The Frag Video

Ah yes. One of the reasons for many hours of staring at screens in either bewildered amazement or tedious boredom would be because of the 'Frag Video'. I quite like them. Well, the good ones that is. I have much respect for skilled gamers and well edited footage. I have often considered making one myself but have never really dedicated both the playing time and editing time to make anything noteworthy. The only heavy editing videos I have done in recent years were the two short WoW machinima vids which are becoming quite dated at the moment. There is also the fact that I am in dire need of updating my editing tools. Photoshop CS 2, After Effects 2 and Premiere 2, while fantastic products just don't cut it when comparing it to the quality of videos coming out nowadays.

The good videos that is. You will often wade through many a terrible 'frag' video on Youtube until you stumble across one that is worthy of attention. While there is nothing wrong with making a short video for you and your friends to reminisce about, avidly advertising something online for people to download and watch on a registered video site can be a deathwish if your video is crap. I can understand many people don't have the time/resources to make great videos, but as long as you understand that the general viewer wont find your 'amazing skills' that interesting to watch, you will save yourself a lot of disappointment.

So, what is a frag video? There are many answers for that question, but in my opinion (and I consider this a subjective topic) a frag video is a short to medium length video showcasing two things in particular: The skills of the player/s in the video and (to a lesser extent) the skills of the video editor. The video editing component is not entirely necessary, but generally speaking the quality of a frag video will be higher if the video editing is more polished. However, it should be noted that video editing in itself is not (and never was) difficult. There is skill in creativity, but not skill in execution. Given time, a decent video editor can make any piece of footage look amazing.

So with that out of the way, what makes a good frag video? For me (again subjective) the answer is quite simple. Pace. Sure, a video can present the amazing skills of some random dudes, and the editing may be pretty and top notch, but if it doesn't fit the pace of the footage or the chosen music it accompanies ... it becomes incredibly boring. A boring video ceases to be an entertaining one and, in my opinion, ceases to be an effective frag video.

Here are some examples of great frag videos. I would highly recommend watching them on Youtube themselves (double click videos) and watching them in HD if possible.



Quake 3 frag videos are not hard to come by. The pace of the game itself and the amazing shit you can do in it pretty much begs users to make frag videos. In Mecurial we have a fast paced edit with a likewise techno/acid music theme that, in the world of Quaking, fits very well. Shaolin Productions editing is suitable and more importantly, incredibly well synced to the visuals and audio track. Did this video take time to make? Most certainly. Was it worth it? Certainly most.



What's this!? A WoW frag video!!?? Preposterous, how can this be possible? Easily. WoW is a slow game. A very, very slow game, in all considerable aspects. If you want to make a frag video, why not just speed it up? Easy! In Boneshock's first video he did just that, synced it to an ... interesting metal track and did a fine job on the editing. Depending on your taste, this can be entertaining enough, if you are not the kind of person that requires looking at health bars and spell casts to understand what is going on. Unfortunately, this type of video is NOT the type of video you will frequently find on warcraftmovies.com. Most of those videos are lame and uninspired footage of someone doing the same thing the last guy did, but with different music. Most of these videos are Arena videos, and they are usually horribly boring. I can understand someone's joy in making a video about something they consider amazing, but again, advertising it for the world the see and expecting gold is ludicrous.



TF2 is a fantastic looking game for frag videos, and this video shows it quite well. Again it is synced well and has the same qualities of those before it, if a bit more on a dramatic and epic 'theme'. Unfortunately, these sort of frags come all too infrequently in a game like TF2 which may make these frags seem godlike in the eyes of someone who doesn't know any better. As many of these frags are the result of flukes or luck rather than true skill one can be fooled into thinking TF2 is as fast paced and 'bouncy' as a game like Quake 3. It aint. However this should not detract from the fact that the video and the frags it contains are really quite entertaining.



It is difficult to make a Frag video of a fighting game. Most of them turn out to be combo videos, which while impressive, don't really fall into the same category (at least in my opinion). The above video is about the best example I can find of someone creatively trying to make a video using fighting game footage for the sole purpose of entertaining the viewer. For a veteran player, most of the moves will be simplistic, but for a newbie I imagine the video would look more like a trailer if anything. That is not a bad thing by any means and I personally salute this editor's effort at exploring the possibilities of footage editing for a still relatively new game.

