Forget that shit though I’m back and will be hammering this website and the Predestined site with content from now on, as always I’d love some help so if you’re an aspiring writer/coder/graphics artist/musician then please do feel free to give me a shout.

Anyway I thought I’d better give a couple of updates on what’s happening with the site;

You can’t log in with your Facebook details anymore, well not for a while until I fix it, sorry about that.

I’ve just been sent an EPIC email from a guy who has worked on some EPIC scary video games and says he is a big fan of Game Scares, I’m hoping to get to speak to him more soon so I’ll hopefully be able to share that with you, seriously, if I can nail a decent interview with this guy then I’ll be VERY HAPPY.

Anyway I’m off to fix shit and add some updates, send me your love, I do appreciate it.

What an embarrassment, it really is hard to digest that the entire Playstation Network infrastructure has been what basically boils down to annihilation, they are rebuilding from scratch apparently and are estimating it will be about another week before the service is restored, and even then by their own admission not all services will be available, wow.

I haven’t subscribed to be a Playstation+ member because up until now a few quid off DLC and free PS1 games just haven’t cut it for me, but I do feel sorry for those that have paid and now aren’t getting what they paid for, same goes for the subscription service to things like DC Universe Online etc. Those people must be pretty pissed right now, and they should be.

In my opinion a company like Sony getting hacked by what seems like a group of angry kids borders on the ridiculous, I’ve read chat logs and been present in irc chat servers where individuals were literally laughing at the incompetence of Sony’s security measures, and when it means that innocent gamers’ information can be viewed and edited at will by these people it’s pretty damn worrying.

Apparently it wasn’t the ‘Anonymous’ group that attacked PSN, although they warned that their next attack would be “the biggest attack you’ve ever seen”, and a week later we get this, you have to wonder…

Whoever is responsible has seriously pissed off a lot of gamers, me included, in not being able to play online on the PS3, but shit, you have to admire the technical prowess of these guys, to take down a thing like that is a lot more than an annoying, but ultimately harmless DDOS attack and has literally had Sony at their knees with no clue how they did it or when.

I was sent an apologetic email from Sony about this and they gave like a 3 day window when the attack might have occurred, erm hello, this is Sony, we trust a massive technical corporation like yourselves to know EXACTLY to the fucking SECOND it happened, the fact they seem like they have no clue is again, very very worrying.

My faith in anything I do online is shattered, there are people out there who can hack into anything you’re doing, if they can take down a massive muti-million user online service like this then you should be very wary of what you’re doing online these days.

There’s an old hacking term that rings very true today; “If it’s man made, its man hackable”, good luck Sony on restoring our faith in your online service, it’s gonna take some work, and by the way we want heads on plates, we want to know who did this, why, and what was done to prevent them from doing it again, until then, good luck getting people to add their credit card details into your network the next time they want to buy new maps for Call of Duty.

Oh and the banned Xbox’s getting unbanned for a few hours the other day, wtf was that about?

Be careful online people.

*Disclaimer* GameScares.com will never hack you or try to steal your information, honest!

Anyway, I’ve been busy is my excuse, along with my full time job eating away at my time I’ve been working with my brother on setting up the website for his upcoming PC game ‘Predestined‘: www.predestined-game.com

The weather has been ridiculously awesome here in the UK lately, and believe me we have to make the most of it, so I’ve been out in the sunshine with friends, eating, drinking and being very merry which has taken its toll on the website, plus there’s the fact that not that much is really happening out there in scary game land, apart from the upcoming F.E.A.R 3 there is little to talk about.

Me and my bro really are doing some crazy work on his PC game though, the website is pretty much done so all future efforts are merely updating news on what’s happening, the thing is this game is growing into something much larger than we both previously envisioned, who knew writing enemy AI routine algorithms would take so much time? Well it does, and we want it to be perfect, so please bear with us while we get it fucking awesome!

If there is anything great to let you know about I will, but there are so many scary games that are way off release its not worth bothering with at the moment so I’m taking this time to work with Predestined, trust me, its going to be incredible, if you’re a fan of old school type adventure/shooting games but with awesome graphics and sound and with a heavy nod to Resident Evil and Silent Hill in the way the story is layered out, plus you like FREE games then you should be checking the Predestined site regularly to see what’s happening, and did I mention it will be FREE?

As far as gaming goes its all a bit bland at the minute isn’t it? Crysis 2 was good, pretty damn good in 3D, Homefront was, well erm, it had its moments, and yeah Motorstorm: Apocalypse looks great in 3D, but seriously gaming in general is in a bit of a lull for me personally.

I’ve been that bored in fact that I’ve been playing Black Ops in veteran mode, I must be bored to persevere with infinite spawning enemies, but the level S.O.G is renowned for being a complete bastard to get through on veteran, so after 9000 attempts I’ve finally done it (tip: flip those barrels) and to be fair playing on the hardest mode is still great fun, albeit you’ll probably risk high blood pressure in doing so.

I’m gonna try and complete Black Ops on veteran until something exciting happens, but be sure to keep checking the site for when it does.

