Why Dead Island Sucks

Zombies are a crude metaphor for our collective hatred of other people. Be honest, human beings suck and you want to kill them. Curb stomping a downed zombie isn’t simply gratuitous fun. It’s also essential therapy for the misanthropic masses. Murdering the undead keeps us from going postal after another shitty day at the job we despise. In short, Zombie games save lives.

Unfortunately, Dead Island proves the exception to the rule. I was hoping for a thrilling romp through the zombie-infested holiday resort of Banoi. Instead, I'm lumbered with a glorified list of chores. Every surviving inhabitant on the island has a tedious errand for you to run: "Feed me", "Find my necklace", "Bring me my teddy bear", "Wipe my shitty arsehole". And they just keep on coming. Soon you're drowning in a maddening cacophony of inane fetch-quests.

The game becomes less about surviving a zombie holocaust and more about keeping these mewling, ungrateful, utterly useless sacks of flesh from choking to death on their own tongues. Dead Island isn't the cathartic escape from reality I was hoping for. Quite the opposite in fact. It simply served to remind me exactly why I hate people in the first place.

Staggered Release Dates

Picture the scene. You’re sat at the head of a royal banquet. Exquisite delicacies from around the world are served on silver platters. The mouth-watering aroma of honey-glazed pork elicits an eager growl of anticipation from your empty stomach. The guests seated around you begin to eat, gorging themselves on the bountiful feast. At last, it’s time to tuck in.

But as you try to reach for the shredded duck, a terrible realisation dawns: you can’t move. You are completely paralysed; every limb immobile. You have no choice but to sit and stare as those around you cram their crumb-flecked mouths with food and drink.

This imaginary scenario is my overblown analogy for the excruciating unfairness of staggered release dates. Take Batman Arkham City for example, which releases TODAY in North America. European gamers are forced to endure the squeals of delight as their American cousins explore the grimy streets of Arkham City. As a long-suffering citizen of Europe I have to wait another three days before I get to join the party. Three fucking days. It took less time to create the universe.

Now I don't know about you, but sloppy seconds just 'aint my style. I can forgive obscure Japanese RPGs that require translation and localisation before they're released into the wild, but a game like Arkham City? No, no, fucking no. There’s no reason why this title couldn't have been assigned a single global release date. Instead, European gamers have to bend over and take it up the poop chute. With no lube.

Forced to endure three days of ceaseless, excited tweets about how Arkham City is the best game of the year, the best game of ALL TIME. Three days of pointless, cruel waiting. I could be hit by a bus in three days, snatched from this mortal coil before I’d even had the chance to ogle Cat Woman’s leather-clad arse. If I'd been at home playing Arkham City - like the rest of the fucking world - I'd have been out of harm’s way.

Don't you see? Abolishing staggered release dates will SAVE LIVES.

It’s Time For Men To Man Up

What makes a man truly a man? I’d say a penis is a pretty important requirement. Anything else? Well, according to Mark Twain, ‘clothes make the man’. So far so good. This whole ‘being a man’ thing seems pretty easy: a pair of gonads, the ability to wear pants and - bob’s your uncle! – you’re a bloke. Cushty.

Things only get complicated when video games are thrown in to the mix. Why? Because video games emasculate men. That’s right, bopping Bowser on his scaly bonce will destroy your masculinity quicker than an appointment at a castration clinic. At least that’s what William J. Bennet would have you believe.

Bennet, a CNN contributor, was the U.S. secretary of education from 1985 to 1988, and is the author of "The Book of Man: Readings on the Path to Manhood." A man's man, if you will. He’s also the fella that wrote this article.

The article explains how ‘for the first time in history, women are better educated, more ambitious and arguably more successful than men.’ Is this true? Maybe. But what exactly is holding us men back from achieving our true potential and being, well, you know, proper men. Brace yourselves fellas, ‘cos you ‘aint gonna like this. Yup, it’s video games.

“The Founding Fathers believed, and the evidence still shows, that industriousness, marriage and religion are a very important basis for male empowerment and achievement. We may need to say to a number of our twenty-something men, "Get off the video games five hours a day, get yourself together, get a challenging job and get married." It's time for men to man up.”

That’s right guys, it’s time to man the fuck up. Get off your fat arses, get a job and get married. That’s exactly what I’m gonna do. Right after I complete Dead Island…

Is It Finally Gameover For Nintendo?

Who remembers the Gamecube’s unique selling point? If you’ve forgotten, let me remind you: it had a handle. So you could carry it.

Sadly, it’s been downhill for Nintendo ever since.

Advocates of the Wii are wrong. It's a terrible console, perhaps even worse than its purple predecessor. The initial excitement generated by the idiot-proof Wii remote soon turned to apathy and eventually hatred. In its current state, motion-controlled gameplay lacks the sophistication and accuracy enjoyed by those brought up on traditional control pads.

In short, it’s shit.

Rare glimpses of genius – most notably Mario Galaxy – were smothered beneath an avalanche of cheap and nasty third party titles. Only the prospect of another Zelda title - Skyward Sword - is keeping the Wii from total redundancy.

But it’s too little, too late.

With the Wii U on the horizon and - at last! - the promise of a full-on HD Zelda, anticipation for Skyward Sword has waned, even among the hardcore. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Before we jump on the fanboy bandwagon, let’s have a look at just what Nintendo’s next console is all about.

The unveiling of the Wii U at this year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo was a total balls-up. Even the tech-savvy journos that comprised the audience let out a collective ‘eh?’ after the Wii U was revealed. The source of confusion was Nintendo’s barmy decision to show only the controller. The actual console was nowhere to be seen. In an attempt to placate the bewildered attendees, Satora Iwata hastily tweeted a pic of himself holding both the console and the controller.

It gets worse.

Nintendo's share price hit its lowest value in five years following the Wii U’s calamitous unveiling. "There were high expectations from the new version of the Wii and this fell far short," said analyst Yusuke Tsunoda.

In fact, the Wii U is looking less appealing with each passing day. The console’s “unique” tablet-style controller will feel like yesterday’s news when it finally makes an appearance in 2012. Nintendo’s new console will be born into a world where tablets have already successfully established themselves as alternative gaming platforms.

