Would you like some zyme with that?

Whilst mucking about in Deus Ex I decided to hit the Multiplayer tab just for shits and giggles. An eight year old game, I hardly expected any servers to be running, let alone be populated.

How wrong I was.

Sorting by players and joining the first server on the list, I was dumped into a large pool full full of random objects. A few crates, some basketballs, a couch and a Buddha statue were all floating on the surface. Jumping out of the pool, I took stock of my surroundings and inventory. I was in a simple, sparsely populated courtyard carrying only some credits, a lockpick and a multitool.

My starting area. It was almost as someone had moved all the objects off the streets and in to the pool.

Behind me, a long grey building featured a couple of teller windows and a gigantic sign that read “Deus Ex Shopping”. Listed under this sign were some prices; drinks started at $20, spirits at $40 and pistols $100. Lastly, a surprisingly conspicuous footnote outlined the rules: Don’t kill anyone. As if the pool wasn’t strange enough, reading this sign confirmed the fact that I had absolutely no idea what was going on. I walked up to one of the teller windows, but it seemed no-one was home. Shame, I thought; multiplayer environments are always so hostile, and I was looking to purchase a shotgun and partake.

The sign also reminded patrons to keep an eye on the top picks table, where only the hottest items of the day are put on display!

It was at this point I turned around and was accosted by none other than JC Denton. What the hell he was doing here was beyond me. He stared at me for a second as I pondered his presence.

“Hi.” he said.
“Hey.” I replied.
“Wanna be a cop?”

I thought about this for a second, and decided it would be a good idea.

“OK.”
“Follow me.”

Denton then lead me through a series of concealed passageways, into the police station, past its detention centre and into its armoury.

The casual manner in which Mr. Denton led me to his stash of weapons was slightly unnerving.

Layed out on a long table was every weapon in the game. Buckshots, assault rifles, GEP guns and plasma rifles. The urge to pick up the Dragon’s Tooth straight away was near irresistable, but I didn’t want to risk offending Mr. Denton by taking his prized possession.

“Pick up the Baton.” he said. It seemed he had a different loadout in mind for me anyway. I picked up the Baton.
“Now pick up the Stun Prod.” I did so.
“Now pick up the pistol.” I obliged, and picked it up.
“Now you are a cop.”

I thought about this for a second and decided that yes, he was right. I was now a cop.

Unfortunately, savouring my promotion would have to be postponed, as at that point a Majestic 12 trooper found his way into the police station and confronted us outside the armoury.

The MJ12 troop wielding his "fire sword" variant of the Dragon's Tooth.

The trooper’s objective was simple. He wanted to be a cop as well. Perhaps he had seen Mr. Denton taking me to the police station and felt jealous. Whatever the case, it was never to be. Mr. Denton deemed him unworthy, and ordered me to help take the trooper down. Drawing our batons and charging straight at him, we whack away and bring the troop under submission.

Ever the generous soul, Mr. Denton decided that the detention centre was too harsh a punishment, and sentenced the MJ12 troop to some community service in the local shop. He also assigned me to watch over him.

Things inside the shop were a bit of a mess, but we soon get the place cleaned up.

Mr. Denton kindly showed us the ropes, then left on official cop business. The trooper – who I’d affectionately come to know as Carl – helped me clean the place up and re-stock the shelves. The store had a pretty wide selection, ranging from flowers, soft drinks and protein bars to liquor, grenades and even some zyme. I manned the teller window for some time while Carl fetched the stock I needed to serve customers.

Carl and I, manning the shop.

Since the game doesn’t feature an item trading mechanic, serving customers was a very analog experience. The teller window was blocked by a shutter, which slid open when I pressed a button on my side of the shop. The customer then selected the credit chits in their inventory and dropped them on the teller window’s counter. He tells me what he wants, I take the money, Carl fetches the item, gives it to me, and I place it on the counter in return. The customer then takes the item, and business concludes.

Things were going well, until Mr. Denton showed up again…this time, as a customer.

Mr. Denton: a little under the weather.

“Give me liquor.” said Mr. Denton. I try to tell him that he looks like he’s had enough, but he insists. Carl retrieves a bottle of rum from the storeroom, and I place it on the counter. Mr. Denton takes it without paying, and walks off! Official cop business indeed. I run out of the store and give chase, only to find him hassling a poor, defenceless young lady with his stun prod.

What she was doing out so late I had no idea.

I used to look up to Mr. Denton. I thought he was a good, honest cop. A real servant of the people. But the alcoholism, abuse of power and eye for every pretty young thing that walks by make him what he really is. I quit the force, and threw my baton, stun prod and pistol into the pool. They sunk to the bottom – past the crates, basketballs, couches and Buddha. I stare at the pool for a while, and wonder again how these other random objects came to be floating here in the water. Perhaps they have similar stories behind them.

