God mode on

I got into a forum conversation the other day regarding innovation on the DS. I actually missed the guys point a bit, reading more into what he'd written than he meant.

The thread in question had somehow gotton onto the subject of the standard of DS games. There was a time where the DS was king of all, not just in terms of sales but pure gold quality too. Granted some of these so called great games weren't in the top echelons of gaming greatness, but at a time where gaming had become stilted and tired (like it is now) it was throwing up genuinely enjoyable and interesting titles. You could probably argue the same right now too with the likes of Space Invaders Extreme (also on PSP) and The World Ends With You, but we're getting ahead of ourselves.

Well I never thought it would happen but it has. I didn't see it coming, I just didn't, maybe I was being naive thinking I wouldn't be affected in the way I have...

Ok deep breath Ben, you can do this.

I am... a PC Gamer. Wow, it feels like a weight has been lifted, I feel green and new, ready to face this world of new challenges . Alright so I'm exaggerating for effect, but I am genuinely taken aback by how quickly I've been hooked into the world of PC gaming.

I got a new pc a few weeks back, my old one had started making weird clicking noises before slowing right down, it also had real problems booting up. I figured the cooling for the CPU had packed up, my boss reckons it's the HDD, either way I had to bite the bullet and get a new computer. Just as an aside my old computer seems to be working alright now, likely because it's not on all the time like it used to be, so I reckon it is something to do with the cooling.

My old computer has lasted me and my family for about 5 years, it was pretty good when we got it although not stellar, and when I moved out it came with me and worked absolutely fine for what I wanted. When I was at school there was a real need to replace your computer after a few years, basic programs were advancing so fast that even if you weren't using your PC to run games it would still begin to struggle astonishingly quickly. I'm not sure that's quite the case now, or at least I hope not. My 5 year old PC needed some more ram and a bigger HDD, but aside from that there was nothing I needed it to do that it let me down on.

That was pretty much my logic with this new computer, rather than skimp and get a newer version of my old computer I thought I'd spend the money making sure things like the ram and the CPU would still being capable a few years down the line, ideally at least until I've paid for it. I looked at some really expensive computers, gaming ones, but the cost of them was insane! And really, how much better could they be in relation to their price? You end up paying a lot more for incrementally better machines. That's not to say I wasn't tempted, hell I was tempted by all sorts of stuff including a PC case that has a small screen built into it for viewing pictures and the like.

Truth is though I had no interest in playing games on it beyond Football Manager and Audiosurf, so as long as it had enough space that I wouldn't have to manage my HDD as rigorously as I'd had to with the old PC, plenty of ram and a good CPU that would do everything I asked when I asked I was happy.

However, one of the best things about getting a new PC is replaying your old games with all the settings whacked up to full. It's a simple stupid joy but it's a good one, and it gives another burst of life to games that had been sitting on the shelf for a few years. Unfortunately I hadn't calculated the Vista factor, meaning games like the Max Payne's had problems running (although I got the 2nd one running) and I daren't even attempt the likes of Alice and Return to Castle Wolfenstein.

I've mentioned this before but back when I was at school I lost pretty much all interest in gaming. I was pushed into getting rid of my Gamegear and my Megadrive (*cough* and 32X *cough*) and the 32bits had nothing to offer me. We flogged our Playstation and used some of the money to pick up Championship Manager 2 for our PC, we had Doom with a bunch of sound files (Evil Dead, Aliens, Beavis & Butthead) and were given the awesome Duke Nukem. I eventually found my way back to the Saturn but the likes of Quake, Football Manager, Warcraft 2, Half-Life and the already mentioned Max Payne have all dotted my gaming history.

I really did think though that my PC gaming days were behind me. While there is of course a gulf in power between a high end PC and the home consoles, there's less of one in terms of games. While Crysis can't be faithfully recreated on with the ps3 or the 360 it can be approximated. The Orange Box took one of PC gaming's greatest series and recreated it magnificently. Halo, or perhaps a better example would be Call of Duty offer console gamers the online experience of a pacey fps.

There are of course certain types of games that still don't really make the jump across, MMO's are still rare although doable, strategy games are still the preserve of the PC and with good reason. This actually highlights a problem I'm having with console gaming at the minute. the 360 is so overwhelmed by FPS and action games, I know that's not all there is but that's its bread and butter, the PS3 seems desperate to follow suit and add a sprinkling of PS2 sequels that I didn't like first time round. The Wii has actually been my preferred console since launch, it does offer alternatives and unique games, unfortunately there still isn't a wealth of quality games coming out for it at the minute.

