only twice.

-10G Being THAT Guy - kill at least one member of your own team and then quit the match.

100G Safety First - successfully clear a stage of all explosive barrels, precariously hung chandeliers and other environmental hazards.

20G Realism Mode - opt to leave your escortee behind and save yourself.

30G The Negotiator - beat the game via the first level by successfully convincing your assailants to lay down their arms and turn themselves in to their nearest law enforcement agency

It makes absolutely no sense that Gamespot has way better achievment stats than the official xbox website, but dammit it's true. :P The different categories of common, rare, epic, legendary etc are a great idea. The huge list of every game i've ever played really makes me want to go back and get some more of their achievements, but i'm afraid that'll have to wait until my exams are over and done with.

Speaking of which, i should really hit the books...

Is it just me (probably), or is anyone else a little flumaxed at the new Playstation 3 model? Having seen the ads on TV, i thought it was perhaps a little early days for a redesign, but couldn't help think it looked like a nice, smaller machine. I was interested, to say the least, which i suppose is exactly what Sony were going for in redesining and re-marketing the system.

That is, until i saw it on display at my local department store. Sitting there, right next to it's older brother, it looked so silly and underwhelming i couldn't help but feel confused as to why the thing exists in the first place. Dont get me wrong now, i'm talking about the Playstation 3 here. I think after a very rough start it's flowered into a marvellous machine with more than enough to please those with the highest of quality standards.

I speak then, specifically in regard to this new, seemingly pointless iteration of the console. Is it slimmer? Yes, but much in the same way as the PSP Slim and Lite offered a barely noticeable change in dimensions, the latest offering from SCE seems just too minor an update to make sense. It's a bit slimmer, a bit smaller. Not the huge change the PS2 underwent from its original design to the slim version, by any means.

So sure, it's a little bit smaller. Nothing to make you say 'oooh' like a tiny new iteration of the iPod, or a micro-sized laptop. And it's in this regard that it seems so underwhelming. It's not a slim PS3, it's a PS3... but slimmer. And further, the plain, matte, dull, plastic shell makes the machine appear so completely bland and featureless, it looks like a broken man compared to the might of the original standing proudly right next to it, it's glossy finish, curved lines and chrome details all on show.

And that's all i have to say really. What is the point in this new slightly smaller, less attractive console?

While few seem to have noticed, one of the biggest industries in the world has undergone the most radical changes it has ever seen over the course of the decade. I speak of the music industry, what was once a traditional system of large companies producing and marketing a product for profit. The product obviously being CDs. Mega-corporations such as Universal have slowly watched this cash-cow of a business slip through their fingers since the dawn of internet and mass-consumption culture, and though they've certainly tried to fight back (mostly in the form of lawsuits), it would appear the music industry, in the traditional sense, is on its death bed.

And for the most part, this is a good thing. At the end of the day, as far as consumers are concerned, you're nearly always going to be getting the best deal when you're consuming content from the artists themselves, as opposed to the companies and corporations who's previous stranglehold on the industry stifled both the creativity of the artists while ripping off the fans responsible for their existance.

Take Radiohead, for example, who connect with their fans directly through their website, offering regular updates, the occasional track to download and of course, their innovative 'pay what you want' release of their last studio album, In Rainbows. Or Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails, just honoured as Artist of the Year in the 2009 Webby awards, who has arguably embraced online distribution and connection with fans more than any other artist to date. Everything from fan-made remixes, new album releases to tour tickets are available through NIN.com.

Trent Reznor of Quake soundtrack fame. Oh yeah, and that band.

So what does all this have to do with games? I do have a point, i'm just taking a scenic route in getting to it. As giant corporations like Universal see their prefered way of business slipping through their fingers, i cant help but see a similar parallel in the gaming industry. While gaming hasn't moved into the online sphere to the extent that music has - mostly due to the closed-off nature of consoles - the traditional set up of developer, publisher and consumer appears to be going through something of a shake-up.

