Thursday, April 30th, 2009
This is what happens when I actually visit the village – we play games from the startling selection of oddities Ian has steadily accumulated throughout his lifetime.
We didn’t take it very seriously, mostly because we were drunk. Also, the jury is still out on whether it deserves to be taken seriously.
Wednesday, April 29th, 2009
Episode 8 drops like a hippo in a faulty lift. This week, I say “planar bum”, Ian rants about Bridge Baron and we discuss the possibility of a Gary Busey adventure game, among other things.
Check out links from the show on our official Google Reader page.
Wednesday, April 29th, 2009
I was just downloading Glum Buster, an aparently interesting indie platformer I saw it on TIGSource, and I saw that it uses a rather… intriguing new payment model called “Charityware”.
Basically, it’s donate-ware, but half (it’s not quite as simple as that, but basically half) your donation goes to charity.
Obviously, that’s nice and all, but it does seem to me to be a bit disingenuous – I would expect charityware to be giving all the donation to charity. What do you guys think?
Friday, April 24th, 2009
We’ve got quite a few new readers due to the mild popularity of Visiting The Village, so quite a few of you may not know what Frozen Synapse is. Well… it’s a “bitesize hardcore tactical game” by us. It’s in closed beta right now.
Introductions over, I thought I’d give you guys an update. TV contract work has had a bit of a spike in the last couple of weeks, but my current project is AI. Making a good skirmish AI for a hardcore tactical game is quite a challenge, but I’m certain it’s crucial to be able to play “proper” Synapse off-line. It’s a massive job, so I’m tackling bits of it at a time, but I’m really hoping for a playable result by the end of May.
Thursday, April 23rd, 2009
Yes! Yes! YES!
YES!
YES!
Of course, it’s mildly embarrassing that I mailed them two weeks ago asking if they were interested in putting it on the iPhone with us but…
YES. YES.
Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009
It’s that time of the week again. No, not *that* time of the week: Visiting the Village time! In Episode 7, we discuss hat-touching, excitement and a picture of Matthew Perry on the ceiling. And games.
I’m just walking by all-la-di-dah and trashing your scene with these show notes:
Sarien.net – via Offworld
More Bottom Feeder – via The Bottom Feeder
Forget “Combat Mode Engaged” – via Gamasutra
Game Ratings Matter – via Gamasutra
Game Composers Gettin’ Paid – via Kotaku
Fallout: New Vegas – via Joystiq
Stardock Wails on Retailers Selling Downloads – via MCV
Madden controversy – via VG247
Mega 64 Shadow of the Colossus – via Joystiq
David Jaffe is Adam Carolla – via us…
Adam Carolla’s AMAZING Podcast
Sunday, April 19th, 2009
PC Gamer UK is *the* magazine for me – it recently hit issue 200 and I own about 192 of those. I was thinking about journalistic integrity in the games industry last night and it bought me, via a fairly circuitous route, to thinking about those titles PCGUK rated very differently from the “accepted norm”, and those reviews which were controversial for other reasons. I thought I’d chronicle the ones I remember here, and throw the floor open to anyone who has any more. Apologies for being vague on the details – it’s sunday morning and this is only a casual list.
Force Commander
This is at the top because I believe it’s the most legendary internally of the mis-reviews.
Force Commander received something in the order of 92% and a cover story. When people actually bought the game a couple of weeks later it was extremely unpopular. Arcade Magazine (RIP – my favorite all-format journal of all time) also gave Force Commander 5 stars (out of 5), but it shared a lot of writers with PCG and it could well have been the same journalist.
Homeworld
Homeworld got a pretty scathing 78% review despite getting 90s everywhere else. I’m a massive Homeworld fan and I think it’s a game deserving of 90, and it also ticked all the boxes that would have got it a 90 in that era of PCG, so I have no idea what happened. I mused at the time that maybe they were just pissed because PC Zone got the exclusive, but in hind-sight that sounds pretty unlikely.
Worms 1
Worms 1 got… somewhere around 40% in its smallish PCG review. I think Worms 1 is one of the greatest games of all time (and the series has gone way downhill since), but I do understand how someone could hate it.
Diablo
Diablo is another under-review, getting something like 78%. PC Zone gave it a much more friendly 88. It’s important to remember that Diablo 1 really did not get exceptional reviews on release in general though.
Black and White
Only kidding.
Duke Nukem 3D and Geoff Crammond’s Grand Prix 2
Here we have two games where the score wasn’t the problem. Both of these games were reviewed in PCG at least six months before they were available to buy, due to the developers having a change of heart after sending the almost-finished review code to Gamer. Intriguingly, both these games got stellar reviews the first time around, probably showing the benefit of a perfectionist team. Not many games get recalled for more work after terrible reviews
Tiberian Sun
I was writing for a big US C&C fan site for a few months before TibSun was released, and I was probably privy to controversy you weren’t. In America it’s the norm to actually review finished games (PC Format used to have the same policy over here), and therefor reviews would always come out a month after the game was released. That would have been shocking to us in the UK – the only time we have to wait until release to read a review of a game is when it’s so bad the publisher doesn’t send it to Future.
PCGUK gave TibSun “just” 90%, which enraged the legions of US C&C fans who were expecting, at least, Jesus in RTS form. They blamed PCGUK for reviewing unfinished code.
That’s all I have right now – comment anything you remember.
Wednesday, April 15th, 2009
Yes, that’s right, Episode 6 is here and it wants YOU. This week: beavers, war and the word “spruce”.
There’s show notes in them thar hills…
War Games – via Eurogamer
Robocalypse – Beaver Defense – via 4 Color Rebellion
Green Fallout 3 – via Joystiq
Street Judge – via VG247
EA’s Brass Knuckles – via VG247
Shadow of the Colossus Movie – via Gamasutra
New Star Grand Prix – via PlayThisThing
Demigod is early – via Frogboy
7 Deadly Sins – via IGN
Wednesday, April 15th, 2009
According to this Gamasutra article WoW’s China servers cost $73 million. I don’t really know what goes into providing servers for an expected user base of over a million, but I’m still amazed at that kind of infrastructure cost. Mode 7’s servers cost us $150 a month…
Tuesday, April 14th, 2009
Approaching near-mythical status, the legendary “What is this shit” comment in the official Ceasar 3 manual. Someone just posted a grab of it on The Daily WTF, and here it is for posterity:
I’m drawing a blank on other well-known game manual amusements right now (it’s probably the beer). Comment if you have any good ones.
You are currently browsing the Visiting the Village: Gaming Podcast weblog archives for April, 2009.
