One day, a few months ago, I was on the way to work and I caught the train. I was playing my DS. At a very busy stop, a guy sat down and pulled out his PSP. He looked over at my DS, and raised an eyebrow in disdain.
Then the guy next to him pulled out his DS and asked if I had Mario Kart.
Saturday, July 14, 2007
Friday, July 13, 2007
Video games make for terrible television
We don't get a whole lot of gaming television here in Australia. They show a terrible program called Game on ESPN, where the reviewers basically yell their thoughts at you in broken sentences, and the hostess is clearly trying too hard to look excited. We also get a marginally better program called X-Play, which does a better job of reviewing and has a pair of more relatable hosts, but is so out of date they're still anticipating the Wii.
I'm not sure it's much better in the states though.
In Korea, they get a great deal of Starcraft available on the box. This is a scary prospect. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't be able to watch Starcraft for more than maybe five minutes straight. It just isn't exciting, the animations are all the same and never change, and it takes a while for things to get into full swing.
Halo, on the other hand, gets me excited. During my time with Halo 2 I always dreamt of being able to sit down with my mates and a couple of beers, flick on XBox Live and tune in to top-ranked players duke it out in team skirmish. The beauty of Halo is that it could totally become a spectator sport. I can't tell you how many times I've declared "sweet kill!", "nice save!", or "I can't believe you pulled that off." They're definitely making steps toward this with the video playback options available in Halo 3, but that's only available if somebody opts to save the recording, then you'll have to look it up and download it.
Gamers are generally adverse to advertising in videogames, but I think this would be an area where it would be welcomed and beneficial. Would you really mind being told to quench your thirst if it was in between bouts of top-tier Street Fighter? Especially considering that Sprite commercial made the broadcast free for you to access. "Fragzor's 80-kill streak was brought to you by AT&T". The idea is certainly sound.
To be honest, I'm surprised ESPN hasn't already made an attempt to capitalise. It would certainly beat watching American children mutilate the Queen's English in the national spelling bee.
I'm not sure it's much better in the states though.
In Korea, they get a great deal of Starcraft available on the box. This is a scary prospect. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't be able to watch Starcraft for more than maybe five minutes straight. It just isn't exciting, the animations are all the same and never change, and it takes a while for things to get into full swing.
Halo, on the other hand, gets me excited. During my time with Halo 2 I always dreamt of being able to sit down with my mates and a couple of beers, flick on XBox Live and tune in to top-ranked players duke it out in team skirmish. The beauty of Halo is that it could totally become a spectator sport. I can't tell you how many times I've declared "sweet kill!", "nice save!", or "I can't believe you pulled that off." They're definitely making steps toward this with the video playback options available in Halo 3, but that's only available if somebody opts to save the recording, then you'll have to look it up and download it.
Gamers are generally adverse to advertising in videogames, but I think this would be an area where it would be welcomed and beneficial. Would you really mind being told to quench your thirst if it was in between bouts of top-tier Street Fighter? Especially considering that Sprite commercial made the broadcast free for you to access. "Fragzor's 80-kill streak was brought to you by AT&T". The idea is certainly sound.
To be honest, I'm surprised ESPN hasn't already made an attempt to capitalise. It would certainly beat watching American children mutilate the Queen's English in the national spelling bee.
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Ah, I love the smell of a first post in the morning
As this is an introductory post, I guess I'll introduce myself. My name is Mitch, and I'm a 'seasoned' or 'veteran' gamer living in Sydney, Australia. I've been going by the handle 'Nerje' for about eight years now, and as far as I can tell I'm still the only one. Don't ask me what it means or where it came from (or even how to pronounce it).
This blog is for my thoughts on games, gaming, gamer lifestyle, and game design. Like everyone who was ever a child, I played games from the very beginning. I started mostly with Lego (which I still think is one of the best things ever concieved) but, unlike most people, I never really grew out of playing games.
When I was six, my uncle Matt handed down his Atari 2600 and I became addicted to Berzerk. One day my parents bought me a NES and Super Mario Bros. became my drug. Over the years I moved on to the Super NES, Nintendo 64, Gamecube, XBox and now XBox 360. I'm not anti-Sony, I've just had enough friends who owned a Playstation that I never needed to buy one. I'm also not a Nintendo fanboy, in fact I'm far from it (I still feel somewhat cheated by the Gamecube). I don't really have a list of favourite games, but the ones I have the most emotional attachment to are Secret of Mana for the Super Nintendo, and Halo 2 for the XBox. I also rate Perfect Dark and Super Smash Bros Melee quite highly too.
When I was eight, my parents bought me a game that I'd seen an ad for on television. That game was Hero Quest. Now, I'd played board games before, but Hero Quest blew my mind. I fell in love with the idea of adventure on my tabletop and I played the hell out of that game. I got most of the expansions (the ones I knew about anyway) and when I didn't have people to play with, I made up my own adventures and thought I was ace for doing so. Naturally, I moved on to Warhammer, riding a wave of enthusiasm brought on by my friends. We all discovered it at roughly the same time when our local games store started to stock the miniatures. On the tabletop I've bought and played Warhammer, Warhammer Quest Warhammer 40K, Mage Knight, Pirates of the Spanish Main, HeroClix, Confrontation, Flames of War and many, many others that I just couldn't name off the top of my head.
