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Playing It Gay In Soul Calibur IV

2008-08-26T15:00:00Z

Like most of the residents in the retirement wing of gaygamer castle, I find that there are two things that really make my weekend; receiving a scrumptious bed bath after my morning tea and some ferocious online swordplay in Soul Calibur IV. Nothing brings my crusty eyes into focus like a few Just Impacts and combo throws before breakfast. When lag destroys any chance of a fair match, there's nothing better than going Astaroth and pounding that vertical attack button like it's the emergency assistance button next to my bed.

For sure, hating those goddamn Kilik spammers is an important part of playing Soul Calibur IV online -- trying to get that Hero King achievement? Need level 20? You can bet your ass that as you are just about ready to pop the necessary level a 12-year-old with tourettes is waiting in the wings with a custom Kilik ready to smash your grey matter all over the pavement. If you're really unlucky and connection lag strangles the last breath of joy out of the match, you can endure the slow motion torture of repeated ring-outs and an oak pole up side the head. Want to get that achievement? Play Kilik of course! Hammering Y (or triangle PS3 owners) never felt so good...

When you've got all the achievements, basked in the glory of a level 20 ranking, and even hoarded all the comedy weapons (yes, including Ivy's magical sausage), what are you gonna do? When you finally finish Tower of Souls, there ain't much left in the single player mode. Forget about climbing up the online league tables. I mean c'mon, have you checked out the people who are at the top of those tables? People with 3000 wins and 1 loss, maxed out at rank level 99. I am sure if you traced those accounts back to an address there are kids all round the world gripping Hori arcade sticks with arms like Michael Phelps, ending the dreams of hopeless chumps like me.

Well, I have been experimenting, and I think there is some HUGE added value to be had in Soul Calibur IV. There's fun to be had with the quirkier bits of Soul Calibur IV. The purpose of this short guide is to help you to get your own back against those pain-in-the-behind Cervantes, Kilik and Mitsurugi spammers, you know the types, doing the same move over and over and over again. Invariably those same players are the kind that shoot their mouth off at the slightest challenge to their authority, and hey, Soul Calibur IV has attracted the same breed of idiot that likes to hurl macho crap around on the likes of Halo 3. This guide, once implemented, will guarantee a slap to the face for every cheap, bigoted douche who likes to ruin your day in Soul Calibur IV.

Make the jump to learn my super special secrets for making them cry!

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[1] Learn the Girl Characters!
There's nothing that annoys a YY chromosome teenager than playing against a sexeh lady. Way back in prehistoric times when games were in arcades playing Chun Li on Street Fighter 2 often drew a miserable grumble from the local crop of wanabees. Soul Calibur 4 has the added bonus of female characters that, once mastered, provide some of the most infuriating and powerful offensive play in the game. GayGamer hawty Ivy is a stance-switching demon of death, with even more guard breaking attacks than ever before. My personal fave is Setsuka; one wrong step against this evil Mary Poppins and you'll be carrying your junk home in chunks.

[2] Transgender Taunts of Death!
Everybody loves the custom character creator. You can really twist the ~~knife~~ katana with some interesting quirks in the engine. Create a boy character, but give them the fighting style of one of the female characters. The grizzlier the better; were talking that weird hairy chest borrowed from Rock plus the policeman's hat plus the Voldo jockstrap. Now, when it comes to fighting style, choose one of the ladies (which you will have practiced with as previously mentioned). So your big dude comes out fighting, umbrella or whatever in hand. When you see an opening, get those taunts going. There is nothing weirder in the Soul Calibur universe than seeing your man mountain bounce around with the girly character animation of Cassandra, or coyly look over his shoulder like the lovely Setsuka. Enjoy moments of stunned silence as your yammering opponent shudders at the sight of Rock shaking his tailfeather.

[3] Oh No My Clothes Fell Off
The loss of clothing is an important part of everyday life, when entering the bath, sharing sexy time with a loved one, or visiting the doctor. In Soul Calibur 4, the slightest contact between your foot and your opponents ass can result in their trousers exploding off in a shower of particles. Losing armour means being more vulnerable to enemy attacks, but hey, we're pros, we don't mind bearing all! Play through the game and you'll realise that Namco want you to cover up our beloved boys. The final armour set is the Leviathan suit, a heavy duty number built like Fort Knox. This causes problems when you want to flex those guns and tweak those cheeks. Final rule, ditch the armour, and pick some fights in your birthday suit. It's a terrible shame to not recognise the effort of Namco's expert art team, who have so lovingly given all the boys of Soul Calibur such ripped abs.

All the forum talk about Soul Calibur centres on how to best tackle the scourge that is the young macho spammer. With these three simple rules you can create a fighter to spread confusion and disarray among the virgin masses. Enjoy!

'Darlings' Of UK Games Honoured With Queen's Award

2008-06-18T16:00:00Z

I guess it's pretty easy to forget that behind the gigantic, cold, icy face of big business there are founding individuals who worked their fingers to the bone.

Richard and David Darling, founders of British industry giant Codemasters, have been awarded the CBE. If case you're interested, that means Commander of the Order of the British Empire (and probably comes with +5 stamina +10 agility too) and is quite the honor.

Richard and David are a real bedroom coder to multimillionaire success story, having begun their careers making BMX Simulator. In 2007 the brothers sold their stake in the company, after 21 years in games production.

Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego My PS2 Memory Card!

2008-04-20T19:31:23Z

I don't consider myself a very materialistic person. When I opted for the XBOX360 Elite over the other systems, it was out of compassion for all the struggling XBLA developers whose games I would invest in; when I swapped my old Sony CRT for a slick Toshiba Regza 40-inch Plasma, the purchase was motivated by my love of brow-furrowing documentaries on human rights. If you could spend Nintendo reward points on homeless kitten shelters, I would already have the URL bookmarked.

