A planet you are going to want

Today was the day that the conference really got going. The exhibition was open and we had the first keynote presentation.

Crowd pleasing football

Before the presentation we played a kind of football, bouncing a large ball into goals each side of the auditorium. Our side lost. Then  it was on with the show. This one was from Sony, who make the awesomely powerful (so they keep telling us) PS3. Very little that I've seen of the PS3 has convinced me of this power.

With the exception of MotorStorm and some tech demos there has been little that has impressed  me about this machine so far. Namco should be singled out for an especially big kicking at this point, their PS3 versions of Tekken and Ridge Racer are a textbook exercise in lazy launch coding. I can understand the pressures that they must be under, but I still can't see  an excuse for serving up poor rehashes of previously great games. Anyhoo, I digress.

Fortunately today the talk was not pixel pushing power, but community. Things kicked off with a description of the Home service. This is not an old BBC radio channel, but a virtual world of take on your personal space on the PS3.

Coming to a life near you

You can wander through an advertising adorned 3D environment, select and position furniture and Sony products around the place and generally make your pretend existence and appearance better than the one you have at home. There is a community area too where you can play pool better than in real life, and a place to put the trophies from all the games you've bought.

There was no evidence of a world between these virtual spaces, so whether you can walk across rolling hills and ford babbling brooks to get to your friends pad for a spot of low quality Tekken remains to be seen, but if Sony get their act together on this one I can see property values in Second Life taking a bit of a downturn.

A virtual world worth visiting

At the end of the talk was the best bit. The game "Little Big Planet" takes social gameplay, realtime physics and the rendering power of the PS3 and creates a really fun place to be where you can build and modify the game environment as you play the game. This did look good, and had a Nintendo like appeal, in that I could actually see a game that was using the technology to make new kinds of gameplay experience.

At the end of the presentation I must admit that I'm now quite happy to be getting a PS3, something that I wasn't too sure of when I went in...

I am Number Six

Well, I've done it. I said I wouldn't, but I've done it anyway. This morning advanced orders for the Playstation 3 opened up and so I wandered into Game and slapped down my fifty quid deposit. (coincidentally, last night I found I was going to be paid for some of my work on "the book" and that is what made it possible - funny eh?).

The PS/3 might end up being owned by the department, depending on how much bother they have getting hold of one for launch day. Actually, things were a lot quieter than they might have been. I didn't get up extra early to go and put my name down, and I still ended up number six in the list. I'm not sure if this launch is going to be the complete sell out that some people are hyping it up to be.....

Anyhoo, it looks as if the Sony magnet has sucked me in again. And now I'm kind of looking forward to March 23rd. If only to see what happens on ebay.....

PS/3? Perhaps Not for Me.

So the PS/3 launch date has been announced. And the price. For the privilege of getting the machine five months late we suckers in the UK are having to pay nearly half as much again as people in other, luckier, parts of the world.

I was talking to a chap in one of the Game shops on Friday. He reckons that they will have to open the shop up early and get us to queue first thing in the morning just to reserve the thing. Not to buy it. So that means two early mornings and a whole slab of cash to play slightly better looking racing games than ones I have already. And do you know, for the first time in a long history of early adopting, I might not bother.

I've bought launch versions of both of the previous to Playstations. And the PSP. I have a "Sony reflex" which means that if I'm shopping for electronic goodies the Sony one is usually what I end up with. I really like their stuff. I even got one of their dogs for heaven's sake (and then they stopped making the Aibo - something I've never forgiven them for). But the PS/3 isn't really floating my boat just at the moment.  I know that the power is awesome. I know that it will play Blu-Ray movies in HD. I know that Sony are losing a fortune on each box that they sell.  And I know that it will be successful (in Japan at any rate).

But at the moment I'm OK for consoles. The XBOX 360 lets me play good quality, high definition, games. The Wii lets me just have fun. And as things stand I'm not sure what the PS/3 would bring to the party, apart from a bigger hole in my bank balance. Once I've bought the console, an extra controller, an HD lead and some movies and games I'm going to be out around 700 quid and I'm not sure that I'm up for that. Plus I know that I'm being ripped off just for living in the wrong country, and it will only get cheaper in the future....

Ho hum. Perhaps I'll change my mind. I'm keeping my name on the list, and I'm going to start a sort of PS/3 sinking fund and sell a few bits on ebay. But at the moment I just don't feel that motivated.

