Rage Day 3 Part 1

As a wise man once said – “All good things must come to the business end of an assault shotgun.” So too must rAge 2011 come to a close. Many were the footsore yet grinning faithful who passed the show’s doors, replete in their experience of all things gloriously gaming. Achievement Unlocked: Epic Expo Attended! Thank you to everyone who visited, and for those who couldn’t escape the sinking ship or collapsing building, we hope you’re not too far from a save point and can make it next year.

The NAG Gaming League finals for Black Ops took place today – after many rounds which all displayed a very high level of skill, the final match came down to Konsentrasie Knights versus Vitriolic. The games in this last round were generally close, plus the occasional white wash on both sides and some truly heroic frags. KK took the first map with a decent lead. Although they initially struggled a little in the second map (with Vitriolic taking advantage of this) after several games KK found their pace again and proceeded to win, making the final score 2-0. All the finalists went home with some excellent prizes. Congratulations to all the teams that took part, and especially to KK for a solid victory.

Posted by Richard Jenks Oct 03, 2011

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RAGE DAY 2 PART 2

Day 2 has come to an end, and an excellent time was had by all. With so much to see and to do it’s remarkable that anyone made it out of the maze of sheer awesomeness. However, NAG apologises for its oversight in not providing free drool cups with every ticket – we’re very sorry for this and will force ourselves to play nothing but bad Commodore 64 games for at least 6 hours.

NAG was privileged to interview Julien Cuny from Ubisoft Montreal and Pierre de Margerie from Ubisoft Paris, both of whom travelled all the way down to our tip of the African continent to share some the exciting new developments they’re working on. Julien is the transmedia director, and is involved with the additional universe-building endeavours for Assassin’s Creed. There is some truly great material on its way, such as the animated film AC Embers which involves narrative beyond the scope of the games in the series, and the remarkable AC Encyclopaedia which is a comprehensive and lavishly illustrated guide to every facet of the AC world. Pierre is head of the Ghost Recon Future Soldier 3C (Character, Camera, Control) team as well as coordinating the work of animation engineers programmers, animators, and designers. We’ll have full interview reports in the coming week, so keep an eye out for all the juicy details.

Posted by Richard Jenks Oct 01, 2011

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RAGE DAY 2 PART 1

Day 2 of rAge 2011 saw a an atmosphere of excitement and curiosity pervading the air as a massive number of the gaming faithful turning out to enjoy the wide variety of entertainment on offer. We spent some time with a whole array of hot playable games across genres and platforms. Here are some of the highlights:

Posted by Richard Jenks Oct 01, 2011

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rAge Day 1

The shambling crowd of restless undead shuffled to and fro in front of the large glass doors, their eyes hungry. Listening closely, a word could be heard through the ravenous moans… no, not “braaaiiinss…” but “gaaaamess…” The scent of that which they desired was everywhere, the source tantalisingly close. Suddenly, the doors burst open and the shuffling bodies were galvanised into frenzied energy and they dashed forwards, intent on ruthlessly devouring the endless array of gaming awesomeness that lay beyond…

rAge 2011 kicked off today, the highlight of the year for all those to whom gaming is more than just a pastime but rather a way of life – be it electronic in the form of Xbox, Playstation, PC , Wii or 3DS, or the more traditional dead-tree form of board and card. This year’s expo is the largest yet, with every square meter of floor space given over to numerous and varied shrines of gaming excellence. The number of playable titles is staggering, and getting to grips with the latest and greatest unreleased titles alone is worth the visit. Add the huge selection of hardware, prizes and gaming culture, and you have a recipe for kickass event.

Posted by Richard Jenks Sep 30, 2011

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An introduction to role-playing games, part 2

Welcome to part 2 of our introduction to role-playing games. If you haven’t read part 1, head over there first: clicky clicky. We return to our intrepid (if somewhat hapless) adventurers…

Elf: I raise my bow and aim it at the newly-opened, secret entrance , but I don’t enter yet.

