As my late (and pretty crappy) Christmas/ mid-winter-solstace present to the internet, I finally stayed up untill midnight to get Episode 5.5 uploaded to the masses. Yes, I too do .5 episodes.
There's another video I'm working on which I hope to complete within the next two or three weeks.
Stay frosty.
Tuesday 28 December 2010
Sunday 26 December 2010
Updates on the odd christmasables
Yes, generic holiday greetings n' whatnot!
We didn't have a big day with relatives this year (that's for Boxing Day), we just all lounged about at home with a couple relatives, ate constipous amounts and had a good laugh. The Doctor Who christmas special being my highlight of the evening! Thank god for the publically funded BBC!
As for gifts I got a crap-tonne of clothes (which are rather cool I do say), some art supplies and 115 quid with which I intend to get Fallout New Vegas, Metro 2033, Silent Hill 2 and 3, Mercinaries: Playground of Destruction and Flight of the Concords on DVD. If I go to Amazon, depending on what platform I choose (PC or PS2) I only spend around £55 (not counting my NUS discount). Good times!
Unfortunately I won't get to play The CItizen Part 2 untill Monday (dag nabit dougit!) and I won't get to order nedw gaming goodies untill after Wednesday. But I'm a patient person, untill then, I've got the next episode of The Citizens Mind to upload, Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow to complete and the third chapter of Whiteguard to write so it's all good.
So, how was the merry mid-winter festival for you chaps and chapettes?
We didn't have a big day with relatives this year (that's for Boxing Day), we just all lounged about at home with a couple relatives, ate constipous amounts and had a good laugh. The Doctor Who christmas special being my highlight of the evening! Thank god for the publically funded BBC!
As for gifts I got a crap-tonne of clothes (which are rather cool I do say), some art supplies and 115 quid with which I intend to get Fallout New Vegas, Metro 2033, Silent Hill 2 and 3, Mercinaries: Playground of Destruction and Flight of the Concords on DVD. If I go to Amazon, depending on what platform I choose (PC or PS2) I only spend around £55 (not counting my NUS discount). Good times!
Unfortunately I won't get to play The CItizen Part 2 untill Monday (dag nabit dougit!) and I won't get to order nedw gaming goodies untill after Wednesday. But I'm a patient person, untill then, I've got the next episode of The Citizens Mind to upload, Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow to complete and the third chapter of Whiteguard to write so it's all good.
So, how was the merry mid-winter festival for you chaps and chapettes?
Thursday 23 December 2010
Shout out
Just giving a shout out to my awsome amigo, Vinctia who I talk to regularly over MSN. She has a tumblr bog here: http://keepereldervinctia.tumblr.com/
Anyway, I'm currently tired and annoyed as I wrote a bloody long post earlier and blogspot goes "Here, have an error!" ffffffffffFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU...!
I'll try and write it up again later. I also finished the next episode of The Citizens Mind today, I was going to upload it but when it got to 97 percent I put in the video settings and when I saved them for some reason it just froze the upload process (my browser didn't misbehave or anything). I'm not really too fussed though, The Citizen 2's being released tomorrow! Yes, I get excited over as mod, please could you leave all comments concerning my no-lifeness at the door thank you.
Also, it's my sisters birthday tomorrow! *is proud*
Anyway, I'm currently tired and annoyed as I wrote a bloody long post earlier and blogspot goes "Here, have an error!" ffffffffffFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU...!
I'll try and write it up again later. I also finished the next episode of The Citizens Mind today, I was going to upload it but when it got to 97 percent I put in the video settings and when I saved them for some reason it just froze the upload process (my browser didn't misbehave or anything). I'm not really too fussed though, The Citizen 2's being released tomorrow! Yes, I get excited over as mod, please could you leave all comments concerning my no-lifeness at the door thank you.
