Naomi.

Naomi Hunter.
You must complete your destiny... 

In the land of gun-totting, ass kicking, hard boiled heroines with a face of fashion model, Naomi is a surprisingly gentle and vulnerable. What else do player could want from a damsel on distress scientist?

     

Revelation of the Day: Corporate culture matters

It happened again! After a prolonged internal work i spit out a short article about game designers way to glory and riches and then couple of hours later I find that it all been know before and even published. Sad face, but at least i understand that my search has its reasons and meaningful answers. I found an incredible article about birth, growth and fall of Wizards of the Coast written by John Tynes. If you my reader, knew who is it, you knew more than i did.

The article itself is here : http://www.salon.com/2001/03/23/wizards/
and its second part here http://www.salon.com/2001/03/26/wizards_part2/  

John Tynes however is described by wikipedia in following article:

John Tynes (born 1971) is a writer best known for his work on role-playing games such as Unknown Armies, Delta Green, Puppetland, and for his company Tynes Cowan Corporation. Under its imprint Pagan Publishing, Tynes Cowan Corp. produces third-party books for the Call of Cthulhu role-playing game under license from Chaosium as well as fiction and non-fiction books under its imprint Armitage House.

Following the end of Unknown Armies in 2003,^[1] Tynes withdrew from the tabletop gaming industry in order to pursue other interests, particularly film^[2] and videogames.^[3] He was the producer of Pirates of the Burning Sea, a massively-multiplayer online role-playing game developed by Flying Lab Software and published in 2008 by Sony Online Entertainment. After the launch of PotBS, he joinedMicrosoft Game Studios to work on various Xbox Live Arcade titles including South Park Let's Go Tower Defense Play!,^[4] Toy Soldiers,^[5] and Full House Poker^[6] as a producer and game designer. 

But my God, his style of write up is brilliant! That's the no-nosense, objective truth in your face without the corporate politeness and glamour. Geeks are geeks, and money making is money making. The hard reality is there and you can actually see how different approaches to same business clash and create another evil Mega-Corporation from a very different idea.

We were young, overeducated and underemployed. Wizards was my first job in the real world — if you can call it that — and I was hardly alone.Above all, we were equals. Peter Adkison told us so. He had left Boeing with a sacrament of buzzwords and platitudes that he transmuted into full-bore Utopian evangelicalism. We would work in organic cross-departmental teams, study the esoteric principles of “Continuous Quality Improvement,” and always strive toward the paramount goal of consensus, the magical process that somehow replaced old-school hierarchical decision making. 

I guess today is my day of revelation.

Yours,
Mark-Paul Severn
An Enlightened Megalomaniac with Corporate ambitions.
(muhahaha)

Path to glory of Game Designer

I have a confession to make. I believed that becoming game designer is similar to becoming a pop star. Not because you automatically become rich, famous and can pull any Blondie with your picture in latest gaming magazine. But because you have a chance to become one of the few whose job is to do something they love.

I've been following Jake Thorton's blog  for some time now, as well as pushing my research of game rules and game designers. He wrote quite brilliant descriptions on game design ABC as well as some hidden psychological obstacles in this creative process. Perhaps Murder Your Darlings  is one my favorites. 

However more I look at the industry the more down-to-earth my point of view becomes. There are loads of gifted people, there are hundreds of already tested and played game systems. Those few giants who manged to build their name thanks to GW or Boardgame geek website are few, and they are hardly rich and famous of this world. The amount of rules, both fan-made and pro-made is demonstrated here: http://www.freewargamesrules.co.uk/. 

Number of companies that started their journey to success in gaming industry is growing day by day, as well as number of gonners from this business. In short, its a highly competitive area, with quite limited demand and unpredictable return of time and money investment. So where do the game designer finds his employment and becomes one of those geeky icons? What paths takes those people to the cave full of glory and riches? How does one makes it from humble dreamer of fan of certain game to next Father-of-all-gaming? 

