Merry Christmas - December 24, 2007

One of the best things about being a gamer is Christmas time.

While people may look a little askance at a love for games and gaming at other times of the year, Christmas is an eternal exception. From the earliest of our days, we come to know that Christmas is the day where TOYS take centre stage. Where no want is too geeky - and the toys of our dreams are but a few rapturous moments of unwrapping away.

Yes, yes... I know, I know: family, friends, food and good cheer. Peace on Earth, good will towards all men. And those are certainly wonderful things about Christmas. I partake in them all.

But deep down inside, the little boy in me still dreams of unwrapping a Big Jim Sports Camper, a GI Joe All Terrain Vehicle and a Daisy Ricochet Rifle under the tree.

Fast forward decades later, the toys may have changed and the tastes evolved - but it's all semantics. It's still about toys.

My family has adjusted to this over the years. They know that I tend to only give "toys" at Christmas as gifts. "Toy" is a more expansive definition these days. Electronics, DVDs and books might be included in that definition, and of course, games of all sorts.

But in the end, if you are looking to receive make-up, jewelry or clothing from me at Christmas, you are destined for a Morning of Disappointment. I give as I like to get; and that means toys.

So for all of you, my sincerest wish that you both give - and receive - the Daisy Red Ryder of your dreams.

Christmas is for kids of every age - from one to ninety-two: Enjoy!

Merry Christmas.

posted by Steel_Wind | 11:12 | 2 commentsnews archive

The Witcher Demo - Now Available - December 14, 2007

Atari today announced the launch of the playable demo for The Witcher, the acclaimed first game from Polish development studio CD Projekt RED.

As we have reviewed previously on this page, The Witcher is a PC role-playing masterwork which delivers an engrossing story and thrilling tactical combat, all set in a mature and compelling original fantasy universe. The demo can be downloaded here.

"Giving players a tantalizing taste of the world of The Witcher, the demo begins with the first part of the prologue in which the seeds of the story are sown and the white haired witcher Geralt learns the rudiments of combat. The prologue is followed by the entirety of Act 1, during which Geralt of Rivia will see the first threads of the story weave their web around him and be called upon to slay man and beast to stay alive and earn his keep".

That folks, is a LOT of gameplay in a demo; a boat-load. The Prologue and Act 1 together are about 10 hours+ or so of gaming. That's more game as a DEMO than you'll get from many other new games this year in their "FULL GAMES".

The best news is that you can purchase the full game after playing through to the end of Act 1 on the Demo - and just keep playing.

posted by Steel_Wind | 23:12 | discussnews archive

Beowulf: A Before and After Movie - November 18, 2007

Every now and then, a movie comes along that changes the rules in terms of how to show a good story or craft a new style in film to show the near infinite combinations of human emotion upon the silver screen.

That movie is not Beowulf.

But far less frequently - once a generation - a movie comes along which changes how movies are conceived, funded, written, designed, directed and made.

Make no mistake - that movie is Beowulf. Beowulf is a line in the sand; a before and after film in terms of the technical science of cinematography.

(And my guess is that it will be changing computer games pretty quickly too. It just might take a little longer, that's all.)

Do not be confused by reviewers, who seem to feel the need to rise up and defend traditional 2D principal photography; those reviewers are reacting as if they have seen a rough beast, slouching down the road to Bethlehem. And while they seem to believe it is their duty to stop this beast from being born - it is far too late for that.

This genie escaped from the bottle long ago. We have seen wisps of it appear here and there . Some reviewers misidentify it, believing they saw it in Terminator 2; that they watched with a dawning sense of realization in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy that something was on the verge of happening.

And those reviewers misunderstand the importance of what is being showcased in Beowulf and believe that they have seen it before in the ill-fated Polar Express, in the better received "300" and hinted at in several blockbusters featuring IMAX 3D segments in the past years.

They are all wrong; because you have never seen any movie like Beowulf before in your life.

