This post is a response to the discussion on Matt’s blog post about the Games Industry within Northern Ireland. In particular, I wanted to reply to this point by Liam of WeeManStudios:

“The lack of expert skills and full-time developers in NI is still a major barrier.”

Yesterday I attended the INGAGE event at Belfast Metropolitan College. It was great to see some of the work being done here in Northern Ireland and to see other people who are passionate about making video games. The Games Industry in Northern Ireland is very small but starting to grow.

There is no shortage of talent and full time developers in Northern Ireland! We have a strong developer base supported by two large Universities.

The problem as far as I can see is that InvestNI & local Universities have not supported the Games Industry, therefore there are no established games companies here. Even then, I don’t see the small local games companies encouraging students to specialise in the Games Industry.

I haven’t been to Uni in 4-5 years so things may be changing. The likes of WeeManStudios and DarkWater Studios should have an obligation to go to the IT Depts of Queens, Jordanstown or Coleraine and market themselves to students, or provide internships, summer placements, hold Q&A discussions, video game lectures. Hopefully they are doing this already. The cop out is to post jobs looking for experts with 5+ years experience in this Games engine, that 3D modeling package or Game Console experience because, mostly those skills do not exist here and therefore does not encourage local developers and students to go for unobtainable jobs.

Students go where there are jobs and in NI that is mostly to the large US companies that InvestNI have paid millions in funding and tax breaks to set up shop here.

NI needs a Video Game Strategy for the next 10 years and more initiatives to show students and old timers alike what can be achieved. The Tax breaks announced in the Budget now give us a more level playing field with the likes of Canada but we are already a long way behind other UK regions and we need to act fast.

Local companies are vital but we also need to get closer ties to the likes of Sony, Microsoft, EA and Nintendo. We need to market ourselves as a lower cost center of excellence, in the same way we have done for Financial and Insurance companies in the past. Companies need to realise that we need to be trained but are willing and capable. Most US companies are happy to do this so long as InvestNI pay in part for that training. Look at how quickly Citigroup grew in 2 years. Why can’t that be Sony or EA?

I am very envious of the Dare to Be Digital competition.  That is just the sort of thing I would have jumped at as an undergrad wanting to get into the Video Games Industry but not knowing how to. If I had that kind of encouragement, I am certain I would have had a very different career path.

Its been a while since I added a Howto on here. Hope you find it useful.

The Bullet 3D Physics engine is shipped with the Oolong 3D Engine for iPhone. However, if you just want to use the physics engine in your iPhone app, the following steps should help you to integrate it into your project:

1. Download Bullet. I got it as part of the Oolong Engine source from Google Code.
2. Open Xcode Preferences, select Source Trees and add one with Setting Name “BULLET_ROOT” and Display Name “Bullet”. Give it the full path to your Bullet folder.
3. In your Xcode project, CTRL+Click on Classes folder and select Add Group. Give it the name “Bullet”. Then CTRL+Click the Bullet group and select Get Info. Set the Path Type combo box to  ”Relative to Bullet”. The Full Path should show the full directory path for the Bullet folder.
4. Select Project/Edit Project Settings from the Xcode menu. Search for “header search paths” in the Build tab and add the full path to your Bullet src. Make sure to check the Recursive checkbox. You will need to do this for Debug and Release build configurations.
5. In your source code, include the relevant bullet header e.g.
   
#include "btBulletDynamicsCommon.h"

   will include everything you need for rigid body dynamics.
6. Check out the Oolong samples to see how to use the physics engine or head over to the Bullet website for more resources.

Hopefully, I haven’t missed anything out but let me know if you spot something incorrect or can’t get it to work.

Update: 21/07/09: One step I forgot to mention was that Bullet is written in C++. You iPhone application class files will default to Objective-C and so won’t be able to compile. You need to CTRL+Click the class file referrencing the btBulletDynamicsCommon.h header file, select Get Info and change its file type to be Objective-C++. That should allow it to compile properly.

OK I am a little late but it’s the thought that counts, right??

I am ashamed to admit that I have been neglecting the blog lately. I guess I haven’t really had very much to say of late. Nothing has changed there I hear you say! Even so,  I thought I’d give a quick round-up of the year to date…

Development

The new year has been a busy period. We have just finished the development phase of our next major release, my first since joining last year. Its been a step learning curve but we have managed OK. The next release will be a lot more involved so I am looking forward to getting going with that. It should see us through the rest of the year.

I have also lined up a few interesting side projects to keep myself off the streets at night. They are mix of web and iPhone apps using Ruby on Rails, the iPhone SDK and OpenGL ES. I am also hoping to take a look at Android development at some stage. It’s a very interesting time for independent developers. Every day seems to bring a new platform or app store announcement lately (Nokia’s Ovi Store, Palm’s App Catalog and as well as others by MS, O2 and Orange!). I guess with the amazing success of the iPhone’s App Store, it was inevitable that the other smart-phone makers would follow suit. It will be interesting to see how things shape up once the dust settles. I’m also hoping to climb out of my cave and go meet some other developers.

