Gears: it’s pretty good

For the first hour, I actually despised Gears of War. It was too hard, the controls were stiff and demanded too many button presses, it was obnoxiously loud (still is, in fact) and the shoulder pads are /ridiculous/.

But I’ve been playing practically all weekend. And now I think it’s terrific. Here are some random thoughts why.

1) It’s astonishingly, hilariously violent.
Rather than a bayonet, the basic COG marine rifle has a hedge-trimmer clipped to the end allowing you to slice enemies from forehead to groin. That in itself is quite funny. But it’s just the start. In a game this afternoon, I pulled out from cover to ambush an enemy with the shotgun. In a single blast I blew away his entire top half. I swear his legs carried on running for two steps. The game is full of this absurd viscera - sniper headshots are met with the top of the victims skull popping off, post-chainsaw you’re left with two chunks of floppy ragdoll meat, you can attach grenades to bad’s backs, and run away giggling…

Worst/Best of all, you can ‘down’ a player or enemy leaving him panting on the floor. To finish him off, just press X to curb stomp’ his head, American History X style.

2) Guns are fun
My favourite weapon is the Torque Bow - it’s a futuristic longbow that fires explosive rounds. Once they’re embedded in flesh they take two seconds to cook off, before popping in a fountain of gore. Key to why it’s so fun is that hysterical two second timer. Online, you can giggle as the victim realises his fate. In the campaign, it’s a time to wait and wonder - did it hit? Clearly, someone at Epic spent months toying with this stuff until they got them perfect. Good job.

3) The cover system actually worksAfter the first act, you’re soon comfortable with sliding from column to column to column, SWAT-turning to find a better shot, flanking suppressed Locusts, or just hiding while you recover a bit of health. In one firefight this evening, I caught one half of my brain watching the other respond to the fight. It was one of those moments of gaming detachment where you can’t quite believe what your fingers are doing. On-screen, these pitched street battles looked incredible - a teenage boys fantasy.

4) It gets pacing and emotional hooks.

My favourite scene isn’t a combat sequence - it’s when you enter a tin-shack ’stranded’ settlement - they’re the humans left behind by the Locust attacks. As you walk through the town, shutters slam down, a father sends his daughter back into the house, and a street-chef takes a break from cooking rats to heft a pick-axe. Just in case.

The basic story is kept ultra-simple: plot device could save the human race, find a deliver McGuffin to cause Locust genocide but there’s quite a few allusions to the wider world and conflict - the Stranded view you as a fascistic police force, most of the lead characters are given decent backstories and sub-plots (I really liked Cole in all this), and there’s a whole section in an underground emulsion mine - a natural fuel -something the Locusts appear to value highly. Is that why this war began… ? Gears isn’t Thomas Hardy, but it’s just enough to lose yourself in.

5) Co-Op
Is brilliant, and both split-screen and online. It comes alive when two of you take on a well defended position, offering covering fire and sightings. If you have a friend who likes teh g4mes, play this with them.

Frustrations. Yeah.

It’s nowhere near perfect, though. There are a few AI bugs, where friendly soldiers will just stand and be shot at (particularly in the hardcore mode, exactly when you need them) which for a high profile Christmas blockbuster feels unacceptable. The first hour is uncomfortable as you learn the new control system. The indoor levels are tight, perhaps too tight for those shoulderpads - your way is often blocked by a hulking man with a rifle.

Most of all though, I wish it was just slightly smarter. It has a really annoying tendency to shoot itself in the foot with obviously scripted battle sequences, and disregard for emotional connections the game has made in the past levels. It drives me mad when a particular enemy demands a certain weapon to kill, two of which just so happen to have been left by a window that provides the perfect firing spot. Hammer of Dawn? Hammer of Yawn, more like.