That is not because Beowulf is a mo-cap movie which uses digital actors. That is not the watershed behind the film. It is because Beowulf is a completely 3D film. Unlike the IMAX blockbusters over the past few years, shot to be normal movies with 15 or 20 minutes of 3D thrown in as a novelty sweetener, Beowulf has been constructed from the ground up to be a movie depicted entirely in 3D. From the opening scenes to the last, the 3D version of Beowulf pops off of the screen in a jaw dropping tour de force of digital stereoscopic effects. What is on display in Beowulf is no mere novelty. It is a fundamentally different way of funding, storyboarding, shooting, producing and even marketing a film.

And that is the fundamental difference. That is why this movie is a watershed in cinema history.

Movies like Spiderman 3, Superman Returns or the last Harry Potter film have all had 3d effects added to the movie by independent CGI studios (most of them in Toronto, doing effects for IMAX 3D). The fundamental difference is that up until now, CGI studios have worked in parallel to the final post-production efforts in L.A. aimed at polishing the main traditional 2D cut of a movie. There is a good reason for this parallel approach, as 3D stereoscopic technique is inherently expensive and - above all - time consuming.

With the tight production schedules of blockbusters prior to Beowulf, there simply has been no time to add 3D effects to the entire film. And Hollywood has until now seen no compelling reason to plan and budget their films in order to **make that time**.

It's a discussion one of the artists here - Derek "Blackmoon" Lo - and I have had a few times, as he happens to work in his day job creating models for IMAX 3D films here in Toronto.

Instead, we get 3D teasers scenes here and there in a film like Superman Returns, and then typically a main sequence of perhaps 12-15 minutes of 3D frames are added, usually near the end action climax of a film. For those of us who did not see Superman Returns in 3D (that would be 98% of us) it wasn't as if we were missing out on the "real" version of the film - and no studio ever marketed the film as if we were.

Mark your calendar, because the acceptability of that approach to blockbuster film-making died on the weekend of November 16, 2007. Yes, you will see a few more incarnations of the limited 3D blockbuster in the next 12- 36 months - mainly as those movies are already in production and it is too late to change the budget. But that will be the end of that.

Because once you see Beowulf in 3D, you will not watch a mere 12-15 minute 3D sequence added to another movie and accept it as a "real" 3D movie. We have been shown in Beowulf a true 3D film for the first time - it's the real deal. And that experience is not one which young male popcorn eaters are going to ever forget.

And it is young filmgoers, especially young males, who set the trend in Hollywood.

It is the 3D technology behind Beowulf which Hollywood believes will allow it to maintain a qualitatively superior edge to the product it delivers in theatres. After all, we live in the days of the Internet, miniature hand cameras, DivX downloads; even HD-DVD and Blu-Ray discs shown on 1080p HDTV equipped home cinemas all compete with the big screen at the local cinema. But none of those formats competes with the 3D technology used to show a movie like Beowulf.

The music industry was not able to evolve their product in the face of the digital .mp3 and pervasive piracy. The recording industry is now a shadow of its former self as a consequence and it will never return to its grandeur of a decade ago. Indeed, there is every good reason to doubt that it will survive at all in the long-term. Some have predicted that the same thing will happen to Hollywood.

Don't you take that bet. Sony music has tasted defeat once; their film division isn't about to let it happen again. Sony believes the technology used to show Beowulf in 3D will provide to the big screen a technological edge that no hand cam or even a high quality DivX rip of a promotional screener will be able to equal. Sony is at the vanguard of the Hollywood pack which aims to offer a product and experience that no home theatre can equal - and no hand cam or computer can easily pirate.

And these eyes which feasted on Beowulf this evening can only nod in agreement. Chalk me up as a convert; a true believer.

3D is here to stay. It is no fad and it is no gimmick.

Within five years, no significant Hollywood action movie and certainly no blockbuster - not a single one - will be conceived, written, shot, directed , edited or produced without two stereoscopic eyes firmly fixed on the 3D component of the film.

There is before Beowulf - and there is after.

