I’ve been hankering after a dslr camera for a short while now. Every now and then I would see a potential photograph that my compact camera, nice as it is, just couldn’t get – and these opportunities seemed to be growing in regularity since moving to Edinburgh.

My wife and I are also going on a driving tour of the West and North coast of Scotland soon, and I thought that would give plenty of great scenery and wonderful photos.

So I decided to treat myself to a Canon 500D – or Rebel Tli to American readers (the 550D was tempting, but the extra cost wasn’t really justified by the ability to take full HD video at 30fps. Just not a feature I can see myself needing). “If I buy it now, I can get used to it before we go on holiday,” I thought. And that is the plan.

Being a complete beginner to the world of “proper” photography I have also bought myself a book about my camera, and am slowly working through the chapters learning as I go. So far I have learnt all about f-stops, apertures, ISO speeds, and shutter speeds, and how they all relate to each other.

I would definitely recommend that book (or presumably others in the series) as it’s a fantastic alternative the very basic manual that comes with the camera.

Anyway, I thought I’d share some of the snaps from my first weekend. All of these are taken with the 18-55mm kit lens. Comments are very welcome, I’m still learning and eager to take in all criticism!

(I’ll also point out that all of these photos have been resized for internet friendliness – I’m not sure my hosting would cope with visitors browsing 5Mb images. The metadata about the settings used should have been preserved, though.)

[View with PicLens]

Probably the most disappointing game I have ever played. Idiots.

Earlier this week Ruffian Games started running a series of small competitions and giveaways to win early download codes for the Crackdown 2 demo. And I was lucky enough to snag one.

(Incidentally, if anyone ever says “I don’t get Twitter” to me again, I will use this as an example of companies being able to quickly and directly communicate with their fans in an impromptu manner.)

To say I was excited is an understatement – Crackdown the first is one of my favourite games of this generation. I did a couple of updates about it back when I was playing it, and it remains the only game where I have bothered to not only 1000k the main game, but also get the full 250 gamerscore from the DLC as well.

But I was also nervous. Ruffian is not the same team that made Crackdown (although I believe that many of the staff are). Would the game have too few changes to make me want to play it all over again? Or would they change with too much, and risk spoiling it?

Thankfully a couple of goes at the demo have settled all doubts, and my pre-order is now placed at the online retailer of my choice.

The core controls, skill upgrading, and (most importantly of all) voice of the Agency are untouched, and the city map (judging by the overview) is largely the same layout. So it will all be very familiar to fans.

What has been done is to improve individual elements themselves. Taking a supply point now triggers a manic rush of enemies who must be killed before the point is yours, which makes for a more exciting experience than just walking in to the trigger as in the first. Skill orbs now also have rogue variations, that run away from you on a set path (yes, agility orbs can now flee!) The day / night cycle affects how human and zombie enemies gather, making their respective areas more or less dangerous depending on when you enter them.

One final point I thought was very interesting was the inclusion of “demo achievements”. This is a system that tracks if you would have gained an achievement from your actions in the demo, and gives it to you when you play the full game. I thought it was a nice little system for encouraging people to buy.

So yes, if you were a fan of Crackdown you should definitely pick this up.

Interviews can be a very stressful time. In fact, I don’t think I know anyone who doesn’t get stressed out by them. Usually you are there because you have already decided you really want to work at this company, and the next few hours are likely to be the deciding factor in whether that happens or not.

In my time as a game designer I’ve interviewed a fair number of candidates (enough that I can’t remember how many), so I thought I would put together some tips on what I liked, or didn’t like, to see from a candidate.

These hints are only likely to help if you have already been offered an interview – I have written previously on how to help get yourself to that stage, so I won’t be going over that again.

Research the company at least a little bit, so that you know a little about us. I used to think this was common sense (why apply for a job at a company you know nothing about?) but experience has taught me that apparently it isn’t.

Okay, I’m not going to be bothered if you don’t know the current stock price (I don’t either), but at least be aware of any upcoming titles we have announced, and make sure you know what the last game we released was. These are simple bits of information to find out, either from the company’s own website, a gaming news site, or probably even Wikipedia.

If you know what game you are likely to be working on (because you did a bit of research and found out what has been announced, or because the job ad specifically mentioned it) then try and play something in the same genre before the interview. It’s quite common to ask about our own games, and other similar games, to see what your thoughts are on the genre. If you can speak from an informed position, then you’ll come across much better. If you are interviewing at Blizzard and say “yeah, I’ve never played World of Warcraft, or any MMOs” then you may struggle.

Obviously, if you suspect you’ll be working on the game’s a sequel, then try and play the previous game. Build a list of what you liked about it, but also what you did not like. If you can only sing a game’s praises in an interview, and can’t see any areas for improvement, then your ideas for a sequel would turn out like a mission pack.