In periods of reprieve in between selfless giving, I like to tinker on the videogame consoles of yesteryear. Looking around my dusty attic this morning, I saw the PlayStation2 sitting there, underneath a teetering stack of Vogue back issues. Suddenly my heart skipped a beat as I remembered the many faithful years Mr. P Station had stared at me with his Bowie-style blue and green eyes, spinning discs in his tummy and never ever crashing out. I took some time to vacuum his vents, then wired him up.

I was nervous. Spending so much time with XBOX360, I was high on the sparkly of 1080p. The big black beast had me hooked on the arm-chopping Viking all this month, so going back to PS2 I needed something special; I needed old school intensity. Friends had come to visit and I had to play something at least slightly social. So I get Gitaroo Man down off the shelf. This is one of my most favourite games of all time, with its hug me graphics and **** me gameplay, you'd be hard pressed to find a more satisfying immediate experience on PS2.

I boot the machine up, it asks me if i want to load/create a new save, there is a memory card in the machine. I say load. Computer says no. There is no Gitaroo Man save file on this card! That can't be right, I have a full completion recorded somewhere. Anyway who cares; I try to play with the gritty determination of Halo youth gone wild. Things didn't go well; that Shark on level 3 humiliated my unpractised paws much to the amusement of my onlookers. Exasperated I went on an insane hunt for the memory card that could vouch for the long lost skills needed to complete the game. I have been searching ever since. I figure losing a card is like losing a photo album; it doesn't destroy the experience you once had, but it prevents you from boring your friends with it later on at your discretion. Little grey PS2 memory card, please come home!

Has anyone else ever lost a memory card? If so tell me about it. I need a support group!

First Impressions: Dynasty Warriors 6 (XBOX360)

2008-03-07T16:34:04Z

A lot of people have accused Koei of making the same game over and over, and considering we are now on the sixth iteration of Dynasty Warriors, that is true to some degree. What they tend to mean is that the game is marked by intensely repetitive gameplay, which differs little from one game to the next. In the recent (and in my view excellent) Bladestorm the thirty-year-old Japanese developer demonstrated that they can at least play with the genre conventions of their core franchises to produce satisfying twists on the staple battlefield action.

Warriors Orochi was a big hit for me -- a massive roster of characters were taken from the two worlds of Samurai and Dynasty Warriors respectively, and the cosmic carnage that ensued revived a sense of true arcade action in my living room.

Dynasty Warriors 6 was hailed as the first true next generation incarnation of the game, with an upgraded combat engine, graphic style, and intense tactical focus. Whereas in the previous title (WO) you had acute control over the combination attacks of your chosen crowd smasher, in this title you simply mash one of two buttons to cycle through a default attack pattern. In this regard, the game feels slightly dislocated, and I feel less personally skilled when I triumph over a particularly hard strategic obstacle or stalwart enemy officer. I simply mash by x button, hoping against hope that his guard drops, trying intermittently to get the largely broken 'throws' to connect. Poor collision, clunky camera (with no full reset) and arkward enemy movement make for a largely unsatisfying experience reminiscent of amateur ice skating, or Ninety Nine Nights.

The combat is a real sticking point for me, and I feel (two hours in) that this isn't the game I was promised in the rhetoric of the TGS videos. Considering the sheer output of Koei around these franchises I feel that DW6 is a victim of the split energies of its maker:

Dynasty Warriors 6 (X360) Mar 07, 08 Samurai Warriors: Katana (WII) Feb 22, 08 Samurai Warriors 2: Xtreme Legends (PS2) Mar 21, 08 Warriors Orochi: PC (PC) Mar 28, 08 Warriors Orochi: PSP (PSP) Mar 28, 08 Warriors Orochi: PSP (PSP) Mar 28, 08 Warriors Orochi 2 (PS2) Apr 03, 08

Full review once I am finished; over and out.

British Government Plans New Classification Laws

2008-02-09T21:32:38Z

Like Michael Myers, the game violence debate just wont disappear when you want it to, and when you thought everything was safe, it's there breathing down your neck. The British government, in response to calls for an enquiry into the nature of video game violence alongside internet nasties, is now looking to formalise a system of mandatory classification reminiscent of that found accompanying film releases.

As the recent enquiry into Man Hunt 2 highlighted, the BBFC takes a role in censoring the most extreme games. Current forms of statutory labelling only apply to titles which feature 'gross' violence to people or animals; representatives from the BBFC clarified last year at the Women in Games conference that the context in which the violence is shown is taken into consideration, so if there is a frame of fantasy and disbelief which prevents the violence from being 'unremitting' and 'senseless' then it is considered to be established appropriately for an audience.

Read on after the jump...

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That makes sense, though isn't a case for outright censorship in my view
In a cover story for today's Guardian political editor Patrick Wintour commented that the current approach to labelling

...leaves up to 90% of games on the market , many of which portray weapons, martial arts and extreme combat, free from statutory labelling.

The two implications being first (and most optimistically) that the new film standard labelling would best help the consumer make sense of the content of current video game titles; secondly, that a fair percentage of commercially available video games are chock-a-block with rampant, frenzied combat. While the BBFC take into consideration the issue of context in the proper determination of violence within games, sometimes I wonder about the degree to which the non-player perception of game content invariably misapprehends the
what players think about and derive from gameplay. Games aren't what they were, moving from obscure subculture to play an increased role in everyday life inevitably comes at the cost of increased regulation. Some of the contemporary (journalistic and policy) claims for video game violence seem mired in the controversy that has surrounded previous titles (Mortal Kombat for instance), and risk neglecting the increasingly diverse contemporary development scene.

