All The Colours of The Brownbow

You know, I honestly didn't know there were so many shades of brown. Brown it seems, is a versatile colour, especially if you're making, say a gritty first person shooter. Lets pick three examples, Gears of War, Killzone and Resistance. Now before I get a buttload of fanboy rage, I loved all three, well Gears Of War not so much but it deserves it's popularity. Anyway, this is a rant not a review. In resistance, a large chunk of the game takes place in Cheddar Gorge in the south of England. Now I'm an English chap, god save the queen, rule Britannia etc and do you know, it turns out that our green and pleasant land is actually brown, brown rocks, brown grass, brown sky, brown buildings, brown cars, brown aliens in brown ships with brown guns. Gears of War and Killzone are just as bad but at least Killzone provides the believable excuse that the planet Helghan is just a shithole with a dust clogged atmosphere. I guess I'm being cruel to Killzone actually, the later levels in Visari's palace do have a rich colour palette. Still, lets compare these games to Modern Warfare 2, this is a game that presents the horror of war in a very visual way, and the thing that really hits you is, the way everyday locations are turned into places of horror because when you're walking nonchalantly through a Russian airport slaughtering countless civilians the horror is brough home by the depiction of the environment as one you may walk through every day without fear. The reason for this is that my hindbrain knows, that any modern airport is fairly light on the brown and therefore the enriched palette makes the entire experience even more absorbing. Suspension of disbelief anybody? No? Resistance, Gears of War and Killzone are almost perfect, but ADD SOME GODDAMN COLOUR.

It's Snowing, Let's Talk About Icewind Dale.

I have a friend who has a little brother. This little brother claims to be an "expert" on RPG's because he completed Dragon Age AND Oblivion. Naturally I decided to question his knowledge by asking him about Black Isle studios. Now, this kid is eighteen, relatively intelligent and somewhat tastful in his choice of literature. I was of course, not surprised by the blank look the words "Black Isle Studios" was met by. Black Isle's name evaporated in 2003 when he was 11 and the beloved franchises were snapped up by Atari who proceeded to give them a half decent outing with Neverwinter Nights. Anyway I convinced him to give Icewind Dale a try. Now Icewind Dale and Icewind Dale 2 for me were the two finest Dungeons and Dragons based CRPG's out there, (thats COMPUTER Role Playing Games, not CONSOLE Role Playing Games btw, I get sick of people getting that wrong). ANYWAY He comes back to me a week later and gives it back. "I didn't like it," he tells me. I reel my jaw back in from where it hit the floor as asked him why. The reply made me feel like slapping him. "Crap graphics." Now I'm not one to tell people what they should and shouldn't like. I might tell them what i THINK they should like but that's different. I am aware that Icewind Dale and it's fellow Infinity Engine games are starting to look a little dated in terms of graphics although I'm sure they still have their uses *cough*iPad*cough* but does that really matter? Gone With the Wind isn't considered a bad film because it's black and white, it's two hours of boredom that finishes with a famous quote that every sitcom has to rip off at some point but the key thing is, nobody care's it isn't in colour. But then this brings another key point to the fore, what are good graphics? Let's compare Icewind Dale with say, Neverwinter Nights. Every single screen of Icewind Dale is hand crafted and entirely unique, every dungeon it's own little world filled with small artistic details and little nuances of style. Neverwinter Nights does not have this style, the dungeons are all made of cookie cutter sections and the interiors of buildings are expressed as being vast labyrinths of corridors that have gaping wasted spaces in between rooms. Now I'm no architect, but I know somebody who is and after in depth consultation and much reasearch he and I managed to establish that wasted space in a building is BAD and therefore if you want to create suspension of disbelief in a game you have to at least fool a basic sense like spatial awareness. I am sick of cookie cutter dungeons and badly proportioned buildings. Here's a list of recent offenders, Oblivion, Dragonage, Titan Quest, World of Warcraft, Red Faction 3, Mass Effect, Borderlands and Two Worlds, all good games but extremely repetetive in terms of environments. Therefore, what are good graphics? Are they bump maps? High poly counts? No they're not. Come on guys, make the effort.

A Thought Occurs,

Whilst reading Lord Of The Rings in the bath.