There are many more examples I can display of great frag videos, but I believe that will do for the moment. Also, I do not really enjoy being a critic :S.

Successful LAN Checklist

One can argue that LANs are dying as of late in recent years. They would not be wrong. Often the reason for LANing in the past was because of games not being suitable on the slow connections a decade ago, combined with the proximity to the dedicated server. These factors would often convince people that gathering a group of like-minded individuals into a building for digital entertainment over faster and closer networks was a good idea. They were right.

Of course, the speed of connections today and the games people play are one of the reasons people don't LAN anymore. Hell, some games do not even support the feature in general (Modern Warfare 2, upcoming Starcraft 2), which is really quite sad considering their origins. There is also the fact that the vast majority of games released in the last few years are terrible for LANs, massive in size, no AI/Bots other than singleplayer, requiring 50 security and authorization checks per second and even requiring a constant internet connection. Why not just play at home online?

It is difficult to argue against, but there is one very good reason why people should still LAN. Because they are social events. Yes, you are doing something you enjoy with friends who also enjoy doing it, in close scream-in-your-ear proximity with the capability to easily reflect on awesomeness later. Who wouldn't enjoy that? I can only think of two types of people. The first would be someone who doesn't like other people and the second would be someone who doesn't have any friends.



So providing you do choose to LAN in the future (which you should), there are 5 simple rules that I believe everyone (hosts, participants, guests) should follow to make the experience not irritating for everyone.

1. Headphones. Put them into your sound card and cover your ears with them. Not everyone wants to hear you play the same Queen or Linkin Park song over and over again at full volume. Having speakers on low-medium volume playing the currently played game is fine, but please, consider the well being of the people surrounding you.

2. Many Games. Depending on the duration of the LAN this can vary in size from 0 to ... lets say 10. Playing the same game over and over, while mind blowing for some, can get incredibly boring for others (especially those who are perhaps not that great or are new to it). Screaming "HEADSHOT!" into your friend's face for the 23rd time, while exciting for you, may be both uncomfortable, tedious and deafening for them.

3. Bring discs/files. If you are suggesting a game to play, consider the accessibility of the game for everyone. Wanting to play Doom 3 deathmatch when you don't have the discs, or a cracked version, nor do they and there are 5+ players (Doom 3 DM is 4 players) is worthy of submission to failblog.org. If a game can be bought off steam and files transferred, great. However, if the game costs $90 and you are the only one who has it, fail.

4. Don't be a faggot. Don't cheat. Sitting in a room with several other testosterone induced individuals can be a very a hairy situation. You are there to have fun with friends and getting upset/emo about what happens in games is a real mood breaker. This happens the other way around as well. Boasting and/or inappropriate trash talking can grant you both contempt and punches to the face. Coop gaming is always good neutral ground.

5. Have a plan B. Things will break. Operating Systems will magically uninstall, cables lost, save games deleted, routers explode and of course, networks will shit themselves. Calm down and relax. Unless you are the host, you are moving a piece of hardware (that shouldn't and normally never is) several kilometres to run at an unknown location. You cannot possibly expect things to work smoothly. Bring an extra LAN cable, a copy of your OS, an external HDD with your drivers and DEFINITELY your own power board. NEVER rely on another person. People are shit!

If everyone was to follow these 5 simple rules at/prior to every LAN I can guarantee that the experience will be enjoyable for all!

Going back to school...

Super Street Fighter 4 was, among other things, released in Australia on my birthday. I have only just recently won my first ever Super Street Fighter 4 fight online. It was against an equally ranked Korean dude using the character Juri.

Here is the video:


I was both incredibly noob and unskillful, but nevertheless I am proud of it. For me it was the most intense and satisfying achievement in gaming in the past year or so. It took me an embarrassing number of tries to get there but I finally beat someone. I am now on the ranked global ladder.

