#oneaday Day 641: In Which I Berate the Games Industry for Being Fickle

Oh dear, everyone. Do make your mind up. About everything. And stick to what you believe.

Just a few months ago, roughly halfway between Black Ops coming out and the Battlefield 3/Modern Warfare 3 combo being announced, everyone had decided for the umpteenth time that they were, in fact, sick of games involving Soldiers With Guns. Originality was dying, we regularly heard, and commercialism was diluting the creativity of gaming down into a series of lowest-common denominator products designed purely to cater to the largest possible audience — seemingly, the beer-chugging dudebro. (Yes, I know some ladies play Call of Duty, too. But like it or not, gaming is still an overwhelmingly male-dominated pastime.)

Fast forward until now and suddenly everyone is happily spaffing in the faces of Battlefield 3 and Modern Warfare 3 with looks of rapturous ecstasy on their faces. I’m sure they will both turn out to be competent games with pleasingly spectacular visuals, but nothing has changed — they’re still games set in war-torn cities featuring Soldiers With Guns. I still have precisely zero interest in them, so what has caused people to suddenly decide that actually, no, we don’t have quite enough games featuring Soldiers With Guns in them?

I’m not objecting to the fact that these games exist on anything other than a personal level — I’m quite aware that there are plenty of people out there who play, enjoy and even love them. The thing that is bugging me is the fickleness on display by the industry and the public. Popular opinion seems to ping-pong from one extreme to another — “I hate this!” to “This is the best thing ever!” overnight. And, seemingly, it’s taboo to speak out and say “Hang on a minute…” — largely because in these days of publisher dominance over review scores, we all know what the consequences of rating something slightly below what everyone else rates it is. You get a Cliffy B (or equivalent) ranting and raving and crying that his product has been treated unfairly.

I have played a bit of Modern Warfare 3. It was fun-ish. It didn’t make me want to rush out and buy it. I was playing the co-op Survival mode. We played, we shot men and dogs, we survived. It was nothing I hadn’t done before in many other shooters, and in many cases in much more fun situations. Killing Floor, for example, is very similar to Modern Warfare 3‘s Survival mode but is much more fun owing to its variety of enemies and settings that go beyond war-torn towns.

I have not, on the other hand, played Battlefield 3. My totally uninformed position gives me a sneaking suspicion that things might take on a similar turn there. While the FrostBite 2 engine is undoubtedly pretty and gorgeous and capable of lovely feats of graphical marvellousness, as we regularly heard in the early days of the CD-ROM revolution, graphics do not make a good game. Battlefield 3 is, as far as I can make out, also not doing anything hugely revolutionary that hasn’t been done elsewhere before. Military shooters are a dime-a-dozen, and military shooters with vehicles have been done before, too — and on larger-scale maps by titles such as ArmA.

I don’t dislike the genre per se — to sound like a Daily Mail reader desperately trying to prove he’s not a racist for a moment, some of my favourite experiences with past games have been in the shooter genre. Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Duke Nukem 3D, No-One Lives Forever, SiN, TimeSplitters — all are examples of an overcrowded genre, but all, too, are examples of games which go a step beyond just being a cookie-cutter game involving Soldiers With Guns.

And yet two almost identical-looking games featuring Soldiers With Guns are tipped to be the biggest-selling titles of the year, while other games fall by the wayside. Where’s the justice?

Live and let live, I guess. So long as there are people online for me to play Dungeon Defenders with — and there seem to be plenty at the moment, thankfully — I’ll happily leave the Soldiers With Guns fans to their business and get on with mine. But I still wish that for once, when everyone finally tires of Battlefield 3 and Modern Warfare 3 and the inevitable sequels to both get announced halfway through next year, people will actually stick to their guns (no pun intended) for once and say “No! Look, we’ve had enough. Do something different, for fuck’s sake.”

I don’t see it happening, however. Still, as I say, so long as the more creative underbelly of the industry continues to thrive as it does, I’ll happily go on supporting the games that no-one else is playing. It’s a much more exclusive club, and one that’s a pleasure to be a part of.

#oneaday Day 640: Defending the Dungeon

I find myself in vaguely familiar surroundings, though I’m not quite sure of the best way to proceed. Fortunately, one of my companions steps up to the plate. She’s a young, pretty elf, and she packs a mean-looking minigun. I’m inclined to follow her suggestions.

