Nosh Builds a PC - And Rises from the Dead!

To all and sundry who have followed the shambles that is HardlyAChannel for any length of time will know that i (Nosh) have been using what could only loosely be termed a PC. I am of course referring to the loving known "Hunk of Junk" that was my laptop. It is safe to say it was never meant for gaming and in fairness it was never meant for it either. However i valiantly tried to put its poor inadequate silicon coated ass through its paces and unsurprisingly it failed miserably.  It's greatest success was being able to play LOL with almost every setting at minimum.

I bring you news of both great joy and sorrow, the laptop is dead! Don't mourn for it as i shan't, in it's later months i had more BSOD than i could possibly count and it had to be propped up on four candles to even manage to stay on for more than an hour. However, from the ashes of the laptop and a few new parts a ugly miss-shapen phoenix has arisen! I won't lie it isn't pretty and it won't be winning any awards for cable management or sheer power. It does on the plus side work and has only BSOD once since i painstakingly built it without frying anything with static two weeks ago. 

View Inside: No Cable managment

Shield Yourselves

One final post on CES for this week, but it’s about one of the very first products to be revealed. I really had to mull this over and work out exactly what I think about this piece of hardware, and yes... I found something good to say about it, sort of. So here we go, my thoughts on Nvidia’s Project Shield.

The Shield is essentially a souped-up android device, running Nvidia’s new Tegra 4 processor. It features a 5 inch, 720p display, and a very... very familiar game pad, all wrapped up in a nifty clamshell design. Let me start on the design, this thing is sexy, it’s like a 360 controller and a F-117 Nighthawk had very awkwardly positioned love and made a babby. For a controller it doesn’t look like there’s too much extra bulk, even though this is much more than a controller, and as pretty much anything else, yeah... there’s too much bulk. This thing is not pocket sized although it is marketed as portable, but practical is something we’ll have to see about, I’ll get to that later.

Gotta Catch Them Polygons

We’ve caught them all, we’ve caught them all again, and again, we caught the one that made the land, the one that made the sea, the one that made time, the one that made space, the one from another dimension, and the creator of the whole freaking universe. Yes, I’m talking about Pokemon, and if this is starting to sound pretty cynical that’s because I am very cynical when it comes to Pokemon. However I’m willing to give the new games announced today a fair hearing, and the benefit of the doubt. If you haven’t already seen the trailer (where were you?) then take a minute to breathe it all in and join me again on the other side.

A New Year - Go as you mean to go on!

They say you should start the year as you mean to go on, so i felt i better write something today or already doom 2013 to the scrap heap! Lets hope it isn't too literal that saying as i had curry and a cupcake with coffee for breakfast.

What can i say about 2013, not a lot so far. However i can look forward and muse over what will be and might be. Where to start, well the long awaited upgrade from the hunk of junk laptop which required fork handles (four candles, for those who didn't get the Two Ronnies reference and if you didn't then shame on you and see it here) to keep cool, is now imminent with the new desktop PC being built next week hopefully. Now before you all get your hopes up that i will have some all singing and dancing gaming beast of a PC, in true Nosh fashion it is only a half baked PC in need of more bits. I am cannibalizing an old case, disk drives and the Hard drive from my laptop as I'm too poor to get new ones, however they are on the to buy list when i have some money along with a graphics card, which does mean i am still using onboard graphics but they should still be better than my laptops.

Hardly a Review: Perspective

I completely forgot I had to write something for the blog for today, which to be honest is completely typical, but nonetheless. In my panic I happened across a game I downloaded a while back, and completely intended to record for YouTube, but I decided to knock back a couple of levels and do a quick review of it, seeing as I didn’t have any better ideas. SO sit back, put on your 3D glasses, and prepare to say “what the fuck” alot. I’m doing a review of Perspective!

Planetside 2: What I’d Like to See

A couple of days ago, I gave you my review of Planetside 2, the unmissable MMOFPS from Sony Online Entertainment. What I deliberately missed out of that review was the game I wish they had made. Whilst I really enjoy the game, I feel they could have gone an extra mile towards making it my favourite game of 2012. As it stands I think there are a few small problems I have with the game whose absence does not detract from the game at all, but whose presence would have greatly improved the experience. So here we go, this is my wishlist for the Planetside 2 of my dreams.

