Review: Forza 2 Demo

All I have to say is WOW. The developers really rushed this demo out to the xbox marketplace. Within a fifteen minute period, the game crashed twice. Once while loading, and the second while mid-race. Apart from the crashes, the game doesn’t look all that impressive compared to other racing games available for the 360. I was a fan of the first Forza and really enjoyed fine tuning the car to be just right. It brought back memories of another game I used to play all the time (too bad I can’t think of the name).

If you are thinking about downloading the game, take this as a warning. If you do download it, tell me how it works.

An Inside Look At The City Plots “City Map”

I thought I would take some time off this nice afternoon and talk about my upcoming game codenamed City Plots. The idea for the game came from many sources. The goal was to take the best aspects of online strategy games, and make one perfect game.

Without wasting any more precious programming time, I would like to explain how a very crucial component of the game works. When you register for the game, you have to name your city. You are given a small parcel of land (100sq. units). In that land you can build buildings. Much like traditional rts’s, you can choose where these buildings are placed. Most online games like City Plots do not allow you to chose where to put the building. Many times you only build one of them and expand that one. The flaw here is that a real city doesn’t have one building that everyone lives on, unless… well I’m not going there.

Upon entering the buildings page, you will be presented with a map of your city. You can scroll around to view any area you have expanded into outside of your viewing threshold. The map shows pretty little icons for each building type. If you click in an empty square, you can build a new building (assuming you have the existing prerequisites). This type of game model allows for rapid creation of a city. You can build two buildings at once, but you have to have enough workers available to do the jobs. The more workers you have, the faster constructions goes.

What types of buildings will there be?

There are many types of buildings in City Plots. At first you start out with very primitive structures as your city is small. As you grow, there will be a need for various services. You will be able to accommodate these by meetings the prerequisites listed. After all, you can’t build a weapon shop without an ore mine.

The technical side

No to fear! This isn’t that hard to understand. To create a city for each user, and array of all possible units must be created. Instead of doing this by hand (which would take an awful long time that could be spend doing other non-productive things), I used a simple loop to create the array.

$blocks = array( array( array() ) );

$x = 4;
$y = -4;

while( $x > -5 )
{
$blocks[$x][$y] = $blocks[$x][$y]['blank'];

if( $y < 4 )
{
$y++;
}
else
{
$y = -4;
$x–;
}
}

That creates what I call a ‘blank slate’. The array is then stored safely in the database. What the script basically does it start at the uppermost x value (we do have to make a graph-like system) and go through all possible y values starting at the lowest. Once the y value reaches the largest value it can, the x value is then lowered one step. This process is continued until all values are generated. When the x value reaches it’s lower limit, the loop breaks and the array is ready for storage. A similar method is used when adding new rows, et cetera.

That’s pretty much it for now. Expect more to come on the inner workings of City Plots.

Review: S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl

I just got my new graphics card (x1900GT) and another gig of ram. I also purchased S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl. And I must say, it is one of the more graphically advanced games on the market. I tried to play it with one gig of ram and my older x800GTO and it looked ok. The graphics were very comparable to those of Half-Life 2, except at a lower framerate. On my new card the game runs great. I can’t play at max settings with dynamic lighting, but that’s fine. For a graphics card that cost only 124 dollars from Newegg, it is holding up wonderfully.

Not much of a review, nothing really bad to say about the game at all. It plays much like Oblivion. If you have the hardware, go out and buy this game. You won’t regret it. Screen caps to come soon.

Account Registration For City Plots Begins

You can now create an account on City Plots (working title) as well as create your city. There isn’t anything to do yet. You can view the game’s change log to see exactly how the game is progressing. I would like to take this time to test the account management scripts for bugs that may appear. If you happen to find a bug, please let me know asap. Other feedback is also requested.

