Crash Happy

Has to be Mo Cap director for Rockstar.

It's been interesting to see how reviews for GTA4 were split. A bunch of 100% type reviews and other saying it's not 100% because it's not perfect. Personaly I can understand someone getting over excited about such a game and over-scoring it. Obviously a reviewer shouldn't fall for that and certainly an editor should spot it prior to publishing.
It is though, in my opinion and gloriously great game. Maybe not 100% but pretty flipping close.
One criticism I've heard is about the mission structure. I can't help but feel that complaining about GTA's missions is like buying an FPS and then complaining about all the shooting. It's slightly demented. The formula for how GTA progresses through it's storyline has been polished over the various iterations and what the latest release gives us is a fully formed, well conceived version of what GTA does.
Having said that, I think it's time for a change now but I see in GTA4 the probability that Rockstar themselves already know this and the first signs of how they may handle it. The game world has always been what reviewers like to call 'sandbox' but the missions for the storyline have been on rails. In 4 we see a significant departure in that as we are presented with choices that alter our future. Not only that but the random Green Man missions also represent a possible divergence from the story on rails approach.
Personaly though, I want more. One thing I would beg Rockstar for is to present the missions themselves as more open. Let me say firstly that I appreciate that a mission that may seem to me to require completing in one particular fashion may actualy present more options than I saw. GTA is a game that's great at this and it's not until your chatting with another player that you get the 'oh! You did it that way?' realisation. Having said that there are times that you get smacked round the head being told to complete a mission a particular way.
Instead of that, give me options. Let me set off a fire alarm in a building to flush out a target. Or how about reporting a Most Wanted to the police so that either they take them out for me or arrest them so that I can intervene at an appropriate moment. In short, give me tools not instructions.
I was going to write more but serendipity ate my first draft. Serves me right for not copying it.

Not in a carnal way you understand, that slot is way too thin. No I mean I really enjoy playing some games on it but heck this is the internet and if I don't overstate everything the world will blow up*. I'm saying that because I might upset a few 360 fanboys and we all know how desperately fragile they are. The poor dears. The news is that there isn't going to be Spring Update and I think that's pretty much a sign of things to come. I'm not saying that MS won't roll out any further improvements but I do think that they've pretty much shot their load. Just look at how thin the updates have been the last few times anyway and compare that to the PS3. Let's be honest about this, some of the updates released by Sony have addressed stuff that really should have been right from the start. Still even putting that aside they've been doing some interesting things and the signs are that they have stuff still to come. On the other hand the 360 interface is fixed in place. The listings and such for content are a kludge and apparently unfixable for example. Obviously this was a design choice by the MS team from that start, it gave them alot of immediate advantages that worked really well and I'm sure that for the next iteration, which they are apparently working on already, they will roll in all the lessons they learned and be even slicker. For this generation though I think that Sony are now lurching into the lead. Home may bomb but even if you assume it does the under the hood stuff is still being ramped up. As long as Sony don't introduce any major problems along with the patches then that will be the case. Of course if they start bricking systems left and right then reverse that situation. I have to wonder, with all the hardware revisions for both systems that are now in circulation how much more difficult is it for the firmware teams?

I love my 360 Posted by Crash Happy in General at 23:02
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Played some GTA4, played some other stuff, mostly distracted. Still, I've been wanting to post a bit about Spore. Honestly, I'm confused. The way I understand it they're going to be releasing part of the game prior to the launch of the game. Sounds like a demo doesn't it? Except, I could be wrong, apparently it doesn't actually include any actual gameplay. If I understand correctly it just includes some part of the creature editor. You can either pay for this, or not pay for this. I have no idea how that works right now but I'm sure that will be cleared up eventualy. Still, I guess with something so large in scale it's difficult to be able to populate it all but I had imagined that whilst we'd all be seeing some selection of dev-created population at the start, then as players shared databases the selection of life forms that your copy had to choose from would blossom. Are the developers really that concerned that they want to turn us into designers for a few weeks to flush out the database prior to release? Sounds a bit odd.