I don’t think I’ll ever find out.

Beauty in Chaos

Kouassi in my sights

I wind my way up the cliff face, creeping along the steep dirt track. The trees cast long shadows that hide my advance. The few sentries I pass along the way are oblivious to my presence. Light fades as the sun begins to drop below the horizon, turning the sky a fiery orange as I finish my ascent. Inching forward through the dense vegetation, I push away some fronds to reveal my target beyond: a mountaintop villa. The private retreat of Prosper Kouassi, the APR’s lieutenant in Leboa-Sako.

This is Kouassi’s safehouse; an impenetrable haven he believes makes him untouchable. Things have been heating up here in the north, largely due to my errands for the APR, and Kouassi has gone into hiding. He knows his UFLL rivals will make a play for power at any time. What he never expects is that play to be executed by his own deniable asset – me.

For while Kouassi loves the idea of a freelancer with no strings attached, he never thought the UFLL would match his offers. In the end the stones didn’t matter; I grew tired of the APR’s anarchic philosophies and cocky militiamen. Marching into the UFLL’s headquarters, I found they were well aware of the looming anarchy the country will soon plunge in to and did not hesitate to make me an offer: Kill Propser Kouassi.

Creeping forward, I scan the villa and surrounding vegetation for hostiles. Six guards stand in the dense, jungle approach between the retreat and my vantage point. A further three to five patrol the immediate perimeter, while another six watch over the rear entrance, on the other side of a rickety wooden bridge. The cliff face on my left was too steep to scale, and to the right was a sheer drop to the ground where I began my climb. Only one way forward.

Timing my advance with the guards’ patrols, I make slow, gradual progress toward the retreat. The shadows are getting longer as the sun continues to disappear beyond the horizon. It takes minutes to move just a few metres, but every step is undetected.

With the bulk of the forward patrol now behind me, my attention turns to the guards at the villa. Their patrols are tight, and they show no signs of tiring. Their routes overlap regularly, and a stationary sentry mans each door. No way to take them out individually, and no way I can start a firefight now. I’ve gotten myself stuck between two groups of highly trained mercenaries guarding the most important person in the region. I need to change my plan.

Drawing my dart gun and bringing the scope to eye level, I scan the villa. A light is flickering inside, and I can see the shadow of a man through a small, square window on the right side of the villa. Carefully re-angling myself through the foliage, I edge slowly toward the cliff. After a minute, I finally reach an angle where I can see my target. Kouassi is staring intently out of the same window I am scoping him through. He seems scared. I can see his eyes. They dart back and forth, scanning the area beyond his guard patrols for any sign of a disturbance. Crouched a good fifty metres from the villa, my approach was obviously hidden.

I steady the rifle and draw in breath. Counting down the seconds, I wait for the perimeter guard to make one more pass. He walks by the window, exchanges a brief look with Kouassi, and continues to the far side of the villa. Kouassi turns back to the forest and scans the area with curiosity. I through my scope as his head turns, coming to a halt in my direction. Though he didn’t know it, Kouassi was staring directly at me.

I squeezed the trigger.

The shot was barely audible, like a cough or snap of a twig. Kouassi heard no sound at all. His head simply snapped back and he slumped to the ground, a lethal dart embedded in his forehead.

Lowering the rifle, I quickly scan the area. My shot was not heard. The guards have no idea Kouassi is dead. His superiors, though they knew this was coming, would never find out who pulled the trigger. The spent shell casing drops to the grass as I eject it and begin to load another round, when gunfire abruptly shatters the silence.

I turn around to see the forest behind me alight with fire and muzzle flashes. Out of the vegetation come camouflaged militia, taking down the patrols I had snuck past only minutes ago. It was a UFLL ambush – one whose occurance I was not privvy to. Before I could load the round I get spotted by both factions, and a hail of bullets shatters the plants around me. Grabbing the rifle, I spring to my feet and run.

In seconds I am sprinting in the first direction I see. Reaching the edge of the trees, I drop down a few metres and land awkwardly on a rocky outcropping. Without thinking I continue forward – but skid to a halt when I realise where I am. Teetering on the edge of the rock, I stare out into empty space and at a lake some fifty metres below. A waterfall lined with jagged rocks leads the only way down. I was on the edge of the cliff.

A burst of gunfire snaps me out of vertigo, and hot tracers ping off the rock at my feet. I whip round and bring my rifle to bear, focusing on my pursuers. Five men stand on the ledge I had dropped down from only seconds ago, their assault rifles trained at my heart. This is it; my rifle is still unloaded, and even if it were, there is no way I could take down all five. I prepare for them to fire, when the guard in the middle raises his hand, and says to the others,

“Hold your fire! He’s got nowhere else to go.”

And they hold their fire.