The relevancy of the publisher is what appears most open to change. With online services including XBox Live Arcade, PSN and WiiWare, we're finally starting to see talent thrown out onto the big stage without the need for a massive budget, a marketing plan and a publisher to tell you your game needs to be more like Halo. Microsoft's XNA has produced some right stinkers in terms of gameplay quality, but the absolute gems which quickly rise to the top of the download pile are a breath of fresh air for gamers looking for a change of pace.

It's only with services such as this that we, as consumers, can finally start to pay the right price for products which haven't been compromised due to the requirements of publishers or parent companies interfering with the artistic vision of the developer. Of course that sounds like a wonderful arrangement, but we're not really there yet. It's a scenario which certainly appears to be looming on the horizon however.

Take EA, a mega-publisher responsible for a massive chunk of games developed and shipped on pretty much every major platform every year. Yet their profits have tanked. Is this the product of a bad economy, or a poorly managed business? Who knows? But EA appear to be acknowledging, at least to some extent, the need to embrace new and more relevance means of reaching the consumer, with games like the new free-to-play iteration of Battlefield an obvious and very welcome example.

Elsewhere, Microsoft's role as a publisher is also changing, mainly in that they would appear to simply not do it any more. Other than the sure-fire hits such as Halo and Forza, microsoft's first party offerings have been scarce to say the least, instead focusing on third party developers, xbox live arcade and XNA developers. Once again, i think this is a step in the right direction. Putting your trust and your profitability in the hands of the artists and the developers, where it belongs.

Hopefully, if this trend continues, we could see complete digital distribution with the next generation of home consoles, allowing anyone with the know-how, the talent and the vistion to make great, innovative games to share them with the masses.

Otherwise known as "how NOT to do it..." Developers, please take note.

Quite surprisingly, one of the most successful and most talked-about aspects of the XBox 360's launch was not its hardware, nor its lineup, but its nifty inclusion of the gamerscore and achievement system which, for our rock-dwelling friends, is a standard feature in all xbox 360 software which rewards the player with up to 1000 "points" for completing various tasks and challenges as the developer sees fit, all of which count towards your accumulative gamer score.

Though the madness regarding achievements has died down a little, and while more hardcore gamers have perhaps relaxed a little in what was originally a manic, obsessive race for more points, achievements still remain a fun, addictive and original aspect of most new releases.

This isnt always the case, though. Sometimes achievements are implemented in a way so bland, so uninspired, so infuritating or in such an out-right awful fashion that they, in the worst cases, actually serve to hinder one's enjoyment of the game.

Here we present a guide to preventing such software atrocities:

HOW NOT TO USE ACHIEVEMENTS: A Gamer's Guide

1) Arbitrary repitition of menial tasks:

Nothing says "fun" like doing some dishes, mowing a lawn or cleaning out the garage! For whatever reason, a mind bogglingly large number of developers have implemented achievements in their games to basically reward the player for repeating a given task over and over and over again. Cases in point:

 Save a survivor being attacked by the infected 50 times.

 Yeah, you heard right... fifty times. Not save a survivor, kill the last bad guy or get a really special kill. No, repeat a given process fifty times. Even if a tasty marshmallow were dispensed from your console each time you successfully save a survivor, i honestly doubt it'd remain doing so fifty times.

Of course, asking the player to do something a certain number of times is not bad by default. Some games incorporate this quite well into the gameplay, whereby the player will often NEED to perform certain tasks a number of times to advance. Others are just chores however. Take Chrome Hounds:

Deploy on treads 50 times

Yes, the game rewards you for choosing a certain type of base when constructing your mech... and then playing with said mech 50 times. There are similar achievements for using legs, wheels or a combination of the three. 

WHY!? :P

What is being achieved? What is the developer actually rewarding here? Is this not simply a chore the creators are forcing the player to grind through?

 2). Achievements which will mess up your online multiplayer

Halo 3 rewards the player for using the Needler (a weapon) a certain number of times. It rewards the player for getting a certain number of grenade sticks, and a certain type of spartan laser kill. Nothing too crazy, and nothing too laborious to complain about. The problem? All of these apply to online multiplayer, and worse still, ranked multiplayer.