As MIT Media Professor Henry Jenkins has highlighted time and again, an overt focus on the potentially harmful effects of media on young people tends to conveniently move away from the meanings and contexts those same individuals might derive from a game. It creates a picture of the child player as an uncomplicated uncritical sponge absorbing and then directly implementing what they see on the screen.

It makes me sad that the video game violence debate takes another turn toward extremity and polemic here in the UK; while reasonable measures are being taken in some departments the simple logical issues get forgotten. In that same article Wintour writes:

Ministers are also expected to advise parents to keep computers and games consoles away from children's bedrooms as much as possible, and ask them to play games in living rooms or kitchens facing outward so carers can see what is being played.

On the surface this seems reasonable, but it's important to note a few things. Here in the UK a recently released title for XBOX360 or PS3 retails at about £40 ($78); when I was a little whipper-snapper, I certainly didn't have that kind of ready cash at my disposal, in fact my access to games was entirely dependent on trapping my parents with a barrage of superspecial nags and well-timed tears. The cost of buying games place the vast majority of parents in a position of responsibility; furthermore if games come into the home since many parents are gamers themselves, then it is down to them to determine proper use and the terms of access.

The full obligations of parenting aren't taken into account in these debates; an increasingly scrupulous UK government is looking directly at the developer for answers, without proper understanding of the ways in which contemporary parents act as gatekeepers for media. So much of this reminds me of the Frederick Wertham 'Seduction of the Innocent' trials, which surrounded the ways in which young people of the 1940s and 50s were being corrupted by 'evil' detective novels and horror comic books. In these landmark trials, a similarly uncomplicated notion of young people brainlessly devouring media and then maliciously enacting its content were touted. In the same way, the real problem was an uncomplicated view of children's capacity to discern fantasy from reality, and the need to assert the role of the parent in taking responsibility for children's media.

I hope the reasonable people at the BBFC play a prominent role in the government review of video game violence, and steer issues toward what we might call 'information for choice in parenting' rather than outright and overreaching censorship.

Cursor*10 Makes Davey Think About Next-Gen Gameplay

2008-01-12T21:33:46Z

This little flash game by indie game guru Yoshio Ishii featured here a few days ago, only to fade quietly into the background. Watery eyed insomniac that I am, I was trawling back through posts and decided to give it a little go. Now I am normally unimpressed by the dynamics of small web game experiments. Most have either gorgeous graphic styling or interesting microcosms of gameplay, but rarely do style and content come together in a satisfying mix.

Cursor*10 is a minimalist experiment with the feel of mazes made for lab rats, and the alienating grids of Marble Madness come to mind. The gameplay is simple, click the stairs to ascend, click other objects to reveal hidden stairs. Nothing too complex. However, each turn (represented as cursor 'life') is 'recorded' into the level. As you click and play a second time, your game from the first life plays out simultaneously. As such, to advance through the more complex puzzles you have to literally play with the previous game, thinking forward about how you might take advantage of your prior choices.

Read on after the jump...

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The concept is ingenious, and reminds me of the classic gameplay at work in the likes of the Lemmings franchise, and the forgotten classic Lost Vikings. In those games you would have to dedicate your various player-characters to tasks within the world simultaneously in order to achieve success. Only when each in turn were rightly occupied -- barring a door, digging a hole, fending off an attacker -- would the path to success be revealed. I am not a fan of games that give you too much to do simultaneously, and so create a sense that you are fire-fighting rather than succeeding (for instance Viva Pinata). I think in the case of the 360 title, in moments where creature in-fighting, neighbourly invasion and disease all hit my homestead, I felt that a crucial sense of balance and control had been lost, at the expense of my investment as a player.

A simple and inexpensive game like Cursor*10 holds a light to the paucity of gameplay innovation on our contemporary consoles. In a recent blog entry examining Mario Galaxy, the designer of God of War Derek Daniels has posted some thoughtful commentary on the design of Nintendo's flagship Wii title. He highlights the way in which the much lauded innovation in many respects enable Nintendo to sidestep some of the most pressing problems in contemporary games design. For instance he writes:

Camera? Well - what are the problems with camera? Walls, collision, etc so lets just get rid of those problems by making the play space spherical! Anytime the world isn't spherical the camera breaks down SUPER fast. The bootleg go into first person mode to look around was a crutch that didn't even work 1/2 the time for me.
Level Design? I could make some comment about how the small worlds keep the fun focused but in all honesty this game has pretty damn good Level Design. Especially the 2d'ish worlds with the gravity going all crazy.

Level Pacing? I think they did kick this one out for sure. Usually going from point A to point B requires keeping the trip fun for the player. Sometimes it's just having level 1 dudes to kill along the way. Mario Galaxy totally gets rids of this problem by jumping from one plane to the next via a star. The problem I have with this is most of the time I really don't know where I'm going - I just jump in because there is no where else to go. In some instances it's really hard to go backwards also - in case I didn't have enough star bits for the first section and needed to collect more.

There will certainly be a large number of people who will flock to Nintendo's defence, since the title stands alone as a good game, full of inventive, well balanced gameplay, a sense of ongoing fun, and familiar iconography established during the 20 year reign of Princess Peach. But there is something about Derek's criticism (which you can read in full in the original post) and my recent exposure to Cursor*10 which gets me thinking about how very simple mechanical changes might help the development community to break into the increasingly homogeneous standards of gameplay design across many genres.

