The first thing that struck me was the first-play intro credits (see video below), its a subtle tutorial on customisation, animation and use of the six-axis as you jump and run over sweeping platforms with images of the developers being the game. Before we go any further I must mention Stephen Fry, his fantastic narration and voice-overs really ease your learning and play within the game. I cannot think of a single more perfect person who epitomises the humor, or the British ‘soul’ that the game has to it. The voice-overs are done in a similar style to his role as the ‘book’ in ‘The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy’. Just playing with the initial tutorials had me grinning from ear-ear.

Once you’ve done the basic character customisation, of your rather unfortunately named avatar (Sackboy)  it’s time to visit your ‘pod’ a customizable selection screen that you can jazz up with collected game items. There’s plenty of choices here. You can jump straight into playing those standard levels that we’ve seen time and time again on demo’s or you can get started with building your own creation. If you’re feeling really adventurous you can jump into the online world and start playing other peoples creations right from the get-go. I really don’t recommend that though. If you’re planning to spend a long time within this world then it’s a place to be savoured and enjoyed like the finest 3 course meal. The perfect appetiser is the intro levels, they give you an idea of just what can be created while teaching you the basic jumping, swinging, grabbing, pushing, and pulling techniques as well as giving you a good overview of the physics and objects within the game. The other advantage of playing these initial levels is to collect items that can then be used within your own game world, It’s an attraction far greater than the normal ‘save the princess’ goals of traditional platformers (that’s not to say you couldn’t make one!). By playing the game you get actual in-game ‘stuff’ you can keep and use as much as you want. That’s one hell of an incentive to play.

Once I’d dabbled a bit with some of the starting levels I headed back the the pod for a bit of level creation on my own ‘Little Big Planet’ Levels can be created either as a series of levels, or as single one-off designs. There are pre-built templates (with canyons, valleys, tunnels and hazards) that you can add to, Or you can start with a completely blank template, something I’d recommend you to do in order not to get too overwhelmed with creation – It’s easy to jump into something big straight off, but starting small is the best way to get to grips with what you can do. Level creation and customization is handled through the poppit editing menu, easy to start with, and very intuitive, it’s obviously had an enormous amount of work put into it to make it as easy to use for the beginner as well as the expert. Initial level creation is assisted with the brilliant tutorials voiced by Stephen Fry and and just the right pace which means beginner get to grips with the powerful game engine at their own pace. The tutorials start with simple building blocks and go onto more advanced construction such as switches, gravity, and rockets.

The construction environment is unlimited, you can even hook up your eye-toy camera and grab still from it, you can include objects such as jetpacs, and of course skateboards, rocket propelled horses, pits of fire, and roller-coaster like sweeping levels. It’s all very well creating your level but thanks to PS3′s network you can share your dastardly creation with friends, and the entire world.

The beauty of this game is that it’s nowhere near a finished masterpiece, this game will always have content for it designed by the users, As of right now it’s missing some promised additions namely the ability to co-create levels with your friends online. While multiple people on the same console can work on creating levels together you will soon be able to jump in with other players to help them build their works of art before sharing them out to the world. Not so good at making the platforms? don’t worry – get your friend to help, want to show off your awesome statue design ability? Just hop on in and join your friends. Bored on a drunken night in? get some friends together and try and build the largest collapsible tower before running in and destroying it.

Overall this is a Archetypal English approach to gaming, This is the love and energy of gaming experience from the 8-bit era refined and condensed into a single point. This is THE game that the platform generation has been waiting for. It re-defines the genre and sets a precedent for others to follow. This game is as important as Super Mario Bros, and as revolutionary as Mario 64. This IS platform gaming web 2.0 style.

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In addition any software written for Intel’s previous competitor (the ‘classmate pc’) will also work on the XO laptop

This is fantastic news and just what the project needed, cooperation between the large corporates to ultimately lower the cost of the technology.

The future’s looking a little bit brighter.

Click here for the BBC article

The massive proliferation of broadband technology in the UK has meant more and more people downloading audio and movies to their computers, through download sites and file sharing – This activity hasn’t gone unnoticed and SKY was one of the the first to launch it’s movie on demand service direct to a users home computer. It meant they didn’t need a TV, they just downloaded a small piece of software, and then went to the sky website to download and watch any movies in the sky schedule. Content would then be downloaded for users to watch at a their leisure . The benefit of this is that the user is no longer tied to the television, they can download and watch movies while carrying out other work on their laptop, or simply just free up the television to be used by the family members. Sky sneak advertising into the actual player itself – while movies are being downloaded and within the interface of the sky player other adverts appear, (not while watching the movie, but while you’re browsing for items to download) They know that with enabling users with technology to skip adverts they also have to compensate that revenue with enabling other ways to get targeted information to them. All the time the users are downloading movies and browsing content, sky is pulling back their viewing and surfing habits, and storing the data for a later date when they can create even more targeted advertising and sell more products directly to that user.