Game On with Bing

Yesterday we went off to London courtesy of Electronic Arts, who had arranged an all expenses paid (perhaps my favourite three words) trip to the Game On exhibition at the Science Museum with free beer (perhaps my favourite two words) and a talk from Bing Gordon, EA's Chief Creative Officer.

Just before we boarded the magic bus

We set off at 10:30 prompt, bound for London. The M1 was kind to us, so we got to the big city in good time. I'd taken the big camera, so it was time to go off and take some snaps.

The Natural History Museum looking good

We piled into the tube and took a ride up to Oxford Street.

Oxford Circus

Fruit and Veg

Then, at 6:30 the doors opened and it was, quite literally, Game on.

EA had set up some gamer pods around the museum. That big shiny thing at the back is the wing of a Spitfire plane.

Bigging Up Bing

First up was the talk from Bing Gordon. Very interesting. Some good comments about life, followed by some more specific discussion of video games.

Health note: these are pulled from my recollections, if anyone who was there remembers differently then I apologise in advance.

From the life point of view:

• Find out what you really enjoy doing and then try to get to do that as your day job.
• Don't be afraid to fail.
• Set yourself big goals (but make them testable so that you can decide when/whether you reach them)
• Maximise your learning opportunities
• Set very high standards and give everyone who fails to meet them a really hard time. There is nothing more demoralising than a boss who accepts poor quality work.

This is all good stuff. For me what was also interesting was that one of Bing's heroes is a chap called David Ogilvy. He was an advertising executive who ran some of the most successful campaigns of all time and went on to set up one of the largest Ad agencies in the world. I remember reading one of his books a long time ago (I've always found the advertising field fascinating) and I would advise you to take a look as well. Then the talk turned to games. More from Bing:

• Games are becoming hobbies (people play them in the same way that they would build model railways, or go fishing)
• Games are including things like searching, trading and community..
• .. and search engines and other tools are starting to behave like games
• By around 2012 we can look forward to movie level realism in games

There was a very good question and answer session at the end, and then the doors to the Game On exhibition were thrown open and it was time to get in there and start playing.

..but first a drink

Game On indeed

Not the kind of high score I'd take a picture of, but there you are

Jon Purdy gets back to basics

One of my all time favourites, Ridge Racer

Not sure quite what this is, but it looks fun.

I used to own quite a few of these....

Then, at 10:00 we all clambered onto the magic bus and headed back to Hull (I had a kind of bet with David Byrne from EA that all our students would turn up on time - and they did. Kudos guys).

Many thanks to the highway engineers who added around an hour to our journey back just because they wanted to play with their big Meccano near one of the bridges. I finally managed to hit the sack around 4:30 am, just as the birds were starting to sing. But it was a good trip.

Thanks to EA for setting it up and making us so welcome.

Warioware Smooth Moves for the Wii

I didn't mean to buy it. I'm supposed to be on iron rations and saving up my pennies for a Playstation 3 (which is going to take a lot of saving). But number one son told me to buy it "The best Wii game you can get at the moment" was how he described it.

So I weakened.

And do you know (and most annoyingly) I think he is right. I mean, it is bonkers. But I like bonkers. It is cute. But I can handle cute (within limits). I've loved the Warioware games ever since they first appeared on the Gameboy years ago. This one takes the idea (mad mini-games that take seconds to play which are thrown at you in rapid succession) and adds the new Wii controller, which is used in a variety of configurations including "The Samurai", "The Chauffeur" and one where you stick it on the end of your nose. Oh yes.

If you have a Wii you owe it to yourself (and the rest of your family) to get this disk of insanity. Last night I watched the pantomime, a show which managed to keep three generations amused at the same time. This game is one of the few that I've seen (and most of the others are on the Wii as well) which I reckon will do the same thing. Fantastic.

Delinquent Children

Number one son keeps getting busted by the police. One of his little prangs has just cost me 34,000 dollars and things have now got a lot worse. He's gone and bought a motorbike. Fortunately this is not real, this is Test Drive Unlimited for the XBOX 360, which is slowly taking over our lives. We've won a few races, run a few errands, bought a new house and spent a while exploring the neighbourhood.

I'm impressed with this game. The graphics are very believable, and the roads go on for ever. You start to explore places just to find out what is round the next corner. Perhaps we'll soon identify a few haunts to hang out at and get to know some of the locals.