Laters dudes, and please check www.predestined-game.com regularly as well to see how we’re getting on with our very own scary game, and don’t forget the demo is available right now on the site to see what we have planned, cheers and see you soon.

First up I want to state that this technology has serious potential, I just don’t think we’ve seen anywhere near what that potential is so far in gaming, don’t get me wrong both Killzone 3 and Gran Turismo 5 once played in 3D will change your mind about it, I simply couldn’t go back now. However there are still issues, yes the technology is still in its infancy, but still, once you’ve played in 3D, honestly playing without it is like a huge chunk of the gaming experience is missing.

I use an LG LED 3D-TV and have spent as much time playing the games as I have messing with the 3D settings to be fair, I want to be sure I’m seeing it at its full potential so I keep messing, but fuck me there are some variables!

First up, and in this day and age I find staggering, is that the 3D effect works better the longer your TV has been turned on, it literally needs to warm up before it displays better. Give it 45 minutes and your 3D experience is a whole lot better, to this I can confirm, plus then there are the settings on your TV and in-game that let you change things live parallax and depth, and from what I’ve seen and tested with friends, you really do need to mess because we all have different eyes!

Once you get it though and find that sweet spot it is utterly fantastic, Gran Turismo you can see into bends, Killzone 3 you can see down the barrel of your gun etc. One thing that needs to be stated though is that if you’re thinking today’s stereoscopic 3D technology is about things jumping out of the screen at you, you may be disappointed, it’s about depth, if you imagine your TV screen is the face of what you’re seeing, it’s as if you can see into it, like going into the wall behind it, you can literally see INTO the screen, but up close objects (particularly plants swaying about in Killzone 3) really do look like they are sticking out of the screen and you could reach out and grab them.

When it works it will make your jaw drop, but from what I’ve experienced so far there are still a lot of ‘crosstalk’ issues, crosstalk is defined as seeing a ghost image or double layer of artifacts on screen, and it seems all over the place in Killzone 3, for example, one scene is perfect, the next has crosstalk that is jarringly noticeable and takes you out of the experience, plus there’s also the detriment that because the console has to display two images in real time of the same actual image the resolution is dropped to cater for it. Take into account that wearing the glasses takes away brightness/sharpness, plus the resolution drop, for the graphic whore this could become a problem.

In my opinion though the slight loss of picture sharpness is worth it, because it adds a whole new dimension to gaming, seriously once you’ve seen it, played it and got used to it, you won’t want to go back to 2D.

I have an LED TV but apparently some of the plasma’s out there display 3D with less crosstalk, I don’t know, I’ve heard both sides, I think the technology still hasn’t been used anywhere near its full potential and hopefully a firmware update for current TV’s will enhance the 3D experience even further.

Even in it’s current state I love it, it is the future, if you don’t have the money or are on the fence you may want to wait 6 months or so to see what they come up with next, glasses free TV’s are on the horizon so you may want to wait for that, me? I couldn’t wait, and I’m loving it.

Long live 3D.

Being a web designer the main faults I constantly come across are errors with IE, mainly javascript, but it seems simple HTML is even giving me grief now, without going into detail I can make my site work better and much more efficiently coding for the Firefox  browser, but in doing so it eliminates certain aspects of Internet Explorer, and as it is still the most widely used browser on the planet I have to cater for it, so my little module is at least my input to try to get more people to experiment with a different browser that doesn’t come with a new PC.

For those of you less tech savvy wishing to get Firefox, installing the new browser is as simple as clicking on the link on my site at bottom left, downloading and then double clicking on that download, do that and a new, better browser awaits you, trust me.

This website will always look better through Firefox but of course is just as accessible through any other browser out there, it’s just you might get a few error messages through Internet Explorer, error messages that shouldn’t be there but are because of excessive corporate paranoia…

GameScares.com looks better on Firefox, grab it now.

My bro sent me some details tonight on the upcoming PC game we are working on that I thought I’d share with you, I say “we” are working on, well it’s my bro doing the whole thing technically actually, I’m just co-writing the story!

Anyway he has blown me away with what he’s been up to so I thought I’d post here what you can expect from this game. It will be a top down shooter/adventure game, think ‘Dead Nation‘ with more of a storyline, of course we won’t be able to reproduce graphics quite like that game, but I have to say, from the demo’s I’ve played of our game the graphics are pretty damn good and the atmosphere is fantastic, plus remember this will be a FREE download for our visitor’s that can be played on pretty much any PC. I will list specs soon though, it does indeed play better on faster systems.

I’ll keep you updated on it of course but in the mean time this is what has been done so far technically:

Engine Features:

Implemented-

• Fullscreen and windowed modes
• 4:3 and 16:9 (widescreen) support
• Alt-Tab and Ctrl-Alt-Del safe
• Mouse driven interface
• Toggle CPU throttling on/off
• Fixed rate logic with render tweening
• “Save any time” and auto save features
• Real A.I using dynamic A-Star pathfinding
• Per Pixel lighting system with basic real-time shadows

Partly Implemented-

• Detailed, varied levels ranging from small and claustrophic to vast, open spaces, both in and out doors

Gameplay Features:

Implemented-

• Intuitive U.I and control system
• Fully functioning inventory
• Player log book with unique clue display system
• Unique hacking/lock picking style mini game
• Context sensitive point’n'click style gameplay elements
• Unique heart-rate/adrenaline based gameplay mechanic
• Simple, satisfying shoot’em’up gameplay against multiple enemies
• Various particle effects including water, weather effects and gore!

