New shop open

Hello there friend,

Lately I've been playing around with another shop idea, focused around my own crude humour. The first shirt I am putting up is entitled "Cannibalism Solution", which you can find at http://www.cafepress.ca/glasgowlaughing/

I'll be trying to throw up a new t-shirt or merch idea up ever few days in hopes of being able to fill up the store. I'll be keeping this blog posted when I can to keep you all updated.

Until next time,

- Derek Leduc

Dead Space 2 Multiplayer - Why I think it's a bad idea

Where ya been Derek?

Hello there friend,

So you may have noticed I haven't been around lately. Well between getting ready for family reunions, going out of town for work, and trying to find random ways to cut weight, I really have been distracted by a lot of externals that I am now just getting under control. I have also decided to start using my free time to start earning a little dough on the side.

So that in mind, I've been working on some designs for CafePress, and will be posting the designs tonight. I'll probably be focusing on more designs over the next couple of weeks based on feedback and hopefully this venture will be entertaining, primarily on the grim humour that most have come to expect from me, under the title "Glasgow Laughing Designs".

http://www.cafepress.com/MacabreDerek

I've also done a few videos on youtube where I discuss some topics that are brought up by more expirenced commentators in the Video Game Entertainment, and some topics of my own to open up discussion.

http://www.youtube.com/user/MacabreDerek

I'll be using this blog to direct you to these works in the hope you will find them as entertaining as I found them a joy to make.

Until next time,

- Derek Leduc

Wick and Legion: The Re-write

Hello there friends,

For the past few weeks I have been getting myself involved in a lot of personal projects to keep myself occupied, but the one that I'd like to discuss is entitled "Wick and Legion", a small comic that depicted the opening chapter to what I thought could have been an ongoing series that I began back in college which follows down troden burn-out called 'Wick', who's real name has gone unknown, and the predominant voices in her head which we soon find have real world consequences, leaving the reader to go along with Wick down a bloody and terrifying path of personal discovery.

Well, as of this moment I am in the middle of a re-write, questioning a lot of the basic premise and trying to refine it.

This was brought about when I asked a friend of mine who does short films in his spare time (One of which I've been helping develop 3D assets for) what his next project was going to be, and he expressed interest in the intellectual property of Wick and Legion. Now, I personally would love to run with the idea and see where it goes, but truth is I am not a strong writer. Knowing that I have time to write and refine the story to condense it into a short story rather than an 'origin' piece that doesn't conclude so much as it just introduces elements, which was the original mock-up's problem.

There is some value in the script-writing process on a personal note, namely I've always played around with story ideas as illustrations but never written out, especially for other people's amusement. It gives me a chance to expand my abilities and see what I am capable of as a fiction writer.

A few things I'd like to work on in the script is have some form of levity. The previous incarnation had very little, and it's from that experience that I learned the value of the need to have an 'exhale/step-back' moment. It's actually surprising to me how little there was in the first attempt, considering how a few characters are primed for being sarcastic asses.

I am still debating with myself as to where I would go with the script, trying to focus solely on the short film or if I should re-take the initial plan to try and produce it as a small web-comic. I would like to do both, but the script has to be finalized before any plans can be.

So I guess until that's finished, it'll just be another project on the shelf.

Until next time,

- Derek Leduc

Gears of War 3 - Cliffy B., please get your shit together.

Hello there friends,

So the Gears of War 3 announcement hit a little early, not that we didn't already know it was about to be announced, and the people at Game Trailers decided to post a 'Wish List'. However, it seems that they are 'tip-toeing' around most of the major issues that Gears 1 and 2 suffered.

Now if you known some of my previous ramblings before this blog, you know I am one of the most forgiving consumers around. I look forward to seeing games improve over time rather than question if the sequel should be made at all. The only time I ever really feel at odds with change is when the whole direction of a game does so, which more than not is to make it sell more rather than build a better game.

So here's what I wish I could get across to Cliffy B and his team at Epic.

Multiplayer:

First off, your 'Hardcore' following, is multiplayer first, co-op second, single player third. These are the people you're selling map-packs to, these are the people playing your game long after release, and these are the people you're trying to appease. Now recognize that time and time again, the one thing Gears has fallen pray to is Host Advantage. I am sure you're not going to make dedicated servers, but at least build your net code to try and reduce this factor somewhat, find better ways to hide it, and stop making it the defining point of the experience of online Gears.

