Christmas Plans

This holiday season i am planning to get a lot done, assuming I can keep away from the new Star Wars MMO. Firstly I want to really get to grips with Unity so I can try making some prototype games from some ideas I have, I also want to re-read my notes on C++ so I'm ready for the next semester at uni because, being the geek that I am, I want to do really well in this year and so far I could have done better. Lastly, and most importantly, I want to complete all these games that have been stacking up. For the last month or so I have been collecting these great games that have been coming out but have had no time to play them and this holiday is the perfect chance.

On top of all that I've found an interest in Bleach (the anime not the liquid) which is slowly sucking most of my time away for the moment but luckily I'll have ran out of episodes soon and can continue with my plans. Unluckily however, play.com are selling the next few seasons I want for under £10.

Time to make some harsh decisions.

While I'm here, we have made a facebook page for MercuryForty4. There isn't much there at the moment but it'll do until we get the actual page up and running so feel free to "like" it if you want to give us some moral support.

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All Night Long

Enough with the promises, I'll just have to get round to updating this whenever I can.

At the moment it is 5:50 AM, and my plan to stay up until at least 6 PM is going well, I foresee an hours nap or so around noon but that shouldn't hamper my progress. I should mention that I'm doing this because I have trouble waking up at a reasonable time due to my late nights at work so I am resetting my body clock so I can actually get up for my exam on Thursday.

In other news, this staying up all night business has allowed me the time to finally write my Skyward Sword review which is now available on my review site: A Game Developer Reviews:. Hopefully this large amount of spare time will also allow me to get some other work done and possibly even revise for the aforementioned exam.

For the meantime, however, I shall be collecting star coins on various levels of Super Mario 3D Land.

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Mobile Blogging

Today marks the first time I try to write a post away from my laptop. Despite the negative reviews for this iPhone app I wanted to give it a try, not least because I tend to have 0 time to sit down and write proper posts that you are all no doubt used to from me. A couple of points I've noticed already from a brief once over of the app is the lack of a landscape view which would have been much more comfortable to write from. Apart from that it seems fairly simple but that is not necessarily a bad thing. You don't get the option to read other peoples blogs but that doesn't concern me as much, it also lacks the ability to post links as I usually do but I can live without for these short mobile posts. Overall I would say that the Blogger app is very simple in what it can do, but for the average blogger such as me it's enough to get by on.

The photo options are also hidden by the keyboard so I nearly didn't notice them. They are the usual options you would expect in an app: take a photo or select a photo. For the purposes of a full review I will now post a photo of my girlfriends flat:



Well that's 2 days in a row I've posted now, that must be some sort of record.

Weekly (Maybe)

This blog is quickly becoming the Weekly (Maybe) and I have no one to blame but myself.......and 9gag.

BUT on the upside I have a lot of free time now that the semester is all but finished and I will be trialling the Blogger app to see if that helps me update this more often.

In the meantime I'll be starting to design my own website to go alongside MercuryForty4's site, you know so I look a bit more professional but it more than likely won't go live for some time. On top of that I have started getting to grips with Unity, a game development tool, although this will mainly be used for prototypes as I've been told, quite rightly so, that developing games directly from the code allows for much more freedom and greater control over the final product. That being said, it is a useful tool for using during development challenges such as the Global Game Jam as it allows for quick development of ideas. So I've been told, as I said I'm still getting to grips with it.

In other, more personal, news, my room is a state once again and I intend to restore it to its former glory again tomorrow and keep it that way....for a few days. After that's done and I've done some revision AND I do some work on personal projects I can start getting into Skyrim again and Saints Row as well. Might even  get a review on one of them for you after I get the Zelda one out the way as well as a few that I've had planned but never got round to.

Okay, how many things can you find to insult me in this picture?

Here I had a short review of Resistance: Fall of Man but it became slightly longer than I thought (I was expecting a few lines but ended up with a decent paragraph) so I've moved it over to A Game Developer Reviews: but don't worry, I'll have a bigger review for you to chew on later on.

You stay classy, Internet.


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The week that was

I promise to all of you that I will start updating this more often. Maybe.

