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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

From the depths of hell, better known as the Activision CEO’s office, have come murmurs from a figure we’d almost forgotten about. Yes, your favourite rabid capitalist and mine, Bobby Kotick, is back with fresh news that is bound to steal the money from right under our mattresses.

Speaking to Financial Times following Activision’s first quarter earnings call, Kotick said, “We’ve more confidence in consumer spending, we feel like some of that has stabilised and there are price cuts on the [console] hardware in the works.”

Wait, what? Nani? Did he just say something concerning us SAVING money? This is unbelievable. Some good news, some hopeful news has escaped his lips.

Kotick did however say that current platform holders, i.e. Sony and Microsoft, should focus more on developing their online networks rather than looking ahead to the next generation. Possibly a jab at Sony for the PSN disaster.

Strangely, he may be on to something, Nintendo has already announced price cuts for the Wii and Microsoft are rumoured to be planning to announce the Xbox 360′s successor at E3 so it’s price could well drop but the only unknown is Sony with the PS3. As usual though, we will have to wait until E3 to see what materialises and separate the speculation and rumours from fact.

Ahead of the  NPD Group’s release of official market data this week, game industry analysts have weighed in with their own sales predictions for the month of April, in the US.

Analyst firms Wedbush and EEDAR both predict that Microsoft’s Xbox 360 will be named the month’s top-selling console, with the “It only does everything, except go online” PlayStation 3 tipped to edge out the Wii.

Wedbush’s Micheal Pachter said in a research note that things aren’t looking great for the 3DS. “The long-awaited introduction of the 3DS has so far had a smaller impact than we originally expected,” he wrote.

“The handheld is off to a slow start, as a lack of compelling software has kept many consumers on the sidelines for the expensive hardware.”

Mostly because Nintendo have released an expensive piece of hardware with almost zero first-party application support. Well fucking played, guys…

On the software front, Pachter expects April sales to be dominated by everyone’s favourite puzzle-orgy, Portal 2, and everyone’s favourite guts-orgy, Mortal Kombat.

Here are the actual numbers for those who are interested:

Hardware sales estimates, Wedbush / EEDAR (year-over-year change):
360 – 315,000 (+70%) / 315,000 (+70%)
DS – 300,000 (-32%) / 325,000 (-26%)
PS3 – 210,000 (+16%) / 215,000 (+19%)
Wii – 215,000 (-22%) / 200,000 (-28%)
3DS – 200,000 (N/A) / 250,000 (N/A)
PSP – 90,000 (+37%) / 80,000 (+22%)
PS2 – 15,000 (-66%) / N/A
Total – 1,345,000 (+13%) / 1,385,000 (+16%)

Xbox LIVE members across the globe created history, that’s right, history bitch, by setting a new Guinness World Record for the largest simultaneous online 100m sprint, which featured 10, 539 participants and was achieved by users of Xbox LIVE during the Xbox Nations Free LIVE Weekend, April 23rd 2011.

“Congratulations to the crew from Xbox LIVE and most importantly, the thousands of Xbox LIVE members from across the globe who got up off their sofas to create this new Guinness World Record for the largest ever online sprint. The new record will be considered for inclusion in the next Gamer’s Edition,” said Editor of Guinness World Records Gamer’s Edition 2011, Gaz Deaves. This after thousands participated in the world record attempt at 7pm South Africa time on Saturday 23rd April as part of Xbox Nations, a challenge inviting Xbox LIVE members to ‘Play for their Nation’ to help create history with Xbox LIVE and Kinect Sports. Or just a reason to get more exposure for the Kinect. Either way.

“We’re thrilled to hold a Guinness World Record title for the largest online 100 metre sprint! Breaking a Guinness World Record is such a massive milestone and we’re pleased that we had the chance to do this in partnership with the Xbox LIVE community, following our record breaking launch of Kinect,” said Yvette Van Rooyen.

