Cars are boring. What? They are. Brake, gas, honk. Brake, gas, honk. Turn left, turn right. Flip that guy off. Psh, so old. Video game characters have all the luck, really. They get totally amazing mounts to ride all over their pre-programmed world. Playing through some games got me to wondering which mounts I’d love to have in real life. Obviously, not all of them are practical. But still, beats the Hell out of the rising gas prices, eh? Yeah, I should stay away from the political commentary, sorry. On with my list!

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In the corner of my living room lives a sleek black box. A Playstation 3, in fact, that I bought after many months of head-scratching over the differences between the wii, the Xbox 360 and the PS3 itself. So I came to the console war game a little late.

Two months after my initial purchase, I can honestly say I’m glad I did it. The Playstation 3 is without doubt the more expensive of the three, but it’s also the most rock-solid. It’s quiet, fast and powerful - three things I love to say about any gadgetry I own.

It also took care of ever need I had. It plays movies, music, accesses the internet, sings, dances, and occasionally even cooks and cleans. (Well, okay, it lets me look up recipes when I’m in the middle of cooking and suddenly realise I have no idea what I’m doing.)

You can use your PSP to access your PS3 - from anywhere on the planet with a Wifi connection. This means that you can turn on the PS3 when your significant other is at home, scaring the bejesus out of them and convincing them that the PS3 is, in fact, possessed. It also lets you access the massive harddrive storage on the go, which means you can save up to 80gb of movies and music and then watch them remotely.
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MMORPGs seem to be the new ‘it’ game platform. It seems like almost every company is falling all over themselves to try and get a nice piece of that massively multiplayer cake. Subscribers come and go, each one looking for something a little bit different. What sets a certain MMO apart from others depends on the person playing it. For example: Some people hate PVP while others simply can’t get enough of it. With this in mind, most companies strive to make their game something special. Something people will want to play even if the game itself is slightly less than desirable in other areas. What sets an MMORPG apart?

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Jon, from The Clockwork Manual, got in touch with me the other day. As fellow video game fans we hit it off, until the subject of cutscenes loomed its ugly head. Jon was all for them. As a Metal Gear Solid fan he could hardly be against them. I, on the other hand, am vocally anti-cutscene. Jon’s initial email can be read here. He points out some of the defining and memorable video game cutscenes, and wonders how we could ever tell a story without them. My response was as follows.

In the film-making community, flashbacks and ‘dream sequences’ are considered a crutch. It is one of the first mistakes amateur film makers make. It is a weak way to tell most stories, and is usually used as a shortcut, or to cover up weak writing.

There are, however, no rules in any creative media that can’t be broken. Memento used flashbacks brilliantly. Spellbound contains a famous dream sequence. These are great films, and they know exactly what they are doing.

So let’s talk about video games and cut scenes.

In a video game, you have two elements that should reinforce each other: the story and the gameplay. Most amateur game developers, when they want to tell you something related to the story, use a cutscene. Is this bad? Yes. Cutscenes are jarring, they take away our player control, they break our identification with the player character, and in most cases - video game budgets being what they are - they are poorly acted and badly written.

Much like flashbacks, they are usually the ‘most obvious’ way of telling the player something, but rarely the best. Intertwining the story into the game play is a far superior method. Using a ‘breadcrumb trail’ of in-game information to allow a player to puzzle together the story themselves is an art in itself. As an example: the Bioshock audio diaries.
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When most people think of epics their minds immediately drift back to nights in highschool spent hunched over their copies of The Iliad and Paradise Lost. When gamers think of epics, we tend to think of those nights learning Sunwell Plateau. Even from the earliest days of side scrolling adventures, most video games have told (or attempted to) a story. Blowing up a space alien isn’t necessarily on par with Odysseus’ long, poetic journey, but it’s true that some literary elements exist in every well made game’s plot.

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I’ve diagnosed myself with gaming ADD.

No matter how great, how high-profile, how all-encompassing, or wanted the game is, sometimes I just can’t focus. My mind wanders. What am I missing out on? What’s going on in the Internet world? Is there any gaming news I haven’t read? What about my other games? I need to finish them.

I have a load of laundry in the dryer. I wonder what I’m going to make for dinner? Oh hey, cool! There’s a new episode of Tim and Eric on Adult Swim’s website to watch!

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