"Unique" Game Characters

Taken from the description for a new free-to-play game on Steam (Rusty Hearts):

Meet Unique Heroes - Angela – a sassy witch specialist of elemental magic. Tude – a mysterious, monstrous past and a clear taste for close range melee weapons. Frantz – a half vampire with mid-range melee weapons and dark magic.

So I have two topics here, and I'd like to put the disclaimer up front that I haven't played the game, and for all I know they've done something amazing with the characters that would make me say "woah, I was not expecting that". Experience has taught me that it rarely happens though. On the other hand, this is not a personal attack on the makers of the game. I'm sure they've put a lot of work in, and you guys should go check it out. It's free, and you never know - you might like it. Instead, this is an attack on the industry's tendency to reuse the same concepts over and over without really thinking about why they're doing it (other than because it worked for product X, Y and Z in the past, so why put dev time into coming up with something fresh?).

Firstly, I suspect that "unique" may be somewhat of an exaggeration there. They've taken a few of the template "cool" characters that are used in almost everything. We have the token sassy woman figure who is good with magic and spends half the trailer giving you views up her skirt, we have the guy with the mysterious past who likes to beat things to death, and finally we have the half-vampire (more on that later) who plays with dark magic and yet for some reason fights on the side of good. I hope there's a very good explanation of why they're hanging out together and fighting evil, because it seems a little tenuous on first inspection.

Secondly, I hate this whole half-vampire concept. I know it allows a cheap injection of drama, but how exactly does it work? I can think up much darker and more dramatic characters than the ones we see if I conduct that exact thought exercise (i.e., put more thought into it than "Kids like vampires these days, right? But he can't be all evil, so how about if he's half vampire? We can work the coolness and angst in but he can still be a good guy."). But it seems that the thought exercise is never quite executed, and rather than a troubled Blade-like character who fits into neither world but still fights for what he believes is right, we end up with "He's half this and half that. Isn't he so cool? See how he isn't looking at that explosion. I bet he doesn't afraid of anything."

I've kept the points short so that it doesn't turn into a rant, so I'll leave it there for now. Let me know what you think. Are character concepts stagnating and being based on "that's cool" rather than "this guy really fits the overarching themes", or am I imagining the whole thing?

Acekard 2i

I recently acquired an Acekard 2i for use with my DS Lite. I ordered the Acekard from r4i.co.uk (who are actually quite cheap for a lot of accessories) and got a 2GB microSD card for an extra £1 in the bundle. They also have other bundles with larger cards (or no card). The microSD card is needed because it's where you put all your precious files. There is meant to be a microSD reader in the bundle but I didn't receive one, I'm waiting for a response from them on that. Below is my quick guide to getting yourself up and running if you decide to get one for yourself. It's quite easy really.

Some features of the Acekard 2i in brief:

• No DS flashing or passkey/passme/passwhatever device needed.
• Supports all current DS variants (right now that's DSi, DSL, IDSL, DS and IDS).
• Supports any brand of microSD card (unlike some older devices which had timing constraints). There is a size limit, but I can't seem to find it on the site, I believe it was around 32GB.
• Older devices required software to be recompiled or patched for each different device it was run on, the Acekard handles this automatically.
• Can be used as a passkey in order to boot slot-2 flashcarts (for GBA experimentation), including the 3in1 cart. No need to worry about manually flashing your image to the slot-2 cart because the Acekard does this automatically when you boot a GBA ROM.
• Supports soft-reset, Download Play, and Wifi.

In terms of ethics, I know what you're thinking: "But Kemp, surely you don't condone playing pirated ROMs of DS games?" And no, no I don't. Sure, the Acekard has that capability, but this is one of those things I buy just to mess around with homebrew, and usually try to write a bit of my own at some point. The DS has a lot of nice features including two screens, one of which is a touchscreen, and wifi capability. Who wouldn't want to have a poke around on that? If you want help using it to play pirated games then you need to go find help somewhere else.

Setting up the Acekard 2i

The first thing you need to do is go and buy yourself a microSD card if you didn't order one along with the Acekard itself. It requires one for its own software, and you can't really do much without your own files anyway.

You should download either the official OSMenu software, or the alternative AKAIO software (which is a branch of the official software and widely regarded to be superior). This should be placed in the root of your microSD card. At this point insert the microSD into the Acekard and the Acekard into your DS, boot it, and check it works. If it hangs at the "Loading" screen then you didn't copy the software correctly.

