Gran Turismo 5 is finally here. So is my next collection of words.

I'm a fan of things that take a long time to create which reveal very little as to why it took so long. Just like my blog.



It is with this glorious spirit of procrastination that Gran Turismo 5 hits worldwide and three million anxious nerds sperg about how awful it is when in reality it's the same game we've been playing since 1998. If you were expecting a ground-breaking not-Gran Turismo I don't know what to tell any of you. You're literally retarded in as literal a fashion as I can mean literal to be. You're as retarded as those people that spent $100 for a keyring and a model car with a book that tells you not to crash into walls. It's an idiotic waste of one-hundred dollars but it looks so much better than Benjamin Franklin's fat face on my woman-repelling game shelf.

The driving itself is like any other Gran Turismo game, that is to say solid as a rock. The physics have indeed been improved but it's nothing a casual player would notice at all, especially with the pad. Odd quirks abound in this game and many are absolutely maddening. The much-publicized detail gap between "standard" and "premium" cars makes the quality of the game feel schizophrenic and on top of this no wheels can be changed on the lower-definition models. They imported these cars from a game which allowed you to do that so why not import the low-def wheels and let us use those? This installment also adds a leveling system similar to Forza's which keeps you from joining advanced races until you accrue the proper experience points. Because of this you're thankfully no longer required to take license tests but for some reason you also can't buy cars that are above your current driving level. As if the price of the higher-level cars wasn't barrier enough. And most bafflingly you can't change the colors of your racing suit at all after you've made the initial choice. At least the most exclusive car in the world, the Bugatti Veyron is a premium car, right? :( :( :(

On the plus side, Photo Mode returns and is better than any photo mode in any other game that ever did exist. Not only is it extremely intuitive but it also doesn't limit you in the ways Project Gotham or Forza tends to. Plus it includes settings and features you'd find in real photography so that's a major plus. And the cars look absolutely astonishing. The premium models do indeed edge out Forza's in visual fidelity, but many things are hilariously behind the times.

Everything I've just said is an aside. This game is, at its core, a racing simulator and as such attempts to simulate the reality of driving a car very fast. Everyone knows you can upgrade your chosen ride with various racing parts and this includes a racing transmission. Traditionally in every simulator ever created you can customize each and every gear ratio to suit the exact needs of the track at hand. Every simulator but this one, it seems. Sure you can pick a "quick tune" where you choose the theoretical top speed of your car. Fine and dandy but sometimes you need more fine tuning and the fact that it's not available is the worst crime this game commits. Imagine a surgeon needing a scalpel but the hospital only providing a bat'leth. A bat'leth with adjustable grips.

Gran Turismo 5: Flawless, gets 5/5 and is my vote for Game of the Year.

This article now available in glorious VGA!

As mentioned previously in another clumsily-written article, 3D games were mostly limited to novelty and suffered the crippling lack of computing horsepower. Still, they were uncommon enough to pique the interest of nerds such as young budding designers John Carmack, Tom Hall and John Romero. These three are pretty much triple-handedly responsible for your Mountain Dew-fueled Halo and Call of Duty marathon sessions, but I'm getting ahead of myself.



Before id Software was formed, the trio worked for a little software publishing company called Softdisk, who released a handful of titles before being relegated to complete obscurity. During these days, 2D platformers were pretty hot shit because of the success of Super Mario Bros. so the dudes at Softdisk, thanks to Carmack, made a breakthrough in figuring out how to bring Mario to EGA displays once thought incapable of smooth scrolling graphics. Here's a really fantastic article on the birth of Commander Keen and the early days of id. When Nintendo denied permission to port Super Mario 3 to the PC platform, they used what they learned to make a number of platformers, chief among them Commander Keen (this technology also led to Duke Nukum).

With help from Apogee, id released Wolfenstein 3D on May 5, 1992 using the tricks learned from Hovertank 3D and the Catacomb titles. Almost immediately orders began pouring in and the money would allow id Software to eventually self-publish their own games. The game was so successful that a number of other development teams contracted the engine for use in games such as Corridor 7, Blake Stone, and Rise of the Triad.



The gameplay of Wolfenstein 3D isn't really that far removed from MazeWar, with the player in charge of running through simple mazes of uniform height and 90 degree corners and sometimes shooting a dude. The level design is very simplistic even compared to Ultima Underworld, a title released a few months earlier, but the simplicity allowed the game to run on a larger variety of computers. The sequel Spear of Destiny would be released a little bit later, but by the time I had the chance to buy it Doom was available, so I tend to think of it as the lame lost brother.



Today, Wolfenstein's legacy has been lessened somewhat by the monumental success of Doom and Doom II, but it's impossible to deny the game its value as an important and influential piece of gaming history. And to think, the franchise started as a two-dimensional espionage game.

Those of you old enough to remember or too young to have played it new can pick up copies of the game very cheaply (also freely if you just want a taste), and it has no problem running in DOSBox if you're like me and love command line. A short Google search brought me this source port if you find the idea of messing with DOSBox a little daunting. I haven't actually messed with that port so if it takes a big poo poo all over your computer then I'd say that's what you get for being a sacrilegious weenie.



