Sure there is a dark side of my character that chuckles to myself when I see a gas tank, and I always take note of security cameras on my travels because years of playing video games has taught me a few little tricks that come in quite useful in everyday life. When I gave this a little more thought it occurred to me that actually there are many positive lessons learned by attending the University of Gaming.

Modern education involves constant multiple-choice style exams that teaches kids to memorise rather than think. Many blame this for shackling creativity and explain why many have so much trouble solving the simplest of problems in the ‘one size fits all’ education system. The good news is that people who play video games can learn more skills from games than they ever did in school.

Lesson One: Everyday is a school day
Whether you are at school, college, university or climbing the ladder of success in the workplace the biggest lesson to learn in life is that everyday is a school day no matter how old you are. You are guaranteed to learn new skills everyday no matter how good you may think that you are.

Video Games mostly begin with a tutorial that very often outstays its welcome, but even the more experienced and cocky gamer who skips such a lesson could end up regretting it when they realise they don’t know how to use dead eye in Red Dead Redemption because of their over enthusiastic skipping.

I must confess that tutorials are something of an annoyance to me, but I have since learned to be a little more patient and learn a thing or two. It took the death of Ben Carmine to make me learn the error of my ways, but I got there in the end. Sadly this won’t bring Ben back.

Ben Carmine dies for our sins!

Lesson Two: Learn from your mistakes.
Each and every one of us will make mistakes on this roller-coaster we call life; however the key lesson is to not repeat them but to learn from them. Sounds simple right? Sure it’s up there with eat less and exercise more but anyone that has seen the Jeremy Kyle Show will know that there is living proof that some people continue to make the same mistakes.

The world of video games does not tolerate fools gladly and if you wish to progress in games such as Trials HD you will learn this frustrating lesson the hard way.

Lesson Three: Trust No-one!
I believe that to win a rat race you need to be a rat. I don’t want to be a rat but unfortunately in life even people that appear to be a good friend in the workplace could be hatching a plan to cause your downfall so they can further their own ambition with you out of the way. Of course not everyone you meet will be your secret nemesis but you need to be aware that it could happen and what signs to look for.

A prime example of this was the nice, incredibly helpful man called Atlas in the game Bioshock. For the majority of the game it felt that you and this affable Irishman struck up a rapport as he helped you escape the claustrophobic and chaotic world of Rapture. However the ending is something that is enough to guarantee you that you will think twice before trusting someone so implicitly ever again.

Atlas was right...

Lesson 4: Follow your own path
If a bear attacks your camp you don’t need to be faster than the bear. You only need to be faster than the slowest camper and this is a lesson that many gamers are forced to learn very quickly when playing online.

Fortune favours the brave, but most game rooms are full of people being predictable taking the same route time after time but the person who is not distracted by others and disciplined enough to follow their own path and separate themselves from the masses will reap the rewards.

Lesson 5: There is no shortcut; experience is the key to success
Wander aimlessly into any online game map and you will be instantly picked off, leaving you feeling more than a little worthless. However if you put the hours in, study the geography of your environment, your moment of glory will come sooner than you think. Like any cheesy 80’s film, if you refuse to give up and work hard you will gain the experience you need to become a contender.

Lesson 6: There is no I in Team
No matter how good you may think you are as an individual you will never be a match for well organized team who work together towards a common goal. Any member of a successful online clan will tell any rookie to leave his ego and quest for personal glory at the door, because it will win you nothing.

"Work as a team, people. Work as a team."

Lesson 7: Problem Solving
Studies show video games make people more perceptive, training their brains to analyze things faster and more effective than those who do not. With games such as the Sims, kids can look at real life problems and it can teach them how to work out their own solutions.

Unfortunately in the real world, sleeping for twenty-four hours will not fix all of your health issues, you cannot re-spawn, you haven’t got three lives. You only get one shot at this life but the lessons you have learned from gaming are possibly more valuable than you will ever learn in any classroom.

A few misleading articles by the otaku site Sankaku Complex (careful, the link is definitely NSFW), full of mistranslations and omissions that seemed quite intentional, given the past hate-filled articles by the site on anything pertaining Square Enix. These misconceptions spread like wildfire and gave the general audience a quite warped vision of the system and the game. Unfortunately even more sanctioned websites decided to approach the matter in a sensationalistic way, also omitting some crucial information.

The general idea that was spread is that the game strongly limits your playtime to eight hours per class played, while some websites like Sankaku Complex tried to pass the idea in their misleading headlines that the limit was eight hours period.

How does this apparent draconian system really work? In a quite more complex way than many have been led to believe. I’m going to analyze it thanks to the latest message by the game’s director Nobuaki Komoto corroborated by my personal experience in the beta testing.

First of all the system isn’t tied with your playtime. It’s not a matter how many hours you play, but a matter of how much experience you earn. If you’re standing around or exploring, the system doesn’t affect you and it works only when you’re earning experience for any class/weapon skill.

I don't feel fatigued at all...

As you level up the system counts how much experience you’ve been earning from the beginning of the week, and after you have passed eight stages (that the official message defined “thresholds”) your  experience gain for each action will start to lower gradually: 90%, 80% and so forth, until it reaches zero in seven more stages, or thresholds. After a week (real time) the system resets and you start earning experience again at the normal rate. This is pretty much what most sites out there concentrated on.

This system, though, is tied to each class or weapon skill you’re leveling. If you change to a different weapon/class, that class will have a separate value, and will start from 100% itself, whatever the fatigue threshold of the previous class. If you change back to the previous class you go back to its threshold that was previously saved.