Five men, staring down at me, their guns trained on my heart, whilst I stand trapped on the edge of a cliff with my rifle pointed right back at them – and no one is firing. Seconds pass. They know I’m trapped. They know I’ve got nowhere else to go. And they’re waiting to see what I do next.

For those tense few seconds, I forgot I was playing against AI. This was Far Cry 2’s standout moment. And it was one that was entirely unscripted.

In playing the game you may never experience this situation, just as I myself may never experience your incredible encounters. The game allows players to fight the way they want, and those who come out the other end in one piece always have tales to tell. For while Far Cry 2’s story may be underdeveloped at best, combat weaves a rich narrative of its own.

To achieve this a number of smaller systems interact in a cohesive and logical manner. The AI, fire propogation, weapon degredation, vehicles, stealth and camouflage, day and night cycle, the critical healing animations – these are all smaller parts of a much more ambitious whole. Taken individually, these elements are unimpressive and at times inconsistent. Put them together then let the player loose and the game becomes an orchestra of death and destruction.

Combat is pure, visceral and unpredictable. You may think you have the drop on the enemy, but in seconds the entire situation can spin out of control. Your weapon jams, fire spreads, malaria hits, an enemy you never even saw flanks you. Far Cry 2 promotes reactionary playstyles over preparatory ones, rewarding players who take risks in combat with the best firefights I have ever seen in a first-person shooter. Even I – one so prone to sneaking and avoiding combat – never felt as though being spotted was a failure. I simply took stock of the situation, adjusted my plan, and did the best I could to control it. It is when you feel this control slipping away from you that the game excels.

And there I was in one such situation – on the edge of a cliff, marked by five trained soldiers, with nothing between me and a fifty metre drop to the lake below. I had completely lost control. The sun finally sank below the horizon, its last rays bouncing off the waterfall. Without taking my eyes off my enemies, I broke the stand-off by taking one slow, deliberate step back – dropping off the rocky outcropping and plunging down to the lake below.

A Vertical Division

This month’s Round Table invites us to talk about our families today and the role that playing games has in our relationships with them. Whether you play video games with your children before bed, card games with your parents on the holidays, continue to meet up with your siblings for regular death matches, play couch co-op with your spouse, or argue with them all about your World of Warcraft addiction–this month’s topic is on the importance, or impact, that gaming has on your family relationships.

Growing up I was the most obsessed with games in the family. Much of my early childhood memories are of spending hours playing DOS classics on the office computer. As strong as my love of games has grown over the years, no one in the family seems to share the same passion. It is interesting, then, that they are largely responsible for introducing me to key gaming experiences and fostering my obsession.

My grandfather has always been a technology enthusiast. At first glance he could be mistaken for a stereotypical elderly luddite, but that is far from the truth. As early as my first birthday he’d be filming the event with his bazooka-sized videocamera, then spend hours editing and dubbing the footage straight to a Betamax tape. Some of my earliest gaming experiences were on his Amiga, and later, a PC whose tower case all but matched my height. On this PC he introduced me to first-person shooters with Wolfenstein 3D.

Of course, the game was far too violent for a child of my age to be playing, so I was relegated to sitting beside him and watching. This suited me just fine; even with this extra level of detachment the game was so scary that I remember screaming every time an enemy popped out from behind a steel blue door. When not cowering from the bad guys I’d point out wall hangings and portraits that might be secret walls, as well as treasure and ammo my grandfather may have missed. I don’t believe I received any historical context concerning the game’s enemies – after all, how does one explain to child what a Nazi is – so to me the soldiers were simply brown-suited prison guards, and the tapestries of Hitler and the Swastika their interior decorations.

Growing older I eventually overcame my fear and managed to play the game myself, though I still preferred having some emotional support present to share the really scary parts. My sister, one year my elder, would often watch me play, and assumed a similar role to me when watching my grandfather years ago. Ever the activist, she would cry out in protest whenever I shot an attack dog, claiming animal cruelty. Her love of animals obviously carried over to computer games, and in particular to a whimsical multiplayer racer called Wacky Wheels. I cannot fathom the amount of hours we lost to the shareware version of this game, playing split-screen races and battle modes tirelessly.

Though she enjoyed the lighter, colourful and less violent variants, my sister would immediately lose interest upon loading up a gritty, menacing shooter or platformer. It was my father I shared these games with. He took over for my grandfather when Doom was released, stalwartly taking down demons as I watched onward with the same terror I’d felt from its predecessor. I remember debating the usefulness of the shotgun over the chaingun (“It’s one number up; it must be more powerful!” “But the shotgun does greater damage with one hit!”); as well as reminding him where to go upon getting lost in Descent; or heroically devising strategies to take down bosses in Terminal Velocity.

