Nuclear Dawn is a game that came out in September, and can be seen as a “new generation” of the natural selection type of game. Nuclear Dawn started out in 2006 as a mod for Counter Strike: Source, and is now coming to us in a commercial form (available on Steam!)

This game really is a very good blend of the RTS and FPS genres into a fairly good game (It’s had many patches since the beta with bug fixes). To me the aiming system feels a bit sluggish, I can’t put my finger on why, but the side to side movement is quite slow and you end up either having a really high sensitivity or half breaking your mouse from belting it across the mouse pad. Since the beta there are now tutorials on how everything in the game works, but unfortunately it is a single player game only. On a multiplayer level though, it is quite win.

The story of Nuclear Dawn does not go to great lengths to be original. It is basically a post apocalyptic war between two factions, the Consortium and the Empire (basically Russians vs. Americans… familiar?) The Consortium is the blue team and the Empire the red. It is set in the late 21st century, and the world has been nuked in a big way, my guess is by massive nukes (hence the title), with the two factions fighting over certain points. There is only one type of game mode available at the moment, with two teams of sixteen, with the objectives of controlling the resource points and to help the commander get the energy he needs to construct additional buildings (the RTS side of it). You win by taking out the opposing team’s bunker.

I like its layout, the menu is smooth and it’s easy to find a server. Once you’re in game, you can choose from one of 4 classes available to you. Each class has its own weapons and perks, and come with different packs that you can equip. You get your Heavy-Gunning exo; the stealth operatives that can go invisible, Assault with visors that can see the invisible and Support with heal and repair kits. Each class then has certain kits available to choose from, for example the stealth operative can choose to be either a sniper (this is too much fun, invising and only coming out when you pop a guy in the face) or carry a knife, so you can stab some poor unsuspecting soul in the back. Support can choose to be medics, engineers, or even have flamethrowers. Assault can arm himself with a standard SMG, or some noob tubes and shotguns, or even a sniper rifle. Exo’s can pick between a comically large chain gun and some Bad-Ass siege rocket launchers to take down enemy buildings. The longer you play the more chance you have of getting upgrades and additional weapon options as your commander finishes researching upgrades back at base.

Each class has its own ups and downs, and it never feels that one class is overpowered. The Stealth troopers are like the spy in TF2 or anything that can go invis really, they can get very annoying, especially if they knows what they’re doing. There is a very annoying exploit where EMP grenades (used by engineers) could be used to shut down the enemy spawn point for quite long periods of time, and you couldn’t respawn back into the game (very annoying I might add), however this could also be your commander’s fault in the first place for bad base management. However if they do get it right, games go very, very badly.

There are 6 different post apocalyptic locations to choose from, once again not too original with the locations, such as London or New York, or an Asian subway. There is a snow military base (probably my favourite map) and a Middle Eastern ruined city of some kind. There is enough detail to get by; although you can feel that the emphasis is on the game play and not the prettiness of it all. There are definitely choke points where you can defend, and plenty of places to snipe in every map. There is always a central point where most of the fighting tends to happen, as controlling and maintaining this point generally wins you the game.

Once or twice however, I have been fortunate enough to play the commander aspect of Nuclear Dawn, and it is definitely equally as fun overseeing the battle from the safety of a bunker. He can dish out orders as he has an aerial view of the battlefield, and can construct buildings to help his team, like additional spawn points, gun turrets, supply points, armouries for upgrades and all the usual. Once these buildings are up you can research new structures and weapons to help your team.

However, there is a big emphasis on the commander. It’s like any game where you get “that guy”, the noob who doesn’t know WHAT he is doing. If your commander is bad, you generally don’t do very well in the game. If you get a commander that’s on the ball, you get a whole different ballgame, and the difference is very notable.

My only problem is there is quite a learning curve before you actually know what’s going on. Without interactive tutorials, you just kind of jump in and hope for the best, and it took me a while to figure out what the hell was going on. The first time I played a commander it was a total disaster, and there were many people who were not pleased with me in the slightest. However I think this learning curve is why there are so few servers that are populated.

Nuclear Dawn is a very team-work orientated game, and if you get a good team and a good commander it can be a lot of fun, although I don’t feel it is a game that everyone will enjoy. As a genre blending game, you pretty much are not going to get any better out on the gaming market, so if that is your cup of tea, than Nuclear Dawn is for you!

I have a problem. The problem is a simple one, but in the end it is the stereotypes we see again and again that are counter-productive to gaming actually moving forward with the technology we have. (This is the part where you prepare for paragraphs of loathing hatred, hopefully in an intellectual manner.)

First of all, let’s talk about the essence of gaming itself. Why do people play games? At the end of the day, we subjugate one reality for another. We as participants take ourselves out of the reality of the world around us and surround ourselves in the reality of another game, whatever that game may be. If you’ve read my columns before, we also strive for “epic wins” in our games, or otherwise put, shiny things, loot and chievo’s.

These 2 things combined is probably the broadest definition of gaming. If both these check-boxes are checked (no matter how terrible the game) it can still be classified as a game. Now in terms of graphics, it’s gone pretty much 2 ways. It’s either cartoony, or realistic.

Think about it. Let’s take me for example, I’ve played the following games in the last month or so: Starcraft 2, Dota, LoL, CoD MW2, Borderlands, TF2 and that’s before I get to the indie games. Out of those, only MW2 went for any sort of realistic graphics, and the rest is toony. To be honest, besides the new FPS games that are striving for as much realism as possible (looking towards Battlefield 3 here); everything else is toony in its own right.

So why then, I ask, do people hate on graphics that have gone the full toony route, say for example, League of Legends. I’ve had multiple people say that they won’t play it simply because of the “toony” graphics, and then go play Warcraft 3, which is AS or if not MORE toony, just in a slightly different style of animation because the game was made in 2002, whereas LoL came out in 2009.

Just looking at net code alone, games that are coming out nowadays are WAY more up to date than games of the past, even allowing us South Africans to take part in an international community in some games. The technology exists for us to compete on an international scale, and we are beginning to see it come through the woodwork, and benefit from it.

Valve has announced a new counter-strike, CS: Global Operations, aka CS: GO. Now I am very worried about this game, and for a few reasons. Firstly, I don’t think most CS players will have the computers to actually play this game, as they haven’t updated or seen a resolution higher than 800×600 since about 1998. Secondly, if it isn’t EXACTLY what 1.6 and CS: S players both want for the game, it is going to be a total failure, and the CS community will do what they always do, and go back to the old game. Thirdly, it is competing in a now flooded market, and is to be honest, a bit behind. So many CS players have moved over to other franchises only a skeleton community exists of what CS used to be, simply because people realised that there are better games out there.

I really hope CS: GO is awesome, and valve have yet to disappoint post CS: S, so I’m pretty sure it’s going to be a winner. But in both of these instances, people keep on going back to old games, and I honestly don’t understand why.

It’s a comfort zone thing. On the internet, being called a noob is the ultimate insult, and playing like one makes you feel even worse. Coming into a new game and getting pawned for hours and hours on end isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but it’s something that has to be done. Because once that learning curve is over and you come to fruition, you realise that it wasn’t so bad after all. And once you start owning, that’s when the real fun begins.

