I think anyone familiar with these games will agree that they are mature. All have an adult storyline, do not rely on cute graphics or appear ‘childish’ from the off (though that is not to say that a cute looking game cannot be adult-orientated – see Disgaea – Or amazing - see Kingdom Hearts, Jet Set Radio or Pokemon) and all have the capacity to depict extreme violence in a way rarely seen in other mediums.

Even the two most innocuous games listed above are, once thought about, extremely violent. Portal, an FPS puzzle game with no weaponry, has a storyline revolving around insanity, captivity and murder. Even The Sims allows players to kill and torture their avatars if they so desire (though this probably says more about the player than the game).

The aforementioned games also have one more key similarity. It is this theme that I wish to discuss further today. When I asked my motley crew, and indeed anyone I have asked since, for their mature games candidates one game was mentioned by every single participant without fail.

That game is Leisure Suit Larry.

I’ll save you the history lesson but in a nutshell the Leisure Suit Larry games went from a fresh, risque, never-before-seen take on the adventure/puzzle genre to an agonisingly terrible parody of itself. You play as the titular Larry, a loser/wannabe PUA who tries to desperately sleep with any female with a pulse, which is not helped by the fact that later games cast you as the bastard son of Hugh Hefner and Jimmy Neutron. The fact this game, above all others, stands out to almost all gamers I’ve asked as the most mature game our beloved past-time has to offer is, quite frankly, petrifying!

LSL also goes a long way to illustrate my point. Though ‘mature’ games have exceeded other art-forms in terms of their depictions of violence, gaming’s attitude towards sex remains almost Dickensian!

Every game I can think of that depicts sex, nudity, or erotic/adult behaviour of any kind is at best coy and at worst pre-pubescent titillation. For example: -

• Duke Nukem - a fully clothed stripper and a few jokes. Real Mature.
• Fahrenheit – Though there were sex scenes, nothing was actually seen and the weird control scheme used in the game made it feel rather robotic and entirely un-sexy.
• Onechanbara: Bikini Zombie Squad - Throw in a lolicon inspired sidekick and no apparent reason for the heroine wearing a bikini and you have one of the most naive games ever made. Gamers are boys who like to kill zombies and stare at chicks. How could it fail?
• DoA Series - Once again, no particular reason other than bouncy boobs look funny.
• Fable - Should get an honourable mention as you could choose to have sex, get married or be gay, but fails in that women couldn’t be gay, same-sex marriages couldn’t go ahead and the sex scene faded to black.
• Custer’s Revenge – An 80s rape simulator. Luckily, graphics weren’t good enough to depict anything other than blocks back then. How did this even get released?
• Tomb Raider Series – Lara Croft, gaming’s ultimate sex symbol. Scantily clad and an ever expanding cleavage
• BMX XXX – Not a terrible game apparently, and one of hundreds of extreme sports titles released during the Tony Hawk boom of the late 90s, but why the (partial) nudity?
• Mass Effect – This game shouldn’t be on the list. One of the best action RPGs ever made was dubbed a ‘porn simulator’ by some igorant hacks for a 40 second sex scene. With an alien.  After 30 hours of robotic murder.

Even the GTA series, the grandaddy of videogames controversy, doesn’t exactly break down barriers in it’s depiction of sex. Yes you can pick up a hooker, but it’s about as sexy as Jack Thompson’s haircut. You don’t see anything. Even the strippers have enormous ‘X’s over their nipples. It would also be ignorant of me to not mention the infamous ‘Hot Coffee’ mod from GTA – San Andreas, where a hack meant you could open a mini-game that allowed you to have sex with your in-game girlfriend.

Yes, you read that correctly, a hack.

Rockstar made it, then decided they didn’t want you to play it.

IT WAS NOT AVAILABLE IN THE ORIGINAL GAME UNLESS YOU CHANGED PART OF THE GAME’S CODE.

You had to want to see it, to actually see it.

Now I’m not saying I need sex in a game. I don’t think GTA IV would have been a better game if you saw full-on sex as opposed to the neutered scenes included in the game. It just seems odd to me that uncensored, graphic violence is fine but nudity isn’t.