Priest: I move up to support the Elf, if necessary – there could be anything in there.

Dwarf: I do the same. Wizard, you replace the Priest at the other doorway – the noise from that secret door opening may have attracted any nearby monsters.

Wizard: What?! Alone?

Dwarf: Just do it! Make yourself useful and be ready to blast anything that comes down the corridor.

Wizard:

Boogidy-boo!

Fine. If you hear a brief scream followed by squishy gristle noise you’ll know I’ve been eaten.

Elf: I look into the secret area – what do I see?

Storyteller: You see a dusty corridor leading away, but it extends beyond the reach of you light.

Elf: Okay. I light a torch and toss it down the corridor.

Storyteller: The torch lands with a puff of sparks. After about 30 feet the corridor opens into a room, but you can’t quite see how large it is.

Elf: Do we hear anything?

Wizard: What, like the sound of drool dripping to the floor from slavering jaws hungry for tender adventurer flesh?

Storyteller: The Wizard’s incessant complaints make it difficult to hear anything.

Dwarf, Priest, Elf: Quit your bitching, Wizard!

Wizard. Hmpf. Fine. I’ll die quietly. And no, you can’t have my stuff.

Storyteller: You listen intently – at first there is silence, but you begin to discern a dry rustling followed by scraping sounds.

Dwarf: Right, it looks like we’re in for some action, people. I’ll stand in the doorway. Elf, you shoot over my head if you see anything. And aim high, dammit – this is a brand new helmet. Priest, you get ready to join me if there are multiple enemies. Wizard, pay attention to your corridor – we don’t want anything sneaking up on us from behind.

Wizard: muttergrumble…

Storyteller: The rustling sounds continue, and you soon hear irregular footsteps. At the edge of the torchlight you see humanoid shapes appear, but with much less mass than any living creature. As they begin to move down the corridor you see the shapes for what they really are – the horrifyingly animated remains of long-dead people. Ambulatory skeletons, as dry as the dust beneath your feet, clad in rotting armour and clutching corroded weapons in their twiglike fingers. They slowly approach, their movements jerky but full of intent. As they draw nearer, you see baleful red light glowing in their hollow eye sockets, and you can hear ancient leather creaking and cracking.

Wizard: See?! Exactly what I said! Hideous, brutal, bloodthirsty, undead guards!

Elf: Argh! How many are there?

Storyteller: There are three of them, their fleshless feet clicking against the stone floor as each step kicks up a small cloud of dust.

Elf: I shoot at the closest one!

Dwarf: I set my feet and raise my axe, ready to swing at the first skeleton dumb enough to get close.

Storyteller: You are momentarily stilled by the malignant crimson glare from deep within

Not this.

undead eye sockets, in strange counterpoint to their fixed skeletal grins. These monstrosities are frighteningly unnatural and their presence sends a shudder up your spine. You summon your courage and prepare for battle…

While RPGs differ wildly in setting, play style and complexity, there are several themes common to many of them. The most prevalent is that of characters and storyteller. Characters are created by players according to a set of rules and vary hugely depending on the RPG in question. These could be fantasy-oriented sword-and-sorcery adventurers (like in the dialogue above), mercenaries and space pilots in a far-future sci-fi world, Victorian-era investigators, modern-day special ops soldiers – the list is almost endless. Characters are controlled by players as they explore the realm in question within a guided narrative.

Not this either.

This narrative is facilitated by the storyteller, usually referred to as the Game Master or GM (other titles include Dungeon Master, Narrator, Referee and occasionally That Grumpy Bastard). It is the GM’s job to create and administer every detail of the RPG world, manage the character’s actions in it, and direct the flow of the underlying story. Generally, one GM will run an RPG for multiple players, essentially acting as a conduit for the game’s mechanics.

