mousehands: notablog

prince of persia

Wed, 20 Jan 2010 03:53:44 +0000

For the first time in a while, I've played a game to the end. In a library filled with racing games with none of that story malarky or fixed end state (complete with uninterruptible credits), I've forgotten the last game I actually finished.

It was probably GTA IV.

Anyway, it's safe to say that Prince of Persia: Sands of Time was safely in my top 10 PS2 games. It had a nice story, reasonably believable characters, the rewind mechanic and combat that wasn't too hard, but still satisfying and very acrobatic.

I missed out on the following games, being put off by the response which was generally "more of the same, emo prince, harder combat", but at some point last year I picked up the subtitleless PoP.

Like the old game, it features a mix of platforming and fighting, only this time there's no rewind mode and I found it extremely frustrating. Whereas before you had a bunch of enemies to tackle at once, now you have a single monster to dispatch - assuming you can get a hit in. The other notable new thing is the lack of a health bar, but at some point you'll have to do a quick time event to not die. Dying results in the enemy's health (they do get one) partially restoring. Maybe I'm just rubbish, but I found the whole thing annoying and unrewarding.

The running/jumping/climbing trees sections are a lot better, with an Assassin's Creed semi-automated feeling and a real sense of the Prince's athleticism as he runs up and along walls, ceilings and the like. These sections are broken up by occasional puzzles, most commonly moving chunks of the landscape about to reveal the correct route.

The story ends on something of a cliff-hanger, and helpfully welcomes you to shell out £7.99 to continue. I'd rather check Youtube for the story elements and call it a day.

need for speed shift

Sun, 07 Feb 2010 01:29:04 +0000

My Self Imposed Games Embargo ended as did the naughties. It shouldn't have ended, of course, since the games I hadn't finished still remain unfinished yet with the turn of the new year the impetus to remain frugal in a videogame sense was replaced with a sudden splurge of buying games.

Of these (the names of which I shall cleverly keep under my virtual hat, but if you have a PS3 WHICH IS ONLINE* they're quite easily found), the one that I've mostly been playing of late is NFS Shift. It's caused quite a bit of discussion on the game blogs and forums for being so very different to the laddish street racers that made up the rest of the NFS series.

That difference is a bonus, if you ask me, since I've never been that keen on those other games.

Shift does several things very well. It looks great, has more real-world tracks than the likes of GRID or Forza 2 (I haven't played 3 yet, though it is on my radar when the price drops a bit) and the handling is very chunky. I'd put it somewhere between GRID and Ferrari Challenge, in that it punishes you somewhat for overly-ambitious entry speeds but gives you more of a chance to slide gracelessly around the outside of the corner if you do so.

It's big thing (USP, if you excuse the marketing speak) is its driver profile. For every action on track, you get awarded points. These are either precision points (for driving clean sections and passes, sticking to the racing line) or aggression (smashing into your opponents, blocking them), and these points define how the game sees you. Early in the game, my profile was borderline, swapping between precise and aggressive race to race, but it's settled on precision as I've become more accustomed to how the game plays and layouts of tracks I've not driven before.

Points also make levels, while stars are gained for podium positions, attaining a given number of points in each event and achieving a special task for the event (a certain lap time, clean lap, etc).

Tracks range from the obvious (Spa, Nordschleife, Laguna Seca) to the fantastical (London, Tokyo) and look great even if I don't remember Spa and Donington having theme parks in them. Cars are plentiful, ranging from touring car level Ford Focus and Seat Leon to supercars such as the infamous Bugatti Veron and Koenigsegg. There's plenty to do to the cars, too. Upgrades, setup tweaks and a livery customisation tool which I can't make anything look pretty, especially when the more interesting designs are unlocked as you gain levels.

It's almost all good so far. The only problem is drifting events are made part of wider series, so the only way to complete them is to finish on the podium of drifting competitions and that's something I haven't found much enjoyment in so far. GRID does it, as does Gran Turismo, but at least they have the good sense to make it largely optional. In fairness, it's not required in Shift but the way everything's set up it may be difficult to avoid if you need a certain number of stars towards the end of the career game.

