For many years I have wanted a mobile gaming handheld that is better than my iPhone. For some the iPhone is an amazing device for gaming and it has some great games, but I find the touch interface to be a bit limiting. So much so that I find the original Gameboy to be a better gaming device than the modern iPhone. I know some may not agree, but its not about the power of the system or the graphics its about the games, gameplay and controls. Maybe my mind is forever set on thumb controls for mobile games, maybe its just a better way to play them?

Even if the touch screen can be made to work with an old game port, often its totally crapped up to the point of being a terrible version of its former self. Checkout my review of the Secret of Mana iPhone port I wrote some time ago for more of my thoughts about that. I do a side by side comparison of the iPhone version and in the end I had to stop playing it because it attacked my soul.

http://cheerfulghost.com/jdodson/posts/259

I have spent many evenings scouring the internet for a handheld that makes sense for me. I want to run the games I already own on my NES and Super Nintendo and don't want to buy them again. I want to run Doom and Quake too. You know, normal nerdy shit. I don't mind a store where I buy games either, as it turns out I love buying games that are awesome.

Recently the GCW Zero was successfully Kickstarted and is nearing a normal retail launch soon. From all I have read, this looks like the device for me. Totally unlocked from the start, it runs Linux and can do much. Has the form factor of a PSP or DS and looks to be quite powerful. I have heard the device will sell for around $160 or so and that sounds reasonable.

When they release more details about when it becomes available for purchase, ill let you know.

http://www.gcw-zero.com/

GameStorm is March 21st-24th at the Hilton in Vancouver Washington. I am going to be speaking on a few panels this year about some really cool topics. Ill also be frequenting the event over the weekend in between my panel time as well with my laptop hacking on Cheerful Ghost when I can.

If you are planning on attending GameStorm you should totally let me know so we can hang out. Plus this will be my first set of speaking engagements about Video Games since I launched the site.

The Panels I Will Be Part Of:

* What's On Kickstarter Right Now: Friday March 22nd @ 11am. http://schedule.gamestorm.org/sessions/708
* Community Organizing: Friday March 22nd @ 3pm. http://schedule.gamestorm.org/sessions/712
* How to Run a Crowdfunding Campaign: Saturday March 23rd @ 2pm. http://schedule.gamestorm.org/sessions/719
* Long Distance Gaming: Saturday March 23rd @ 5pm. http://schedule.gamestorm.org/sessions/722

Love to see you there!

Bear with me people, Starcraft: Heart of the Swarm was released and apparently I love it. Apparently I like sharing bits related to it that I find awesome. So yeah, Starcraft.

PC Gamer covered the HoTS launch with a few videos that are pretty awesome. The one above featured above features the actor that played the voice of Jim Raynor. They also posted a longer video that covered more of the launch event you can watch below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngTFih13HXk#!

"I won't give up on you Starcraft, so don't give up on us!"

"Valve's Gabe Newell was honoured with the Academy Fellowship at the British Academy Games Awards in 2013 for his outstanding and exceptional creative contribution to the Games industry."

Yeah, that makes sense. Under Gabe's wing Valve has done amazing things with its games and Steam. The video above, starts with a nice mashup of some of Valves more amazing titles and then goes right into his acceptance speech, which is quite awesome. It follows up with a fun interview where he talks a bit about Valve and its growth.

They asked about Half-Life 3. Watch the video for the answer.

A Torment Kickstarter? Now Lord British is doing a Kickstarter? Pretty good day for RPG's indeed. If you loved Ultima, this looks to be the next installment in rad. A bit from the Kickstarter page:

"Richard Garriott, the award winning designer and creator of the Ultima franchise, makes his triumphant return to the genre that earned him a place in the Hall of Fame and a Lifetime Achievement Award. Shroud of the Avatar is the first installment of Richard’s new vision and represents the reinvention of the classic, fantasy role-playing which he pioneered. A fantasy role-playing game that will focus more on player choices and discovery than on level grinding."

They have some more in depth videos on certain things on the Kickstarter page itself. The Kickstarter aims at 1 million and they have already raised $860k so with 24 days to go they have a hefty lead.

What do you think of the Shroud of the Avatar Kickstarter?

Starcrafts created a Heart of the Swarm parody trailer I found very cool. Pair it up with the actual trailer and I think you will find it is much less dark. Fun to see this kind of thing get made.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCsGTP3-Jlw

Cut to the chase, Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm is a worthy successor to Wings of Liberty. Is it perfect? Nope. But it's really damn good.

Install/Collectors Edition

Ok so I bought the Collectors Edition and made the video above to show it off a bit. I nabbed the ol' Blizzard battle chests back in the day and then the collectors editions for Starcraft II, Diablo III and now Heart of the Swarm. I have never felt like any Blizzard collectors edition wasn't worth it and this is no exception. It is very similar to the Wings of Liberty Collectors except Heart of the Swarm contains a few more digital goodies and the Zerg Rush mouse pad. Looking forward to tearing through the art book and making of videos.

