Task 15: Visual Composition.

Composition is big. People spend ages trying to get their heads around it, don't they? Its that kind of masters thing, where you dedicate yourself to it for years in order to understand every intricate mathematical equation and then apply it to your work successfully. Its one of those areas where art merges with science (one of many areas) but in such a way that the layman sees only majesty. "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.", don't they say? "They" being Arthur Clarke. In the task brief it states that "Our industry partners tell us repeatedly that they are looking for artists, not technicians". That's something I'd be very interested in discussing, actually. I mean, this post is about composition, right? Composition, at its finest, is invisible. The people will look at the beautiful painting and it will make sense to them. Everything will relate to everything else on the canvas and it will seem like a snapshot into something otherworldly, something perfect. Composition, along with colour theory and a plethora of other sciences, will allow this illusion of the ethereal. For something to feel fundamentally "correct" as a piece of art, it must feel effortless. We, the viewers, will see art in its truest and purest form. The artist sees a product of meticulous planning, research and understanding. I believe that artists are technicians, and that hiding the technical framework that underpins all good art is the biggest science of all. The idea that there is something more to a successful artist than someone with great technical skill and understanding I believe almost cheapens their work. Talent is a myth and with it the idea of the gifted person, the prodigy, removes the extraordinary amount of effort and dedication required that is required to achieve what these people can achieve. Now, this isn't the place for a discussion involving the soul and consciousness (maybe in another post perhaps?) and I do not believe a robot could create art. But great art only comes from the learned mind. 

Warfare by Otto Dix

Composition is the placement of the elements of the piece, the spacial relationship of the visual entities. Through good composition, an artist can lead the viewers eye in various ways, pacing the visual experience of a piece (for example, a composition that encourages fast eye movements and incorporates strong contrasting elements to overwhelm the viewer, as in Otto Dix's "Warfare"). It can also draw our attention away from less significant areas of the piece and focus us on the more important ones. Note again how with Dix's "Warfare" there are several elements competing for the focus of the eye. This disrupts us and confuses us, and as we stuggle to pick apart the scene we are enveloped in a claustrophobic environment where there is little visual rest. The true difficulty in composition comes with leading the viewers eye -without he or she knowing-. It would be easy enough for us to find the intended elements of a scene if they were the only ones in focus, but that sort of practice holds our hands too tightly. Composition creates an obstacle course (or leisurely walk) that we must choose to navigate ourselves, or the viewer's brains will quickly feel pressured or bored. In the above piece, we are first drawn to the top central painting, and there the confusion and unrest throws us to both the left and the right, where our eyes can focus more clearly. The saturation of the piece fades out as we leave that middle section behind, but the spiraling placement of the elements there forces us back in. It is just little stimulation enough for us to push back into the chaos of the central piece, but not so much stimulation that we get overtired by the painting as a whole. Balance, with all composition, is key. The contrast in that central piece leads the eye downwards where the painting is at its most saturated, finally landing us in the bottom-most piece, its curvature bouncing us back up again until we find our own way out. Entire stories, settings and scenarios can be communicated through composition alone.




http://reflectionsandcontemplations.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/otto_dix_war_triptych1.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarke%27s_three_laws
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composition_%28visual_arts%29
http://willkempartschool.com/the-secret-of-good-composition/
http://design.tutsplus.com/articles/5-fundamental-skills-every-artist-should-master--psd-28054

Task 14 - Planning and concepting.

In my previous post I did touch on this topic. I talked about how satisfying it is to see an idea go from just a fleeting theory to a full-blown concept, and to take that expanded and explored concept to its fullest potential as an asset, a character design, or whatever it might be. "Your most powerful creative tool is an organised brain allied to a healthy work ethic." I really like that. My work ethic might not be the healthiest at the moment (I'm working on it, we'll get there in the end) but that synergy between all the various components of production is what leads to a substantial outcome.


Above we can see the workflow published by Maxis entertainment during the making of one of the Sims games.We can see the clear entry and exit points for each stage of development, and how all the various components of the production team influence one another to create something which does everything it needs to do. All the different groups are constantly reiterating their product with influence from the other departments.