Busy busy Posted by Crash Happy in Games at 10:18
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The great GTA4 playoff begins today for most people. It's getting 100% marks, or close to, from just about everybody so I thinking it might be quite good. Here's to hoping my copy arrives sooner rather than later!

So I caught up with a bit of Dr. Who. I haven't got to see any of the new stuff since the first series so I was set for a bit of a treat. Series 4 from the beebs new iPlayer (D'you see what they did there?). First thought, who the chuff told hat Tate woman she could act? Just because she has that inexplicably popular program they go and stick her in Dr. Who? Stone the crows, the worlds gone potty.
So whats this got to do with the games that I usualy talk about? Well unless you're out of the loop you already know that the Nintendo Wii is iPlayer compatible whereas apparently the PS3's browser is not.
The process was as simple as you'd hope, I'm not quite sure what that writing data notification was when I first went to the browser, some sort of update I'd guess but after that there was nothing. Bit of a dearth of episodes available the bunch of meanies. Slightly odd experience though as usually my PS3 is the hardcore multimedia gonzo machine.

Well I'm still plugging away at EvE. There's not a huge amount to say abouyt it though as I'm waiting on a skill before I can set the next part into motion. Which is, well honestly? Learn more skills. Of course I have to earn some in game currency whilst I'm at that to afford all the fancy new stuff I want to buy.
Prologue still hasn't had much of a run as yet, I'm intending to do some more later assuming I get the chance. Having said that though I'm in the position of having a load of half-done titles right now. They're good but I just don't have the time.
One way of saving myself some time though looks set to be NOT buying Rock Band. I have no interest in Guitar Hero at all but Rock Band did get me to look. I intended to get it but it looks like it's not going to enjoy a european release. I mean, that must be the case because I've still yet to see a release date for the thing. Phew! Money and time saved, thanks Harmonix! All the more time to spend on that game that's coming out soon. Er... What was it again?

Ok, I went and bought it. Don't get me wrong, I'd always intended to buy GT5 I just hadn't thought much about getting the Prologue version. Bleary-eyed from a heavy night and not really awake I found myself hitting the button to buy it just before I remembered the reasons why I wasn't going to.
At this point I'd love to rail against the mechanism for buying DLC, say there weren't enough warning or similar. Certainly it was very easy to hit buy without thinking but it did clearly say what I was about to do so it's much more my fault thsn Sony's. I am slightly perturbed that I don't recall ever being asked if I wanted my card details stored, something I almost 100% of the time say 'no way' to. But I didn't get prompted for them, which would have saved me from my own stupidity as whilst searching for the card I'd have had time to remember.
Still, I'm finding hard to regret buying Prologue. I've not had much of a chance to give it a virtual spin as yet but the brief time I spent on it brought back fond memories. It looks good, it plays well, the interface is servicable. It's actually that UI that I'm not too sure about, it seems fine at first glance but I have worries about whether in the full game it will actually suffice. All that content crammed into it might just get too much. Still, that's a benefit of having a dry run like this I guess.

Officialy unveiled today is the redesign for the Playstation Store. Frankly it needs it, it's servicable but the limitations are evident from the get-go. I'm not too proud to admit when I'm wrong, and I had Sony down as not doing anything to the store in favour of cattle-prodding everyone into using Home instead. I'm glad I'm wrong in this case as even if Home is the best thing since the wheel there's still a need for a more conventional route of access.
Gods, did I just refer to web sites as being conventional in favour of a VR type store? Sheesh.
Anyway it's impossible to tell froma screenshot exactly what it's like and so equally impossible to know whether there's actually any improvement. I have high hopes and since Sony appear to be working nicely through their list titled 'not at all inspired by live' we may actually get stuff like in game XMB.