“Put down a wall there,” she says, clearly indicating the place she’s referring to. I oblige, hastily battering together an impromptu blockade of wood, steel and spiky bits.

“Now one here,” she adds, nimbly leaping over to another pathway towards the crystal. “And one over the other side, too.” Her friend, clad in his robe and wizard hat, lollops over and drops a few mana crystals to help me pay for the defenses we’re setting up. I follow her instructions, and soon enough we’re ready.

“Chaaaaarge!”

We hear the cry from behind the door before they arrive. My mind wanders for a moment, thinking that it was awfully nice of the incoming hordes to wait until we were ready before attacking, but I am quickly snapped back to the present by the sight of what looks like a small army approaching.

I leap into action, swinging my sword wildly and knocking goblins left, right and centre. Green blood sprays from their lifeless corpses as they fall to the ground — they don’t even reach my blockades, so weak are they against my swordsmanship. I glance to the sides and see my compatriots covering the other doorways in their own distinctive, inimitable styles. Our erstwhile leader is mucking in with her minigun just as much as the rest of us, and before long the doors slam shut, the crystal safe for a little longer.

This time, we agree that I should put some harpoon launchers behind my blockades just to make doubly sure that none of the advancing hordes get anywhere near the crystal. They prove surprisingly effective, especially when combined with the magical structures that my robe-and-hat-clad companion also summons out of thin air. Before long, we’re taking another breather, but it’s clear that this time, things are a little different. There’s an air of tension about the group, as if it knows something terrible is about to happen.

The doors fly open again, and another swarm of enemies troops into the chamber. I wade in, cutting through them like butter, knocking them aside, into pools of lava and down seemingly bottomless pits. These dungeons are dangerous, and surely having pools of lava beneath your castle can’t be a great idea, I think.

Suddenly, the incoming enemies seem to stop, and there’s a noise.

Thud.

There it is again.

Thud.

And again.

Thud.

Louder, this time.

THUD.

Something big is coming. We look frantically around the room to prepare for whatever it is that’s headed our way, and our gaze falls upon the mysterious alchemical equipment left here long ago by our apprentice friend’s forebears. The pretty elf nods, and we steel ourselves just before a huge demon bursts through the ceiling, roaring in fury.

I charge straight at him but am immediately knocked back by a wave of fire. The pretty elf gestures to one of the pieces of equipment down the side of the room and charges towards one herself. Following her lead, I smash the device as hard as I can with my sword, and strange, crackling, blue energy emits from it. Our two other companions do the same, and before long there’s a whirling maelstrom of the crackling blue energy, converging on the demonic beast bearing down on the pretty elf.

It worked! He spasms and judders, unable to move. We immediately leap in and start attacking him — his thick skin is like stone, but from his howls of pain, it’s clear we’re hurting him. He breaks free of his energy prison and roars again, flames bursting forth from his body and knocking us back. He’s on the ropes, though, so if we can just do it again…

He falls, the impact of his massive body hitting the floor making the whole room shake. Gigantic, valuable-looking mana crystals burst forth from his corpse and we gather them up greedily — this stuff is better than gold coins. There’s an air of calm over the strange laboratory, and it’s clear that this area is safe, for now. But this is just one of many of the Eternia Crystals that we’ve been tasked with defending. Can we live up to the bold example set by our ancestors?

Only time will tell — but we’ll have a lot of fun doing it. So can you.

#oneaday Day 639: Unnecessary Injuries

Have you been injured in an accident that wasn’t your fault? Then call Injury Lawye– wait, no, that’s not what I was getting at.

Have you ever hurt yourself on something that really shouldn’t hurt you? It’s an infuriating experience. Today I injured my thumb on my trousers.

Yes, really.

Let me explain. I have a pair of cheap-ass jeans from Primark (I know, I know, child labour, but cheap. I couldn’t afford to be ethical while I was unemployed) that are fine for most things, but one of the rivety things or whatever they’re called that holds the pockets in place is coming off a little bit, meaning there’s a bit of a sharp edge upon which it’s very easy to nick oneself. Normally I remember it’s there, but as I was sitting down to enjoy a cup of coffee this morning I caught myself good and proper on the thumb, ripping off an impressively sizeable chunk of skin and causing it to bleed profusely.