"Are the members of that group in good communication with each other? Are the list of reviewers involved in regular critiques of the submissions restricted to only those with clear responsibility for the final result? Is the review group casting a wellaimed net to garner feedback from other individuals with influence on the product's future, such as marketing or the publisher?" -Charles London, Maxis Entertainment. Communication is key here, evidently, and whilst this clearly applies to larger productions spanning many different members of a team (as with Maxis and the Sims) it is also something that we as artists have to master internally. Our brains, in a sense, are little mini teams, with various components each with their own goals. Being able to generate ideas doesn't mean you'll be able to see them through if some of those components aren't working together. Letting your imagination fly off the handle and birthing something impossible to create is going to lead to problems down the line. As with the Maxis workflow, communication between components is key to a smooth production- but production is never smooth.

Unknown Worlds is a small independent studio responsible for the game Natural Selection 2. As a sequel to a community born mod, the game had a lot of passionate followers even before it hit the alpha stages. The developer open-forums were flowing with guidance from fans and Natural Selection 1 veterans, all ensuring that the sequel surpassed the original and that none of what they had come to know and love was lost. "It's...interesting! Sometimes we feel we can do no right, but other times the responses are heart-warming and wonderful. The trick is to listen to the reason behind their suggestions and not just the suggestions themselves. Often the solution the propose won't work from an integrity, technological or finance perspective, but you can address the problem behind it in a different way. Then everyone is happy." - Charles Cleveland of Unknown Worlds. The alpha was a failure, and the project was all but terminated. But then a happy accident happened. From nowhere, the community itself offered time and effort to help bring the troubled project to fruition. Sometimes meticulous planning cannot foresee the biggest issues to hit a project, and clearly help can come from unexpected places. The project did finally release as a fully-functioning game on Steam on the 31st of October 2012. I believe that reliance on chaos is foolish and unsustainable, but that occasionally disorder and confusion can lead to great discoveries. Were it not for Unknown World's lack of order, they may never have turned to their own community for help, and the game that resulted may have been very different indeed.


Sources:
http://www.shacknews.com/article/61103/natural-selection-2-interview-the
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_Selection_2

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/authors/915471/Charles_London.php
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/131369/keeping_up_with_the_sims_managing_.php?print=1

Task 13 - Reflections and Ambitions

So back again, here we go. Lets get this all fast and punchy-like. At the end of year 1, I was following a somewhat linear path- to become a better artist. That, ultimately, was my sole ambition. The summer has lead me to a lot of retrospect and pondering, and as I resume the course it begins to dawn on me that perhaps that's not really my "thing". Now, for the meantime that still means I'm going to be focusing on becoming a better artist, because its a good way to communicate ideas. But beyond that, what I really, really want to do with myself is this- I want to make games. I want to make games at a fundamental level, to wear multiple hats. To work in a small team and really create these experiences, mapping stories and building worlds. In this course I'm constantly surrounded with such talented, hard working people with so much to offer any project. To be able to organise all those skills into more than just a sum of their parts would be rewarding in itself. That, and voice acting. I'd really love to get back into drama in whatever way I can, and vocal work was always what I had the most fun with. So yeah, voice acting would be nice. Thankfully its something I can practice pretty much constantly without it eating into my coursework, and nowadays a lot of games tend to lack really solid voice-acting. But I'm beginning to digress. What are my ambitions for year 2? That's a good question, and I'm not really sure. I'm going to keep trying to be a better artist, a better designer and all of it. But alongside that I think I've got to learn some coding or animating or something- something to make me a better "T" shaped person. The group project will hopefully be a very beneficial experience regarding my wish to work in a small indie team, so I guess another ambition would be 'be a better team player' or something like that. That'll be useful for sure. Something else I really want to do a lot of this year is personal projects, that is I didn't really do many at all last year, and whilst I believe this year will be twice as intense as last- I'd still like to spend some time perusing my own little 2D and 3D ventures. Self-directed learning is a massively important thing, but more than that I have really enjoyed the projects we've done where we see an idea from conception to its final in-engine asset or scene. There is something really satisfying about that, and hopefully I'll be able to do a few of those sorts of personal projects in the coming terms. Maybe even something along the lines of coding what I've built. That would be splendid. Well, I suppose that's all for now. I shall see you next when I see you next, so until then little blog, tata and farewell.

And so it has ended.

Alright kiddos, if we're going to do this lets do it right. I'm going to do this end of year thing, but its not going to be about my work. If you're interested, my work is going alright. I feel like I've improved and the teaching methods used on this course suit me pretty well. I feel like I've progressed a lot not only in my artistic skill but I also think I know what I want to do with myself after uni, so that's a pretty big deal I guess. But there has been so much more to this year than the game art course (which, again, has been fantastic). A lot has changed since I first came here, not only in my life but within me as a person. A awful lot has changed, in fact.

