GDC 2011 in some strange words

The Game Developers Conference (GDC), held in San Francisco in early March is the conference highlight of the year for a lot of people in the industry. I see quite a strange side of it, being cooped up in business meetings for nearly the entirety of the week. I've been going to the show since 2004 and have yet to attend a session. That doesn't mean that the show isn't a huge amount of fun. Meeting after meeting does wear you down but the excitement of never knowing quite what the next half hour will hold drives me on.

I'm also lucky to work in an industry that doesn't take itself too seriously and which is full of people with a somewhat warped sense of humour. In the course of this year's week in SF a number of interesting phrases were coined and I felt I should share them here.

"Money Fight" - what you do to amuse yourself when your product has brought in an absolutely sickening amount of cash. You grab bundles of banknotes and just hurl them at each other. Notch and the guys at Mojang probably have money fights most days of the week. Bill Gates undoubtedly has a subterranean money fight arena (think a Mayan ball game court with better floodlights) for his monthly match against Steve Jobs.

"Legally Binding Twix" - delicious bite-sized snack bar which, when eaten, irrevocably commits you to publishing the game of the person who provided it.

"Filipino Candy" - nice sweets from the Philippines. Usually fruity. Just *sounds* dodgy.

"Not the best selling rabbit" - they may look cute but Mindscape's Karotz are unlikely to outsell the current favourite rabbit.

"Small Penis Laptop" - a "gaming laptop" that's twice as big as a laptop should be, with coloured lights and large fans. The Toshiba Qosmio would be an example. Suggests that the owner may be overcompensating for something.

"Imperial Beef" - dish offered by the food vendors at Game Connection that sounds scary yet is so beguilingly named that I ended up trying it - partly as it reminded me of the 'Imperial Hot' meme. The food? A generous helping of tasty beef teriyaki.

"Trained in business. Bred to reject." - the tagline to the definitive action movie about videogame acquisitions managers. Which is sadly yet to be made.

"Accountancy Party" - at the superb Killscreen party, you played cool indie games on huge screens in a warehouse, cheered on by your drunken peers. Accountants have similar parties except they are reconciling Excel sheets to whoops of encouragement.

That's it for the words of the show. What else?

Best proper food of the week: a superb Beef Brisket with roast potatoes and brussel sprouts at Magnolia.

Best junk food of the week: I discovered a "Make your own frozen yoghurt sundae" place in the Westfield mall and made myself a concoction that included chocolate, vanilla and strawberry frozen yoghurt, whole blackberries, choc chips, sprinkles and a couple of sauces. It was amazing and cost less than $7.

Best drink of the week: Nearly everything on the list at the 21st Amendment Brewery. I bought the t-shirt. And a hat.

Best party: I didn't get to many but the Killscreen indie party was great. Danes know how to party. I had a laugh playing Jesus vs Dinosaurs and ended up drinking aquavit forfeits after losing a dance-off. For a Brit, there was also the novelty of drinking out of the iconic red cups, which we only see in American movies being used for beer pong. I was even briefly a hipster as I was drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon at a warehouse party. For shame.

Rectangles of the year 2010: Games

Taking my cue from Ricky's excellent piece of terminology, here is a quick run-down of my favourite games of 2010.

Over the last month, I've spent well over a hundred hours playing Dragon Quest IX. It's the first DQ I've played but it seems to included got all the good things from JRPGs while eliminating nearly all the bad (ie it makes backtracking instant and you can avoid battles). Some of the side quests are based on random drops and can turn into grinds but that's a small complaint. It has vast additional content with random dungeons, new daily items via wi-fi, new quests weekly and co-op play. I get the feeling that I will end up playing it as much as I did Disgaea on PS2 (200+ hours).

Back at the beginning of the year, I posted about VVVVVV and I still consider it one of the best games I've played all year. It gave me one glorious night of platforming par excellence (and I usually hate platformers) and a soundtrack that I've listened to regularly since January.

Red Dead Redemption makes the list for letting me to feel like Clint in a classic western. Lots of great moments but even just riding round doing nothing is a pleasure. I haven't bought the DLC yet but everyone in my office who did buy it has loved it.