Also try these great flavors of Wolfenstein Engine!
Blake Stone
Corridor 7
Operation Body Count
Rise of the Triad

FPS Pre-history

Let me preface this entire thing by stating that MineCraft is the greatest and worst thing ever conceived. It's the most fun game I've played in quite a while and because of this I've not been writing my articles. I'd apologize, but no one reads this anyway. The guy who made MineCraft goes by the nickname "Notch" and has made over two million dollars on his game since last September so if my glowing praise of this game doesn't convince you maybe some hard numbers will. Go to here immediately and get your 'craft on.

This is what I was supposed to be writing

First Person Shooters and I go pretty far back. To the beginning, actually. In the 1980's games were mostly played from a sort of omniscient viewpoint. Games were generally either viewed from above the action (Pac-Man/River Raid) or to the side (Mario Bros./Mountain King). There were a few exceptions here and there with the text-based adventure, racing genres and assorted miscellaneous titles but for the most part visual immersion wasn't a huge consideration.



In the mid-80's my experience playing games was limited to platformers like Conan or the popular arcade games such as Q*Bert or Choplifter, along with the games listed above. So when, in 1987, a kid decided to show me Maze War running on his Xerox I didn't know what the fuck. Here's a video showing gameplay on a different model computer to the one my neighbor had. He also didn't have another Xerox to play with so it was just lonesome wandering around an empty maze. As far as I was concerned there wasn't anything remotely like it and I wanted more. Unfortunately I have ADD and Mario Bros. and later Sonic the Hedgehog stole my gaze for few years.



I didn't realize until a few years ago that MazeWar was the first FPS ever, but it certainly wasn't the only first-person game you could play during the 80's, only the most important. British lads got a taste of first person mazery in 3D Monster Maze, a much better game for the single player involving a vicious tyrannosaurus on the prowl for chubby, pimply meat. In arcades I'd played the wireframe-only vector glory of Battlezone, an early tank game where it's shot or be shottened. I was never very good at it.

Honestly, the 80's were very spotty at best for first person games, let alone the variety focused on lethal projectiles. It wouldn't be until the dawn of the grunge and g-funk era that this genre would begin showing its potential as a contender for players' hearts, minds and souls. The mad geniuses over at id were busy preparing one of the most important games in history by learning how exactly to go about it. Both Hovertank 3D and Catacomb 3D were released in 1991 and gave PC gamers a taste of the future. Almost a year later, Wolfenstein 3D would hit shelves and give everyone else a case of the what the fucks.

Notes: Try this Conan music out. The Atari 800 version sounded better and was the one I played all the time. I realize I'm missing quite a few first person games made in the late 80's (especially some of the Interplay adventure/RPG games like The Bard's Tale) but I'm not intending this to be encyclopedic.

This is a placeholder until someone with talent arrives.

With the recent announcement of Gearbox purchasing all things Nukem and subsequently deciding to finish Duke Nukem Forever, I thought now would be a great time to talk about shooters. First Person Shooters. They're all I can think about now. One of my teenage dreams was to one day throw pipe bombs and ride subway cars in full 3D with the glory of the Quake 2 engine to back it all up. Well that'll never happen but Unreal Engine 2.5 is good enough, I suppose. I doubt it'll have all that awesome coloured lighting though :(

Since I have a sizable collection of Eff Pee Esses's I thought it'd be good to go through them and highlight what they did for me as a game enthusiast and general fat lazy slob, starting from the beginning before I hit the twenty-year speed bump and became this eating machine. I blame George Broussard.

Stay tuned for some really spergy trips through gaming history.

Something about video games.

Sometimes a hiatus is required when you go gallivanting around Japan.

What? Yeah I was in Japan what of it?

I don't really speak or read Japanese so it was sort of difficult for me to get around and it turned out I flew into the wrong city altogether. I wanted to rent a GT-R and replicate what Top Gear did a couple series' back but apparently those credit cards you get in the mail don't work in Japan. I figured any establishment worth their salt would recognize the clout of having credit with the Platinum First Premier Bank and fall atop themselves to serve my every whim, but it was not to be. So in order to get to Kazunori Yamauchi at his Batcave in Polyphony Digital I ended up having to walk the entire way from Miyakojima to Tokyo. It is quite a hike, let me assure you.



After I straightened out my financial situation I promptly bought several hundred flavours of Kit Kat and a translator. My mission was clear: Seek out the head of Sony's biggest racing producer and ask him what the fuck was taking so long with Gran Turismo 5.

Interview with a vampire Kazunori Yamauchi

Snakes and Sparklers: Gran Turismo 5 has been a long time coming for everyone involved: you, your company Polyphony Digital, Sony, fans, Sony's shareholders and even your dear old mum. What importance does this iteration have as compared to previous installments in the series?

Kazunori Yamauchi: It is the most important thing we have done to date; it is life to me (laughs). All of the experience we have accumulated over the years culminates in this and I'd like [Gran Turismo 5] to represent everything we've learned up to now.

SnS: Was Gran Turismo on the PSP a major goal for you or was it an obligation to Sony to branch out?