It’s time Nintendo had a serious fucking reality check. Console sales used to make up 80 percent of the industry as recently as 2000. Today that percentage has halved due to the proliferation of ipads and mobile phones. The revolution is here. Unfortunately, Nintendo seems to be floundering in its wake rather than leading it.

The 3DS is a perfect case in point. Mere months after it launched Nintendo instituted one of the deepest and swiftest price cuts in its history. A whopping third of the retail price was lopped off to counter disappointing sales figures. Nintendo released the 3DS into an intensely competitive market – a market where the iOS platform is growing as a gaming destination at an exponential rate.

Times are changing and Nintendo needs to sit up and take notice or drown in the coming tide. Gamers can pick up their ipod, download several fun, high-quality games for free, almost every day. Nintendo continues to flog us shite like Xevious – originally released in 1982 – for over a fiver. It’s a total fucking shambles. Unsurprisingly, Japanese fund managers and investors have called on Nintendo to move, or buy, into smartphones.

Japanese newspaper Nikkei is reporting that Nintendo is set to report losses as much as ¥100 billion (£823 million/$1.32 billion) for the first-half of 2011.

So then, is this the end for the almighty Nintendo? Will the Wii U go the way of the Dreamcast?

I certainly hope not. My heart sinks at the thought of a world without Mario, Link and Samus. Come on Nintendo, pull your finger out and give us gamers what we want: an end to gimmicky peripherals and a Zelda game that finally tops Ocarina of Time. Preferably in HD. Cheers.

Never Mind The Bollocks

Anticipating rumours is a mug’s game. I’ll take hard, empirical fact over feeble innuendo any day of the week.

Yes, gossip and guesswork can be fun in small doses. But when the speculation and hype become an all consuming obsession, I tend to vomit. Sensitive gag reflex I’m afraid.

So then, rather than feed into the rumour mill, I’m going to suggest five practical improvements I’d like to see implemented in Microsoft’s next console.

Silence. Remember the noise the SNES used to make? No? Well, that’s because it was SILENT. I demand a console that doesn’t induce tinnitus.


My Sega Master System is 24 years old. It still works. My Xbox 360 died after 3 months. As did the next one. And the one after that. Sort it the fuck out.


An internet browser. You’re Microsoft, remember? You know, the monopolistic cunts with enough money to buy God. Even the runty, inbred Wii has one. It’s time to remove your head from your arse.


A pad that still works after I’ve smashed it against the wall.


An end to intrusive adverts. Stop pushing your failed motion-controlled bullshit on us. Never asked for it, never gonna buy it.

Bejeweled Blitz - Con In Sixty Seconds?

Beware Bejeweled Blitz. Lurking behind the candy coloured gems and the gaudy alien vista is something altogether more sinister.

Mike folds back the sleeves of his shirt to expose his elbows. “There!” he declares triumphantly. “That’s how you separate the men from the boys”. Both Mike’s elbows sport painful looking sores; a direct consequence of the hours spent leaning on his kitchen counter. It’s where he plays Bejeweled Blitz, alone. Having been banned by his wife from playing in front of their children, Mike, 31, snatches these precious hours of solitude whenever he can. ‘I love Bejeweled Blitz. I’d play it all day if I could. Once I’ve started I won’t quit until I’ve topped the high-score table. It’s a matter of personal pride’.

For the uninitiated, Bejeweled Blitz is a Facebook application developed by PopCap Games. The goal is to achieve the highest possible score, by matching three or more gems of the same colour, in one minute. Since its low key appearance on December 20th 2008, BB has quickly attracted a dedicated following, with over 4.5 million users per day. One of the reasons for its astonishing success can be attributed to BB’s seamless integration into Facebook’s ubiquitous social network. Before long, online acquaintances become bitter adversaries in the ongoing battle to top the high-score table. And once you’re entrenched in the sordid world of internet one-upmanship, it’s hard to break free.

Indeed, certain aspects of the game have been judiciously geared towards exploiting the brain’s natural response to a ‘near miss’. It’s no coincidence that players are invited to spin a slot machine for the chance to earn coins, which can be exchanged for score enhancing ‘boosts’. If the reels align to show three matched gems, the coins flow fast and freely. The more likely outcome however, is a ‘near miss’: the last reel just fractionally short of completing the required set of three. But it’s enough to tease the brain into releasing dopamine, a neurotransmitter that stimulates the reward circuitry, which in turn increases the desire and motivation to continue spinning those reels.

Thing is, you can’t; at least not straight away.

BB enforces a devious time restriction between spins. Every player must wait twenty four hours before they are given the chance to earn more coins – an intolerable period of time when you’re languishing in second place on the high-score table. Nevertheless, there is a way to gain an instant fix of coins. And rather sinisterly, it involves buying them. Yup, swapping actual cash for virtual coins. “On average I spend around £40 a week buying coins”, says Mike. “The coins I win on the Daily Spin are never enough to satisfy the way I want to play”

It’s a sentiment shared by many dedicated blitzers.

If one were to adopt the hysterical game-bashing platitudes of the Daily Mail, BB would no doubt be decried as a gateway drug to the coin guzzling slot machines of Vegas. But in the spirit of impartiality we spoke to BB’s Senior Product Manager, Heather Hazen and asked her if the game was intentionally engineered to manipulate the player into parting with their cash.

‘We didn’t intentionally program the Daily Spin to exploit the brain’s natural response to a ‘near miss’. Daily Spin was developed because we thought it was a fun way to give away extra coins. We added the bonuses to the Daily Spin to encourage players to invite more friends to play Bejeweled Blitz and to give players rewards for playing every day’.

Introducing incentives to keep the punters playing has no doubt been the key to PopCap’s growing success. The continuous tweaks and flourishes introduced to BB since its inception has transformed a simple Facebook App into a global phenomenon, and a lucrative one at that.

‘While we don’t actually disclose revenue figures, I can tell you that within two months of introducing microtransactions on Bejeweled Blitz, the game had its first million-dollar month, so it is very successful. To that end, the social games space is a very important part of PopCap’s global business and definitely one to watch going forward’.

