Gamespot puts together a cavalcade of the games of 2011

I wanted to share a pretty neat video that I saw over on Gamespot the other day. It's a cool little piece that goes through 2011 and the games that came out over the months.

I think it's a nice way to go out of 2011:

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Happy New Year and a big thank you!

It's almost time to drink ourselves senseless and celebrate the end of another trip around the Sun by exploding large amounts of colored chemical compounds into the unsuspecting atmosphere of our planet.

From me here at Light Speed Gaming I hope that 2011 brought you good things and that 2012 will be even better. Try not to blast off any extremities that you care about and may your hangovers pass quickly.

I also want to thank every one of you for spending time here on Light Speed Gaming and reading my semi-daily reviews, opinions, rants and so on.

Light Speed Gaming has now been around for a good three months, so obviously we're still very much in the opening phase, but I am really happy about how many people are choosing to stop by and take a gander at my writings.

I love the smell of fireworks in the evening. Smells like... money burning

I'd like to encourage you all to leave comments on my posts as it will greatly help me with working out what kind of things that you'd like to see more off, and I also just really enjoy engaging with readers, so please do leave a comment, they are very much appreciated!

Looking into 2012 I intend to keep going with near daily updates to the blog if at all possible. It's been quite a lot of work for me to keep making a new post every day so far, I'm just one guy that also has a full time job after all, but I think that frequent posts help to keep me in the "blogging zone" and I'd also very much like to give you all a reason to spend a few minutes checking in every day.

I'm not sure how you guys are liking my split between video games, sci-fi video games and other sci-fi stuff (mostly movies and books). Obviously I spend the vast majority talking about video games, which is also keeping with the naming of the blog, but I'll try to throw in a little more movie, book and other sci-fi related content where possible.

Please do let me know if there is some particular gaming or sci-fi area that you'd like to see more coverage of.

You may also have noticed that I've had a few guest posts up. I think that it's very nice to mix up my writing with the thoughts of other people, and if you're out there with an itch to write about something gaming or sci-fi related, then you're very welcome to send me a mail or contact me on Twitter and we can discuss a guest post here on the blog.

That's all from me. Again, Happy New Year and best wishes for 2012!



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My 3 personal Star Wars peeves - AKA "Actually, that doesn't make any sense.."

If you really take a hard look at the Star Wars movies you'll quickly see that there is a bunch of stuff in there that just makes no sense. The most obvious and talked about peculiarity is the comically poor ability for Stormtroopers to hit anything at just about any range, even though they are supposedly some of the finest soldiers in the galaxy.
Or like the absurdity of those same elite forces being beaten by a tribe of angry teddy bears with rocks and spears.

Then there are things that you might initially not really think about, but then after seeing the movies a few times you go "hang on a minute..."
I've gathered my three favorite/worst of those moments and I submit them to you here:

1) Jabba the Hutt getting killed by Leia

Jabba the Hutt was supposedly one of the most badass crime lords in the galaxy at the time of his demise. He was obviously no stranger to people wanting to brutally murder him, as we can see from his calm reaction to first being threatened by a person with an armed thermal detonator and then a Jedi.
Hell, just having two people trying to murder him is probably a slow day in the office for Jabba.

So you'd think that he'd be pretty interested in some high quality bodyguards. You know, someone who wouldn't immediately abandon their post as soon as the shit hit the fan. People that would have a vested interest in the continued well being of their boss and employer and not let him get slowly strangled by a female slave.

"I could have been able to afford decent bodyguards if only I hadn't wasted all those money on liposuction"

Seriously, how the hell do you have a skiff full of guards, bounty hunter, mercenaries and criminal scum in general and as soon as there's a small explosion everyone just freaks the hell out? No one saw an opportunity to get on Jabba's good side by making sure he got out of there alive?

It wasn't even like it was a deadly Jedi with a lightsaber that was assaulting Jabba. All they had to do to save him was just shoot Leia in the back. 5 seconds of work for the gratitude of the most notorious Hutt in the galaxy.

Interview with the developers of Guns of Icarus Online

I'm very happy to be able to bring you an interview with Joseph Lieberman from Muse Games, makers of Guns of Icarus Online. You may remember that I had the first gameplay trailer from this game up on the site back in November.
With its dieselpunk setting and first person piloting of giant airships the game is looking to be quite the unique experience and after this interview I'm even more curious to see the finished product.

First off, can you tell us a bit about what Guns of Icarus Online is all about? Obviously flying the airships is the key gameplay element, but what sort of tasks will you be using your nifty ship for? 

There are two modes of play that together embody what Guns of Icarus Online is all about. On the smaller scale, the game is about the thrill of flying and moment-to-moment airship combat, with its strategy, skill and frantic action, and the teamwork of a well-knit crew where everyone has a job to do.  These experiences are the core of the PvP combat mode that we will aim to release first. In the campaign mode on the larger scale, which we will expand to, the game is about the politics of alliance and conquest, and the economics of nurturing the growth of struggling towns while increasing your own profits through trade. As the captain of a merchant ship, you will be the one that towns depend on to deliver the supplies they need to survive. Lose the cargo en route, and shortages will hamper growth and affect the local economy. As a warship captain, you’ll be on the front line defending or expanding your faction’s territory, protecting merchant fleets so shipments get where they’re going -- or raiding them and bringing the spoils home.

Steampunk and Dieselpunk seems to be enjoying quite the surge of popularity these days, which means that the setting in Guns of Icarus Oline is not necessarily as unusual a sight as it has been before. What would you say really sets the Guns of Icarus Online world and setting apart from the standard steampunk/dieselpunk themes of greasy engines and smoking mechanics?