There are of course many factors. One of the main reasons is that Walmart, the biggest games vendor in the world, won’t put anything nude on their shelves, or more specifically, it will not stock anything that has the dreaded Adults Only rating from the ESRB. Strangely enough, no amount of violence has ever gained a game this rating, but sex has every time. Also, when the NES was released, Nintendo stated that they would not allow any videogames depicting sexually explicit content or their console, and since then every future console has just stuck to the same principal.

Videogames are an art-form in their infancy, and they must bridge this gap if they are ever to be taken seriously. Slowly, avenues that will allow for this kind of exploration are opening up. Though not exactly mature, the recent DLC for GTA IV (The Lost and Damned), had a full frontal male nudity shot (the inspiration for this article and it’s title). After the initial shock (a reaction I shouldn’t have had) I thought to myself, ‘there is no way that scene would have shipped with the boxed copy of this game’. Games developers can, with DLC, bypass the scrutiny of larger games vendors and get the content gamers want to see directly into their living rooms. Whether this is for the best I couldn’t say.

Now I’m not saying I want to see any Sonic Porn (the furries have that covered). Nor am I saying I need to see Master Chief naked (though it would make videos like these even more amusing).If gaming ever wants to be taken seriously as an art-form though it needs to grow up, remove it’s head from the sand, and learn how to cope with the birds and the bees.

- Mikey Base

The current state of games journalism is quite frankly a petrifying one, especially from my vantage point of ‘just breaking in’. First of all, we are an industry dependent solely on another industry’s performance and existence. Games Journalism is subject to the financial shortfalls of not one but two markets: the magazines actually written and the industry they cover (without a games industry, what use is a games magazine?). Being subject to any kind of financial risk isn’t ideal, especially during a recession. So what have I done? Set my entire future happiness upon the shaky shoulders of an industry subject to twice as much financial turmoil as most others.

Yeah. Good move there Mikey…

Also, one of the harder-to-swallow truths of games journalism is that it is almost entirely dependent on advertising revenue to survive. During my initial research into games journalism I read countless horror stories about PR agents scolding games journos with comments like “I pay your salary, you’ll write what I tell you to” and other similar quips and character assassinations. Aside from being quite blatant workplace bullying, this attitude shows a complete disregard for games journalism as a legitimate profession and seems to illustrate that PR Departments merely see review sites and magazines as another way to get titles off the shelves.

Examples such as the above illustrate that as far as revenue streams are concerned, advertisers have Games Journos by the balls! Mix in the fact that the Internet is pretty much destroying print journalism and you’re left with a situation that couldn’t exactly be called ‘healthy’.

Also, before anyone starts, I am aware of the ironic douchebaggery of a blog blaming the Internet for killing print journalism. I am, however, no hypocrite. O:BP is justifiable as everything we write, research and publish is merely a portfolio for, in my case anyway, an eventual application and employment in print journalism. That’s the plan anyway. In my case, working for Edge is the dream that keeps me going… It will be mine, oh yes, it will be mine.

I digress…

When I read a review, I am allowing someone else’s opinion to meld with my own. To shape my perceptions and compliment my own (rather learned) experience when it comes to which games I tend to enjoy playing. It’s as though you are entering an unwritten contract with the reviewer. As a reader you expect an honest, unbiased, and intelligent review. As a reviewer, you expect your opinion to be viewed as an informed one, and for it to be respected if not agreed with. If either side of this relationship does not hold up their end of the bargain then the whole system falls apart.

It is a betrayal.

Recently, Callum at Pixelated Gamer gave me the review code of a game called Archer Maclean’s Mercury, a sub-par puzzler for the PSP. Anyone familiar with previous O:BP posts or my other work for PG will know that I love puzzle games, so I was pretty confident in my ability to review Mercury. After a series of e-mails from Cal asking for the review due to pressure from Ignition Entertainment, the publishers of Mercury and the people responsible for supplying us with the review code, I finally completed the not-so-favourable Mercury review and sent it through to Callum so that he could forward it on. Suffice to say, they weren’t too happy. Which is entirely understandable, and completely acceptable. There is, however, just one small gripe from me…

DO NOT SEND SOMEONE A COPY OF A GAME TO REVIEW AND THEN COMPLAIN ABOUT THE SUBSEQUENT REVIEW!!!