Keeping the punters playing is clearly paying off. But what is the key to PopCap’s success? What keeps the gaming public coming back for more? It’s a question we asked Cindy Morrison, aka Julia Gemstone, the veteran blitzer responsible for writing BB’s strategy guide.

‘I used to play Bejeweled 2 for hours and hours. I played it when on conference calls and in airports - anywhere I could turn on the laptop. I always had to be alone while playing, and one game could go on for months. I wrote the Bejeweled 2 guide in 2007, because I thought I’d cracked the code for keeping the classic game going. Then came Bejeweled Blitz. I honestly didn't think I'd like it because I preferred the classic mode of Bejeweled 2 over the action mode. I wanted to play until I messed up and not because I was on a timer. But after the first few games of the 1-minute Blitz, I was hooked…it's mostly the competition, shortness of the individual games, and desire to beat my last best score that keeps me coming back for more’.

Served in bite-sized chunks of sixty seconds, BB fuels that nagging urge for ‘just one more go’. It’s a deceptive time-sink that converts minutes into hours and hours into days. And no matter how dismal your performance, each minute of gem matching mayhem climaxes with an explosive Last Hurrah, followed by the narcotically addictive aural cue of chinking coins. Failure to attain even the most rudimentary score – anything above 25K earns a ‘star medal’ - still sees the player increasing their ‘status’; so dedicated blitzers can gradually work their way up from humble ‘Trainee’ (level 1) to expert ‘Elder Bejewelian’ (level 130). This clever integration of basic RPG stat-raising means the player is rewarded every single time they play.

Speed and consistency are the secret to high scores. The subtle yet delightful crackle of burning twigs indicates a particularly successful run of skill; an uninterrupted frenzy of gem matching turns the screen bright orange while BB’s disembodied voice announces in its typically bombastic style, ‘BLAZING SPEED’. For the next eight seconds every matched set of gems explodes, destroying everything in its immediate vicinity. If a player has the good fortune to match five identical gems they are rewarded with a Hyper Cube. These delightful rarities can be combined with any single gem to destroy all those gems that share the same colour. Matching two Hyper Cubes clears the whole screen and is the most powerful combo in the game. But speed and skill will only get you so far. To stand any chance of competing with the best, budding blitzers must routinely purchase coins to spend on score-enhancing boosts, a practice that’s all too familiar to Cindy Morrison.

‘I feel sorry for people who can't afford to purchase coins. Boosts don't necessarily guarantee a good game. Players have the option to accumulate coins for free, simply by playing the game and taking part in the Daily Spin. But this can be a slow and frustrating process. When a player has spent a solid week saving coins to purchase boosts, and still has an awful game, it must be intensely frustrating. I had to reach a conscious decision to purchase coins, and it was not easy. The draw of the game and the need for coins to play the way I wanted to play fuelled my decision. I justify my coin buying as my daily latte money. I don't have a Starbucks nearby, so I can afford a few bucks a day on Bejeweled Blitz’.

But it was the introduction of the Cat’s Eye Gem towards the end of 2010 that really captured Cindy’s attention.

‘When the Cat's Eye gem was introduced, it suddenly became possible to hit really high scores, based on the random destruction of 14 gems after the Last Hurrah ended. I didn't get my first million point game until after the Cat's Eye gem arrived. Now I don't want to play a game without it, because if I enjoy a particularly high scoring game, I’d want that extra ‘oomph’ at the end’.

There’s just one problem. Unlike boosts, which can be purchased after each game, the Cat’s Eye Gem appears at random. Boosts are also considerably cheaper, ranging between 3,000 and 7,500 coins, compared to the 25,000 coins needed to purchase the Cat’s Eye Gem. The infrequent and random availability of this rare gem is yet another reason blitzers feel the need to purchase coins. When a player is finally presented with a chance to buy a Cat’s Eye Gem, but is unable due to lack of coins, the opportunity is lost. The disgruntled blitzer has to endure a lengthy and uncertain wait before another randomly generated Cat’s Eye appears. The compulsion to acquire and accumulate coins can become a time consuming diversion for many, bordering on the obsessive.

After each Daily Spin players are given the option to share their coins. If they choose to do so, a post is automatically generated on their Facebook wall. Up to ten friends can claim these ‘gifts’ and enjoy free coins, but they are only available for 72 hours, so it’s a case of first come first serve. ‘I know people who haunt their Facebook home page each night at midnight to grab the Daily Spin gifts that are posted by their friends’, says Cindy. ‘There’s even a dedicated application that scans the Facebook community in order to sniff out any unclaimed gift coins. I've seen many posts from people who were angry and exasperated because they’d been too late to claim their free coins’.

The cynical will no doubt condemn BB as nothing more than an addictive gambling simulator intent on exploiting the player and filling PopCaps coffers. And they may well have a point. But there’s also a genuinely wonderful game here, a minute-long masterpiece. The millions of daily blitzers are no fluke. The playful, competitive banter between friends is part of the appeal. And with anything competitive there’s bound to be casualties, those who’ll use everything in their power to win, even if it means blowing the weekly grocery money on a few million coins. In light of BB’s huge commercial and fiscal success it was perhaps inevitable that accusations of greed and manipulation would rear their frothy-mouthed heads. However, the willingness and transparency with which PopCap Games operates when fielding enquiries about BB’s continued growth seems to come from a good place, a fact that Heather Hanzen is keen to promote.

‘As with all PopCap releases, we prioritise getting the game right first and making sure the experience for customers is fun. That comes before monetisation and in fact, despite introducing Bejeweled Blitz Beta at the end of 2009, we didn’t actually start monetising for 18 months - in May 2010’.

Whichever side of the fence you sit, there is one indisputable fact: BB is the most fun you’ll have in sixty seconds.

Do We Still Care About Mario?

Why does anyone care about Mario?

That kind of question is never easy to answer. As a rule, an aesthetic preference is usually something inexplicable. In Mario’s case the complicating factor is familiarity. He happens to have starred in the ‘seminal games’ we all played in our childhood. It’s this comforting familiarity that generates such fierce loyalty.