Gaming

It was a quiet Christmas in terms of gaming. I have been playing Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune on the PS3 when I find time. Its a 3rd person action-adventure game, similar to the Lara Croft series with a Gears of War style cover system. Its fun to play and the graphics are excellent, considering its over a year old. Overall, its fantastic value for money on the budget Platinum series.  I will definitely be picking up a copy of Uncharted 2 when it is released later this year. Also, the much anticipated Killzone 2 is due for release on the PS3 very soon. Unfortunately the Wii didn’t even get switched on over Christmas due to the dearth of quality titles. I am toying with the idea of trading it in for a DS or more PS3 games.

Football

Since I last posted, Stevie G was arrested, Rafa Benitez cracked, Arsenal have disappeared and Chelsea sacked their manager of 6 months. Meanwhile, Man Utd have went on a record breaking run of 14 clean sheets (and counting) and have stormed their way to a 5 point lead at the top of the English Premier League. They are currently English, European and World Champions, own the world’s best footballer (at least for now) and have an unprecedented quintuple in their sights. It’s a pretty good time to be a Red! I could be smug about it but I really don’t expect them to do a clean sweep. Barcelona are looking really strong at the moment and must be favourites alongside Utd for the Champions League. Also, it only takes one bit of bad luck (As Utd saw against Portsmouth in the FA Cup last year) and you can be knocked out. Everyone thinks the Carling Cup is a foregone conclusion, but I expect Spurs to be really up for it against some of the younger members of Utd’s squad. It should make for an exciting run in.

I have talked before of the troubles I had with my old XBox 360. Well the infamous RRoD claimed another victim – my brother. He has had his 360 just over a year now. As I have heard a number of times, he claimed Microsoft had fixed the RRoD problem now with new chipsets, lower powered PSUs, smaller processers etc etc. Last week he told me that he got three red rings but that it restarted OK after that. The exact same thing happened to me a week before mine died. I told him to pack it up and swap it for a PS3 before its too late. Unfortunately he didn’t take my advice and yesterday his XBox 360 died on him, just in time for Christmas!

The thing is, in my family there have now been a total of 7 XBox 360s bought in the last 2 years. To date, 4 of them have died while all those that are still living are less than 12 months old. Maybe Microsoft have fixed the problem with the new hardware but maybe not – only time will tell.

Moral of the story: Microsoft don’t care if they make rubbish hardware because people are still buying it. Just don’t do it!!

Update: My brother managed to get a lend of a brand new 360 over Christmas. Unfortunately, it wasn’t working so he had to bring it back to the store and exchange it for another 360. Rubbish!!

It is coming up to a year since I bought my Wii to fill the Christmas gaming void left by my RRoD XBox 360. Having always steered clear of Nintendo hardware, I had finally given in the the cutesy world of Mario and his friends. One of the biggest problems I had with Nintendo was that they constantly churned out the same old characters such as Mario, Donkey Kong and Zelda.

Now however, Nintendo seemed to be trying something completely different. The Wii promised a new era of gaming with its Motion sensors and accelerometers giving life to innovative gameplay instead of ever increasingly realistic shooters and racing sims. In the beginning it did deliver. Wii Sports was great fun, for 30 minutes. WarioWare was a riot, for about an hour. Luckily I had Super Mario Galaxy to keep me happy and content until my 360 was repaired in the new year.  Since then the only Wii game of any real interest for me was Mario Kart.  I had never been a big fan of the hugely popular racing game but thought I would give it a shot, especially with the steering wheel controls. It was ok. Not great. Not very exciting. Just ok. Exactly like every other MK I have played over the last decade, except the steering was a bit different (though not actually better IMHO).

After that, I stopped playing my Wii. Days turned into weeks, weeks into months. Every now and again I’d take a walk into the Game store to see what new and nothing seems to change. Super Mario Galaxy, Mario Kart, Zelda and the like are still in the top 10, still selling at full price. You get the odd new game of interest but most of them are cross platform titles that probably run a lot nicer on my PS3 or dodgy old 360.  OK, Wii Fit was a big release for Nintendo and I tried hard to get one when it was released. Try as I might, all stores were sold out for weeks, until I eventually lost interest. After the hype had died down, £70 seemed an awful lot of money for a set of scales.