This is a fine line, however. You don’t want to be too critical of the company’s previous work. Pick a couple of things at most, and make sure you have a similar number of things that you liked.

If the company has told you which members of staff will be on your interview panel (as many do now), don’t eStalk them. Admittedly, this is a very personal preference, but I am not a fan of finding out you’ve googled me, or looked me up on MobyGames, and committed the list of published titles to memory. It’s like your preparations for the interview have gone past the normal, and have become a bit obsessively data collector.

Don’t email your interviewers before hand. It is relatively easy to guess email addresses based on a name & company, and this would be far too strange. If you need further information about the interview itself go through the same contact who has been dealing with your application so far.

You will get plenty of chance to chat during your interview, and it’s certainly acceptable to email them afterwards (this works better if you ask them for their address while you are face to face, rather than working it out after the fact). It will usually leave a good impression to send a quick “nice to meet you” email the day after the interview, and you could carry on any discussion you were having with your interviewers at this point (“I downloaded Plants vs Zombies like you suggested, and am really enjoying it. etc.”) Even if you don’t get the position, you may find you’ve made a good new contact within the company.

Tell me about what you did, not what your team did. This seems to be quite common in new graduatess who only have university projects to their name. “Our team designed these levels, and this is how we designed them.” It’s comendably honest that you’re not claiming to have done all of the design work yourself, but at the same time if I’m not hiring your whole team, the information is a little bit useless to me. Similarly, if you bring any previous work to the interview, make sure it is very clear which bits are yours.

Whatever you do, don’t lie to me, as it is pretty easy to be caught out, and it will never leave a good impression. If you’re showing a video of a mod you (or you and your team) made for Half-Life 2, and the mod uses the standard zombie enemies from that game, don’t tell me you wrote their AI. Remarkably, I have played Half Life 2, and I can tell from a video when your enemies are using the standard monsters. I would imagine this one goes down like a lead balloon at Valve.

Don’t worry about being nervous. For the most part if you’re nervous it’s going to be very obvious to your interviewers, and they’ll take that into account when deciding if they think they would like to work with you. Obviously if you clam up completely that’s going to make life hard – if you are prone to nerves perhaps practice some relaxation exercises before hand. If anything, I am going to be impressed that you have realised the situation, and want to take a quick break for a glass of water to help calm yourself.

It may help calm you to keep this thought in mind – Remember that the company have invited you for interview, and are willing to take some key employees away from their work to speak with you. Clearly they already liked your CV quite a lot to even get to this stage. Nobody likes interviewing people, so the fewer interviews they have to perform the better. They would dearly love to hire you, as that cuts down on how many interviews they have to do. All you have to do is show them that their initial impression of you was well founded.

Finally, have some interesting questions to ask. Every interview has a “is there anything you’d like to ask us?” section. And there are stock questions that most interviewees will ask – obviously some of these are good things to know, about employment terms and packages (some interviewers say they don’t like interviewees asking about money – I think anyone who thinks that way is hiding something).

Try to come up with some unique questions. Possibly taken fro what industry news has been happening that week. Try to stay away from anything too politicised (“What do you think of the horrible way Activision have treated Infinity Ward?” is too polarised in my opinion) or anything too much like a publicity question (“Can you tell me about this feature of your game?” is the sort of question journalists ask, and may start NDA alarm bells ringing in your interviewers’ heads).

If you have any comments about these tips I’d love to hear them. Maybe you are an interviewer who has some other pet peeves that turn you off interviewees?

Two arcade car racing games have been released recently, and though I haven’t seen it in any previous games, both Blur and Split/Second (or Split/Second:Velocity if you want to use its full and ridiculous title) share this element to some degree.

I’m assuming this is an attempt to pull the HUD in away from the edges of the screen, where it can be distracting to look at, and move it closer to where the player is already looking.

I don’t think it works very well, however, and is worse than the traditional large indicators in the screen corners. When I’m playing a racing game I am looking at the road ahead of me. I’ll be using Split/Second in the examples, as it has proved pretty hard to find an in-game “hud and all” screenshot of Blur, and also Blur largely uses traditional HUD placement for major elements, only placing currently held powerup icons under the car.

The rough area my eyes are focussed on when racing is shown highlighted in this screenshot.

This is the part of the screen where most of the information I need to know in order to not crash (ie where the track is going, and obstacles my car is about to hit) is displayed. At high speeds taking my eyes off this area for even a split second (I know, I was pretty pleased with it myself) can result in failure.

To find out my current placing, or what lap I am on, I have to focus on this highlighted area. You can see this is a small area, and still results in me having to take my eyes off the “am I going to crash?” zone, to focus on some small numbering.

If the game used a more traditional placement, of large numbering in the corners of the screen, although I may still have to take my eyes away from the main focus area, it would be easier to glance at, and it may be possible to also take in the information in my peripheral vision.

