My weekend in gaming + special bonus; My views on DRM!

Finally I got my hands on some fresh gamage, my gaming habits have felt pretty stale over the last few weeks. We have been in the midst of a drought, one that is either about to end or has just depending on your view – but my latest game has been forged in a different fire. I am speaking about Galactic Civilizations 2 and it’s expansion packs, I recently purchased the bundle as a download from the GalCiv2 website.  

I’ve been following Tom Francis’ GalCiv2 diary and his rendition of the game sold it to me. Massive sized galaxies, no requirement of warfare – both things I have been looking for in a game, I’ve been looking to find a strategy game where I can focus on management rather than warfare – for some reason I can never manage to play Civ 4 that way. 

First, the prelude. Before even playing the game, I had to purchase and download it. This is a process pretty new to me, but getting access to GalCiv2 and it’s expansion packs is the easiest thing I’ve done in a long time.

Although my initial reaction was one a little less excited about the process.

Kojima talks MGS4, MGS5 and beyond.

For a man who has previously been misquoted (and mistranslated), who apparently understands the importance of being careful with what you tell the internet – Kojima is surprisingly candid in his latest interview with gaming site 1Up.com. The interview is mainly focused behind the scenes of Metal Gear Solid 4, but does sway onto the topic of MGS5, and the involvement Kojima would hope to have on the project.

I have three concepts for MGS5 already. What would be ideal for me with MGS5, though, is that we don’t do those. If the team picks one of those concepts, I have to get involved again, which I don’t want to do.

You’ve never seen a bartop arcade like this.

Okay, now this is just too awesome. It’s an idea that I’m sure every arcade builder, myself included, has toyed around with – but it took brave byoac forum member Burke LaShell to achieve Nirvana and create this perfect, simple and stylish Bar Arcade machine.

A pitfall when creating arcade machines is the urge to create as much from scratch as possible, and over complicate things. This often leads to messy and uneven workmanship and a less than perfect appearance. Burke’s MAME Bar avoids the pitfall by taking a stealth approach to arcade design – if Burke didn’t want you to know there was an arcade machine in his bar, you wouldn’t. 

Fallout 1, free – play this game now

Gametap, an online subscription based video game service has added another game to their free lineup – and given the timing, this is one you really should not miss.

One of the better games released in the last 15 years, Fallout is a post apocalyptic RPG allowing the player absolute freedom over their character and what direction the adventure takes. Basically, everything Bethesda have promised for Fallout 3 is here, so don’t let it’s age put you off.

If you have not played this game, and have access to a PC – do yourself a favour and download it. Sure it’ll take a bit of your time and effort to navigate your way through GameTap, but this is a great opportunity to psych yourself up for Fallout 3. 

 

Fallout on GameTap – via Kotaku

No Mercy – The Punisher on his way exclusively to PSN

That’s right, The Punisher – not just one of the other pretenders – is on his way to the Playstation and he’s bringing guns and an exclusive downloadable game. 

The rumour dropped a few days ago that a new Punisher game was on the drawing board, but no other specifics were hinted at. Today, Playstation.Blog has dropped the news that the game is on its way exclusively to Playstation users, via the PSN. 

Zen Studios (of Mushroom Men fame) will be developing the game, and it may not be exactly what you’re expecting – The Punisher: No Mercy will be an online multiplayer FPS running on the Unreal 3 engine.

Our main focus is to create an awesome online multiplayer experience with the style and grit from the Punisher’s world, complete with characters like Jigsaw, Bushwacker, Barracuda and even Silver Sable.

Digital Distribution Defacto – Sooner rather than later?

We all know Digital Distribution is the way of the future. The question is, and remains, just how far in the future will it be before we move away from retail and purchase the majority of our content from the digital realm?

Most of us realise the notion of widespread adoption is, at the very least, a console generation off. It would be a very bold prediction to make that any next, next gen system would discard the optical drive in favour of larger internal storage space and a download only approach to getting content onto the console. Limiting your install base to users with a fast, uncapped internet connection is something you’ll want to think long and hard about before even considering – games require far more space this generation than they did in the last, and this continuing trend of jamming as much content onto the media as possible could certainly hold back the interest in digital distribution. Although personally, I’d argue that in a DD world, the download size of a game would be a competitive factor – the same as graphic quality and game length are today.

A strong argument against the widespread adoption of digital distribution is that gamers enjoy the experience of making a retail purchase. For many, going to the store, looking at the games and being in that environment is an enjoyable experience. But if the booming casual market continues to grow, video game boutiques may become a less appealing place for hardcore gamers.

Rock Band priced, dated for Australia

Better late than never – looks like it’s a notion EA subscribes to, as the Australian release of Rock Band has been confirmed, dated and priced.

Australian’s can rock out from November 7 and at actually reasonable price of $250 for the game and instrument pack (pricing of the other bundles after the jump) – but don’t blow your budget there, and with the promise of over 200 songs available for download for xbox and PS3 users it looks like most of the existing Rock Band DLC will be coming our way at launch.

My weekend in gaming – Doing it wrong edition.

I probably put more time into playing fetch with the dogs over the weekend than I did playing technology actually invented after the dawn of man. I feel a bit Amish, and I feel a bit guilty, I mean, we’re the dominant species on this planet, we’ve created numerous technological and scientific wonders and I’m throwing a tennis ball around? That’s like refusing keyhole surgery and using a sharpened stone instead.

I guess the positive is I can expend more detail on the gaming I managed to squeeze in, without worrying that I’ll bore everyone too much.

It wasn’t until mid way through Saturday afternoon that I even remembered COD4 was on a double XP weekend, so I dropped the game disk in and played a round. I got my double XP, my team won and I came out on top, all pretty standard stuff. 

But here is where things went a little differently. Picking up COD4 after having not played for a while (I’d loaned my copy away), and becoming MVP on your first game back is usually a good moral boost, it’s a nice feeling to know you’ve still got it even without practice. But that’s not the feeling I received. 

In fact, it solidified the fact that I had nothing to gain by playing COD4. I’m not claiming to be the worlds greatest player, but the challenge wasn’t really there. I understood the game, and everything I did was just routine.

Mega Man 9 boss rundown

Yes, I’m keen to get my hands on Mega Man 9, and yes, I’m posting about the soon to be released game again.

This time, Playstation.Blog have been lucky enough to get their hands on some exclusive Mega Man 9 Boss artwork, so I thought I’d take this advantage to put together a quick rundown of the Robot Masters our blue bomber will have to face off against, and share it with my ever growing reader base.

 

Magma Man    Once a worker security robot at a geothermal power station, he can withstand magma thousands of degrees in temperature

Plug Man    A line inspection robot at a television set factory. He carries out the final check on the products with a sharp eye.

 

Check out the other 6 after the break.

Metal Slug HD on its way? SNK considering it

Apparently SNK Playmore are considering pushing an entry of their killer run n’ gun series, Metal Slug, onto our home consoles in HD glory.  

IGN has caught an interview with SNK Playmore reps, although no real details were dropped…

In order to meet our fans demands for an HD version of Metal Slug, we’re considering bringing this series to the new generation of consoles in a similar way to KOF XII