NESTA February 2, 2009
Posted by townsend51 in creative economy, design, economy, gaming, innovation, nesta.add a comment
NESTA is a ‘non departmental public body’ which seeks to promote innovation in the UK. Whilst it is funded by the UK Government, it operates at arms length, and hence it can be quite critical of current policy, and it tends to paint a stark and informative picture of the UK economy. It publishes papers on a regular basis, covering a broad spectrum of industry sectors. I’ve blogged about their publications before, and here are another two that I find particularly fascinating:
UK Video Game Development
Changing Nature of Early VC Funding in the UK
Clim City: the coolest (or hottest) game ever? January 10, 2009
Posted by townsend51 in clim city, climate change, flash, gaming, god game.add a comment
The aim of Clim City is to avoid implending doom from climate change by taking decisions related to power plant builds, bio fuel developments and many other things, in a small (presumably French) town. It falls squarely in to the God Game genre, and is more than a little remiscient of Theme Park. But instead of getting your kicks from drowning unsuspecting guests, you get to save the world instead, and all from the confort of your web browser.
The only downside is it’s only available in French. Sacrebleu!
But as an example of what can be achieved with Flash, and a lot of ingenuity, in my opinion it is unsurpassed.
http://climcity.cap-sciences.net/#h
MGS4 – Nowhere to Hide May 15, 2008
Posted by townsend51 in MGS4, Metal Gear Solid, PS3, gaming.add a comment
Put this date in your diaries gaming fans: June 12th. After years of painful expectation Metal Gear Solid 4 will finally hit store shelves – exclusively on the PS3.
Information about the new title hasn’t been particularly forth coming. Even now, when you’d expect the Konami marketing machine to be in full swing, little more is known than when the first MGS4 trailer appeared at E3 three years ago. The most head line grabbing announcement in recent months was by the the game’s director Hideo Kojima, when he suggested that the game would be so large that it wouldn’t fit on a single blu-ray disk (50Gb!).
A number of different product bundles will be available at launch, but only in the US and Japan. Needless to say its annoying, and whilst I can quite happily pass on the gun metal paint job, the Dual shock 3 (DS3) controller is another matter entirely. The DS3 controller isn’t available in Europe for a few more months, and MGS4 makes extensive use of its rumble capabilities. And for a complete Metal Gear nut like myself, anything short of the full experience is irksome to say the least.
That’s not to say that there isn’t still plenty to keep me excited. MGS4 is being hailed as a masterpiece before anyone’s even got truly hands on with it. Dangerous? Perhaps, but when you get a game with such pedigree, expectations are bound to be high.
One of the defining characteristics of MGS is its cinematic quality. Past titles have used cut scenes extensively to develop the story. I’ve always loved this, because it makes the whole experience more akin to an interactive film. Apparently there’s an hour and a half of cut scenes in MGS4, which helps you appreciate why this game was in development for so long – that’s an entire feature length film’s worth of material.
Since so many previous characters are returning (Vamp, Meryl Silverburgh, Otacon, Raiden, Roy Cambell, Liquid Ocelot and Naomi Hunter) there’s plenty of scope for some memorable encounters. The return of Otacon, and Raiden’s showdown with with Vamp are reason enough to get excited.
The game’s tag line throughout development has been ‘Nowhere to Hide” and no matter whether you’re a gamer or not, the frenzy surrounding the new title will be inescapable.
I came across this photo, and was shocked to realise that the flying sentinels that appear in Sons of Liberty actually exist in real life. This one looks particularly sinister. If only I had a Stinger missile…
And if you were wondering, Metal Gear Solid borrows from the best. If you’re interested in MGS then check out these films: Akira, The Thing and Escape from New York, to name but a few.
UK video game industry May 3, 2008
Posted by townsend51 in Liverpool, UK, animation, creative economy, economy, gaming, programming, video game.add a comment
I’ve been looking into the game development scene in the UK, and found some welcome results. I’d always believed that game developers were largely based in London, with the exception of Rockstar and a few others. In reality, there is a much more even spread. Sure, the companies tend to nucleate around hubs, but as far as the distribution of these goes, its all very positive. For instance, I’ve always had aspirations of working in Liverpool when I graduate, because I’ve always liked the place, and its very close to home. I’m sure other people will have found themselves in a similar position, and even though I’ve lived in London for the last couple of years, I have little intention of staying here indefinitely.
This isn’t just confined to the games sector either; there are also opportunities for other digital creatives. These companies didn’t spring up overnight, so why do they keep such a low profile? I would have been interested to know about the employment prospects when I was a young whipper snapper, who through the tyrannies of the world, came to believe that computer games were bad.
During my brief foray into this area, I’ve encountered some useful on line resources (see the bottom of the post).
- Advice for budding animators (Independent Newspaper)
- Info for animators (Prospects)
- Bizarre Creations Fantastic Liverpool based developer (Project Gotham Racing, Geometry Wars)
- List of game developers (only large ones – doesn’t include subsidiaries):
- Skillset (perhaps the greatest asset for a budding game programmer or artist)