My dad's best friends are people he met at university, and so are mine. He always said this was because until university, you're discovering yourself. You're identifying who you are and more than anything you're developing. As your school friends grow and change, you will lose sight of the people you once knew. Maybe it takes some people a very long time to truly discover who they are, and I'm not for a minute suggesting that I'm done yet, but I think its started. Above all else, this is thanks to the people I have met since coming here. There are people here that I will never let go, not in memory or in communication. People who will be part of my life till the day I die, and that isn't something I take lightly. These are people who have affirmed their importance in my life faster than anyone I've ever known, and as I said, in the space of a year I have found lifelong friends. Earlier in 2013, I was in a bad way, and these people stood by me when everything else ebbed away. I came away from this confused and still trying to work out what this means for me as a person, but alongside all that confusion was a certainty. That these people I had found were still here. And that they certainly would be here tomorrow. They were and still are my salvation, and for that I am eternally grateful.

Its not only my fellow first years that have come to be my friends. It is with a strange mixture of happiness and sorrow that I say that many third-years have come to mean a lot to me, too. One of the single most fantastic things about this course is the relationship that we first years have with our third years, and the wealth of knowledge they share with us every day. They are our gurus and our inspiration; but beyond that, they are our friends. I wish them well on their journey into the wide world, and I'm sure I'll see them again soon.

To think that a year ago today, I knew nothing but their names, and had no idea how much they would come to mean to me, or the development that this place would bring out of me. It is a defining place in my life, just as this is a defining time. Sure, Leicester isn't the prettiest city in the world, nor the cleanest. But here some of the most important people in my life have been brought together and this is where they are. Over the next two years I have no doubt that these bonds will grow ever stronger, and form the kinds of ties that cannot be broken when we inevitably part ways once again.

What does a marine think of Spec Ops: The line?

Click here to find out!

Spec ops: the line is a game I haven't had the "pleasure" of playing through yet. From what I hear, its not an enjoyable experience. The game itself plays much like a standard third person shooter, but the game also exists to make a very strong anti-war message. Its brutal, and its ugly, and it ultimately makes you feel awful.


I can't wait to play it some more.

Owls in Towels reviews: Ravaged

Ravaged review by Owls In Towels INC

This time a more negative review! I don't tend to do these, because I don't buy games I don't like. But this weekend was a steam 'free weekend', giving me the chance to check out Ravaged.

Bradgate park

 

It's so beautiful outside.

Even more beautiful than Crysis maxed out with CUDDAT's TOD lighting mod.


We went to Bradgate park to do work. I appreciate not everyone's day turned out so, but I didn't do any work at all. The sun was up, I was so happy I could scream. There was no where else in the world I'd rather be. Into this its perfect, its all I ever wanted oh I almost can't believe that its for real...

The weather, it does stuff to you. It does stuff to your brain. When its like that, when its all warm and golden and new, I could not think of anything I'd less like to do than work. Is this laziness? Well yeah, probably. But its more than that. Its a fundamental piece of us, as animals, that we've buried away beneath shoes and shirts and the shackles of the world. On that day, on that morning, there was nothing more important than basking in the sun and, for what feels like the first time for a long while- living. Climbing up trees and burning ants and skimming stones and everything that actually matters. At that moment, the course, the work, university- all of it meant nothing. For as long as we were lying on the grass and the world was awake and glowing, we had everything we needed. Fresh water flowing through our toes, deer to hunt and oaks to scale. We would gallivant across this bright new world and die happy knowing we'd never have to wear socks again.

Now, I hope you can see that this post is written slightly tongue-in-cheek. But as I reflect on that day we spent in Bradgate park, and got away from the city for a little while, there was definitely something going on. A little connection with our ancestry and with the wider human race as a whole. They are few, but some people still live that way- hunting, climbing, basking. Some people don't have a sense of time in the way we do. Maybe they're happier than us, maybe they aren't- but its worth remembering they exist, and that worrying about car insurance and housing deposits isn't as natural and normal as we think. They are insular, these men and women in the forest. They probably don't give much thought to us, or the way in which our world works. Maybe that's for the best. I don't think they'd like it very much.

Elements of Game Design: Characters.

