So here’s a piece that’ll hopefully generate a little discussion.

A few months back gaming news blog Joystiq were hiring for a few online staff positions. Naturally I (along with what is known in the business as a “shittonne” of others) applied, a web-based writing job being exactly what I’m after right now. I wasn’t successful, but that isn’t what I really took away from the whole process. During it conversations spread among various journalists on twitter about the sameyness of a lot of the applications that had been received and how, according to hiring-man Justin McElroy, this was due to too many wannabes spending too much time focusing on gaming news rather than reading books, listening to music, watching films and so forth. This proved a popular point. Many popped up to say how they wanted to see more non-gaming witticisms, references and cultural knowledge in the upcoming generation of writers and that capturing this was a surefire way to impress.

These weren’t statements isolated to this incident and, frankly, the standpoint they come from is not wrong. A person who’s only cultural reference point is video games has a limited outlook on life and will be missing out on some of the more important works of the last year, decade, century or whatever time frame you wish to mention. Obviously the more knowledge one has, the better one’s writing becomes as ideas, influence and inspiration come from more directions. Moreover, absorbing more mediums of entertainment simply makes you a more varied and interesting person.

However, something grated with me about the idea of saying to people “stop talking about games so much in your games writing.” It isn’t necessarily an awful thing, but 100% reduction isn’t a good idea either. Obviously, the call isn’t for a total removal, but the enthusiasm and totality with which it was delivered worried me. Surely it is the logical thing to do to talk about games when writing about games? Surely the more knowledge I have on games (and am expressing through my writing) the better that writing is? Surely the sameyness comes not from unoriginality but simply because it is the most logical route to take for the many, many aspiring writers out there? I hope to show a few of the reasons why I, and presumedly others, use gaming knowledge first and foremost in our writing and why this still has some value.

First let’s talk about the most important part of writing: the reader. An obscenely large percentage of the people reading any gaming-related article, be it the front page of your favourite website or some no-namer’s blog, are going to be gamers themselves. This only increases if you ignore the mainstream press (newspapers, the BBC), whom most gaming journalists do not write for in any regular capacity. What do these reader-gamers know about? Games. What appeals to them? Games. If I know what they like, I want to have as much of that in my writing as possible so they keep reading. This gives an enormity of depth. As I progress with a piece I can use my assumption that the people reading my work are gamers and further conclude that they are interested in the genre, series or even developer I am discussing if they have kept reading past the opening paragraph or so, thus allowing me to talk about related items with ease and little fear of misunderstanding.

This isn’t rocket science. However, it simply isn’t true of any other cultural reference you might make. What kind of music does a Call of Duty player like? Which of Shakespeare’s works are StarCraft gamers particularly familiar with? Is there a certain kind of TV show that really just clicks with fans of Paradox Interactive? Nothing is more infuriating in a piece of writing than some joke or point that goes over your head because it’s out of your sphere of interest. Moreover, finding out that part of your audience simply didn’t understand what you thought to be a particularly funny or brilliant line is disheartening.

When you consider the demographics of gamers, ensuring understanding becomes only more vital. Many will be teenagers or lower, and won’t get your obscure early 00s pop band humour, but will have played Deus Ex. In addition, at least in my experience, younger people are much more likely to close your tab or put your magazine down than they are to find out what the hell “Red Dwarf” or “Scrapheap Challenge” are. Even the 20-25 age bracket is now filled with folk such as myself who’ve never had a lot of interest in late 80s television but have played The Secret of Monkey Island and Doom, games as old and older than them. Even beyond age, consider the massive reach of the internet. How many American readers are likely to know of the two shows I just mentioned? How many of your British viewers are guaranteed to know what a corn dog is? Are any eastern europeans going to be aware of the current state of English Parliament?

This can be expanded in a slightly different direction: using gaming examples in my work shows that I have a knowledge on games to a certain degree. This is vastly important for two key groups. Firstly, readers are going to have a lot more respect for someone who clearly knows what he’s talking about when it comes to games. I like to know what Richard Cobbett or John Walker think of an adventure game because they’ve shown time and again to be ridiculously knowledgable on the subject. Equally I’m aware Tom Francis will know a good Deus Ex mod (or game, natch) when he sees one because he’s spent a lot of time writing about and playing the original. I want my readers to look at my stuff and go “this bloke knows what he’s talking about, he’s clearly played these other titles, I can trust him when he says the lacklustre gameplay of Duke Nukem Forever is a downside and I would be better off playing Bulletstorm for similar thrills and humour”

The second and arguably more important group is potential employers. It’s not as simple as me wanting them to understand I’m knowledgable about games, I need them to. They’re not going to mind if I’ve never gotten around to seeing The Godfather or reading Hamlet, but they might have an objection if I can’t think of an FPS to compare my example review of Bulletstorm to, or if I’ve never played a Blizzard title. Certainly, that is what I would most want to know from an application: can I trust this guy to speak fairly on a wide variety of gaming topics thanks to multiple reference points in his experiences? Has he played enough different genres that whatever I give him to review he’ll understand the concept of and not spend half his time complaining about the over-complexity and user-unfriendliness of a flight sim?

On that note, even moreso than with a generic reader, the idea of something I’d written being too obscure for a commissioning editor reading my pitch to understand is a horrifying thought. Great piece, unfortunately they gave up a few lines in because it was a long day, they were on a deadline and they didn’t have time to decipher my joke comparing Bethesda voice-acting to the plot of Flash Forward (inconsistent: half-woeful, half-highly-paid-brilliance). I want that job you’re offering, I’m not going to scupper my own chances by hoping we’re both interested in mediocre sci-fi.

My next point might leave a few shaking their heads in tab-closing disgust, but that doesn’t make it any less true. Referencing games is simply easier. There, I said it. No, come back, I’m going to explain! It’s easier because (as you might have guessed, what with wanting to be a games journalist and all) I’ve played more games than I’ve done anything else. I can therefore much more quickly come up with video game based comparisons or arguments that express my point succintly. This is as important when writing a hot off the newsreel post for the front page of your website as it is trying to make that deadline in an hour when I only finished the game twenty minutes ago.

The variance in those comparisons and references will be vast – one week will see a piece of news about the latest DLC on Steam in which I need to make note of the various successes or failures of DLC in the past, while the next week I’ll be able to name entirely different examples in the follow-up post. The speed, accuracy and ease of explanation will not be matched elsewhere.

There’s also one very, very important thing to note about why so many journos-in-training make the ‘mistake’ of too much game-focus: we’re new at this. Hell, compared to you Mr. Editor Man, I’m awful at this. But, I want you to know that I’ve got potential, that I’m skilled in my writing. I’m so eager to impress you that I’m going to cram every single god damn piece of gaming knowledge I have into that woefully small (and rightfully so) word count you gave me for the application. It stands repeating: do you really need me to have seen classic movies if I can’t name some of the most influential gaming masterpieces of all time? When sending my application, am I going to emulate game writing I’ve seen in the past, knowing that it was good enough to get published, or take the risk of something more unorthodox?

It may have sounded like I am making a push to eliminate all culture from games writing, to put it into a stale, safe environment where everyone understands everything that everyone else says because they’ve all seen, heard and read it a hundred times before. Clearly, that isn’t what I’m after. I just want to express my belief that there is value in writing about what you know and what your readers know. That in the end it’s better to write passionately about a subject, even to the point of over-emphasising it, than trying to relate to mediums that simply don’t express a point as well. I agree that being able to reference outside of gaming is the sign of a good writer, but a better writer plays both extremes.