Now: the obvious thing to take away from all this? How to make that work in a computer game. Because you give me a shooter that does 3d like Beowulf? I'm so there, so fast, it's not even funny.

posted by Steel_Wind | 03:11 | discussnews archive

The Witcher Arrives - October 31, 2007

*The Witcher– Review

The Witcher 4.5 Stars out of 5 (Recommended)

For those who were paying attention to our activities over the summer, our Mother Ship, roXidy Games Inc., appeared at the Gencon Game Fair on behalf of CD Projekt to demo The Witcher, a new single player fantasy Role Playing Game for the PC. It’s a game we’ve been following for quite a while now. Through one introduction leading to another, we’ve been privileged to meet with the developers of The Witcher at CD Projekt during the game’s development and we’ve had a look under the hood of this huge new single player role playing game.

BioWare has, of course, also been kept apprised of The Witcher’s developments throughout the long journey of the game’s creation. If you missed it, BioWare is loudly recommending The Witcher to its customer and fan base. BioWare thinks this is a game you should buy and play.

We are saying the exact same thing.

The spin in the gaming media is that The Witcher has been developed “in a style very similar to BioWare’s games and that if you like one, you’ll like the other”. While I don’t disagree with the overall sentiment, I think it’s only fair to clarify something we are perhaps a little better positioned than BioWare to comment upon: BioWare itself has never created a PC game as polished out of the gate as The Witcheralready is. The Witcher isn’t merely as good as a BioWare PC RPG; rather, based upon everything I have seen to date when playing this game and looking under the hood as to how it’s been developed, The Witcher is better than any BioWare PC RPG I’ve ever played. And I’ve played and kicked the tires of all of them folks. (To be clear, KotOR, which I consider to be primarily an Xbox title, still wins the overall best CRPG of all time, imo.)

So what makes The Witcher such a treat? Simply put: everything. It’s graphically leading edge and the art direction on the game is just awesome. The texture artists and environmental designers at CD Projekt have seriously raised the bar with the environmental artwork in this game. The authentic medieval feel to the buildings in The Witcheris, in a word, perfect. The look of The Witcher is like our own Tir Na n’Og design style used in Wyvern Crown of Cormyr, except on steroids; we absolutely love it.

Happily, the ambience of that art direction bleeds over into the rest of the game. The cutscenes, voice acting and dialog in the game are remarkably good. That does not mean there are not some things with a few rough spots here and there – but overall - it’s damned decent writing by developers whose primary language is Polish, not English. Considering that these writers do not have a decade plus of direct Triple A experience at this, it flows much better than I expected it would. Good artists are hard to find; but good writers are much, much harder to find than that. For their first effort, the result is very laudable indeed.

Gameplay in The Witcher is engaging and, damn it, just fun. I have not had this much fun playing a CRPG since the original Knights of the Old Republic.

Combat in The Witcher is a curious mix between standard RPG/MMORPG click and hack, and a more interactive “timed clicking” that you might find in a console or arcade game. It’s a little twitchy, but in a good way. I know this sounds inherently bad to many people - but trust me – it works very well and serves to keep combat interesting and engaging. When you have hit your stride concerning timed “combat clicking” in the game, the real world just seems to fade away and there is a certain Moment of Zen that overtakes you as you play. When your rhythm is “on”, you eyes don’t even have to look at the hit point bar – you just know the health of your character is fine. It’s when that rhythm is disrupted and red numbers start flying all over the screen that things start to get tense. You start hitting the pause bar and looking around to try and order your real time combat priorities properly. In “boss battles” especially, the opportunities for trying different potions, bombs, spells and other tactical tricks can get very elaborate in that NWN1/ KotOR kind of way.

So it’s all good; very good, in fact.

One thing I’ve been privileged to play with is the European version of the game. The Euro version of The Witcher is the one that CD Projekt created and treated as their “complete” game. It a comparatively adult take on the CRPG when measured against the usual fare the industry produces. There is lots of swearing and lots of sex too. In fact, opportunities for meaningless, shallow sexual encounters abound during the game. In the Euro version of the game, there are even collectible in-game “cards” and movies that represent your conquests in the bedroom (or elsewhere). In addition, some of the in game banter includes some very adult themed jokes during play.