Partly Implemented-

• Intriguing plot
• Dark, suppressing atmosphere with heart-pounding set-pieces and cut-scenes
• 10 different weapons with varying attributes including damage, range, reload time and other special effects
• 10 different tools/equipment to enhance gameplay
• Many different enemy types with unique behaviours and attack strategies

Keep checking back for updates.

If any members want that section back you’ll have to let me know.

That’s all for now, laters.

Now, we start a new year, I had a 3D-TV, fucking awesome, if there was anything to watch on it…

So I’ve got back into Demon’s Souls over the holiday, I had an extended one actually as I nearly died from a chest infection that would have put King Kong on his arse so to be fair I only had an extra week than you guys.

With that bit of extra time I went back to a game that has scared me more than any ever made, not because it’s a scary game in the sense of scary things happening, but that if you die, it makes you want to kill someone, violently, and while their family watch.

This game is Demon’s Souls on the PS3, the thing is I have grown to fucking LOVE it, I put it down after a week or so because it’s just too hard, and I mean really fucking punishingly hard, but there it was in the back of my mind all this time, I just couldn’t stop thinking about it, you know why? Because it’s the best designed RPG ever made and just so far ahead of pretty much every other game ever made that it’s scary… again.

The game is rock hard, but you have to keep persevering, you WILL die, a LOT, but it’s all your own fault, the game isn’t cheap it’s just that you’re shit, and no-one likes to admit to this which is why you haven’t heard of it and why you’ll probably never play it, and if you do, you’ll play it for 10 minutes, think “fuck that’s too hard” and never see it again.

PLAY THIS GAME, it is the most ridiculously addictive gaming experience I’ve ever encountered, once you get what it’s about, once it clicks, you’ll be thinking about strategies at work/school for getting past that knight with the red eyes.

What really, and I mean fucking REALLY pisses me off is this though, the PS3, you can stick a memory stick in a USB port and back up your save games, so if I wanted to drop kick this PS3 out of a window onto an orphan’s head I could do without worry, but guess what? The ONE FUCKING GAME that I really need to copy a game save won’t let me, it’s locked, fucking bastard twattingly locked. I hate you Sony.

This was to thwart all you spotty little cheating bastards from, well cheating, and sharing you’re game saves online to be hacked. If I ever meet one of you little hairy bastards I’ll make you swallow your own nut sack.

Because of twats cheating I may well lose 100 hours of gameplay, most other games can be copied to a memory stick, not Demon’s Souls. Wankers. Sony sort this seriously, and in this day and age why can’t I upload saves to an online database? Why? Why? Why?

To be fair there is a way around this but it cost’s a lot of money and I’m fucked if I’m doing it so fuck you Sony and ‘From Software’ for locking the game save to Demon’s Souls you utter cunts.

Anyway, I digress, the point of this post is, that just as I get a 3D-TV and REALLY get into Demon’s Souls, my PS3 has died, fucking marvellous, great start to the new year.

Here’s to 2011 peeps, keep your warranties in your arse pocket at all times.

By the way if you have a working PS3, check the 4OD section under videos and watch all episodes of ‘Frankie Boyle’s Tramadol Nights’, this guy is a new hero of mine, but beware he isn’t for the light hearted and can and will offend, and that’s why I have a bit of a man crush on him, he makes Chubby Brown seem like a choir boy. If you have the stomach for it, please watch it.

I know many of you reading this will never get to experience it to its full potential though, a proper racing seat (£200) and the amazing Logitech G25 wheel (£200) are the ONLY way to experience it, so with that plus the PS3 and a copy of the game you could say you need near £1000 to play Gran Turismo 5 the way it NEEDS to be played.

If you ever can get to play it this way you’ll see what I’m talking about, it’s too addictive for words, and the blindingly white little official Microsoft wheel that you can play Forza 3 with is like a kiddies toy compared, seriously, its shite compared to this.

Anyway, I’ll be back soon, I’m off to try and rape a few hundredths of a second out of my time on the Top Gear Test Track.

Any of my writers reading this, now is the time to send me some shit, but I guess you have been bitten by the COD bug as well?!

If any of you fancy a blast remember to send me a friend request on the Xbox 360 to ‘Game Scares’.

See you on the battlefield, I’ll get my Deadly Premonition review online soon I promise…

*UPDATE* – One of my writers, Paul, has just sent me an amazing article for our features section entitled ‘Pushing our Buttons‘, a look into what we as gamers get from scary video games and why, it’s the first of a series and I’ll be hosting it some time tomorrow so keep checking back, it really is a fascinating read. Thanks Paul.