——

I’ve already received some private feedback on this and have debated a number of ways to respond.  Some parts of the piece were editted, but I also wanted to give some footnotes/afterword to make sure I’m being clear without diluting the piece itself.

• I am not calling anyone out.  While Justin McElroy started the discussion this time, I’ve seen a number of other people talk about it over the last few years.  It was simply his that lead to me finally actually writing down what I thought.
• I am arguing one side of “games or everything else” because there’s an incredible amount of “everything else” support.  As I said in the last paragraph, both is much, much better than either.  I didn’t want to spend the whole article going “again, I’m not saying 100% in the opposite direction” because its already got enough scene setting at the start before getting into the meat.
• It was pointed out that the number of responses to Justin’s statement show that gamers are very interested in a “wide-ranging cultural brief” (so very well put by the individual that a quote seems appropriate).  This is true and I agree.  However, see above for why I do not mention this in the original text.

Blog’s looking a little empty and for a number of reasons I can’t get this put anywhere else.  There’s a little post-mortem at the end, as a few things came to mind/were pointed out while I was attempting to get it published.

The LAN party is an aging breed. I wouldn’t go as far as dying, but it certainly started in another era and is having troubles adjusting to this one. The always-online lifestyle created by Steam, Origin, OnLive and the like, coupled with AAA titles no longer having LAN play as standard has brought the once staple of the home platform to obscurity and rarity. However, it is easier and more satisfying than ever to collect together a few friends, some food, a large number of varied beverages and a whole stack of hardware for a weekend of semi-friendly gibbing, tower building and radiator throwing. And that’s before you add the games. Within you’ll find eight of the best, both era-defining classics and lesser known gems from more recent times.

Vroooooooom.

Game: Split/Second
Developer: Black Rock Studios
Get it: Gamesplanet
Memorable Quote: “No, no, No, NO, NO, NO, NO!”

There’s something, definitely something, about collapsing a nuclear chimney stack onto three of your friends and hearing them scream with laughter as you do so. This is equally true of blowing up the entire bridge they happen to be transversing, or ramming a helicopter supported dump-truck through the fragile ceiling of the tunnel they’re in. If you haven’t heard of Split/Second before, you should at least now be interested. It’s an arcade racer in the strictest sense with the insanity and “weapons” turned up to eleven. You don’t fire a blue shell or drop an oil-slick, you blow up the taxi rank in front of whoever you’re chasing; spraying their path with molten metal and deadly husks through a ludicrously simple system that anyone can learn in less than five minutes. Drifting and driving behind opponents builds charge, which can be used in thirds for small impacts or burnt from full to zero for something much more devastating. It won’t entertain for full days, but Split/Second will provide some of the late night laughs and ridiculous close shaves/epic victories that LAN memories are made of.

See all that? Blow that up.

Game: Unreal Tournament 2004
Developer: Epic Games
Get it: Steam
Memorable Quote: “Holy shit!”

When you talk about deathmatch, this series is either the first or second that comes to mind, depending on who you ask. It has classic fast paced action, over the top visuals and weapons to match. It knows what it is and does it very well, with a variety of modes to entertain a group of any (reasonable) size. From one on one duels for bragging rights to a 30 man war over a massive stretch of land utilising some of the most original vehicles ever coded, there’s always something going. Throw in the thousands of megabytes of community content, from maps to full conversions, and this could power a LAN party all on its own.

The prettiest of all the symbols.

Game: Quake 3/Live
Developer: id Software
Get it: http://www.quakelive.com/
Memorable Quote: “Sickening rail, old bean.”

And here’s the other title that comes to mind when discussing the gaming nation’s multiplayer passtime. If UT2k4 is classic, this is classiest. It’ll run at acceptable speeds on any computer made in the last 12 years with any number of background processes or hardware irregularities. You won’t even have to install it if you don’t want to, with the miracle of Quake Live allowing it to run straight out of a browser. There will be someone in your playgroup who’s done it all before, and he’ll enjoy destroying the rest of you with muscle memory that never dies. Everyone else will have to make do with fragging at extreme speed (that’s possible even for the complete rookies) with the finest in balanced weaponry.

WHAT IS EVEN GOING ON

Game: Magicka
Developer: Arrowhead Game Studios
Get it: Steam
Memorable Quote: “… I think I crashed the game”

Magicka’s true triumph is in its bugs. More wild laughter has come from unexpected breaks in the action than the intended chaos. The brilliance of the gameplay itself, however, cannot be understated. Relying on player memory to construct spells of massive destructive force leads to one of two possible outcomes: displays of light devastating enemies as a proud gamer sits accepting praise or, more commonly, on-screen actions become a dance of headless chickens desperately trying not to kill each other in any one of a hundred ways. It’s pure comedy from start to finish. Even the additional coordination gifted by the proximity of players submits before the madness that is your average Magicka play session.

You might want to du- nevermind.

Game: HL2 Deathmatch
Developer: Valve
Get it: Steam
Memorable Quote: “You killed me with a toilet/radiator/car/paint can!”

Sometimes, you just have to throw a large metal object at your dearest friends, crumpling their body in acceptably realistic ways. Half-Life 2: Deathmatch is the game for that. While Unreal and Quake may boast a purer experience, HL2DM promises the unique pleasure of the gravity gun. Along with the obvious high-speed impact environmental interaction, it changes combat in other ways: objects can be held up as bullet shields; explosive barrels turn you into a walking bomb; grenades can be thrown back while reloads and health packs can be pulled towards – it’s real innovation. You begin to filter items in the world in a new way – what’s heavy enough to do some serious damage (preferably a one hit KO) but small enough to not block vision significantly? Will this go far enough with enough force to still hurt? Just how long has the pin been out of that grenade?

Doing it right.

Game: Defcon
Developer: Introversion Software
Get it: Steam
Memorable Quote: “In about four hours, you’re so dead.”

Most of the other titles on this list are short term affairs lasting little more than an hour or two that are thus perfect for the hyperactive, ever-changing environment of a LAN. Defcon is something different. Start a real-time game of the World War III simulator when you turn up and just leave it running throughout the day, making changes and micromanaging your bombers and subs between bouts of whatever else is taking your fancy. While a Team Fortress 2 nemesis is a rivalry that lasts as long as it takes to get – a few minutes – enemies made during a game of Defcon will have you seething for much, much longer. Nuclear detonations reducing the population of your nation by factors of ten breeds a lot more competitive spirit than a quick respawn causing headshot.

Gentlemen...

Game: Pirates, Vikings and Knights 2
Developer: The PVKII Team
Get it: http://www.pvkii.com/
Memorable Quote: “Wait for it… Wait for it… KABOOM”

If you hadn’t heard of it before, the very name of this Source mod should have got your attention. The concept is exactly the kind of faction based FPS nonsense that breeds fun and in the environment of 10+ gamers at three in the morning, this only leads to hilarity. There’s a degree of originality in its mechanics and visuals, from holy grail modes that power up one player and force the opposing two teams to gang up on him to the absurdly entertaining keg of gun powder weapon. The first time your screen fills with kill notifications as a keg goes off in a crowded passage, the room /will/ explode in laughter. The inaccuracy and poor damage of ranged combat makes melee-fests commonplace and the chaos is a welcome change from your average FPS long-range point and click.