For instance, nearly everyone feels a sneaking affection for the cartoons they watched as a child, ‘Cities of Gold’, ‘Ulysses 31’, ‘Thundercats’ and so forth. As an adult, what one enjoys is not so much the cartoons themselves as the memories they call up. And with Mario the same forces of association are at work. A thing that is absorbed so early on in life does not often come up against any critical judgement. And when one thinks of this, one thinks of all that is bad and silly in Mario games – the futile circularity of the ‘plot’ (save the princess, again), the static simplicity of the 2D platforming, the refusal to grow and mature with its fans. And then the thought arises, when I say I like Mario, do I simply mean that I like thinking about my childhood? Is Mario merely an institution?

If so, he is an institution that there is no getting away from. How often one really thinks about any game, even a game one really cares for, is a difficult thing to decide; but I should doubt whether anyone who has actually played a Mario game can't help but remember it in one context or another. It’s not so much a series of games, it is more like a world. Bowser’s Castle! The Mushroom Kingdom! Goomba! Boo! Bullet Bill! Yoshi! Princess Peach! Toad! Rainbow Road! Lakitu! Birdo! Chain Chomp! Shy guy! Thwomp! Wiggler! Whomp! – and so it goes on and on. To a surprising extent all this has entered into the minds of people who do not care about it. A stand up comedian can go on stage and tell a Mario related joke with a fair certainty of being understood, although not one in twenty of that audience would have ever played a Mario game.

But it would be screamingly unfair to base Mario’s popularity on familiarity alone. The outstanding, unmistakable mark of a Mario game is the riot of originality, the fertility of inventiveness that simply cannot be imitated. When one plays any strongly individual game, one has the impression of seeing a face somewhere behind the pixels. In this case the face is unmistakably that of Shigeru Miyamoto. And what people always demand of a popular games developer like Shigsy is that he shall make the same game over and over again.

No grown-up person can play a Mario game without feeling its limitations, and yet there remains a native intimacy and a spark of magic, which act as a kind of anchor and keeps the ubiquitous Italian chubster where he belongs. It is probably the central secret of his popularity.

Is The Gamecube Nintendo's Worst Home Console?

The Gamecube is the weakest link in Nintendo's chain of home consoles, demonstrating that even the mighty Shigsy is fallible. Mediocre at best, Nintendo's purple cube failed to deliver anything near as revolutionary or innovative as its predecessors (or its motion controlled successor).

Yes, the Gamecube offered us some genuine flourishes of excellence. Pikmin was an enchanted oddity and a game that, undeservedly, went largely unnoticed by the public, buried beneath the usual batch of mainstream mediocrity. It was a rose among the weeds but not the rich assorted topiary of creativity we have come to expect from Nintendo. It was simply not enough.

Wind Waker and Mario Sunshine, despite both being solid accomplished games, were the weakest in their franchise. The FLUDD? What was Shigsy thinking? Yoshi aside, Mario is a solo performer capable of bouncing on bonces and bashing bricks unaided. The FLUDD seemed to diminish him somehow. Another gripe: his surroundings were based in reality.

"A strange plane has brought him from his home, an escapist, jolly nonsense-land where the hills have eyes to a world very much more like our own" - EDGE magazine.

Mario belongs in the Mushroom Kingdom or at least in a world that is not weighed down by the baggage of reality. And the tedious boating excursions in the Wind Waker were a cheap and tedious stunt to prolong the life of the game.

And consider this: the Gamecube was the first Nintendo console for which the 'killer app' was not a game made by Nintendo, but instead came from third party developer Capcom in the form of Resident Evil 4.

If you need more persuasion simply pick up a copy of any NGamer and cast your eyes over their Top Ten Gamecube Games Ever Made. Resi 4 clearly holds the top spot. This is utterly unprecedented and speaks absolute volumes about the Gamecube's output and creativity during this period. And Super Mario Sunshine, Nintendo’s follow up to the revolutionary Super Mario 64, is no where to be seen! A top ten bereft of a traditional Mario platformer? Unheard of.

Compelling evidence, don’t you think?

Nintendo’s biggest crime was the failure to deliver upon their unique selling point: the promise of the ‘Nintendo Difference’. The difference in this instance was the lack of a truly memorable Nintendo game.

I agree that Resident Evil 4 was sublime, a game that made the GameCube an essential purchase, but it’s a worrying sign when a third party trumps anything Nintendo produced in the course of its console's life. I’m not dismissing the GameCube as an absolute failure but this was the first time that my hunger for gaming had not been satisfied by the Big N. I found myself looking elsewhere, and I can safely say that not one game on the GameCube could rival the brain melting brilliance of Halo: Comabt Evolved on the XBox.

The GameCube was the only Nintendo console that I sold on (yet I still have my Dreamcast). And the glut of GameCubes’s clogging up the window of every CEX I walk past shows that I’m not the only one who took this step. In fact, and this is truly offensive, I even stopped buying NGC for a small while (my favourite ever Nintendo Magazine), disillusioned as I was by the multitude of mediocrity filling Nintendo’s shelf space.

When the most influential Nintendo Magazine has Mario Party 4 as its front cover (check out issue 75 of NGC) times must be very desperate indeed.

Remember - No Russian

A defining moment in video game history. Modern Warfare’s unflinching depiction of civilian slaughter, brutal, uncensored and so very real, ranks alongside Stephen Spielberg’s Munich and Gus Van Sant’s Elephant as a stark reminder of the terror and mayhem that a few guns in the wrong hands can wreak.

There’s no cartoon violence here to mitigate the horror. Death is violent and bloody. The wounded drag their broken bodies away from the gunfire, smearing the clinically white airport floor with their glistening innards. A pretty blonde props her bullet torn body against a wall, helpless, entirely at the mercy of the approaching terrorists. The woefully inadequate security guards manage to squeeze off a few shots before crumpling under a hail of machine gun fire. And the slaughter continues, relentlessly, at snails pace, forcing you to witness every atrocity in a dreamlike stupor. To progress you simply must collude in the carnage. There is no way to avoid it. Yes, you can choose to spare the few civilians who survive the initial volley of bullets. But the shielded riot squad must be killed if you want to continue. It’s a moral Catch-22.