Also, it's my sisters birthday tomorrow! *is proud*
Friday 3 December 2010
Mods n' rockers
One of the biggest reasons that the PC is my favourite gaming platform has to be the availability of user-made content in the form of mods, a feature which as far as I know isn't available on consoles due to the lack of access consumers have to the hard-coding. Valve's and ID's decisions to allow gamers access to their tools with games like Doom and Half Life I think were a big step in gaming history as most companies up to then were worried about their material being stolen. But when Valve gave modders access to their tools it was so overwhelmingly received by the community that they ended up selling more games due to this. One of the great things about mods is that due to them not being restrained by the constraints commercial developers suffer (like deadlines and the need to sell units) offers modder enthusiasts the chance to take the tools of the game and go places “professional” game developers simply can't. This includes “art mods” like “Tedium” and “Dear Esther”, both good looking mods in all their beret wearing, moustache stroking glory.
I was inspired to do this little blog entry in anticipation for the next in instalments of “The Citizen” and “Human Error” both my favourite single-player mods with ties to the Half Life universe.
The original Citizen impressed me on first play-through for a number of reasons. First was the level design, seeing as it was set entirely in City 17 some areas went a long way to convey a sense of layer-upon-layer environmental complexity that's very fitting to the setting, seen especially with a flooded street that leads up to a basketball court which leads into a small underground carpark which has a large window overlooking a large underground car tunnel. All this really gave me a sense of how environments are stacked onto each other in closed quarters to give one of the best urban settings I've seen designed in a long while. The second thing that struck me about The Citizen was how much more expansive it felt than Half Life 2. Although I adored the street fighting in the latter half of Half Life 2 and I appreciate that the game wasn't wholly set in City 17 but I felt like the variety of locations was slightly limited to empty apartments and former government buildings. In The Citizen, I was impressed to see our hapless resistance fighter battle through churches, theatres, train stations, libraries and apartments which really pushed the sense of tense claustrophobia that should be aimed for when designing any self-respecting street warfare environment. All this is probably helped by the fact that one of the developers is an architecture student but none-the-less this sense of unique environment design alone makes the mod worth downloading. The only things I felt let the mod down was the limited vehicle section and the voice acting's very choppy in places but this shouldn't be enough to dismay anyone looking for a well-made Half Life 2 mod. Plus, who doesn't love a mod chock-full of easter eggs!
As for Human Error. I played the first part and was interested by the change of setting from eastern European city to small town/ university campus. Even more intriguing is the decision to place you in the boots of the civil protection officers from Half Life 2. This means many great twists in terms of story, gameplay, characters and aesthetic. For one it gives an alternate look on the gasmasked bullies you face from HL2. Your 3 closest colleagues have very unique modelling, voice acting (which is top quality may I say), animations and personal quirks which helps to give a more greyish tint to the struggle between the otherwise heroic resistance fighters and otherwise evil, evil human lackeys of the universal union. I also found myself enthralled in the troubled back-story of our protagonist. On the gameplay side, I relished the chance to play about with shiny combine toys like manhacks, APC's and smoke grenades. The inclusion of xen aliens like vortiguants and alien grunts were also a nice way to make sure the humanitarian insurgents won't be pushovers. What also impressed me was the inclusion of custom animations and models, the former being a rare sight in source mods. Also the writers deserve credit, if only for the line “Oh no, we're on the slopes of Mount Doom and we have guns. Let's get in there!” But, my only criticism of this mod being that at times during the campus sections I felt like the confusing maze of corridors got abit repetitive and frustrating to navigate.
So anyway, there you have it. My humble opinion on user-made content for videogames and why there is a whole worth of high-quality content available beyond the commercial game.
I was inspired to do this little blog entry in anticipation for the next in instalments of “The Citizen” and “Human Error” both my favourite single-player mods with ties to the Half Life universe.