This alone means that the time in which you’ll earn full experience is most definitely not just a few hours, as you’re allowed to level up as many classes as you want between the eighteen implemented at launch. I would strongly discourage trying to skill up a single class all the way to the cap, because you’d have a effect similar to playing without a properly leveled sub-job in Final Fantasy XI: Your character would be much weaker than those of your peers, and the community would easily end up labeling you as “lazy” and shunning you. One of the best features of Final Fantasy XIV, after all, is mixing and matching abilities from different classes in order to create your own unique character (as explained in my hands on article).

Ok... now I feel "fatigued"...

This is not all. A detail that was overlooked by many sites out there is actually a quite crucial one, that makes the system work much better than it sounded so far; as you change class/weapon and stop leveling up a class that reached a certain threshold, the fatigue of that class will start recharging, making you climb back through the thresholds until you go back to 100% earned experience. This means that you will not need to wait for the week to pass and the system to reset. By juggling between two or more classes, it’s entirely possible to not to experience the fatigue system at all (I can assess this with first-person experience, despite the fact that I played a whole lot, I’m not exactly a casual gamer), even if you’re playing for several hours a day.

There are, moreover, a few details that many overlooked. The fatigue system has been present through the whole beta testing, but it become apparent only in the third and latest stage. Why is that? At the beginning of the third stage the leveling curve was changed quite a bit, and the experience received became much higher than intended. While that was partially addressed in the following beta, whoever played during those days were put much higher on the fatigue scale than intended.

Also, as Komoto clearly stated, the system isn’t set in stone, and will be balanced carefully during the next few weeks, with the promise of reaching the “fatigue point” much more slowly. In addition to that, the experience lost due to the system (named “surplus” experience) will not be completely lost, but will be saved. The development team is working on devising ways to use that surplus experience for different purposes, making progression meaningful even when past the fatigue threshold.

Ouch! That hurt!

In my opinion, the fatigue system isn’t a problem per-se, but it’s balancing in the third phase of the beta was (intentionally or not) quite a lot off the scale, and that’s what caused it to become excessively apparent and annoying to quite a few players.

The biggest problem is that there is the possibility for some players to eventually reach zero growth in a class, feeling forced to change to another class. Personally, I feel that if  fatigue reduced the experience gained, but didn’t completely reduce it to zero (say, reducing skilling up to 50%, or even 30% after all the fifteen have been passed, without dropping further), most people would feel much better about it. It’s definitely much better, as opposed to not having a choice between a changing class to level up at a full rate, or to continue with the current one with diminished returns.

Many beta testers are offering this kind of feedback, and hopefully the developers will consider it. After all the game is still in beta, and the fatigue system is nothing more than numbers and percentages that can be rebalanced relatively easily and quickly if needed.

I’ll definitely stand by and report on the evolution of this and other systems in open beta, so stay tuned for further details in the next few weeks.

Good or bad, I find out if Kinect really is the future.

During my trial, I played with two people who aren’t extensive gamers alongside myself and my girlfriend who play games on the Xbox regularly. When both my girlfriend and I were playing Joy Ride with our friends, we got slaughtered, every… single… time. No matter how many successful laps of Forza I’ve had in the past, no matter how many times I’ve whipped around the cities in Project Gotham or propelled ahead at high velocity in Gran Turismo, Joy Ride still had lessons to teach me. I came 8/8 during every race I played and I’d even learned how to do boosting and stunts in mid air. Clearly, previous involvement with games of a similar ilk has no bearing on your capabilities within Kinect games. From my experience, it actually seems that non-regular gamers found it easier to adjust than those of us who are used to controllers. Our posture was all wrong and we were a little rigid, as we are too used to having a prop to focus our intensity on. i.e the controller.

When you first play Kinect, especially if you are a regular gamer, you’re going to be very surprised by how important every aspect of your body is to your own individual progress within a game and your general success rate. Having only trialled three of the games in Kinect Adventures, and Joy Ride, I didn’t get to see everything Kinect can do, but have enough perspective now to see just how important this will be to the way gaming will be played from this point forward. The slightest twitch of your leg, or the force you put behind the swing of your arm, is all crucial to your performance. In River Rush, you can have up to two people playing, each at either side of the raft, and you will need to use teamwork in order to maximise your points; both steering the raft by moving your bodies and jumping in order to reach the Adventure Points. Whereas, in Ricochet, a dodgeball type game, you will need to use every part of your body in order to perform at your best.

Every movement of your body plays a part!

While there will be Xbox Live support within certain titles, Joy Ride will enable you to have eight people playing over Xbox Live at one time, the focus of Kinect will be in your living room. In an age where online gaming dominates the multiplayer market, Kinect looks set to bring the party back into your own home and that’s why this Christmas, finding one of these is probably going to be very difficult, but worth the trouble!

Kinect is going to open doors wide for the future. Anyone who has not necessarily been into gaming before is suddenly going to be given a rich opportunity to embrace it as never before. Casual gamers will be in the same boat as those who take pride in being labelled ‘hardcore’ and it will now be possible for people with handicaps and ailments to ascend to gaming greatness and compete with others on an even playing field, something which has never been possible until now. In that regard, Kinect is truly revolutionary.

It’s easy to see why some would be annoyed by this abrupt change in the gaming landscape, players have been used to using a game pad for years, adjusting to directional buttons or analogue sticks for movements and the tap of a button prompting a character to jump or punch. With Kinect, the individual has become the controller and every action is determined by the way you move your body. Suddenly, it’s all about dexterity, flexibility and endurance as opposed to who can button mash the fastest.

A standard set-up for any living room!