Do you really think that as the creators of a game you have a valid, unbiased opinion? No! No you do not! You don’t see a camera mechanic, you see the three nights spent away from your wife. You don’t see a title screen, you see staying up until all hours, reaching deadline and eating last night’s takeaway. A bad review is not a critique to you, it is a barrier between you and more money. Your opinion, at this stage, does not count!

I didn’t read anything about the game beforehand, or check Metacritic’s score first (which, to be fair to Ignition and Awesome Studios, is a pretty good one). I sat down, I played the game, and gave my informed, unbiased opinion on it.

It is this state of affairs that bothers me so much! I don’t work for a big site yet and Ignition Entertainment probably won’t be releasing the next Tetris any time soon (all the power in the world to them though), so losing a few free games from them isn’t going to ruin my career. But what if a similar situation arose with Blizzard, Bethesda, Bioware or Valve? Or to reference Gamespot’s supposed nemesis, the mighty EA? Losing exclusivity for the next WoW expansion or the next GTA is the kind of situation that could make or break a games publication…

And PR Departments/advertisers know it!

I have no doubt that I won’t be receiving any more free games from Ignition Entertainment, but to be honest, that’s something I’m sure I can live with. I’d rather hold my head up high and declare my journalistic integrity, than grab a load of freebies and fall into invalidity.

That is, of course, unless anybody would like to throw a new PC and access to the new Diablo 3 beta my way?

No?

Damn!

- Mikey Base

Our combined apologies for the lack of updates O:BP has (or hasn’t as the case may be) received over the last few months. Both YoMma and myself have been busy working towards our combined goal of becoming games journalists par excellence.

YoMma has been busying himself with his beloved EVE Online work. He has not only managed to get himself published in Massive Online Gamer but kept his own EVE blog up and running too. If interstellar espionage seems like something you could enjoy, get it checked out.

Personally, I’ve been writing on pretty much any website that would allow space to my digital diatribes. I have created a lot of work for Pixelated Gamer, a lovely little site run by one Callum Akhtar. Callum has become a good friend and colleague and I enjoy working for his site immensely, even if some of the citizens of that particular virtual space are not ones I would choose to associate with professionally or recreationally.

I should soon, also, have some work put out on Wii exclusive site The Wiire and 360 exclusive site Planet Xbox 360. Exciting developments on our little quest.

Amidst the chaos of our international scribblings however there is always the nagging frustration that we could be doing more! More writing, more output, more dedication to our cause. Something we could have more control over, more editorial control. More, more, more!

The revival of O:BP then has a three-fold purpose. First, it allows us a platform to publish those writings that have no other suitable place to call home. Second, it allows immediate access to all the work YoMma and I have ever done in the Article Archive Section and thirdly, it gives us a place from which to launch our latest endevour, the Bit Player Podcast.

Our new podcast will be a genial romp through the highs and lows of videogaming as a whole. We’ll keep you updated with all the new developments in the industry as well as general discussion on what games have been circling our personal radars.

We have already finished recording our first podcast and it will be up for your assessment and aural entertainment in the next few days. Until then I shall be updating the site with our combined work output from the last few months.

Happy gaming,

- Mikey Base

Mytran Wars, from what I have played, seems to be a deeply rewarding strategy RPG. Players take turns moving and attacking their squad of mechs, with each mech being a fully customisable variant of one of three standard types (scout, support and tank). I think the best way to describe it would be like playing a game of chess, only your opponent is three storeys tall and can blow your pieces to, well, pieces.

