Alan’s Blog

I felt like writing up my thoughts regarding Saints Row, now that I’d finished it. Note that this is not intended to be a review. I am not trying to persuade/dissuade you from playing the game. If you want a review - “It is an excellent game with a high production value. If you like the Action/Driving genre, check it out” - or go somewhere else :).

I am writing this in postmortem format. For the record: I was not involved in the development of this game at all, nor do I work for any of the companies involved in it’s release. I just wanted to run through what I liked/disliked in Saints Row from a gamers perspective. From a Professional/Game Development perspective, what works/doesn’t work interests me. I’m not trying to be scientific. I’m not trying to start a discussion. I just thought it could be interesting to write down some of the shit I end up rambling incoherently about for hours and hours. Ultimately my intended audience is me :).

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Hah, talk about being busy. Well, actually, I’m not talking about it… If I were there would have been constant updates for the past couple of months But I’m overdue, so I figure I should make the time.

Primarly I’m working for a start-up that is based in the US, which I’m not going to discuss, ever. I’m also doing a lot of freelance contract work, which I’m also not going to discuss, ever. There is a difference between having an NDA and not having one, and between discussing work with some friends, and putting online for all to read. Even without an explicit NDA, there are lots of things many companies simply wouldn’t want me to share - especially if I wish to continue receiving work from them. So work is something I’ll never discuss, it is just easier that way.

The unfortunate side effect of that is when work consumes my time for a while, I don’t have anything to write here :). I do have some game development stuff that I will talk about soon. I just need to get it a bit further along, and much sure of what’s happening and how it will be executed.

Now that’s out of the way, what’s left? Well, life is good. I don’t have much to complain about.

Watching:

• My Science Project - I finally picked up a copy. This was one of my favourites many years ago, so I purchased it. Still great fun.
• Under Suspicion - great movie. I love the psychological mind-fuck that goes on over the course of the movie.
• Stargate SG1 - I’m borrowing Season One from a friend currently. Managed to miss most of it whilst it was on TV back in the day, and then stopped watching TV in general. Seems to be a lot of fun. Looking forward to getting through a sizeable chunk of it so I can get a better feel for it.
• Speed - still a fun movie.
• Chain Reaction - I enjoy this for some strange reason. Morgan Freeman is great in it.
• School of Rock - surprised I hadn’t seen this until now. Turned out to be a lot of fun.
• Pick of Destiny - Recently started listening to a lot of Tenacious D, so I thought the movie was in order. On par with what I expected. Good fun.

Playing:

• Phoenix Wright (DS) - I’m on Episode 5 currently. Thoroughly enjoyable. Finding less time to play it though, which is a pain. Makes keeping track of the situation harder.
• Saints Row - Finished the story finally. I have a write up on it that I will post a bit later.
• Tomb Raider: Anniversary (PC) - Just started this one, looks to be pretty good. They seem to have made a nice balance of old classic and new remake.
• Pokemon Diamond (DS) - This is on hold for the moment as I’m playing Phoenix Wright. Nice update to the Pokemon series. Addictive as usual.
• Pinball FX (XBLA) - I suck at Pinball, so I don’t know why I’m playing this. But it is a solid pinball game.
• Guitar Hero II (X360) - Been playing this for a couple of months now. Fabulous game. Picked up a second guitar, so now I’m playing co-op a lot. Words cannot describe how much fun I’m having with this game.

Coming soon:

• I’ve pre-order Forza 2 and a Wireless Steering Wheel for the 360. Can’t wait for it to arrive (Released June 8th here).
• Looking forward to Colin McRae DiRT, which is a couple of weeks away. The demo was good fun.

I’m now running Vista on my Laptop. Really liking it. Haven’t had any of the stability problems that people have mentioned. Probably going to move my desktop to Vista soon as well (although that’ll probably end up being a dual boot with XP still).

The Manx TT is running currently, so the island has been inundated with bikes as expected. They couldn’t have asked for better weather though. It is just a shame they couldn’t be more aware that they are guests to the island, and we don’t really appreciate hearing how high they can rev their bikes at 3am. It’s only for 2 weeks though, so it could be worse