Getting out of the game.

It’s that time of year again. The time when I leave gaming and the family behind for the weekend and head off to the green slopes of a small mountain boarding centre near Hereford. The event? The annual 22nd Global Gaming Clan meet part IV: The Search for Carlsberg!

I first became serious (or perhaps I should more accurately say dedicated) to online gaming around 3 or 4 years ago. I had at that time acquired, for the first time in many years, a rather shiny and supercharged new gaming PC.


The PC purchase had been ‘inspired’ by the imminent release of Doom 3 which had been branded in my mind as an absolute must have because of my love for its prequels. Needless to say my high hopes were dashed a fair bit when I eventually did play the game, but the Half Life 2 release around the same time ensured that the new PC didn’t go to waste.

Much like its excellent predecessor I played Half Life 2 to death and loved every fragging minute. But once it had offered all it could, I nervously ventured online to play Half Life 2: Deathmatch. This was in hindsight an action that would very much have a large impact on my life.

My first steps in the online world of HL2DM were not pretty. Every time I spawned, I died before I could really work out what the heck was going on and I was constantly the victim of more insults than I care to recall. ‘Noob’ was certainly the most common but it usually came after a harsher expletive!

For a while I gave up, I hadn’t enjoyed my online experience that much after all, but my love of the Half Life world eventually drew me back a few weeks later. This time though, I vowed to do things differently.

Before I went back to play, I ventured over to Valve’s very own Steam forums (itself not always the friendliest of places), and started asking questions about the game. HL2DM has never been the most popular of online pursuits (and certainly the game and community can be fairly regarded as rather niche, even back then), but I found a few friendly souls, one of whom pointed me in the direction of 22g.

22g as it turned out was a clan who primarily played HL2DM but did not play the game in a competitive (i.e.: league) manner. That’s not to say they didn’t have good players, far from it, but they were not actually bothered about how good or bad your game was. Far more important to them was your attitude and having a laugh together. Finally it seemed, I had found a place I was safe.

And safe I was. I quickly became a regular on the servers and forums and discovered to my delight that the regulars there enjoyed all forms of video games and not just HL2DM. The clan was strictly invite only so I never asked about joining although I’d be fibbing if I said I hadn’t wanted to. Not long later, my game improved enough so I could hold my own a bit on the servers and I was also lucky enough to be invited into the clan.

From that point in time I eventually graduated from ‘stupid noob’ to ‘f#*king hacker’ and played the game almost non-stop bar the inevitable need for sleep. I wrote guides on the game and helped out other players, always remembering how bad my first experience online was. I dreamt about the map layouts in my sleep. I daydreamed at work about new ways to take my opponents down. But most importantly, I made new friends.

The funny thing with online game play is that you never really know who you’re talking too. We all create our online name/persona, wear proudly our affiliation tags and quite often behave in a manner which does not reflect how we are outside of this specialist virtual world.

I’ve often wondered if this change is brought about by the fact you are around fellow enthusiasts. Perhaps here, around ‘our own’ so to speak, is where we can be our natural selves, where our passion for games doesn’t have to be hidden for fear of being labelled a geek or simply not being taken seriously at work. In this environment we can let it all out with people who understand, with people who care as much as we do.

Of course online gaming also brings out peoples worst sides to, the insults that are free (mostly) from recrimination, the one-up-manships (or should that be 1 up’s!) that you couldn’t possibly use in most areas of your offline life. Specifically, it’s pretty easy to be an arse if you choose too with little come back.

You are after all just this digital persona, someone that can act how they please with little affect on anything that’ll land you in serious trouble; something that can be changed and somewhere you can come back anew.

And it’s here (finally!) where we come full circle to the point of this post.

Because tomorrow, for my 3rd time, I’m off to actually meet my gaming comrades. And I don’t just mean in Second Life! We are actually meeting in the flesh; flesh which not long after will be hurtling down Herefords finest grass hills on little more than a piece of wood with wheels on. This time though it’ll hurt when we fall, we won’t just feel a small electrically powered rumble, screw up our multiplier and lose a tiny bit off our health bar.

And what a motley crew we’ll be. Because when you’re online, you don’t see the person – you see the persona. And what shocked me when I did this meet the first time was just how utterly diverse the whole group is.

The age range alone is fairly large; our backgrounds all for the most part completely different; personality, looks, size, views – everything. This is a group of people that you realise would never normally be put together because they are just so damn different.

And that is what makes this meet so bloody great! I couldn’t even begin to imagine meeting these people through any other means, that’s not to insult in any way who they are but just to re-emphasise how different we all are. And yet meeting with these people, my good friends, is one of the highlights of my year.

Enjoy your gaming, be passionate about it (but be nice to) and get involved. There’s so much more to it than meets the eye. But be bold too. If your part of a clan, go meet them. A group of enthusiasts? Get together.

