Ahh Forza 2. Blogged on this ages a go and to be fair my xbox 360 time has been waining of late. I put it down to just not being interested but it has all changed lately mainly thanks to my mate Gaz, who kept on about racing online. So one wet afternoon I decided to crack it on give Gaz a call and three hours later we where loving it and talking about setting up a league so www.forza2leagues was bought up and work started on a microsite mini.forza2leagues.co.uk.
Needless to say 3 hours design and build and we have a really nice and simple site build. There is still a lot do but we love it, and so much so two others have joined the league and we will soon be promoting it to the Forza main site once the back end is sorted.
With the advent of Nascar 09 on the Xbox 360 and Playstation and its ability to create Custom Car Skins I thought I would develop on an online skin sharing site. It is still being built but there is a very crude holding page there at the moment. If anyone is interested it is www.nascar09skins.com
Should be live by the end of the month along with 3 other projects.
After the success of Forza Motorsport’s Custom car design option in the game EA has decided its time to jump on board. While its true to say that anyone who is use to doing custom skins for online gaming Forza was very powerful but a pig to work with in terms of using an xbox controller to do your work. In equivalent terms it would be like doing a design in Fireworks or Photoshop with a mouse that only went up and left, long winded and bloody annoying after a while.
EA following Nascar 08 (which to be fair was alright but its custom skins where god awful) have released a whole new paint booth feature which allows users to download a Photoshop or PNG template and design there own cars and then upload them via EA’s website for use online. Great idea, and hopefully others will follow.
Expect to see websites for skins popping up everywhere including one I am going to write (and unlike xbox league online it will get finished). Just got to buy the domain name now.
If you are intrested you can download the templates from EA’s Nascar 09 Page. I will post a basic PNG template for Nascar 09 soon so all your Fireworks users dont have to do all the transpaerency rubbish.
Marcus Fenix is back fighting the locusts.
Its not often I will blog randomly about my 360 or infact Microsoft’s awesome console but today I went to xbox.com and found that Gears Of War 2 has been announced and there is a trailer (I cant get it to work, sort your flash out Epic). Head on over to www.xbox.com for more info.
Here is how the news was broken (source, xbox site of course)
Providing a dramatic close to Microsoft’s 2008 Game Developers Conference keynote address, lead designer Cliff Bleszinski of Epic Games announced that the heroic saga of Marcus Fenix and Delta Squad will continue exclusively on Xbox 360 this fall with
This highly anticipated sequel to the blockbuster Gears of War delves deeper into humanity’s struggle for survival against the nightmarish Locust Horde, and takes the high-definition visuals to a whole new level.
“To our team the original game was just a tease, the appetizer to the Gears of War characters and new style of gameplay. We were so amped to get to the next chapter, and dig deeper into the universe of this franchise,” said Bleszinski. “Gears of War 2 is an even bigger, better, and more badass experience than the first game, and we can’t wait to get it in the hands of eager gamers this November.”
Game Features
Gears of War 2 continues the story of Marcus Fenix and Delta Squad, locked in an increasingly desperate battle against the nightmarish Locust Horde for the survival of humanity. Gears of War 2 is an larger-than-life saga of survival, loss, and retribution.
Gears of War 2 is developed by Epic Games for Microsoft Game Studios and joins a growing list of must-have Xbox 360 exclusives. Look for Gears of War 2 when it storms onto retail shelves this November.
URL:www.xboxliveracingleagues.com
This a site I am setting up for XBOX live users to set up there own racing leagues. It is something I have had in my mind for a while and look forward to setting it up. Its a private project which I work on when I get time.
I predict this to be ready by April / May time but it could carry over due the scale of the project.
Anyway you can visit the development blog at www.xboxliveracingleagues.com.
URL: www.forzasprayshop.com
After my recent blog posts have mostly been taken up by my obvious addiction to Forza Custom paint jobs I thought I’d best dedicate a blog primarily for it So I launched Forza Spray Shop.
The main goal of this site is to create tips and advice for people looking to apply there own touch to the various cars you can acquire throughout Forza Motorsport 2. Such has been the requests and comps for custom jobs that sites are popping up all over the place, allowing users to commison a design for use with there online leagues its getting crazy.
I would have to say that the online community being built up is huge and you can expect this game to dominate the online console driving genre for a long time so thats why I have builtit.