Even my uncle, whom I rarely spoke to outside of family gatherings, introduced me to Star Control with a copy of the game for a birthday present. He either randomly selected a game off the shelf or did his research; either way it kick-started my love of space sims. This was never more evident than when my grandfather, having discovered the joy of Microsoft Flight Simulator, upgraded his PC with an expensive sound system, massive screen and Thrustmaster joystick. He enthusiastically tried to get me in to flight sims, but I was infinitely more intriguied by another game that came packaged with his PC: Descent: FreeSpace. I was unable to comprehend how cruising around in a Cessna was anywhere near as exciting as protecting spaceship convoys by blowing up oncoming asteroids with lasers.

At the same time my second sister and brother, both a few years younger, would crowd around the home computer with my older sister and I, playing epic four-team games of Worms. For years we would delight in such split-screen and multiplayer games. Our first console was the Nintendo 64, and was the perfect system for us to gather round as a family with the likes of Goldeneye, Lylat Wars, Mario Party and the plumber’s various sports offshoots. Our multiplayer gaming together culminated in the completion of Serious Sam in split-screen mode – with all four of us on the one PC.

How sad it is to think that this no longer happens. PC games no longer carry split-screen support, and even consoles are favouring online interactions over multiple players on the one system. The days of huddling around a monitor or television with friends and family are becoming a thing of the past. My father and grandfather have long since outgrown games, and my siblings and I no longer play them together. Perhaps this was inevitable and they all just grew up a little, pursuing individual interests. I am the only one whose interest in games has not wained, and it has become such a lonely affair.

Please visit the Round Table’s Main Hall for more entries on this month’s topic.

Roar of the Earth

A brilliant shaft of light pulses from my blade as I hold it up to the sun. Breaking into many smaller rays, they meet at a fine point when I angle the light to the southeast. I’ve found my next target.

Guiding light

Mounting Agro, we spur off with our newfound bearings. An utterly bleak landscape rushes past; its sheer desolation becomes overpowering as I realise we are the only living things from here to the horizon. Solitary though it may be, this world is not without beauty; a comforting solace overcomes me when taking in the majestic plains and canyons.

Parting ways

The sun disappears overhead as we approach a narrow gorge. Winding our way through the tight cliff faces, Agro and I reach some crumbling ruins, seperated from us by a body of water. With no way for him to cross, I dismount Agro and dive in. I can sense my horse waiting patiently for me at the riverbank as I make my way through the submerged gate and in to the heart of the ruins.

Being watched...

Coming up for air, I feel the lakebed shake. Rubble falls from the ancient ruins and the water around me is momentarily blackened by the shadow of the colossal beast above. Flying low, it soars just a few metres over my head, its massive wingspan fully extended and enormous tail skirting the surface. I duck back in to the water on a reflex as the beast flaps its massive wings, coming to a perch on a pillar in the center of the lake. It has noticed a disturbance in the water; its massive eyes are now trained on my distant, splashing form as I climb out of the lake on to a small row of moss-covered stepping stones. It does not know what to make of me – a tiny intruder dwarfed not only by its own size but the scale of its domain. Planting my feet firmly on the small stone, I show it what to make of me.

I mean you great harm

Gripping my bow, knocking an arrow and drawing back the string, I take aim at one of the behemoth’s great eyes and loose. For a few tranquil seconds I hear nothing but the lapping of the water at my feet and the soft whistle of my arrow sailing through the air. I close my eyes and savour the brief moment, only to be interrupted by the distant sound of my arrow piercing flesh. The monster reels from the impact and lets out a deafening cry of pain, shaking the pillar as it spreads its colossal wings and takes to the sky.

The beast knows my intent.

My bow still drawn, I train a second arrow on the creature as it circles the lake, carefully keeping out of range. Its massive shadow stretches across the water, eventually throwing me in to darkness as the beast eclipses the sun. Momentarily disoriented, I lose my aim and falter. Seeing this, the beast changes direction, suddenly going in to a dive and accelerating toward me. The sun no longer obscured, light returns to my world and I look up just in time to see the silhouetted colossus coming straight for me, metres above the water. With no time to think, I drop my bow and run off the moss-covered stone, jumping head-on in to the massive form.

Holding on

I feel the impact of the beast’s body on mine and blindly grab at anything that will hold. My stomach reels as I suddenly begin to move through the air at incredible speed, carried the momentum of the colossus. I begin to slip, then manage to grab what appears to be long fur on the creature’s wing. The lake drops out of sight as the beast gains altitude; I climb on to its back and plant my feet firmly on its hard, rigid body. Now keenly aware of my presence, the colossus flaps its enourmous wings and turns, rotating its body to throw me off. The level ground under my feet rolls away and I find myself flying through the air like a helpless ragdoll. The beast’s long body rushes past me as I begin to freefall, desperately flailing my arms for something to grip. Levelling off and regaining its balance, the colossus flaps its monstrous tail which collides with my airborne body. The impact nearly sends me flying in another direction, but I manage to get a hold of the tip of the creature’s tail and stop myself from plummeting to the murky waters below.

