The ‘Online Experience©®™’

So I spent my Christmas getting fat, playing games, watching films and annoying my younger sister. It was more fun than cow tipping, or even fly tipping (which requires allot more skill and a very steady hand).

Anyway, enough rubbish. I spent most of my gaming time online, which was somewhat enjoyable, but annoying too. It wasn’t the games themselves that were annoying me, but something else, something overlooked greatly in the console gaming world and something that, in all honesty, pisses me off. It’s the damn game finder.

“But why?” I hear you cry, “it’s just a menu button, one click simple connect, how can you have anything against the poor defenceless critter?”

Well allow me to fill you in. In the real world of gaming, where loosing means you have to cut off your testicles and give them to the opposition as trophies (i.e./ the PC) online games have this wonderful thing commonly known as a ‘Server Browser’. It may seem like a strange and alien word to some of you console gamers, but allow me to explain before you cry with confusion. When you play a game online, you connect to another computer, this computer is called a ‘Server’ and as such, a ‘Server Browser’ allows you to view all the available servers currently running your game. You’re probably thinking, “what’s the point in that when I can just hit a button and hop straight onto one?” Well, in a Server Browser you get all these jazzy buttons to use, I’ll use Valves lovely Steam server browser as an example. View small, chopped up image below.

Back from the Holidays Future Past!

Greetings! I once again approach from the mists of doom to bring you joy! Hope everyone’s had a great holiday, I know I did, and hopefully this year will see much more from this blog.

This year I’m going to attempt to write at least one post every two weeks. I know, it seems like so little, but it takes time to write these damn things and get all the crap out of my system on the given subject. And come on, some of the updates are huge! I also have a minimum word count of 800, anything less won’t do, so they’re pretty hefty things, and free, I mean, most people (including me) pay money to read crap like this in magazines and 90% of the time they’re paid off to give certain games good reviews. I mean, look at Edge, 10/10 used to be reserved for legendary, super innovative and generally ground breaking games, and they gave that to Bayonetta!? WTFBBQDAIRYQUEEN!!?? It’s a fucking 3D 1990’s hack and slash beat ‘em up tit/thigh fest designed for filthy. filthy little boys who don’t have access to pornography. Piss off it’s not a 5/10 never mind a 10/10! No Edge! It’s the final straw! I’ll never buy your damn magazine again! You can just eat a dick!

Ahem… Enough of that…

Also this year I’m hoping to get some column writers to give their own personal views related to gaming, this will give more updates and more interesting/diverse views and opinions. This is open to everyone/anyone who thinks they can pull off an 800 word (minimum) rant about something related to the games industry. No previous experience necessary and no dead lines imposed. Fancy it? Pop me and email with all your details (names, breast size, etc.) and most importantly, a column (subject to be decided by you) written by yourself, in full correct English and if it’s as awesome as a lobster knife fight, you’ll be added to these pages and even get a lovely little banner for the top of your articles. My details can all be found here!

Happy reading!

-NaytoE

“Ping Pong… Ding Dong…

I sing, my song…”

Todays topic is all about Music in games, no, not Guitar Lamer, or Cock Band, the actual sound tracks of games. Now, you might be wondering why I’m excluding those derange karaoke games. Well, it’s simple really, they’re not games. They’re pathetic cash in’s that force you to constantly buy new songs to play more. And if you’re buying the songs, then you more than likely like the band/performer and thus probably already own the CD’s to those songs, so why not pick up a hair brush and some beer and do the same thing, it’s 10 times cheaper, and 10 times more enjoyable…  Pointless… Especially considering if people put in half the time they spend fannying with these piss arse ‘games’ they would be able to play a real life instrument!

Onwards! I’m going to start this Article with Grand Theft Auto III. Yes, number 3, oddly enough, it’s 3 games before the tripe that was released with a ‘IV’ after it. It’s also, in my opinion, the best GTA game for fun. But lets not get into that. GTA3 has a special place in my heart (along with 1 and 2) for one simple reason. It has a fantastic sound track. All the good songs on GTA3 (that’s Lips106 and Head Radio stations) were written just for the game. And they clearly suit it’s strange parody on life that is echoed through out the vast city of Liberty. This is true of GTA 1 and 2 also. Flicking through the stations first time is guaranteed to be an adventure all on its own.

Pointy Things

Oooh, what to ramble about today. Hmm, Gamer Points and Trophies seem like a good thing! Bastard achievements and their false feeling of worthiness.

First things first. What are achievements? Well, they are little “tasks” that you complete within a game that gives a small icon and adds points to an overall collection of points known as your Gamerscore©®™ or, if you’re on a PS3 they’re called trophies and add towards you “Trophy Level”.

I know, you all probably know what these things are, but I thought I’d just clarify, I’ve been around the internet long enough to know that almost all the people on it are complete moronic idiots, that does not exclude myself. So what’s the point of these achievements and the such. Well, I’m going to time travel for a minute and go back to the “Land Before XBox 360″ (Don’t cry fan boy’s, or you Mother Felicity, we won’t be there long). Well, back when the 360 was going through its press releases and such before its release, Microsoft kept mentioning this thing call a ‘GamerScore©®™’ and these other things called ‘Achievements©®™’. What they said about them was something along the lines of Achievements earn you points towards your gamerscore, which is a record of all your gaming shenanigans, but they will also be used to reward the player. So going from that, what rewards have we seen in games, other than the crappy pictures, which to be fair are hardly rewards.

D’ya Know who I am?!

Oh, good old Xbox live. Over the past few months that I’ve had it (it was a gift, I’m a pc gamer and as such don’t believe in paying extra to use a pissing game feature that’s been free since its start over 10 years ago) I’ve been looking into all the nooks and cranny’s of Microsoft’s bastard child with Satan. Over all I’d call it a poor experience. Extremely poor in fact. But why? I hear you all asking in total shock, well let’s get started!

Reputation is everything…

Or not, as it is with XBL. I’ve been playing with the whole reputation thing and much to horror, it doesn’t work. Not a shock really considering the flaming thing can’t connect with a PC correctly to stream anything, but that’s for later. So what’s actually wrong with the Rep system? Well, before we go into details let me just point out that this is a very,very important part of XBL, even though Microsoft don’t seem to think so. It’s the only indication that you have of weather or not you’re playing with a total dick head. But of course, if it doesn’t work, you don’t know, at least not until the person starts effing and shitting down the mic at you. So, your games ruined before it begins.