Some may argue that Kinect offers too much freedom and that developers aren’t going to make full use of the capabilities. I wonder whether the five year lifespan Kinect has been given will be enough time for developers to truly get an idea for what can really be done with the technology. It’s worth noting that Sony’s Move is being supported by most of Sony’s forthcoming A-List franchises (such as Killzone 3, Motorstorm Apocalypse and Little Big Planet 2), whereas Microsoft have yet to associate any of their key franchises with Kinect, with games initially announced or rumoured to feature Kinect support no longer receiving it. Don’t they trust their multi-million dollar project with their multi-million dollar game franchises? Do they think people wouldn’t play them? As I previously alluded, people who weren’t gamers before can suddenly become gamers; shouldn’t they get a chance to be competitive in the games that people class as ‘hardcore’, or would Kinect support cheapen the experience?

All I know is that my hands-on with Kinect was an eye-opener. Microsoft have created something fun for everyone, something that will make non-gamers interested and want to get in on the fun too. However, it may have some way to go before it proves to the fence sitters and the doubters that this is a revolution, that it is the next step and that it is as important to their gaming collection as anything that may have come before it.

I will be returning to Covent Garden this weekend to play more Kinect and will hopefully be trying out Dance Central, Kinectimals, Kinect Sports, Your Shape, EA Sports Active 2 and more Kinect Adventures and Joy Ride. If you have any questions you’d like me to pose to the team at the exhibition centre or any questions you’d like me to answer in a full hands-on report then list them in the post below.

Also, check out our Facebook page to see a video of me playing Joy Ride!

At this point I figured what the hell; maybe I should write this stuff down and see what the rest of the world thinks.

The first thing on the list is the guns. One thing both Andy and I noticed was that both of us tended to keep the same sets of guns for a long period of time. There may be millions of guns but that didn’t stop us from constantly using the same ones. The hardest part for both of us was swapping a gun that you had been using for the last fifty missions for one that was a little bit better. It was was like replacing your child with another child that looks the same but is slightly stronger and has the ability to fart fire. The new child has a few perks, but its not the same child that you’re used to and have come to love as your own.

One thing we agreed on was that it would have been a better idea to have had millions of gun parts which you could swap and change, like Tuko does in the Good the Bad and the Ugly. He sees a standard stock that he likes then changes the parts to suit him. This idea would mean that you could still have loads of guns, but you could also upgrade them as you saw fit. So you get yourself one of the standard stock weapons and decide that you want to pull off the barrel from one of the other weapons. The magazine is extended and maybe you decide that you want to add an elemental mod into the mix for a bit. Before you know it, you have created your own custom masterpiece that you have stuck together with super glue and cable ties and hair grease. This would mean that people would still run around and collect stuff but would also always be adding stuff to their guns. You could also have some sort of trading system where people could barter for the parts. Find something cool and powerful but not quite what you’re looking for? Borderlands style eBay isn’t far away. If you really think about it, not only would you have the five million plus standard guns, you would be extending that ten-fold by allowing players to swap the parts about or harvest the gun parts. You would get the best of both worlds; all the guns and the ability to upgrade them.

Another thing that could be added is some additional storage. Many times throughout the game, I have found weapons that I couldn’t use, or didn’t need at the time and wanted somewhere to store them without having to sell them every time I ran out of space. Having a place to put some of your surplus would have been great as you could store guns for when you need them without having to just get rid for the sake of it. Having your own personal weapons room would be cool. Imagine the decor something like a futuristic version of  Hit Girls room in Kick-Ass, with every wall nicely decorated with everything you would need to start an army. This could also double as a base of operations, maybe a big house with four rooms in it. You have one room and your co-op partners stuff would be loaded up in another room (in single player you would only be able to enter your own room). You could go around and look at what they have and then add stuff to your wish list. If your co-op partner agrees, then you can take the gun from their room to loan or you can bid on certain guns to keep. Also housed in the room could be trophies from all your boss kills. Now before you start giving me grief because you can purchase a storage bank in the Mad Moxxi DLC, it wasn’t quite what I hoped for. Having an extra 39 slots is good if it’s added to your character, but having to jump to the arena every time you want to empty your load isn’t the way to go. One simple additional option of “send to storage/home” would be good, saving the hassle of running around or back to your base unless you really have to.

While we’re still on the subject of storage, another thing that could be added is a way to get rid of all those guns you don’t want, really fast. For example a check box style system that locks the guns in your storage, then an option to sell all, with one press of a button. Rather than having to sort through the ones you don’t want then accidently losing a gun that you wanted to keep for later because you got a bit confused (we have all done it, there is no shame).

Bring back the team but allow me to customise them!

My next little idea is attached to the missions; let’s face it, every mission was pretty much the same. Now, I’m not complaining in the slightest, I loved the missions (seriously, I’m not going to lie) but I did feel that a bit of variety wouldn’t have gone a miss. Everything was “kill this enemy”, or “collect fifty of these”, and I don’t mean to be a kill joy, but would it have hurt to add a bit more depth to it?! Mixing it up with a few “capture the flag” and team orientated missions would have been worthy additions. It’s okay being on the offensive all the time but there’s nothing wrong with being on the defensive either with some “defend said area” missions too. Adding some racing missions would be great too, you could mix it up by expressly allowing the use of big guns to help with the competition (although some could be without too). You would still have your standard “shoot the shit out of anything that bleeds” missions too, just adding some things that allow you to have a break from that would be fantastic additions. You could also incorporate something similar to what Left 4 Dead has, where by each time you replay a mission it plays a slightly different way. If anything it would add to the replay value.

Something that a few people have mentioned is the lack of people in towns and places that you visit. I think the whole of Pandora is inhabited by claptraps and around ten people that you can associate with. Another thing that I noticed was once you had done all the missions you couldn’t really have a chat with them or hear any quick witted comments or piss takes. I think for the next game there should be a bit more life; people walking around, a few random people that don’t want to blow your head off, a couple of traders and campsites here and there. Sound good?