That's basically it for the system software. Check out the options available, and make sure to change the options restricting the file types shown (you want the "All files" option).

Adding homebrew

I created a folder called "homebrew" in the root of the microSD card for this purpose. To get going you simply have to copy the .nds file for the program to this folder, boot up AKAIO, navigate to the homebrew folder, and click the file. It should be launched and (hopefully) work nicely. In general you can ignore any instructions to use DLDI to patch the software, as the Acekard handles this automatically for you.

Some nice software I've used:

• Moonshell (everyone knows this)
• DSNotes (I can't seem to find an "official" page)
• Pocket Physics

Writing homebrew

A good run-through for this is at CoderJoe.net. Surprisingly, this is one of the few times (the only time?) I've seen a cross-compiler toolchain that is easier to set up in Windows than in Linux. Well wonders never cease?

Adding Python

The good bit ;-) Download the dspython binary and copy it to your homebrew directory. This will automatically run the script at /python/main.py when it is executed, so create a "python" directory in the root of your microSD card and place a script there. As an example you can download the framebuffer demo given on the dspython site. At some point I will write a browser type script to place there that allows you to select another script to run.

There is a serious lack of documentation, but if you check out their svn tree then there are a some demos. In general though, the functions are named exactly the way they are in libnds (see above), so any documentation and demos for that should be fairly easily translatable into Python (within the constraints of what has been wrapped).

Final notes

As usual, GBATemp.net ran a good review of the device.

If anyone needs a picture for something I've mentioned then add a comment and I'll see what I can do.

Pandemic Space

Last week EA closed the doors on Pandemic Studios (among many other groups of talented developers). I'm sure anyone who's seen Office Space knows what happens next. I wish all the guys and gals from Pandemic (and the other teams) the best of luck finding new jobs. Don't let EA break you like they seem to try to do with all their employees.

Extraction Point

I picked up FEAR and its expansion Extraction Point the other day and I've found the odd 15 mins between other things to play EP a bit (I already finished the original last year). I'm used to sequels that either suck or just aren't as good as the originals, but EP really breaks this expectation. In the little bit I've played it has already set itself up as being at least as good as the original and if I'm lucky it may actually turn out better. By the end of the first level the hints, misdirection, and general messing with your head has already started and there were points where I literally had to stop playing and do something else for a while. Not because of anything that actually happened in the game, but because the atmosphere is pulled off near perfectly and you really do feel like you're being hunted and have no control over what's going on. It got to the point where I had to force myself to open doors. Oh, and best line ever (though I may have it slightly wrong, I can't be bothered to play it up to this point over again just to get the exact wording =P ).

It doesn't make sense, I know. Nothing does anymore. You killed me. I didn't like that.

Not going to tell you who the line's from though as anyone who hasn't played the original won't get it, anyone who's played the original but not the expansion will have it ruined for them, and anyone who's played both already knows. Overall, people win if I stay quiet.

So far I'd say it's well worth getting if you've finished the original. If you haven't then probably not as it is a literal expansion, it continues exactly from the end of the first :-)

Also, look out for a post in my other blog for the first time in a while, I'll be typing it up now.


Edit:
I just happened to find this quote laying around on my machine, random coincedence or a sign to keep playing? You decide. Where the quote's from is lost in the mists of time, anyone who can fill me in is welcome to.

I don't know if I believe. But I know I'm scared. That makes it real enough.

Mixed Bag

A variety of topics for today's post, and there were going to be more but I've managed to forget a few. No doubt they'll pop up soon enough.

First up is one of the mini-rants that seem to pervade this blog. This time it's the turn of HDR in Oblivion. Now, I know HDR provides an enhanced gaming experience by reproducing far more realistic effects for an intensely immersive experience and blah blah blah, but seriously, what's up with it in Oblivion? It seems that every light source, every piece of metal, and indeed every freakin' tree in the game becomes bright enough to both blind you and cause severe sunburn. Highly polished metal I can understand, but when it's every damn thing you look at I can only assume they were going less for realism and more "this is all a dream....". I swear I saw uber-reflective stone walls.

Moving into the domain of "random things I've seen", how about this one. The Dunelm in Loughborough (hate the green logo on the site btw, it's meant to be more of a tan colour) has a big uber Main Power Lever Of Doom upstairs on the wall, publicly accessible. If only it was a video game where I could throw that switch to cut all the power off without the police grabbing me.

