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	<title>Citystate</title>
	<link>http://citystate.co.uk</link>
	<description>Observations on games by R Clarke</description>
	<lastBuildDate>Sun, 03 Aug 2008 21:23:26 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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		<title>E3 press conference reactions</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The three console manufacturers have made their annual addresses to US retail laying out their wares and plans for the rest of the year. The general consensus seems to be that this was very much business as usual, with no earth-shattering announcements.




Microsoft reeled off an impressive array of third party content, all of which will [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://citystate.co.uk/archives/e3-press-conference-reactions/</link>
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		<title>Greenberg speaks, world facepalms</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I don&#8217;t want to make a habit out of making fun of people on this site, but this week Microsoft&#8217;s Aaron Greenberg (who we saw defending the insane pricing of the Xbox 360 HDD a while back), is coming out with stuff that&#8217;s too good to ignore:
&#8220;I think that there&#8217;s a difference in the type [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://citystate.co.uk/archives/greenberg-speaks-world-facepalms/</link>
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		<title>Pixelblocks</title>
		<description><![CDATA[
with special guest reviewer
Brad &#8220;DethSkeweR&#8221; Hampchester
Vice President of Explosions, Epic Games
 Man, I totally did not get on with these stupid things at all.
Pixelblocks are like a bunch of tiny one-stud legos that you can link together to make mosaics and shit. They say on the box that they&#8217;re a construction toy - yeah, like [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://citystate.co.uk/archives/pixelblocks/</link>
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		<title>Lookback: Puyo Pop Fever</title>
		<description><![CDATA[


This piece was originally published here in April 2004. Puyo Puyo is my favourite of the many falling-block puzzle variants. Puyo Puyo 2 on the Mega Drive (now available on the Wii Virtual Console) is probably the version that best balances presentation and functionality, but Fever is a respectable entry to the series, and it [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://citystate.co.uk/archives/lookback-puyo-pop-fever/</link>
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		<title>Ad-funded mobile games: a bad idea</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I should forewarn you that this post is going to contain marketing speak, and stuff that is probably only of interest to people who follow the business side of mobile games. I&#8217;ll get back to talking about less deathly dull subjects in the next update.
On mobile games industry news sites (like Pocket Gamer and Mobile [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://citystate.co.uk/archives/ad-funded-mobile-games-a-bad-idea/</link>
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		<title>Lookback: Gunstar Super Heroes</title>
		<description><![CDATA[


Continuing the trawl through my old games writing, here&#8217;s a look at Treasure&#8217;s 2005 remake of their breakthrough hit Gunstar Heroes. My opinion of the game hasn&#8217;t really changed, it&#8217;s a technically strong but otherwise unremarkable romp. At the time of course we didn&#8217;t realise that Gunstar and games like it would represent the peak [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://citystate.co.uk/archives/lookback-gunstar-super-heroes/</link>
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		<title>Some weekend reading</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I&#8217;ve read a number of interesting articles recently, some of which cover topics which I was going to explore in more depth, effectively saving me the effort.
First up, Tadhg Kelly reacts to the news from Microsoft that the Xbox Live Arcade service is to start de-listing games based on low review scores and conversion rates. [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://citystate.co.uk/archives/some-weekend-reading/</link>
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		<title>Lookback: Ganbare Neo Poke-Kun</title>
		<description><![CDATA[


The Neo Geo Pocket Color (NGPC to it&#8217;s friends) was SNK&#8217;s attempt to revitalise the handheld market in the early 1990s, having recognised that Nintendo&#8217;s decade-long dominance of the sector had led to stagnation, and that there was an untapped audience for a more technically advanced system with games that appealed to players who wanted [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://citystate.co.uk/archives/lookback-ganbare-neo-poke-kun/</link>
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		<title>LostWinds</title>
		<description><![CDATA[


WiiWare finally launched earlier this week. Good news for me, as I&#8217;d been looking for something to buy with the Wii Points I&#8217;d been sent by Nintendo Europe by way of apology after they accidentally offered the &#8220;Star Points to Wii Points&#8221; service before it was meant to go live. (It turns out they were [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://citystate.co.uk/archives/lostwinds/</link>
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		<title>Lookback: Freedom Fighters</title>
		<description><![CDATA[


Freedom Fighters is one of the hidden gems of the last generation, and is a textbook example of why publishers are often wary of releasing games based on original IP. It reviewed well, has a good pedigree, an interesting premise yet still (unless I&#8217;m mistaken) bombed at retail.
It is a game that sets out to [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://citystate.co.uk/archives/lookback-freedom-fighters/</link>
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		<title>GameCamp 08</title>
		<description><![CDATA[



On Saturday I attended the GameCamp 08 event organised by The Guardian. This was a meeting of a couple of hundred people with an interest and ideas about games of all kinds, modeled after the BarCamp series of gatherings, or in my frame of reference, like a larger-scale, greatly more informal and parallelised version of [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://citystate.co.uk/archives/gamecamp-08/</link>
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		<title>Scrumper</title>
		<description><![CDATA[In a break from our usual programming, I made a game:




&#8220;Scrumper is a game that allows the player to engage in the &#8216;victimless&#8217; crime of apple theft from the comfort of their own home. The object of the game is to catch as many falling apples as possible.&#8221;

It has already received glowing testimonials from beta [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://citystate.co.uk/archives/scrumper/</link>
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		<title>Games for Windows 2000: latest developments</title>
		<description><![CDATA[


