Xbox One: First Impressions.

I very thankfully received an Xbox One for Christmas and with a gift voucher I got for leaving work I managed to buy a couple of games to go with it too, so I'm sure you can guess how I've spent my holiday. I also thought my first impressions would make a great blog post,  I'll go over the console and the few games I've got.

The Xbox One
The time I've spent with the Xbox so far I have enjoyed and any of the negative feelings I had after the E3 revealing are gone. The console is larger than I thought it would be but it appears well made nonetheless. The controller feels pretty much like the Xbox 360 controller, with some minor tweaks. The triggers are now wider and follow the curve of the controller, meaning your finger can rest easier across them and the thumb-sticks are slightly smaller with a bit more resistance to them. Everything else is more or less the same but I will say it feels of a higher quality than the 360 controller. The Xbox One controller does have a few hidden treats though with the mandatory motion sensor and both triggers now also have their own rumble.

Motion controls are something that I have never cared about, I don't want to wave much about when gaming. I can handle the "shake the controller to perform an action kind" as long as it's not overused but Kinect is way out of my league, so the thing is just sitting on top of my TV, glaring at me with the 3 red lights like some sort of Doctor Who villain. It's great that when Kinect sees me I sign in and scanning QR codes is much better than entering 25 digits but I just can't sit there and shout at my TV so I do feel the thing is a bit wasted on me.

Yup, this is pretty much what mine looks like [1]

There's no surprises when it comes to the UI, following Microsoft's trend lately everything is squares. It is easy to navigate with a controller and most of the things you need are only every a few button presses away, I still haven't figured out how to change the background though... I'm not even sure you can.

A great new feature is how the guide button functions now, it works the same as Alt+Tabbing on a PC, while in a game or an app you'll be tabbed back to the Home screen where you can do whatever you need then you can resume where you left off and it does all this really smoothly. There's other stuff as well, like the video recording (DVR) where you can record the last 60 seconds of game play and then upload it. I'd love to write about this but uploading the clips appear to behind the Gold paywall so all I've done is record the footage. The recordings are not HD but they look fine.

Forza 5
I came into Forza 5 expecting to be a bit disappointed after reading all the negative press it has received but I'm glad to say that the core Forza experience is still there, though I can certainly see why the game wasn't as well-reviewed as Forza 4. You buy cars, tune them up, paint them, then race and it's all still deeply engrossing. The cars once again look better than ever and this is all helped by a new, more natural lighting system that even helps some of the tracks look good, the game is no longer plagued by overly-clinical lighting. Some of the race track flaws are more noticeable than others, like the paper crowd or cardboard trees, but when you're moving at 140 mph it is hard to spot to them.

One of my Forza traditions: The Toyota Trueno!

Forza also makes great use of the rumble triggers. The left trigger (The brake) allows you to monitor if your brakes are locking and the right trigger (The acceleration) lets you feel the traction of your wheels, which is all fantastic for cornering. It's another subtle feature that really adds to the game and I hope more games incorporate the rumble triggers properly.

The usual polish of Forza games begin to disappear when you look a bit further unfortunately. The car selection is much smaller than normal, certain series favourite tracks are missing and I find the menus to be clunky. Then there's the Drivatars, an idea great on paper but in its current state is just a pain in the arse. Every race now begins with a pile up that you must force your way through, it's quite funny at first but once you begin to get into the top-tier cars it just becomes frustrating. The soundtrack has been replaced with repetitive orchestral music and the once great Storefront is gone... or just hidden behind the menus.

It is a shame then that core gameplay is spoiled by things that could have been ironed out with a few more months development time, but I guess Microsoft wanted this out for the launch of the console, the next one should be back on track!

Dead Rising 3
In todays gaming market killing zombies is a bit of a cliche but when the first Dead Rising came out it was still a fresh idea after the countless games of killing Nazis. It's a good job then that Dead Rising 3 doesn't feel like other zombie games and is still holding on to the uniqueness of the first.

The formula of the game hasn't changed much, this time you're in a respectable-sized city named Los Perididos, you build silly weapons and chop down hordes and hordes of zombies while moving from one activity to another. The next-gen can really be seen with the amount of zombies on screen at any time, it is something to experience and in such large numbers can be a threat, so it's a good thing there's hundreds of weird and wonderful weapons to build and many vehicles to drive. After a few hours the zombie killing can become a bit repetitive but the huge amount of ways to kill them meant I never felt bored.