And for all the hard work Epic put into the Stranded Settlement, it’s undone with the later defense of the same town. I can cope with lots of Locusts attacking from the street, trying to scale the walls - I’ve got a reason to fight for this. What I can’t cope with is when four of the ‘Boomers’ (big chaps carrying rocket launchers) spawn behind the walls, as a cheap climax to a brutal siege. Why didn’t they just do that in the first place, and spare us the trouble. And surely this means the settlement is uninhabitable, now, so shouldn’t we evacuate these people?

And the vehicle sections are shit. And I wish less racist teenagers were playing online. Still.

8ish/10

Age Concern

I have a secret addiction to Strictly Come Dancing.

No. I don’t want to talk about it.

David Braben is downstairs, and I just spent ten minutes rubbing jam into my editor’s chest. And it’s only Monday!

From Cradle to Grave (via RAID array)

Millions of personal medical records are to be uploaded regardless of patients’ wishes to a central national database from where information can be made available to police and security services, the Guardian has learned.Details of mental illnesses, abortions, pregnancy, HIV status, drug-taking, or alcoholism may also be included, and there are no laws to prevent DNA profiles being added. The uploading is planned under Whitehall’s bedevilled £12bn scheme to computerise the entire health service.

The NHS wants to create a national database of medical records, without your permission. 250,000 NHS staff will have access to your records. Feel safer yet?

So you want to be a games journalist?

The sensible part.

Friends and I are to be posting a series of essays on how to be a games journalist. Our field requires a constant input of new talent – talent that’s currently being sucked up by the web, but drowned out in the general noise of dumb blog churn. If you want to do this, you should be reading the entire series. Some of the advice will be contradictory; some of it will outright disagree. But at least it’s from those who’ve been there, and done that.

 

 

See also:

Tom, John, The Three, Bill, Mathew, Log, Richard, Kieron, Stuart, The Affectionate One

Important questions to begin:

a) Why do you want to do this?

b) What do you expect to get out of this?

So know this: when you start, you’ll be earning less than peanuts. I started on under 12 grand a year – I now earn more – but my career rise has been slightly quicker than most. For that amount of money, on a magazine you’ll be expected to write around 25 pages per issue. When you start, it’s certainly not going to be the big lead review, either. You’ll be writing the stuff you probably skipped over when you read the magazine – quiz pages, directories, shit reviews, news-roundups. Big reviews are usually kept back for known writers – those who an editor can rely on to produce sparkling copy super-fast, and have a track record. When we look at new hires, we’re not necessarily looking for the guy who has an encyclopaedic knowledge of early 90s strategy gaming. We’re looking for someone we know we can share an office with, and we can trust to ping-pong across the planet to be our epresentative to a developer. We’re looking for someone who can pick up the phone and not sound like a serial killer. We want someone reliable enough to hand in copy on-time, to deadline, with all the elements required. And someone who showers regularly (you’d be surprised). If the answer to the above two questions was a) not that much and b) because actually, I really care, continue.

How do you get in?

1) Start writing now. Review the games you have now. Start a blog, start poking people for email interviews, start making posting online, start making noise. Write about what you care about. People are paid real money to find new writers. If you’re good enough, they will come to you.

2) Do work experience. Four of those who have come for work experience at PC Gamer have been hired by games magazines within Future. They all came into our office for a week, wrote well and got on with the team. This is important.

3) Pitch freelance. Most of our freelance writers, and most new starters want to sit and write reviews. Too few people come to me with ideas for features. This is a problem. In our regular freelance pool, we have five or six guys who’ve been doing this for years. We trust them and our readers trust them. You’re not going to break into that inner circle any time soon. Instead, come to me with ideas for what I should be covering. I promise only to nick the best ones.

The informal guide

Don’t be a donkey, and you’ll probably do quite well at games journalism. Seriously. One of my friends from university moves poo from test tube to another. Someone else works in a food processing plant putting lettuce in your sandwiches. Compared to them, I have the best job in the world.