Since the game came with a DVD install disc I decided to use that to save myself a bit of bandwidth. After you click install the disc spins a bit, a few files install and then you start the 6.1G download for what I assume is most of the game itself. Same experience on Windows 7 and the Mac. I imagine what Blizzard did is provide a minimal install base and then just points you to battle.net for the rest of the game. Kind of a waste of a install disc but it seems to be the way of things. If you didn't have internet there would be no way to play this game.

The download was REALLY quick and battle.net delivered the files as fast as my internet connection would allow. I lost connection to battle.net while I played the game and the the single player wasn't effected by it. At one point battle.net alerted me I wouldn't get achievements for a while. After an hour I started getting them again. Not a huge deal but it happened.

Single Player Campaign

Blizzard has a style of storytelling all its own that takes a bit of getting used to so after a few starting missions I was back in the swing of things. The starting missions were a bit jarring in that Raynor kept referring to Kerrigan as "darlin'" and somehow that just never sounded right to my ears. Blizzard has a few nice visual set pieces awaiting you and so far its a great campaign. That said, Blizzard's style of story telling isn't hard to guess and something big happens right away and I kind of know how its going to end up. That doesn't mean the game isn't interesting, its just not very subtle.

I think a few elements make a great story and some are at play here but one of them is missing out that could really make Heart of the Swarm and other Blizzard titles a bit better off. Character arcs. Typically in a great story you have a character that makes a journey or arc. They learn something, get stronger or overcome some fear to win out in the end. It seems to me, from playing Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty, Diablo III and now Heart of the Swarm, Blizzard characters have no arc. They are typically one note from start to finish. They might get stronger, but they are the same person from start to the end. I guess from time to time they become a prime evil without choosing it or something, but that's not really the same thing.

**edit** I provide more context on the character arc point in the comments.

That said, the game is beautiful and it also showcases some amazing art design in the new Zerg characters Blizzard created for the story. Some of the new characters are so well designed I find myself looking at them quite a bit.

The missions are varied and found them challenging enough but nothing I couldn't take care of.

Score

I will most likely come back and analyze the score in another post but I wanted to write a few words about it in this post. After one listen of the soundtrack from start to finish I wasn't immediately grabbed by it. Some of the arrangements in a few songs rubbed me the wrong way on the first listen. That said I never got that impression in the game itself, so from the scores first goal of working in the game itself, it totally succeeds. I will listen to it on its own a few more times and highlight a few of the stand out tracks in an upcoming post.

Fin

So to sum things up, the game is very well done. Its not perfect and I wasn't keen to a few beats, but I am enjoying the ride and am looking forward to finishing it.

After hearing great things about StarDrive from its recent Steam beta launch I decided to check it out. I pre-ordered the game and as such was able to try out the Beta. If you are looking for a deep space warfare game, StarDrive is the game to get. I was very impressed with StarDrive and when I reached out to Daniel DiCicco for an interview realized that we both hail from the always amazing Portland Oregon area.

jdodson: You just posted the StarDrive beta to Steam for people that pre-order the game. What is your reaction to how people have been playing the StarDrive beta?

Daniel DiCicco: I am absolutely thrilled with the response that we've gotten. People seem to be genuinely enjoying the game, we've held steady in the Top 10 on Steam during our first weekend, and our community is really cooking with great ideas and enthusiasm. Frankly it's a major relief! I've worked so hard on this game over the past couple of years and this warm reception is everything I could have hoped for.

jdodson: You started things off with a successful Kickstarter and now the game will release on Steam April 19th. I wonder what your plans are after the game launches?

Daniel DiCicco: Well, StarDrive is a living product. I intend to continue to work on the game for a full year after release, supporting it with free updates and perhaps some meatier expansions down the way.

jdodson: After watching a few tutorial videos I jumped head first into StarDrive and started colonizing planets as the Ralyeh. I think I spread myself a bit too thin and started getting hammered by the Vulfen. They had much better ships than I did and when I started hitting them back my colonies starting starving and then many revolted. I had a blast playing the game and was eager to take a crack at another one, with that I wonder what kind of basic strategy you would suggest for people new to the game?

Daniel DiCicco: I recommend building a few strong core worlds and supporting them well. Spreading yourself too thin can lead to slower development and also makes your empire difficult to defend. But not all of the maps, which are procedurally generated of course, will give you the option of having a great planet nearby. Invest in the technologies you need to improve crummy planets if that's all you have. Some biospheres, tax offices, and deep core mine can make a pretty swell planet even if it does have a low population.

jdodson: I wonder what you wish people could know about what you put into making the game?