An honourable mention goes to Lara Croft & The Guardian of Light as I had a great time playing local co-op with a mate and then went back and 100%-ed it too. It alas also gets a nomination for "Most Botched Launch of the year" imho.

Likewise, an honourable mention to Bayonetta. Thanks to the easy mode, I was finally able to enjoy a game of this sort having never been able to get anywhere due to poor skills before. I got to play right through and kick a god into the sun for chrissakes! That's got to be worth something.

In the middle of the year I went through a phase of playing Mount & Blade: Warband obsessively. It ran like a dog on my old home PC but I was still playing for half a day at a time and taking save games back and forth to my work PC with a USB key. It's too structurally flawed for it to be one of my games of the year - I ended up giving up playing it in frustration at the confusing and broken strategic game. (If anyone out there knows how to successfully keep hold of a castle, I'd love to hear from you!)

However it's definite honourable mention. Leading a cavalry charge in M&B is a feeling that you don't get in any other game... you lure the enemy into a position where the terrain is in your favour, give the order, then build speed, drop your lance and break their infantry in front of you... then swap to a sabre or mace and start laying about you. It feels amazing and the very real risk of over-extending yourself, being cut off from your troops and having your horse hacked from under you in the mêlée gives every battle a tense edge. Taleworlds deserve a lot of credit for the game and for putting the nascent Turkish development scene on the map.

And finally, Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes gets an honourable mention for being nearly a perfect DS title and definitely the overlooked game of 2010 (2009 release in NA, 2010 in EU). Bursting with charm, a smooth difficulty curve, great mechanics, lovely art, it gets -1 Caspar point for having a missable sidequest (that I duly missed). However, I'm going to buy the XBLA version when it comes out so I can thrash people in online multiplayer.

(Sitting on the shelf expectantly: Mass Effect 2 (I dabbled a bit but need to get stuck in) and Nier (really interested in this due to what I've heard online).

Brought to you by the letter C and the numbers 6 and 4

Last spring I mentioned Don't Look Back, created by Terry Cavanagh. Well, there's good news as Terry's first commercial game, the interestingly titled VVVVVV, is now available.

It provided me with an excellent evening's entertainment - for less than the price of three pints and a bag of crisps (£9). Overall it's simple, coherent, lovingly presented (with nods to Dizzy and other C64-era classics) and difficulty-wise (with the exception of one blip) perfectedly pitched. For those with truly amazing platforming skills there are time trials and the challenge of completing the game with the minimum number of deaths. I took around 660 to complete the game but that was up to over 1100 by the time I'd bagged all twenty collectable trinkets. A couple of them will really test you and the "Veni, Vidi, Vici" series of rooms are already going down in gaming legend. Tough, but worth it for the elation you feel when you nail it.

Superb is too weak a word to describe the chiptune soundtrack, that is handily available here, Eurogamer have a more detailed (or just longer?) review here and there's a good interview with Terry here. One question remains - is the game named for the six crewmembers in the game, the look of the "www" in a URL or the ever-present rows of spikes that will be your doom so many, many times?

Prediction: There will be one major social gaming or casual MMO flameout in 2010

Generally, when someone says "This is not a bubble", it's usually a sign that there is a bubble. Social gaming companies are commanding huge valuations and social games and casual MMOs are showing huge user numbers. This is a mini dotcom boom waiting to happen. As the opportunities to make money out of thin air with a quick IPO increase, so do the incentives to inflate subscriber numbers and revenues. It would be great to be proved wrong on this one, but I've got a hunch that one of the prominent companies in these sectors will experience a major, probably even fatal, blip in 2010.

That's not to say that social gaming won't be a major sector of the industry going forward. I think it will - the Facebook and iPhone app have replaced Solitaire and Minesweeper as the five minute timewasters of a new generation of office workers. (More on the psychology of boredom here.)

Bonus prediction: EA will bring its brands such as The Sims and FIFA to Facebook via Playfish, but the wider community will be nonplussed. Even The Sims is not a large brand compared to the user numbers that the likes of Mafia Wars and Farmville can boast.