If you play Cursor*10 through you will notice that by the time you reach the last third of the game something interesting has happened, you have inadvertently built a frenzied scene, as each cursor goes about its business. You know logically that each of those cursors was you playing a matter of seconds ago, but nonetheless the complexity gives a thrilling sense of complexity. Compare to that scene the 'haunted' streets of downtown Rabanstre in Final Fantasy 12, where barely a soul walks; those that are there stand still or walk well-trod circuits around the nearest fountain. It's a troublesome realisation that, while the gameplay takes a leap forward when in combat to create that crucial sense of havoc and forever end the line dance of turn-based role-play gaming, being in a city in any Final Fantasy is still like post-war Paris. Desolate.

We forgive these game cities their emptiness for a number of reasons. First and foremost, our attention is on the player-character, npcs are just there to dish out potions, gloves, swords and punch-lines with the usual aplomb. They simply facilitate our connection to the progression of play, since we have learnt to expect nothing more from them. Likewise, by the time a game like FF12 has come out on a platform like PS2, we aren't the demanding bunch we once were -- the new consoles are here, lets enjoy the last days of a mighty machine without attempting to leverage any more flair from its dusty CPU.

Contemporary games design seems to be committing to one of two options in the future stakes of the player-character and npc. Games which feature a modest number of playable characters seem now to feature less and less; deliberating between Axel, Blaze and Adam in Streets of Rage seems rather modest in comparison to the orgy of destruction that comes with the epic selections available in any of the Dynasty Warriors, Suikoden or Marvel versus Capcom franchises, where democratic elections are necessary just to know who is worth playing. Large numbers of player-characters are becoming increasingly fashionable in games, as a means of extending gameplay and thus create that crucial sense of longevity to leverage cash from the increasingly frugal games consumer. In the case of games which have come from well-known franchises, for instance the excellent Naruto: Rise of the Ninja series, the full spread of characters is necessary to demonstrate a commitment to best expressing the depth of the source material.

It isn't just about the party happening in the living room, what about the lonely stoners out on the backdoor step? Like The Cure on tour, games are now stuck with the melancholy loner archetype. Everywhere, from the redesign of our sun-kissed prince in Sands of Time, to Max Payne and his numerous imitators, if you aren't part of the tour bus then your out on your own. The contrast between huge numbers of playable characters and a sole protagonist is now more pronounced than ever. It seems reducible to how developers want to best use the hardware and thus evidence their competency to the playing public and their peers. Do you go for the infinitely-shallow yet hugely-populated panoramas of Warriors Orochi or N3, or instead save all that processing power and memory for a richly developed and sophisticated egomaniac like Altair/Desmond Miles in Assassin's Creed.

The implementation of player-character in current games seems reducible to offering a hugely diverse menu of options or a single lovingly prepared delicacy. Do we fill up and move on or ruminate on the richness of a single bite?

The problem of player-character implementation doesn't take us beyond the crucial difference between player-character and npc. Since the player is solely focused on the player-character for the vast majority of gameplay, how might we effectively make npcs rich, dramatically sophisticated, emotional beings, rather than two-dimensional mannequins?

At this point revisit how the gameplay functions in Cursor*10, as you play each 'session' your activity is recorded and layered up in the level, to a point where numerous layers of intelligence mix to create the solution.

With this in mind, think to the streets of Rabanastre, or the potential city spaces of the latest Grand Theft Auto, The Outsider, No More Heroes or (the hopefully not vapour-ware) Heavy Rain. In each of these games comes the thorny riddle of how best to implement a storyline, while at the same time centring ones attention on a player-character. Enemies need to be complex, allies need to be plausible. There needs to be an emotional web at work connecting each player together. In the competition to define the gold standard for next-gen games design, what will be the key? Will it be animation, where more sophisticated motion capture facilities with experienced techinicians will be able to get more from savvy performers. Perhaps it will be in the sound design, dialogue, modelling and texturing which, when patch-worked together, create the space in which we play.

Asset creation will certainly play its part, but my contention is that games design needs to shoulder the work needed to move things forward, and transcend the limitations of a highly solipsistic player-character, which certainly works when you are Ryo Hazuki looking for his father's murderer in Shen Mue. But do we always have to see things this way, blinkered by the limitations of point-of-view? Hypothetically, what would a film like Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia look like, if turned into a game?

Imagine a meeting you might see in a film, for instance the scene at the beginning of The Bourne Ultimatum where several characters meet in Waterloo Station, London. In that scene, a newspaper reporter, a sniper, several members of the general public, and Jason Bourne himself all come together in a moment of explicit tension and then sudden action as the reporter is assassinated. In a conventional gameplay sense, we would only see this scene through the eyes of Bourne. Imagine for a second, like Cursor*10, that the player 'builds' this scene in their own way. Walking the shop attendant to work, bringing the reporter to the location, aligning the sniper, sneaking in Bourne. Who triumphs would be up to the player, since they would be working against both the npcs and a layer of complexity they have added themselves.

For many contemporary designers, such as David Braben, there is a desire to make a truly next-gen title and transcend the linear trappings of conventional storytelling. I find it incredibly interesting that the mechanic of a little flash game might outline a potentially superb way forward for big budget games design. Such a mechanic has been touched upon in the groundbreaking Forbidden Siren on PS2. But for it to happen in real-time, action layering up into a real, emergent drama, rather than a polished puppet show -- now that would be truly next-gen.

Video: Super Mario Satire

2007-12-30T16:14:30Z

I am currently playing through Mario Galaxy with my boyfriend. It's amazing how the ostensibly simple yet spellbinding gameplay breaks new ground, and how it can bring a seasoned platform veteran and a stalwart novice together in matrimonial couch-potato bliss. It's so colourful and 'chunky' and self-aware; it makes me think back to Marble Madness, Toejam n' Earl, Parodius and all those othe gems from the 16-bit days.