This is all starting to feel a bit familiar.

Audiosurf was the spark for all of this. Actually no it was Sam & Max Episode 4, which was given away free through Steam (meaning I had to download steam) and I still haven't played. It popped my cherry in regards to downloading and paying for PC games. I've done it with music a few times, and after initially thinking it was a bad idea, missing out on the convenience of CDs and the appeal of physically owning something, the truth is that it's meant my cds can all be boxed away while I listen to everything either on my mp3 player (or phone) or on my computer. Thank's to Sam & Max, Audiosurf, and even the Virtual Console/Live Arcade/PSN downloading games is a lot more appealing.

I checked the specs of my computer against Half-Life 2 out of sheer boredom, and then bought the Orange Box off Steam out of sheer drunken consumerism. Within hours I'd grabbed hold of Quake 4, Painkiller and Fallout 2 (which I don't think works), not all the latest and greatest but they have (especially HL2) been dominating my gaming time.

So I've returned to an old flame and everything's rosey. Except that already I'm thinking about upgrading my graphics card, I don't need to but wouldn't it be nice to play Crysis at something like a high spec. I'm not sure how well by computer will run the upcoming Alan Wake and Fallout 3, the only 2 games coming to PC I give a shit about.

And that's the crux of my problem. I bought the PC as an internet, music player, video watcher, Football Manager, Word machine, if I won't the high end gaming experience I should have spent more, especially as I'm already used to having all the settings on max. but then what is there out there? Really, beyond the games I've already mentioned, plus maybe Dreamfall (which i could just buy on xbox for pennies), the upcoming months are as barren for me.

The blessing is that I've more than enough to keep me going until christmas, across all formats

Recently I've been playing a Japanese game on the Wii called Kekkaishi: Kokubourou no Kage. It's based on an anime of the same name, an anime I've not seen much of, and only saw any of to see if it would help me get more out of the game.

The game involves you trapping demons in boxes and then crushing them, and every time I've written about it I end up having to explain that it's not as violent as it sounds. I'd actually quite like a really violent version of Kekkaishi, examining the cruelty of man and the dehumanisation of creatures. Also it'd be a good game to test whether the presence of blood does add something to games.

Plot wise I don't know much, only that 2 feuding families are tasked with protecting the world from demons, and send their kids out to do the fighting for them. Coincidentally the gateway to the source of all this evil is at the 2 kids school, which does kind of seem like a cynical way to get kids to identify with the story but what the hell.

The in-game story is told through cut scenes, great. Except it's not great because these cut scenes involve nothing more than still images and text. Actually to be fair they seem to have got the voice actors from the show back into the studio to record clips for the game, which just makes the decision to use stills all the more questionable.

When I play an anime game, especially one that involves plot points rather than just a 2D fighter or whatever, I expect to see some clips from the show. Quite often these clips appear as part of the pre game demo, or the basis of the end credits, not ideal but if the games story couldn't be accurately told by using chunks of the show then fair enough, but that's not the case here.

The double episode of Kakkaishi I watched pretty much covered the first level of the game. At the end of the level the 2 kids take on a frog type thing that can fire cement out of its telescopic arse, quite a trick I'm sure you'll agree. If this happens in both the anime and the game, and you're giving away the plot anyway, why not, as you take the last bit of health away, just add the last 30 seconds of the fight from the anime?

The same when you come up against bosses, you get the stills plus text plot explanation, but you could just as easily have the same section of anime as the lead in to the fight. If they've paid for the license, and hired the actors to reprise their role, surely the cost to fit in a handful of clips wouldn't have been much higher.

The other obvious way around it, and what most games, licensed games, and anime games, tend to do is use the in game graphics to tell the story. Having already hired the actors, all they have to do is set their graphics team working on it for a few weeks.

It's not that I mind stills, for rpg's and the like they're fine. Anything that involves far more plot that would reasonably be able to cram into a disc or even afford using more detail is understandable. But Kekkaishi is maybe 8 hours long, and reuses enemies, and environments constantly, so there should be plenty of spare disc space.

When used in a game as short and barren as Kekkaishi still images make the game look cheap and uncared for. Perhaps that's exactly what it is, but it really wouldn't have taken much to run a comb through its hair.

I have a few blog posts stored up, unwritten admittedly, but the ideas are there. I keep them because I expect to hit a couple of weeks where I have absolutely nothing to write about, and this was looking like one of those weeks. I got lucky though, in an odd kind of a way, my boss' kids are off for easter, and rather than let them go off and enjoy themselves he's put them to work. Harsh, and I'm not sure how much they actually help, but needs must I guess.