The overall finished product is fun, but it is most definitely not a USA Wal-Mart friendly version of a PC game; it’s rated “M” for a good reason. There are times when all of this can feel a little exploitative and cheesy in the way that all things which contain soft-porn are inherently cheesy; however, given the nature of the market and the existing products released to date – this aspect of The Witcherstill feels fresh and for the most part, fun. Please don’t get me wrong, there is not hardcore sex or erections or penetration depicted in the game. Because no other mainstream CRPG title has pursued even a soft core direct exploration of sexuality to this stage so far, the result is that it ends up being a “fresh take” on things. I must admit the whole aspect of sex in the game adds to one’s motivation to complete certain “romance” subplots in the game you might otherwise not care much about.

If you are in the United States or Canada and have the choice of purchasing the Euro version of the game via a direct online purchase, imo, you probably would prefer the Euro version of the game, all things being equal. But I say that as a liberally minded male. If I was neither liberally minded, nor male, it might be that my personal assessment of this aspect of the game could be a very different one, so caveat emptor. (To be clear, most of this aspect of the game is missing from the North American retail version.) I believe that Canada has unfortunately been slated to receive the US version of the game simply as that’s the way that distribution of physical product works throughout North America. If there are Canadian fans who have purchased the Euro retail version in stores within Canada, I’d be happy to hear of it.

Quest wise, the game unfolds and feels like most modern CRPGs. There are a few Fed-Ex quests – but not many of them. There are a large number of “contracts” to fill in each chapter, where various monsters afflicting the area are yours to eliminate and collect the reward. Most of these contracts are straightforward affairs, but some tie in to the main plot and advance the game’s story in unpredictable ways. There are some elements of WoW in terms of how some of the quests unfold. I’m not sure that is necessarily a great thing, but it is certainly a familiar one and it’s something that the target market for this genre can well appreciate.

Cutscenes using the in-game engine are used very well throughout the game and really highlight the skill of the developers using this medium. Camera movement and lighting throughout most of the in-game cutscenes is dynamic and well thought out, giving the game a cinematic quality that only the best Triple A developers bring to the table.

I must add that the opening rendered cutscene to The Witcher was directed by an Academy Award nominated Polish film director and is, in my view, the best intro movie ever created for a game, anywhere, any time, for any platform. While that does not really say a lot about how well the game plays – it sure as hell says a lot about the time and care the developers took to create this game. They care a lot about this material and the IP and that love for the subject matter shines throughout the game. It’s a Triple A game through and through.

The main plot of The Witcher is set up in the prologue but then may take a while to resurface during the game. Arguably, it may take too long to resurface if you are a “completist” approach player who prefers to play the game while exploring and completing every little subquest that you can. That approach to play can mean that there are so many subquest options completed along the way in chapter 1 and 2 that you can easily lose sight of the overall story for a time. I suspect that this will not upset most players drawn to the “completist” method of CRPG gameplay, but there you have it. If you want to forego a lot of subquests to pursue the “main storyline”, for the most part, you can do so fairly intuitively.

In terms of game stability and bug control, this is the aspect of the game (apart from art direction) which has me the most impressed (so far, that is). The QA control on The Witcher is remarkably well done. I expect that many reviewers, who, after all, review a game as players and pseudo-journalists and not as developers, will probably miss this aspect of The Witcher. But after we all started down the game development road here five years back, I can tell you that most of us watch continuously for all the little things in a game when we are playing. Personally, I look for art errors, shadow flickers, typos and bugs of any and all sorts. It’s an admittedly very distracting way to play a game, but it’s an unfortunate occupational hazard. (Hell, I can’t even walk by a neighbor’s hedge or garden without assessing whether or not the plants would make a good looking texture sample).

