The Gaming Log: III

Another Gaming blog today, and perhaps one of my favourite games ever. Need I say more than Minecraft. This will probably become a regular blog the more I play it and sometimes it may have video links accompanying it.

Minecraft

For those of you who don't know Minecraft is an open world block-based game. You mine blocks, gain-materials and craft them to build defences from the creatures that like to kill you, and to build more creative and impressive houses and buildings. This allows it to be an unlimited game, you can always find more materials, there are always more monsters to kill and there are always more interesting houses to build.

Obviously, being a block based game, the graphics arn't it's main selling point. Infact, it has very little graphics at all. But that's what makes this game one of the best in the world. It's all about imagination, creativity and exploration. I have logged literally months on this game, because It never get's boring. Infact even if you do feel yourself becoming a little bored by the basic game, there are a million and one 'Mods' that people have made to make the game more interesting.

For those with no imagination, this is you looking a a hill with some trees,
holding a sword. Health, Armour and Inventory at the bottom.

The Basics 

The game spawns you in a world, you are a pixelated man, known as 'Steve'. You left-click to destroy/mine a block, and right-click to place the block in your hand. Simple, and to look around all you do is move your mouse and use WASD. Easy as 1,2,3. I think the fact it is so easy is another appeal. When your not fighting evil things, it is a very relaxing game. The block that you have selected will be the one that is in your hand on the screen, like the sword is in the hand in the screenshot above. To craft things, you place blocks in certain patterns in your crafting window in the inventory (2x2), or in a crafting table (3x3)

Terminology

Mobs - Term for the evil monsters that come out at night to kill you.

Smelting - Cooking things in a furnace

Ore - Blocks that can be smelted to make useful materials.

AFK - Away from Keyboard (used online)

Friendly Mobs - Sheep, Pigs, Cows, Squid, Ocelot, Wolves, Chickens - term for the mobs that don't usually hurt you.

Ingot - A bar of metal, usually found straight after smelting the ore.

CT - Crafting Table

Playing the Game

Usually I start by breaking trees with my hands. Wood, is the very basic block that you need at the start. It can be crafted into planks, which can then be crafted into a crafting table, which is very important for doing anything interesting on the game.
After getting wood, I will then kill and pigs, cows or chickens in the area for food, and go exploring to find a good place to start building. Sometimes this takes a long time, as you are looking for somewhere where useful areas are close by.

Once you have found the perfect area, convert 90% of your logs into wooden planks. (you need the 10% for charcoal in a bit.)

Start Building

Next you want to start building you house. Start by making a line of wooden planks, it works best if there is an odd number, say 9. Then when you get to the end, go 90 degrees and do another 9. Make it into a square, remove the middle block on one side for a door. Then build it upwards, till you have something rubbish like this. This will do to start with. Now place your crafting table inside, and make a door (wooden planks, 2x3 upwards) and place it in the gap. Beautiful!

Next I would make some tools and start collecting materials to get creative. I like to build a house that's out of the box, otherwise you end up with the same basic, 'shed-with-windows' look. But by now, it is probably night-time. DA DA DAAAA!

This means horrible nasty things are going to come and kill you. YAY!.... I mean... oh what a shame... :(

Night Time

Zombie (Left): The first guy your going to meet is probably a Zombie. Their moany growling noise is unmistakable, and they wound you by walking up to you and 'hitting' you. They are the most basic Mob, and you shouldnt have much trouble killing them with your hand, let alone a sword.

Skeleton (Right): Next up you'll probably be struck by an arrow, and think; "where the hell did that come from!" Well, it came from a skeleton, possibly my least favourite Mob, because they can be so far away to hit you, so you have probably already lost a few lives by the time your close enough to hit it. Annoying.

The Creeper: Then you will meet the weirdest and most horrible thing ever to walk the earth, well Minecraftia anyway. The mob inverted Souly for the purpose of pissing you off. Is it a Tree? Is it a Penis? Or Is it a weird Green Dildo? No, It's a Creeper. Born from a coding error, this beast, sneaks up behind you and explodes, killing you if you are within 3 blocks, and creating a crater in the ground, or in whatever masterpiece you have just created. "That Bastard just destroyed half my house... that took me ages." However, it has become the face of Minecraft, the droopy grin even appearing in the Letter 'A' in the Logo. All sorts of memorabilia can be bought with his face on, so be aware Minecrafter.

Once you have survived the night, the rest of the game is down to you, theres no 'ultimate way' of playing the rest of the game. It is whatever you want it to be, "The world is your oyster" So get out there. Imagine, Explore, Create.

Here's a house I recently made in the middle of a lake.

It took me a long time. Garden on the roof, the cobblestone tower in the middle is a spiral stair case, and the pathway across is red-powered, so when I flick a switch it falls into the ocean so that anyone visiting has to swim.  

Anyway, enough showing off, thats the end of my blog, thanks for reading.

Links and Things
Just a quick nod in the direction of the other stuff Obsidian Corp is doing

Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/user/ObsidianCorpGaming

Twitter: @theObsidianCorp

Facebook:  http://www.facebook.com/TheObsidianCorp 

And of course check out our other Blogs, by clicking on The Obsidian Corp at the side!