Despite all this, I'm conceivably on my way to a second platinum trophy as there's nothing in there that I can't do and given enough time and enthusiasm for continued (proper) racing, it's all looking good.

* You know who you are. Sort it out.

why I hate (and love) the nurburgring

Fri, 15 Jan 2010 03:24:23 +0000

Of the many things that Gran Turismo 4 & 5, Forza 1, 2 & 3, Need for Speed Shift have in common (being on the car-porn end of racing games, for example), one example is that they allfeature the legendary race track and now toll road just outside the sleepy village of Nurburg.

Yes, it's the Nordschleife, the 20km long track with over a hundred corners that - for reasons which escape me - is incredibly popular with video game racers. Being as long as it is, it requires more effort than I'm willing to put in to properly learn. Some people, I'm sure, will gleefully take up the challenge but it's a though that I can only imagine is tedious beyond belief.

For me, the real satisfaction in racing games comes from stringing good laps together and if you have a lap time in excess of 6 minutes, the punishment for a ruined lap is simply too great.

Never the less, I shall still pick up GT5 at some point this year, just after I'm done with a few unfinished driving games. Those would be:

Need for Speed Shift
Ferrari Challenge
Superstars V8
Colin McRae DIRT (the first one)
Motorstorm (also the first one)
Race Driver GRID

And let's not even get started on the Formula 1 game.

shappy... new year?

Thu, 31 Dec 2009 16:27:54 +0000

I missed the opportunity to wish everyone (both? just the one of you?) a shappy Santamas, so here's to the next year as of tomorrow.

It's going to be 2010!

it's that german bloke again

Wed, 23 Dec 2009 18:40:30 +0000

Despite the non-event of his Ferrari return, the rumours kept coming and coming, and in true F1 fashion, turned out to be true. Michael Schumacher, you know - the guy that made 2000-2004 really boring, is coming back with his old mucker Ross Brawn in the rebranded Mercedes GP team.

Stealing the old man of Formula 1 from Rubens Barrichello, you have to imagine it's going to be a pretty tough deal after a three year break and a neck injury that precluded him from helping Ferrari bag third place in the constructor's championship. But it does mean that there's again going to be four world champions in the field (make that five if Raikkonen returns from his rally holiday, six if he returns and there's a new champion and seven on the off chance that all this happens and Jaques Villeneuve makes an unexpected comeback).

With an increased budget from the Mercedes buyout and Pertronas sponsorship and now with the undeniable development brains of Schumacher on board, this makes the Brawn and co package look very strong for the again testing-banned 2010 season.

donington parks its grand prix hopes

Sun, 13 Dec 2009 16:52:32 +0000

Once again I find myself at the forefront of motor sport news.

Yes, it's the "news" that Silverstone have ended all dispute and landed the British grand prix for the next 17 years. After the fiasco of Donington Park's finances, half-arsed renovation works that have left the track apparently unusable and the loss of not just F1 but also Moto GP leaves massive questions for the future of the circuit.

Having visited both tracks (BTCC at Silverstone 2008 and Donington this year; Renault's Silverstone event this year), I can't help but feel that Donington is the nicer place to be but it was clear even this summer that the amount of work left to do was massive and they needed to get a move on to meet the scheduled 2010 race: a new layout was planned and with just the one grandstand (that I recall) the hundred thousand people expected to turn up didn't have anywhere to sit.

Silverstone, on the other hand, is a bit of a dump. The pits, with their cheap signs (including the Johnny Herbert suite) give the place a bit of a third-rate feel that isn't helped by the scaffolding grandstands that are perhaps more suited to a temporary race such as Monaco or Montreal.

There's a new layout planned for the Moto GP race next year, which skips Bridge corner in favour of using the national straight and having seen the touring cars approach Brooklands in that direction makes that corner a lot more exciting than the more measured entry through Priory.

and then, some happiness

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 20:18:24 +0000

It was looking slightly dubious for a moment there, but Peter Sauber and co will be returning for the 2010 season. With Toyota gone, it seemed a matter of time before the FIA announced the free slot would go to the ex-BMW lads, but the FIA are a weird bunch and that was never guaranteed.

