TERRA NOVA STRIKE FORCE CENTAURI vs Halo Reach part 1 of a series

For the many Spartans who died repeatedly in the recent Halo Reach Beta , sacrificing themselves virtually and ritually in some cases ,to the hordes of tweens red ringing their parents 360s [hope you found the mute button handy] Terra Nova Strike Force Centauri is a gem of a PC classic from the folks at Looking Glass and Irrational Games . Here is the a rare big box version complete with the game still sealed in cellophane

So what is all the fuss about this game , well if you have to ask , jet packs ,squad based tactical fps game play , armored power suits  , across entire planets , something called fmv , basically this was a more intelligent Halo that your grandaddy/grandma played and you should get familiar with as a mark of respect to Looking Glass  who are coders everyone should know . 

The relevance to Halo designers now beavering away on Halo Reach : Bungie could learn a thing or ten from Looking Glasses classic TerraNova released at a time when coders expected their audience to use ,challenge and elevate their intellect when playing a game.

Halo was a an nVidia  Geforce 256 card showcase at one point , a soon to be PC classic  ,however with the move to console Bungie with each successive Halo iteration have been  dumbing down to suit a tweenie console audience and launch the Xbox , dumbing down to the point where the most innovative and time consuming aspect of Halo 3 was its movie recording and playback feature , setting aside of course the complete horror of discovering the last level was largely composed of Mario/Halo Kart antics .


With Halo Reach Bungie have an opportunity to reverse this trend , will they take it ?Maybe if the fans ask them nicely ?

So now with the sermon out of the way lets check out some game play : and by the way if you have the hardware you can play almost full screen too!

 

the intro 

something they called fmv back in the day or sometimes dude there`s real people in my game 



and lets check out the first mission for any young Spartans who would are into their history of games 

Halo fans get on to Bungie and demand more from Halo Reach than a change in helmets and character models, tell the young coders to check out TerraNova , and Looking Glass fans isn't it time we got sequels to TerrraNova , System Shock and all the other classics ?


If I have to play through another Halo Kart level in Reach ... well I don't know its enough to make you yearn for Dos games! 

TerraNova on the other hand is a truly legendary game  14 years after its release !  

Collectors buy now from thegameveda Ecrater store :

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Deus Ex is X and to celebrate you get 75% off the Deus Gotyr and collection

Get over to steam and download now, Deus Ex is possibly the best pc game ever written , certainly the best game involving the Illuminati , shades , leather trench coats and the greatest game to date by our hero Warren Spector , honestly if you think fallout 3 , oblivion and mass effect are indications of how RPGs should play , you need to play this masterpiece , and it can take 4 weeks ! So go on this will be the best 2.79 you will spend all year And Happy Birthday Denton , roll on Deus Ex 3 ! Oh and for your 2.79 you will also get some game called deus ex invisible war

BIOSHOCK INFINITE: IRRATIONAL LAY ON A 10 MINUTE TEASE ALLUDING TO GAMING BLISS

Prepare yourself for a totally jaw dropping experience as Irrational return to Bioshock duties with Bioshock Infinite , watch 10 whole minutes and then start stuffing  your preorder piggy bank

Oh and again this is jaw dropping stuff , so wear shades and a Hawaian shirt , or stroke the nearest white cat you have at hand whilst you watch gaming evolve before your eyes :

x
Pre orders are only for those with the patience of Job , the release date is set to be Dec 31 2012 . 


Remember to be good for Santa !

and for collectors the non Irrational coded Bioshock 2 is still out there !
check it out below , 

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1 SET OF BIOSHOCK COLLECTORS EDITION WITH BIG DADDY + BIOSHOCK 2 COLLECTORS EDITION AVAILABLE NOW 


BUY NOW FROM THEGAMEVEDA EBID STORE


OR CHECKOUT MORE BIOSHOCK DEALS BELOW

NEW AND SEALED 

COLLECTORS EDITION BOX SET 

BioShock 2 game
12" vinyl LP with BioShock orchestral score
Audio CD with BioShock 2 orchestral score
3 vintage Rapture advertisement posters (rolled)
BioShock 2 164-page hardback artbook

insured delivery 

BUY NOW FROM THE GAME VEDA EBAY STORE 

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Deus Ex Human Revolution Collectors Edition for the UK PC ,Xbox 360, and Playstation 3

And the price of Deus Ex Human Revolution Collectors Edition PC is sky rocketing   now nearly double and or above the initial price 


Over on the Consoles   Deus Ex: Human Revolution Collectors Edition Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 versions  price is holding steady although already £20 above what it was last week 


Deus Ex is a PC brand , and just one of the many prestige brands that publishers and retailers should take note of when trying to navigate this the most difficult year for the video games business. It ain`t all Battlefield and Call of Duty ! Although it seems that way some times ....

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this content is © and originated from thegameveda http://the-games-veda.blogspot.com/  if you are reading it from any other site that has not provided a link back it has been leached 

Preparing for VR: Bioshock Infinite played with LEAP Motion and Carl Zeiss Cinemizer OLED headtracker

Bioshock infinite is as close as art gets to gaming and gaming gets to art . 

Before launching into how it plays with head tracking and LEAP Motion I need to ponder that  for a few moments, out of respect.. and consider:How did this happen and who is responsible?

Irrational Games are responsible for this and some of the finest games in almost every decade of modern video gaming since a young Master Gates talked IBM into placing a PC running his code on every desk in the 'verse. Unlike their contemporaries iD , Digital Extremes , Ion Storm they.. Irrational Games.. traversed with not only ease, the PC to next gen console shift, they have thrived in it . Nay ..illuminated it ..

