Words about games
SavyGamer categorised RSS feeds
I occasionally get request to add this feature to SavyGamer, but it’s actually already there, and has been since the redesign, so I guess it is worth drawing your attention to it.
If you head to the “Categorised Feeds” link at the top of the page (or hit this link), there are separate RSS feeds for each platform and other site content. Helps if you don’t want to be notified of deals for platforms that you don’t own.
I’m going to Shambala
Last festival this year, I promise.
I’m current en route to Shambala festival, so I’ll not be posting on SavyGamer til probably Monday or Tuesday. If you want to see what I am up to, I’ll be twitterering the whole time.
If you spot anything particularly good in the mean time, hassle Will and Tony about it.
See you on the other side.
I am using something called Flattr
I’ve giving this new service a try, if it takes off, and enough of you lot sign up, I’ll probably use it permanently, we’ll see.
It’s called Flattr, and this video explains it better than my words will:
It seems like a pretty fantastic idea to me, and it’s a good way of donating to lots of web sites, but knowing exactly how much you’ll be donating beforehand (the minimum is 2 euros a month).
There should be a button somewhere beneath here. If you fancy it, you can register here, and then click that button to Flattr at me.
Edit: It appears that you can Flattr each post separately, not just the site as a whole. I guess that means the more times you Fluttr me, the bigger share of your total Fluttring I get. I think anyway. I’ll look in to it.
ENGAGE MAINTENANCE MODE
I’m giving the cogs a polish, and the lightbulbs needs changing.
Ooh, pretty trees.
Edit: The site works fine in the meantime, it’s just I’ve reverted to the plebeian default wordpress theme for a bit. Hopefully not more than 24 hours.
Edit2: And we’re back. Let me know if you notice any kinks, but I am more than ready to forget everything I ever learnt about html and crawl up in the foetal position. Not touching that again for a long time. I accidentally fiddled with the fonts, but I kind of like the new MASSIVE headlines. What do you lot think?
Watch There Will Be Blood on the iPlayer
Until Sunday 15th August, There Will Be Blood is on the iPlayer. Make sure you watch it. Close everything else, turn your phone off, and sit comfortably. It’s fantastic.
Via bitsofjoy
The Hut are still very dishonest
Surprise surprise, after issuing a coupon for 10% off everything at midday today, what do you think The Hut did next?
Of course, they increased the prices of lots of items so that they are more expensive than they were before, even with the coupon applied. It’s pretty underhanded, but they have prior form.
Just Cause 2 on 360/PS3 was £17.93 before the coupon was around. Now they jacked the price up to £23.93 (or £21.54 with the coupon). It’s a similar story for No More Heroes 2, Fight Night Round 4, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, 2,100 MS points and no doubt more of the thousands of items in their catalogue that I haven’t noticed.
Last time that this happened, I gave them the benefit of the doubt and asked them for their take on it. They never gave me a satisfactory answer, and gradually stopped responding to my emails. This time I went straight to trading standards.
After explaining the story so far, trading standards said “We are going to investigate this report of potentially missleading pricing and advertising, and this is a potentially criminal issue”.
I’ll speak to them again in a few weeks time to see how the investigation is going. I’ll let you know how it develops.
Categories are broken
I did some fiddling with the page recently, and fixed a few small things.
But I seem to have broke the categories pages.
Search still works, so you can just search for platforms and find the games.
If anyone thinks they might know how to fix it, please let me know. I am working on it.
Want to write some words for SavyGamer?
You there! Citizen of the internet, would you like to write some words for SavyGamer? Read more…
Develop Interview: Sean Murray
Still recovering from my post develop poorliness, but here’s an MP3 of me chatting to Sean Murray, king boss man of Hello Games.
Develop Interview: Sean Murray
We snuck into the bar on Tuesday after his presentation at Evolve, which is transcribed here.
He talks about the Joe Danger demo and patch that are on the way, Hello Games expansion plans (Jobs page here) and their ambitions for their next game.
Hello Games went on to win the Best New Studio and Micro Studio awards at the Develop awards. Well done lads, wish you all the best in the future.
