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Ok this is a very short post, but a very sweet one.

An internet/ gaming cafe in Hawaii got robbed by some wannabe criminals…

I’d explain more but really the video speaks for itself.

Epic win.

Gamers unite against crime!

*fistbumps*

As there are a couple of game related things on my mind, so I figured I’d do the third installment of This & That.

First up ! ! !

OnLive

I’ve not really been following the progress of OnLive after it’s early days announcements and such.

Yet, too my surprise. I see the service is now LIVE for PC and Mac’s (only in America at present).

Now for those of you who are unaware as to what OnLive is…

It is basically a service that will allow you to play games on a computer without actually needing the ‘specs’ to run the game.  Essentially a high end server will run the game for you, and all you do is stream the game to your computer (meaning as long as your PC can support video streaming, you can play the latest PC games without needing to have the high end PC to run them).

When it was first announced it sounded a bit too good to be true.  Plus many people feared that the service would be riddle with lag.  Seeing as you don’t have the game running right in front of you, you would perhaps expect a bit of lag to come between you pressing the buttons and the game registering your inputs.

[Official OnLive website] [Wikipedia page for Onlive]

From reading ‘this blog post‘, it does seem there is the slightest bit of input lag when playing the games, whether that can be worked out, or if it just requires a faster internet connection, I don’t know…but really, lag is one of the worst problems a game can face. It can lead to a lot of detrimental problems in terms of online multiplayer, and will certainly be an issue with twitch sensitive played games, where the action is fast paced.  I guess this is a game by game problem though, as I can imagine playing something along the lines of an RPG wouldn’t cause any frustration through this type of service.

Another thing to think about in regards to OnLive is that you will never actually own the games.  You’ll be streaming the games…meaning you have no hard copy of it, and if OnLive ever went out of business, your copy of the game went out too.  From what I’ve gathered the games you get are on a rental-like service, *where you’d pay something like £5 (in the UK) and get the game for a week or something.  That’s cool I guess, for games you would only really play through once, but I personally find it’s nice to have some games sat in my collection at home, so I can replay the multiplayer whenever I want, or go back to replay harder difficulties, or explore new things, or even get some extra achievements/ trophies or something if I’m looking for further reasons to replay something.

*Obviously I’m just guessing these UK price plans at this stage.

It’ll be interesting to see how things evolve for OnLive, and I’ll keep an eye on it’s UK launch here.  OnLive also plan to release a sort of console equivalent/ set top box version, where people get the box, and a controller, and can play the games through there TV’s.  These will apparently cost much less than the home games consoles cost, so it will also be interesting to see just how much this cuts into the home console market.

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Next up, I want to briefly speak about the new XBOX 360 “slim”. My little bro got one for his 8th birthday just last weekend.  The 250gb model (which I believe is the higher end model).  Yet too my surprise!! It didn’t even come with any High Definition cables inside.  It only came with the standard composite (red, yellow, white) inputs.  I remember when I got my ’360 elite’ over 2 years ago that at least came bundled with a Component cable (offering nicely upto 720p).

Now the issue I want to raise is…why the hell would they release a high definition capable video game system, in todays market, without a high definition capable cable??

It is currently hooked up to the High Def TV in the front room of our house with it’s crappy 90′s-tastic component cable.  HDMI cables are cheap as hell these days so I’ll pick them one up soon.

On a positive note, the console does look very cool sat on a TV stand, with it’s glossy look (although it collects dust like crazy). Plus the new touch sensitive buttons are very cool, and the little beeping sounds it makes when you press them are great .

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Lastly, I was thinking the other week about how if my 10 year old self could meet me today, he would freaking love me!

Firstly he’d be more crazy with excitement than the N64 kid over seeing the modern day consoles…

However mostly I would totally love just how many consoles I have still hooked up, to my big screen, with surround sound.  Plus just the amount of games I have here ready to play at any given time.

Now…what would your 10 year old self think if they met you now?

As a constant poster -slash- lurker on the GameFaqs.com message boards.  I see many topics popping up complaining about “Lag Switchers” (mostly in the Super Street Fighter IV message boards).

Personally I was unaware as to what specifically was being mentioned here at first, although I did kind of get the jist of what was being implied, as ever since my first foray in to online PC gaming back in like 1999, I’ve been aware of what Lag is.  If you’re unaware, then see below.

Definition of Lag: In computer networks, lag refers to delays in information transmission between network nodes. Latency is the time taken for a sent packet of data to be received at the other end.

Today I came across a topic on lag switching, that linked to a video, that not only showed me what a lag switch was, but also taught the viewer how to make one.

I swiftly “thumbs down” rated that video as soon as I realised it was the real deal, and I was happy to see a lot of the recent comments on it (at the time I watched it) where hating on the guy for posting such a tutorial.

I CANNOT believe the lengths at which some pricks will go to in order to obtain an anonymous online victory.  Nor can I believe how they can climb the online leaderboards and actually feel any sort of pride in what they’re achieving.  Super Street Fighter IV is not a game where online leaderboards are seen as a true measure of skill in the first place (it’s face to face tournaments held globally where players prove dominance, in a 100% lag free environment), and it’s no wonder why when you have assholes like these “lag-switchers” in circulation.

Another example of how the leaderboards in SSFIV aren’t a true measure of skill is how the currently #1 player on XBL (in terms of overall player points) has been many a times referred to as a “rage quitter”.  I’m not going to name and shame this person in question in this blog, simply because I haven’t fought that player personally, and no one has uploaded video evidence of this on YouTube, although with so many people backing up the accusation (and with allegations of this rage quitting user dating back to the Soul Calibur IV days) it seems highly likely.

Rage Qutting: The act of exiting the game/ turning off your console/ disconnecting your internet whilst you are losing before an online game/ match is finished.  This saves you from having a loss put on your record, and causes the winning player to not receive his win.

**Rage Quitting and Lag Switching is not limited to fighting games.  It is used in FPS’s, sports games, and many others.

It would bring me great pleasure to watch, or play these players who have such glamorous online records (through cheating methods) in real life, and see them exposed for the cheating scrubs that they are.

If/ when I have children, if I ever caught them playing video games online doing tactics like the ones mentioned in this topic, I’d take away there copy of that game, or worse yet take away there online gaming privileges.  I don’t condone this kind of behaviour at all.

Video games are meant to be a source of fun/ entertainment.  If you put enough time into a game and develop great skills at it, then that’s awesome.  However, if you want to cut corners, cheat, and effectively live a lie through the game, then you’re the urinal cake of society, whom I and many others would love to pee-on.

Apologies if anyone was offended by the increase in profanity in this post, but it really is a topic that just called for it.

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Extra:

Example of online rage quitter >>here<<

A rare example of a REAL LIFE rage quitter >>here<<

Rage Quit T-Shirt >>here<<

Over the past few days I’ve been dabbling in BlackRock Studio’s new racing game:  Split/Second.  The follow up to there 2008 high adrenaline ATV racer “Pure“.

To fill those in whom haven’t heard of Split/Second, the game is essentially a power-up driven arcade racing game.  However! It’s originality comes in the form of how the power ups themselves work.  Usually in power up racing games you would use weapons and boosts etc to beat out your opponents on the track.  Where as in Split/Second you use “Power Plays” to destroy or alter the track itself and it’s surroundings.

You build up your “Power play” meter by drifting round corners, drafting behind opponents, and from any air time you may get from jumps or the track.  You can choose to use your Power Plays pretty much as soon as you get them to blow things up and things of that nature to help you pass other racers, or to momentarily open up some short cuts on the track.  Alternatively!  If you save the meter till it gets red, you can do a drastic track altering Power Play which will generally be a big cinematic showing of destruction and leave you with a whole new route to the track.

It’s down to your careful use of power plays to help achieve victory in a race, as specifically saving up for the big effects all the time will a lot of the time not get you the best position. One thing to note though is that there are usually only a couple of points in the track that you can use the drastic track altering power plays, so it can sometimes take a couple of play through on a specific track to know where these can be used.  On the one hand this is good because it adds diversity to your experience, meaning you usually won’t see all of a tracks offerings in 1 race.  Although on the other hand this can sometimes mean you will have to replay/ restart certain events in single player a few times before you get 1st place.  I suppose you could say this adds to the lastability of the game though, plus you get points rewarded on your position (the better you place, the more you get) so it’s only if you strive for all golds that you’ll be faced with numerous re-plays of an event.

The career mode works similar to “Pure” in which you have a series of events in an “episode”, scoring enough points unlocks the final race in this episode and if you win this you unlock the next episode (set of events).  This works well enough I suppose, and it allows you to easily be able to retry any single event of your choosing if you want to go back to improve your position.  Another similarity to “PURE” is that Split/Second isn’t simply just “races”.  You have a variety of other unique game modes chucked in to test your skills in.

• ‘Air Strike’ where you have to drive around a track and avoid a helicopter firing missiles at the track.
• ‘Elimination’ where the racer in last position is eliminated every 30 seconds or so
• ‘Air Revenge’, a variation on Air Strike where you get to fight back against the chopper.
• ‘Detonation’, where pre-determined destruction will happen to the track and you have to beat the course under a set time
• ‘Survival’, where you have to overtake a series of Big Rig Trucks dropping explosive barrels behind them.

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Presentation-wise, this game is amazing.  The cars and environments look very impressive and definitely show off what HD consoles are about, the explosions and damage look great too.  I’ve also got to hand it to the HUD display too.  It seems racing games have forever been stuck in a similar routine of having the same generic HUD displays, showing us speedometers, the track map, lap number, position, and so on…  Split/Second tidies this up a lot though (in the outside car cam), having it neatly placed underneath your car, you’re not shown the tracks map, so you have to focus throughout the race, although sharp turns are nicely marked out for you, and the game gives off a nice sense of speed so you’ll know when you’re at top speed by the motion blur and the slight shake in the camera (this doesn’t disrupt play though).

The soundtrack is great too.  Gone are traditional “licensed” songs for a racing game, and in place this game has an original soundtrack.  All the songs are very fitting to the game and are what I can only describe as the sort of dramatic car chase music you’d get in a hollywood movie.  The explosions, engine noises, and other such sound effects sound great too.  Playing this game on a big screen HDTV with a surround sound set up turned up to a decent level will give you a great gaming experience for sure.

The game ties itself together with a reality tv format.  There’s an announcer after certain races and before certain events going over the premise of what’s to come, there’s not much depth to it, but that’s probably a good thing, it does just enough to nudge your optimism and imagination into thinking “this could be possible…if it wasn’t for people being vulnerable to dying”.  The announcer isn’t in the races themselves though, so you don’t have to worry about soon hearing the same annoying phrases over and over or anything like that.

The game does have one irritation though, something I could say the same for with “Pure” and this problem is with the A.I.  Just like with Mario Kart and many other arcade racers there is “rubberbanding” in place, to make sure you never get TOO far of the AI, as well as to make sure you don’t get impossibly far behind, and like with other games of it’s type you will sometimes have races where you spend 2 and a half laps in 1st place, then 1 powerplay attack could end up taking you from 1st to 7th or 8th at the last minute.  Which is always a bit of an annoyance in games like this.

There are also times when you’ll be taken over from a racer behind on a straight on the last lap from a car that you haven’t unlocked yet, which seems a bit unfair I guess.  There are no difficulty settings in this game either, so it’s not like there are solutions to these quibbles if you’re perhaps new to arcade racers.  Like I said earlier though, replaying tracks generally gets you more experience on what destruction and short cuts are available and where…so it’s this experience that will build up and come to aid you if you want to 1st place all the events.

One thing I will say too is that the game does start you off with some slow/ heavy to the ground feeling cars.  My very first impression of playing this game was that the car physics were a bit sluggish compared to some of the more slightest twitch sensitive racers out there.  Although if you stick with the game past the first few car unlocks you will find that new cars handle a lot better.  This early handling issue makes me think too… I didn’t play the demo of this game when it came out on PSN or XBOX live, but if I was perhaps playing this game in a video game store for a few minutes and I was picky about racing games, then those first races in the heavy feeling cars could’ve led me to believe the game wasn’t quite so fast and frantic as other arcade racers such as “Burnout Revenge”.  I’d love to be making or helping make games of my own some day and it makes you realise how important those first impression demo’s are, and that you really need to make sure you give people a fun experience showing that the game works well.

Getting back to Split/ Second though.  I haven’t tried the multi-player out personally, but I can confirm you can play locally offline with split screen.  The online has upto 8 players, although you can only use cars you have unlocked through the career mode in online play, so I’d highly recommend playing through that for a while first.  Plus, like I mentioned earlier, it pays to know what can happen on a track, so if you’re going online, expect experience to be a big factor in determining the winners.

The last area I want to cover is the Split/ Second vs Blur question people are asking right now.  As we have 2 high action racing games out on the market within weeks of each other.  I’ve played a number of races on Blur during it’s ‘beta’ demo stage, and while that game did impress me, it didn’t really wow me with much originality, now don’t get me wrong, it seems like a decent game and a worthy addition to the games collection to anyone who enjoys racing games.  Personally though, I prefer Split/ Second.  It offers a more original, fresh, experience.  It feels like a good evolution in the history of arcade racing games, and I would certainly be pleased if a sequel was announced.  That’s not to say I won’t be getting “Blur”, but I’m saying given the choice of one now/ another later, I choose Split/ Second.