Pickup up speed

Hoisting myself up, I grip the creature’s fur and inch my way along its tail. The wind constantly assaults my tiny form; the rain now falls horizontally and the surrounding country is nothing more than a blur. The beast is moving so fast that it takes all my stamina to simply hold on. Reaching the weakest point of the tail, I summon the strength to draw my blade, raise it high above my head, then plunge it in to the creature’s flesh.

Damaging the beast

The colossus lets out a pained roar, and begins to twist and turn. Closing my eyes and holding on for dear life, I move with every flap of its tail and twist of its body. When it finally calms down, I turn my head and look along the creature’s body to its massive wings. The only way to put this monster down is to take away its flight. With that in mind, I continue inching my way along the massive spine. Picking up more speed, the wind and rain become even more intense, drowning my senses as I crawl forward. After what feels like an eternity, I reach the beast’s colossal wingspan. With nothing to grip between the body and the wing, I wait for the creature to stop twisting, then leap through the air.

Leap of faith

The beast’s wing rises to meet me as I tumble through the air, clumsily landing and missing my grip. I panic as the world begins to fall away, but manage to get a hold of the edge of the creature’s wingspan. My weight starts pulling the creature back towards the earth and it continues to twist and turn in an attempt to throw me off. Twisting upside down, I now hang from the massive wing with nothing between me and the lake below.

Gripping my sword, I summon every last ounce of strength for this final act. Raising the blade, I let out a pained cry as I thrust high over my head, tearing through cartilage and bone. The colossus curls its wing and roars in pain, yet I continue to hang on, bringing my weight to bear as the beast begins to tumble to the earth. As the world rushes up to meet me I feel my strength begin to fade; slowly my fingers uncurl and I fall to the water below.

The colossus falls

My body numb, the impact is painless. The sounds of rain and wind roaring past me fade as I sink deeper in to the calm, peaceful water. I close my eyes and savour the brief moment, only to be interrupted by the sound of the beast’s massive form crashing through the ruins and coming to rest in the water ahead of me.

Returning to the surface, I see the shadow of the colossus begin to fade. And on the far, distant bank of the river, Agro waits for me.

What happened to Consoles?

What the hell has happened to consoles these days?

Back in my day you’d simply plug in a cartridge, turn the console on and away you went. There was no front-end, no dashboard, no Live or PSN shoving advertisements and pay-per-view content down your throat. The worse that could happen is the connectors would be a bit dusty, so you’d take the cartridge out, blow in it, put it back in and you’d be sweet.

Now you need to install games before playing them. Some can take over ten minutes. Big deal, you might say, I’ve installed and reinstalled games countless times on my PC. It might seem all well and good, but doesn’t this completely defeat the plug-n-play nature of console gaming? It seems inevitable that games are only going to get more and more complex and can no longer be streamed off optical media, but then you go and look at the different Xbox 360 models – different sized hard-drives, and one without. Developers now need to make games that can stream off the CD in order to support every 360 model, even when those games so desparately need an install – just look at Mass Effect and its elevators. Why have different models in the first place? I have no idea which PS3’s have backwards compatibility and which don’t. I have mates who will excitedly proclaim to me how they bought a bigger hard drive for their Xbox so they can now install a bunch of games and play them without the CD. I’ve been doing that since Myst. Welcome to PC gaming.

Adding a hard drive and allowing you to install games also opens up consoles to one of the other wonders of the gaming industry they’ve so long been able to avoid: patching. Before this console generation, you only had one shot at getting your game out there. Maybe two, if you were a first party and could afford a reprint. Games were polished, worked as expected, and were complete. Developers are now free to release their games with bugs that they’re completely aware of, then patch it post release. Welcome to PC gaming.

Everyone knows about or has heard horror stories of the red ring of death. Some of you may have even experienced it. Maybe even multiple times.It’s cost Microsoft more than a billion dollars, meaning that the money made by getting a year’s headstart and ignoring manufacturing and testing problems is lost anyway. Console hardware should not fail, especially in such a proportion as this. I’ve had a Nintendo 64 and Playstation 1 since 1998 and both still work, as if they were new. When you’ve had your 360 for a while and you start to worry because it could fail any minute now and the hardware will need to be replaced – well, doesn’t that sound kind of familiar? Welcome to PC gaming.

Consoles now have operating systems. Those operating systems routinely recieve patches and updates to not only add exciting new features but ensure continued stability. Except, these updates may brick your console. It’s alright though! You only need to format the hard drive by removing it from the PS3 and plugging it into a computer. Do I really need to elaborate? Welcome to PC gaming.