The game is located: http://cityplots.ojaisoft.com

New Game – City Plots

Overkill games and Ojaisoft would like to announce the new game City Plots (working title). City Plots is a post apocalyptic text strategy game. Users take control of one of the few surviving families; starting from scratch. Throughout much of the game, players will discover parts of a survivors journal; revealing his story, and how it became such a desolate place. Below is from the main page.

Since World War 6, there is no longer an America. Israel, Russia, Japan, and most of Central Europe united against us and destroyed what once was. Shortly after, in 2085, the world powers turned on each other and there was nothing left other then four years of a nuclear winter known as “The Cold September.” No nation remained. The survivors faced an unmarked world. This new generation was dubbed “The September Children.”

Our world as we know it has devolved to a primordial state where packs communicate with violence and fight for their lives. What pack will you join? What will you do to rule the world?

- Client.1

Beta sign-ups will start soon. If you would like to be part of the staff, inquire within.

New Secret Game Announcement Update

Like I promised, I would post announcement for the new game. However, I am unable to do so at this time. A name has not yet been decided upon. A real announcement WILL come out Monday morning.

As for me, off to sleep. The LAN party was great and my body is paying for it.

New Game To Be Announced Soon

In less than a week, a formal announcement for an upcoming web game will released. Final details surrounding the aspect of the game are in development. In addition, a name has not been settled on.

Expect an announcement Saturday morning.

My New Year’s Resolutions

Well, it is now 2007 and I thought it would be cool to map out my goals for this year. So, for the amusement for everyone, I present the list:

• Finish OjaiCMS and ready it for distribution.
• Launch Marching Band!
• Transfer this blog over to the new site.
• Find an apartment to live in.
• Become more socially active.
• Get a job as a computer support person.
• Find “the one.”
• Produce a full length student film.
• Contribute more to Wikipedia.
• Stop going to digg.com so much.

Well, that’s not everything, but I don’t want to bore you any further. I would love to hear your new year’s resolutions!

Gamers / Marching Band! Update

Ok, I said the other day that I would post a very special update to Marching Band! Sadly, I’ve been too busy to even work on OjaiCMS (the system behind Marching Band!). I have been working somewhat lazily on the next film project of the year, Gamers. The script is in it’s final form, apart from a few minor updates here and there.

Filming will take place this Monday, the 18th.

If you have a conflict with this, please let me know so we can work something out. This filming session will hopefully be more productive than the last one. And will not require a re-shoot.

Open Letter to Electronic Arts

Dear Electronic Arts,

I have been a fan of your titles for as long as I can remember. Lately I have seen a change in my liking for you. It appears that you are no longer caring so much about your clients, or customers, and are more worried about adding in-game advertising to Need For Speed Carbon. You need to take a second and think this one over. Why would you put your customers last? They are after all the entire reason you are in business!

If you search the web for “Need For Speed Carbon Vista,” you magically are brought to my blog post about incompatibilities with your new game on the new operating system. If you did not know, Vista has been in public beta for some time now, and is already available for businesses, and retail in January. You have the game’s online store and marketplace working with no problems, and the “next gen” versions likewise. Why is it then that the PC version has to stink. Windows Vista isn’t much different than XP, and a patch to fix the problem would be easy to do.

What are you going to do when you have all these new games coming out, and they don’t work on an operating system people are going to buy just for gaming? I will answer for you. Nothing. You will do nothing. You have done nothing so far. You released a patch for Carbon that only fixes online ads.

As a once very loyal customer, I advise that you first fix problems with your upper management, then trickle down towards lower management. Hire better programmers, or give them better deadlines. Before you start marketing a game as Vista ready, please test it first. I want no more Early releases that you can easily fix with patches if people complain.

I have lost all loyalty in you. I will no longer purchase any Electronic Arts brand, for my 360, or PC. I will not fall for your gimmick advertisements. And on another note. Drop the hole EA HD brand, it’s really redundant. PC’s are more than capable to display at higher resolutions than HD, so if anything, the PC counterparts should be HD.

Signed,
Long time once loyal customer.