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GRAW 2 Interview with Christian Allen, Creative Director, Red Storm: Podcast

GRAW 2 Interview with Christian Allen, Creative Director, Red Storm: Podcast Christian Allen, Creative Director at Red Storm, responsible for the online multi-player portion of GRAW 2 (Ghost Recon Advanced Warfare 2) and I sat down for 15 minutes at the exclusive First Look in London.

I’ve already reviewed the game, which is highly impressive and took the chance to touch on quite a few different areas with Christian in this chat. These include the new Spawning system that avoids Spawn Camping; the advances in graphics for the new game; what the next stage of video games might be; how their early prototyping works during their current develop process; the new storm shooter weapons in the game (CX4 storm & RX4 storm); how they research the future weapons they’re including in GRAW2, like the Natick Solider Center (catch phrase “We’re the science behind the Soldier”) and their Future Force Warrior (FFW) Program; find out his favourite GRAW 2 weapons; discuss the stuff they’ve had to pull from the game because it’s too futuristic, like solider health monitoring; and how the new health patching media function will really encourage team play.

It’s quite a ride. Click below to listen …

[audio:https://digital-lifestyles.info/media/audio/christian-allen-GRAW-2-interview.mp3]

Buy GRAW 2 on Amazon UK or Amazon US

GRAW 2 First Look Review: Ghost Recon Advanced Warfare 2: Wow (Pt 2/2)

Following on from yesterday’s introduction to the multi-player version of GRAW 2, today, we’ll dig a bit further into the detail.

Spawn Camping tackled
Players of multi-player will be very glad to hear that it has an updated version of spawning. In previous games, after death, players were brought back at set spawning points, which lead some naughty-types to sit at these points, just shooting people before they had a chance to escape. These rotters will be frustrated to hear that they’ll no longer be able to do this.

Spawning is now to a region rather than a set point. The spawn algorithm looks at the number of people who have previously been killed there, numbers of enemy soldiers present, etc. On spawning, the player is invulnerable, but able to fire. As soon as they fire a shot, they lose their invulnerability.

Customisation and clans
Building and managing a clan – of up to 100 people – is now built in thanks to Ubisoft’s tool that has been incorporated.

There’s lots of customisation of your player possible with a tremendous selection of clothing and headgear. Ubisoft tells us that lots of clans that have been on the beta have created a ‘uniform’ that all members must wear. Some may be sad to hear that there’s no face-mapping, but it had to go because of the customisation.

One new feature that should provide an extra dimension to multi-player games is the addition of the medic function, giving you the ability to get players back to full health when they’ve been hit with a round that has incapacitated them.

Maps
The developers have spent a lot of time on the multi-player maps, improving not only the quality, but also the details. In their words, they’ve “tried to create spaces that aren’t just normal.”

Examples of this are jungles that aren’t just jungles, but ones that have had a C130 aircraft recently crashed within it, still smoking and a village that has just been ravaged by a Tsunami.

The largest map is now a significant 500 x 500m.

Shhhh, listen to the audio
If you want to get that edge on your opponents, you’re going to have to listen hard, as sound has been brought further in to successful playing of the game. By turning your HiFi and ears up, you’ll be able to track other players simply by listening to their where their foot steps or gun shots are coming from.

To build your adrenaline, the music in the multi-player game changes as things get more difficult.

__Conclusion
The hour or so I had with it, doesn’t give you the opportunity to really get your teeth into a game like this. The real delight of it will be exposed after many hours of button and trigger jiggling, playing via xBox Live.

What I can tell you, is it looks very special with the realistic lighting heightening an already impressive experience.

They’re going to have to do something pretty disastrous between now and the launch to muck this up. To me, this has all of the makings of a hit game.

Buy it on Amazon UK or Amazon US

Have a listen to our exclusive audio interview with Christian Allen, Creative Director of Red Storm.

GRAW 2. Demo of the single player available.

GRAW 2 First Look Review: Ghost Recon Advanced Warfare 2: Wow

GRAW 2 or Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Advanced Warfare 2, to give it its full name, will run on XBox 360 and PC when it’s released in March (the PS3 should be arriving late-spring) but I was able to get to play it at a small, exclusive First Look event.

I’ll fess-up straight away. I’m a huge fan of the original Ghost Recon that first came out on the original Xbox. The game looked great, the missions were compelling and the co-operative multi-player via xBox Live! was like no other game I’d played. So much so, that you actually cared about the random strangers that you were playing with.

The single and multi player versions of the X360 were available for our willing hands. Both were highly impressive, but most of my comments will apply to the multi-player version.

