An Assessment Of Piracy And DRM Through The Use Of Pornography.

I know you’re here for the porn. But now that I have you I’m going to present one idea about piracy first. Misleading you with promises of sexy fap-time and then forcing you to listen to my nonsense. In the real world it’s lying. On the internet, it’s good advertising.

Recently there have been a few cases of games releasing only to have launch day DRM problems. I’m not going to name names, that’s childish. Very childish. Not as childish as Diablo III though, he’s the mostest childishest. Since presumably 300% of my readers will be playing Diablo while half-reading this, ignore the next paragraph if you are familiar with Diablo’s first time jitters. No wait, actually don’t skip it. To make it fun, I’m going to hide one misspelled word in the next paragraph. See if you can find it.

Diablo 3 released after 500 years of waiting and everyone was so excited that special medication was bundled with the game for people who have erections the entire time they play. Release time came… and went. One of the most controversial exclusions from the game is an offline mode. It is all online, all the time. Even StarCraft 2 came with an offline mode, sure it limited you severely but at least it was still there in case a squirrel decided to mate with your local internet exchange creating an explosion in both the exchange and the squirrel’s pants. It was a token gesture on Blizzard’s part but at least it existed. Not the case with Diablo 3, if you ever want to play you better be running a stable and fairly quick internet line. On release day, servers crashed, the infamous Error 37 got shown, tables were flipped, forums exploded with creative exaggerations of suffering and generally we showed the world why gaming is still occasionally mocked as an immature hobby.

Are you still looking for the misspelled word? It isn’t there. I lied. It feels shitty right, to be lied to so blatantly and obviously to make you read more of my article. You feel used, like just a piece of meat. Congratulations, you now feel like every hot girl after a one-night-stand. Looking back, all the signs were there. All the clues look like pimples on the tip of your nose they’re so obvious. You swear, like we all have, that we won’t be taken in again.

This is before we’ve even gotten to playing the game, we are already annoyed and frustrated. Not a mindset most developers are aiming at. Gaming is about fun, and always will be. The primary directive of any developer, general as it may sound, is to make its customers happy. In some way.

If there is some kind of dissatisfaction stemming from the purchase of a game, we won’t buy it. That’s what five years of Economics education has taught me. The same thing a five-year old understands intuitively.

This brings me to my epiphany. Piracy happens when developers go against the force of demand. Demand is simple; we want the best product for the lowest price. In a DRM-free world, piracy offers the same product but for free. The cost is that it is illegal and wrong. Companies believe appealing to consumers to “do the right thing” or to understand that what they’re doing is functionally no different from stealing is the way to curb piracy.

No. There are underlying issues here. The first problem is the idea that piracy can be stamped out. There will always be pirates. Many people claim they would NEVER buy the game if they didn’t pirate it. This is largely crap. Most would eventually buy it. However, there are a select few, a tiny subsection of this group who actually mean it. If they have to pay, they won’t play. Companies are infuriated by this. This is where the growing up needs to happen.

Companies have tantrums. Executives watch with bulging eyes and slobbering terror as their game is taken and all they see with their greedy, beady, little pig-eyes is lost profit. The sooner they understand that this group, the small group of what I have affectionately called fish, are not customers. They will never be. They are denizens of the pirate sea. They do not exist on dry land. All that they can be used for is free marketing, a loyal fanbase and some modding. That’s it.

Then we move onto the second issue. Looking back at the idea of demand, people can only be swayed away from piracy if in their minds, the product they are pirating is the SAME product as the legitimate version.

Piracy happens because this isn’t the case. Do you want the best experience of Mass Effect 3? Pirate it. No Origin service to worry about. All the pre-order content and Collector’s Edition exclusives are included and it never needs the internet to authenticate. It is a superior product. I have the Collector’s Edition staring down at me from my shelf, yet I’ve cracked my game. This is ludicrous. Buying a game is already scary, it’s a lot of money. It doesn’t help if developers keep locking their beautiful, virgin creations behind a chastity belt. Especially when the internet is still 90% free porn.

It is a hard enough sell to ask consumers to pay for something they can get for free without leaving their homes. It is near impossible to tell people to do the same thing, but for a worse product. This will never change.

When I buy a game and watch as the great pirates of yonder ocean have a better experience than me, it can only mean I regret my purchase. When companies realise that locking away game content behind DRM only makes piracy an easier choice for most, we might see some progress. Otherwise companies can continue to scream at the heavens, never understanding why good, honest people elect to follow the laws of demand.

I lied about the pornography, you should have guessed this by now. I know you feel betrayed and hurt. If this were the real world not only would we not be friends but you wouldn’t even say excuse me if you farted in front of me. In fact you might designate my personal living space and breathing air as the perfect place to fire your bum-cannon.

It’s okay. Be angry with me for lying about using porn, but that doesn’t give you the right to steal the porn I AM actually selling to you for a small additional fee.

I’ve treated you badly today. I know this. Come back in two weeks anyway.

I’ve been feeling nostalgic of late. Maybe it’s the cold, wet weather of contemplation or perhaps it’s the long lonely, music filled bus rides of late or perhaps it’s my impending 21^st birthday but for some reason I find myself being all wistful about my past. Suddenly everything reminds me of something else. The cold misty rain and my near constant listening to music have given things a vaguely ethereal quality.

Some people might say I’m too young to be nostalgic. Go out, get drunk, mack a girl, fight a douche, live a little. To those people I say this:

People were never so rude back in my day.

My weirdness aside, this recent plunge into the nostalgic got me thinking about the times I used to share a room with my younger brother. Close as we are, we discussed every possible topic imaginable – well beyond our given bed time, beyond our needed bedtime and once beyond possible bed time.

Naturally gaming was a dominant topic of this chubby-cheeked, red-faced, enthusiastic, prepubescent, escapade of psychological gold. I remember early 2008 most clearly.

Riding on the back of a ridiculous 2007, we seemed to discuss Modern Warfare most frequently. Thinking back now I still believe it was the herald of the singleplayer, linear, explosion-filled jizzfest that ultimately moulded the styles and expectations of most modern greats.

It was the first time, for me anyway, that I truly felt at the center of a massive adventure; non-stop, larger than life, beyond gargantuan action. What’s more it introduced us to near perfect pacing. Just enough quiet and calm to make the climax that much more poignant. For every epic battle, every explosion, there was a moment of calm awe, a chance for us to marvel – something later games have lost. Even watching the electrical tower fall into the ravine after blowing it up – it was actually a calm moment. There was no chase, no screaming, just the falling of a tower. Or even the harrowing but action-free opening. It gave me chills.

Then of course we have the ghillie suit mission that basically became the yard stick by which all stealth sections in action games are measured. Then finally the infamous nuclear blast, a moment I will never forget. An experience once again made frighteningly epic by our struggle to stop its launch, by our calm moment of defeat watching the missile climb slowly into the sky and then our eventual horror at being inside the head of a dying man.

I have made no secret of my status as a singeplayer gamer – I know that the COD series is mostly multiplayer based but what I’m speaking of here is what makes people love the game. Balance is an issue, sure, but more than balance is the feel of the game – one of the biggest factors in Modern Warfare’s monstrous success – its right there in the name. Modern Warfare was the first Call of Duty to leave the past behind and bring us to the present. There was something exciting about it, something magical about using modern weaponry, using the very best technology. It made it real and dangerous.

For a very long time, Infinity Ward, the makers of the Modern Warfare series, were the premium developers. Treyarch and their games were the filler between Infinity Ward games. Then Modern Warfare 2 came out and what we got was, to quote a magnificent writer, the conspiracy ravings of a homeless man wearing a tinfoil hat who blinks his eyes independently. It was bad. Plain and simple.

So we turned our gaze to Treyarch, albeit a skeptical, reluctant and disapproving gaze. We got Black Ops, my favourite Call of Duty since the original Modern Warfare. Not perfect by any means but still one hell of a good time. Sure it was still a little too focused on wars no one cares about anymore (especially outside of the US) and yes it did stick uncomfortably close to an almost stereotypical “twist ending” type of story but it sucked me in and I had a good time.

Then there was Modern Warfare 3, set to take back the throne of COD. The almighty, beer soaked, 11-year-old boy populated land of almighty “noobs”, “fags” and people who exclusively sleep with each other’s mothers….

…..aaaaannnnnndddddd no. It didn’t. Modern Warfare 3 was better than its predecessor but actually worse than Black Ops.

This brings me to today, and Black Ops 2 – the stage is set and the audience primed. Infinity Ward have all but disbanded, the head honchos moving off into the sunset amidst legal battles with parent publisher Activision Hitler (creative license may have been employed with publisher names, maybe) leaving Treyarch with one shot, one opportunity, they better not blow it, they need to own it, the moment, this opportunity comes once in a lifetime…

What made Modern Warfare so compelling was its freshness, in a franchise as stale as COD, freshness was like, well, a breath of fresh air. Ba Dum Tss.

That was 5 years ago, 5 games ago, 5 horse beatings ago – they now have the chance to do something COD needs: something new.

If Treyarch play their cards right, they could make me and a whole host of bored, jaded COD players care again. The ball is in your court, call has been made, will you answer?

My new column, NOW WITH WORDS!

Immersion is an odd thing. Developers toss and overwork the word as if each use directly correlates to another sold copy of their game.

As a child I believed it. As an angsty teen everything was a lie. Now as an adult, the world is the appropriate shade of murky grey. Some things are lies and other things are near truths.

What amazes me is that there seems to be almost no correlation between what marketing teams say and what the game actually is. I know that there is some logic behind this, no marketing douche is going to admit the faults of the crap he’s peddling, I understand that, respect it even. Marketing departments and companies make their living finding the best in what they sell. At least that’s the most romantic way I can think to put it. They emphasize the good and hide the bad. Welcome to the real world.

What I don’t understand is when they just lie. I get that exaggeration plays a part in any bit of advertising; it’s understood by all and accepted as fair play. When we pick up a product and its features are a little less shiny than the Stepford-esque zombies flogging it would have you believe, we aren’t too surprised. At least we shouldn’t be.

The idea, I’ve always assumed, is to take a nugget of truth and to expand and embellish it. What I don’t understand is when a company prances the marketing dance, but without even that nugget of truth to hang its web of silky fabrications on.

It seems to me that marketers would be better suited emphasizing and selling the good aspects of a product rather than trying to make it compete in categories where it is obviously and laughably inferior.

Let’s take one of the most stalwart buzz words of our time: immersion.

The routine is always the same;

“We’re cranking up the immersion.”

“We have many immersive elements.”

“Immersion is a key feature\priority\design philosophy\aspect of our game.”

Not every game can be and have everything and I don’t understand why marketing monsters try to make us believe otherwise. Does it actually work?

Does this actually convince anyone? Is my understanding of the collective minimum intellect of our fair ape-race so off base that this is actually an effective way to part man from his money? I have gotten to the point where I barely even hear this kind of drivel. I base my purchasing decisions entirely on gameplay footage, trailers, and hard facts about features.

Don’t misunderstand, if a company tells me they’re going for immersion by creating or using a core, large new feature – awesome. Show me some gameplay and I might be convinced. When I hear that a game now comes with “amazing, cutting-edge, artistically beautiful graphics to help immerse players” all I think is are there so few actually impressive features with your game that this is what you have to resort to?

To the ladies out there, if a man approached you and said he had an impressive two hands with a matching pair of feet would you be impressed or would you wonder what the hell was wrong with his brain?

The sad part is that I know where this trend of over marketing comes from – the blinding harsh reality of game development. We might expect a series of impressive, standard features to accompany any game and for the AAA titles out there, they generally do. For the smaller companies, the indie darlings and the garage start-ups out there, this makes breaking into the industry all the more difficult.

For the penniless developer, every single little feature represents a good portion of their budget and considerably more risk than even an entire game for a huge publisher. This makes it very tempting to suddenly start advertising every little thing they’ve ever done.

All I can say is that I hope they don’t. Even when they mean well, they just come across as tacky. Maintain some dignity and make it look easy. I understand struggling and fighting to be one of the big boys. We’ve all had that feeling. Some people out there seem to make it look so easy, seem so effortless, and they have so much.

Even when you’re a part of the group, one of the blokes, and happily one of the cool kids, there is always going to be that insecurity. What if I’m not good enough?

This extended high school metaphor is no different for game developers, big and small. Games are immensely difficult, expensive and time consuming to make. It requires a level of passion, dedication and sheer balls than most things to go out there and create an experience for the entire, nasty world to judge.

You know what? Have faith. Nothing makes a game look cooler than when its developers clearly love and are genuinely proud of it. You want a great marketing campaign? Give me a 5 minute video with random artist drone #47 and show me the level of passion and care that has gone into making a weapon look cool, or a character animate properly, or a shoe lace flutter just right.