Things can get weirder... trust me [2]

The game itself looks really nice, the characters and zombies look good even when the camera gets in close, considering the amount of zombies and that each of them can be dismembered too I'd say this quite an achievement. Los Perididos holds its own too, having great variation in all 4 sections and no distracting frame rate dips, there is however noticeable zombie and texture loading when you speed into a new area. The pop-ins could be due to the entire city being loading screen free, you only get a loading screen when you go to start a story mission, this makes exploring the world a real pleasure!

Capcom have reworked the story modes a bit too. The original Dead Rising experience where you had to manage your time and your inventory with high precision has been renamed to Hardcore, which can be played straight from the start. The basic Story mode is easier and the time management has been removed, allowing a more relaxed experience. I think this is a great idea as the management heavy style of the older games was a turn-off for some people.

Dead Rising is a great first-party launch title. The story and characters start off a little slow but both develop nicely towards the end and the overall game is stupid fun that doesn't take itself seriously. I'm not sure how far the silliness can take the series but for now it's just enough to make it stand out from the rest.

Torch + Gems = Lightsaber??? [3]

Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag
Brotherhood was the last Assassin's Creed game I played, once the series became annual the fatigue quickly set in for me, but after hearing how great the new one is I thought I would jump back in and I haven't been disappointed!

This time around you control Edward Kenway, the grandfather of AC III's protagonist and a pirate. If Heath Ledger was in Pirates of the Caribbean then this is how it would have turned out. The story follows Kenway as he goes from a low-life pirate to an assassin-pirate mash-up with his own ship and crew, I haven't completed the story yet but so far I've met a good cast of likable characters and the plot appears to be moving at a steady pace. There's so much content in the game that the first third of the story is really just showing it all, so it can feel a bit like your hand is held for the first few hours.

[4]

Ubisoft have nailed the pirate aspects of the game. Everything you'd want from a pirate game is in here, smokey ship battles, buried treasure, muskets, boarding ships while swinging on ropes. You even get your own customisable ship and if this wasn't enough, a pirate cove to upgrade too! All this leaves little room for being an assassin though, it seems the days of Assassin's Creed II are long gone, where everything you was doing would be leading up to these big assassinations. So far I've killed a few minor characters and plenty of nameless NPCs but these all feel a bit shallow.

There is so much stuff to do apart from the main story it almost over shadows it and it all takes place on a massive map. You can explore the world in your ship then get out and explore some more on foot and it all looks wonderful, with every inch of your screen filled with little details. I do need to bring some attention to the sea in the game because it looks very natural, which is something I find most games struggle with, even how the waves interact with the ships are great to look at.

Assassin's Creed is moving away from the things that made the first few games great, but I don't mind that much, there are some fresh ideas in here that are stopping the games from becoming stale and I get to be a damn pirate-assassin! Not many games could pull that off.

Shanking Simulator 2013 [5]

That so far about sums up my Xbox One experience. Considering how far the 360 evolved over its life time I can only expect good things for the future of the Xbox One, I just hope Microsoft can deliver on the platform exclusives.

References & Notes
The Forza screenshot was taken in game, by me, using the games camera function
[1]http://www.gamerheadlines.com/5-exclusive-xbox-one-releases/
[2][3]http://www.edge-online.com/gallery/six-new-dead-rising-3-screenshots-emerge/
[4]http://www.geforce.com/whats-new/articles/assassins-creed-iv-black-flag-pc-nvidia-enhancements-revealed
[5]http://www.actiontrip.com/rei/scr.phtml?cat=f&platform=ps3&link=assassinscreed4blackflag&pic=assassinscreed4blackflag8

Dota 2.

Aside from posting our work on these blogs we can also use them to discuss what we're playing, reading or watching, what is influencing us really and I've decided to write about Dota 2, a game I've been playing for about 6 months now. If it hasn't been made obvious yet, it will also become clear that I am a bit of a Valve fan-boy, but who can blame me, have you seen the Steam sales?! If someone asked me what Dota was at the start of the year I'd have just shrugged, if asked now I'd reply "Probably one of the best competitive games out on the market."