This endeavour through Xbox Nations helped to celebrate the Free Live Weekend alongside other offerings such as access to the latest music, movies and multiplayer gaming for all Xbox LIVE members, showing the millions of users how the online entertainment destination is changing the way people enjoy their favourite form of entertainment, play games and interact with friends.

According to Epic Games VP Mark Rein, the all new DX11 Unreal Engine, which was showcased at GDC last month with a tech demo, justifies the next generation of gaming consoles from Sony and Microsoft. The studio claims that the engine’s support for DirectX 11 (DX11), physics engine PhysX, APEX, and NVIDIA 3D vision brought “bring unprecedented new levels of realism”.

“The DX11 demo itself, that’s our love letter to hardware manufacturers. We’re able to give people another road map. If companies are building new consoles – and, who knows, I mean Apple just released an iPad that’s nine times the power of its predecessor.

“If Apple continues on this scale, they’ll have a device that can run this [points to Unreal Engine DX11 demo] in a couple of years. But, that demo we’ve shown is aimed at the game console makers. We’re telling them that this is the big leap that we think justifies that new piece of hardware you’re going to build, and we’re telling them that this is what we need next-gen consoles to be capable of, because we can’t build a more powerful PC than the one that’s running the DX11 demo! [Laughs]

“For us, now when we sit down with various companies and talk about the future, the discussion is no longer theoretical. We can show them this. We can say ‘here’s our demo, try it on your hardware’. And we want feedback – let us know what we can simplify, let us know what we can improve.”

The PS3 still has at least 5 years on its acclaimed life span while the Xbox 360 may trundle along for some years still so I doubt whether this really justifies the next generation of consoles. Also, both consoles should certainly be capable of handling the engine, if not a bit stretched.

Behold, the Tron Limited Edition Controllers from Performance Designed Products.

The same people who brought us the AfterGlow controllers, PDP has done it again with these awesome Tron controllers. The Xbox 360 Controller is pretty much the same wired controller that you normally get ecept for its sweet design scheme complete with orange light-up accents. It apparently represents Clu, the baddy in the new Tron: Legacy movie and the Black Guard, his elite fighting force. It also features performance enhancing counters and soft-touch rubber grips.

Then there’s the Special Edition Wii Controller which features the same soft-touch rubber grps as the Xbox controller and performance enhancing contours but more importantly blue light-up accents in a cool design.

Both controllers have produced in limited numbers, 20 000 of the Wii controllers and 250 of the 360 controllers. Each is so exclsuive that it comes with a numbered certificate of authenticity and every single one of the limited edition controllers has already been sold.

So while you may never lay hands on one, it is still better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all.

Microsoft has announced that Kinect has sold 2.5 million times in only 25 days of worldwide release.

“We are thrilled about the consumer response to Kinect, and are working hard with our retail and manufacturing partners to expedite production and shipments of Kinect to restock shelves as fast as possible to keep up with demand,” says Don Mattrick, president of Microsoft’s Interactive Entertainment Business.

“With sales already exceeding two and a half million units in just 25 days, we are on pace to reach our forecast of 5 million units sold to consumers this holiday.”

Microsoft previously announced a sales figure of 1 million units in 10 days. So, essentially, the sales are increasing at 100,000 units per day.

And now, it’s the festive season. So five million, is it possible?

The Crytek boss is back praising the PC. Cevat Yerli said this time round that Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 developers are holding back on game quality for the PC. Yerli firmly believes that PC is a generation ahead of consoles.

Yerli admits that his own studio, Crytek, is being limited by Sony and Microsoft and that’s why they are developing games with mediocrity for the PC.

“As long as the current console generation exists and as long as we keep pushing the PC as well, the more difficult it will be to really get the benefit of both,” said Yerli.

“PC is easily a generation ahead right now. With 360 and PS3, we believe the quality of the games beyond Crysis 2 and other CryEngine developments will be pretty much limited to what their creative expressions is, what the content is. You won’t be able to squeeze more juice from these rocks.”