Before a game starts the GM will envision and construct a story of epic scope, create a suitable setting, and populate it with myriad people, enemies and challenges. Once play begins, the characters will gradually progress through the story by exploring the world, interacting with various persons, battling foes and hopefully overcoming the obstacles in their way without being turned into piles of fine ash, monster food or messy bloodstains. It is the GM’s job to control the world and its inhabitants in response to the character’s actions within the framework defined by the RPG rules. What this results in is an extraordinary amount of fun and excitement for both GM and players, consumption of large amounts of junk food, and stacks of doodled paper (and every so often tragedy, frustration and hurling of dice, but we’ll come to that later).

In the next instalments of this series we’ll look at the fundamental game mechanics that govern these endlessly diverse realms, so stay tuned.

That's the one.

Posted by Richard Jenks Jan 04, 2011

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rAge Day 3 Gallery

Pixels for your visual cortex…

Posted by Richard Jenks Oct 03, 2010

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rAge Day 3

The third and final day of rAge 2010 has closed its doors, weary feet and button-fingers abound. Overall the expo was a great success, with something for pretty much everyone. If you couldn’t make it this year we’ll forgive you, and there is always next year.

We did some shredding with Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock, and while it’s milking the music game genre for yet more cash it’s the first sequel to really add new facets. Single player mode has a proper story, and your hero has to stop evil forces from releasing the God of Rock upon the world. Characters now have individual powers that affect gameplay in varied and interesting ways. Multiplayer sees some changes too, such as the ability to win a crowd over which allows a failed guitarist re-enter rather than simply losing the round outright. So if your partner sucks at the axe you can rip up a storm to compensate for his lack of metal.

Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood sees your character at the pinnacle of his career, with the ability to hire assassinlings, train them in the deadly arts, and send them on missions that are beneath your attention and sublime skills. As your influence spreads you are also able to invest in the city of Rome, lifting it and it’s populace up from oppression and decay. Brotherhood finally brings multiplayer to the series – each person controls an assassin with varied disguises and equipment available, and the object is to quietly snuff out the other players. Gameplay is subtle because you can’t simply run around making with the stabby. Drawing attention to yourself marks you for what you are, so you have to be sneaky and underhanded.

For racing fans, both F1 2010 and Gran Turismo 5 were available to play. F1 offers all the tracks, cars and teams a Formula One nut could possibly want. Reckon Lewis Hamilton drives like your grandmother? This is your chance to prove it. GT5 is nearing release after a very long wait indeed, but the time has been well-spent. Each and every one of the countless driveable cars has been painstakingly modelled all the way down to individual exhaust notes. Huge amounts of customisation and tuning contribute to a very versatile game.

The Frontosa and ASUS stands had some awesome overclocking going on throughout the expo, no doubt going through gallons of liquid nitrogen. The guys involved were always happy to answer questions, and never seemed to tire of people asking “What’s that foggy stuff coming out of that tube?” and “How fast does it run?”.

Legion Ink hosted an array of highly talented artists and designers with some truly world-class offerings from illustrations of hot babes to slavering monster sculptures to unique custom clothing. Each artist contributed their rendition of Sexy Ms. Mario and these original drawings were auctioned off for charity. It’s great to see such phenomenal skill in the local scene - keep up the great work guys!

If any of you have thought about trying your hand at making a game rather than just playing them, check out AD Game Programming Courses. They have a range of modules covering everything from the basics of programming languages to design and animation. And the best part is the courses are open to anyone in Grade 8 or older, so it’s easy to get started early while still offering the complexity required by adults.

SkyCastle games had a wide selection of board games on display for all your electricity- and upgrade-free requirements. All your favourite genres and titles are covered. Adaptations of StarCraft, Doom, World of Warcraft and many more offer some really interesting takes on video games, while the likes of Warhammer, Warhammer 40k and Call of Cthulhu present other well-known settings. Board games offer a great deal of complexity and enjoyment, and have the benefit of not needing a separate purchase for each player.

