Well, they can, but it's 7am in the morning and my throughts are just running about randomly I'll give you a hint, though: GTA + Super Mario Bros.

Edit: Can't seem to embed the video, so here's the link:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kk9oa_PiXAk

Side-quests, in RPGs, are versatile tools in fleshing out the game experience. They can slow down the main story line, making it seem as if the game isn't advancing too fast. They provide unique items and additional experience and other such things that players need. They also can be a window to the game's world, or do things with the story that the main story line doesn't seem able to do. When done right, they're just as fun as the main story line.

Most games handle side-quests differently, which came as a bit of a surprise to me. When I think of them, it's usually in a business-like way, a 'let's get this over with' attitude. Games I've recently played, though, have shattered my preconceptions and given me a little more patience with side-quests. I don't need much incentive to take them up; completion is enough for me, but a little extra experience and items always help. Sometimes, though, side-quests can be a little special.

A game that handles sidequesting the way I always used to think of them is Borderlands. Business-like is the term that best applies to the whole affair. You're given a job (usually finding something or killing something) and you get a little money and experience for it, sometimes a gun or something to help you along the way. The quests themselves are very straightforward and would be repetitive were it not for the different environments and enemy types.

I recall Final Fantasy X, which is probably the first RPG game I ever played. You didn't receive quests. Instead, you followed the story and came across hidden things while exploring. This usually consisted of a minigame or finding an awesome weapon or else locating secret aeons - powerful spirit-like beings that were used in battle. The whole process was optional and very subtle. It was quite easy to overlook these sidequests and I didn't find them all until I consulted a walkthrough. This is because they were not presented to you on a billboard, as a job, like in Borderlands. They were the reward for thorough and dilligent exploration.

Dragon Age: Origins, a more recent RPG, had quite an array of sidequests. Some of them were discovering through exploring and careful reading of codex entries or else locating certain people. The acquisition of some of the best weapons and armor sets, like the famous Juggernaut Armor, is only available through these sidequests. The quests themselves are a little plain, usually involving touching some item to activate it or else doing certain things to release a powerful creature and then killing it. Along with these quests were other, more business-like sidequests, given to the player as jobs from inns or other such places. Most of the time, they involve the collection and turning of 20 potions or something of that kind. These are the sort of quests that I ignored. The reward for them was negligible, the gameplay a grind to get uncommon drops and the shallowness of the whole thing staggering. Overall, the sidequests in Dragon Age: Origins lost all their significance next to the intricate, rich main quest.

And then, at the far end of the scale, the opposite of that business-like conception that I once had, the Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. A few days ago, I became interested in building a character in a way that I could get him to a high level and still be able to defeat the creatures of the world. (In Oblivion, creatures level up with you, and if you don't build the character right, you'll actually end up weaker than them.) So, I started a new game, chose my skills (I wanted a character who used magic) and started at it.

The first thing I did was go to the Imperial Arena and compete for the title of the Grand Champion of Cyrodiil. I achieved that title at Level 1. Seems a little too easy, right? But that's the beauty of Oblivion. You don't have to level up in order to play the game. You level up because you want to. Anyway, I earned about 6000 gold for my victories and I immediately set out to join the Mages' Guild, because that's the easiest way to gain access to magic spells I would need for my character. And the wonderful thing about it was the variety present in the whole process. I had to get recommendations from the local guildhall leaders of every town. I had to investigate a number of murder along a road, rescue a person trapped in a zombie-infested cavern, rescue someone from a dream realm by restoring his courage and other virtues to him, be the victim of potentially deadly prank and far more.

On the way, I encountered other things while I was exploring. I found an artist who had trapped in his own painting and rescued him. I found a wandering ghost which pointed me towards the wreckage of a ship, where he had been on the receiving end of a mutiny. I saved a farm from goblins, reunited two twins separated at birth, kicked a necromancer's butt, attempted to save a girl from a cult (this ended in tragedy, both for the girl and the cult) and much, much more. And every little side-quest has different, interesting characters with their own smaller plotlines which hooks just like main quest does. You care about the little things just as much as the big things.

If side-quests in RPGs could do for the games what they do to Oblivion, I think we would have a larger number of better games out there. It's up to developers to recognize the potential of a little fun versus a stale grind.

It's coming out on January 18 for the PS3, apparently. I heard a lot of good things about this game, so how awesome is it, exactly?