It is really quite bizarre. Amongst my closest friends I would probably be considered reasonable at the game. Certainly able to beat most of them without a hitch. I go online and I get completely and utterly destroyed. The difference in skill between my friends, myself and the average online player is astounding. Despite the fact they are usually rated 1000+ (as opposed to my measly 56 or something), fighting against them feels like an uphill battle from the first move to the part when I am dying in a ball of fire or flying off the screen into oblivion. It is like an entirely new game, one in which I am at the bottom of the food chain.

I remember this feeling. The looking at losing screens again and again, while obviously irritating, does stir an enjoyable competitive fire in one's soul. The knowledge that you are playing an extremely skill based game and that you are not exactly that great at it. Indeed, the last time this happened was nearly a decade ago, back in the year 2000...

The game was Unreal Tournament.

I was what you would call an FPS noob in those days. I was foolish in thinking that control over mouse and keyboard was skill enough. Half-life singleplayer and UT against bots were no trouble, surely human players wouldn't be an issue? Wrong. First online deathmatch game? Bottom of the list. And again. And again. And again.

Oh eventually I got better. Generally speaking I would say I am decent at hardcore FPS games in general. But it was a long road taking many months. Even though I have had breaks I can still come back and cause some serious issues for veteran players of them (eg. Quake Live).

Although I do not plan on taking SSFIV too seriously, it is refreshing and astonishing to find that it is a game where the skill ceiling is far greater than I initially thought. Significantly greater, in fact. For example, the video below shows a typical method for landing Ryu's Ultra successfully on enemy players. This method is said to be pioneered by the professional Japanese fighting game world champion Daigo Umeharo, the Beast.



It may not look like much, but this player is pulling off a light shoryuken, focus attack, dash cancel into 2x quarter circle forward All punch. That is seven individual movements and approximately seventeen 'buttons' (both directional and attack based) being registered all in under a second. Beethoven much?

I will never be able to do that, at least on the default controller. It is just interesting to see quite visually how a professional gamer plays a fighting game as opposed to John 'fAtality' Wendel in a game like Quake 3. There is a big visual difference relating to both mental and physical precision and dexterity. Two elements I admittedly lack when playing any sort of game.

A friend of mine, one who I consider to be one of the best gamers I know, has again started training his mental agility in the form of playing Ut2k4 against progressively higher scaling bots. It is interesting to see as he posts his results as it is something I would like to try out with SSFIV on hardest difficulty. Although I am certain I will get trounced, it will definitely help towards both becoming a better player and (to a degree) a better person too. There is nothing more humbling than losing again and again only for it to pay off and for you to eventually succeed. Who ever said games never taught people the harsh rules of life were wrong. Or drunk.

Despite all this, there is some less pro-gamer oriented news. A large number of my friends and myself have bought the excellent tower defense game Sol Survivor off Steam (some earlier than others). At a mere $10, it has provided more hours of easily coop-able entertainment than some larger brand titles I have bought in the past. It is definitely worth picking up if you feel like some light casual/social gaming at a relaxed pace.

And last but not least, Starcraft 2 Beta. A good friend of mine encouraged me to pre-order the game from EB and providing 85% of the necessary files, I was able to install it without a problem. I am getting some strange frame-skipping every few seconds however, but you cannot not expect that in a Beta. So far I am stuck between two worlds. Part of me wants to argue that Blizzard took nearly 7 years to make a game that to me looks like the original game with a 3D facelift. The other part is saying to stick it out, learn a race (currently Zerg) and try it out competitively. Maybe I will grow to love it. Strategy games have never been my forte so I do not expect to do brilliantly ... but we will see. Oh yes, we will see.....

Blender - 5 reasons to use it

It's been quite awhile since I talked about something either work or uni related. At the moment, beginning the initial stages of my PhD, uni is going to quite rapidly become my work. I say 'become' and not 'is' because I only just recently acquired a cubicle and laptop to work in/on and am therefore expected to come in to uni to work (instead of bludging at home).

