Jul 17, 2009
So I had the chance to play Uncharted 2 Multiplayer beta for a couple of months. I’m eagerly waiting for this game. The first one was pretty cool, but this one is looking totally badass. More action, more gunfights, more fun.
The beta was a file around 1.5GB to download and install. It went pretty fast so in less than 5 minutes you were able to play. The menu was pretty nice, really great music (just like in the first one) and after 3 or 4 screens you were already playing. A couple of things were locked like a “theater” menu where you would be able to record your game and probably share the video with your friends. You only were able to play Co-op or Death match and some kind of Capture The Flag.
Co-op lets you play with 2 friends with three characters from the main story. You can’t choose which character you want to play, it’s random and who cares, they all do the same things.
There was only one big level, I found that pretty poor since it was a very expected beta. But the level was pretty nice.
You had lots of gunfights and a couple of things to climb and some key events to activate with your team to keep going. To active the events, every characters have to stand on red glowing circles and push ∆ .
If one teammate happens to die during gunfights, he would come back for the events. However if everyone dies, the game is over but you have some kind of a continue system to try again. If the whole team keeps dying each time (and god it happened, it was pretty hard), the game is definitely over and you get back to the menu where you can see who had the most points.
Something interesting was the fact you could grab some treasures and you had some kind of a combo bar with a multiplier to give you points. Besides level up your grads, I don’t know what it’s used for. I just said you could level up your grads, I don’t know what’s the use of it too since it didn’t unlock anything during the beta… Maybe to unlock bonus in the final game? Who knows, that would be pretty sweet.
Death Match… I think everyone knows about that gameplay so I don’t think I’ll talk about it. Two teams (“Good guys” and “Bad guys”) of five players killing each other. However it’s amazingly fun since you can take cover, etc… The first team that reaches 25 kills won. What I love from Naughty Dog is that they put the death limit to 50 since getting to 25 was way too fast. In like 5 minutes the game was over so that was a bit frustrating. It was a nice move from them.
There was two maps. I kind of was disappointed about that but I’m sure there’ll be more maps once the game is out. I saw one filled with snow. So the maps were called “Village” and “The Plaza”. That last one was definitely my favorite and felt more balanced than the Village. I don’t know why but I noticed that if you were the “bad guys” in the Village, you had a field advantage over the “good guys”…
They also updated some little things with an update 2 or 3 weeks before the end of the beta so it was pretty welcome. Mostly bug fixes.
There was a couple of bugs that were a big disturbing. Like the game would fade to black and it felt like a whole reset of the game since the counter went back to 0 and both team found themselves in their shelter. There was another one but it’s much more of a glitch than a bug, half of my screen was black and would rotate if I moved the camera. It happened randomly and always when I didn’t need that haha. And there was the screen where you wait for other players to join to start the game… You had to wait more than 20 minutes sometimes! That was actually really crazy and god they fixed that quickly.
Plunder would be the classic Capture The Flag. You have to find a totem and get it back to your shelter, simple as that. The first team to get to 5 wins. I’ve never been a huge fan of CTF gameplay but I found it extremely fun there. Don’t really know why though…
Overall the beta felt awesome. There was a couple of bugs (hence the word BETA) and most of them got fixed quickly. I can’t wait for the opened beta during this summer with new stuff and more players. I’ll be sure to write another article about it and when the game is out in October/November.
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves Multiplayer Beta
So I had the chance to play Uncharted 2 Multiplayer beta for a couple of months. I’m eagerly waiting for this game. The first one was pretty cool, but this one is looking totally badass. More action, more gunfights, more fun.
The beta was a file around 1.5GB to download and install. It went pretty fast so in less than 5 minutes you were able to play. The menu was pretty nice, really great music (just like in the first one) and after 3 or 4 screens you were already playing. A couple of things were locked like a “theater” menu where you would be able to record your game and probably share the video with your friends. You only were able to play Co-op or Death match and some kind of Capture The Flag.
Co-op lets you play with 2 friends with three characters from the main story. You can’t choose which character you want to play, it’s random and who cares, they all do the same things.
There was only one big level, I found that pretty poor since it was a very expected beta. But the level was pretty nice.
You had lots of gunfights and a couple of things to climb and some key events to activate with your team to keep going. To active the events, every characters have to stand on red glowing circles and push ∆ .
If one teammate happens to die during gunfights, he would come back for the events. However if everyone dies, the game is over but you have some kind of a continue system to try again. If the whole team keeps dying each time (and god it happened, it was pretty hard), the game is definitely over and you get back to the menu where you can see who had the most points.