So with some more time to play R6V2 I'm enjoying it even more. I'm playing through COOP with my regular partner for these things. I think it's an advantage having a regular COOP buddy to be honest since you can communicate much easier and of course sometimes don't need to. Anyway we both think it's great fun. Personaly I do think the graphic engine has been teaked a bit but I may be wrong. I wish I was as confidant about the sound engine though as that still suffers from the same problems and even has the same dialogue. The first time you hear that Marcello's been shot (again) you may laugh because of all the memories of shooting him in V1, but once it's apparent that actually it's just recycled voices from the previous incarnation I think you're entitled to wonder why they'd be so lazy about it. Quickly grabbing some new lines of speech is hardly tough work. I'm still loving the mini-achievements of stuff like shooting a visualy impaired terrorist etc but as my shooting partner pointed out is does give away things like that a guy behind soft cover has gone down. He's right, you do lose that tension of whether or not the guy survived and really I'd like more tension rather than less.
I never thought that I'd be complaining that it's too easy to level up either. Vegas 1 took an astonishing amount of time for you to level, far too much of a grind I thought. Vegas 2 flips that around. Boy oh boy is it easy to gain ranks. I knew I was never going to get Elite in V1, it was a shame as I'd have loved it but I just don't have the kind of time that it took and yet with V2 it feels kinda inevitable. That makes it less special.
The other shystem that Ubi have stuck with is the weapon upgrades, I'm no gun nut at all but I'm pretty sure that in real life sticking a high capacity magazine into a firearm doesn't negate the possibility of shoving a scope onto it. It a rather odd sillyness. I guess they would say that it's for game balance but I can't see that myself. I'd much rather have the upgrade options unavailable until I earn them. Heck, a whole bunch of the ACES levels actually just give you xp (making it even easier to rank up) so why not add some of the extra widgets into there? Give me the option of a higher capacity mag for my pistol with CQB levels. Even better, start including different types of ammo into the skill structure too. Still, great game.
Xbox.com has always been something that MS had that Sony doesn't. I mean, in service terms of course. Keep your 360voice, that's just rubbish for the easily ammused. Checking out your profile, and your friends via xbox.com has been an extra facet and really felt like part of Live. An upgrade to that service sounded like a great idea, all the more so since MS are losing ground to the Sony services at a rate of knots. Turns out it's a facelift. What's so hard about arrangoing some java or something so that the page keeps track of your friends logging on/off and messages sent. If I send message I shouldn't have to keep spamming refresh to see if there's a reply. I can imagine server strain may be seen as a potential problem but seriously, some moderate thinking can get around such issues and massively reduce the potential for lagging out the servers.

Busy, then distracted, then lost the password. Oh well.
So there's a few things that have happened in my absence. EA are making a bid for TakeTwo, personaly I think they'll get it eventually and it'll be bad for T2. I'm not so convinced that Rock* would stay but they'd lose the GTA name. Still that might be a good thing, not that they've ever seemed to struggle to throw out the old and create great new games. Of course EA would pump out a few GTA's and we'd all have to shed a tear for the dross it would become. Hey ho.
For myself I've started to give Eve a try, I've looked at it a few times over the years and there's always been a reason not to have a bash. I was thinking about it again when I bumped into some of the advertising about Trinity and so I finaly picked it up. MMO's are a problem to me, as games go the way they eke out the experience and involve huge amount of repetition seems contrary to what players demand for most other titles. Still, I've got a little list of things I want to try out so I'm setting up some cash flow and getting in some training, after that I might well quit, I'll see. Maybe that's why the average new user leaves after 7 months?bcr>
Other than that I'm loving up Rainbow 6 Vegas 2. When it was first announced I was very dubious. What's that quick turn around all about? But I have to say I'm really enjoying it. Only just started playing really as I was waiting for my usual coop buddy to be free so that we can sally through the campaing together.
Anyway, I'm off to watch the new GTA trailer again.