That gun is crying out for customisation

Having one car is all well and good, then adding three more with the DLC but not allowing you to use any of them anywhere else and restricting them to areas isn’t fun. I had this notion that you could upgrade your cars similar to the way I want to upgrade the guns. Destroy enemy vehicles and steal some of the unwanted parts, swap them about in scooters new and improved garage. It could be like a Mad Max version of Banjo Kazooie’s car maker. Select the parts you want and build a real monster. You could even have an aesthetics engine in there to help decorate and paint awesome designs to your cars. People could trade parts and schematics like you can on Forza.

One thing I would have liked to see is some team VS team play for the multiplayer. Having four player co-op is one thing but mixing it up with a team orientated battle against three or four other teams could be awesome. Having the matches like your general free for all, team battle and capture the flag. You could then do vehicle versions of the same game modes on a larger arena. At the end of the battle, the winning team or the winner of the free for all could win some special weapons that they could use in game. You could also have some scavenge style modes too where you go looking for a set amount of weapon parts. Once a team has a set amount of parts a special weapon is launched killing off the rest of the opposition and crowning your team as the winner.

I want a futuristic version of this room.. OK?!

My final thought of an addition to the game is with the characters and the way you upgrade, this is possibly the longest thought that I have for the game, so I thought I would leave the best till last.

When you start the game you could choose your character or have a character builder, then you could choose what class you want them. Rather than have a series of perks that are specific to that character class, why not have it so you have mix and match perks? Before you think I have totally lost the plot, there is more. So say that you start off as Mordecai and rather than being restricted to his class, the first few missions help you decide the class that you want to be. You level up and you get a skill point and now you can pick what class you want to be. You go into the menu and you see that you have all the skill trees for all classes. Now you pick what class you want. So for example, you decide that you want to be a Soldier Class character (rather than the standard Hunter) because you get the turret and not a bloodwing. So you level up some more and you get to pick a few perks that are relevant to the soldier class. You then decide that you want a perk that the Siren has because you like using elemental based weaponry. Rather than starting again and changing the class to Siren, you could be able to purchase a perk for one of the other classes.

Why should you be restricted on the weaponry that you use? You shouldn’t. The main character perks like the upgrading of the special at the bottom of the skill tree would stay intact but you would be allowed to pick what additional perks you would want. This would mean that each character would be unique to the player and their play style and weapons choices. If you extend the level cap to 101 (purely because the level cap on most RPG’s is 99 and not out of a Fallout reference) the possibilities would be endless especially if you increase the amount of perks one could attain. You could keep the “reset the skill point” option in the fast travel, allowing people to try a bit of everything within the same play or allow them to reset when starting playthrough two so they can be someone else. Another addition could be to alter the look of your character a bit. Why not allow the players to purchase clothing like in Fable where you can mix and match up an outfit?

Well, it’s been a long ride and although I have plenty more ideas for directions I’d like to see Borderlands take, I don’t want to complicate matters, as I felt that these ideas were my best or outlandish ones. With all classics there is always room for further improvement, so long as you don’t change too much so that it spoils what made the original game great. I look forward to seeing what Gearbox has to offer when they show us more of what’s to come from the Borderlands franchise.

I hope you all add your thoughts in the comments.

I mean we have one really established actor, an actress whose biggest role yet is as James Bond’s sex partner for a night in Quantum of Solace, and a director whose biggest hit yet was Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. When push came to shove though, and Hollywood decided to actually put some effort into a ‘video game movie’, it kicked some major box office ass… as well as mine for thinking it was going to be lame.

In terms of movie-to-movie sales… Okay, fine. It didn’t kick that much ass, but it did as far as video game movies go. I firmly believe that with a longer list of more quality iterations, we could see a very sharp incline on ticket sales. The general public needs to know that these movies aren’t to be trifled with anymore, before they go and spend their money on ridiculously priced concessions and tickets. Prince of Persia is in my mind, hopefully the first in a long line of prosperity for game-to-movie adaptations.

The movie received rave reviews across the board, even from our site. I think that this has done more for both the gaming and film industries than is presently clear. What was once a gimmick to make money off of big name video games is hopefully now going to be a full-fledged, quality, and essential part of the film industry. That is why this article exists, to relay my message to Hollywood; keep movies like Prince of Persia coming.

Sweet Action!

Not many video game movies have achieved critical acclaim, which is a sad fact indeed. My hopeful thinking is that all of these movies listed on IMDB will turn out to be just as much of a surprise as Prince of Persia. We have God of War, Warcraft, Gears of War, and many more all-star video games on the alleged list to hitting the silver screen. I want to see a trend different from 3/10 ratings, I don’t want the biggest names in gaming to be made fun of as we walk out of the theatre, throwing our now stale popcorn out.

Now when I said before, “This is important to “both the game and film industries”, I wasn’t kidding. If you’re not big into video games, but you still know that the movie you are watching is based off a video game, generally your thoughts on the movie are going to reflect your thoughts on the video game, without ever having played it. This means that the consumer, even critics, may judge the game subconsciously or consciously not on the game’s merits, but the movie’s failures.

In closing, let me say I’m not expecting the next ‘Gone With the Wind’ from anybody (though it would be nice), because let’s be honest; Prince of Persia was a damn good movie. However, it’s not like it was cinema gold. It was a fun outing with my friends, and I would do it again with all of the monetary expenses of going to the movies. Prince of Persia was a huge success in the eyes of gamers, and hopefully somebody over in the golden state of California will get the message. For now, we can only sit and wait for the next trailer, the next morsel of video game movie… Hopefully it will taste as good.