So, what the hell has happened to consoles these days? They’ve become a PC in your living room. Everything that I used to find attractive about console gaming is now gone. I don’t want to worry about installing games, about getting the latest patches, about whether the latest firmware update will brick my console and cause me to lose all my savegames. I simply want to stick a game in and have it, and the console, work. This used to be the case, but no more.

Of course, there have been numerous positives that come with things like hard drives and internet connectivity on consoles. Whole new types of indie games are being made available to new audiences that would never have thought twice about trying them. Hard drives remove the need for memory cards, and allow developers to release cool downloadable content for games to extend their lifespan. Systems like Live and PSN that integrate friends lists and keep track of stats are something that the PC is only just starting to catch up with. But to me, consoles are no longer what they once were.

Softcore Gamers

Lately I’ve been noticing my reasons for playing games changing.

I’m becoming less interested in the challenging aspects: I’m starting to wish games would not get harder as I progress; that they would not throw bigger enemies in greater numbers at me for the sake of a difficulty curve; that puzzles would not become arbitrarily more convoluted as I solve their nefarious predecessors. I no longer have the patience for a game over.

I first started noticing this in Call of Duty 4. Even on the regular difficulty I became frustrated rather than thrilled at having to shoot through countless baddies. I’d hit a difficult section and would want for nothing more than to skip to the next story progression rather than figure out the best way to take everyone out. The story’s presentation was so engrossing that I started to see the shooting as mere filler.

This continued on to Mass Effect where I turned the combat difficulty down to casual. I found I had zero patience for getting killed a number of times in combat, and again wanted for nothing more than to get the encounter over with as quickly as possible so I could progress the narrative. The combat, though by no means poor, was nowhere near as engrossing for me as watching the next cutscene or clicking through the next dialogue tree.

Even a game such as Mario Galaxy had me completely engrossed for reasons you wouldn’t normally associate with a platformer. This is a genre that is designed to challenge and break the player at every opportunity, yet Galaxy possessed an undeniable charm that transcended this preconception. As soon as a star came across that took more than a few attempts to get, I’d give up and go find another that wasn’t as difficult. Not because it was impossible, but because I simply wasn’t enjoying the challenge. As soon as I got sixty stars and reached the credits, I was done. I have no interest in going back with Luigi or getting all 120.

Like the hardcore gamers we all know and love, I propose a new definition – the Softcore Gamer. One who loves their games as much as the hardcore, yet for very different reasons. What I’d like to know is, is this shift in perspective common? Have any other gamers experienced it? Why is it happening – is it to do with age? Or have I just turned into one giant pussy?

Queen Bitch of the Universe

Kate Shepard: you don't want to mess.

It’s tough being a girl. Your superiors don’t take you seriously and your crew won’t stop hitting on you. The armour never fits right and your squadmates keep asking if you know how to handle that weapon. You can’t even get from the Bridge to the Med Bay without the eye of every gunner and nav officer turning your way. I got sick of it; I’d had enough. It’s why I decided to become the biggest bitch the galaxy has ever seen.

It started on Eden Prime. Private Jenkins was in my away team; the bastard had just that morning been spreading rumours amongst the ship about me and my last shore leave. Barely a minute after landing he gets cut to ribbons by recon drones. That was convenient, thinks I, and in the ensuing firefight over his dead body I make sure to accidentally leave a few rounds in him to make sure he won’t be spreading anything ever again. Kaiden seems upset but I tell him to harden the fuck up keep moving. We leave Jenkins’ body; the Normandy should fly faster with less dead weight on board.

Pink Ranger begs me for help.

Just when I think my luck is taking a turn for the better some chick in what looks like a Pink Ranger outfit from a techno version of Power Rangers comes running up to us crying about how her whole unit is dead. I immediately dislike her; she’s weak, she’s whining and she’s wearing pink – a colour that really doesn’t work when trying to camouflage. I tell her to piss off but Kaiden objects, thinking she might be useful as she knows the area. Big deal; I have a giant overhead map with a big flashing icon of where I need to go – I don’t need this prissy little cheerleader slowing me down! But, if we’re going to get shot at again, chances are the bad guys will shoot at the thing that doesn’t blend in with the scenery first. In that regard, I cheerfully allow her to join us. We make it through the mission alive. Unfortunately, so does Pink Ranger.

Upon returning to the Citadel I get yelled at by some politicians, all the while fighting the urge to kick ‘em in the balls. On my way to find somewhere to get Pink Ranger distracted by a shiny object and Kaiden distracted by skimpy blue aliens – so I can down a stiff drink in peace – I come across a bird-faced Turian arguing with his superior. I immediately take a liking to this guy; he’s spent his life in a formalised military institution and is sick of taking shit from everyone. Reminds me of me. I ask Birdface if he wants to come along, and he jumps with joy at the prospect. A weird reaction, I thought, but what the hell. Maybe he’s downed a few on his shift already. That thought makes me like him even more.

