To this day, I’ve never gotten past the start of it. Certain PC games can be difficult to adjust to if you’re used to playing on a console. But I thank IO Interactive for that beauty because, were it not for Codename 47, this game would never have been made:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Hitman 2: Silent Assassin holds a very special place in my heart. Everything about it is designed to please. I’m yet to discover a game in the same genre that rivals its gameplay skill, environs, and music. Its score alone has in fact been the centre of much acclamation, with its beautiful yet trendy harmonies that, when experienced through the levels in which they appear, really make for works of art. And Agent 47, the series’ protagonist, is up there in my top five game characters of all time. Even his walk oozes merited confidence.

The two games that followed, Hitman: Contracts and Hitman: Blood Money respectively, were undoubtedly good games and I really enjoyed them. Compared to most games of their ilk, they stand out a mile. But I found them more accessible for the mainstream, and as such lacked the magic that enchanted me in the first game. In balancing stealth with action, the subtlety and nuance I experienced in Silent Assassin was diluted.

In trying to shock players, the gameplay of Contracts and Blood Money was a little degraded.

And now I feel Agent 47’s breath on the back of my neck once again, with Hitman: Absolution due for release around June this year. Here’s the trailer:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Now, I can forgive this trailer for showing Agent 47 as a bald Robbie Williams. What I perhaps can’t forgive is that it shows little of the stealth gameplay that originally defined the series. Absolution is also said to introduce new gameplay features, which could be a good or a bad thing. I suppose my main hope is that the missions still challenge me. I’d hate more than anything to find challenge replaced with lots more ’splosions. So for now I’m trying to reserve judgement as best I can by keeping both my expectations and my excitement to a minimum.

...Well, almost to a minimum

So my question, really, is why would someone do this? Why, when you’ve defeated a boss and explored a cave or two, would you not save that progress so that it doesn’t matter if the game crashes, or if someone changes the channel, or if someone sits down on the floor and in so doing accidentally turns the Xbox off with their bottom? Is that bottom really to blame, or is it the fault of the player for failing to ensure that progress is safe?

Personally, I save as regularly as I can. For example, I frequently save when in the middle of a fight. Saving is always on my mind – the idea of losing that hard-earned progress to some avoidable incident is unthinkable. But I guess I actually feel a little lame about this. My Skyrim save file could give Walmart’s data cache a run for its money, and it interrupts my flow a great deal. So am I being too harsh on people like my boyfriend? He certainly thinks so and has insisted on making a statement on the matter. He has this to say:

“How can I even think about saving when I’m so immersed in the game and concentrating so hard on what’s going on? It feels so real, and every time you stop to save, it takes you out of the game. It’s worth the risk of not saving so that you can lose yourself. Even though you’re frustrated when it all goes wrong and you die, you still gain so much from it when you don’t have to stop every five minutes to save. It’s not a macho thing. I don’t think to myself I don’t have to save because I’m too damn good. It’s not about that for me, certainly. The game should challenge you, and you should be taking calculated risks; if you think you’ll die if you charge headlong into a battle, you should back off a little bit. So it changes your strategy; you play in a slightly more realistic manner if you know you’re going to lose something by dying. You try to be more tactical with how you’re playing.”

So should players have to take more accountability for their actions? I agree that my resolve to save so regularly prevents me from losing myself in the game. It also makes me feel rather pathetic – a little wimpish, if you will – and this really doesn’t fit well with my Skyrim Dark Elf self-image.

But my problem is that if I can save, I will save. I guess I feel that I have to. To lose progress simply because I neglected to save would make me so incredibly mad with myself, and I’d begrudge doing it over again. And when my boyfriend has to redo a chunk of game play because he didn’t save, it’s because he knows he could have. I think he partly blames himself and ends up frustrated as a result.

Should developers prevent players from saving so regularly, or should players be able to save as regularly as they choose? The ability to save whenever you want to sounds like perfect player-centric game design, but perhaps it removes the player from the game in some ways. I’m not sure. I just know that as long as I can save whenever I want to, I’m going to do it.

As I mentioned in my last blog, my fiancé and I each bought a copy of the game. We have created a kind of ‘double set-up’, which comprises two LCD TVs, two Xbox 360s, a two-seater couch, and an infinite supply of Domino’s pizza. Taking it in turns to play Skyrim was an alien concept to us. No self-respecting Dark Elf is going to freeze a Breton into a solid block, hack him to death, set fire to his dead body, then stop to watch his fiancé do the very same thing.

This is Ragnar, my Skyrim Dark Elf.

This is Munkyus, my fiancé's Breton.

Skyrim is a brilliant game. It’s huge and far more believable than its predecessor, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Two of the biggest flaws with Oblivion were the AI and the repetitive dialogue. But the characters in Skyrim have a lot more depth — each one seems to have more dialogue reserves and the way they behave when around you seems far more organic. The characters and animals also look markedly more sophisticated and believable.

Skyrim Khajiit. Looks like my Oblivion Khajiit zero per cent.

Skyrim Argonian. The most aesthetically impressive but useless of races.

Skyrim itself is beautiful, boasting cities built on mountain sides, waterfalls, and snow-capped mountains. I’ve enjoyed every minute of being in its almost living, breathing province that goes about its business even when I’m not around to witness all the woodcutting and dragon-slaying.