And game designers have really made gaming quite simple. Most games have a very simple and quick learning curve to get over (except E.Y.E – Divine Cybermancy… it’s actually ridiculous, more on this later this month), and get you going in the right direction quickly.

So, what is the truth about gaming? It’s really quite simple. Gamers will always stick to their comfort zone so that they can throw abuse when they pawn, because that’s how we get our kicks. But for gaming to succeed on a level that all gamers want it to be at, on a huge competitive level, we have to move forward with the technology and try new things, otherwise we are doomed.

Zombies are probably one of the biggest stress relievers in society. There are so many kinds of zombie massacre games out there, mainstream and indie, that gets you pelting zombies with all kinds of military paraphernalia for some good stress relieving at the end of the day.

From the most popular, the giant that is Left 4 Dead 2, which puts you as 4 survivors in a zombie apocalypse, with its almost Counter-Strike array of weapons as well as some tasty melee and grenade launching goodies.

There is only one problem I have with this game, and its actually the storyline. You only have so many maps you can play, with pretty much the same story line over and over again. What makes up for this is the PvP, which lets you play the special kinds of zombies, which can be very entertaining.

But let’s be honest, the characters in L4D2 are way less entertaining than the characters in L4D1, and are probably amongst the least entertaining when it comes to repeatability.

On the Indie front, there is a way more entertaining release entitled Burn Zombie Burn! which is available for R70 on Steam. Here is the gameplay trailer:

As you can see, this is awesome. It has a tribute to Crimsonland feel, and gets you pelting away with all sorts of tasty goodies, and there is no storyline involved, you just have to shoot and survive, simple as that. Far more stress relieving, and because of the cartoony graphics, it is endlessly entertaining. Unfortunately, there is no multiplayer for those real gamers out there, but luckily there is an alternative.

Tripwire Interactive gives, in my opinion, the most entertaining zombie purchase yet, which is their title Killing Floor, an FPS zombie epic with up to 6 player co-op as well as levels and perks, everything you want in a zombie game. Here is the rather bad gameplay trailer for the game:

The whole point of the game is very simple. There are up to 10 rounds of zombies on a large array of maps/scenarios, and you can specialise in different weapons and guns. There are 6 different classes you can play, each with its own weapon speciality and perks. Berserkers are good at melee, Support Specialist is a shotgun junkie, so on and so forth. There are flamethrowers, LAW rocket launchers, AA12′s, AK47′s, Desert Eagles, Katanas and more to destroy people with, and for anyone that wants some intense zombie killing, this game is for you.

I was lucky enough to buy Killing Floor for $6.23 on the Steam summer sale, and it was worth all the R40 I bought it for, and I urge you to buy it if you are feeling stressed, because this is definitely one for you. There are all sorts of difficulties, ranging from Beginner all the way up to Hell on Earth, and let’s just say I’ve yet to successfully pass anything but Normal, which is the 2nd-easiest difficulty. It is really a tricky game, and the harder you get, the more you find yourself getting swamped by “specimens”, and the more determined you are to pump bullets into their face. It’s great.

For those of you who loved GTA before it turned 3D, try out the indie game by EXOR Studios called Zombie Driver, which gets you running over thousands of zombies, and torching them with many kinds of vehicular weapons and doing some quests along the way. Gameplay here:

This game is great for something a bit different in terms of the perspective at which you kill zombies, and the further along you get, the more cars and perks get unlocked, which gives you something to look forward to. With its Player’s Choice Indie game of the year in 2010, this one will get those zombie glands salivating.

Zombie games to look forward to? There is a very good looking zombie game called Dead Island which is going to be released on the 9th of September, which looks like it is going to be a zombie killing epic, which I really hope it is.

And any sign of Left 4 Dead 3? Well after some research all I can say is…

Ugh.

Today is about Epic Wins. You may never have heard the term “epic win” to be referred as a noun, but in this article it will be. Confused? Watch this talk from a game designer Jane McGonigal at TED, about how gaming could make the world a better place.

For those of you that aren’t going to bother watching it, the talk is basically this. She wants to take that teamwork, thought and power that people put into their gaming, the search for the “Epic Win” as she calls it, and use it to solve mankind’s problems.

For example, she has made a game for the fuel crisis. She created a world out of fuel, let people do anything and see the results, which turned out to be really good.   She says that this should be a future for gaming, where they put the co-operative think tank that is the gaming world, and see where we get.

She uses World of Warcraft as an example. You can get up to 25 people, all working, talking and playing together to achieve a goal, all striving towards epic wins. Now I’ve got to be honest, she does have a point, and she backs it up with statistics as well. In this day and age, your average gamer has played 10,000 hour’s worth of games by the time he has reached 21. That is the amount of time spent in your education.  That means that gamers are dedicating as much of their lives to education as they are to gaming, and has equal emphasis in their lives.

But even in World of Warcraft at the moment,  the teamwork isn’t spontaneous, it is carefully planned out and organised, You’ve got your guilds with pre-organised raids, and you end up playing with the same people every time. And this is where I get excited about Guild Wars 2. Using the knowledge we’ve attained so far, take a look at this.

As you can see, the world of Guild Wars 2 I believe is going to revolutionise not only the MMO genre, but the way teamwork is made and dealt with in Guild Wars 2. With the dynamic questing system and World Events, you will be constantly surrounded by people and new stuff to do. Not only that, but the difficulty of the quests will change depending on how many people you have in your group, and/or how many of the players in the surrounding area take the quest as well.

This will be truly spontaneous teamwork, as it will be whoever happens to in and around the area at the time that you are suddenly thrown into a group with, all adventuring for a common cause. To add to the dilemma for World of Warcraft players at having to handle an entirely different world and game style, Guild Wars 2 has further reinvented the combat system.

You see, as with most RPG’s that have ever existed, you have your three broad categories of classes: Tank, Healer, and DPS. Our friends from Guild Wars decided that instead of staying inside that box, that they would abolish it all together and try creating something new. This leaves a game where roles formed aren’t going to be the ones that gamers are familiar with, although you may find yourself playing some sort of role in the game itself. This promotes out the box thinking, and tapping into that core knowledge of what it takes to be a gamer and work as a team.

I find this all interesting and exciting, and who knows… Maybe we do have the power to make world peace, one piece of bubblegum at a time.

Portal 2 is the sequel to the 2008 game of the year, and as you can guess by now, is a cracker of a game. Let me point out at the start, that this review is done by two people, myself and Tian Gerber. I will be reviewing the single player and Tian will add his thoughts about the co-op a bit further down. Tian was my Co-Op buddy for the game, so it only makes sense. Thereafter, Caveshen will add a second take on the second page. It’s recommended that you read both pages, for maximum enjoyment.

eGamer Rating

Addictive? Absolutely. I had finished all the content in under 24 hours.

Worth The Time? Absolutely.

Things Loved: Everything. The dialogue, the interaction, the graphics, the teamwork and the story all work towards a well rounded game.

Things Hated: Annoying load times.

Reasons to Buy / Not Buy: There is no reason not to buy this game. It is amazing value for your buck, and is definitely replayable.

Quick Conclusion: Portal was one of the greatest single players I have ever played, until I got to Portal 2. It is a truly superb game.

