The Future of Gaming

Note: this blog has been migrated to Medium, with the articles here available to preserve permalinks. Please see this post at https://medium.com/@ianrbuck/the-future-of-gaming-14a00f40ca57

Now that all of the major players have put their cards on the table, I would like to give my thoughts on what is going to happen. Given the events of the last week, I think we are on the verge of a very different distribution landscape, and I am looking forward to it. Let's start out small.

Mobile gaming isn't going anywhere; it's definitely going to continue to grow. However, we need to get people more used to paying $10 or more for a quality game if we are going to see more than these simple little high-score focused social-oriented free-to-play games that are the bane of our existence. Why is it that Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery is still the only mobile game with a decent story that I have played?

The Ouya tried to encourage those kinds of games to come to Android, but they really dropped the ball. It took them so long to release the darn thing that Nvidia came out with a new version of the processor they were using by the time Kickstarter backers got their hands on the system.

Nintendo is in an interesting position. The Wii U isn't doing very well, but the 3DS is selling like hotcakes. As we have seen over the last decade, Nintendo can do well by simply having a strong first-party title lineup. This is something nobody else can claim, and I don't see them changing their strategy.

Now to the good stuff. This week Valve announced SteamOS, Steam Machines, and the Steam Controller. SteamOS is based on Linux, which is really the only way that they could have done this. Yes, Linux doesn't have nearly as many AAA games as Windows at this point, but licensing Windows for all of the Steam Machines would drive their prices up. Valve gets around this by streaming Windows games from your PC over your home network. Because of that, Steam Machines will initially only sell to people who are already into PC gaming. Not to worry, Valve is working on encouraging big publishers to bring their games to Linux. Because there will be a Steam Machine for all occasions, they will be competing directly with everything from the consoles to the Chromecast.
I am much more interested in the controller they unveiled. Having it emulate mouse and keyboard inputs for games that don't support controllers was a brilliant move, and it means that is the one thing they announced this week that I will definitely be getting as soon as it comes out.

There were a couple of interesting stories about Sony and Microsoft this week. Both are looking into streaming their games to devices other than their core consoles. Sony is considering everything from PCs to tablets to TVs. Microsoft of course will probably only make this available on Windows and Windows Phones. If Valve succeeds in getting everyone to support Linux (I really hope they are) then the only reason for PC gamers to stay with Windows (aside from familiarity) would be for Microsoft to make Xbox games available on Windows as well.
Sony seems much more likely to support Linux, as they have no reason to push Windows sales. I like the way that they talk about treating the PlayStation brand as a service rather than just hardware. And think about it for a moment: how does Sony make money? Not by selling consoles, but by selling the games on those consoles. If they can bring their games to more people by offering a streaming service, I think they will.

The piece of hardware that I am most excited for is the Oculus Rift. These headsets are already incredibly popular, and they haven't even released yet. Innovations like this and the Steam Controller are only possible on open platforms, where they can support games that weren't even made with anything but mouse and keyboard in mind.

My dream for the gaming industry for some time has been for the hardware people to focus on making hardware, the software people to focus on making software, and the distributors to bring us services that add to our overall gaming experience, all on top of an open software platform. This has been how most of the PC gaming world has worked for as long as I can remember, and Valve and Sony seem to be the distributors most poised to take advantage of this model.

Superbrothers Sword & Sworcery EP

Note: this blog has been migrated to Medium, with the articles here available to preserve permalinks Please see this post at https://medium.com/@ianrbuck/superbrothers-sword-sworcery-ep-20c1f3f06cdb

Up until now all of the games I have reviewed have been on the PC. Now that I have a Nexus 7 I can start playing some of those mobile games that I didn't have access to before. I'm still discovering more, so if you have suggestions for games that I would enjoy, shoot me an email.

The first game I've tried out is called Superbrothers Sword & Sworcery EP, and I am quite pleased with my choice.

As the name suggests, it is a bit of a musical experiment wrapped up in a video game. Records (or Big Black CDs as I used to call them) show up with some frequency in the game as little reminders to pay attention to the awesome sounds being gently pushed into your ear canals. I enjoyed the music so much that I went and bought the soundtrack.

As you can see most of the visuals are very simple, very 16-bit. But every once in a while there is something that is nice and smooth. These objects usually don't belong with the rest of their surroundings, and the difference in visual style helps to emphasize that sense of alienation.

Despite the fact that the visual style is very pixelated, there were quite a few moments that just took my breath away. The best part about them is that I didn't see them coming, so the awe factor was even greater.

Most of the game is spent with the device in landscape, and you walk around by either holding down on the spot you want your character to walk to, or you double-tap there.

However, when you rotate the device into portrait, she will unsheathe her sword and prepare for battle. Obviously whenever there is an enemy nearby this is what you want to do.