One of the most striking features of the game though is it’s presentation. For anyone who hasn’t used a PSP, the graphics are almost unbelievable on such a small machine. It’s high-def screen far outdoing anything on the PS2. In MW the story is progressed via comic-like panel cutscenes that are absolutely beautiful. Be warned though, for Deep Silver haven’t paid a blind bit of notice to the current generation’s obsession with browns and greys in their dystopian futures. A single mech in Mytran Wars has more colours on it than you will see through an entire playthrough of Gears of War. This definitely helps the gameplay as you can’t exactly lose your units on the battlefield when they look like a cross between a walking missile installation and a circus.

The usual problem with such games abound though. First of all, this game hates you and everything about you! MW is hard! Three missions down, you’re just getting comfortable with the control system and boom! The game is thrown right open, the mech purchasing and customisation options are given to you with no more explanation or fanfare than a (completely useless) four screen tuturial and the difficulty is turned up to eleven! I’ve been playing the game for five days now and have yet to get past the fourth level.

There is a theme here, and one that drives me mad! Every review of a new SRPG usually says something along the lines of  ‘newcomers to the genre may find the game frustrating, but for SRPG fans…’ or some variation of the phrase. Trouble is, especially for someone like myself trying to get into the genre, where do you begin? Reviews of Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness essentially warn newcomers to stay away from the game. It would appear that anyone who didn’t have deep, alchemical knowledge of the SRPG genre would be left a babbling mess of a man if they so much as looked at the cartridge.

Playing MW though, I can of see what they mean.

Thus I have found myself playing more Puzzle Quest than expected, which is just fine by me. A wonderfully bizarre cross of Bejeweled and RPG adventure, it’s a perfect example of two genres cross-breeding to create a beautiful new game. Henry Hatsworth, please take note!

- Mikey Base

Luckily this generation has seen happier times for us in the Xbox Camp. Though the action RPG template is still the standard, do you really mind when you’re seeing games as good as Mass Effect, Fallout 3, or Oblivion? One could even argue that almost every new game nowadays borrows elements of traditional RPG gameplay and incorporates RPG mechanics, if only with something as established as player avatar customisation. Though it pains me to admit it, even the custom characters available in Def Jam: Fight for New York could be moulded, upgraded and tweaked to a staggering degree. Especially considering the game was nothing more than a wannabe gangster’s version of Smackdown.

Still though, for all the progress the console has made I still felt that I was lacking that one special game. That FF VII, that KOTOR, that WoW. That game that no matter what was going on I’d find time to play. Indeed a game worthy of its own recognisable acronym! A truly immersive, deep-running, narrative behemoth that would soak up my free time like a fantasy-drenched sponge. And I think I may have found that game…

Lost Odyssey!

Now I will be the first to reprimand myself for getting carried away on a sea of hyperbole, and it is by no means a perfect game, but its imperfections, from a truly traditional standpoint anyway, are what make it such a joy to play. I have owned this game since just after Xmas 2008 and it has literally taken me this long to ‘get into’ the game. This is due to LO putting its own unique spin on almost every single facet of conventional RPG gameplay.

For those of you not familiar with the game, you play as immortal amnesiac Kaim Argonar. So far, so typical RPG protagonist. Of course, the immortal status of the main character poses certain problems. For example, how are you really expected to worry about a central character that, by his very definition, cannot die? And don’t start getting all ‘mortally wounded’ on me either, he’s not an elf! Also, am I really supposed to feel that my few hours with the character are going to make him any stronger than the last millennia of fighting he’s been involved in? If the game’s opening FMV sequence is anything to go by he isn’t exactly wet behind the ears!

The beauty of Lost Odyssey though is in the execution. The immortal characters (Kaim is one of a collection of playable immortals) can be knocked out in battle, but automatically resurrect after a few turns. If everyone in your party is knocked out at the same time, you lose. I thought this was a nice way to layer the immortality mechanic into the game. Also, you do not level up in a typical grinding way. The immortals ‘learn’ the skills of the mortals in their party by battling alongside them. You then choose which skills your immortal character will use actively in battle from your bank of learned skills. You can employ 3 skills at first, but this number can be bolstered by finding more skill “slot seeds”. This means that not only are you free to pick and choose which skills you wish to learn and in what order, but it also means that you could theoretically have a party built of entirely immortal characters with every skill in the game. Completists take note!