Yes, we're aware this host advantage is nothing new, but end of the day it's no where near as prevalent in Call of Duty or Halo, so why is it Host Shotty becamse godlike? This needs to change.

Secondly, dont be afraid to let the player community beta test your map-packs. Gears has been the worst for releasing map packs where only half the maps are not vetoed, and more often than not vetoed because only half the map was useful. To prove my point, look at maps like Bullet Marsh. Loved the visuals in this map, loved the concept of environmental changes based on player action, so why is this map often passed?

Well, flanking involves taking such a long route to go around that you often miss out on the entire fight, either your team has already annihilated the opponents or you are now on your own against the majority of the enemy team because your own was missing a player. You have enough of a player base to get large scale testing on maps, use it.

Co-Op:

So, the standard team is four individuals (Marcus, Dom, Baird, and Cole). There is a lot you can do. As suggested by Game Trailers, Call of Duty's 'Spec-Ops' is an idea that works very well for Gears current setup. Co-Op campaign can be a full four player experience, and we've already said Gears fan base is primarily multiplayer, so why not?

Single Player:

I'm just going to assume the writing will be consistently half-fast as it has been and you have no intention to change that. Fine. But at the very least, can we stop having scripted event boss fights?

Raam, the last encounter in Gears 1, was easily the most bad-ass boss you had... EVER. An encounter where the bad guy is shielded by tiny critters to stop taking damage, and is wielding a large turret where Raam is fully capable of taking everything that isnt hidden behind a chest-high cover clear off. Finding out HOW to damage him, while avoiding him killing thy ass became a bit of an issue, especially in higher difficulties where you really had little time to shoot at him before he responded in kind.

Now let's take a look at Skorge. His fight is nothing more than an interactive cut scene with very little to him. This wasnt a tense fight, it wasnt fun, it was a cinematic that you ran around in. And then we get to deal with an emulsion-infected Brumak that treats itself as the not-so dramatic conclusion, where you pop off a few shots with the biggest gun available in the franchise (The Hammer of Dawn, a satellite weapon that needs a guiding laser to 'paint' it's target). This was probably the most boring and unfulfilling ending you could have given to the sequel.

I could probably do an entire article on why Raam was a better encounter on the whole than Skorge, but we'll try to move on from that (For now....).

Another thing that got to me in the campaign, why is it that the A.I. cant seem to do anything beyond the direct approach. You have Smoke, Poison, and Frag granades. Torque Bows, Boom Shots, and the Hammer of Dawn. Are you honestly going to tell me that the A.I. cant be improved more than it's accuracy? Smoke the player's cover to move to a flank, shoot at the ground with a Boom Shot or Torque Bow just beside the cover, heck, bounce a Frag off a wall to fall behind the cover. There are many ways to flush a player out and make the A.I. more difficult and challenging than simply increasing the accuracy and damage, let us believe these opponents are actually intelligent beings who understand the technology they are using beyond point-and-shoot.

Here's another one: Bring back the Corpser, and dont make it a scripted fight. This thing is big, nasty, was prominent in Gears 1, and then when we faced it, the fight was a cop-out. Heck, make it an Emulsion Corpser was the one we fought in Gears 1 and it has a personal bone to pick with Marcus and Dom, I dunno, but just stop throwing away your good material to badly done cut-scenes and trigger-events moments.

Also, please bring back the Berzerker. Heck, experiment with a few more boss types that go beyond the "Run, hide, shoot". Game Trailers made a good point that it broke up the monotony of the game by adding in moments of tension.

End of the day though, the sad fact is you already have my money for Gears 3, and probably the first two map packs. I suspect I am not alone in this, and my only hope is that those in the high-end of the food chain in Epic will make an ending worthy of the mainstream title that has brought the XBox 360 to the height it is.

Until next time,

- Derek Leduc

Dead Space 2: Responce to OXM March Issue.

Hello there friends,

I finished reading an article in Official XBox Magazine, one that goes over Dead Space 2, the sequel to one of the better games released in current memory. I enjoyed this futuristic fun-house, and it was very much a carnival ride where your nerves where well fraid by the first 20 minutes. Not to say the game was perfect, but to say it was picking up the slack in the Survival Horror genre since Resident Evil decided to pack up its bags and move to pure Action.

Here are a few things that made Dead Space such a treat: First off, the protagonist Isaac Clark is NOT a guy in power armour wielding some absurd caliber weapon. He's a guy in what seems to be a welding suit designed for space. His weapon? A plasma cutter, a weapon he finds in a shop bench, used for cutting materials to length before it found a home in severing necromorph limbs. Many of the weapons in Dead Space seemed to be more designed for stripping resources than actually being tools of war, and that was half the fun.Now we have Dead Space 2 coming out.

And I can’t help but see bad decision after bad decision.

First off, let me re-state that Dead Space picked up where Resident Evil left off, and where it left off was for more action oriented grounds. Dead Space on the other hand made those moments between encounters sometimes more nerve wracking than some of the actual combats. The fear came from the belief that you were truly in danger, where paranoia was key to survival in a few instances, and you rarely had any moments of true empowerment because you where constantly aware you where the smallest fish in the pond.

So why do we need Isaac Clark back? As a character, he was a blank slate. So blank in fact, that the emotional twist at the end of Dead Space fell very mute. As a face (Which you only see at the start and end of the game) is probably more generic than 90% of generic faces in games today, to the point of making Gordon Freeman, Marcus Fenix, and Nathan Drake look distinguished.As far as his suit goes, this new look seems to be too sleek for my liking. Don’t get me wrong, grim and gritty is so over-played it's become kind of sad now, but with Isaac being a freaking engineer, where you expected him being more grease-jockey than combat nut, it makes sense.

Oh right;

"Three years of soul-searching have given him an attitude (not to mention a voice) and a thirst for taking down necromorphs."- OXM

So now he's 'ready' for the marker-breed threats. That's great, because everyone who's played this game was begging for a guy like Marcus to come in with a chainsaw bayonet. Though a small complaint about the article is they used Gears of War as an example of what is happening in Dead Space 2, including a bit where you have to go inside a necromorph to kill it, and how the aiming system is center-focused much like 90% of the shooters this day and age.

Let me explain something about the original Dead Space's aiming mechanic. When you decide to aim down sight, not only is your vision focused further forward, removing your peripheral vision, but aiming had you moving your laser-guide around the center portion of the screen without moving the camera that much unless you went to 3/4 screen where it would begin to turn. This reduction in vision and turn creates part of that 'fear of the unknown'. When your combat needs to have an element of suspense, this is one good way to do it, forcing the player to stop aiming down sight for a bit to check his peripheral screen. Yes, it's limiting, but that's part of the point. Isaac wasn’t an action hero; he's a guy with a futuristic pair of bolt cutters.

So, one of the new weapons is by now a standard in shooters, a crossbow-like weapon that pins enemies to the wall. I am going to ask someone where they thought this would be a good idea, though I see some applications, after experiencing the ripper (Deforester), force gun (Controlled explosive pressure without explosives), plasma cutter (Bolt Cutter), line gun (Rock/Ice Channeling and Removal), etc. does anyone see a practical use for this weapon?

Look, we get that Isaac has more experience with the necromorph nightmare than anyone should, but does that now mean we have to make him just another space-fareing generic badass? Visceral Games had something special with this series, that took the audience that had been left out in the cold with bad horror-style games (Does anyone REALLY want to say Silent Hill Homecoming was the defining game of the genera this console generation?)

Truth is, we have a wealth of psychological scars to enrich the character due to the first game; they are offering to give the character a voice and in doing so offering us another way to define the character further, and have a chance to continue the rich universe around Dead Space.

Oh, anyone else think that the idea of Multiplayer is just a bad idea? Bioshock 2 has already taught us that you lose out dividing your resources (Particularly time, talent, and money) trying to wedge in a multiplayer component into a game who's primary experience is single-player and focusing on doing it well. There are many games who are designed around a multiplayer component and do it well, but you have to recognize that those are often built with a focus on it and the single player tends to be the lacking experience (Modern Warfare 2 anyone?)

I guess I should express some excitement however, they found more ways to apply the oxygen timer, air-locks and shutters/vents, and so the environments are more useful as a weapon. If they do this well, I am hoping they cut down the ammo count to keep the player slightly ammo starved, if only to enforce creative on-the-spot solutions to dealing with necromorphs. A lot of potential to work with using the environments in a pressurized environment.

My biggest fear with Dead Space 2 summed up is that it's not playing to its strengths, and it feels like they are trying to do what everyone else does. In doing so, I am worried they will lose out in complete mediocrity as they did with Dante's Inferno, where any semblance of originality seemed more like a cheap trick equivalent of No Russian than it was of the quality found in Dead Space. But hey, they already got my money because I was such a fan of the first, so here's I am hoping I am Dead Wrong.

Until next time,

- Derek Leduc