Thank you from everyone at the Obsidian Corp

James "Womble" Richardson

The Gaming Log: II

This week in my gaming log, I thought that I would take a look at Football Manager 2012. I bought this game for PC about 2 months ago, after a friend begged me to buy it, as he had no one to play online with, not on a game anyway (nothing implied there... honestly.). Once again, this was my partner in crime, Luke, who begged me to buy it. So it being only a tenner, I thought: "Why Not?". In this blog I will describe the game for those of you who haven't played it, and share some of my experiences.

Football Manager 2012

Getting Started, Eventually.
After purchasing the game for £10 from game-station, I wasn't expecting much, and after 2 hours of sitting at my computer watching the install, I was rather regretting my decision. Even when loading up the game, I could have walked to the moon and back. But once I had finally got the game going Luke then decided to tell me that I needed to download two more things. Firstly "LogMeIn Hamachi" a server hosting piece of software, which also took a hike up Kilimanjaro to install, and then after all that the Football Manager Editor, but we will get onto that later.

The FM Editor
Next I make the ridiculous decision to say, "I'll host Luke" to which Luke says "load up the Editor then." After approximately 2 minutes of loading time a large white screen pops up before my eyes, with very little on it. I click on the file button, load the most recent database update and begin to search through the options.  Personally I think that the editor is a great idea, as it means you can edit the Football Manager database directly. This is great, because I can write off Portsmouth's debt, give them a £1billion to spend, and new star striker Lionel Messi. Which, obviously is very realistic.

However some problems are arisen when this then goes to playing the game. Nonetheless I wrote off our debts, gave us a few million to strengthen our squad, put us back in the premier league, with a new fantasy team of Messi, Ronaldo, Pique & Xavi and I even made Fratton Park from this..:

...Into this;

I'm sure the extra 80,000 seats will be filled, and loads more season tickets sold.

Anyway, after editing the world to make it a better place, and then ruining it by giving Chelsea some extra cash for Luke, we loaded up the game, ready for a few hours of winning matches.

Pre-season
Once we have connected and are in the game, we set about starting the season, and when It gets to our first game, we realise I have done it wrong. I bought all foreign players into the Portsmouth team, and removed all the others, so I ended up with no "Home Grown" players. You need 8 in the premier league to be allowed to compete. (FYI: A Home grown player is one that has spent at least 3 years between the ages of 15-21 in the country.) believe it or not. Ronaldo and Lampard were my only home grown players. So it was back to the editor, to edit the "days in Nation" setting in the Player data. So while I was there I created me, made me a Central Midfielder and maxed out my attributes.

Finally we are back in the game and we can finally play. Thankfully we could skip through the pre-season matches as Luke made sure to tell me about the "Team Policy" settings, which meant I could assign my assistant manager to any of the club's runnings, such as friendly matches, contract renewals and even pre-match team talks. However this meant that for the first 2 hours of playing, we were skipping hour by hour the days from 1st July all the way to August 13th, when the season kicked off. Stopping only for transfers.


Actually Playing

Here is a basic screen from the game, Wimbledon's Fact Page

Apart from the many criticisms I have stated above, the actual game-play of the game is brilliant. The menu's are simple and quick to navigate, tactics are easy, scouting is easy, even challenging a team to a friendly is easy. Transfers even have a very handy "Don't show unrealistic transfers" button, which does exactly what it says on the tin, and shows you the best players, that actually will come to your team. As you can imagine, for Portsmouth, it isn't that many. So I was left with the squad I had, which wasn't really a problem. So I sorted my tactics, and then spent pre-season waiting for Luke to buy every player under the sun. But thankfully August 13th came and we could start our first game. The menu's flickered away, Teamsheet, Tactics, Team Talk until I clicked the "Play" button, and my computer began to load the TV view or my match..

TV View

After a couple of seconds the greatest graphics I have ever seen filled my page.(I could see why the game was only a tenner.) Look at that stadium detail! I mean that stand behind the goal must have taken them donkey's years to make. Concrete steps. Literally pushing the boundaries of what computer graphics can do. Even the players must have taken them ages, especially to make them all look exactly the same, and even to make their rounded heads and bodies look pointy. Impressive.
- Yeah, if your last game was Space Invaders, or you could quite afford an Atari VCS console from 1982.
Yeah that black box thing to the right.
 the thing that is nearly double my age at 30 years old.
Anyway, killing the joke now, but to be honest, I was expecting a little more for a game that starts at £29.99
Having said that, after a while It does begin to grow on you. You find yourself starting to love the limited graphics, and comedic outcomes of the game. It becomes a bit of a gimmick.

Give It a Chance.
If you ignore it's faults and imperfections this is actually a pretty amazing game. The simplicity of it, and the uncontrollability of each match keeps you on the edge of your seat. I find myself shouting at the screen, cheering my team on, and even getting a bit wound up when things don't go my way. So despite a large amount of this blog, slagging off the game, I genuinely love it. I now spent hours every night playing with Luke or George (another person Luke begged.) or sometimes on my own, playing my Portsmouth season. It's just so satisfying when you win a game, especially If it was hard work. Which sometimes, this game is.


Links and Things
Just a quick nod in the direction of the other stuff Obsidian Corp is doing

Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/user/ObsidianCorpGaming

Twitter: @theObsidianCorp

Facebook:  http://www.facebook.com/TheObsidianCorp 

And of course check out our other Blogs, by clicking on The Obsidian Corp at the side!

Thank you from everyone at the Obsidian Corp

James "Womble" Richardson