Dare I say it, in hindsight not all Mario games are so pleasurable though. I remember playing through the Lost Levels way back when I was in college. Many controllers felt my crushing fury as I died over, and over, and over again. Goddamnit I hated parts of that game (and the anguish of having someone else finish it for me...).

Out of the blue gamer friends of mine Julian Kücklich and Gillian Andrews sent me a link to this little gem, a satirical Super Mario Bros style game, in which you play ~~Hello Kitty~~ a teeny white cat with vacant eyes and an indestructible smile. In a mind-breaking tour of feline fatalities, the level design conspired to make it almost impossible to complete, turning the conventions of the Super Mario game-world in on themselves. The result is a hilarious satire of Mario and its imitators, but I can't help but feel within this sort of indie design a more serious commentary on what gameplay is, how difficulty is scaled, and how (if you read the commentary of people who have played the game here) the most determined player gets their way in the end, no matter how small the window of possible success.

Christmas In The UK Stinks!

2007-12-27T14:03:19Z

It's official -- Chrismas is over. No doubt you are utterly bored, held under house arrest while your nearest and dearest slowly turn in their respective hibernation positions, emitting noxious gases on a scale that jeopardise climate change protocols. Irrespective of how old you are, your haul of presents will almost certainly be missing that essential item you really wanted, the one you hinted at for 11 months, y'know. In its place in your stocking is something worthy and meaningful, when in your heart of hearts you crave zombie death and a sugar rush. Yes, 2007 has marked the Christmas of culturally, economically and environmentally respectable gifts; from sea-salt soap to shares in $100 Laptops for kids what don't read so good. When your friends buy you a donkey-hair bath-brush with matching eagle spit shower-gel, fair trade of course, you know its time to hurry things along into the new year with ample quantities of mulled wine and Mario Galaxy.

Read on after the Yuletide jump...

]]> Earlier this year those party poopers at Greenpeace slammed Nintendo for using too much company toilet roll, though didn't get round to denouncing the dribbling toxic ooze of that United-Colours-of-Benetton-style ad campaign into my unwitting eye sockets. Hey Mushroom Kingdom, get those pretty people away from my hobby, get back to generating shameful e-waste, and bring me more mince pies! Since release day, the rotating island tour and high pitched squeal of the plumber has had me hypnotised; controller-hurling repeat death and mushroom-munching hilarity has left me satisfied but cross-eyed throughout the festive period.

The gamer Christmas is a very particular experience, full of pain and anguish. Back in the day, before games had the veneer of cool that now makes Wii harder to find than rocking horse shit, if you were lucky enough to get a console you were happy. It didn't matter that your caring parents might have bought you the Philips CDi, a 3D0, an Atari Jaguar. You were happy, because although owning a console certainly was about bragging rights, you were only looking to impress your equally nerdy friends with the glamour of 3D, good-for-nothing flight simulator joysticks and memorised action replay codes. You were a spotty nobody, and games were a life-raft in an ocean of uncool.

Now things are all different. It's now official that girls play games too, and the playstation has successfully moved the console out of the sweaty bedroom, down the stairs, across the corridor, and into the cable hell of the living room TV corner. With more dust in its guts than Joan Rivers, the contemporary console is a tortured piece of kit, which longs for a return to the sanctity of the broken tv stand somewhere in the upstairs of a childhood past, surrounded by posters of Bruce Lee, animé on VHS, and lugubrious friends who press its buttons too hard.

One particular fateful Yuletide we got a Saturn in the Davey household. I remember becoming hysterical at the sight of my sister leaving Sega Rally out of its brand new case, as she switched to break out the legendary Guardian Heroes. I was relatively new to CDs (yes we had electricity) and in my eyes the Saturn had to be treated like a precious explosive, the switching of one game for another acquired the gravitas of cutting the red wire or green. In my hormonal teenage haze everything in the house conspired to scratch those miraculous discs and ruin all future fun. I filled the house with tears and then stuffed my face with cake. Since I don't engage in the shadowy arts of exchanging at my local store, I now enjoy leaving naked games out on every possible surface, safe in the knowledge that the Compact Disc is sturdier than Captain America's shield.

Christmas was good this year in the UK, because the majority of people here are now officially psychiatrically unsound. The New Year Sales started yesterday, yes, Boxing Day. Since every man, woman and dog in the UK has one, the endless hours of Wii wrist-wobbling have reduced the national attention span by five days, meaning that we can now official enjoy massive reductions on beds, fridges and handbags while still pregnant with the joys of turkey and potato. Happy New Year!

The Problem With Shock: Kane And Lynch Want Hot Chicks!

2007-11-25T20:36:53Z

In a recent article for the BBC, technology editor Darren Waters notes that -- with the recent award of coveted 10/10 Edge scores to Orange Box, Halo 3 and Mario Galaxy -- we are entering what might be described as a new golden age of videogames. For sure, on the third gen platforms there are many really impressive games that demonstrate the graphic and social capability of the kit, but are these particularly excellent games really indicative of a widespread shift in the quality of games? History has shown that, in gaming, for every prized racehorse there are a hundred lame donkeys.

