Demon’s Souls is currently my favorite game and although I have not progressed very far in the game I have poured many hours in to the first few zones. I have created many different characters setups, explored early dungeons extensively, studied enemy locations and pinpointed their weaknesses.

Typically I am the sort of player who quickly plays through a story never to touch the game again, so what makes Demon’s Souls different?

When you first play Demons Souls you might be put off by the crippling difficulty. The enemies are tough and although you will die frequently the game is fair and wants you to learn. Each battle will teach you new tricks, explore the dungeon so you find shortcuts and advantage points; an ingenious online mode lets you watch how fellow warriors have fallen. Slowly you will gain insight; the level will seem slightly easier each attempt.

The true genius of Demon’s Soul’s is the shift of experience from the player character to the actual player. Grinding in Demon’s Souls is all about growth in you rather then your digital representation. Don’t expect to be pressing X for 4 hours against rats here.

I could sing the praises of Demon’s Soul’s all day but instead I suggest you buy a copy and experience it for yourself. Unfortunately the game has yet to be released in Europe but it’s quite easy to pick up an US import copy.

Digital distribution is everywhere; applications such as iTunes provide the ability for digital products such as MP3s, movies and computer software to be delivered to audiences over the Internet instead of using physical media such as CDs, DVDs or Blu Ray. They provides easy and direct sales to a global market. With iTunes and the App Store ‘Apple’ may be the company that comes to mind when digital distribution is discussed but it shouldn’t be forgotten that plenty of video game consumers have been using these systems for years and recent announcement at this years Game Developer Conference 2009 have really shown that there are plenty more exciting developments to come.

Over the past 5 years gaming has seen a massive rise in digital distribution systems; many customers have been more then willing to make the switch from obtaining a physical copy of computer game software from a ‘bricks and mortar’ shop to downloading it through through distribution systems such as Steam, Impulse, Xbox Live Arcade and PSN. Some of the advantages distribution systems have over their convention counterpart include:

• Instant user feedback
• Anti-cheating Systems for online games
• Auto patching
• Downloading purchased-content from any location

For myself the big draw was (and still is!) the last bullet point. The idea that once I bought a game I could download it as many times as I wanted; even if I buy my product from a ‘real’ shop, the first thing I do is enter the serial code into a system as a backup, just in case it gets lost/snapped/broken.

Since I started using such systems when Steam first launched in 2003 there have always been two questions for me. The first is is how long will be before we no longer need to download the game? When can we stop buying into the expensive CPUs,GPUs and PPUs that games require and let all the processing be done server side? A recent announcement this week and ongoing work by Valve suggest it might be closer then we think.

The second was how digital distribution systems could move into different markets. In the UK most gamers will have broadband connections and a 7th generation console(or PC) since we are constantly after that new game and are a easy target for publishers; but what about markets that don’t buy into the latest consoles and games? Brazil has a massive gaming market, but one quite different from the situation in the UK with consoles such as the Master System still seeing re-releases as late as 2006. Another exciting announcement at GDC 2009 saw a console designed exactly for such markets, pushing digital distribution as its method of obtaining games sales.

Moving into the Cloud

LiveOne

This week at the Game Developer Conference 2009 it was announced that LiveOne is a game distribution system that promises to take the load away from your computer and onto the cloud; allowing epic games to play on modest hardware. It seems currently that the main bottleneck is bandwidth, with lower bandwidth users simply being met with a smaller screen resolution. This is really exciting news for gamers; does it mean it mean that digital distribution and cloud computing will kill the console/PC spec war, will we get to the 10th generation of video game consoles?

Steam Cloud

Although it would seem that Valve don’t think we are ready for such a radical shift they are still moving in a similar direction with their product ‘Steam Cloud’. Although Steam Cloud still delivors the game to the end user the idea is that variable data such as save games and settings are stored in the cloud meaning users can log on from any terminal with the game installed and carry on from where they left off.

Expanding the Market

Tectoy announced they would be attempting to push digital distribution into ‘The Next Billion’ Market by creating a console that will sell and distribute games through 3G or Edge networks using a virtual currency not unlike Microsoft or Wii Points. The seems to be no shortage of publishers wanting their games on the system; and a quick scan of the games that will be available (Crash Nitro Kart, Quake, Sonic Adventure to name a few) would make it seem that these publishers are egar to bring their old games to new markets; with digital distribution being the ideal means to do so.

Where next?

It is no secret that there is a huge amount of money in games and this is the driving force behind these incredible innovations. As always though the technology will filter down and hopefully we will see the technology in other areas. Could application processing in the cloud mean we see an end to the PC CPU/GPU spec wars with focus moving to other areas, such as accessibility? Will it mean that high-end programs will be able to run on your mobile phone with a small client purchase simply being made over 3G/Wimax etc?

Every year I pay £40 to microsoft for the privilage to play my Xbox Live games online. I dont mind paying the money too much considering live is far ahead of PSN (although I think sony are closing the gap) . When I spend £40 on a game that says I can play it on Xbox Live I expect to be able to play the game I have purchased for quite a while; I understand that eventualy I won’t be able to:

A) The popularity of the game will dwindle; meaning I can no longer play whacked simply because there is nobody to play it with.