You want to make me appreciate your game? Show me what goes into it and then show me the best of its features. Shame creates shame, when a gamer smells a cover up, we become like blood hounds. The same is true for love.

Show me the love and I’ll show you the money.

It’s been rumoured for some time now that developer Valve would be throwing its hat into the ring with Sony and Microsoft (let’s just forget about the Wii and Wii U for now). A job listing on Valve’s site seems to out a shift to producing hardware as well as software:

“For years, Valve has been all about writing software that provides great gameplay experiences,” says the job posting. “Now we’re developing hardware to enhance those experiences, and you can be a key part of making that happen. Join our highly motivated team that’s doing hardware design, prototyping, testing, and production across a wide range of platforms. We’re not talking about me-too mice and gamepads here – help us invent whole new gaming experiences.” 

Requirements for the electronics engineer post include prototyping, thermal management, and circuit simulation.

Valve already has its highly successful online system in Steam and bringing this to a console platform may give Valve an edge in addition to allowing for cross-platform play. Could this be Valve’s masterclass or their big folly?

Ona side note, Valve has time for this but not Half-Life 3? Let us know what you think about a possible Valve console or at least try and come up with a name for it.

The relative difficulty of typing something on the page of a blank screen with a blinking cursor as a guide may be a daunting task, as Timothy exemplified in his latest column. I think what I’ve learnt from the past week and reading some of the columns, articles and understanding recent events, is that I think we are now at a stage in gaming where the medium is peaking. With gaming at a zenith of sorts.

We can talk about the immersion of videogames, the fan culture that is both negative and positive surrounding the medium, and the beautiful games coming from indie developers. But I feel that we should take notice that we are now at the point where we can truly think about video games as an art form, as a medium which has reached a status occupied by film, television, literature and art. However, for the moment, I don’t really want to get into that argument, and have a million people on my back about it.

For now, I think it’s important to talk about how videogames have changed. One has to firstly understand that in the early days of videogames such as Space Invaders (1978), Asteroids (1980) and Pacman (1981) the rules for videogames were much simpler, and games required repetitive playing until you understood the logic of the game’s design. It was all about understanding the boundaries of the rules at the centre of the gameplay experience and design.

Games have now shifted interests to bigger concerns of realistic graphics, animation, sound and interactivity than the previous generation of games. With that, the rules that govern games have become more complicated and less accessible to gamers who play.

Sherry Turkle (1996), a researcher in the field, noted this shift from “calculation and rules” to “simulation, navigation, and interaction”. I think this quote from Turkle exemplifies the change in game design as she says:

When video games were very new, I found that the holding power of their screens often went along with a fantasy of a meeting of minds between the player and program behind the game. Today, the program has disappeared; one enters the screen world as Alice stepped through the looking glass (1996, p.1).

With this evolution of the medium; we’ve seen the rise of different gaming communities. As such, contemporary videogames bring with them a slew of average, or casual, gamers that before the movement towards the new design philosophy were not necessarily interested in all that videogames had to offer. On the other hand, you have the more hardcore crowd who have had a hobbyist passion for the medium since its infancy, and more diverse groupings have arisen in the wake of the rise of gaming.

What I find intriguing is that whilst videogames have changed as predicted by many. Of course, mediums change over time this is inevitable and understandable. Videogames still maintain ties with their roots, as does film, music and literature.

Indications of this can be seen in indie game development which is focussed on returning to the simplicity of earlier times where games had more obvious rules. But with indie games they simultaneously offer depth in other areas. Be it visually, with audio design, storytelling techniques and quirky gameplay design deviations from the tradition of rule-based games that preceded it. I feel that we can now truly talk about videogames as ‘art’. But that’s a column for another time when I’ve had plenty to drink.

You know that old Xbox of yours, the one that overheated or RRoD’d or got sat on by a fat kid? Well, to you it’s just a useless piece of junk and you’re pretty much right, but much like a comatose vegetable of a human, the hard drive is still of some value. And it’s probably worth a lot more than you think. Microsoft is currently investigating claims that hackers can pull credit card information and private data off old Xbox HDDs.

This is following research conducted by Drexel University, in the US, which found that even if a hard drive has been reformatted and restored to factory settings, it still retains credit card data and personal information of past users.

In a statement issued to Joystiq, Jim Alkove, head of security at Microsoft’s interactive entertainment business, assured Xbox owners that it is not possible to obtain the data from a refurbished console even though the company is looking into the claim. Then again, there’s a lot of things that big companies said couldn’t be done and hackers found a way.

“We are conducting a thorough investigation into the researchers’ claims,” he said. “We have requested information that will allow us to investigate the console in question and have still not received the information needed to replicate the researchers’ claims.

“Xbox is not designed to store credit card data locally on the console, and as such seems unlikely credit card data was recovered by the method described. Additionally, when Microsoft refurbishes used consoles we have processes in place to wipe the local hard drives of any other user data. We can assure Xbox owners we take the privacy and security of their personal data very seriously.”

Do you know where your old Xbox is right now and who has it? Personally, I don’t think there’s cause for concern, but if there’s even a shred of truth to those claims then prospective hackers would jump on that opportunity, like hop-ons would a stair-car.

Love it or hate it, Mass Effect 3 has come. My personal feelings for the final chapter in Shepard’s tale will be discussed at some point after I finish the game – university can be quite demanding apparently. I feel quite angry that Van Wilder lied to me as a child. I expected my time at university to be spent with the triple B of awesome: Babes, Booze, and Bros.

Also Tara Reid. She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen and my tiny 10 year old brain didn’t know what to do with those feelings except to try and one day go to university and live in a whirlwind of vodka soaked women and good mates.

Then I got to university. There’s a lot more icky learning than you would think. I wanted to sue Van Wilder at first but sadly one of my courses is a Law course which taught me, with callous, brutal efficiency just how powerless we all are.

I have looked forward to playing Mass Effect 3 for along time now. A very, embarrassingly long time and here I find myself not having the time necessary to devote to it.

This got me thinking, with time becoming increasingly strained by “real world” problems; and with games becoming longer and longer – I’m looking at you Kingdoms of Amalur, you bloated, unwieldy behemoth – what will I actually have the time to play?

Naturally I started mentally making a list of the games that, like Mass Effect 3, I will make sure to find the time to play – even if I have to wait for an ebb in the sea of work I find myself drowning in.

My brother, taking a quick break from one of his girlfriends to refill the cocaine dispenser, suggested I write what I think into my article. Then with a resigned sigh my 17-year-old brother returned to the super model triplets waiting for him in his room.

My brother is basically Van Wilder.

It’s fun to watch.

As it turns out, my brothers prophecy is coming true.

 
A Disclaimer On The Choices

I am a singleplayer gamer. I’m not going to bash multiplayer, we occasionally go out for drinks and we have a good time when we do, but we don’t have the same circle of friends. The picks are chosen for their singleplayer offerings only.

The games will also be multi-platform. I like to ignore exclusives most of the time. They are a factor when you buy your console but for the rest of us – multi-platform titles are the bread and butter we live on.

Some hard cuts had to be made. These are my top 5, some or all of your top 5 will not be on the list – casualties of war. Sad casualties of war.

Assassin’s Creed 3

I don’t know why but I’m excited for the final Assassin’s Creed.

I shouldn’t be – Ubisoft have tried really hard to destroy the love I had for the franchise. They milked the premise, added layers and layers of fluff and mercilessly dragged out every piece of exposition possible. Knowing them, Assassin’s Creed 3 will probably be the first in a trilogy.

I will hate them for every moment I play the game. I shouldn’t give the faintest flying ffffffudge about this game, but make no mistake, I will play it.

Love conquers all.

I want to sneak through the snowy settlements. Assassinate the Red Coats, who are really the British but everyone seems to gloss over this slightly uncomfortable fact, I want to sneak into the colonies and truly help bring the current world power to independence.

It sounds like an adventure I want to have.

The ball is in your court Ubisoft – give me a reason to love you again.

Far Cry 3

I loved Far Cry 2. As a South African, it was eerily enjoyable to run around in a landscape full of the noises and sight I remember from my childhood. The music, the aesthetic and even the gun-play were all top notch.

Did it have problems? Large, bucktoothed, inbred, dumb-as-a-plank problems? You betcha sweet behind it did. It was so close to true greatness, and yet so far.

Games are personal and long. Little annoyances and minor gripes become infested thorns in our sides by the end. There is no give, no leeway and no sympathy.

In many ways we are a cruel and unforgiving people.

Yet in others we are a wonderfully simple group.

Give us stability, give us freedom, give us beauty, and give us fun, and we will be happy.

Borderlands 2

I never expected to play Borderlands. Review scores were good but not great. From everything I’d read, it seemed like it was a little grindy and repetitive for my liking.

Then I played it.

There was something magical about Borderlands. I don’t know if it was the humour,the music or just the style of it but somewhere in the great sea of binary that make up its code, the captured something special. The artstyle left me filled with wonder. The humour kept me grinning and the zany guns kept me entertained. I never even played it co-op until a second playthrough.

It seems odd to put a primarily co-op game on this list but I truly enjoyed my time with Borderlands, alone as I was.

Gearbox seem to be fixing every problem I had with the original – injecting more animated and lifelike characters, making a more involved, deeper story – the future looks bright.

Of course my expectations are higher now as well but the sequel looks to better is predecessor in every way and I can’t wait.

Risen 2

Not many people played Risen. I can’t blame them. That game is hardcore.

It demands you pay attention and work for your reward. It’s not necessarily a bad attitude, some might even argue that modern games need a little more of this, but it does mean the audience for the game shrinks down.

It’s a real shame because Risen is one of the most carefully crafted, authentic, and magically atmospheric games I have ever played. Like Borderlands, there was something magical in what this game ended up being. The NPC interactions and dialogue were so uncharacteristically human that the characters came to life.

Little squabbles and minor conflicts felt that much more poignant because of the extensiveness of the world and it’s characters.

Now steps in Risen 2, a game set to polish up the original’s overly sharp corners while still maintaining the engrossing, deep world that marks the Risen franchise as something truly special.

Also it’s pirate themed. How many good pirate RPGs have you played recently?

This one is already coming out in April for the PC which makes the potential it brings all the more enticing.

BioShock: Infinite

I know that harping on about BioShock: Infinite is nothing new, I know that at this point every man, woman, child and animal with opposing thumbs is excited for this game.

I am too.

I play games for their worlds, their stories and characters, that feeling of awesome accomplishment and sense of wonder that comes from being a hero in a magical land. Delving down into the scariest corners of my mind, making me care, making me angry, making me think. These are all the things I love about gaming. Unlike any other medium, games let you actually be a part something bigger, something greater than the world we’re in or the problems we typically face.

Games aren’t supposed to take you away from the “real world” they’re supposed to make you excited to be alive.

BioShock gave us a world and opened our minds.

BioShock Infinite looks to do the same, it is rich and mysterious, full of wonder, unanswered questions and answers to questions we didn’t know we had.

It is a world, an idea, a universe all its own. I look forward to untangling its secrets.

With a few days before release, here are the 5 games Mass effect 3 needs to beat to be the very best. Like no one ever was.

Mass Effect 3 is only days away and after last week’s paranoid but probably realistic rant we take a look at the 5 games that currently sit at the top of the pile.

Each game on this list is an excellent nugget of gaming fun and should be tapped at your earliest convenience, and you should call the next morning as well.

They are not perfect though. All great games will have many facets of brilliance but here we’re looking at each game for a particular feature or two. Something that game did better than any other that has come before.

In the bar of Action RPGs these guys have a reserved table at the back and the cutest waitress gets assigned to them. No one looks them directly in the eye.

5. Kingdoms of Amalur – Having It All

In case you haven’t heard, you should play this game.

Probably the first RPG to have truly engaging, fluid and tactical combat. Kingdoms of Amalur manages to be both visceral while not sacrificing any of the RPG in-depth goodness we love.

This game is new, and the guys over at Bioware couldn’t have learnt from it during the development of Mass Effect 3 but it is still a worthwhile example of a game doing it all.

It may lack a little polish here and there but they nail the important stuff.

They managed to create a huge varied game world with more content than some MMOs all while having combat that is actually satisfying.

Mass Effect 1 had the world and variety, Mass Effect 2 had the combat but they lost a lot of the exploration, freedom and RPG elements I loved.

I hope Mass Effect 3 does it all.

4. Mass Effect 1 – Completeness

It is no small thing to be the final chapter in a trilogy as outstanding as Mass Effects.

These games, for all my nit-picks and griping, are still among my favourites ever played. They represent a beautiful mix of story, characterisation, sci-fi awesome, and true emotional engagement wrapped in a chocolate shell of power riddled third person shooting.