Think back a year. Grand Theft Auto IV. Early in the game you’re given a decision to make – a choice to assassinate either Playboy X or Dwayne. Who did you kill? Did you make the right choice? It’s exactly this uncertainty, prompted by your decision, that created the illusion of a profound turning point in the game. Deciding who to kill was distinctly harder than the actual act of killing.

An interesting fact: Jesse Stern, scriptwriter for MW2, said, ‘every single person in testing opened fire on the crowd’. The overwhelming majority of us, when given the choice between active participant and mute bystander, chose to pull the trigger. No biggie, just pull the trigger. The police, after all, are armed - kill or be killed. Besides, it was part of their job description – protect the public. But the civilian with his hands held high in that naked gesture of utter helplessness was a guilty pleasure. Destroying the innocent. Total empowerment.

It’s at this point that I started to feel a little sullied by the whole experience, a bit dirty.

I had a choice and I chose to kill.

That a first person shooter can provoke such profound emotion, can deal with such weighty world issues without resorting to adolescent absolutes, is a turning point. Modern Warfare 2 is the first video game that seriously attempts to understand a post 9/11 world. It’s a game that stands shoulder to shoulder with United 93 and The Second Plane as a chillingly effective exploration of terror in the 21st century.

Jesse Stern sums it up nicely when he says, ‘I never really knew you could elicit such a deep feeling from a video game’.

Well you can Jessie me old son. And you did.

Jesse Stern's full interview at Gamepro

The Madness Of Modern Warfare

It’s hard to make out through the mucus and froth the exact cause of his intense fury, but one thing is clear: Modern Warfare 2 is to blame.

I don’t mean to come across all Daily Mail but there’s something unsettling about the unadulterated furore surrounding Modern Warfare 2. It feels like a turning point for videogames. I just can’t quite put my finger on why that might be.

Maybe it’s the genuinely staggering facts and figures attached to the game’s release date. Modern Warfare 2 managed to shift 4.7 million units in the US and UK within 24 hours of launching. It generated $310 million which prompted Activision to declare MW2 as the “biggest entertainment launch in history”.

Or perhaps it’s the announcement, per a tweet by Major Nelson that, thanks to Modern Warfare 2, Xbox Live has set a new record with more than 2 million gamers being connected at once. A population twice the size of Cyprus unified by their love for a shoot em up. Staggering.

And it’s not just the industry pundits who are taking an interest. MW2 has attracted attention from a considerable number of high profile public figures. Andy McNab, SAS hero and author of Bravo Two Zero, said the game 'is so realistic it's scary'. Quite the endorsement. Even Russell Brand took some time out of Katy Perry’s panties to comment: ‘Modern Warfare 2 sounds like it might be trivialising the horror of war on remembrance day. What's next? Paedophile boxing 3? For Christmas?’

And Brand wasn’t the only one to pick up on the game’s ‘insensitive’ launch date. Sainsbury’s was forced to apologise to customers after MW2 was advertised over its in-store Tannoy on Armistice Day.

Not wanting to miss an opportunity to capitalize on public outrage, MPs' attacked the game for its ‘realistic depiction of civilian slaughter’. Fox news ran a whole feature on it. This in turn caused Heavy Rain producer Guillaume de Fondaumiere to wade into the debate. His take on the controversy was simple: ‘I don’t see any reason why video games should be treated differently than movies, for instance. I think that we should leave game creators free of expressing their vision as they see fit. I think the guys at Infinity Ward had something very precise in mind when they did this scene’.

A week after its release and Modern Warfare 2 is still sitting pretty in Twitter’s trending topics. A quick glance at Metacritic’s top ten reveals MW2 riding high at number 4 with the original Modern Warfare not far behind at number 7.

And all this from a first person shooter. How gloriously barmy.

There was only one way I could conclude this article: a micro interview with the angry kid in the youtube vid, GuitarJono1170:

Digital Gigolo: Why so angry dude?

GuitarJono1170: well i don't enjoy playing single player and i keep lossing and missing shots on people i prefer call of duty 5 with the zombies and nice place to go

Indeed.

Videogame Shame

I have a dark and dreadful secret. I play videogames.

This is an embarrassing confession for an adult to make. In their idle hours Winston Churchill and Noel Coward painted. For fun and relaxation Albert Einstein played the violin. Hemingway hunted, Agatha Christie gardened and James Joyce sang arias. But videogames?

I have a friend who drums in the attic (yes, real drums, not the plastic atrocities packaged with Guitar Hero), another who has been building a boat for years. A teacher I know runs an amateur dramatics society. Britain is a nation of hobbyists – eccentric amateurs, talented part-timers and dedicated autodidacts in every field of human endeavour. But videogames?

An adolescent boy can play his Xbox with guiltless abandon. If he’s not fumbling with his dinkle, scarlet cheeks aglow, in front of Youporn, he is playing Horde. Or Firefight. It’s what young boys do. At a pinch an adult may allow himself the guilty pleasure of a quick tumble with Cammy in Street Fighter IV. But that’s it. Any more forays into the world of videogames and you release the beast that lurks within every adult gamer’s heart – and the name of the beast is Embarrassment.

The privileged minority who work within the games industry are immune. A games journo, for example, will feel not one iota of embarrassment when asked his profession. ‘Games Journalist’, he will proudly proclaim before striding away, head held high, to roll a Katamari that’ll please the King of the Cosmos. Journos are immune because it is their job to play games. They get paid for it. Money makes palatable even the most rotten mocking. And besides, they inhabit a world where playing games is not only acceptable but essential. What’s more, game journos socialise with other game journos. Discussing the infuriating scarcity of caps in Fallout 3 over a few pints after work is – gasp! – totally normal. Try explaining to the average layman that it took you over two hours to clock up 200,000 points in Firefight in order to unlock a 20G achievement in ODST. After wiping the vomit from his lips, he’ll abruptly turn on his heels and leave, never to speak to you again.

Those of us without an official job title to lend our hobby any semblance of credibility are forced on to forums to share our passionate musings. And it’s always anonymously, under a silly alias like Digital Gigolo. Just in case someone recognises us.

All this talk about gaming losing its badge of shame is quite simply bollocks. The beast of embarrassment prowls on. Certainly for us oldies anyway. 