Now if you read the papers or watch the news no doubt you've heard that kids nowadays are murdering, thieving lying and decietful. Most media will tell you that the state of the children in this country is the fault of the government and these evil video games that teach children how to strip and clean a Glock 9mm before they learn not to dip their hand into their nappy and recycle their food. The non gaming general public have only the media as a source and therefore generally believe most of what they're told by it. Now if you're one of approximately 85% of these people and you've stumbled across this blog whilst looking for a lawyer to sue the kid down the street because he stole your kids scooter after playing GTA IV consider one thing. The paper you read this information in A) Has tits on page 3, B)Has a letters column that plays like a transcript from the Jeremy Kyle show C) Owns one of the many online bingo sites that are RIGHT NOW teaching your 14 year old daughter that gambling is the key to BIG money and D) ADVERTISES these games EVERYWHERE. There was a full page Ad for COD4 in this particular tabloid rag opposite a story about some poor sod who stepped on a mine in Afghanistan. Thats hardly tactful is it? Anyway lets make this relevant. There is a trend among the non gaming portions of society to have many preconceptions about people who play games more than just casually. The assumption seems to be that we're uncouth, uncultured and unread. Well let's scan my bookshelf shall we? Terry Pratchett OBE, National treasure, and a hardcore World of Warcraft fan I might add. P.G Wodehouse, master of satire. Alexandre Dumas, Dante, Dickens, Plato, Machiavelli, Marx and Engels (actually that one might not do me any favours in this argument) J.R.R Tolkien, Robert E Howard, Edgar Allen Poe and C.S Lewis. Right now look me in the eyes and call me unread. My class and I had The Hobbit read to us by our primary school teacher whilst aged six to seven. We sat and we listened enraptured by the story and how vivdly it leapt from the pages. There was not one person in that class unchanged by it and now at age 24 I can't count the amount of times I've read it and vowed that one day I'll read it to my children. Anyway good stories teach good morals, nowadays kids are stuck with books that are "politically correct" I mean, hell Ladybird Books are gone from our shcools. That's a travesty and it's because kids nowadays are forced to grow up in a stifling society without real beauty that they lose hope. After a hard day at school of not playing conkers in case they get killed by shrapnel and not playing tag or british bulldog in case they lose a limb and the school gets sued, followed by an afternoon of reading the utter drek the national curriculum thrusts upon unsuspecting children everywhere these poor kids go home and their parents use video games as a nanny. OF COURSE young children will copy games, and if they're not taught right from wrong older children will copy games and it only takes one kid to shoot up a school and blame it on Halo and all of a sudden we're back to gamers are evil, gamers are the devil, my daughter was raped by a man who practised on hookers in GTA IV! Do you see where I'm coming from, most four year olds can't read, the school teaches them because their parents won't or can't. I went to school aged 4 with the ability to read and write because back then people took responsibility. To make matters worse kids books nowadays teach children that its fine to be a whiney emotional wreck because somebody somewhere will basically do everything for you. Marriage doesn't matter anymore because mummy and daddy still love you after a divorce, ok they probably do but a child growing up without the idea that being in love matters is more than likely to have a few kids with multiple partners get twisted up in the CSA have no money to support them, neglect them and plant them in front of a second hand PS2 to kill some bad guys and the whole damn thing starts off again. I know this may not seem relevant in a video game blog but it is, because games are not the disease and they aren't the cure, but bloody hell do they make a damn fine scapegoat.

Warning, post incompatible.