Ah, the dragon-slaying; what fun there is to be had. Watching a dragon fly through the Skyrim sky is for me like watching a living creature fly above a very real and expansive land. Add to this the fact these encounters are randomly generated and you have a very absorbing experience. It’s incredible.

If I were to slay a dragon in real life, this is just how I imagine it going down.

I’ve always played games, so I’m no stranger to feeling this kind of awe and immersion. But it’s these past experiences that make me realise exactly what makes this Skyrim experience so magical. It’s playing alongside my awesome boyfriend; being completely lost in Skyrim’s fantastical world, eyes glued to the screen and ears encapsulated in headphones, then looking over at my fiancé’s screen and seeing what he’s getting up to; seeing if he’s doing part of the main story or a side mission, whether he’s exploring an area that I’ve not seen yet, how many dragons he’s slain, how he’s levelling his character differently to how I’m levelling mine… that’s what makes it such a beautiful experience. I know I go on about the benefits of gaming, but these experiences really underscore the value games bring to my life.

Mummy Bear and Daddy Bear Skyrim.

This may have added to the experience a little too.

I spent over 300 hours playing Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. I had seen 431 game-days pass, completed 154 quests and found 231 places. I was a good citizen, a mighty hero, and an all-round nice Khajiit. I milked that game’s heavy, swollen, nutrient-rich teats until they had barely anything left to give; until they were totally swollen, not with deliciousness but from overuse, sore from friction.

I can’t imagine how much Bethesda must have put into creating that game. And now, to my utter joy, I hear they are creating another Elder Scrolls progeny. I don’t think my excitement could be greater.

I can’t tell you too much about Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, other than it’s due out in November. I’ve actively avoided details of the game. I hate hype, it’s probably the most evil creation ever born from marketing. It taints my relationship with games beyond repair. I hadn’t heard anything about Oblivion when I picked it up, and only a little of BioShock, and I’m sure that’s partly why I loved them so dearly.

However, as much as I might try to avoid exposure to Skyrim, I have a boyfriend, and that boyfriend had a mouth. A big mouth. Long story short, I hear rumours that your character’s weapons won’t break, which means you won’t have to put time and money into repairing them. You can also use two weapons or spells simultaneously – fun, huh? I’ve also seen the teaser, which boasts beautiful landscapes, moving the Elder Scrolls overworld into the current generation quite nicely. Compared to Oblivion, Skyrim seems somehow even more fantastical. The Skyrim trailer features a dragon – one of the few mythical creatures missing from its predecessor. The land itself also looks a little more mystical.

Skyrim landscape

My boyfriend and I are so excited about playing this game, so much so, in fact, that we’ve been arguing over who will be playing and who will be watching. The outcome of these debates was a pre-ordering of two copies. We will be playing side-by-side, each on a different TV, because that’s the way we roleplay.

Christmas is an amazing time to play roleplay games. That calm, cosy tranquillity that’s all around you at Christmas acts as a powerful counterpoint to the energetic buzz of your fantasy world. I can’t wait to spend every day of my two-week holiday exploring Skyrim.

But before I expose the source of that emotional flux, bear in mind that I am a hardcore gamer, and by that I mean gaming is a fundamental part of my life. I spend more time gaming than I do indulging in any other recreational pursuit, I like my games to challenge me, and I like games that force me to invest myself. I hope you can bear that in mind and thereby retain some respect for me when I tell you that I have spent more time interacting with Sims over the past two weeks than I have doing anything else. That includes eating, sleeping, and doing toilet. I haven’t had time for such activities, what with all the eating, sleeping and doing toilet that must be done in The Sims 3.

While I was playing the game, I realised why its market is primarily female. I’d like to tell you that it’s because women appreciate the beauty of emergent stories better than men do, but I’d be lying. The reason is that all Sims games are virtual dolls houses, and The Sims 3, even with its expansive locales and exhaustive Sim traits, is no exception.

I’ve played both of the previous Sims games, but I didn’t even come close to enjoying them like I’m enjoying The Sims 3. There are two main reasons. Firstly, I made the shit-hottest Sims house you’ll ever see in your life. It had doors, windows… the lot. I’m most proud of the front room, with its spacious layout but cosy character, and the garden that boasts different shades of grass and beautiful flowers which offset a good-sized swimming pool.

The second thing I love about playing The Sims 3 is family-making. At 30 years of age, being very much in love with my boyfriend, I would love nothing more than to make babies. I want to make lots of little Joeys and Celestes, but despite my persistent whines and moans I have to accept that the time simply isn’t right. But in The Sims 3, if your boyfriend tells you the time isn’t right you can simply knock him up an exquisite lobster surprise and he’ll knock you up in return.

What was even more beautiful was that, displeased with never getting to see me, my real-life boyfriend got involved! After protesting many times about my sim kissing men who weren’t the sim incarnation of him (as my sim was of me), he demanded I insert him into my game. So we spent time creating a Joey sim and he and my sim were married not long after. The ceremony was delightful. Sophisticated yet intimate. The pair quickly settled into married life, delighted with their newfound love and commitment… and oh how they made babies.

They had twins. One looked like Joe’s sim and the other looked like mine. We raised them responsibly and as a result were able to mould them into the sim children that we had always dreamed of since first installing the game.