Oh fuck it, I’m off to play Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo’s Dungeon, with the shades drawn.

Down Is The New Up

I rented Silent Hill Homecoming from Blockbusters. Big fucking mistake. In what is surely the most idiotic oversight of the last decade, Jason Allen – lead designer – omitted the option to invert the camera aim. What the fuck?

Those of us who find the typical default camera unworkable - and we represent a substantial portion of the gaming population – simply cannot see this game through to its conclusion. The impractical controls prove an insurmountable obstacle to our enjoyment of the game. It’s like trying to undo a bra with broken fingers – fucking frustrating. It’s a shame because the bleak and oppressive atmosphere that Silent Hill has perfected is rendered utterly redundant. The only horrifying thing about this game is Jason Allen’s fatal lapse in judgement.

What an almighty tit.

Zero Punctuation, Zero Reliability

Just a few thoughts on the increasingly popular Ben Croshaw and his Zero Puntuation reviews.

Slick, tight and very entertaining but ultimately unreliable. Traditional, dependable games journalism takes a back seat as "Yahtzee" cultivates his ruthless journo persona. He seems more concerned with maintaining and protecting his fictional alter ego than he is with actually presenting a balanced, objective review.

It's a brilliant alternative to the convential written review - and genuinely funny - but not something I would take too seriously.

Game Over For Games Journalism

An anonymous reader left the following comment in response to my previous blog entry:

I've been where you've been. I've suffered rejections, silences, ignored emails, insincere responses from HR people that say one thing and mean another... I've had it all. In fact, I even got turned down for a tips/solutions mag, just like you.

It is hard to get a job writing about games.

It's even harder, though, when you've publicly cried about it and openly slated those in the position to hire you.

Had you not posted about any of this, you could perhaps have applied for the next staff writer job to open up at the company (they pop up all the time - Imagine suffers high turnover because of the below-industry-standard wages), and maybe you'd have been hired.We'll never know though, will we? Chances of you getting through the door ever again are slim. And, to be honest, it's unlikely anyone else will hire you while these posts remain on your blog.

My reply, intitally intended as a quick ‘thanks for the comment’, mutated into something a little more substantial…

Dear Anonymous,

Firstly, thank you for leaving a comment. It always feels like a small miracle when someone takes the time to read what I’ve said and reply to it. I totally agree with every point you've made. But I've also made it very clear as to why I'm calling it quits with regards to writing for a games magazine. For those of you that can't be arsed - and I don't blame you - to sift through the previous blog entries leading up to this one, I'll state my reasons here:

The Pay – The typical £12,000 annual salary you can expect as a Staff Writer is enough to deflate even the most enthusiastic of souls. Yes, I know it’s not all about the money, but there’s simply no denying the serious mauling your self esteem takes when you realise your 12 year old sister is pulling in more cash from her weekly paper round.

The Fear – I’m sick of the smothering silence that surrounds the industry. If you want to speak freely you have to either blog under an alias (The Ram Raider), or leave anonymous comments like the one above. If aspiring journos knew EXACTLY what was in store for them they may very well consider an alternative career path.

The Elitism – Game magazines seem to be run under an oligarchy – it appears that a small, elite segment of journos are the only people to be given regular freelance work (crucial if you’re to live on the appalling basic salary). The same names appear again and again. It’s all a little too incestuous to be considered healthy. New blood struggles to gain a foothold.

The Grudges – Even if I were to remove all previous blog entries relating to my misadventure with Imagine I’d still have no chance securing any future employment with them:

Don't want to worry you, but burning one bridge will have a similar effect to burning them all. There’s no point in taking the posts down –it’s not like they’ll be forgotten. Not how people hold grudges in this fucking business.

The Ram Raider

And seeing as there are only two main publishing houses – Future and Imagine - that cater for the specialist interest hobby of gaming I’ve just effectively halved my chances of employment. ‘So why not work for Future?’ I hear you ask. Well, believe it or not, I did. For two months. But declining readership figures forced me into redundancy. Which brings me nicely to my final point…

The Slump - Trying to make it as a videogame journalist must surely rank as the ultimate exercise in futility. A big fat ominous cloud hangs over the future of the traditional paper publication as the internet continues to erode its influence. Magazine sales are continually declining, and as circulations shrink there is less and less opportunity to actually work on them. Aspiring young journos have to face the unwelcome reality of a ridiculously competitive marketplace for a job. And as each year passes, that window of opportunity becomes increasingly smaller.

ConclusionIt’s hard to get a job writing for a games magazine – harder still if you plan to make it your career. Perhaps games journalism should only be seen as a transitional stepping stone to other, better paid, jobs – a horrible way to look at it I know, but when the uppermost crust you can expect to earn is £18,000 it’s no wonder that people are doing exactly this.

Believe me when I say there is NOTHING I’d rather do than write about games for a living - but there comes a time when you’ve got to be realistic.

Unless you’d like to provide some viable alternatives?

Read more about this subject here

What EVERY Videogame Needs

In a perfect world every single videogame would have at least one of them. They are, after all, the reason we love games.

Nintendo owes its enduring success to them, a testimony to the seemingly innate ability the company has in weaving them, seamlessly, into their games. Microsoft throws millions at developers in the hope that they can produce them and Sony desperately needs an exclusive PS3 title that has one, if it wants to successfully distinguish itself from the competition.

But just what is this indefinable commodity? What exactly is it that transforms a good game into a great game and a great game into a stone-cold classic? What is it that EVERY videogame needs?

A defining moment.

You know, like that bit in Bioshock when you’re given the choice to either ‘harvest’ or ‘rescue’ a Little Sister. Choose to ‘rescue’ and you’re rewarded with one of the most hauntingly beautiful animations to grace a game. Or how about the, genuinely shocking, moment in Final Fantasy VII when Aeris is so suddenly and brutally murdered by Sephiroth?

Yes, in order to leave a lasting legacy, every videogame needs its defining moment, a memorable flash of brilliance that stays with the gamer long after they have finished playing.

Would you care to share you most memorable gaming moments?