Now that the only question over the entrants for next year is that of the hotly-rumoured Renault being sold off to Pro Drive (not a bad thing, as they were responsible for Honda's finished pre-Brawn days), the question once again goes to the driver market.

I would quite like to see Nick Heidfeld and Kamui Kobayashi driving for Sauber next year. Heidfeld is a safe pair of hands and knows the team well and Kobayashi is the hottest young talent in a long time.

the silly season goes a bit sad

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 17:31:53 +0000

A quick recap:

Brawn GP has been bought up by Mercedes to create Mercedes-Benz GP.

Button has signed up for McLaren for the next few years. F1's least loyal driver (he had to pay his way out of a Williams contract after changing his mind) has denied Ross Brawn the honour of having numbers 1 and 2 on his (well, Daimler's) cars in 2010 and put his own reputation under threat by being team-mates with second-best driver Lewis Hamilton.

Second best? Surely you mean third best.

This is the more disappointing news: Kimi Raikkonen, who previously said his only option was a McLaren drive, is now left with no team big enough to pay his ample pay demands and will sit out next year. The mumbling, ice-cream-eating, snoozing Spa-meister may spend his gap year rallying, but his exit leaves F1 short of another driver who isn't of the Hamilton/Rosberg PR-groomed-to-hell mould and one who, on his day, is a joy to watch on track.

breaking my embargo

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 16:06:25 +0000

Quietly, some may say silently, I entered into "no new games until 2010*" plan, which would allow me to focus on games I would like to play/finish/play again/start for a while without getting distracted by the mad rush of Santamas releases.

Well, it didn't work out quite that way. Buzz World Quiz, the latest in the very family friendly quiz series, is out and has already proven another winner by providing some much-needed extra options from the first PS3 release that I picked up last year.

The next (and final) embargo-smashing game I'd like to pick up is the Wii's F1 game, which is due out later this month. Okay, so it's on the Wii, but it's a new Formula One game and the first since the PS3 launch game which was based around the 2006 season. Handily, it supports the Gamecube controller so there'll be no silly Mario Kart** wheel type silliness.

And that's it. Honestly. Next year will be filled with many a reduced-price game plus no doubt some new ones.

* That's next year, not ten past eight.
** I like Mario Kart Wii, but it's hardly accurate or well-suited to a proper racing game.

mothballing stage 1 complete

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 23:53:03 +0000

This is just a very quick note to say that the R&M Lyrics site has now reached its final stage of life.

While the site is still there and at the same URL as it has been for a decade, it will receive no further updates. Perversely, it's better than it has been for some time. When I moved to the slicehost, I dropped the old hosting down to the minimum package: 100Mb of space means that the MP3s won't fit on the old hosting and for a time the downloads simply didn't work.

As an experiment, I moved the files to Amazon S3 and an hour or so of meddling with five year old PHP later the file sizes work and there's no database access. This does mean that the search feature has had to be turned off but it also means that will have minimal effect on the web server load in the future.

The same will happen to ask philip later unless somebody can come up with a convincing argument to keep the rusty old thing.

and then there were thirteen

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 23:39:49 +0000

Another day, another manufacturer team pulls out of Formula 1.

Unlike the BMW-Sauber exit, nobody seems to be shocked or actually care that much this time. Toyota never really "got" F1 - They trundled around in the midfield for a few years with a bunch of journeymen drivers (Ralf Schumacher, Jarno Trulli) and now they're off.

While it's no great loss on the track, it does leave just two manufacturer teams: Ferrari and Renault, the latter of which is now rumoured to be considering their 2010 options. Also, it means that Japan is unrepresented on the grid next year and that must put the Japanese grand prix under threat

The biggest disappointment in all of this is that we're unlikely to see the fantastic Kamui Kobayashi on track next year, as he will apparently be returning to his father's sushi restaurant.

I have a few Toyota posters from the 2006 European Grand Prix if anyone wants one.