[1]

The Game

Dota 2 is the sequel to a very popular Warcraft 3 mod called DotA (Defense of the Ancients) and in traditional Valve fashion they hired the creators of the mod to create their own game. The game is completely free to play and is at the moment played on just the one map, but I will look into both of these in more detail later.

The objective of the game is simple, 2 teams of 5 must battle it out to destroy the opposing team's Ancient, or for the uninitiated, the big glowie building sitting in each base. You however can not just assault this building right from the start, you first must take down the enemies tiered defences. At the start of each match you pick a Hero from the ever-growing pool of 105, each with their own set of unique spells and during each game you can buy items to add another layer of choice and strategy.

The Ancients

So that's over 100 Heroes, each of them can synergize with other Heroes, each of them counter different Heroes with the chance to change what items you buy and what skills you build. This makes each game unique, no matter who you chose to play.

One Map to Rule Them All

Like I said earlier Dota 2 is played on mainly one map. There are other maps released on occasion, like currently there's a new game mode and a new map out for the Christmas holidays, but the core game is one map and one map only.

The Dota 2 map, without the team structures [2]

Whenever I tell people the game is played on one map, they always reply with "How do you not get bored?", I always answer by mentioning Counter-Strike and despite being around for almost a decade all people want to do is play de_dust. I feel games don't need 15 maps with another 20 coming in DLC, a hand full of maps that have been thoroughly designed with tactical depth will last much longer and this is exactly what the Dota 2 map has.

The map seems simple at first and the basics can be learned quickly, but hidden all over are paths hidden in the trees, because of player vision too there are even more, smaller, hiding spots that can be used to get out of a sticky situation. This is just a small example of the depth of this map, because once you begin to factor in the effects items and spells can have, the entire thing becomes like a complex chess board.

Free to Play, not Pay to Win
I've never been a big fan of Free to play games, the majority of them are either lacking in polish, feel way too grindy or are simply pay to win. However Dota 2 doesn't contain any of these negatives, as soon as you download the game you're on the same playing-field as everyone else. There's no must-have stat to grind away, no rubbish starting weapons to try and replace and there's certainly no limited-hero pool.

Dota 2 makes its' money from cosmetic items and that's it. If you like a hero enough you can buy items to make it stand out from the rest, or you can buy a fancy courier or maybe just a different HUD skin. None of this is required though, you could play for a year and never need to throw money at the game. The free to play model has been on the up lately in general, with games like Path of Exile also offering a high quality experience with no need to put money in it.

Left: The standard Warlock   Right: Warlock with a cosmetic set

The World has Weight... mostly
The visuals are, for me anyway, one of the biggest highlights in Dota 2. Everything in the game carries a weight, from the simple trees in the forest to each hero, everything feels like it has purpose and it is all textured in a vibrant, painterly style.

Each hero have had some serious design time dedicated to them, each with a unique look and silhouette and when considering how many heroes there are this is quite an achievement! A number of heroes have had multiple redesigns too, while some are currently waiting, but each of them have great personalities and are animated beautifully. When you throw all this into combat with all the spell effects, the game can be quite a sight to behold.

Things can get pretty chaotic during teamfights

The only thing that I can't get on with is the lore. I know in a game like this the lore isn't as important as in say Mass Effect or Skyrim, so I should be happy that Valve have taken the time to try and explain the world and the heroes, but the number of heroes that have just popped out the ground is a bit much. Some of them have stories intertwined with other heroes, which for me adds believability to the world, yet a good number of them have the "mysterious unknown power" thing attached to them and this reduces the credibility.

For Balance
Not wanting this post to become overly biased I thought I'd write down some of things that I think are wrong or just bad, after all, without this I'd be saying Dota 2 is near perfect, when it obviously isn't. The very nature of the game is "snowbally", meaning if one team make enough mistakes the enemy team can push the advantage hard, leaving the other team in a corner for 20 minutes just losing with no hope of coming back, which isn't fun. Add this on top of the inevitable losing streaks and your morale for the game can drop pretty hard.