As the great and good of European football dust off their goalposts and hang their nets it is the time of year that football fans and gaming fans alike gear up for the new season, looking forward to the next in the long list of football games that tries to buck the trend of sweet spots, absent goalkeepers or shoddy online modes. In the current market place there are two out and out market leaders but of course it has not always been PES and FIFA at the top of the table. We have seen many different franchises down the years but in my opinion we are still awaiting a truly great football game.

I remember spending fortunes in the Essex arcades as a youngster, feeding endless 10p pieces into Football Champ or Italia 90 and as fond as those memories are the games themselves were not so good. The first few credits were spent learning where the sweet spot was and then it was easy enough to win against all but the strongest opponents. Usually this was edge of the box, running in at an angle, just outside the line of the goal. A simple tap of the shoot button and it was a guaranteed goal.

As arcades began to lose out to home computers and games consoles, football games began to really develop. The early days were dominated by Kick Off and Sensible Soccer both played top to bottom and despite arguably better graphical animations in Kick Off it was “Sensi” that ruled the roost. It’s unique viewpoint and simplistic controls were hailed by many and its successor, Sensible World of Soccer, is to this day regarded as the best ever football game by many a fanboy.

Hoof!

However SWOS was seriously lacking in the ability to build play resulting largely in players punting the ball all over the pitch with little true control. Frustratingly it was practically impossible to turn without losing the ball too so the game was played in straight lines and “star” players could literally score from anywhere on the pitch which often meant games finished 11-10.

Sensible soccer’s reign came to an end with the release of 16-bit gaming. Konami produced a title called International Superstar Soccer on the SNES system and a new king was born. It was the one game that made me, as a MegaDrive owner, jealous of my friend. The Sega systems alternatives in the early days were Super Kick Off (a sequel to the Kick Off franchise) and European Club Soccer. The latter was comfortably the better game taking a 3D side on view but it was quite “sticky” in comparison to the SNES title.

International Superstar soccer was a major step for football games, it gave a freedom not seen previously to develop a style of play, be it using pacey wingers or clever midfield passing and added a depth to the graphics not previously seen. The downfall was that the sweet spots still existed. It was slightly more difficult to get to them but if you did you would always score.

The birth of Genius

The birth of the modern football franchise war was two years later. 1996 saw the release of the third title in the FIFA franchise but the first on multiple formats. It brought with it real player names for the first time in football games. Konami released International Superstar Soccer Deluxe across formats and the game was on. The arguments from respective fans were that ISS played the better game but FIFA had the official license. These two were so dominant that almost every other football game released was soon forgotten and now fifteen years on they are still the top two by some distance.

As gaming went 32 bit, the best ever franchise was born. Pro Evolution Soccer broke away from the ISS franchise and added a sheen and polish that FIFA could only dream of. For the first time ever you really had to earn your goals and be a little more inventive and patient with your build up. It fell short in terms of depth of play. Without the official licence of its rival, PES had a limited number of playable teams at this stage of its development.

This all changed with Pro Evolution Soccer 4, for the first time the series had licensed domestic leagues from Spain, Italy and Holland and added to this, unlicensed versions of the English, French and German top flights. This added a great deal to the franchise in terms of its appeal and for my money is the football game that stands up as the best ever. It certainly holds the greatest personal memories of late nights tournaments with a group of friends in my living room.

The best ever?

Since the current generation of gaming arrived with the Xbox 360 back in 2005, Pro Evolution Soccer has fallen by the wayside largely due to an inability to develop the online mode of the game (particularly on Microsoft’s system). Teleporting players have destroyed many a gamers faith in the series forcing them to switch allegiance to PES’ greatest rival, FIFA. During the same period EA Sports have taken online gaming to new levels. Allowing full 10v10 football matches online with little or no lag since FIFA 09. Added to the depth of the official licence and the Ultimate Team add on FIFA is now a long way ahead.

It is, however, still fundamentally flawed, I have lost count of the times I have wanted to throw my pad through the TV at a full back on the opposite side of the pitch playing a striker (who is ten times quicker than any defender on earth) onside,or at the sight of a defender deciding to stop chasing for absolutely no reason, allowing a striker through on goal. FIFA, in my opinion, also still has that feel that much of the game is played on rails.

Numero Uno

So, now we begin each new season with PES revealing a major new signing and a fancy new kit. While its fans declare that this year “will be our year” (much like LFC), at the same time on the other side, EA Sports polish their prized assets of licensed stadia and kits, roll out the big guns of sponsorship and simply await the plaudits.

The big signings in question this season for PES are more animations than ever before, the introduction of the Copa Libertadores, (South American Champions League) and what is described by Konami themselves as “the most advanced set of improved gameplay additions and control options in the series history.” They have gone with a tagline of “Engineered for Freedom” to describe these features and in all honesty if they can pull it off, this really could be the “best PES ever”.

FIFA on the other hand will look to build on the huge success of the past three years with tweaks, rather than overhauls to the franchise. The marketing focus has been on the “Personality+” system which is designed to add a touch of personality from the worlds best players and make touch, passing, shooting and tackling more unique to each player.

With just a few short weeks until the start of the new season and just under two months until the 2011 releases, my anticipation and excitement are again peaked, can this year finally be the year where a truly great football game comes home?

The other week I had the chance to play a game that I had been awaiting since Eurogamer Expo last year in Aliens vs. Predator. It may not be a game of the year candidate but it was still one I wanted to play. Into the console I popped the disc and within ten minutes I wanted to play something else. I popped in another game and the same thing happened. Twenty two titles later it dawned on me, I hit a dry spell.

If this has happened to you before then you will know where I’m coming from, if not then you best expect one at some point in your gaming life. Either way, I suggest you read on.