Anyway, it has now been nearly 2 whole weeks since my last post and I've still been pulling in an average of 20 viewers a week. Makes me feel a little bit popular for once in my life but that's not the point! The reason for my minor absence is, of course, coursework. Two weeks ago I had a very important piece of coursework due in (from my view it was the most important of this semester). My C# coursework caused me many, many problems but I LOVED every moment of it. Call me strange but I love the thrill of working through code and finally getting it running after putting so much effort in. Unfortunately I ran out of time far too quickly and had to hand it in when I really wanted to finish it off to a higher standard and implement some more techniques that I had read about. On the plus side, I have finally realised the importance of managing my time better and sticking to schedules which I hope will help in my next semester when I have to programme a working game.

On a related note, I thought I would treat myself to something after stressing myself to near death for a few weeks.

All that hard work paid off.

That's right! A Limited Edition 25th Anniversary Legend of Zelda 3DS! I've been wanting a 3DS for a while now and I thought this was as good a time as any to finally get one, especially since the price drop from it's initial release. I especially wanted this one as Zelda is one of my all time favourite game franchises and not only is it designed in a cool black and gold theme with the crest of Hyrule emblazoned on the front but it also came with a copy of Ocarina of Time 3D! One of my all time favourite games!

On a related Zelda-esque note, I've been working my way through the new iteration, Skyward Sword. This is a game I could note recommend highly enough. If you still have a Wii go and get it now, or as soon as the shops open. You will not be disappointed in the slightest. I'm guessing that I will probably make this amazing game next weeks review for A Game Developer Reviews:. Hopefully I'll be able to tear myself away from the Zelda universe long enough to write up a review for another interesting game.

In the mean-time however, you will have to make do with this post but hopefully I will start getting more regular and have more for you to read. Also I might try using some form of sign off phrase as I find it quite hard to end these....

Its dangerous to go alone! Take this blog.

...nahhhh.

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TEA CAKES!!!

This ones a proper post after yesterdays quick one.

So yeah, 200 views within the space of a month, i think that's pretty good considering i barely find the time to write anything on this, and as some of you may have noticed A Game Developer Reviews: hasn't been updated in a while but i intend to sort that tonight.

Anyway, recently I've been busy with coursework (again) so I've had to curtail the amount of adventuring I've been doing in Skyrim which makes me very sad. It also means i haven't been able to play various other games I've been planning to play, ones that I've bought like Battlefield and Batman as well as ones i want to get like Zelda and Assassins Creed. Unfortunately I've also got an exam that i need to start studying for which means even less time to play games. Why do all the good games come out when all my coursework and exams are due? WHY!?

On the plus side my girlfriend bought me 36 tea cakes yesterday, although roughly half of them are now gone. But she will be happy I've mentioned her, and how nice she is, finally.

I give it until tomorrow, then they'll all be gone.

Next Goal: 500 views before the end of November, should be easy enough. I hope.

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200 views!

This is just a quick one to let you all know how extremely popular my blog is.

Now over 200 views within a single month, not bad for my first blog is it?

Well, back to coursework now, promise i'll get all of you a bigger more interesting post later on, possibly tomorrow at this rate.

And thanks for reading!

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PANCAKE DAY!

Today i made pancakes for the first time in forever! And can i just say i make a pretty good pancake when i can be bothered! For those of you interested i use a basic recipe taught to me by my dear old mother: Flour of varying amount depending on how many pancakes you want to make (sorry i don't know how much flour is needed to feed 4 people or similar generic measurement), half the amount of sugar as there is flour (i.e. 4lbs of flour == 2lbs of sugar), 2-3 eggs whisked with milk in a large mug filled near the top (by this point you will have realised my mum didn't cook using known measurements and preferred to measure with "a cup about this size"). Add half the contents of the mug to the flour and sugar and mix together, adding more of the egg/milk mix as required, until the mixture reaches a slightly runny point but is still sticky. I know that's quite vague but i can't think of how else to explain it, you should know when its ready though. Make sure you grease up a large-ish pan with some butter and put it on the hob over a low-medium heat, adjusting as necessary. Put some mixture in and flip the pancake when you can see a bubbly texture on the top, wait a minute or two and your first pancake is done!

Looks nice, doesn't it?

Of course your first pancake won't look like the lovely one pictured above but that's just because it has the job of soaking up any excess butter left in the pan, after that all your pancakes will look as awesome as mine...as long as you flip them in time.

Near the end of my mixture i decided to try something new, feel free to try this too if you want. I got adventurous and made a double-stuffed pancake, which actually worked out much better than i thought it would and it tasted really nice!

You can clearly see the first pancake in the middle of the second pancake in the upper slice. I was so impressed i wanted to make what i would call "The Inception" which would consist of a mind altering 3rd pancake within the 2nd pancake within the 1st pancake! Unfortunately i had ran out of mixture so it will have to wait until i can be bothered making pancakes again.


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Mercury Forty 4

Sorry i haven't said anything in a while, I've been busy adventuring in Skyrim. More on that later.

This week I've made a conscious decision to update this blog as much as i can, even if i only update what I've had to eat that day and also to start actively working on my ambitions to own my own development company. To that end I've started designing the company logo for a very very small venture that I and 2 others are setting up. If nothing else this will serve as experience for all involved although at the moment we are still in planning stages for our first project but I'll update you on progress as and when it happens.

 

Logo Design v0.01

After much deliberation and many ideas we decided upon the name "Mercury Forty 4" with the "40" spelt out and the "4" left in its numerical form. Currently one of us is working on a website but this will probably not be active for a while as all three of us have coursework to complete which is more important at the moment. Hopefully we will manage to make some progress over the holidays.

 

Many more ideas to follow.

Throughout this venture i hope to develop my skills and hopefully build up my portfolio to the extent that companies will send all other applicants home after seeing it at an interview.

On another note, I've been slightly busy fighting dragons to find a game to review, it will be a while before i even attempt to review Skyrim and no, i will not be touching CoD because it will just descend into a rant against Activision. So, as it stands i will probably be doing a shorter review on a downloadable game but we'll see. In the meantime make sure to check my previous reviews at A Game Developer Reviews:


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Darwinian Difficulty

While browsing about the Internet, as one does when bored and should really be sleeping, I found a very interesting article about game difficulty. In the article, published on Gamasutra, the writer explores the idea of a "Darwinian difficulty curve" where a game starts off being hard and stays that way without the option to lower the difficulty should you decide that you are struggling a bit too much. The writer, Josh Bycer, uses two games to prove his point that this way of making games is better than the much more popular difficulty selection method, those games being Ninja Gaiden Black and Demon Souls. Unfortunately i have yet to experience the "horror" that is Demon Souls but from what I've heard it's even worse than Ninja Gaiden. The main difference between this method of designing games and the more common method is that the player will be given all the skills needed to complete the game at the very start and within the first level or section of the game will be forced to use each of these skills at some point. This means that the player is aware of all if not most of the skills required to successfully go through the game from the very start, usually this is done without the use of tutorials and through putting the player in a situation where they either see the skill being used or come across a new enemy/area that requires them to expand upon their knowledge of the game so far and to increase the skill they have. Throughout the article Bycer notes that through the use of Darwinian difficulty the player is left feeling more rewarded having used their own skill and knowledge to overcome obstacles, from personal experience i can say this is very true of Ninja Gaiden which to this day I am yet to complete due to its difficulty. I won't go into it any further as Bycer does a very good job of it but it is an interesting read if you are at all interested in games.

On a similar note, in the previously mentioned article someone posted a comment directing readers to a video by Egoraptor. For those of you who don't know, Egoraptor is a highly entertaining animator, most popular for his "Awesome" series of animations which mainly parody popular game series. In the video Egoraptor talks about Mega Man X and how it cleverly hinted at how to complete it instead of using tutorials or characters telling the player how a challenge could be overcome. The video itself is both highly informative and entertaining but be warned Egoraptor can be a bit foul mouthed.

From now on i will be including links to my social sites and gamertags to make things simpler for people to find me, these will be located at the bottom of my posts (if i remember to put them there). And just in case you missed them, here's the links to the article and video:

Darwinian Difficulty: How Throwing Players In Headfirst Can Work by Josh Bycer
Sequelitis - Mega Man Classic vs, Mega Man X by Egoraptor


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Coursework...

Ever get that feeling that the coursework you're doing has absolutely nothing to do with anything? Well that's where I am right now. For the last week my life has revolved around databases and SQL and I can't wait until it's out of the way. I know that most people complain about coursework but I really don't mind it too much, in fact in the case of my C#, C++ and Java courseworks i fairly enjoyed it. Being pushed and learning by myself makes me feel like I have learnt a lot more than if I was just shown how to do something, it gives a sense of progress. While this is still the case with SQL programming, it is much less enjoyable and a lot more stressful so as soon as this is out of the way I can concentrate on C# and enjoying programming again. I know it sounds sad but I'm going to be doing it for the rest of my life (hopefully) so its probably a good thing that i enjoy it.

SQL. I have the utmost respect for those that have to do this on a daily basis.

Anyway, not much in the way of gaming this week, sad face. And i completely forgot about Sonic Generations coming out! On top of that I'm now swaying over if i should get Saints Row or not. Originally i had decided to leave it but recent footage and the character creation demo has made me think twice, so if one of you lovely readers could lend me £40 it would make my decision much easier!

The next review isn't up on A Game Developer Reviews: yet as I've been too busy with coursework. I was hoping to play Battlefield a bit more and get a review done for that but i think I'll wait until I've played it a bit more. So now I've got a few options but whichever i decide on you devoted readers will have another brilliantly written review to read, hopefully by Tuesday (8th).

I Hate Games

You know what? I hate games.

There. I said it. After an entire day of mulling over what to do in regards to my coursework for uni I decided to play a quick game of Battlefield citing the reason "I probably won't have much time to play it until after Thursday", Thursday being the hand-in day for one of my courseworks. This quick game then turned into a few quick games and before i knew it the clock had already span past 8 o'clock. And instead of stopping there i decided to play a few more quick games on other titles before returning to Battlefield again but this time to go through the campaign. At this point it became a "one more level" situation and now its 2am and I'm going to get hardly any sleep.

On the plus side, i did get a fair few achievement points (Xbox) and from what I've heard I'm fairly close to finishing Battlefield AND I got the MVP pin in multiplayer! BEST. FEELING. EVER. This was after failing to even get close to the top half of the scoreboard for the first few rounds so i felt unbelievably happy with what i accomplished. Adding to the fact that it was a tremendously closely fought round and a brief moment of adrenaline where i had to flee a crumbling building which pulled me to the edge of my seat (bed) for the rest of the round. You just can't beat the feeling you get from epic moments of action like that in games, or drama for that matter, or sudden epiphanies if you're playing a puzzle game, or the sheer smugness you get from outsmarting your opponent in strategy games.

You know what? I love games.


And while I'm here I should let you know about the other blog I started, A Game Developer Reviews:. This one will concentrate on game reviews and possibly on game related news if I feel that this one is getting a bit clogged. Anyway, this week the review is on Batman: Arkham City so have a look and let me know what you think.

Daily (MAYBE)

Yes, maybe is an important part of this blogs title. As much as i want to keep things as up to date as possible, i find that I'm just too busy...with games.

As some of you may know, this past month and the following months are very full for us gamers. With many high profile games coming out its hard to find the money and time for all of them, with that in mind i have decided this year to concentrate on the top 3 games of the season. NO it is not Call of Duty, Assassins Creed and Fifa 12. The games I personally consider to be the top of this season are Arkham City, Battlefield 3 and Skyrim, that being said i have found the Assassins Creed series to be one of the few games in recent years to improve in quality despite yearly releases.

As is the case with most gamers over the mental age of 12, Skyrim is the main fixture of this seasons releases, but I'll get round to talking about that when I've actually played it (Nov 11th or 10th if I'm lucky). Batman: Arkham City on the other hand can be talked about at great length, unfortunately i don't have the time at the moment though. My plans are to start a blog alongside this one for game reviews so if anyone has any clever ideas for a name for that one please let me know. For the moment though all you need to know is you should get it and the same can be said for Battlefield, despite release bugs which are currently being worked on and the unbelievably amount of lag i experienced on day 1, is a very good game, so far the campaign is much better than previous years attempts at a war-based storyline and the online is incredible and much more engrossing than its rivals, assuming Activision stick with the same formula they've had for the last 4 years. But again, I'll get into that in more detail when i have time.

For the moment i need to start on coursework, so if anyone has any knowledge of database systems or SQL i wouldn't mind hearing from you. I will try and write again tomorrow when i don't have as much work to do, but until then *insert witty sign off phrase*!

Beginning

I would like to begin things with a somewhat formal overview of why I have created this blog.

The purpose of this site is partly to record any academic ideas and achievements in an easy and accessable manner but also so that I have a place to put my own ideas for various projects and to get helpful feedback (if enough people read it). Hopefully I will have enough time to devote to keeping this blog going by writing useful reviews of games and new technologies to keep people coming back and to write about interesting happenings in my life to ammuse and enlighten.

Don't worry, it won't all be that formal. It was a struggle just writing that paragraph that formally.