Even though the game is now a fair few years old, the graphics are absolutely spectacular. The games swaps from FMV to in-game dialogue almost seamlessly and playing this game for the first time on an HD TV would have been, I imagine, one of the first indications to early 360 owners that the new generation had finally arrived!

The game is unbelievably idiosyncratic in almost everything it does (don’t even get me started on rings, melee aiming and the petrifying magic casting times). If you stick with it and learn to love, rather than loathe, these little differences however I assure you that you will not find a more rewarding JRPG experience on the 360.

That is until this comes along anyway.

- Mikey Base

Now I’ve noticed a worrying trend from almost everyone I’ve spoken to about what I’m planning to do. I mean yeah, I didn’t expect much more from my long-suffering mother than ‘that sounds nice dear’ but nobody seems to have a clue what to say to me in regards to games journalism.

Don’t worry, avid readers, as luckily this was not my first impression. When I started on this little tirade I e-mailed Kris Graft, Senior Online Contributing Editor for Edge Magazine for a bit of advice on where to start when it came to getting into the industry. His lengthy, enlightening and enourmously appreciated response essentially told me to start writing and building a portfolio of work and, if at all possible, gain some kind of qualification.

In his e-mail Kris told me that when he left uni he wrote about anything and everything for anyone, anywhere. Anything to get his name in print and add another article to his repertoire. I have to admit, considering his current occupation, I was more than a little willing to follow his example.

Also, I would not have started O:BP without this man’s advice. So seriously, thank you Kris Graft, wherever you are.

Since this first ray of sunshine however, it’s all become a little strange. I didn’t realise how little your average Joe knows about video games. I suppose that’s the problem with sub-cultures; they become everything to those involved, and thus become the norm for that social group. Trouble is, what’s become your norm is still foreign to everyone else. It’s my own fault for surrounding myself with geeky mates and a true nerd of a girlfriend. I know the way O:BP is written demands a little background knowledge but I didn’t ever consider the subject alien to anyone! Oh how wrong I was.

I went for a preliminary interview with one of the course organisers to discuss whether the NCTJ course would be relevent to my Grand Plan. I suppose after fielding the same questions from fresh, young graduates eager to get their faces on Sky News actually having to think whether the course would be relevent to such a niche genre of journalism must’ve been tough. To be honest, it was unfair of me to expect anything else, but I have walked away with something… The more impressive a CV and portfolio I can create, the more likely I am to be hired.

Thus I commence the course in September, assuming all goes well.

An exciting addendum to this is that whispers from a called-in favour suggest I could get work experience at Future Publishing…

I’ll definitely have to take Kris out for a pint!

- Mikey Base

(Also, since my poor laptop will not be running EVE any time soon I’m trying desperately to find a game that can fill the sci-fi MMO shaped hole in my heart. Thank you very much Star Ocean TLH for being possibly the longest developed game in human history! Still looks awesome though…)

I digress…

I ordered Chromehounds from Playtrade, something I’ve done with most of my games purchases in the last few months and always to a satisfactory outcome. The game arrived last Thursday as quickly as I have now come to expect. So far, so good.

Now when I buy a new game I set aside a day or two so I have a sufficient period of time set out to get used to the control system, play through the tutorials and give it a decent run-through before deciding whether it’s a Trader or a Keeper. This, then, was to be my main Weekend Game.

Not this weekend though! It would appear that my first issue with Playtrade would be the worst possible kind. Some kindly scumbag had sold me a game so scratched and warped that it couldn’t even run on my machine. Surely though, a little perseverance would pay off I foolishly thought. I only needed the game to recognise once so that I could install it onto the hard-drive. Alas, this was not to be.

The disc was recognised as a DVD first off which, when played, told me to place the game in an Xbox 360?! Then it recognised it as a mixed media disc (like that means anything). It did recognise the disc as a game once, but I was informed the disc was dirty and given very thorough instructions on the correct method of cleaning it. Exasperated, I tried it just one more time. This, it would seem, would be my downfall.