It's certainly hard not to be caught up in the whirlwind of excitement, particularly around the ubiquitous Nintendo Wii and DS, which is selling everywhere like hot cakes. In the time it took me to purchase some discount PS2 games the other day, three grandmotherly-types came into my local game store, asked if there were any Wiis available, and left dejected as the retailer gave familiar winsome excuses. This struck me as indicative of the everyday demand for the console. Adding Edge magazine's recent flush of 10s to Wii hype (tm), Darren Waters certainly feels rosy about the future:

The Edge scores are just one of a number of signs that reinforce a growing feeling that videogames are enjoying a golden age.

Read on after the jump...

]]> Taking into account the winning titles at the recent BAFTA games design awards, it makes sense that people make claims for a new golden age of games design. When all the most exciting stuff is happening elsewhere, better to add voice to the cheers than sulk conspicuously into your champagne glass. British games were largely absent from the list of winners across the various categories, notably losing out to the mighty Wii Sports, Okami, and God of War 2. It seems premature to make claims for the current gilt gaming Zeitgeist, when aforementioned gems like Mario Galaxy are counterbalanced by trailer trash such as Kane and Lynch.

Everybody with a brain has a vested interest in game culture going mainstream and achieving artistic and cultural credibility, but as much as that means celebrating the really good things that are happening, there is a need to also name and shame the really shocking things that keep games in the gutter. There has been some mention of the Kane and Lynch affiliated 'Cyber Search for Hot Chicks' online over the past month, but people have hesitated from strongly criticising it; game critics everywhere ponder, who is going to shoot the goose that lays the golden eggs? Thankfully, the recent review score of 6/10 in Edge has vindicated my rumbling problem with this franchise-to-be and its idiotic marketing. As you can see from the advert above, the basic competition is as follows:

Cybersearch: are you hot and crazy enough to be the one? Do you have what it takes to be every man's ultimate fantasy? We're hunting for a dangerously sexy vixen with the goods to make us moan, so if you think you're it we dare you to prove it. Send us your most seductive, creative, and craziest photos and make us believe there is a higher power. Grand prize $25,000 and a test shoot with Playboy.

This is totally fascinating on so many levels, and represents some really big problems with contemporary games marketing, 'viral' or otherwise. Clearly it is asking young women to send in pictures of themselves, sponsored by Kane and Lynch. From whose point-of-view is it written -- from IO Interactive? As Kane or Lynch themselves? '...make us moan..'? It just doesn't make sense. Presumably a mercenary and a medicated serial killer aren't lobbying for female company, let alone actively using social networking sites. It is a mystery that the Kane and Lynch brand would segue into lobbying female players and/or IGN readers to consider themselves playboy centrefold material.

The murky waters of contemporary marketing are the tarnished underside of this golden age of gaming. This three-way deal between Playboy, IGN and Eidos is the undoing of an already flawed title. The competition is only open to women, the game is created in a mould we could comfortably assume is directed to male gamers. This confusion is certainly insidious enough, since it encourages women to perceive themselves stereotypically and offers a financial incentive for self-objectification, and treats young men like frat house farmhands. It sets up an image of women which sadly isn't unique in contemporary games design, compounded by wallpapers such as this which can be found at the official site.

Where this experiment in marketing goes really awry is when you compare it to this image in particular, which shows a woman held hostage, the graphic suggesting that her throat will be imminently cut. It's an image of pure subordination and female objectification. Kane and Lynch are complicit with one another in this sadistic torture scene. Courting this kind of controversy is so fashionable in games culture nowadays, I am surprised Ratchet and Clank aren't getting tattoos together while riding out a weekend on crystal meth.

Wanting super sexy vixens here, then showing the torture of women there. It's so obtuse it seems deliberate. The final part of the marketing campaign is the most hilarious, and really shows the confusion and absurdity of the guiding vision. Kane and Lynch have an affiliate page at www.askmen.com, where the intro is so gloriously stupid it's worth quoting at length:

Let the weak among us delude themselves all they want; we know this world is separated into two kinds of people: asses and badasses. And although the former group's situation could be forgiven if they had no control over their mediocrity, being a badass is a choice that is open to all of us. The problem is that most things in life - from educational institutions to the media - prefer sheep to wolves, so they tell the public they're doing the right thing by shutting up and keeping their heads down. Never ones to patronize our readers, AskMen.com has partnered up with Kane & Lynch to help unknowing assess take their first step in a bad direction with the Badass Training Guide.
From how to hold yourself in a fight to how get what you want in the boardroom to the cars that literally lead the pack, everything you need to know in order transform yourself from a mouse to a man is here. So start reading and practicing the dogmas of this Guide, because, after all, the only thing worse than a man who can't stand up is a man who could get to his feet but prefers to lie in the dirt.

Yes, you did just read that. In a final confirmation of the contempt with which this facetious campaign sees its player base, you can read up on how to 'intimidate people' and '...be assertive...', '...or else she'll dump you'. For as much as there is a growing culture of great games defining the third generation hardware, the growth of social network-based marketing and shock-based campaign planning seriously impacts on the perception of games when it goes wrong. The impulse that directs player-orientated marketing to plumb the depths of stereotype so strongly is seriously flawed. This sort of campaign will leech any credibility from the franchise before the sequel hits the shelves.

There is something about shock that games designers need to realise. When art employs shock we understand that its effect can only work once, like Duchamp's 1917 'fountain' urinal in the gallery. It's meant to make a statement about art culture, but it's not to be revisited again and again, as we would appreciate a great painting or film. Games need to be replayed, and they need credibility, and so shock shouldn't be the thinking man's strategy. Just because we're talking about games and not gallery art, it doesn't mean that shock works differently. Yes, engineering shock has become a hallmark of contemporary games marketing, but it has the adverse effect of becoming the only enduring quality of a title. When people are hit by shock, they aren't inclined to look through it to find quality. Controversial branding doesn't compliment an effort to build a sense of the quality of games; shock can be art, but shock will impact on the appreciation of depth. Longevity and replayability are disassembled by unintelligent and lazy shock marketing such as that surrounding Kane and Lynch. Games need to be appreciated in a 'deeper' way if the golden age Darren Waters calls for is going to manifest, and courting controversy doesn't help. An example of a great viral campaign adding depth and enhancing a franchise can be seen currently foreshadowing the release of The Dark Knight.

