Games Journalism Or Bust!

For Hire

For reasons I may or may not be allowed to go into on here, I lost my job last Monday.

Over the last week, I’ve been applying furiously for all manner of jobs, from staff writer on games magazines (my first choice) to being a Tesco tillboy once again (my last resort). You would think this would give me more time for blogging and gaming, but if anything I’ve been working even harder than I would have been if I was still employed. Covering letters, CVs, polite emails - I forgot how long all that took.

So far, I’ve had reasonable success. Two job interviews and a couple of ‘no, sorry’ emails, but there are still a pile of my CVs out there, so I can only sit and hope. In the meantime, aside from searching furiously for new vacancies, I will be typing up my previously published articles for the new Portfolio section of this blog. This will be enable any potential employers to check out examples of my work.

If you represent a games magazine, website or other publication, please take a look and contact email me (address on the sidebar). If not, just disregard these posts.

Age Of Conan Expansion Revealed

Funcom, the developers behind Eidos’ bestselling MMORPG Age Of Conan: Hyborian Adventures, have revealed it is currently working on an expansion pack.

During a presentation at this year’s Games Convention in Leipzig, focussing on the new content currently being developed for the next handful of updates, Funcom representatives Erling Ellingson and Thorbjørn Olsen announced the first expansion to the popular online game is in development, although no further details were given.

“We’re aiming for a 2009 launch,” Olsen told In Stock. “It will probably be late 2009, but that’s our goal.”

The only hint as to the expansion’s content was a piece of concept art, featuring warriors with armour seemingly made from dragon scales. This artwork will be released into the community, allowing avid Conan fans to speculate about the new title.

In the meantime, online Hyborians can expect a range of new content to be added over the next few months as the company continues to update the game. The GC presentation showcased the variety of new armour types, as well as brand new dungeons and revamped versions of the original ones.

Also presented was Switchblade, a free third-party software download that allows PC gamers to play Age Of Conan with an Xbox 360 gamepad. When asked about possible console conversions of the game, Olsen said: “We’re working on it, absolutely, but we’re not ready to give out any specific details.”

In the three months since the game launched, Age Of Conan has gathered more than 400,000 players.

Ain’t That A Kick In The Head

While the German youth must feel a great deal of pride that they have Europe’s biggest games event arrive on their doorstep every year, the Games Convention comes as both a blessing and a curse.

Gamers from all over Germany travel to Leipzig for a glimpse at the titles they hope to pick up over the next 12 months, perhaps even getting to try them out before their peers. The playable games on offer cover a range of genres and appeal to almost every demographic, with games such as Resistance 2 displayed alongside Buzz!, and Lego Batman appearing next to F.E.A.R: Project Origin.

Subtly woven into the ensemble are the gorier, more violent titles, and while the likes of Fallout 3, House Of The Dead: Overkill and Dead Space don’t seem out of place at shows like this – in fact, it would be more surprising if they weren’t present at all – it does seem a little odd to present such games to an audience that may never get to play them.

Germany’s ratings board is notorious for preventing violent games from arriving on retail shelves, and those that do sneak past the guards are often altered beyond recognition, so surely inviting German teens to marvel at digital decapitation is nothing short of adding injury to insult?

MadWorld has already been banned from being released in Germany, and the Dead Space producer revealed that EA is having trouble securing classification for the game when I attended his presentation earlier today. Throw in the likes of House Of The Dead: Overkill, revealed for the first time at Leipzig, and Bethesda’s Pete Hines demonstrating how to blast survivors of a nuclear war into various red sticky scraps, and you can’t help but feel sorry for the locals as publishers from around the world rub salt vigorously into a long-running wound.

Surprise, Surprise

I imagine everyone goes to Leipzig, or indeed any games trade show, with some pre-conceptions about which titles they will enjoy the most. You arrive with a mental checklist of the games you really want to see, the games you can’t wait for, and most of the time these are the ones that provide you with the fondest memories for the journey home.

However, I’ve discovered the ones I will probably be ranting about the most over the next few months are not the games I’m most excited about, or the ones I’m looking forward to, but the ones that genuinely surprised me. While I could probably rival Jeffrey Archer in terms of page length if I were to write about every game I want to, I shall spare you and only describe a few.

First up was the new Harry Potter game (No.6: …And The Half Blood Prince)which thrust me into a frantic wizard’s duel with a PR girl, raising my arm above my head and flicking it in the direction of my onscreen opponent to rain fireballs down upon her. As she returned fire, I crossed my arms quickly, creating a magical shield to deflect her shots. It was great fun – something that I wouldn’t expect from a licensed title, as they are usually rushed to meet a film’s release date.

Mr Potter’s latest outing was in direct contrast to Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Lightsabre Duels, which should have been the perfect marriage of motion controls and lightsabres (even without the new MotionPlus accessory). Instead, it’s an unresponsive and stale beat-‘em-up where simple waggling your wrist guarantees victory against even the most competent AI opponent.

