When people look back on the Xbox 360/PS3/Wii generation of consoles, two distinct trends will be seen. Firstly the rise of “casual gaming”, which hopefully will one day be given a new name as it’s the most bland corporate term imaginable. Secondly the “Windowsification” (okay, I can’t come up with terms either) of console gaming came of age this generation more than any other.

The days of console exclusives and PC exclusives is well and truly dead with games like Mass Effect, Assassins Creed and Call of Duty breaking ground in how cross-computer exclusives perform and how they are perceived by the gamer. Patching of games on consoles are now commonplace and on PC more console-esque programs which bring social gaming to the fore are now commonplace and are increasingly sophisticated (XFire and Steam spring to mind).

One aspect of PC gaming which has proven popular on consoles is the humble beta. PC gamers are no strangers to being part of the testing process for a game, selflessly throwing themselves into a world of crashes, glitches and server stress testing for the sake of a better end product but until this generation that simply wasn’t possible for console gamers. Now with the proliferation of digital delivery, developers can give gamers that extra role in development. Halo 3 kicked it off with a multiplayer beta that also served to help give Crackdown the attention it deserved and that was followed by Call of Duty, Red Faction, Uncharted and even betas of new Xbox dashboards. Yet the whole console beta scene is one that utterly baffles me.

Whenever I participated in a PC beta I found it to be half work, half play. It was great fun playing about in a game I wanted months before it was finished, but I was generally asked to do stuff. Come on at certain times to stress test the servers, send bug reports, detail problems you’ve had on beta forums etc etc. You watched each update to the beta code eagerly to see if the problem you had flagged got fixed and if not then you did it all again for the sake of a better game. A beta for a console title is distinctly different however. To begin with you usually sign up for a PC beta giving your set up so they can bring in the kind of gamer they want when they want. Console games give you entry if you buy another game or have a Fileplanet subscription and as such tend to be advertised as a perk (the fanfare surrounding the Halo Reach beta being bundled with Halo: ODST being a prime example).

The whole work aspect isn’t really present either. No bug reporting, no notion that the beta is evolving and changing as the developer develops: you are faced with a static experience and little interaction with the product you are testing. Granted the developer can get information without you delivering it to them but bug reporting on PC betas have been around for years for a reason, it works and gamers can often find problems that quality assurance will miss.

It begs the question that if testing is clearly not as big an aspect for the console beta compared to the PC beta then why not just ditch the beta tag and call it a multiplayer demo? After all, a demo is unfinished code so that should cover the devs from criticism and this way would let everyone play and not just the select few who manage to blag a beta code. As I said, the beta scene is baffling and I suspect that the marketing thought behind putting a beta out is simply beyond comprehension for simple gamers such as myself. However despite being confusing and diluted compared to its bigger PC brother I’m still waiting and hoping for a Modern Warfare 2 beta along with a sneak peak into Bioshock 2’s multiplayer.

After all, I’m a gamer… they are games and getting to try a game early is our holy grail.

‘Hi, I’m the Mayor of ‘Isle Delphino’.

You may remember me as that dashing thing in Super Mario Sunshine with the big nose that mainly made honking noises.  As I’ve only ever done a little side work in Mario Kart Double Dash, I’ve been whiling away the hours writing a guide to summer in video games. Some of these exotic locations may be new to you, others may have only visited them in their younger years.

For starters, I couldn’t start my guide without saying, why not come to my beautiful island, Isle Delfino.

These days, the crime and graffiti levels are at an all time low, and the plant inhabitants who terrorised holiday makers in the past are now firmly under control and muzzled. Instead we now have a wonderful haven which has been visited by celebrities and royalty alike. We have a healthy population of Yoshi living in the surrounding areas and our clear blue seas are pollution free. Since 2002 we have been striving to keep this perfection.

Visit the spectacular Delfino Plaza. Breathtaking views of the Volcano and surrounding mountains and just a short walk to the beach. With plenty of fruit shops to cheer even the pickiest of Yoshi, Delfino Plaza has something for everyone!

A perfect tropical paradise - when not covered in paint.

Of course, lounging around drinking fruit cocktails on sandy beaches isn’t for everyone, so if you are after something with a bit more adventure, how about taking a trip to the lovely Sonic 3’s Angel Island? To get there, you will need to take the Tornado shuttle plane – and if you do, say hello to my friend Miles – as this island floats in the sky. Not only is it is a stones throw away from the popular destinations such as Emerald Hill Zone, Star Light Zone and Hydrocity Zone, but it is also home to Knuckles the Echidna and the shrine he guards, that holds the mystical Master Chaos Emerald.

I must stress, the area is very prone to bush fires. 1994 saw its largest bush fire and it destroyed over 70% of the entire island. But with help from local celebrities and an influx of tourism bringing in the rings, the island is back to its original beauty.

