Star Wars CG, or that's how we do it CG '77 style

Okay, this isn't really gaming specific, but it's kinda related because it's A) Star Wars and B) about computer graphics. This is a video about the making of the computer graphic that was shown during the briefing to Rebel pilots. I never really thought about it much but looking back at this video, and then thinking about how games are rendering things real time now, it's kinda interesting to see how far we've come in the last 30+ years.

I'm amazed at how this was done, that the method of transfer was a camera taking pictures and that it had to do multiple exposures for a single frame because the computer couldn't draw the whole trench. Note that he talks about rotating the object in real time, I imagine that was kind of a big deal back then. Larry Cuba was one of the pioneers in early computer graphics, and won several awards for his work. Interestingly enough, his own website makes no mention of his work on Star Wars, an odd omission if you ask me.

Assassin's Creed II Collector's Edition swag

A short note. I picked up my Assassin's Creed II CE from Gamestop this week. The Ezio statue (figurine?) is fantastic! The statue itself is huge, my Altair figure sadly only comes up to his knee. As for the other CE items? The Bonus content disc is pretty much a throwaway. My soundtrack? It's buried as a menu item on the Bonus DVD and it's not even the full soundtrack. It has only 14 tracks, while the soundtrack available on Amazon shows a total of 35 tracks. And because it's on a DVD I can't take it with me to listen while I drive to work. And why on earth did they not include the awesome Lineage movie is beyond me. The Art book is nice but nothing to write home about. After having purchased the three CE versions of World of Warcraft and it's expansions, my expectations for an art book are pretty high. I've yet to get to the Palazzo Medici or the Santa Maria Dei Frari (the pre-order bonus map and the CE bonus map, respectively) so I can't say much about that.

The statue is pretty sweet, so that soothes some of my disappointment with the contents of the CE, but as far as I'm concerned, the Bonus disc is pretty lame.

Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal Review

Ratchet & Clank face off against the evil Dr. Nefarious

DuncanR2N's Weekend Thoughts Vol. X: Things every game should do

Lately I've been thinking about ways that the game experience could be easily enhanced. Things that don't change the core gameplay at all, don't affect the storyline, done really do anything to the game itself, yet could improve the overall enjoyment of a game. Most of these things I've seen in one or two games, but for some reason, have yet to become mainstream, even though they are fantastic ideas.

Here they are in no particular order:

Assassin's Creed Lineage Part 1

Last year Ubisoft bought Hybride Technologies, the visual effects studio that created the effects for '300' and 'Sin City'. Why would a game publisher buy a movie effects company?

Ubisoft said that it acquired Hybride "to share technology and to develop tools in order to optimize the creation of both video games and visual effects and to offer gamers visual experiences that rival those of the cinema."

Windows 7 gets a Whopper tie-in

If you're in Japan, and you like Whoppers, you can get a lovely tie-in with the Windows 7 release; a 7-patty Whopper. The guys from CAG have posted up a lovely video. You can watch it after the jump, but be forewarned, it's not pretty.

I tweet

For fun I thought I'd track my progress with Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. I've already played through it once but I'm now doing it again on Hard, treasure hunting and trying to get all the weapon counts and such done. I created a Twitter account and now I've got it up and running and hooked to my Uncharted 2 game. Follow if you like. It can be found here

Blu-ray for your Xbox 360? [UPDATE]

Looks like it. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer dropped this lovely little line in an interview with Gizmondo:

Well I don't know if we need to put Blu-ray in there—you'll be able to get Blu-ray drives as accessories.

So looks like we may get another HD-DVD type of accessory maybe?

MotorStorm, where's the love?

I absolutely loved MotorStorm. It's a solid off-road racer set in what appears to be a post-apocalyptic world where these races are like the new gladiator combat. If you win, great, if you loose, it probably means that you are a spot at the bottom of a cliff.

God of War Collection - gimped? [UPDATE]

I know that I should be really excited about this but I can't help but feel that I'm not really getting the experience I was hoping for after carefully reviewing the recently released God of War Collection trailer. Yes it looks sharp, and it will be fun earning trophies for both games, but I noticed something that really bugged me.