1. Servant of Evil Mega-Corporation. 

Yes, my friends. You have to get a job in the Mega-Corporation which has been on this market before you were born. You have to sell your creative soul for their dirty money, crawl through the rank of other puny mortals, get to design studio and then do their marketing department bidding. Then you can quit, tell the whole world about unjust and greedy MegaCorp and how you fought for your creative freedom. Now you have some street-cred, as well as backing of well respected experience in the business. If you are lucky enough to save some of your creative soul you may even start freelancing and blogging. Thus you ultimately become the Master of Rules and Dice for all those puny mortals who did not get the job or were born too late.   

2. Street Fighter.

Those chaps like the thrill of one-shot assignments. The started somewhere in the shed of their house, torturing their pets, friends and family members with their incredible inventions. They don't really care about money, they love the thrill of pulling off next big thing, making this idea work in someones plan. Street Fighters are always waiting  to be carried away by next Big Idea or paycheck from next employment. There is many of them, few want fame, but most hunger for achievement. When occasionally their Idea takes over the world they become the Masters of Rules and their blog so far visited by robots and occasional friend rival major news channel. In the end, your portfolio is stained with blood of your Achievements, which makes any Servant of MegaCorps shiver from envy. But forget about safe pension if you take this path. 

3. Empire Builder. 

As game designers they are not exactly in the same league as most. Empire Builders take theirs or someone else idea and make it profitable. If they are lucky enough, their Empire will grow into Mega Corporation, if not they at least make enough money to break even. With the arrival of Kickstarter and Lulu there will be more and more of them, less adventurous but practical, calculating and dream-driven at the same time. The Universes and Galaxies they spawn will hardly be totally new and incredible, but they will sell. Then with addition of zombies, superheros, starfleets, comic books and growing fan base they will make someone rich. Empire Builder may not have the creative energy, but they will have the Endurance. Few of the Servants and Street Fighters would  understand this path, for it takes the game out of pocket reality into the real world around us.     

4. Universal Soldier.  

The choice made those who took this path was simple: career. Universal Soldier studies his craft in University, makes first games or programs as part of group assignment, graduates (or not in some cases), but his skill is good enough for immediate employment. As they progress, Universal Soldiers pick up extra programming languages, side skills, and connections within industry. One company is not different from another but pay is better and free pool is there. You have seen them on numerous promotional videos as part of highly creative group of people who are so happy to do their job and bring you the next big thing. Sometimes Universal Soldiers appear next to the Masters of Rules providing necessary fire support on topics of technical issues and patches. The most ambitious ones even take the role of Leading Game Designer and thanks to marketing bombardment are counted as Masters of Rules. 

5. Prophet of Game.

There are people who don't create game - they give birth to entire Universes. Prophets usually are great writers, directors and thinkers. Their reflection on the world around us are melted into the text and then into the game. Those creation are then visited by countless day dreamers and they make it grow and evolve. Prophets may not be great on writing the rules but those rules make sense thanks to meaning put into them and narrative supporting it.  But as soon as money rolls in every Prophet faces a great challenge: the sale must go on. If that would be a Daniela Steel, this question would not be even asked, if that would be Andzei Sapkowski or Frank Herbert I'd struggle to define the answer. Unlike anyone else in this business, Prophet of Game does not create the game itself, he catches the essence of our desires and gives it a form which could be translated  into game by others. How to become one? Just be one and let the Universe decide whether you are Prophet of Regret or Prophet of Truth.         

Yours,
Mark-Paul Severn.

1000 views of my blog. Ironic achievement

Today 01 May 2013 my blog statistic told me that it has been seen for 1000 times.
Hurraay! Yuppi! Or whatever you say on such great occasion. To celebrate it, I'm going to put here a speech:

Thank you! Thank you all! Thanks to all of my unknown visitors for popping in and having a quick look at what is posted here. I do understand that thanks to excessive amount of letters and broken English i use to express my thoughts it is a strange source to read from. Thank you all for looking at my harem of femme fatales, I do hope their real equivalents are at least as stunning as pictures. Thank you all for downloading my Elysian Drop Troopers Codex. It might not be a big achievement but it is important for me. Thank you for NOT posting any feedback on Elysian Codex, that means its either absolute crap or I'm genius (insane megalomaniac laughter) and my ideas will conquer the world to make me its ruler, owner and pimp. Muhahaha! (insane megalomaniac laughter even louder). 