Failing this, my next fantastic location is in a very hot location indeed! Super Mario 3’s Koopahari Desert or ‘Desert Land’ is situated in the Mushroom Kingdom. It’s only a short Airship ride from the ever popular ‘Grass Land’ and the more secluded ‘Water Land’. Since 1990, the area has come under several revamps,  notably the ‘All-Star’ revamp in 1994 when the whole of the ‘Desert Land’ and other popular areas had a huge upgrade, and the buildings were modernised to meet with the times.

Domestic Chain Chomps should be kept on a leash at all times.

The Koopahari Desert is very large, and it can be quite easy to get lost, so I am enclosing a detailed map of the area. Taken from one of our observation aircraft, it lets you can see the whole of the desert. The King’s Palace is usually open for visitors, but there can be the odd domestic incident involving magic that usually keeps it closed for most of the year.

As you can see, some areas are still under revamp by the critically acclaimed 'Hammer Bros LTD'.

Ok, now a holiday in the sun is not for everyone. Some of you may prefer an obscure and some what historical vacation. The ‘Great Demon World Village’ first appeared on the map in 1988 for those people who are obsessed with mythology and the after life. Comparing itself to Whitby and Disney Land, the setting from Ghouls and Ghosts should satisfy anyone interested in the paranormal and doesn’t mind the odd fright or three. Home to the great Knight Arthur and Princess Guinevere.

With a vast amount of things to see and do in this place, it will be very unlikely you will venture any further than the first main area of the ‘Demon World’. Only a few have travelled further, though I have been told that they only get as far as the ship yard. If anyone does get further than the ship yard, please let me know as I will add anything new to my guide book.

As you can see, Arthur is ready for a dip, but seems to have mislaid the seaside. In this photo he appears to be asking a local farmer for directions.

When doing my research on the area, I came to believe that there must be a swimming bath or seaside nearby, due to a hairy man running around in some rather fetching underpants, though this is yet to be confirmed. The locals are all about, hoodies and fake chests that bite you. Silicon seems to be all the rage these days.  The weather is very unpredictable and it does rain most days.  Also, there are quite a few red buzzing, flying things that fly at you that can be quite annoying at times.

Hmm… reminds me of a British summer actually…’

With our pastime, we are often presented with fantastical worlds and incredible characters capable of almost anything. But surely few gaming characters have ever been so unique, and unusual, as the one I’m going to look at today. As unrealistic as Bub ‘n’ Bob, as crazy as Parodius; it’s a sad thing indeed that Space Michael (or M. Jackson as he’s sometimes known) is unlikely to appear in any more games.

Since first appearing in the classic Moonwalker games; MJ has endeared himself to fans with his superhuman antics and his surreal world (not to mention that killer soundtrack). What other character has ever lived in a world so strange? Where touching a chimpanzee results in being transformed into a death-dealing, laser-firing, body-popping robot? Or the way his dance of death (literally) defied gravity, physics and the limits of the human body. He landed in arcades and on home consoles like a traveller from Mars, and set feet and trigger-fingers tapping to the beat. A true icon of gaming had arrived.

Other good things followed too; his increasingly outlandish appearance, and increasingly unbelievable physical moves, saw him appear as a Special Guest character in the Space Channel 5 and Ready 2 Rumble Boxing franchises. Both series were a good fit as he moved with impossible speed and grace, and spun and tilted in ways no mere human could hope to achieve.

So why didn’t the character go on to spawn more franchises and cross-over games? Was there no room for a Space Michael Kart Racer on shop shelves? Well, I can’t help but wonder if it was around this time that developers started to lose a grip on their creation. As developers looked to improve on past successes, design choices seemed to get stranger and stranger – leaving the partly-real world of early games far behind. A number of stylistic redesigns saw him end up looking like a goth/vampire character from Japanese anime; very far from the more regular appearance of his early sprites that had helped to cement his popularity. Sound design too was poor, with MJ apparently speaking an alien language of woops and hollers understandable only to him. Plus his constant queries as to “Who is bad?”, never seemed to be met with a satisfactory answer.

Game design and production were generally excellent, but there was one early, and now infamous, glitch in his games which resulted in the character moving backwards while the sprite’s animation was clearly walking forwards. Game designers claimed the glitch to be an intentional piece of design, but almost no-one was convinced.

And perhaps worst of all, were the plotlines. A convoluted and bizarre backstory was allowed to grow around the character. We were told that he lived in a fantasyland, that he acquired great wealth only to lose it again, and that he married Elvis Presley’s daughter of all people! But this only served to distract gamers from the great games that had made his name in the first place.

Whatever critics might say about the eccentric appearance and the strange goings on in the plotlines, it can’t be denied that Michael Jackson has left a significant and enduring legacy to gamers. With fun at their heart and a sense of the performer throughout, he leaves fans with a collection of memories as unique as he was. But is that the end?

Almost as quickly as we heard the character was no more, Dave Perry (formerly of Shiny Entertainment) announced that he had been developing a new game around the character. Like Duke Nukem before him, I suppose this offers a ray of hope to those fans who wish to believe their hero may rise again. That funding and a brave developer could be found to revive the project. But whatever the future brings, there’s always that back catalogue to delve into. To reminisce, to revel in the good times, and to pay respects to this truly great entertainer.