Well if you have read my last posts about online branding in particular games then you know what the potential is for this. I recently purchased a xbox 360 game called Forza Motorsports 2 a driving game with a huge online community. I saw this as a chance to brand my cars and throw them in the face of the world in attempt to drive traffic, so I set it up at first a VW Golf and then a Ferrari 435. Its not only fun to play but puts a brand out their.
In this modern day world where the technology just seems to be getting better and better with broadband speeds averaging in most households at 4 megs online communities are becoming massive especially the gaming/online worlds.
Take Second Life an online community which has some seven and a half million members turning over 1.7 million dollars a day a massivley popular online world that allows the user to meet and do pretty much whatever they want. Its potential has been seen world wide and now the likes of Reebok are getting involved. Second Life also allows the abillity to set up shops and all manner of weird and wonderful ways to promote your self just check out their success stories.
Second Life may not be for everyone in fact I should imagine that anyone that hated the Sims would hate this whole concept but I cannot comment I have yet not indulged in the fruit of Second Life and don’t really have the desire. I have however played with World Of Warcraft and Battlefield 2142 and am astounded to know that you can pay people to play you charchter (WOW) while your at work so you level up quicker ( seems a bit daft to me ). Battlefield 2142 took it all a bit far by incoporating advertising boards throughout the game. Most people got pissed off with this and hacks have been found to get around it but it still shows great online marketing potential, Sure a spotty fourteen year old isn’t going to go and buy a 42″ Sony HD Plasma hows your father TV but someone might especially if you advertise some kind of promotinal code or discount.
Branding appears everywhere and I have been guilty in the past of promoting companies using online gaming as a platform. I use to play NASCAR Racing 2002 online in a league and found that a whole host of companies where banging their liveries across cars to promote themselves, Alienware was a great example they actually gave drivers of their team cars gifts as if it was a real life event. It is not unheard either for companies to pay for the privelage of having the best online gamers promote their brand, I attempted it branding a Dodge Nascar for a diecast retailer based in the UK called Road2Race Models it was quite popular so I was asked to design other liveries for other drivers and brands ( free of charge, unfortunatley). The Road2Race models did get some web traffic as a result of this advertising as their range of diecast was a niche market for the UK consumer, I dont think it actually transpired into sales but the traffic went up. I like to put it down to the style of the car but it was probably because I pissed everyone off so much with my online driving that they all wanted to smash me off the road thankfully I had the web address on the bumper.
It is only going to get worse with online games offering the abillity to make your own flags up and driving games to add your own liveries to cars it will be a corporate free for all, but as such it is an untapped resource. I am going to give it shot by designing my own online car for Forza Motorsport 2 on the Xbox 360 just to see what happens.
Im excited, very excited in fact at the upcoming prosepcts for the xbox 360. I have seen so many videos including The Club, Gears of War 2, Race Driver Grid, Fable 2 I think its going to be another awesome year for the XBOX. Bring it on Sony, who cares if everyone is supporting Blu Ray, I dont in fact I dont even have a HD tele so its bloody useless to me.
I have only had my xbox a month now and think it is the best thing since sliced bread. My PC has now got no games installed as I just seem to play on me 360. I am a little bit annoyed that Microsoft have just announced ( well its out in the US ) the release of the 360 elite a HDMI ready badbody with a hardrive six times bigger than the premium pack yes that is 120GB compared to our measly 20GB.
Its price is really not that bad either in the US it is $80 more (approx £40.00 English pounds) which probably will translate to the UK as £70 despite the exchange rate working at fourty but as we well know the UK market generally pays more than the rest, we have also been promised that the 120GB will be available to buy in grey (like we car) separately. So with the 20GB currently retailing on the UK shores at seventy quid we can expect this to be about 140 ( I am guessing ) unless they drop the price of the 20GB.
The Elite also comes in black gloss with black accessories so all those thumb marks will now be visible. I like to see it as the 360 trying to infiltrate the Playstation. With all being said things are still looking good for the 360 with PS4 consoles still in abundance around the UK ( who cares about Blu Ray ).
Also I would like to quickly point out the Marketplace scam I am referring to in my title. Ok its not a scam more of a rip off, which is soley pointed at Guitar Hero who seem to find it value for money to charge us £4.15 for three songs which to be honest would be ok if we didn’t just want one good song and two that where shite. Anyway enough of me moaning still awaiting the release of Forza 2.
Like Columbo I would just like to say one more thing I bought Solatario off Arcade for 800MP and now cant see straight don’t bother with it event if it just for your wife to keep her happy why you play Gears.