And my final point I can remember - a quick pre-use evaluation of my new PC case. I went for Jeantech's Phong II (protip: get a new site designer) because reviews mentioned it was pretty damn good value for money. Anywho, it arrived and t'was all in order, which was nice :-) The thumbscrews are a welcome change from my usual "spend half an hour finding a screwdriver before doing anything", as are the pre-installed and nicely large fans. It comes with a 140mm fan in the front and a 120mm fan in the back, which should be substantially quieter than the 2 or 4 90mm fans that I'm used to. Also very nice was the compartmented box of colour coded thumbscrews and other miscellaneous parts it came with, as well as the pre-installed rubber grommets in the hard drive bays to reduce vibrations that would normally be transmitted to the case. Pretty much the only change I'm going to have to make to it is a simple swap of the side air duct for another fan as it won't line up nicely with the Freezer Pro 7 anyway. If I'm feeling adventurous I may rig this fan up to direct air over the graphics card rather than just straight into the case, we'll see. Overall I love my new case :-)

PSP Games

My PSP is now on firmware 2.71 under DevHook so I finally have the ability to do a load of things that I couldn't under basic 2.0. One of those abilities is to boot game ISOs from the memory stick. Now this is technically illegal I guess, but I'm doing it for a good reason : make sure games are worth buying before I shell out cash on them. My basic plan is to try the game out and if I play it a lot then buy a real copy of it as the people who made it deserve the money. If I'm not impressed by the game then I won't buy it (and nor will I continue to play the rip of it). Contrary to how various organisations see it, I have actually made more purchases of real music, dvds and games based on my impressions from rips than I would have without them, my default stance is not to bother buying something unless I already know about it.

Anywho, my thoughts on various games so far:

Armored Core : Formula Front (Own)
This game has two of my favourite things - Mechs and insane amounts of customisation. Not a game for someone who just wants something they can pick up between doing other things, this takes actual concentration and a will to get right into the customising of your war machines. The ability to do matches on manual control or using the (customisable) AI is nice as well.

Wipeout Pure (Own)
This was the first game I owned for the PSP and I played it near obsessively for quite a long time, I in fact have gold on a substantial number of the races. If you've played previous Wipeout games then this is definately one to look for, if you haven't played one previously then it's still great fun.

Lumines (Own)
The first (and arguably best) puzzle game released for the PSP, kind of a tetris clone with a twist and really nice graphics and music. It's also very addictive as I'm sure Gina can tell you (having played it about as much as I played Wipeout). If you can find it cheap then go for it, or even full price but I just don't like paying £20-£25 for puzzle games.

Mercury (Tried - Buying)
This is another fun puzzle game, again one to try if you can get it cheap. Take this games where you have to tilt a marble/ball bearing around a maze and then take it to a whole new level. You're tilting a ball of mercury around a level (so it's almost fluid and can split up and recombine) involving conveyor belts, gates, moving platforms, etc etc. Very fun to pick up and play at random intervals. This one is on my buying list if I can get it for under £15.

Infected (Tried - Not Buying)
I can't say I was impressed with this game, maybe the first level isn't a good indication of the whole game but it just didn't grab me, didn't give me any hooks to make me think "Yeah, I want to keep playing this". This one is off my buying list unless I happen to pick it back up and find the rest of the game is orders of magnitude more interesting.

Coded Arms (Tried - Buying)
Unlike the above, this is actually a decent shooter. In fact, I've got it paused while I type this post up and I plan to go back to it afterwards. There's not much room to innovate in a first-person shooter, but this game had just enough to interest me and keep me playing, plus it's fun and takes place inside a computer simulation. A computer simulating a computer simulation, don't you just love it? It's like a Matrix game... This one's on my buying list.


Still To Try
Ghost in the Shell
Grip Shift
Dead To Rights : Reckoning
Ridge Racer
Starwars Battlefront 2
Fired Up
Twisted Metal : Head On
Gundam Battle Tactics


Edit
Overlord advised me to check these games out:
Sonic Rivals, Lemmings, Loco Roco, Pyuo Pop Fever and Outrun 2006

Now I just need to find sources for them :-P (the list above only included ones I currently have access to and was thinking about possibly buying, plus a few that I figured might be interesting)

Annoying Software

Just a couple of points about annoying software recently. First one is the Ringo screensaver do-hickey that downloads your network's pictures so the screensaver can rotate between them. I never actually use it so I disabled it from running at startup (via the option in the program) - problem solved you'd think. Oh no, that would be too easy. Turns out it still runs anyway, it just hides itself. I found this out when out of nowhere it started updating itself. It didn't even tell me, no sign it was running, no sign it was updating itself, the only reason I knew was because my firewall tells me when programs are launching each other and it caught this happening. I make that two offenses in one: running hidden from the user after being told not to run, and auto-updating behind the user's back.