If you like driving games and exploration you should track down a copy. Maybe we'll meet up in Hawaii.

Viva Pinata

I am weak. Very weak. Show me a sale with two XBOX 360 video games for 60 quid and I'm pretty much bound to buy a couple. To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, I can resist pretty much anything but temptation. I ended up buying Test Drive Unlimited, a game which lets you tear up and down great chunks of Hawaii in a fast car, and Viva Pinata, a gardening game. Number one wife noted wryly that the only time that I will actually do any gardening is inside a computer, and this seems to be the case.

In the game you create a nice garden in the hope that wandering pinata will come and live there, breed, eat each other, and form a living ecosystem. Pinata are animated versions of those things that kids at posh birthday parties in Mexican restaurants smash open to get out toys and sweets and there seem to be an unlimited number of these which can crawl, burrow, fly, swim and so on.

The game is aimed firmly at children, so I reckoned I would be able to cope. And so it seemed when I started. A friendly girl with a voice able to convey more enthusiasm than a very enthusiastic thing tells you what to do in awed terms, and introduces you to your toolkit noting that "If you hit your pinata with the shovel they may become ill". So let's play nicely out there kids.

Anyhoo, a lot happens in a very short time. Within an hour I had my version of a green and pleasant land running nicely and a few different varieties of pinata living side by side, eating, breeding and throwing fireballs at each other. And it looks very pretty. The clock spins in accelerated real time and the sun and moon wax and wane very effectively.

And I realised one more thing that differentiates me from youngsters (and probably lots of grown ups as well). I think that, once they have picked up the control system, kids would now have the patience and determination to try making different pinata, plant different seeds, build new types of garden, put their own drawings on their own breeds and do all the other things which make the game so much fun. But I couldn't be bothered. I turned the joypad over to number one son, who has more of an appetite for this kind of thing and wandered off to do some proper work. In a trice he had added a whole bunch of trees and species that would have taken me ages to sort out.

I think the snag is that at my age if I'm going to spend any amount of time in a learning curve I like to think that I'm going to get something concrete out of it at the end, and a pretty new pinata just doesn't cut it for me. For me the game is just too much like gardening, in that it requires effort and thought, and I'd rather put those into something else, like messing around with computers (which is probably how I really enjoy myself).

However, if you are looking for a game to play with your kids which is bright, colourful and creates a living environment with genuine causes and effects and unlimited scope for experimentation and cooperation, then you should take a look.

Wii Sunday

Had some of the family around for a meal today. Because I am a showoff I got the Wii out and we had a go at four player tennis. Great fun. Although we did hit the light fittings a few times.

I think that the Wii is probably going to change the way that people arrange their front rooms..

I've seen a PlayStation 3!

I have! There's one in a shop in the Prospect Centre in the middle of Hull. Very big and very shiny. It is not for sale (just as well) but it is definitely a PS/3. They were even letting people have a go on it. I watched someone playing a driving game, probably Ridge Racer. The car was shiny, the road and the landscape were detailed and things moved along very smoothy.

The kid at the controls had obviously played driving games before. He drove round the twisty highway with a miniumum of fuss and the occasional powerslide. It was hard to tell whether he was impressed or not.

And there's the rub. Wind back the clock 24 hours to the kids having a go on the Wii. They were waving, clapping and cheering. At the moment it seems to me that the PS/3 gives you a very high quality "same again" whereas the Wii gives you something totally different.

Even allowing for the fact that perhaps folks behave differently in shops, I reckon that this underlines the validity of the Nintendo approach. Perhaps over time the PS/3 will catch up and truly new forms of game will emerge as developers get the hang of its enormous power. But until then, I'm going to be in front of my Wii, waving the controller around like a mad thing.... 

I took the camera up town too:

Shiny building

This was in the art gallery. It is made entirely of seeds and flowers and should last around a week. Very clever.

The Day of the Wii

What a day. I'm exhausted. I was up really early after the bus trip yesterday, and zoomed up town to try and get hold of a Nintendo Wii console, which launched today in the UK. This was mildly important since today is our special Wii Open Day and a whole bunch of people are coming to see them. We have one running in our open area.

But we want more.