While The Witcher is not absolutely error free (no game is folks), I have never seen a PC game released this solid and polished ever before. Without getting into the nitty gritty of bug descriptions, I have found only four serious bugs in the entire game through about 40 hours of play. And to be clear on this point, I am not even playing the commercial release, but the Euro Preview release. So it’s likely that a few of these remaining bugs still in the Preview release were caught by the final release. Still… only four bugs of consequence? In a nine gigabyte game? That’s not just rock solid for a 1.0 release – that’s worthy of an Olympic Gold medal in PC game QA. My hat goes off to the QA team for The Witcher. Those guys don’t deserve mere applause – they deserve a standing ovation.

[The game was updated to version 1.1a at about the time of the North American release. There were several code issues that were addressed and some serious performance issues under Vista were addressed. I played under XP and came across only a couple of them. YMMV]

The only real downside to the game from my perspective, so far, is the load times. These can be a little aggravating at times and serve to jerk you out of the moment. Some of the load times, especially the Trade Quarter, Temple Quarter and the Swamp Forest near Vizima, can be very long periods of doing … nothing. While those area loads are relatively rare in the swamp, they are frequent in town as you transition between interior and exterior environments. There’s not much to be done about those load times – they are what they are – but it’s the only detraction of any real substance concerning the game that I have encountered so far. Some complaints online about camera control are the usual whinging about any camera control that a player has to fiddle with during the play of any game. Given that WoW players manage to use the camera control in that game just fine in a manner which is not significantly different than The Witcher’s, I really don’t place much credence in such complaints. It’s just something you get used to. There it is.

I won’t give this game a score or final impression right now as I am not done playing the game (and I doubt most of the so called “reviewers” online who have reviews up this early have actually played it through to the end either). I am about half-way through at this point. But half-way through with The Witcher is a lot of game play. In fact, in the current market, that’s equivalent to playing through the embarrassingly short Halo 3 about four times – or Mass Effect just once. Value for your gaming dollar is not a small concern for me, and I expect it is a major concern to most of you as well.

What would make a LOT of gameplay for your dollar even better is if The Witcher had a toolset and the hopes of a mod community arising to support the game, right?

And a Toolset, too!

A toolset you say? Well, according to other interviews given by CD Projekt, it turns out that the Djinni toolset used to make The Witcher is intended to be released to the public by CD Projekt. So….the journey will not end with the completion of The Witcher’s official campaign. There will be other modules, other stories and new monsters, locations and quests, models, etc.. Yes folks, there will be a mod and CC community for The Witcher. And right now, the chances of our being involved in all of that look pretty darn good. :)

So, in short: go buy this damned game. It’s absolutely worth your time and money.

Addendum: November 11, 2007

Well I have finished the game now. There are some issues which surface as the game moves on I would like to draw attention to.

#1 - Vista Performance: Okay, we can say this the nice way, or say it the hard way. Vista performance is buggy as all hell in full screen mode. Played in windowed mode, the game is stable. That's the fix right now.

#2 - Crashes: I had some of these as the game progressed. Nothing that cost me a game or more than a minute’s inconvenience - but it did happen.

#3 - Pacing: I think this is the largest problem in the game from a design viewpoint. The game starts on a peak in the Prologue, then comes down to Earth a little too hard in Act 1 and even II to a lesser extent. That does not make these Acts un-enjoyable. They are fun. But after the high that the game starts off on, the plot ebbs away to a very large extent.

This is compounded by a sub quest design in Act II that is so large that the main plotline is lost for a lot of players for a looooong time. Not a big deal - but worth mentioning.

My biggest complaint about pacing, however, is Act IV. I really was not a fan of this part of the game. The Act seems totally unconnected with the rest of the game until the final encounter, and the whole Act seemed grafted on in a Frankenstein way. Combat - especially against the Noonwraiths, seemed repetitive, unchallenging and - frankly - boring. One of the major subquest plots of the Act seemed a little strained and did not resolve properly due to a bug concerning the Immortelle Wreath.

There was a point during this Act that I was hating this part of the game for about an hour and bitching out loud about it to my wife. That does not make The Witcher a bad game. The Witcher is such a DAMNED good game that without Act IV in it, it would still be a 60 hour game that totally rocks. In the end, it’s a 70 hour + game that almost entirely rocks. But I didn't enjoy the pacing here and - especially after the awesome end of Act III, it felt a little like being kicked out of bed immediately in the afterglow of sex to be sent to go clean the basement and take out the garbage.