This is approximately 1/1000th of the gunfire in one match.

Game: Battlefield 2
Developer: DICE Interactive
Get it: Steam
Memorable Quote: “What we’re gonna do, right, is put C4 on this jeep and just drive ’till we ‘stop’.”

This is a bit limited to larger gatherings and was nearly relegated to Honourable Mentions on those grounds, but with the right numbers it’s such a joy that I kept it in. It’s tactical combat at its finest, with all variety of vehicles and weapons to keep a group entertained. Epic tales are produced naturally by the gameplay: going up with a new pilot in a helicopter is an exercise in stress management as it frighteningly drifts from side to side while some poor fellow wrestles with the controls. Going one on one with a tank is either a triumphant David vs. Goliath hero’s tale or a merciless slaughter. Importantly, BF2′s unique Commander mechanic, allowing a player to take control of the battle for their side and play a mini-RTS, ordering troop movements and calling artillery strikes and vehicle drops, benefits immensely from real time communication.

Honourable Mentions:
Blizzard’s entire back catalog – From WarCraft II all the way through to StarCraft II, almost everything ever put out by the California developer makes for a good LAN experience – especially WarCraft III’s vast number of custom maps and modes. Even World of WarCraft, assuming an already in place play group, will benefit from the closeness of friends.

Defense of the Ancients/Heroes of Newerth/League of Legends – The nerd rage produced by this genre is unrivaled and will give hours of entertainment to the right group. However, be wary of the learning curve associated and try not to scare anyone off.

Minecraft – I wasn’t 100% positive you’d have heard of this seldom talked of indie title, but am giving you the benefit of the doubt. Rest assured, this is just as enthralling at a LAN as everywhere else. A weekend project can produce real triumphs.

Team Fortress 2/Counter Strike – Some people will base their entire LANs around just Valve’s shooters, others just a few hours. Whoever you play with, wherever you do it, chances are they’ll pop up. They’re brilliant. Not much more to be said.

———–

So this is a piece that I started with a lot more enthusiasm than I finished with.  It’s not as good as I wanted it to be, I didn’t have as much knowledge on the subject as I thought I did and it doesn’t flow as well as I’d like.  I don’t hate it, but I’d like it if it was better.  The “Memorable Quote” thing turned out about as well as I thought it would, which is nice.

In the end, however, lists just aren’t very good.  One of the editors I sent this to pointed this out, along with the fact that they were (and he made sure to say he wasn’t trying to be rude, just stating a simple fact) very easy to do.  A very, very good one (such as particularly large Top X lists or incredibly well researched ones) is still excellent, in my opinion, but one such as this just isn’t worth money to a magazine or website.  This will probably be the last I do unless something really catches my eye.

If you have any thoughts on the matter, please, leave them below.  It’d be nice to approve a comment.

So, um, let’s talk about Duke Nukem Forever. I was, honestly, looking forward to this game. I didn’t spend my entire adult life reading about the endless delays and engine changes, the development mishaps and funding cataclysms. I didn’t work on those articles or attend the E3 presentations they were based on. I grew up reading them. For as long as I can remember, Duke has been gaming’s joke. The fat, dumb, lovable companion to the mainstream’s dashing hero.

I was in attendance for the revival though. From 2007 through to now, I paid every bit of attention to the slow, horrible death of Duke Nukem Forever and its miraculous revival. I never stopped betting on Duke, I got friends excited, I was sickeningly positive. The trailers made me laugh – so blatantly over the top; a wonderful parallel line to the greatness of Bulletstorm. They were fucking bringing it, finally, after years and years and years.

It looked like everything I wanted: a game that just didn’t care. A combination of non-stop action and teenage humour. The jokes would be crass but clever, the action would be varied and explosive, a heroic return to classic 90s action. Basically, I bought into the hype. It’s not uncommon for me – I really enjoy being excited about video games, even when I know I’m being sold a story. Under the surface, despite my outward confidence, I knew there was a chance it wouldn’t be everything I hoped. More than a chance, almost a certainty.

As we approached release, the exact nature of DNF came to the fore. It was … just a little seedy. A little on the wrong side of Benny Hill, just too close to the back alley behind the theatre rather than the classy burlesque stage show itself. Things began to spiral – stripping browser games, nude wallpapers, panty shots, “girls of” videos. I should have known, really, that it was boding badly. But, it was just low-brow, misdirected marketing right? Much as it has happened before, those not making the game were selling a different thing to what was in the box. They’d taken the lowest common denominator and sold to it.

And even if it was. Even if it was a hopeless, sexist mess of a game with cheap penis jokes and toilet humour, everything the booty-smackin’ previews and blowjob intros promised; I still had confidence.

I got six hours into Duke Nukem Forever in the end. It is, by far, one of the most mediocre games I have been unfortunately unable to avoid playing. It had one shot, one chance to still be great; at the least good. The unfunny jokes and dated engine, the sexism, stereotypes, boring mechanics, even the two weapon limit could have been saved by one, apparently unattainable thing. This is why, even when I knew it wouldn’t be everything I hoped, I thought it would get this one thing right and I would at least get to the end with a smile on my face.

But.

The guns were not fun to shoot. Duke’s bullets didn’t feel right, they didn’t seem to impact anything. His railgun doesn’t penetrate a pigcop’s head, frying the brain within until it explodes with a sickening, satisfying boom; it shines a red flashlight and then a barely related animation plays. Rockets don’t streak through the sky on an inevitable, deadly collision course; they’re sparklers thrown by an angry toddler which end their flight with a soft meow.

This is the key. This is how an FPS can be saved. This is why Call of Duty sells fifty quadrillion copies; why I have nothing but praise for Bulletstorm; why I enjoyed even Homefront more than a game I’d grown up wanting to play: the guns are fun to shoot. Spend time on your engine. Pay for better animation. Get your sounds right. Look at Battlefield 3 for an idea on how to do it the way it should be done.

Even indies do it better – Beat Hazard. It’s not an FPS but the fundamentals are the same: it has the sound and visuals of proper, exciting gunplay down. When explosions begin, they cascade. The smallest of hits have a visible effect. When the big guns are brought out, you know about it, the screen fills with visual feedback and every sense is assaulted. It’s almost too much, but too much is always, always better than too little when it comes to the basics of an enjoyable game.

I don’t think the developers of DNF, or any other game with sub-par gameplay, were stupid. They had problems with time, money, lawsuits, any other number of issues that I can’t even dream of. But, it’s important to know where games went wrong and where they went right. There is room for DNF’s humour in this world. Hell, there’s even room for some of its scummier moments, they’re inevitable. Despite whatever we may think ethically or morally of the content, focus on why it’s an awful video game: it isn’t. fun. to play.

———-

This article could have been a lot different.  It could have been a defence of Duke’s schoolyard humour, his ridiculous machismo.  It might have even offended you, shown me to be a sexist bastard who laughs at anything, the lowest of the low.   But, I never even played the multiplayer.  I didn’t get further than the strip joint level – so laughably out of place and pointless even I found it hard to enjoy.  I can’t defend its boyish charm or ironic boob jokes or whatever bullshit I may or may not have come up with to defend it, because I just don’t care.  I’m on speed dial if someone makes a fun game with objectionable morals.

