Quick note for those who care. I got a 360 for christmas and of course got myself Xbox Live before lunch had even happened. My account is 'PazyxReborn'.

I used to play original Xbox Live a little over a year ago under the tag of 'Pazy' but M$ screwed up my account so I couldent use it :|

I play Halo 3, Rainbow Six Vegas, TF2 (When/If it works) online. If anyone wants to play me just add me id be happy to kick your a$$....I mean em...play you.

Also I explored all the marketplace stuff and gotloadsandloadsofdemos. Xbox Live Arcade was of great interest for me, playing Sonic, Golden Axe and Prince of Persia again was heaven. I wanted to buy one to see what the games were truly like, after trying a whole slew of XBLA games I finally decided to get Outpost Kaloki X (A light-hearted space tycoon game). I love love love it. I think I'll be writing up a review of it soon though I havent checked if there is a game space for it on Gamespot but if there is not ill post it on my blog.

So add me to Xbox Live if you want, happy fragging guys :D

Ive finally had a chance to play a Wii when I visited my friend during lunch time at college. At the moment he has only one Wii game, Cooking Mama. I wasent particularely interested in the game but the unuiqeness of the controller intruiged me.

He hooked the system up and passed me the remote, adapting quickly I skilfully began to master the control system, point and click, and started up Cooking Mama. I already knew the basis of this game, mini games based around cookery tasks, but wasent really prepared for the sheer spectacle I would create while fulfilling the demands of the game.

I began by breaking an egg, easily mastered, before mixing it with something or other, skillyfully passed. I myself was pleasently amused, there was definately worse things to be doing, but my friend was almost at the point of convulsing even having to pause the game to let him breath. In order to help him get past the convulsing, perhaps make him comatose, I began to stop playing it like a game instead doing the actions almost as a show.

Perhaps the appeal of the Wii, at least for the non 'hardcore' buyers, is less the gaming and more the fact that somehow it brings people together. All im sure of is that I want one, when it's used to full effect the immersian, and unuiqeness, could definately eleviate the game above the same game on an Xbox360/PS3.

So what do you guys think? Where does the appeal of the Wii lie?

Note: This was written more 'off the cuff' than planned. Ive been writing it in my head for a few days but Ive only been typing it for 10 minutes.

Theres an epidemic in gaming right now. What is that epidemic you ask? Well since you asked so nicely Ill tell you, its "Rinse and Repeat" gaming and copycat gaming.
For those that don't know Rinse and Repeat gaming is games like Madden which each years release the same game but with slight name changes and 1 extra pixel per player model. What is the point in Rinse and Repeat gaming? It nets the publishers a whole mess of money sure but for Gamers theres nothing there. Unless you are the number One player of the Game then the changes each year made to the game will pass directly over your head. For most players buying a new version of the game every console generation will easily be enough.
This type of gaming is more prevalent in sports games, with the main offender being EA sports, but its beginning to extend to other games. Is there a way to prevent this continuing? As far as I can see it will always happen but hopefully not buying them will help.

The other epidemic is Copycat gaming. When Grand Theft Auto 3 first game out and showed the Masses how good Sandbox gaming could be it caused every second game that was released to be a Third Person Action/Adventure Sandbox Shooter (Generally based in the Criminal World). This isn't all bad because some of the copycats, like Saints Row and Crackdown, were actually quite good and enjoyable. Unfortunately most of the copycats are absolute S**T. Games in that category include Driver 3, True Crime: Streets of LA/NY. That's not to say that games in this category aren't worth publishing or player, people can get pleasure from these games but generally they trade on the Similarities to popular games and as a result neglect good gameplay.

Copycat gaming doesn't just mean GTA Clones. Way back when, after the first release of Doom, 80% of games released were First Person Shooters, at a time when the FPS genre wasn't already crowded, and most games were even built on the same engine (Imaginatively know as the Doom Engine) such as Heretic, Hexen and others. Until ~1997 is was actually more common for Gamers call FPS games 'Doom Clones' rather than 'First-Person Shooters'. Graph obtained from Wikipedia:



Copycat gaming goes round and round stopping at diffrent genres each year. This can have good and bad affects producing good and bad games. When it falls on FPS games I'm particularly happy as for originality in games is overrated. I'm happier with a Solid FPS games with good (but not great) Single Player and Multiplayer. Id much rather have that than the latest and great FPS with a completely unique twist over other smiler games but where the shooting has less importance than the unique feature.