Well and since 1000 vies is such a great occasion We are going to open a can of Fosters to celebrate it. May be even two... or three. Cheers!

The delicate magic of Halo

-Sir! I think we lost Master Chief!
-"no you didn't..."

From the day my friend told me the story about Halo: Combat Evolved until its recent incarnation at number "4" I loved this game. How original, huh? I'm definitely not the only one. Today however, after a long time I decided to take a look at what components actually made Halo series a cultural phenomena rather than just good game. Perhaps, to make my journey and your reading a bit shorter and easier I'll state them in short order:

1. Rhythm of game play
2. Well defined characters 
3. Balanced  weapon line-up
4. Varied opposition 
5. Enveloping story

1. Rhythm of game play.

Probably the most difficult to achieve in any FPS is balance of adrenaline rush, interesting story and what RPG players call "rail-roading". Second to that comes the question of how to avoid player being distracted by surrounding world of game from fighting. How Bungie and now 343 Industries approached it?

They created a perfect illusion of huge world around player but actually kept the player most of the time in confined space. In its core Halo is a corridor shooter, where we are confined by surroundings and forced to shoot our way through waves of enemies. This makes our heart beat rate goes up, adrenaline rush in, and we desperately dashing for cover. All of this is enough to make us forget to enjoy the big world around us. Not to mention that while we fight through locations, Bungie delivers a graceful views of planets, stars, huge spaceships and sunny horizon in a very delicate matter: enough to give us an impression of freedom, but not enough distract player from combat.

This line is really thin, give too much combat, and player starts to complain about "repetitive process", give too much of free world and player starts yawning because "nothing is happening" or "these huge open spaces are boring". Even when we are fighting in the open air maps, with a lot of opposition Halo manages to pass between those extremes (most of the times) by either rushing us towards objectives on limited time, so we must avoid excessive fighting, or by cutting opposition into manageable portions. A a result keeping us busy and poised for next portion of baddies.

2. Well defined characters

Here we have the classic archetypes: quiet and confident Warrior, smart, caring and emotional Girl, all-knowing Mother Halsey, animals aliens under religious leadership (big boo from out secular society), monstrous Hive mind, disgusting parasites (even bigger boo from cleaning-concerned housewives), and ever-loyal and heroic Soldiers of Democracy with cigar smoking Sergeant. Add a cyber-enhanced Forerunners with glowing light, which as we all know is a sign of superior technology.

We have seen all that in different variations from Hollywood trash to Medal of Honor. Where is the BIG difference is that in Halo all of them are forced to "make" choices as world's picture changes during the game. What is also important: they have position towards player, and we respond to that. Most complex character of entire series IMHO was Shipmaster Rtas 'Vadum, who in a matter of one campaign went through loyalist in need for redemption to human ally and major actor in Covenant's fate. Well established and played characters are believable and understandable, even if their motifs are world domination.

3. Balanced weapon layout

Less is more, and each weapon has it niche and drawbacks. Most importantly we are still restricted to our 3 weapon slots. Simple and elegant solution which denies some pleasure of hoarding loads of guns. At the same time forcing players to think and try all possible load outs even with the useless Needler. High speed of most firefights also overshadows the secondary weapons like under-slung grenade launcher or dual wielding pistols.  It does exist in real world and in Crysis but absent in the whole Halo universe. Simply put: one gun - one trigger. No time and place for fancy show-off tricks or customization. Is it comfortable? Sometimes. Is it playable? Of coarse! Is it fun? Yes.  