Something interesting was the fact you could grab some treasures and you had some kind of a combo bar with a multiplier to give you points. Besides level up your grads, I don’t know what it’s used for. I just said you could level up your grads, I don’t know what’s the use of it too since it didn’t unlock anything during the beta… Maybe to unlock bonus in the final game? Who knows, that would be pretty sweet.
Death Match… I think everyone knows about that gameplay so I don’t think I’ll talk about it. Two teams (“Good guys” and “Bad guys”) of five players killing each other. However it’s amazingly fun since you can take cover, etc… The first team that reaches 25 kills won. What I love from Naughty Dog is that they put the death limit to 50 since getting to 25 was way too fast. In like 5 minutes the game was over so that was a bit frustrating. It was a nice move from them.
There was two maps. I kind of was disappointed about that but I’m sure there’ll be more maps once the game is out. I saw one filled with snow. So the maps were called “Village” and “The Plaza”. That last one was definitely my favorite and felt more balanced than the Village. I don’t know why but I noticed that if you were the “bad guys” in the Village, you had a field advantage over the “good guys”…
They also updated some little things with an update 2 or 3 weeks before the end of the beta so it was pretty welcome. Mostly bug fixes.
There was a couple of bugs that were a big disturbing. Like the game would fade to black and it felt like a whole reset of the game since the counter went back to 0 and both team found themselves in their shelter. There was another one but it’s much more of a glitch than a bug, half of my screen was black and would rotate if I moved the camera. It happened randomly and always when I didn’t need that haha. And there was the screen where you wait for other players to join to start the game… You had to wait more than 20 minutes sometimes! That was actually really crazy and god they fixed that quickly.
Plunder would be the classic Capture The Flag. You have to find a totem and get it back to your shelter, simple as that. The first team to get to 5 wins. I’ve never been a huge fan of CTF gameplay but I found it extremely fun there. Don’t really know why though…
Overall the beta felt awesome. There was a couple of bugs (hence the word BETA) and most of them got fixed quickly. I can’t wait for the opened beta during this summer with new stuff and more players. I’ll be sure to write another article about it and when the game is out in October/November.
Jul 17, 2009
I’ll never get tired of this one.
Jul 14, 2009
Download Comment on Flickr
A little icon for fun. I’ll try to make some little releases like this in the future.
Bug Hunter
A little icon for fun. I’ll try to make some little releases like this in the future.
Jul 3, 2009
iPhone 3G S Box
So I received my iPhone 3G S two days ago now and so far I’m really happy… Except SFR ( one of the carriers) gave me a SIM card with a wrong plan so I’m waiting for a new one now.
It’s amazing. I own an iPod Touch 2G since October 2008 but the iPhone felt (and still feels) like something new. I got to play with all the things missing from the iPod Touch and it’s really an amazing product. Well, I’ve been playing with everything except for the phone part since I can’t.
The S for “Speed” really means something, I put side by side my iPod Touch 2G and the iPhone 3G S running Peggle. The loading time is really amazingly short on the iPhone that it actually stunned both my father and I. Safari feels snappier™ so do the other applications when you launch them.
I’ll try to write more about it when I get my new SIM card so I can make a better review of the iPhone. I’ll also add some pictures and videos taken from it too.
Next article should be about Uncharted 2: Among Thieves Multiplayer Closed Beta.
iPhone 3G S
So I received my iPhone 3G S two days ago now and so far I’m really happy… Except SFR ( one of the carriers) gave me a SIM card with a wrong plan so I’m waiting for a new one now.
It’s amazing. I own an iPod Touch 2G since October 2008 but the iPhone felt (and still feels) like something new. I got to play with all the things missing from the iPod Touch and it’s really an amazing product. Well, I’ve been playing with everything except for the phone part since I can’t.
The S for “Speed” really means something, I put side by side my iPod Touch 2G and the iPhone 3G S running Peggle. The loading time is really amazingly short on the iPhone that it actually stunned both my father and I. Safari feels snappier™ so do the other applications when you launch them.
I’ll try to write more about it when I get my new SIM card so I can make a better review of the iPhone. I’ll also add some pictures and videos taken from it too.
Next article should be about Uncharted 2: Among Thieves Multiplayer Closed Beta.
Jun 14, 2009
Delicious Library iPhone
So Delicious Library is out on the App Store and I thought I should write a bit about it. I hope Mischa McLachlan talks about it too since he worked a lot on it too and I’m sure he has lots of amazing stories to tell with his british accent.
I was literally brought onto the project thanks to Mischa just to help a bit (or maybe was it a lot?). I started working right away on some mockups on my side and shared them with Mischa. And of course we would put them on basecamp to show Wil Shipley, Jessie Char and the rest of the amazing Delicious Monster team.
