Whether you play games casually or professionally, a gamer needs to be comfortable with his or her peripherals. Nothing is worse than messing up an input command because of a dodgy joystick, quickly prompting a Game Over screen with the faint reflection of your pre-raging face in the monitor. This was an experience I had not too long ago - probably due to bad execution on my part as the joystick is in fact in perfect working order.

From keyboards to wii-remotes, various peripherals can be used on different types of games. Take for example a fighting game, with most gamers opting for the generic joypad, greater precision and faster execution can actually be achieved with the classic arcade joystick, however, it requires a great deal of practice. This actually led to a split in the fighting game community, with heated “pad vs stick” forum discussions including what should or shouldn’t be allowed at tournaments regarding combination button binding for the joypad players.

Joypad or Joystick?

Working at a PC Gaming center, we get a great deal of customers that are a bit, how you might say, “console-orientated” and ask if playing with a joypad is possible on our PC games. Fully understandable with games such as Fifa 2008 and Need for Speed: Pro Street on offer but what puzzles me is when they ask for one for Gears of War or Call of Duty 4. Surely a mouse and keyboard is the best option for a first-person-shooter on the PC?

At the end of the day it’s all about personal preference and what you’re most confortable and confident with that will be the deciding factor in choosing a controller, regardless of what is considered “better” or what has an advantage over the other. I myself still use a 5 year-old mouse for my PC-Gaming even though there are numerous other “gaming-grade” ones out there, a surprise I know, that it still works to this day and I am forever dreading the day it finally decides to die. I even have a friend that prefers to use the bizarre looking “Gaming-Claw” rather than a keyboard for his games. A very unique piece of equipment indeed!

The Gaming Claw!

Today as I sifted through the news on the BBC website, I stumbled across a headline; “Apple unveils thinnest iPod yet”. Being a bit of a techno geek myself, this caught my eye and I thought I would have a gander at Apple’s renovations on the iPod Nano and the iPod touch. I rather like iPods, without ITunes I think my music collection would be severely lacking, so I like to keep up with this kind of thing.

At about 1:07 my chipper mood was jarred slightly by a comment about the new touch “rivalling the best portable games consoles”.  I stopped, backtracked the video slightly and listened again. Yes, yes they did just say that an iPod (for music, no?) is rivalling the best portable games consoles.

The reporter and the lady from Apple in charge of iPod marketing then went on to discuss how this new touch is being marketed as a games console. This odd feeling started to sweep over me as they showed “Need for Speed” and all the touch screen features for this skinny little machine. An ominous feeling, a feeling of dread and “haven’t we been here before…?”.

I can’t help but think that when a piece of technology tries to do too much it ends up being criminally inefficient at what it was originally designed for. Take for example my mobile phone. It’s an LG secret with all the bells and whistles. It’s got a touch screen, Wii-Style games, an MP3 player, a 5 mega pixel camera, and you know what I can’t do? Make calls or text. The touch screen is so over-sensitive that I end up putting my nearest and dearest on hold every 5 seconds and it takes me 10 minutes to send a 6 word text message.

The problem seems to be when they specifically try to add games to the mix. I owned an N-Gage when they first came out, and sadly, whilst the game play was brilliant, the shelf life of the actual phone was only about 6 months (if you were lucky). Now, time has passed of course, so maybe the involvement of games in a machine designed for other things won’t completely mess it up? I’m sorry, but I really wish that companies wouldn’t try to involve games in their latest piece of technology. If I want a portable games console, I will go out and buy a portable games console. After the N-Gage, and now my mobile phone, I’m completely put off when games are involved in an already very good piece of technology.

Am I being too pessimistic? Or would you, the reader, agree that the games should be left to the portable consoles?

Well, one thing is for sure, The touch isn’t anywhere near as pretty as the Nano!

This is a little later than I intended as I had hoped to run a whole series of blogs together on this - so just to recap, we’ve already covered the name, inspirations, and age of the target group you want as members. You can find this through clicking on my profile and checking my previous blog entries.

In this session we’ll cover:

• What kind of people you want to represent you
• How to advertise your Clan
• Clan rules and guidelines
• Playing as a group or team

In other sessions we’ll look at recruiting new members, competing in “Clan-Matches”, and creating a Clan website.