Prediction: The rush to game-specific peripherals has been blunted

The outright failure of Tony Hawk's RIDE, the relatively modest performance of DJ Hero and the slowing of sales of Guitar Hero and Rock Band are signs that people have enough plastic peripherals in their homes--- and that in the case of RIDE, making the control of the game nearer to the real thing is sometimes a very Bad Idea.

Prediction: At least two more publisher mergers will be announced in 2010

2009 saw less consolidation among third-party publishers than I was expecting, but I believe it's still on the cards for 2010. So who are the likely candidates?

Well, in Japan, Konami and Capcom are both going through rocky patches. Konami had a quiet 2009 with no major Metal Gear Solid release. They cancelled Six Days in Fallujah at a late date and have a lot riding on the new Castlevania title (now in development at Spanish studio Mercurysteam under the watchful eye of Hideo Kojima), as well as PSP title MGS: Peace Walker.

Capcom also had a few downs in 2009, with Bionic Commando falling short for instance and has recently slipped several high profile titles including Lost Planet 2 (which had a poor demo) and Dead Rising 2. On the other hand, Street Fighter IV was critically acclaimed and sold strongly.

In the West, THQ is looking rather weak. It used to have a bedrock of wrestling titles and licensed children's movie tie-ins and while it recently settled the long-running lawsuit over WWE rights, the movie tie-ins just aren't bringing in the bacon like they used to. It's also likely to record one of the first high-profile underperformers of the year with Darksiders.

Prediction: Codemasters will not survive 2010 in its current form

I predict that long-established UK publisher Codemasters will finally run out of lives in 2010.

The departure of key staff is probably a warning sign and as it gets ever harder for a medium-sized generalist publisher to stay in business, something has to give. "Codies" has allegedly had trouble paying external developers in 2010 and has squandered cash on Far Eastern MMO conversions (not to mention the Dragon Empires fiasco that they airbrushed from history). Despite continued strong performance from its racing franchises, especially DIRT and GRID, 2009 saw a number of titles that have probably not brought in strong revenues, often seemingly due to poor marketing materials and spend (Overlord 2, FUEL) or tough market conditions and lengthy development (Operation Flashpoint 2).

I should point out that in the event of the company going to the wall, the core internal development teams are quite likely to be snapped up by another publisher looking to get into the racing genre. Personally, I feel that Codies should have refocused as a boutique racing game house at least 12 months ago.

Bonus prediction: Depending on how much was paid for it, Codemasters pulled a blinder by picking up the Formula One licence, with the 2009 season being one of the most open and exciting for years and 2010 looking like a mouthwatering prospect with a returning Schumacher facing the British McLaren dream team of Hamilton & Button, along with a reinvigorated Alonso & Massa. I predict that Codies will deliver a strong F1 game and it will sell well. Well enough to make enough money, given the license costs and the continued lack of major interest in F1 in the States, to stop it being their swansong?

Prediction: Riccitiello will not finish the year as Electronic Arts CEO

I predict that Jon Riccitiello will be forced to stand down from his position as EA CEO sometime in 2010, because of a number of missteps by the company in 2008 and 2009, including:

• Choosing to allow Pandemic to make an open world Batman game, leading to EA failing to release a game for the enormously successful The Dark Knight, costing EA an estimated $100m of revenue and leading to the closure of the Pandemic Brisbane
• Pandemic LA's The Saboteur limping to a lacklustre release, resulting in the closure of the studio
• Rock Band: The Beatles failing to set the world alight
• Paying more than $250m for social gaming company Playfish, a move that probably makes long term sense but which has the feel of a company thrashing around for the next big thing

The Pandemic issues in particular are ones that Riccitiello can't shift blame for - he bought Pandemic and Bioware from his old company, Elevation Partners, for an eye watering $860m in 2007. Unless Bioware's Star Wars MMO, The Old Republic, becomes a "World of Warcraft"-level success, this will have been a gross overvaluation, but nevertheless it saw Jon personally pocket $5m.