All of a sudden my sim found herself as a wife, a mother, and a professional, giving so much of her time to so many other people. It was tough, but rewarding, and before I knew it I was playing on the game from morning until morning, doing nothing but, even when it came time to learn my lines for a radio show I was featuring on!

The Sims games are so much more than Ikea-shopping simulations. They’re storytelling engines, and I’ve not had this much fun since my Barbie got together with Ken. So I’m off to kick ass and change nappies.

L.A. Noire was a breath of fresh air. For far too long I’ve been jaded by shallow action games, desperately trying to milk a fix out of them in the absence of anything substantial. The likes of BioShock and Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion are elusive gems of the industry. I enjoyed games in a very intense way when I was younger. I didn’t have to try to enjoy them. I didn’t have to strive for the climax. Sadly this is no longer the case.

But L.A. Noire was one of the few beauties that forced me to use my mind, and it gave me motivation to do it by giving me characters I cared about and a story arc I wanted to expose. The game rounded it all off nicely with a ‘40s L.A. that I wanted to explore. It even gave me additional reasons to explore it. For example, Team Bondi gave me photographic negatives of game locations where special badges were hidden, ready to be collected, as well as gold film reels scattered in more discrete areas of the game world. L.A. Noire gave me something that I rarely get from games anymore: excitement. It was released on May 20th and I’ve been playing it solidly since then. For that I praise it.

Yes, even this is achievable for the more savvy player.

The fact that the game was published by Rockstar seems to have planted an idea in people’s minds that should not necessarily have been there. It wasn’t developed by Rockstar – it was never meant to be a film noire rendition of GTA.

I don’t agree with Anthony and those who share his view that L.A. Noire’s story was any more out of place for this medium than was, say, BioShock’s or Fallout 3’s. It’s certainly a different kind of game to that of the latter – an open world with many ways of going about the same task simply would not have worked for the game because of its mechanics. It was primarily a puzzle game – puzzles have a single answer. That’s how they work, there’s no point to them otherwise. L.A. Noire’s facial capture was incredible, taking the medium to new heights and allowing me to judge the authenticity of the game character’s testimonies and judging what, if any, evidence to confront them with. This all complemented the game’s puzzle mechanics beautifully.

I think Anthony’s opinions reflect a more pervasive matter of the industry regarding the way that stories ‘fit’ into games. Many people assert that the interactivity inherent to the video game medium renders traditional means of storytelling redundant, yet people continue to shoehorn them in, or as the game designer Chris Crawford puts it, “attempt to plug interactive storytelling into a medium that has no architectural slot in which the storytelling might be plugged”. This is a far more complex matter. I do hold the opinion that the industry has far to go to achieve a storytelling mechanism truly worthy of the interactivity inherent to video games. But in a world where this has yet to be achieved, I think L.A. Noire should be lauded for what it proffers.

The work of a jaded developer?

I worked briefly in a games development studio myself and indeed witnessed a certain propensity towards crunch. There was a pervasive feeling that it was time to work overtime and eat pizza, and we were all out of pizza.

There seems to be an assumption in the games industry that anyone working in it is damn well lucky to be doing so — that for every designer, programmer and artist there’s another 100 ready to take their job — so you’d either better close your eyes and suck hard or get the hell out.

Game development is a young man’s game, and younger people are less likely to have other commitments, such as children, demanding their time. This could make them susceptible to professional exploitation. There are a number of junior roles being created in the industry — roles that offer low pay yet demand high productivity. As one anonymous commenter on L.A. Noire’s development put it, “It’s abhorrent that these young kids are being thrown into a 24/7 corpse grinder with perpetual crunch and weekend overtime”. 60-hour work weeks with no overtime pay were mentioned in the IGN article. There’s also a shortfall of people entering the industry with a suitable skill set. In other words, the industry is hard-pressed to find enough talent to ease the burden of those who are adequately qualified.

Could a contingent yet fragmented relationship between publisher and developer — between administration and creativity — also be at the root of the problem? Is it acceptable that this situation is the norm for major developers? And how might things look in the future when technology gets more sophisticated and consumer expectations become even less forgiving?

Okay, so your best friend’s made off with your copy of Mortal Wombat as well as your limited edition wombat-beater peripheral. What’s the big deal? You can go beat some pensioners down the post office with their own walking sticks just as well.

But it’s not just a game, is it? It’s a whole lot more than that to you. It’s a drug. It’s your escape. It’s your time machine, your cultural plaything or your portal to another dimension. Face it: you’re not interested in beating anything these days unless the arterial spray is a simulated one.

This is the premise on which Nintendo has built its entire corporation, after all. You want to play tennis? Do it in your living room without silly complications like rackets and balls. You want to look after a dog? Do it just for Christmas. You want to compete in the Olympics? You’re shit! Stay indoors and play Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games instead.

In Nintendoland, you always da man!

It’s hard to believe that a medium so engrained in our lives has only existed for less than half a century. Gamers are only in their second generation. The first arcade game only came ten years before I was born, yet by the time I was plopped into the world in ’81 you couldn’t walk five feet without bumping into one.