In the next few days we’ll have a retrospective, along with results of the LAN record attempt, so keep an eye / cybernetic implant / alien sensory apparatus peeled.

Posted by Richard Jenks Oct 03, 2010

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rAge Day 2 Gallery

A picture is worth a thousand words. Or around 200 000 bytes in this case. Enjoy ^_^

Posted by Richard Jenks Oct 02, 2010

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rAge Day 2

Day 2 of rAge 2010 has come to a close. Busy, teeming and packed are all appropriate words to describe the expo’s busiest day. Fortunately there was more than enough gaming awesomesauce to go around and no-one left unfulfilled.

The Next Big Things from Microsoft and Sony took up a big chunk of rAge floor space – both Kinect and PlayStation Move had large stands with multiple games of various genres on display. There was definitely no shortage of people eager to try their hand at these new interfaces, and much arm waving and butt shaking was in evidence. Kinect is impressive the first time you try it, with the device’s uncanny ability to track your movements providing a unique hands-free way to play. Even in the chaos of the expo, limb movement tracking was uncompromised and very effective. The Move takes a different approach, tracking handheld controllers – while this is not as flexible as Kinect’s full-body capability, it offers greater precision and this translates into more detailed game-world interaction. While one might feel a little silly waving a pair of pastel-coloured blobs around, the ease and efficiency of control far outweighs any shyness. Overall, the Kinect-enabled titles were primarily of the casual sort while the Move offered greater variety and included some more intense games.

We spent some time with Dragon Age 2, which is looking great. BioWare set out to improve the graphics over the first game, and it shows – big time. Visuals are sumptuous and there has been a great increase in detail. An interesting new feature is the framed narrative, a way of presenting the game’s story via another story – in practice, this will make the game more cinematic and dynamic. All in all there are a lot of improvements and additional polish to make Dragon Age 2 a worthy successor.

Dead Space 2 is nearing release at long last, and so far it’s exceeding expectations. The whole game is suffused with even more dread and imminent horror across varied and truly gorgeous-looking levels. To quote a passerby: “I dunno how anyone can play that without pooping themselves.” Interacting with the environment has become more important, and the cold vacuum of space takes on a whole new dimension as you use it to dispose of Necromorphs in a tidy manner. No mess, no fuss, no ruptured organs. There are new bad guys plus new weapons to eviscerate said bad guys, and all this means Dead Space 2 ain’t a simple, recycled sequel.

To help promote the upcoming title MMA, EA Sports treated the crowds to some full-contact mixed martial arts action. Several combatants from varying weight classes went toe-to-toe for 3 rounds of 3 minutes each, but in most cases the fights were over in short order. No punches were pulled, no quarter was given, and it was quite an experience to see authentic full-on combat . Despite the visceral nature of the sport all of the fighters exhibited admirable sportsmanship with handshakes and even embraces at the close of each match. The video game itself is highly accurate, featuring well-known fighters and established styles complete with training regimes to ensure your character is on top form for each match.

On stage we had a majorly epic breakdancing exhibition (check out the gallery for some action shots) and several giveaways from MSI including laptops, shirts and other assorted goodies. MSI also presented a very informative talk on overclocking, complete with fulminating liquid nitrogen.

In the artist’s area there was a quick-draw competition where competitors had 120 seconds to illustrate a random topic, from Spider-Man blowing up McDonalds to Knight Rider drowning in a toilet. This was followed by the cosplay contest which had a great turnout of contestants and featured some fantastic costumes covering a wide range of sources.

rAge may very well host a new Guinness World Record, assuming that at least 100 gamers can keep going continuously for more than 40 hours. The current record was set in 2009 at Cyber Fusion in Cyberjaya, Malaysia – but having spoken to some of the local players that won’t stand long!

Check in again tomorrow for more hands on reports, talks from developers on forthcoming titles and all the button-mashing and pixel-chewing you can handle.

Posted by Richard Jenks Oct 02, 2010

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