Being an internet based game the community can have bad members, but I guess this just comes with the hobby. The servers can be a bit wonky at times and while the menus are functional they feel a bit sluggish in places, the option for more player statistics would be great too. Lastly, some of the cosmetic items don't match up to the quality of others, but this is because most of the sets are made by the community. A lot of the things mentioned in this paragraph could all be addressed through patches, which Valve push out at a decent rate.

A festive version of the standard Dota 2 map

I could quite easily double the size of this post discussing things in Dota 2, but I won't, I feel I have covered all the necessary points in what makes this game great and the influences it can pass on. In my future work I hope I can replicate some of the design choices made by Valve, especially in character design, as Dota 2 is a real showcase for fantastic character design work. As for playing the game itself, I'm slowly approaching my 400th game and I can't wait to see what the another 400 have in store for me!

References & Notes

[1]http://www.dvlzgame.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/DotA-21.jpg
[2]http://www.devilesk.com/dota2/images/dota_minimap.jpg
All other images were taken by me, in-game

A Big Drawing Update.

As the title says, I've uploaded quite a few drawings, I have even managed to take photos of the A1 sheets too. I haven't uploaded everything I've done, some sheets are unfinished and others I just don't see the point, like how many blind contour drawings do you need to see?

Life Drawing

We've been doing a good mix of techniques in life drawing, many of which I've enjoyed. I always feel like just as I get to grips with a technique we move onto another, which is a shame as I'd like to see how far I could push some of them. After looking over these images it is also clear I have some problems with proportion, like certain heads being too big or small, or a thigh looking too chunky.

Visual Design
We had to take a trip to a Victorian pumping station on the edge of Leicester for one of the weeks, to get there I decided to walk a long the canal for about an hour which was... pleasant. The actual station was fantastic though. The final I produced for the station I will be redoing over Christmas, I made mistakes throughout and I think the final piece is very disjointed. I think certain areas work well but none of them work well with each other, which is a big problem!

The final project before Christmas was going the National Space Centre, located just next to the pumping station. Inside there were various space equipment like satellites and other machinery, there's even an old US rocket in the building which was a surprise. The actual building was an odd giant bubble, looking like something out of a 70's sci-fi show. It was also semi-opaque, making it very challenging to draw, which is why I picked it for my final.

History of Gaming: Part 4.

The start of the 00's, Sega had stopped production of the Dreamcast, leaving the market open for another competitor. Sega had decided to produce games for other platforms otherwise they'd run the risk of going under, this shocked many of the fans as the console had so much potential. (Fahs, T 2010) Sony had released the Playstation 2 at the start of the decade and the console was selling very well, while Nintendo was about to release the Gamecube meaning the market was already shaping up for another fight.

At the end of 2001, Microsoft decided to step into the ring by releasing the Xbox. Microsoft had the money and the knowledge to step into the market and while the console didn't sell as much as the Playstation it certainly showed that Sony didn't have a firm grip on the lead position. The Xbox released with Halo: Combat Evolved and year later Xbox Live was released, so the console certainly had a few tricks, but it also had a few missteps, like the original "Duke" controller which was the size of a small car (Certainly felt that way). (Goss, P 2011)

[1]

During this decade many of the big game franchises started to pick up, such as Grand Theft Auto. GTA III was released in 2001 and this was the games first 3D outing, and since then had been one of the top selling franchises in the gaming industry. Call of Duty was released in 2003 and while it wasn't the mega-blockbuster it is now, it certainly shows what games can become with a decent developer, time and an eventual endless money pit. Nintendo were also releasing their usual games for the Gamecube, such as Smash Bros, Zelda and the multiple Mario games, all of which sold well.

The Playstation 2 has now become the best selling console in history, selling over 150 million units, yet the next generation wasn't going to be as easy for Sony. In 2005 Microsoft had rushed into the next generation of consoles with the Xbox 360, they had learned from their past mistakes and also built upon their old successes with Xbox Live. The end of 2006 saw Sony and Nintendo enter the next-gen with the Playstation 3 and the Wii. The Xbox 360 had hardware problems with the dreaded Red Ring of Death, while the Playstation 3 had a very high price point and shaky online features. The Wii on the other hand found success in the innovative motion-controls and the usual high quality Nintendo games.