So whats the cure for this epidemic? To be honest I dont think there is One but I know that not buying Rinse and Repeat/Copycat games will certainly help. So whats your opinion on this? Do you beleive there is an epidemic or a cure?

I was reading the blog of another gamespot user called AndyMacdonald27 and I began to wonder, How long will I be able to game? I dont mean when will I be so old my hands are unable to hold a Gamepad or use a Keyboard/Mouse or anything. What I mean is how long will there be games I want to play?

'Casual' gaming seems to be sweeping the nation (or nations) and its becoming more populer by the day. More and more companies are realising that its a lucrative Market. This is what you expect to happen, after all this is a Money driven Industry.

My fear is that 'Proper' or 'Hardcore' gaming suddenly appears a lot less lucrative than Casual gaming. If that happens then no Company in there right mind will make these kind of games. It is already happening, in years past Nintendo was the biggest Gaming company around, they had the most populer console, the SNES, and on that console you could play some seriously good and long lasting games. Some of the most well remembered include early Final Fantasy games, The Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past and Super Mario World.

Looking at Nintendo now I weep for it. The once mighty company is reduced to Wii Fit:

Someone please tell me where the game is here? If you want to exercise go outside and play football, go for a walk or get a bike. Why would you pay ~200 pounds, or more as its non existent in shops so you will need to go on Ebay, and then another ~50 pounds for the unit? If I was paying 300 pounds then it should exercise for me.

The other worry is where has the difficuly gone? In games of old there was often ~1hour of straight gameplay but the difficuly and fun meant it lasted weeks and months. In fact completing games was an Acheivment in older games, nowadays youve got 10 hours then your done never to return to the game. Games like Oblivion have the length but not the difficuly, if you just keep going you will most likely complete the game. In recent years ive started playing FPS's and RTS's (which is my most played Genres) on Normal and found it too easy, I turn it to hard but within an hour or two ive gotten used to the 'nuances' of each game and it feels like im back on normal.

Now dont get me wrong, its not that I dont think a lot of games, ignoring casual games, are fun.I just feel they have lost something from older times. They have opened to a wider audience but in doing so lost some of what I love from my games. I will still be a game player for as long as possble but I will always long for things I feel modern games have lost.

I thought i might try my hand at this 'bloging' malarky. I do like a bit of a haver so why not.

I'll introduce my self first, I'm a teenager (17) from scotland who enjoys games, sci-fi and rock music. Mainly I play First Person shooters, Real time strategy's and point and clicks.Im also a major retro head, though being on a budget I dont own many retro systems. I own a Ps1,Ps2,Xbox,GC,N64,some plug and play, DS, GBA, PSP and an N64. Ive also a good a PC with isnt great but does a hell of a job of trying. I hate most movie tie-ins or anything of that nature.

Lately one of the things ive been wondering when I play games is how will they be seen in twenty years time? Ive looked at footage of classic games like adventure:

People looking at that think "Simple Graphics", and they would be right but at the time they were good graphics. Nowadays people also look at Doom diffrently, It looked phenomenal when it first came out but now it looks basic and mundane compared to todays FPS's. In ten or twenty years will games like Call of Duty 3 and Oblivion look simple and basic? Its hard for me to imagine this because I cant see anything better yet.

In saying that I also wonder, once you get to photo-realism, and we are surely almost there, where do we go from there? We could make extremely powerful gaming Pc's which run multiple copies of these programs but that dosent really count as development, we could also make a Graphics card which can support massive displays at 51,700 by 38,400 (50 times larger than 1024 by 768 ) and produce a version of Oblivion which has that good graphics. It would be a bit embarrassing for the player when they die but it would be an advancement. Very few options are left like Virtual Reality, holograms....... well that's about it unless people want to play Civilisation with real people, oh wait thats called being a king, ok then Sims with real people......being a Parent. So I guess we really are running out of options.