According to Yerli, games which do not reach full potential on PC can be blamed on consoles.

“I generally think it’s still developers’ mentality [that is to blame],” he said. “A lot nowadays don’t consider PC a big issue any more; their [sales] expectations are nowhere near what they are for the console versions. Until the PC market creates comparable revenues, companies are not going to spend enough on the PC SKU of a game.”

Earlier this year Yerli said that PC games will soon be king as they will be available for free with players having to buy in-game features and extras. Essentially, monetizing of PC games will change completely and the market will once again be popular.

Obviously PC vs Console is a hot topic, and there are loads of reads as to why PC is being neglected. For one, people wouldn’t like to upgrade all the time to play new games – a problem which many have whenever something impressive is released. This problem doesn’t concern consoles.

To be honest, PC technology surpasses that of console however it’s pointless to upgrade because nothing needs so much power.

Is it fair for PC to suffer?

Microsoft are taking strong action against symbol-abusers in Call of Duty: Black Ops. It was said that if you play on Xbox Live with the infamous swastika symbol in Black Ops, you’ll be banned. No questions asked. And there will be no debate whatsoever.

“It’s not political correctness, it’s fundamental respect,” says Xbox Live’s Stephen Tolouse. “If you think the swastika symbol should be re-evaluated by societies all over the earth, I think that’s great. Your Xbox LIVE profile or in game logo, which doesn’t have the context to explain your goal, is not the right place to do that. And by the way, that doesn’t just go for the swastika, it applies to many other symbols as well that my team does indeed take action on when we see it.”

Now, this is where the problem arises: Players are outraged about this and they suggest that Microsoft should also ban the Star of David, the Christian cross and the infinity symbol as they could be associated with evil. Tolouse, however said that he’s not open to debate about any of this.

Knowing from experience, players will always attempt to find other bad when they do bad. Fire with fire doesn’t work here. Seriously, it’s pretty evident that people will be offended by the swastika.

Obviously Microsoft would like to keep their Kinect as is without people tampering too much. And to do so, Microsoft threatened legal action to anyone interested in opening up the device and fiddling around. But now, legal threats have seem to come to rest.

Microsoft originally said that they’d “work closely with law enforcement and product safety groups to keep Kinect tamper-resistant”. But now Microsoft has said that “hackers” will not be punished for fiddling with the drivers for the device. In other words, if you can make it do cool things you won’t be punished.

However, that’s not all. Microsoft apparently wanted the device to be easy to plug into a PC so that people could tamper with it. For cool creations, and stuff.

Microsoft will still take legal action if someone was able to get to their “algorithms that sit on the side of the Xbox and was able to actually use them”, or “put a device between the sensor and the Xbox for means of cheating”.

According to Microsoft, Kinect has sold one million units in the peripherals first ten days since launch.

Early demand from consumers for Kinect “solidifies [the] biggest year in Xbox history”, Microsoft said.

“This is a great start to the holiday season, and we will continue to work with our retailer partners to keep pace with high demand and deliver against our plan to sell more than five million Kinect sensors worldwide by the end of this year,” said Don Mattrick, president of Microsoft’s Interactive Entertainment Business.

Microsoft has cleared up a few more questions on Xbox Live for South Africa. We’ve quoted the entire piece for ease, and to eliminate that whole he-said she-said debacle.

This Holiday, Xbox LIVE and Kinect for Xbox 360 will open up a new world of games, entertainment, and friends.

We want everyone to have fun. If you already have a LIVE account through a different region it will be possible to migrate your account to join the official LIVE network in South Africa.

When you migrate your LIVE account you get to keep your Profile, Gamer Score, Achievements, Points Balance and paid for Subscription time remaining. You also get to keep any downloaded content such as your Avatar items, LIVE Arcade games and songs.