Having been displaced as the top Western third-party publisher by the Activision-Vivendi merger, 2009 was always going to be an awkward year for EA. The company is not used to being #2 at anything and has been slow to tackle the incredible middle-management bloat that holds it back like a huge ball and chain.

I believe that, as often is the case, past sins catch up with someone just as performance improves.

I think that 2010 will actually be a very strong year for EA. It's a (soccer) World Cup year and with FIFA 10 completing the turnaround in football game fortunes over the last three years (PES is now the game looking second-rate and tired and FIFA is now a bigger seller for EA than Madden), the "Road to South Africa" edition (or whatever they call it) will sell very well in the summer, even picking up some (moderate) sales in non-traditional territories such as the US, where the prospect of a US-England group game will pique interest.

The new Medal of Honor game, set in a modern-day Afghanistan, will deliver a more coherent and lengthier single-player campaign than Modern Warfare 2 and with DICE working on the multiplayer, may possibly even challenge its multiplayer dominance. Activision are not without their problems either we should add - Tony Hawk's RIDE has been a disaster for instance (more on that later).

EA's MMA game will be surprisingly good and sell well (but will still be heavily outsold by the new UFC title from THQ.) Bioware will have a strong year with Dragon Age posting good sales, Mass Effect 2 performing well and The Old Republic getting off to a (relatively) painless launch.

Bonus prediction: EA's lawsuit against repulsive trademark troll Tim Langdell will result in the termination of his marks, to much rejoicing.

I love it when a prediction comes true

Especially if it's one of mine :-D Microsoft quietly announced at E3 that they will be beginning downloads of full retail Xbox 360 titles in the Autumn and it has now been announced that the Games on Demand functionality will be introduced with the next dashboard update, due on August 11th (though you'll need to ferret around in that press release to spot it!) Now the question is how long before we start seeing larger hard disks for the 360 hitting the streets?

You like to shoot, so don't deny it

In recent weeks I've been playing a new Xbox Live Arcade title straight out of Rotterdam, namely Rocket Riot from my friends at Codeglue. This is a title I was pitched back in 2006, when it was called So Square (it was also Jetpack Junkies before settling on the final title). It's a fun little pixel-based arena blaster with a very distinctive style and a lot of wackiness, in-jokes and humour. How often do you watch an opening cutscene that has to explain why noone has any legs? How many games these days have a theme song?


With a jetpack strapped to your backside and a rocket launcher in hand, you face off against wave after wave of pirates, zombies, ninjas, commandos, aliens (you get the picture) in a free-for-all blaster characterised by utterly destructible pixel scenery and few opportunities for breathing or blinking.

It is generally harder to gauge the likely success of multiplayer focused titles than singleplayer ones as they need a decent sized fanbase to succeed. When the game launches, it either captures gamers' imagination and quickly builds a fanbase or it is passed over and the multiplayer never really gets off the ground. The very nature of the beast makes it tough to predict whether you have a hit on your hands until the game is out in the wild and this is the main reason I didn't go out to bag the game back in 2006.

Rocket Riot offers a frenetic blasting experience but with its real-time, manic nature, I feel it doesn't offer a change of pace from most full-price boxed shooters. The side-on perspective brings Worms to mind but that game has carved itself a niche over the last decade and a half by, in my opinion, offering a singular experience of pressurised turn-based play cycle and artillery gameplay, boosted by a great weapon set and bags of charm.

However, Rocket Riot gives itself the best chance possible, with its distinctive art style and its quirky presentation. Only time, and sales figures, will tell if I made the right call or not. Help make me look like a fool by checking out the demo - and thank your lucky stars that Pete and the guys removed the GDC test level that was made out of my company mugshot!

Tweet like you mean it

Twitter is all the rage these days but you may be surprised to learn that I've started using it (as I'm usually a late-adopter or a never-adopter for most internet crazes.) However, I think I've hit on a sensible use for it; a lot of people ask me what trends I see among the game submissions I review, so I'm going to be tweeting what I assess each day (anonymised of course.) I hope that is something that people will be interested in.