Name:Portal 2
Genre:Puzzle Adventure
Players:1 – 2
Multiplayer: Co-op
Platforms:Xbox360, PS3, NDS, Wii
Developers:Valve Studios
Publishers:Paramount Digital Entertainment, Electronic Arts
Release Date:April 13, 2011
Price:~R350

The single player takes place after the first game, at first what you think is 50 or so years in the future. However, you soon realise that you are 999,999 years in the future, and you are alone in the test facility with only 2 robots as company. Our friend GLaDOS from Portal 1 is back, as well as another robot, Wheatley, played by the brilliant Steve Merchant.

The single player appears in three chapters. The first chapter sees your escape from the confines of your prison, and into the first few test chambers. The storyline is very funny, and these challenges are reminiscent of the starting chapters in Portal 1. They are basically getting you familiar with the portal gun. If you like the cubes, from Portal 1, you are in luck as well!

The next few sets of chambers you encounter sees you being tormented and under the control of our old friend GlaDOS, who has had the last 2 minutes of her life (you killing her in Portal 1) on repeat for millennia. Let’s just say, she isn’t very friendly towards you. The challenges become exponentially more difficult, with the inclusion of some new toys. You get a whole bunch of new things to play with, such as hard light bridges, convection funnels, discouragement lasers, faith plates as well as other fun things to help you on your way.

In the second chapter, you find yourself in the belly of the beast, in test chambers from the 1950’s in an abandoned part of the test facility. Here you encounter the 2 new goo’s which have been included in the game. Blue goo helps you bounce, and the Orange goo is velocity goo, which helps you go really fast.

The challenges in this chapter I found satisfyingly challenging, and the storyline entertaining as well. With a combination of all your new toys as well as portals, some of the levels seem absolutely impossible at a first glance, but with some hard work, brain power and a bit of luck, you soon get to where you need to be.

(Just let it be known at this stage that I am trying to avoid spoilers as much as possible!)

If you don’t like spoilers, skip ahead a bit. The third chapter sees you teaming up with the now potato version of GLaDOS to take down Wheatley, who is now in charge and tearing down the facility around them. The epic finale has an easily reachable time limit and is a great way to end this epic single player.

Tian Gerber on Co-op:

When you pick up your copy of Portal 2 and finish it in one glorious 6-8 hour sitting, you will be excited to know that there is now Co-Op in the Portal franchise. GLaDOS will still be around to torture and belittle you often teasing one player to coax a reaction or tear a sunder on your friendship. One player will play as the little blue ball called “Atlas” and the other a rather ‘turret shaped’ bot named “P-Body”.

The co-op mode consists of five different tests chambers, each with a theme. For example one test chamber will test your collective patience when dealing with light bridges (this is also a great time to upset your buddy by removing the light bridge keeping him safely above the scalding pool of acid… purely by accident of course). Can you smell the testing yet? The tests, I will admit, do get rather tricky and requires that both players work together while trying to not give in to GLaDOS and her snide remarks.

At the end of each test chamber, GLaDOS sends you and your partner outside of the facility to collect a comically large DVD and insert them for her into the equally oddly sized DVD player. What purpose do these comically large DVDs serve I hear you ask? Get off that bean-bag chair pop on those sandals and walk to a store and buy the game! This isn’t a spoiler, it is a review! But the ending of the co-op is equally if not better than the single players’ ending and well worth keeping that friendship going (until at least the end of the game of course).

All in all the game is great fun often challenging you and your partner to think outside of the box, or if neither of you are great thinkers, it’s also fun spending 20 minutes flinging one another through portals until you somehow fluke the solution. Myself and Richard rolled through the co-op in one sitting, starting at 10pm lasting until 3am. Unfortunately there is no real replay ability, once you have solved the puzzles, unless you suffer from short term memory loss, they are particularly memorable. The expression two heads are better than one has never been truer (or more entertaining). This was the most fun I’ve had sitting behind a PC in a long time (it is also available on console, if you’re into that sort of thing). Enjoy walking to the store and don’t worry, it’s worth it.

It was one truly epic night of gaming, and well enjoyed. As you can see, portal is fun in the single and multiplayer, and although may not be repeatable with the same partner, I reckon can be equally enjoyed if you play with different friends as well, with all sorts of achievements to go for.

Portal has been identified as one of the games to be compared with in 2011, and I believe it lives up to its reputation.

So, Japan got rolled… hard:  Massive Earthquakes, tidal waves and a nuclear crisis. It is definitely not the best place to be living/surviving at the moment. But, if you happen to live on a fault line, these are the kind of disasters expected to happen. And that got me thinking, do you think gamers would survive better in disasters than our fellow human beings?

Well, the best I can come up with is a two part answer, one for and one against. On the one side of the coin, is the internet warrior.

In the event of a zombie apocalypse or a Mad Max type situation, I think gamers would definitely have an advantage. In a recent survey it was shown that people who regularly play computer games have a much faster reaction time than most other human beings. In a real combat environment, this advantage is a definite key to success. You’ll have keen strategists as well from the RTS side of things, and if organised, could probably bring about a sizeable and organised force.

But this will never happen, because gamers are chicken. In post apocalyptic films, you always see the I.T. guy hiding in a bunker somewhere nowhere close to the action. And that is because of a flaw in gamers as a whole. Every one of us suffers from it, and we all refuse to admit it, but we are all creatures of comfort.

And sadly, this is true. Every gamer has his or her comfort zone, that certain game they play and will own every time. Take the entire CS community as an example, having migrated back to a game made in 1998, just because that is where they are comfortable.  I know, because DotA was my comfort zone for many years, but I’ve learned to try different things, and have expanded my circle of comfort to a wide variety of games.

I think everyone should play a bit of everything now and then, to loosen up a bit. In the end it actually helps you as a gamer. Playing some FPS helps with reaction time, RTS and DotA or LoL (a game I’ve recently become rather fond of.., messsage me if you play) help with teamwork and strategy, all three are good for communication in different ways, and change is not always a bad thing.

I mean take the Call of Duty franchise. People are still playing CoD4, yet there have been 2 way more fun CoD’s since then. But people liked the promod in CoD4, and so have never moved on, even though I think it would make for much more exciting gaming.

So what am I trying to say? I’m saying that gamers would suck if war were to break lose. We don’t actually have the balls to do anything; we sit around and click buttons all day. We’d probably be best at making an impenetrable fortress, but we’d never be on the front lines.  I’m saying to actually dare that dream, take that step, and plunge into the deep end.

Try something new every now and then… it’s worth it.

So here we are again. Another year of what a YouTube clip I watched worded: “a year of hoping not to be disappointed.” Because ultimately gaming is 99% playing the one good game you have, and 1% playing the game you thought was going to be amazing, and was then, not.

Why have I been silent? Well, the answer is something of a personal one. To be honest, I haven’t really had much to say, nothing in the gaming world has really inspired me of late. It could well be the self loathing now that I have an extremely geared Mage in World of Warcraft, or the fact that no matter how hard I try, I always end up playing a couple of games of dota every now and then.

The only thing exciting that has happened in the gaming community is the disbanding of Pantheon Gaming. I hardly call it a surprise, but their article in the end actually made me laugh on the inside. It can be seen here.