1. If I don’t migrate, what will the implications be?

If you connect to LIVE today through a different region you are doing so via an unsupported method. In November you will be able to join the official LIVE network in South Africa which will offer tailored content and local support.

2. If I migrate, will I still be able to play with friends from the US or UK?

Yes and you will be a part of the local Xbox community.

3. How will Microsoft enforce the R599 price tag, if online shops sell worldwide subscriptions for half the price?

While the full Xbox LIVE feature set will vary by region, we’re confident that Xbox LIVE represents the best global value in home entertainment. In every region, an Xbox LIVE Gold membership provides access to a world of friends and fun, with the industry’s best online gaming network, and unique ways to share the fun with friends around the world.

4. What operational cost are involved with having Live in SA?

I can’t provide any official stats on this

5. Why won’t gamers be able to re-download their content once they migrate?

Our goal is to allow members to re-download all of their purchased content after migrating accounts, and we’re actively working to address this. However, at this point in time, once you migrate you will no longer be able to re-download content. Members should re-download purchased content to their hard drive or USB flash drive prior to migrating.

6. What are the initial estimates of people who will migrate?

I can’t provide any official forecasts; we have very high hopes for growth and sales in these countries. We think our community is going to love Xbox LIVE and that the launch of the service in South Africa will drive new purchasers.

7. Why won’t certain functions be available? (i.e Facebook, Twitter and Zune)

We realize that Xbox 360 customers around the world want enjoy to the full breadth of features Xbox LIVE has to offer. We don’t have any announcements right now, but we are actively working to scale the service internationally.

8. Besides for local servers, what other motivation will there be to migrate? What are the benefits of migrating?

Firstly, no servers will not necessarily be all be hosted locally.

Xbox LIVE is first and foremost a community. We think people will take pride in building their own country’s Xbox LIVE communities, and will also enjoy the tailored content they receive. Additionally, those who currently access Xbox LIVE through an unsupported method can have negative experiences as they don’t have access to local support. We think the community in  South Africa will opt for the best experience possible.

9. Will SA get their own MS Points (region locked), or do we need to buy UK points (not region locked) once we migrate?

Microsoft Points cards purchased outside of the country are not guaranteed to work.  We recommend that you purchase Microsoft Points cards in the country of your account from trusted local retailers or online at xbox.com.

10. Where will the subscriptions and MS Points be on sale?

In store at select retailers and online at xbox.com

11. The initial Live roll-outs seems like a fairly reduced service to what’s available currently. Do you think that will influence people to not migrate?

Xbox LIVE is first and foremost a community. We think people will take pride in building their own country’s Xbox LIVE communities, and will also enjoy the tailored content they receive. Additionally, those who currently access Xbox LIVE through an unsupported method can have negative experiences as they don’t have access to local support. We think the community in South Africa will opt for the best experience possible.

12. What type of bandwidth will be needed to play online games without significant lag?

You will need a broadband connection to join Xbox LIVE.

13. Will the SA servers be hosted in South Africa?

No servers will not necessarily be all be hosted locally

14. It might seem like an obvious question, but why should gamers migrate?

If you upgrade to an Xbox LIVE Gold membership, you will receive access to everything the best gaming network in the industry has to offer, including multiplayer gaming, cross-experience voice chat, video chatting with friends via Video Kinect and exclusive discounts to content.

Microsoft has renamed their free Live Silver package to “Xbox Live Free Membership.”

The update of the name comes alongside, both, the Gold price hike for November as well as the updated Xbox.com site.

Furthermore, the change of the name will no longer confuse newcomers to the market — Microsoft are expecting new guys with the Kinect — and it will enforce the fact that it’s free.

According to European community manager Graeme Boyd, “There are no changes to the features of Xbox LIVE Free Membership. And Xbox LIVE Gold’s name doesn’t change.”

Previous reports about Kinect stated that the motion-sensing technology could only work with users standing up. Well, new reports state that the technology will be able to focus on those sitting down as it has been reconfigured to work from the neck-up.