We made lots of different designs and I’ll try to share with you some of them.
Maybe some of you remember the little video I created that Wil shared on twitter (I then also put it on flickr and twitter), well I don’t really remember why I had this idea, probably because I was really excited to work on this and I wanted to make something funny to watch… and also ridiculous, yes. Well for those who don’t know what I’m talking about, here it is:
We made lots of different designs. Actually, there are so many that I will not be able to share them with you but the team knew what they wanted. A list view for the categories, then a list view for the products once you’ve selected a category and finally a card view of the product. About the card view, we made like 30 different designs, seriously I’m not kidding.
So that was one of the early mockups I made and I really hope Mischa also shows what he made for the design and interactions because he created some amazing animations that nobody will see for example.
It’s really different from what the final design looks like. We wanted to go a little bit crazy (hence the name Delicious) and maybe we could try putting some grass and a bright wood but yeah, it looks like crap. However the basic layout was set and that was the main important thing I think. I also created some icons and I changed some of them for the final build. Though, I didn’t have the time to finish all of them so we kept most of Adam Bett’s icons. Now onto another mockup.
We immediately removed the grass and went for something a little less crazy and more “shelf like”. So we created mockups and mockups until this one, which is really close to the final design of the application. This mockup is for the list view of the products. Darker wood for the background and brighter wood for the bars to create more contrast. And yes, I put some stupid things and an actual picture of Mischa when he was young (and with hair!).
Some modifications from Mischa, different wood at the bottom, header bars and green selection bar (that isn’t in the final design) in the list view.
So that’s pretty much it for the old mockups of the first two screens. There’s so many other mockups that I won’t be able to show sadly.
Now onto the card view. We spent A LOT of time into this with different cards designs, here is a couple of them.
That was the first card design I made. You’ll probably notice that the wood background is totally different than the one in the final version. But a problem occurred: there was too many different types of wood and we wanted the application to be consistent within all the screens. Here are some card designs among many:
As you can see, we tried a lot of different things. We even changed the whole layout on some designs that I’m not showing (because I seriously can’t remember where they are, too many psd files).
So as you can see, it’s been a huge amount of work. There was also a whole debate with the gloss thing. Wil wanted to keep the gloss on the bars to be closer to Apple’s default applications feeling, while I understood what he meant I was totally against it simply because I thought (and I still think ;-) ) that gloss on wood is funny. Other than that, it was a really great project and I’m really happy I was involved in its making.
Thanks a lot to the Delicious Team, you guys are amazing and I had lots of fun working on this. A big thanks to Mischa too, I hope you have fun at Apple and I’m glad we could work together on this… and also for the lots of LOLs I have with you almost everyday.
May 30, 2009
Freeware Applications UI Design
Memo: A small to-do list “on the fly” application. Syncs with iCal, and all this crap, etc…
Compteur: A small timer application for your projects.
May 27, 2009
Playing boktai 2
I ordered a Gameboy micro and received it some days ago. For those who don’t know what a Gameboy micro is, it’s the third design iteration of the Gameboy Advance series Nintendo created around 2005. It features an amazing tiny 2” sharp screen with backlight (similar to the PSP’s !).
So why did I buy a Gameboy micro? I wanted to play old games. I think the Gameboy Advance is still the best handled device ever in terms of old school games. To me, this device is like the mobile SNES. I already own the first Gameboy advance and the SP, but I wanted something smaller and with a better screen.
Another angle
It features everything from any other Gameboy Advance. L and R triggers, A and B and Start and Select buttons. What’s different on this one, is that you don’t have a little battery status pill anymore.
Actually, the Start and Select buttons are the battery status. When you turn it on or you’re charging it, you have a nice blue color coming from those two buttons. If you turn on the GBm and you haven’t put a game cartridge in it, it’ll glow red. If it runs out of battery while you’re playing it’ll glow red too.
Nice blue color
Another “cool” thing - that I’ll probably never use - is that you can change the top case as you wish. You have two tiny holes on one of its side, press on them with a pen or something thin and you can change the case. When you do this, be aware that the screen is no longer protected.
What people may not like is the fact you can no longer play Gameboy Classic games. Only Gameboy Advance on this one. Well who cares, you got emulators for these!
The tiny but really sharp screen
So I’m definitely not disappointed at all. I was scared that the screen might be a bit too small but it’s damn sharp so you surprisingly find yourself happy it is that small! If you’re interested in getting a Gameboy Advance, that’s the device to get and you can buy it brand new for almost nothing. I paid mine around 40€.