Why is this an issue? Well, let's look at Gears of War for another very similar example:

Kill 100 enemies in ranked matches with the Hammer of Dawn

This basically serves to guarantee that at some point in your online career, you will lose a ranked match at least once due to that team member refusing to use any weapon other than the one in which he is attempting to acquire an achievement, regardless of how impractical the use of that weapon may be in the given situation, or of what effect it is having on the team.

When Halo 3 launched, how many times did you enter the matchmaking lobby only to hear "...anyone wanna do an achievements match?" No, billy, i do not. I want to play the game.

When your achievements hinder the player's ability to actually play the game, it's time to go back to the drawing board.

3). Demanding unrealistic and unreasonable loyalty to your game

Gears of War's Seriously Achievement will likely come to mind for most people, but i'll use another example rather than focusing too much attention on one game. Brothers in Arms, for example:

Play the game every day for 100 days

Puh-lease. Sometimes as a developer, it is equally important that you realise the shortcomings of your game, as well as its strengths. Demanding that your user base give unrealistic and unreasonable attention to your game only serves to make your studio appear somewhat dilusional as to the quality of your game.

Even the best of this year's holiday releases likely wont last for over a quarter of a year before gamers move onto something else.

4). Spoilerific achievement titles/names

The xbox 360 dashboard features a section which allows the player to browse through all the games they have played, and the related achievements attached to them, either locked or unlocked.

I know i cant be the only one who has been horrified by some of the names given to achievements in the past, in relation to how they so blatantly rip apart the game's story.

Some games feature achievement titles and descriptions akin to putting "It turns out Vader's his father" on the Empire Strikes Back movie poster.

5). Finally, be creative

Achievements should not be something you "go after", if you ask me. An achievement is something which should pop-up on your screen to your delight upon doing something awesome. If i throw a grenade right across the map on Halo 3, only to have it land perfectly in the passenger seat of an enemy warthog, wouldnt it be brilliant if an achievement popped up to signify just how rare and how awesome a moment that is?

If it were up to me, the requirements for all achievements would be made secret, allowing for the player to unlock them by doing what we buy these games to do in the first place; enjoying them.

Thanks for reading. :)

*achievement info and images from xbox360achievements.com

The Great man is back.

So i was lucky enough to see the new Bond movie this week, and thought i'd post my impressions here, seeing as its getting some mixes reactions on the interwebs. Personally speaking, i was a huge fan of Casino Royale. I thought the more sombre, realistic approach was just what the doctor ordered after the super-cheesed invisible cars and bad guys with diamonds in their faces of the Brosnan era.

So while some have complained that the fancy gadgets and tricks of the old bond movies arent present, you wont find that gripe with me. Craig does a far better job playing an agent with nothing but a gun and his own ability, rather than an arsenal of ridiculous space-age techno gadgetry.

The film takes a slight departure from the strong narrative of the previous entry, instead going for a more action-heavy approach which fits the very angry Bond quite well. The story this time around sees James hunting down the members of a multi-national organisation who have set about destabilising governments for their own economic interests. An interesting twist on this however, is the fact that the organisation played a part in the death of Vespa, Bond's previous love interest, resulting in some mixed motives behind James' actions.

Overall the story works quite well, though it lacks some of the more clever aspects of Casino Royale, instead opting for perhaps more simplistic "stopping the bad guys" plot lines. This is arguably necessary however to support the numerous action-heavy scenes. And it is with these scenes that my biggest gripe arises.

The director gets in very close with his shots, which works when trying to establish dialogue, but not at all during car chases and fight scenes. The film opens with a car chase which SHOULD be incredibly exhilerating, but instead comes off as chaotic and hard to follow as super-close ups chop and change every milisecond between various angles. The same can be said of the fight scenes; one in particular was so close-up and so chaotic that i had absolutely no idea how Bond managed to subdue his attackers when the camera finally pulled out to reveal them lying unconscious. The shaky-cam worked excellently in films like saving private ryan to immerse the viewer into the situation, but in films such as this it simply makes events borderline impossible to follow.