The technology was originally aimed at basing the bottom of your spine for movement, however this has been changed to work with the back of your neck instead.

“It means that should the bottom of your torso get confused with the sofa, because your bum and your legs are enveloped inside the sofa, it doesn’t matter because your hands and arms are still working,” said Andrew Oliver, of Blitz Games Studios.

The change is new and, apparently, most of the developers were like “‘Oh my God! Everything’s broken,’ because all the nodes were moved. But then it was like, ‘Oh, actually, this is more logical.’”

It’s finally here. After years of having to cheat the system, Microsoft is finally offering LIVE in South Africa. LIVE allows players to make new friends, download the latest Arcade Games and enjoy the gaming experience with new map-packs.

Every player will be able to connect to LIVE for free, and this means access to a Gamerscore, Gamertag, Avatar and the Xbox LIVE Games Marketplace. However, if you’d like to play online with your friends or chat via video you’ll need a Gold Membership which costs R599 for 12 months. Gold access to LIVE will also offer early access to demos and exclusive content.

Furthermore, Microsoft has said that those with Xbox LIVE accounts in other regions will be able to migrate to the local service where your Profile, Gamer Score, Achievements, Microsoft Points Balance and paid for Subscription will remain intact. All items on your hard-drive will remain as well.

With regards to the price of R599, at the end of August, Microsoft announced an increase for the Gold Membership in America. In November the company said that a 12 Month Gold Membership will cost $59.99, roughly: R414 @ R$6.9 (Today’s XE).

If you need help with the migration visit Xbox.com/ZA.

Microsoft Kinect will also launch on the 10th of November, where we’ll also pay more than America – only to receive less features.

Update: EvoPoints is offering a 12-Month package for R399, and it works worldwide. [@pantsula]

Could this be harder than completing a game on the highest difficulty level?

The achievement list for Your Shape: Fitness Evolved has been revealed on Xbox360Achievements.

Most of them are centered around the various mini-games but also for burning calories. It would seem the toughest achievement on the list is as mentioned in the title. Burning 10 000 calories nets you 50 Gamerpoints. This is also the first achievement ever for burning 10 000 calories, or calories in general.

To put things into perspective, that’s the same amount of gamerpoints you would get for finding all the masks in Enslaved, or completing Halo: Reach on Heroic, or completing Fable III without ever being knocked out.

Which achievement will be toughest?

Maybe it would encourage people to actually get some exercise in?

Microsoft has announced the list of changes for the Xbox 360 Dashboard update. Basically the new update will allow for better voice quality, an easier way to change your Gamertag, a better QWERTY keyboard, and more.

• Improved voice quality — the audio codec is being updated to improve Xbox LIVE Party chat audio quality. So grab your friends and jump into a multiplayer game, catch a big sports event, watch a movie or do all three.
• Improved experience for changing your Gamertag — choosing a new Gamertag? If the Gamertag you’re looking for is already taken, your Avatar will spin a wheel and we will provide five other Gamertag suggestions at a time for you to choose from.
• Streamlined in-dashboard virtual keyboard — we’ve taken the existing QWERTY keyboard in-dash and made it easier to use for scenarios that involve repeated text entry, for example when signing up for LIVE within the dashboard.
• Improved Xbox LIVE Marketplace UI and browse experience — the Games Marketplace has been re-organized to provide streamlined access to the games and content you want, reducing the number of steps it takes to get to a download.
• Avatar changes — we’ve made your Avatars slightly more proportional so you can better play Kinect games
• Easier to get on a wireless network — trying to connect to a wireless network? With the next update, you’ll see a list of all the wireless networks within range when you go into network settings. From there, you’ll be able to select a new network or further configure the network you’re connected to.
• Ability to sign-out other controllers in the sign-in UI — we’re adding the ability to sign-out profiles on other controllers in the sign-in UI within the Guide. This is especially useful when playing games like Rock Band.
• New browse experience for 100% completed games — you spent a lot of time and effort earning those Achievements, so instead of only being able to view your first dozen completed games, we’re giving you a new and better way to browse all of them.