Now look at the bloody place! 40 years after Nolan Bushnell’s Computer Space, and only 50 years after Steve Russell’s Spacewar!, the first interactive computer game in existence ever, the world spends more on interactive gaming than it does on both music and film combined. Hell, people even let me write my opinions about games on a website for other people to read, people who subsequently develop choice opinions of their own regarding my choice opinions and in voicing them make me wonder what’s so fundamentally wrong with these people that they actually care what I think about anything.

It’s crazy to think that gaming is so new to the world. I game every day. As soon as I’m finished writing this blog, in fact, I’m off to play Portal 2. Then write my opinions about it for other people to read.

What must God think? He turns his back on the world for five minutes to help some seraph civilisation increase its altruism efficiency rate and when he turns back we’ve turned the place into a games room. He must be livid. Last time we got in trouble it was for eating an apple. Man, he must be real pissed this time.

Similarly, I never cursed the game for insufficient resources whilst I hammered The Taken for taking me. If I ever found myself low on ammo, I knew it was my fault for being trigger-happy during the last ambush. Chainsaws have that effect on me. Health and ammo conservation was a game mechanism used to challenge me, and I couldn’t fault Alan Wake for that.

The Taken are always up my frikkin ass

But I think this kind of textbook game design has its drawbacks. When set an objective and a map-marker, I’ve historically always turned in the opposite direction in order to explore. But in 3D adventure games, with progression often comes a road block preventing you from retracing your steps. So well-timed exploration becomes crucial for those seeking a 100% achievement score or a highly intimate game experience. But whenever I tried to really digress from the game path in Alan Wake, I met a wall. The path really was ‘It’.

Alan Wake is an example of a game that delivers what it promises but no more, and I’m not sure that we should settle for that in this day and age (yeah I said it – I’m allowed to, I’m almost 30). Aside from the more open game worlds we have now, like those of the Grand Theft Auto series, there are many 3D adventure games that behave in this linear fashion but are intelligent enough to make you feel as though they aren’t so linear.

The first four Silent Hill games are constructed using generally linear maps, but they proffer small choices regarding how to negotiate them. The developers throw in small events to make the game world seem bigger, such as having the protagonist climb from one building to another. And backtracking obstructions are fewer – revisiting earlier maps is sometimes even necessary.

Forbidden Siren 1 and 2 work similarly. If you were to make a Google map of Alan Wake’s game world and trace a pen along it from beginning to end, not only would you be called an outrageous geek but you would more or less draw a single line. In Forbidden Siren’s and Silent Hill’s maps, however, you would draw branching points covering larger areas. A Google street map would also show you more constructions to explore and when navigating these maps, buildings would make them seem more expansive than they really are by obscuring borders and distances.

Google street view - Bright Falls

I’ve been meaning to write about Alan Wake for some time because it’s a technically good game. But I guess my question is this; if a game is technically good does that make it actually good? Alan Wake would score highly if marked by modern game design instructors; it’s perfectly paced, has a balanced difficulty curve and a steady flow. But the experience leaves me wanting, perhaps not in spite of this but because of this.

I touched upon how playing online games with friends has helped me through difficult times in my last blog. However, my point here is that that’s not all it’s done. At a more fundamental level it’s helped me to simply enjoy myself again. It’s taken over my lone game-time; my single-player adventure game sessions. Well, that together with the embarrassing shortfall of high-quality titles in recent years.

Ready Up hosts gaming nights on Mondays and Thursdays where staff and forumers play a new and popular game together. This has included Grand Theft Auto IV, which gave rise to Tony impressively using player avatars as human skittles, and more recently Call of Duty: Black Ops, which gave rise to me not so impressively repeatedly embarrassing myself on the end-game scoreboard.

With my second Ready Up meet only two months away I’m getting increasingly excited about meeting these great people again whom I share much in common with. Community gaming alone shows you how far the videogame industry has come since the ‘70s and ‘80s – the era of the elite bedroom coder.

Sexy people in sexy t-shirts

For a day or two after my sister had passed I didn’t know what to do with myself. However, if not only because I wanted my friends to feel comfortable around me when I reappeared on the radar, I shortly started playing online games again, mostly Call of Duty: Black Ops.

Both emotionally and digitally, this image conveys exactly where I was at

At this point something amazing happened. When I was online I wasn’t thinking about my situation or that of my family. I was simply playing games with my friends, making jokes, laughing at other people’s jokes, getting to grips with my good friend Michael Slevin’s manifold afflictions and life complaints (dry eye, anyone?) and just generally having my mind filled with pleasure rather than pain. Each time I switched my Xbox 360 on I was taken to a place of transitory contentment.

Mainstream investigative journalism has yet to really focus on the positive aspects of gaming, which is a shame because every strongly affective cultural influence has both positive and negative aspects to it. Traditional art, music and cinema have the power to fill us with many emotions and to expose us to an array of concepts that we may or may not be positively receptive to.

When you take medication for a medical condition, you are doing so despite the number of side effects and possible addictions associated with taking that medication. You decide that the benefits outweigh the disadvantages. When you consider that we’re talking about substances that not only can but actually often do destroy people’s lives, the significance of this notion is underscored. Pharmaceutical-related dependency and ailments are actually very real in our modern, drug-dependent society.