4. Varied opposition. 

FPS games are obviously all about killing the enemies. However, anyone will get tired of shooting the very same baddie even if given loads of different weapons and scenarios. In FPS games simulating modern conflicts this is solved by changing the scenery and mumbling about importance of the mission against the baddies. Sometimes we get to customize out gun as a game in itself. Halo is free from our politically correct world and allows us to kill anything that is bigger and does not speak our language. However the curve of difficulty is constantly  growing up: more Elites, Knights or Brutes as well increased number of hit points and resilience will make a game challenging and interesting even after first play through. Here is one of the main advantages of background work of Halo: all characters are incredibly believable and have unique "natural" behavior. Elites roar, Brutes charge in, Grunts love plasma grenades and chatter, Knights express anger by glowing orange and Flood is simply desperate for a hug.

5. Enveloping story.

Simply put from the very first game to latest one - we save the world. There is not much choice for player, except to aim and shoot those who desperately want to destroy it. The brilliant trick of Halo  is that world we are saving is not a distant propagandistic picture, on every turn of the game  this world has both personal touch and grand design properties. What is more important, those are interconnected on both logical and emotional levels. In addition every major objective takes us further on  the curve of storyline.  Let me elaborate on that. 

In Combat Evolved we started in desperate situation, where Cortana needed to be rescued. Even if she would only be an witty half-naked girl, that would be enough for male gamers to have fun. But as story progresses, saving Cortana and Earth from Covenenant invasion becomes a minor job. Now we are in charge of saving the Universe, because someone, sometime, somewhere have left a doomsday devices. Typical story of hero's job? Yes. But there is still room for saving the Captain, escape the trap filled with Flood, finding common language with AI of Halo and shooting lots of bullets. And every step of the way, there is gorgeous girl helping us. 

As series progressed stakes are even higher, the very heart and soul and reason for our heroics is trapped by Gravemind. This makes even invasion of Earth a minor problem, now player must save Universe in order to get to the girl. This is where Halo storyline get very close to Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy, one of the greatest pieces of literature describing similar subject. Luckily we have a secondary points of view, a Covenant and ODST. This lets us see a bit more of the Universe and its internal struggles, without stopping for a lunch break in combat.  Following the internal logic of any conflict the main baddie must be defeated in the last sequence. Victory is hard fought, but rewarded with kiss from a damsel on distress, reunion with Cortana. Who manages to save our hero from exploding Halo thanks to her AI abilities.

Halo Reach, was an interesting side step: it revolved around what will happen with Master-Chief and Cortana and gave insight into military aspects, political unrest of UNSC, gave refreshment to old Human-Covenant conflict and generally stepped aside from formula of 3-side conflict, which fueled the previous games. It retained the formulas of speed engagements and weapon balance, but added the teamwork as main factor to the gameplay and storyline. Kat, may not be Cortana, but she is still a smart girl, who's death will be avenged many times over.   

   

Finally, Halo 4 brought us back into the boots of Savior in power armour. For more than decade Halo refined its success formulas and they all are here: 3-way conflict between Humans, Covenant and Forerunners, dramatic crashes and escapes from one conflict into another, silent and strong hero with emotional and vulnerable girl, team of super-soldiers on a mission, internal intrigues which release our hero from military routine, weird and varied aliens, doomsday weapon which was unleashed and mighty Mr. Evil who took away Cortana. In the end of all that, Master-Chief takes off his helmet and armour leaving us sad for his personal loss and defiant glory. Every high and low point of series was reinserted into the 4-th Halo and it still works pretty well. 

Halo 4 leaves us with a lot of question as well as new ways of answering them. Will the Forerunners help us or be utterly defeated? What will happen with remains of Covenant? How humanity re-take legacy of the Forerunners? Is Flood completely eradicated?  How Spartans will evolve humankind? Will Master-Chief meet Cortana again? 

The Reclaimer Saga is the answer.    

Yours,
Mark-Paul Severn @2013

Liliana.

...you did promised to give up everything for a night with me, didn't you?
 So try to enjoy it as much as you can...
Liliana Veiss. 

Star Citizen

There it is, Star Citizen, the game that has a legend of Chris Roberts, author of Privateer, Starlancer, Wing Commander and Freelancer written on the side of it. It made it through Kickstarter with over $7mil in hands. Will it be better that EVE? 