I get excited just remembering them, not just in my pants but emotionally as well.

I enjoy exploring every aspect of the world, its inhabitants and the characters I’ve come to love.

This is why the game needs to be complete. Fully complete.

The original Mass Effect had this down. There were problems, sure, but it still had a completeness about it that I really did miss in its sequel.

Stories were started and finished, new characters were fleshed out, and game mechanics were really stretched into a wide variety of environments and situations.

Come to Mass Effect 2 and we have much improved combat but at the expense of a large number of elements from the first game.

Vehicles were DLC. The tie in with the beginning of Mass Effect 3 was DLC. One of the few unique missions in the game, Kasumi’s loyalty mission, was DLC. Even the resolution of the Shadow Broker’s story (something I was very excited for from Mass Effect 1) was DLC.

This is nonsense. DLC is supposed to expand a games world. Let you explore characters and new lands. DLC should flesh out and dig into the world. It should expand sideways and not forwards, if that makes any sense.

The original Mass Effect did this well, there was very little DLC because the game was so complete already. In Mass Effect 2 they got this wrong.

DLC should be big and expansive. It should provide opportunities to explore and give you insight into the world and its background.

DLC should die and we should get back the expansion.

It is the correct mind-set to have. A game should be complete; any extra content released should be complete as well.

Luckily this is the end of the series, there is nowhere to hide – hopefully.

3. Bastion – Story Telling & Tone

If experience has taught me anything it is that popular opinion can be wildly different to my own.

I loved Bastion. Its art style, graphics, music and gameplay were outstanding. I would have been satisfied with that.

Bastion wasn’t out to satisfy me, no sir. Bastion was out to blow my mind.

Bastion’s story, and its unique way of telling it is among the best I have experienced to date.

Every piece of art, music and gameplay is in service to its beautiful world and the story it is telling.

The story is unique and personal while we still fight for larger answers and to save the world. The characters have their own motivations and personalities and most importantly – the tone is perfect.

Tone is still my biggest worry with Mass Effect 3. The original had you doing a variety of things ranging from light-hearted, to heart-warming, to dark and sinister and then ending with some serious determination and hope.

Mass Effect 2 had not much light-hearted. I know it’s a serious world and the threats we face are serious. The characters are all determined and serious (flirtatious does not count as light hearted). Everything is serious. Seriously serious.

I understand the desire to inject meaning and gravity into a situation but humour is one of those magical human qualities that differentiates us from the animals. Adding some lighter interactions would not make me care less.

The exact opposite in fact – I would care more. It would highlight the significance of my battle and make me truly care about what I’m fighting for.

Make me angry and I will fight. Make me happy and I will fight to the death.

2. Skyrim – Exploration

Many people will argue that Skyrim and the Mass Effect trilogy are too different to be compared. They fundamentally have different design philosophies and cater to different crowds.

They would be right.

I don’t want Skyrim in my Mass Effect, I have Skyrim if I want some Skyrim.

What I do want, however, is the freedom and most importantly exploration that Skyrim gives you.

Running around in a country sized piece of land is filled with more wonder and moments of discovery and exploration that jetting around an entire galaxy of planets in a space ship.

That is male-cow faeces is what that is.

When the original Mass Effect came out, at least it tried to give planetary exploration with the Mako. Most people were happy to see it go for the sequel but I was sad to see them give us nothing in return (the planetary scanning crap doesn’t count).

Instead of fighting to give me the sense of exploration I craved they just gave up.

I want to explore the galaxy.

1. The Witcher 2 – Maturity

The Witcher 2 has ruined me for other games.

Before I was happy with characterisation that didn’t feel quite real; I could tolerate simplistic story and 1-dimentional character motivation; I could understand my choice having only cosmetic effects; I could even understand a lack of environmental beauty – not anymore.

The Witcher 2 changed how I see RPGs and their potential. There were certainly clunky parts to the game but most of it is so far above the bar set by the rest of the industry that it makes me wonder if I can feel anything but disappointment at the rest of the genre.

I will love Mass Effect 3, I can say that with near certainty, but at the back of my mind there will always be this niggling little feeling that the characterisation, the motivations of the characters, the black and white decision making, the poor morality system (even with its new overhaul), all of it is going to feel like so much fast food.

Delicious and a treat, but ultimately unsatisfying and unhealthy.

With time comes maturity, The Witcher 2 is a truly mature game. Not gratuitous or overtly sexualised, just mature, in the truest sense of the word.

I have spoken at length about my feelings on the Witcher 2. At present, it is only available on pc which means most people haven’t played it.

It’s a shame, a real shame.

It is getting an Xbox release in April and I predict now, for all the world to see, that when you compare Mass Effect 3 to The Witcher 2, people will be hard pressed to tell me which is better.

Final Thoughts

I have been a fan of the Mass Effect series since it released. I hold it close and dear to my heart.

I am excited beyond what is probably healthy for the final chapter of the epic tale.

I am not the boy I was when the first game released, I have played a lot and done a lot, I have changed.

In fear I worry that I have left Bioware behind.

In faith remember how much love I have for the series and blindly hope for the best.

The PlayStation Vita seems to finally be finding some stable ground after a rough and shaky launch in Asia in December. According to Sony’s latest sales figures, the Vita has currently sold more than 1.2 million units worldwide.

That’s really not too bad when you consider that sales will only improve from here on in. Factor in that the 3DS sold about 8 million units in its first year and the Vita may yet be the success it deserves to be and that we want it to be.

“PS Vita was designed to deliver the ultimate portable entertainment experience, and we couldn’t be more thrilled with the reaction we’re seeing from consumers and the pace at which PS Vita is selling,” says Andrew House, president and group CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. “The market has responded and there is clear demand for a mobile device capable of providing a revolutionary combination of rich gaming and social connectivity within a real-world context. To sustain momentum, we’re working closely with third-party developers and publishers to ensure the best games and franchises possible will be available on PS Vita, and our software line up for the remainder of 2012 will have something for everyone across the globe.”

As far as games are concerned, upwards of 2 million Vita games have been sold both at retail and through PSN.

It’s also likely that Sony will cut Vita prices at some point to boost sales although the impending influx of quality titles onto the console will certainly help.

The harder we love, the more viciously we hate. I love hard.

Mass Effect 3 is only two weeks away. Fourteen days. 1 209 600 agonising seconds.

I wish I could freeze myself and wake up when my delivery arrives.

I can’t.

So I’m left to wonder, ponder, brood and endlessly, mind-numbingly ruminate on all the promises Mass Effect 3 may fulfil; and what hellish shower of fiery pain I will rain down upon BioWare should they disappoint me.

It all comes down to this. There can be no cliff-hanger, no threads un-tied, no mystery left unsolved, no arc left un-arced.

It is terrifying. In the unknown there is hope. In reality there is both disappointment and only the possibility of fulfillment.

We risk unhappiness for the chance of satisfaction.

At this moment, before we cross from the threshold of hope into the starkness of reality, here are 5 things Mass Effect 3 must do so that I don’t firebomb BioWare’s head office.

Read quickly, the end approaches.

5. Creating And Solving Problems Within The Same Game

This is the quintessential problem I had with Mass Effect 2. The clean slate. The fresh start. It was a slap to me and my Mass Effect 1 hours of playtime.

It seems like every time a sequel to a story driven game is released, some marketing donkey is up and braying about how newcomers to the series are welcome and catered for.

When a guy says accessible my Spidey-sense tingles. It is simple, unarguable logic – if I spent thirty hours getting to know a world, its characters and their motivations along with the subtle web of relationships that go with it then any subsequent story cannot be accessible to a new player.

If it is, why the hell did I waste thirty hours of my life? What I mean by this is that by assuming I’ve played previous games developers would be free to create truly deep content. The stuff gaming nirvana is made of.

Instead, what most games do is what I’ve said in the title: they create new, never before heard of, referenced or even hinted at issues and then they solve those problems and call it progress.

It is not progress, it is a detour. Not a very good detour at that, it’s a circle.

What Mass Effect 2 did was to lightly coat all the new problems with undertones of Reapery goodness, ending with a little bit of real progress and then called it a game.

Enough.

Release the previous games for free, or at least cheap and then make a sequel that assumes I’m not a cross-eyed chipmunk.

Why not make a game aimed at the fans, you know, the diehard people who make your lives and jobs possible.

I want real, genuine progress in Mass Effect 3.

Give me progress or give me death. BioWare’s death.

4. Don’t Make Shepard A Bland, Crew Cut Vanilla American Boy

Shepard is a character. To me, Shepard is a handsome man of goodness. He is the last thing of sanity in a world gone mad.

He defends the weak by being strong.

Your Shepard may be different. That’s the beauty.

Nothing will pull me out of my state of immersion than with Shepard behaving like an all-America boy.

Already we started to get that football playing jock in Mass Effect 2, and it stank. There was little emotion, no worry or sadness. There was maybe one line of dialogue, at the end of the game shortly before I had my way with Miranda, where Shepard shows a hint of humanity.

A part where he lies awake at night wondering if he’s worthy of the universes trust.

I don’t want him to become a whiny bitch but at the same time I’d like a bit more reaction to the atrocities around him. When people died he shrugged it off, always in control, calming other people down.

I’d like to see him lose it. Lose his temper.

Over-react. Better yet, show me something besides anger and determination.

That’s what is human, what is relatable.

I don’t only need grizzled manliness, I want to see some humanity.

You want me to worry about the Reapers? To truly wonder if we can win the war?

Show me Shepard doing it. Show me Shepard breaking down in a moment of privacy. Show me a crew member, a friend consoling him.

Then I’ll care.

I’ll care plenty.

3. Do Not Substitute Climatic Story Moments With Climactic Battles

Clearly BioWare are trying to make an action game. It’s not a bad thing. Imagine the nailbiting satisfying action of something like Gears of War combined with the depth and RPG awesome of Mass Effect 1 and 2.

That’s the goal in Mass Effect 3. Quite clearly, that is the goal. It’s a good goal, an admirable one.

But do not forget what makes Mass Effect special: the world, the story and characters, the final frontier – aliens and a society not our own; the jaw dropping magnificence of new worlds, new planets and species, new technology.

Give me a mission with no combat. Give me a stealth mission and give me resolution of story.

I don’t want to fight eleven Reapers, I want to find out how they were made, what drives them, who are the Protheans?

Answering these question will be as, if not more compelling than any huge climactic battle and I just hope BioWare understands this.

Battle is not the only way to make me feel awesome.

Let me meet the families of my crew. Let me see Garrus fall in love.

Let me be a wingman for Wrex or Grunt as they court a sexy Krogan.

These will make me shake my head in wonder. The battles are important, but no less than this.

2. Tone. Stop Making Me Re-Live Angsty Puberty

What makes Sci-Fi special? Why is the lure of space, of worlds unknown so inviting?

The wonder of it. The sheer unbridled unknown is inviting because it holds possibilities.

Somewhere along the way everything became serious political upheaval. The end of the world.

Bummer.

The climax is always going to be less mysterious and less about wonder than what came before. We understand the world and the cause now let’s fight. Understandable in a sense but that’s not why I’m here.

The fight for survival is a primal thing. It’s why we do amazing things when our existence is threatened. To those who even played Mass Effect 1 will remember that survival, a place in the universe is why we’re here fighting.

Sci-Fi is about the beauty of exploration, the thrill of the unexplored and discovery. The alien, life and otherwise.

I want that quiet wonder, those moments of exquisite, lonely quiet that makes the battles all the more empowering. Perspective can be powerful. It’s why we all go quiet when we stand next to huge statues or see pictures of the sun compared to Earth.

I want that calm and that wonderment so that my fight and my struggle are all the more poignant.

Give me that magic that makes me want to explore the heavens and unearth its secrets.

1. Do Not Make Earth The Focus Of The War

Earth is not my home. Not in the world of Mass Effect. To Shepard, the closest thing he has to a home is the Normandy, his family is his crew.

Earth is supposed to be an idea, a small important symbol of hope and home. We’re struggling for a place in the universe, a way for humanity to become a part of a greater civilisation and society.

Watching Earth get destroyed, watching cities and countries not my own at war is nothing new. It is nothing special and it is nothing meaningful.

Blow up the Citadel. The place I spent hours exploring and the people I spent hours getting to know. Destroy even one wing of the Citadel, then I’ll feel something.

All too quickly, Sci-Fi series and writers return to Earth as the obvious soft spot. The thing we all want to defend, whose destruction has the most impact.

I don’t give a tinkers cuss about Earth and it’s sweaty apelike inhabitants. We’ve never explored or even visited Earth. It should remain an important symbol.