(good)bye motorsport world

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 21:46:56 +0000

Like Honda at the end of last year, BMW's announcement of their F1 pullout was quite a shock. 2009 hasn't been particularly kind to them in compared to 2008, they still managed a couple of podiums and beat early hot ticket Williams into fifth place in the constructor's championship.

However, like Honda, they abandoned the 2008 car early to work on this year's and that simply didn't work out very well when compared to Brawn's successes.

What's more, the 2010 prospects for the Hinwil based team is dubious at best. BMW's refusal to sign the Concorde agreement and delay finding a new owner for the team meant that the 13th slot on the grid was given to the Lotus team and any hope of seeing them in F1 next year (assuming that all the teams signed up actually do make it through the winter) means getting support from all the other teams. That support just isn't there.

Peter Sauber has sold his stake in the team, so we lose both BMW and Sauber names from F1 next year, even in the unlikely event of the team arriving on the grid in March.

Farewell to both marques.

(As a side note, these aren't the greatest pictures from the 2008 Canadian GP, but I took them. So there.)

you're looking at it

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 21:06:00 +0000

There's a new version of !blog.

Though, really, there's no reference to the ! any longer. With the move from the UK to .net subdomain, we lose the opportunity to have a confusing and subversion-unfriendly piece of punctuation. And for what?

Well, mostly it's a back-end reshuffle and a move to the slicehost server, but there's some geo-tagging stuff that's quite nice and some associated google maps, plus a nicer home page with some social crap at the bottom.

Who doesn't like social crap?

What there isn't is any form of browser-sniffing and thus IE will just have to try and render what it gets (which is some old CSS that really should be reworked, but that's for phase 2*). IE 8 does a surprisingly good job, but not even the mighty firefox supports some of the CSS3 goodies hidden in the new version so for the full picture Safari or Chrome suffice.

In other server news, I restored the R&M mp3s by putting them on Amazon S3 to test how much that costs, and it seems to come in at about 12.5 cents a week, which I can just about stomach. The "great mothballing of 2009" commences now, with some of the work done on the lyrics site, with ask philip to follow. It's kind of sad, but I don't know of another way to rejuvenate the site; I choose to get off the pot, or something.

* Yes, there really is a "phase 2" list.

heroes, villains and clowns: abu dhabi

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 14:58:10 +0000

The final race of 2009 took place in the amazing surroundings of the kind that government support and oil cash can bring.

With Silverstone's place on the 2010 calendar under threat, the shabby surroundings of Northamptonshire with its Johnny Herbert suite and scaffolding suddenly looks rather last century. As much as I consider Silverstone to be something of a dump (behind both Donington Park and Brands Hatch in terms of niceness for visiting spectators), F1 does have its roots in the UK and Europe and there must be a balance between flash new events and the location of the people who actually watch the races.

Oh, the race, you say?

Hamilton's practice and qualifying dominance came to nothing in the race and it was finally a rear brake problem that forced him into retirement. Vettel came home first ahead of Webber who kept the charging Button behind him after a final-lap tussle.

Heroes

Vettel won in great style once again and secured second place in the driver's championship. Button and Webber showed how you attack and defend in modern F1. Kamui Kobayashi again showed that he deserves a place next year and is clearly the rookie of the year.

Villains

Without Lewis's brake problems, we may have seen a great fight between him and Vettel for the win.

Clowns

Toro Rosso's Jaime Algueruari retirement was something I've never seen before. Slow on his in-lap, he tried to pit in sister team Red Bull's box and was understandably shooed on by the team - ready for Vettel's stop as they were. He then stopped on the next (a sort of combined out/in lap) either because he ran out of fuel or because of a gearbox failure, depending on who you asked.

And that's the final race HVC report for 2009, but there will be some season roundups in the coming weeks.

heroes, villains and clowns: brazil

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 18:49:26 +0000

Jenson Button finally did what he threatened to do at the start of the year. While he didn't win the race, finishing fifth was enough to clinch the championship.

There's been a lot of criticism of Button in the latter half of the year. Certainly, qualifying has been dismal and Barrichello has often had the upper hand because of that. But today he really shone, with an aggressive drive from the midfield and some nerve-wracking lunges down the inside and a great tussle with Toyota stand-in Kobayashi.