Firstly one of my major problems with the game is that how you go about capturing a territory is the same in every case, with only tiny variations (such as the presence of generators) and it creates a kind of “been there, done that” feeling after long play sessions. I wish Sony had included a variety of different ways to capture territories, rather than just holding a capture point, and spread them throughout the map so every land grab felt like a different experience.

Project Fiona - Go Hardcore or Go Home!

What the earth is project Fiona you may be asking? Well it is about to rock your world and change the market again in terms of what we think of as a PC and what we think of as a tablet etc. As far as i understand it, it is tablet-esque in design but aimed at Gamers. Now i can imagine you saying weve heard this all before and all we can play on them is app based games, now whilst they may be great for 5 minutes when your on the loo or stuck on a long train journey. However they do'nt really resemble anyone who plays decent PC games would consider a game and therefore don't have any real interest in them for "real" gaming. 

 

Hardly a Review: Planetside 2

Planetside 2 is one of those games that scratches an itch you didn’t even know you had. Let’s face it everything it offers has already been done before in one form or another, so why should you care? Well citizens, it’s a lot like Mac ‘n’ Cheese Pies, the result is far greater than the sum of it’s parts. Allow me to elaborate.

Planetside 2 dubs itself an MMOFPS, and whilst it is not the first game in this genre, it’s certainly the first one to truly earn the title “massive.” Each server supports up to 2000 people at any one time, and whilst that may seem like a low number for MMO’s I can assure you I have never once had a problem logging into my chosen server. It also holds true to it’s title of FPS, whilst contemporaries like Firefall try to exist within the realms of a recognisable MMORPG, Planetside 2 comes at the genre from a completely different angle. Instead, it chose games such as Battlefield 3 as it’s starting point’ and indeed it plays very much like Battlefield 3... if you force-fed the maps steroids.

Horny Racing from a Limitless Perspective...

I've been on a kickstarter binge again, and I know what you’re thinking so I’ll cut to the chase, no, the intervention didn't work. So with that out of the way, I’d like to walk you through a few projects that caught my eye, (some have funding, some need funding) and what I liked or didn't like about them.

Shoulders of Giants

Now as you’re probably aware, I'm big on the Ouya, I think it’s got the potential, and the interest, to be a fun addition to everyone’s already overcrowded TV cabinet. However as good as the hardware sounds, and as good as the message of openness sounds, the console and OS are just the blank canvas that developers use to craft the worlds and experiences that imprint themselves in our memories forever. To further the hype, I’d like to look at the ideas and games that already exist, and show what Ouya developers need to have in mind to fully push the boundaries of this little box.

Steam Group

Would just like to let everyone know that we've had a Hardly a Channel steam group for some time, but I'd like to see it do a bit better than it's currently doing. It's open to anyone to join and we're looking to see if we can use it to get a couple of gaming sessions together every so often. Just look for the "Hardly a Channel" group on Steam. We look forward too seeing you there.

Jamie out xoxoxo

Vita Blockers

Late last week, Kotaku posted two news articles, within five hours of each other. The first was titled, “Thousands of Developers Want to Make Games for the Ouya,” and the second was titled, “Sony Was Surprised How Few People Wanted To Make Games For Vita.” Now look at those two titles, look at them again, and tell me your first impression wasn’t the same as mine. What the fuck is going on here‽ How can an untested company without a single released console to it’s name have developers lining up out the door, and a well trusted, big name with such a history as Sony get barely any interest in comparison? Well bear with me, because the answer takes a little bit of explaining.

Sony attributes its failure to the fact that there are “so many options for publishers now that we cannot take [developed games] for granted.” Ouya, on the other hand simply says that “over a thousand [developers] have been in touch with us since our Kickstarter ended.” That’s it from each company, so we’re on our own from here on out, but I have a couple of theories I want to run by you, and let’s see what you make of them.

Peripheral Vision

Hey, have you ever heard for the Nintendo 3DS? No, me neither, but stick with me, because I’ve got some important things to say regarding how companies adapt to consumer demand. Now I don’t own a Nintendo 3DS, and I don’t really have the urge to buy one. Maybe if I had more disposable income (ie an income) I could be persuaded, but until that time I’m afraid my opinions are going to be one of a guy with no hands-on experience. Deal with it.