This would have been infuriating enough had I done it in private, but of course I was in public at the time, meaning that any number of people could have witnessed me sitting at a table with clearly nothing around me that could have possibly injured my finger, yet there I was clasping a bloody napkin to it and wincing.

The only thing slightly more embarrassing than injuring yourself on something as innocuous as a pair of trousers is injuring yourself (in public, naturally) on absolutely nothing at all — the “I Just Tripped Over My Own Feet” scenario. There are few ways to deal with this that leave you with any dignity remaining — whether you choose to simply take the fall and hope that a kind passer by helps you up, assuming that you’re some sort of invalid, or to stumble and break into a slow run as if you always intended to lurch forwards in the way that you did, everyone around you will know that you tripped over absolutely nothing at all and are, therefore, a Bit of a Spaz.

Should you find yourself injuring yourself on a pair of trousers or tripping over absolutely nothing at all (bar your own feet) then there’s likely very little that Injury Lawyers 4 U (“We’re real lawyers!“) can do for you. Unless you’re planning on suing yourself for being such a damn clumsy twat. And that, as I’m sure you’re aware, would be an ultimately self-defeating exercise. Literally.

You could always hope that someone was there with a video camera hoping to make a quick buck from You’ve Been Framed, of course. If you spot yourself on the TV, then be sure to claim likeness rights. You’ll be in the money. Maybe.

#oneaday Day 638: Idiots of the App Store

Everyone knows that you shouldn’t read Internet comments where the public has been allowed to voice its opinions without any filtering. It’s why sensible people avoid looking at 4chan, YouTube comments and App Store reviews. But, like a car crash, sometimes you just can’t look away from these comments sections, no matter how infuriating they might end up being.

I made the mistake of browsing the App Store tonight and perusing a few obviously stupid apps which, inevitably, had rather low ratings. Let’s see what the reviewers had to make of them, shall we?

First up is Mario and Friends. This decidedly copyright-infringing app makes it very clear in its description that it is a soundboard featuring music and sound effects from classic titles such as Mario, Zelda and Sonic. Let’s take a small sample of the reviews:

“This is not a game. Where is my money?” — Cheat11111111

“Please do not buy this app does not work my young grand daughter was so disappointed !!” — ena Sproule

“Thought this was the game what a load of rubbish I mean why wud we want the listen to the music without playing the actual game?? Waist of 69p!!!” — lisa green

“None of the buttons work so it’s impossible to play waste of money” — Al24467

What you’ll see from most App Store reviews of this type are a few consistent features: overuse of exclamation marks, an inability to know when one sentence ends and another begins, and an inability to use the correct homophone.

Let’s take a look at another excellent example: Unlock It! which promises new lock themes for your iPhone and, again, in the description makes it clear that it’s a spoof app, not an actual means of overriding a fundamental way the iPhone works. Here are some choice reviews:

“I was so happy that I would be able to Chang e the lock screen but then it turned out to be a scam! I doesn’t let you change the lock screen! Do not get it! SO UNHAPPY!!” — Kezmatron

“Should’ve read the reviews – this is tripe!!” — Jonzo15a

“Don’t get it.. I was so happy with idea.. Then so upset with the lies that lied deep inside!! C***S!!” — Bleepsound

“This app is a complete con. Do not buy it. It does not have any of the functionality it claims to offer it simply takes a photo which you can save as your background to imitate a security function. Very poor.” — Black and White Army

“A new this app sounded 2 gd to be true” — Dj disco dave

What have we learned from all this? That the sort of person who leaves App Store reviews probably hasn’t read the app description before downloading. This type of person can be regularly seen elsewhere on the Internet indulging in very similar behaviour in other places — commenting on N4G having only read the headline, not the whole article; commenting on a YouTube video without watching the video; commenting on a news story without reading the story; commenting on a Facebook page without looking to see what kind of page it is; and numerous others.

It’s very simple, people. Slow down. Read things. If you’re looking at something, look at it properly. You’ve taken the time to click a link to something or other — why not check it out properly rather than immediately flying off the handle and crying “scam!”/”fake!”/”bias!”/”fanboy!”/”bullshit!” etc.

