Gaming

Wish You Were Here: End of Nations

November 3, 2011
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53 Wish You Were Here is my version of photo-blogging for want of a better description, each month for the last year I have jumped into games that are in beta or newly released and taken a few screenshots. This is to help people get a view on what they are missing out on.

This one is from back in July after I returned from an early Pre-Alpha press preview of a MMO-RTS called End Of Nations.

Originally published in Issue #40 of Thirteen1 Magazine

Now its not very often I do this, but this month is going to have to be one of those rare occasions where I use screenshots taken by other people. However its for a good reason.

Because the game was in a Pre-Alpha state when I saw it last week, I was not allowed to take shots myself, but the guys a Trion were kind enough to give us a whole pile of screen so that you guys can check out the game in its current state as well.

Wish You Were Here: Street Cleaning Simulator

October 28, 2011
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Clean-up on main street Wish You Were Here is my version of photo-blogging for want of a better description, each month for the last year I have jumped into games that are in beta or newly released and taken a few screenshots. This is to help people get a view on what they are missing out on.

This one was taken back in August when I discovered a game so shockingly bad I just had to screenshot it.

Originally published in Issue #41 of Thirteen1 Magazine

One of the reasons I started the Wish You Were Here was to share images from games you may not have played. Now normally this would mean beta’s or games just released, but this month is a little different.

We have a bit of a thing here at T1 for weird and wonderful games that normal people would just ignore, this month I discovered one such game Street Cleaning Simulator. This game puts you in the heady world of street cleaning, running the company and even driving the cleaning trucks themselves.

Were not making this shit up this game exists, and here are the screenshots to prove it.

Wish You Were Here: Red Orchestra II Beta

October 24, 2011
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Smoking! Wish You Were Here is my version of photo-blogging for want of a better description, each month for the last year I have jumped into games that are in beta or newly released and taken a few screenshots. This is to help people get a view on what they are missing out on.

This one was taken back in September while Red Orchestra II was still in beta.

Originally published in Issue #42 of Thirteen1 Magazine

This months Wish You Were Here places us firmly back in the beta territory, though strangely not one I would normally be taking part in.

Surprisingly for me, I have been running and gunning with the Allies and Axis in the Red Orchestra II: Heroes of Stalingrad beta. Unsurprisingly for me, I died A LOT!

So instead of just twiddling my thumbs whenever I was waiting for a respawn, I got down to the task of taking some screen-shots. Apparently I’m much better at shooting pictures than other people – who would have thought?

Wish You Were Here: Diablo III Beta

October 17, 2011
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3 For a while now I have planned on re-running certain pieces of my content from Thirteen1.com here on my personal blog as well. You will already have noticed the Drinking games popping up for the last year, well now its time for one of my other regular features to start migrating.

Wish You Were Here is my version of photo-blogging for want of a better description, each month for the last year I have jumped into games that are in beta or newly released and take a few screenshots. This is to help people get a view on what they are missing out on.

My first one is from the Diablo III Beta and was originally published in Issue #43 of Thirteen1 Magazine

The Lord of Destruction may well have been destroyed, but that does not mean all is well in Tristram. This month saw the beta of Diablo III start and me return to the troubled land. As always, I gave it a play with one finger hovering over the screenshot button and here are the results.

However, I went one step further this month and fired up fraps. Those videos can be seen here, Diablo III Beta Witch Doctor Playthrough – YouTube and below is the gallery of screenshots taken during that playthrough. Enjoy!

Could a Free VideoGames Day work?

May 13, 2011
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Everyone loves Wolverine comics, even more so when they are free!

The first Saturday of every May something interesting happens. ComicBook shops around the world give away stuff for free.

Free ComicBook Day was started back in 2002 by American comic industry as a way to advertise their comics. 10 years later and it’s still going strong, now giving away free comics in over 2000 stores in 30 separate countries.

I as always went down to the local comic store and picked up my free comics, likewise as always I left with far more than just those free comics. I think I did pretty well this year, it only set me back £20 rather than the usual £40.

That I guess pretty much proves the point of the event, as a marketing method its incredibly effective.

When I got back from the comic store I was checking out twitter and talking to a few people when a random tweet caught my eye.

So Free Comic Book Day at Brainstorm was fun, when’s Free Video Game Day?

That was said by the Twitter user @SugarGamers, and is a concept that when you think about it would be an incredible thing too see.

Since then I have thought about it quite a bit and there are a few things that would need to be worked out first but I think it could be done.

If your interested in the idea, unfortunately my thoughts were a bit lengthy so I have had to put a break in here. So click the link to get the full version

Read more »

Paddy the scribe

March 20, 2011
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Faxion Online

My first ingame reference, incredible!

While things have been a little quiet here on my blog recently due to my new job, I really do enjoy my writing.

Over the last few years it has not only allowed me to share my love of gaming with other people, but has also allowed me to chance to talk to many of the people behind the games.

One of the favourite features I get to do for Thirteen1 are the game tours. These are when a developer or designer from a studio take the time to show me personally around their game.

The reason I enjoy these is because it always allows me to see things that I might have missed when playing the game solo. While I always poke around games and explore as much as I can, but you can never beat inside knowledge of the area.

It’s like visiting a new city. Sure you can have a good time looking around alone, but to truly see it you need a local to guide you to the best spots.

The last of these I went on was the upcoming Faxion Online from UTV Ignition. For this senior designer Sean Dahlberg took an hour of his time to show me around the first few stages of the game and it looked incredible.

For my tour overview you can read it over at Thirteen1: Faxion Online Tour

The other great thing about these tours is that I get to know a bit about the people behind the games, learning a lot about them and the thought processes they had gone through to get the game to the stage it is in. I regularly learn as much about the people who are making the game as I do about the game itself. Read more »