The Nintendo 3DS was released in early 2011 as the successor to the Nintendo DSi, advancements included greater screen resolution, 32-bit colour, two extra cameras, RAM and processor upgrades and a screen capable of displaying games in 3D without glasses. It also included a built in analogue stick, dubbed the “Circle Pad.” Now as you’re all probably aware, analogue sticks are a big deal, so much so that the first Playstation ended up re-releasing their controller, with two analogue sticks attached, in order to better play the games being developed for the system, which were now taking place in three dimensions. Nintendo also hedged their bets with the N64, including both an analogue stick and traditional direction buttons in order to successfully straddle the jump between two dimensional platformers and three dimensional adventure games. These little devices mean a character is not limited to 8 directional inputs, but can roam around in all that 360 degree goodness. Yummy yummy goodness.

It's a fruit thing...

Do you know what I fucking hate? Mobile phone games! Games... on mobile phones! They're inconvenient, generic, power hungry bastards. If this is casual gaming then there's no wonder why I'm only having a casual relationship with my phone... yeah I got the innuendo too, yuck. My point is that, for someone who doesn't have a car and doesn't want a car, or just like to sit about the house, mobile gaming could be so useful as to be compulsive, yet it infuriates me how little there is for someone like me. I'm fed up of flinging birds, chopping fruit and pressing... fucking... JEWELS! I'm fed up of games that have 1 dimensional game-play mechanics, no storyline and no attempt to recreate the experience of home gaming, be it casual or hardcore.

It's the whole idea that this is what casual gaming is all about that really gets to me. Do you know which games I'd consider my favourite casual games? Pokemon Red/Blue, and The Legends of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons/Ages... and a Link to the Past once it was ported to the GBA. Why? Because you could dip in and out of the game as you pleased, and play for as little or as long as you wanted too, and you could hop out of the game at any time. It didn't matter if you were half way through a puzzle, because you'd be right back where you left off when you resumed the game. There was no waiting for a game over screen, and it didn't feel like the levels were deliberate bite-sized chunks, they felt very organic. On top of that, the stories were immersive and deep, they felt like what we've come to expect from a big name title, because that's what they were! And yet I could still just grab a quick 5 minutes in the back of my parents car on the way to some ill fated swimming lessons.

Ouya, just a little bit. Ouya, a little bit more.

Now I’m not an avid follower of kickstarter. Being someone with no money himself it’s easy to not be drawn into such endeavours. However whenever something catches the collective eye of the community, it’s usually something worth paying attention to. If you haven’t heard of Ouya by now, then get the fuck out from under your rock and start taking notes. Ouya is a fully fledged games console, with all the nuts and bolts, running Android and literally begging you to hack it and make some cool stuff for it. Sounds like it’d be an absolute flop, I probably would have agreed with you, but people want this thing, not just because of the hardware, but because of the message that comes with it, indie is good.

Let’s face it, the vast majority of the most innovative and creative games to have been released over the past two to three years have been indie games and games from smaller developers; the same time scale has also seen the rise of the free to play game, shaking up long established beliefs over the nature of the games consoles and big titles. Such innovation and adaptability, combined with a platform that encourages and supports it and who knows what would come of it... it’s like leaving a kid who’s got too much time on his hands with a copy of Minecraft.

Hardly a Podcast -- Episode 7: You'd never see a loofah for sale in ASDA

This week, Nosh goes to spend the weekend with his folks, and Jamie and Simon take full advantage of the situation.

Hardly A Game Review: Section 8: Prejudice

Droppings

I’ve come to the conclusion that I do a lot of writing. Last week I wrote a 2500 word essay on a subject I knew next to nothing about 24 hours previously. This weeks, I’m looking at writing 3000 words for Tuesday so I have the opportunity to get it reviewed before I go on and write 10000 words for the end of the month... I’ve also come to the conclusion that I take these things very close to the wire. So in the grand tradition of procrastinating, I decided that instead of using the dregs of this evening to construct something meaningful, I’d write 800 words on something completely meaningless and give you another Hardly a Review! I know what you’re thinking, and yes, you are a lucky bunch.

Last time I wrote a review I decided to deliberately seek out something I’d probably dislike, so I could rant about it (I always find my anger to be far more entertaining than my unyielding praise). However, this time around, mainly because I haven’t prepared for this at all, I decided just to pick a game I’ve been playing a lot over the past couple of days. So here is my review on Section 8: Prejudice.