Some of the greatest stories ever told don't have characters. The only example I can think of is 2D Boy's absolutely fantastic "World Of Goo" game. With the exception of that absolute gem of a video-game, I find its really very difficult to tell a story without characters. Now, in a way, video-games share more in common with music than with films or books. Lets presume we are talking about fiction- books and films tend to tell stories. Video-games can also do this, but there are a lot of video games which dont tell stories. Whilst its fun to assume that Pacman is the tale of a crack-absorbed maniac (who fights through the dingy black corridors of his life, consuming dusty white stimulants wherever he finds him, occasionally bolstering up the courage to face the ghosts of his descent before inevitably succumbing to his inevitable death) the game exists more as an experience than anything else. Space invaders had a lose premise about invaders from space, but if you played that game for its story you need your brain lacquering. Just like music can tell stories (A long, long time ago... I can still remember how that music used to make me smile...) they can also exist entirely as an experience, (OPEN THE DOOR, GET ON THE FLOOR, EVERYBODY WALK THE DINOSAUR) and are therefore not dependent on characters to push their non-existent narratives.

But that is enough on why video-games don't need characters. Its time to talk about the games that do need characters, and how they manifest themselves in the medium. Lets start from the near-beginning of the medium as we now know it. Once upon a time there was a man, a woman and a monkey. The monkey stole away the woman, and the man had to rescue her. Her name was Pauline, and the man loved her very much (I think). His name was Jump Man (lol) and he was well known for his ability to jump over barrels. This was back on the old 80s arcade machines, and old Jump Man has come a long way. His design has changed slowly over time, and his videography now spans over 200 different games. Nowadays he can throw turtle shells, turn into a bee, throw fire from his hands, drive karts and play golf- he can even jump over barrels! We know him as Mario, the Italian plumber, and whether you like him or not, he is one of the mediums most recognizable characters. As a character, he is rather shallow. His motives are simple and he rarely has anything insightful to say, but that doesn't stop him succeeding as a character. He is iconic and unique, and as someone who has played as him for all my gaming life, there is something so "right" about jumping through obstacles as a stout Italian plumber.

But games characters continue to evolve. In some games, the characters are exactly what you'd expect from a film-character, well voice-acted and physically dramatic. Some subtle human characters like Sam Fisher of the Splinter Cell series are entirely believable entities, and technology has allowed developers to portray them with an almost life-like quality. Quantic Dream is a developer well known for this approach to their characters, filling their faces with polygons and motion-captured emotion. Its all very clever and very pretty to boot, but as we edge ever closer to realism, we run the risk of falling head-first into...


THE UNCANNY VALLEY

 


image links:

http://mydisguises.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/super-smash-bros-mario-1.jpg
http://www.gnomonschool.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/url9.jpg

reference links:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/UncannyValley
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario
http://kotaku.com/5657358/before-mario-before-jumpman-there-was-ossan
http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2013/02/20/quantic-dream-shows-off-ps4-39-s-imprssive-emotional-fidelity.aspx

Elements of Game Design: Environments

The environments of video games are kind of a big deal. A lot of games deal with immersing the player in their world for the sake of the experience. A good game environment will help to deliver the feel and mood of the game to the player, much like the art direction. In most games, you'll spend the vast majority of your time looking at some kind of environment and as such, environments are one of the main areas of a game to enforce the art direction of the project. Strong environment design will always add to the player experience, immersing the player, or even frightening and comforting the player.

A good example of this is the critically acclaimed Half Life 2, where you take control of the voiceless Gordon Freeman. Although you meet a great deal of very interesting characters, a lot of the game's emotion is provoked through the exquisite level design. From the empty sprawling streets of City 17 to the crumbling slaughterhouses of Ravenholm, the levels themselves serve to deliver the mood of the game. Tiny details in the environment like the claw-marks against the wooden boards, or the piles of rusted saws placed strategically by men before you tell stories of survival and battle in the streets of Ravenholm. Every aspect of the environment seeks to immerse you in not only the events of the present, but the history that has left its mark on the world.

Ravenholm. 5 star Bed and Breakfast. A smoke-free, pet-free, headcrab-free* getaway.