We are constantly bombarded with tales of how the Wii is outselling every other console by 10s of thousands of units every month. I’d be interested to see what the figures are in terms of game sales. It just seems like the trickle of new Wii games are either cross platform titles with a few Wii-mote gimic controls or strange Japanese titles aimed at teaching kids and non gamers how to cook or fish. The Wii was supposed to be a revolution in gaming but all I see is a cheap lump of white plastic gathering dust next to my PS3.

Come on Nintendo. Pull your finger out!

The Falcon is a futuristic-looking PC game controller from Novint that can provide a greater sense of realism to your favourite FPS game. Using a pistol attached to the main base, gamers get feedback from gun recoil, when getting hit, and environmental feedback from collisions and vehicles. It supports all the main FPS titles you are likely to care about too. At £165, this is probably for hardcore gamers.

I am a big fan of using the mouse for FPS games with its fast and intuitive control but I would love to try this out. I can’t imagine it being comfortable for hours of gaming, which is irrelevent now as I am lucky to get 1-2 hours a week these days.

Looks like everything our mothers said about spending too much time in front of the TV was true. Check out this poor soul who spent too much time on his Xbox 360. Don’t feel too sorry for him though, with his 37″ LCD head, he has become very popular amongst his peers.

As it turns out, Microsoft weren’t making rubbish hardware that died after a couple of days gaming after all. The infamous Xbox 360 RRoD is actually a failsafe switch added to prevent us all from ending up like this guy.

Thank you Microsoft. Thank you very much!

Last Friday I got my hands on a brand new 80GB PlayStation 3, having traded in my troublesome Xbox 360. As well as the PS3, I bought GRID, Metal Gear Solid 4, Gran Tourismo 5: Prologue, an extra rumble controller, HDMI cable and a rented BluRay Movie. Here’s how I got on: Read the rest of this entry »

So I did it. It took a bit of courage and a lot deliberation but I have sold my Xbox 360 and all its games. I started by deleting my gamertag. Once it was gone there was no going back. I reformatted the HDD, stuffed it into my old Gears of War Limited Edition box, traded it in for £130 (including the wifi adapter) and put my name down for a spanking new 80GB Sony PS3. It isn’t due until the end of August but I can make do with my Wii and Crysis on the PC. I had 10-12 games to trade in but Game were only offering £30 for the lot so I brought them to Extra Vision who offered me £65. All I have left is a spare controller that I will use for my PC and a dodgy wireless headset. I still have 5 months of my Xbox subscription and 1500 Xbox points but I guess that doesn’t really matter.

So its goodbye Microsoft and hello Sony. I am really looking forward to getting the PS3. I think the hardware has much more potential than the Xbox for the next few years. I will finally be able to watch HD movies on BluRay, which was one of my original reasons for buying the 360 before HDDVD borked. There are also some interesting games including MetalGearSolid 4, KillZone 2, Little Big Planet and of course Gran Turismo 5. Most of all, I am looking forward to having a console that doesn’t refuse to play my games (fingers crossed!).

After 1 and a half years, I have finally lost patience (and interest) in my Xbox 360. So am planning to sell up and replace it with a brand spanking new 80GB PS3.

I bought my first 360 just before Christmas 2006 to go along with my new 40″ LCD TV. The first few days of hi-def gaming with Gears of War was fantastic.The graphics were awesome and the Gears cover mechanics really added to the realism. Unfortunately, the Honeymoon didn’t last very long. The ear deafening roar from the noisy 360 itself was disappointing. Then I had to replace the 360 after less than a week’s worth of service, spoiling my Christmas games fest. This was my first introduction into the world of pain surrounding Microsoft’s dodgy hardware.  Then I had to replace my spare controller and both of my rechargeable battery packs a week later. The wireless headset was complete and utter rubbish. My second 360 has been a royal pain in the backside. I have had to deal with constant interruptions to gaming sessions due to “unreadable” disks, all of which were brand new and completely unblemished. My 360 had a habit leaving strange concentric rings of crud, which took ages of gentle rubbing to clean off.  Then last Christmas, as I was planning another annual games fest, the console suffered the Red Ring of Death (RRoD) and I was left without a console for three weeks. Actually, I bought a Wii to cover the loss so it wasn’t all bad. Since then, it has been used less and less. I would play once in a blue moon, often interrupted by the “Unreadable” disk error. Then, the other night, as I settled down for a rare hour on GTA IV, it happened within 5 minutes of starting up. The final straw.

It is sad because I still love the console for all its faults. All of my brothers have 360s. The controllers are the best of any console, Arcade was great for a quick blast of Geometry Wars and online play was second to none. With big changes to the menu system, Gears 2 coming out this Christmas, and the brilliant Microsoft only PGR series, it would be tempting to stick with it for a while longer, or even just go for a new 360 in the hope that they have sorted the issues out.

I would love to hear from anyone else with similar experiences, particularly those who traded in for a PS3. How did you find the switch? Any regrets??