2008 in Review

Posted by Vaughan on Mar 9, 2009 in Random, Review | 0 comments

And we’re back.  All of me are.  I’ve been AFK for too many months.  I’ve been busy.  Not much has hit the blog, but plenty has been happenning.  First up, the blog would like to announce it posted a profit in the 2008 year, with revenue up NaN percent.

My end of year for 2008 was at lightspeed.  Work and life balance are still balanced, but somehow each has grown a magnitude on either side of the scale.  I’ll be doing some catch up in some following posts but first a recap.

Looking back at 2008:

• Being involved with some amazing projects at work across Media, Telecommunications, and Finance.  Yes, I did mention finance.  I simply didn’t think there was an exciting finance project left.  I’ve been proven wrong.
• Continued to meet a great stream of people including clients, vendors, co-workers, friends of friends, and locals (at each locale).
• Managed to avoid communication saturation.  Twitfacespace can shut up.
• Used the fake Facebook acount for me that was given to me about 10 times.  Although, I’ve used it quite a bit this year.
• Got to check out so many cool technologies pre-release.  Most I can’t publicly discuss until they launch.  Some have launched… leading into…
• Got neck deep in Silverlight.  Microsoft have really come a long way and impressed me with how they are growing the technology.
• I spoke at Remix08 in Sydney and Melbourne on Building Interactive Media Applications, and got to meet a great crew.  Thanks to Michael Kordahi and Shane Morris and the rest of the Microsoft crew for involving me.
• Bought a DSLR camera, and in the first week took 2000 photos.  Worth every cent.
• Bought 36 Rubik’s cubes as a joke.
• Made some funky art out of it.
• Bought 360 Rubik’s cubes as a joke.
• Made some funkier art out of it.
• Rubixel was born.  Check it out here.
• Watched too many movies and TV Series, and still not enough.
• Rediscovered XBox Live.  XBox Live Arcade seeming to consume most of my interest there.
• Rediscovered email.
• Rediscovered C++.  How wonderful and painful you are.
• Started the blog but got distracted.
• Got motion sickness from Mirror’s Edge, and nightmares from Fallout3.

Things I should have done more:

• Blog posts.
• Personal coding projects.
• Rubixels.  As time consuming as it is, it’s too much fun.
• Delegation.
• Said “yes”.
• Said “no”.

And that’s about it for now.  I’ll catch up on the details later.

Fallout 3 and Cooking in the Dangerzone

Posted by Vaughan on Nov 3, 2008 in Games, Review, Video | 0 comments

Fallout 3 is possibly the most vast games I have seen.  With 100 hour gameplay, I am scratching the surface, and the enormity of the environment only sinks in many hours into the game.  The game is flawed, in many ways, but at the same time the good bits make the entire game worth experiencing.

This enormity has changed my behaviour.  What I have found in Fallout 3 is that I play it for just a few minutes, and walk away at any point.  The game is just so big, that persisting is pointless, and whilst the game has milestones, progression feels analog.  Living with your consequences makes the game very interesting.  For example, my uber hacking-lockpicking-sneaking-melee strategy isn’t going so good.  Why?  Let me point out there are few buildings, let alone doors, and even less computers, and in the vast expanse of the wasteland visibility is 100 miles, and nearly everyone has at least one gun.

Fig 1. Guns > Sneaky

But I’m sick of such large budget games not getting the characterisation solid.  Every second character in the game still feel like cardboard cutouts.  Some major characters are excellent, others feel like someone has wheeled them in.

The other aspect is radiation poisoning.  Radioactive poisoning in Fallout 3 is cool.   From rivers of toxic waste, to inactive bombs, and old war sites.  You start to feel like the entire world is a post apocolyptic Chernobyl.  Every time you eat a piece food, you get radiation poisoning.  Get too much and you start to get sick.  This in turn can be reduced by taking radiation reduction formula.  That is pretty simple.  Regardless, I dub this the ‘did we forget to balance this’ game mechanic.  It constantly feels like a ball and chain slowing you down through the game progression.  I like the fact swimming in radioactive water can make me sick, it is immersive, but I am at a loss as to how eating a kebab somehow makes me more radioactive than swimming across an ocean of radioactive sludge.

But enough of Fallout 3.  It’s good, either buy it if you can’t wait, or borrow it when your mate has completed the billion hours of gameplay or died of radiation sickness.

Second up on the agenda today is Cooking in the Dangerzone .  You can watch it on TV (in Australia) Wednesday November 5th on SBS .  Stefan Gates sets out on his way to Chenobyl, and against his producer’s advice, he eats the local food, with some interesting results.   A short clip from the show below…

A really interesting show, and well worth the watch. And with an 80 year old women eating radioactive food every day of her life, you start to realise how unbalanced that game mechanic really was.

Street Fighter Movie – Chun Li Trailer

Posted by Vaughan on Oct 13, 2008 in Movies, Street Fighter | 2 comments

It is no secret that I am a Street Fighter fan.  With Street Fighter IV launching on console, it is a big event for the CAPCOM community.

The cardinal sin for any game is the movie, and Street Fighter was no exception.  But when you make a bad movie of a game (and then consequently the game of the movie of the game), what do you do? Apparently you wait 15 years, and hope everyone has forgotten, and make another bad movie.  The Chun-Li movie trailer below is sure to set the scene for what is going to be a must see for 2009.

… and for those who forgot the original, the trailer does not do the movie justice.  It was far worse.

New Prince of Persia Trailer

Posted by Vaughan on Oct 11, 2008 in Art, Games, Video | 0 comments

Just watched the Prince of Persia Trailer on Kotaku. Glorious. So watch it. That is all.

Thank you Mr. Ewer for showing me.

Fun Time Lapse

Posted by Vaughan on Oct 8, 2008 in Art | 1 comment

I was kicking around online looking for some good examples of some time lapse video, and stumbled upon this one of hot air balloons.  The balloons, usually moving quite slow, come to life in a time lapse, but it has to be 00:32 to 00:42 which really pointed this out to me.  Rest in peace mighty eagle.