Wrote this some time ago as my shot at what I think is New Games Journalism?  Whatever, I don’t fucking know, it’s a lot better in retrospect than I thought it was at the time and thought I’d share it with the wider world.

The first time I experienced it, there was something about the Dead Space universe I found enthralling. Murderous undead monstrosities were hardly a unique concept at the time, deep in gaming’s decade of fascination with zombies, but Dead Space had something different – the overall depressing theme; the dark, gritty realism of its future vision; the beautiful animation and voice work and, for me, its unrelentingly frightening nature. It would continuously exude horror, keeping you on your toes through persistent stimulation. It may not have been actually terrifying for the more veteran experts of the genre, but it did what it set out to do – provide an ever switching combination of Cradle-esque eerie horror and trademark id in your face shocks.

And that is why I have read the book, watched the movies, know the story and have ranted on and on about the quality of the game, but haven’t ever actually played more than five hours of Dead Space. Things were going to change for the sequel. I’d pull my pants up, wipe the snot off my face and man up a little. Actually play the game and experience it properly, not six months later on streaming video thanks to some friendly soul from the SomethingAwful forums. I was confident that I was prepared come installation time – I’d watched videos, seen screenshots, read interviews, I’d be fine. This would be easy.

Even the menu seemed against my plan, the constant dark whispering unnerving me quickly. I laughed into the darkness of my room, I was being silly. I felt the need to check video settings, mouse sensitivity, keybinds and volumes. As I did, I glanced at the clock: boy, it was getting late. I could continue this in the morning. I shut the game down. Tomorrow, tomorrow.

I sat down again eighteen hours later, drink on hand, will in place. New game button, a quick splash screen and I was in. Sitting in a chair. This wasn’t so bad. Isaac looked a little miffed at the situation and didn’t seem to be entirely alert or at his best, but at least nothing was trying to kill me. The good doctor across the desk even seemed to be attempting to assi- oh wait, creepy lady.

Pause. Drink. Unpause.

She walked to the desk, her face a blood-soaked mask, and climbed atop it. Her quiet whisperings to Isaac became a scream, filling the entire screen with light.

Pause. Alt-tab. Talk to friends. Unpause.

Reawakening face to face with a panicked doctor, Isaac was still helplessly strapped into a straight-jacket and held fast by the man. Well, at least he was human. The scene was familiar though, I’d seen it somewhere before… A similar scene in the original perhaps? No, that wasn’t right… Oh I remember, yes, it was in a trailer! That was it. Oh. I remember what happens next.

Pause. Drink. Unpause.

With the unique, horrific ripping sounds that are one of the many grim signatures of Dead Space, the man holding Isaac quickly turned into a necromorph, throwing him off in the process. Control was regained and one idea annihilated all others: run. As the asylum spontaneously combusted into gore and violence around him, I ran Isaac through scripted scenes of death and destruction. The idea that perhaps I should avoid the necromorphs didn’t occur to me the first time, hastily trapping me in a corner and ripping poor Isaac to pieces.

Fuck. Reload. Run.

Taking the obvious left turn this time, I got further, through doors and round corners until I reached a seeming safe zone. The game dropped into its second type of horror – creepy, low-key, action-less tension. I came to a corridor. It was the same as any other. It had been a few minutes since there was hint of a necromorph beyond the destroyed scenery and bisected corpses. I knew what was going on here though.

“Oh, game, you think me for a fool! I will hasten down that safe corridor and, lo, be ambushed by some horrible gribbly from beyond the nth veil! Thou shalt not fool my vastly experienced gaming brain!”

Pause. Alt-tab. Communicate these feelings to friends. Unpause.

Halfway down the corridor, nothing happened. Approaching the door, nothing happened. See, the genius of Dead Space, the thing that always made me eventually give up, was the teasing. Everything about the game was designed to breed fear in your brain. The low-tech sci-fi of its interiors, certainly once the villains have had their way with it, are perfectly in sync with the actual bad guys: dark corners, cavernous ceilings, ventilation ducts up the wazoo. It’s space horror’s clichés, but it’s done well, with love.

Nothing, of course, happened. The door opened. A man stood with his back to Isaac.

Pause. Drink. Alt-tab. Complain to friends. Unpause.

Dead Space’s animation is a thing of beauty. This is displayed no better than during the quick-time events that occur when a necromorph gets close enough to grab you. The death animations should you fail are absolutely disturbing. To pass, you slam a key as fast as possible. As Isaac approached the man, I was obviously tentative. With a sudden movement, he turned around shouting and grabbed Isaac, putting a knife to his throat. I was spamming E so hard it took me about 5 seconds to realise it wasn’t actually a quick-time event and I should be listening to plot.

The mysterious gentleman was actually kind enough to cut Isaac from his straight-jacket and point him towards a nearby storage locker. In approaching it, I was very much aware that my back was now to the maniac with the knife. I was, naturally, shocked to find him still standing where he was when I left the poor soul. Then he slit his own throat.

Pause. Drink. “WHAT THE FUCK?” Unpause.

I directed Isaac to tip-toe past the corpse and head down the stairs into the lunch area that could be seen through the large windows the man had been beating his head slowly against – the bits not now covered in gore, that is. The addition of a flashlight and use of Isaac’s arms didn’t actually help: now I just felt even more helpless without the excuse of “well, he’s in a straight jacket”. I came to another corridor. This time, there was light streaming from a doorway. Whether deliberately or by incredible luck, it hearkened back to the opening scene with Isaac’s deceased spouse screaming at us from a table.

My will was stronger this time and I began to move forward. The sound of Dead Space is another of its strengths – it was commented in the GameTrailers review for the game that, with the sound off, parts of it were simply comical as opposed to horrific or exciting. It knows how to use silence and how to puncture it. During combat or action scenes, it is an incredibly loud and aggravating game, disjointed noise and jarring chords mixing with the screams and grunts of whatever is actually happening. In Dead Space 2’s quieter, creepier moments stop and wait for a few seconds and you’ll hear whispers of Isaac’s name. Simply walking around brings bangs and clanging from nowhere as whatever piece of your current location falls apart. Then when something happens, some triggered event of a necromorph appearing or space ship crashing or explosion occurring, the game will jilt you.

ZEEEOUNG. A wheel chair rolls past backwards through the light.

Jump half a foot in the air. Alt-F4. Write article.

—————————–

I swear I discussed bits of this article with someone before, but the one person I shared it with I’m 90% sure didn’t reply (pretty sure that was due to a google bug or some sort as opposed to them not caring).  Either way, hope you enjoyed it.

Sent these off to the proper authorities and never heard anything back so assume they weren’t of use.  Like to keep them somewhere, figure everyone else can enjoy them too.  Trackmania and UT2k4, for reference.

Trackmania Nations Forever

Simplicity, repetition and an endless drive for perfection are what the world of casual gaming has built a mountain of money on. Nowhere is this more prevalent than TrackMania’s control scheme: arrow keys perform the standard tasks and an easily reachable delete key restarts the level. That key is having its text slowly eroded as I strive for the ever elusive author medal (the ultimate award for those who beat the best time of the creator of the level) on all sixty-five tracks of this addictive racer.