Another Wii title (forgive me!) that surprised me was Atari’s Family Trainer. Packaged with a newly designed floorpad, on paper it seems like a Wii Fit clone with a dance mat included, but nothing could be further from the truth. Even when in Exercise mode, the game refuses to be sensible and “focuses on fun” as our hosts told us. So upper body exercises could be navigating a kayak down the river by using the Remote as a paddle, while general activities such as running see you literally running on the spot, with a pressure pad under each foot, as your onscreen character attempts to leap over fallen trees.

Lastly, Empire Of Sports looks to bring something genuinely new to the MMO space. Rather than competing with the likes of World Of Warcraft, Age Of Conan and Lord Of The Rings Online, the game’s developers have shied away from the traditional fantasy genre, opting instead on something everyone can relate to: sports. Allowing players to wander a virtual city in search of training, equipment and potential teammates, Empire Of Sports centres around various familiar events like tennis and football, all of which can be controlled with just the mouse and WASD keys. It was really enjoyable and could certainly appeal to a more casual audience who simply want to nip into a game of footy against 21 other people during their lunch break.

GC 2008: Record Public Attendance

Number crunching begins at German event

Leipzig Games Convention today opened up its gates to the general public, and the show is already enjoying improved numbers of attendees compared to last year.

38,000 members of the public attended the show today, compared to 35,000 on the equivalent date in 2007, meaning the most successful first public day for the show at the Leipzig Messe.

On the previous day, where only trade visitors were permitted to attend, 8,000 guests passed through the doors, to taste the wares of 547 companies filling the 115,000 square meter venue. The organizers are boasting an apparent 300 world, European and German premiers at the show.

Down on the show floor, the public was undoubtedly packing out the huge exhibition centre, and all the signs pointed to a happy, excited crowd eager for more.

However, the fact remains that next year the show is set to move to Cologne.

No German Release For Dead Space?

Violence difficult to get past ratings board

EA’s sci-fi survival horror title, Dead Space, may not see release in Germany due to the excessive violence and its role in the gameplay.

Presenting the game to members of the press at this year’s Games Convention in Leipzig, with a playable version available at the publisher’s consumer booth, a member of the development team assured attendees that Electronic Arts is doing all it can to secure a release in the territory.

“We are working with our German counterparts and the ratings board because obviously we want to release this in as many countries as possible,” said Richard Briggs, the game’s producer. “But we’re having some difficulties with Dead Space in Germany.”

Dead Space puts players in the space suit of astro-engineer Isaac, who must save the crew of a space cruiser when aliens begin attacking. In addition to the excessive gore that appears when each enemy is defeated, players are also encouraged to blast off alien limbs to slow them down – a selling point dubbed “strategic dismemberment” according to Briggs. They also have to decapitate corpses to prevent the enemy from reanimating them and setting them loose against Isaac.

Germany has a legacy of banning or severely censoring violent games. Blood often has to be green before a game sees release, and the country has already banned Sega’s upcoming Wii title MadWorld. Given the gory nature of Dead Space’s combat, some major alterations may be required in order to bring the game to German shelves.

GC 08: Sega Announces House Of The Dead: Overkill

Zombie gore-fest prequel unveiled

Sega has announced development of House Of The Dead: Overkill, a new instalment to its classic lightgun series exclusive for the Wii.

Unveiled for the first time at this year’s Games Conference in Leipzig, Overkill serves as a prequel to the long-running zombie horror franchise, set in the 1970s and telling of Agent G’s first assignment. The game is the first in the series not to be developed by Sega’s internal Japan studio, instead handing it over to Headstrong Games. It has been designed exclusively for the Wii, using the Remote as a bona fide lightgun.

“It’s a bit of a new take on the House Of The Dead series,” Sega’s brand manager Rob Bartholomew told attendees. “This time, we’ve given it a much more Western feel to it by using a Western developer and a Grindhouse-inspired look, which in turn was inspired by the decision to take the series back in time. It’s very much a House Of The Dead game; there’s the style and the shooting that everybody knows and love, but we are giving it this [retro] feel.”

The game boasts a unique graphical style, designed to look like a deteriorating movie. Bartholomew said: “The art teams treated the game to look like a shock horror exploitation film from the 60s and 70s, so it will feature the scratches and cigarette burns you get on old films. They’ve taken great pains to see how celluloid film degrades over time and tried to work those effects into the game.”

Overkill also features a drop-in/drop-out co-operative two player mode, with the second player taking control of new character, Detective Washington. The detective appears throughout the main Story mode, with a ‘buddy film’ mentality mixed in with the standard zombie horror scenario. Power-ups will be available, including an adrenaline shot that slows down time to help players pull of more accurate shots, dubbed MoFoSloMo.