The Red Ring of Death was mine to behold! I sat in my living room, motionless, feeling icy fingers trail down my neck as I was informed in every perceivable European dialect to call Microsoft Customer Services. As I slowly felt my world cave in I did only what any rational person could. I retreated into the foetal position and cried. A lot

Now, first of all, I should stress with all my might that THE SWINE WHO SOLD ME A BROKEN GAME NEED TO DIE A THOUSAND HORRENDOUS DEATHS! Who sells a game so severely scratched it can’t even be read by a console? A criminal, that’s who! Secondly, I haven’t had a single problem with my beloved 360 since I bought it. Nor did I with its older brother when that was my console of choice. I have, however, heard the stories. One story in particular giving this whole saga it’s most sinister twist.

Two close friends of mine, also fans of epically long RPGs, turned their 360 on one evening to find their hard drive had formatted itself. Every save, every setting and preference, even their Xbox Live Ids and Gamerscores, gone! No explanation, error message or warning of any kind, just hundreds of hours of levelling, grinding and fine-tuning up in digital smoke. Have you ever played Oblivion? Try to imagine getting a level 46 character wiped on that game without weeping.

It was with this story fresh in mind that I stared at that flashing red herald of doom with such fear. All those hours with Niko, all that time in the Capital Wasteland and most importantly of all, my Castle Crashers high-score, gone! I nearly threw up. The idea of losing all that time, all those characters, all those memories made me feel physically sick. YoMma’s piece summed up gaming as the greatest of entertainment mediums due to its interactivity and immersion. Stands to karmic balance then that one of us would have the experience of losing all that immersion in one fell swoop!

I am however, a firm believer in clouds, silver linings, and all of that nonsense. A quick 1, 2 (or in this case 0, 1) of the 360’s power revealed that, without that cursed disc in tray everything was running just fine. All saves, and thus sanity, intact. Also as I could no longer play Chromehounds it meant that my weekend gaming time was spent instead on Bioshock and a bit of co-op Resident Evil 5. I am happy to report that both these titles were absolutely out of this world! All in all then, not a bad weekend =o)

- Mikey Base

Yes people, that’s right!

Games!

That’s why I am here, that’s why you are here too…probably. I hope so anyway otherwise this may be a little over your head, or perhaps more to the side. Gads! I appear to be heading towards an unwelcome tangent!

Gaming is a passion of mine, and I daresay it is a passion of a mighty number of people out there in this large (and yet so very small) planet of ours. I also have other passions – music for example. I’m a guy who appreciates a good song, I look for lyrics which I enjoy, drum beats to replicate on my own kit and grooves or moods that I can just “dig”. I also enjoy films – the plots, the acting, the sets, the art design and most importantly – the script. There are many other things I enjoy or have a passion for but atop of this esteemed pile of wonderful things it is gaming which is perched upon the gilded throne of “pure awesomeness”.

The question I put to you fine fellows today (even though it will be ME who also answers it for you) is: Why? Why do I place gaming above these other passions? What makes video games as a medium so much more important to me as a person?

The answer to this query begins many moons ago, in the days and nights of my boyhood. It was the nineties, a time of strangely great dance music and I seem to recall a lot of sweaters…Anyhow, fate conspired that my father is a fan of technology and as a result he loves to keep up to date with computers so from a young age I had access to the necessary technology, and my primary memories from this period are of the fantastic Amiga system, first the 500 and then the more impressive 1200 and we also had a Sega Mega Drive (or Genesis as it’s known as in many places). I would spend hours transfixed by classics such as Street Fighter II, Streets of Rage, Dune 2, Cannon Fodder and Wing Commander and enjoyed a good spot of father/son bonding in the fantastic Monkey Island and Indiana Jones adventure games which came out of LucasArts at the time. They were golden days, filled with rays of sunshine and manuals which went into incredible detail. Games were stored on a minimum of 10 floppy disks and you needed a code wheel to ensure you had the real deal…Ahh…those days of innocent beauty.