You can either follow me via my username or just keep an eye on the Twitter box on the right hand side of this page. There will be some tweets about general game-related matters and replies to other people, but you can be assured that you won't have to read about the minutae of my daily life at any point.

If you decide to sign up for it yourself, I recommend this beginner's guide. If you want see something a bit left field being done with the service, one of my favourite webcomics writers (Jeph Jacques of Questionable Content) has set up twitter accounts for his characters, creating a form of SMS soap opera around the main comic.

True to the source material

This morning I played the excellent Don't Look Back on Kongregate. It's a retelling of a well-known Greek myth and well worth playing to completion . You'll need some polished old-school platforming skills but the difficulty is manageable and the lack of loading times keeps frustration to a minimum.

Being charitable

If you're not keen on swelling the coffers of the major US games retailers by trading used games for store credit at miserly rates of exchange, you should check out a new charity, Donate Games, that has just launched. You send them your unwanted games and receive a tax credit in return (since it is a charitable donation). They then sell the games to raise money. It is currently US only I'm afraid. Thanks to Game Politics for bringing them to my attention.

Closer to home, the UK games industry's main charity is now GamesAid, which superceded the more boringly titled (but highly effective) Entertainment Software Charity. They've got off to a good start and can hopefully weather the recession.

The best known gaming-related charity is Child's Play, founded by Gabe & Tycho of Penny Arcade fame, initially to show that gamers didn't conform to the media stereotype of being selfish and homicidal. I try and donate each year, sometimes by inflicting gaming torture on hapless Canadians.

Child's Play cunningly uses the Amazon Wishlist functionality to allow you to buy toys for specific children's hospitals in the US, Canada, the UK, Australia, New Zealand and Egypt, cutting out middlemen and ensuring that children who really need the distraction that gaming can provide get the chance to enjoy it, whatever their family's circumstances. In addition to their numerous fund-raising events, you can also donate money directly online via PayPal, allowing you to get your compassion on, even on Sundays.

Trends in Gaming: 2009 will see downloads of full-sized retail X360 games via marketplace

In my last post, I mentioned that the Blu-Ray drive has hobbled the PS3 in terms of price competitiveness. I believe that it has also led Sony down what could very well be a dead-end path in the form of game sizes. When the PS3 was announced, Sony emphasised the advantage that the 50Gb of storage on each Blu-Ray disc gave to developers. They exhorted them to fill that space with extra content for their games and pushed a ‘more data is better’ line. Their ‘hardware company’ mentality led them to set great store by their new storage medium.

However, this looks increasing short-sighted. There is a strong consensus in the games industry and in the wider media industries that we are moving towards full digital distribution of media products and that the question is not whether physical media will die off, but just how soon? Like many things predicted to revolutionise the industry, it will probably not happen as quickly as some people claim, but it is very definitely coming.

Viewed through this lens, Microsoft’s decision to stick to the 7Gb DVD format for the Xbox 360 looks quite sensible. Microsoft released an external HD-DVD drive, mainly to act as a spoiler against Sony’s Blu-Ray format rather than through any meaningful belief that HD-DVD would become a leading format. With hindsight, it is apparent that the company felt that it could get by with a DVD drive for now and that the next generation of consoles would not sport disc drives at all.

Furthermore, it is a lot quicker to download 7Gb than 50Gb. MS began laying the foundation for the move to digital distribution in December 2007 by selling Xbox 1 games via the Xbox Live Marketplace under the heading of 'Xbox Originals', releasing a title or two a month through 2008. I predict that we will see full Xbox 360 retail titles sold in a similar manner in the second half of this year. I think that the games will be early titles from the Xbox Classics range, possibly ones where the sequel will be releasing at retail in Q4 2009.

I expect that Microsoft will provide extensive reassurance to traditional retail outlets, emphasising that releasing old titles in this manner will drum up interest for new releases, promising that only games over a certain age will be considered for the service and possibly providing more marketing support to retailers as a sweetener. However, this will be the velvet glove around the iron fist, the decorative sash tied around the handle of the katana. The real agenda will be getting the consumer used to buying full titles by direct download. I expect to see significant price cuts on Xbox 360 hard disks during the year and possibly even a larger size than the current 120Gb drive to support this move.