Other broadcasters quickly cottoned onto the fact once you start getting the users browsing and downloading movies the quality of the usage information you get back is far higher than the simple point and click of remote control. The users feel liberated as they’re far more in control they’re no longer constrained by broadcast schedules – and they don’t even have to use an EPG (Electronic Program Guide) like they would if they were actually watching digital television.

I’m currently testing a couple of ‘download and play’ broadcasting technologies. The first that has the potential to become widespread in the UK is the BBC iplayer. The BBC is still working out the finer points of its technology, but it’s basically very similar in functionality to Sky’s download able service. BBC programs up to several weeks after broadcast are published through its iplayer service for users to download on their computers. Content retention is time-limited by the BBC’s choosing, the BBC has a very healthy dvd library, and it’s spent a long time working on anti-piracy measures, and making sure that content expires after certain periods of time so that users still have a valid reason to purchase dvd based content.

Tiscali Picturebox, BT Vision, and Virgin are also offering downloadable content over the internet to watch on a TV. These suppliers are using set-top boxes but delivering their content over the internet to them – cutting out expensive satellite fees, and using cheap equipment which uses the best of both worlds – digital television (to record, rewind, pause live television) combined with internet based technology to give the consumer access to premium content, downloadable music, or the latest films. This is still just the beginning, but downloadable content just doesn’t really cut it when the consumer lives life in the fast-lane – they need content directed to them, personalized for them, connected to their lifestyle, and they need it anywhere they are. So far progress on the iplayer technology has been fairly slow, delivery of content through the player is incredibly slow, and although the speed is set to increase as more users adopt the player – so far – apart from the quality of the content there is little to differentiate it from the more established SKY download services.

What’s needed is an entirely new mechanism for delivering content for the mobile generation – make way for JOOST… ]]> http://www.m-i-x.com/the-death-of-tv-part-2-ancient-history/feed 0 http://www.m-i-x.com/zeitgeist-2007 http://www.m-i-x.com/zeitgeist-2007#comments Thu, 14 Jun 2007 20:15:00 +0000 Matt http://m-i-x.com/?p=17 Continue Reading →

This is a device containing a Vista based multi-touch screen interface built into a coffee table design. To add to that it’s also Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth enabled. It’s a design that in theory instantly appeals to the non technical – finally an easy to use device that doesn’t need a keyboard and mouse that doesn’t look like a computer. It’s a design paradigm that we’ve seen many times in countless movies – anything from star-trek, Tron and Minority Report. It’s something that could lend itself incredibly well to the creative process – enable a virtual pasteboard – allowing content to be sourced from any connected device, and manipulated in a natural way.

Because it’s a networked device through an incredibly intuitive interface there are wonderful implications for shared desktops. Imagine two people in different parts of the company looking at the same table, each manipulating items, drawings and graphics. For large creative agencies it certainly makes collaborative working a whole lot easier. It’s not necessarily easy because it wasn’t possible before – but is easier because it’s done through a far more natural interface – your fingertips directly interacting with what you see.

So – apart from collaborative working, or virtual pasteboards – microsoft has more ideas up it’s sleeve – examples in the video show off the capability of the system to identify and show connected devices that are placed on its surface – a mobile phone shop, a zune, and a glass in the demo’s. It’s going to be an incredibly versatile advertising medium. I highly doubt that the device can actually detect when a cup is placed on its surface, although the implications of detecting connected devices make things a lot easier than plugging in usb cables, or firewire leads.

One of it’s strongest benefits is that it can be a multi-user experience, there doens’t just have to be one person physically using it – touching it, as many people as can fit around it – can use it. This is certainly a product to keep an eye on, and I can’t wait to get my hands on one to test when the product starts coming out at the end of the year. I’ll keep the blog updated with more information as I find out about it.

There are a number of demo’s of this on YouTube so i’m going to post links below:-
Cnet Demo – examples of multi user touching and general applications
Surface computing – object interaction