I am, at heart a PC gamer. My first computer was a Commodore 64 (which is almost a cliche nowadays) and since then I've been through every iteration of windows. I've always held consoles in high regard for ease of access, standardised hardware makes development and testing easier and therefore quality games can be created faster for a lower price, which is good for everyone. PC gaming nowadays is like a kids playground. The mainboard just wants to be friends but it won't share its RAM with the Nvidia twins which leaves the Soundcard all alone with nobody to teach it to use it's microphone port. If they all played together like good children they could have some real fun but it takes a lot of coaxing and occasionally threats and bribery (seriously, I once bought a RAM stick for my old PC that it didn't need because I had tried EVERYTHING else to get it to read a DVD I had bought. If you've ever bought a present for an inanimate object then proceeded to attempt to bribe it, you've touched a deep and terrifying kind of madness) I also respect the fact that all console makers realise that a quality device should be affordable and therefore sell the consoles at a loss because they know the profit will come from licensed games. Nvidia think that charging more for a graphics card than an XBOX360 costs new is a good idea. My latest PC cost £2750 and, because its a PC, flat refuses to do ANYTHING I tell it to. I've always taken bad compatibility as simply the price of PC gaming which is usually a graphically superior experience and therefore a little extra effort doesn't bother me. Recently though I've noticed a disturbing trend with the two big hitters in the console market. Here's my example, Lost Planet: Extreme Condition. This was a game that I really did expect to be more graphics than gameplay but I was proven wrong, however this isn't a review. The first version I played was the XBOX360 version. I borrowed it from a friend, played it through, was satisfied with the experience and then gave it back. About six months later I got a hankering to play it after hearing rumours of a sequel. I grabbed a bargain bin copy from my local game shop, the PS3 version and took it home. It took me about five minutes to think, "What the **** is up with the framerate? Is my PS3 damaged, is the game a bad copy?" Anyway, I'm extremely anal about crap like this, if I think I'm right I'll go to extraordinary lengths to prove it. So I borrowed my friends 360 version and by flicking back and forward between inputs on my amplifier I was indeed able to confirm, the PS3 version looks like cheap stop motion when stacked against the 360. Since then I've noticed that this trend is true with most cross platform titles. PS3 exclusives run like silk, Killzone 2 blew me away, it just looks so perfect. Assasin's Creed drops frames and chugs. It's the same with Sacred 2, Brothers in Arms, Overlord and Mercanaries 2. My rule now is, if its PS3 exclusive, I buy it on PS3, if it's cross platform, it's 360 every time. I'm told the slimline PS3 is a lot smoother but I have one of the old shiny, fat, Spiderman font encrusted plastic leviathans and I'm sticking with it. If you have both consoles, save your eyes and go 360 for choice. Anyway Sony need to redesign the controllers, the XBOX ones are more comfortable and no, adding accelerometers and making it wireless is NOT a redesign it's an upgrade. While we're on the subject actually, Sony, listen to me, sit down and listen. Did your mum ever tell you that you'd go square eyed if you sat close to the TV? Well my question to you is, seeing as how most people store consoles under the TV, and most people don't want to stop playing to recharge a controller.... WHY IS THE SUPPLIED PLAY AND CHARGE CABLE ONE ****ING METRE LONG?

Metal Gear, was quite Solid, but getting rickety with age.

You may have noticed that the first fews posts are coming thick and fast. I have a lot to say and rather than put it in one giant wall of text I'm splitting it up into topical posts. Hey, at least this blog will have some content rather than the usual "Hey guys welcome to my blog, I'm soooo looking forward to posting in it" followed by, well nothing.

Metal Gear Solid. I was brought to the fold of MGS by two guys I used to hang out with. They played it unceasingly and knew EVERYTHING about it. At first I was disinterested, I was a faithful Nintendo fan and refused to be tainted by the Sony demon. Then I got the PC version which was a nice dodge for me. I didn't get a Sony console until halfway through the PS2's lifespan when decent Gamecube titles began to tail off. Metal Gear Solid is one of those games that divides people. I LOVE it, my best friend thinks it's bloody AWFUL. I'm not talking about MGS4 by the way, as far as I'm concerned the series ended at the finale of the second game, and even then I was bloody irritated by Raiden (Who else thought he was a girl when they saw the concept art?) MGS4 for me is a bit like the South Park episode where George Lucas and Steven Spielberg anally rape Indiana Jones in reference to Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull. Why would you do that, Kojima San, Hideo if I may, why? Anyway, thats enough tangents. MGS is brilliant. I play the Gamecube remake, Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes. It's a faithful reproduction of the original with innovative new elements that only serve to improve the overall experience. If you don't have a Gamecube or a Wii the PS1 and PC versions (which are identicle for all intents and purposes) are both extremely playable games. They aren't ridiculously hard, the whole point is NOT to get into a fight and sneaking through the armory surrounded by heavily armed soldiers who, unlike most game enemies are more than capable of besting you in a straight fight, is a tense moment. The message here is, if you're to young to remember MGS as it was, or you simply never played it, don't judge it by MGS4 which taught us that any succesful franchise can be ruined by to many ideas in one place and MGS3 which taught us that your average jungle is composed of a series of tree walled rooms and lying in foot deep grass will conceal you from a six foot tall soldier standing two feet away. If you have a system that MGS is available for, don't hesitate to get it, you won't regret it. If you do get MGS and like it, give WinBack for the N64 a go (It's readily available as a PS2 port if you don't have an N64 but the N64 version runs a little smoother.) Anyway, that's that for MGS, if you play it and like it, do let me know won't you?