Yamauchi: I had been wanting to do a portable Gran Turismo since the PSP was released but other projects put [GT PSP] on hiatus. With the upcoming release of Gran Turismo 5 it was now or never (laughs). It was never only an obligation to Sony, it is a project I've been wanting to pursue from the beginning.

SnS: After hinting so much at a 2009 release date for so long and announcing a 'major advancement' before Tokyo Game Show 2009, the March 2010 [Japanese-market] release date for Gran Turismo 5 came as a shock to some fans. Was this the only announcement you had on hand for TGS?

Yamauchi: (laughs) We actually had several things to announce about Gran Turismo 5 at the show but when I got the chance to try Forza Motorsport 3 at the show I became quite nervous about the state of my game and asked Sony for a six-month extension to the development time, which they graciously entertained.



SnS: This begs the question: What the fuck's been taking so long? (Okay I didn't word it like that but it's what I was thinking!)

Yamauchi: Well, I was taking a cue from George Broussard and pretty much just spending investor money on doing stuff I loved, like eating endangered animals and driving a submarine and then occasionally releasing a screen shot or other news that I was really working on the game so I could get some more investment money, but when 3DRealms went bankrupt I became scared and decided to actually seriously work on the game.

After a series of expletives were thrown from my mouth to Kazunori's face I was unceremoniously kicked to the curb for being disrespectful, and they took my recorded interview, too. It's a great thing I've got such an excellent memory for me to transcribe the entire thing here for you today.

Unfortunately I don't have much to show for my Japan trip because I couldn't find a way to bring all 4,358 Haruhi statues I bought in Akihabara back on the plane with me.

Always Bet on Duke's Unemployment.

With news that George Broussard's extra-tardy baby will probably never see the light of day, I must confess that my first reaction was to sit in a darkened room clutching my Duke Nukem 3D box whilst sobbing quietly, the only other sound the occasional patter of tears on cardboard. My red tank-top is off and my shades have been placed in a drawer to be forgotten about until the next owner finds them in five years after I've hawked the nightstand in a yard sale.

Then I realized I'd be dead before Duke Nukem Forever released anyway so I've gotten over it. Funny comparisons to John Romero and Ion Storm aside, it's actually been a fun ride watching several different versions of the same train wreck repeatedly for thirteen years. I think the most frustrating thing is that we could've had several major Duke Nukem games if it hadn't been for crippling perfectionism. Imagine a genius kid creating a cure for cancer but completely scrapping it because the cure didn't also taste like cotton candy.

Here's to you George, you magnificent retard.

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Sega GT Online is rubbish. Sega GT Online has cancers. Sega GT Online is the do-nothing father of my children.

I was rummaging through my game vault the other day.

Wait. Let's back up a bit for a history lesson.

I have a huge safe on a hill in the middle of Rothburg that I keep filled with all my games. Inside said safe is a diving board where I can plunge into my collection and swim around like a very uncomfortable lunatic. Please note that I have not done this. I was sitting at the end of my diving board contemplating my life when I spotted a disc I haven't spun in years: Sega GT Online. Looking back I should have just committed a lethal belly-flop into a tank full of jewel cases and HuCards.



Sega GT Online is an update to a sequel to a Dreamcast game that aimed at beating Sony at their own hundred-plus auto simulator. Judging by the number of Sega GT fanclubs and the game itself it seems they failed. I once compared the control of Pretty Fighter to that of sticking the gamepad up your ass and contracting your sphincter to press the buttons and it appears Sega succeeded in bringing that experience to the racing genre. It's not as if the controls are unresponsive, no; control problems lie squarely in the physics. Instead of giving the player the sensation of tire grip the programmers decided to simulate racing conditions if they happened underwater. If you could translate Mushmouth dialogue into physics you'd have the soupy-handling cars of Sega GT.

It doesn't stop with the wonderful driving experience either. Each car appears to be made of hardened sugar, with paint finishes that would make Willy Wonka envious. This would be truly fantastic if automobiles in real life looked edible. I've learned from experience that they are, in fact, not edible. Inside all that saccharine lies the heart of a multi-million DUI champion that I've lovingly dubbed "RAMN2U AI". Even though there's no cosmetic or functional damage there is a damage metre which, when when depleted (by hitting anything) will reduce the winnings one receives at the end of an event. Regardless of who hits whom, if two cars make contact you receive a damage penalty so using cars as barriers to assist in making turns is not the greatest idea.



Punitive damage doesn't stop the ingenious RAMN2U AI's muderous intent however. To them you don't even exist, which is just as well because you'll wish you didn't exist after an extended race on any of Sega GT's thirty or so uninspired tracks. Every course was painstakingly designed by Yu Suzuki's mentally and physically handicapped cousin to be as flat and forgettable as possible. I don't mean flat in this regard to mean lifeless though one could certainly apply it here but I intend that they are literally flat. The roads sort of meander and twist because that's what real race tracks do, I suppose, but they forgot the basic lessons learned by Columbus and his compatriots. The world is indeed curved and lumpy and if it weren't you'd kill yourself from boredom.

Sega GT's not all bad, though. It does have a Bugatti, which means this game stops just short making me feel raped by a rodeo clown and that's good enough for me.