Now I know that exactly 119% of BioWares sales are in America. I know that to anyone living in North America the destruction of America is the greatest tragedy ever. It’s not a bad thing, I wish I had more patriotism and more pride but I don’t. I’m proud, sure but watching another country get destroyed, fighting levels in foreign cities is not immersive to me.

Fighting on other worlds, defending human and alien alike, that is immersive.

If we got to watch the Earth get destroyed in the first few minutes of the game, then we’d have something.

Take away our home and force us to defend the Citadel because it’s all we have left.

Now we’re talking about compelling narrative.

I’ve come to care about the alien races. I enjoy the idea of a mixed society, where all races must learn to live together.

That is why the Citadel is so important. It represents just that. I want to defend that more than our little blue marble.

I just hope that BioWare understand how powerful they are. In only a few hours of playtimes, spread over a few years I already care more about their world than my own.

It sounds odd to say but it’s the truth. The destruction of Earth is too ridiculous; it’s too foreign and crazy an idea for me to ever accept it fully.

If the war is kept firmly lodged in the ethos and world of Mass Effect I will be happy, if it all comes down to Earth I will feel nothing.

The Conclusion

I love the Mass Effect franchise. It is a space opera. I saw its inception and I’ve watched it grow into the thing it is today.

The world of Mass Effect is a far bigger place than only three games can hold, and we know there will be more.

But as the end of the trilogy, I hope BioWare do us proud. I’d like to believe. I want to believe that things will be okay.

Was research really necessary to come to that conclusion? Anybody with a moderate IQ can see that the PS Vita is not doing well and a big part of this is that it’s a new console and people are reluctant to buy but they’re so reluctant because of the price. Sure, you get your money’s worth in a way but it’s a lot for a handheld by any standards.

Anyway, research and consulting firm Strategy Analytics did do a bit of research and based on that expects Sony to follow Nintendo’s strategy of cutting the price of the 3DS early in its life-cycle.

That’s funny because it was just yesterday that SCE UK boss Fergal Gara said that Sony has no current plans to cut the Vita’s price. However, the research suggests that Vita can shift a respectable 12.4 million units if price-cuts come in early enough.

“Vita’s hardware sales could reach $2.2 billion assuming a $180 [£114] average retail price,” Strategy Analytics said. “In the time of austerity, consumers are considerably sensitive to prices, and Nintendo proved that a price cut can save a product. Their decision to slash the price of 3DS’s from $249 to $169 revived sales of the console.

“Sony now is experiencing the same story in Japan. Sales of the Wi-Fi version of PlayStation Vita at $249 initially exploded, selling more than 300,000 units in the first week of release. But the new console is barely moving 20,000 units per week in its home market after all the hard-core fans made their purchases, mirroring the experience of the Nintendo 3DS.

“Strategy Analytics expects sales of PlayStation Vita in North America and Europe to follow the same pattern, suggesting that a price cut will be essential to stimulate sales and forge a competitive position.

“Despite the solid design and strong processing power, it is challenging to convince consumers to buy a dedicated game console above the $200 price range in today’s economic environment as Nintendo has learnt. Sales of 3G models will be a particular challenge as it demands a $50 premium and additional data plan charges and in the long run is likely to represent only a small portion of total PlayStation Vita sales.”

Personally, a price cut is the only way to go if the Vita is to salvage itself and surely Sony has experience with this as it had to initially sell the PS3 at a substantial loss before it could eventually make a profit off the console sales.

Officially, the PS4 doesn’t exist yet but it sure is getting enough press to make you think it’s on the brink of launching. Earlier this week, we reported on how Sony themselves dispelled any notion of the PS4 getting out anytime soon as developing it would be a “distraction”. Anyway, a new rumour from a likely unreliable source claims that the PS4 will use GPU’s from AMD.

At this point we should note that the source is a few former employees of AMD who said, “[AMD] may play a key role in the new product.”

Seems legit.

AMD also makes the GPU’s for the Xbox 360, funnily enough. As you’d expect, neither Sony nor Microsoft were up to commenting on these claims.

Sony has stated that a price drop for the recently-launched super handheld, the PlayStation Vita, is “not currently” on its radar. As we know, the device is pretty expensive at this point in time – around 3k, less if you take the wifi-only option and a bit more if you want 3G included.

Sony Computer Entertainment UK managing director Fergal Gara recently spoke to CVG, saying: “It will take several years for this investment to pay back as it stands, so if we have to do more with the price… Clearly, we’ll have to view how consumers respond – do they value the amount of technology packed into that box?

“One benchmark I would draw is that it is round about half of the price-point of an entry-level tablet, and considerably less than a high-end smartphone. So, what’s the appropriate point of reference for its price? “We need to wait and see, but we believe it’s a step-change in performance and a step-change in capabilities compared to what people could do before.”

Gara went on: “Picking up on the Nintendo example, it’s not for us to comment on their performance, but I would say that the strength of our software has been demonstrated very well, and that was on our to-do list early last year: to launch with strong software and to make sure the supply of quality software was maintained through the year and beyond. So we hope to start better, and that agenda will continue.”

I don’t know about you, but this guy’s surname makes me think of Gaara from the anime, Naruto.

As for more relevant matters, I was highly doubting a price cut so soon after launch, but right now, financial issues aside, as a gaming device the Vita is looking pretty awesome. As it is with any new console, it will take time for the platform to grow into something worth it. Or, not. We’ll see.

Will you be buying the PlayStation Vita? Now, or perhaps some time in the future?

A diamond in the rough. Because the Aladdin in us never dies.

Have you played my favourite game? Do you agree with my choice of console? Masterchief or Kratos?

No?!

Death to you, your parents, your unborn children and any person who has willingly, unwillingly or unwittingly helped you.

Also I’ll pee on your lawn and shave my initials onto your dog.

Intolerance.

We all know it, we all understand it and hate it. We all propagate it, in some way or another.

We’re all small blonde girls on the inside. That Powerpuff looking thing we call confidence is really quite fragile and the result is that we crave validation.

Every time we meet a like-minded individual, who loves what we love, Bubbles gets a little stronger. When we fight intolerance, ignorance or just plain cruelty, it gets a little smaller.

Where is this hippie speech leading?

To a single quote:

A wise man can learn more from a fool than a fool from a wise man.

Life is almost never black and white. Right and wrong are ideas taught to us as children, when we knew nothing. At this stage we were barely better than retarded and the natural inclination to dichotomise makes us accept this idea unquestioningly.

Stop it. Just stop it.

Of course there are some clear evils and some clear goods in this world but they are far rarer than we think. Almost everything is a matter of perspective.

The above quote is a very powerful idea. The stupid, close-minded, prejudiced morons of this world cannot broaden their horizons; they cannot accept new ideas or fathom other perspectives.

The best of us can and do just that. Every scientist, artist and business man will tell you that failure is as valuable as success. Not to the person failing obviously, but as a broader concept.

We immediately dismiss most things. We live in an age of information downpour; so much, all the time, on every topic. Brain explode. Given this society, dismissive behaviour is understandable, a natural development and almost unavoidable. That doesn’t make it right.

Sometimes it’s worth looking at the average and the bad to find some insight into the good. If we learn from the past we can improve our futures.

That’s what we’re doing here today. As a follow up to last week’s 5 Terrible Features In Great Games here are 5 great features in average or unpopular games.

Some of these games are good. Others are not. All of them have some excellence brought down by bits of mediocrity.

We can still learn from them, because we are wise men.
 

5. Alice Madness Returns – Imagination

The game was solid but repetitive. The structure workmanlike and the platforming never made it past “quite fun”. Even the combat was only good up for a couple of hours before it got boring.

I only noticed all of this after 6 \ 7 hours of play time. I am a nitpicky, anal gamer. Little things bug the hell out of me if they’re not done at least adequately.

Not all of these relatively glaring flaws were noticeable because of the sheer amount of imagination in the game’s setting, world, style and characters.

When I look at Skyrim, a small part of me dies at the blandness of the world. Where is the colour? The life? The imagination?

We could all learn a bit from Alice.

4. Alpha Protocol – Dialogue Structure

Mass Effect popularised the dialogue wheel. Letting us the know the gist of what was going to be said without actually ruining the dialogue Shepard will say a nanosecond later.

This worked well and many games copied it, some well others not.

Meet Alpha Protocol; a largely broken game from Sega that failed spectacularly. Yet I remember it. I remember some missions with the same fondness that I remember some of the best gaming moments.

In Alpha Protocol the dialogue sequences and discussions were turned into a whole game in itself. Just by adding a timer to the dialogue I was forced to make decisions on the fly – making the whole experience far more intense and rewarding. It also flowed a lot better.

Then, there was their whole character system where certain characters responded to certain behaviour well and other behaviour poorly. The implementation was sometimes lacking and clunky but when it worked, damn it felt cool to say things and manipulate characters.

Alpha Protocol made me excited for dialogue and non-combat scenarios in a way few other games have. There are entire missions in Alpha Protocol that are primarily about a stake out or recognisance. They were the most compelling missions, and that is saying something.

If you’re in a gaming noir mood, grab a copy of the game. It will cost you like a buck at this point and if you view the exercise as a case study, you’ll have a good time.

3. Zeno Clash – World Building

At a guess, most people will not have played this game.

I played it when it released and it haunts me still.

What can only be described as a first person, melee brawler running on Valve’s Source engine, this game is something ridiculously unique. The weirdness and imagination of the world will hit you immediately. This is a game that shows us its world without shame.

If you can accept its premise and its eeriness, there is a warm, interesting and fully realised world beneath the relatively short game. The society has its own sects and the interactions between characters are weirdly real for such a fantastical game.

The characters behave like their world is the only one there is. Their way is the only logical one. They take for granted you understand political and personal motivations that web the story while still explaining them so you’re never lost.

With more environment variation than most triple A games the whole art style was a contender for the imagination award as well.

What set Zeno Clash apart was just how well realised the world was. By the end of the game, the world had carved its own niche in my mind.

It’s a magnificent place to inhabit if you can appreciate the weirdness.

Full of mystery and questions, itching to explore more and to experience everything, please dear lord let there be a sequel soon.

Yeah, we all love free stuff. Deny it and you’re just a liar which is a mortal sin on the 3rd Friday of the month. SCEE has released a list of titles that will support cross-platform play and the great thing is that you don’t need to buy the game for each console to make use of this feature. You buy it once and can play on both PS3 and Vita.

MotorStorm RC, Top Darts, Hustle Kings, WipEout HD, the HD Fury DLC for WipEout 2048, and Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 DLC are the designated titles to be compatible with both of Sony’s platforms.

What’s more, if you own one of the games for Vita, you’ll be able to download the same content for PS3 and vice versa.

“But it is not only the ability to buy these games for one price and access them across both platforms that makes the relationship between PS3 and PS Vita so important,” Sony says.

“Motorstorm RC, Hustle Kings Top Darts and WipEout HD and HD Fury DLC for WipEout 2048 all offer Cross Platform Play, which allows users to compete with gamers regardless of which system they are playing on. Whether it is real time or turn based play, this new way of competing creates a unique gaming experience.”

Pretty awesome if you ask me but once again we have to ask if this will help boost Vita’s sales in any way as the console just hit a new weekly low in sales figures this week.

May you find what you are looking for.

The above line is an old Chinese curse. The disparity between Western and Eastern culture is never more evident than in their way of insulting each other.

Our insults start with something like “your momma so fat…” Eastern insults start more along the lines of “venerable sir, may I have a moment of your time?”

This barbaric line might then be followed with “may you find what you are looking for”. If you are a douche you might interpret anything anybody says ever as an insult. In which case you’d throw your arms back and scream “Come at me bro!” while arching your shoulders and trying not to pee yourself.

If you were more reasonable you’d probably think it’s a sweet thing to say. Yes, I do hope I find what I’m looking for. You have yourself a nice day mister Miyagi (or Jackie Chan depending on your specific level of Asian racism).

In reality, the man has indeed insulted you so I guess the douche was actually more accurate this time. Then again, the douche challenged his own reflection to come at him, and lost.

It is an amazing piece of philosophical manoeuvring to think that actually finding what you want would be a bad thing. Yet it’s true. Not always, and certainly not with the small material things. My life is indeed better with that cool shirt or those kickass speakers but it becomes easier to understand when you think about it more abstractly.

If I actually achieved world dominance I’d be happy for a while, sure, but what happens after I finish recreating gladiatorial battles and making it illegal to say “mine”?

I’d be empty. Without purpose. As much as I want many things, I want them more as ideas.

The funny thing is that this should never stop us from trying to achieve success. Anything artistic, gaming included, is the ultimate frontier. With unlimited time and money we could still never achieve perfection.

Perfection doesn’t exist. It’s a good thing. It leaves us free to try as hard as we can. Knowing failure is certain means you don’t have to worry about it.

