I’m probably somewhat behind the times, but it’s worth a mention regardless.  The Humble Bundle.

The first one I saw was the Introversion bundle.  If you’re not familiar with Introversion, they are the guys behind Darwinia, Uplink, Defcon and not forgetting Multiwinia.  Four games worthy of note in their own right.  But the humble bundle is awesome.  Pay more than the average (yes, you get to pick what you want to pay) and you’ll also get a couple of tech demos from Introversion, Crayon Physics Deluxe, Dungeons of Dredmor and Aquaria as a bonus… oh and did I mention you can also get the source code for Darwinia, Multiwinia, Defcon and Uplink too?

To say that this bundle is a bargain is an understatement, great games, great price and source code too… amazing.

So, if you’ve not encountered the Humble Bundle yet, head over to The Humble Bundle and check it out.

If you’re a netgamers.org IRC user, you’ll probably have noticed they are having some technical difficulties at the moment which have taken the whole netgamers.org domain off the web. The IRC infrastructure is, from what I can see all up and running (certainly there is at least one server up along with the services bot P), but you will need to connect to:- netgamers.webvictim.net

As soon as I know the DNS issues are sorted, I’ll pop up an update post.

Update (19th Nov 2011 – a bit late I know, but better late than never) – They appear to have resolved the problems that beset them earlier in the year.  I’m not sure when it all got sorted, but from what I can gather it was down to an expired domain name.

Hi all, just in case you’re an infrequent player of your Sony console and you’ve got a Playstation Network account you might like to read this.

It appears that PSN was hacked between April 17th and April 19th this year (2011), and account details obtained. Sony aren’t sure whether credit card details were obtained so their advice is, assume they were and keep an eye on your card statements and credit reports.

I can’t remember what triggered my first encounter with what I can only describe as the cult phenomenon of Minecraft but I do remember it was the video on the Minecraft Website. That was it… I was hooked. Here you’ll find a rough review of the game and some screenies of my most adventurous crafting, mixing redstone with minecarts to create a fairly funky (in my humble opinion) minecart station system on our multiplayer server (no, it’s not a public server), so read on for my thoughts about this excellent life stealer.

So, lets begin with that last statement. Minecraft is without doubt one of the best life stealing games I have ever experienced. Thankfully I was never into Everquest, but I did read lots about it and I know a thing or two about losing my life to games having spent days playing Ultima Online and Quake III (to name two), but Minecraft… a more accurate moniker might be Minecrack… like the old Evercrack lines that did the rounds many years ago. It’s seriously addictive… just a little bit more… and a little bit more… and a little bit here… tinker with that… “Oh crap… it’s 2am… do I really need sleep… surely more redstone will help me avoid that”.

Just in case you’re not familiar with Minecraft, let me set the scene… the graphics are blocky (the closest I can get to an accurate description is a souped up rendition of Dungeon Master… the GUI elements are simple, the icons are clean, crisp bitmap graphics all rendered over a blocky, I think the technical term is voxel, 3D scene, … the landscape is blocky… you break stuff up with your hands or tools and you make stuff. And that is the essence of the game… mine stuff and craft stuff. But, you’re doing this in a completely free way, there are no rules (other than the basic laws of physics, like falling down a big hole will kill you, lava is hot so don’t swim in it and you can’t breathe underwater in your bath tub so why should you be able to make like a fish in game?), no real quests… just mine stuff and craft stuff.

And I hate it… I hate it because it is so fantastically addictive I’m thinking of starting a local chapter of Minecrafters Anonymous… “Hello, my name is Athena and I am a micecrafter… I’ve not crafted anything for 6 days, 4 hours, 27 minutes… I’ve mined 657 iron, 245 redstone, been to the Nether and harvested 384 Netherak, killed 25 creepers, 47 zombies, 34 skeletons, 18 spiders… am I still on the wagon if I’ve not crafted anything????”

It is quite simply a masterpiece and one that has undoubtedly made it’s creator rich… especially as over 1.6mil people have purchased a copy of this as yet, unfinished game (yes, thats right… it’s still in beta and people, including me, are paying money for it). For my rating… it has to get top marks, but because it’s beta and because of how it’s developed, I’m knocking a point off for some serious performance issues.