TrackMania sits firmly in the category of easy to learn, hard to master. Right now, after years of play, I sit at 222 medals; placing me 26,474th in the world, 403rd in the UK. The innovation Nadeo have managed within their basic tool set is extraordinary – there is a new trick to every level, something new to master while remembering everything you have already learned.

There are later tracks I cannot even challenge the gold medal time of and two that I cannot complete at all. One is a hyper-difficult twisting gauntlet of ramps, jumps and split second throttle timings. Hit the ramp at the wrong speed, restart. Touch the wall, restart. Misplay the acceleration in or out of a corner, restart. It is a seeming impossibility to maintain this for the full two minutes demanded.

The other untameable track is the big finale, a gruelling sixty lap endurance race. The target time? One hour and change. I’ve never had the patience to attempt completion, never mind the skill to maintain the correct speed throughout. TrackMania does not take any prisoners, even this marathon punishing your mistakes by denying you the other side of a jump due to your lower speed.

And you /will/ make mistakes. You will run the first level five times before getting to the finish line. Twenty more before beating the gold time. Another hundred might net you the author – not that you’ll know it until you do, the fourth tier of prizes hidden from view until a certain number of medals are received.

When you mess up particularly spectacularly – say, taking a ramp at the wrong angle or hitting an obstacle in such a way as to throw you into the air, the game does the single-player equivalent of tea bagging. Assuming you land on your wheels, a quick stunt description will flash up as your opponents race into the distance – “Flip Flap 360!”, “Spin 180!” even “Chained Master Backflip x3 720!!!”: “Congratulations, you /fucked/ up. Start again, kid.”

And you will, every time, until your fingers hurt from holding the accelerator and you’re having nightmares about little green cars speeding ahead out of corners. You’ll keep slamming that delete key and shaving off the microseconds until that medal is yours. Then the game will snort at you, arrogant. You’ll never get them all.

Unreal Tournament 2004

Quake has always been the deathmatch poster boy. Millions loved Arena and its “successor”, Quake Live, is still played the world over with regular tournaments for players at the highest levels of competition and tens of thousands of dollars on the line. But there’s a charm to my preferred Unreal Tournament 2004 that always drags me back.

After digging it out for a local LAN, I’ve been replaying it, mostly offline against the tremendously well balanced bots. I can never decide if it’s the movement or the weapons that most fill me with adoration. There’s a feel to transversing a map in UT2k4 that is unrivalled elsewhere. The obscenely fast pace of basic character movement is just the surface: double jumps add complexity, particularly on the low-grav arenas – once you make that second leap, you’re at the mercy of every sniper until you touch down and can control yourself again.

But what about the rocket launcher? Three barrels, beautiful firing animation, glorious alternate modes, love expressed the way it should be – via heavy ordinance. Nowhere will you find more deliciously colourful or satisfying frags than this game. Arms fly off and the sockets burn, bodies are flung every which way, unidentifiable heaps of red spatter off walls. Between this and its partner in crime, the Flak Cannon (what a name), who wouldn’t shed a tear of joy?

More like who’d care? Dodge-jumping, the perfect, inhuman leap created by the unholy matrimony of double jump and dodge is a glory to behold. With a professional at the reigns – or even a higher level bot – a UT2k4 character model becomes a bullet spewing ballet dancer, dealing out death and looking damn fine doing it. Even from the first person perspective, there’s /something/ wonderful about taking entire rooms in a single bound, pulling a full 180 in the air before landing perfectly on the quad damage and blowing an enemy away in a heartbeat. Slam on the Speed powerup and it’s hard not to laugh – the distances covered are simply obscene.

How about the long range weapons? The Lightning Gun is a genius idea, proving the old adage that adding elemental force to anything makes it more awesome. Or the pinnacle of skill testers, the Shock Rifle? Some might call it cheap, but the satisfaction of a perfect shock combo one-two punch disintegrating a player into red mist is unrivalled. Or throwing on the instagib mutator and revelling in the all or nothing combat, where one miss likely spells your doom.

Both sides of the argument land at one, undeniable fact. Bringing it all together creates an experience like no other. Combined with map knowledge and logical prediction, godlike beauty is created. They’ll run into your rockets, dodge straight into your shock combos, strafe right into flak. They’ll call you an aim-botting, wall-hacking cheater. You’ll know the truth: you’re just better at creating art than they are.

——–

(Warning, many of the opinions expressed in this article are very extreme and written by one for whom WoW has played a major part in his life.)

Someone I know, upon hearing about the closure of APB after as little as three months, commented on how different his teenage life would have been had WoW lasted as short a time. Others agreed with amusing anecdotes about social lives. After the initial smile and a giggle, I actually started to think about it.

And holy shit.

*wibbly dimensional shift noise as you click the read more button*

The Entire Shape of Gaming is Different

Oh my, look at me go. I’ll break this down into different sections, each with a universe number for the different possibilities. I will refer to our own timeline as 616 for reasons that will be clear to anyone who can spend 5 minutes googling or knows what a comic book is.

MMOs

[295]

MMOs, in a form bigger than casual web-games (more on those later), simply don’t exist. Without the massive influx of players to the mega-genre and gaming in general, everything from EVE to Planetside to Everquest died off from lack of interest. Investment oppertunities dried up and, obviously, there wasn’t a huge cash cow and player base making developers want to try it. It now holds the same position as the second-person shooter in our reality – a clever idea brought up by inspired, brave or very stupid indie developers from time to time and often forgotten during the inevitable hangover.

Even in the east MMOs are smaller, as lack of any sort of proof that westerners may wish to play MMOs has kept companies from attempting expansion. Those that have taken tentative steps find the slog incredibly hard with the lack of triple A titles to point at and say “kinda like that”. The PC Bangs of these nations have kept their grind-focused titles popular but language and cultural barriers have prevented western companies from seeking exposure successfully.

[1610]

EVE became the success story of the MMO scene. Thanks to increased broadband usage across the globe it quickly gained massive popularity. With the additional funds, CCP managed to create systems by which their one-server policy still allowed for acceptable latency. This is achieved via the hiring of Blizzard staff laid off after the failure that was WoW eventually incorporating cross-server and phasing technology on a slightly faster time-frame than WoW due to it being a main concern of CCP. In tandem with this and with similar causes, EVE’s early game becomes much more friendly while maintaining the massive progression possibilities and PvP focus. This snowballs into millions of players spouting the brilliance of an MMO that allows you to specialise so freely and does not cut off your progression simply because you are not always online.

In the east, the lack of blood or even humanoid shapes made negotiations with rating boards (and governments), of South Korea and China particularly, easier than Blizzard’s 616 counterpart. Expansion into this area was therefore quicker and Eve’s growth faster than even WoW here. Eastern patrons loved not having to choose between one game and the other, alt-tab mining with their favourite grinds or simply logging on every now and again to train skills. 616 Blizzard’s pay-per-hour system obviously doesn’t work, so CCP incorporate paying per skill you wish to train based on how long it will take. This and a small charge for actually playing on servers form three payment possibilities – training skills on a character you cannot play, playing on a character who cannot train or the best of both worlds.

Nobody ever, ever spells EVE “EvE”

[2301]

Grind-tacular MMOs become massively popular in the west as companies with an already solid player base invest large amounts of money in attracting and expanding to a western audience. With money to continue to push, none fail as WoW did and eventually attract massive player bases. Eastern gamer culture – PC Bangs, popularised gaming and the like – begin to seep into western society. Progression is incredibly slow compared to either our or an EVE-centric timeline but eventually numbers reach WoW and beyond levels, though spread across many more games.