Orbsessed

Agility orbs. How do you get your fix? Do you pack those pulsating emerald balls into a joint and smoke yourself into a sickly pallor? Perhaps you chop them up into a fine powdered dust and snort them through a £50 note. Or has it gone beyond that? Do you crave a needle in the vein and the blissful escape into throbbing green oblivion? Whatever your method, you're not alone in your shameful habit.

I first became aware of this unusual addiction in May 2007 after reading Paul Rose's column in Edge Magazine:

Crackdown is my current passion. I kind of get the sense that, perhaps, it’s not actually a very good game. There’s lots to admire about it on a technical level, but in most respects it’s pretty charmless. And yet I’ve spent more time on Crackdown than any other game this year. The core experience – running around a lovely, GTA-esque city taking out gang bosses – is by far the dullest part of the experience. Far more interesting is your characters superhuman agility, the climbing frame that is the city itself, and the ability to upgrade your abilities by collecting orbs

Now, I’m typically the sort of person who avoids collectibles in games, and yet I have been obsessively scouring every last inch of Crackdown to hear those elusive, pulsing tones. I’m currently on over 400 agility orbs and I’m buggered if I know where the remaining ones are. If a game can get a collect-o-phobe like me collecting then it’s doing something right.

My spidey senses began to tingle. Notoriously hard to please, Paul Rose – the epitome of the jaded cynic – had, in a rare moment of praise, disabled his infamous ‘grumble feature’. Crackdown had turned his hatred of collecting into an obsession. I purchased the game the next day.

Tuned into the sleazy habit of orb collecting I became sensitive to just how broad this obsession had become. Here are some of my favourite orb-related quotes:

IGN
Let's just say you wouldn't buy this game for the enthralling narrative and compelling characters. You'll buy it to become a slobbering mindless slave to orb collecting.

Deeko
The heavenly sound of those humming green orbs has been tattooed on my brain forever. It is the most recognisable noise in gaming history.

Askmen
Agility orbs are the next best thing to drugs, plus it's legal.

Random forumite
Collecting agility orbs is insanely addictive; I didn’t fuck my girlfriend until I’d found every last one of them. It took me three weeks.

Gamasutra
Collecting green agility orbs quickly becomes a mad, wonderful, psychotic obsession.

Play.tm
If video games were virtual narcotics, Crackdown would be a methamphetamine. Collecting those elusive green orbs is insanely addictive; quitting is quite impossible. What starts out as a half-hour gaming session can easily become a two or three hour binge.

Jeez, get a room already. I’ll admit that I too was caught up in the orb snaffling zeitgeist. I understand the appeal. What I find tiresome is the inability of games journalists to mention Crackdown without also alluding to those ‘narcotically addictive’ agility orbs. It’s become an illness.

Journos should be waging war against the cliché. Instead they are perpetuating the same old formulaic platitudes. With Crackdown 2 on the horizon there's no doubt we’ll have to listen to all those tedious confessions of orb-addiction a million times more:

360
Hopefully Crackdown 2 will have even more agility orbs to collect this time around. We miss the sound they make.

Edge
Can tackling monstrous enemies prove as satisfying as booting a Mexican drug lord off the roof of a tower block? We wouldn't like to say - but the siren sound of all those gleaming agility orbs will tempt us back regardless.

We get the message.

Why Nintendo Breeds Fanboys...

My passion for Nintendo has often been mistaken for sycophantic adulation. And I’ve always responded to accusations of ‘fanboy’ fanaticism in one of two ways. I’d either vehemently protest my innocence (an unmistakable sign that a nerve had been squarely hit) or slink shamefully away, painfully aware that, yes, my devotion to Nintendo is somewhat pathetic.

But I’ve given it some thought and I think I’ve hit upon why Nintendo is such a fertile breeding ground for ‘fanboys’. The simple answer is longevity. Nintendo has been making videogames since 1975. Time has afforded the Big N the ability to build a rich catalogue of genuinely endearing characters (Mario, Link and Samus to name a few), infusing each with their very own background and history. In many cases, we have grown up with them; life long chums forever by our side. And it’s this comforting familiarity that generates such fierce loyalty.

Parallels can be drawn with Microsoft.

With each new instalment of Halo came an increasingly frenzied level of excitement. Fans were frothing at the mouth when the concluding part of the trilogy was announced. The same eager anticipation will no doubt be seen with future instalments of Gears Of War, Half-Life and Bioshock. In fact, any cherished franchises - Star Wars, Lord Of The Rings, Indiana Jones – produce that same intense scrutiny, adulation and loyalty amongst its fans that ‘outsiders’ simply fail to understand. Who can forget those first breathtaking steps into Hyrule Field (Ocarina Of Time)? Or the giddy delight of seeing Mario fleshed out into full 3D?

To those of us who don’t follow Nintendo, these landmark moments mean nothing. But for those of us well versed in Nintendo’s rich history, for those of us who have invested years of our lives following the fortunes of our favourite stars, these moments are what we’ve been patiently waiting for. We’re ‘fanboys’ because there is just so much to be fanatical about!

So there you have it. The next time someone calls me ‘fanboy’ I shall secretly rejoice, safe in the knowledge that I’m in good company. Failing that, I’ll hug my plush Mario teddy and cry.

Shigeru Miyamoto: Groundbreaking Genius Or Self Indulgent Egoist?

Good old Shigsy. Just where would we be without the father of the modern videogame? Hard to say really, but let’s give it a try. Let us, for one moment, suspend our disbelief and envision a world in which Miyamoto simply doesn’t exist.

The Saint
Without Shigsy behind the creative helm, Nintendo wouldn’t be the industry super power it is today. There’s simply no doubting his colossal contributions to the company. Is he a groundbreaking industry player? Unequivocally yes. We’ve all heard of the butterfly effect - the idea that one butterfly could eventually have a far-reaching ripple effect on subsequent historic events. Well it’s not hard to see Miyamoto as the catalyst for Nintendo’s good fortunes. And it’s possible to pinpoint exactly where it all began.

In 1981 Donkey Kong single-handedly helped Nintendo make a name for itself in the U.S. and, consequently, cash in on the lucrative American arcade market. The protagonist of Donkey Kong, known then simply as Jumpman, went on to become the most recognized videogame character in the world, staring in over 200 videogames. I’m talking about, of course, that iconic Italian chubster, Mario.