Microsoft has expressed that Kinect’s launch can be bigger than any console in our gaming industry’s history – and that includes the Xbox360.

Microsoft studio boss, Phil Spencer, says that Kinect, which is launching in November of this year, will represent “the biggest console launch ever”.

“We are investing in this like we’ve never invested in a platform launch,” he told Edge in an interview. “This is, for us, the biggest platform launch in the history of the industry.

“We’ll have a huge launch portfolio, we want to sell more units than any console has ever sold in its first holiday, a new platform. Our retail partners are telling us, based on the consumer demand, “this is going to be the number one consumer electronics purchase this holiday. Not just in the games space, all of them.

“In North America 7,000 retailers are doing midnight events when we ship and our pre-order momentum looks huge. So this, for us, is bigger than Xbox launch, bigger than 360 launch – this is a big deal for us. How many units are we going to sell? We’re completely goaled in investing as if this were the biggest console launch ever, and that’s our expectation.”

When Spencer was asked by Edge about Microsoft’s prediction that Kinect can sell three million units in the fourth quarter of the year, he said:

“You forecast, you hope, you do your best, right? You ship something. I know my manager, Don Mattrick, was quoted saying a holiday target of over 3 million.

“I think about it in a bigger way than that. Not that Don’s wrong; that’s the number that he stated, but a lot has to happen in order for us to have success. Our content partners have to ship great games, our retail partners have to be there with us, our marketing has to be there in a very impactful way.”

It looks like it will be a really, really long time, years in fact, until we see an Xbox 720. That’s according to Xbox UK boss Stephen McGill.

McGill both confirms and emphasises that there won’t be a new Xbox console for quite a long time.

“This generation is here for a long, long time,” McGill told Xbox Achievements.

“I think there’s still a lot of legs left with the Xbox 360, so we’re years away from contemplating what comes next.”

“As you know, with Xbox 360 we constantly innovate with the current console you have, through extra services on Xbox Live that we can pump down the service, then obviously with Kinect; that’s a massive game-changer for the industry, transforming what entertainment in games can be for friends and family.”

This is very interesting news from McGill, because previously Microsoft said that Kinect would add an additional five years to the Xbox360′s lifespan, and way back in January Microsoft stressed that there was no need to launch a new console, as the Xbox360 is “the console of the long future.”

Microsoft has shown that it can be heavy-handed and discriminatory when it comes to policing live.

This all comes after they announced a new code of conduct in March regarding rules for Gamertags that allow Xbox Live subscribers to express race, nationality, religion, and sexual orientation.

Josh Moore a 26 year-old living in West Virginia was banned from Xbox Live for including his Hometown in his profile; Fort Gay.

Live admins deemed this to be a joke or offensive slur, despite Fort Gay being a real town is West Virginia since the 1800′s.

“At first I thought, ‘Wow, somebody’s thinking I live in the gayest town in West Virginia or something.’ I was mad,” Moore said. “It makes me feel like they hate gay people. I’m not even gay, and it makes me feel like they were discriminating.”

Moore was certain that if he contacted Microsoft and informed them of the town’s existence they would revoke the decision, but when speaking to customer services the rep he spoke to didn’t believe him (and refused to Google it at Moore’s request)  and warned him he would remain banned from Live as long as Fort Gay remained in his profile.

It went as far as Fort Gay’s Mayor, David Thompson, getting involved.

Thompson contacted Microsoft on behalf Moore and was told the city’s name doesn’t matter because the word “gay” is inappropriate in any context on Live.

Microsoft’s response goes against that very Code of conduct they brought out in March, which allow gamers to use the words lesbian, gay, bi and trans-gender to express relationship orientation in their profile or Gamer Tag. The company updated the rules after engaging in talks with the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) for nearly a year. The two sides worked to overhaul the Code of Conduct after Live reportedly banned a number of members who identified themselves as gay.