Rise of the Micro Studio: Unreal arrogance
I’ll be posting lots of coverage of Develop Conference in Brighton 2010, which I just got home from, over the next few days. But this panel was one of the most interesting of the whole conference for me. It was compered by Will Freeman of Develop Magazine, and the panel was made up of: the highly articulate no matter what he says, Sean Murray from hello games; Captian of the illustrious Introversion, Mark Morris; ambitious newly opened studio, Beatnik‘s Robin Lacey; and rounding it up is Cliffski, the Trekie Uncle of the UK indie scene. Read more…
Super Mario Galaxy 2, Wii – Review
Super Mario Galaxy 2 – £29.74 delivered
Apply coupon “FTSL15-1″
Review by Bobby Foster
Seriously? You want to read about Super Mario Galaxy 2 instead of play Super Mario Galaxy 2? You are, quite simply, wasting precious moments of your life that could otherwise be spent enjoying the greatest videogame ever made. Really. Honestly. I promise I’m not just saying that to catch your attention. Read more…
Any retailer recommendations?
I just added The Irons Den to the list of retailers I post deals from. Are there any other good retailers that you guys use that I haven’t noticed? Let me know in the comments if you have any recommendation. Thanks guys.
Joe Danger – Review
Joe Danger, £9.99 on PSN (£20 PSN money for £17.91)
Review by Lewie Procter
I’ve been playing this same level over and over. I’ve learnt every single obstacle. I know where they are, and I know how to get past them all. The controller has become an extension of my body, the buttons are mapped to my muscle memory in extreme detail.
I can do it. I know I have got a perfect run in me. Just one more try. Read more…
Buy my stuff please
It is for sale here. SavyGamer readers get 10% off the total price.
I’ll be adding much more stuff gradually too. At the minute there is a few 360/PS3 games, an N64, and a bunch of Mega Drive games.
Iron Man 2 – Review
[DEAL GOES HERE]
Review by Will Templeton
I’ve been trying to write a review for the Iron Man 2 game since it launched. I’ve been writing and scrapping paragraphs for weeks, unsatisfied with every single one of them in the end, and I realised why – I was trying to see something that wasn’t there. I was wrestling with myself, trying to convince myself that it wasn’t all bad, that surely it had some redeeming qualities, and then maybe somewhere – God knows where, but somewhere – there was someone that this game was designed for and who would get some enjoyment from it. Read more…
I hope you can all see what 3D on the PS3 is for
It is purely, purely, to sell Sony’s expensive 3DTVs. Read more…
Redemption Song
If you listen to our regular podcast, you’ll know that I’m much more of a fan of storytelling in games than Lewie. While we both derive a lot of enjoyment from how a story is utilised as one of a series of ingredients a designer can use, and both of us can appreciate the way a good story is told, he tends to prioritise that nebulous quality of ‘having fun’ as a core element of gameplay, and I tend to be able to forgive slightly poor mechanics in favour of something that’s well-written.
This leads to us getting frustrated at each other. He skips cutscenes, and I don’t. I talk to every NPC in a world, and he seeks out the next mission trigger. And when I lent him my copy of Red Dead Redemption, I urged him to watch the opening scenes that really lay down for the foundation for the world. I told him that it was a really smart exploration of American attitudes at the turn of the century. He told me that it was a bunch of talking on a train. And hit Skip.
It’s this fundamental difference that I think underlines why we disagree on a lot games, and why, ultimately, I think he’ll find the ending of Red Dead Redemption both boring and unsatisfying, whereas I thought it brilliant and interesting. Neither of us are wrong, of course – but I’m going to try my damnedest to prove that I’m right.
Fair warning – the rest of this post after the break contains spoilers for the end of Red Dead Redemption. If you haven’t seen the credits roll, then you haven’t seen some of the stuff I’ll be talking about.
Let’s Play: Journalists, DS – £19.99
Let’s Play: Journalists, DS – £19.99 delivered
In related news, issue 216 of PC Gamer is out on Thursday, subscribers should already have it. Some of my words have found their way into it. I wrote an article called “Gaming on a budget”, so I’ve not strayed far from my area of expertise. It has WOW: Cataclysm on the cover, and can be ordered online here (on Thursday), or found in petrol stations, super markets and corner shops across the land.