So what do I do? I’m deputy editor of PC Gamer. Half my day is spent on the phone – talking to the PR reps that act as the gatekeepers to games industry and talking to our freelancers who write up to half of the magazine. With them, I’ll commission copy, talk through their work, chase up any late text or missing elements. Meanwhile, I’ll talk through pages with our art team – because magazine journalism is 50% writing, 50% making the words look pretty. 50 % more of my time is spent talking through mag strategy: what’s to be our next big review, how the flat-plan is shaping up, what we should put in the next issue. And my final 50% is spent working on copy – writing or re-writing. And yes, I’m well aware that there are many halves to a whole.

What am I looking for? I want to work with people who are smart, who make me laugh, and who are going to put in the hours when a deadline goes to shit. That is all. Even though we don’t look it all of us who do this job are professionals, and we look down on those that don’t act like it. I like dealing with grownups.

There’s no real secret to getting involved. If you want to join a magazine, then you need two skills: language and half a social life. Both can be learned – the last one involves going to university to kiss other humans, the first one means reading everything you can get hold of, and thinking about why it’s good. When you get there, be courteous and professional when you speak to people, and have ideas. Write like you mean it, write what you want to read, and understand your own limitations.

If you want in, I might be a good place to start. Email me samples, and we’ll go from there.

(Of course. We haven’t covered how to be a good games journalist yet. Another group post, eh?)

 

 

Emotional baggage

Baggage handlers are cunts. And it’s next to impossible to report a crime in Britain. This is a true story.

Summary for the lazy: British Airways lost my case, things got nicked from it, crime pays, and the police service are nigh on incomprehensible

I’ve just got back from a quick work trip to Seattle. Seattle is lovely: it’s is full of nice people who give you bags of plastic cockroaches in exchange for heckling (improv night at comedy club, we win prizes for shouting out ludicrous selections), turn you upside down at a moments notice (simulator at the Museum of Flight), and try to kill you with food (dear god family dining is not meant for small men).  

Then, things started happening. I lost at an RTS. Repeatedly. I managed to lose the exit card from my passport. I tried to eat my own weight in fresh fruit and eggs benedict. And British Airways sent my case to Portugal.

Arriving back at Heathrow, we said our goodbyes at the carousel. My bag was taking a little longer than everyone else’s, so I waved them off. When it still didn’t appear, I was left to poke the nice man at the lost luggage desk.

“Where’s my case?”

“Fill out this form. It should placate you while we ring round the airport.”

“Pardon.”

“Haha. Your case is in transit to Portugal. Sorry about that. We’ll get it back to you tonight.”

Honestly, I was faintly pleased about all this. The worst part about traveling is the final journey home; carrying baggage on a train while trying desperately not to fall asleep. I hate that bit. If BA wanted to send my case direct to my door, so be it.

Two days later, it arrives. In a plastic bag. The case has been cracked open, and the contents are spilling out. Someone has opened it up, and had a rifle through my pants. Fuck.

Worse - when I finally open the bag and take a look, I discover that my minidisc player, which I use for recording interviews has been nicked. So has the mic, and so has my camera. They’ve also nicked a second passport I have to carry around for its visa. And they’ve lost my place in the book I was reading.

It takes an hour and a half of waiting* to speak to BA’s customer service.

“That’s a bummer. But hey! Thank goodness BA are exempt from providing compensation in the conditions of travel! Isn’t that lucky!”

“So you mean, actually, that even though someone has stolen my things under your care, you’re waiving any responsibility.”

“If you want to make an accusation like that, then you’ll have to make it to the police.”

“Well I just might do that.”

I tried reporting it to my local station. Or the call center you’re routed to when you call your local station.

“Nah, mate. You don’t wanna report it to ahhsssss. Talk to Thames Valley, mate. Their jurisdiction, innit!”

“I don’t fink so,” says Thames Valley. “Don’t have governance over Heefrow. Try there.”

“Can’t prove nothin’. Impossible to investigate. Why y’bovverin’, mate? Crime number for the insurance? Just talk to your local station.”