Daniel DiCicco: Perseverance. It's the number one thing I put into StarDrive. Number 2 is money. You gotta pay for the art, and that's not cheap! But without perseverance money doesn't matter. I had to get up every day, believe in my vision, and put my nose to the grindstone. Even when there are doubts. Even when I am tired.

jdodson: What is one aspect of StarDrive that you are really proud of?

Daniel DiCicco: Collision detection! In StarDrive the ships are not just single entities with hitpoints -- they are instead these massive grid layouts of ship modules. In combat, these ships can can blown apart piece by piece, and it really matters where and how you arrange these modules. The thing I am most proud of is that I managed to get this code running at 60 frames per second, because the amount of math StarDrive has to do to keep the simulation running accurately is absurd. Just imagine that a single Titan ship can have 2300 modules, and for even one projectile moving towards that ship, I need to figure out which of those 2300 module it hits. And the game updates 60 times per second, with dozens or hundreds of ships, thousands of projectiles -- if you aren't smart about it, you get a slideshow for a game. So figuring all that out, that's what I'm most proud of.

jdodson: How many keypads would you say the Kulrathi go through in a given year?

Daniel DiCicco: Well, the bearzerkers probably go through one or two a day. But the more enlightened of their species are delicate typers!

jdodson: As I was playing StarDrive I was impressed that it had a deep experience, but I didn’t feel overwhelmed on my first game. I wonder what design choices you made to keep the rich experience yet not make things too complicated?

Daniel DiCicco: Well I should emphasize that StarDrive as it exists today is not written anywhere but in the code. The design documents paint a picture but the game today is very different. This is because of the iteration, the constant testing and feedback. The bottom line is that the game needs to be fun but it can't be so simple that you tire of it quickly. I guess in some ways I just got lucky by arriving at a sweet spot. I took some guesses about what was going to be fun and then people told me that it was indeed fun, and so I kept doing those things. And when I went to far and made it too complicated or unfun, I would dial back those features.

jdodson: When I look at the available races in StarDrive the Humans stick out to me as looking out of place compared to the others. I guess what I mean by that is that they don’t seem relatively domineering in StarDrive. I wonder what kinds of qualities you wanted to ensure were carried to each race in the final game? Which race do you typically play as?

Daniel DiCicco: I probably have the most time logged as Humans because it is the default option. I just load up the game and get to testing and don't mess with race design. I think what I want to get across for all the races is just a sense of personality. I put a lot of effort into writing dialog for the races and in trying to keep their tone consistent. I also wanted them to be a bit lighthearted.

jdodson: Were the Optris created by one of the playable races or did they wipe out the beings that created them ALA Terminator and or Matrix style?

Daniel DiCicco: They created themselves. They were once organic beings but they ditched their bodies.

jdodson: I wonder what's the longest game of StarDrive you’ve played?

Daniel DiCicco: Actually probably only an hour or two. But I have like 300 hours logged on Steam. It's just that I play, test, fix/code, play, test ,fix/code. Over and over.

jdodson: As I was playing StarDrive I quite enjoyed the music. I am wondering if there might be a possible release of the score at some point?

Daniel DiCicco: We hope so! Right now the focus is on the game. Afterwards I think we will release a soundtrack but we have no specific plans right now.

jdodson: The first time I saw the Cordrazine I was both amused and disturbed. My first thought was if the Owlwok’s could ever gain their independence from the Cordrazine. Do you anticipate this happening at some point or are the Owlwok’s incapable of the intellect needed for becoming a spacefaring race?

Daniel DiCicco: I think we'll see some cool Owlwok stuff in DLC some day. I really like those guys and a liberated Owlwok player race would be awesome.

jdodson: I wanted to thank you for taking the time to talk to me about StarDrive, its a fantastic game I look forward to playing more of. Is there anything else you want to say before we wrap things up?

Daniel DiCicco: Thanks a lot man. Life is very exciting right now and I'm just thrilled to be in the position to continue working on this game that people love.

StarDrive is available right now on Steam for pre-order with immediate access to the games beta.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/220660/

They also dropped a few of songs off the score yesterday as well if you are interested.

http://stardrivegame.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=1471

I love opening collectors editions. Listening to the soundtrack right now. More as it develops.

Monsters Invade: Oz is a upcoming game that brings the Wub, Wub to all the monster loving people in the world. The video showcases a few concepts and hints and what could be a very interesting game. Boasting such features as monster breeding, fully explorable world and hand drawn art this touch game looks really neat.

Hopefully they will let us know if you can befriend these monsters and become one of them thereby allowing yourself the ability to sink underneath your bed and enter the monster world where the place is trashed but you can do whatever you want while being befriended by a blue horned Howie Mendell. Or I might be thinking of some other monster thing. Regardless, Monster's Invade: Oz is coming and I expect more information to leak at Pax East and GDC.

http://littleboxapps.com/store