This year’s move to allow gamers to install games to the hard disc (but still requiring the disc in the drive to play them) can also be considered to further this agenda, in addition to being a good feature in its own right.

So there you go - an easily testable prediction. See if I'm right come 31st December and mock/praise accordingly!

Trends in Gaming: Spring 2009 is a critical period for the PS3

This post is less of a prediction and more of a summary of where things stand for Sony and the PS3 as 2009 rolls on. Sony are on the verge of posting a loss of over $1billion for their current financial year (to the end of March 2009) with the games division deep in the red.

Sony decided to not cut the price of the PS3 before Christmas 2008, choosing fewer sales at a higher price point over a sales boost at the expense of per-unit revenue. Unfortunately for them, with consumers becoming increasingly price-sensitive and the large price differential between the Xbox 360 & Wii and the pricier PS3 certainly hurt them when it came to sales. These numbers in particular look pretty nasty for the big black box.

Unfortunately for Sony, they don’t have much scope to cut the PS3 price, as the other divisions of the company, such as consumer electronics, movies and music are all being impacted by the recession. The price will certainly be cut in the spring, but how much? How consumers react will determine with 2009 is a good or bad year for the company. If sales pick up strongly, helped by the release of key first-party title Killzone 2 (due for release next week), then Sony should be able to make more headway at closing Microsoft’s installed base lead. However, if sales don’t show a significant uptick, Sony faces a tough year ahead. Microsoft has extremely deep coffers and its core Windows business is relatively recession-proof due to the ubiquity of the PC platform.

Microsoft can force the pricing of the Xbox 360 lower in response to Sony’s price-cut. As the economic downturn continues to bite, consumers are likely to be even more price conscious and Sony finds itself caught out by events, whereas Microsoft’s hand looks to be coming good. The Blu-Ray drive, which is mainly responsible for the high price of the console, now looks more of a burden that an advantage, for more than one reason (more of that in my next post!)

So are we looking at a 'high noon' moment for Sony? I certainly feel that if sales don't pick up over the spring, they may have to finally concede that they are not going to end up in #1 place this console generation. The global recession certainly provides them with some cover to admit to less than stellar performance. I wouldn't be surprised to see some Scooby Doo-esque statements around E3 time - "we would have gotten away with it as well, if it wasn't for that pesky recession!" It can certainly be argued that this would be healthy for Sony compared to the astronomical levels of hubris displayed in previous years.

Killzone 2 is also an interesting game to examine. It is getting good reviews and will undoubtedly help sales, but I don't feel that Killzone as a brand has become strongly linked to the core Playstation brand in the way that Halo and now Gears of War have becomed entwined with the Xbox brand (of course, that very closeness is a big factor in the difficulties Microsoft has had in expanding the Xbox 360 demographic away from core gamers!) Perhaps this is because the original game launched late in the PS2 lifecycle whereas it is usually games released at the console's launch or soon after that get associated with a platform in the collective consciousness. I don't think there is a big rump of people who are holding off buying a PS3 until Killzone 2 ships, whereas I'm fairly certain there were significant numbers of people who waited for the likes of Metal Gear Solid 4 (and may be waiting for Gran Turismo 5). The series just doesn't have that sort of fanatical following.

More "Trends in Gaming" later this week.

Trends in Gaming: 2009 will be the year DLC gets done right

In the coming weeks, I’ll be posting a number of articles making predictions about the industry for the rest of the year.

As the year begins, I find myself looking forward to extra downloadable content (DLC) for many of the games I bought in 2008. The new Knothole Island area and items for Fable 2 (already out), the new maps (including the Dawn of the Dead Mall) and modes for Left 4 Dead, the Lost & the Damned expansion for GTAIV (out today), the Beneath the Ashes and Lara’s Shadow levels for Tomb Raider: Underworld - not to mention three separate sets of DLC for Fallout 3 (though I need to play the main game first in that instance).

We’ve come a long way from the "Horse Armor" debacle of 2006 and Bethesda, after that initial mis-step, are leading the way. The Shivering Isles and Knights of the Nine expansions are widely considered some of the very best pieces of DLC to date and people have high hopes for the Fallout 3 expansions.

All the content I’ve listed is premium content (PDLC) – you have to pay for it. Getting the pricing and message for DLC right is of vital importance to publishers as gamers are liable to react badly if they feel (whether rightly or wrongly) that content was cut from the main game so that it could be sold to them for further money at a later date. PDLC that is exclusive to one format is an explosive mixture, as format holders’ non-disclosure agreements will almost certainly prevent the publisher and developer adequately explaining the situation to the consumer. The furore over the TRU content that still rages on the Tomb Raider messageboards is a very good example of this.

Despite these potential pitfalls, in 2009 DLC will become a key part of the console gaming landscape. Publishers are beginning to get a feel for what is the right price and understanding the kind of backlash that poor pricing choices can lead to. DLC keeps your consumer coming back to your game and makes them think twice about trading it in, helping to combat the pressure that used game sales are putting on new sales. Publishers have to give a cut of PDLC sales to the format holders but this is preferable to retail, where they are giving a cut to the retailer and the wholesale distributor on top of paying the format holder's licence fee and manufacturing costs. This is a huge incentive to publishers to maximise revenues and customer retention via prudent releases of DLC .

Perhaps even more importantly, there is fast becoming an assumption among consumers that all A-grade titles will be supported after release with DLC and once this is fully embedded in the consumer mindset, titles that don’t conform will be increasingly seen as second rate. Looking at the Christmas just gone, it is already hard to cite major titles that don't have at least some form of DLC in the pipeline. The Lost and The Damned is getting good reviews and is a major chunk of content, with hefty in-store promotion in the form of a branded points card. It is likely to set the trend for major expansions to the original game, set in the same city, as opposed to the Liberty City, Vice City, San Andreas progression of full-game releases in the PS2 era.

It should also be noted that the extensive catalogues of songs being released for the competing Guitar Hero and Rock Band franchises are also doing a great deal to break down barriers to people buying additional content for their games by direct download.

Personally, I'm pleased to have an excuse to go back to games for a second blast and it gives people who missed a game the first time round a chance to jump in, safe in the knowledge that other people will be playing the game (I'll be trying to get MuppetThumper to try Left 4 Dead when the DLC hits).

Stay tuned for more predictions!

No more missing pieces

Continuing my "games with Puzzle in the title" start to the year, the second XBLA game that I completed in January was Puzzle Arcade. This is a jigsaw puzzle game (the reason that "jigsaw" doesn't appear in the title is that it is not used to describe this sort of puzzle outside of the English-speaking world) that I signed for Eidos in 2006. The original design (then called "Fractal Jigsaw") came from Say Design in California and the 'heavy lifting' was done by CTXM in Latvia.


The thinking behind the project was to find a universally understood casual gaming concept that could support multiplayer play and hopefully emulate the huge success of Uno on the platform. Jigsaws are enjoyed all around the world and an electronic version offers big advantages over the traditional form - you don't have to worry about losing pieces, it doesn't take up your dining table for days at a time, you can work on many puzzles at once, you can get assistance if you are stuck and you can attempt puzzles that would be too large to complete in your house. The original design envisaged a massively mutliplayer element to the game; hundreds of players would be able to collaborate to complete enormous puzzles, much bigger than the largest real-world puzzles, of perhaps even millions of pieces. These larger puzzles would be split down with each piece being made up of smaller pieces, and those smaller pieces being likewise divided, hence the 'fractal' part of the title.

Unfortunately, the server backend requirements for this feature stopped it being cost-effective and the massively multiplayer feature was cut (the fractal puzzles remain). However, the finished game is still a fun collection of jigsaws with a good variety of single and multiplayer modes and while it is not going to review highly due to the type of game it is, it is good to see that many people who have played it really enjoyed it. As for me, I've beaten the challenge mode but I'm going to need to put a lot of time aside to get the 'Kilopiece Colossus' achievement for completing a 1000-piece puzzle.