The past year I've been focusing almost exclusively on first-person shooter games and with three more I'm interested in coming out next year, this trend doesn't seem like it's going to end. But I've been playing shooter after shooter after shooter and I have started to feel like the genre is rather bland. Most developers are constantly pushing games in order to displace the Call of Duty franchise and acquire its enormous fanbase, and in doing so, they're causing the whole genre to degenerate. Why? Everyone is emulating its multiplayer and focusing less and less on the single-player experience. And the multiplayer experience, unfortunately, is no better off, because no one seems to be willing to experiment with new things. We get all the old match types, like Team Deathmatch or Domination, under new names( presented as if they were original modes) and different guns. Essentially, all we are getting is the same game with a different look.

I've gotten Call of Duty: Black Ops and have spent enough time with it to be able to judge it fairly. I declare it to be the best Call of Duty game yet, and also the worst. This paradoxical statement will be explained better in a review, but the gist of it is that CoD is getting old. We've been doing the same thing over and over for years. It's been a week since I got it and guess what I played today: not Black Ops, but Oblivion. Now that game never gets old. Hurry up and come out, Elder Scrolls V.

I have two First-Person Shooters that do not try to be CoD. These are Borderlands and Bioshock. They don't have CoD-like multiplayers. They don't present themselves as the must-have, super-original game every FPS fan must have. They don't offer the mindless, repetitive shoot-kill experience that every FPS game is offering today. They do their own thing and as a result, both of them have made a name for themselves.

In truth, the best FPS multiplayer I have experienced today is that of Left 4 Dead 2. The gameplay was less random, more controllable and more tactical than any other FPS multiplayer. You'd think walking through a level shooting zombies would be simple, but there's a lot of teamwork involved, especially when the zombies are being controlled by human players. The most important thing for the survivor side is to move quickly and staying together, watching all sides. Moving quickly takes advantage of the 20 second spawn counter for the infected and working together ensures that the only way the infected would be able to overcome the survivors would be by some awesome teamwork on their own part. Successful attacks on the side of the infected are harder to pull off. The infected have very different abilities and are very easily killed, but most of them can incapacitate a player. The key for the infected to win is to incapacitate all the players, by damage or by a special attack and to this successfully the infected must communicate with each other and play their parts flawlessly.

Next year, Killzone 3, Crysis 2 and Bulletstorm are coming out. These games have caught my interest for these reasons. Killzone 3 seems to be enriching the plain FPS multiplayer experience. I'm hoping it will be good. Either way, I know it's unlikely I'll be disappointed with the campaign, but I'm still going to wait for the reviews. Crysis 2, on the other hand, is the sequel to the much acclaimed Crysis before it. I'm not interested in it's multiplayer, but rather the sandbox style gameplay that it offers. If it's anything like the first Crysis, I think I will be very pleased with it. And finally, Bulletstorm. Ever since it's been announced, all the developers have been talking about are the myriad ways in which enemies can be killed (skillshots), explosions and destruction. While this might seem like old hat to some of us, Bulletstorm seems like a game which isn't trying to be another game, and that has set my hopes up.

I'm on the verge of abandoning the genre, though, and I won't get any of these unless they excel at what they do, rather than simply excel at what every FPS does. Meanwhile, Gran Turismo 5, Dead Space 2 and Dragon Age 2 are waving to me from my wish list.

So yesterday I went to the nearest computer store and bought a 15 metre long ethernet cable, so I could connect my PS3 directly to my router instead of having a wireless connection. I saw instant improvement in my connectivity on CoD and I was able to get several good games. I'll be trying it out on other multiplayer games I have :D

So I just came across thisand I am totally shocked by the fact that a man could get ten years just for modding an Xbox. I'm not from the States, but I hear that a case of murder gets about the same amount of time. This implies that modding an Xbox is as bad as murder, right? Or have I gotten my information wrong?

I think we're at a point where the lawmakers need to check their priorities. Also, the large corporate countries need to get their fangs out of the government.

A man's life versus a modded Xbox? Even if he committed the crime deliberately and in full awareness, those two sides are not equal. That's not justice.

It smells like a big corporate pile of filth.

Rant over.

So I just read a blog about another blog about another blog about an online survey which identifies what kind of gamer you are. Here's the link to the blog: auron11022and here's the link to the survey.It only takes a few minutes. These are my results:

Your BrainHex C1ass isConqueror.

Your BrainHex Sub-C1ass isConqueror-Mastermind.

You like defeating impossibly difficult foes, struggling until you eventually achieve victory, and beating other players as well as solving puzzles and devising strategies.

According to your results, there are few play experiences that you strongly dislike.

Conqueror: 20
Mastermind: 15
Achiever: 14
Socialiser: 10
Daredevil: 8
Survivor: 7
Seeker: 6

And the site's information on the c1asses:

Conqueror

"I cannot be defeated!"

You likedefeating impossibly difficult foes, struggling until you eventually achieve victory, and beating other players.

Your behaviouris forceful – you channel your anger in order to achieve victory and thus experiencefiero,the intense emotion which causes you to punch the air.