The original Citizen impressed me on first play-through for a number of reasons. First was the level design, seeing as it was set entirely in City 17 some areas went a long way to convey a sense of layer-upon-layer environmental complexity that's very fitting to the setting, seen especially with a flooded street that leads up to a basketball court which leads into a small underground carpark which has a large window overlooking a large underground car tunnel. All this really gave me a sense of how environments are stacked onto each other in closed quarters to give one of the best urban settings I've seen designed in a long while. The second thing that struck me about The Citizen was how much more expansive it felt than Half Life 2. Although I adored the street fighting in the latter half of Half Life 2 and I appreciate that the game wasn't wholly set in City 17 but I felt like the variety of locations was slightly limited to empty apartments and former government buildings. In The Citizen, I was impressed to see our hapless resistance fighter battle through churches, theatres, train stations, libraries and apartments which really pushed the sense of tense claustrophobia that should be aimed for when designing any self-respecting street warfare environment. All this is probably helped by the fact that one of the developers is an architecture student but none-the-less this sense of unique environment design alone makes the mod worth downloading. The only things I felt let the mod down was the limited vehicle section and the voice acting's very choppy in places but this shouldn't be enough to dismay anyone looking for a well-made Half Life 2 mod. Plus, who doesn't love a mod chock-full of easter eggs!
As for Human Error. I played the first part and was interested by the change of setting from eastern European city to small town/ university campus. Even more intriguing is the decision to place you in the boots of the civil protection officers from Half Life 2. This means many great twists in terms of story, gameplay, characters and aesthetic. For one it gives an alternate look on the gasmasked bullies you face from HL2. Your 3 closest colleagues have very unique modelling, voice acting (which is top quality may I say), animations and personal quirks which helps to give a more greyish tint to the struggle between the otherwise heroic resistance fighters and otherwise evil, evil human lackeys of the universal union. I also found myself enthralled in the troubled back-story of our protagonist. On the gameplay side, I relished the chance to play about with shiny combine toys like manhacks, APC's and smoke grenades. The inclusion of xen aliens like vortiguants and alien grunts were also a nice way to make sure the humanitarian insurgents won't be pushovers. What also impressed me was the inclusion of custom animations and models, the former being a rare sight in source mods. Also the writers deserve credit, if only for the line “Oh no, we're on the slopes of Mount Doom and we have guns. Let's get in there!” But, my only criticism of this mod being that at times during the campus sections I felt like the confusing maze of corridors got abit repetitive and frustrating to navigate.
So anyway, there you have it. My humble opinion on user-made content for videogames and why there is a whole worth of high-quality content available beyond the commercial game.
Thursday 2 December 2010
So...yeah, here you go.
Like all the youtube cool-kids I decided to set up a proper blog A) so I'm not limited to DA journals (though I may do "dual posts" where I post stuff from my DA journal on my blog or vice versa) and B) to help me practice my journalism skills for a possible career in that field. So anyway, I'm already up to Episode 5 of my Citizens Mind series. So here they all are for your viewing displeasure. I will also use this blog to show off my art and occassional writing (being the egotistical prick I can sometimes be).
In way of introduction, I'm a 16 year old college student from the UK. I'm an avid video game fan, music lover, reader and amateur artist. I am on Deviantart (http://thegentlemansoldier.deviantart.com/) and Youtube (http://www.youtube.com/user/TheGentlemansShadow?feature=mhum).
Episode 1:
Episode 2:
Episode 3:
Episode 4:
Episode 5:
Next episode's going to be a while as I am planning something slightly special for the next installment. Look at me, acting as if I have fans!
In other news, for all of those peeps who don't live in the UK, last couple'a years we've had an abnormal rise in the amount of snow we have each winter. I never saw snow first-hand untill I was about 6 or 7 years old and even then it had the depth of A4 paper. Now last winter we had about a week and a half of snow and there seemed to be a massive fuss as almost all travel was halted and the economy put on hold over night. I was off school for almost a whole week (untill we had to go back by which point the exposed ice made it a hazard walking to school). Now we've had another bout of snow. Last couple of days in Portsmouth it's been "trying" to snow but hasn't settle. Today it's been snowed up enough so I didn't have to go to college, on a thursday too! But it reminded me of a hilarious conversation I had with a foreign student from Norway who's in my history class about how in other European countries it doesn't cause much of a fuss but here in Britain everybody treats it as doomsday. XD I have been to the snowy rockies and French Alps before so I'm not too unfamiliar with snow.
