5th Oct
2008

Inspired by Google's 10th birthday and their 2001 search index, I had a poke around and found one of the very first web sites (or pages) I put together for local games company Jester Interactive.

Archived version from the Web Archive.

Look! Curved corners in 2002 - I was so ahead of the times. Just don't ask me what I was on when I dreamed up that layout.

1st Apr
2008

Waking bleary eyed to this today was awesome - thanks Heidi!

6th Dec
2007

UPDATE: Rez HD is out today (30th Jan), and its a fiver. FIVE WHOLE POUNDS. Just five hundred new pence for this glorious piece of audio-visual gloriosity. 1UP gave it 10/10, so what the hell are you waiting for?

Ah, Rez, can I compare thee to a summer's day? Probably, provided there were some mind-altering substances on offer. And colours, and shapes. And colourful shapes.

And, of course, a brilliant soundtrack in Rez: Gamer's Guide to.... This album has been back in circulation for me: the brilliant 'Rez Edit' version of Adam Freeland's Fear (you mean Mindkiller? Hip-hop overdub? No thanks!), Creation The State of Art by ケンイシイ (Ken Ishii), Coldcut's Boss Attacks and Buggie Running Beeps 01 by Kenichi Sugiyama being particular highlights. Just don't play it loud in the car, driving home late at night, in the rain. On mind-altering drugs. It could be quite mesmerising.

Anyway, looks like Steve managed to get his mitts on Rez HD a bit earlier than usual, thanks to "PartnerNet - the closed Xbox Live Arcade network which is like peering into the future - game developers across the globe chuck stuff on there for other devs to download and play to death". I guess there are perks still working in the games industry: strike me particularly envious. Rez HD... mmm... I feel a disturbance in my trousers. Or is that just the Rez Trance Vibrator?

Old news, but I also noticed another of my faves, Ikaruga, could also be available on Xbox Live Arcade. I still play Ikaruga on the GameCube, probably cos it's ludicrously hard.

If you own the big grey n' green, keep your Microsoft lovin' ass on the lookout for these two diamonds.

26th May
2007

The Tempest is was a World of Warcraft guild site built initially on Drupal 4.7 and recently upgraded to Drupal 5. It provides guild membership management via user accounts and roles, forums with public and private access, raid listings with sign-ups and other groovy stuff like private messaging, image galleries and a links/resources directory.

For managing raids and sign-ups we use a CCK type called 'raid' which includes fields for:

• Date using the Date API;
• Instance as a drop-down list (see the attached instance_list.txt for the values we use);
• Notes for anything else, eg what the goals of the run are.

A slighty tweaked Sign Up module allows guild members to sign-up for raid nodes. We also use the Calendar module along with trusty Views to provide both an Upcoming Raids List and a Raids Calendar.

20th Oct
2005

I was pleasantly suprised yesterday when Dylan informed me that he'd got hold of a (somewhat short) demo of Ico 2. Sorry, Wanda and the Colossus. Wait, no. Shadow of the Colossus.

The first reviews are appearing, and for the good of gamers everywhere, its looking darn impressive. According to sites like IGN and Game Informer, its "... an absolute must-play experience", "one of the most important games you'll come across anytime soon", "a truly unique experience" and even "a true work of art, the likes of which we've only seen approached by a very, very small number of games".

16th Sep
2005

Today, Nintendo finally showed off the Revolution controller. And a revolution it just might possibly be. Check out the images attached. The main body doesn't look that much different to my TV remote. It has an attachment which is held in the left hand, with an analogue joystick on, which I'm not convinced about (how many games don't use the thing, at least on the Cube?). Steve and I mentioned the possibility of "splitting" the controller up in order to provide more freedom last week: how bizarre.

The official Nintendo word on this set-up is a classic:

>"The controller also allows for a variety of expansions, including a "nunchuk" style analog unit offering the enhanced game-play control hard-core gamers demand,"