Once upon a time, there was a hedgehog.

And then his loving parents decided to beat him half to death.

What were sega thinking? I apologise to anyone who liked Sonic Adventure, I'm told it's a reasonably playable game if you gave it a chance but I played it for three hours and then had to go and have a hot bath and play Sonic 2 to reassure myself the Sonic I love still exists. Sonic 3d wasn't that much better but I didn't dislike it as such, I just didn't get into it much. The first four Sonic games were inimitable, they had style, they had finesse. There was a sense that the developers understood that Sonic was a loved character and therefore deserved to be treated with respect. So why oh why did they have to viciously assault a loved franchise. It got worse, I mean what the HELL was Sonic Unleashed about? The side scrolling portions were playable but there was no rythmm to them, no style. They were to stop/start, and the pieces that did flow required no more skill than holding down an analog stick for twenty seconds. I had almost given up hope for Sonic, I had placed my 16bit cartridges in my retro draw with reverence and resolved to play them as often as I needed to be reminded that there was once a shining star within Sega. Then, like a single light in total darkness Project Needlemouse surfaced. I was cynical, but who wouldn't be. But after last nights announcement and the teaser that surfaced showing a return to Sonic's glorious roots, I am excited about a Sonic game for the first time since 1994. I feel refreshed, I feel like maybe there is hope. Now anyone under sixteen who is reading this blog has grown up without the first four Sonic games (unless they're one of the lucky few) but there is still time. Whatever console you have Sonic 1,2 and 3 and Sonic and Knuckles are readily available. Please play them, old is not the same as bad, they are true classics in every sense of the word, still as playable and enjoyable as they were twenty years ago. Hopefully Sonic 4 will give me the same feeling that the other games did, because I miss it. The reason I call myself The Melodramatic Gamer is because I have, on many occasions said "The saddest thing is, the best games of our lives, may be the ones we've already played," I hope that when Sonic 4 is released, I can officially retract that statement.

So anyway, I decided to write a blog.

I am one of those people who avoid social networking and blogging. I know that's a bit hypocritical for somebody who's writing a blog but I decided after a lot of thought that it's the lesser of two evils. At least a blog doesn't have the annoying and CONSTANT need to be updated. I had a facebook account, I really did and after two days of constantly having to update my status lest my close friends believe I had died or fallen down a well or something without having the courtesy to inform them. I think my last status update was along the lines of "****** Is eating a biscuit." I think that was the point where I decided that my friends could live without knowing my every move, anyway if they ever need to know EXACTLY where I am and what I'm doing they can ask my fiance. How the hell she knows is a mystery to me. Right on to business. If you read the title you already probably have a small idea what this blog is all about. I have a passion, a real love that even my fiance has managed to accept will make our marriage into a slightly twisted polygamous affair with a collection of inanimate objects. I am of course, reffering to video games. By current reckoning, and this is only an estimate, my collection is composed of roughly seven hundred games, not counting iPhone apps, DLC from services like Steam, PSN and XBOX Live Arcade. My taste is eclectic, glancing up at the shelf above my PC I've got everything from Baldurs Gate (If you haven't played it go and do so,) to Need For Speed: Most Wanted and every genre in between. About the only thing I won't touch is sports games. Now here's my apology to all you Fifa freaks out there. I accept your game is a good simul;ation, I accept it is accurate and the graphics are stunning, but football (soccer to you yanks) on TV drives me insane and the thought of having to actually participate in the experience really does make me want to go and sit quietly and rock back and forth somewhere....... or just play Tetris and smile wierdly at the people on the bus.... anyway. This blog will not be a self serving chronicle of my life, I won't post three line updates about how much I hate my job (I do) I won't tell you you're an idiot if you don't share my opinions. These posts are about something I love, and therefore I can't promise they'll all be funny, I can't promise you'll agree with them, I can promise they'll be honest. My point is, I know games, and with the previously mentioned exception, I will try anything once, RPG's are my real passion nowadays but in my first real post I want to take you back to my roots and talk about something that defined my childhood. A game that I grew up on during the late eighties and nineties console wars. A platformer whose main character became the mascot of his parent company. There were two camps, and I came from the blue and spikey one.