Well do yah?
I had an important meeting yesterday and it went very nicely and rather annoyingly that’s all I can say right now.
What I can talk about is parking my car. At the station I decided not to stress out my luck and actually paid for a ticket to park my car. even though previously this hasn’t always been the case as I’ve used Southampton Central Station as a crude luck measurement device. Leave the motor unticketed in the poorly supervised parking lot so coming back to no clamp means I’m still a lucky sod. So far that has always been the case 
Given the importance of yesterday’s meeting it best not to squander any spare luck on that sort of silly antic so the car actually got ticketed. All fine. Unfortunately I’d parked in the very far section of the car park which was actually shut off by the time I go back from London meaning a cab home. I’m making myself out to be brighter than I am, looking more closely at the locked gates I’d parked in a builders yard at the end of the car park. Durh.
Moral of the story? I don’t know. The meeting went very well so I’ll just keep on doing what I’m doing even if it does mean taking a reckless approach to where I leave the car 
The missus is giving me a lift to pick it up in the next 10 minutes
As of today one of the BIG THINGS that’s happening to us hasn’t been bloggable. But now it is and after having a scan today we feel it’s safe to say we’re expecting
The next generation of Liddon should be here sometime around May next year. We’re thrilled to bits, Suzey is looking fabulous on it and not a single drop of trepidation between us.
Awesome stuff
It’s been a glorious nightmare on the gaming front over the last few months. It’s the 1st time I’ve experienced an overload of very excellent titles stressing the few hours I have for gaming fit to bust. I think I’ve played and finished more games (4) in the last 3 months than I usually do in a couple of years. I’d never have predicted that at 40 gaming is a big a part of my life as it has ever been
Space Girafffe
It could be said I’m biased having had a sideways involvement in this game but I don’t feel uncomfortable saying it’s also universally excellent. There is a steep learning curve but it’s a climb that’s rewarding too. Luckily Space Giraffe popped up slightly before the perfect storm of excellent games so I had the time to complete it and get pretty high on the leaderboards.
Bioshock
Hooked by the demo I go the game. This is probably one of the best 1st hours I’ve played for a while. A style all of its own coupled with a half decent plot and some great voice acting hooks you straight away. The charm wears off later on in Bioshock as it’s masking a very nice but pretty traditional FPS with a fair amount of grinding to complete. And at 8 hours to complete with no online it’s pretty short. To be honest I’d prefer less weapons and plasmids to fiddle with and a single player game that had been more finely balanced. Sounds like I’m whinging but all in all a pretty decent play and pretty glad to have got through to the end
Halo 3
The mirror image of Bioshock in some ways; excellent game breadth and balancing all wrapped up in some shonky storytelling and predictable plotting. Even so great fun and the extras with Halo 3 are phenomenal. Editing your own games in Forge is simple but allows you create pretty complex areas to death match in. Halo theatre is brill, it’s great being able to play back just about every game you’ve ever played (depending on HD space). Downloading other people’s films is great too. And the online game seems pretty decent. I’m only around half way through on Heroic and need to organise some co-op help. Pretty determined to finish this one too by Christmas.
Crackdown
Pretty embarrassing I hadn’t played this until a few weeks ago given that our company did a large portion of the tech, some art, design and project management in Crackdown. I think it’s the best thing we’ve been involved in to be honest. It’s a brilliant game that’s hugely fun to play and great to complete. I went the agility route, collecting all the orbs I can and then bolstering the other skills after. The feeling of freedom leaping tall buildings in a single bound gives you is particularly thrilling as is chucking cars up and down streets. There’s a lot right with this game and lot wrong too, missions are weak, AI not very varied and The Voice gets on my tits. Even so the Crackdown is a charmer which for all its flaws never fails to raise a smile. Especially when using the homing missiles. Finished this too.
Call Of Duty 4
Just started this yesterday and was immediately stunned. Great graphics, amazing frame rate, technically stunning and really really exciting. Rapelling in and out of a storm rocked ship in the 1st mission is gooley shrinking exciting. You feel like you’re in a brilliant movie but still at the centre of the action, a fine balance CoD4 gets just right where many others have failed. As I said only a day in so far but reports from other friends more CoD savvy indicate that the action doesn’t let up.
Portal
Game of the year. Finished these a couple of weeks ago and has just edged out Space Giraffe as my last 12 months favourite. There’s not much I can say that does this justice, just go and buy it if you don’t already have it. The Orange Box is worth the price for Portal alone, that it comes with Half Life 2, Half Life 2 Ep 1 & 2 as well as Team Fortress 2 is astounding. The most amazing thing is the writing from Old Man Murray founders Chet and Erik, it’s genuinely funny and charming. Not the usual lumpen exposition fests we’re so use to in gaming but a great plot that works with the game itself rather than jarringly against it. Interesting to contract the light touch Valve use here to the hugely expensive (but pretty poor) story telling in Halo 3 and Bioshock. And the cream on the metaphorical cake is the game has the best end sequence of any I’ve seen. Join Jed’s Facebook Group to get the Portal ending song to #1 in the charts this xmas. That’s an order.
Bit of blog constipation there. Guy and in turn Kirsty’s recent entries have proved to be the successful emetic that got things shifting. So what’s been going on?
Most exciting is we’ve just had our 1 year wedding anniversary which I can honestly say of the 40 I’ve had this one, and the last two really, have been the happiest yet We had a nice weekend travelling around Brussels in way of celebration, sampling some very fine beers and cuisine to moderate excess.
And we went on the Eurostar, which was great. I really like continental train travel, in most of mainland Europe even the most aged of rolling stock has a solidity and cleanliness you just don’t get in the UK. And it’s dirt cheap as well, the 20 minute return trip down to Ghent from Bruges only cost €14 for the 2 of us. Compare and contrast that to the horrendous cost of getting round the UK where even the best kept carriages (Virgin’s newish trains) seem to always have a leaking toilet and stink of sewage. One day a nice leisurely tour dans le train around the euro zone is in order I reckon
The work arena has been equally exciting unfortunately a fair bit of it has been and super sekrit. Gobby sod though I am, commercial sensitivity has kept me schtum. It’s been pretty busy. We did a bit of work on Project Gotham Racing 4, helping with some online work to support the game’s tournament modes. We’re also continuing working on Too Human, helping out with GPU / CPU optimisations and network coding. It’s all good fun stuff, the guys I’m working with are completely awesome.
It’s been a pretty good year all in all, we’ve bolstered the team with a few more great people and continue to work towards the goal of having our own project. It’s been interesting helping out other teams on some tricky bits ‘n’ pieces but we’re getting to the point now where the team we have are capable of doing a bit more than that. It’s my job to make sure that happens.
Other stuff? Had a great night out in town with JT@, Swith and Fuse. Hadn’t done any of that London drinking for a little while and I think we all blearily decided that some sort of pre-Christmas mid afternoon drinking session is in order mid December. Wah and hay!