We can objectively assess any product, great or small, good or bad and assess it without emotion getting in the way. Nothing is perfect. So criticism is always allowed.

This is possibly the greatest modern societal achievement. We’ve maybe lost some of the sacredness that used to pervade society, but we’ve gained openness, humbleness in our artists and the expectation that we must always strive to improve ourselves and what we do.

Fair trade.

These are five games which were great in many ways. Not so much in others. Gaming is collaborative. The nature of this means that we can get the excellent mixed in with the average. More so than in other mediums we can forgive some areas to experience transcendence in others.

These games pushed the limit.

They’re not bad, they just did a bad thing.

We love them but we want to change them.

5. Story In Modern Warfare 2 and 3

Some will say story is not the point. Some will say that the multiplayer is all that matters. Some should crawl back into their mother’s wombs and un-conceive themselves.

There are many great things about the Modern Warfare series. The original Modern Warfare is, was and will always be a turning point for the Call of Duty series and the gaming industry as a whole.

That does not excuse the level of nonsense in the following two games.

At the top of the drawing boards, written in huge neon letters with its own back generator should be coherency. A story is worthless if it’s not easy to follow, at least on its most fundamental level.

Boring, lacklustre, incomprehensible – the story managed to be all of these things. We just needed a bad guy and a reason to chase; maybe some nice subplots or side characters.

What we got was the conspiracy ravings of a homeless man wearing a tinfoil hat who blinks his eyes independently.

4. Everything New in Assassin’s Creed Revelations

…except the story.

I loved the original Assassin’s Creed. Warts and all. Then the sequel came along and tightened all the soft bits and accentuated the pretty bits. I loved it too.

Then we had Brotherhood. More great story but ultimately a lot of fluff. There was still enough new, interesting content to warrant the purchase, but it was a weary purchase and I found myself often thinking “Yeah, there really is a lot of stuff here. It was worth buying”. I shouldn’t be having those thoughts.

The quality and quantity of what is added to a series to warrant a full price tag should be self-evident. It shouldn’t keep crossing my mind.

Then we have Revelations. The storyline was great and added a lot more. Given that Ubisoft have said that Assassin’s Creed 3 will feature a new protagonist, this is the final game in the Assassin’s Creed 2 trilogy. I know. It makes no sense.

Apart from the story and character, every new feature actually detracted from the core experience. A good core experience, which should be obvious – it’s untouched since Assassin’s Creed 2. The hook blade is a fun gimmick but everything else is just so much salad obscuring the steak underneath.

There was a time when a hook blade would have been cheap DLC. Now it’s a core feature on a sequel. Who cares about bombs? You have a gun, throwing knives, smoke bombs, poison blades, a cross bow, a sword, a smaller sword, two hidden blades and an army of other similarly equipped lackeys at your disposal, who gives a tinker’s cuss about bombs.

This is a stealth based assassination game. BOMBS?

Assassin’s Creed 3 better blow my hair into a Super Saiyan.

3. Kratos’ Character Arc in God Of War 3

Did the graphics melt my face?

Into a puddle.

Did the epicness divert blood flow from my brain?

Pants tighteningly so.

Then what the hell happened to Kratos? He went from lovable badass who is filled with pain we understand to just being a douche. He was like an angsty petulant child who happens to be able to smash things.

It’s not often that I see things that really capture my feelings completely. These guys did. Watch what they have to say and you’ll understand fully why I actually wish God of War 3 had been cancelled.

2. Lip Syncing in Kingodms of Amalur

This is more of a gripe than anything else but seriously; it’s like watching a fish talk while sounds come from somewhere.

The rest of the games is really very good and the writing is even excellent as is the voice acting, which is why this is such a shame.

I’m not sure if this is the kind of thing that can be patched but I just wonder how this got past the QA team. It feels like the first thing you’d jot down when you pick up the game to test it.

The funny thing is that it gets less noticeable since you end up reading the dialogue subtitles most of the time. There is no way to turn them off and it’s really hard to ignore onscreen text.

Maybe they did that on purpose…

1. Combat in Skyrim Just So Poor

This follows directly from playing Kingdoms of Amalur. I haven’t finished Skyrim, I don’t think it’s possible to finish Skyrim but net result is that both games are sitting on my hard drive.

Picking up Skyrim, the awesomeness of the world and storyline is evident. Distracting even.

It took me several hours of playing Skyrim (as a mage\one handed weapons guy) before I paused the game and realised the combat was just not fun.

There is no feedback, enemies barely react and I don’t feel smart, powerful or skilled.

It fails in every category of RPG gameplay.

Given what else is on display I forgave the combat as a necessary evil to get a world as big and alive as Skyrims.

Then I played Kingdoms of Amalur. Lip syncing problems aside, the world is big, beautiful and alive. There is more location variety than in Skyrim. A lot of the locations are just more epic in scope than Skyrims and there is actually colour and vibrancy to the world.

The side quests are more interesting and the storyline is more unique. All this and I haven’t even mentioned the combat.

From within the first couple of hours I was already spoilt for choice, felt awesomely powerful while still needing to fight hard to survive. I also felt tactically in control.

Dodging around attacks, firing spells, secondary weapons, and swinging a huge fiery hammer I felt great.

I tried to play Skyrim again. I don’t think I can.

Ken Levine seems to have a new-found love for Sony. At the publisher’s E3 press conference, he showed off BioShock: Infinite’s Move support and then proceeded to whip out a Vita and pledge to develop a BioShock title for the currently struggling little handheld. I can’t wait for said BioShock title to release but until then it’s pretty clear what we all have to do: because Ken is like Jesus to us and we heed his every word, we should all go out and buy a Vita. In fact don’t just stop there, take it to the next level and become a Sony freak. Screw that BB, get an Xperia.

Okay okay, I’m obviously kidding, mostly. Seriously though get an Xperia, they’re shiny.

Anyway, Ken Levine showed some more love for the Vita in the latest issue of PSM3. When asked what he thought about the handheld, he was initially cautious – probably because he wanted to choose his words carefully given the console’s precarious position – but then called the Vita a “really interesting platform,” citing the platform’s ability to preserve the purity of different gaming experiences and genres as a core strength.

“It’s a really interesting platform because, as a gamer, it’s the first platform that really sort of gives of everything. It’s the first time I can play things like shooters on an aeroplane; and I don’t like feeling I’m playing something that’s compromised in any way.”

Levine also believes that in the very near future “there will be whole kinds of games that you wouldn’t have been able to play before on the Vita.”

It may be that Irrational is currently working on BioShock: Infinite and that Vita’s BioShock will be built from the ground up but I can’t wait to see what it eventually looks like given how well Uncharted transposed itself onto the Vita with Golden Abyss.

Fan favourites that no one will remember when something better comes alo…ooohh look! Something shiny.

We have all started to use the word memorable to mean fun or enjoyable. I’ve been slapped by a woman before and it was neither fun nor enjoyable but it was pretty memorable.

This is the distinction I’m making. Memorable does not mean good or fun, it doesn’t even mean intense or shocking. It’s far more personal than that. What is memorable to one person might be completely forgettable to another.

What we find memorable is what touches us. Something about the world, story or gameplay somehow becomes linked with powerful emotion. Certain songs remind me of ex-girlfriends, some books are so vivid in my memory I still can’t believe they aren’t real, and some games I will remember forever.

Bioshock, Call of Duty 4, Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood. The first is a masterpiece, the second is arguable the first game to ever seriously grab you by the scrotum and pull you on a wild globe-trotting adventure so spectacular you’re left almost feeling sexually satisfied, but what about the third? Releasing to positive but not spectacular reviews, why do I lump that piece of coal in with those other gems? It’s personal. The game lets you choose which of the two brothers to play as and their interactions and dynamic were so similar to my own relationship with my brother that I genuinely loved the characters. I will remember them forever and I cannot defend the game as anything more than good. Memorable is personal.

Last week I wrote an article on 5 Games We’ll Remember In 20 Years. Those were the select few games from the last year or so that gave experiences that lead to a profound feeling of inner growth. They all had those “OMG!!” moments but what made them special was what you got left with afterwards.

The games on this list are the one night stands. Fun, special, one hell of a good time, and they make you smile when you think about them but I won’t remember them when their sequels release or bigger things come along.

I’m not speaking about recollection. Any normal person who has their morning coffee without whisky and leaves cocaine on toast only for special occasions will hopefully be able to recollect most of the good games they’ve played. They should even have some fond memories and when the ice caps melt, our grandchildren are plentiful and Half Life 3 is a folk legend, we should still be able to do a healthy bit of reminiscing while sitting in a nuclear-powered rocking chair, but they won’t make us fall silent. In our private moments we won’t suddenly remember them and get a warm sensation in our bellies.

5 games from the last 24 months that took the world by storm but that I won’t remember come the sunshine. These games burn bright and fiercely but when I put the down the controller, once the initial awe and excitement has died down, I’m left satisfied but I’m not in love.
 
 

5. Call of Duty. Anything After 4.

This may seem obvious but it’s being said anyway. This is the epitome of what I’m talking about here. Fun, well made and maybe even awe-inspiring, until the sequel comes along. These games are fast food, cheap wine and the easy, drunk chick at the party.

There’s fun to be had and lots of it too, but these game won’t stick with me. I barely understand their stories and the action starts to meld together into one big ‘splosion of Scottish, bearded, magnificent mustached, action.

I’ll probably continue to play them every year. The same way I’ll watch the new Transformers movies.

Pretty things and things that go boom.

Not everything has to be profound and that’s completely fine.

I love Blue Mountain State – who doesn’t?
 
 

4. Batman: Arkham City

Yes, I know – this was an outstanding game. Certainly the best Batman experience you can have short of actually eating gravel and becoming Batman.

Fluid, well designed combat, fun gadgets and even a memorable story.

Nothing new enough.

After Arkham Asylum swept me off my feet Arkham City was going to have to work really hard to impress me. It did to an extent but the problems start right at the conceptual level.

Arkham Asylum but bigger and more open world. If the game wasn’t so big and fleshed out this could have passed for an expansion.

As it stands, I remember the feeling I got when I first ran around feeling like Batman – in Arkham Asylum. Now I have a lot of fun but this just feels like an expanded game without any serious innovation or hooks to make me remember Arkham City over Asylum.

Rocksteady are talented developers and I’m excited for whatever they do next.

I’ll remember the first time I silently took out a room of thugs using my bad-assery. It was in Arkham Asylum.
 
 

3. Assassin’s Creed: Revelations

I know I’m not alone here. In fact my distinguished colleague wrote an entire article on why the Assassin’s Creed franchise has become that weird slightly over 40 woman at the teenage party.

In fact I’m going to quote him directly and link to his article because there is nothing left to say that he hasn’t already said.

Firstly, and amongst the biggest issues with the game, is that it showed me how exhausted the gameplay was. With barely anything worth writing home about added to the game, and an identical formula to its predecessors, Revelations couldn’t bring back the excitement of past games. Variety was a lot less, and things like the renovating system and slow pace often made playing it a serious chore. The game relied heavily on its previous successes, and failed to really build from its predecessors in any significant way.

Azhar’s Full Article. Go read it and then send a letter to Ubisoft.
 
 
Find the next two entries on the following page.

It looks as if Sony is working on a touchscreen handheld controller much like that of the Wii U. It’s a little more sophisticated though as Sony’s controller seems to be intended for use in conjunction with 3D TV’s so that the viewer’s perspective changes depending on the controller’s position in relation to the TV.

It’s called the “Position-Dependent Gaming 3-D controller, and Handheld as a Remote” and below you’ll find a description according to the patent information:

“Methods and systems for using a position of a mobile device with an integrated display as an input to a video game or other presentation are presented. Embodiments include rendering an avatar on a mobile device such that it appears to overlay a competing user in the real world. Using the mobile device’s position, view direction, and the other user’s mobile device position, an avatar (or vehicle, etc.) is depicted at an apparently inertially stabilized location of the other user’s mobile device or body. Some embodiments may estimate the other user’s head and body positions and angles and reflect them in the avatar’s gestures.”

If you hit the link above, you’ll notice that the patent was filed back in 2010 so Sony has had this idea for a while but the real question is whether this is in fact a potential controller for any potential PS4 that may come along between now and 2014 or thereabouts. You should also take a look at this aerial diagram of pretty much how the diagram is supposed to work although it’s a bit technical.

Not much info is given on the device other than that it’s a mobile device with position-dependency. Let the wild theories start flying.

The PlayStation Vita is by no means an outright failure just yet but that doesn’t mean it won’t be. It’s no secret that Monster Hunter kept the PSP ticking over for quite some time with the series’ huge Japanese following and Vita could follow suit.