This is the only downside… it’s written in Java so it’s not the speediest of engines, but under normal circumstances, performance is acceptable. It can however get bogged down and become a little laggy, which is somewhat unexpected given the simplicity of the graphics. My laptop handles Ultima Online and some other older games without too many problems, but it can sometimes struggle with Minecraft. My desktop machine has no such problems. Stability is another issue… overall it runs without hitches, but can sometimes blackscreen and crash, but for a product that is still officially in beta, it’s pretty good.

Here’s a few screenies of my single player world ‘Randomonia’…

One of the funkiest things in game is redstone. Using it you can craft a number of ‘electrical’ items such as redstone torches and powered rails. Input can come from buttons, pressure pads, levers and detector rails and you can control doors and minecart rails (and soon, pistons) to create complex systems (I have seen a 16 bit, IIRC, adder developed with redstone).

To give you an idea of whats possible with ‘a little’ redstone logic and some minecart track (and I’m not saying this is the greatest of all stations or redstone logic or anything like that), these screenies show one of the two minecart stations I’ve just built. These sit at two different levels and provide minecart transit up, down and into the mine. The cart rider can elect to go up, down, into the mine or get off at this level. Carts without riders pass through and go straight upstairs to a storage area to be unloaded. The first screenie shows some of the track elements of the station, the second shows a view across a large room full of redstone logic that controls the various tracks to send the cart in the desired direction. As I said, I’m not saying this is the greatest but it is my first major undertaking.

So, to conclude… Notch, you are a genius. Minecraft is quite simply amazing. It’s simple. And there in lies the key I think. It’s simplicity. You don’t get bogged down in the complexities of plot lines and lots of controls. You mine stuff and you make stuff as you desire. I guess it could be considered as Lego for the internet generation. Play it at your peril

Seems I get quite a lot of hits from people looking for a sackboy knitting pattern, so to make your life easy… the pattern I use is by Alan Dart, and was published in Simply Knitting and The Sun On-line here.

It’s a PDF, so simply download it, print it out and get busy knitting

I mentioned in my review of Uncharted: Drakes Fortune that it was Uncharted 2: Among Thieves that got me in the mood to play the original game. I wanted to follow the story, so I’m playing the first one, but I’ve also had the chance to play some parts of Uncharted 2, so here’s a quick review of the second instalment of the Uncharted story.

To be clear, I haven’t played Uncharted 2 (UC2) to completion. I’ve played a number of chapters looking for Treasures and I’ve had to face the various foes that have been thrown my way in the process, so I have a pretty good idea of the game play etc.

UC2 builds on the excellent foundation of UC. The graphics are amazing, the sound is great and the game play continues where UC left off. There are some new moves and a slight emphasis on being stealthy (the crunch of your targets neck is oh so satisfying ) which just add to an already impressive array of moves and options.

I can’t say too much more without feeling like a broken record as I’ve just written a review of Uncharted… suffice to say, it is just like UC, but better in every way.

For example, the treasure hunt… like UC, hidden throughout the levels are a collection of treasures. These unlock bonus material and of course contribute quite substantially to the trophy collection. Unlike UC however, they can be hidden in high up places, only accessible after being shot down. And of course, many of them are secreted away in the most difficult to reach places in the levels. Doesn’t sound like a big change, but it does make it more fun when you get around to the treasure hunt.

Fighting… as I’ve mentioned, there is a stealthy element to the game, with some nice new moves to accommodate it. There are also new weapons, such as the riot shield… grab it, hide behind it and face your enemies head on, peeping out from the thing to pop them in the head. You can also aim grenades without peeking from your cover like you had to in the original. Again, minor tweak but it does add to the already great game play.

In conclusion, I gave Uncharted a maximum score of 10. To really do UC2 justice in comparison to UC, I should really give it a maximum of 11 as it really does take the Uncharted world to the next level. A fantastic next step in what I can only hope is a long series of games.

I know this is an ‘old’ game, but I’m sure there will be people who have just dropped onto the PS3 scene who haven’t played it, so here’s one of my characteristically short reviews.