House Of The Dead: Overkill is due for release in early 2009 and will be marketed as part of Sega’s continuing efforts to cater for the seemingly-neglected ‘hardcore’ audience of Nintendo’s console.

Seen It, Played It, Read It, Heard It

While searching for supplies shortly after arriving in Leipzig, it was impossible not to be distracted by German entertainment and electronics retailer, Saturn. Having been followed from the town’s outskirts by the company’s posters, enticing us with discounts off CDs, DVDs and games, we decided to nip in and have a quick look at the outlet’s wares.

Drawn to the games section like moths to a flame, we noticed an addition to the stock rarely seen on UK shores: video game novels. Usually found only in Borders and Waterstones by those who know where to look, adaptations and spin-offs of Halo, World Of Warcraft, Final Fantasy and even Star Wars: The Force Unleashed were stacked neatly on the shelves next to the strategy guides. And why not?

Plenty of avid gamers are all too eager to shell out on a little gaming merchandise, and there are authors that have been able to capitalise on this. Mass Effect’s lead writer published a prequel novel to the first game, offering an insight into what was to come, while a series of Gears Of War novels has also been commissioned. I even know a number of Master Chief’s fans that swear by his literary outings, insisting that nobody can truly understand the Halo storyline unless they read the books.

This got us thinking about the other products on this floor, including soundtracks. Video game music is remarkably popular. For all the effort that goes into producing fully-fledged dramatic scores for blockbuster games, there are hundreds of consumers who love to listen to these works after turning off their console. Games soundtracks can be found online – again, if you know where to look – and there are countless sites where fans remix or remaster their favourite tunes for their kindred spirits to enjoy.

It’s hard to think why these products, so strongly connected to games, are never seen in UK games retailers. If a gamer wants to purchase the latest Mass Effect novel or the BioShock soundtrack, they have to search other specialist stores. Why not have it all in one place? Why should this business be taken away from the retailers that offer the most to these consumers?

GC 2008: James’ First Impressions

Kid in a candy store. Running around like a headless chicken. The greatest things since sliced bread. These are just three of the clichés I could use to describe the inaugural day of my first Leipzig. Fortunately, there was just far too much to see and do, ridding me of the time to pass out and be karted off by medics, spasming violently in a fit of avid gamer’s excitement.

As a journalist, it’s easy to keep a cool head but still be impressed. Each publisher’s stand lacks the exuberance of their consumer-oriented counterparts, but nonetheless conveyed each company’s strength. Inside each booth was like a miniature village of meeting rooms and presentation rooms, with a free bar and plenty of snacks to help keep the attendees strengths up. Once in the stronghold of Sega or Ubisoft, both showing some truly strong line-ups, it was easy to forget there were other booths in the hall.

As a consumer, the age-old conundrum of ‘what to look at first’ is made increasingly difficult by larger and more exciting displays, enticing you over with familiar characters, funky tunes, and elaborate stand designs. Whether entering the pacific jungle to see Call Of Duty: World At War or venturing into Vault 101 for a glimpse of Fallout 3, it’s not just the games that provide a feast for the eyes.

Ultimately, the games held my attention better than any polystyrene scenery ever could, and in my mind, a hypothetical (and financially devastating) shopping list began to form for the next six months. The titles on offer truly showed how varied, immersive and entertaining this industry can be – consumers are in for some true gems, while retailers are guaranteed to be raking it in by the time Santa does his annual fly-by.

Through a mixture of presentations and hands-on, I became a Jedi Knight, a survivor of a nuclear holocaust, a military commander with a voice-link to my troops, a rogue agent on the trail of an arms dealer, a 70s detective fighting off zombies, the world’s fastest hedgehog, The Boy Who Lived, Britain’s greatest spy, the Man Of Steel, a castaway on a desert island, a mercenary in a conflict-torn Africa, a Persian Prince seeking to free the land of darkness, a magic mushroom… too many to even list.

Which made the journey back to the hotel a bit of a letdown.

WiiDS Episode 79: Necessary Evils

Prepare to have your flabbers ghasted - we’re back. And on time. Shocking, no? Episode 79 represents a considerable and much-needed return to form on our part as we finally release a new show on its usual Monday release date, and not only that, we have (almost) the whole team in attendance, including our elusive Japanese correspondent, Alex Procter.

Listen in for a healthy discussion about iPods, bongos, James Bond soundtracks, second hand trade-ins, trademarks and other discussion-provoking, Mani-baiting topics. Not enough Nintendo for you? How about a full hands-on report on the new DSi? How about the hottest DSi and Wii news stories from the past week? How about a lengthy discussion about Nintendo’s so-called ‘Big Game’ this Christmas: Wii Music?

Is that enough for you? Cue shownotes: Read the rest of this entry »