Ahhh. It’s nice to want things, isn’t it?

#oneaday Day 637: Card-Carrying Lunatic

I like card games. I’m not sure why. It’s one of those things where something indefinably pleasant goes through my head when I think of holding cards, seeing (hopefully) gorgeous artwork and enjoying a game that (in most cases) combines elements of luck with skill and strategy. It may be something to do with the fact that, statistically, I appear to be better at card games than I am at some full-on board games — particularly Agricola and Power Grid, it has to be said — but I’m not sure that’s quite the right reason.

I’ve started playing a couple of good games on iOS recently. One, Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer is, I believe, an adaptation of an actual proper physical card game. It’s one of those games that initially sounded horrendously complex, with all manner of stats and numbers floating around to make lesser men and women tremble in their +5 Boots of Courage. But, in fact, it’s a rather simple game with very straightforward mechanics and, like the best games, it’s all about what you do with those mechanics that makes it interesting to play.

Essentially, the game revolves around building a deck of cards and making use of their various abilities to score as many points as possible. Points are scored by purchasing cards using the Runes stat, and by defeating monsters using the Power stat. Both Runes and Power are acquired by playing thematically-appropriate cards and adding up their totals to provide a pool of points to “spend” each turn — for example, Apprentices add Runes and allow you to purchase additional cards, while Militia adds Power and allows you to kick the bottom of monsters.

Points are acquired as you go along but also tallied up at the end of the game, so there’s an element of uncertainty as you go along — additional points are added according to the value of purchased cards at the end, while defeated monsters and cards with point-scoring special abilities grant their rewards immediately.

That’s about it — you buy cards, you kill monsters, repeat until the available pool of points is depleted. Then, if you’re anything like me, repeat until bored, which is, in my experience so far, a very long time away.

My experience with the iOS version has certainly made me curious to check out the physical version, though I hear its components aren’t up to much. Based on this and Dominion, which I do own a physical copy of and which seriously needs an iOS adaptation, however, I think I can say with some confidence that I enjoy deck-building games.

The second game I’ve given a shot is a slightly different deal. Shadow Era is more along the lines of a CCG like Magic: The Gathering rather than using the preset cards of Ascension. As such, there’s (arguably) a lot more variety, and the game involves a lot more in the way of direct conflict between players than Ascension does — the latter involves a number of cards which indirectly screw over other players rather than attacking them directly, while Shadow Era is an outright fight between the two participants.

I’ve only had one game of Shadow Era so far but it seems like a solid game, and props to it for offering virtual cards for either real money or, for the more patient, from in-game soft currency, or hard acquired through levelling up. I’ll report back further on it when I’ve given it a bit more time, along with Kard Combat, codesigned by Richard “Magic: The Gathering” Garfield.

#oneaday Day 636: A Vote for Fitocracy is a Vote for… Wait, No

Andie and I joined the local gym yesterday, and had our induction sessions today. All is good and we’re feeling suitably motivated to proceed. This will likely mean leaving EA Sports Active 2 by the wayside — boo, no PSN trophies for me, but seriously, who gives a toss? — in favour of using actual proper exercise machines. And also not having to strap on those motion sensors which occasionally disconnect for no apparent reason.

Don’t get me wrong, EA Sports Active 2 is great, and it offered enough to get me motivated to start gymming it again, but there’s no substitute for the “real thing”.

The thing with being a member of the gym is, of course, maintaining your motivation factor. There are lots of ways you can do this — going along with a friend, keeping a log of your progress or, increasingly, using some form of website or app to both track your progress and brag about how awesome you are and how swell your guns are looking.

There are plenty of these available — Runkeeper Pro is my app of choice on my iPhone — but a lot of them are relatively simple affairs that just track what you’ve done without any particular form of motivation bar what you make up for yourself. Runkeeper does email you every time you break a personal record, but that’s about it.