The other thing that came of the Hero Quest fascination was an interest in role playing. Not the type with cop outfits and handcuffs, but the games involving statistics and oddly-shaped dice. As a kid, my friends and I took the 'play pretend' thing to the next level, creating persistent worlds and concepts that existed in between the short spaces of time we spent together. We had adventures, rivalries and interactions that occurred outside the school playground, outside the boundaries of reality in fact, and we never really though twice about it. It just came naturally. Our first experience with structured roleplay gaming was with an older guy named Noel who introduced to us Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. We were really young, like 13-14 years old and we could never afford a full army so this gave us something to do with out Warhammer miniatures. Not long after, I got my Dad to buy me the book for Christmas. Since then, I've played Dungeons and Dragons (post- and pre-d20), d20 Modern, Men in Black, Nobilis, and my current favourite is the latest iteration of the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay game, which I play regularly with what you could call my 'gaming group'.
When I was about ten, I collected the X-Men '94 series of collector cards (as did most of my friends). Around the same time, I picked up a whole bunch of packs from a series called Magic: the Gathering. I was a little disappointed, as I liked the artwork but the card text was nonsense and nobody would trade with me. Later, a friend named Ryan came to school with his own cards, and he showed me how to play. I think, since, I spent more money of Magic: the Gathering than any other past-time apart from video gaming. I loved it. I thought the whole idea was great. I was never any good, of course, but that didn't stop me from spending all of my pocket money every Saturday. More recently, I started to play UFS from Sabertooth Games. I loved this game also, going as far as becoming a 'scout' and running tournaments, but lately the CCG just became too much of a drain on my time and money to keep going. I also played a bit of the Pokemon CCG for a while.
So, that is a brief history of my gaming life. Going into the future, I certainly hope to be further involved in the industry. I plan to become a games designer and publish my own ideas and concepts (in the tabletop, roleplaying AND video games areas). I do, however, know what a fickle industry it can be, so I'm working on establishing a career in the retail industry (games of course!) where I can apply my knowledge and passion to something I truly love.
So!
Please tune in any time, to hear my thoughts and ruminations on this little thing called playing games.
This blog is for my thoughts on games, gaming, gamer lifestyle, and game design. Like everyone who was ever a child, I played games from the very beginning. I started mostly with Lego (which I still think is one of the best things ever concieved) but, unlike most people, I never really grew out of playing games.
When I was six, my uncle Matt handed down his Atari 2600 and I became addicted to Berzerk. One day my parents bought me a NES and Super Mario Bros. became my drug. Over the years I moved on to the Super NES, Nintendo 64, Gamecube, XBox and now XBox 360. I'm not anti-Sony, I've just had enough friends who owned a Playstation that I never needed to buy one. I'm also not a Nintendo fanboy, in fact I'm far from it (I still feel somewhat cheated by the Gamecube). I don't really have a list of favourite games, but the ones I have the most emotional attachment to are Secret of Mana for the Super Nintendo, and Halo 2 for the XBox. I also rate Perfect Dark and Super Smash Bros Melee quite highly too.
When I was eight, my parents bought me a game that I'd seen an ad for on television. That game was Hero Quest. Now, I'd played board games before, but Hero Quest blew my mind. I fell in love with the idea of adventure on my tabletop and I played the hell out of that game. I got most of the expansions (the ones I knew about anyway) and when I didn't have people to play with, I made up my own adventures and thought I was ace for doing so. Naturally, I moved on to Warhammer, riding a wave of enthusiasm brought on by my friends. We all discovered it at roughly the same time when our local games store started to stock the miniatures. On the tabletop I've bought and played Warhammer, Warhammer Quest Warhammer 40K, Mage Knight, Pirates of the Spanish Main, HeroClix, Confrontation, Flames of War and many, many others that I just couldn't name off the top of my head.
The other thing that came of the Hero Quest fascination was an interest in role playing. Not the type with cop outfits and handcuffs, but the games involving statistics and oddly-shaped dice. As a kid, my friends and I took the 'play pretend' thing to the next level, creating persistent worlds and concepts that existed in between the short spaces of time we spent together. We had adventures, rivalries and interactions that occurred outside the school playground, outside the boundaries of reality in fact, and we never really though twice about it. It just came naturally. Our first experience with structured roleplay gaming was with an older guy named Noel who introduced to us Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. We were really young, like 13-14 years old and we could never afford a full army so this gave us something to do with out Warhammer miniatures. Not long after, I got my Dad to buy me the book for Christmas. Since then, I've played Dungeons and Dragons (post- and pre-d20), d20 Modern, Men in Black, Nobilis, and my current favourite is the latest iteration of the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay game, which I play regularly with what you could call my 'gaming group'.
When I was about ten, I collected the X-Men '94 series of collector cards (as did most of my friends). Around the same time, I picked up a whole bunch of packs from a series called Magic: the Gathering. I was a little disappointed, as I liked the artwork but the card text was nonsense and nobody would trade with me. Later, a friend named Ryan came to school with his own cards, and he showed me how to play. I think, since, I spent more money of Magic: the Gathering than any other past-time apart from video gaming. I loved it. I thought the whole idea was great. I was never any good, of course, but that didn't stop me from spending all of my pocket money every Saturday. More recently, I started to play UFS from Sabertooth Games. I loved this game also, going as far as becoming a 'scout' and running tournaments, but lately the CCG just became too much of a drain on my time and money to keep going. I also played a bit of the Pokemon CCG for a while.
So, that is a brief history of my gaming life. Going into the future, I certainly hope to be further involved in the industry. I plan to become a games designer and publish my own ideas and concepts (in the tabletop, roleplaying AND video games areas). I do, however, know what a fickle industry it can be, so I'm working on establishing a career in the retail industry (games of course!) where I can apply my knowledge and passion to something I truly love.
So!
Please tune in any time, to hear my thoughts and ruminations on this little thing called playing games.
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