The combat always follows the pattern of "tap the shield when your enemy is going to attack" until "your enemy is vulnerable, tap the sword." Each enemy has different patterns to them (usually the music gives you a hint at what that pattern is) so you have to stay on your toes. The boss battles are really intense, especially if you make a couple of mistakes at the beginning and can't afford to get hit when it gets really crazy. I'm pretty sure that I got more than a few weird looks while I was sitting in the TV lounge yelling at my tablet that it wouldn't defeat me.

In between the battles there are quite a few puzzles. The hints are often very cryptic, but they are always enough to get you going in the right direction and once you have started the rest just kind of follows.

The tone of the game is hard to describe, as it has several parts that almost conflict. The game is very meta, and makes references to the fact that you are outside of the game world affecting the events inside the game world. It also has a great sense of humor, and is often very frank with its jokes. At the same time it is very serious, and you are always aware that the events that are taking place cannot lead to a happy ending.

 The game, while being very story-driven, is also very easy to digest in small chunks. This is very important in  a mobile game. The chapters are not too long, and they make sure to remind you what is going on at the beginning of each one.

Sword & Sworcery is available on Android ($3) and iOS ($5). Of course I just checked their website and found out that it has been available on Steam ($8) since April of last year. So I could have played it on my PC, but whatever. If you have a choice I would recommend playing it on a mobile device. It is well worth your time.

On Mobile Computing

Note: this blog has been migrated to Medium, with the articles here available to preserve permalinks Please see this post at https://medium.com/@ianrbuck/on-mobile-computing-45907e0a5f63

I think that tablets are going to supersede laptops. There, I said it. Two years ago when I bought my laptop I wouldn't have imagined that I would be replacing it with a 10-inch block that doesn't even have any USB ports, but it looks like that is what is going to happen very soon.

Obviously at the time buying a laptop was the only thing that made any sense; I couldn't get a desktop because the internet at my house was atrocious and tablets really weren't a thing yet. Buying a nice gaming laptop (a Sony Vaio rocking an i7 processor and an Nvidia GT 425M) was perfect, and Vera has served me quite well for these two years. Until recently I wouldn't have thought that I would be thinking about replacing her so quickly.

Several things happened that have made me reconsider my position.
It started last May when Max Payne 3 came out. The combination of the game's awesomeness and the heat of the newly arrived summer caused Vera to overheat in about 20 minutes. I started resorting to placing ice packs under her to get as much gaming time as I could.
In September I finished acquiring components for my new desktop and since then I have stopped wanting to do most things with Vera. All I really use her for is taking notes in class and watching things on the TV lounge with everyone. At this point I started thinking that I might want to replace Vera with an Ultrabook (maybe even a Chromebook), as that would certainly have a better battery life and be quite a bit lighter.
A friend of mine here in Morris had an Asus Transformer that he was trying to sell. After I researched it I realized that it would actually make sense to buy it and sell Vera. However, the bidding went higher than I could at the time.

Then Windows 8 released and Google announced the Nexus 10.
I really like the direction Microsoft took the Surface in terms of hardware; it is a very slick device, and the way that the cover doubles as a keyboard and it has a kickstand makes it clear that they want the user to be able to get actual work done on it.
On the other hand, Google is my favorite company and I use tons of their services. This coupled with the strides the Android operating system has taken in the last year mean that I am definitely going to get an Android tablet. And the one that I can be sure will have continued support in the future is the Nexus.

I think that laptops occupied a weird time in our technological journey. They were the first successful attempt at making personal computing portable, but there are inherent problems in the system. Basically, manufacturers took smaller versions of desktop parts and smooshed them into a tiny package and installed an operating system that wasn't designed for that kind of form factor.
Everything about it- spinning hard drives, disc drives, big old CPUs and GPUs- create lots of heat that a fan has to eject from the system and all of this eats up battery power like no other. They are also rather large and not usable while walking around.

Tablets solve all of these issues. ARM chipsets use less power and create less heat, flash memory uses no moving parts, and operating systems built with tablets in mind have much less overhead because they do less multitasking.
For a while you could have argued that the operating systems on tablets just didn't have the functionality necessary for them to be viable, but they are definitely fine now. Windows 8 in particular is blurring the lines between PC and tablet, and I have seen some intriguing commercials for Ultrabooks that easily double as tablets (I'm not sure if they use ARM chipsets or not).

As for the things that I can do with a tablet that I can't with my laptop, it mostly has to do with the touch interface. There are some intriguing games that are coming out with touchscreens in mind, and the ones that integrate themselves with other games (like Mass Effect Infiltrator) are very enticing. Also simple things like being able to listen to music while walking around campus and not having to worry about battery life all day would be nice.

So there you have it, that is my reasoning behind the decision to replace my laptop with a tablet. I guess it would be more accurate to say that I am replacing my laptop with a desktop and a tablet, but details.