Good environment also lends itself to the overall gameplay experience. From the days of the original DOOM games, the layout of a level was one of the key aspects of the gameplay, with players memorising entire mazes in order to complete speed runs or best the game with higher scores. Even removing the artistic and story-telling elements of the environment, it is ultimately the playground on which the game will take place. Even Duke Nukem: 3D, with its countless hidden passageways and secrets allowed for replays and exploration to add to the experience. Bad environment design will hinder someone's enjoyment of a game on a basic level. To make an example of this, Zelda: Ocarina of Time's water temple suffers from an overly-confusing layout. This turns what would already be a difficult level into one of the least enjoyable points of the game.

As with most elements of a game's design, it is important that the environments fit well with the themes, characters and overall mechanics of a game. When all of these things come together and are unified under a central goal; the music and sound design amplifying the mood created by great level design and well-made characters, is when games can give some of their most memorable experiences.

image sources:

http://images.wikia.com/half-life/en/images/c/cf/Ravenholm_church.jpg
http://th04.deviantart.net/fs71/PRE/f/2012/259/d/2/cryengine_3_forbidden_lands_game_environment_by_klass1987-d5eujyi.jpg

references:

http://www.worldofleveldesign.com/categories/level_design_tutorials/how-to-plan-level-designs-game-environments-workflow.php
http://n4g.com/news/571327/10-great-game-environments#c-4010326

Elements of Game Design: Art Direction

 Art direction is pretty important. Where technical limitations of hardware can sometimes hinder the realisation of an artist's vision of a world, strong art direction can carry a game's visuals even without the use of cutting-edge technology. Since the very first games, art direction has always been a large aspect of development. Primarily, games as a medium are able to connect to players through two of their senses- sight and hearing. This makes the way a game looks incredibly important. As an example, the NES game "Castlevania" has a very particular art direction, entirely different in style and atmosphere to other games on the same system. Even in this era, when animations were very basic and 8-bit graphics denied artists the freedom we have today, artistic direction was intrinsically linked to the product's success as a whole.

Art direction can turn a visually dull game into something distinctive.

A game that looks like a painting. Yes.

More recently, game technology has evolved to the point where near-cgi level visuals are entirely possible, and this allows artistic directors more freedom than ever before. Before a player even picks up the controller, the visual style can tell them a great deal about the 'feel' of the game. From a quick glance at the visual design of the characters, someone could tell pretty quickly that Gears of War is probably going to play a little differently to Mario Galaxy. Not only can the art direction of a game speak for the content of the game itself, but it can give it a unique identity, causing it to stand out among other games. In recent years, the popularity of the military first-person-shooter has saturated the market in games with hyper-realistic art-styles, and games like Okami or Journey stand out with unique visual directions, taking inspiration from hand-painted artwork and cultural themes.


 
image sources:

http://www.enizr.com/media/27122/spec-ops-the-line-pc-demo-playthrough_a__2_.jpg
lunadigital.tv/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/okami20070130074554505jp9.jpg

references:

http://www.edge-online.com/features/the-art-of-spec-ops-the-line/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%8Ckami
http://kotaku.com/5927467/half+life-2-art-director-laments-the-stale-state-of-modern-video-games

Elements of game design: Game Mechanics.

Gyromite was full of weird mechanics

Woohoo, we're onto a big boy here. Mmmhmm, yes siree. We've talked about how a game looks, how a game's environment is built and how a game's characters inhabit that environment. But what about how a game plays? This is the big defining thingy. This is what separates games from every other medium on the planet. You watch films, you read books, you listen to music and you PLAY games. When you watch a movie you exist to soak up all the visual/audio information from the screen and that is how you experience it. Some films are cerebral, they require you to do some extra work in order to get the most out of them, but even if you don't do that extra work, the reel rolls on. A game demands much, much more from you. A game requires your input, and without that it wouldn't be a game.
Then what is a "Game mechanic"? Game mechanics are, in a sense, the pieces of game-play which form up to create the overall experience. Some mechanics are so fundamental to the genre of the game that they form a staple of the experience, where as some are so subtle that we forget they exist. Having control over your character is a very basic game mechanic that you'd assume was a part of every game- but it just ain't so. Gyromite for the NES allowed you to play whilst controlling the environment instead of the main character, for example. The ability to jump is another subtle game mechanic that has been around since the early arcade days and defines the very gameplay of the "platformer" genre- to jump from platform to platform. F.E.A.R spices up the standard FPS genre by adding "slow-motion" control to its roster of mechanics, giving you a crutch to lean on in more difficult sections of the game and shaking up the entire combat model of the experience.

