This is not entirely pleasant for two reasons. Firstly, wayyyyy back in January when I was reasonably new to the staff side of the site I set myself a task. I had been dipping my toe into games too often and had fallen into the trap of trying games but settling on playing Fifa endlessly. To stop this I said that by years end I would climb one place in the Ready-Up staff leaderboard for achievement score, which you can see to your left. Even if I got pegged back or if a new member arrived ahead of me, by succeeding it’d have meant that I had played games in a deeper manner and in turn would be getting more out of my hobby. It worked, I played Burnout Paradise more than I would have and pushed myself on the music games…hell I now even sing a bit and to top it all off I have a meaty achievement score pushing 50k. Not bad at all, yet still overall my games are only half done.

This leads onto the second point nicely. Reflecting on the past year of me improving my approach to gaming led me to reflect on the decade which is about to end soon. For me the naughties (which I shudder using as a term) were my formative years, where I moved from a child through teens to the socially reclusive man who writes today. I got to thinking, what would the me of 2000 have thought of me getting so little out my games.

As a child games are very different beasts due to finances. You can maybe only afford a new game once every 3-6 months, if that? Even then it’d have been budget and ill informed, so not the best of experiences awaited the young gamer. Yet we all were in love with this hobby, so we squeezed every inch of gaming out of that game. When I got Shenmue I completed it 11 times, actually completed my capsule collection and even got all the bloody Saturn games. When I got Tunnel B1 for the Saturn (an abomination of a game) I completed it on each difficulty level, which given the poor controls was an absolute feat. Hell I even played Theme Park without the cheats such was my lust for any game to play with a new experience. It even led to inventing new ways of playing. Such as par Mario (set a jump amount for the level, every jump under gains points and every jump over loses points) which brought the 6 year old me HOURS of frustrating fun.

Now we have achievements which guide that extra curricular gameplay, Live play to give endless new experiences and DLC to augment single player. I have cash to buy the best new games, people to play them with and people to talk about them with on this very site. Yet I don’t play them to death – perhaps because it’s all now so easy. Before, games were so precious that I had to work for it because it’s all I had. Now? It’s too easy. If I get bored I download an XBLA title, game on demand or fire up Steam. I still have fun and I love this industry, but part of me wonders if the magic isn’t gone now I’m a little older and that little boy (who once played R-Type for two days straight with one hand) is long since departed.

Story-wise, you start inside Guybrush’s grave and after some digging you enter the fantastically gloomy afterlife. The art direction in general in the afterlife is great, interesting character design and an oppressive gloom which stands in stark contrast to the rest of the series. The puzzles you encounter are your standard collection types which have featured in chapters 1-4, but hit that perfect mix of easy for newcomers with one or two that will test even the seasoned Telltale fan. The final showdown in particular is an epic multi part puzzle-a-thon in the very best traditions of the Monkey Island universe.

You really don’t play these games for anything other than the writing though, and chapter five is a brilliant end to a very funny series. Guybrush shines when trying to be the hero yet failing dramatically, as does LeChuck at being such an unreserved bastard. The conflict between the characters adds to the depth and the addition of some great voice acting in the dead thief is welcomed. The humour in of itself is as sharp as ever, everything from mocking the traditional view of the iconic “boatman” to even the games own conventions (has Guybrush been carrying a dog in his pocket?!). It’s the little things that make you smile, the feeling you come away with is that you and the game have an in-joke and that’s exactly what episodic comedy gaming should feel like.

Overall it’s difficult to criticise chapter five in isolation as it’s the culmination of it’s predecessors and as such has the same issues. The sound is a bit bland and the puzzles could have a bit more variety but as a closing chapter it’s place isn’t to innovate. This closes the series off with humour and style, setting up a hopeful second series nicely. There are no disappointing ends here, chapter five is a fitting end to a fantastic series. Kudos Telltale.

Dundee was where the original Spectrum was manufactured. DMA Designs was founded here and went on to give me, possibly our, most cherished childhood game: Lemmings… oh along with Grand Theft Auto. Today it’s the home of everything from the casual game geniuses at Denki Games, Tag Games and Cobra Mobile to the critically acclaimed Realtime Worlds who of course gave us Crackdown.

Despite this wealth of gaming pedigree it was not enough to wake me up on my 5am start as 5 trains awaited me on my way to Dundee for the NEON Digital Arts Festival. Curling up on the train with a copy of GamesTM and a podcast, I wondered what awaited me across the Forth Rail Bridge. The potential was there for a fascinating day in the Scottish gaming industry in a fantastic city, but I make it a rule never to underestimate how disappointing Scottish events can be when you compare them to the wider world. So with no expectations and bags under my eyes I arrived at the venue to find it crammed with Scottish gamers, spotting a few friends and grabbing a glass of orange juice we were ushered into a lecture theatre and the day began in earnest.

Being a digital arts festival and not a gaming festival, understandably the talks did not centre around our favourite hobby, but that’s not to say we weren’t catered for. The first talk of the day came from a little known Scottish developer called Realtime Worlds founded by some bloke called Dave Jones who made some Xbox 360 game called Crackdown. Needless to say I was a little excited waiting for the talk to start. Sadly Dave couldn’t make it for personal reasons, but Colin MacDonald of Realtime Worlds came out and chatted about Dave’s history in gaming and how it’s affected the design rules Realtime Worlds follow. From his days in his bedroom coding Amiga games to the exploration of open world titles with Body Harvest, five basic design principals emerged: attention to detail, simplicity, contemporary, humour and innovation. As Colin put it, forging a genre. It was with this that he passed to his colleague, EJ Moreland to chat about the next AAA title to come out of the Dundee developer. All Points Bulletin (APB) is an MMO slated for release in early 2010 centred around the Ready-Up favourite, cops and crooks and as EJ said is based on three Cs: creativity, conflict and celebrity. The first striking thing was how different the game felt to other MMOs in the market at the moment. The game is divided into cities, with 100 players in each city at any given time. There are no lobbies and the game features something called dynamic matchmaking which we were lucky enough to get a peak of. What we saw were a couple of guys playing online and elsewhere in the city a cop in his car cruising waiting for “dynamic matchmaking”. The original two guys decided to steal a car, which set its alarm off. The video switched to the cops who received an all points bulletin and suddenly a game had started, with the car theft triggering the cop’s next mission. We were promised it will all be as seamless as the video showed and it certainly looked more interesting and dynamic than simply choosing pre-set missions.

Our very own Scott inadvertedly posing like an APB character… with obvious differences.

That’s conflict out of the way, onto creativity which is the area which brought the most gasps from the increasingly impressed audience. The thinking behind APB is that players are content themselves, both in what they create and simply how they look. EJ spoke of how other MMOs’ (cough-WoW-cough) basic problem with player design was that everyone moved to the same armour and weaponry because it was the best, APB sought to change this by handing creative design over to the player with tools which reminded me of the shapes and layers of Forza Motorsport. Videos were shown of how they can be used to create everything from gang tags (gangs being the clans of APB) to tattoos for your character. They can also be put onto clothes which is how the idea of player identity can be integrated into an MMO. We saw a female character model, very basic and bland looking. Normal clothes were then put on, leather jacket and jeans. The jeans were then coloured and had a few images placed on them, then a star tattoo was placed on her shoulder going down her left breast and finally a gang tag on the back of her jacket. It was subtle but looked fantastic, from a bland NPC we had a character you could envisage belonging to someone. The designs can be placed on vehicles too, so theoretically your gang can theme everything they use. Imagine the fear of seeing the Hello Kitty gang charge you with 4 pink fans with flowers on them!

We were then given a taste of the music, which was shown off to give us an idea of the amount of individuality they want your game to have. Instead of a soundtrack the game uses your own music library and plays that out of cars, jukeboxes, radios and anything with a speaker. The trick comes with how your music interacts with other gamers. We were shown another video, this time a player standing by the road with the hum of the city in the background, then another player drives by blaring music out of his car. We were then told that if both players own the same music track the games will then synchronise so both players are hearing the track at the exact same moment (all done through track data as they are unable to transmit the music for copyright reasons). If you don’t own the track APB will go onto last.fm, pull a similar track and play that so if you are a bad ass reggae gangster you will never be transmitting pop princess tracks. It’s all about image and creativity, making the kind of person you want with everything around them reinforcing that. That brings us back onto the third C, celebrity. The idea is that through artistic design and gangs getting reputation through gameplay, celebrities will emerge in the game world and be honoured in some way (they mentioned statues but it seemed to be up in the air how this would occur). Leagues to show high score and achievements would reinforce this idea of the player being central to the game and not the game world itself. We were then told that a fourth C emerged in development, creativity and this was the cornerstone of APB. As a game its aim is to be fun to play but it’s there to be a social platform for those who want to create and consume others’ creativity.

The talk finished with a trailer for APB being shown and everyone making a mental note to check their PC specs. The game seems to be following the Dave Jones philosophy and carving a new genre of a creative MMO, distancing itself from the likes of Guild Wars and WoW. There is a lot riding on the project (Crackdown despite being successful just broke even financially) but the amount of innovation and quality in APB can surely only make it a successful entry into the MMO for Realtime Worlds. After a joke question was raised asking if everyone at NEON could get entry into the beta, the first thing I did when I got back to Glasgow was put my name forward on their website, such was the level of hype I had for the game since seeing it in Dundee. I’ll be spending the time between the game launch and now designing my gang’s tag. I was thinking a circle with game pads in it… and wings. You guys in?

Ah an old picture of Gnome, just after we met

That’s my gnome. I found it. I took it through the entire game. Past headcrabs, agents, striders and mines we trooped through. We saved Alex, fought alongside Vortigaunts and ran down the trainlines under helicopter fire. I love the little guy so much I took a picture of him on my old TV nestled in his eventual resting place. You see, after developing a deep emotional bond with him I loaded him into the rocket and he left the world of Gordon Freeman, plugging the hole in the universe that lay in the sky giving me possibly the most satisfying achievement ever. I’d assumed that he’d died in a fiery blaze, saving the world as part of an amazing fireworks display. That was until I played Left 4 Dead 2 and look who I found as the prize of a fairground game!

My "crew". Kat, Duncan, my lovely girlfriend and Gnome!

Yes, it’s the little guy himself. How he got into a prize casing in a funfair just outside of New Orleans is beyond me, but I wasn’t for leaving him to be destroyed by a rogue charger with a hate for garden furniture. After all, we beat Black Mesa together… I couldn’t just abandon him. So into my hands he went, and with a sympathetic yet slightly baffled team I went on my second adventure with my gnome! Now granted I had impetus to do this, given the achievement link but I felt a genuine emotional link to this graphic. It’s not just a gnome, it’s hours of memories and patient gaming… in a weird way it’s my past and leaving him felt like betrayal. I know achievements change the way you play, but never did I think it’d make me care about a game and deliver a story within a story.

I reckon we could sneak him onto the ride...

I ran holding him, flanked by my team who defended the little guy like marines. We fought through zombies, witches, tanks, fire, rollercoasters, dodgems before it all ended in front of a firework display… holding off zombies waiting for a chopper. We all made it, the five of us. An unbreakable team bound by love of a gnome. It made the game matter that bit more, made everything feel that little bit more frantic. Usually you can trust the guys you are with but this felt like an escort mission and did exactly what achievements always intended, it changed the game. Kudos Valve, these two achievements are my proudest and (like the actors from Lord of the Rings) my crew and I have a memento thanks to the achievement award system.

Duncan was not available for the group picture.

So when you ask me my gaming moment of 2009 it won’t be doing the Abbey Road Medley on The Beatles: Rock Band. It won’t be any of the twists and turns of Modern Warfare 2 and it certainly won’t be winning the league in Fifa 10. It will be the hour I spent in an adventure with an old friend. See you all in Half Life 3, I’ll be the guy holding a gnome in one hand and a crowbar in another.

For me Mass Effect is everything I loved about Deep Space 9. Politics is at the forefront with the main thrust being the interplay between the different species both in the galaxy and in your own crew. Humans are not the be all and end all, finding themselves loathed by other species and marginalised to an extent. Your character can be a complete cad should you choose the anti-hero route or a paragon of virtue, but even the paragon will have blood on their hands come the end. It’s a gritty universe, with sex, drugs and murder the names of the day and only hard men and tough women can survive. I spent tens of hours exploring this fascinating place, learning how it worked and what my place in it was. I paid little thought to what I did, I shot first and asked questions later and that was fantastic. Now though as Mass Effect 2 looms on the horizon I am suddenly struck with worry. You see I act like that in gaming as a release because it’s great being a bit of a cock and then turning the console off but Mass Effect 2 will change that

Your save from Mass Effect will be ported over to the sequel, which isn’t unusual these days in an RPG. The difference is that within that save several key decisions you made will be ported with it. The comrade I killed will stay dead, my decision to obliterate the final hope for a species will be remembered and my sexual partner will certainly remember her night of passion with yours truly. Now gaming have tried this before and the permanent issue is that gaming doesn’t do consequences well. There is often an illusion of freedom of choice, at the end of the day you are still a good guy and you still win… maybe with a different cut scene at the end. However Bioware have confirmed that a possible ending for Mass Effect 2 is your death, a move away from the traditional gaming fear of portraying tragedy. This means all bets are off, I cannot sit and do whatever I want in the game because I have no idea what Bioware have planned for the reckless character. I’ve grown a bond to both my character and my crew, I don’t want my actions to harm them so suddenly I have to pause and think. Mass Effect saw an impulsive Shepherd blast his way through the universe, I doubt it’ll be the case in Mass Effect 2.

Star Trek: The Next Generation I didn’t like for just this reason. There were no consequences for their actions. They swept in, dealt with the alien of the week then left. Deep Space 9 though was set on a space station and the people they dealt with weren’t simply on their road but were their neighbours, decisions made one week had an effect on the next week and it gave it depth. Gaming needs to follow the lead of Mass Effect and attempt to replicate this, giving true consequences for your actions. Gaming as a writing form has undoubted potential but the industry has to move away from boys’ fantasy style of writing which we’ve fallen into which stops true consequences being portrayed. Plots vary slightly but at the end of the day the strong hero saves the day in some shape or form regardless of what they do; that’s not realistic. In an RPG if I choose one route over another it shouldn’t be a case of two different gaming experiences but perhaps one ending in the death of a comrade. How about a World War 2 game where one story strand ends in your death? Metal Gear Solid 4’s much heralded suicide ending was ditched in favour of a much weaker ending for just this reason, they couldn’t end the series with the death of Snake… why? A game can still be fun if it ends in defeat, or tragedy or it makes you regretful. Games writing is addicted to the heroic ending and as long as gamers are conditioned to believe that all games end well, we’ll never see a day in gaming when we stop to consider what we’re doing.

With Mass Effect 2 though there is hope that somewhere in the industry there are writers and developers who see this problem and know what to do to fix it. Come 2010 I will be back on the Normandy flying through the universe, perhaps being a bit more cautious than I once was… but I won’t be having less fun.

Picture the scene if you will, a new game is coming out… and a pretty highly anticipated one at that. There is a chill in the November air in Glasgow, the stars litter the sky as most people are tucked in bed awaiting the next working day. Not our intrepid gamers though, who emerge from their dwelling of choice, heading with excitement to the game store of their choosing. They queue, chatter and chitter with equal measure before piling into the artificially lit shop of dreams. Pre-order receipt handed over with £45 and a shiny new game handed back in return. Scurrying back home with the game of the day they presumably play until morning, safe in the knowledge that they got the game first.

Now that looks fun.

Why on earth would I want to do that? Let’s put aside the obvious issue of a group of gamers heading out for a new game or console at midnight being a mugger’s wet dream for the moment and focus on the realities. All this will serve to do is aggravate me, as I head out at mightnight to shop and still have to queue. I’ve seen footage of those massive queues and wonder what the people there think of when in the cold and dark. Do they ever think about what it could have been like ordering online? That time they could be in the arms of their partner; watching the best of cinema, playing a fun game or making passionate love. They could be excitedly looking at news of the game of their desires, or tracking the package online as it wings its way to their house for launch day. They could be checking online banking, smug at the amount they saved by buying online… even looking at budget games they can pick up with the money saved. Then the day comes after a good night’s sleep,  a hearty breakfast and dashing out on that crisp winter morning to college, university or work. Making plans with friends to meet up on XBL or PSN in the evening, bright and breezily heading home for a night of fun and games. Opening the door to your warm house the game sits on the floor, all ready for you to play.

Now, isn’t that a much better sounding plan than standing in the cold to get your game at a higher price for the sake of 8-9 sleepy extra hours of gaming?

Simple, the handheld console as we know it is dead.

I grew up as a child of the Sega/Nintendo rivalry. Where Sega kids were cool and Nintendo kids weren’t. I owned everything Sega, I flew the flag high and led the way into the abyss Sega were headed, yet even during this gaming civil war Sega fans were given allowances to buy a Gameboy. It was no betrayal, just an acceptance that there was only one console worth owning if you wanted handhelds. It was huge, clunky and needed natural light to play. Games had cardboard boxes and those little plastic holders, it needed batteries and with hindsight was not particularly portable but it was still the best of the bunch. As the industry evolved the handheld market continued to be owned by Nintendo and Nintendo handhelds evolved with the times. Size decreased along with weight, backlit screens came in as did rechargable battery packs in a drive to keep them portable. Now I can slot my DS Lite into my inside pocket and game on the move, but it’s this evolution which has killed handhelds as we know them.

Want to change gaming forever? There's an app for that.

Because in that pocket there is now competition. In my youth mobile phones were a rarity, and portable music was a walkman… again a rarity. Three years ago when the DS Lite launched people had their phone and an mp3 player in their pocket, neither really suited to gaming so the console still had a right to be with you. After all, you have devices for everything else so why not one for gaming? Now though Apple have changed the way we view devices, it’s all about portability and ease of use. Why have three devices when you can have a jack of all trades? The iPhone is now delivering all experiences to you, and the assumption that your pocket should reserve a space for your DS Lite is questioned. Why should I take a now clunky console with one game when on my phone I can have a few dozen high quality games at much lower prices? It’s all about portability and ease of use and for the first time in my lifetime Nintendo look very dated in this market.

The DSi is aiming to remedy that with digital distribution but I refuse to buy another console when the writing is on the wall. The Gameboy remained unchanged for years because it was perfect for the market, the fact Nintendo have rolled out mp3 player attachments and online stores shows me that the DS is no longer suited to the market it’s in. Handheld gaming as we remember it is gone, in its place will be a battle between multipurpose devices delivering a weaker but more user friendly gaming experience. The ironic thing is Nintendo created this market. Their drive for portability and simpler experiences would always question the existence of handheld gaming hardware and it’s getting to the point where the next Nintendo handheld will not be compared to the new PSP but instead to phones and mp3 players, unless it offers more than gaming then it will fail.

If you’d told the young me that one day you’d be playing a game only to be able to stop, phone someone and then download a new game all from the one screen he would have laughed at you. Hell even a few years ago I wrote of how handheld gamers don’t want the multipurpose PSP offering, and that dedicated hardware will always offer the experience the consumer wants. I’ve been proved wrong though, consumers want one device to rule them all and for once it isn’t Nintendo branded. The high sales and untouchable nature of the DS is a fitting end to an era of handheld gaming, we’re moving into a new era where it’s truly mass market and considered essential to portable entertainment.

Notepad! Fetch my Pterodactyl!

It’s not all joy though as I think Scribblenauts has uncovered a bit of a problem with me. After 19 years of gaming I fear that it’s starting to affect my logic and basic decision making.  The puzzles in Scribblenauts allow you to generate any non-trademarked item to help you solve them. I had to tidy up a park and kill a fly for one puzzle. So I wandered around picking up trash then I noticed one bit up a tree. With the fly still about I had a plan… fire. I spawned a flamethrower and took the fly and the tree out. I don’t know whether it was drug induced delirium but this element of freedom caused a sort of madness. I went from being rather dull and using normal objects to solve puzzles to being a madman. Next puzzle, cat stuck up on a roof. I started to spawn a ladder then stopped… a glint in my eye brought a wry smile and I duly spawned a grenade. The house detonated several times before collapsing, cat safely on the floor.  It got worse the more I played. One puzzle confused me, a teacher needing something. The answer was students, however I didn’t know this and spawned a fireman as I thought they could have some fun whilst the class was empty. I was thrust into a warzone and spawned a pirate to help me because… well… pirates are badass. I got a bit sad when they just shot him. I was tasked with beating a jump distance of a bmx-er… so I rode a unicycle. Successfully I may add. I just couldn’t help myself, the insane gamer part of me was let loose. I was spawning everything possible, puzzles fell at my insane logic, it was all going so well!

...he looked less dangerous in my head.

Then one puzzle embarassed me. I had to get flowers into this girl’s basket. Simple? Well there were problems. To begin with there was a bee, an angry bee. I ran past it and made it without dying, which was super but I was then faced with a body of water with a piranha in it. So I spawned a shark to eat the pirahna… then a dolphin to kill the shark… then a whale to eat the dolphin… then instead of a tiny piranha I was faced with a whale. I dropped a marine in the water… he was eaten. So was a sniper, ninja, pirate, Rick Astley, God and Satan. I decided to go back and deal with the bee. Whilst standing viewing the situation a wasp chased me, I panicked and spawned the one thing guaranteed to kill a bee: a T-Rex. It ate the hive, the bee, the tree, the girl wanting flowers and me in about half a second. I was shamed, my logic hadn’t just failed but led to the death of innocents and made me look like a prize fool. I closed the DS slowly and related the story to my girlfriend, who chuckled at my stupidity. A small break from Scribblenauts needed, I need to go out into the real world and find out how they think, then perhaps I’ll come back without the insanity which gripped me and forced me to such ludicrous puzzle solving methods.

This may have the Red Alert tag line but it’s not the PC classic, what we have here is very much a condensed version of the PC experience. You still have two factions (with a third promised as DLC) but don’t expect the campaigns to be anything more than a mild distraction. Plot is minimal, pretty much “Soviets are attacking!” or “Crush the west!” and there are only ten missions between the two factions. The variety within these missions is pretty poor as well, with it being split between “Tanya” style missions where you control a band of units or when you run a base and in both cases the structure of the mission is formulaic and bland. The other game mode is skirmish but there are only two maps available with campaign maps not unlocking for skirmish play (but suspiciously similar maps available for purchase). At launch there is no local multiplayer either (said to be included in an upcoming update) and the package therefore feels quite weak and lacklustre, particularly for the £5.99 price.

The RTS gameplay transfers well to the touch screen but not without problems. Navigating the screen is easy, with zooming down by pinching the screen and several buttons at the bottom changing the touch functionality into choosing multiple units. However choosing a group of varying units is tough, not that it matters as a large group of tanks will solve all problems. You can’t tap a destination and forget about them though as path finding is wonky and you will usually find your massive tank regiment being stuck behind a tree or a rock. Base building isn’t particularly deep, with a shallow but wide tech-tree not being testing or useful and resource management being taken away completely. Your base, as simple as it is, does look pretty with graphics making the jump from PC and it’s all identifiably C&C, the only downside are chunky vehicles which can leave you wondering what you’re looking at on a crowded screen.

At the end of the day Command and Conquer: Red Alert is a competent if unspectacular way for the series to debut on the iPhone. The package feels light without mulitplayer, few maps and a poor single player experience, combined with a boring and short campaign you will find this being deleted pretty quickly in favour of a longer lasting experience. On saying that, the game controls well and shows that there is potential for a deep RTS on the device, unless it comes from DLC however it won’t be through Command and Conquer: Red Alert.

The fundamentals of the game are of course identical, you sing and in doing so set a pitch bar on the screen which you match up to pitch indicators the game puts down which reflect the song in question. Match them up, do well and get points… it’s interspersed with doing poses (which the motion sensors in the mics detect) and making percussion sounds in time with the beat, again with help of motion sensors. In the spirit of casual games today there is no “game” element or progression. It’s all for fun and nothing else! The song listing is “number one hits” and gives a good range with everything from Rihanna to Pet Shop Boys and your DLC from Lips carries through to this disc, which is a thoroughly nice touch. Like its bigger brother the song listing is one dimensional though, aiming not to exclude anyone but equally lacking the depth to give the game true character. As such DLC is crucial to the whole package and it’s largely expected that you will pad out the game with your favourite songs, as such the game store is now built into the game. Combined with the new store fronts for music games on the 360, DLC is the big push and one which is well integrated.

Presentation-wise the game has come on leaps and bounds from the rather bland original. The song previews are now nicely integrated into the song selection scheme and the menus are generally slick affairs. Avatars play the stars this time, dancing away whilst you choose and acting out the poses when you are singing. Their character shines through making the game warmer and more amusing, it’s hard not to smile when your avatar excitedly watches your score rise after a song before holding a gold trophy proudly. Avatar use continues with the addition of unlockable clothing for doing well giving the package that bit more value.

The issue of value was always going to be the killer but Lips: Number One Hits does everything a new software entry to the series should do. It rejuvenates the interface, gives you full backwards compatibility with Lips and gives you an in game store for new songs. It’s simply a much more pleasant place to play Lips in, and with avatar support it feels more like a modern casual Xbox 360 game, which is what Microsoft were clearly wanting all along. If you love your karaoke games then seriously consider picking this up, it’s a tidy package that doesn’t fail to impress.

Last year’s entry did one thing staggeringly well, it destroyed the robotic unrealistic gameplay which NBA Live had unknowingly made its hallmark and took a step in the direction of realism. This thankfully continues this year with increased animations letting players move more realistically and with greater fluidity. Passing is crisper this year and finding a good pass to make is now easier with your team AI making realistic darts and runs. AI in general is slightly hit and miss however, with bizarre decision making taking you back to the NBA Live of old. Nothing quite removes the illusion of you actually playing in the NBA than a player driving solo to a winning dunk only to stop and try to shoot a three pointer. Marking seems a bit unbalanced too. Whilst finding space when you are on the attack is the challenge it should be, when you are defending, your team seems to delight in leaving huge gaps around the basket and on occasion flat out abandoning their marking duties. On the whole it’s a minor complaint though, the game flows well if not a little too quickly for hardcore basketball fans’ taste and is superb fun despite the occasional AI blip.

The continual weakness of the NBA Live series however is a lack of innovation in game modes and this year is no different. Its EA Sports brethren all trail blaze their respective sports with exciting new game modes yet NBA Live does its gameplay improvements a disservice by having no headline game mode to show it off. The new game mode is Adidas Live Run which is a clan based 10 player game with full stat tracking. In its current iteration, though it feels pretty lightweight and experimental, it descends into chaos and lag very quickly: one to watch out for next season after a year of refinement. Elsewhere Dynamic Season is back letting you play current NBA games with real stats and change history, with a more comprehensive Dynamic DNA backing it up it will be interesting to see how this plays when the NBA tips off. Beyond that not much has changed, minor refinements to Dynasty Mode and the FIBA Championship Mode but nothing game changing or game breaking. The game modes are still fun and engrossing but are beginning to have the air of familiarity about them and are in dire need of some new blood.

One aspect which has improved dramatically is the general presentation and look of the game. Increased animations always look good but in addition, less plasticky looking players and improved detail combined to make a staggering looking game. On a good TV the vibrance of an NBA game really comes across with an animated crowd, bright colours and all the little details doing their bit to suck you into the game. It rounds off the package nicely and makes it a nice game to spend time with and show off to friends, something previous NBA Live titles failed to do.

It’s a massive step in the right direction and for 2010 2k Sports will be rightly nervous about what EA could unleash on the basketball world. NBA Live is playing basketball again and delivering a complete package which will stay in your console through the merit of it being a damn fun game. Purists will still find annoyances, mostly in the pacing of the game (slow it down EA!) and AI but on the court most gamers will love the more fluid style and the high quality presentation. The game is still lacking that killer game mode to blow you away, but it matters little when the rest of the game is this good. For the first time in years we have a true contender for the title of best basketball game,  and it’s the fans who will benefit most from the resulting fight for the title.

PlaySega is a new service from Sega that lets you play several original and Mega Drive games through your web browser. The game range varies from the sublime (Sonic, Streets of Rage) to the questionable (Virtua Fighter 2, Sonic 3d Blast) and all have full save/load features along with level editors. That’s right, a few of the games have level editors so you can indulge your inner Yuji Naka. Nothing can quite beat sitting down fashioning your own Sonic level, then discovering how hugely talented the original developers were at level design when yours is riddled with monotony and flaws… it certainly lets you appreciate the games on a higher level. It being on a browser is genius in of itself with it becoming the ultimate time steal, why play solitaire when you can load Streets of Rage? With more games being added every week and a free Saturn pad for subscribers it’s a tempting service but it’s more of a jumping off point for dreams of industry wide retro service.

It’s certainly a unique way of doing things when you compare it to old rivals Nintendo who tie their back catalogue to the Virtual Console but not without its issues. The games slightly stutter in flash on occasion and having it as a subscription service will turn a great deal of people off but it’s a good attempt at something different. Having in-browser play is very much “in” with Battlefield and Quake pioneering in the field so perhaps developers like Capcom and Konami can use their immense back catalogue in similar ways. After all PlaySega is now in front of a large audience, is easily added to and has great new features… what more could a retro gamer want?

For those readers who perhaps are not well versed in the mechanics of any sports game I should explain first that there are a few things you just absolutely have to get right. Pacing, physics and control. If your game isn’t paced like the sport then it won’t have realism, your physics for players and puck/ball have to be spot on so the players can play the sport like the real thing and so nothing bizarre happens. Finally control, pretty simple but it has to control well for obvious reasons.

NHL 2K10 manages to have none of these in gameplay, which is an impressive feat in its own right but does makes playing a bit of a chore. The game feels sluggish in pacing which is far removed from the speed of the real sport and this carries through to controlling the players. It seems the whole ice part was forgotten when looking at player movement with it feeling like skating on treacle thus removing the dramatic speed aspect of the sport. Physics are the final piece of the puzzle and sadly NHL 2K10 fails to deliver on this as well. The puck feels more like a magnet and will favour the attacker more often than not, so checking an attacker or slamming him into the glass may not actually get him off the puck. The feeling of sheer anger when you send an attacker spinning and then to his knees only for him to get up and skate off with the puck is staggering.

The whole game is geared more towards attack this year than ever before, with even the best defences being easily bypassed and with shooting being easier than ever. My first game ended 9-8 and that was on a reasonable difficulty setting with first time shots invariably flying in and defences doing their best red sea impression. It’s video game hockey circa 1999 and in today’s age of sports games offering both simulation and arcade play in one package it feels dated and lacklustre. Granted you have the addition of stumbling shots and stick lifting but these are not new to the genre and are more about NHL 2K10 catching up with the competition instead of truly innovating. Combining the lack of innovation with sloth like players, frustrating physics and late 90’s arcade styling you have a game that is simply boring on the ice.

The rest of the game doesn’t offer much to improve matters. Graphics are an improvement but it’s a move from ghastly to functional with animations still distinctly unrealistic and lacking in variety. This carries through the whole presentation which matches the dated gameplay. I’ve seen more realistic high quality TV broadcasts on Youtube and the commentary is lifted straight out of the 90s with clunky dialogue and delivery.

The biggest issue outside of gameplay is the game modes, which offers little change from previous years. You can hit up a quick game, play a season or a franchise, play a little 4 vs 4 or 3 vs 3 or online play. Standard fare but with emphasis on the online play, with the ability to invite friends in almost any circumstance being very much at the forefront of the game. Again a very casual arcade decision to make and one that has its issues: namely lag. Smaller games ran fine but once games started approaching two full teams the game descended into the realms of unplayability. This is a small gripe though in a small addition and one that doesn’t weaken the overall game mode set, the lack of change however is what weakens it. There is nothing in NHL 2K10 which isn’t done better or more interestingly in other titles and when the on ice play is so simple and arcade-like the innovation had to come from the modes on offer; sadly it’s the final nail in the coffin. If you are a hardcore hockey fan this is too simple for you, if you are a casual fan there is nothing here you can’t get on another hockey title playing on an easy difficulty and for all fans of the genre this is a title that does nothing to innovate or change. A missed opportunity to go a different direction.

Actual gameplay has several changes, the most notable being running moving away from the eight direction control and into full 360 degree control. Not only simply being easier to use and more realistic it contributes to the unpredictability of the sport making each game that bit more enjoyable. Skilled players with a skilled team will find it very rewarding and a powerful tool to use, as such defence had to be ripped out and changed to combat this. Last year you held in the “pressure” button and eventually won possession, now though timing and strength are factors with strong players being able to hold off weaker players and vice versa. If you bundle in and shove someone off the ball you will concede a free kick. It means that doing things like putting big players to mark players like Messi actually yields results now as only a top player will be able to use agility to their advantage. Combine this with the fact that pace, whilst still being potent, is no longer a complete game killer makes the whole vexed issue of attacking much more balanced and realistic. No longer can you just pump a lobbed through ball and watch your quick striker sprint clear, it’s now a skill to attack against better players and equally enjoyable to defend well against it.

Fouling is more common though thanks to the changes in defence, but the flow of the game is kept through the introduction of quick free kicks and a vast improvement to referees playing the advantage. The flow and fluidity of Fifa 10 is paramount to its enjoyment, with the 360 degree control showing us truly what all other football games have been missing. Fifa was great but it always looked and played like a game, the improved fluidity is a big step towards real football being played on your console. Despite this, passing is still a major issue with high level games often resulting in ping pong as the ball zips around teams first time. Granted if you play with no assists this is impossible to do but even with some assists you will rarely misplace a pass and most people will just keep it moving to avoid losing possession through being muscled off the ball. Whether this could be patched or if it’s more something for Fifa 11 remains to be seen and it is a small gripe compared to the swathes of superlatives I could shower on the gameplay but high level online play will be rife with this.

Game modes are the other area which got attention and testament to the care taken with Fifa 10, both online and offline play have been improved. Manager mode is a great deal tougher with the board being more demanding than ever and transfers being that bit more realistic… for the computer. As Rangers I could still offer Walcott a contract and get him to sign up with double wages, but the AI can no longer tempt the likes of Rooney to Craven Cottage with absurd wages and seems to follow a logic of certain teams only approaching certain types of player. With that fixed, Manager Mode is that bit more absorbing with it being possibly the final refinement they can offer without greatly changing the whole feel of the mode.

Be A Pro Mode is roughly the same but the way you manage your custom player is vastly different. Now your player is yours in all game modes and stat improvements are now linked to accomplishments, which can be anything from scoring a volley to playing 100 games. Finishing each accomplishment will unlock a relevant stat upgrade for your player, so the more you play the better you get. Your player can be used in manager mode, be a pro mode and the online clubs which has been given a lick of paint for this year. The days of everyone playing as “any” in clubs is over, with you having to play your own position… the position of your own player. Regional leagues, more trophies and the lack of people playing as the big teams for the slight stat boost makes this mode actually playable and enjoyable. Nothing is more rewarding than scoring a nice goal in front of your friends with your own player and the fact you now want to play as your own player and not as any is a big step towards the EA Sports dream of full 10 vs 10 Fifa matches for the World Cup. Other modes have plenty of little refinements, be it improved search options in standard online play or the arena having full free kick and match practice options. The arena is now a real hub thanks to the improved training options, not least the ability to create your own free kick. The powerful and tough to use free kick creator no doubt will be exploited by those in the know but it’s a welcome addition for the control freaks amongst us.

I could write for thousands of words on the game and yet I feel like so much is being missed out, half the fun is finding the little extras in Fifa and you can only do that by getting lost in the game. The joy of it being more fluid and realistic is that it’s not frustrating to get lost in, all you need is a love of football to enjoy Fifa 10 because this is as close to the real deal as we’ve ever gotten before. Put aside the little issues, the server problems which is now common for a popular game, put aside any prejudices you may have against EA Sports and just enjoy this stunning representation of the most popular sport on the planet. Yes it still has its flaws, yes there are bugs and yes to some it just won’t be the same as Pro Evolution Soccer but the bottom line is here we have the best sports game ever created. Go, play, enjoy.

I hate him, I hate his smile, his hair, his voice and everything that makes him unique. He’s your standard smart ass smarmy little sod who gaming, on occasion, likes to spew up thinking that we’ll find them “cheeky”. Every second line is a quip, he always knows best and he takes little seriously. I sat playing it just fuming at him, every word he said brought out rage like never before and  it sucked the joy out the game. I had to take runs at it, days I felt patient I played it and it pretty much defeated the purpose of the RPG which is getting swept away with the story. Now compare that to let’s say Gordon Freeman, a man who by circumstance is left fighting a totalitarian state and who is made the figure head for all that is good in the world. He isn’t a well rounded character but you like him, he’s thrust into a role he never asked for but knows that he must do it and do it well…  we all have experience of that even if it doesn’t involve striders and gravity guns.

Looking around though, the likeable game characters are few and far between. Is Marcus a guy you’d have a beer with? Or Kilik from Soul Calibur or Jack from Dead or Alive? Looking at men in gaming it seems to be either monobrowed idiots, cheeky geniuses or brash American all action heroes… where’s the sympathetic character we can grow to like or even just the plain good human being? It’s almost as if gaming is now inhabited solely by characters from comic books, so one dimensional that you simply cannot find it in your heart to actually like this parody of humanity as they are just a collection of catchphrases and violence. It really is just a symptom of the falling standards of writing in games that we have such poor characterisation but it’s sad when the protagonist in a medium you control is generally someone unlikeable.

Guybrush Threepwood, hero of the common man!

There are two exceptions which I view as rays of hope. The first is the hopeless hero, Guybrush Threepwood and as a Brit I can’t help but like his type. Nate from Uncharted is the most successful recent entry into the category and it’s essentially a lead who isn’t an intelligent, fearless badass. They are a clutz, a bad shot, useless with women and usually found dangling off a precipice waiting for their sidekick to save them. As such they are amazingly identifiable just because they are human, they err and I hear that erring is something humans do on occasion. The problem is that there isn’t a great deal of them to the point where it’s a joke when your lead isn’t a super marine these days, to the extent where the Tales of Monkey Island series has given Guybrush a fan who is disillusioned that he isn’t a fearless pirate but in fact pretty bog standard in a world where all heroes must be perfect… sound familiar?

The last exception is my favourite and it’s the Bethesda model: make your own character. This is the best because it takes characterisation away from the clumsy hands of developers and let’s you make your own character with their own back story and even looks. No more strapping eight foot marines, 6ft tall skinny balding man for me! You get so much more invested with your creation as a result because there is no hate or annoyance, their motives are malleable and in the case of titles like Mass Effect you can even control what they say and how others view them. It doesn’t solve the problem that male game characters (or indeed characters in general) are poorly written in games, but it makes gaming that bit easier. Solving it can only be done through the old problem of improving writing and trying to move away from the cliches of cinema today and moving closer to literature, until we do that the male lead will always be a tosser and ultimately this will make playing as them that bit less fulfilling.

Or perhaps I’m the unlikeable sod who’s only happy when he feels like he’s superior to the bumbling main character or when the main character can be made to look like him. Nah, must be shoddy writing… must be.

Football Genius is very much in the same vein as the aforementioned DVD quizzes with playing by yourself missing the point really, it’s all about you and friends getting around a console or on Xbox Live for fun. As such there is support for avatars (albeit stretched a bit), the Scene It! buzzers and most of the nine game modes directly involve other players. Aside from just answering questions the game modes vary the rewards for getting answers correct (getting double points, stealing opponents points, disqualifying other players) or giving you Question of Sport style picture questions and picture puzzles. The game modes are fun enough and the questions reasonably varied although with a fair bit of focus on English football compared to everything else. The general presentation is suitably bland with generic football pictures providing the backdrop to the quiz, the avatar use is sporadic and seems shoved in with the Xbox Live Vision Camera supported in very much the same way as in Uno.

Beyond that there is not much else left to discuss. The game modes are as fun as your friends and you choose to make them, with a bit of competitiveness they give the experience any other quiz can give. The 3,500 questions will fly in though, soon enough you will be left repeating questions and it becomes less about trivia and more about memory, this could be rectified with DLC however whether or not that emerges remains to be seen. As such even with avatars, Scene It! buzzers and even Live Vision Cam support there is a big issue of simple value even at 800 points, particularly when compared to its competition. The robust Scene It and the upcoming 1 vs 100 offer far superior quiz experiences and the latter offering sports nights during the beta further weakens Football Genius’ claim to your points. Taking that into consideration Football Genius: The Ultimate Quiz has to be put into the same category as Totemball and Texas Cheat ‘Em, games that people didn’t ask for and don’t need.

As “Tales of Monkey Island: Lair of the Leviathan” is the third episode of a five episode the same conditions have to be applied that gets applied with all episodic content. Namely that the game will be short length, possibly lacking in replay value and will leave you utterly drooling for more. This isn’t a negative though, it’s best to regard it like an episode of a Lost, The Wire or 24 in that each episode is designed to bring you back for the next one. Gameplay is much the same as the previous chapters, you guide Guybrush around the manatee pointing and clicking your way through a variety of puzzles and chatting to a few new and familiar faces.

The puzzles are a good mix of fun and tricky with nothing to abstract to infuriate but nothing too easy to feel like a waste of time. In particular a pirate “face-off” is a brilliantly funny throwback to the duelling of the old titles and something that will put a smile on the face of even the most hardened cynic. Beyond that the game has a great deal less exploration than the previous chapters (well manatee’s aren’t that large) with the game mostly dealing with gaining the trust of several new characters through the medium of character centric puzzles. The lack of exploration makes for a slightly easier experience but the flip side is a nice throwback to the style of classic Monkey Island. The method of changing locale and game style so dramatically is also a nice change of pace mid-season, keeping us from fatiguing.

The big draw though as always is the writing and in it’s third episode the series is really beginning to sparkle. Every character has their moments, Guybrush is as always hilarious and there are some brilliant gags that will have you pausing to snigger away (a particularly dead pirate in particular had me chuckling away). Throw in some slapstick humour and the strength of the character animations and you have not only classic Monkey Island but as close as we’ll get to classic LucasArts as we’ve seen in a long time.

Compared to the other episodes this is possibly the least value for money. 4 hours to complete if you get hideously stuck but everyone else should finish it in 2-3 hours, which is fine for a episode but combined with the lack of exploration and the restrictive nature of the environments and you have a episode that will put people off if they drop into the series now. However in context this is a great slowing down mid-season, giving a different type of experience and complementing the previous titles with a more classic game married to the same slick comedy writing. Yet another episode written to high standards and just heightens to anticipation with the fourth instalment.

The most noticeable difference between this and previous years attempts is that Beautiful Game studios have gone their own direction, cramming the game full of new ideas and one or two real genre defining features. The best example of this is the 3d match engine, which is a world away from the unrealistic Championship Manager 08 and a real market leader when compared to last years effort from Football Manager. Granted you get a few odd moments and there is still no desire to watch a full 90 minutes but on the whole it’s an impressive features. Players act realistically, favouring a foot and spreading the ball about with wing backs overlapping on runs and poachers skulking around the box even when if the highlights don’t involve them. Everything about the match engine is improved from player positioning to goalkeeper intelligence making for a less frustrating experience watching the match, you never feel like it’s the 3d match engine that’s making you lose and that itself is a first. Elsewhere on the new feature front the set piece editor is an absolute dream to use, it’s ease of use married with a depth that can truly influence the course of your managerial career. Watching a pre made set piece win a cup final is magical and a staggeringly rewarding feeling. This element of getting more involved in the training ground stretches to allowing you to watch your players play practice matches to gauge how your tactics are doing and player form in a risk free environment. Again, a genre first and a most welcomed addition. Perhaps the most player friendly addition though is the expansion of ProZone, which helps point out the ins and outs of your teams performance. As previously noted the match engine is best suited to highlights and as such ProZone let’s you watch the highlights but still get the detail that a full 90 minute match allows. It’s a great example of features working with each other adding depth and rounding off the package…something that previous titles simply failed to do.

Unfortunately it’s not a perfect package. The big challenge with any sports game is realism, the big draw for fans is living out their dreams and that’s not possible in a game with any kind of faults. The problem is that Championship Manager 10 is filled with smaller faults that bring the overall package down. The transfer system is tighter than the last time out but transfer budgets are hideously overinflated and you will find yourself the subject of a few bizarre transfer offers. Whilst the games launch came with a nice transfer update there are still a few issues with player positions, player data and how the game regards them (home grown, EU, international) and whilst this sounds nit picking given how good the overall package is it just chips away from the gloss of the package. Realism is a huge part of the genre and on that aspect Championship Manager is still just falling short, but as we’ve seen if the community is embraced then this will come with time.  Beyond that each new feature has the traditional teething problems. The match engine is fantastic but is prone to give even your most stable centre back the odd piece of stroke inducing eccentricity along with handing out the most unrealistic results ever on occasion. I’m sorry but as Rangers I simply will not go from being on an eight game winning streak to slump to a four goal defeat against the bottom team. The new training and set piece interfaces lack necessary feedback so you will have grapple a bit to get a feel for what works and what doesn’t, whilst doing it in training is risk free it does defeat the purpose a bit. Again minor but when living with a game for months on end it has to be as tight as possible and at points the little things aggravate immensely.

It’s a shame that there are niggling faults as this is a quality reboot of a franchise that previously was on life support. The new features aren’t gimmicks but give depth and focus to a game that previously felt light and lacking in all the little things that add up to make a quality package. The game now feels full of things to do and see, to get lost in and that’s what management sims are all about. Yes there are problems, yes the match engine can sometimes throw up bizarre moments and yes it still doesn’t have the large and accurate database of it’s competitor but what we have finally is a fun and deep management sim that doesn’t have Football in the title. This year we have a challenger to the throne, an attempt at trying something different and the most important thing is that we have a fun game. Over to you Sports Interactive.

As I grew older the jump from analogue stick to clitoris was made and I now sit as a grown man in a long term relationship, in hindsight I can see the immaturity of what I saw then as being sexy and that marketing-wise, Dead or Alive pretty much ripped the £80 out of my savings (imports were expensive then) by their cunning use of breasts. The teenage boy market is a lucrative one and it’s no surprise that they used sex to attract me to their games, what also fails to surprise is that the immature view of sex was the only one present in gaming at the time. After all, it was still the domain of the teenage boy and the teenage boy alone. Electronics Boutique reeked of lynx and body odour, greasy hair hanging over the pre-order section and monosyllabic communication the only way to get through the dead eyes caused by late nights.

What about now though? Dead or Alive got a film, Lara Croft was voted as the 6th top sex symbol by Channel 4 and game shops now have more fitness games than pre-owned games. Teenage boys are outnumbered by girls looking for Professor Layton and women looking for Brain Training in brightly lit and inviting game stores. The industry is older, it’s wiser and it’s for everyone… at least that’s what I thought. Two years ago, Mass Effect’s story included the tamest sex scene perhaps ever created yet Fox News got a hold of it and all hell broke loose. I set out to take stock of where we are when looking at sex in gaming, where we can find it and what the future holds.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I’ll begin with the less obvious place where we can find sex and gaming combining, namely hardware. When people think of games and sex the story aspect is thought of, but increasing immersion and intimacy through hardware is rarely considered. That was until 2005 when Kyle Machulis created the SeXbox and set the blogging world alight. “I realized I have a vibrator, and an Xbox controller, and neither was getting much use. So I put the two together, so that the vibrator would be controlled by the signals from the force feedback motor in the controller. Thus, the SeXbox was born.” Kyle told Ready-Up, “I posted about that on my website (http://www.slashdong.org) and the next day, it’d been picked up by a ton of huge blogs and I had around 60,000 unique visits in the 24 hour period. Then people started acting like I actually knew what I was talking about and I figured “Sure, why not. And here we are today.”

Kyle Machulis

Slashdong houses Kyle’s interest in the field of teledildonics, the coming together of computers and vibrators where the website watches for both engineering interests and for general interests in sex and technology. A casual glance through the site will show dildos, flesh lights and all manner of sex toys hooked up to monitors. Closer investigation shows a world of patents, technological innovations and a meeting of sex and games that is simply inspiring. “Overall, it’s just a really interesting, multi-faceted engineering problem. In terms of sex and technology, trying to build hardware and technology that brings people together in an intimate way that doesn’t feel either cheesy or scary (or in some of the worst cases, both) is something no one has really achieved on the mass market level yet. For games, well, we spend billions of dollars a year in development and marketing of what is basically a platform for living out situations that usually can’t be replicated in real life.” Beyond gaming we have something that can take sex toys onto another level, but the challenge of raising this immersion in gaming is something that appeals to Kyle. “Developing sex in games, and, once again, making it not cheesy (BMXXX, DoA Volleyball) or scary (this hasn’t happened yet, but it could – using sex as a game mechanic is dicey, as failing a sex situation in a game could be a serious insult or embarrassment to the player) is a problem that’s both difficult and interesting.”

It’s not just the issue of sex in gaming being poorly written which is holding it back from making an impact today. A large problem in getting adult content onto the market in the first place is the restrictive nature of the consoles. The three major console makers (which of course also covers the handheld market) refuse to license Adult Only/R rated titles for their consoles, essentially meaning anything too graphic isn’t just difficult to get onto the console but impossible. Consequently the PC market looks like a haven for challenging content, however with the lack of a controlling license holder there are a myriad of issues still present. “Barrier to entry on PC is still fairly high. You can’t just pop a CD in and start playing, there’s installation and hardware issues and whatever else to figure out” said Kyle, “you also don’t have the manufacturer hardware lock-down that you see in consoles. That’s why, a lot of times, the ‘if you can code it, you can do it’ rule gets stretched and we see some sensationalist piece of news about some crap PC game with some sort of brutal sexual violence or something making the blog rounds.” And the issue of crap PC games is a valid one, particularly when comparisons to the console market are drawn. When researching the topic the sexual moments in console games ran into the few dozen, nothing too graphic either. However go onto your PC and you are positively spoiled for choice. Be it boxed games from sex shops, digital distribution through websites or even the humble flash game there is variety and true choice. Every taste is catered to, including some very questionable titles… however the risk is inherent when opening up anything with no restrictions. As Kyle said, all it takes is one game with an illegal aspect to light up the blogging world for a day, something not possible on the consoles. A similar problem appears in the MMO world on the PC, all MMO social interactions thrive on emergent gameplay with the world being created and then shaped by those playing it. In Second Life (who’s sexual side is explored in better depth than I could here by Zoey in her feature Down the Rabbit Hole) the issue of legality has been brought up as the world has grown and the fetishes being catered to have started to cross the line into that which is illegal in reality. Yet in controlling it (and the same rationale stands for consoles vs PC) you would be strangling a liberal and open nature which is one of the draws of the service. Kyle commented “Sure, it’s a ridiculously difficult problem, and one that can’t be handled by engineering alone. When you open up a world where people can do anything and be anything, they will do both to the absolute, unpredictable extremes.” Unpredictable is the right word. The innocent and family friendly Sims Online saw this when prostitution and organised crime became major problems within their online world, the prostitution linked to several underage ringleaders. “It’s either one of the greatest triumphs or biggest let downs of humanity, I haven’t decided which yet.” Looking at getting the balance between legality and liberalism, Kyle’s relief at being outside the policy making part of the industry showed. “In terms of actually striking that balance, well, I’m just glad I’m not the one doing it. Trying to keep your fist as close to another person’s nose as possible without actually crossing the line, especially when you’re an international business and that line differs wildly between countries, is a problem that may never be fully solved.”

It’s this issue of balance which seems to be holding back a full and frank exploration of sexuality as most developers, publishers and console makers err on the side of caution. This can be seen clearly through the industry’s favourite bad boys, Rockstar games and the Hot Coffee controversy in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. The PC version of the game was released a year after the PS2 version and it was discovered that with a simple change to one line of code in the PC version you could access sex mini-games. Initially Rockstar claimed this was the result of reverse engineering and making significant changes to in-game code. This was later found to be false with the simplicity of the code change being revealed along with methods of altering the console version’s code thus proving that the mini-games were present on the disc and not the result of any modifications by a third party. Several assets from the mini-games were used in more innocuous parts of the game, explaining why it remained despite not being a part of the game. Apologies were forthcoming from Rockstar with the promise of patches and future versions of the game to be altered. However despite not being accessible without either purposely modifying the game code or owning certain game altering devices the controversy drew sharp criticism from all quarters prompting the game to be re-rated as an Adult Only title. Similarly the original Manhunt found itself permanently banned in stores owned by The Dixons Group in the UK after the murder of 14 year old Stefan Pakeerah was linked with the title despite the later discovery that the victim owned the game and not the alleged killer. Such issues arising from putting out Adult Only content make it easy to understand why the big names in the industry who could pioneer the inclusion of sex in games are so hesitant. “It’s still all a matter of money. While we’re starting to see more and more downloadable content, so the ‘WalMart’ problem of distribution (where large retailers simply won’t stock your game) starts to shrink, it’s still coming from a centralized hosting service by a console manufacturer, and that manufacturer would have to be willing to throw the cash into the development of age check systems to make sure the content doesn’t get into the wrong hands.”

The development of age check systems is certainly key to the problem. The 2008 Byron Review called for improvements in restricting adult content getting to children but didn’t call for the complete ban which can occur now. “Unfortunately, there’s a chicken and egg problem there, because no one can prove they have content good enough to warrant such a system being put in place, because there’s nowhere to distribute it to a wide audience.” To make matters worse even with improved ratings and distribution there is still the social stigma of sex not just in games but in all media. “Not nearly as much as I thought there’d be when I started all of this, honestly,” said Kyle, “granted, I started out in a fairly conservative portion of midwestern US and I now live in California, so I’ve seen both ends of the spectrum. In the end though, most people, on an individual level, realise that we all have sex. It’s the mass social voice against that idea, that’s where the fight is.”

The Wii Dildo, not a Kyle Machulis invention but intriguing none the less

After looking at the past and present I actually found the future of sex in games to be promising. Mass Effect broke ground not just in showing a PG-13 sex scene but in relationship development, Grand Theft Auto 4 did similar in developing a realistic relationship and a feeling of intimacy and warmth between characters. Until the restrictive nature of consoles and indeed society is lifted it’s unlikely we’ll see a naked body or god forbid anything more than an insinuation of a sex scene. However, in advancing story telling techniques and the quality of writing, sex scenes will occur more naturally and will begin to lose the immaturity which plagues the industry. You can see hints of this with the big response to the Mass Effect controversy being that it was a natural progression of a story. Heavy Rain is set to do the same as did Metal Gear Solid 4 and in doing this the first signs of growth from the industry’s teenage years can be seen.

Social gaming will continue to give people an avenue to meet new people and interact, if people do that sex is bound to occur and advances in that will be down to technology. For Kyle’s field the future is a challenge, “They’ve [teledildonics] been viable purchase options since the 90s (the SafeSexPlus teledildonics hardware came out in the late 90s, for instance). The problem there is more one of education and interface. Most people don’t think of their computers as sexual objects, because most people don’t really see them as hardware. They work more as a portal, but the only time anyone things about hardware interaction is usually when the hardware breaks. Most online sex still takes place in IMs or web cams. So someone is going to have to make the bridge between those worlds and sex hardware, in a way that’s both comfortable and interesting to the mainstream consumer, and no one has done anything near that yet.” The most striking thing from looking at sex in everything from mainstream to niche areas of gaming is how it’s just evolved that way, it’s natural that we want to look at sex and include it in the industry. “When you hand someone a piece of technology like a virtual world, that most people haven’t even fathomed… you can’t really predict what they’re going to do with it,” said Kyle. All we can do as gamers, from consumer to developer is take the technology and do what feels natural. If we do that then, as we see from how the industry has evolved in the last six years, sex in games will advance naturally. “It’s best just to sit back and let things live up to their “emergent” description. It’s more fun to watch that way, too.”

So whether you encounter sex in games by viewing a sex scene on your PS3 or if you play with sex toys on your PC or even meet someone online who you fool around with, there does seem to be growing developments in all areas of the industry and growth in ways many people wouldn’t be aware of. Whilst I’m fantastically interested by the emergent sexual encounters in MMOs and the sexual technology that people like Kyle are working on, the problem affecting the video games industry is of course one which worries me. The technology, the quality of writing and the talent is all there to help show a wider range of emotions and human interactions than ever before in gaming but politics hold the area back. The world is shrinking and dealing with the wide range of cultures which make up the gaming industries makes including controversial scenes incredibly difficult. A game being banned in a country can be a financial disaster, as is the bad press coming from conservative media and as such, the industry simply isn’t taking the risks required to perfect the art of showing the purest of human emotion. As it is today we still have the styles of sexuality which delighted me as a teenager with the occasional attempt at showing something deeper. It’s by no means ideal but it’s a start, it’s just a shame that it’s taken this long for the industry to start to push the boundaries and explore.

I was in Game, trading in a few things and I struck up a conversation with the bloke behind the till. After enquiring about what I wanted to trade in for and being told I was just waiting for games like Call of Duty to come out his face changed into one of consternation. Why? Pre-orders were through the roof for that title. Whilst that’s not surprising what surprised me was that I didn’t make the connection in my head between a popular game and this man’s job.

“It will be insane when it launches”

Think about it, he will have to be in work maybe from midnight dealing with loud excited gamers in a strip lit version of hell on earth. His wrist and arm will seize up from repeatedly using the till, the Game radio station will aggravate his ears and his nostrils will be filled with the stench of body odour and plastic. He will have to turn away underage kids and get abused by doing so, try to explain to stupid parents that the game is maybe not for their 4 year old children and all the while his inner gamer will be crying out to actually play the game. When he gets home do you think he’ll be able to? Exhausted, his game will stay shrink wrapped whilst he collapses in preparation for work the next day.

So I raise a glass to our eternal friends, the video game store employee for your sacrifice, your hobby and your sanity so we can pwn noobs to our heart’s content.