Elysium: new movie from Neill Blomkamp

My hero, Neill Blomkamp is making a new movie! Matt Damon is the star. Trailer of Elysium looks like social unrest  and rich-poor division what was a strong background in District 9 remains. Bring on the revolution! 

thanks to http://futurewarstories.blogspot.co.uk/ for update on this

Boarding Marines: rules overview

Boarding Marines of Imperial Fists

Boarding Marines have been around ever since Forgeworld conceived Badab War books. Their primary mission would be to board and assault enemy ships in void space. As a player of Black Templar's successor it would be a perfect unit for my style of play. I was tempted to either buy one of the books or just buy upgrade kit from Forgeworld. Both temptations were successfully resisted thanks to the price £90 for the book, content most of which was not interesting to me. You would not pay such amount for 2 pages of really useful stuff, would you? In case you would, you will need a Badab War part I book from Forgeworld. Second reason was lack of open references to the boarding marines equipment. The site states: 

Detailed resin conversion kit consisting of two lascutters, a graviton gun, and sufficient boarding shields, weapon arms and heads to build five Boarding Space Marines, as well as additional components to build a Boarding Sergeant.       

Forgeworld loves to invent old-new weapons and leave their profile buried in books and useless pictures. What type of lascutter? Is it a graviton gun from old codexes or similar to Blood Angels graviton grapple? What is the difference between boarding and combat shield? £90 is an answer. I would assume that if you live outside UK its even more expensive. So a scrapped the idea. 

However, the Emperor has answered to my prayers and gave me a chance to have a look inside of one these blessed books. I saw the pictures. I saw the rules. I saw the points. Then I closed the book and congratulated myself on saving some money. Let me explain why.

1. Profile. Boarding Marines are absolutely no different from any other codex Space Marine stats. Same stats as any Tactical squad. No bonuses, no extra skills, nothing. Extra 50 points. 
2. Really "unfluffy". Forgeworld authors describe that becoming Boarding Marine is more of death sentence from the Chapter. WTFK? These guys should have done a research on Black Templars, who fight most of their battles in space and zero gravity. Not to mention that this kind of operations would require at least some skill and training. No, in their mind Boarding Marines are just over pimped cannon fodder.
3. Questionable Equipment. With boarding shield marine gets 5+ invulnerable save. Wonderful, isn't it? But Space Marine with power armour in zero gravity CANNOT RUN WITH IT! Yes, super soldiers need to visit the gym more often. On top of that, even if Boarding Marines will assault anything they never gain bonus for extra weapon. Why???! To represent that shield is so heavy and its so difficult to fire bolter while carrying it? Or to limit us to using them as move and fire unit? Then why Captain, Veterans or even Sergeants may take storm shield with power armour? 
4. Strange lascutter. Imperial Armour 2: Project Aphelion featured lascutter in Elysian Drop troopers inventory. Range: base contact, S:10, AP:? auto hit on immobile targets except infantry; ideal for breaking doors and cooking big bugs in assault. Boarding Marines get a lascutter which adds +1 to our Initiative in assault but we lose any bonuses for charging. Auto hit in assault with S:9, AP:1, ignores armour. Why lose Strength? Why repeat that it ignores armour if in most cases it is a case of Instant Death? Poor Guardsman can charge in an wipe the 'nids face with it, and super soldier can not? Mind you, I'm paying £90 for this.

So is there a bright side for Boarding Marines? Well, yes there is. 2 models per unit may take either support weapons like multi-melta. Unit may accompanied by 2 types of Drones: Fire Wasp and Devastation drone: one with flamer other with demolition charge of 5" blast, (again, why not use normal Blast?). Graviton Gun is actually a cool weapon with Range 18" AP3 and nasty surprise to anything which will come under a blast area. But despite everything, if you really like Forgeworld resin you will enjoy the quality of the kit, don't mind the rules. Unless of coarse you would take a risk and make a conversion.

     
Sincerely yours
Mark-Paul.