I like the comparison between pharmaceutical drugs and videogames. It illustrates the idea that games can be highly beneficial despite the fact that some people will experience undesirable effects in some circumstances. If I didn’t have access to games and the social networks they’ve generated for me, who’s to say that I would not have turned to hardcore drugs during my sister’s passing? There have been many times in my life where I am certain I would have succumbed to recreational drugs had games not been so readily available.

Mr Mackey, a man of few words that aren't 'm'kay'

Games are being increasingly recognised as multifaceted media offering so much that modern society holds valuable including cultural exploration and social experience. Games sharpen hand-eye coordination as well as creative and logical thinking. They allow the scientific method to be applied in safe environments. As a result, many disciplines including those of the education system (see James Paul Gee’s numerous papers for interesting reading on the educational potential of videogames) and the medical profession (for example, see Pulse!!) are heavily utilising videogames for their didactic properties.

My sister’s passing was a horrible event, an event that videogames are helping me get through, just as they have done at every breakup I’ve ever experienced, just as they have done at every other unpleasant life event you could care to mention. And just as they have always been there for me, so shall I now, through Ready Up, be there for them.

This idea is central to traditional and dynamic game difficulty adjustment as well as to all other tuneable options with which players can create bespoke gameplay. People get different things out of games and as such want to play quite differently to one another.

Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

I’ve always known this; the copious traditional and emergent game genres tell me this, as do the beautifully intricate and personal altercations provoked between gaming communities by new releases. However, nothing tells me this quite like watching my mum play Half Life with her invincibility, invisibility and infinite ammo (?) cheats activated and a meticulously detailed walkthrough by her side. If there was some way to look at a game, a look that told it to be completed without ever having to lift a finger – a sly, Kenny Craig-type eyebrow-raising in my head – I rather think my mum would utilise it.

Kenny Craig, celebrity hypnotist

My mum resents – actually resents – being forced to undertake any kind of in-game challenge. I, on the other hand, am bored, even offended when a challenge is not forced upon me. It’s strange to see such transparently different play styles in the same household, to see how two people can actively seek and be rewarded by two entirely different game experiences.

Of course with RPGs things are slightly different because of the amount of gameplay on offer and your character’s narrowed ability to engage in it all. But I still undertake every mission that RPGs allow me to. Even those residual missions that turn my angelic, law-abiding, evil-slaying hero into a dirty, citizen-face-stabbing, prostitute-beating crack-whore (never suggest vanilla when you’re in bed with me, baby).

So, while my mum engages in her boss battle with infinite lives and invincibility under her bullet-proof belt, complaining about this rude interruption to her diehard trinket-collecting and environ-exploring, I cannot see what she could possibly be getting from the experience. I’ve created the following formula to demonstrate my feelings on the matter:

My mum’s goal is of course immersion. But how can one be immersed if he/she is not engaging in any challenges? Challenges are a part of life and only in overcoming them are we able to feel satisfaction. It is this pattern that ultimately immerses a person in a book, a film or a game. In a book or a film the audience struggles to make sense of the scenarios described, sometimes in competition with the author as the audience races to figure things out before experiencing any direct expositions. My mum’s definition of immersion is therefore very different to my own. It is one that I will never really understand.

Although there is another dimension to all of this. I enjoy, in all honesty, being punished. It’s the reason I get so much out of Call of Duty: Black Ops multiplayer games. Because when I do come top of the leaderboard (which has happened an impressive one times as of this writing) it tastes all the sweeter. The fact that my mum would choose to vomit on the creator of such games if she was ever forced to play them just goes to show how diverse gamers really are.

I’ve played so many games, in fact, that I find myself thinking about them even when I’m not playing them. You know, simply observing life events in light of them. They’ve made a big impression on my comparatively bland world and so they influence my thoughts at the most inappropriate times.

One of my favourite such times is when I’m asked  a markedly pointless or dull question to which I am expected to provide some sort of an answer. I mull over my potential offerings like Threepwood giving a press conference.

As fun as games are I can’t help but think that being part of one — actually being born into a videogame — would be more fun. Artillery wouldn’t be in short supply and nor would ammunition. (Why this appeals to me is the matter of an imminent therapy session rather than this blog). Okay, so I’d likely have a few aliens/demons/horrifyingly disfigured entities to deal with but I mean who doesn’t? My boss has a pair of eyeballs that would put a post G-Virus William Birkin to shame and I have to handle him every deadline.

My life would undoubtedly be simpler, too. Take locating misplaced belongings as an example. I’d simply look around the room to find the objects that were glinting in the dark (well I didn’t say games were lessons in physics). If it ain’t glowing then I ain’t picking it up — simple.

In effect, failure simply would not feature in my world. Even the most challenging situations would be softened by the encouraging protection offered by checkpoints. Just think how that could benefit me. The words ‘deadline shmeadline’ come to mind.

Repetitive boss-fight intros wouldn’t scare me anyhow; my mum begins all fresh warfare armed with the very same nag. It’s evolved into a sort of tribal war chant, in fact, and I’ve become impressively adept at tuning it out. Most of it seems to have something to do with mops.

Yes, that is actually my mum

Japan Underground is the baby of Tom Smith, a journalist and DJ who understands the impulses of ‘Japanophiles’ only too well and aims to pacify these impulses as best he can. The club night, which aims to ‘bring the buzz of Tokyo’s alternative nightlife to England’, exclusively plays Japanese music.

The opening party is being held on 17 November and has a Sengoku Basara theme – Japan’s popular feudal brawler franchise. It will run from 7pm to 2am, and in this time you will be treated to the Sengoku Basara: Samurai Kings game from Capcom, showings of the anime series from Manga Entertainment, Japanese-style box and bar karaoke, a Sengoku Basara-themed DJ set, and performances from Japanese bands HITT and 10.

For the real Japanamaniacs there will also be some purikura – a photo session that lets you customise your pictures to add amusing backgrounds, effects and text.

The launch party is being held at King Pin Suit of Bloomsbury near Russell Square. Tickets are £5 (in advance) or £6 (on the door) –visit the blog site to purchase.

Hey, did any of you guys go to Game On in 2002? You know, the videogame exhibition exploring ‘the history, culture and the future of video games’. The event that let you play an opposable-thumb-trembling array of systems – from the crudest computer games through to early, not so early, and I-really-wish-we-had-released-this-thing-when-people-still-played-in-arcades coin-op machines, all the way to primitive and contemporary console games.

Cool, wasn’t it? But did any of you go to the second Game On expo in 2006/07? The one with everything minus the machines and the visitors? Yea, kind of sucked didn’t it?

Well guess what? There’s a new exhibition in town. It’s called R3play (pronounced ‘replay’, not ‘rthreeplay’, silly). It’s supported by industry magazine behemoths Retro Gamer and gamesTM, and it’s coming to Norbreck Castle, Blackpool on November 6 and 7 2010.

Game On Games

Game On People

Like Game On, the expo will explore the big three Cs: consoles, coin-ops and computers. However, unlike Game On it will exhibit over 300 systems – that’s almost double what we saw at Game On! That pile that you’ve left festering in the corner of your bedroom comprised of the games that you will never get around to playing is going to look like a Crystal Dynamics videogame series compared to this baby!

What’s that? You want me to excite you even more? Then try this on for size: you will be able to take part in gaming competitions. Now, I’m not talking about the meaningless comparisons of Xbox Live gamerscores – a number that merely reflects when you got on-board with the Xbox 360 (don’t look at mine) – or even your run-of-the-mill multiplayer game – I’m talking about fierce, in-the-flesh contests with some of the best players around on some of the best games in history. Yea, this is big boy shit.

For those of you who can handle more excitement without climaxing, check out the R3play website for further announcements and to buy tickets.

At least a portion of R3play funds will be going to Macmillan Cancer Support and The National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park, because, you know, we gamers will eventually save the world.

The combined hours I have spent playing games must accumulate to months, perhaps years. I love it, but, like any pleasurable activity (aside from that one, obviously), too much can temporarily jade you. You grow tolerant. At these times I have to make a decision: do I continue playing regardless, stop playing entirely, or attempt to rekindle my passion for the hobby?

This time, I took the last option. And what’s the best way to handle tolerance? Raise the dose, of course. So I looked for a game that would be exhilarating. A game that would not let itself be beaten easily. A game that was… impossible.

On searching through the Xbox Live Marketplace I found myself inexplicably drawn to The Impossible Game. I vaguely recalled reading favourable reviews of this indie side-scroller when FlukeDude released it in November 2009. So I tested the water.

And I was surprised, primarily because of its sheer impossibleness. I’ve always thought of games as worlds, and for me, The Impossible Game comprised a simple world of triangles and cubes. A simple world of triangles that hate cubes and want to see them destroyed. A simple world where black cubes mostly want to help orange cubes but sometimes want to help orange cubes become annihilated by triangles at breakneck speed.

The second thing that surprised me was the outrageous addiction that transpired. It was an annoyingly inconvenient addiction, too. I couldn’t bring myself to put the controller down, despite the hand cramp and the backache, which made my normal daily activities frustratingly awkward. Hauling my 360 to and from the office became a part of my daily routine. I even managed to obscure my play sessions by strategically builing a desktop fort composed of laptop screens, ringbinders and Starbucks coffee cups.

Naturally I’d experienced all these symptoms of game addiction before. The salient difference here was its source; an almost uninterrupted conveyorbelting of my cube avatar into triangles and cubes that forced me to restart the level from scratch — an experience interrupted only by sleep, itself filled with dreams of an almost uninterrupted conveyorbelting of my cube avatar into triangles and cubes that forced me to restart the level from scratch.

My first night of playing saw me reach the 700-attempt mark. From the third night, my Impossible Game dreams became progressively more disturbing.

Dream third night - ?

Dream fourth night - ??

Dream fifth night - ???!

On the third day I was undeniably yet begrudgingly dedicated, granting myself cessation only to eat and update friends on my progress. One such friend, who goes by the gamertag of The Rook, did not seem all too impressed by the game’s challenge, despite its breakneck side-scrolling speed. His lack of appreciation only served to rekindle my affection for the game in protest.

I began to consider why it was I felt so compelled to keep playing. This was the conclusion I reached: the game is simple where it needs to be simple and hard where it needs to be hard. It’s simple to play because it’s a game of timing rather than complex button combos and it only has a single, relatively short level featuring a mere three obstacles (triangles, cubes and pits). However, succeeding is hard because the game’s speed combined with its need for jump-accuracy generates a substantial challenge. It heavily relies on muscle memory, which results in frequent, or in my case constant failures.

So I started calculating how long it would take a dedicated player to beat the game — whether it would be weeks or perhaps even months — when suddenly and without warning, my calculating was rudely interrupted by the unwelcome answer:

The Rook: Mission Apparently Possible

The Rook, evidently running on smug, had beaten the game within days. Congratulating him, I tried to conceal my frustration and envy at the indifference with which he had undertaken the game and the ease with which he had nonetheless beaten it. I’d been striving on and off for a couple of weeks, resolutely nursing my adrenaline back to full health after every car crash, and I was still only halfway through the ruddy level.

Over the next couple of days my dedication started to waver. I still enjoyed playing The Impossible Game, but the unwelcome side-effects that had waved their squatter’s rights in the face of my life were starting to overshadow this enjoyment. The stress dreams were incessant and my colleagues now suspected that I wasn’t shooting-up during lengthy trips away from my desk after all.

In my final attempt to emerge victorious, I decided an audience might improve my performance. But, taking one look at the screen, my mum — a less-than-enthusiastic spectator anyway — simply condemned the creator to play his own game uninterrupted for the rest of his life and walked away with contempt.

I’ve not yet beaten the game, but I suspect my heart’s not in it anymore, at least not in actually beating it. But I’m still a determined gamer. I won’t allow my adeptness at sucking to reduce my enjoyment of playing anything ever again. I will simply be resolutely rubbish.

No, I’m not talking about an epidemic.  CURE (Citizens for Undead Rights and Equality) is gathering its zombified supporters and going straight to the Old Palace Yard, opposite the Houses of Parliament, to campaign for undead rights. Anyone is welcome to attend. CURE envisages the event to be a “highly-visible, good-natured gathering [that] will be the talk of Westminster as up to 100 zombies campaign for equal rights for the living dead…”

In May this year, CURE campaigned as a political party in the general election in four constituencies: Brighton Pavilion, Doncaster Central, Hitchin and Harpenden, and Twickenham. What’s more, it only came last in one of them, suggesting that people are at least partially willing to listen to the moans of the undead. Either that or zombies seemed like the lesser of two evils.

The campaign, endorsed by Capcom, is being led by CURE’s ­­­staunch head, Stacy Forsyth. Stacy, who will appear as a character in Capcom’s upcoming Xbox 360 survival horror title Dead Rising 2, is a stalwart advocate of undead rights. It’s testament to her commitment to CURE that, like a games industry Angelina Jolie, Stacy is giving any time she has to head CURE’s campaigns whilst she simultaneously works on the game.

Stacy Forsyth - CURE

As Stacy explains, “Our gathering will be loads of fun, and provide a real talking point in Westminster. We’re hoping that the spectacle will bring smiles to those in the area on bank holiday – but also make people think about the undeadly serious issues which face zombies these days”.

CURE’s efforts could be timely as the steady influx of undead-crammed games has saturated our store shelves. Not a single one of these games shows a necrotic body (the politically correct term for ‘zombie’) being intimate with a healthy person, rescuing them, or conducting any other life-sympathising behaviours. Rather, they are portrayed as mindless savages intent on eating as many people as post-death will allow.

So, are you a supporter or an opposer? Take a moment to consider CURE’s manifesto:

• To give the undead equal rights to the living.
• To make cemeteries more comfortable to its inhabitants.
• To integrate a robust social integration programme for the undead, curing society of its prejudices.
• To increase the minimum statutory retirement age to beyond death.
• To permit the marriage of living and the undead.
• To never claim expenses for duck ponds or moats.

Personally, I consider myself to be a supporter. However, I find myself eyeballing the first and third points of the manifesto like a post-G-virus William Birkin. Depending on how you read the first point, this could mean that the undead should be afforded equal rights to those of the living, or that they should be given the right to access copious amounts of grey matter. After all, we know this to be a mainstay of the necrotic diet. This rather inflames my concerns regarding point number three.

Assuming these requests are benign, the manifesto looks pretty sound. In fact, it wasn’t long ago that I found myself empathising with Bert, a down-on-his-luck necrotic body I was interviewing for an article. Bert had been out of work since he featured in Capcom’s original Resident Evil game. Once a respected artist, he recounted how people would nowadays call him “an embarrassment, with my ‘drool-ridden shirt’ and my ‘zombie Zimmer’”.

Bert even found these testaments were echoed throughout the games industry itself. He found it near impossible to secure another game role, with the industry increasingly favouring more agile and multi-skilled undead.

“Necrosis is not enough anymore”, Bert explained. “You’ve got to be speedy, sometimes even intelligent, like the Los Ganados in Resident Evil 4. Playing the interactive undead has become a pretty competitive profession.” I’d like to see CURE help unfortunate necrotics like Bert.

To show your support, exhibit your zombie dress-up skills for the chance to win a games console, or simply to grab a limited edition t-shirt, go along to the event. Make sure you pre-register your attendance at votecure@googlemail.com. Visit http://www.votecure.com/vote/ for further details. The undead are simply itching to see you!

That’s right folks, Def Jam Rapstar, the Hip-Hop-focused singing game in development by 4mm Games, has a confirmed release date of 5 November 2010 for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Wii. Any Christmas visits from Santa this year are officially superfluous for aspiring Notorious B.I.Gs. Why? Because this game claims to be everything that Get On Da Mic wasn’t.

Def Jam Rapstar certainly boasts a number of unique features. Not only will you receive instant feedback regarding your Hip-Hop performance, but unlike other singing games, players will be able to actually see themselves performing through the use of a camera peripheral. You can also star in, direct, and edit the lighting, sound and special effects of your own music video.

Freestyle mode will allow you to create original rhymes and put them to tracks created specifically for the game by popular producers including DJ Premier and Just Blaze. And for those of you who are more playa than player, Def Jam Rapstar will offer a Battle mode where you can trade lines and punchlines to achieve the highest score.

As if this wasn’t enough, your Hip-Hop beats no longer need be confined to your grandma’s viewing, who’s actually only watching because she’s too tired to move into another room. Def Jam Rapstar’s online community will be able to watch and rank your videos. The community will even allow you to create, manage and promote a crew of rap artists.

The playlist is said to encompass the full Hip-Hop spectrum, including golden age, platinum age, old school and new school, with artists ranging from Ice Cube and Snoop Dog to 50 Cent and Dizzee Rascal. There will be more than 40 Hip-Hop songs available at release, six of which have just been confirmed as follows:

Biz Markie: Just A Friend

Drake: Best I Ever Had

Outkast: So Fresh, So Clean

Pete Rock and CL Smooth: They Reminisce Over You (T.R.O.Y.)

Salt-N-Pepa: Push It

Tinchy Stryder feat. N-Dubz: Number 1 *UK exclusive

The likes of Redman and Method Man have voiced their support for the game, and it’s not hard to see why. If Def Jam Rapstar lives up to its potential, it could be so much more than a toy for Hip-Hop-inclined karaoke enthusiasts. It could offer people the chance to create a kind of online portfolio and get themselves noticed.

Signing up on the Def Jam Rapstar website means submitting a track suggestion, so visit www.defjamrapstar.com if you want to get your preemptive rap on. Word.

When you miss the release of a landmark title like Deus Ex, you can’t expect to take from it the experience it became synonymous with when you do finally play it. Things change; a masterpiece is only a masterpiece within a certain context and throughout a certain time period. Were I to play the original now – something I have considered doing a few times – I would find the visuals lacklustre and the controls clunky, not to mention the tirelessly-replicated gameplay. It would be a chore just to play it.

The aged beauty

I want to be there for the greats. I want to ‘get’ them, to understand what the fuss is all about, the way I did when Super Mario World, Silent Hill 2 and BioShock were released. I’ve tried visiting old games, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time being my most recent exhibition. After feeling so excited to finally play this revered game, I felt heartbroken that it bored me to tears. I simply found it too crude.

I was also jaded by the videogame behemoth that is Half Life 2. Oh how I wanted this game to thrill me, how I wanted it to make me Mesa my pants with excitement. But instead I found myself plodding on out of commitment rather than concern.

Ico was one of the very few classics I played where I managed to take something significant away from the experience. Nonetheless, the game still managed to bore me somewhat.

With its beautiful overworld and then-novel focus on character interdependence, Ico is hard to ignore

Now, before I get reprimanded by a whole bunch of Ico fans, I’ll reiterate that in no way do I view these games to be lacklustre, crude or boring, rather I know that I am unable to truly tap into the greatness that they bear. Their effects have been eroded over time. It’s like experimenting with marijuana after becoming accustomed to ecstasy. (You don’t want to know the analogies I rejected.)

For now, though, I continue to work my way through these games, even if, by the time I get to them they exhume more grate than great.

Without warning, you’ve changed all of that for me. Thanks to you, I am able to see the world as lovers see it; the weather is warmer, the grass is greener and the muggers are more merciful. Just as a string of ill-suited boyfriends and unfortunate encounters with sarcastically-programmed dating site applications had left me feeling delicate and dejected, you lifted my spirits to the moon. I cannot eat and I cannot sleep, only hopelessly think of you.

Now, I know what you’re going to say. I know it’s complicated. It always is with guys who lack a third dimension. But I’m not expecting miracles here.  Simply to hear you utter those three magical words, to have them gently kiss my ears, would help to satiate my thirst for you.

I know you are capable of loving me, for you have the sweetest heart. Not in the literal sense because you don’t have any organs. But this does little to faze me. Organs are highly overrated and your ability to withstand toilet deprivation for longer than 30 minutes without your bladder threatening to explode truly makes you a king among men.

But I digress. I digress from telling you how wonderful you are. How you make me smile. How you have the most attractive eyes and the most kissable lips. How your vulnerability makes me want to hold you in my arms and protect you from harm. How you are the most wonderful father – oh how I wish you would stop doubting your abilities as a father. You are too hard on yourself, sweetheart. If people were to kick up a fuss every time I got a kid run over by a car or kidnapped by a maniacal serial killer, then I’d be pretty darn red-faced right about now.

To touch you would be beautiful. To caress you would be divine. But instead I feel frustrated because you hold your dimension like you hold your toilet and this, my love, means we can never be.

You are my romantic tragedy.