Now here I stand (or sit, rather) a man grown with a Playstation 3 to the left of me and a PC directly adjacent to me in the year 2009. We’ve all come a long way and looking back, boy have the years been good to me! Memories, tonnes of them, short ones, long ones, skinny ones and fat ones – Memories!

Playing Wing Commander on the Amiga, notching up kills on the killboard and being congratulated by “Iceman” and let us not forget eliminating the Kilrathi HQ against all the odds!

The first time I was told about “Grog” in Monkey Island and the thrill of solving puzzles…

The first time I ever played Doom…The first time I played Doom 2 and realised that I could now LOOK UP AND DOWN….Seeing Quake for the first time, a shooter in full 3D only to be floored by the beauty of the original Unreal…

The first time I saw Sephiroth arrive unexpectedly and slay beautiful, innocent Aeris and the glee I felt upon 100% completion of Final Fantasy VII…

Playing the demo of Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis and rushing to the shops to grab a copy within an hour of finishing said demo…

Holding a solitary tower in Planetside against overwhelming numbers accompanied by only one friend for nearly two hours before finally slipping out in stealth, undetected.

The list could go on, and on…and on…and on…Well, I think you get the point. Gaming has provided me with so many moments to look back on and cherish and through the rise of the internet and online gaming it has also put me in touch with several people who I consider close friends. Gaming offered me opportunities to travel (an all expenses paid trip to Lisbon, Portugal no less!) and has generally had a profound impact on my life as a whole. It’s a part of my makeup now, an extension of myself. I game, therefore I am…Or something to that effect.

Of course, we all have to switch off sometime – but who among us can deny the occasional (read as: often) dream of Left 4 Dead Zombies, or materia combinations or aliens or space marines or…or…whatever tickles your fancy?!

So my friends, acquaintances and lurkers…the answer to my question is relatively straightforward. It is the personal experiences and the shared experiences of games and gamers; the interactive nature of the medium which elevates it above all others and provides those compelling experiences which stick with you. Whilst films and music can define moments in time, games can define aspects of your very being or allow you to be someone else, at least for a little while and it is concepts, emotions and thoughts such as these which ensure that the throne at the top of the pile of awesomeness located somewhere within my brain will always be seated by King Gaming the Magnificent. Long may he rule!

- YoMma

Or an STD.

Now I don’t profess to know much about PC gaming, my flip of the O:BP coin is the console market. I mean sure, I’ve managed to get Baldur’s Gate 1 & 2 running fairly well on my laptop and I have an emergency version of KOTOR 2 on there but otherwise I’ve never been around a PC capable of running a game as good as a console can.

Last night however, deep in the catacombs of YoMma’s Lair (read ‘his Mum’s cellar’) I saw what PC Gaming could be. There is nothing else to say on this matter, the graphics and gameplay I have witnessed cannot be unseen. They were absolutely incredible!

I am currently attempting to play EVE Online on my laptop. To try and put this herculean task into perspective imagine trying to feed the electricity needs of Australia with a triple-A battery. If you’ve ever played EVE, hopefully this will put it into some kind of context. The graphics of my ship stutter when it’s docked and the fitting screen takes about 9 seconds to pop up. For console players, remember the loading screens on the first Resident Evil when you opened a door? Imagine seeing that animation EVERY TIME YOU FIRED A WEAPON!!!

I suppose the problem has always been cost. My laptop cost me £450 new. As a console gamer used to console prices I would expect a new machine to be able to do anything I wanted it to at that price (including time travel and a Wallace and Gromit-esque breakfast service). My 360 only cost £170 and that can play Fallout 3 at a standard that makes my soul weep. The atmosphere created by the graphics and soundtrack on the recent Dead Space demo I dipped into scared me in a way I haven’t experienced since the dreaded ‘blip-blip’ of a Motion Scanner on Alien Trilogy. All in all, I’ve always thought that you definitely get more bang for your buck when you buy a console.