When the original Playstation was around, there was only one game to play if you wanted to run around in deserted places solving ancient puzzles… that was of course Tomb Raider. Unfortunately, I’m guessing because of publisher pressure, the game lost what made it great after number 4 was released. 5 was just a bit too short if I recall correctly, and it’s outings on the PS2… best not to mention them (with one notable exception… Anniversary, which is of course a major rework of the original Tomb Raider). Why shouldn’t we mention them… simply because they lacked what made the game great on the Playstation. The control schema changed to accomodate more moves… the puzzles didn’t seem as tough… the games weren’t as long… I can’t quite put my finger on it, but they just didn’t cut it. So for many years now, we’ve been waiting for a game to take up the mantle and fill the void, and well… in my opinion at least, that game (or series of games) is here.

Welcome Uncharted: Drakes Fortune.

For those of you who are long time Playstation gamers, you will no doubt remember such classics as Crash Bandicoot and Jak and Daxter, produced by Naughty Dog. Well, they are the team responsible for Uncharted… a bit of a departure from Crash and Jak, but what a departure

I’ve owned this game for ages, but I’ve never played it. It took watching a friend play through Uncharted 2 to get me in the mood, and well… was I in the mood! I’ve just finished playing through for the first time on the Hard difficulty (if you play through on hard, you will earn the first 3 difficulty trophies and unlock the Crushing difficulty level, which I’m now playing through). It is hard. Your enemies take a while to kill, at times ammo is almost extinct and you yourself… a few shots and your on your way to an early grave.

So, what makes me think Uncharted can fill the enormous boots of the original Tomb Raider games… well, lets see…

First up the environment… the gaming environment is huge and the detail is amazing. The vegetation sways in the wind, you can almost swim in the rivers and waterfalls, and you can hear everything from the birds in the trees to the roar of the ocean waves. Now this is nothing new I know, but it just makes the game that bit more engaging and believable. And best of all, it doesn’t appear to be as constrained by an arbitrary grid as Tomb Raider does, meaning the surfaces and faces you walk and climb on can be curved, like real cliffs for example.

The Story… you play the part of Nathan Drake, a distant relative of Sir. Francis Drake, on his quest to uncover El Dorado using clues left by Sir. Francis. The plot starts on a boat as Nathan recovers Sir. Francis’ coffin from the ocean floor only to find it contains his journal, and our adventure begins.

The puzzles… whilst there aren’t that many puzzles, this doesn’t detract from the game play as you’ll very often be looking for routes through the environment and the best way to despatch those that stand between you and the ultimate prize. The puzzles that are there rely on you decoding the information in Sir. Francis’ journal to get the solution. Once you have it, you’ll probably have to battle the environment to reach a successful conclusion. In short, one of the things that made Tomb Raider great is back in abundance in Uncharted.

The graphics and sound… as I’ve stated above, the sound is superb. Have one of your enemies throw a grenade near you… you’ll have ringing in your speakers just like it exploded a few feet from you. And well, the graphics… whilst they aren’t photorealistic (who needs that anyway), they are certainly filled with the atmosphere of the area you’re in. From misty mountain slopes in the forest to the dark dank depths of an old bunker, you certainly get the feel of being there.

Difficulty… I played through on Hard difficulty (it has Easy, Normal and Hard out of the box, with Crushing being unlocked when you complete the game on Hard). I played to complete it, not hunt for all the trophies and treasures, but in doing so I’ve scored about 60% of the trophies and two thirds of the treasures. It was hard. I had some major fights and died many times, but thanks to the checkpoints in game, I never lost too much progress. But, if you die in the middle of a big fight and you’re doing well… don’t expect it to go the same way when you are resurrected at the start of it… after a while I found some of the enemies changed their tactics, and in some cases you won’t restart where you thought you were, so be prepared. As I said, I’m currently playing through on Crushing difficulty and it is a major step above Hard in terms of how difficult it is. In hard, you can take quite a few shots before being close to death… in Crushing… one or two and you’re nearly in the resus room of the local hospital. The enemies are tougher and appear to be a better aim, so it promises to be a much tougher gaming experience the second time through.