In a lively discussion early this year at the Brunel Digital Games Forum, I asked EIDOS head honcho Ian Livingstone if the universes of Hitman and Kane and Lynch overlapped, since there is such a growing culture of connecting story-worlds together in 'cross-over' television, games, film and other media. Perhaps foreshadowing the missed opportunity to market their games well, Livingstone laconically answered, No.

Siegfried, You're So Sparkly

2007-11-18T21:13:07Z

As a massive beat-'em-up fan, Soul Calibur has been the definitive 3D game for me. Sure, I can get geeky and count frames in Virtua Fighter, or get down with those moody Kazama's in that Iron Fist thingy, but there is something about smashing steel that really raises my pulse. Soul Blade on PlayStation was a revelation, after I felt so personally let down by the conversion of Battle Arena Toshinden.

Way back when PlayStation was a rich kid's indulgence and the arcades still groomed our brightest stars, Siegfried was just a troubled teen, whose whimsy thin arms could carry impossibly large swords with the greatest of ease, in a gravity defying ballet of smash and slash. He was the button masher character of choice, powering through any defence with a predictable but irrepressible three-hit smash. If that boy became a postman, many doors in the land would be reduced to spit and splinters, such is the power of his punch. The question has always preoccupied me -- how could such a skinny little wimp get such pneumatic lift out of his puny twig arms? Surely they would snap like bread sticks as he attempted to elevate the mighty claymore acquired from the corpse of his dead daddy?

Read on after the jump...

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As time went on and various underworld criminal types came to upset the status quo, Siegfried flexed his sword arm, got older and filled out in all the right places. To date he still ain't no muscle-mary like Astaroth, but his successive costume changes hold the key to my question; how Siegfried gets four tonnes of sharpened steel moving through the air faster than Britney through a red light.

With the release of concept artwork for Soul Calibur IV, which reveals costumes in vivid detail, it suddenly hit me. Gone is the gritty realism of mud-flecked armour and greasy hair; now our princely psycho sports the glitter and sparkle of a rock god shimmering in glorious High Definition. Like two hearts suddenly beating as one, I am sure Siegfried and I share the same passion for glam rock, and on days of pure frivolity, I fantasise that we might take a tour of our hair rock catalogues. Just check out his new sword; with the sheen of an award for life contribution to music, he parades it like a precious flying V guitar.

The pose betrays his expertise in wailing solos, and that solemn pout can only belong to the most dedicated of the spandex and glitter elite. As an only child, guilty of patricide, Siegfried is the ultimate one-man band. The same finger work that marks him as a fretboard fanatic provides the answer to his gravity-defying sword madness. Breaking through a sweaty haze of repetitive strain and Whitesnake B-sides Siegfried has achieved Sword and Sound nirvana. You don't need big muscles when your fingers are adamantium, your nails are diamond, and your wrists are ancient oak.

Siegfried's latest costume outs him as a sparkly pompous poser with an ear for a big riff. It provides an answer to the super-powered tank-chopping swing of his sword arm. Play enough guitar tab, wear enough eye-liner, and you too could square up to those rugged samurai!

New Book On The History Of Videogames

2007-11-17T17:46:13Z

For all of you that are currently taking classes in media history, American academic Mark J. P. Wolf has edited and published a new collection of essays, The Video Game Explosion, which look at the history and development of videogames. The blurb reads:

Once dismissed as a fleeting fad of the young and frivolous, video games have become a booming industry that promises to drive the future of new media and emerging technologies. Today, video games have become a limitless and multifaceted medium through which major corporations and Hollywood visionaries alike are reaching broader global audiences and influencing cultural trends at a rate unmatched by any other media.This book traces the growth of a global phenomenon that has become an integral part of popular culture today. All aspects of video games and gaming culture are covered inside this engaging reference work, including the leading video game innovators, the technological advances that made the games of the late 1970s and those of today possible, the corporations that won and lost billions of dollars pursing this lucrative market, arcade culture, and the demise of free-standing video consoles and the rise of home-based and handheld gaming devices. Narrative chapters explore the ongoing debates about whether video games lead to violence in children and teens (as was the case with the Columbine High School shootings) in addition to other topics, such as the evolution of the new games, and the battle between Sony's PlayStation 3, Nintendo's Wii, and Microsoft's Xbox 360.

Sure we know much of this story already, but it's certainly interesting stuff, considering you couldn't find the word 'videogame' in a school, college or university anywhere a decade ago! Normally, if you put a gamepad in an unwitting tutor's hand you are sure to bring them out in a rash, but accompany it with a book like this and I am sure gaming will receive a much warmer reception. It's refreshing to learn about how games are made and received further afield; what about games in south america, australia, france, germany, CANADA? Games are slowly finding their way into education, and getting the history right is an important contemporary project for researchers around the world. Better games history means better reference resources for games designers, which means better games! Everybody wins!

Link To The Past In 3D? Eiji Aonuma Ponders Remake

2007-11-17T16:48:05Z

The Zelda series has garnered controversy over the years for the style choices made by the design team, most notably for The Wind Waker on Game Cube, which featured striking cel-shaded visuals and charming cartoon action. Bright blasts of yellow and green marked a departure from the look of the masterpiece Ocarina of Time on the N64, Edge magazine's number 1 game EVER. But the fans weren't sure. Its true, there wasn't a games magazine in the land that didn't feature a letters page rich with the ink of fervent fans offended by this new cartoon styling, their efforts matched by stalwart critics staging a war of attrition on behalf of Miyamoto-san.