It’s no surprise then that a Sony official has told the world that there is a Monster Hunter title scheduled for release on the Vita later this year. He’s made this statement before any official announcement was made but did it in response to the Vita’s slow Japanese sales. He firmly believes that launch sales would’ve been much better if Monster Hunter was there amongst Uncharted: Golden Abyss and those other titles when Sony popped Vita out.

“The games available at launch in Japan do not correspond to the typology of the Japanese public. It lacks a particular game, Monster Hunter, scheduled for the coming months,” said PlayStation France CEO Philippe Cardon. “Had it been there from the start in Japan, the story would have been different.”

I really hope Vita’s sales pick up although Monster Hunter is reputed for causing a console’s Japanese sales to soar. You’re also welcome to take this as an announcement for Monster Hunter Vita.

Short of free porn and comics, what should Sony do to push Vita’s sales up or are you of the belief that the console will eventually find its feet?

It’s time for another session of “random shit said by nobody in particular about the next generation of consoles”. Today’s victim is the Wii U which we at least know exists unlike the currently fictional Xbox 720 and PlayStation 4. Nintendo has yet to release hardware specs for its new console but claims suggest that it will be “twice as powerful” as the current Xbox.

That’s a big claim but plausible if the Wii U is to go toe to toe with the next gen of consoles from Sony and Microsoft in the next few years. What’s surprising is that this rumour is pretty conservative compared to the one which led us to believe that the next Xbox will be six times more powerful than the 360. Now that is a wild claim.

A report from UK site Develop claims that a Wii U developer speaking under anonymity has revealed the final hardware to be roughly twice as powerful as the Xbox 360. Apparently, other devs believed the console would be even more powerful.

“I’ve heard [a project designer] complain it’s underpowered compared to what Nintendo announced, resulting in people having to de-scale their plans,” the source told Develop.

Unlike the comically large question marks hanging over Sony and Microsoft, Nintendo will be re-unveiling the Wii U at E3  later this year and probably with some of the titles that developers have been working on so we should see what the console is capable of by then.

I quite like the Vita’s design and it isn’t really that bulky given the hardware it has on-board. However, being Japanese means that Takashi Sogabe, the console’s designer, isn’t quite happy with it. In fact, he wanted it to be skinnier.

Sogabe’s resume includes designing the Sony Walkman and he said the following in a recent Sony roundtable (via CVG): “The original design of the PS Vita…was very much thinner than the current retail product. From a designer’s point of view, thinner is better-looking, but the engineers wanted to put all the features in.”

So is a Vita slim on the cards?

“Maybe it will become thinner in the future, but the engineers would have to come up with a means to do that,” said the designer.

Sogabe also wasn’t thrilled about the positioning of the analogues although game publishers eventually won that battle citing that it was the best solution. That wasn’t all, though.

“As a designer, I wanted to use metal rather than plastic, but because there are a lot of antennae in the body, we couldn’t use metal.”

Again, I rather like the look of the PS Vita but a slim version certainly wouldn’t be a bad thing.

So someone decided that instead of receiving the super awesome Kevin Butler treatment, the best way to market the PlayStation Vita now that it has launched in Europe would be with some lifestyle shots showing how happy and aesthetically pleasing the average Vita user looks. I don’t know about you but they just look like colossal tools to me.

However, I am but a bespectacled nerd and so do not understand the finer nuances of coolness displayed by these strapping gentlemen.

I guess the only question remaining is which one of these guys most resembles Alessandro? Speaking of which, have you seen his rather cool unboxing of the PS Vita?

Nyko, a peripheral company, is gearing up to dish out a range of new peripherals for the PlayStation Vita when it launches next month. However, out of all of them, perhaps this one right here will catch your eye the most.

It’s called The Power Grip and, while it may not be the prettiest add-on around, it does also feature as a battery extension pack, which could potentially make a big difference to your playtime with the handheld.

Nyko claims that the device will succeed in tripling your battery life with the Vita, which Sony estimates will last for about three to five hours of gameplay on a single charge.

That’s not a bad deal, especially since the device costs $24.99 (approximately R200.91), which is a pretty good price considering the usual rates battery packs go for. Not to mention that if you don’t like the peripheral’s weird arms, they can apparently be folded behind the handheld, although we naturally can’t confirm yet if that will still provide a comfortable playing experience.

Sounds good, but we’ll have to wait to see if it makes a worthy difference.

PlayStation Vita is nowhere near being a failure just yet but people seem to be writing it off already due to a slow start in sales. What they seem to neglect is the fact that Vita, like the 3DS is doing something largely different to other handhelds and so people are reluctant to buy in because they want to be absolutely certain that it’s worth the money and for the amount of cash a Vita will set you back, you can’t really blame them.

Vita is arguably making a giant leap in handheld gaming but only once people start seeing good reviews for the games and console and when they start to hear things like, “Person X has a had a Vita for almost two months now and they say it’s amazing,” will they consider forking out the cash.

Sony Computer Entertainment Europe president and CEO Jim Ryan told MCV that Nintendo’s success is a good sign for handheld gaming.

“One of the encouraging things about 3DS’ sales performance at Christmas is that it is confounding the naysayers who say that there is no room in the market for a dedicated handheld gaming device,” the European PlayStation boss said.

“And to that extent we were encouraged by how 3DS did over the last month.”

Ryan also said that it would be counter-productive to estimate launch sales in other regions based on how it started off in Japan.

“One of the things we have learnt over a long period of time, is that whether it is PS1, PS2, PSP or PS3, it is dangerous to the point of impossible to take any experience from the Japanese market and try and extrapolate it, and propose upon what will happen in Europe or North America.

“Not withstanding the fact that it is just way too early to make any conclusions. The markets are now just so different, I actually think they are diverging to a greater extent than they were different in the past – if that’s even possible.”

I personally think that Sony is on to a winner in the Vita but it’ll be a while before the sales figures begin to reflect that. Similarly, it was only after several years that PS3 console’s became profitable for Sony who had previously been selling them at a reported loss.

Mazel tov to Alessandro who will be taking delivery of his shiny new PlayStation Vita today but it seems like the good captain won’t have much of a crew to command if sales of the PlayStation Vita locally are anything like they’ve been abroad.

So Vita has sold around 500 000 units worldwide which isn’t abysmal but it’s not great either. The epic slap in the face though has got to be the fact that it is being matched in sales by the geriatric PS2. A newly released handheld console with some serious power under its skin is drawing level with a more than eleven year old console that many believed to be dead until it turned up as the base of a TV and was also revealed to be poised for launch in Brazil a few years ago.

According to an official release from Sony Computer Entertainment, “The PlayStation 2 platform continues its sales momentum and remains robust sales especially in emerging counties and regions such as Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Southeast Asia and South America, and exceeded half million units worldwide.”

Despite it’s age, the PS2 is still a solid and affordable console with a vast library of even more affordable games that are still great to play otherwise we wouldn’t be getting all these fantastic remakes and HD collections.

Of course, it also helps that PS2′s are helping to fund Hezbullah since that’s always good for your bottom line.

This isn’t so much a slating of the Vita, which I sincerely hope picks up in sales and becomes successful, as it is a testament to the staying power of the PS2 and just what a phenomenal console it was. It’s doubtful the current gen of consoles will enjoy such a long and prosperous life but the PS2 doesn’t seem to be showing any signs of slowing down.

According to Sony Computer Entertainment president Andrew House, the firm isn’t yet contemplating talking about “anything to do with future console iterations at this point”.

There’s been a great deal of speculation regarding the PS4 as of late, but what should quieten it a little is that House told CVG at Japan’s December PlayStation Vita launch that Sony is “just entering into this great period for PS3″.

He said: “I don’t think we’re contemplating talking about anything to do with future console iterations at this point.

“But one thing I always point to is that, somewhat in contrast to our major competitors, we have, particularly with PS2, managed the length of the lifecycle and ensured its profitability for our publishing partners for a much longer lifecycle than has been true of the competition.

“I would say that’s in part because of the global reach of Sony from a distribution, infrastructure and marketing standpoint. Because in many markets, we work alongside really long-standing, established operations in electronics, we’re able to migrate out into rather more emerging markets much more easily and sustainably than is possible for some of our competitors.”

When pressed further regarding his thoughts on the next generation, House commented that in his opinion there are still “significant barriers” for game streaming on high-definition consoles, and physical media is still seen as “the easiest consumer experience”.

“There are clearly a lot of opportunities [in the future] with regard to business models around games, all of which we’re interested in and are exploring,” House said.

“Some of our group companies already have a stake in free-to-play models and so on. But in my view, for the very highest quality high-definition console gaming, I think there are still some significant barriers to streaming solutions.

“Whether it’s in mobile or cloud-based services, there are opportunities there for more casual content and in our case potentially for legacy content, which we would definitely like to explore. But I think we are a way away from being able to deliver the full-on top-end experience like that.

“The scale of data involved and issues around latency do mean that, at least for now, the easiest consumer experience is from physical media. Although, having said that, we’re starting to see some growth in the number or proportion of our consumers that want to access their content via download. But I think it’s still pretty small.”

What makes this all the more interesting is that House’s comments arrive shortly after MCV claimed that both the PS4 and Xbox 720 will be unveiled at this year’s E3 press conference.

But when CVG quizzed Sony’s Worldwide Studios president Shuhei Yoshida about the PlayStation 4, the man simply laughed and said: “I don’t know what you are talking about.”

Grotesque Tactics 2: Dungeons & Donuts is a satirical turn-based RPG from developer Headup Games. The game parodies the RPG genre with all its frills and steel plated armour. Any game is fair play from the popular Pokemon series to the Baldur’s Gate series, to the Diablo series, to nearly every conceivable dungeon crawler that has sufficient tropes on display.

The story follows that the game’s fantasy world is in grave danger and it is up to the main protagonist Drake, who suffers from hero’s amnesia, to form a guild and take on enemy forces. He meets a range of characters along his journey beginning with the introduction of the Holy Avatar guild led by the charismatic Holy Avatar, and followed by his dedicated maidens. From then on, you begin to explore the vast network of dungeons and meet new party members along the way.

Gameplay in Grotesque Tactics 2 is very basic and derivative of the genre. The battle system can be likened to games in the Might & Magic series, King’s Bounty series interspersed with dungeon crawling elements. Essentially, you move your characters along a grid-like system of spaces, like a chessboard, and can choose to attack enemies with magic or physical attacks. As such, characters in your party can travel along a select number of spaces. From there, you can initiate either an attack with a character, or even assume a defensive postion if your reach is limited.

Depending on where you position party members within the grid the amount of damage you inflict is relative. So if you attack an enemy from behind, such as a Blob or goblin, damage inflicted will be relatively higher than if you attacked from the front. Characters have both a normal attack available and a special attack which costs mana, and upgrading your talent trees becomes useful in powering up attacks. The same can be said of spells and magic in general. Critically, you have to be careful with the choices and decisions you make because if your strategy is at all faulty you’ll suffer against higher level monsters and enemies. Picking roles for your characters such as a designated attacker, healer and defender are all an essential part of how you define a good party in Grotesque Tactics 2. Yet, this type of battle system has been done to death and Grotesque Tactics 2 does nothing new with combat. It ends up feeling like a rehash of a rehash and after a while the game becomes boring, and repetitive.

Aesthetically, the game’s visuals are somewhat dated and feel lack lustre when compared to other Indie RPGs on the market. The game does indeed have a definitive visual style which is appropriate for the humorous undertone present in the game. But a limited number of stock animations in character models tarnish the overall package.

In terms of sound design, the game has a forgettable soundtrack. However, excellent voice acting especially within the main cast of characters brings to life the somewhat likable characters and doesn’t dull the total experience.

Subsequently, this doesn’t save Grotesque Tactics 2 from being an average RPG title which whilst funny in parts isn’t fully realised. The game at times feels directionless and doesn’t have enough depth. I understand it’s not a serious title. Nevertheless, for the price I was expecting a funnier game. Sadly it doesn’t fit the bill.

Sony seems to have learned from the overall mistake that is the PSP and promises to do things right with the PlayStation Vita. The Vita will be billed first and foremost as a gaming device as opposed to the PSP which Sony kept trying to sell as a multimedia device.

Speaking to Official PlayStation Magazine UK, SCEE president Jim Ryan was very candid and open about the company’s dead-in-the-water handheld console.

“I think with PSP we tried to position it as a rather broad multimedia device. We talked a lot in the early days of PSP about its video playback functionality its use as a music device and a host of other multimedia functionality that it had,” he explained.

“I think this time we’ve realised that perhaps ended up confusing consumers, and they weren’t quite sure what the device was really all about. So this time the Vita does all of that stuff that we talked about on PSP, and it does it a lot better.”

PS Vita still has plenty of multimedia functionality, the SCEE boss reminded, but this time “what it does best is play games.”