The kind of people you want to represent you

If you are serious about networking with other clans and competing in matches or leagues, then you’ll need people who share the same vision as you do for the clan to be a success. Surround yourself with people who are of a similar personality to yourself, people you will get on with, and players who inspire you. Although you may be the clan leader, you also draw strength and support from other members as well, particularly if they are more skilled in some games than you are. You want people who are committed, reliable, and who you can count on to turn up to agreed games on time with the right attitude. Player attitude is very important as if you act like a bunch of arrogant, immature gamers, then that’s how you will be treated by everyone you come in contact with. It can be a rude wake-up call when you realise you aren’t as good a group as you thought you were, so remember to be respectful to other clans you play against. Bad mouthing any other clan because they aren’t as good as you is a big NO-NO… so keep an eye on how your matches go and how your players behave. I personally do a follow-up with other clan leaders after a match we’ve played to make sure everything was done fairly by my team and to get feedback on how things went.

However if you’re just doing this for a bit of fun between you and your best friends, it’s not so important.

How to advertise your Clan

There’s two easy ways to advertise your clan. The first is to make sure your clan details are written into your Xbox Live profile, which you can access and edit from your console blades. If you use an abbreviation like “RUp <your gamertag>” (RUp - ‘Ready-Up’), as an example, then it shows that your gamertag is associated to that clan tag. Many multiplayer games like ‘Rainbow 6 Vegas 2′ and ‘Call of Duty 4′ allow clan tagging. In your profile BIO, add a bit about you and your clan, and list your website if you have one. If someone plays you online and wants to know more about you, they can just look up your profile for more info.

The other thing to do is register your clan on Xbox.com forums. There is a new clan area where you can promote yourself and what games you play. You can even make posts under each game section on the forums to say you play that game as a clan and are looking for matches, etc. I’ve also used Xbox.com’s forums to advertise for new members, which I’ll discuss later. It’s a valuable resource to use.

Of course you can also promote yourselves online in games to everyone you meet and if you are in a lobby as a group, you can tell others about yourselves. You may meet potential new members or other clans to play. Promote yourselves at every opportunity.

Clan rules and guidelines

This is a touchy one as many clans don’t have rules, just a decision-making leader. Smaller clans like a group of friends have a simple open discussion for any queries, and others have no rules at all. From experience, I can recommend having a set of guidelines at the very least, otherwise chaos can reign very quickly as people go off and do their own thing. The guidelines I use for my clan mainly cover how to behave in public rooms so that we ensure good sportsmanship, fairness, good manners, and certain rules on language, etc. Most of it is common sense amongst our 18+ members and still allows for flexibility and individuality as well as teamwork. Generally you’ll find people don’t like rules at all, but if you aim for a middle-ground of what’s expected you’ll get acceptance and respect as a leader. Strength of character and being committed to what few rules you have is also important. This will help establish you as a strong leader in the eyes of your members.

Playing as a group or team

If you’re serious about playing matches or in leagues against other clans, then you’ll need to get up-to-speed very quickly on how to play as a ‘team’. There are no more ‘lone-wolves’ at this point and everyone shares the same overall objectives, although you may of course split your team in two or more squads to achieve multiple objectives. To use “Call of Duty 4″ as an example, if you’re playing a Domination game you might need to be in more than one place at once, both attacking and defending at the same time, so splitting the team is advised. Naturally there is strength in numbers so a team-leader or group decision can be made on how to organise your troops. A 5x man team may consist of an assault squad of rifleman/heavy gunner, a defend and hold squad of assault or spec ops/support, and a sniper, or maybe a different mix. How you deploy boils down to how you play and what your strategic strengths are.

Communication is the order of the day, so you should all know what you’re aiming to achieve, and where each of you are throughout the game. If you have contact with the enemy, call it out along with your location so your team knows where the attack is coming from if you die. Specifics like how many attackers there are, what weapons they have (maybe special or area of effect weapons like in ‘Gears of War’), if you are injured or ‘downed’, etc. Snipers can be the eyes of the team if played properly, as they have a better line of sight than other players, generally seeing more of the battlefield, and can be used as an effective spotter. Relay as much information to your team as you can about locations and troop movement.

- Thanks for reading! Next time we’ll look at members and matches.