Enter Fitocracy, an up-and-coming website that’s still in beta. Fitocracy takes the concept of fitness tracking and jams it firmly up the arse of social gaming. This means that every time you track some fitness, you get points. Points mean levels. Levels, as we’ve seen from fifteen billion social games that really don’t need a levelling system, are a powerful motivational tool — and, as each level gets progressively harder to achieve, they inspire you to push yourself a little bit further, whether that’s demonstrating your patience with clicking on a Facebook game, or feeling the burn a little bit more with your workouts.

There’s also a Quests function, which is an awesome idea. Take on a Quest and you’ll challenge yourself to do a specific exercise or combination, with points on offer as a reward upon completion. Obviously a large amount of this is down to your own honesty — but then so is fitness tracking itself, and the only person you’re cheating if you lie is yourself. Levels don’t get you anything per se, they simply provide a degree of motivation to the whole experience.

I will be trying out Fitocracy with some interest over the next few weeks — and possibly longer if it turns out to be awesome. It’s invite-only at the minute, but if you’d like to try it out for yourself, get in touch and I can hook you up with one of my remaining ones so you can check it out.

In the meantime, I have some grinding to do.

#oneaday Day 635: Version 5.0

I’ve been playing with my shiny new iPhone 4S for a day and a bit now and I have to say it’s rather nice. While fundamentally pretty similar to the 4, as you might expect, the speed boost is nice and having a Home button that works made the whole upgrade process worthwhile, too — let’s hope that whatever “known issue” plagued iPhone 4 Home buttons is a thing of the past with the new model ones, because having to take 4 or 5 attempts to pop up the multitasking bar was rather annoying.

iOS 5 is the star of the show and, unlike when iOS 4 hit the iPhone 3G, older phones can benefit from most of the features. (For the unfamiliar, iOS 4 not only brought the 3G to a near-standstill, it for some reason couldn’t handle functionality as basic as Home screen wallpaper — and certainly no multitasking.) I spent a couple of days with my 4 running iOS 5 and didn’t have any issues — not heard from anyone who installed it on a 3GS, however.

The best change is to notifications. No longer do we suffer session-interrupting popups that monopolise the entire system. Instead, we have discreet banners at the top of the screen, or multiple messages with app icons on the Lock screen. Not only that, we have a pleasant pull down place to see all our recent notifications and jump straight to the app that sent them. Big improvement, particularly as this also integrates with the new Reminders app, displaying all your most important Reminders first. You can also turn off the OCD-nightmare badge counts — even for incoming emails — and set anything you like (that notifies you, obviously) to pop up with a banner. You can switch back to the obtrusive messages if you want, but if you do you’re a big silly.

Then comes all the voice recognition business. For starters, most apps that include the default soft keyboard now have a microphone button for dictation. Accuracy is generally pretty good, and it knows contextually which homophones you might be using, though if you talk a little too quickly or don’t say your words with perfect diction it occasionally struggles. (For the record, it dictated me saying “penis penis penis penis penis penis penis” at it perfectly earlier, but failed on a similar test using the word “buttocks”.)

With the voice recognition, of course, comes Siri, your personal assistant. While a lot of attention has been given to the numerous Easter eggs built into Siri’s responses — proving that Apple does have a sense of humour after all — the practical uses of the system are more impressive. “Remind me about my gym induction tomorrow at 11am,” I said. Siri responded by setting up a reminder at the correct time. “Set an alarm for tomorrow morning at 10.30 with the label ‘gym induction’,” I added. Siri complied, even adding the requested label and activating the alarm. Okay, belching at Siri twice did inadvertently dial my friend Holly’s phone number, but I wasn’t expecting a “pardon you”. That really would be impressive.

In terms of software, the speed increase of the new tech is very much noticeable in games — particularly those which even caused the 4 to struggle. Final Fantasy Tactics and Dungeon Defenders both run beautifully on the 4S, making me think that this phone, if any, is going to be the one to make big developer think “hmmm… yes.” We’ve already seen a couple of iPad 2/iPhone 4S exclusive titles appear — Machinarium only runs on iPad, for example, while Rockstar’s reissue of Grand Theft Auto III later this year will only run on 4S or iPad 2. We’re also seeing titles like Real Racing 2 offering enhanced graphics for the newer hardware, coupled with the AirPlay feature which effectively turns an Apple TV and iPad/4S combo into a Wii U, albeit one with no buttons.