Back on the citadel and Birdface and I have a deep and lengthy chat. Turns out he doesn’t like Pink Ranger either, even though his favourite colour is pink! I find him different from the other turians. He’s so sensitive, so compassionate, so…and then it hits me. I head down to the trader and pick out a set of custom-made, designer armour, as a sign of respect for also hating Pink Ranger. I then take it over to the Asari consort and have her dye it with brilliant hues of pink and fuchsia. Upon returning to the ship, I present Birdface with my gift. He squeals so loud that I think it shattered Pink Ranger’s visor. He even thinks the armour goes well with his facial tattoos. I figure the First Contact War would have been a lot easier if there were more turians like him.

Birdface watches my back in his sexy new threads.

Eager to break in his new plates, I take Birdface on my next mission to a skyway colony. It seems the colonists have all been infected by some kind of freaky plant thing, so I mow them all down and find the source of the problem. Turns out it is a freaky plant thing that also spits out asari clones. Birdface helps me kill the plant thing, breaking it’s mind altering spell over the asari. She thanks me, and I tell her to go and take refuge with the other colonists – conveniently leaving out the part about me slaughtering them. I give her a few days before she dies of dehydration.

Back on the Normandy I make ready to depart for the next mission. I have a chat to my pilot, Joker, about where he got his nickname from. He begins to tell me about how he has some hollow bone disease that makes it extremely difficult to walk without breaking his legs. I fail to see how that relates to his nickname, so I decide to give him a new one; Cripplefoot. I tell Cripplefoot to start the ship and get us undocked; he complies with a satisfying scowl. Heading down to the crew quarters I find Pink Ranger and tell her it would be nice if she kept Cripplefoot company throughout the flight, hoping that his disease is contagious.

Cripplefoot, angry about being crippled.

Arriving at our destination I gather the crew, dismayed at the sight of Pink Ranger still walking. Tasked with planting a nuclear device in a nearby facility, I figure there’s no way someone won’t die in the process, so I take her and Birdface along. The Salarians on site need one of my crew to head up their assault force; before he’s even done speaking I tell him to take Pink Ranger. The Salarian commander tries to tell me the odds of survival are grim, but I’m already out the door.

Sure enough, Pink Ranger gets pinned down as Cripplefoot flies in with the nuke. With no time to save both, I mute her comm channel and help Birdface setup the device and get back to the ship as we prepare to leave. A blinding flash, then a rush of heat as the explosion and shock waves expand below us, gradually fading from view as the Normandy passes through the first layer of clouds. Birdface breaks out the elasa and we down a glass of the intoxicating green liquid.

It’s tough being a girl. But it’s a lot easier when you’re the Queen Bitch of the Universe.

Massively Singleplayer

I’ve always been fascinated by the concept of Massively Multiplayer games.

The idea of a living, breathing world in which thousands of players can simultaneously exist in is something that has incredible potential for exciting game concepts that simply could not have been accomplished in the past. However, I’ve yet to see one truly take advantage of the format in ways that distinguish the genre from its less-than-massive counterparts.

World of Warcraft was the first massively multiplayer title I played, and it was a fantastic introduction to the concept. The world was both enormous and seamless, decorated with lovingly crafted architecture and populated by creative character models and non-player-characters. I had great fun running my Tauren through the lush green fields of his homeland, genuinely excited at the idea of exploring the vast regions of this virtual world. And yet, as I approached level twenty, the desire to continue simply faded. The fact that players were connected to this vast online space at the same time didn’t matter; there was no reason to group with anyone, unless you were both waiting for a boss to spawn. There was no need to interact with other players – even trading items was done through the faceless intermediary of the Auction House. This little room is where you’ll find the largest number of players in the same spot at any time in the game world, and none of them are interacting with each other. The world as static as it could be, and the only reward for leveling your character was the opportunity to grind a set of different coloured, slightly tougher enemies. Any wars that did take place were in battlegrounds separate to the rest of the world, and had no effect on it whatsoever. It is a game that could very easily have been small-scale multiplayer, a la Diablo.

I never made it to level sixty or seventy, but I understand the game takes on an entirely different mechanic at these milestones. Whether this is better than the core game up to this point is irrelevant; the mere fact that I would have to spend months of casual play working toward the “real” game (apparently World of Warcraft begins at sixty?) does not so much make the endgame content a reward but the early and midgame grind a chore.