Steampunk and dieselpunk were starting points for our concept, but they’re only a part of the aesthetic. This obviously isn’t a high Victorian steampunk setting that’s all gaslight and gleaming brass, and it’s not an Atomic Age dieselpunk fantasy setting, either, although it has elements of both. The world of Guns of Icarus Online is what you get some 300 years after history has basically been arrested at the outbreak of World War I in 1914, so that’s the upper limit of technological progress. In the war, humanity essentially bombed itself back to the Dark Ages and had to build up from there.

Some parts of turn-of-the-century technology still exist or can be salvaged or recreated with a lot of effort, like electricity. At the same time, without access to global trade and production, most of the world is living a pre-industrial agrarian or even hunter-gatherer lifestyle, with animal labor and maybe some limited steam and diesel power -- all in the ruins of an urban, industrial world that has been iced over, desertified, and thoroughly scavenged. Guns of Icarus Online also draws on a broad range of cultural influences, as the current population is the product of centuries of upheaval and migration. We’ve got elements of European, Middle Eastern, and Asian cultures all remixed in different ways, from the fashions to the architecture to the place names. We don’t think it’ll be quite like anything you’ve seen before!

A steampunk airship flying game is something we don’t see every day. From the gameplay footage you’ve made available it looks like you’re going with a very special kind of gameplay that is focused on controlling your ship from the first person, as opposed to something like Eve Online that is all 3rd person with UI to handle all the ship controls. Can you give us a more detailed look into how players will be operating the airships in Guns of Icarus Online and how that will impact the gaming experience?

We’ve had quite a few long, philosophical, late-night discussions about what is an MMO, what is an MMORPG, an RPG, a MMOFPS, a non-MMO -- an MO? -- and finally, what is Guns of Icarus Online?

One thing that’s clear is that this is not your typical third-person, open-world, mouse-driven MMO. We’re not Eve Online or World of Warcraft. What we’re doing is bringing team-based, match-driven, FPS-style play to what in the campaign mode will become a persistent shared world, with some more traditional RPG trappings like trade and crafting.

3 Reasons you should play Star Wars: The Old Republic and 3 reasons why you shouldn't

After 32 levels and around 40 hours of playing Star Wars: The Old Republic it is of course too early to say anything definitive about the game, but I feel I can already share a few key findings with you that may help you make up your mind if this is a MMO for you or not.

I've narrowed down three factors that I think are pretty significant game design points and say a lot about what kind of game Star Wars: The Old Republic is.

3 Reasons to play Star Wars: The Old Republic:

1) This is the most well crafted MMO since World of Warcraft

Since World of Warcraft launched in November 2004 there have been many challengers, but they have all lacked the quality of polish that Blizzard puts into their products. There were many bugs and issues with WoW at launch, but the overall experience was incredibly smooth and well executed.

Many other MMO's provided some interesting ideas, but most of them felt like they had been taken out of the oven before they were done, or that whoever was making them simply forgot to add several important ingredients before it even got into the oven (I'm looking at you; Age of Conan and Warhammer Online).

In SWTOR I have found a game that really feels incredibly well crafted right out of the gate. I've only had a couple of disconnects in all my play time and only run into a single quest that was bugged. Now again, like WoW there are still plenty of bugs to be found, but overall you really get a sense that a ton of work and love was poured into the game, and that really helps establish an inviting gaming atmosphere.

2) The story is better than anything you've ever seen in an MMO

There has been story in other MMO's before SWTOR, but there has never been story like what you find in SWTOR in MMO's before. Obviously the class story lines are the main set pieces for SWTOR and that is where you'll find the most interesting stories.

I have genuinely found myself pushing for just a few extra hours just to see the next part of my class quest.
It wasn't the promise of loot, a cool new ability or the draw of a new shiny mount that made me keep playing until 3:30AM. It was the lure of seeing how my Sith Inquisitor would get out of the tight spot that he found himself in, and that is a kind of motivation that I have never experienced before in a MMO.

Besides an interesting side quest story, Alderaan is also incredibly pretty

But not only are the class stories quite good, there are also several interesting quest lines to pick up as non-class specific side quests on the worlds that you visit. I particularly enjoyed the Alderaan side story quest line that saw me help out the Empire aligned noble house in its attempts to claim the throne of Alderaan.

Coming up on Light Speed Gaming in the last week of 2011

*Groan*...oh...hello there...ugh, Christmas has struck at me and left me more bloated and stuffed than Jabba the Hutt after an XXXL serving of chili con carne. Fortunately I have one day to recuperate before another "Christmas lunch" demands that I once again cram a straight up unhealthy amount of food inside my unsuspecting stomach.

Anyway, let's look at what we posted here on Light Speed Gaming this week, before we were struck by this Jesus powered holiday.

First up was my slightly delayed Saints Row: The Third review, which gave me a chance to agree with the Giant Bomb sentiment of "You really should play Saints Row".

I also shared some of my common sense pieces of advice on how to get 100k credits at level 25 in Old Republic. It's 4 simple steps that got me a decent sum of cash and resulted in me being able to get a land mount as soon as I hit level 25.

A Steam copy of Fallout: New Vegas was also handed out to the reader that shared the most interesting sci-fi experience of 2011. Oasis789 took the prize by bringing up the very cool convention "Singularity Summit", which you should totally check out.

I also spent some time ranting about video games marketing and some very questionable marketing methods.

Finally the week ended with a little home video, though rather than someone getting hilariously surprised by a falling bucket of water, or a dancing dog in a tutu, this home video demonstrated the Alderaan PvP battleground in The Old Republic and my complete inability to kick Republic ass.

So what is on the plate for the very last week of 2011?

Blowing up Alderaan. The Empire spares no expense to have the greatest New Years Eve fireworks