Heavens Above
Who needs LittleBigPlanet? Source for the win!
Skyboxes are possibly the most frustratingly difficult part of level design in Hammer, Valve’s level design editor. Place this, copy that, my God, will it ever end? No wonder Gordon Freeman doesn’t talk, I think after all the coding Valve were just too tired. The thing with designing levels is I have to keep reminding myself I won’t be the only one playing them, and therefore not everyone might enjoy spawning in a room with 350 combine, a rocket launcher, and health turned off. Storyline’s a fun one to play with, but when your main character’s a mute, it becomes a lot more difficult. I suppose you could say it was inspired in part by my last column for GamerNode; do silent characters make us work harder? Or indeed, now, do the designers?
In other news, bar the customary YAY OBAMA that I’ll save for tomorrow, it seems the European Union isn’t too big a fan of Microsoft constantly tying their OS to Media Player, Internet Explorer and others. I don’t really see the problem, I mean, if this shiny laptop had come with Vista, but no internet browser, how the hell was I going to get one? What browser could I use? I can understand them suggesting perhaps installing Firefox as well, but that’s just poor business sense. If you want relentless product-pushing companies out of the way, fine, but don’t target Vista as something it’s not. Within five minutes of booting my copy of Vista Home Premium up, I had iTunes and Thunderbird. No one’s forcing me to use anything.
Speaking of using other methods on the internet, Valve win my award for Cockiest Company Ever. Do they see software pirates as evil, penny-hoarding degraders of gaming society? Hell no, they see them as an untapped market. Brilliant. They did hit a few nails on the head though, stating that the main reason people pirate is differing release dates country to country. This much is very true, and it means they’re taking a calmer approach than the wonderfully immature tirades against piracy from people like Metallica. Steam is a wonderful program to combat piracy, though it’s a little ironic Valve are talking about helping out region-disadvantaged areas when they can’t be bothered to give the EA titles to the UK when the rest of the world, Europe included, have had them for over a month.
Sadly, my favourite European, Niko Bellic, won’t be joining me on my Xbox this year, as Rockstar have crushed rumours of GTA V being released pre-Christmas. Ah well, it was a nice thought while it lasted, especially all of the Japan-based game world rumours.
And to end today’s update on a high, Child’s Play, the charity started by Tycho and Gabe of Penny Arcade fame, has reined in a stunning $1.4 million, twice the amount they were aiming for. This can mean nothing but more gaming-based gifts to kids either too financially unable or medically ill to enjoy them in their everyday environment, and it’s a heartwarming thought that the comic’s creators’ retaliation to accusations of being “gamer idiots” by “geniuses” such as Jack Thompson were refuted not with immature jokes, but with a charity that has raised millions upon millions for children all over America, and hopefully the world over soon enough. Hell, I’d run a UK one full-time if I got the support. Go team gamer.
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