Are gamers selfish?

With the continued irritation from 'core gamers' (I really don't like this term) at motion controls be they “Kinect”, “Move” or “Wii” I wonder why they care. These platforms are clearly not aimed at them, yet they feel the need to attack them or even wish for them to completely fail. Those who game fear change, if they had their way we would be playing Elite 17 which would likely be the same game as the first (which was an utterly fantastic game). Pessimism is not a great way of looking forward, be optimistic about games.

“It seems like all the parts about geek culture that I work really hard to separate myself from (geeks are losers, the primary goal in life is to find a girlfriend, finding said girlfriend is the ultimate prize, ... and that being, as you put it, "oblivious and selfish" are common traits among all geeks that deserve to be looked past because we have hearts of gold blah blah blah entitled bullshit whydon'tthecheerleadersloveme...) being extolled and celebrated. These things are bad things to be and believe ... I love videogames. I like a whole lot of geek culture. But that stereotype is why I still feel a twinge of shame when I call myself a gamer in mixed company. In their minds, I'm being equated with people who believe that.” A quote from a friend.

I pretty much agree with this sentiment, though I am not ashamed of being called a gamer, I tend to feel embarrassed by other gamers. The cycle of selfishness extends to almost all areas of gaming:

PC gamers claiming a game is dumbed down for consoles,

Fanboyism for certain consoles,

Feeling betrayed when an originally exclusive franchise goes multiplatform,

among plenty of others.

If you don't like something, which you say you aren't going to buy should you complain? No, of course not. One should champion that which he/she enjoys (I have sung Chaos Theory's praise for the past 5 years).

“Kinect”, “Move and the “Wii” have not ended franchises, they have in-fact done the opposite, “Kid Icarus” is back, “Kirby” is back, “Rayman” is back, etc. Further to this your “Call of Duty”, “Halo”, “Uncharted”, “Starcraft” franchises are not going to go away, they sell in such phenomenal quantities I expect they will continue to exist for the foreseeable future; hell even lesser known series such as “The Witcher”, “S.T.A.L.K.E.R.” continue to exist.

Several throwaway comments on games I have played in the past year.

Prince of Persia (newest): It is OK, not as good as the last 3, the removal of death as a deterrent is irritating, I wish they had not done it, it seems like a way to appeal to "casuals". I think the combat is dry and repetitive also. 

Smash Bros:brawl: Overall an excellent game, however a lot of the mechanics from melee worked better in my opinion. 

Halo Wars: the best RTS I have played on a console, over simplified compared to PC ones, although that is to be expected. It is a pity Ensemble don't exist anymore

Farcry 2: an excellent game for what I have played of it but very hard to get into, I mean 2-4 hours in and you will start to get it. well worth it, the visuals are beautiful sunrises especially and night time is very nice too. Get it if you can.

The Maw:cute platformer with some great game mechanics, although it is a little short, there are a couple of items of DLC available Which I may buy. If you have a 360 get it, as it is only 800 msp with each each item of DLC being 100 msp. It's also on PC

Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition: Really like this game and the wii controls work excellently, so glad I picked it up especially for only £15

Gears of war 2: been getting back into the multiplayer, which is excellent when it doesn't lag, the campaign is pretty fun too. Although not recommended for younger gamers.

However it did not "blow me away" [ign.com]

No More Heroes: Quite repetitive in certain aspects but great looking, as well as having excellent characters. some of the finishing moves are a little unresponsive for me though.

Resident Evil 4 Wii: I know I have mentioned this earlier but I finished it a couple of days ago and it has been one of the best games I have played recently and love it.

Fable 2: Got the newest DLC been enjoying it especially revisiting Oakvale, although it is far too short like the game.

Dead Space: Picked this up a while ago (was only £15), only just started it last night, really enjoying it so far, the lack of direct hud helps build atmosphere. I would recommend this to any gamer who is a fan of the survival horror genre (in particular resident evil 4). While it isn't the best game ever it goes to show how much EA have improved recently along with other recent titles such as mirrors edge and others.

Lost Odyssey: I have been in the mood for a JRPG recently, and my preorder for Star Ocean: The Last Hope Limited Edition hasn't arrived yet. However I have this and never finished it. I am roughly 20 hours into it although my favourite part about the game has nothing to do with the main story line, by this I mean I absolutely love the short stories called Dreams, they are fanatasically written and amazingly scored, with these properties they can be (and usually are) very touching. Well worth getting hold of if you appreciate JRPGs and have a 360

Burnout Paradise: Utterly fantastic game, I tried the demo ages ago, when I did I just didn't like the feel of it and the amount of open space there was (in the same way the beginning of Far Cry 2 did). However I picked the demo up again due to hearing many good things about it, put some effort into it and enjoyed it, I picked up the ultimate box today for £20, which is a pretty good deal as the standard game retails for above £15. The open world system is fantastic and implemented more successfully than the one in Need for Speed Undercover. However it isn't a straight racer, it involves elements similar to platformers to gain 100% completion (launching from a series of ramps to break a billboard or make a super jump).

Star Ocean: The Last Hope: I really want to love this more than I seem to, I really like the combat, I don't mind the weird china doll like character design, there just seems to be something missing which I cannot put my finger on.

Marvel Vs Capcom 2: I suck at this, getting better at stringing combos together though. Current team is Cycle, Venom and War Machine.

Shadow Complex: A great game with the mechanics, the story itself is dreadful. I want the game to be brighter and more colourful, which generally doesn't happen in Unreal engine 3 games, unless you are Mirror's Edge.  

Street Fighter IV: I still suck at fighting games, this is no exception. However with my recent purchase of a stick my game has noticeably improved.

Marvel VS Capcom 2: Been playing a lot of this with a friend who is into fighters. I am better at this than with SF4 but not yet god enough to play many other people. Again using a stick has definitely improved my game.

Mass Effect: Replaying along the Renegade path as a woman, the female actor seems to fit the role really quite well. The dialogue paths and options are some of the best in any game which I have played, in this respect it seems like those in an adventure game, but better. Some of the combat is frustrating with my character being of a low level at the moment.

Halo ODST: It's a shooter and it's made by Bungie (who know how to make shooters whatever you say). Firefight is the best survival mode which I have ever played. Need For Speed Shift: an Okay game, with a f**kton of glitches, when/if they patch it it will be a lot better.

Civilization 4 Complete: really liking it so far, bit confused with a few things but I shoud get the hang of it.

Forza 3: Easily the best racing game I have played, also the most I have enjoyed a game this much in years.

Left 4 Dead 2: It's pretty much fantastic, a lot of minor yet noticable differences. An excellent game none the less.

Mass Effect 2: This is an utterly fantastic game, it also seems quite likely to be my favourite in the coming year.

Battlefield Bad Company 2 Beta: A really fun game, particularly if playing with friends to play off of. Though a lot of people were playing it a deathmatch game, which sucked.

Team Fortress 2: A really fun game to have got back into, though I cannot believe it will be 3 years old this year.

The Witcher: I love how this game feels, kind of like a cop game, but in a medieval fantasy world. There are a few clunky design aspects with respect to inventory and quests, but once you get past them it's all fine and dandy. 

Halo Reach (beta): It's pretty rad, quite different to the previous titles, yet still retaining the feeling of Halo. It's closest to the original in feel, yet the game it reminds me the most of would have to be Star Wars: Republic Commando (the best thing related to the pretend/prequel trilogy).

CoD: MW2: Exactly what I needed at the time, mindless shooting and lots of explosions.

Street Fighter IV Fightstick Upgrade

I've had my Madcatz Street Fighter IV Standard fightstick since August of 2009. I thought it was time to upgrade the parts of it. Don't get me wrong it's a damn good stick, I just felt it needed an upgrade, with the stick getting squeaky and loose, likely due to abuse from me. So after partially disassembling and reassembling my stick to test if I could do it, well within the knowledge I could purchase a Tekken 6 Hori stick if I damaged it beyond repair.

Following this I managed to remove a couple of buttons and the stick itself with ease, replacing them was just as easy. From here I ordered the parts I required from Gremlin Solutions: who were very efficient, not the fastest postage, though all of my parts arrived in perfect condition 2 days after I ordered them. The parts I purchased were: A blackball Sanwa JLF-TP-8YT and 6 Sanwa OBSF-30 buttons with a red surround and white button.


A few days later I received my parts, then set about performing the upgrade. A couple of notes to this, some of the quick disconnect cables were a pain to remove, this may have been a manufacturing problem or process. One was so tight that I ended up snapping the contact on an old button. Despite these few flaws I managed to finish with no other problems.

Onto the hardware itself, it feels a hell of a lot better. The plastics are far superior and the edge are a lot smoother, making holding the stick feel more enjoyable. The mechanical parts of the stick are also stronger, particularly with the stick, where you can feel the micro-switches more definitely. While playing it is clear that that the new parts are superior, again the stick is the biggest improvement, performing a Light punch Shoryuken into a Shinkuu Hadouken feels more natural. All said the upgrade was well worth doing, especially with Blazblue around the corner in Europe.


Finally here is a link to the full photo album of the modification: http://www.flickr.com/photos/patrickjcarter/sets/72157623627194012/

Mass Effect 2

With Mass Effect, I was unsure what to expect. Knights of the Old Republic being the only other Bioware game I previously played. There were plenty of barriers preventing players from enjoying the Original, including but not limited to: a weak cover system, after being released a year later than Gears of War, and the infamous Mako. Mass Effect was one of the first titles I picked up for the Xbox 360, due to joining the seventh generation of games consoles in 2008. Despite the aforementioned problems, I fell in love with the game, the characters and the side quests were where my interest lay. The main storyline was inferior in many ways to the more consumable “assignments”, which piqued my interest in the game due to them not being a cliché ridden Science fiction.


So onto Mass Effect 2, I decided to purchase the PC release above the 360, several factors entered into this including cost and system preference. I had not finished a Mass Effect play-through on PC , however I was informed of a site with multiple save games for the original. Following this I chose one similar to my original character, I was set to go. Boy was I in for a surprise, Mass Effect 2 includes some of the biggest changes I have seen in a sequel for a long time, they kept very little of the core the same, at least with the combat, yes it shares many systems with the original, the refinement, of which, is great enough to warrant my statement. All of these points have been mentioned by others, so I shan't expand on this.


The characters in the second game are fantastic, far superior to those in Mass Effect, their backgrounds and development arcs were surprisingly fleshed out. Relationships between various crew mates seemed quite quite transparent, following the same formula for the occurrences. The character progression was simplified to a great extent compared to it's predecessor, I can see why they did it and it is no way a bad decision, I would have preferred a more complicated advancement system. These slight disagreements aside, Mass Effect 2 is easily the best hybrid of an RPG and an action game I have played.
With the end of the game, as in Knights of the Old Republic there is a possibility of losing a number of your squad, through decisions you make during the game, or during this section. So with my relationship with several of the characters, I spent a decent amount of time choosing who shall do what, with no knowledge of the outcomes. This leads me to my next point, there are several different results for the outcome of who lives and who dies. The outcome I experienced was favourable to that of fellow gamer Marek Bronstring (of Sega and Idle Thumbs). I have no idea of how many overall outcomes there are with this combined with the other decisions which are made during the game, I expect they are in the hundreds however.


My main interest is how this is all dealt with in the 3rd title in the Mass Effect series. Will they simply ignore the characters who can die, or will they create multiple situations where encounters between multiple characters from the two currently released titles can exist. I sincerely hope that the latter is the case. It may not be the massive jump forward that I predict gaming will have, though it is a definite push in the right direction.