The area of the HUD that does work well on Split/Second is the Power Play level indicator. It is bright and in three distinct sections, and is easily read peripherally without having to look away from the main gameplay area.

Interestingly, though Blur uses the same placement for only its weapon powerup icons, the placement doesn’t seem to work as well for me in that game. I suspect it’s the general neon styling and that the icons are semi-transparent which makes them harder to read without looking directly.

When Eurogamer reviewed the first Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 map pack (the Stimulus pack), they devoted two pages to picking apart the five maps. I thought that was a little excessive.

They obviously thought the opposite. The Resurgence map pack has been given a three page review. Once again, this is a pack with two old Modern Warfare maps, and three new ones.

I could sort of understand this, given that the thing is selling for around £10 and is sure to be downloaded a lot. But this is more coverage than they give any other individual downloadable title (yes, full games) – even the high scoring ones tend to receive half a page in a “round up” article.

Let’s be honest here – everyone already knows if they are going to buy this or not. If you still play a lot of Modern Warfare 2 £10 isn’t that much to extend the shelf life further. If you don’t, some new maps isn’t going to breathe new life into weapons, perks, and gameplay that you have become tired of. Hell, even the reviewer mentions that “For me, it’s an automatic purchase”, so it seems that even he admits there’s little point to it.

Some other fun from the review: The first half a page is the reviewer talking about how much he loves Modern Warfare 2. Then we have a page of discussion on the two old maps, a page on the three new maps, and rounded off with a summing up. Of the three screenshots in the review, two are of the old maps (the ones that fans are quite likely to already know). So any way you look at it, only a third of the review is about the brand new content.

That is the question that fills my inbox every day. Or never, if I’m being more honest (it couldn’t possible manage to sneak its way in, what with Amazon sending me constant “we have received your order” and “your order has been dispatched” emails that keep Google’s tiny bandwidth jammed full – if your Google mail isn’t working I’m sorry, but my excessive Amazon ordering at the moment is undoubtedly to blame).

Anyway, back to the point – this was meant to be about ColorZap. I’ve been thinking about it a lot recently. As I posted a month or so back, I have had the game gameplay finished for ages, and the time I do spend on it now is used putting checks around memory card failures, or putting in screens begging you to buy the full thing. Basically, stuff that I hate.

I’ve also had a slight change of position that has meant that, while I’m still confident I could release an XBLIG (that’s Xbox Live Indie Games, if you’re not hip with the acronyms, daddio) title, I don’t really want to risk rocking that particular boat right now. Certainly, I don’t think I could survive on just the immense proceeds from all of the 240 Microsoft Point sales. I’m not even sure if our local Asda takes those in exchange for food.

So, though I would love the increased exposure I would get, I’ve decided to sack off the Xbox version of the game, finish off the PC version (yes I know I said it was finished, but I am pretty sure that it now has some Games for Windows stuff in that would require PC gamers to have a profile or somesuch, and I really don’t want that), and release it for free on here.

Who knows, I may even muster the energy to do a quick round of promotions for it. And if I can work it out I might even plop some charity donation thing down for anyone who feels it’s really worth paying for.

After that I will hopefully find the time and motivation to make something else. Dear God, please let me find the motivation.

Keep an eye on this space,

Sony have officially announced the new deal that I wrote about last week. At the time only nine of the ten games had been announced, and I guessed at God of War being the final title.

Unfortunately for everyone, Avatar is the last game to make up the offer. So I was right about it being a third person action game (because another driving game in that line up would have been stupid), but wrong about it being a good game that people might want. Oh well.

It seems the early reports of GTA: Chinatown Wars being in the bundle were also incorrect – the actual game in the pack is Vice City Stories. Which is still great (not that I am in any way biased, obviously. Ahem).

I still see this promotion as being an attempt at dumping stock without having to officially lower the unit’s price. Only now it seems a slightly weaker one, offering one older, and one much worse, game.

I find the key is to think of a day as units of time, each unit consisting of no more than thirty minutes. Full hours can be a little bit intimidating and most activities take about half an hour.

Ever feel like you just don’t have enough time to get it all done?

• Showering and breakfast – 1 unit
• Morning commute – 1 unit
• Morning work – 8 units
• Lunch – 1 unit
• Lunch time game playing – 1 unit
• Afternoon work – 8 units
• Evening commute – 1 unit
• Dinner – 2 units
• Quality time with wife – 5 units
• Gym – 2 units
• Evening game playing – 4 units
• Sleep – 14 units

Somewhere in all of this I need to find time for:

• Update blog – 2 units
• Finish Colorzap – 2 units

I’d really like to get that evening game playing up by a few units too – this massive pile of games won’t play themselvee. None of them are recent Mario titles, you see (ha ha, I managed to get a joke about video games into this otherwise very boring crying post. Maybe all is not lost.)

If only I didn’t have to go to work. But then, how would I be able to afford the lovely toys that I covet so much? Bah.