Hence the name “micro”
Gameboy micro
I ordered a Gameboy micro and received it some days ago. For those who don’t know what a Gameboy micro is, it’s the third design iteration of the Gameboy Advance series Nintendo created around 2005. It features an amazing tiny 2” sharp screen with backlight (similar to the PSP’s !).
So why did I buy a Gameboy micro? I wanted to play old games. I think the Gameboy Advance is still the best handled device ever in terms of old school games. To me, this device is like the mobile SNES. I already own the first Gameboy advance and the SP, but I wanted something smaller and with a better screen.
It features everything from any other Gameboy Advance. L and R triggers, A and B and Start and Select buttons. What’s different on this one, is that you don’t have a little battery status pill anymore.
Actually, the Start and Select buttons are the battery status. When you turn it on or you’re charging it, you have a nice blue color coming from those two buttons. If you turn on the GBm and you haven’t put a game cartridge in it, it’ll glow red. If it runs out of battery while you’re playing it’ll glow red too.
Another “cool” thing - that I’ll probably never use - is that you can change the top case as you wish. You have two tiny holes on one of its side, press on them with a pen or something thin and you can change the case. When you do this, be aware that the screen is no longer protected.
What people may not like is the fact you can no longer play Gameboy Classic games. Only Gameboy Advance on this one. Well who cares, you got emulators for these!
So I’m definitely not disappointed at all. I was scared that the screen might be a bit too small but it’s damn sharp so you surprisingly find yourself happy it is that small! If you’re interested in getting a Gameboy Advance, that’s the device to get and you can buy it brand new for almost nothing. I paid mine around 40€.
Apr 24, 2009
So if you’re not aware, I bought a PS3 a month now just because of this game, Killzone 2. Actually, my brother has had his PS3 since almost a year and I used to go there and kick his ass at PES 2009 or play some other nice games. So I already own a 360 and a Wii, why did I buy a PS3? Just because of KZ2? The answer is yes and no.
I wanted a Mac Mini badly to play movies on my TV. Problem is I also wanted to buy a PS3 after… So well, I decided to buy a PS3 and I found some nice applications to remuxe .mkv files to .vob files.
So about Killzone 2. I’m afraid to said that I’ve been blown away. I was skeptical at first but when I saw my brother playing it (I actually bought him the game to thanks him for something), the only thing I had to do was to buy a PS3 + Killzone 2 pack. About the game, hands down one of the best FPS ever. Really. I’m a gamer, I’ve played a lot of different games and this is one of the best. The Multiplayer mode is incredible, lots of fun and things to unlock. The missions are really cool, you don’t get bored at all.
The gameplay is a bit weird at first but you can change the controls thanks to a lot of choices. The weapons you hold feel really heavy and when you get a sniper, it’s definitely not easy to aim. But then you rock with it (like me ;-P).
And if you buy a bluetooth headset, it’ll be even better. I play a lot with one of my close friend (who bought a PS3 right after me with KZ2) and my brother and we have lots of fun. You can talk tactics and strategy (and say bad words when you get killed) within your squad.
Hands down, it’s one of the best game ever.
Killzone 2
So if you’re not aware, I bought a PS3 a month now just because of this game, Killzone 2. Actually, my brother has had his PS3 since almost a year and I used to go there and kick his ass at PES 2009 or play some other nice games. So I already own a 360 and a Wii, why did I buy a PS3? Just because of KZ2? The answer is yes and no.
I wanted a Mac Mini badly to play movies on my TV. Problem is I also wanted to buy a PS3 after… So well, I decided to buy a PS3 and I found some nice applications to remuxe .mkv files to .vob files.
So about Killzone 2. I’m afraid to said that I’ve been blown away. I was skeptical at first but when I saw my brother playing it (I actually bought him the game to thanks him for something), the only thing I had to do was to buy a PS3 + Killzone 2 pack. About the game, hands down one of the best FPS ever. Really. I’m a gamer, I’ve played a lot of different games and this is one of the best. The Multiplayer mode is incredible, lots of fun and things to unlock. The missions are really cool, you don’t get bored at all.
The gameplay is a bit weird at first but you can change the controls thanks to a lot of choices. The weapons you hold feel really heavy and when you get a sniper, it’s definitely not easy to aim. But then you rock with it (like me ;-P).
And if you buy a bluetooth headset, it’ll be even better. I play a lot with one of my close friend (who bought a PS3 right after me with KZ2) and my brother and we have lots of fun. You can talk tactics and strategy (and say bad words when you get killed) within your squad.
Hands down, it’s one of the best game ever.
Apr 22, 2009
XUI Vimeo Channel
Really cool channel over Vimeo. I’m learning a lot of things from the videos : XUI Channel
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