The work on GRAW2 started during the closing stages of the development when the original GRAW was completed. GRAW being their first game on the then-next-gen consoles. Although united within the game, the two versions were developed separately – the Multi-player by Red Storm and the Single by Ubisoft’s Paris office.

The over-riding brief was to improve the customisation, ramp up the detail even further and to expand the weaponry to include the leading edge of killing things that the US military and special forces use.

The selection of arms is massive, stretching to include a new unmanned ground-drone called ‘M.U.L.E.’, giving the player mobile cover and ground reconnaissance, while also serving as a mobile weapon station.

The Look
Frankly the game looks stunning. A real visual feast with amazing detail.

The screen shots give you an idea, but won’t tell you the full story, as the real-time effects are what really bring the impressive dimension to this game.

The light and shade are dynamically generated, so anything passing between you and the sun, will cast its own accurate shadow. During missions, realism is heightened by the changes of lighting conditions as they would in the real world, with smooth transitions between the four lighting scenarios.

That sort of detail is also extended to the incidentals. Smoke is effected by changes in wind direction, so you can imagine the kind of complexity that is created when helicopters get involved and blow the smoke around. It’s details like this that can’t fail to impress.

While effects like this will be heighten realism, you’re also able to do things that aren’t possible in the real world. When you’re in the single player game you guide your team buddies around to different locations, but … and here’s the really cool bit … you’re able to disconnect your retainers and see though your team mates eyes using CrossComm 2.0. This isn’t a poxy mini view, but a full screen view, really letting you see the details.

When you select this feature, the transition is a neat pixilation of the screen, that sharpens when you join your buddies eyes.

This visual switch is also available with the M.U.L.E., the ground drone.

It’s full of superb detail, even in the transition between missions. Almost to prove the power of the X360, the transition isn’t just a dull static loading screen, but interactive scenes. The example we saw was a helicopter trip over a wrecked city that could be scanned around, while the next section is loading.

Buy it on Amazon UK or Amazon US

The second part of the GRAW 2 review, will be going into the details that really make this game special. Also listen to our exclusive audio interview with Christian Allen, Creative Director of Red Storm.

‘Red Ring of Death’: BBC Watchdog Highlight XBox 360 Issue

Last night the BBC Consumer TV programme, Watchdog, had a pop at Microsoft and the XBox 360 over its reliability.

BBC Watchdog Highlight XBox 360 'Red Ring of Death' Many of the people who had purchased X360’s were finding that their machines were failing a short time after one-year warranty period had expired. The BBC say that 250 of them had contacted Watchdog to complain.

The most common cause of failure? The “Red ring of death” that indicates that their Xboxes have become Ex-boxes. The name comes from the front panel of the X360 which shows three flashing red lights, where normally there are green. If all of the lights but the first section are flashing, this indicates a general hardware failure has occurred.

When Xbox fan-boys contact Microsoft, they’ve been told that they have to shell out £80-85 to get their little dream machines fixed, as they out of warranty – even if it is just a little.

Many are attributing this failure to the machines running too hot. Anyone who has played the X360 will know that those babies run _loud_, due to the significant amount of fan-age they require to keep them running cool enough.

Microsoft have issued a statement, the first paragraph of which is

“The vast majority of Xbox 360 owners are having an outstanding experience with their systems. That being said, we have received a few isolated reports of consoles not working as expected. It’s important to note that there is no systemic issue with Xbox 360 – each incident is unique and these customer inquiries are being handled on a case-by-case basis.

The BBC are a little slow on the uptake with this as the problem has been debated on bulletin boards for a mighty long time. Having said that, getting it on broadcast TV is about the best thing that can happen in resolving these problem.

As is usually the case with this type of thing, people who have had their plight discussed, (not so) mysteriously get their machines replaced, after fighting with the companies for ages. A case in point is Alex Ainsow, who has now not only been offered a replacement console, but has had the deal sweetened with some new games.

Rumours of Xbox 360 ver 2.0 have been circulating, with one of the items being that the fan has been made much quieter. This would point to the chips having been reworked to get their operating temperature down.

Previously, Watchdog was fronted by Anne Robinson who later went on to present The Weakest Link. At that time, it struck us that Watchdog was the most aptly name programme on TV.

BBC Watchdog on Ring of Death
Microsoft: Xbox 360: Three red lights flash on the Ring of Light

Apple Tells Vista Upgraders To Wait

Apple Tells Vista Upgraders To Wait Apple has warned Windows-based iTunes users to hold back from upgrading to Microsoft Vista, because the software may not work properly with their iPods.

Citing several issues – including problems with synchronising data and playing purchased files – Apple says that they should have an updated version of iTunes for Vista “in the next few weeks”.

