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I managed to get a copy of Kodu Game Lab and have been playing with it. Here are my thoughts on it.

First of all, my fears detailed on the Kodu Game Lab Post were right – compared to tradtional programming languages, it’s nowhere near as good unfortunately as using a programming language, and you will not produce the next Metal Gear Solid or Call of Duty. The games are fairly simple 3d roaming games by and large, but you can make shooters, golf games and racing games, amongst others.

Furthermore, the characters you can use are very limited. The Kodu (I think they’re Kodus anyway) control like cars. They take about 3 or 4 seconds to stop. I couldn’t find out how to stop it, and that brings it onto the third point.

It’s very difficult to actually edit anything! From my understanding, you pick an item, set to do something on a certain action. It sounds pretty simple, but it’s actually quite tricky to get your head around it.

Nevertheless, if you want to make a game out of it, then really there’s nothing better (or indeed anything else) on the Xbox 360 to make games. It’s pretty good for developing simple games, and it is really the best non programming game creator since Klik & Play.

Today also sees the release of an interesting game in the UK. 1 vs 100. It’s a massively multiplayer online (non RPG!) game that really has got me excited. It’s based on the TV show of the same name, and involves 1 player trying to beat 100 players.

Three things that make this game interesting – it’s the first ever Xbox Live Primetime Game, which is seen as many as the gaming world’s first ever direct competition to primetime TV. Games will take the form of “Episodes” – 1 hour long games similar to TV shows which will feature people playing. And – whilst there will be the ability to play the game outside of these episodes, the episodes will feature prizes.

The second point is the prizes. Microsoft will be giving away gamerpoints to winners in the 1, the 100 and indeed the crowd (players not the 1 or the 100).

And the third thing? It’s totally free (for at least beta). Chances are that Microsoft will offer advertising (another link to the “episode/primetime” nature of the game) to keep the game free, but we’ll see what happens.

All in all, it seems rather cool, and I’m stupidly excited to play it today at some point. Will give a full review of the game at a later date.

I’ve got a nervy weekend ahead of me. I’m not sure how much I can talk about it, even when the weekend is over, but if it all goes well, it should be absolutely awesome. I’ll probably divulge it on Twitter. Depending on how this weekend goes will lead to a small change in direction to this blog. I’ll keep you posted.