Meanwhile, the actual result was Webber, Kubica and Hamilton. But that's really not the main story from today.

Heroes

Button, obviously, for being the 2009 F1 champion as well as a great race. Lewis Hamilton, with a little help from the early safety car allowing for a strategy change, rose even further up to claim the last podium place from 18th.

Special mention goes to the debutant Kamui Kobayashi, who gave Button a good run in the early part of the race. "Crazy" or not, I rather hope it is enough to get him a drive for 2010. He's the new Takuma Sato.

Villains

On the face of it, Trulli's incident with Sutil seemed to be mostly his own doing and his tantrum seemed rather petty and unnecessary. The incident is under review, but I don't expect any punishment for either party.

Clowns

The McLaren pit crew made a very similar to error that Ferrari made in Singapore last year and sent Kovalainen on his way with the fuel system still attached to the car, and the fuel spilled caused a flash fire in Kimi Raikkonen's face. Still, with refuelling banned next year, this may be the final incident of its kind.

heroes, villains and clowns: singapore

Sun, 27 Sep 2009 15:05:28 +0000

Another night race, another pretty dull spectacle (though no doubt helped by the appearance of the safety car) despite the stunning scenery under the lights. Hamilton won, as expected, helped no doubt by silly mistakes from Rosberg and Vettel on their pitstops. Glock finished second and Alonso (last year's "winner") was third.

The more interesting events (from a championship perspective) took place behind the podium finishers, with Vettel recovering well to finish fourth ahead of Button and crucially, Barrichello.

This leaves Rubens 15 points behind Jenson with three races to go.

Heroes

Lewis Hamilton drove a flawless race with a heavy fuel load and never looked to be under pressure from Nico or Sebastian.

Villains

Adrian Sutil made a half-arsed move on one of the Toro Rossos, but span without making contact. That's all well and good, he kept his foot in and drifted into the path of Heidfeld and brought out the safety car.

Clowns

It has to be Rosberg and Vettel, who made an easy win for Hamilton even easier by making silly mistakes and gave themselves needless drive-through penalties. Rosberg's came at a worse time, dropping him from a solid second place to finish outside the points.

villains: of briatore and symonds

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 21:24:10 +0000

The verdict is in. Well, the punishment is in: we knew the verdict when Renault put their hands up to the charges and sacked team boss Flavio and engineering director Pat.

I was quite vociferous about what kind of punishment Renault should be in for after the facts about Singapore 2008 came out. Words like "disgraceful" and "thrown out" uttered from my lips. What Briatore, Symonds and Piquet did was, I though, worse than anything else in F1's dirty recent history.

There are no winners to come out of this debacle. Piquet is unemployable due to his low moral character, the "rightness" of 2008 championship was affected (Massa looked set to score decent points that day, even 8th place would have won him the championship) and Renault and the dirty Duo are branded dirty cheats (which they are).

Flavio Briatore has been thrown out of every FIA sanctioned series for life as well as driver management, but is rich enough to see his days out on his Yacht. Pat Symonds is banned from every FIA series for five years, which probably means he won't be back either, but may seek refuge in some lower form of motorsport - A1GP, perhaps, or something in America.

Renault themselves come out of it rather unscathed (in fact if not in reputation): a lifetime ban suspended for two years for what should at the very least have seen them kicked out of this year. Perhaps the FIA were worried about the parent company pulling out in a time the quality of 2010's entrants remains to be seen.

So, once again Formula 1 puts another regrettable distraction to one side for the final four races of the year. Time to get back to some racing, methinks.

heroes, villains and clowns: italy

Sun, 13 Sep 2009 23:12:27 +0000

Barichello gets win number two for the year, ahead of Button and Raikkonen after Hamilton throws away a certain third place on the last lap.

Championship challengers Red Bull come away with only a single point after Webber crashed out on the first lap and Vettel made little impact from the midfield.