So if you’re on the fence about the 4S and thinking “hmm, I’ll wait for the 5” first of all, stop it, the thing just came out — and secondly, don’t hesitate. The most accessible smartphone on the market just got a whole lot better. Sure, Android can do more — but iOS does it with grace, no need for rooting and you know that, as I said yesterday, any new features Apple have implemented are in there because they think — and are usually right about these things, given past performance — that the time is right for them to become “mainstream”.

In other words, you may feel like a dick talking to your phone now, but when everyone realises that we’re actually a step closer to Star Trek, shit’s gonna get real, yo.

Siri, publish this post. No, publish. What are you doing? No, don’t phone them! Damn you!

#oneaday Day 634: Press Queue to Continue

I’m queuing for the iPhone 4S. Yes, I am That Guy, though I wasn’t the first here by a long shot. The fortunate thing about not living in a particularly huge town is that queues on days like this don’t tend to be huge. Even so, I still might be waiting for an hour or more — without, necessarily, any guarantee of a new phone at the other end. But… shiny new tech. Why not? I can even cover the upgrade cost by recycling my 4, so no real loss (beside o2’s contracts, which get worse each year, of course).

The feature which most people seem to be talking about with the 4S is Siri, the voice activated assistant app. Some have pointed out that this perhaps isn’t quite as revolutionary as Apple would like you to think, but the key difference here is that Apple is building it in to all the new phones (4Ses, anyway) and thus making it a standard(ish) feature rather than an optional app. It remains to be seen if Siri is as good as its demonstrations seem to indicate, but the fact it’ll be in the hands of all new customers who take the plunge for a 4S is notable.

Apple do this a lot. They keep an eye on competitors’ tech and apps, see what works and what doesn’t, then cherry-pick the best bits to include into their own OS. This leaves them open to regular accusations of being derivative, and of Android doing it better. But the important difference when Apple adopts a new feature is that it’s effectively “standardising” it, putting it in the hands of all customers rather than just those who know how to root their phone.

Given the appeal of iOS devices to otherwise tech-phobic people, this is a good thing. You just have to look at how much people complain every time Facebook changes its interface to see that People Do Not Like Change. And yet I can’t remember hearing people complain about the changes and additions to iOS in the same way. Features are introduced slowly and gradually, and given enough time to become firmly entrenched as an integral part of the experience. This is done at such a pace as to not frighten those who are less confident with tech, while still allowing geeky geeks the features they desire.

In short, Apple have their head screwed on right. For all the shit Android users give them, there’s a lot to be said for Apple’s conscious desire to appeal to the widest possible mainstream audience — not just geeks — and make the smartphone an important part of 21st century living.

Seems to be working all right for them so far.

#oneaday Day 633: Your Mine!

Been playing some more Minecraft, and I noticed something interesting. It’s possible to play it in all sorts of different ways, depending on your own personal take on what it’s all about.

You can play it as a survival sim — foraging for food, fending off the unpleasant beasties who would like nothing more than to fill you with holes, poison, fire or gunpowder.

You can play it as a creative canvas on which you create blocky 3D models of whatever you desire.

In multiplayer, you can play it as a crazy sort of real-time variant on Catan, staking your claim to areas of the map that are rich in a particular type of resource and collaborating with your friends to ensure everyone has access to what they need.

You can play it as a city-building sim, only instead of raising money from taxes to pay for new structures, you have to locate or create the resources you need to put together facilities yourself.

Or you can play it as a role-playing game — and by that I don’t mean “battle through a storyline until facing a final boss, levelling up in the process”, though a (currently useless and occasionally game-breaking) level-up system was added in the last major patch. Rather, I mean play it with a “character” in mind — or at least a concept for what you want to build. Do you want to play a hermit who lives in the woods in a tiny little cabin with an extensive and terrifying network of tunnels beneath his abode? Do you want to play the ostentatious Duke who lords it over the rest of the kingdom from his mountaintop palace? Do you want to play the adventurer, charting the world as he goes, staking his claim to various locales with some well-placed signs? Do you want to play the terrorist, building vast quantities of TNT and then setting them off in a chain reaction that lays waste to the nearby landscape?