YoMma’s PC though displayed a level of performance and graphical prowess then I just did not think possible. He quickly played through a level of Left 4 Dead and the speed the game was running at just added to the immediacy of the gameplay. I was petrified! You can stuff your usual shuffling zombies, these things were rabid killing machines. There was no other way to play this game! You just would not be able to use a joypad to move quickly enough to target. Similarly with EVE, YoMma’s PC ran this thing to a standard that would put FMV sequences in Battlestar Galactica to shame. Absolutely unbelievable!

Now I know what PCs can do, I don’t think I have ever been more excited about a game than I am about this one.

Peace out,

Your converted friend,

- Mikey Base

PS

Does anyone else ever just get addicted to a certain genre of games for no particular reason? At the moment I can not get enough of mech games. I shall keep you updated on these Gundam-themed exploits soon!

Now in my short yet colourful life,I have found that our current economic situation is something you either know everything about, or nothing at all. I personally fall into the latter category (for my crimes). My job, for the time being, remains relatively safe and my girlfriend has managed to find two jobs during these tough times. In fact, unless you consider that I now have to go to the cinema instead of Woolies for my Pick and Mix fix, the recession hasn’t seemed to affect my little world in any way. The same can be said of most of life’s problems I suppose; unless it’s affecting me directly, it isn’t my problem right?

Right?

This blissful ignorance suddenly and deservedly received the pummeling it was due recently when that hydra-headed beast The Credit Crunch launched it’s deadly salvo at the Games Industry. Flagship Studios lost all staff and execs paid staff for 30 days extra work out of their own pocket after Hellgate: London pretty much sucked them dry. THQ laid off 60 members of staff. Even the mighty Microsoft have laid off hundreds of staff including the entire ACES Division, the team responsible for the Flight Simulator franchise. Midway, NCSoft, High Moon, Radical Entertainment. All laying people off. All taking huge losses.

What is going on?

I know you guys aren’t going to like this, but I think the fault mainly lands with us. Us being the Game Buying Public. Now before I get lynched for this and a tonne of hate-mail crying ‘but we BUY the games’ and ‘if it wasn’t for us there wouldn’t be an industry’ hear me out, because believe me, I’m on your side!

We’re going to do a little exercise. Be honest when you’re doing it, I think you’ll be surprised.

When was the last time you paid full price for a video-game? Or maybe a better question to ask is, how many games in your current collection did you buy new?

Within my little library I have only bought two games new, Fallout 3 and Fable 2 for the 360. They are the only games in my collection I’ve bought from a shop on release and even those I got as a discount bundle when I bought my Xbox! Now if we say at retail price a new game costs £40 (give or take), that means that of all the games I own only £80 has gone to the developers/publishers, and that’s assuming they get all the money (which they definitely do not). The rest has gone into the pockets of various friends, swap-shops and bazaars.

Of all my games, only two. Unbelievable.

My example may be an exaggerated one but I bet most gamers will have a similar story to tell. The fact is, a new game is bought new by a few eager gamers at release, it makes money for the first 4 to 6 weeks, by which time the game will appear on the second hand market and that’s where people will go to buy it from then on.

Back in the 90s and early 32-bit era this wasn’t so much of a problem. Games could be made to a relatively small budget by a dedicated team and published to an eager market. Nowadays a triple-A title costs millions of pounds to make and distribute (Grand Theft Auto IV for example cost a staggering $100 million). Games are getting more expensive to create, yet the games themselves are staying at around the same cost (£30-£50 when new). And that’s a triple-A title, one that people will want to buy and play the second it’s released! What hope does an indie developer or a smaller, niche title have?

Saying all this though, it’s not all doom and gloom. Recent figures show the Games Industry is alive and well. This generation has ushered in true console connectivity. Steam, XBLA, WiiWare and the Playstation Network have opened new doors for smaller developers to get their games to people without the enormous cost of a traditional boxed release. Just look at how well Braid’s done. Think that would’ve happened if you’d have had to pay for the disc? As an industry we look to be as healthy, if not healthier than ever…

Let’s just hope that remains the case.

Peace out,

- Mikey Base