"Be quiet, Fisher"

Technology has played a pretty large role in how game mechanics have evolved over the years, and certain modern mechanics such as F.E.A.R's slow mo, or the light/dark stealth systems of Splinter Cell, would not have been possible without modern technology. For a long time now we've been able to make Sam Fisher walk about the environment, but only when we have enough computing power to render shadows can we hide him within them. Go even further, and we can render real-time shadows that he can manipulate to create and destroy cover in the environment. Gameplay has certainly got more complicated over time. Walking from A to B is not a very complicated experience, but walking from A to B without being detected by enemies, and whilst moving shadows around the environment, is a much more thrilling experience. In this way, game mechanics are the bones which form the skeleton of a game. Strip away the graphics, the story and the sound, and this is what you have left. Even today, when we technology that allows destructible environments and perfect physics to enhance our games, sometimes its the most simple mechanics that make for the best games.

image links:

www.visualwalkthroughs.com/splintercell/mission9/34.jpg
agentpothead.com/gamewalls/images/Gyromite-1600x1200-RobotHobo.gif


reference links:

http://fear.wikia.com/wiki/Slow-Mo
http://gamestudies.org/0802/articles/sicart
http://uk.gamespy.com/articles/116/1160325p1.html

Total Annihilation

When the new sixth form was built, everything was new and shiny. We had these weird computers that were built into the desks. They flipped up like laptops, revealing a sort of basin in which there would be a keyboard and mouse on a metal shelf. They were cool, and the novelty lasted longer than we thought, but they were a pain whilst in 'desk' mode. Your pen would rip through your paper as it crossed the groove where the lid met the table. By the end of the year, everyone's essays tended to have little punctures across the bottom. On a Friday afternoon, me and my friends had a 'free' lesson. Most of year 12 did, actually, so the sixth form was usually very empty. Everyone went home, obviously, except people who caught buses, which made up my friend group. Everyone but Ian, but we usually convinced him to stay with us. Not today, however, because he had arrangements with his girlfriend to go and copulate.

"You're shit, Ian. Just stay for one game."
"No."
"You're shit, Ian"

The desk computers weren't very good. The most recent game we'd got to run on them was Vice City, but it was barely playable. A couple of weeks prior, I'd managed to install "Total Annihilation", and that was where we spent most of our time. All our games were installed in the public drive, but naturally they were hidden. You had to be in the know to know, you know? Public/Drama/Year12/stanislavski/, if I remember rightly. Classroom B14 was the only room with 6-seat rows, so it meant we could all fit in a line and pretend we were on university challenge or something. It was quarter to three, so we had about 45 minutes to get a game in.

There was, from left to right,

Patrick,
Me,
Bason,
Ben,
Sam.

There was en empty seat nearest the door where Ian would usually sit.

The splash screen appeared on our monitors with a rumble. The menus in this game were so epic, every click was an explosion and every panel was a grimy slab of metal. Most of our games were real-time strategy games. Age of Empires was another favorite, but I never liked it much. Something about Total Annihilation made it much more visceral in comparison. More realistic. In a game about robots, that's pretty good going.

"What colours are we gonna be?"
I was cyan. I'm always cyan, cyan is so fucking cool.
"I'm cyan."
"You're always cyan."
"Cyan is so fucking cool"

Next was sorting out allegiances. Set allegiances, or none, or real-time. Ben didn't like allegiances, because he was always sure that we were plotting against him.

"No allegiance"
"Real-time"
"I don't want allegiances! They're shit!"

All allegiances allowed you to do was share resources and count as a single player on the victory screen. Sam had a habit of siding with the best player in the game and dedicate himself to building windfarms. He wasn't great in the heat of battle, and much preferred the quiet life of a robot farmer.

We eventually chose real-time, after promising Ben we wouldn't all side against him.

"We ready now?"
"Yeah."
"Yeah."
"Fox holes?"
"Dark side"
"We had Dark side last time, I want an ocean god damnit!"
"Naval is gay"
"Naval isn't gay"
"I think naval is a bit gay"
"Just go with Continent, it has everything"

There were a lot of maps in Total Annihilation. Some you never played, but it was nice knowing they were there. Some lacked any water at all, which forced you to rely on air and land units. Maps with water meant you could build shipyards, which constructed the most powerful units in the game. The drawback, of course, was that ships don't fare too well on land.
The corridor outside was quiet now, and everyone was ready to begin. Then the door opened.