I had everything carefully planned down to the last minute. Into Game, grab the console and then back to the university in time to set it up. And then I saw the queue in the shop.  At 9:20 I was in the middle of paying for the console. And the first group were due to arrive at 10:00....

Fortunately it all went wonderfully well. Even better than that. Dr. Paul Chapman (who was in the paper and on the local TV yesterday demonstrating the worlds first paraglider trainer that he's just built at Hull) was able to show how is system works, and some of guests even got to have a go at flying. And we showed off the Hive setup. And we did some programming using XNA to take a look underneath the bonnet of a video game. And there was a lot of Wii time.

Then, after lunch, we did it all again. And followed it up with a student run quiz computer games quiz and further Wii play. For just about the whole day you could here howls of laughter and enjoyment as the little console worked it's magic.I took a whole bunch of happy snaps...

Getting Started

Letting fly with the controllers

Damian shows how to box in pink.....

In the USA people have been crashing into their tellys. I can see why.

Boxing was very popular for some reason

Remember to guard...

...and then punch

Jon congratulates the Wii winner on the day. And stands in the way of the projector . He  won't do that again...

Quiz Prizes

The end of a balanced meal

"Everybody say Wiiiiiiii!"

Second prize quiz winners

And the winners, who showed a deeply scary level of knowledge about computer games.....

Wii Week

"Batter Up" with Peter and Darren

Well, we have started our Wii Week. The machine arrived from Nintendo on Saturday, and we have set it up on in our open area for the week. The climax is on Friday, when we have some schools coming over for a look and we are going to have three or four systems running in the department.

I had a very quick go with Tennis, Baseball and Bowling. All I can say is "The system works". It works wonderfully well. It works "want one" well. The feeling of control that you get with the small gamepads is very good and surprisingly subtle.

The Wii is going to massively change gaming by adding a new level of fun (and probably fitness) as well. The games we played are all free with the console. And they are smashing.

There is no way that I can see the Wii being anything other than a hit with this kind of stuff available at the start. Wonderful.

If you are in the department, we are running the Wii from 12:00 to 1:45 pm each lunchtime. Feel free to drop round and have a go.

Wiik Ending

We've been preparing for the launch next Friday of the Nintendo Wii. I (of course) have got one on order, and I'm planning on heading up town at midnight on Thursday.

We're going to open up the department to kids from local schools and do some demos of research level motion sensing technology in our Hive Virtual Environment. And some of our stalwart students are bringing in their Wii machines to help show them off.

Today we heard from Nintendo. We've been pestering them to let us have a machine to demonstrate, and they' promised to let us have one of their store demo pods. Today they said "We're terribly sorry, we can't get the pod to you next week. We have to send it tomorrow. Is that a problem?"

Hmmmmm. Somehow I don't think so. With a bit of luck we should have the device running in our open area for most of next wiik.

Marvelous.

From Hero to Zero

I'm getting cross with my Guitar Hero game now. Although playing the game is great fun it does seem to have the knack of losing all my saved data. For the second time it has forgotten everything and lost all my hard earned progress. I'm pretty sure the game is at fault, in that the save file is there on the memory card (and I can copy it around and stuff) but the game just refuses to recognise it. Most annoying.

I think I'm going to put my PS2 version up for sale and then get the XBOX 360 version when it comes out.

Cheap, Great XBOX 360 Game

If you are in the UK, and are in the market for a good XBOX 360 game for less than 13 quid, toddle down to HMV and pick up a copy of Amped3 which is in their sale at the moment.

It is a snowboarding game. And a very good one. Some games feel kind of churned out. But with Amped3 I got the feeling that the development team really enjoyed themselves. A lot. They have taken the "silly" control and turned it all the way up to 11. Oh, there is lots of good snow. And very pretty mountains. And lots of things to do. And a nicely judged difficulty curve. But the thing that really does it for me most of all is the quality of the cut scenes and the challenges. These are just bonkers. I've only seen two, but the first one, "Wienerland", is worth the price of the game alone, and I'm definitely going to work my way through the rest of them, just to see what they are like.

If I had paid fully price for this game I would not have been dissapointed. I only didn't get it because I'm not mad about snowboarding games particularly. However, I am well happy if they are as mad as this one.

And at the price, a steal.

Oblivion with Cars

One of the wonderful things about the XBOX 360 is the way that you can download demos of games. Actually, this is probably not wonderful, more like expensive. I've already bought a couple of games on the back of this "feature". Darn it.