To tell you about that though I have to tell you about Serial Experiments Lain. I know I know it's an anime and I'm about to get all precious about how it has something of value to offer. But it does have something of value to offer, honest! I'm only about halfway through the series so I'm not entirely sure what's going on plot wise other than it looking at whether people can exist solely on the net ('Wire'). This same theme is the basis for Ghost in the Shell, at what point does virtual reality become actual reality? That's a huge topic that I think is pretty interesting, but probably not for discussing now.

The assumption is that if we can ever exist on the net that it's a long way in the future, I'm not so sure. I saw BBC Breakfast covering internet dating the other day, apparently it's very common now and not the pariah pursuit it was a few years back. Social networking sites like Myspace and Facebook may well have passed me by but everyone else loves them, Apple have even based an iphone advert around them.

I recently met up with some people I know off the net, specifically an internet forum, and do you know what, there was no awkwardness at all. I was a little nervous, not overy so, and it was more concern about the initial meeting of 5 minutes than the rest of the weekend. That's actually not quite true, I was worried that boredom would set in some time saturday afternoon making the remaining 24 hours a bit of a drag, but I was wrong. You see we all 'knew' each other, and had even spoken to each other over Skype, add to that we have shared interests and are roughly the same age and it's not a surprise things went pretty well.

When I get home from work I have something of a routine, it's not set in stone, but generally the first thing I do is turn my computer on and check my emails, forums, news sites and so on. I'm not a great exponant of online gaming, but I recently got Super Smash Bros Brawl and so playing a few games online is now something that crosses my mind before bed. Other people have nightly obligations to clans or just firends to take part in matches with accross the web.

There are people who spend pretty much all their free time on the net, they're not necessarily pathetic or sad, some are married with kids, and online is where they are when they're not performing their duties as husband/wife and father/mother. People even manage to stay logged on at work, be it on forums, social networks or chat programs.

Being online may still be alien to people in the 40's, not that they're oblivious to the net, they use it, but they don't emerse themselves in the way the younger generations do. But let's be honest if I read the part of this post where I talk about my nightly habits to most people my age I'd get laughed at. Online is like driving at dusk, you don't really notice how dark it's getting until someone flashes you to put your lights on. Most people my age, and older, will spend plenty of time at a computer socialising, even playing games against others, but it just wont click that that's what they're doing.

So what's all this got to do with my boss' kids? Once they'd gotton so hyper my boss gave up on them, he let them do what they wanted to do from the start, play on the computers. We have 4 computers, one for each of the staff. Due to the easter backlog all of us bar my boss were put to work packing items and getting them shipped out, which left 2, sometimes 3 computers free. The kids logged onto an online rpg, (there was 3 of them using 3 accounts, and from what I understood their school friends were also on there) then met up on there, shouting across the warehouse to each other about where they were headed if that person hadn't responded to the IM.

My boss and his brother were staggered by this, not so much by a free online game, more that they all knew about it and were au fait enough with it to work out what server they were on and meet up. They saw it as pointless, why meet up online when you're all in the same room in real life? That's a fair point, but why not meet up online just because you're in the same room? If you want to play something why does geography have to be a barrier when the game removes that?

My point is that if we are all already at the point where we're online pretty much all the time, playing against people, dating, conversing, and even making new friends, then what of the next generation? These kids have all that already, and it's such a non-event for them that they're using a game as a meeting point with their real life friends, like a social hub. The iphone is selling itself as being able to access the net from anywhere (anywhere with wi-fi). There are campaigns to have free wireless internet all across the country, meaning that so long as you have an internet ready device you could always be on the net!

It's really not that hard to imagine that by the time those kids are my age we will be on the net all the time, perhaps not wired into our E-brains a la Ghost in the Shell, but the net may become a virtual ocean we are never out of. Scary perhaps, especially when you think about how monitered we could be, but it really doesn't seem like science fiction anymore

Somewhat typically I had the idea for this post, then everyone on the internet decided to go out and prove me wrong. However I'm going to plow on regardless because the point still remains valid, sort of... if you squint.