These sort of families appeared on our TV's  [2]

The difference between the PS3 and the 360 eventually came down to the exclusive games. The 360 had the Halo franchise, Gears of War, Forza and a few other one offs, such as Mass Effect or Lost Odyessy. The PS3 on the other hand had Kill Zone, Gran Turismo, Uncharted and others. The cross-platform games are almost identical in every way and this seems to be continuing across to the new generation that has just been released.

It is hard to tell who will win the new generation. Microsoft will have to work hard to regain some lost sales due to a terrible E3, while Sony and the PS4 at the moment appear to be the golden company. Nintendo are doing what they do best with the WiiU, yet the WiiU hasn't picked up like the original Wii did. I imagine as more must-have Nintendo titles come out the console will sell. I've personally gone with the Xbox One for now, I was torn at first but I feel the starting line-up on the One is slightly stronger and I enjoy both the Forza and Dead Rising franchises.


References & Notes
Fahs, T. (2010). IGN Presents the History of Dreamcast. Available: http://uk.ign.com/articles/2010/09/10/ign-presents-the-history-of-dreamcast?page=10. Last accessed 15th Nov 2013.

Goss, P. (2011). Ten years of Xbox: a brief history. Available: http://www.techradar.com/news/gaming/consoles/ten-years-of-xbox-a-brief-history-1040866. Last accessed 17th Dec 2013.

http://us.playstation.com/corporate/about/theplaystationstory/

[1]http://images.thecarconnection.com/lrg/2013-volkswagen-golf-r-2-door-hb-side-exterior-view_100414823_l.jpg http://gearmedia.ign.com/gear/image/article/117/1176925/dukecontroller_1308247746.jpg

[2]http://lazytechguys.com/featured/top-20-family-friendly-video-games-of-2012/#.UrCXsfRdXuM

Architecture.

The project after the wheelie bin was to create a building, it's been completed for a while now but I've been sitting on it because I've wanted to add some finishing touches to the finals before I uploaded it. Now I have finally had the chance to spend an afternoon on it and I can post about it!

Our brief was to create a photo-realistic building using reference that we gathered ourselves. The building had to be old, something with an interesting look and a bit of character, 1970's council houses were out of the question! I went to a town near where I live that dates back to the Roman's to look for interesting buildings. I found a small church built around the 1900's, the building had a lot of interesting architecture and also had some modern extensions added to it. I've uploaded a few of my reference shots to help compare between the real-life version and my 3DS Max version.

The tri-limit for the building was 2,500, while using 2 1024's for texturing, we could divide this up if needed. Compared to the bin this was a much bigger project, but I was feeling confident. I ran into a few problems while constructing the building so my confidence didn't last long but I managed to figure most of them, or find a suitable work around, one example is I placed far too much detail around the windows, so I had to revert back to an earlier save to undo all the work I had done. This meant I did waste about 2 hours but I didn't fancy blowing my entire tri-limit on windows. 

Under construction

I created the building using 2,430 tris and I managed to squeeze in some details, most importantly a couple of door handles! On the 2 front doors to the church I added door handles, the back doors I left all handle less. I think this is a good way to show the players that a door is usable. It is this route or I could place novelty padlocks on the unusable doors but without any indication if a door is usable players like me will try to open every one. I spent the first 10 minutes of The Stanley Parable just trying to open doors, which the narrator then mocked me for.

Texturing an entire building was much harder than a wheelie bin I found out. I should have planned out my polygons in such a way that would make texturing easier, instead I put little thought into this and had already invested a large number of hours in modeling the building so I did not want to redo the entire thing. This left me with a building that was difficult to texture exactly how I wanted.

The final building: 2,430 tris & 6.25mb worth of textures

Finally the reason it has taken me so long to post this. I wanted to add a few smaller details to the building, like a ground to sit on, a few bushes, to really make the building stand out. I would have liked to have included a 3D viewer like in my previous Robot post but the program doesn't seem to like tiling textures, I will have a look into this however and update the post if I can find a fix!

EDIT: After a couple of hours messing around I've managed to import the building correctly, so it can now be viewed fully in 3D! The lighting isn't perfect and is causing some issues with the bushes but I'm okay with that. I have embedded it at the bottom of the post. 

Final building with some added extras

Coleshill Church from Braden May on Sketchfab.