In the old days I had to wait until a magazine with a coverdisk came out. Nowadays I just leave the machine chugging for a couple of hours whilst the next potential wallet buster comes down the wires.

And so, I downloaded the demo of Test Drive Unlimited. This is a driving game. Actually, game is probably a bit of an understatement. It is more like a better version of life. You start off with a massive house in Hawii and a few cars in the garage. You look a lot cooler than you really do (at least in my case), and you seem to have a lot more spare time.

So you go for a drive. You can drive anywhere on the island. Happen you'll meet up with another driver, who may or may not be a real person. Happen you'll have a race. Happen you'll go the wrong way round the track, get hopelessly lost and embarras yourself. Or you might be more lucky than me. Anyway, if you win, money changes hands and you can save up for a new, even shinier car.

And so it goes on. The weather changes, the time of day changes. The road goes on, seemingly for ever. There are no loading screens. There is no slowdown. You can use your GPS to find things of interest and you can also meet up with your chums for races. When you sit in the car, you sit in the car. You can even make the windows go up and down.  

The car handling is realistic enough to be annoying. You can crash into things and do damage to them, but not apparently to yourself. If you are sufficiently naughty the police might want to take you to task. If you are feeling brave you can get on a motorbike instead.

When I first played Oblivion, the massive XBOX 360 roleplaying game, I was impressed by the way that the world was totally believable, and massive. Test Drive Unlimited is like that, but with cars and no loading delays at all. Folks, this is proper next generation gaming. Not a flashier version of an existing game, but a whole new immersive experience. If you have an XBOX 360 you should at least get hold of the demo of this game. Then, like me, you can start saving for the real thing...

Guitar Hero Quite Literally Rocks

One other birthday present that I was lucky enough to receive was a copy of the PS2 game "Guitar Hero". The first thing you notice about this game is the the controller. It is a plastic guitar, around three quarters the size of a real one, but still plenty big enough for posing.  On the fret board are six colour coded buttons, there is a plastic tag that you "strum" and a "whammy" lever for vibrato.

The basis of the game is the old "press the right button at the right place in the song" routine beloved of dance mats and bongo drums. But this time you are playing in a band and it is up to you to get the important riffs down.  Best of all, if you get the timing wrong there are a variety of "bum note" sounds which come out. Do this too often and the watching crowd gets restless. Do it too much and you get booed off the stage.  As things get more complex you have to play chords. And you get a special "Rock Star" mode where you can hold the guitar upright and really show off.

The game disk has all the rock standards you'd be expecting. Smoke on the water, More than a feeling, Killer Queen, etc etc. Not the originals, but well good enough.

We set it up at the party and it was in pretty much continuous use. Great stuff. You can even get a second guitar controller so that you can duke it out musically with a rival axemeister.

Strongly recommended. Oh yeah.

Table Tennis for XBOX 360

There is only one game that I will claim to be any good at. Oh, I can play tennis, and squash, and I have even been  known to turn up to (as opposed to play) rugby and cricket. My game of choice is table tennis. I have been known to beat people at that game. And I really, and I mean really, enjoy playing it.

So the XBOX 360 Table Tennis game by Rockstar was of more than passing interest to me. Particularly as it only costs thirty quid. This means of course that I have bought a copy.  And I have spent the last couple of hours playing it.  It is very, very, very, very good. Have I mentioned it is good?

The controls are simple, but you can do a lot with them. You have to watch the other player and the way they hit the ball to work out what it  is going to do.  Where you are standing affects how much you can do. I've found myself taking part in the game in just the same way as I do in the real one.  

The presentation is not particularly impressive, but everything is as it should be. The animation of the players is smooth and I like the way that their clothes flap about. The sound is spot on, you can get a feel for what is going on by the noise the ball makes as it hits the table and the bat.

I've won one tournament and it was fun. I've not quite got the hang of the controls yet, I tend to forget to make my player swing his bat, so that he just stands there like a dummy as the ball whizzes past. But I'm pretty sure that I'll get the hang of things quite soon. I've played a couple of XBOX Live games (lost one won one) and the experience was very smooth.

You can have a lot of fun with a simple bat and a ball. What Rockstar have done is taken that fun and put it into a video game. If you have an XBOX and a liking for ball games you should get this game.