Finally, the case made its way to Stephen Toulouse, Live’s director of policy and enforcement:

“Someone took the phrase ‘Fort Gay, WV’ and believed that the individual who had that was trying to offend, or trying to use it in a pejorative manner.”

“Unfortunately, one of my people agreed with that. When it was brought to my attention, we did revoke the suspension.”

Moore is back online.

We wonder if these admins are aware that the average multiplayer game has more racial and homophobic slurs than a KKK ralley, yet they stress over such small crap like Gamer Tags. “Sigh.”

It has been confirmed that unless you live in the United States, Mexico or the United Kingdom — and speak English — Kinect will not listen to you. Microsoft will only offer voice recognition for USA English, UK English, Japanese and Mexican Spanish.

If you live anywhere else–South Africa for instance–and you speak fluent English, you still won’t be able to use the feature. It was said that Kinect will be locked to your region, therefore unless you can change your region — it won’t work.

Hopefully we’ll receive an update in Autumn 2011 along with other countries such as Australia and New Zealand.

Microsoft has announced that Kinect will respond to movement as fast as you can push a button. Therefore, it was said that there will be true 1:1 tracking when responding to movement.

Microsoft’s Kinect boss, Kudo Tsunoda said that the device doesn’t need any ‘fixing’ to achieve 1:1 tracking, you’ll be followed as if it was a mirror.

Kudo said, “We’ve done tests back at the office where we have a TV, flash a light on the screen and we’ll have a controller, and have someone there hitting a button, and someone with Kinect clapping as soon as they see the light on the screen, and both things go just as fast as one another.

He added: “We already have the 1:1 stuff working really well and the response time is just as fast as pushing a button or making a gesture.”

Earlier we wrote about Microsoft’s new Xbox controller which includes a transforming d-pad. The enhanced d-pad is something long overdue, and we’re glad that Microsoft has finally done something about this.

The d-pad on the new remote will be able to transform from something semi-flat to to something raised, and all it takes is the twist of the base.

Following the enhanced d-pad, Microsoft has decided to make all of the buttons on the remote grey; a not so welcome change. The colours helped to distinguish which button to press without having to read the letter on it.

Anyway, the shiny remote is scheduled to launch exclusively with the new Plug & Charge kit on the 9th of November in the US. Not sure about a local date just yet, however Europe will only receive it in February — so we might need to wait a bit.

Watch the clip to see how it works.

Rumour has it that Microsoft are looking to release a new Xbox 360 controller with a modified d-pad. According to the source, the d-pad will be able to turn 90-degrees where it will raise up about half a centimeter. This modification is said to help fighting game fans.

For those confused, the d-pad is the funny button set on the bottom left hand-side of the controller. It’s rarely used by anyone normal–Street Fighter fans, are they normal?–mainly because it’s built to be annoying.

We’re not sure if this will be a standard feature on all new controllers, or if it will be a one-off special remote. That being said, there’s not much other news on this.

Microsoft has announced an increase on their Xbox Live tariff. Gold members residing in the United States, or the United Kingdom will have to cough up a few extra pennies to stay connected to the service. And if you’re using a fake address – you’ll need to cough up extra gold as well.

Prices come into effect on the 1st of November, 2010.

• United States

• United Kingdom

With an Xbox Live Gold Subscription you’ll be able to play demos before they are released for the rest of the world; watch ESPN and Video Kinect; Connect to Facebook and Twitter; stream music.

If this interests you, you’ll want to benefit from a $20 discount.

Note: Before complaining to my editor about the title picture, if you look closely you will notice a guitar.

It’s Monday (no make that Wednesday, thanks Eishkom) and I’ve had the 2^nd most awesome news of the day! The 1^st most awesome news involves a certain editor in chief’s mom and… oh wait I can’t print that here. The 2^nd bit of awesome news is Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock will ship in a month’s time!