Besides holding a few tournaments and constantly insulting the MSSA (who still exist, by the way), I don’t think Pantheon had the impact that the article describes. On the other hand, MSSA are apparently starting a gaming channel on DSTV, and seem to be growing with sponsors as well, and have sent teams overseas to gaming championships in Asia. Just a point for people to mull over in their heads.

Now that we’re done with the news, we can get onto something that I am actually excited about, Battlefield 3. It. Looks. Awesome! I must say that above all the other exciting games due to come out in 2011 (Star wars MMO included), this game really gets me excited. See some gameplay here.

At first I was excited, but after realising that Battlefield: Bad Company 2 was a steamy pile, I wasn’t so excited anymore. Luckily, that was before I watched and thoroughly enjoyed the gloriousness of the above video.

With Call of Duty: Black Ops being the bug filled mess that it is, the position is really out there for a new, great FPS to exist. People moving back to CS 1.6 in this day and age is absolutely ridiculous. I was in grade 4 when that game came out, it is time to move on people! Why play in direct X 6 when you could be rolling in Direct X 11 gloriousness that looks better than real life, rather than running around pixilated barnyards while the radiation from your CRT monitor’s slowly kills your brain. (Sorry, I really dislike Counter-Strike)

Battlefield 3, looks like it may just have that potential. Unfortunately, having potential doesn’t mean it is going to be good. Take any game by Activision as an example. As I said in the beginning, I just hope, for the sake of gamers everywhere, that I am not disappointed.

So it’s that time of the year again, people are singing carols and shops are already starting to stock their winter gear (I think it’s some sort of conspiracy that they only sell winter clothes in summer and vice versa) just in time for the Christmas season. Children, now no longer distracted by things like school or sport, can happily scream outside your window all day as they run aimlessly around the garden for hours on end.

But as with this time of year, comes the horrible job of Christmas shopping. Let’s face it; shops are absolutely packed to the rim with shoppers and mommies with prams, all trying to get the latest gadgets and cool stuff for their families. I personally hate Christmas shopping, just because I find that trying to find something that the person will actually like is almost impossible for me, so I usually just do the safest thing, and buy lots and lots of chocolate.

I’ve only ever met two people that didn’t eat chocolate, and that’s because they both had allergies to the stuff (one has since found out that she doesn’t actually have allergies to chocolate, and has since become a chocoholic).

But the whole scenario of Christmas shopping is what really annoys me. The shopping centres smell, because there are so many people in them; you have to weave a path through 4,000 people to try get to the one thing you actually want, only to find that they are out of stock; eventually taking refuge in a bank just because it has air-conditioning. I’m sure everyone has been there before.

And to me, I have the same kind of fear and dread when it comes to MMORPG’s. In an effort to try both sides of the scale, within the last two weeks I’ve started playing two RPG’s on completely opposite sides of the scale: Pangya, an online golf game and (dare I say it) World of Warcraft.

Now before you start trashing me (because I’ve definitely trashed WoW in previous articles), my friend Tian (Ariez) started playing WoW awhile back, and was constantly annoying me to play WoW, and no matter how much I raged at him, his undeterred willpower to get me to play the game eventually overpowered me (If I was to become any more annoyed with him I think my head actually would have exploded), so I went out and bought the WoW box set, which surprisingly only cost R400.

To me one thing is essential in MMORPG’s, because I’ve played quite a few free ones in my time, and there seems to be a common factor to most of them: They are deathly boring. There are thousands of Asian MMO’s where you literally just mindlessly kill the same creatures over and over again. The creatures didn’t even change, it was the same block like goblins that got higher and higher level as you levelled.

So when I start an MMORPG I’m always very wary about how much fun I’m having.  One thing is for sure, I definitely have fun with Pangya. Pangya is a little 700meg anime-like golfing game (it used to be called Albatross18), which Dean and myself used to play many years ago (I say many years because we were both still in school at the time), but decided to relive our glory days and give it another go.

Website here.

You get trick shots, power shots and curve shots, the maps are pretty crazy, and it is actually a game that you can use just to relax and have some fun while chatting to people. I suggest trying it out, it’s free! Perhaps if there are enough people playing, we can organise some sort of competition, perhaps a “DeMo and Nitrate vs. the world” competition (I’m not worried, we’ll definitely win).

While I’m not playing golf, I decided to tackle the mother of all MMO’s, World of Warcraft, just so that Tian and renowned internet trollmeister, Skillpig, would stop badgering me (if you can’t beat them, join them). Using the “Refer-a-friend” feature, I managed to get to level 60 in about 4 days, and I’m currently questing in the burning crusade (level 66 Blood Elf Mage, Twilights Hammer). And I must just say, that a lot of the quests are actually fun.

Now before you start moaning about how you use to play WoW and the quests were definitely not exciting, I refer you to another eGamer article here. As our columnist Greg so beautifully explained, almost all the quests in the starting areas and around the world because of the “Shattering” (the world event leading up to Cataclysm, which comes out next week) have changed, and Blizzard have gone to the effort to try and make the quests interesting, so that it is not just mindless grinding for hours on end. The goblin race, which is the new race for the horde in the new expansion, deliver by far the most entertaining quests, having to fly gobo rockets or punching Billy goats off cliffs, easy XP and fun at the same time.

As sad as it is to admit, all my inhibitions about it have been crushed. But the sad thing is if you want a truly great RPG, there really isn’t much choice out there, besides maybe Neverwinter Nights 1. If you like RPG’s, the revamped WoW is definitely for you. I’m just glad to see that MMO’s are not only for people with addictive personalities, but gaming companies are making it much easier for your average social gamer to have fun as well.

At the end of the day, if you are not having fun, then it’s not the game for you. Simple as that.

To be perfectly honest, I didn’t have much to talk about today. I’ve been thinking the whole week, and just couldn’t find anything I thought decent enough to actually put into words. I said to myself, “Ok, its article time”, and proceeded to just stare at my screen for awhile.

But while I was staring at my screen yesterday evening my Firefox wanted to update itself, which I let it do happily. And then something magical occurred. My Mozilla restarted, and brought up a window where beautiful things were thrown at me. See, I’m sucker for customising my desktop and application, and this was absolutely perfect. There are literally thousands upon thousands of designs, called personas, for your Firefox. And even better, to see what the skin will look like on your computer all you have to do is hold your mouse over the picture!

To me this was brilliant. I spent a large portion of the next couple of hours just searching for random personas, seeing which one I liked the best. I eventually settled on StarCraft 2 personas which I thought were pretty cool. But there was a problem. The way I had customised my Windows 7 didn’t match the way I had customised my Firefox, and this would just not do. So then the next step in my customising scheme occurred, fixing my Windows to match my Firefox persona. It was all just too much fun.

This I eventually did, only to realise that my current background didn’t match the colour scheme of my Firefox or my Windows. So another search of the Intertr0n had to take place to find a matching background to match my Firefox and my Windows. It was around this time that I started to realise that I had a problem. I was customising myself into a coma. Next, I was going to be customising my WinAmp and my IRC. Almost any application you have on your PC nowadays have all sorts of different skins and preferences you can change with.

I think this is kind of cool. The fact’s that now days you can really turn your computer into your own, make things match and make them look exactly how you want to. Of course it is silly to think that you can only do this on your computer; there are thousands if not millions of different application for the modern phones of today, like the Blackberry or iPhone, which you can also customise to hell and back.

Here’s where I hit a problem though. The only game I can think have where things are really very customisable is World of Warcraft; in terms of you can almost fully tech out your GUI and hotkeys in game. Due to the fact I intensely dislike the game for soul-sucking, life altering reasons, I’ve decided to put my hopes into another game which has a lot more potential.

The new Star Wars MMORPG. I really think they should try make an almost completely dynamic universe, one where you can take over planets, and try extend the sphere of your team (whether it be good or evil’s) influence. Imagine a game where you constantly had to be on the lookout for attacks from the opposing side, and having to react to try and stop them. What better way to do it than a Jedi, possibly the most talented and well equipped superheroes of all time.

I think if ol’ Georgie could figure out a way to do something like that, his game might still stand a chance, instead of being, according to eGamer, a massive sadness to come. So here’s what I say to George Lucas: Rape another one of what use to be your “beautiful franchises” and the whole world will lose faith in you.  Don’t kill Star Wars any more than you already have!

I have an interesting question for us all today, ladies and gents. Many of you who have had the dubious honour of meeting me know that I have a rather disturbed sense of humour. I am a comedy fanatic, and you’ll find mostly comedies in my “favourite movies/series” list.

Yet it is frightfully obvious, and has been for the last hundred years. British comedy is absolutely miles ahead of anything that the Americans can shove at us. That being said, there are obviously rare exclusions to the rules, such as Boston Legal or Scrubs, which were brilliant. But if you think about it, names like Monty Python and Black Adder are cemented in time as being hysterically funny.

And this got me thinking. Why is British comedy so much funnier than American comedy? Why are bony-legged pompous Brits so funny to watch? I’ve watched many American and British comedies and can only come to one conclusion: Attention to detail.

The British are meticulous in detail when it comes to their sense of what’s funny, hence most British comedies end up with the protagonist in the most unbelievable situations with hysterical outcomes, while most American comedy is made funny by people falling over things (it never gets old).

A perfect case in point is Fawlty Towers. John Cleese manages to get himself into an absolute hysteria almost every episode, leaving the audience gasping for air and a sore stomach.

But what on earth does this have to do with games. Well, I think the comparison is fairly simple. Some gaming companies (like Ubisoft and Activision) seem to spawn out games faster than movie circuits spawn movies, and this always leaves their games feeling slightly under-done, as if they just launched the game as soon as it was sort of working, and without having that polished feel that some gaming companies have achieved.

If you take a look at the most disappointing games you’ve ever played, they will most likely always be from a specific group of game designers. On the other end of the scale, there are gaming companies who release winners every time, and their attention to detail is meticulous, leaving them streaks ahead of their rivals.

The perfect example of such a haven is Blizzard. Every game they have released in the eyes of gamers has been greatness. People to this day still play games like Diablo 2 or Warcraft 2, which were released 12 and 8 years ago respectively, and yet still have massive followings online. Starcraft 1 was made the national sport of Korea, and I suspect the Godlike RTS that is Starcraft 2 will soon take its place, even World of Warcraft, as much as I hate MMORPG’s, is so in depth and complicated it has possibly the biggest gamer following the world has ever seen.

Another good example is BioWare, who have released so many great games it’s hard to count. There are just gaming companies that get it right, and gaming companies that don’t.

To those companies that are struggling to get it right, I say this. Stop releasing games in terms of MPH, and rather slow down and actually take a look at the spew you are releasing to the market. Take some extra time to slow down, and take a fine-toothed comb to your game, and make sure it doesn’t actually hurt your eyes to play.

With today’s modern technology, it’s so easy to come up with great ideas and great graphics at the same time. Use your brain people. That’s what it’s there for.

eGamer Rating:

Addictive: Yes, mid-air dog fights never get old
Worth The Time: Yes.

Things Loved: Once you get used to the flight and combat system, it becomes hours of endless fun shooting down enemy planes. The locations are vividly depicted as well, and often add their own elements to the dog fights.

Things Hated: The arbitrary missions where you have to use the UAV and AC130. They don’t really engage you at all. Collision detection system is slightly “off”.

Reasons To Buy/Not Buy: It has co-op multiplayer for the missions, some challenging missions in the singleplayer and PVP capabilities in multiplayer as well. Although not all the missions are exciting, the aerial combat makes up for it.

Final Conclusion: Although there are parts of the game where you can see a certain lack of detail, all-in-all it’s a very fun game to play and shooting homing missiles has an odd satisfaction to it.

Name: Tom Clancy’s HAWX 2
Genre: Action/Simulator
Players: 1 – 4 (co-op single player)
Multiplayer: 8 Multiplayer modes.
Platforms: PC, PS3, Xbox360
Developers: Ubisoft
Publishers: Ubisoft

When I first heard about this game, I was actually fairly excited about it. I had briefly played and seen the original HAWX in a LAN in Durban. It was fun, fairly easy to get the hang of and quite interesting to watch people try and fly.

So I decided to try and tackle HAWX 2. I do not claim to be an Xbox professional, in fact, far from that.  After dusting off my controllers and getting my HDMI cable back, I was finally ready to go.

Before I even started the game I had some thought about what it will be like. Being developed and published by Ubisoft, I already knew there would be 1 or 2 aspects that seemed to lack detail. Almost all Ubisoft games do, besides the rare gem. I’ve always labelled them with companies like Activision, who tend to pump out games as fast as they can, instead of trying to develop their games a bit more and coming out with gems every time (e.g. Blizzard [not including WoW]).

However, that being said, I was also expecting the aerial combat to be well thought out and pretty fast paced. I’m a big fan of dog fights, and have always been a bit of a plane/helicopter junky in the Battlefield franchise. I also expected the terms “National Security”, “terrorist attacks” and that kind of mumbo-jumbo to come out a lot as well. Just like the 2^nd Transformers movie, most combat games these days carry a fair amount of unavoidable American propaganda. I wasn’t disappointed either.

At the start of the single player missions, you play as Colonel David Crenshaw, but he soon fades into the cesspool of pilots from all over the world that you get to play, places like US, UK and Russia. The plot is not the strongest I’ve ever experienced, but predictably enough, the US and middle east seem to be in conflict, they throw the word “Nuclear threat” and “terrorist” at you, and then you get fly around. Many of the scenes before each of the missions could mostly be skipped, as they tend to “re-brief” you as soon as you are in game, and the rigidity in the graphics can be slightly mind-numbing.

The game itself starts off slowly, and I was grateful for that, as it gives you plenty of time to get to grips with the flight system, which by the end of the game you will need to have down to almost perfection to complete the final level. There are 32 different choices of plane, and you get to fly almost all the big names in the military world. There are obviously differences in speed and maneuverability, but all the planes seem to handle pretty well at the end of the day.

But you should be in fear. Those first few missions, you fly against AI that couldn’t open a jar of jam, but I’m afraid that soon changes. If there was a difficulty graph for this game, it would rise very suddenly. Towards the end of the game it becomes ridiculously challenging; something a true gamer will strive for. What I found annoying is the more missions you play, the more flares your opponents seemed to have (you use flares in game to divert homing missiles). I chased after 1 opponent for 10 minutes trying to get him down, but little did I know he was actually a mobile flare factory.

You may think that as an exciting prospect, but in “timed” missions, where you only have a certain amount of time to accomplish quite a lot, chasing after 1 plane for 10 minutes does not bode well for you completing the mission. Luckily they have a pretty cool Checkpoint System, so that you don’t have to do entire missions over again if you fail. If you load a checkpoint, you also get restored to full ammo and supplies, which is a bug that can actually help you in the longer missions.

The collision detection seems a bit aged for my taste. It looks like, as you skirt along a mountain chasing an enemy, that you have plenty of room, when suddenly you explode on the side of the mountain, left with nothing but a confused expression on your face. In this kind of game you expect almost pin point collision detection, as that will allow players to do and try more advanced combat manoeuvres. Sadly, this is not the case, and the collision detection system can sometimes leave you a bit disappointed. I just tended to stay away from mountains, which is easier said than done in some of the missions, but if you are not flying up against a well, there is no chance of you crashing into it.

Of course flying isn’t the only thing you get to do in this game. You get to take off and land as well, and for those of us who aren’t fully trained pilots, there is the “ERS” system (Enhanced Reality System) which guides you neatly into a landing. There are a few missions where you are a UAV, and have to spy on certain spots and vehicles to intercept information, and even a few missions as the gunner on an AC130 to provide cover for your Ghost forces (rather neat little inclusion of another Clancy franchise).

I think the most fun to be had in this game is from the Multiplayer. Although I was not able to actually play any Multiplayer, I have played the original HAWX against real people, and its hours of fun. Up to 8 players in a dog fight is highly satisfactory, especially when you homing missile lands directly on your friend’s cockpit.

So now to the big question, should you buy the game? I definitely think so. Flying combat planes does not get old at all, and many of the missions have the ability to be played over and over again without getting tedious. Factor that into 8 different multiplayer modes and you will be thoroughly satisfied. Just stick to flying planes and you won’t be disappointed.

So I think children. It’s high time to talk about spelling. Because in the last few weeks of my life, the decline I have seen in the English language is deplorable. You may have noticed that last week I did not publish an article.  I’ll explain why later…

The English language is known as the universal language, as almost everywhere in the world you can find someone who speaks or at least has a basic grasp of the language (enough to communicate at least). And yet, I’m pretty sure there are Tibetan Yetis who have a better grasp on English than some people on our local Warcraft 3 server do.

I have been asked questions in such bad English, that when I asked other people to try and translate, no one was capable. I don’t think God himself wasn’t capable of translating the gibberish this minion tried to put forth to us. A perfect example, taken about 5 minutes ago off of my IRC:

“<NightStalker007> My friends and I have played a good game in scourge and then suddenly we disconnect one by one in about 1minute. Is this costume kick?”

The real question I ask is why?  Why are these people allowed onto the Internet?  Surely they should be in extra classes, or part of a suicide club, because they’ll never pass anything. They shouldn’t be allowed to pass the 3^rd grade with no concept of the English language or how to use it. How to spell “The”, a concept often lost on the majority of online gamers.

The brilliant Stephen Fry says on his program about English, “Fry’s English Delight” that English is evolving. Languages such as “Panglish” have come into play, a cross between Asian and English languages, which some say might take over.  The Abolition of the “th” sound, replaced with the ‘Zeh” sound as in German, “I Zink Zerefore I know.”

In an effort to try and find a solution to the problem of English genocide, I did some reading on word-to-text type programs, and some even seemed quite promising. So I managed to try a few, and after reading almost the entire “Treasure Island” I was ready to go. And it failed. My god, they are horrible.

I like to think I have some concept of my own language, and yet the text-to-speech program clearly thought otherwise. It was clumsy, hard to use, and just plain awful. When I tried to write this very article with text-to-speech, it turned out horrifically, and had to burn my hopes of a happy ending.

I thought to myself, that if these poor soulless automaton’s with no intelligence or original thought could not spell, perhaps they could at least get a program to spell for them, so tht u dnt hf 2 rd sht lk ths yr hole laaif.

The answer is very simple. I believe the human race is moving backwards. It’s the same as the Chinese, who botched their evolution up by invention China. Because of that, no one bothered to invent glass, and didn’t find out about glass until the West met the East, delaying their inventions and evolution by hundreds of years.

I think the main benefactors is Television and Computers. Instead of reading books, people just watch TV or play on their Xbox or PS3, and we are slowly going backwards in evolution, back to when man couldn’t think for himself. Teenagers language could probably be boiled down into 8 simple letters. A,B,X,Y or O, [], X /\(mean’t to be PS3 buttons, bare with me :P). It is a horrible thing to be witnessing. No one takes pride in what they do anymore. If they did, they would surely at least try to use a spell check, or read a “See Spot Run” every now and then.

All languages are on the decline, and it is up to us to save it. Read a book every now and then; watch a couple of Episodes of Q.I. Stimulate the brain with something clever or interesting. Hell, instead of playing a computer of video game, perhaps just read what someone had to say about the video game. Every bit counts to save the means of human communication.

If not, please gather yourselves in a desert and each take a grenade. A mass game of pass the bomb should solve that problem easily. Or perhaps a human gameshow version of lemmings…

If you don’t understand Richard’s column, don’t worry. There’s a picture of Mila Kunis. Read the rest of his work here. — Ed

Today I would like to talk about the ability to use the Sands of Time like our favourite Prince did. Imagine you could do something incredibly stupid, only to be able to go back in time and save yourself disaster. Well, you’re in luck! Because such a thing exists! All you need is..

A Winch! (That’s right folks, after months of procrastination I’m finally going to give this a bash.)

In the Top Gear Special where they went through the Amazon Forest, almost every time they managed to get themselves into a bad position they could just winch their way to glory and beyond. They hauled themselves out from ditches, rivers, wells and potholes, and eventually became victorious in their quest.

That just doesn’t sound right, does it. I mean, winches probably prove to be quite useful in construction, but for something to have lying around the house? I really don’t think so. If you do have one lying around the house, I think the realisation that you get your kicks from winching should be enough to get you to change professions to “starting a suicide cult”.

Winches are just not exciting. It’s things like winches and the pulley, World of Warcraft and the 2^nd and 3^rd Matrix movie, that make our society so horrible to live in. Winches and pulleys are integral to most machines – who cares? World of Warcraft – who cares? 2^nd and 3^rd Matrix movie – who cares?

I, do not. And I think that the attitude to female gamers should be the same way. They are just people, except with slightly different anatomy. Now I know to some this may be a never experienced possibility, but get real.

The chances are slim.

Who cares if girls play online? In fact, most guys will probably find it awesome if they could jam some Xbox with their girlfriends, and not have to play easy. Case in point, Mila Kunis, displayed here:

She is a self confessed hardcore WoW player. Does that make her more attractive? Hells yeah. She spends most of her spare timing raiding and PvP’ing. Just imagine that LAN!

So yes girl gamers out there, we luff it when you tork forren. I mean gamer. But you are nothing special. Minorities just aren’t cool anymore. So don’t look for special treatment, and be good. Who knows, maybe one day, you’ll get to play Computer in the kitchen.

Richard is back for another season of chit-chat rage. Follow his work here. — Ed

I’ve been spreading the plague. My brother has it, my neighbour has it, my friends have it. And there’s no turning back. It’s the fastest spreading epidemic the world has ever seen. When I was in conversation with other addicts we came up with a slogan which pretty much sums it up perfectly:

“StarCraft 2 – It won’t give you aids.”

Now to you out there who haven’t played it, you wouldn’t understand. I’ve spoken to quite a few people who play StarCraft 2, and all have the same symptoms. At first, they show reluctance to buy the game. You manage to attain a guest pass, and get to feel the new Battle.Net system and pawn some noobs for 7 hours.

Then, when those 7 hours are done, you are left wanting more. You’re already infected. You start thinking about strategies in your sleep, dreaming of micro, wanting to play just one more game. That’s it, you’re gone. You have full blown “micro-fever”, and StarCraft 2 has taken over your life.

It is truly a mind-blowing game. If you watch zero punctuation, it’s my “Portal”. The Battle.Net system is dead easy to use, and the games graphics and engine are truly spectacular. The three races are extremely diverse, Zerg being very micro/macro intensive, Protoss for people who like building only one unit en masse and Terran, who annoy you until you quit.

But there’s something just a little off. Imagine you’re sitting in a very expensive restaurant, your lobster has just been served, when suddenly the waiter comes and coats your lobster in $2 American “spray-on cheese”.

And from the scenario you get two responses. Either you’re going to say “WTF!?”, or the other side of the scale, “Its nasty but I’ll eat it anyway.” And those are the 2 main strategies to StarCraft 2. You are either going to be angry someone “cheese’d” you, or be the one doing the Cheesing.

Reapers, Dark Templars and Banshee’s are probably the most produced attacking units in StarCraft. Our friend Fatbob has an alarming addiction to Reapers, you practically hear him slobbering.

You cannot get away from the cheese, until you embrace it. If you do not own StarCraft 2, which, by the way, has cured many WoW players of their disease, then do yourself a favour, and stop being Jewish. It is a simply “must have” game.

Yes. This is not a fairy tale, it is fact. I have heard her use the word in the past, and her vocabulary of embarrassing stuff parents could say is increasing. We were driving along one day, when at a stop street a guy skips his turn and doesn’t stop at all.

She then says, “That guy is noob.”

I could do nothing but laugh. I suppose my brothers and I have ourselves to blame, since we were all gamers from a pretty young age.

As for nicks, I’ve been in a few papers plus the local PE paper “The Herald”, where I was known as Richard “DeMoNiK” Sjoberg (sigh), so yes, both my parents and my grandparents have heard of my nick. Thank goodness they have never done anything with that knowledge.

So, do your parents LOL at you on MXit and call you a noob when you rage? Do they refer to you as “Xeno-pie” or “my little Nitrate monster”?

Let’s hear all your interesting stories.

I’ve been researching the new Sony Move and Microsoft Kinect, the latest and greatest in the gaming industry.. or is it?

Having read multiple articles on the Sony Move it seems like they’ve taken years to produce a glorified Nintendo Wii. Now don’t get me wrong, it looks really cool, but I just don’t think that it’s revolutionary at all. They just made a Wii with slightly better graphics. Great.

Then we have to turn to Microsoft Kinect (previously known as Project Natal), which actually requires you to stand in front of your TV and move around to perform actions. Now seriously, I don’t know who thought of this idea, but it seems like a bit of a cock up to me. Gamers are lazy. They do not want to be up and standing around and then moving like retards in front of a screen. Gamers want to sit down and play games without having to move around.

So, what do you think about this whole palava? I think both are not the way gaming is going, simply because moving around is not what gamers want to do. Maybe 3D is the way, but somehow I just don’t think so either.

Richard has decided to double his work load. He’ll now host a discussion, and a weekly column. Stay tuned. — Ed

I apologise for not writing an article last week, my PC and I were in the throes of a lover’s quarrel (aka, it stopped working for the better part of 5 days).

Today I would like to start a discussion. How did you think up of your nick? Something that has always fascinated me in gaming is how people come up with their nicks. Twilight is filled to the brim with stoner nicks, like Cpt_Bong, Weedatr0n, the list goes on and on. They are also all terrible at DotA, which is somehow not surprising, because the only thing that ever seems to be on their mind is marijuana or how stoned they are. Doesn’t leave much time for DotA.

Then you get the people who actually don’t care about what they name themselves. You often find these creatures in the form of really, really stupid Afrikaans people, who simply only have enough mental capacity to put their full name into one word, eg. KoosVanDerMerve, Rentius (yes, that’s his first name), KoosKombuis.. You get the picture.

Then you get people who in a vain attempt to remain creative put 2 or 3 random words together to try and sound clever, Clitsybananas is a great example. **cough cough** Death-Road **cough cough**.

Then there are those of us out there who did the random word trick. I chose the nick DeMoNiK out of a dictionary. I opened the biggest dictionary I had, took a pencil and put it down on a random page I chose. I then got the nick “demonic”, but sadly that nick was already taken on whatever war3 was running at the time, so I simply changed the “c” to a “k” and the rest is history.

So which category do you think you fall into? Are you a stoner who can think of nothing else? Or are you lacking any originality in your life? This week I’d like you to tell me. And here’s the kicker. If you can explain how your nick got to where it is today, you are welcome to leave an idea at the bottom of your post. Your idea must be 1 line, and it must be a comparison between something gaming and not. The most original comparison I see will be my topic for next week. Give me a challenge.

PS. Dolphins and spiderman games.

Richard is our weekly columnist.. The one that thinks it’s cool to skip a weeks work. Read all his work here. — Ed

I would quickly like to apologise for the lack of article last week, between the end of exams and illness I did not have time to write the article.

So the World Cup is here to stay. The World Cup is doing amazing things for our economy, the Rand being stronger then it has been, and with thousands of tourists flocking to our country to join in the celebration.

There is only one thing that really has gone a little too far. Vuvuzela’s. What God forsaken, dumb, stupid, idiotic, senile old tart decided that those things would be okay for the World Cup? I mean have they never watched a soccer game on TV?

In factories around the world, if a certain noise level is surpassed inside the factory the workers have to wear safety earplugs, as you can cause serious damage with loud noises around you for any extended period of time, e.g. 2x 45 minute halves.

The vuvuzela does not only surpass that noise level, it DOUBLES it. They are not only loud, but dangerous for your health. And then there is the noise they make. I am fairly adept at playing the Vuvuzela; I can even get a tune out, but for the other philistines that put the thing to their lips its only good for 1 very long and loud note. Having said that, blowing a vuvuzela is fun for at least the first 2 minutes.

Then the happy place dies.

So what purpose do they serve then? Other than to make an awful noise at all hours of the morning, not a lot. Just take the last week as an example. I’ve been woken up at 3am by a drunken vuvuzela rampaging down my street, and then again at 8am when the children across the road (who I dislike with an almost maniacal hatred) decided that they wanted to try this stupid elongated funnel as well.

For the next 2 months of our lives, this noise is just going to have to be a constant reality, something we’ll have to live with. And the more I think about it, it is actually very similar to something which has been cropping up in a lot of games recently, it’s also annoying, and you just can’t seem to get away from them no matter where you go.