He said: “We’ve been a lot more single minded and much more focused in our positioning of Vita. We’re saying that this is primarily a gaming device. It has been developed from the ground up as a gaming device. What it does best is play games.

“The other thing would be that we learned that what consumers didn’t really appreciate [about PSP] was, in many cases, getting ports of PS2 and then PS3 games for their PSP.

“They said if that’s what you’re going to do, I’ll just play the game on PS2 or PS3. We’re helped here by the nature of the interfaces that are available on the Vita. What we learned is that the gaming experiences need to be unique and differentiated for gamers to be able to get into them.”

The Vita titles that I’ve seen thus far look great and the console should succeed if it keeps getting exclusives like those. Perhaps the biggest hurdle for Vita will be its price but then again, the PS3 wasn’t exactly cheap either in the beginning.

The PS Vita is due in February 2012 and should fetch for around R3200.

Okay so it’s not exactly a revelation and Sony’s not exactly dropping huge details on us but we finally know something about the PS3′s successor despite the complete lack of an official announcement or any real details yet.

After that truly epic intro are you ready for that little nugget of information? Well, are you? Okay, here we go.

PlayStation Europe deputy president Jim Ryan has come out saying that any possible PS3-successor would likely come very soon after the practically announced Xbox 720.

“I think we would consider it undesirable to be significantly later than the competition [with the next PlayStation].”

The Wii U has already been announced and could still be the major contender that the original Wii never was and there’s been a lot of talk about Microsoft’s next Xbox but Sony has been mum on the so-called PS4.

Let us remind you that the Xbox 360 got a year up on the PS3 and it has stood the console in good stead.

Free movies will be coming to the virtual world of PlayStation Home thanks to a deal that Sony has signed with movie streaming provider Crackle.

The movies will be available on the LOOT EOD screens found around Home – in the LOOT EOD Theater, Sunset Yacht, and the Hollywood Hills House. The lineup is currently limited to Step Brothers, Cruel Intentions, Snatch, Resident Evil, A Few Good Men, and Final Fantasy: Advent Children.

And now the bad news. The service is currently limited to the US PSN but should be making its way abroad in due time. By then, it will hopefully have a lot more on offer.

So Microsoft has announced that the successor to the Xbox 360 is in development but that’s about all we’ve heard from the company itself. That doesn’t mean other people can’t go around spreading rumours though.

For example, the latest rumour reports say that the console has been codenamed “Project Ten” and will release around Christmas next year. That’s not entirely unbelievable, especially when you consider that the PS3 replacement is likely to drop around 2013 or early 2014.

There are also some curious rumours spouting out of technology reporter Paul Thurrott who believes that Microsoft will be going the way of Apple in terms of integrating its systems. This is one thing that Apple manages to do very well whether you have an iPod, iPad or iPhone. This means that the Xbox 720 (I’m not liking the name “Project Ten”) will practically be built for Windows 8. Also, who actually buys Windows phones anymore when you have a choice of iPhone, Android or BlackBerry?

“What I’m hearing is [the next Xbox is] going to come out for holidays next year, meaning that they would almost have to announce this at CES, wouldn’t they? That’s my rumour… that we’ll expect to hear something about that.”

He added: “They’re going the Apple route where they want this thing to integrate very tightly with Windows 8 and Windows Phone, which is a problem with the current Xbox.”

Thurrott also believes that the new Xbox will feature “embedded MS Silverlight” which is rumoured to run the previously announced XBL TV platform. This echoes the rumour from a  week ago suggesting that the new console will run a version of Windows 8 and feature a Zune HD-like hardware platform.

And what of the Xbox 360′s planned 10-year life cycle? That’s apparently still on track with a planned overlap between the two consoles according to European Xbox boss Chris Lewis.

“We think we’re a little over halfway with the life cycle of the console, but that’s not to say there won’t be an overlap. I’m not going to announce specifically or talk about timing. But you could imagine there could be overlap, it depends. We’re not being specific about the next generation at this stage.”

Like I said at the start of this article, we don’t have anything concrete from Microsoft besides the fact that the Xbox 360 replacement exists so take everything you’ve read with a major pinch of salt.

It’s recently been Kinect’s birthday, and because it usually goes that we benefit from other big companies’ parties, Microsoft is celebrating this with some announcements for PC gamers.

Starting with Kinect for Windows, the official and commercial development tool kit is scheduled to be released in early 2012.

Microsoft has also announced the release of the SDK 2, for all those who have already been playing around with Kinect on PC. According to MS, it’s been more than a few.

“Currently, we have more than 200 companies taking part in our pilot program,” said Craig Eisler, general manager of Kinect for Windows.

“They are telling us how Kinect for Windows will help them transform their products, their processes, their brands, and their businesses. Putting the power of Kinect + Windows into the hands of business leaders and technical visionaries will give them the tools they need to develop novel solutions for everything from training employees to visualizing data, from configuring a car to managing an assembly line.”

Eisler claims that the newest software upgrade will do its duty in improving Kinect’s motion-tracking abilities, “including faster skeletal tracking, better accuracy rate when it comes to skeletal tracking and joint recognition, and the ability to plug and unplug your Kinect without losing work/productivity”.

If you’re interested to know more, you can go all clicky on the link below, or you can download the new SDK here.

This is not exactly the most concrete scrap of news since industry site Develop references only “a trusted source connected to the matter” as the origin of this information. However, if it is to be believed then a number of Sony’s 16 internal studios are already at work on coming up with concepts for PS4 games.

Let us remind you that the list of studios under Sony’s wing include Sucker Punch, Naughty Dog and a host of other quality outfits. So irrespective of the validity of this rumour, Sony’s PS4 will have a very strong contingency of launch titles.

Develop also claims that, according to the source, Sony has yet to finalise the technical specs of the console and that the next-gen console is not due until 2014. This comes amid talk that the NeXtBox (Xbox 720) is set for a Christmas 2013 launch.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, recently speaking at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, said that support for Kinect will improve as it now enters its second generation.

So, if you’ve been feeling like your Kinect is losing its sleek black colour to a nice dust coating in recent months, due to a lack of awesome games, then now is the time to once again have hope for the little device as Microsoft is promising cool things for it in the near future.

“Like any other thing that is new, we came out with a set of applications to show off the platform, to bring others in. Our second generation is now happening,” he said.

“We announced a partnership today with Sesame Street and National Geographic to bring kids’ learning and entertainment to the Kinect. You’ll see a raft of new games from us and third-party publishers this holiday,” added Ballmer, signaling a major Christmas push from MS.

He went on: “We’ve announced and demonstrated work that we’re doing with people who provide video content — live TV as well as other [video on demand], etc. content — to really let you access and find [content] and control it, completely via the Kinect, gesture and voice being a part of that. Bing-powered by the way, that will be out this holiday season. So you’re going to see a range of important innovations coming to Kinect on Xbox this holiday.”

id Software’s John Carmack has said that it is important for developers to learn the ins and outs of motion technology, such as Kinect, because this tech “can get 10 times better in the coming years”.

Personally, if you ask me, Kinect needs more focus on violent, cinematic, innovative and serious games. That gives gamers like me the impression that it’s being taken seriously.

Valve Boss Gabe Newell spoke up for PC gaming and its patrons in the latest issue of PC Gamer UK saying that gaming PC’s are “great value for money” and allow gamers to “have the one they like”.

But wait, there’s more:

“People like their PCs. There are huge numbers of them and each person gets to have the one that they like rather than the one that someone else has defined for them.

“There were 350 million PCs sold last year so the economies of scale are tremendous so you get great value for money.”

In the same interview Newell claimed that Steam isn’t in the gaming industry for money, telling the mag he simply enjoys working with ‘good people’.

“For me, it’s always been about opportunities to work with people I really like and respect. And to build stuff. In that sense, as Valve has been more successful, it’s brought in an even more talented and stronger group of people for all of us.”

I think it’s pretty clear that PC gamers still matter to Valve and in an industry where the cultivated benchmark is to ostracise PC gamers and throw them half-assed ports, it’s good to know that people like those at Valve and Volition Inc, who value PC gaming and put effort into it, still exist.

Microsoft announced on Wednesday that the Xbox 360 would have  access to content from almost 40 new media partners in over 20 countries by Christmas 2011.

The partners in question comprise a list burgeoning with A-list material from HBO to BBC, Verizon and more who will provide a wide variety of live and on-demand programming, sports, movies and music.

Microsoft said the conglomerate deals signalled “a new era in television… where your entertainment becomes instantly searchable, easily discoverable and enjoyable in extraordinary new ways” using Kinect motion control and Bing voice search.

Indeed, Microsoft might be on to something here with the aim of making the Xbox 360 a more versatile console with more wide-spread features.

Please look past how thickly draped in cheese the entire ad is and watch too see just how Microsoft aims to give the Xbox a significant shot in the arm. It really looks to be a pretty cool innovation. Unfortunately, no word has been given as to which countries will be receiving these services so fingers crossed South Africa is one of them.

An afterthought: Why must every command be preceded by “Xbox”? Is it just for advertising or to help the Xbox assert itself as the alpha-console in the house? Do you have a voice-activated vacuum cleaner? Because I’d sure love one.

Sony has undoubtedly made one of the coolest gaming TV adverts ever, if not the best we’ve seen to this date. Seriously, check it out yourself.

The advert features some of the most iconic gaming characters around, including Solid Snake, Ezio, Nathan Drake and Kratos, all rallying to honour and thank their collective hero – which is you.

The advert is the latest part of Sony’s Long Live Play PlayStation 3 campaign, which made its debut in August when Sony dropped the famous “It Only Does Everything” slogan in favour of the new ‘Long Live Play’. And it’s a pretty brilliant move at that, I think.

Also, the ad kinda makes you think how cheesy some of these characters sound out of context. Like Snake.

One of the PS Vita’s big back-of-the-box-advertised features is the PS3 Remote Play which allows users to play all of their favourite PS3 games on the Vita by remotely accessing your PS3 system.

SCE Worldwide Studios president Shuhei Yoshida used his keynote address at this eyar’s Tokyo Game Show to demonstrate the Remote Play feature. In the video you’ll see him playing Killzone 3 off the Vita and while it doesn’t offer all of the DualShock 3′s buttons, the controls incorporate the console’s rear touch panel.

Excellent news for all of you sitting at home with a heap of PSP titles and wondering whether any of them will be playable on the new Vita handheld console. Because after all, there are some really great PSP titles and it would be a shame for them to just be forgotten with the PSP. Well, if Sony comes through on their UMD conversion program, which is currently being considered, then you might just be able to enjoy all your favourite PSP games on the new console.

In the same way that Sony has made a number of PS1 games available on PSN, Sony said at its pre-TGS conference that some 500-600 PSP titles will be playable on Vita, as almost all digital PSP games on PSN are compatible with the new console.

According to Destructoid, Sony is also “considering some kind of program to offer special download versions” of older PSP titles although this has yet to be confirmed.

And here we are again with the Vita adding even more games to its catalogue, even if these are oldies.

Over the years we’ve come a long way in terms of how we interface with the games we play, certainly from the days of the two-button box that was used to play Tennis for Two. There’ve also been some seriously ridiculous ones from the NES power Glove to the scouter-like Laser Scope from Konami. Let’s not forget the Wii U controller which really doesn’t fit in anywhere, as the graphic quite clearly illustrates.

If you can follow the lines, the chart is great in showing the evolution of different types of gamepads/controllers/peripherals and how they’ve all influenced each other. There’s a lot of information crammed into this chart so you’d be best off clicking on the image to get a full-size view of it and save it to your PC to view on your own time.

As you read this, two lucky bastards people are enjoying ogling and using their very own Elders Scroll V: Skyrim-themed Xbox 360′s given out at a walkthrough of the game shown at PAX 2011 this weekend. So far as gaming swag goes this is worthy of the subscript: “must have, now”.

Jealous? Yeah, me too and I’m not even an Xbox guy but fear not because Betsheda has assured fans that it’s in talks with Microsoft to produce a number of limited edition Skyrim consoles in addition to the two given out at the weekend.

While we’re talking Xbox’s, have you seen the custom Batman: Arkham City-themed consoles given out at PAX? They’re not too bad either.

No controller is perfect, right? The PS3′s one has clunky ergonomics and sticky trigger buttons whereas the Xbox 360 has a soft D-pad. Do you prefer to 360 or PS3 analogue layout, convex or concave analogue sticks? So many variables so many possibilities for the perfect controller in every indivdual’s eyes.

Usually perfecting the ergonomics and layout of your controller is more expensive than coating it in Muir but Mad Catz has an answer. They’ve developed a modular controller where every aspect of it can be swapped, tweaked and adjusted.