Judging by the traffic and feedback that I got from the earlier Games for Windows 2000 article (where I collected together workarounds that had been found to allow various supposed &#8220;Windows XP only&#8221; games to run on Windows 2000) it would seem that there&#8217;s still a small but dedicated userbase for this venerable OS among [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://citystate.co.uk/archives/games-for-windows-2000-latest-developments/</link>
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		<title>Stunt Island</title>
		<description><![CDATA[


In the last couple of years, the line between PC and console gaming has been (in some respects) almost completely erased. The simultaneous release of high profile titles on PC, Xbox 360 and PS3 is becoming the norm. It&#8217;s easy to forget that before the mid-1990s, computer and console gaming were completely different worlds - [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://citystate.co.uk/archives/stunt-island/</link>
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		<title>Writing for games</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Earlier this month, Lindesay Irvine made a post on the Guardian&#8217;s books blog bemoaning the news that thriller writer James Patterson was collaborating with Oberon Media on a casual game.
Irvine&#8217;s confusion and apprehension at this specific instance of a writer crossing over into a new medium (he seemed, perhaps understandably, to be unaware of the [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://citystate.co.uk/archives/writing-for-games/</link>
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		<title>Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I played through the single player campaign of Call of Duty 4 a few weeks ago. I&#8217;m not sure what I can add to that statement, as judging by the sales figures, most of you will have also played it and formed your own opinions already. Shifting over seven million copies in a few short [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://citystate.co.uk/archives/call-of-duty-4-modern-warfare/</link>
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		<title>Bioshock</title>
		<description><![CDATA[


Another of the highlights of 2007 that I&#8217;ve only just gotten around to playing is Irrational&#8217;s Bioshock, a game that has already been ludicrously hyped, critically feted, endlessly discussed, lashed back against and had its backlash lashed back at.
As a game, Bioshock isn&#8217;t as good as the best games-of-vaguely-comparable-genre out there (e.g. Deus Ex, the [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://citystate.co.uk/archives/bioshock/</link>
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		<title>Super Mario Galaxy</title>
		<description><![CDATA[2007 has been a banner year for games. Not the best year ever, but at least the best year of this century, with each format seeing their share of classics. Having gotten out of the habit of playing regularly, I&#8217;m currently scrambling to assimilate as many of this year&#8217;s &#8216;must play&#8217; games as possible, so [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://citystate.co.uk/archives/super-mario-galaxy/</link>
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		<title>Gerstmann</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The whole situation is profoundly regrettable. I hope that there will be a way to salvage Gamespot&#8217;s reputation and working environment before it&#8217;s too late, but it will require everyone involved to act quickly and cohesively to restore order before the damage can be addressed. Unfortunately I suspect that the person(s) at CNet who found [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://citystate.co.uk/archives/gerstmann/</link>
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		<title>Preserving the creative process</title>
		<description><![CDATA[A couple of years ago I had the good fortune to meet Ron Gilbert at an informal &#8220;meet the fans&#8221; event in London. I asked if he&#8217;d ever thought about making the production notes and materials for the Monkey Island games available to the public. His reply (paraphrasing from memory) was:
 &#8220;Arrr! But why? Who [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://citystate.co.uk/archives/preserving-the-creative-process/</link>
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		<title>Games for Windows 2000</title>
		<description><![CDATA[


Spare a thought for us Windows 2000 users. I&#8217;ve been happily using the OS for close to five years, and have never had a pressing reason to upgrade to Windows XP (in fact, I prefer Windows 2000&#8217;s slightly more responsive UI and modest appetite for physical memory - not to mention the futuristic name). Until [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://citystate.co.uk/archives/games-for-windows-2000/</link>
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		<title>Mobile games have come of age</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The topic of mobile games (by which I mean the more commonly understood definition of games played on mobile phones, rather than the whole spectrum of portable handheld devices) is one that I&#8217;ve become closely familiar with over the past few years, having been involved for an extended period in mobile publishing and development. I&#8217;ve [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://citystate.co.uk/archives/mobile-games-have-come-of-age/</link>
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		<title>Five crap games sites</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Of course we can&#8217;t have a list of five good games sites without some kind of counterbalance, so here I present five games sites that aren&#8217;t worth your time, beyond the time taken to laugh at them. As with the &#8216;good&#8217; list, inclusion isn&#8217;t based purely on overall quality: All of these sites have a [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://citystate.co.uk/archives/five-crap-games-sites/</link>
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		<title>Five good games sites</title>
		<description><![CDATA[When I was a lad, the only media covering games were cheerfully amateurish magazines, the people who wrote for those magazines uncomfortably blurting their opinions on GamesMaster, and playground industry spies whose dad had brought them back a top secret Mario and Sonic game from America.
That&#8217;s all changed now, of course. With the advent of [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://citystate.co.uk/archives/five-good-games-sites/</link>
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		<title>The Xbox 360 Reliability Saga</title>
		<description><![CDATA[So, it turns out that Xbox 360s break down rather a lot. But then Microsoft quite unexpectedly decided to tackle the problem head on, putting measures in place to make sure that everyone who has seen or may see the dreaded &#8220;ring of death&#8221; error code (three red lights on the LED display on the [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://citystate.co.uk/archives/the-xbox-360-reliability-saga/</link>
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