From Looking Glass / later Irrational Games we got  Ultima Underworld I & 2,    Terra Nova Strike Force Centauri , System Shock , System Shock 2 , the Thief series , yes even Tribes Vengeance , the Freedom Force series and now the Bioshock series  all of which still have fans and critics and collectors raving about them. A single big box copy of System Shock 2 can go for $200.. this is respect , you can get it from GOG for $10.. but to own that box ..that is kudos..

This is no mean feat : For consider the karmic fate of Irrational's contemporaries...

Where Carmack went coding phone game RAGE , being trounced by Angry Birds and Green Pigs, Blezsinski scored initially with Gears on console and grew steadily tired and now is thankfully free to innovate again and of course the greatest of all PC game designers Warren Spector ended up dumbing down Deus Exs sequel for consoles being duly punished by ending up and hopefully not ending at Epic Mickey 1 and 2....   Irrational Games transcended..

What did Irrational do different to all of the above ( who for any trolls out there I consider coding heroes by the way ) ... ? Irrational stayed true to their gaming design  and with the greatest of respect towards the then new gen of console gamers , gave them the same core gaming experience that was in their PC games. When you play a Bioshock game on PC or Xbox 360 or PS3 it is the same experience , they did not dumb anything down as did Spector for Deus Ex 2 , they did not sit down and try to transfer and dumb down the  FPS genre onto a phone which cannot reproduce the FPS gaming experience and thus produce an on rails shooter like RAGE al a Carmack. And they were not constrained or trapped  by  exclusivity in the console gaming design realm as our hero Cliffy B.

This is a shame because we as gamers lost out on what Mr Carmack, Spector and Cliffy B could have given us ....and may still !  If they took a peak through  Irrational's looking glass perhaps....

Irrational also thrive on being a pure design team, exploiting along the way engines that John Carmack and Cliff  Bleszinski were involved in..including the Unreal Engine used in Bioshock Infinite .

 Deus Ex Machina ...but it takes a Michel Angelo to illuminate this for us sometimes ....Irrational certainly seem to have a few of those around who can make art with any engine whether Quake 2 or Unreal ...

Bioshock Infinite also manages to weave a  warning message of the ultimate doom of a society  that turns a blind eye to, exploits and is riddled with prejudice, fascism and narcissism and based around the personality cult of an unflinching tyrant  ..though some may miss the point altogether...of that sentence and the game...more power to the developers for tackling these issues ..

So that is the how , you can make yourself feel good by reading the standard reviews on Metacritic if you need to but really if you are reading this you already have the game...dontcha?

I am on a quest to use and combine VR leaning controls, yes this dappy English kernigghit is on a VR Grail quest too...And on hardware that every one can have access to..

HMDs like the Cinemizer OLED will work with minimal spec hardware . as well as of course traditional gaming hardware. The  pictures and videos you see here of Bioshock Infinite are Intel HD3000 powered.  No nVidia Vision or AMDHD3D  required for 3D gaming or headtracking or handtracking..




I need to test how a sustained headtracking game session works with and changes how I play Bioshock Infinite and as we can we are also going to play in Tridef 3D, which explains these funny pictures you see around this post . Set your 3D viewers to over under to check them out... in 3D! 

Aiming and moving a field of view with a headtracker is different to mouse control in many ways , you are not really conscious you use it for a start, the first 30 minutes of Bioshock Infinite are a very good demo of how gaming changes when you play a FPS , in OLED 3D on a hmd with headtracking . In the video above which is a recording of that 3D gameplay , you will see me move the field of view with the headtracker only and also aim with the headtracker only. I find with the ability to look, you actually spend a lot more of your time doing it than you would with a mouse or joypad..

You can play this way for a significant time without noticing you are wearing the Cinemizer OLED , on which these colours rock of course. There is no better way to play a 3D FPS than using a HMD , absolutely nothing can interfere with you being in the game and with the Cinemizer OLED it can be any game on any device outputting a hmd signal..

If aiming with your head is not your thing , then don't hanker none Tex for you can also shoot with your hand...

VR is never going to be achieved if we just stick to headtracking though, so also I took the opportunity to test LEAP Motions new 1.76 sdk and firmware update which has improved finger tracking ( which was none to shabby before the update!) .Here I play looking for hooks for future   VR control...as explained in the video ...

I have not had time to combine these yet, but that will come more to follow @ thegameveda 

I need to get my blog up and running after recent events ! 

If  VR gaming as opposed to professional grade VR is going to take off and turn profits in an ailing economy , the answers to how we design those VR games do not lie in creating new VR experiences from the ground up alone , they lie in the existing body of the art of video gaming almost 4 decades of it, in gems like Irrational's latest and greatest Bioshock Infinite . Players gotta play and when you do and as you do you will pick up the hooks where VR can enhance gaming and wake up jaded games designers too.  

After all a virtual wheel in your fancy VR  world just needs to turn like the real thing ...no need to reinvent it .. and anyone that tells you different IS trying to sell you something...the question is are you buying?


which reminds me ...

Collectors check out some Irrational and Looking Glass classics here 

 Purchase  in the UK/EU the Zeiss Cinemizer OLED 3D iPack including iPhone adapter and in the USA the Cinemizer OLED , 

this content is © and originated from thegameveda http://the-games-veda.blogspot.com/  if you are reading it from any other site that has not provided a link back it has been leached