Heroes

Once again, it was the plucky Force India who very nearly (and really should have, with a bit of a strategy tweak) got a second podium in a row. Button returned to form, losing only two points to teammate Barichello and gaining seven on nearest Red Bull rival Vettel.

Villains

Depending on the outcome of the World Motorsport Council in a couple of weeks' time, Nelson Piquet Jr or Renault. Yes, it's another week and another scandal to rock F1 and overshadow the racing. It's a long, sad tale, and I'll hopefully cover it in further detail soon.

Clowns

Both McLaren drivers made the right noises after qualifying. Hamilton on pole with an aggressive two-stop and Kovalainen on a one-stop both were in with a chance of winning. The pace of the Brawn GP car prevented Lewis from victory, but it was his over-exhuberance that gave him no points at all. Potential winner Heikki did nothing of note during the race and limped home a disappointing sixth.

games for 2009

Sun, 06 Sep 2009 21:56:58 +0000

The end of the year is upon us, and all over the land city councils are planning for putting the Santamas lights up. It also tends to be a major release time for video games, which is obviously of more interest in these particular parts.

So, what's coming up in the remainder of 2009?

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. The first uncharted was a bundle of fun, even though it did fall into the Farcry trap of introducing a whole new element in the later part of the game and ramping up the difficulty, and is still considered by some the best PS3 game. I shouldn't really like Uncharted - it's a free aiming shooter and I tend not to be very good at them, but the characters are strong and it does look spiffy.
Katamari Forever. The King of All Cosmos is back, sans memory, plus remixes of the great music and a bunch of graphic filters. The Japanese demo plays very nicely indeed and it gives me another excuse to wear my furry Prince t-shirt.
Gran Turismo 5 (assuming it's released this year). It's Gran Turismo, so why not. With EA dropping NASCAR and no WRC games, this becomes the closest to official racing that we're likely to see for a while. Now, somebody, please, let's have a BTCC game.
Need For Speed: Shift. After DIRT and GRID and FUEL, we have Shift. This is an interesting development on the racing genre and a major shift (hah!) for the NFS games into the realm of proper race tracks. I'm interested to see which circuits are included, since GRID was so lacking in this area.
Assassin's Creed 2. It may have been limited, but I did enjoy Assassin's Creed and this looks to be more varied than the previous game.

One thing worthy of note is that all these games are sequels. 2010 will bring Heavy Rain and who knows when The Last Guardian will show up, but fingers crossed for new stuff in the future.

heroes, villains and clowns: belgium

Mon, 31 Aug 2009 00:00:22 +0000

After a crazy qualifying session that saw Hamilton, Button and Alonso all out in Q2 and Force India's Fisichella on pole position, an interesting race was sure to develop. And develop it did, with a second-corner incident taking out Button and Hamilton and Raikkonen taking the lead from Fisi on the restart after a safety-car period. From there, Kimi kept in front, but never more than a second or so ahead of the shockingly-quick Force India driver.

Heroes

This one's easy: Giancarlo Fisichella. Suddenly, from literally nowhere, Force India came from scoring no points all year to being one safety car restart away from the unlikeliest winner in many years. Raikkonen drove another solid race and goes to show exactly what he brings to Formula 1 when he's having one of his good days. The coming weeks will be most interesting, with his, Massa's and Alonso's future drives in the balance.

Villains

The two youngest drivers on the grid, Toro Rosso's Jaime Alguersuari and Renault's Romain Grosjean caused incidents taking out Hamilton and Button, denying the viewers the spectacle of seeing them work their way up the field.

Clowns

Though he was in no way at fault in today's race, Jenson Button is the clown for a dire qualifying session that put him in the position to be involved in a first lap incident. But more than that, with six wins out of seven at the start of the year, there was a risk of a boring season but it's been anything but since then, with Button scoring a meagre 11 points and no podium finishes since that streak. It's only thanks to Vettel, Webber and Barichello's varying fortunes that he still holds a 16 point lead.

He needs to return to winning form, or at the very least the kind of form to beat Rubens, because if he continues like this and scrapes over the line to win the championship with form like this, his victory will be sullied and considered something of a fluke.