New Tau Codex: biggest changes

Tau Pathfinders. Source: http://eastern-empire.com/gallery/urban-tau-cadre/

New Tau is finally here! The shiny hard-cover codex book is written by Jeremy Wetlock, who runs the column in White Dwarf and apparently been with GW for a long time. Codex itself is full-colored 100 or so pages book with easy navigation, plenty of images and background on each old and new units, heroes as well as new influx of background information on Tau Empire itself, their Septs and Heroes. Book is priced at £30 in Uk, and well worth buying just to have it on the shelf or battlefield.

So what are the biggest changes from the old codex:

1. Hammerhead and Sky Ray are BS 4.
2. Fire Warriors and Pathfinders are Initiative 2 
3. Drones may mix and match between Shield, Markerlight and Heavy Guns in one unit.
4. Drones are Initiative 4. 
5. Snipers are BS 5 and may have up 6 Marksmen with up 3 Sniper Drones each. Oh, Their weapon is a Rapid fire AP5. Did i mentioned the markerlight and Support fire?
6. Vespid are Initiative 6 and will ignore difficult or dangerous terrain. 
7.  Support Fire special rule allows you to fire Overwatch from friendly unit in 6" as well as from unit being assaulted. With certain abilities or Heroes Support fire may be fired by vehicles!  
8. Markerlight will grant one of the following: +1 to BS, Ignore Cover saves, fire a Seeker missile without reducing the amount of weapons vehicle can use, add +1 bonus for each markerlight to Overwatch BS.
9. Kroot finally got an armor. 6+ armor is a Kroot dream come true :) 
10. Most Battlesuits pack twink-linked weapons, but majority is still BS 3. 
11. Fire Blades are nasty! Veterans of Fire Caste they almost rival Space Marine Captains. They are 50+ points upgrade for Fire Warrior and allows extra shots or re-roll 1 to hit. 3 Wounds. 
12. Rippertide Battlesuit is a Mounstrous Creature with Toughness 6 and loads of weapon choices. Main bonus Nova Reactor: allows you either extra shots with twin-linked weapons, 4d6 evasion maneuver, overload with big "kaboom", or improved AP.
13. Flyers are here. Bomber and Fighter both at BS 3, 2 HP and ability to take 4+ invulnerable save against incoming fire. 
14. Heroes: as well as Farsight, Shadowsun and Aun'Va (last one is even more useful than ever), there is a master Pathfinder, super tankman at BS 5, Tank hunter, Support fire and Overwatch, and Ethereal with WS:5, I:5 A:4. He either goes Rending or chopping, especially against the Orks. 
15. Last but not least: Warlord Traits. 6 unique Traits, with 3 out of them may be used once per battle. They demand and intelligent play and understanding of your army. Traits may give your units Skyfire rule, extra shots, extra move or morale bonus.                           

In conclusion: most of the units remained as they were, or even less hard, but the difference is army cohesion, support and firepower. Tau will demand intelligent play, careful positioning and support from each other. Only then they will be victorious.  
   

Shadowsun.

Shadowsun.Did you called me hentai character??! 

Legal disclaimer

Official:

Represented and used on this blog images, marks, names, races, race insignia, characters, vehicles, locations, units, illustrations, quoted texts  and other materials does not seek to challenge Intellectual property of their respective owners. Unless stated otherwise materials are used without permission. Aforementioned materials and TM, are property of their owners and their affiliates. All Rights Reserved to their respective owners. 

Sort-of-official:
Texts and  ideas posted on this blog are Copyright of Mark-Paul Severn. Should anybody use them without my permission for money making, I will not hesitate to use my mutant powers to steal your liver and cook it on gas while you asleep.

So beware! It's better to mention me or my blog in your sources than lose a liver. :-))

Arwen.

I'm 2700 years old, (thanks to Tolkien, should you ask), and i'm married. But I was quite a wild thing in my youth.  

Lucas Arts is dead. R.I.P.