The portfolio of games that Shigsy has worked on since reads like a guide to The All Time Greatest Videogame Classics: The Legend of Zelda, Star Fox, Pikmin, F-Zero. And then there’s the small matter of the Wii and that divisive motion sensing controller – love it or loathe it, it well and truly launched gaming into the mainstream. Unsurprisingly, everyone now wants a piece of the motion sensing action: Sony with Sixasis and Microsoft with Prjoect Natal. Like I said, Shigeru Miyamoto’s influence on the industry is impossible to underestimate. Without him Nintendo might never have made it.

But is there another side to this coin?

The Sinner
Can Miyamoto really be described as a self indulgent egoist? Surely not. How can Japan’s favourite son and one of Time's 100 most influential people, ever be accused of possessing such an unflattering disposition? It could be the case that all this unflagging success and constant sycophantic adulation may have gone to his head. And why wouldn’t it? He’s only human.

Could it be that behind the cheeky grin and the ever-youthful bowl of thick black hair lurks something a little more sinister than meets the eye? Here’s a snippet from an interview with Nintendo Official Magazine:

NOM UK: It seems as though there is a conflict between your real self and your public image that's been built up as this kindly, slightly batty, old man who makes cutting-edge video games for little kids. What do you say to that?

Miyamoto: You want to know my reputation among Nintendo staff members? I'm loud and hard on everybody; I stick to minute detailed points; I'm the guy who changes his opinions one after another; and I'm the guy who is still fighting for his opinion past midnight. People who don't know me say that I just spout things out from my gut feeling, but as they come to know me better they think of me as more of a logical type.

It’s an interesting insight into Miyamoto’s character and perhaps not quite what you’d expect from the brain behind the ultra cutesy Nintendogs. Even Nintendo’s President Satoru Iwata has revealed that, “Miyamoto-san gets pretty scary when he's angry”. Okay, so the man’s a little stubborn when he needs to be. You gotta kick a little ass to get things done, right? Fair play, but there’s a time when stubbornness can veer dangerously close to egotism – like that time when he told Entertainment Weekly, “I could make Halo. It is not that I could not design that game. It is just that I choose not to. One thing about my game design is that I never try to look for what people want and then try to make the game design”. Again, fair play, but we can’t ignore the fact that a Halo-esque FPS is exactly what thousands of Wii owners want - which would explain why The Conduit has stirred up such intense interest. What’s wrong with giving the fans what they want?

And has Miyamoto simply gone too far with the creation of Demo Play . The next Mario game and “future games, too” are to include this controversial little addition. Demo Play is “essentially an option to allow the game to play itself when the player encounters an area too difficult for them to handle.” A game that plays itself? Who on earth wants that? Miyamoto seems to be taking the notion of accessibility in videogames to its most absurd conclusion.

Could this be a sign that Miyamoto no longer cares about the thrill of challenge or the sense of accomplishment that gamers experience when they’ve finally bumped off Bowser? Is accessibility – cramming as many people as possible into the Nintendo demographic – now all he’s concerned about?

Conclusion
While researching this article, the overriding feeling I got from all the interviews, biographies and news articles is that Miyamoto is on OUR side. It’s a well know fact that as a boy he’d often explore his natural surroundings: Rice fields, canyons, grassy hills, waterways and deep dark caves. It was a period of his life that informed all his future endeavours.

Miyamoto wants us to experience the same childlike joy of exploration, creation and discovery that he enjoyed during his own childhood. He wants to share. And there is absolutely nothing egotistical or self indulgent in wanting to communicate the delight of gaming and its infinite possibilities to as many people as he possibly can. If he has to change the way we play – swapping traditional button heavy controllers with a more accessible motion sensing device – he’ll do it.

Yes, he’s a man who follows his own star - refusing to chase trends in favour of innovation. And yes, he may come across as a little stubborn, but it’s exactly this unwavering self belief and intuitive nature that has made him an icon of the videogame industry. If you were to ask the fans, I’m sure they wouldn’t have him any other way. I’d like to conclude this article with my all time favourite Miyamoto quote:

“Video Games are bad for you? That's what they said about Rock 'N' Roll”

Bill Hicks On Video Games And Porno Movies

Fifteen years after his death, his words still burn with righteous sincerity. And all he did, really, was to tell the truth about himself, and about the way he saw the world. He was the inspiration behind this blog's most controversial entry.

So I was thrilled to discover - while reading through an anthology of his letters, interviews and stand-up routines - a small segment devoted to his twisted relationship with videogames and porn. It’s not one of his funniest moments but it makes me wish he was still around to see just how much the world has changed.

Recorded Live at Laff Stop,
Austin, TX
(December 1992)

You know though, I don’t get it, man. I tell you what, I have this new fear. Cos I know, I know that I’m in a case of arrested development emotionally. I know that now. Cos I realize, you know, like ah if you – anyone can go to the video store near my house and see what I’ve rented the past year. It’s frightening, you know? Unbelievable evidence of an emotionally, you know, ah…digression goin’ on here. Porno movies and video games. What am I, thirteen emotionally? You know what I mean? I’m sitting there looking at this receipt I got from them, it’s like Clam Lappers and Sonic Hedgehog. That was one weekend. That was Easter weekend. Something’s going on with me, man. That’s a pretty scary way to celebrate the resurrection of Christ…with Clam Lappers and Sonic fucking Hedgehog. You know? I’m…my big fear now is I’m gonna go rent a porno film and take it to the front, you know, and give it to the guy, and he’s gonna do that little ‘doot!’ and suddenly (makes sound of alarm): ‘You’ve just rented your millionth porno tape!’ (alarm) ‘Get a picture of him with it! Anal Entry, volume 500 – he made it through every one of ‘em’ (alarm) Give me the little trophy. Millionth porno tape, wow! Lucky fuckin’ me. And along with Super Mario 2. I wish they’d combine video and porno. That would be great, man, you know? Video games and porno films? I’d have high score on Clam Lappers by now. I wish they did have interactive porno games…

Interactive porno games? It’s an interesting thought. If Hicks had stuck around a little longer maybe he’d have gotten his wish: