“Why do you waste your time playing games?”

This is the comment which was levelled at me a while ago. The source of this, rhetorical as it turned out, question then turned on her heel, took her glass of wine and went to watch EastEnders, or Coronation Street.. or something.

I was struck then, as I am now occasionally, by the simple lack of vision that large swathes of the population suffer from. Simply put the statement is this:

Gaming = Juvenile and a waste of time
TV = Entertainment and a release from everyday life

This drives me crazy.. seriously!

How on earth can otherwise sane and rational people not see the glaring contradictions in their own statements? We can however, draw some comfort that we are not alone in suffering these prejudices - for that IS what they are. Anything which can be touched with the ‘Genre’ brand falls foul of these gross generalisations and summary dismissal by the self styled ’sensible’ people. I’m going to throw some other statements out here..

“A perverse pleasure derived from the apparent struggle and suffering of others”
“A diminishing of the individual personality, subsumed by the need to belong”
“The dilution of personal and societal moral values through exposure to the most extreme levels of dysfunction”

I could go on. Are these resonating? Well these are things the I can very easily attribute to the effects of watching TV - namely Soap shows and reality TV, the glorification of fashion and celebrity and the apparent validation of a culture of entitlement where asocial and sometimes downright illegal behaviour is openly tolerated.

So the next time someone points and sniggers at you for being a gamer, don’t get angry, don’t feel embarrassed, don’t even feel the need to justify yourself… these are people to be pitied as they’re simply a product of the media they’ve exposed themselves to.

ME? I’m proud to be a gamer, I’m proud to enjoy Sci-Fi and fantasy in all of it’s many forms - but I’m also open minded and mature enough to accept that others think and feel differently and be happy in my choices while respecting theirs.

So E3 has come and gone for another year… and news of announcements from it has spread as fast as millions of hands can work keyboards, like a huge game of Chinese whispers with minimal distortion. Maybe.

Now, I’ve never been one to directly follow E3 - or any other gaming trade show for that matter - because some of those millions of hands undoubtedly belong to games magazine journalists. Yeah, I’m a bit old school for gaming news! This time, it was different. I’m not going to bang on about the games revealed, mainly because the ones which I’m keeping tabs on are ones I knew of before the show. No, for me it was all about the ‘innovation’ of Avatars presented by Microsoft. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m no fanboy of the company - I just happen to have a vested interest in what they do as I have an Xbox 360!

I have noticed something of a trend for a while now - as I’m sure many of you have - of the various console makers vying for the attentions, the affections, of gamers not by trying to be different but by trying to be the same. Arguably the only one that’s done something truly new is Nintendo. So the other two, the giants, are trying to outdo each other and David by playing tit-for-tat catch up. Achievements? Entitlements. Miis? Avatars - both in Xbox Live and Home. Video Store? Yep, Sony’s moving in there too! And on it goes…

This trend is a little worrying to me. I see a future, like Kat does… oh yeah, I’m referencing a reader! I’ll wait until you’ve checked that link… Right, I can see a future of all three manufacturers having identical systems. Or even there just being one system, in a worst case scenario; one which will probably be known as the PSWii60 and have the ability to cook all your food so you don’t ever have to play Cooking Gramma. Considering the amount of crud there is to be found on all three at the moment, can you imagine how bad it’s going to be should that come to pass? I can’t and I have a great imagination!

Families: love them or loathe them, we all have them in one way, shape or form. For the most part families are great, but on occasion they can be the bane of our lives. My family though is great. We all get on pretty damned well and usually end up having some great occasions to chat about in days to come. This past weekend for example was such an occasion. My mum’s cousins were over from Canada - not seen them myself in over 10 years, so we all met down at another cousins in Kent for a get together and bbq (note to self: NO MORE BBQ’S!!! I always eat too much). Whilst they all chatted I got the baby sitting duty to my cousins 2 little boys - Fergus and Noah - boy oh boy…they took some work. After a great day there we all headed back home and after a very much welcomed - and deserved - cup of tea I got to thinking about the wider scope of families. I’ve been pretty close to a family near me for some years now - the mum and dad, both my age, and their 3 fantastic kids - and they became a big part of my life when they looked after me when my dad passed away nearly 10 years ago. Every week on a Wednesday evening (work schedules permitting) we get together at their house with several friends and play one of various table top rpg games. Cthulhu - a favourite of mine, Dungeons & Dragons - you name it, we’ve probably played it. For most of us gaming became a big part of lives whilst at school and even though the advent of consoles and home computers now take a big part of lives, we still find that connectivity of getting together for a gaming session all the more sweeter.

How many of us have gotten together with our respective friends and families over Christmas or New Years Eve and played something like Singstar or Guitar Hero? I know I have, and before you know it the midnight hour is upon you and you wonder where that time went. But hey ho - one sip of a glass of champagne and it’s back to trying Freebird on expert again (I swear my fingers were bleeding by the end of the party). Probably the biggest event for me last year was after when I’d just joined the Fragdolls UK forum. After lurking in the forums for a while I got invited to attend one of their DS meets in London. We all met at the Trocadero for some arcade action, then moved onto Nando’s for some lunch (you would never believe how hard it was to get a simple burger out of these guys…) and finally to a small pub that we took over for the evenings session. It got so hectic that some of us had to resort to playing darts! Would you believe it?! But the end result of that day’s event was great - new friends made and the knowledge that there would be more events to come in the future. A short time after that came an invite from Dan asking if I’d like to join the ready-up.net community - I didn’t even need to think about it and said yes before he had time to reconsider it (bet he wishes he had now). Since then our ever growing community has gone onto to do things like multiplayer GRAW 2 and Vegas 2 sessions online (many thanks to Kate for helping get things sorted out and being able to join in eventually) and then to get asked to review some new games…what else could you ask for? Ready-up is like a family - we get together for events (check out our coverage of the i33 event and soon Tiny Shaz’s tournament debut) and have a great time laughing at each other’s attempts of being the last man standing on a map - apologies to anyone I’ve accidentally shot on the back of the head.

Some of my closest friends I’ve made whilst playing things like Star Wars Galaxies (I curse SOE for that stupid combat upgrade - my ship building business died because of them…all my customers left the game!) or beta testing World of Warcraft - even to this day several of us still join the new games that are becoming more frequently released and have long debates on the beta game status and decide whether we should all join it when it goes live or just toss it into our lost game collection. Infact I really need to delete some files from my pc - I still have WoW installed on it and I’ve not played it for over a year.

But whatever our personal circumstances are in this modern era, one thing stays the same: the enjoyment of something like a game can be so much better when experienced with others, with friends. My friends still haven’t forgiven me for what I like to consider as one of the best ever gaming moments in history (they still don’t like talking about it - infact they even try fooling themselves it never happened…but it did) during a 4-player session of Goldeneye on the N64. Whilst they were all running around inside a room trying hopelessly to take each other out I made me way up onto a walkway that ran around the outer edge of the room, strategically throwing remote detonating mines around them in the middle of the room below. Seing my chance I took it and pressed the detonator and BOOM! All their screens went blank and in unison they all turned to face me with an incredulous look on their faces hardly believing what had just happened. I for one am considering getting that moment immortalised in something like a tattoo - I know I’ll never achieve something like that again. This moment was only eclipsed when my friends 12 year old son whipped his butt on Guitar Hero - he never plays it now…can’t live the humiliation down (so he says, but we all know he’s just scared). Ah…the memories.

That’s just a minuscule slice of my experiences I’ve had throughout the years, and I’m sure there will be lots more to come, with many of them being during an organised event with my new ready-up.net family. With that in mind I’d like to throw out a few messages of thanks to some people.

Dan - for the initial invite to ready-up.net and his continued patience and understanding.

The FDUK girls - if not for them and their site I certainly wouldn’t have met some friends I now have.

Matt, Traycie and the kids - foe being there when I needed them and for those great New Years Eve events - here’s to the next one (and no doubt Rockband will be on the menu for that party).

And finally - the ready-up.net community. It’s good to know that there’s a great bunch of people out there to share some great gaming moments with, and I’m certain that with our family continuing to grow the way it is (as the song title goes) that things can only get better.

As a technologist I love ‘new stuff’ that’s pretty much a given, but I’ve also held firmly to the idea that the stuff I have and what I do with it somehow set’s me apart from the mass consumer space. In some ways that’s good (I get to feel somehow superior and a little be special) and in some ways it’s bad (I have to be proud to be a geek!).