The mighty Jedi has been eaten by Mickey Mouse as Disney acquired Lucas Film and Lucas Arts during the fall 2012. Now Lucas Films, and Lucas Arts have been shut down. Half a year ago while most observers were following media hype and promises of bright new future (as well as Star Wars: Episode 7 and other shiny stuff) somethings should have warned us of inevitable:

1. It's Disney. One of the main competitors of George Lucas and his approach to entertainment, art and life. Lucas was brave enough to borrow from Buddhist philosophy and put that into a working concept for mass media. Can you imagine Lion King or Mickey Mouse thinking and relating to matters of strategy, belief  and philosophy? I can't.

2. Death of master L. George Lucas, as a result of the deal would not be directing, but being a "creative consultant". Artist is a main driver of any film or game production. When artist stops being heart of it, the magic of our connection to the movie, story and characters slowly dies as  more of "same-crap-as-before-cause-it-sells" stuff encroaches  The fact that Lucas was not actively involved in creation of last 3 films of Star Wars actually shows that. Movies became more about lightsabre-action and less about meaning. 

3. Different market priority.  Disney, despite all the promises had a strong idea where the "new" LucasArts will go. This is a quote from Disney's announcement I took from kotaku.com: 

In a conference call this afternoon, Disney's Bob Iger said they will be focusing on social and mobile games and will likely license their IPs for console gaming-meaning you'll see other studios making Star Wars games .

Well, most of the games that made Lucas Arts were traditional PC and console games with rich narrative and established background. They obviously did not fit into Zynga's backyard of casual games and Facebook time-killers.  That's not the product players would expect from such studio.  

So now to the final question on why would Disney buy Lucas Films and shut them down? It's not just about the money. With Lucas Arts gone, but their intellectual property under their control, Disney will become unsinkable giant of entertainment industry. That would improve their position greatly in the face of current financial difficulties and hard-hit entertainment sector. Current cancellation of new project's serves this goal: spend as less as you can, gain as much as you can. Welcome to capitalism, Jedi.
   

April.

Ms. April
Saving the gamers from low blood pressure

Destiny: Brave New world

I have to apologize, for some annoying reason, Bungies have 339 social networks listed on their page, but I can't put I video of this one hour conversation into my blog.
So here is the link to it:  Destiny News revealed.

This video is a first look at Destiny and ideas that shaped it. In short, while most of Bungie have been developing Halo, some have played around fantasy world and their mythology-infested habitats (yawn). Thankfully, the sci-fi past and power of shotgun have prevailed and idyllic fantasy, filled with Heroes and master-crafted swords have been invaded by blaster, bounty hunters and spaceships. Rejoice! Bungie stayed true to themselves and kept balance between hardened heroes with pet tigers (just wait for it to appear in the video) and assault rifles aimed at robots.

 The visuals are powerful and magnetic. One of the goal they set was to make Destiny's world attractive: they have succeeded already. However game is still far in development, but at least world builder is ready and main characters outline are set too. The media hype have started too, so start putting coins into your piggy bank, or whatever you are using to save money.

The Fallen.
Four arms is better than two.

Halo. Landfall by Neill Blomkamp

Neill Blomkamp.
Director.

This is compilation of 3 videos released by Bungie prior Halo 3. All those shorts were directed by Neill Blompkamp as preparation for Halo movie. The movie was cancelled, but Neill kept his pace and created District 9, almost a documentary about alien landing in Johannesburg. 

Those shorts were meant to be a promotional videos. But instead the offered different, gritty approach to usually shiny Halo universe.

I love it. I hope you to.  

Destiny. The new trend in FPS genre?

First person shooter as computer game genre has faced many difficulties and crisis. Both critics and gamers gradually became frustrated with waves of enemies spawned by script and claustrophobic close quarters with undying character. Different companies and game designers offered different solutions.Just to name the few:

Crysis went on the road of putting super abilities against superior numbers and toughness of opponents.       

Battlefield carries on with classic FPS approach but concentrates on realism and team work.  

Halo sticks to its guns, high-adrenaline firefights and great balance between the powers of player and map limitations.  

Far Cry got stuck on the island with re-spawning pirates and does not actually offer anything new.   

Ghost Recon offered us drones to control but limited maps to superiority fight against blind, deaf and suicidal enemy.  