I, like many people have been a gamer for most of my if, in my case around twenty three years. As soon as I could pick up a joystick (back in the 80′s) I was hooked and for me it was my way out of reality. My first gaming experience was on the Spectrum Sinclair ZX81 and from then on I have never looked back. Over the last twenty plus years I have seen games evolve from nothing more than pixelated representations of people, to what we get now with this current generation of games. With each technological advance I have played some brilliant games, both online and offline and generally I go through phases of either playing completely online or solely on the single player modes.

Just recently, for the second time in my life, I hit a dry spell where I just didn’t feel like playing games at all. There were loads of games I wanted to play, but when it came down to it I felt like I was forcing myself to play. It wasn’t that I had no interest in the game; it was more because my gaming appetite had completely vanished. I tried several games and nothing seemed to make me want to stick with it for more than ten minutes at a time.

Gaming is my life (well not all of it, but you get the idea) and I decided that I needed to sort something out, as the frustration was killing me. The first time this happened I was in full blown meltdown and I didn’t want to do anything. It took me over two years to pick up the pad again (no good if you write about games) but this time I thought I would strive on. I owed it to myself to regain my enthusiasm for gaming as well as for my readers, after all, if I didn’t play games how could I write about gaming?!

I definitely felt like this guy

Picking up the pad was very difficult for me as I had loads of additional things plaguing my mind, with no way to vent them. My gaming collection isn’t the biggest in the world and not having much variety in genre to play probably didn’t help. My collection mainly consists of JRPG’s with a couple of shooters and a racer. This lack of variety wasn’t helping my anxiety, so I decided to borrow some games from a friend to quench my thirst. This still didn’t help and the only thing I accomplished was angry gaming (playing games to relax and ended up getting more worked up). Frustration really took over when I played Alien vs. Predator. It wasn’t because the game was bad or anything, it was mainly because I really wanted to play it but just couldn’t muster one single ounce of motivation at all. I decided that enough was enough and I promptly put the pad down and decided to send the game back to play at a later date.

Giving up on your hobby is a hard thing to do, in my case, though, it wouldn’t be for long and so I had to find something else to do in the meantime. I found salvation in watching a variety of TV shows, some you may like and some you probably won’t. The menu for the next few weeks consisted of True Blood, CSI (all ten seasons) and Leverage, which I hadn’t heard of before but took a chance and enjoyed. I also started reading again (don’t tell the Mrs, who thinks I still haven’t read the books she got me for my birthday last year) although reading two books at the same time probably isn’t a good idea for some people. I spent more time concentrating on the little things like running the house, sorting washing out, cooking and baking with my son. This continued for several weeks until I finally I got my motivation back gradually. I started playing for the odd fifteen minutes here and there, and continuing some games that I had in my collection.

Picking up the pad again was a real boost in confidence and I felt like I had some harmony back in my life. All throughout my gaming slump I hated gaming, and I hated myself for it. Gaming has always been my safe zone, the place I can go off and hide in. It’s always been my salvation from worry or heartache and somewhere my mind can wander off to. When gaming wasn’t there, I felt empty like I had lost my best friend.

Getting back into playing games wasn’t too hard. I knew that I needed to get some games that would give my brain some stories to play though. I borrowed Red Dead Redemption (because I hadn’t played it) and Fable 2 (because I hadn’t finished it) off my friend (Guess who! – Andy). Fable was the first game to be finished and it took me all of two days to complete all of the story missions and most of the side quests. Red Dead I’m enjoying way too much to rush through it so that’s one game that has really brought back my enthusiasm. I think the main reason I started to hate gaming was because I wasn’t taking time away and every game I was playing just seemed to merge into one. On a subconscious level my life was lacking something, albeit the variety of gaming but also the variety of life. The lesson had been learned and although I still very much like to shy away and have a life of fantasy, I need to keep some sort of normality so that I don’t get bored again.

So there we have it, my dry spell. I know some of you out there have had the same thing happen to you, it would be good to hear how you got over it.

At first glance, you could mistake the Mortal Kombat in the new trailer for the same as any of the last few games. The camera views the 3D world from the side, much like most modern fighters do, and some of the warriors whip out hidden weapons and swing wildly much like in the days of Deadly Alliance. As the trailer unfolds, it’s clear that there’s one thing missing from this new MK that makes an unmistakable difference; an entire dimension. The new Mortal Kombat will be a fighter in the mold of Street Fighter IV, which has 3D characters and environments but only a 2D plane to compete on. While revolutionary may be a strong descriptor for the change, it was certainly an unexpected move above all else. Mortal Kombat VS DC Universe received critical praise, and deservedly earned sales in the millions; despite its balancing issues, the game was fun and quickly paced, and it left players wanting to test each character to find their favorites.

Is it arguable that we should have seen this modification to MK coming? Well it certainly has been given precedent by Street Fighter IV. Prior to this major release, the series had lately only seen big additions on the PSP, its console titles being technically reworked re-releases. As for Mortal Kombat, before DCU there hadn’t really been any hits coming from the franchise, as the gameplay bore such minute differences from title to title that it’d apparently grown stagnant; the MK name barely what it used to be. Then Capcom announced and delivered on Street Fighter IV, reinvigorating intrigue in the SF name for long time and fair-weather fans alike by eschewing a third-dimensional plane to go along with its 3D world and fighters (and thereby avoiding alienation of those who have grown used to how the franchise is).