Second would be Dawn of War: Dark Crusade. This is not an expansion, I'll say that again, not an expansion. It is a complete game in itself which I don't have too much of a problem with as it is pretty good. What I do have a problem with, however, is the 4GB it makes you waste for no reason. You see, it has all the data for all 7 races including the 4 from the first game and the one from the (real) expansion Winter War. The problem is it requires you to have those games installed in order to use those races, even though it has all the data itself. That's copy protection gone mad, a sequel that requires you to have the original installed. I'm going to uninstall the original and hope that when the readme said

if you have Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War or both Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War: Winter Assault installed, you will unlock more multiplayer features in Dark Crusade

it actually meant

if you supply the CD key for Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War or both Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War: Winter Assault installed, you will unlock more multiplayer features in Dark Crusade

(it does ask you for the appropriate key). Why it requires it for multiplayer and not single player is beyond me, they are roughly equivalent and need the same data.

For Iris

Click me

'Nuff said =P

Dawn of War + Tactics

In comment to my previous post I said

Meh, I remember why I stopped playing it now anyway. As of about 15 mins in you have more resources than you can spend and then it just becomes a matter of throwing in unit after unit until someone breaks through. Can a have a side-order of tactics with that meatgrinder? Oh you're all out, ok.

I thought I'd expand that a bit as an actual post.

The basic problem in Dawn of War (and a lot of other RTS games) is that it devolves so very easily into creating the biggest wedge of units you can and throwing them at the big wedge that the enemy created. A massive brawl ensues and whoever makes it out with stuff left alive will be able to cause enough damage to cripple the enemy's ability to make subsequent wedges. The AI doesn't help this at all as this appears to be the one and only tactic it is capable of. You're playing along nicely and suddenly one of the aforementioned wedges hits your defenses. While you're busy fighting them off the computer (having a much better ability to do things on opposite sides of the map than a human has) can build up another wedge and do the same again. It all comes down to only having two tactics against the computer:

• Play defensively and be safe in the knowledge that the computer will break through and win.


• Go on the offensive early in the game. This is very risky as mistakes will cost you dearly.


• Go on the offensive around when the computer does and be forced to use the same tactics to break through the masses of units.

All in all, not the most inspiring set of choices. There is one last one of course, building enough defenses to withstand the uber-attack while your forces take a route round the side. That is verging on real tactics (*shock*) but it only works if the computer hasn't pulled the same trick as you and loaded out on defenses, otherwise it'll redeploy its units to meet your attack while you're breaking your way through and you're back at a big brawl again. The Eldar of course have much more sneaky and cunning tactics they can use, but in the end they only postpone the inevitable choice of one of those courses of action.

There's my thoughts on DoW tactics anyway, I'm sure Ben and Iris will be pleased I've ripped into the game they've been playing recently =P

Games Workshop

About time for this post I think. I play various games produced by Games Workshop (though some not any more, but that's another story related to broken rules and power gamers) and I continue to be amazed at the number of people who have no idea what the games are even about and yet still try to make jokes about them and fail horribly at it due to said lack of knowledge. If you want to make fun of something then you need at least a basic knowledge of it in order for the jokes to actually make sense and thus be funny, so here's an intro course into what doesn't make sense.

I see you play Games Workshop then

This one should be the most obviously nonsensical and yet still pops up. I wish I had the money to buy sufficient shares to be able to control GW policy and make their success or failure my own private game, but unfortunately I don't. There is no game called Games Workshop, it's a company.

Got your Warhammers in that case then?

Kinda related to the above, where they use the name of the company for a game, here they use the name of a game for the miniatures. They are called miniatures, models, figures, in fact anything you want that makes sense. This question is likely to prompt a response in the vein of "Yes, I have a medieval armoury at home and figured that it'd be fun to lug huge weapons of war around all day."

That's a game for kids

Ok, fair enough, some aspects of it are designed to appeal to kids. Thing is that people often relate it to the toy soldiers they had when they were younger, ignoring the fact that this is an actual game with rules (occasionally far too many of them), tactics and whatever else that elevates it above the level of walking little plastic men around saying "bang, bang, he's dead." A lot of the background is a lot darker than the stuff most young kids will be reading, the rules can get quite complex, and you have to have a grasp of maths and tactics if you want to actually get anywhere with it. These people probably wouldn't walk up to some historical wargamers and say that, but because GW games are easier to get into and have a sci-fi/fantasy (depending which game) aspect it apparently is an entirely different matter.

