Archive for November, 2005

The alsoran has added his own personal mandate for this and other projects. Check it out in the about section to see if it fits in with your own…

As pointed out by one of his colleagues, the first instance of a prediction by the alsoran has come to pass. The gamespot videoreview of EA’s NBA Live 06 for the XBOX360 makes a point of stating that “…a lot of the animations by themselves look great…the problem comes in how all these animations blend together, and that’s to say, they don’t really blend together very well at all”.

As videogames are ever approaching realism, (though true photo-realism is estimated to be 40 years away, a view shared by the alsoran), graphics have been improved by the mass adoption of texture materials such as normal mapping, as well as advanced lighting. However, all of this falls apart if the game moves with all the grace of a 64-bit elephant.

As all other areas of development increase in quality, so must the implementation of in-game animation in order to maintain the suspension of disbelief, for now this level of graphical fidelity can so easily come apart with as little as a single popping animation.

So the alsoran just checked out the official backwards-compatibility list of XBOX games available for the XBOX360 and, at the time of writing, is disappointed to see his one XBOX-only Hall Of Fame entry absent, due to the selection process favouring sales over quality. Though the selection criteria is sadly understandable, Breakdown will be forever consigned to the history books come the next-gen cycle.

On a positive note though, the XBOX emulation team at microsoft have taken the time to retain a variety of classics covering little girls with “Barbie Horse Adventures”, big fat girls with “Yourself! Fitness” and the entire redneck-pleasing series of “Cabela’s Deer Hunt: Seasons 2004, 2005 and 2006″.

Just who is this prominent videogame developer sporting the (presumably golden) loafers that would make Ronald McDonald green with envy?

The mysterious boatman keeps his own blog, featuring this post exclaiming ” I lost my shoes in last night’s dream. I exited a plane and realized: “I am barefoot! My shoes aren’t here?GI must have forgotten them! “. Not bloody likely, mate. The alsoran guesses the myth is true after all - big feet mean a solid snake.

Recently, the alsoran finished playing what will arguably be one of the most important videogames ever released with regards to moving towards a more cinematic experience whilst remaining fully interactive. This is due in most part to the player’s ability to always control the camera, even during cutscenes.

Importantly, the player is always able to maintain the most dramatic camera angle framing the PC and colossi via a held shoulder button, as well as being able to zoom in for added effect.

This kind of camera manipulation is valid and accessible even during the dramatic fight sequences due to the non-reliance on actually seeing where you are going, with large arenas, non-lethal falls, and an intelligent AI for Agro the horse that leaves players confident he will neither leap to his death nor run into walls should he reach the arena limits.

The alsoran recommends picking this game up for Agro’s fantastic motion alone, but in addition the idea of controling a human in turn controlling his horse is sublime and works to great effect, accomplishing an in-direct control system that feels neither frustrating nor sluggish.