Liberty City Police Face Allegations of Incompetence, Brutality

June 4th, 2008 by Fullforce | Posted in Gaming, Random | No Comments »

This is absolutely genius.

For those of you not in the know, The Onion is a joke news site. Although this is clearly a joke, many of their other news stories (as well as videos and audio) border the divide between almost real and downright hilarious.

I love how they incorporate the stats from the Rockstar Social Club in the article. Brilliant.

Here’s some more for you, some of my favourites:
Elderly Woman Destroys Internet
Swat Team Leader Uses Wrong Hand Signal Again

Wildly Popular ‘Iron Man’ Trailer To Be Adapted Into Full-Length Film

Breaking News: Series Of Concentric Circles Emanating From Glowing Red Dot

AFK lol

May 22nd, 2008 by Fullforce | Posted in Random | 1 Comment »

I’m off to Normandy for a week from Saturday. I’ll be nerdgasming over various WW2 museums and locations and stuff, as well as taking lots, and lots of pictures. I’ll be putting them all up on Picasa galleries too.

I have no idea if I’ll have internet access over there. But oh well. It’ll be awesome!

I’m armed to the teeth with D-Day and Pegasus Bridge by Stephen Ambrose, and Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers and god knows what other WW2 stuff.

The Conduit

May 18th, 2008 by Fullforce | Posted in Gaming | No Comments »

I’ve had my Wii for a while now, and I simply don’t play it. I tried Red Steel, but that was frankly a waste of money. I have long given up on Wii games and Wii shooters in particular. That is, until I saw The Conduit.

This looks fucking awesome. It’s going to push the Wii to the limit. Set in Washington DC at the height of an alien invasion, you play Mr. Ford, an agent working for the Secret Service. It looks to have overtones and hints of conspiracy, as well as puzzle elements within the game. But the shooting! It looks phenomenal.

From the MP5K to the Kriss Super V (first appearance in a video game, too, even if it is a bit strange in this), to the SCAR, the guns in this game look and sound bloody amazing. The alien weapons seem strange, but look damn interesting and imaginative too. The music in the trailer sounds bloody awesome too.

This is the first game I’m genuinely interested in, and supportive of. While games like GTAIV are amazing and I am interested in, they’ll sell no matter what, but games like this are unique and rare. Although High Voltage seem to have a bumpy track record, this game genuinely seems like it’s going to be great. And it’ll be the reason I start playing my Wii again.

TRAILER HERE

Demo of the technology engine, Quantum3, used in The Conduit

Warning: Awesome Screenshots Ahead!

The Conduit Official Site
High Voltage Software

“…About Damn Time.”

Podcast Linkdump Ahoy

May 14th, 2008 by Fullforce | Posted in Random | 3 Comments »

I’ve been meaning to do this for a while now. Here’s a bunch of links linking to various podcasts that I regularly listen to. I suggest you check them out!

PCGamer UK Podcast - Awesome podcast from awesome dudes.

Major Nelson’s Blogcast - If you’re an XBL player, then this is a vital podcast, straight from the head of Xbox Live himself, Larry ‘Major Nelson’ Hryb.

Lost Podcast - Official Lost Podcast, straight from the producers and directors. With video podcasts too.

Control Point - A great Team Fortress 2 podcast. Often funny and hilarious, and with a great community.

Trailer Trash Talk - A podcast talking about trailers. Very enjoyable and a great listen.

So yeah, enjoy.

Auteur Theory

May 13th, 2008 by Fullforce | Posted in Gaming, Thoughts | No Comments »

In Film Studies we learn about the Auteur. Auteur theory generally refers to someone who is a respected person (usually a director) in the film industry who has a solid body of work, which are of good quality and fit within that director’s “creative vision”. For example, Quentin Tarantino is an auteur to many. Martin Scorsese is an auteur. The most obvious one would be Alfred Hitchcock.

Auteur theory began in the roots of French New Wave, and was originally reserved for only directors, but today it can apply to Actors, Directors, or even institutions like Pixar. Auteur theory brought film into ’seriousness’, as it were. So why can’t Gaming have Auteur theory? Videogaming has advanced further in 20 years than film did in 80 years.

For more information on Auteur theory, Wikipedia has a nice article here.

So, who would be Auteurs? Developers, Publishers, or individuals? Here’s a few of my picks, along with a few of their “standout” games.

Rockstar Games (Grand Theft Auto, Manhunt, Bully, Max Payne, The Warriors)
Relic Entertainment (Dawn of War, Company of Heroes, Homeworld)
Bungie (Halo, Marathon, Myth)
Infinity Ward (Call of Duty)
Konami (Metal Gear Solid)
Ubisoft Montreal (Splinter Cell, Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, Assassin’s Creed, Prince of Persia)
Valve (Half-Life, Portal, Team Fortress 2, Left 4 Dead)
id (Doom, Quake)

I could probably go on for a while. Perhaps some of the ones in that list are more deserving of ‘auteur’ status than others. But what about individuals?

Hideo Kojima, famous for Metal Gear Solid,
Sam Houser, famous for Grand Theft Auto,
Peter Molyneux, famous for Fable,
Warren Spector, famous for Deus Ex,
Ken Levine, famous for Bioshock, System Shock 2,
Gabe Newell, famous for Half-Life 1 & 2.

We can see that the gaming world has plenty of auteurs to offer us, both visionary leads and groundbreaking developers. But what about others? Do you have any thoughts on applying auteur theory to Gaming? Does it work? Comment away!