There’s not too much more I can say. If you liked Tomb Raider and have been looking for a replacement, or if you’re new to the PS3 and fancy a game that has you thinking about puzzles, strategies (you’ll need them for some of the fights you’ll have) and whether to take the AK-47 with 26 bullets or the M-4 with 27 bullets, then give it a go. I can honestly say I’ve not enjoyed a Tomb Raider style game as much as this since I last played Tomb Raiders I, II and III many years ago. Truly an excellent game which is why I’m giving it full marks.

Being a big fan of LittleBigPlanet on the PS3, I was over the moon when I heard it would make it onto the PSP. And having been playing it since release, I can say I’ve not been disappointed.

I pre-ordered my copy of LBP for the PSP from Amazon. It arrived on the day of release and that was it, I was set Prior to release I had read that they’d had to seriously chop the game down in order to squeeze it onto the PSP. The chops were apparently, a reduction in the number of depth levels from 3 to 1 and a lack of multiplayer facilities in game (understandable really when you consider there is only one set of controls and a comparatively slow processor in comparison to the PS3), so I was, to say the least, a little concerned about the game and how it would play out when compared to the PS3 version which I love so much.

But, I’m glad to say, I’ve not been disappointed.

I’ve lost count of how many hours I’ve been playing. Playing through levels, then going back and replaying them to get all the prizes and ace them and I still have a whole bunch to do. I’ve not tried creating anything yet, but I can say this…

The lack of multiplayer facilities hasn’t damaged the game, it’s still a great fun game to play, on your own (I play it in my downtime at work – I’m using the Pomodoro Technique so I play a while during the post-focus cooldown period) and the supposed reduction from 3 levels of depth to 1 hasn’t materialised… yes, the number of levels has been reduced… to 2. But to be honest, I haven’t really noticed it.

The levels themselves are pretty challenging, organised in the same way as the original game (as groups of levels created by various story characters), I’ve played my way through 31 (20 main and 11 mini) levels and I believe I still have one or two to go.

Graphically, it’s obviously not going to be up to PS3 standard, but it still looks great. Customising your character is a little more limited than the PS3, and creating levels is a little different since there is the concept of static and dynamic objects. Static objects stay where they are placed and cannot move during game play (a bit like stick something with a blob of dark matter) while dynamic objects can move (this is simply a mechanism to reduce the physics processing required to manage the level). There are no global options to control lighting (or at least if there are, I couldn’t find them) and sound effects are organised as individual items instead of being grouped into different speakers as they are in LBP.

Despite these changes though (which were to be expected given the massive gaping void that exists in terms of pure processing power between the PS3 and the PSP), it is a great game. So, if like me, you’d like to get a dose of LBP on the move, it’s well worth the investment.

Well, time for a quick review… this time, it’s the Pirates of the Carribean downloadable content pack for LittleBigPlanet.

Released on the 22nd December 2009, this is the first themed creators pack since the excellent Metal Gear Solid pack which of course provided the most excellent paint ball gun. This time around the theme is water.

Yes, thats right… Sackboy can swim

The pack contains some new creators tools in the form of new global options to control the water in the level, a global water object (similar to the global lighting object), a water switch and a scuba backpack allowing Sackboy to breath indefinitely underwater.

And to show off these new toys, a collection of 6 excellent levels based on Pirates of the Carribean.

All in all, an excellent addition to LBP. The new creator tools are great, and the themed levels are great fun, providing some new engaging game play and some good examples of what you can do.

My only complaint, I should point out that I’m not sure when these came in, is that some of the creators tools are now a pain in the butt. For example, setting the length of pistons etc. These used to be done using steps of 0.5. Now, they are done in steps of 1.0. You can still fine adjust things, but if, like me you work on logic using the medium grid, 2.5 and 7.5 are pretty common values and now setting them up takes a while longer than it used to.

But, minor gripe aside, this new content pack is well worth the small investment.

If you like puzzle games then get on over to robozzle.com and check out this fantastic puzzler.

Check out the screenshot… the essence of solving the puzzles is the ‘programming’ panel in the bottom right corner of the screen. You build functions (which can recurse, call each other and contain conditional elements), telling the cursor to move forward, turn left, turn right or paint the square to solve the puzzle by collecting all the stars.

And there you have it. A really great little game, and I’ve not even mentioned the fact that you can create and submit levels. Go and play it today

Oh, and for the record… at the time of writing, I’m in the top 10 ‘most levels solved today’ with 60