Street Fighter went 3D and still stuck to its roots

Even outside the fighting genre, franchises with roots in the 2D sprite era, both successful and not, have been returning to form this generation. Nintendo cashed in on the 2.5D concept with New Super Mario Bros. DS, which may have only come about thanks to the success of the prior Paper Mario series, and then double-dipped by re-releasing it for the Wii and adding co-op last year. Another handheld hit (at least critically) that set the stage for an upcoming 2.5D console title is Sonic Rush, Sega’s first 2.5D Sonic, which itself may have been born of the Sonic Advance Gameboy games.

On the flipside of this is the fact that original titles have gone the same route. ‘Splosion Man (which many have noted for being similar in style to Sonic), Shadow Complex, LittleBigPlanet, and P.B. Winterbottom all make excellent use of the 2.5D style, drawing strong influences from legendary franchises in their respective genres. What the successes of these fresh properties indicates is that 2.5D is not only a legitimate world of game design all its own, distinguished from 2D and 3D, but it is one that can reach into either of the other two markets, as it sports the pretty 3D sheen that many younger gamers desire along with the 2D simplicity that many older gamers long for.

So, this all in place, is it really hard to believe that Mortal Kombat has been so drastically altered? I don’t think so. This is exactly what Mortal Kombat needs if Midway wants to tap deeper into the multiple millions it grossed with DCU. With the old-school gameplay, fans that grew up alongside the franchise and may have lost interest can either cite nostalgia or honest curiosity as a reason to at least try out this next release; and fighter fans that take an interest in MK for its brutality and looks can note the visual style and return to gory form as a reason for testing it out. By converting the series to 2.5D, Midway has expanding the reach of the series, increasing its potential cash flow as a result.

New Super Mario Bros. Wii appealed to casual gamers and old-schoolers alike with its 2D style and 3D visuals.

For now, it’s impossible to know exactly how things will play out, but with the knowledge we have from recent releases, it’s easy to hypothesize. Hopefully things will turn out well for the new Mortal Kombat as well as other 2.5D revamps in the works, most notably Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 1 and Metroid: Other M. Whatever does happen, we can expect that the results will shape the fate of 2D, 2.5D and 3D games to come, as there are clearly still new paths to walk.

The hardcore gamers amongst us are beginning to get a little tetchy as the world of gaming begins to change with rising costs of DLC and an increasing amount of product placements in games are starting to become the norm. The sad truth is that TV Shows, Magazines, Newspapers etc are created for one purpose and one purpose only and this is to fill advertising space and if a show does not perform it’s axed to make way for something else to keep the advertisers happy. A fail safe system but guess what? People are no longer watching TV, and even if they do, they skip the ads anyway.

The movie industry has been feeling the influence of the advertisers for a while now. It’s laughable that pretty much every movie you see shows the main character using an Apple Mac Laptop or the latest mobile phone but it’s still a rare occurrence in games, and is more noticeable as a result. Alan Wake received a fair amount of criticism for containing blatant product placement in the form of Energizer-branded lithium batteries and even going a step to far by introducing an achievement for watching a Verizon advert.

Sometimes adverts in games look a little out of place if not done right too, for example the film Ghostbusters was set in the 1980′s and yet when the game hit our consoles, the retro memories of the film are wiped out by a much newer Doritos logo.

Did Doritos look like this in 1984?

However many will say that with rising developing costs, if it helps make a better a game it is not a problem and even in some ways makes the gaming world feel more realistic. Although product placement in games will no doubt get more attention over the next few months, the reality is that it’s nothing new to the gaming industry. In fact it can be traced way back to 1978 in the computer game Adventure Land by Scott Adams who had the canny idea of inserting an advertisement for his then forthcoming game Pirate Adventure.

Zool on the Amiga was Gremlin Graphics answer to rival Sonic but it was their partnership with “Chupa Chups” which featured their logo and product throughout the game that people were talking about rather than the game itself. In the late 80’s Marlboro Banners were common place amongst Sega racing games and even the legend that is Mr Miyamoto gets a mention to for the Gamecubes Pikmin which heavily featured Duracell batteries and 7-Up bottle caps to name but a few.

If only Alan Wake had used Duracell...

This shows that this particular medium of advertising has been around for much longer than most of us can remember but has maybe become a little more sophisticated, or perhaps I should say ‘in your face’. To everyone here in the UK we have Lynx Deodorant, but for some reason most of the world call it AXE. This didn’t prevent the ‘little’ difference bother Ubisoft when featuring in Splinter Cell Chaos Theory. In an interview with Team Xbox David Rubin, senior brand manager for Axe said “Axe works with developers to create in-game advertising because it is an extremely effective way to reach the 18-34 year-old male audience, it’s just that simple.”

It's Lynx around here mate

No advertising article would be complete without a suggestion of hypocrisy and it doesn’t get much bigger than the most powerful man in the world, Barack Obama, who although despite hinting at video games being to blame for some of societies issues, he had no problems in becoming the first US presidential candidate to have bought in-game advertising in October 2008 when he to appeared on advertising billboard ads in the EA game Burnout Paradise.

Gaming changing the face of democracy

Possibly the creepiest product placement would come in the form of the rather sinister looking “The King” who was an unlockable character in Fight Night 3, presumably to scare the crap out of your opponent when he sees him in your corner but I wouldn’t fancy having him around when lying on the floor helpless.

The man guilty of embracing this form of advertising more than anyone though must be Hideo Kojima of Metal Gear Solid fame; Doritos, AXE (yes them again), Pepsi, Mountain Dew and even allowed Snake to sit and listen to his iPod, which seemed to have little relevance on the game, making it seem a cynical cash in.

Snake quenches his thirst with Mountain Dew

So product placement or in-game advertising in certainly not a new phenomenon and something that we are all likely to see much more of over the next few years, but what are your thoughts? Is it really such a bad compromise if it helps developers create a better and more realistic gaming experience?

Personally I agree with late comedian Bill Hicks; “Do a commercial, you’re off the artistic roll call. Every word you say is suspect, and you’re a corporate whore and eh, end of story.”

For a long time there has been a debate in the computer game world about the games industry’s Citizen Kane moment, and also whether it is even possible for a game to tell a story. I think we are getting closer and although not in the current glut of games that are topping the charts. Games are too wide a constituency to tackle as a whole, so I’ll restrict this article to third person and first person type games and the biggest obstacles within them.

Montage
Cinema is not an old media. It’s an important point to make as people forget that something that is so established in our culture hasn’t been around in the sense that we know for more than 105 years.

Around 1918 an experiment was done in the Soviet Union, coming out of the Futuristic movement which was heavily into using montage in print. The Lev Kuleshov experiment involved three identical pictures of the face of a famous Russian actor. Next to each picture was one of three images: a shot of a bowl of soup, then with a child playing with a teddy bear, then with a shot an elderly woman in a casket. People were asked to guess what the expression meant against each of the photos.(Pudovkin, “Naturshchik vmesto aktera”, in Sobranie sochinenii, volume I, Moscow: 1974, p.184.) It seems obvious now to say that the image that followed the first picture influenced their view of the second. However, we should remember that there is no link between the first and second pictures beyond their juxtaposition.

So what does this tell us in relation to computer games? Well, that in order for us to make emotional sense of a game, we need to see the reaction of other characters to allow the camera to show us a juxtaposition of another image.

We all know camera control is vital in first and third person games, or at least we know that when it is done badly; it ruins the game. The freedom of having that second stick control the camera means that we can miss a reaction in the game environment and cut-scenes stop the game in its tracks. It seems that interaction with the character or environment ironically stops the emotional bond from developing. Our desire for control stops us seeing what we need to, or what the Director wants us to see, or else it is too forced in an environment that otherwise affords us complete liberty.

Modes of interaction
In first person games, we can interact with the game world. The most common type of interaction is to kill and destroy; to wield a weapon in some way. Imagine a film in which the main character could only interact with violence and the film stayed on that character alone. Nightmare on Elm Street didn’t follow the main character, but the subsidiary characters, and through their deaths and interactions we emotionally connected with the story and against the protagonist. The lack of following up with the victims following our actions or even those that benefit from them is a definite barrier. The shifting viewpoints given to us by control of different characters, like in The Longest Journey, may offer a way forward on this.

It is possible to interact in more subtle ways with the game environment though. The way the main character deals with personal damage (either topping up health, or running near to the bottom of the health meter), looks after other characters (a la Bioshock), how long the character spends in game environments or interacts (binary choice mainly) with game objects, can all be used as a proxy for determining game involvement and levels of emotionally connectedness with the game or its motifs. It represents a lot of work for the game designer, but the emotional pay-off for the player is huge.

Is that a dagger I see before me? No, it's just a mirror.

Silent Hill 2 deals superbly with these elements and as such will amend the ending according to these criteria. The mechanism is presented a lot less starkly in the game than I have described. As a result, it’s a game where you feel your actions are directed not only by your quest to stay alive (although even that is moot) but also your emotional reaction to the game. In other words, what you do in the game really matters. It is also noticeable that the game makes you pause for reflection when your character stops and cries. You can’t move them on, you have to emotionally deal with what you have done and take stock. It’s moment somewhere between a cut-scene and complete control; it’s an emotional full stop that makes the game seem deeper than its contemporaries. This puts the game in a different league to others and is the strongest contender for a ‘Citizen Kane’ moment.

Silent Hill 3 was panned by some reviewers for continuing this process and giving you even less control over the main character. However, this was a mechanism for you to learn about the character on her own terms. Why is she not scared of monsters? Why does she act so coldly? All these questions are answered, but in the flow of narrative. For me at least, they created a compelling story and a connection to the narrative. It was a bold move for Konami, and one that most seemed to miss.

Comments on forums made snide remarks about how the teenage girl protagonist would refuse to do certain actions demanded of her by the player. ‘How dare she!’ they remarked. For them, the game was clearly ‘broken’. Edge Magazine rounded on the game too, and gave the game a six and through this I realised I am in a minority for liking storyline uber alles. For some, the mechanic of the game is more important than anything else. In fact, I am often shocked at the banality of storyline in very popular games like Devil May Cry, or the confused tripe of the Metal Gear series. I have great respect for Hideo Kojima’s aspirations for games, and his talk at GDC 2009 on ‘Making the Impossible Possible’ was superb, but by the end of ‘Metal Gear Solid 2 Sons of Liberty’ I had no idea who was good or bad, whether I was good or bad, or what the consequences of my actions were. The only thing I did know, was that I really didn’t care about any of the characters and that the game’s plot and voice acting assumes you are going to hide in a cardboard box.

Moving forward
In order to further develop game’s emotional pull, in my opinion, there needs to be a greater willingness of the game designers to ‘seize the camera’. This means taking the meaningful actions of the player, reflecting them in the world and people around them and forcing the player look at it. There should be better emotional pacing in games, that means stopping the ability to do everything in all contexts. Sometimes, the player should be given the opportunity to reflect in the game world after a major event (Prince of Persia, Sands of Time please come back; we miss you!). Finally, a kiss is not just a kiss, make all actions meaningful for the game world. Allow multiple endings using proxies for emotion in the gameplay and player interaction.

I am hopeful that there are those out there who are spending the extra time and effort to create a game for all us Art House lovers rather than the mass market. However, once that mainstream emotional barrier is broken, we will be able to come out of the shadows and present our pastime as a mainstream art and no longer have to deal with petty ignorance of those that ‘don’t get’ games.