An apt name, for some.

Let’s take the RAGE release problems as an example. id Software are traditionally one of the premier PC game developers, and yet here we see PC gamers taking the brunt of the crippling defects. At the least, gamers are experiencing significant texture pop-in and screen tearing. At the worst crashes and hard locks. Gamers that chose to take a look at the Battlefield 3 beta were required to install a set of crazy-ass beta video drivers from their manufacturer of choice, which don’t play nicely with RAGE. In fact, they reportedly have a 100% crash rate. These gamers are subsequently required to roll-back to the latest stable release, then install an entirely new set of crazy-ass beta drivers. This all in order to play a game that they purchased on Day 1, such was the height of their excitement.

I’m not laying the blame at id’s feet, by the way. This situation is just a product of the current state of the gaming industry. Given the level of connectedness that publishers and developers have to consumers, pushing patches out is a relatively simple procedure. Massive defect remediation cycles have died in favour of hitting publisher-set release dates on time, whether the products are finished or not. It wasn’t so long ago that defects left undiscovered once a game goes gold, remained present for the life of the product. Therefore, it behoved developers to find and fix as many defects as they could before release, in order to defend their reputations. That said, perhaps the blame should rest with the gamers themselves? As Bice rightly points out, it is a sad fact that many gamers would rather take a buggy game two months earlier, than wait for the stable release.

Whatever the reason for the state of new release quality today, it is up to consumers to enact change. Raise your voices, change your purchasing habits, and make it clear that you won’t stand for sub-par quality in the very titles that should be standing as examples of gaming at its best for curious observers and dismissive decriers, both.

The new handset is pretty great. It has apps, plays music, connects me to social media and tells me about the weather. Maybe you’ve heard of it?

Nope, not an iPhone. I’ve taken a risk and become an early adopter of the newly released Windows Phone 7 operating system, specifically an HTC 7 Mozart handset.

*Pretend headphones NOT included

Windows Phone 7 is a complete departure from the Windows Mobile 6 of old, and a welcome one at that. Having turned on the handset and completed the initial setup, I was presented with the default Start screen as customised by HTC. A lot of fuss has been made by Microsoft about their new Start screen and Live Tiles. Each of the tiles that you can see up there in the above stock image are Live Tiles which update with information pertinent to the application, person or website that they’re associated with. For example, my mail tile will show the current number of unread messages in my Inbox. A Live Tile added for a person will show their photo, periodically display their name and latest Facebook update right there on your Start screen. Your Photos Hub tile will display a photo from your collection and other applications can display data like the current weather forecast, application updates awaiting approval or even your Xbox Live Avatar.

The Start screen also included a bunch of pinned applications including the HTC Hub and the Photo and Sound Enhancers. The HTC Hub is quite nice as long as you’re ok with sitting through an indulgent, albeit pretty, animated loading screen. After the load, you’re left with the clock and calendar widget that any user of an HTC Sense UI branded phone would find familiar, and the same list of suggested applications present in the Marketplace hub. Swiping to the right also provided a detailed weather application with animated weather effects designed to mimic the current weather in your location. I decided to drop the HTC Hub in favour of a lighter weather app as it simply took too long to display the important information.

One of the things that I love about this operating system (and the hardware requirements laid out by Microsoft) is that the experience is silky smooth. None of the jerky, laggy scrolling and swiping that we’ve become accustomed to on older smartphones. The clean lines and bold, open typefaces were the initial things that attracted me to WP7 and I’m happy to report that they’re part of the reason I’m staying. When it comes to choosing between the three major operating systems in this space (Android, IOS and WP7) you need to make your decision based on things extra to the core functionality of the products as they all essentially do the same stuff. They all make phone calls, they all send and receive SMS and they all have 3G internet connectivity. The first step of my decision was to dismiss Android. I like the concept, I like the openness of it and I absolutely believe that it should exist. It’s just that I wanted something less cluttered from my smartphone. I wanted an app marketplace that had some control around it so that I could be confident that a minimum level of quality was in place. This left me tossing up between the iPhone 4 and the HTC 7 Mozart.

On one hand, I had the iPhone 4. An absolutely known quantity – I knew that it was an awesome device and worthy of it’s current market share. A safe bet. On the other hand, the feature previews that I’d been reading from people who’s opinion I trust were throwing great praise WP7′s way. Enough to cause me to think long and hard about whether or not I was willing to risk becoming an early adopter of what could turn out to be another example of Microsoft’s apparent malaise regarding mobile technology. The panoramic design of the “Hubs” that have been shown off since early in the OS’ marketing cycle were one of the first things to intrigue me.

Your handset is a window into a wider UI

When navigating the phone’s primary functional areas, you are presented with these hubs – panels of content which are wider than the handset’s display. The last few pixels on the right of the display let you know that there is more content to be seen by giving you a tantalising glimpse of what is on offer, if only you would swipe your finger to view it. This impressively intuitive interface innovation removes the necessity for deep nested menus and allows the interface designers to present the same information and options in a much clearer fashion. It is interface decisions like these which solidified the decision to go with WP7 for me. The phone does all of the things that I need from a phone, while presenting them in a fresh and clean manner.

Adding contacts to the phone was a fantastically simple process. I inserted the SIM card from my previous phone and logged into my Windows Live, Google and Facebook accounts. The phone does a great job of automatically matching people with their many accounts. After 10 minutes of manually tidying up the few links that the phone wasn’t confident enough to work out on it’s own, I had a list of all of my friends and contacts each unified to single contact cards containing all of their relevant account information. Quick and simple. (Side note: Due to the difference in SIM size between Amy’s old phone and her new iPhone 4, she had to manually input all of her contacts)

Some quick in-built app notes: The messaging application is very similar to that on the other smartphones, using the conversational speech bubbles that you’re most likely already familiar with. The email application is simple, yet functional and fully compatible with Exchange, Gmail, Yahoo and Windows Live accounts. The new mobile version of Internet Explorer is absolutely functional and includes pleasant features such as the ability to concurrently load multiple tabs, Find On Page and integrated page sharing via SMS or email. It is snappy, non-mobile specific pages are viewable and are easily navigable. Flash is not supported, however. Copy and paste is still a “forthcoming feature”. The calendar app features push and happily syncs with your Google, Windows Live, Yahoo and/or Exchange accounts. The “Music & Video” hub is quite simply the same as the software that runs on any Zune device, with a few extra features. For instance, any videos watched on Youtube (via the Youtube app, thanks lack-of-Flash) will appear in your recent list of music, videos and podcasts on the Zune hub. Tapping one of these will return you to the video at the same point on the timeline that you left it.

All of this WP7 goodness is contained in a solid little handset that feels good in the hand and under the fingertips. The HTC 7 Mozart is a well built device with a removable battery, 8 megapixel camera and a Xenon flash. Power and cable-based synchronisation is delivered via an annoyingly obscure micro-usb port. The handset sports a user-replaceable battery, the cover for which manages to fit with the overall aesthetic of the phone. The touchscreen is accurate and responsive as proven by cross-hatch drawing tests. A pretty serious battery problem (which seems to be endemic to Telstra) has been plaguing me until recently which was causing serious frustration. The phone would require charging twice daily and would go flat overnight. After some furious (in both senses of the word) Googling, I came across a temporary workaround which has improved battery life dramatically. I now only need to charge the phone once over the course of a 48 hour period.

Xbox Live integration will obviously only interest those with an Xbox Live account, and a device with which to endow it with cheevos. The application allows you to send and receive messages from your Xbox Live friends, view your list of games and achievements, compare achievements with friends and make changes to your Avatar(!). It also comes in very handy when I run into Bice in meatspace and want to remind him of my ever-growing lead.

All in all, I am very happy with the device. There are a few quirks that should be ironed out as time passes. Considering their track record in this market and the fact that this is the first revision of the operating system, Microsoft have succeeded to produce a viable contender in the smartphone market. An achievement that should be celebrated in the traditional fashion.

You’ll find posts there from Bice Duncan and myself which will contain accounts of our own personal opinions on games and gaming. Please check it out.

Limbo (XBLA)

Winner of the Visual Arts and Technical Excellence awards at the Independent Games Festival for 2010, Limbo has successfully navigated its way through the dark forest of small budget independant game development and into the neon-bright halls of XBLA’s Winter (Summer for those of you on the other side of the equator) of Arcade. Limbo is a powerful, foreboding experience which pits a seemingly helpless young boy against a barbarous world, the few inhabitants of which ready to pounce on any and every misstep.

Loved

Loneliness: Limbo is oppresively atmospheric. The entire game is rendered in a black/grey/white and from a multi-plane 2D side-scrolling perspective. There is very little text in the game outside of the main menu, even to the exclusion of any sort of objective. The player quicly learns which objects in the environment are dangerous, though mostly thanks to have been brutally ravaged by it previous to being dropped back at one of the game’s frequent checkpoints. The game’s soundtrack is incredibly sparse, the most common sound effect being the depressingly lonely footsteps of the protagonist. Music is all-but absent aside from a subtle score presented as though from the oversized horn of a phonograph.

Tactile: The way that the protagonist moves just feels right. Timing jumps, climbing both up and down ledges, ladders ropes etc are all very intuitive. You will never find yourself dying thanks to unresponsive controls, there is little here for a poor workman to blame. Limbo is not complicated, control-wise. Move with the left analogue stick, A to jump, B to interact. Complexity comes with how the protagonist is able to interact with the world, and perhaps more aptly, how the world interacts with the protagonist.

If At First You Don’t Succeed: The game’s ability to chew you up and spit you out (sometimes, quite literally) would normally result in many players frustrated by the difficulty. In this instance, the game checkpoints very frequently. This means that you will most likely not need to replay a difficult section after being perforated immediately by the one following it.

Moreish: I found this game incredibly difficult to put down. There is a lot to drive you forward here, from the beautifully terrifying scenery and the new and interesting puzzles to the reveal of a new, shocking expository story element. The game is short, but I think that plays to its strengths, much like a certain other short, brilliant albeit cake-obsessed puzzle game.

Hated

Creepy: The art and audio direction of the game is surprisingly horrifying. Deaths are visceral. I generally hate this term thanks to its over/misuse, but in this case it is both literal and accurate. Not for the fainthearted.

Very Little: I guess it’s kind of short? Clocks in at around three hours. I struggle to find fault with this game.

Playdead is to be commended for this title, preferably through the purchase and recommendation of the product. Limbo is an absolute must-have for Xbox 360 owners.

This onomatopoeia coined by Jerry Holkins of Penny Arcade fame is the sum of my childhood TV time, toys, daydreams and games-played-with-friends. The earnest wish that I were a huge robot, one capable of transforming into some kind of vehicle was both powerful yet unattainable.
It’s hard to nail down exactly what it was about the Transformers that captured the imaginations of so many of my generation. Whatever the reason, the results speak for themselves. Even when the show became little more than a thinly veiled vehicle for toy sales, the fans simply kept watching and begging their parents to buy them the latest of the seemingly endless cavalcade of characters introduced in every single episode of the later seasons.

Growing up, I would approach the idea of painful medical procedures with a bittersweet enthusiasm. Whenever I required an injection, liquid nitrogen wart removal or a tooth filling, I would simply keep reminding myself that following the pain would be a visit to the local toy shop, or as I liked to call it: Transformer Town.
I still have an original cast-iron Optimus Prime, a double-sized Starscream, and a box full of other classic G1 Transformers.

Since then many other beloved franchises have been chewed up and spat out by a Hollywood that insists on constantly repackaging and selling my childhood back to me. I held high hopes for the Michael Bay adaptation of Transformers, only to be shown that some things simply don’t translate well to the modern era.

Subsequently when I initially heard about Transformers: War For Cybertron for the Xbox 360, I was sceptical. Trailers and Dev Diaries slowly piqued my interest until I saw the reveal trailer.
Yesssssssssss.

Could this be the Transformers game that we’ve always wanted? Will our dreams of a G1-worthy game or movie finally come true?
Kind of.

The singleplayer side of the game is split into two campaigns, one for the Decepticons and one for the Autobots. They’re designed to be played in this order as the events of the first set up the second, but the player is provided with the option of starting with either. Seeing the fight from both sides would be a interesting experience if it weren’t for the fact that the story side of things is a little campy. The Decepticons are fighting because Megatron wants power, while the Autobots are fighting to save Cybertron from their corruption. It’s all very thin, but that’s ok because it is incredibly true to the source, right down to the Matrix of Leadership and the ‘bot’s ability to scan items onto their form.

I think this is what I like about it. The whole experience shouts of the developer’s love of the Transformers. Especially visually, the character designs, levels and animations are all exactly what the fans wanted to see and were disappointed to find absent in Michael Bay’s attempts. The characters themselves are covered in plates and vents which move of their own accord, their purpose unknown. They make the characters seem like living (albeit, metallic) beings, rather than more generic robots. The voice acting also helps to accentuate this as the talent High Moon Studios have brought to bear can’t be understated, especially thanks to Peter Cullen making yet another return to the role of Optimus Prime. He lends an authenticity to these experiences which can’t be understated. Without him, I’m not sure how future attempts will fare. Perhaps the use of Optimus Prime will be precluded by his eventual absence?
The world of Cybertron itself also lends a lot to the atmosphere they’ve created. As you move through the world, doors open with a mysterious yet familiar transformation, walkways materialise in front of you as you move down them at great speed and even the usual load-obscuring elevator rides all feel very, Transformery.

Unfortunately, all of these things only really appeal to fans of the old TV series. The gameplay itself is nothing revolutionary. All of the usual 3rd person shooter trappings are present save for a sorely missing cover system, the levels are linear and the weapons are bog standard, if setting-appropriate.
The class-based multiplayer is on the other hand, a whole lot of fun. In fact many reviewers believe this to be the meat and potatoes of the title. I have to admit, the aerialbots are going to be where I spend the majority of my multiplayer time. The ability to transform into an incredibly fast-moving aircraft at any time is fun indeed.

In summary, your enjoyment of the game will come down to nostalgia. As a fan of the original series, I found a lot to love in the singleplayer campaign. I can say with absolute certainty that this is the best game of all time featuring an altruistic truck.

This was not in line with my expectations.

That isn’t to say that we weren’t expecting time spent with our newly distant family members to be wonderful, it’s that plane travel with two tiny tiny tinies is by all accounts something to be feared. The night previous to our trip, I was freaking out a bit. Packing interspersed with tending to crying tinies made me wonder how the heck we were going to fare.

We were late to the airport which worried us more than it seemed to worry the staff. The traditionally surly security staff were moved to smiles, the famous Hobart Airport Grumpy Security Guy even apologised for requiring us to remove our sleeping babies from their carriers in order to run them through the x-ray machine (the carriers, not the babies).
After a bit of mucking around getting the girls back into their slings, we were on the plane.

I must say, the staff at Virgin Blue are to be commended for the way they handle families, especially families with twins. I’ve always been happy with the service I’ve received from Virgin Blue, but I’ve never before required any actual assistance due to my familiarity with plane travel. Let’s just say that having an extra pair of hands willing to hold a baby while one attends to their bladder’s requisite unburdening is a welcome luxury.

One painless plane trip later, we were on the ground in Sydney. Emma picked us up in a car that was graciously lent to us by an unknown benefactor. A product of a web of friends of friends, ending in a particularly generous couple who happened to own a car which already contained two car seats.

The following is a summary of our weekend in order to limit the length of this post.
Friday-
Lunch: Red Oak. A steak sandwich was nommed with a Special Strong Bitter and an IPA, both of which stood up to my high expectations.
Dinner: Wood fired pizza from Melinzana, along with some import beers: Chimay Triple, Samuel Adams Pale Ale, Samuel Adams Organic Ale and Weihenstephaner Pilsner.
Saturday-
Late Breakfast: Hoochie Mamma Big Breakfast and coffee, followed by a trip across the road to Campos for a wonderful Double Ristretto and a bag of their Superior blend.
Lunch: None, still full from breakfast.
Outing: Pool and beers with Huw at the local.
Dinner: Thai from Thai La-Ong with more of the above imports.
Outing: John Mayer live in concert while Huw and Emma looked after the girls. This was somewhat harrowing, leaving our girls behind for their first ever babysitting. Let’s just say that phones were checked regularly.
Sunday (Amy’s first Mother’s Day!)-
Breakfast: Homemade Emma Pancakes with poached pear and maple syrup.
Outing: Amy and Emma attended a market while the men looked after the babies.
Lunch: Shenkin’s world famous wraps. (Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm) Edit: Also one quarter of a portion of their vanilla slice. So rich, but soooo awesome.
Outing: A tasting paddle from The Local Taphouse, chili chips with parmesan mayo and finishing with a pint of Trumers Pils.
Dinner: Homemade Awesome Risotto by Emma with more of the above imports.
Monday-
Activity: Preparations for home.
Lunch: Peking Pork from Sydney airport. Surprisingly good.

The flight home was just as uneventful. The girls were wonderfully well behaved and required little intervention from us.

All in all, a successful trip. A hugely risky one, but successful nonetheless.

“How are you?”
This is a dangerous question. My natural defences haven’t had a chance to replenish themselves at this time of day, nor have I had the opportunity to artificially shore them up with some sort of caffeinated beverage. It is far more likely that this question can dig it’s way right through to my gooey centre, my reaction more reflexive than reflective.

“Muarghiftl.”
“Right, bad night with the girls then? Who’d have kids, huh?”
“Rargh.”

Unfortunately, this is the Jason that my friends see most of the time. They don’t get a chance to see me when I’m at home, playing with my smiling and new-to-giggling offspring. They don’t see me in social circumstances due to the fact that I generally like to get home as early as I can to spend some time with my girls/relieve Amy of them. They don’t see the illogical complexities of parenthood – e.g. 3 hours of screaming is almost entirely negated by 15 minutes of smiles and cutes.

I think I may also be overly sensitive to gushing about my kids. I’ve heard the reactions of people to overly-excitable parents with their fold-out photo folios and extensive and innovative stories about poop. They aren’t generally well received. I may take it too far, but the result is that they don’t get to hear about the best parts of the whole experience. Practical examples of the oft-used “It’s hard, but it’s so worth it” affirmation.

I encourage parents out there to be mindful of how they come across as parents to others. If your peers were to describe you, would they class you as “having a tough time of it”, or “loving it, despite the difficulties”? Rest assured, minuscule readership, that I am in the latter category. It is hard, but it is so worth it. There are times when it all seems too difficult, but those times are rare and separated by the most intense feelings of love and validation that mere words simply cannot describe.