The more I play Minecraft, despite being aware of the fact that it’s still fairly pointless as there’s no way to “win”, the more I like it. When you’re not being accosted by monsters, it’s a relaxing game to play — harvesting enough stone to put together your next big structure, for example, is a repetitive task that somehow manages to be fun, as you find yourself naturally carving out shapes in the rock, creating corridors and chambers underground until you realise you’ve actually built a rather extensive dungeon into which you could easily lure some unsuspecting adventurers.

Mojang has hit on to a winning formula. By combining the joy of exploring uncharted, randomly-generated worlds (there’s a lot of “Ooh! That looks cool, I’ll run towards it” in Minecraft) with the joy of constructing things and seeing the world change according to your actions — for better or worse — they’ve put together something really rather special. And for those who want to take matters further, there’s the frightening-sounding Nether and The End realms to explore, too — and eventually there’ll be a dragon to contend with, too.

Notch and his team claim they’re going to stop adding new stuff to the game on October 18, then make sure everything works properly prior to the “official” release in November. Beyond that, the game will likely continue to change and evolve — and I’m certainly very interested and excited to see what the future holds. Notch is a developer who loves his work, loves playing with interactivity and cool new “toys”, then sharing them with his community — and not being too proud to take things that don’t work away again. A lot of big-name professional developers and publishers could learn a lot from the way Mojang is doing things — but, despite the ludicrous amount of money Minecraft has drawn in so far, I doubt they will.

#oneaday Day 632: Safety and Peace, My Friend

So I beat Assassin’s Creed. Yay! I’m glad I finally did this, as it was rather enjoyable. The game’s flaws are very much apparent, but the narrative was enough to keep me wanting to play through to the end.

The game is a completionist’s nightmare. It’s full of progress bars and things to fill in that are completely unnecessary. Most people who have played it will, by now, know that there is absolutely no purpose whatsoever to collecting all the flags in each city, or killing all the Templars, or even doing every “Investigation” side mission when preparing for each chapter’s assassinations. Fortunately, I knew this already going into the game — it didn’t stop me from completely clearing the first few chapters, but then my copy of Assassin’s Creed II, the game from the series that I was really interested in playing, showed up. So, naturally, I just wanted to finish it.

The ending of the game was… a little odd. (Spoilers ahead.) While the majority of the game was pretty realistic in tone and obviously based on historical events (with, I imagine, a bit of artistic license taken) the final battle was rather odd. I wasn’t expecting a “fight every boss again at the same time” sort of situation, nor was I expecting a final boss with quasi-magical powers able to split himself into multiple forms.

Following the credits, the stuff you can read about on the Abstergo computers does, however, make it clear that we’re dealing with sci-fi here. The material about orbital satellites for mind control, the fact Africa was wiped out by a plague and. obviously, the technology on display — it makes it clear that all is not exactly what it seems.

I dug the story though. I enjoy a good conspiracy theory tale and even if it’s somewhat unsurprising to see the Templars involved in this sort of behaviour yet again, the way the story unfolded was interesting and kept me guessing up until the end, were it not for the fact that I inadvertently spoiled who the final boss was before I got to it. Oh well.

The thing I like most about it, though, is the fact that there’s a ton of possibilities for the series. Desmond is a likeable enough character, and the “exploring memories” angle leaves things nicely open for travelling through lots of different time periods. In some ways, it’s a bit of a shame that we’ve only seen Altair and Ezio so far — I’m hoping I’ll see the apparent appeal of the latter once I make a start on II tomorrow. Something must have inspired Ubi to keep on with him for three games. (Money, probably — but most layers of the series I’ve spoken to seem to be a fan of the character.)

Ubisoft has said that Desmond’s story will have to be wrapped up by the end of next year, however, but that doesn’t (and likely won’t) mean the series will be over. Desmond is, of course, “Subject Seventeen” — there are, then, sixteen subjects prior to him to explore, including at least one of whom that went completely mental and splattered conspiracy theories all over the walls in blood. That could be an interesting story to follow up on — or perhaps the end of Desmond’s cycle will leave things open for another subject.

I can’t really comment any more because I know literally nothing about what happens in II, Brotherhood and Revelations. Having beaten the first game now, however, I am very much looking forward to finding out.

Safety and peace, my friend.