B) Not enough people play to justify server support and it is pulled, sometimes I am ok with this (as with PSO, which I played for free for yonks on Sega servers) and sometimes it pisses me off (EA decide you have to buy the 2009 version).

Quite often games will give you the option to enhance your online gaming experience via micro purchases, map packs, skins, weapons; and this is fine, sometimes I buy the upgrades (although don’t get me started on recent Live and PSN content price increases), I own all the Guild Wars packs, and I will certainly be getting anything Valve release for Left 4 Dead. These are two of my favorite games which I will choose to upgrade; however having payed £40 for the original game if I choose not to upgrade then I should be robbed of nothing, gameplay should carry on as normal- just without the optional extras. I repeat THE OPTIONAL EXTRAS!

Yesterday I decided to play Halo 3; a game I don’t really like on multiplayer, but I did want to have a laugh with some old friends playing it. Having already paid £40 for the game and my £40 subscription fee, that shouldn’t be a problem. Right?

After making my way through the menu with that god awful music I am told I can’t play it anymore because I haven’t paid for the optional extras. That’s right, the OPTIONAL ones. I’m all for additional content for games, but not when I have to carry on buying them to keep the original functionality. A quick Google search just returns fanboys telling me to shut up and buy it, since its only 600 points.(although you cant even buy ms points by the 600s).

This isn’t the point. I shouldn’t have to carry on buying content to keep original functionality; I don’t mind additional content if its optional and is a reasonable price. Take LBP for example, I don’t own the costumes that cost £1.49, and what do I lose? Nothing.

Shame on you Bungie and Microsoft. Shame Shame Shame and more Shame; all with capital letters.

They should take a leaf out of ArenaNet’s book who have been releasing episodic Guild Wars content which funds online servers which keep their mmorpg free; it doesn’t matter which episodes you do or don’t own, no original functionality lost. Additional money was made by optional ‘real’ purchases such as cardboard cut outs of the characters/tshirts/badges. All of which do not harm the game if you don’t own them!

Another example I would champion is Siren: New Translation. Sony who I would normally put into the Bungie/Microsoft camp of Shame did a brilliant job of chopping a game into episodes, hooking you in and making you hungry for more by releasing them for cheap.

During a discussion about the merits of the app store at work a colleague of mine asked a question somewhere along the lines of…

‘Do you think all application distribution will follow a similar path?’

and the thought that shot through my mind was something like:

‘People still think there is a future in physical media?’

I guess in my mind physical media is on the way out, and it has been since I first installed Steam back in 2003. Valve have done an amazing job with steam and whenever I hear debates about how future distribution systems will crush physical content I can’t help but think gaming distribution systems such as Steam, Live Arcade, PSN Store, GamersGate etc have been there done that and got the tshirt.

My first thoughts was that gaming was clearly leading the way, pushed by both the huge amounts of money and the fact there are very few popular open source gaming projects, leading the big game publishers to do whatever the hell they want- their way or the high way. On reflection this was far from the truth, as I had been using the APT packaging tool that did a (kind of?) similar thing on Linux for years. Apt and its friends let me install and configure free software with a few bashes on the keyboard.

It still seems strange to me that the big software development houses don’t have the cutting edge distribution channels to overhaul physical media, whereas games and open source channels do. Is it simply because users don’t want it, or we just simply aren’t ready? Have Apple might cracked the thing wide open with iTunes/ iTunes U/Appstore and the integration of these with the operating system and portable devices.

Yes Yes, we can simply go to the website and download whatever we wish in a few clicks, but 6 years ago that was my argument against Steam…

Xbox Live’s Deals of the Week are back and the first deal is 400 points off Braid, which so happens to be the best game on Xbox Live Arcade. If you haven’t got it yet then SHAME ON YOU. Feel the shame (FEEL IT) then go grab it for 800 points.

I am currently coming down from a high having just spent the last hour whizzing around a futuristic race course to a playlist of ‘techno’ while munching on tic-tacs and downing mountain dew… the game I was playing is of course the fantastic WipEout HD.

Sony and Microsoft are battling to outdo each other with their online games library and if you ignore all the fan-boy rage of ‘my online is better then yours’ both consoles offer an amazing selection of games for £5 – £20; I’ve found I spend more time playing these little gems than a lot of £30 titles.

The fact is there are only a few epic games that I actually want to play for 15+ hours to complete; I normally get bored of a game somewhere around the 8-10 hour mark (notable exceptions being Civ, MGS and GTA) and even find I don’t complete the majority of the games I purchase for full price; 20 hours into blue dragon and I was praying it would end – I never finished it. XBL and PSN games are much shorter, cheaper and I actually finish them; I also get a much wider variety of the games I am playing.

Highlights for me have been Braid, Siren, Pixel-Junk Monsters, Ratchet and Clank QFB, Super Stardust HD, Castle Crashers, WipEout HD, and old favorites such as Duke Nukem have also had a nice touchup. There seems to be no holding back with gems like fat princess on the horizon!

Don’t get me wrong, I am still willing to pay full price for upcoming titles gow2, fable2, LBP etc; games I’m sure will keep me occupied for a long time, but hopefully this flood of innovative and cheaper network games will make game devs think before putting you through 30 hours of repetitive random battles with the same damn music…. I’m looking at you Blue Dragon.