If you own an Xbox 360 connected to the internet and you've not played Puzzle Arcade yet, I have got five unlock codes for the full game that I am giving away to the first five random internet denizens who read this and drop me an email. Email blog at unfriendlyghost.com with the subject line "Puzzle Arcade competition".

A puzzling start to the year

Late last year, I had a bet with my friend the MuppetThumper that I could finish all the Xbox 360 retail games that I owned on the last day 2008 by the last day of 2009. This means that I need to complete over 20 X360 titles in the year, on top of whatever new games I decide to play (and I have nine systems to choose from!) Of course, as a zen master of displacement activity, I immediately set to playing XBLA games rather than retail ones. Thus the first game I completed in 2009 was the excellent Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords from Infinite Interactive.

If you're a regular gamer, Puzzle Quest probably doesn't need much of an introduction. Its marriage of the addictive match-3 gameplay of Bejeweled with a traditional fantasy setting, evolved from Infinite's long-running Warlords series of games, made it one of the cult hits of 2007, particularly on DS. I was actually shown the game in prototype form at GDC 2005, their agents demoing on a laptop in the coffee area. It was clear that the basic gameplay was fun and easy to grasp, but the game faced big hurdles. Infinite were (and still are) a small developer, located in Australia (a long way from most publishing head offices) with a track record of fantasy RPG games (not a sexy genre for videogame execs) and 'casual gaming' had not yet penetrated into the industry consciousness to the point where CEOs were chasing a non-core gamer demographic or developers churning out clones. The game would have been laughed out of our boardroom at the time and so I didn't push hard to sign it. Thankfully for all of us, D3 Publisher had the vision to sign the game and thus reaped the rewards - the game is currently available on DS, PSP, PC, PS2, PS3, Wii and IPhone.

If you've not played the game, be warned that it is exceedingly addictive - true "digital crack". In the process of completing it, I played past 3am, to the point where I could barely focus my eyes. Genre-combining games often fail because one part of the game is neglected or simply more poorly executed than the rest, but in this case, the game away from actual combat is lovingly crafted. There's depth to the RPG elements (the different classes play very differently for one thing) and the writing stops the storyline descending to high camp melodrama through the injection of some good humourous touches such as Khalkus, a dwarf who just won't shut up and Drong, a troll with an insatiable appetite. This article on Gamasutra puts forward a theory on why the RPG genre was the perfect fit for this sort of game design mash-up but Penny Arcade's take sums up many people's initial reactions to the game.

Shortly, we'll need to begin calling it by its full name, as the hex-based sci-fi themed sequel, Puzzle Quest: Galactrix, is almost upon us - you can try a demo at their website.

I've got a good feeling about this!

Left 4 Dead is my Game of the Year 2008 and here's why - coming soon!

Wow, it's been a long time

There I was, happily blogging away, when real life got in the way a little bit, in the form of upheaval at work mainly. Thankfully, things have mostly sorted themselves out now and I'm hopefully going to be able to post regularly again.

Since I last posted, I've put a lot of time into a number of games, all of which I hope to say something about in coming weeks: Crackdown, Eternal Sonata, The World Ends With You, Mass Effect, Soul Bubbles, Boom Blox, Ticket to Ride, Braid, Elite Beat Agents, Age of Conan, and today, the Fable 2 Pub Games on XBLA.

Some people would argue that gambling is no fun unless it's for real money, but I disagree. I find it strangely relaxing (and almost hypnotic after a while), particularly card games, and Fortune's Tower (the card game in the package) definitely delivers, with its constant stick-or-twist dilemma. Keystone is a more complex form of craps and is good fun too. But the weak link is the Spinnerbox games, which are effectively increasingly complex 'pure chance' fruit machines - pay your money, hit the button, see if you win (but mostly you lose. A lot.)

Despite them, if you enjoy frittering away virtual coinage on games of chance, check out the trial version. If you later buy Fable 2, you can use the game to gamble with your in-game gold, which sounds like a good idea, but will probably lead to virtual bailiffs, virtual gamblers anonymous meetings, etc. Just remember: