iTunes Music Store is vGood

A good friend of mine kindly gave me some vouchers for iTunes Music Store as a Christmas gift. Rather than buy whole albums, I decided to scratch a retro itch and purchase a collection of 80s songs that I loved as a teenager. The process of selecting the songs – listening to iTunes snippets, trawling the ‘net for information, and gazing into space awaiting for the name of a song to materialise from the segment of my brain that stores (evidently inefficiently) that kind of information – highlighted two things for me: the power of music and joy of iTunes.

As I sit here listening to my recently purchased collection of songs, memories and emotions from twenty years ago wash over me. Smiles come unbidden to my face in response to memories of friends, love interests (both realised and unexpressed), school, my family, and growing up. My recollection of the emotional intensity of being a teenager is surprisingly strong and quite pleasant to recall. At this moment I fully comprehend the value of these songs as the soundtrack to my teenage life. While these songs are no better or worse than many others, in fact some of them might seem quite ‘cheesy’ to some people, I don’t care; their connection to my past makes them invaluable.

What I think is brilliant about iTunes Music Store, aside from its effective functionality, is that most of the music from soundtrack of my teenage life is available to purchase as individual songs. I have created my own compilation album of the songs I loved – all original artists and performances. It greatly pleases me that the musicians who were responsible for giving me so much joy can still receive royalties.

I have continued to purchase the work many of my favourite artists from the 80s era – Sting/The Police, Mark Knopfler/Dire Straits, INXS, Peter Gabriel, U2, Ice House, Madonna, Pink Floyd. It is great to be able to purchase individual songs that were so important to the teenage me: Everybody Have Fun, Dance Hall Days, We Close Our Eyes, Wouldn’t It Be Good, What is love?, Things Can Only Get Better, The Heat is On, Addicted to Love, Don’t You Want Me, You Give Love a Bad Name, Owner of a Lonely Heart ,Love is a Battlefield, Do You Really Want to Hurt Me … ?, Rebel Yell ,White Wedding, West End Girls, Some Like It Hot, Another One Bites the Dust, Panama, You Can Call Me Al, Tainted Love, Road to Nowhere, All Night Long, Run to You … The hunt for the other songs that I loved continues.

Season's Greetings

Ratbag gets a dose of ratsack

I want to express my commiserations to the staff of Ratbag after Midway abruptly, and apparently without warning, closed the studio. Having only acquired the company in August, Midway has laid-off all the staff the week before Christmas.

As an outside observer who has nothing to do with either company, I can not escape the feeling that the purchase of Ratbag was ultimately about the acquisition of original IP (Intellectual Properties). Midway is either in serious financial trouble, or they had every intention to close the studio after the deal settled. For me, it seems that the later is entirely plausible.

As part of the acquisition, ten staff were offered shares in Midway’s common stock, but these were tied to performance targets for three years (refer to http://sumea.com.au/snews.asp?news=1839). Now that the studio has been closed, with comments from Midway about unsuitable quality levels, it seems that Midway gets to keep their stock and the relevant Ratbag staff leave empty handed. Note Midway claims that “these shares were determined to be compensation for future service". Bah Humbug!

This situation is deplorable and, although I hope I am wrong, seems quite underhanded. Add this to the list of “ten easy ways to acquire IP without paying the full asking price”.

It seems that Scrooge is alive and well in corporate America.

Big Room, Big Pile of Ammo and the Inevitable Boss Battle

I must admit that I am a real fan of first-person shooters with a sci-fi theme. There’s something fascinating about the escapism promoted by sci-fi, particularly when the gameplay world is well-realised. For this reason, Quake II was one of my favourite games and I have been looking forward to a sequel (that Quake III was not). If you thought that Douglas Adam’s self-proclaimed “increasingly inaccurately named Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy trilogy” represented a confusing nomenclature, then be wary of the Quake series. Quake IV is the sequel to Quake II. Try not to think about it too much!

Not content to let a good brand lie, Activision/id Software have resurrected the Quake series, after resurrecting the Doom series, after resurrecting the Wolfenstein series. Yet another example of the game industry’s increasingly conservative funding policies. But that aside, Quake IV – developed by Raven - is an entertaining game.

The Doom 3 engine has been used to good effect, bringing the Strogg home world to life. Although predominately set in the interior of various Strogg facilities, the scale of the environments is much more varied than Doom 3, as is the general gameplay. As a level designer, I love the technical brilliance of the engine. It allows all levels to have lush lighting, dynamic effects, highly detailed textures and models, brilliantly clear positional audio and to generally ooze ambience (if, in fact, ambience can capable of doing such).

Raven have used the tools at their disposal to good effect. The NPCs have an important role in the story line and, thankfully, make a genuine contribution when caught up in battles. Although the NPCs seem to be highly scripted and can’t match the incredible life-like quality of the characters in Half-Life 2, they add to the game. I certainly felt that I was part of a larger battle.

The game play is fairly standard fare: kill lots of bad dudes, find a switch (in various guises) and proceed to the next section of the map. There is some variety with the inclusion of driving, and sections where you are required to act as a gunner on vehicle driven by another character. Don’t get me wrong; the placement of enemies, the structure environments and the location of cover and pick-ups is quite entertaining. But the perpetuation of a consistent gameplay mechanic, as evidenced in both F.E.A.R. and Quake IV, highlights the share brilliance of Half-Life 2.

My major gripe is the use of boss battles. I find this one of the most contrived game play mechanics, ever! Play a game that is engaging, immersive and fun because the variety that modern technology allows; then get locked in a room with a big dude that you have to shoot lots of times to beat. Where’s the fun in that? Many sections of the game effectively promote the suspension of disbelief, and then whole thing gets torn asunder by the inexplicable inclusion of a boss battle.

Yes, I know that boss battles have been a big part of computer games from way back when. I recognise that in the early days the simplicity of action computer games almost necessitated boss battles. But in the modern era do we need really to keep dragging out this worn and tarnished game play mechanic? I appreciate there might be an argument for the virtues of staying true to the history of a genre, but I can not appreciate the value of anything that interrupts the suspension of disbelief.

As an aside, what’s with the weird, breakdancing death animations of some Strogg? Ragdoll physics have removed the need to death animations. So why was I expecting every Strogg I shot to throw down a piece of cardboard before hitting the deck? Perhaps human-machine integration makes for 1337 b-boying!

After all the harping about the multiplayer prior to the release of Quake IV, I was expecting the next evolution of id’s Quake 3 multiplayer game play design. Wrong! If anything, the game play is more like Quake 2 than Quake 3. Regrettably, I find the map design uninspiring and frustrating given the engine’s capabilities.