I also tutor. Currently I am teaching students (who are generally pretty good) on the finer aspects of Games Design and the basics of learning a program called Blender. I have been referred to as the 'Blender Guru' but I can honestly say I am quite the noob when it comes to the more aesthetic components of making games. As I am a programmer at heart, my knowledge of texturing, lighting and modeling in games is simplistic at best.

What I have noticed however is that, like last year, there seems to be this incredibly unwarranted and unfair generalisation amongst certain groups that Blender sucks. I am not sure where or how this originated but it has me baffled as to how this decision has come to be. Most of the students commenting negatively about it had not even used it yet. When I did the subject (when it was in its first iteration), we were practically forced to use the program Blender (with only a few exceptions). As my only Game Design tool experience up to that point had been the Unreal and Quake engines (and usually just level design, Unreal Script/QuakeC), I did not exactly see the requirement of using Blender to be a chore. Over the semester, there were mixed views on the engine. However towards the end, having even only scratched the surface of it, I came to the conclusion that it really wasn't that bad. My reasons are explained below.

Note: The videos contained after each point have nothing to do with the actual point's content. They are for demonstration of Blenders capability only

1. It is < 15mb
I do not know of a smaller tool that can do what Blender does for the size it is. I would really like to know, if not just to compare the two. For something that you can literally download within seconds (providing you have a good connection) and transport and install without a hassle, it is difficult to find fault with the mobility and convenience of the program at all.



2. It is free!
People nowadays like money. I like money! It keeps me alive, and living is good (I think). If you look at competitive products (e.g. Unity) you will notice there is a large difference between them. While there are free distributables of certain engines that you can pick up (e.g. UDK), the additional products necessary to make a game (such as modeling programs) are not exactly free themselves. All of this adds up, and not just money wise (refer to point 1).



3. It is not (that) hard to learn
It is not a difficult program. There are thousands of people who have successfully made models, games and machinima using Blender and so can you! I personally think the hatred of Blender's unusual UI stems from simple unfamiliarity with an interface in general. It does not function like Maya or Max, nor is it designed to. When Word 2007 came out I hated it with a burning rage. Eventually however I got used to it. The same thing can be said with using Blender. You just need to use the middle mouse a lot.



4. You don't need to be a programmer to make functional content
I once used an engine called Torque to make a game. I was the programmer. I'll be honest in saying it was a pain, not because it was difficult to code (pfft) but because of the level of abstraction the engine and its entities allowed me to have control over. Everything was prebuilt and the ability to change stuff without going through and radically changing the game dynamics was very limited. I did not really end up making the game I wanted. Blender on the other hand doesn't give you all that. It gives you a physics engine, an empty game loop and the ability to create and apply logic/script to objects in this virtual space. It is a very empty and abstract game environment. The difference is that applying control and game dynamics does not require copious amounts of code as there are tools set up to do it for you at will. Making an object move in Blender from a keypress is dead simple (logicbrick system). Making an object move in Torque was still simple, but required actual code (obviously). Making an object move in an game engine coded from scratch (OpenGL, D3D) is much, much more difficult. Compare 50-100 lines of code to a few mouse clicks and you will see what I mean.



5. It is a sufficient enough tool
For the expectations of the unit I am tutoring, Blender is a more than suitable tool for creating the games we expect students to be making. As nice as visual aesthetics like detailed textures, high polygon count models, fancy lighting and shadow effects may be, if they are not accompanied by a working game with a working game mechanic, they are all for naught. This is Advanced Games DESIGN after all.

The thing about Fighting Games

First of all I just want to say that I am aware of the nature of my last few posts being primarily about fighting games. Although I don't promise this will be the last, I am aware that it is certainly not the first. Additionally this post is inspired by this article on The Escapist, discussing the nature and future of fighting games (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_246/7327-Fighting-Games-A-Tapped-Out-Genre).

Over the recent 7-9 months I have been very interested in fighting games, primarily Tekken 6 and SFIV. I would argue I am terrible at both, and depending on who you talk to, my friends would probably agree. Presently I eagerly await Super SFIV and will undoubtedly buy it the day it comes out. Out of all of my friends, both school, uni and random, I am the only person I know that actively anticipates these sort of games (besides one other chickzor, but she is special).


Super SFIV Trailer


Recent discussions with friends have led me to believe that they have never really been in to fighting games, or ever have in the past. This is fair enough, although I find it astonishing considering the number of fighting game titles released over the years. Surely they would have bumped into one in the odd occasion...

But this post is not about my friends, rather the gaming community in general. As the mentioned article points out, there has been a slow decline in interest in fighting games over the years, even with the new iterations and reboots as of late. I do not have enough evidence at my disposal to agree or disagree with that proposal, but I will say that the learning curve of fighting games is a major turn off for certain people. Simply put, for newcomers, fighting games have evolved into something that is incredibly difficult to pick up in a single afternoon session of gaming.


MvC2 Combos (Check out last 1.5 mins for awesome sauce)


This is also (at least in my opinion) where the whole issue lies. People nowadays, for whatever reason, do not want to dedicate time to learning a new and complex method of control for every fighting game on the market. This is completely understandable. Even I have not put in anywhere near the hours I used to in Tekken 3 as I have in Tekken 6 (seriously like 1/10 of the time). This perspective, while justifiable, is also flawed.

Fighting games to me have always shared a resemblance to tournament shooters (Counter Strike, Quake 3, Unreal Tournament etc...). They are not about completing a storyline or singleplayer campaign. They are not even about unlocking attributes/characters or grinding currency to slap on new funky looking pieces of crap (something Tekken has unfortunately fallen to). Fighting games have always been about finding a character(s) you are comfortable with and getting better at using them. There is a peculiar Zen-like quality to mastering a character's technique, something akin to when you are on top of your game in a tournament shooter. It is very challenging, especially for the first time, and to an extent, harder than anything an FPS game can throw at you. FPS games carry over the accuracy, the situational awareness and tactics of their related brethren and do not require as much mental transition as learning something entirely new (like a fighting game's mechanics). Fighting games on the other hand offer a much higher degree of challenge (assuming you are attempting to learn them properly) and it is this challenge aspect that people should be focusing on when learning them.


SFIV Ex-Focus System


Nowadays people do not like challenge. They do not like looking at screens where they are told they have lost and to try again. People really do expect to faceroll fighting games and win! If you look at the games of today, appealing to such larger demographics (older, younger, soccer mums etc...) this is a perfectly understandable marketing technique: make games that anyone can be successful at to attract more buyers. When you throw a game, such as a steep learning curve fighting game into the mix, you break the current trend and people who may give fighting games a go for the first time will come to the conclusion that they are too hard or complex to learn. Therefore they hate them.

However there are those who find this challenge aspect of fighting games appealing and rewarding. Whether your pride is immune to losing (or you simply have none), you may find that there is a rich and rewarding experience in playing a fighting game, both properly and skillfully. This skill does not just rely on remembering input controls (hell you could barely call a DPS rotation in WoW 'skill'), often an excuse for resorting to button mashing. It is about 'fighting' your opponent, human or cpu, blocking and evading instictively and applying what you have learnt into brutal (yet beautiful) combo attacks for mega-awesome-wtf-bbq-pwned-nubnubnub-damage!!!


Bryan Fury Combos


And that is essentially where the fun comes from...

Enta Teh Dagron!

People often ask me what I find so enjoyable about fighting games. I am not really 'good' at them by any means, or at least any more, but I do know they can create some of the best group gaming moments that I can remember. When you have 2-10 people screaming at a television set, mashing almost broken fingers over controllers in frustration wording profanities your mother would go into cardiac arrest over, you know that it has to be a winning formula. It has been for many years. Whether it be Tekken's juggling, Dead or Alive's ... jiggling (:D), Mortal Kombat's Fatalities or even the kooky MvC2's group nuking combos, the majority of the more memorable fights simply turn into who pulls off the last move, who blocks it, who doesn't and who inevitably goes flying across the other side of the screen. It is something I think that latest Street Fighter game/s capture quite well. This short post demonstrates some of the many new Ultra Combos one can push into their best friend's faces again and again (and again and again and again, from different angles!) in the upcoming Super SFIV, coming late April this year to consoles.

I would recommend turning your volume down....


Sure you can!



Her doe can...



In mother Russia, gravity obeys laws of you!



Bringing a knife to a ... normal fight (...?)



[Insert terrible one-liner here]



Yeah.... that


So yes. Next time someone you know is being a bit of a toss pot, just recall the combination of your most powerful fighting game move and remember to school them next time you play them in the game. Or in real life if you prefer...

The state of PC gaming (with a focus on FPS)

In the last few recent years you have probably heard the lines "PC Gaming is dying" or "PC Games are a shrinking market" or something similar on various shows, websites and blogs. This is generally because, when contrasted to the console gaming market, PC gaming does not attract the numbers or revenue that it's less sophisticated and cheaper cousins permit. PC gaming has and probably always will be the most expensive platform for gaming. But for exactly how long? If PC Gaming is apparently supposed to be going round the bend, then from a competitive standpoint it must not have much life left in the old girl. It has been around the longest and as we all know, all good things must come to an end...

Or do they? Now, I don't want to get off on the wrong foot here. I do not 'dislike' console gaming in any sense. I have great respect for both the Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo franchises. To not have an interest and/or understanding of the technologies and feuds between these 'rival' companies would be detrimental to the area of work I hope to get in to in the future (i.e. Game AI). I do in fact have an extensive past console gaming history, starting off with a NES, then many years later a Playstation then PS2 and now recently intend to buy a PS3 simply for Tekken 6 and God of War III alone. I do in fact think that certain genres of console gaming are superior on home consoles than any other platform, including PC and handheld. These genres (fighting, racing, platformers) are usually done extremely well and, should I still be interested in them, would prefer to play them on console than anything else.

My issue however is with the current rise of games that should not belong on consoles being pushed and developed exclusively for them. As you can guess, I believe FPS games are one of them. The FPS was born on the PC, years before console gaming could even compare on a technical standpoint (which I will discuss later). Admittedly games like Wolfenstein 3D and even Duke Nukem were originally played using just a keyboard, but the birth of the keyboard and mouse control scheme was not too far down the track. In fact, I remember people playing both Hexen and Heretic using both a keyboard and mouse back in the day, a method of control I found utterly mind boggling. The truth is that no game pad or pointing device can compare to the simplicity, accuracy and speed of the keyboard and mouse for FPS games. The mouse to control your aim and the keyboard to control your avatar and actions is a perfect marriage of complete character control that no other game genre can boast of having. So if this is naturally exclusive to the PC, why are consoles now overriding it in terms of FPS popularity and titles?

Halo is a classic example. One of the first FPS games built for console. It worked! It was also incredibly slow, easy and watered down. That was fine for the time, yes. It did in fact bring some new gameplay mechanics that have changed FPS gaming for the better. One such mechanic is the now benchmark abilty to throw grenades through a simple press of a button instead of selecting them as a weapon (a.k.a. Half-life style). I may not entirely agree with this as I have been doing this in FPS games since TFC (and through scripts in HL1) but still, its seen as an improvement on traditional weapon design in FPS. But then you see more recent games like UT3, Bioshock and (dare I say) Borderlands which from what I have experienced and seen all/will bear a very console like feel.

I've met and talked to console 'fanboi's' who while I will admit are nice enough people, have some very ignorant and illogical views on the matter. One such fellow claimed that there is nothing he could not do on a console controller that you can do with a keyboard and mouse. When I asked "well how do you rocket-jump, flick-shot, reflex-snipe, bunny-hop and wall-climb with a controller?". These five abilities are considered to be skillful techniques and control mastery, bordering almost on instinctive play. I got a blank look and a query as to wtf they were. I asked him if he had ever played Half-life or Quake (old FPS titles most people have played) to which his response was that he doesn't play crappy last-gen PC games. I left the conversation at that.

I challenge anyone reading this to mimic the kind of activity seen in this video on a console with a controller:




Console FPS games are watered down, slower and more skill-less games compared to the ones of PC of yesteryear. You look at the differences between Quake 3 and Quake 4. Quake 4 was like many FPS games of today, built for both the PC and console at the same time. It was a fun game, from a single-player perspective. But the multiplayer was nothing like its older brother. It was slow, boring and weapons had enough firepower packed behind them that any lack of skill would still compensate a frag from a bad player. "Well this is ok, for consoles, I guess" was my initial thought. The average console controller was more sluggish, less precise and slower to use than a PC mouse, often with auto-aim features and larger hitscan/box targets to make up for a lack of precision. Even crosshairs were usually larger (i.e. Halo 1's 1/4 of a screen crosshair). But then I found out the awful truth.

Console FPS games are built to be slower. Yes even Halo. Halo on PC was faster, not by much (10%) but still, a speed increase none the less. Even the PS3 and PC versions of UT3 have this trait. This quote from Mark Rein ...

"When you play Halo on PC, you notice the difference too, yeah? This is also the reason why we don't have cross-platform play, between PC and PS3, because you have got to make some compromises for each platform. But you play Halo on console and you find that it's slower too, right…they have to be slower, because your fingers are just not as precise as your whole arm, right? To me the movement and speed as a console gamer is just right."

... I personally do not find to be re-assuring, especially considering the Game Developer's shift in focusing on console games over PC. Why are we taking a step back? Why are we making slower FPS games for a control scheme that does not really support them? Why does the PC gamer have to sit in the shadows, reminiscing of the glorious days when PC FPS was king, considered pro and skillful only to be fed console based badly done ports that are basically Half-life with a face lift?

The answer is money. Now, I dont have a problem with consoles getting FPS games in general, but I do find the stance certain game companies are having on the games they develop. Because consoles are cheaper, because companies don't have to push the boundaries of rendering technologies as hard and because they can make a shitty game and still guarantee some sales ... what possible reason is there to develop games for PC. At least primarily for PC and then console after, anyway? Atm, none. Which brings me to another point about console game development in general. It was never the platform in which you played games on that pushed the boundary of graphics, rendering and sound technologies. It was always the games! If games can be developed on a platform that doesn't change for 5-6 years before its newer model comes out, then the recycling of games engines, code and ideas become mainstream. THIS IS NOT A GOOD THING! Hardware today is far beyond what the most demanding games can manage and considering the most graphically advanced games engine (Crysis -2007) is approaching nearly 2.5 years of age, this gap is just going to continue. Even Crytek (makers of Crysis) have jumped along the console developer bandwagon and do you know what? CryEngine 2.0 looks worse on console than what CryEngine 1.0 looks on PC. CryEngine 2.0 on PC however looks great, but it could look oh so much better....

I am aware I am bordering on ranting here, but the technological progression of games technology is something I am passionate about. Video cards, frame-rates, overclocking and cooling have always been my secret geek fetish ... thing, and although in recent years it may have eased off, I am still interested in the field. Some people say that console games help to increase the efficiency in programming game engines, particularly when the platform starts ageing. This perspective is mainly true. It is also flawed. Code efficiency is usually about memory conservation and increasing the number of clock-cycles your game engine can run at (i.e. processing power required). Reducing the complexity of algorithms and refining them to be more efficient is always great, but this takes time, money and effort. Lots of it! I know because I have had to do it. I say this is flawed as I would rather my game programmers be making the next Unreal Engine or working on a more reaslitic shading algorithm than fucking around trying to make their game work on a 6 year old piece of plastic that you can pick up for less than $200. Its like seeing how many clowns you can fit in your clown car, when the maximum capacity is only 8.

Companies are simply in it for the money. This is fair enough, but horrible single-player storylines, dodgey gameplay mechanics and design choices for apparent AAA titles are unaccounted for in this day and age. The quality of games today suffers because of this game development perspective. Half-life for example was for its time above and beyond everything else in its field. Unreal Tournament and Quake 3? Still the best tournament shooters you can play competitively. You could even say the same for CS 1.6 if you are into the team-work, accuracy and realism based shooters as well. These games are all over 10 years old. I may be getting old, stuck in the 'good old days' but I still feel that gaming and PC gaming in particular is having its own shallow grave dug for it. It's potential is being ignored, its roots forgotten and its gamers either converting or simply losing interest.

"I guess they just don't make them like they used to. Fucking plastic pieces of shit"

Lolwut?

Lul:
http://www.kotaku.com.au/2009/09/left-4-dead-2-banned-in-australia/

Yeah..... that. Sometimes I really don't understand the motives of our government and its associated ratings board. If you ask me, this latest act of stupidity is merely a publicity stunt to make the general public believe that the current system "cares for the children" and that they are doing a fantastic job at not allowing harmful content get into the wrong hands. You know, 'cause little kids go out and buy these sort of things all the time. The parents aren't responsible for what their children are getting in to, oh no! Let's put the blame on the actual content itself, and make the 95% of responsible, correct-aged non-mentally insane people suffer because our ridiculous rating system doesn't have an R18+ rating. Yeah, let's do that!

Seriously, here are the facts. Young kids playing violent video games is a bad idea, I'm sure you couldn't find many reasons to disagree with that. So is young kids watching porn, movies with harsh language, extreme violence and drug use. The difference between movies and games is that despite the obvious realism differences, movies generally get an R18+ rating if they are believed to contain large quantities of any of the previously mentioned themes. Games, at least in Australia, are not. Instead they are banned, or require modification of the content to reduce gore/swearing levels. There is virtually (virtually lol) any porn or any serious drug use in publicly consumed games to pick on, and despite the media's attempts to expose such non-existent undertakings (i.e. the Mass Effect rampage) games are still seen to be pretty docile when compared to the movies of our era. But, when a game is viewed to have equal depictions of any of the previous themes, well then that's a big problem.

Below: Left 4 Dead 2 Survivors


The average age of a gamer is somewhere around 30, at least in this country. That is pretty damn old! Now admittedly, gamers in this country make up for a rather small demographic. In fact I am quite sure that gaming in general is still viewed in that very critical, cynical light by most people who are not involved in it (and don't understand wtf they are talking about). Still, the fact of the matter is that most people who are serious players of games ARE mature individuals. They have the ability to watch movies with violent or adult content and more than likely have in the past. One more product out of the literal hundreds of thousands on the market is not going to make any difference to their mental condition, which is probably more sane and aware of reality than most others.

The game in question, Left 4 Dead 2, is barely any different from its original. That has often been an argument running over various forums and boards about people NOT wanting to buy the game because it doesn't offer anything significantly new. However, the original was let through just fine, and its original is alot like a vast number of other games currently on the market (Killing Floor, CoD5: Nazi Zombies etc...). It is also very similar to zombie movie franchise 28 X later. The rage virus acts almost identically to the rabies infection in the L4D universe, except for the mutated zombies of course. Sure, L4D2 offers some slightly more personal hand-to-hand combat ...... but these are ZOMBIES FFS!!!! They have been eating people for days! If you don't either avoid them or kill them, they WILL kill you. You are not playing Bob the Butcher and going around slaughtering helpless civilians. You are the helpless civilian trying to survive. How can they possibly come to the conclusion that the game's environment and theme is immoral and inhumane?

Finally, and we come back to our original point here, the game is not meant for children. That's it! I don't know why they can't see this, but the game is not supposed to be bought by people 17 and under. Now I have known (and was for my own age) some very mature adolescents who obviously wont take a game like this seriously. But as far as anti-discrimination laws are concerned, its just easier to label an entire group than pick out select individuals, so stuff it. This game and game's like this are not supposed to be played by young people. Banning them is equivalent to banning porn because adolescents 'could' get their hands on it. The rest of the community has to suffer because of this stupid, ridiculous point of view. Either introduce an R18+ rating, or lose the respect and patience of sensible, mature and annoyed gamers in Australia everywhere.

I leave you now with a famous quote for the parents, from the robot Bender from the cartoon series Futurama:

"And so I ask you this one question. Have you ever tried simply turning off the TV, sitting down with your children, and hitting them?"

Die one thousand deaths!!!

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