Noobtubes. Oh yes please! That little rocket propelled grenade that is so highly annoying you see people in Modern Warfare 2 quit games just because someone is trying to get their “grenade launcher quest”. Everyone hates them, both the MW2 and BC2 communities gush nothing but hatred for these weapons, and yet you see people constantly using them, even when their challenge is completed.

And I think this is where the entire crux of the argument comes in. Noobtubes are just like the vuvuzela, stupid and easy to hate. But there is nothing more satisfying than tubing someone in the face. So I reckon I have a solution. RPV’s.

Richard is a weekly columnist and he’ll be around every Thursday. You’ll be able to read all his work at this link. — Ed

Links to read

• ANCYL to ‘vandalise’ Cape Town
• Vandalism reports lies – ANCYL

Look at this. I actually couldn’t believe myself when I did. Cape Town, which by the way is one of the top 10 tourist destinations in the world, says its not been taken care of, even though statistically it is the most taken care of city in this country. And they complain about having to shit in public, and then vandalise a toilet.

Then, after the call-to-arms to terrorise the city, with quotes from people, they say the news are lying scum.

“We say what we mean, and we mean what we say”

“Sleeping around is sleeping around”

Its this kind of idiocy that absolutely baffles my mind.

How can people like this get followers? How do they even get out of bed in the morning, the mental strain must be absolutely terrible. The future and current leaders of our country, who do nothing but spew absolutely idiotic mumbo-jumbo at the media 24/7 (and to top it all off, none of their spew makes any sense to anyone elses spew, even if its about the same thing), are almost incapable of coherent speech, and still somehow have hundreds of thousands of supporters.

But, alas, in the murk of society, there are millions of them. Those people who just have the willpower to believe in what they are doing, and an empty brain to store the cookies. Everywhere you look, you can see them, and in one place in particular they are famous, they have a special name, a status that requires much practice.

If you haven’t guessed by now, then you’re one of them.

Noobs.

They populate the gaming world. No matter what game you play, there are always those poor people, when they join a game, you say to yourself, “Awesome. Free kill”. They are one of those phenomenon that I could just never understand.

I mean just think about the typical day of someone who gets pawned on a regular occassion. Wakes up, fails at job or school, klaps the gym, comes home and then proceeds to get pawned at the game of his choice.

I dunno boet, he must have sum hellsa chick otherwise bru, jissie, its just not worth it hey bra.

How can stupid people justify their existence? What do they add to society? If clever people were kept, stupid people culled, and then we automate everything like we could have done eons ago, then everyone would still have jobs.

Kind of like the TV show Eureka, without the impending doom every 20 minutes.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful! But alas, this is in someone’s ideal world, and not reality. The reality is that noobs are bountiful. You can join any game, play for about 20 minutes, then come near the top of the map while the noobs blow themselves up or run into walls because they have the reflexes of the drunk sloth on LSD.

Why don’t they just stop playing? I mean if you’re not good at something, try something else. In this day and age, there is really something for everyone. If not, do what the rest of them do. Sit down, keep quiet, and watch TV.

Richard is our newest columnist who aims at raging to the world. He’ll be around every Thursday. In the future you’ll be able to read all his work at this link. — Ed

Don’t you just hate it when people cross the road in front of you while you’re trying to drive? It’s one of my pet hates, and it happens all the time. I frequently drive along Rondebosch main road in Cape Town on my daily commute to varsity, and almost every day, some woman carrying her shopping just walks in front of me and expects me to stop and stare at her while she takes her leisurely stroll across the street.

Just the other day I was about to get over Belmont when this woman just walks in front of me, forcing me to stop. So I did, about 20cm from her leg, and then in very unpleasant terms, told her to sexually depart off the street. She then had the audacity to look at me as if I was completely crazy, and as if it was her right to cross the street.

This kind of attitude confuses me. Basic rules of the road say to you “car has road, you have pavement”, when did this suddenly change? Is there something in the constitution that I have just completely missed? The law in this country states that you are not allowed to jaywalk across a street if you are within 90m of a pedestrian crossing. So why can’t people do this? It’s really not that far. It’s the whole school-mother syndrome, where they don’t want their darling “tinkie” to walk that extra 5 metres, so they try and get as close to the gate as possible, in an already overcrowded street, taking up as much space as possible in the Volvo XC90 or Land Cruiser.

It’s this kind of attitude that strikes fear into my heart with South African Multi-Gaming Organisations. You’ve got to look both ways. Take a look at the MSSA. They looked the 1 way, which is the political “right way” to do things kind of way, but didn’t take any consideration into the gamers. They had no sponsors, and just sort of appeared out the woodwork in about 2007, having nothing to say “wow, we should do that!” kind of vibe. Gamers need stuff. It’s a really easy thing to please gamers. Give them free stuff.

Although now the MSSA are actually getting sponsorships, and taking people overseas, and it’s really looking up for them, because they are actually beginning to take advice from the few gamers that support them. However, the whole Venter story is an entire book yet to be written. But, when I was in the Protea dota team, we were treated really well, and had a really great time. Next time you see Machine, ask him about his blowjob (I think it was a blowjob?). Brilliant stuff. But hats off to the MSSA. They seem to be going somewhere.

However, this can’t really be seen from the others. Bravado, Pantheon, Mint, the list goes on and on of Multi-Gaming Organisations that just kinda started, without any real sponsorship either. I remember when we were first deciding whether or not eZ dota would become bvd.dota, and we were assured that their sponsors, SteelSeries, would climb on board (it’s about the free stuff, remember?), and would go at any lengths to take down the mighty new powerhouse, pantie-on gaming, the new MGO formed by Vetoll from 0wn3d and sponsored by his wife. That being said, they have actually done very well with their sponsors, and treat their gamers well.

But Pantie-on gaming has just never had the best team in anything (except TF2, who were kings for awhile). All the teams always tended to come second, never actually winning a large number of events. This is depressing. I wouldn’t want to be in the team that comes second all the time. Winning is everything.

But I digress. These MGO’s were started and maybe even had a pretty website, and WhooHoo! Awesome! They maybe even had a sponsor or two! But still. There was no exposure to anything greater. Basically a whole bunch of people already known in the community now have a P| or bvd` in front of their name, which makes tabbing in IRC so difficult. Besides the people already in the gaming community, nothing else happened. No media, no big tournaments and no celebrations. Just a pretty website.

And that’s the thing. In Sweden, home to SK gaming, being a gamer is an accepted profession. In Korea, hundreds of thousands of people flock to watch the StarCraft finale, which ends up only being 2 minutes long. You’ve got to look to gamers and the rest of the world before plunging forth. You’ve got to get gaming into the minds of the people, make it known that it happens. So many girls laugh at you when you tell them you play Computer Games in your spare time, but (I’m serious here), she’ll then go home and play Mafia and Sims till 3AM.

If we can get families and companies aware that this is going on, I think you might find it will blossom. Just look at GotGame, a small LAN run by some friends in PE. And now, probably one of the most sponsored events in the country, just because they got themselves advertised where ever they could, and tried to get as many sponsors as possible.

So my ideas? If these MGO’s actually worked together, MSSA included, towards exposing themselves, pooling their resources into some big tournaments and big coverage, I think you might just find things begin to go up much faster than it is right now. Cause let’s face it, a street actually has two ways.

DeMo~

PS. Free stuff is awesome.