So I have mixed feelings when I see what’s happening to my game-tech. Nintendo have innovated on a grand scale with the Wii, not so much in the technology (although the new Motion Plus controller add-on demo looks really cool!) but in how the technology is consumed. Nintendo have done what I (in my professional life) have been telling internet hosters to do for a long time now, hidden the technology. They’ve basically said to the consumer population:

“Look, don’t worry about what’s inside the box. There’s some bit and pieces but that’s not important, look at how much fun you can have with it!”

What is really inside a Wii

And they’re right! No one who owns and uses a Wii gives a monkey’s tuppence about how many polygons per second / vertex shaders / flops / flips / or doodads the things has, they just know that it’s fun when you switch it on and that the WiiFit balance board is pretty cool!

Now this is fine… the Wii was designed around that innovation and delivers well upon it. My Xbox360 however was not, it was designed to be a kick-ass piece of tech and to deliver the hi definition fantasies of tech-geek gamers everywhere – I know, I’m one of them. The ‘consumerising’ of the UI as announced at E3 this week has me concerned that I’m about to become mainstream, that my kick-ass tech is to become muted, simple, easy to digest and somehow diminished and I don’t think I like it.

Now there are some good things coming out of this too, in fact the ability to effectively re-invent the usage of a piece of kit through a firmware download really excites me simply because it’s never been done before on this scale. The extension of the integration between the console environment, the games that are played upon it and the online capabilities are also of huge interest to me from a strategic thinking perspective but avatars… really? Mind you… if they can somehow manage to make my DVD drive a bit quieter I’d buy that for a dollar!

So I’m interested more in the ‘how’ than the ‘what’ in this exercise at the moment, but I’m sure that when it does arrive I’ll dive straight in a build my avatar as soon as I can.

There have been a bunch of electricians at my house today, drilling, wiring and all kinds of stuff that I have no clue about. Of course I was extremely polite, making tea, bringing biscuits but frequently harassing the poor guys as to when they thought they might be finished so they could turn my air supply..I mean electricity back on.

If I was a football fan I could go and kick a ball around or watch a football match in a muddy field somewhere. If I had a hobby such as fishing, refurbishing weird and wonderful items or painting I could do all these things with out the need for electricity. If society ever did crumble under the weight of it’s own stupidity and there was no civilization as we know it or power supply even film and music fanatics wouldn’t totally suffer. They’d watch plays, read books and sing along to and play various acoustic instruments.

We gamers are so reliant on power to fuel our passion, without it what would we do? Who would we become? There is nothing that could compare or replace gaming with that requires so little physical effort and delivers such high rewards in return.

Maybe all the climate change and energy crisis news is propaganda, paranoia or plain bull-crap but maybe our combined global usage of PC’s, consoles and HDTV’s are consuming a load of wattage that is none to healthy for the planet. I’m no scientist or geologist or even an eco warrior, so I don’t know. I recycle I don’t drive a Mum Vee and I really try to remember not to leave my Sky box on standby. Maybe it makes a difference, maybe not but if the chance of the loss of gaming is not a good enough reason to go green I don’t know what is. The future answer to energy woes could come from cow poo petrol, solar energy or cold fusion, I’d stick one of those giant windmills on the roof of my house or take a tin bath by the fire every night if it meant I could keep gaming forever.

Recently Ready Up spent some time with the creators of Video Games Live, the international spectacular videogame music concert, during their first ever visit to Scotland. This gave us a great insight into the complexities of setting up and staging an event of this size somewhere different every few days, in a foreign land, with new people working on every show.

The creators of the show Tommy Tallarico and Jack Wall were wonderfully generous with their time, giving us full access to the event at every stage over the few days they were in the country. The Ready Up crew staged the Video Games Live preshow event running the Guitar Hero and cosplay competitions and I performed the finale of the cosplay competition on stage at the Royal Concert Hall and actually got to introduce the main show. It’s a telling fact that wherever VGL goes it rolls up passionate gamers along with it who Mr Tallarico insists become a part of the entourage and show in whatever way they can help out. It was a privilege and a pleasure to be a part of the show and I think our documentary shows just what fun we had and what an absolute good Video Games Live is as phenomenon.

The documentary will be screened at this year’s Edinburgh Interactive Festival throughout it’s three day run. You can watch it below or right-click the link to download the HD 720p Version (~1Gb). If you’d like to see it on the big screen you can join Ready Up at EIF 10th -12th Aug.

Updated with higher quality streamed version.

HD 720p Version (Right Click and Save Link As)

Way-hay I’m back and MAN it’s been crazy lately, mostly due to the fact I ONLY JUST MOVED HOUSE!

So I have been busy running around getting all the important things in life sorted, well ya’ know things like, internet providers, formatting and alphabetising my games on the shelf, most of all deciding where I wanted the TV and the consoles. Launching up my PS2 for the first time in the new house I had not forgotten about my pledge for Battle Of Destiny. Unfortunately disaster struck!

My beloved copy of Capcom VS SNK 2 died out on me! WHAT-THE-FFF-ACK-OMG-OMG! Oh the drama that coincidently takes place at such a crucial time, BOO! Thankfully practice was not all to a stand still. Last week I hopped on a train to London to train with a “real” living, breathing opponent. A friend of mine who claims to be the Street Fighting veteran. Glad to know there’s still some of us old-skool nippers out there! With this I could assess how I levelled with an average player and learn a few tricks of the trade from another perspective. Almost 2 and a half hours of cocky taunting, evil laughs, talking tactics and fussing over the precision of PS1 & PS2 pads. The results of Sunday had me surprised, I wasn’t as bad as I thought. We faired quite evenly and both walked away learning new things about competitive fighting. My confidence is better and I’d also like to say, I HATE YUN! (Mental note: Must do special tactical training against this character) Hehehe.

Now throughout the Capcom journey, there’s dangerous potential in that after a lengthy period of continuous fights your mind can switch to auto-pilot mode. There’s no chance of this happening at the Battle Of Destiny, what with all the noise, hype and pressure. I’ll be running up, down and all over the venue with the Ready Up team and also because of this:

Oh you got it, my birth of cosplay as Sakura Kasugano from Street Fighter! Courtesy to the lovely Lawrara Cosplay Shop who were able to customize and sew it up for me. “Arigatou Gozaimasu!” So readers, I’ve made my effort, tourney and dressing. Don’t forget to say hello to me!

The contender list has risen to 132, pwhoar it’s going to be one massive butt-kicking day! It’s hard to judge by the names but I certainly hope there’s a few girl gamers on the roster. Personally I hope that Sunday I’ll be converting the beliefs of a few that gaming is only associated to guys. Girls may be pretty faces but we are definitely not to be underestimated!

ONE WEEK TO GO!!

Two of my most memorable internet moments have recently occurred right here at Ready Up - but they weren’t caused by blog posts. Or by any of the reviews (great though they are).

No, what caused me in one case to do a big belly laugh, and in the other case to become vaguely aroused and slightly scared were fantastic pictures posted to the Ready Up forums.

Not everyone realises it, but Ready Up, like a dodgy Colchester kebab shop or a newsagents that stocks “special interest” magazines behind the counter, has a special “back room” where things are discussed in hushed tones and grubby photographs are passed around quietly for large sums of cash. OK, so I lied about the money and the fact that the photographs are grubby, but there are photographs.

You see that text that says “Forum” in the top left? That’s it up there.

Think of it as like the “Have Your Say” section of the BBC website, but without people starting every comment with “Why oh why” and going on about immigrants all the time. Also, quite a lot of little snippets of game info get posted up there that aren’t meaty enough to warrant their own blog posts.

Anyway, to the posts that tickled me - you’ll soon spot the pictures yourself:

Best rock band pic - EVER!

Is this legal? (probably safe for work, but depends where you work)

Brilliant! I’ll see you there.

Bootnote: After Martin used an obscure Abba quote as a title, I thought I’d use the same idea but make it somewhat easier to identify for this post.

This way to the back room!

Isn’t it annoying when you hear about a game, a little description, maybe a trailer, news of a kick ass gaming experience that you know you’re going to want and then….nothing!

WET - not yet rated if you care about such things.

Announced back in August 2007, Sierra Entertainment’s WET promises a “Seamless integration of intense gunplay, death-defying acrobatics and exciting swordplay, framed by breathtaking art direction and unparalleled animation quality.” Developed by A2M, WET tells the story of Rubi, an acrobatic gun-for-hire. When she agrees to help a wealthy man find and bring back his wayward son, all hell breaks loose and the tables are turned, as the man who hired her isn’t who he appeared to be. Now Rubi’s on the run, needing to find the man who left her for dead and leaving a massive body count in her wake.