Christened by Major League Gaming ( that’s usually an indication that it’s pretty good), the Pro-Circuit controllers from Mad Catz utilise what they call the ProModule system. What it entails is a controller designed for elements such as the D-pad and analogue sticks to cheaply and easily be swapped out and adjusted.

Each controller also comes with four analogue sticks, two concave and two convex as well as a PS3 and Xbox style D-pad. The layout can also be tweaked sicne each analogue and the D-pad can be locked into any one of three open slots.

If you really want to get anal (no homo), Mad Catz has designed a special compartment in the base of the controller which allows suers to add or subtract as much as 70g from it so as to control its weight and feel.

For aesthetics and being arbitrarily different, the controllers are also fitted with a series of magnetic faceplates which can be removed and skinned for a custom look.

Pricing is yet to be announced but this definitely sounds like one to consider if you’re into crafting a precision controller for the ultimate in gaming control.

Sony’s PlayStation Vita won’t be supporting 3D technology when it launches, and Mick Hocking has provided us with an explanation on why.

Speaking with GameSpot, Hocking said that 3D gaming on a handheld, without the use of glasses, only works properly if you can keep your head still while playing. And that’s something which won’t work entirely well with the Vita’s use of SixAxis motion functionality.

Personally, I wouldn’t keep my head still while playing even without SixAxis.

“We wanted to offer a really, really high-resolution OLED screen, and the best way to do that was in 2D. At least for the first one,” he said.

Hocking also spoke a little on general 3D support, revealing to us that Sony only encourages game developers to make use of 3D technology if they feel that the game in question would benefit from the tech.

“A message we’ve been giving to all of our PS3 developers is add 3D where it adds something to the game. It’s not a tickbox we want on all the game boxes; we want 3D to add to the experience. The other really important thing is to do it well,” he said.

I rather like that to be honest, because right now 3D isn’t the worldly revolution that it seems hyped to be.

Proun is a Dutch made indie game unlike anything you’ve seen or played before. It is free. It is fun. There is no good reason why you should not give it a try.

eGamer Rating

Addictive: Not really, unless you’re the obsessive type.

Worth The Time: Of course. Go and download it now.

Things Loved: The art style. The music. The fun.

Things Hated: There are only four tracks available, and an extra one if you decide to pay something for the game.

Reasons To Buy/Not Buy: There is no reason you should not download this game as soon as possible. Do you not like fun?

Conclusion: Proun is an excursion into the abstract world of geometry and reaction times. Play it if you like pretty visuals, play it if you like indie developers, play it you like fun. Just go play it already.

Title: Proun
Genre: Racer/Acid trip at a Picasso exhibition to the smooth sounds of Saint Germain.
Developer: Joost Van Dongen
Publisher: Independant
Players: 1-4 (split screen)
Platforms: PC (Windows XP, Vista and 7)
Reviewed On: PC (Windows 7)

3... 2... 1... go!

A game recently came to my attention called Proun. It is made by a Dutch indie developer called Joost Van Dongen. Being the hip guy that he is, Joost decided to make his game completely free. That’s right folks, completely free. Joost has however provided the option to give him any money you feel he deserves for making this cool game. I say it’s a cool game because that’s exactly what it is. This game couldn’t be any cooler if it had those thick, black framed glasses all the snazzy teens are wearing these days.

Proun is made of one part Picasso, one part velvety-smooth jazz and one part Star Wars Pod-Racer. I can’t remember a time when I enjoyed not blinking at my computer screen for an hour so much. Proun is a racing game that pits you, the illustrious white-ball, against the devilish red-ball and the green, blue and yellow ones (damn you red-ball). You see the white-ball speeding along a tube that runs along various geometric and abstractly shaped obstacles. The goal of course: to avoid those obstacles and achieve and awesome time. But to simply call Proun a racer would be, I think, an injustice. Proun is not only genre defying it is genre defining. Proun is a pixel administered acid trip.

Picasso's "Nude and Still Life". Yeah, I don't see it either.

You need to press only a few keys in Proun. Press enter on the executable to run the game. Press enter again to start a new game. Press the up arrow key to get the ball rolling and press the left and right arrow key to dodge stuff. Proun even recognized my USB corded PS3 controller without a hitch. Although it did need re-mapping as the default gamepad setup just doesn’t make any sense. It’s still very simple and easy to get into. That being said it doesn’t offer much in the long run. It’s great to challenge your friends and see how they match up with your times. So in this respect it is good for a bit of light hearted competition. You can also go head to head with up to three other people on one computer as Proun support up to 4-player split screen. When you play solo your score is uploaded onto the Proun leader-boards so you can see just how crazy and obsessive some people are, I’m not jealous and bitter I promise. Okay maybe just a little.

There are also two (at the time of writing) user-made tracks available from the website to download for free. So you can expect Proun to only get better the more people get interested in it. Van Dongen has made a very user friendly product and the user-made tracks are a breeze to install. Proun also has very modest system requirements. Whilst there are no official specs listed on the site, Proun only requires a DirectX 9 capable card. So none of that fancy hardware tesselation and newfangled Ubersampling. On my mid-to-high end machine Proun ran at a constant 60 frames per second (at which it is limited) at full HD resolution with 8 x antialiasing.

Zoom!

If you’re still reading this conclusion that means I have either yet to sway you about this how spectacularly cool this game, you are at school/work and will have to wait until you get home (my deepest sympathies) or you just like reading game reviews. Proun is a classy game made a classy developer and there is no reason you should not be playing this game very soon. Who knows maybe your name will up on those leader boards in the neat future. If you are still in the mood for some reading have a look at eGamer’s very own Adam’s recent column on indie games and why they matter.

Trippy

In case you missed the link to Proun’s website click me!

That’s the opinion of Steve Perlman, CEO of cloud gaming initiative OnLive, who believes that both current-gen consoles don’t have the processing power developers need to produce higher performance games. Of course, his argument for why the PS3 and Xbox 360 are becoming outdated and can’t satisfy top developers needs conveniently promotes his cloud-based console which streams top shelf games directly to just about anything with a screen.

“In time, as the years go by, we’re looking at 2005 architecture for Xbox 360 and PS3,” he pointed out to PCR Online. “They’re getting a bit long in the tooth. I think what you’ll see is people saying ‘You know, I really want to play this very high performance game that just can’t be played on a console.’

“I guess at that point we become sort of competitive, but if it was us or someone else there’s a natural movement from old game platforms to the next generation,” he added. “I think over the next couple of years you’ll see a beginning of a wind down.

“There’s just not enough horsepower in these existing platforms. And the games publishers feel very, very constrained with what they can do given the limitations of the platforms. We’ll be working with PC gamers, those who are really into it and want to upgrade. They don’t see it as a burden, they see it as a hobby. And we’re all for that.”

While Perlman’s words are clearly skewed in favour of OnLive and cloud-based consoles in general, some of what he says does ring true, if only because it’s rather elementary. True both consoles are getting a little dated and perhaps the 360 should have gone some time ago but hey, it’s still chugging away pretty well and can still handle some amazing high-performance games. With the PS3 however, we all knew what we were getting into since Sony announced way back when it launched that the console had a projected lifespan of 10 years.

With regard to what he said about both consoles winding down, that’s probably quite true because both consoles are likely to be replaced in a few years time. While the inter-webs have been relatively mum on a 360 successor, they’re ablaze with rumours of a PS4 reveal in the next year or two.

Personally, I’m not sold on cloud-based consoles and the whole premise of cloud gaming yet because while it may work in some places where everyone, even your street sweeper, gets a fast, reliable line we here in SA are not so lucky and I believe it’s much the same in many other places, even in some European countries. Lag in online is a vibekill, having the game chug along like a freeze-frame mime while you’re trying to watch one of the more intense cutscenes in Mass Effect 3 is even worse.

Microsoft believes that Kinect will eventually win hardcore gamers over. Many core gamers were disappointed with Microsoft’s Kinect-centric E3 2011 press conference.

Speaking with Eurogamer, Xbox senior product manager David Dennis said the backlash from many gamers was “as we expected” and was confident that more focused, less casual titles “like Rise of Nightmares and Ryse…are certainly going to appeal to the core.”

Dennis also drew some comparisons between the feedback from this year and last year’s E3 conferences:

“It’s similar to last year where some of the core gaming media walked out of E3 a little skeptical about Kinect and said ‘I’m never going to do that’. But a lot of them also went and bought Kinect and said ‘Oh my god, I love it, I break it out when I’m having a party, I play with my girlfriend, finally I can play with my kids.’ I think people have embraced Kinect and we think that a lot of what we showed at E3… whether people fully understand it now, as we open up more and more over time and explain and let people get hands-on, we think people are going to love it.”

What I’ve seen thus far of the more hardcore Kinect games is not particularly appealing and certainly wouldn’t make me drop my controller anytime soon.

Feast your eyes upon the latest official Xbox steering wheel peripheral to come from Microsoft. The biggest thing to notice is the lack of any wires. The wheel is wireless and looks not only pretty comfortable but also quite cool. Like the kind of thing you’d steer a futuristic go-kart with.

The wheel features left and right triggers as well as all the face buttons. It will retail for around $60 (R405.00) which really isn’t all that much for a peripheral like this that looks so cool. If course, this peripheral has been made with Forza 4 in mind but Microsoft claims that it will work with all current racers as well, although with the provision that there will be “limited functionality” in certain games.

The wheel will also have haptic feedback and rumble, but no mention was made though of how players will steer with the wheel. It looks as if you can attach it to something of your choosing, or perhaps it will come with its own detachable base.

Either way, the Microsoft Xbox steering wheel is due out in October.

Jack Tretton, president of Sony Computer Entertainment America and presenter of Sony’s press conference, revealed Sony’s big plan of action to show their commitment to 3D and HD classics.

The first exciting announcement was that of two HD collections, namely God of War Origins Collections and the ICO Collection. God of War Origins Collections includes both of Kratos’ PSP adventures, namely Chains of Olympus and Ghost of Sparta. The ICO Collection of course features ICO and Shadow of Colossus.

But here’s the grand kicker. Both collections will not only be remastered in HD, but will also be entirely playable in 3D as well. The two collections will both be releasing in September of this year.

Tretton then unveiled two highly impressive new 3D hardware products. First was a PlayStation branded 3D display monitor, 24 inches in size, designed to be an affordable 3D and HD screen for bedrooms and family rooms. With this monitor, you’ll get to watch your favourite movies, TV shows and play your favourite games in HD and 3D (varying depending on functionality and support for it), but the massive cherry on top was what was said next.

This new display monitor from Sony will launch with the ability to view two separate images on one screen using your 3D glasses. This means, no cutting the screen in half for split-screen play. You’ll literally be able to view two completely different images on the same screen.

On top of that, Sony recognises that the call for more affordable 3D glasses has been a common one. This lead them to create a new, affordable pair of 3D glasses to work with most 3D capable screens.

Finally, Tretton revealed a new bundle, which includes the PlayStation 3D Monitor, Resistance 3 the game, a pair of the new unveiled 3D glasses and a six meter HD cable. The entire bundle will cost $499, which is approximately R3360.76, and that’s a pretty neat price tag to say the least.

Overall, this is Sony’s way of broadening their 3D market and really pushing towards making it a key part of the PlayStation experience.

There are many names that have been given to Nintendo’s new mystery console so far, including the likes of Wii 2, Wii HD, Project Cafe and even Beem.

Speaking of that last one, Beem came about in a rather peculiar way. Internet peeps have been following up on web registration details and putting together their own little puzzles, seemingly coming to the conclusion that “Beem” is the name for Nintendo’s new console.

How did they reach that conclusion, you may ask? Well, Melbourne IT, the Australian company that hosts the domain nintendobeem.com, according to Kotaku, apparently also hosts the official Nintendo web domains for NintendoWii.com and Nintendo3DS.com. At this point in time, the Beem website doesn’t load and neither does it redirect to Nintendo’s page, which might be an indication that it is a future prospect and will go live at a later stage.

Doesn’t sound too bad a theory. Although further research shows that “Project Beem” was incidentally also the name given to a submission to a Wii 2 mock-up contest that was run by IGN in May. The dedicated gamers over at NeoGAF have been mulling this over. Now, the person in question who made the “Beem” submission, 27-year-old Canberra-based Aaron Carr, has interestingly registered NintendoBeemShop.com and NintendoBeemGames.com, which adds to the speculation fire.

However, now the latest rumour floating around the interwebs comes from Game Informer, who suggest that Nintendo’s new console may just be called “Nintendo”, which is pretty interesting to say the least. Game Informer are a source to think over regarding this matter because they were the peeps who published the first story, back then a speculation mill, providing rumoured details on Nintendo’s new console.

Hopefully, we’ll find out on Tuesday, when Nintendo takes the stage at E3 2011.