Gears of War still lives in the time of Napoleon, where bayonet in the face is an ultimate solution  

Bioshock was perhaps the closest game to this trend, allowing us to evolve on spot and unlock new powers and abilities.  

However on  the other side of market, in RPG corner, games like Fallout and Mass Effect have changed their approach to firefight: skills, abilities and character's luck have greatly changed the way combat plays out. At the same time those games made their graphical and combat part as good or even better than those big FPS brands. That  is where future for FPS genre going to be, IMHO. Perks, abilities and skills will change the way player fights and will improve one or other style of play. Frankly, it already been done and tested in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. From there it will get more popular as future big hit Dust 514 and Destiny will show.

This video gives a glimpse of three distinct classes of Destiny's world: Titan - the armored soldier, Hunter - scout and bounty grabber and Warlock - the ultimate space Wizard, as well as our enemies. I believe that each one of those classes will have unique set of skills and abilities to amplify each character's style and powers. Perhaps, Star Wars: the Old Republic will face tense competition from Destiny.

You will be right if you say that we heard it all before from countless FPS and online games. Yes. But not from Bungie. That company has a very high standard.

Rayne.

Sod off!! I'm on my f**£$% LUNCH!!!
Blood Rayne.
Most over-pimped vampire of all times.

Games Workshop vs. the World

Every now and then I hear  from fellow gamers in private conversation and online rants how bad and greedy GW is. I must admit, these cries of pain have their point, and I do share some of the less-than positive opinions about how GW handles its clients, their policy towards certain games, competitors and retailers. However, in this post I will try to remind why we, as gamers and human beings must be grateful to Games Workshop.

First of all, Games Workshop  as company a  should have ceased to exist at after 5 years of operations.

Reason? GW  as a business became trapped in high licensing fees for games like Dungeons and Dragons and multiple computer games, while sale figures were declining. By trying to grab every bit of gaming market company almost went bust. GW at that point (1976-79, I believe) was saved by Citadel, paints and accessories company which bought large packet of shares thus providing vital money influx. That save the company from bankruptcy.  

GW's management, was replenished by "suits", and "geeks" were forced to step down. They might have had  misty-eyed understanding of games and rolling dice, but lost the battle to those who knew rules of the money-making game. Ironically they were helped by company who was selling support products. If that would not happen, we would not have a hobby in the first place. (I re-tell this story from one of my well-informed source inside of the company. The official history is much more shiny.)   

Next strategic move of GW made our beloved hobby into what we know today: shops as hobby centers. It is best seen in UK, and probably less around the world. GW shops are first of all game hubs, where people gather to have a game, socialize and thanks to friendly and professional staff buy more toy soldiers. Three main products, three distinct universes and lot of room to play and most important friends to share the hobby.

Games Workshop opening day at 1 Dalling Road, Hammersmith, London, in April 1978.
Source: Wikipedia

I strongly believe that social aspect was the main driver behind GW success. Sales were coming after, as a need to compete, share games and have fun demanded more toy soldiers. Secondly, those who grew up and left the hobby in search of job, marriage and  other game non-relevant stuff, brought their kids into GW hobby. I can bet my hat, that those kids will do the same when they reach the age of their parents.

On a grand scale, GW products are known all over the world, thanks to hobby centres/shops and the vibe which they have and still do spread. Thanks to this, after 25 years of such practise, table top games are well established time passing and multi-billion business. You can walk in any shop from Nottingham to Los-Angeles or Tokyo and you will find someone who would like to play with you.

Third thing we, as human beings, should be grateful for: quality of GW products.

To make matter simple look at those two pictures. One on the left is a simple toy soldier, on the right Space Marine. Notice the difference? Before the arrival of GW and their Space Marines, Elves, Orkz and Hobbits our ancestor were playing with that on the left.

Guess what? There were no rules. At all. But now we can discuss the higher math and probabilities as well as curse the dice for not giving us desired victory.

So thank you for that Games Workshop. Thank you for giving us 25 years of gaming and excitement.