Because sometimes the best thing you’ll ever do in this hobby is get out of the game.

Happy Fragging,
[22g] Nana
http://www.22g.co.uk/forum/

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Serious Sam HD: The best game trailer ever?

Regardless of whether you have any interest in the game itself, you really must watch this new trailer for the game. This is probably the best game trailer I've ever seen, it's like totally Digital Awesome!

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Concept Art: Left 4 Dead 2.

Kotaku have posted up some great Left 4 Dead 2 concept artwork they have acquired from Valve.

There are 11 images in total; 5 covering the new characters and 6 covering the proposed locations from the game (these are definitely the pick of the bunch).

If you hit the full size option, you'll be treated to the images in all their massive glory (and they really are HUGE), ideal for your desktop or for framing.

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Gaming Art: Orioto.

Orioto is a gaming enthusiast artist I accidentally discovered whilst randomly surfing some time ago and he remains one of the best (in fact he probably is the best!) authors of gaming art that I have ever come across.

Make you sure you pay a visit to his gaming artwork gallery hosted over at deviantART; there are some truly stunning pieces there and I often use them as wallpaper on my gaming PC.

His fantastic work covers various games that includes Sonic the Hedgehog, Mario World, Yoshi's Island, Gunstar Heroes, Street Fighter II, Castlevania, Zelda, and Super Metroid to name just a few.


His gallery is well worth visiting as his images there are in a much larger resolution (ideal for your desktop) and there a far more images than I could possibly put here.

Here are a few more examples which may tempt you to pay a visit:

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Whitehall blunder means it's legal to sell adult games to kids.

By strange coincidence given my post topic earlier today, it has just come to light via The Times that the Act governing the sale and classification of video games in the UK (as well as DVD's and videos) was never enacted!

This effectively means that the authorities are unable to legally stop anybody from selling 18 classified games and movies to children until the loophole is closed by emergency legislation.

It is also possible they will now also have to review (and probably revoke) any convictions that have occurred over the past 25 years. After all, can you convict someone of a crime that does not 'exist'?


The Department for Culture, Media and Sport has stated that it had received legal advice that people who had previously been prosecuted and convicted would be unable to overturn their convictions or seek compensation but whether this will hold up in court if put to the test is another matter, particularly if the European courts get involved.

Given my own views on video game classification and minors (I hate hearing kids talking about playing games like Grand Theft Auto; even worse are the staff from high street stores such as GAME whom often sell them such titles), I find this lapse quite disturbing although in effect, the fact that no one actually realised this has no doubt prevented any major problems. That said it will be interesting to see if anybody flouts the loophole before its rectified now that it has been publicised.

So there you go; if you’re German you can't see blood even if the game is adult rated because the young need to be protected (even though they couldn't buy it anyway). In the UK we'll sell them anything...

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Electronic Arts condemns German 'censorship'.

Gerhard Florin (Electronic Arts executive VP) has publically requested that Germany ditch it’s current USK rating system and adopt the more widely used European standard PEGI.

"What we're doing here is censorship," stated Florin. "And nobody complains. When we talk about games here it's about violence or their alleged addictiveness, and not about their cultural status. The few good studios are asking themselves why they should stay here anyway."

Marek Brunner who heads up Germany’s USK disagrees and states that there are no plans for to move to a PEGI system. It's hard when half-truths are being used," said Brunner. "They say the USK does this wrong, the USK does that bad and why doesn't this get a rating?"

So who’s right? One thing is for sure, the poor Germans certainly get a raw deal when it comes to their choice of games because of their rating system and the rulings of the BPjM (Bundesprüfstelle für jugendgefährdende Medien - the German government's Federal Department for Media Harmful to Young Persons).

Even if the game isn’t rated (which essentially means it’s banned from sale), it may still suffer from omissions to enable it to be sold in the German market. Both Capcom’s Resident Evil 4 and Valve’s more recent Left 4 Dead had to be heavily edited so they could be offered for sale. More often than not, it is the depiction of blood that has to be removed.

Recent titles the Germans have missed out on completely include Dead Rising, Gears of War and Ninja Gaiden 2 although the more savvy German gamer can import the titles to play without fear of penalty as the law there only prohibits the sale of such games not their ownership. Many gamers also import the titles which have been subject to edits so they can play and view the games as they were intended.

Such is the impact of the German rating system that a quick scan of Google reveals quite a few specific job roles for German localization. Note the text in the example; “ensuring each piece is followed through with relevant checks and edits.” Interestingly Microsoft simply refuses point blank to edit any title rejected by the USK, hence why titles such as Gears of War are not available at all.

The debate on video game violence and its effects on the young in particular have been ongoing for some time (particularly since the widespread use of 3D graphics) and this is perhaps an issue I will touch upon in greater detail in the future.

In brief however, I do personally believe parents and retailer’s ignorance towards ratings causes the majority of the problems as opposed to the actual content contained within video games.

Compared to film, the violence currently in video games is relatively tame although I appreciate the interactivity offered doesn’t make them completely comparable. It should also be noted that films within Germany are subject to stricter guidelines than those in the majority of other European countries.

And just why sex is so shunned within our industry? Show so much as a pair of breasts and your asking for trouble, and that’s a fairly universal trait, not one just reserved for the poor Germans. Given that I can chainsaw a man in two within some virtual environments (well outside of Germany anyway!), it seems bizarre that games developers are frightened to include an act essential to the survival of our species and largely associated with love.

However, these are issues that I will cover in greater detail in future, in the meantime spare a thought for our fellow gamers from Germany; forced into playing the gaming equivalent of edited for TV movies.

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Digital distribution to kill future classics?

Digitally downloading your games is a convenient and often cheaper method of building your games collection. The games are usually automatically patched, the ’stores’ never close and they can deliver your chosen game (more or less) there and then.

The lack of packaging probably helps the environment and certainly saves on shelf space; if my house is anything close to normal for a gamer then for many of us there is a constant battle on the shelves between games, movies and music who do not wish their physical selves to be re-located to the darkness that is the bottom drawer.
The major bonus of digital downloads for me though, is that it has allowed a whole series of smaller titles to rise; games that would have struggled within the normal channels are thriving as digital only releases. These titles are spanning everything from traditional bedroom coded projects, publisher back catalogue revamps, right up to the bigger budget exclusives such as the recently released Shadow Complex. Arguably we’ve never had it so good!

But the digital distribution model does concern me a great deal. Because as much as I’m enjoying the benefits, I can’t help but worry about the future pitfalls.


Some of my favourite games recently (Shadow Complex and Rez HD immediately spring to mind) have been exclusively available via the download model. These are games which, if they had of existed on physical media would have taken up the ‘premium space’ on my shelves and relegated a couple of lesser titles to the tomb which is the drawer.

They are both games that I will return to regularly and both are titles I could see myself revisiting in years to come (perhaps more so with Rez HD because of the games nature). The question that irks me though is will I always be able to return to them?

Because the media is digital I am very much reliant on the continued support (in this example) of Microsoft and it’s Xbox Live Arcade service.

If my game corrupts or if I change my console, it’s easy enough to re-download my games. If I run out of space on my HDD I can temporarily delete a few games and re-download them later. But what happens when that service is no longer there?

Console life cycles vary, but on average a system tends to remain current for around 6 years before it begins to fade into obscurity. Sure some systems last longer (PS2) and some shorter (Dreamcast/Xbox) but eventually they will naturally die in terms of availability. And when that happens the support of both the manufacturer and the various publishers dies too.

With physical media, your game is for the most part safe. It does not die when the support dies, at least not it it’s well looked after. Many gamers continue to play their classic games from the very dawn of gaming’s short history.

Dead consoles can be replaced via 2nd hand sources such as eBay or the local boot sale as can any poorly looked after games that have become damaged. Ultimately, if you loved a game from yesteryear, it’s simple enough on the whole to play it today.

The same principles however do not apply to the download era. Once Xbox 720 and PS4 launch, the services provided to PS3 and 360 owners will gradually decline and eventually cease. Suddenly the security of the re-download feature will become redundant. Will this mean that your much loved games are simply living on borrowed time?

From a personal view, this uncertainty bothers me because I can’t imagine the possibility of some of my favourite games being permanently resigned to fond memories. I want to be able to play these games for as long as I’m a gamer, I want to introduce these future classics to the next generation.

We are a completely different model to other media types; games are always based on specific hardware formats, and this is where gaming digital content differs so much from other types of entertainment such as movies and music.

So what happens? Emulation is one answer but it is far from ideal. There’s no doubt we are spoilt with the excellent emulators that already exist but as systems become more complex, can we really expect these part time non profit coders to keep up?

Even today, there isn’t a 100% perfect emulator for the Dreamcast despite the fact the system is over 10 years old and ‘died’ young. Sega themselves couldn’t emulate the Saturn and so eventually acquired the Giri Giri emulator, itself not perfect and now ironically abandoned. And besides, if you ‘own’ the game, you surely will want to play it on its original hardware where possible.

In some cases it may be possible to back up the games to DVD/CD, and certainly it is possible with the 360 to do this but it does require a fair amount of know how. On top of that your games are tied to your Live account, and of course there’s no guarantee that in future these accounts will operate in the same manner or for that matter, exist at all.

So are we doomed to losing our favourites? It’s certainly going to be an interesting time when the new consoles hit; I just hope that it doesn’t prove to be some kind of Digital D-Day.

In the meantime all eyes are firmly on the PSP Go’s download only model. Just don’t get too attached to your games eh?

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