These player counts lead to numbers that would seem atmospheric to us as gaming becomes as acceptable a social occassion as seeing a play, watching a movie or going to a sporting event, much as it is in South Korea and other Asian nations.

Blizzard
[295]

Massive lay offs and firings after WoWs shambolic launch leave the company a shell of what it once was. Its reputation for “never having released a bad game” is shattered and becomes, along with WoW, this generation’s DNF-level joke. Half hearted attempts to revive other franchises never see release as the company collapses in on itself. Talented staff find jobs elsewhere and companies such as Massive and Bioware are better for it. Those who still believe the MMO can become a success join eastern companies attempting expansion but few see any success. Millions less people have any idea who Bobby Kotick is.

[1610]

The main production staff of WoW effectively move to CCP with little exception. Backroom deals, buyouts and exchange of technology and resources keeps the company afloat, allowing it to finish development on StarCraft II several years before 616. Upon release it is a success, though not as polished as the 616 counterpart, leading to a large split in the StarCraft community between the original and its successor. With proof that they are still able to create quality products, Blizzard is bought up by the newly formed EA-CCP as RTS and RPG developers. This leads to releases for Diablo 3 and WarCraft 4 (which, rightly by all accounts, completely ignores the events of WoW) and the continued development of StarCraft II.

[2301]

Eastern gaming culture’s expansion allows Blizzard to barely stay afloat with royalties gained from hastily made StarCraft and WarCraft 3 related deals. Though they are, in general, being ripped off for less than the licenses to run tournaments and broadcast such should be worth, the legal battles to earn more would shut the company down long before any pay out was seen. Efforts are focused on supporting the professional scenes for both of these games as it is a major source of income and balance patches are released for WarCraft 3 in greater number. As grindy MMOs begin to find their grip, Blizzard begins to develop and eventually releases a version of WoW more geared towards the emerging market. It joins the many Lineage clones in sufficing, taking on a Prey-style legend as the game that was released after decade(s) of development.

Casual Gaming
[295]

Seeing WoWs massive failure, indie companies are less inclined to create even browser based online games. Single player Flash also take a hit as always-online gaming in general is seen as a landmine. Knowledge that every day citizens can get into gaming easily is slightly deminished. However, with ever increasing connectivity, something eventually must fill the void and, once initial exploration proves successful, games such as Farmville and the like prove as massively, ridiculously popular as in 616; and eventually more so. Free MMOs such as Runescape gain in users but are incredibly wary of increasing their prices or expanding their commercial portential – to the point that some even decrease costs in an attempt to gain an advantage over competitors and thus get ahead in races for advertising, now worth much more than actual users.

[1610]

With the popularity of EVE, casual online gaming takes on a different shape. Progression continuing without being online is seen as the norm, allowing users to enjoy a much wider variety. However, this leads to drops in advertising revenue for all but the most incredibly popular. As server costs for maintaining an online presence for every user begin to increase leading many games into situations they cannot afford as advertising revenue cannot keep up with how popular their game is. This particular economical balls-up rights itself before it can destroy the scene forever but puts everything from Forumwarz to Bejewelled on massive delays, with only those with the best actual gameplay surviving.

[2301]

In parallel with 295, web games attempt to fill the void left by WoW, but are interrupted by the rise of eastern MMOs and culture. As gaming becomes a social passtime, it becomes much more acceptable to run them outside a browser window. Social networking games still exist but are vastly diminished in favour of whatever MMO a group of friends prefers.

Gaming Developments
[295]

With the stigma attributed to MMOs fresh in developer’s minds, the surge towards co-op and multiplayer that has been seen in recent years is not found. Purely single-player games have a resurgancy, particularly the adventure game genre. Bioshock 2 and Dead Space 2 have as much multiplayer as Mass Effect. Red Alert 3′s campaign is an altogether more personal affair. Telltale’s episodic series take off incredibly as an example of a genre that can be both enjoyable and educational in a world where other people in games is seen as getting in the way unless you’re shooting at them. Wary companies refuse to create some of the massively multiplayer shooters that exist in 616. In addition, the RPG revolution of the last few years where in every game that is released has some form of levelling, purchasing or grinding occurs much slower as it is not made so obvious that this is something that is incredibly popular.

[1610]

The one phrase that inspired me to waste all this time coming up with fanciful scenarios in alternate timelines was this: “in fact, all the big MMO companies would probably be trying to copy eve right now because it survived”

This is true here in all facets of gaming. The WoW-a-likes, both online and offline, that we have in 616 are gone, replaced with continual progression and interaction while away from they keyboard. The “always online” access that modern peoples enjoy is exploited to its fullest, allowing players of every sort to hook their smart phones and netbooks into websites and applications that control how their game characters spend their time while they aren’t with them.

[2301]

Now that grinding games are the most popular there are, the RPG super-genre mentioned earlier really takes hold. A game that doesn’t have central hubs, quests, currency and upgrades is seen as terribly behind the times. Auto-aim has a resurgence in FPS games as the asian culture of playing games as a side-activity while with friends spreads and the less attention that has to be paid to a game is seen as a benefit.

————————————————————————–

This article was started in late July and finished roughly 10 minutes ago. It isn’t perfect, and could have used some more work in the intervening time (more than zero, that is) to have it in a state I wanted it. However, it was also a laugh to write, and I hope you enjoyed reading.

Motherfucker, can you fight them?

When we last left the mighty Zasz: Catman extraordianaire, we were progressing through the subterranean escape passages beneath the imperial jail/city with our new Emperor buddy and his guard types.

I think we’re really bonding, nice gents, the kind of guys you’d enjoy a drink with. They could be in Carling adverts, passing you terrible alcohol while you fight Daedra-cultist-assassins.

It’s gonna be a good ti-

Hay, where are you going guys? ... guys? ;_;

FINE! At least this place is safe, you can come back and get me later. I’ll just slash this sword around. Hay this is getting good.

In Oblivion you can make “power attacks”. These work basically the same with every weapon, though have unique effects based on your skill with that weapon. Holding a movement key and the attack button at the same time is the modus operandi and they are a good way to dispatch weak enemies quickly.

Unique effects include disarm, knockdown, paralysis and so on. “But what do you mean skill with that weapon, oh great Narrator?” QUIET WHIPPERSNAPPER, I’LL EXPLAIN LATER. For now, understand that with that sword we picked up we can either do a few fast attacks, or big strong ones with longer cooldowns. Fast and weak, slow and strong.

But, nothing to fight, so we shouldn’t really be worrying about all th-

OH GOD KILL IT KILL IT KILL IT KILL IT

After an EPIC DUEL SO INCREDIBLE CAPTURING IT IN SCREENSHOTS SIMPLY CORRUPTED MY HARDDRIVE (I’ve changed my screenshot key now so I can take better ones, probably from Chapter 5 on) the rats lay defeated, ourselves triumphant.

And you know what that means: loot time.

This is not as awesome as I was promised.

… this doesn’t even give me a benefit. It’s basically poison. I killed this monster and it dropped poison. I’m outrag- hay there’s a hole in the wall, let’s check it out. A turn to the right reveals a chest. Rat, you are forgiven your earlier failings, for now you bring plentiful bounty!