"What are you doing?"

It was Mr Copland, the head of sixth form. He had a beard, and he was cool. He was in his early 30s and looked like a friendly bear.

"Just essays and stuff, sir"
"That doesn't look like an essay to me, Tom"
He was right. A map selection screen looks very little like an essay. You wouldn't be wrong if you said that it doesn't look like an essay at all.

"It's total annihilation." Patrick admitted defeat.

We weren't really allowed to play games. Apparently the IT technician had told the teachers that it breaks the computers, which is bollocks.

"Have you installed it onto the computers?"
"Yeah."
"That's not on, is it?"
"No."
"You're going to have to turn it off."
"But the damage is done, sir. Can't we just finish our game?"
"Your last game ever."
"Yeah. That's pretty sad, isn't it? Let's just have one last game."
Mr Copland was smiling, which is why we knew he'd let us play. He was awesome. I don't know if he still teaches there. I don't think he does.
"Alright, we'll have one last game."
He dragged a chair out from the last space on the row, and logged in.
"Are you playing with us?"
"Total Annihilation?"
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."

It was pretty odd. For the first ten minutes it all felt a little awkward, but once Mr Copland had sworn out-loud (at the loss of a vehicle factory) we all felt able to do the same, and normal conversation continued.

The most important thing about the game was the inclusion of a "commander". Back in 1997, when the game first released, it was the defining aspect of the experience. Chris Taylor, the designer, had said something like 'We want you to feel like you're on the battlefield. We want there to be one unit that gives you presence. That's the commander'. He's your first unit, the trunk of the tree from which your whole army will grow.

We begun the match spaced out randomly across the map, the fog of war shrouding the unexplored land like... fog. I had just begun to construct some solar generators to support my base, when I received a message in the private chat log.

Ben: Do u want to alli with me

I didn't reply until I had built my first metal extractor.

Tom: yes but i dont want to farm. if you some1 to farm go and alli with sam
Ben: i dnt mind but hurry cos i got copland on my radar

Ben's Peewee scouts had stumbled Mr Copland's base, and the prospect of battle so early was pretty inviting. I accepted Ben's request and my map screen turned from a black space with a single spot of life, into a black space with two spots of life. Ben had headed north with his scouts, and was located on the other side of the map from me. That would make reinforcements tricky.

"Are you red, Ben?"

Ben had just begun attacking Mr Copland's extractors, which was a stupid thing to do.

"Maybe."

He began to mass-produce tanks and send them towards Copland's little green base. They came at the rate they were built, one after the other. Jeffy, that's what they're called. All of Total Annihilation's units have silly names. Peewee, Jeffy, Hammer, Jethro, Betty. It almost makes them darker, like when the military gives its own weapon's of destruction cutesy names.

"You shouldn't send them out single file", I said, "Save them up then rush him.""Are you two allied?"
"No."
"No."
"Yes you are."

I began to laugh and the secret was out. "Are you guys allied?"

"I'm allied with sir"
"Me too"

Both Bason and Patrick had formed up with their politics teacher, who hissed "Shh!"

"Sam you've got to join us, for fairness" said Ben.
"I don't know who I'm siding with yet."
"Come on Sam, join the Axis. You can Mussolini"
"What about Hirohito?"
"Or him"
"Okay then."

This is bad news, because that leaves Ben and I in a very difficult situation.

"Don't be a dick, Sam!"
"Sorry man. I'm Hirohito"
"Fair enough."

Just as we lost Sam's loyalty, we found his base. As usual, he'd been stockpiling resources through wind farming and little else. Patrick had sent a rather large squadron of bombers towards Sam's wind-farms, and my scouts were reduced to rubble. The rubble was subsequently turned into more resources by Sam's builder robots. The map screen was growing with detail, and between us Ben and I had uncovered everyone except Patrick, who had sent more bombers our way.

"Found you!"

He had found us. Thankfully, I had built an awful lot of anti-air towers because Patrick loves planes a little too much. They made short work of his bombers, and that was that. But our cover was blown. I had begun to amass Rockies, laser totting tanks designed to maul structures like Patrick's base.

"I was saving these for later, Pad, but seeing as you've gone ahead and tried to piss on my bonfire..."
"You're rushing me with tanks?"
"...No."

I right clicked back on my base and my little tanks did 180s and returned home. How could I be so predictable? I began to think of other ways to hit him. He probably had anti-tank robots ready for me, so I needed something more. Could I send my commander? Don't be stupid, Tom.