From there I made my way to EvE Online, a game that I both dearly love and deeply despise. EvE had everything that World of Warcraft lacked; a single, dynamic world which is not just shaped by players but defined by them. Combat between players is real and meaningful, corporations of determined avatars can make an impact on the immense galaxy and communication between everyone was vital. There existed a quaint balance between the inner galaxy; where zones for new players were protected from the unchecked chaos of the outer rim, a lawless zero-space where anything goes. This is a game world where players could infiltrate their enemy, spend a year rising through their ranks and then covertly assassinate their leader, never once revealing their true allegiances until the final hour. The game’s economy was entirely player-controlled; everything on the market had at some point been manufactured by a player, and everything you sell will arrive in a real person’s inventory. This is what massively multiplayer games should be about.

Unfortunately EvE could not shake the few things about MMO’s that eventually lead to me cancelling my subscription. Though characters did not earn experience points, grinding was ever present. Skills were learned in real-time, with some of the tougher ones taking multiple weeks to complete. You could literally click a skill and have no reason to log in again until it was done. I understand why they did this – to prevent players from simply purchasing money and becoming instantly powerful – but it is a barrier to entry even larger than the grind in World of Warcraft. You cannot participate meaningfully in a player-versus-player battle in EvE without having spent a good year training skills. Since these are trained in real-time, there is no fast-track. For all the glorious emergent situations that could take place, the game required a commitment of both time and money that I could never afford. Someday I would like to ask one of those players who has put their life on hold to become a key player in EvE’s universe whether it was worth it. I can honestly see their answer going either way.

After saying my teary farewells to my missile boat I puttered around trying to find a massively multiplayer game that was as accessible as WoW and as dynamic as EvE. It wasn’t until I tried Pirates of the Burning Sea that I ever thought I would find something at all. Pirates has the slick, intuitive interface of Warcraft with a world that, whilst not as dynamic as EvE, is still entirely player-controlled. The main objective of each race is to conquer the Caribbean, a feat that requires weeks of strategic planning on behalf of each nation but is ultimately achievable. Ports can be taken over through coordinated group battles and claimed in the name of your King or Queen, allowing your empire to gradually expand and eventually push the other nations off the map. It is a giant, month-long game of Battlefield with cities and towns instead of control points. The economy is player-driven, nation’s societies must practice diplomacy, truces and alliances must be formed to defeat common enemies and the world constantly reflects the actions of players. Everything I’ve ever wanted from an MMO is here, except one thing. The ability to participate.

As a low-level character I am next to useless to my fellow Spaniards. To participate in the conquest of ports you must be the highest level in the game – much like Warcraft’s endgame raids. To get there you need to grind experience through completing missions, many of which can only be completed solo. It is the most frustrating thing to observe such a rich and dynamic global conquest system, only to be told I can’t come and play until I complete three weeks of repetitive single-player tasks. I simply do not understand the need to go through this process to then be granted access to the real massively multiplayer game.

Massively Multiplayer games have such potential for exploration of high-concept gameplay mechanics. Yet I cannot see any MMO in the near future that moves away from the concept of grinding entirely. It is an illogical mechanic that keeps players from experiencing the unique aspects of the game entirely, and defeats the purpose of the game being massive in the first place. Until something is released that isn’t designed to make me play for multiple months just to get anywhere, I’m quite prepared to give up on Massively Multiplayer games in their entirety.

20 Years of Games

Finally making some decent progress on what is definately the biggest video project I’ve yet to undertake. 20 Years of Games is a video showcase of every single game I’ve ever played, in chronological order. The first two parts have been completed and cover 1988 through to 1992, and can be viewed at the above link. I started this in January and it has taken me until May to get four years of DOS games done; who knows how long things will take once I hit the start of the 3D era. I don’t expect to be finished this until at least the end of this year. Doesn’t matter, it’s a hell of a lot of fun to make and a great alternative to useless procrastination.

N!SF Interview

Had an interview with Clan Man.com regarding my Team Fortress 2 Clan and the state of online gaming in Australia. Here’s an excerpt:

How are things different for you, running a clan out of Australia?

We have a much smaller player base in Australia when compared to America, and as a result the community is quite tightly knit. You can join a public server and a majority of the time find a couple of familiar faces already in there.

I also find that Aussie gamers have a different attitude to online gaming when compared to Americans – I’ve played in American servers and Aussie gamers are far more laid-back when it comes to playing the game and working as a team. Occasionally someone will fire up over voice-chat but its nothing compared to the torrents of abuse thrown around in your average US pub server. Australians play casually and to have a bit of fun, and we have based our clan on this underlying principle. After all – it’s just a game.

We want nothing more than an enjoyable time regardless of whether we win or lose and I feel this is what online gaming should be about. We have seen a suprisingly large number of other competitive Australian clans disband because they either take the game too seriously or have an intense feud after losing a match. This is the last thing I want to happen to N!SF and so avoid pushing people to think about nothing but winning.

You can read the full text of the interview here.