Moving on, and dispatching of another pesky rat, we come across the following.

You've got a little... there's something on your... er...

Now, there are only so many options in a situation like this:

a) Leave the poor man and his possessions where he is, respecting the dead and all that go with them to the next life.

b) Nab the bow and shield, open the chest – they might not be his, after all, and they are just lying there.

c) TAKE IT ALL.

OH BOY

Now, there are a lot of things to learn in this little period, but most of them are simple. The shield you saw before increases your armour, which makes you take less damage, and is also much more effective for blocking than a sword.

The bow is your standard range weapon – there are no guns or crossbows in Oblivion, much to my dismay. Magic is a weak alternative, but isn’t quite as manly. To fire a bow you need arrows and we’ll get onto them in more depth later.

The armour you see is of the light variety – light armour weighs less than heavy but provides less protection. This makes it easier to perform certain tasks (such as sneaking) but means you take more damage when you are hit.

Lockpicks are used to pick locks. There is a mini-game for this, helpfully demonstrated by the chest next to our ever helpful skeleton pal.

MASTER OF LOCKS, I'M STEALING YOUR STUFF

BENDING THE RULES AND SNATCHING YOUR SOCKS

Basically you tap the little tumblers up and when they’re in the right place you left click to lock them in. It is not as easy as it sounds, but easier than that sentence makes it seem. The harder the lock, the more tumblers there are to be put into place (on this lock, the righthand four were already done when we started), and the lower your Security skill, the harder those tumblers are to get into the right place.

It is my crowning glory that with only three reloads, I once picked a Very Hard lock with a Security skill of 5, with a single pick. Sound actually plays a larger part in this mini-game than many realise and it can be infinitely harder to play without sound than it is with.

Now that you are all well and truly bored with talk of locks and tumblers, lets shoot the crap out of something! This bucket has had it coming!

Arrow fight at the Bucket Coral.

The hero!

The villian!

To fire you must have both a bow and arrows equipped. While having a bow is counted as a two-handed weapon, arrows occupy their own equipment “slot” and thus can be kept on until the end of time.

Traitorous bucket dealt with throughly, we may procede to the exit. Defining the western RPG, we have a meaningless choice: do we try to pick the lock on the door or “try to find the key” – aka, look at the goblin right next to the door and loot his corpse.

You should realise by now what happens when I am given a corpse-looting choice.

Tune in next time for GOBLINS.

Seriously.

If someone could explain to me how in the name of all that is holy you manage to code your game such that if the computer it is running on does not have a perfect combination of audio codecs, all input from the keyboard and mouse fails after 3-5 minutes?

Or how, in the modern world (modern world), alt tabbing can still cause a game to crash?

I mad.

Anyway. It works now. Eventually. However I’ve forgone the use of graphics mods, mostly because I don’t want to redownload them after deleting them, believe them to be the cause of the problem (they weren’t). Also, some of them were such a giant cock to install. OUR ADVENTURE BEGINS, HERE:

We’re going to boldly go where no prisoner, emperor and three guards have gone before. But first we must create our mighty hero.

Are we to be man or woman? Warrior or sorcerer? Angel or devil-hearted demon-bastard/bitch? Pro-tip: none of the above.

We’re going to be a cat.

Rule 34 will not be tolerated.

OH GOD FURRIES. No not really. I’m picking it because of the ridiculous bonuses. For a start, we get a base increase to agility, which is sexy stuff considering our planned course of action. But mostly it’s the permanent, free see-in-the-dark spell, the racial bonus. You really can’t underestimate that, not least because it is so bright in my room I need to use it to actually play the game. The one downside is it does leave a blue tinge on everything, as you’ll see shortly.

So we begin. But. Hang on. This isn’t right. Why would yo- BETHESDA!

Doing it wrong.

Doing it right.

Okay we’re back. Well this is homely, a nice cell to call our own. Oblivion begins with your character, for unknown reasons, as a guest of the Emperor. Be it for murder, theft or picking your nose is left to your imagination, but judging by the hanging chains and nothing of a bed, it doesn’t look like a fun time. As an introduction to the world, we get to talk to the best character in the game. This guy:

Can't see you too well there son...

It's all getting a little Avatar in here.

He’s a dark elf and his dialogue is the first thing you’ll hear in-game. It is custom tailored to your race – to the point that if you’re a dark elf, he’ll talk about how he’s going to escape and sex up your wife. For cat people such as myself, he offers a nice juicy rat sandwich and goes on to explain how I’m going to die in here – the one common motif in all of his speeches. This leads nicely into him explaining that the guards are on their way.

Two guards, one emperor isn't nearly as famous.

They bust into the cell all “what the hell are you doing here?” and “STAY OUT OF OUR WAY” as you back into the corner. Just passing through, right guys? Not going to involve me in your obviously serious and incredibly dangerous work? You’ve already mentioned the horrible deaths of various persons, so I’m safe here right? I’ll just mind my own business. Hay a tan cu- OH GOD DAMMIT

Don't hurt me, old man ;_;

Captain Pic- Emperor Palpa- Uriel Septim informs us that he has seen us in his dreams. His dreaming about chained cat people aside, apparently this means we get the honour of escaping with him. You know, the guy apparently being chased by assassin’s. Unarmed. With wrist irons on. Sergeant TokenFemale opens the door for us with a push of a brick as we are informed we better not fuck around. Or they’ll kill us.

Things are looking up.

Movement and combat in Oblivion really isn’t very complex. You have your standard WASD, space for jump, e for use. You do have to “bring out” your weapon if you want to fight. This can be done by simply pressing the attack button (M1, like I said, normal) or press F – which also puts weapons away. Characters will react to you differently if you wander around and talk to them with your weapon drawn. This being the difference between going up to someone and asking if they have the time and pulling a gun on them, pointing it casually at their crotch and asking for the time.

We trek on, being casually insulted or shouted at by our various companions. At least Sergeant TokenFemale is a bit of a looker. Maybe if we all get out of this alive…

"Ever had a thing for a ma- cat in chains, darlin'?"

Man those caverns on the walls would be a really cool place to hide. You could spy on anyone walking through, maybe jump on them, scare them a bit. Good job there aren’t ASSASSIN’S CHASING US OR ANYTHING, HUH, GUARDS?

Oh crap.

AAAAAAA DIE

Yeah we sure showed them.

Alriiiiight, lootan time.

The guards pretty much one-shot the assassin’s and you can’t do crap to them due to the awesome daedric armour they’re wearing – which, of course, is just a spell they’re casting, so it dissapears when they die. No epic phat loots for us. Not yet, anyway, but SOON, PRECIOUS, OH SO SOON.

Anyway, time to steal from the dead. Those robes are fair fetching, and one of them even had a nice potion.

Giggity.

Hay, look who died D:

Giggity goo.

HAY SHE HAS A SWORD, yoink! Aww yeah, we’re one badass kitty now.

The adventure begins!

Tune in next time for OH GOD RATS.

Well I’ve never done one of these before!

It should be rather self explanatory from both the URL and the title of the page what this is to be, but why may be a slightly more mysterious question. Well, first off, I’ve never played Oblivion properly before. By properly, I mean modded up the wazoo and resembling the original about as closely as I resemble the 1986 winner of Miss. Universe.