I know that games don’t get finished over night and I know that sometimes unforeseen problems creep up on developers that delay games for whatever reason, it’s just nice to get little snippets of news now and then especially when a game takes your interest and there’s a total lack of information except that which you already know and have known for some time.

Rubi has been hailed as the new Lara Croft, I’d have to disagree, this is nothing to do with many of the Ready Up teams pure and undying love for the Tomb Raiding one, but I can’t help but think that although they have sheer sexiness in common they are clearly different characters. Lara is effortlessly cool and composed, a lady of privilege that’ll extremely politely take you out if you mess with any of the artifacts she’s after. With a sensible ponytail perfect for leaping and diving around without a hair out of place, and Rubi looks, well, like a right nutter, her days filled with plenty of gun blasting and sword slashing before heading home for a dinner possibly comprising of a litre of neat vodka and some creature she just shot. We don’t need a Lara replacement, we need more strong female characters to stand along side her. I am a high hopes type of person which means I get disappointed quite a bit but I’m still going to presumptively place Rubi up on a pretty high pedestal, I suppose I will just have to wait that little bit longer to see what happens next.

To those as sad as me, this blog title is part of a line from an ABBA song, if you know the song you may have an inkling as to what it’s about, if not read on and find out.  If you know the song and have guessed, read on as well, it’s for everyone.

I grew up in a small village outside Glasgow, it was there that I played the earliest forms of video games, but not for huge lengths of time, ten minutes here, twenty minutes there not much really.  Other things were of greater importance to me, Star wars toys, friends but most of all going out to play.  If it was sunny, we were out playing, if it was raining, we were out playing, if it was dark, we were out playing.  You get the idea and I imagine that for most of you it was exactly the same.  Move forward a few years and we moved to nowhere, a house away from my friends and miles away from school, it wasn’t good, for a start I had no one to go out with.  My parents bought me a Spectrum 48k and I had a new friend, we spent huge amounts of time together, every day after school and homework  we would get together and conquer the universe or jungle or mansion.  I was13 and I suppose I didn’t really want to face the world, I was the fat kid and through taunts and bullying I was happy to shut myself away in my bedroom, my kempston rapid fire joystick was getting waggled nightly.  Forward a few years to 1988, 16 years old, taller, slimmer I re-introduced myself to the world and it was great.  Music, skateboards, train rides to Glasgow all ensued, I really didn’t play games much for years, life was good and every night there was always something to do.  I had a group of friends and we were always out, it was a one mile walk to the bus stop and six mile bus ride to see them but I made the journey faithfully every night for years.  Games came back into my life a few years later with the Mega Drive and the PS1 but socialising always came first, ahhhh the good old days!

Twenty years on I went back to the town where I hung out, Strathaven (pronounced Straven), was my stomping ground and It hasn’t really changed much, except for one thing……where are the kids?  As I walked around the streets that were once filled with the clattering of skateboard wheels, there was nothing.  No people, no noise, no tomfoolery, nothing!  Surely this was just an isolated occurance, wasn’t it?  Nope!  I went to a few of the areas where I grew up and besides for teenage drinkers hanging round the parks, there wer no children about. Had everyone been transported away by aliens?  Nope, sadly (now you may all start shouting at me with this one, but bear with it) I think all the kids are inside playing games!  Yes I know that we all play them and it is the reason that we are on this site but I think it is wrong that during the warm summer evenings the kids aren’t outside.  I feel that they are missing out on a vital part of growing up by not being out experiencing life, a lot of the decision making processes that we learn come from life experiences, not games.  Faced with a real life situation many youngsters these days just haven’t a clue what to do because they are lacking in life skills, but could get 100 frags no bother.  So kids, put down the joy-pads, switch off the consoles and get your asses outside and see what you have been depriving yourselves of.  Meeting people is great, looking at clouds is awesome, going to concerts is fabulous, falling off your skateboard onto blaize is amazing.  There is always time to play games, I play them, I love playing them, but I also love life.

The ABBA song was “the Piper” and was about the pied piper of Hamlin, was that a clever title or what?