Your major brain regionsare the nucleus accumbens (the "pleasure centre") and the hypothalamus, which controls anger.

Your chemical messengeris norepinephrine, which is released by the adrenal glands and enhances the effects of the reward chemical dopamine. Testosterone may also have an important role in your play (whether you are male or female), especially if you are particularly persistent.

If you were an animal, it would be a shark.

Favourite games of Conquerorssurveyed so far includeCall of Duty,Halo,Metal Gear Solid,Metroid,StarCraft, andSuper Smash Bros.

(This might be right, because I do like the Call of Duty series and games similar to StarCraft.)

Mastermind

"I know what to do."

You likesolving puzzles and devising strategies.

Your behaviouris focussed around making the most efficient decisions.

Your major brain regionis the orbito-frontal cortex, an area just behind and above the eyes involved in making decisions, and the nucleus accumbens (or "pleasure centre") which is closely linked to it.

Your chemical messengeris dopamine, which is chemically similar to cocaine, and is involved in habit formation.

If you were an animal, it would be an octopus.

Favourite games of Mastermindssurveyed so far includeAnimal Crossing,Chess,Chrono Trigger,Fallout,Half-Life, andZelda.

(Of all these, I've only played Chess, which I really like.)

Anyway, take it and tell me what you got.

As most of you know, Call of Duty: Black Ops allows you to record segments of your online gameplay and upload it to the internet. Theater Mode, as it is called, is still in Beta, and so far, only allows clips of maximum 30s seconds length to be uploaded. Despite that, I think it's a pretty good addition. I've uploaded two very short clips, just to try it out. The clips don't showcase awesome gameplay, so don't expect to be dazzled.

Here they are:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_M_YZqlDfQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L23vIOZYEmk

As you can see, my internet is a bit laggy. Hopefully, I'll be able to post some better clips in the future.

I have just got my hands on this game and have played it just enough to give you my overall impressions of it. I dabbled a bit with every mode in the game, from Zombies, multiplayer and combat training and the campaign. From what I've seen, Call of Duty: Black Ops seems to be the best Call of Duty game so far.

The campaign is terrific. I'm probably somewhere in the middle and can't wait to finish it. The story and the characters have managed to hook me. The few missions I've played also gave me the impression that while Treyarch has stuck to linear levels, they allow a little more flexibility. I think this is because enemies keep spawning constantly until you move up to your objective, which means you can't just clear an area from one position and then move up. You've got to take ground bit by bit, gaining position. It's a little bit more tactical, and I like it.

The multiplayer has its pros and cons. I've had a lot of lag until I switched servers to 'Locale Only', which made it a little better. Since we're still in the first few weeks, people are being very obnoxious with camping. I don't like to play so defensively, and since I don't know the maps yet, I keep falling victim to people hiding behind corners. The spawning system can be very chaotic, with people spawning behind you all the time, but I believe Treyarch is investigating how to address this issue. On the other had, the multiplayer is the most balanced I've ever seen and really encourages people to play smart.

The Combat Training mode is also a great addition to Call of Duty. Although the AI is not very intelligent, it still poses a challenge, because it's extremely accurate and fast. It's a great way for people to learn the maps or have some fun when their internet is being laggy.

Zombies, needless to say, are fun, awesome and scary, especially on solo.

More to come soon.

It's been a month since my last update and a lot of things have been going on. Mainly, I have a ton of textbooks to read for my course and I can't seem to muster the willpower to begin. It's somewhat difficult to read 18th century literature; the narratives use a lot of big, unfamiliar words and beat around the bush as much as possible (all the time). So I can forgive myself for putting all my work off for a while.

The major thing this month for me is obviously Black Ops. I still haven't got it yet, which is sad, but it looks really good and I will most likely be spending a lot of time on it when I get it this week. Treyarch seems to have taken out all the unbalanced, annoying things that were in Modern Warfare 2 and streamlined the whole multiplayer. One thing that bothers me is lag, though. I don't know how much of it there is. Up to now, I've been playing CoD4 and one out of ten games I experience lag that makes the game extremely frustrating me. It's a blessing that there's the combat training mode. Even it if turns out to be a mere shadow of the multiplayer, it still might be fun.

On another note, I recently started watching a brilliant series entitled 'The Walking Dead'. It's about a group of survivors who find themselves in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. It's alternately sad and scary and happy and funny, and more about how the people are trying to cope in this world, trying to cling to the tatters of their old life, rather than about zombies eating people. There are only four episodes so far, but it's an excellent show and I recommend to anyone who's looking for a good show or likes zombies.

Hopefully, I'll be able to put up a review of Black Ops this week. Later folks.