I do not look like this.

And I don’t plan to. More on that in a bit. I’ve also never done a game diary before, and have big problems with sticking with things for large amounts of time, due to being an incredibly unfocused and slightly stupid teenager. This will be changed (in the spirit of the new British government) in a manner that involves killing lots of people and stealing their stuff.

I'm so fucking edgy and up on current affairs.

On the subject of the game itself: Oblivion was released in 2006 to the general praise reserved for AAA titles. A friend of mine purchased it, discovered it wouldn’t run worth shit on his computer and hastened to my abode. We dicked around, played it a little, had some fun.

I actually quite like it as a game – the main quest is pretty much a pile of bollocks, but the Dark Brotherhood and Thieves Guild lines are brilliant. Many people think it is too easy and the complaints about the levelling system could stretch from now until the sun explodes.

Personally, I enjoyed the simple combat and consistent difficulty. I have never reached the maximum level and thus have not experienced the horror of Daedric homeless bandits, so that will be a novel experience should we get there. Thus, the mods I have installed do the following:

I think I'm ready now.

- Sounds/Textures – Oblivion was the Crysis of its time: the prettiest, graphics-card-murdering game available. Now, however, it’s actually got a little ugly. These mods change that, including one that is half as big as the game itself. Hopefully my mediocre PC can keep up, otherwise one or two will be disabled. The additional music and sounds just happened to be on a list of mods I was looking at. They will almost certainly not effect your experience of this diary, unless I decide I want to do video.

- Quest Award Leveler – The quest rewards in Oblivion are, on the whole, pretty fucking awesome. Unfortunetly, while they scale with your level when you acquire them, they do not continue to do so. This mod fixes that. Some might call it cheating, I call it having fun.

- Harvest – A couple of mods that make it more obvious when a herb or container has been looted. Very simple, very awesome.

- Non-psychic Guards – Fuck those guys, seriously. It’s like the Knights of the Round Table all suddenly standing up in the middle of a meeting and running off to the middle east because of some arcane link telling them there were crimes being committed in Jeruselum. And that’d just be stupid, so I’m using this.

- New UI – The old one was consolified crap! Damn casuals, etc! This is better, apparently. We’ll see.

- Oblivion Mod Manager – Makes all that stuff you just read actually work, and work well.

Our device has been modified.

Stuff I’m not using that you might think I should:

- Obscuro’s Oblivion Overhall (OOO)/Francesco’s – I enjoy playing the game the way I play the game, which pretty much involves doing whatever the dick I like, whenever I like. These mods make the game an incredible amount harder (and, probably, better) which while I’m sure is fun and brilliant, not for me!

- Any kind of levelling modification – I liked Oblivion’s levelling system and don’t really want to learn a new one. Plus the kind of character I intend to play (stealthy archer bullshit), I believe, has the lowest number of issues with it.

- Nude mods – Fap elsewhere. I can suggest a few places.

This is as hot as it's going to get.

If anyone has any suggestions, they can go right ahead and propose them through any of a million different channels of communication including the comments section and twitter.

Tune in for the next update, in which I make a character and begin MyAdventure(tm).

This post brought to you by Sennheiser.

It can be quite a shock when one takes a moment to think how little time in film media is spent without background music. From the most poignant, heart-felt monologues to the flashy depths of the latest JJ Abrams or Michael Bay lightshow, something is playing in the background, often obscured by talking or effects, but always present.

This is less of a sudden realisation in video games – music has been a big part of out entertainment since the very beginning. Everyone remembers the music from games they played growing up because it was really all the sound we had – depending on your age there was little to no voice acting, very basic special effects and an awful lot of text that you needed something to hum while reading.

This continues as our gaming platforms become ever smaller – the Gameboy Advance, DS and Playstation Portable easily matching and often surpassing the weighty consoles of old. Their inheritance of the games of the past has naturally resulted in a transfer of values, but their technical limitations have resulted in the same for original titles.

And so, so much of it is absolutely brilliant. It’s no wonder that sites like ocremix exist, remixing and retuning the anthems of our favourite entertainment into fully fledged, standalone tracks; removing a simple inherent of VGM: it cannot have an identifiable ending, as usually it must repeat endlessly.

Example time! The boss battle theme from Final Fantasy VII (http://bit.ly/3CthKR). Now, I don’t care who you are or what your background is, if you never air-guitared madly to Those Who Fight Further, you never lived. More than anything else, it is a wonderful example of a catch-all statement for most of that kind of VGM: an identifiable, catchy and singable first ten seconds. Look anywhere and you will find it – whether it be covering a battle scene’s opening mini-cinematic; the turn counter on a strategy or the loading screen for a new level; the very first section of a piece of VGM is utterly vital – not only to create a listenable piece of music, but as a piece of game design.

More examples! The Advance Wars series. I challenge anyone to find a game with so many incredible and memorable full tracks. Obeying strictly to the ten second brilliance, two minute wonder formula, these are songs I’ll never forget – and they just kept getting better as the series progressed. Sturm’s theme (http://bit.ly/ckOI31) from the original was the perfect piece of boss music for one of the hardest fights I’ve ever had; through Sensei’s crazy up-beat slap-tastic anthem (http://bit.ly/9nlnx6) in the sequel; into the sublime rock piece for the nerd stereotype extraordinaire Jake (http://bit.ly/bwxzwc) in Dual Strike and finally the grim and dark stylings of every track in Days of Ruin… but most notably Tasha’s “Goddess of Revenge”: absolutely the best introduction you will hear (http://bit.ly/9BbdwP). If you don’t headbang, you aren’t human.

It is not just the console games – our own lovely PC’s shooters have some of the (mostly guitar/metal) best VGM there is. Unreal Tournament 2004′s DM_Rankin (http://bit.ly/cUphf0) is a hypnotic combination of electronica and metal to create an incredible wall-jumping, man-fragging beat-setter that seems custom designed to fuel the senses. As backup, who can forget Doom’s Hangarmaggedon? E1M1 just wouldn’t be the same without it (http://bit.ly/vYfoW), the death-rattle of zombies cataclysmically different when lacking this intricate piece.

But it goes further. Video Games Live is an experience everyone should have once. I myself have only been lucky enough to hear them at Blizzard events, and thus have not experienced their full range – but it is truly a glorious thing. Gamers are often accused of taking our hobby too far, of branding ourselves too heavily with this one thing, that we are addicted to our passtime. This is all well and good and probably at least a little correct – but 10,000+ people dancing, humming or singing their favourite pieces of music in a packed hall is as relevant and healthy for us as it is for the crowd at the latest Pendulum concert.

What I want to see next is for the remixes that are made (or even the originals themselves) – be they The Black Mages, OCRemix, VGL or whoever else – to be released properly and taken seriously as musical pieces. It won’t matter, or even need to be mentioned, that it’s remixed video game music; it’s just music. Those of us that know the origins, if we are even a rare specimen by this point, can laugh and enjoy it a little more perhaps, but that does not take away or add from the piece itself. Anyone can stand on a packed floor and air-guitar their heart out to Quake 2′s Kill Ratio (http://bit.ly/cwTDcr). Anyone could stamp their feet and throw their hands madly into the air to the Terran Medley (http://bit.ly/2DiQuP and http://bit.ly/1ayJDj).

What would you like to see, down the pub or in the club on a Saturday night?