Anyway, my intent of buying and playing Silent Hill this christmas lead me to look at the trailer for the up-and-coming Silent Hill 8 and saw a multitude of comments immediately comparing it to Silent Hill's 1-4 which look like really good games but almost all these comment said that the series died after Origins. Although I admit I am not a "proper" Silent Hill fan (I haven't played the games but have expressed alot of interest) and it may be hard for me to get into the mindset of your typical die-hard Silent Hill fan but I think people should give this game a chance. There's only been a teaser trailer for it so far and just because it's made by a different team probably will only make it different. Of course the loss of Akira Yamaoka who composed such a fantastic soundtrack for the games and the disbanding of the talented Team Silent will be a shame, it seems abit premature to be condemning a game before you've gotten beyond the teaser trailer. It'd be like me (as a die-hard Valve fan) looking at the early promotional ads for Portal 2 and simply saying, in the words of the engineer: "Nope.avi". I might gradually work through the SH series to maybe get abit of perspective on this and inform my opinions abit but that's my initial reaction. In the words of Travis from Noisy Hill (Best. Parody. Ever!) "The fans will turn on youuuuuuuu...!"
Over and out.
In way of introduction, I'm a 16 year old college student from the UK. I'm an avid video game fan, music lover, reader and amateur artist. I am on Deviantart (http://thegentlemansoldier.deviantart.com/) and Youtube (http://www.youtube.com/user/TheGentlemansShadow?feature=mhum).
Episode 1:
Episode 2:
Episode 3:
Episode 4:
Episode 5:
Next episode's going to be a while as I am planning something slightly special for the next installment. Look at me, acting as if I have fans!
In other news, for all of those peeps who don't live in the UK, last couple'a years we've had an abnormal rise in the amount of snow we have each winter. I never saw snow first-hand untill I was about 6 or 7 years old and even then it had the depth of A4 paper. Now last winter we had about a week and a half of snow and there seemed to be a massive fuss as almost all travel was halted and the economy put on hold over night. I was off school for almost a whole week (untill we had to go back by which point the exposed ice made it a hazard walking to school). Now we've had another bout of snow. Last couple of days in Portsmouth it's been "trying" to snow but hasn't settle. Today it's been snowed up enough so I didn't have to go to college, on a thursday too! But it reminded me of a hilarious conversation I had with a foreign student from Norway who's in my history class about how in other European countries it doesn't cause much of a fuss but here in Britain everybody treats it as doomsday. XD I have been to the snowy rockies and French Alps before so I'm not too unfamiliar with snow.
Anyway, my intent of buying and playing Silent Hill this christmas lead me to look at the trailer for the up-and-coming Silent Hill 8 and saw a multitude of comments immediately comparing it to Silent Hill's 1-4 which look like really good games but almost all these comment said that the series died after Origins. Although I admit I am not a "proper" Silent Hill fan (I haven't played the games but have expressed alot of interest) and it may be hard for me to get into the mindset of your typical die-hard Silent Hill fan but I think people should give this game a chance. There's only been a teaser trailer for it so far and just because it's made by a different team probably will only make it different. Of course the loss of Akira Yamaoka who composed such a fantastic soundtrack for the games and the disbanding of the talented Team Silent will be a shame, it seems abit premature to be condemning a game before you've gotten beyond the teaser trailer. It'd be like me (as a die-hard Valve fan) looking at the early promotional ads for Portal 2 and simply saying, in the words of the engineer: "Nope.avi". I might gradually work through the SH series to maybe get abit of perspective on this and inform my opinions abit but that's my initial reaction. In the words of Travis from Noisy Hill (Best. Parody. Ever!) "The fans will turn on youuuuuuuu...!"
Over and out.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)