#4: Inventory Management: I became increasingly frustrated with the near limitless re-agents as the game wore on and few places to store them. This problem is heightened in Act V, given the relative dearth of merchants. I know that the intent of the designers was to enforce some realism here - but sometimes "gameist" designs need to win out in favor of simulationist ones - and this was one of those times. I would have made a different design choice here in terms of pouches or some other inventory assistance with the improved armor that Geralt should have by this stage.

#5: No puzzles: I'm not a puzzle fiend at all when it comes to my CRPGs but that does not mean that I don't like them at all. Especially in light of the being-lead-by-the-nose aspect that can surface by reason of the game’s subquest tracking system, some traditional CRPG puzzles here and there would have been appreciated.

Now - please appreciate that none of the above takes away from my initial glowing comments on the game.

I do have to say that Act V mostly rocked - and the Epilog - which sounds "short" and anticlimactic is neither. The Epilog is Act VI. It is the best endgame I have ever played in a CRPG. This was a phenomenal bit of work by the designers and artists at CD Projekt and I am simply in awe at the skill and sheer FUN that they pulled this off with. Awesome work gentlemen; take a bow.

I would add again that the in-game cutscene engine in this game is brilliantly used by CDP. This is triple A work, through and through.

Overall, I will still place the sheer fun factor provided by the plot twist in KotOR 1 ahead of The Witcher. But that's the only reason I would not rate The Witcher as the best single player CRPG I have ever played. If you do not purchase this game - you should realize that you are missing out on a simply amazing game.

I would give The Witcher four and-a-half stars out of five.

posted by Steel_Wind | 16:10 | 17 commentsnews archive

Update - Summer 2007 - August 27, 2007

It's been a long time since I've done one of these updates to the front page. So long in fact, that I had pretty much forgotten about it. Until today, that is - when one of our regulars, Gryphyn, wrote me an e-mail today asking us what was up - with more than a little dread.

Relax Gryphyn, it's not that bad.

And so here’s an update to answer fan question as far as we can - without really...well answering them.

As I mentioned on the podcast interview I did with the Neverwinter Podcast crew back in early June, DLA as a mod team has essentially gone the way of the dodo. Which does not mean that the team itself is dead - far from it. The team endures and has moved on - bigger than it once was actually. But we're not a mod team anymore.

DLA is now for all intents and purposes a subsidiary of roXidy Games Inc., which is what our new development studio is called.

So what is roXidy up to? Well, as we have reported here previously, we are actively developing our own game product and that takes up the lion's share of our focus currently. For those looking for clues on what we're working on - well - you can poke around as you like and you might be able to draw some conclusions. Those conclusions might be right - and they might be dead wrong, too. Whatever the case, we are still a very long way away from revealing what we're cooking up. Please forgive us the secrecy, but we assure you that it is necessary. If it wasn't, we'd be crowing about it long and hard. Hype and screenshots are something we love very much, after all.

Additionally, for those who were paying attention weekend before last, about six or so of the roXidy staff was manning a good portion of the Atari booth at Gencon Indy on behalf of CD Projeckt Red - the Polish developer of the forthcoming CRPG - The Witcher. I met several forum regulars there during the course of the convention, all of whom have been quiet as church mice that they saw us there hyping The Witcher.

We've been privileged for quite a while now with behind the scenes access to The Witcher and we're very excited about this game.

For those who have not been paying much attention to The Witcher's development, we have to say that you've been missing out. This title is shaping up to be the best single player CRPG released this year. We've kicked the tires on The Witcher pretty thoroughly and we remain extremely impressed and very excited by what CD Projeckt Red has done.

The Witcher is due out at the end of October, 2007 - in about two-and-a-half month's time. Quite simply, if you have not looked into this CRPG - you definitely should.

posted by Steel_Wind | 18:08 | 9 commentsnews archive