The Wii is without doubt the 'casual markets' console of choice. That's not to say it only caters for that market, don't believe the internet it really does have 'proper' games. My sister has just bought a Wii, and my mum is all set to get one in the next few weeks. My sister actually has a decent history with games, she loves the Dreamcast and actually owned a PS2 before I did. However she then went on to furnish it with movie tie-ins and Simpsons games. I'm not being snooty she can play what she wants, but her taste in games has gone the way of her taste in music. My mum too has a surprisingly good gaming history, granted she's in the wrong generation to be too much of a gamer, but she has owned a Game Gear and a Neo Geo Pocket Colour. She also spent most of her spring holiday last year playing Chu Chu Rocket.

So lets run with this idea that the Wii caters for mums and sisters, what about the other side?

My boss is a gamer, he's not a full on 'hardcore' gamer, at least not in the sense that anyone likely to be reading this will agree with. He's currently addicted to Rainbow 6, which one I couldn't tell you, but he prefers it to Call of Duty. He quite likes PC strategy games, I think God games but he wasn't very clear. That seems reasonably 'hardcore' to me, but he doesn't try to expand his gaming field. This is actually part of the wider issue of the whole "What is hardcore" debate, without wanting to get too into it I kind of feel that while it is hardcore to play 1 game to death, that you're avoiding everything else means that you're not a hardcore gamer, just a hardcore player of that game. It also raises the question of why my brother who plays Pro Evo all day is less of a hardcore gamer than someone who plays WOW all day?

My boss however turned his nose up at Pixel Junk Monsters because of its art style, he's also dismissed the Wii as being of no use beyond entertaining the kids. He wasn't even interested in Resident Evil 4, and you do get the feeling that if something even hints at being outside the box he won't give it a chance.

As mentioned he does own a Wii and also a PS3, which I'm pretty sure he got near to launch. Thing is as I've already said he's reluctant to try everything it offers. He didn't know you could play games online until I asked him if he'd done it. He didn't know about the PSN, and actually doesn't seem all that interested in it either beyond being technically impressed.

The other week he was bigging the PS3 up to one of our suppliers, some of what he said was misinformed but of the 2 he was definitely the knowledge. Our supplier, a middle-aged man, boasted that he bought his PS3 at launch. However he was being told that he should get an HDMI cable to go with his 56" TV (I shit you not), his response was something along the lines of "What would that do?"
My boss told him that it meant it would play in High definition, and that his Blue Ray movies would play in HD. After some prodding he declared he knew what Bluerays were, thought I'm not so sure, but was completely unaware that the PS3 was capable of playing them.

He also didn't know that the PS3 could connect to the net, not just wirelessly and not just for games (which would be fair enough) but at all. He had no idea that the PS3 connected to the net to get updates and that you could access the net through the PS3's web browser. He was also asked what games he had, I forget the first one he said, but it was a film licence I think, but the other was FIFA.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to instigate roffles at an old man who is bewildered by technology and only plays shitty games (sic), what I'm staggered by is that someone would pay the PS3's high price (and even higher when he bought it) while knowing so little about it. It is quite rare I buy anything without doing a bit of reading first, let alone stuff that costs £400.

Even more shockingly this isn't an isolated incident, I told a friend of mine this tale and he started laughing. It seems he had a similar situation with his boss who had also bought a PS3 without knowing anything about it. He was asking my friend what games he should get, before turning down all his suggestions because... well I'm not sure why, from what he told me he suggested a good mix of good games. I also saw an interview with someone, quite rich talking of how they played the PS3 and Pro Evo all day and how awesome it is! From what I hear that's quite an inaccurate statement, but having not played the PS3 Pro Evo who am I to say he's wrong?

My point is that while the Wii might pander to one side of the 'casual' demographic, the PS3 seems to pander to the other. The wealthy or status obsessed who want the latest and most powerful items. It also shows that Sony's Playstation brand still carries a lot of weight.

I wouldn't argue that the 360 is the sole bastion of the 'hardcore gamer', there's a huge market of gamers, 'proper' gamers who still don't feel catered for by it. Also as the snobby internet elites console of choice some of that 'awesomeness' seeps out into the masses, the 360 is seen by some as the console to own.

Anyway I'm going off on a tangent and it's coming across as I hate the 360, I don't I just resent the implication that it is the only console for gamers, it isn't and as I've said 100 times, a true gamer is someone who is willing to try things. Closing yourself off to certain games is like closing yourself off to certain music or films, you can't really claim to be a game/music/film lover. We all have personal tastes, that's fair enough, but dismissing something because it's colourful, or heavy, or foreign is just stupid.

Oh and the bit about the internet proving me wrong at the start, 4 'proper' gamers I know have bought PS3's this past couple of weeks, blowing my brand loyalty and wealthy people theory out of the water.