There you go, three often encountered phrases and why they're wrong. So now that's out the way, what do I actually do myself? Well I used to play 40K (short for Warhammer 40,000) but I'm not too fond of the rules system nor the local people who play it so I mainly just get the occasional nice model for the modelling/painting aspect of it these days. I started on Fantasy (short for Warhammer Fantasy Battles, you can guess why we shorten that =P ) and that's on hold for now, but I do like the system as it encourages proper tactics as long as you avoid certain things/people. Then there's Inquisitor, a larger scale system at 54mm compared to 40K/Fantasy's 28mm though it does seem even larger than that, which is set in the same universe as 40K. This is interesting as GW designed it as a role-play game with a focus on combat and it certainly succeeds at that and some of the models have great conversion potential. The game I currently play is Epic (short for Epic 40,000), which is also set in the 40K universe but is far smaller scale with a human-sized figure being barely a couple of mm high. This allows battles involving huge armies and the rules system certainly favours the use of tactics involving entire formations rather than individual squads (as it should be really). There are also various other games set in both the 40K and Fantasy universes, but these are the ones I've had direct involvement with at some point.

And there we go again with the big posts, and this one didn't even really get anywhere in terms of making a point. Oh well.

Last Couple of Weeks

Iris Murdoch : Every man needs two women, a quiet home-maker, and a thrilling nymph

Amen to that :-)

Anywho, onto the actual post... I can't actually remember much properly so I'll just stick things down and hope they are in some sort of sensible order.

First up would be my new place for at uni :-) I went down to look at a place on Lower Ford Street being sorted by Bluewood Letting (nice people btw) but it was kinda small, like really small. So anyway, I'm flicking through their properties list in the office wondering where to go next and suddenly I see Priory Place. The same Priory Place as I've spent over a year looking at thinking "If I had the money I'd be in there." Then it occurs to me I have got the money now. Guess what the next place I looked at was... The apartments in that place are lovely, compared to some of the student housing I've seen they're huge, though you'd hope so for the price tag on them. So anyway, I put in an application for the place and waited, this was wednesday before last I believe. Monday rolled around (last monday, a week ago tomorrow) and I got a call, my application all checked out and everything was good :-) Went down on thursday to finalise it all and put down my deposit and the place is now mine :-D That place literally had everything from my "wants" list, double bed, all the appliances I need, fully furnished, close to uni and my mates, not mention I'd been wanting to live there for ages. So all's good in that department, now I just need to make sure my first two months don't take me too far into debt.

What else? Ah yes, the LAN party at Ben's. I end up at about one a year these days, and play about as many games :-P I spend most of my time on the trampoline (those things rock) and the others alternate between pool, deathmatches and trampoline. I'm not one for FPSs you see, the only way I could be entertaining to kill would be to give everyone rifles, stick me in a trebuchet and launch me across the map. I did join in with the usual game of Risk II though, which is always fun, even if a certain unnamed person quits early and thus prematurely ends the game... Also entertaining was the young'un (2, nearly 3, something like that), even if she did step on my face on the trampoline once, not maliciously I assume (hope). She was fun though, especially when she made comments that she didn't quite catch the implications of, or started telling birds to go away, or ran in circles around the trampoline for hours on end without getting bored. I'm not getting broody or anything, lol, at the risk of sounding sexist that's for girls (don't hit me please =P). Anyway, thanks to Ben for hosting us all and providing much munchy goodness in the form of pizza and lasagne.

Hmmm... what else is there? Oh yes, I went to Lincoln to hang out with Hastings on Wednesday and Thursday. That was fun, I haven't seen him in like a year or something crazy like that. Caught up on random things, met people I'd only heard stories about previously, and went to the Big Wok (all-you-can-eat Chinese place) :-D Though as Hastings mentioned guy in that show saying, it should be "all you want to eat" not "all you can eat", too much competitiveness implied in the latter :-P Didn't get to speak to Gina that day though (Thursday being our usual phone day) as I was on buses at the usual time and no-one picked up when I was finally free. She should be down in a week and half or so though, so all should be ok :-)

Anything else? I guess there's the various tech support calls I've been on for friends and stuff, but that's all boring so I'll skip them. Guess that's all for now then. Longest blog post evar!