Now now I know what you’re thinking. It’s another guitar hero with more rubbish tracks like Band Hero. But it isn’t! Not one tiny bit! The folk at Activision have seen the light and given Taylor Swift a bit of Kanye West.  Something like:

“Yo Taylor, I’m really happy for you, but I’m not going to let you finish because no one wants to play your songs… “

GH: Warriors of Rock is bringing the Rock back (Ed: Thank you Captain Obvious we can all read the name of the game). The full track list has finally been released and well some of those songs make me want to touch myself on my studio they’re so fucking kickass.

You’ve got some classics to jam to like:

• Alice Cooper – “No More Mr. Nice Guy”
• Deep Purple – “Burn”
• Def Leppard – “Pour Some Sugar On Me (Live)”
• Dire Straits – “Money For Nothing” <– OMG JIZZ IN MY PANTS
• Metallica & Ozzy Osbourne – “Paranoid (Live)”
• ZZ Top – “Sharp Dressed Man (Live)”
• Queen – “Bohemian Rhapsody” Wayne’s World Anyone?
• Twisted Sister – “We’re Not Gonna Take It”

Some Megadeth to shred to:

• Megadeth – “Sudden Death”
• Megadeth – “Holy Wars… The Punishment Due”
• Megadeth – “This Day We Fight!”

A song that will make everyone want to play bass:

• The White Stripes – “Seven Nation Army”

A blondie Reincarnation:

• Muse – “Uprising”

And a tune for when you’re feeling emo but don’t want to listen to the music of gaylords:

• The Offspring – “Self Esteem”

I could go on, but I’m sure no-one has read this far.

Our friends at Megarom will be bringing this in around the 28^th September so be on the lookout.

For a full copy of their press release, see below.

FB out!

Press Release

There’s a few Microsoft Kinect accessories which might make your life a little bit easier. Performance Designed Products created a wall mount, TV mount, floor stand and cable extension for the motion control device which launches on the 10th of November.

The idea behind the accessories is simple: put the Kinect anywhere, to play anywhere.

When the Kinect connects to these accessories it looks a bit weird. And freaky. Don’t you think?

Microsoft has revealed to CVG that PC compatibility for the motion control device, Kinect, is a “possibility”, and also that the device has the potential to be a part of non-games industries such as music and film.

Speaking at Gamescom – where Microsoft’s Kinect lost to Sony’s PlayStation Move for the best peripheral of the show award – Kudo Tsunoda, from MS, claimed that Kinect had the potential for “widespread applications” beyond gaming.

He also said that Kinect could even possibly work with mobile phones in the future.

When CVG asked about Kinect possibly coming to PC, he said:

“We’re very focused on Kinect for the Xbox, and launching that. I think it’s cool though – and this is just from me – I’ve been in the video game industry for a while now, and I know that in the games industry lots of times we’ll take things from other industries and bring it into games.

“We take stuff from movies, or take technology from PCs and put it into games, and Kinect really is the first time that the video game industry is pioneering something that I really think has widespread application outside of just video games.

“So, hypothetically, if I worked at a company that didn’t only make games, but also did things with PCs and phones, I think there could probably be some possibility that the tech might get used in other places. But, at least for now, [Microsoft is] focused on Kinect for Xbox.”

Let’s wait and see how Kinect performs when it’s released worldwide in November.

Sooner or later, we all knew something like this was bound to happen.

Spotted at the recent Comic Market in Japan.

Konichiwa

These guys have some balls I tell you.

Nice Tie

[Via: Kotaku]

It has been announced that the Microsoft Kinect — the movement technology — will launch locally on the 10th of November. The release date was revealed at GamesCom in Germany.

Not much was revealed in the press release, attached below.

For the record, Xbox LIVE should launch before Kinect as this was the original plan. Following this, Kinect has been priced at R2000.

More Kinect news here.

Press Release