Compatibility issues and suggested workarounds for those crazy folks who dived headlong into an early install of Vista are listed in a support document on Apple’s site.

Apple Tells Vista Upgraders To Wait The problems included poor animation speeds, an inability to play back music and video purchased from the iTunes store and data in media, contacts and calendars not synchronising.

More worryingly, the notice posted on Apple’s web site warned that iPods may be corrupted when they are unplugged from a Vista system using the ‘Safely Remove Hardware’ feature in the Windows taskbar.

In response, Adam Anderson, a spokesman for Microsoft’s Windows division, said they didn’t think that iTunes users should stop using their shiny new copy of Vista.

He added that Microsoft has employed a team of techies to work with Apple to iron out the problems, adding that they will keep at it “until they have the program running to the quality level they’re shooting for.” [insert your own Microsoft joke here].

Apple support

Microsoft Vista – Made by Web 2.0?

Vista - Made by Web 2.0? Bill Gates launched Vista this morning by emphasizing the role of the general public in its conception. “We’ve got over 5 million beta testers to thank,” he told a packed audience at the British Library in London. “They’ve helped to make sure that Vista is the highest quality product we’ve ever released. And then we picked 50 families and talked to them about how they used computing in their daily lives, generating over 800 changes in the final version.”

This isn’t the monolithic Microsoft of old, laying down the law and strong-arming others to follow its digital lead. Instead, Gates pointed out that Office 2007 (also launched today) “redefines collaboration in the workplace. It embraces the XML standard and that’s a big deal.” He went on to say that “the strength of Windows has always been the ecosystem around it, consisting of hardware, solutions and software partners. We’ve always had ten times as many applications for Windows as for other operating systems, and that’s allowed us to see software at low prices.”

Vista - Made by Web 2.0?

It’s perhaps no coincidence that the Vista ecosystem opens up a whole new environmental niche, in the form of miniature applications called Gadgets, a selection of which were unveiled (at great length) by Windows marketeers. Although superficially very similar to Apple’s desktop Widgets, the Gadgets on show were heavily branded by partners ranging from BetFair to Universal Music, and seemed to integrate worryingly easily with Microsoft’s software. If you block out a meeting in Milan, for instance, the EasyJet Gadget could pop up to suggest suitable flights.

It remains to be seen whether Gadget developers have consumer – rather than corporate – interests uppermost in their minds. Bill gushed: “I’m excited to see what people are going to do with Vista”. Any bets that malware Gadgets are just around the corner?

Leonardo da Vinci Notebooks Reunited With Windows Vista

Leonardo da Vinci Notebooks Reunited With Windows Vista Two notebooks containing work by Leonardo da Vinci, know as the Codices, have been digitally reunited today at the launch of Windows Vista.

Background
The books, compiled from work by da Vinci in the early 1500s, have been seperated for many years. Well, a rather long time actually – since 1519.

The British Library holds one – the Codex Arundel – and the other is privately owned by Bill Gates – the Codex Leicester.

Gates bought his 72-page manuscript back in 1994, when he paid $30,802,500 for it – plus tax. Much to his expected disappointment he didn’t get tax relief on his little purchase, despite letting the Seattle Art Museum display it to the public.

Leonardo da Vinci Notebooks Reunited With Windows Vista

Previous owner of the The Codex Leicester was Armand Hammer, the owner of Occidental Petroleum, who bought it in 1980 and in an incredible act of arrogance renamed it Codex Hammer. Gates returned it to its original name after he coughed up the cash for it.

How does it all works?
The British Library’s Codex has been available electronically for some time using a service that they call Turning The Pages.

It’s been available through a browser as it uses Adobe Shockwave and runs on all platforms.

It’s quite fun to flick through the rather old, and frankly scrappy book seeing Leonardo’s mirror writing and drawings.

There will be very few of you surprised to hear that the newly combined version – Turning The Pages 2 – will only work on computers that are “Microsoft’s ‘Vista Premium Ready'”, that are running Vista or Windows XP Service Pack 2. Anything other than that, needs to refer to the message at the bottom of the page, “Turning the Pages 2.0 will not run on Windows 2000, XP Service Pack 1 or Macintosh at this time.”

Leonardo da Vinci Notebooks Reunited With Windows Vista

The new version does look lush, but I suspect that the team at Microsoft who worked on this project felt that they were walking a knife edge – getting it wrong and not showing off the bosses $30m book would not be a good prospect for promotion.

Why was Bill in London?
Before the event, there’s been much confusion in journalistic circles as to why the Windows Vista launch was going to be held at the British Library. Microsoft could pick any location in the UK Capital to hold their launch.

Now we know.