The argument: surely games don't need graphic realism, when there is so much animation and comic art to inspire the designer in new directions. Then again, if it ain't broke don't fix it.

Read on after the jump...

]]> Well, Zelda series designer Eiji Aonuma was interviewed recently in Official Nintendo Magazine (UK Edition), and among other things, he alluded to the prospect of revisiting some of the earlier titles:

I always think about what we couldn’t do and what didn’t work well in the previous game when we start a new title, but there’s no game that I would want to actually change as such. I have to say though, the first Zelda game that I played and felt potential in was Link to the Past. I’m actually very interested in what it would be like if we remade that title as a 3D game.

Aonuma came to the series with Ocarina of Time, and so understands intimately what it means to take these games into three dimensions. The Zelda universe is so rich with recurring elements and archetypal heroes and villains that I think revisiting earlier games might not be such a bad idea. With so many filmmakers re-cutting and adding new endings to their films (following arch-tinkerer Ridley Scott), it makes sense that games designers take the opportunity to rethink classic games, and retell those stories from a new visual perspective.

The only problem comes with the idea that there would be a direct translation of the locations from 2D to 3D. Would it work? Would over-the-shoulder third-person viewpoints (the mainstay of contemporary adventure gaming) undermine the patchwork world of the classic SNES game? Since everything has to make sense 'from the front' on the SNES, what amount of creative license would be needed to make things feel right in 3D? If the geography was changed radically to fit the needs of true 3D, would it still be Link to the Past?

Though Aonuma's comment emerges from his own curiosity, the prospect of remaking such titles seem to reignite the heated debates around the Zelda franchise and its visual style. Back to collecting sand and whacking bats...

Aurora Festival at Norwich: Games and Animation

2007-11-06T17:58:07Z

Summerbranch by Ruth Gibson and Bruno Martelli (www.igloo.org.uk)

For those of you with an appetite for experimental animation and indie and alternative games development, all this week the Aurora festival is taking place in Norwich, England. The Aurora festival has emerged as one of the key European alternative events, bringing together a whole host of different practitioners.

For those of you who fancy coming along, I am chairing a discussion with award winning gay filmmaker Ian Gouldstone, talking about gay culture, animation, games, realism and man hunting (the second time round). As part of the panel I will also be talking to artist cum games designers Igloo, the delicious Professor Tanya Krzywinska --mmo expert, and the inspiring Dr. Barry Atkins, author of More Than A Game: The Computer Game As Fictional Form. The event takes place at noon on Thursday in the City cinema. See you there!

Video: Nobi Nobi Boy Previewed At Game City

2007-11-04T23:49:35Z

A wee while ago I mentioned that Game City was taking place in Nottingham, where Keita Takahashi was due to speak. Namco's prodigal son reprised his place as one of the most controversial contemporary designers by sharing a playable prototype for Nobi Nobi Boy. Three plucky hopefuls were invited to control the characters, a set of half-boy-half-animals with smiley faces made famous by their extremely stretchy bodies. From this early prototype you can see the same trademark simplicity and strong colour-scheme separating the playable characters for the npc animals which accompany them in the space.

As people tinker with the demo (thanks for the video George B.), you can see how Nobi Nobi Boy can be made to fly, work himself into knots, and herd the creatures with his stretchy torso. Takahashi refrained from defining exactly what the intended gameplay mechanic would be, instead alluding to animal herding as a possibly-maybe goal. With this malleable character there are several possible applications, and this certainly echoes the 'roll, collect grow' mechanic of the Katamari games.

Read on after the jump...

]]> The gameplay potential of the Nobi Nobi Boy character is immense, and the name roughly translates to mean 'at ease with', implying the relaxed and playful personality of the physics and animation. Remembering Takahashi's GDCE 2005 keynote talk, where he spent a lot of time talking about his influences, I think it's important to hesitate from comparing his early prototypes with other games, since the designer himself regularly points to playgrounds and toys as inspiration for his game designs.

But Katamari is so much more than just compelling and simple gameplay (at least the first two in the series are anyway). Inspired choices in soundtrack, user interface design and dialogue scripting all work together to shape the highly original experience. The silence of watching Nobi Nobi in action was perhaps the biggest distraction since, if Katamari is anything to go by, anything that happens with these curious stretchy were-bears will be accompanied by an inspired soundtrack.

Kmart Stops Selling Blu-Ray Players

2007-11-04T19:00:00Z

Citing the high cost of Blu-Ray compared to HD-DVD, Kmart have announced that that are dropping Blu-Ray Players from their retail outlets. This can only come as another blow to Sony's troubled format, which, while technically superior to HD-DVD, is failing to capture the imagination of the consumer. Added to this problem is the inspired marketing of the external HD-DVD drive for XBOX360.

Tech-Ex writes:

deals like the Sears Black Friday special on the Toshiba A3 ($169) and the current Buy.com Xbox 360 HD-DVD external drive ($164.99 bundle with Heroes Season 1 and five movies) just add downward pressure.

Have dedicated formats ever been a sustainable means to corner a market, when there is substantial incentives to use competing technology? Image quality aside, I think formats such as blu-ray are understood as anti-piracy as much as next-generation, and it will take a better campaign than Sony's to make anti-piracy sexy and saleable me thinks. Reminds me of how Vaio was received for that matter...