The film is c lassic bond overall however. It features the great story, characters and bond one-liners that you expect from any 007 feature, and should prove a worthy movie-going event for bond lovers, especially if you favour the new rebooted s tyle of the franchise.

Verdict: Pretty Sweet.

Hey everyone. We just held the first (kinda) system wars awards thread over on *wait for it* the system wars board, and well... it went ok.

The main problem was the number of users who wanted categories such as "biggest fanboy" and "worst troll", but obviously in keeping with the ToS (and general nice behaviour), we dont want, or need, a thread full of flaming and insults.

We got about a fifth of the number of votes you typically see in the OTcars (the yearly awards thread in Off-Topic), and a quite staggering 50% of users voted in the poll to never attempt such a thread again.

Perhaps system wars just isnt the right board for threads like this. Who knows? Maybe we can change the format and try again next year. :)

Unlike Nintendo, and to a slightly lesser extent Sony, Microsoft's gaming division is something of a side project in the grand scheme of things. While Sony would be in serious trouble as a company if their gaming division were to collapse, and Nintendo's entire business is gaming, Microsoft could decide to pack up and withdraw from the gaming industry entirely without any serious long term consequence for the mega-corporation.

I think when considering the current batch of consoles and games on our store shelves, and the companies behind them, it's very important to remember this little fact. Why? Because it explains so many of the common frustrations gamers may experience with Microsoft's gaming strategy.

This is all just my opinion, of course, but i doubt i'm alone as a 360 owner in being frustrated by some of microsoft's actions (or inactions, rather) in relation to their broader strategy in this industry. What am i talking about?

Well, it all comes down to the basic fact that, of all the companies involved in the gaming industry, microsoft is in by far the best position to do truly great and innovative things. But more recently, they have become arguably one of the more stagnant and "safe" companies of the bunch. And it's not just in their xbox space.

Below is something of a report card for microsoft's strategy and efforts so far in the gaming industry. I wonder how many people share my sentiments?

a) Microsoft are rich. Duh. But as a company they're also somewhat miserly in respect to their gaming division. That is, they certainly have the money, but they simply dont want to use it. Take Valve for example, an absolute gold mine.

Valve actually want to be bought by a larger company for some reason. I would assume because they need a larger platform from which to achieve their goals with Steam, and expand onto console. Does that not sound like a dream position for Microsoft? Apparently not. Valve have gone unsold for months now, and current rumors say Google are snapping them up; one of microsoft's biggest rivals (outside of the games biz).

b) PC gaming. An independent developer like Valve has managed to revolutionise the way we find, buy and play games and the way we interact with other players through Steam. Microsoft are an epic company who's goal is to make gaming on the PC popular and successful; the best they could come up with was a half-assed version of XBox Live on the PC.

Think of what they could achieve! They could partner with Valve to make a Steam-like service which incorporates the entire Games for Windows catalogue, rather than the admittedly small number of titles available through Valve's service. They could have a real stab at unifying online gaming on the PC. They could make PC the gamer's dream, but they simply dont want to.

c) They dont invest in big projects. Every E3 they focus on the games released that holiday; while good for gamers, it shows that microsoft basically dont do epic, boundary-breaking projects which they show off over three or four years. While Sony show off Home, LBP and ideas like MAG, Microsoft will show off Gears 2 and a new idea for a Halo game.

When was the last time an xbox owner was promised a new, revolutionary or ground-breaking game? It seems to be something Microsoft just dont "do".

It's frustrating really, that the company with the most potential and the most ability to do something amazing simpy doesnt want to. Is it maybe that microsoft are simply so successful and so confident as a company that they dont see the need to do anything like this?

Like that one student you know in high school who seems to be able to pass any test without needing to work hard or study, but if he bothered to put in just a little effort he could be a genius.

My parts came in yesterday to start the modding i talked about a few weeks ago, but while playing a little GTAIV, i got into an epic police chase and bam:

3rd time. 4th if you count my first 'box.