Your commander has the most powerful weapon in the game. The D-Gun. It's a one hit kill on any unit, but it uses your energy resources to fire. If your commander dies, he takes out everything within a one mile radius with him. Its a lethal attack, but costs you the game's most valued unit. Players call this Combombing, and it doesn't pay off half as well as you'd expect.

"Bason's out"
"What?"
"Bason's out. He's dead."

Bason wasn't very good at this game, but it was nice to know he was gone anyway. He got out of his chair, his screen flashing "DEFEAT" and came to see what was happening on my screen.

"Patrick he's building a gun."
"Fuck off, Bason!"
"I'm helping my team!"
"What kind of gun?"
"A big one."
"Fuck off!"
"Its got blue on it."

Big Bertha had blue on it. Big Bertha was a huge level 3 gun that could fire across the map. Each shot would take out your average robot, but it cost a lot to maintain. Total Annihilation was the first 3D RTS, and that meant more than pretty visuals. Every shot, every piece of shrapnel is calculated in real time and bounces around the map realistically. Patrick was very lucky in that his base was behind a mountain, rendering Big Bertha useless... on him. As soon as the cannon was finished, it began automatically chipping away at Sam's windfarm. Copland was defending it, but Ben was keeping the heat.

"Tom I need some air support, if you've got any?"
"Nope. I have Bertha though. She's helping you now."

If Bertha was a woman, she'd be really sexy. And really tall.

I thought "Fuck it." and sent my Rockies towards the mountains. They pushed upwards, weaving in and out of the trees and around the hills. They were half way to Patrick's base when they met his own tanks, Bulldogs. My Rockies outnumbered his Bulldogs 3 to 1, but each level 2 Bulldog was a lot tougher than one of my level 1 Rockies. One by one my Rockies fell, and a few Bulldogs scraped through the smouldering remains. They were headed straight for my base.

"Bertha! Stop dicking around with Sam and defend my base!" I said to my computer.

Right clicking on my cannon allowed me to turn off her auto-fire and select the incoming bulldogs. Pop. Pop. Pop. Thud. Thud. Thud. There were five left...

"Reload you stupid gun!"

Pop. Pop. Pop. Thud. Thud. Thud. Two left. Shit. Big Bertha is so big that she can't fire very close to herself. Its her blind spot, and the two Bulldogs were in it. They chipped away at my cannon like lumberjacks at a redwood. Timmmbbbeerrrr.......

"So long, Big Bertha!"
"You're a dick, Patrick."

With the fall of my cannon came the fall of my empire. My Commander sat amongst the solar generators, waiting for the Bulldogs. THHHWWUUUUMMPP. That's a D-Gun, by the way. It took out a tank and two of my own generators. The surviving tank circled around my clunky commander until he had enough energy to fire a second D-shot. And I missed.

"This is tense shit right here."

The tank continued to twirl around me, firing rockets and chipping at my health.

"Tom."
"What Ben? I'm very busy."
"Tom!"

A third D-shot brought down the Bulldog. Panning the screen to the north, I saw what looked like a million AK robots swarming over the hills. Copland had sent in his troops.

"I'm out, man. Copland's heading your way."
Ben was dead. I probably shouldn't have stopped Big Bertha helping him. Patrick had been quiet for too long, and I could tell that he was amassing something. Probably planes.

"Sorry Tom."
"I forgive you, sir."

AK robots were everywhere. In a tide of green they reduced my solar farm to dust, and my commander stood helpless. They circled him and opened fire. He spun around trying to aim at any individual unit he could see, shaking under the weight of the gunfire. It was over for him, and subsequently, me.

"3. 2. 1."

Its hard to count down to the death of a commander. Its always a little bit off. Maybe it takes some time for him to realize he's dead.

"1."
"1."
"BOOM!"

Boom. A flash of red. All the AK's were gone with their target. All I had left was a wind tower I had built somewhere far away. The game doesn't actually force your defeat until all your units are gone, so I had to surrender. My chances at global domination through wind-farming were low.

DEFEAT

Owls in Towels reviews: Hawken

So I'm back into doing reviews. For real this time- I promise. I have capture software and everything- and a new mic! It's all big stuff from here on, baby. You'll see. I don't think it's New Games journalism, I'm afraid to say, Mike. Check it out!