I’m finally routed back to Bath, and a local crime manager. He is a beautiful oasis of sanity in an increasingly mad world of call centers and hold tunes. He takes my details. He curses BA. He asks why I was in Seattle, and soothes my nerves. He even offers victim support. And then he brings up the horrifying reality of identity theft.

“You see. Now they’ve got a passport, they could go into the records and ask for a copy of your birth certificate. And maybe, after that, they could open a bank account, or apply for a credit card.”

Oh shit. What should I do.

“Inform the Passport Agency that your passport has been nicked. And you should probably contact the American Embassy.”

More call centers, more insanity. The Passport Agency ask me to fill out three forms, each of which requires my passport number. The number on the passport that’s been stolen. The American Embassy charge me £1.20/minute to be put on hold while they laugh at my misfortune. And during the second call to the Passport Agency, they try and convince me to drive to Newport to convince them in person.

I think I might cry.

But I got promoted this week. And the cockroaches made it home JUST FINE. So on balance, I think I’ve had a great week.

*This is literally no exaggeration. The first number I called, the central baggage processing unit wouldn’t take calls - they left a message saying “we’re currently closed (while we rifle through your stuff). Please call back between the hours of 6am and 10 pm.” It was 3,30 pm.

Revenge of the brick!

Mini-fig review: Lego Star Wars 2: The Original Trilogy? Two sore thumbs up! (I’m playing on the PSP).

It led me to this. Win.

Wii don’t know

Last night, Nintendo held a press conference in Japan to announce pricing and launch details for their new console. This is a big deal for both gamers, and the industry. So it’s only natural that the press cover this in detail.

Bloggers, of course, fall over themselves to be the first with the announcements - you should see them at the big events: barging up to the front to take blurred digi-cam photos of the chairs speakers will be using, or hammering their keyboards so loudly you can’t actually hear what’s being said. You’ll probably get a better view if you watch one of the live teleweb-streams

Last night, however, one site, which I’m not going to name, because it’s just cruel, totally outdid themselves.

Their commentary started with the usual pre-amble. We’re here, we’re queueing, we’re so PUMPED. It’s going to be SO AWESOME. What will Iwata (Nintendo’s top Nintendog) announce? What will the launch games be? Then, lights dim, and off we go.

But something’s up. Regular Iwata fanciers, those watching the web-feed, note that he’s wearing the same suit from his last conference. And hang-on, aren’t these sales figures for the DS compared to PSP a little out of date. Hmm. Maybe it’s all okay: after all [siteinquestion] is there, and they’re reporting LIVE!

No. Actually. This is definitely last years conference. WTF?

OMGLOLROFL. [Siteinquestion] pulls their coverage, announcing that they’ve been linked to the wrong feed. No apologies, or back-tracking to announce that actually, they weren’t at the conference. Just a red-faced CTRL-C, CTRL-V monkey, and those foolish, and laughing and pointing from those insomniacs willing to stay up late.

For those who want the details, Reuters has a good precis.

Alyx, my dear

In a fit of interview pique, I once asked Gabe Newell if it was permitted to fancy Alyx, the computer generated star of Half-Life 2. His answer was simple: “get in line buddy. We all love her.”

But that doesn’t excuse this.

  I guess this was kind of inevitable.

But this is all kinds of wrong.

Footnote: searching for Alyx on Flickr throws up hundreds of young girls, maybe 3/4 years old. Geek dads win.

Message in a bottle: DO NOT OPEN

Here’s the problem: we’re dumping a few thousand square tonnes of highly toxic waste in the centre of the desert. How do we keep curious humans out, in 2000 years time?

“We looked at what messages had come from deep in time to the present, like the pyramids,” explains David B. Givens, an anthropologist specializing in non-verbal communication who helped conceive the warning system. “It boils down to stones,” he says — the only medium so far to have established a track record of retaining messages for as long as 5,000 years.

Wired on storing waste.

It is astonishing that we’re still working on disposing of this waste, while we continue to pump it out.