Turning The Pages 2
The original Turning The Pages

PCMover Vista: Transfer Your PC Life To Vista

Avanquest Software, makers of the old-faithful LapLink, have launched PCMover to help people transfer all of their PC data from previous versions of Windows on to Vista.

PCMover Vista: Transfer Your PC Life To Vista Getting a new machine with a new operating system is both a joy and a pain. The joy is the shiny new OS you have to play with and the likelihood that it runs considerably faster than the previous machine. The pain, is trying to make sure you’ve remembered all of the little bits of data tucked away in forgotten corners, and usually having to reconfigure all of your settings back to the way you had them on your previous machine.

That’s where PCMover comes in.

The software digs deep into your current version of Windows (going back to Win95), rummages around and gathers all files, settings and programs, including those held in the registry, for transfer to a new Vista-equipped machine.

It has mind-settling features such as not overwriting any pre-installed software on the new PC, or alter the old PC in any way and if you feel it’s all gone horribly wrong, there’s an undo function.

The available options to carry out the transfer are extensive. The package comes with a custom USB 2.0 lead which “includes a chipset that allows for a simultaneous, bi-directional flow of information between PCs,” that they tell us enables a faster transfer.

PCMover Vista: Transfer Your PC Life To Vista Beyond this, you can choose from a wired/wireless network for top speed, or resort to a USB 1.1 or a parallel cable. There’s also an option to use removable media such as a CD-R or DVD-R.

With the forthcoming release of Vista at the end of the month, there’s likely to be a number of supporting applications to help people switch.

Thomas Koll, Chairman and CEO of Laplink Software feel that they are in a strong position, as he was more that happy to share, “Because our competition can’t move software programs, they don’t offer the same total migration solution that we do.”

PCmover Vista is available now at the SRP of £49.99 from their online shop, or if you like to collect boxes, from selected retail outlets.

One Fifth Of Windows Are Copies: Microsoft

Microsoft have let it be known that they know that at least 22.3% of the copies of Windows in use in the world are not purchased.

One Fifth Of Windows Are Copies: Microsoft They’ve been compiling stats on this using Microsoft’s Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) program since July 2005.

Initially WGA only used to be called upon when users of the Windows OS want to update their software. The most frequent reason for updates is when Microsoft needs to ship software patches to their OS or applications due to them being buggy and hackers having exploited holes in it.

Since June 2006, it’s been clear that a change to the WGA, is that it’s been contacting Microsoft without the users permission or knowledge, passing on information. This news of “phoning home” was met with accusations of Microsoft shipping spyware … and countered by software developers by the creation of removeWGA.

We know where you live
Given Microsoft knows where most of those people are – via their IP address that they were using when they did the downloads – it’s interesting that they haven’t acted on the information. Perhaps they figured that knocking on the door of dead grannies demanding compensation, as others have done, wasn’t good PR.

One Fifth Of Windows Are Copies: Microsoft The real figure of pirated copies is likely to be far higher than the 22.3% figure quoted, as it’s only the innocent/daft who would let their computer tell Microsoft that they are using a piece a software they bought from the bloke at the car boot sale for a fiver.

Why release this news now?
With the arrival of Microsoft Vista on the 30 January, it pays Microsoft well to let people know how hard done by they are, giving them all the more reason to promote the security features that come with Vista.

It’s doubtful many will shed a tear for Microsoft given how outrageously profitable the company is. Perhaps we should run a competition to see just how many people are crying about this one?

Sky Anytime on PC: One Million Films In A Year

Sky Anytime on PC downloaded its one millionth film on the 14 January neatly marking its first year of operation.

The Sky Anytime on TV service is the renamed Sky By Broadband service, which delivers select Sky’s TV content over a broadband connection to a PC.

Sky Anytime: One Million Films In A Year

Figures for the film downloads could have been larger if Sky hadn’t had to pull the service back in September after their chosen DRM-restriction system, by Microsoft, was cracked.

We’re assuming that the million films that have been downloaded have been paid for, making it a pretty big bonanza, given the films are a wallet-emptying £3.95 each. Once subscribers have paid up, they’re given access to it for seven days, but are restricting to 48 hours viewing window after the first viewing.

Dawn Airey, BSkyB’s managing director of channels and services, was keen to say her piece about it … “We’re delighted that customers have taken to Anytime with such enthusiasm. Sky Movies is the UK’s most popular movie service and we’re able to use broadband to give customers more flexibility in how they watch. The fact that in this first year we’ve already seen 1m movie downloads is testament to customers’ willingness to embrace new technologies and get more from Sky.”

Sky report that the service has gained a quarter of a million registered users in its first year of operation.