Readers Digress — What Are We Calling This One?
And then Cavie declared: “Let there be another Readers Digress”… And so it was.
Until everyone got bored and went off to play games instead.
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So! Welcome back, it’s a fresh new Readers Digress for a decidedly less fresh week, but nobody cares about that, right? Because after all, the staler a week gets, the closer we get to a time of fun and games, or at least that’s how the dream of a weekend goes.
Remember the days when you actually had time to do things like play games on a weekend? Of course, every single school kid that is reading this — seriously, why are you here and not playing games? — is going “huh?” while frivolously typing away on their phones.
Don’t forget that you too can get involved with this feature by simply doing a piece that talks about whatever you’d like to talk about, so long as it’s at least partially related to gaming, and then emailing us at digress @ egamer.co.za and we only ask that your piece have a maximum length of 500 words. That’s it. Wait, why are you still reading this and not typing out your own piece to submit? Oh, right, that’s because you adore reading this stuff, don’t you? Well, be sure to email your piece once you’re done. You know you want to.
Enough digression — har har! — let’s get down to this issue’s real juicy bits, then…
So Let’s Finish Up My Column From Monday
CAVESHEN RAJMAN, DURBAN — If you haven’t read it by now — how dare you, etc — have a gander at how I spoke about recent bandwagons and commonplace topics, and mentioned two topics that were a little less broad-spectrum and therefore a bit more interesting to talk about.
The one topic that I covered in the article was that of the self-entitled Nintendo and Capcom fanboys who bitched and moaned when their relevant companies made announcements recently, one perfectly fine but slandered nonetheless, the other other far more debatable though just as slandered.
The second topic of conversation, one that I intentionally skipped in an attempt to keep my column’s swiftly rising word count down, and at the same time promote this Readers Digress edition, is simply this:
Why The (Old) Console Cycle Is Necessary And Required For Progress To Occur.
So I made a pseudo-title out of it. Megabyte me.
The NextBox as Timothy calls it, and the PS4 should be here by now. It’s as simple as that.
But let’s look at it from an objective point of view by making mention of both sides of the argument.
On the side of the manufacturer, as we all know, consoles are typically sold at a loss, which is why games are as expensive as they are for console whereas PC games retail for cheaper (or they used to, anyway). However, now that the current generation of consoles is well past five years in production, what it means for manufacturers is that the hardware is relatively cheap to produce and so results in more profits for them on actual unit sales, which effectively drives down the price of games as we’ve seen lately — Activision and their greed aside.
Alas, when you opt for such a thing as delaying progression, you sacrifice on quality and indeed the current generation of consoles — once dubbed “next gen” — is very, very old. How old, you may ask?
The Xbox 360 is now eleven, yes I said eleven, generations behind the PC in terms of processing capability and hardware.
As a result of this slacking, and with lots of developers shifting their focus onto the consoles as well (CD Projekt Red are the only exception to this rule that I know of — DICE don’t count, sadly), what results is a slew of sub-standard games, visuals-wise. Now, granted the focus in games has long been taken off visuals and some games still manage to look good for what they’re worth, but as I described in the first Readers Digress when I compared The Witcher 2 to Dragon Age 2 and Dungeon Siege III and the differences were startling to say the least, we are becoming accustomed to sub-standard games.
And that’s just not on.
Or it shouldn’t be.
It’s not visuals-wise, either. It seems that innovation has died off as well. There seems to be a mainstream now, a sort of ‘Popularity Checklist’ that ensures that a developer’s game will get in with the cool kids but only so long as it has X, Y and Z. Cover mechanics, iron sights, kill streaks, a levelling system regardless of genre, it’s all there in every game regardless of how badly it is implemented. And the innovation dies as a result.
As such, games like BioShock: Infinite are heralded as innovative masterpieces where they’ve not actually done that much differently compared to previous iterations, apart from changing the game’s location around to something yet more psychedelic and sinister than an underwater fallen paradise. Oh, and giving the lead a voice. That’s become priority again.
It goes to show in 2011 and 2012 when most of the really big titles that are dropping, are almost all sequels. Granted, they’re games that I am definitely looking forward to.
For how much longer this console cycle lasts, only Sony and Microsoft have the answer to that, but it’s pretty clear that a lot of people are over the Xbox 360 and PS3 now, and just want their next great console to emerge.
If for nothing else but the sake of the return of innovation and good visuals.
Gamifying Your Work Place
Can you say “WIN!”?
Why Serious Sam 3: BFE Will Undoubtedly Rock
DOM VAN BLERK, CAPE TOWN — Serious Sam 3 is the only FPS that I’m looking forward to this year. Yes, I said it. Okay, RAGE is coming out next month. In that case, Serious Sam 3 is the only FPS that I’m looking forward to this year besides RAGE.
“What about Modern Battlefield of Duty 3?” you might ask. I’ve had enough. There is only so much you can do to differentiate realistic shooters from previous iterations and the competition, and I feel it just isn’t enough. So instead of going on to bitch about those games, I’ll list some of the reasons I’m excited for Serious Sam 3.
1. It’s Serious Sam. This first point will make sense to anybody who played The First Encounter and / or The Second Encounter. Strafing + hordes of enemies + ridiculous guns. That seems to be the formula that Croteam used for both games and it worked bloody (see what I did there?) well. In Serious Sam 3, they seem to be taking those elements and adding sweet nothing. No new mechanics. No pointless cover system. No iron sights. Why would we want that? Serious Sam is badass. So badass that he will be a better Duke Nukem than Duke Nukem himself. You heard it from me first, folks.
2. Split-screen on PC. Try googling (that’s a word right?) “split screen PC game”. Go on, I dare you. Found anything that doesn’t involve console hackery? Didn’t think so. Playing The First Encounter split screen brings back awesome memories for me, and I’m sure for a lot of other gamers as well. I was pretty pissed off when I found out that there isn’t split screen in the HD re-releases. Croteam bringing this feature back means they’ve listened to the community on what they want and don’t want Serious Sam to be. At least I hope so.
3. Beheaded Kamikazes. I can still hear it now. You walk out of a tomb, looking out at an open desert when all of a sudden you hear a sound. aaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!!!!!! You strafe a bit until they’re all bunched together, then BOOM! You shoot one of the screaming bastards and watch as an orgy of blood and explosions unfolds before your eyes.
4. To find out what BFE stands for. Croteam still haven’t told us what the acronym is. Battle For Earth? Big Fucking Enemies? It’s anybody’s guess at this point.
5. The Price. Serious Sam 3 will be releasing for only $40 on PC. You can pre-order it for 10% off on Steam and if you have any other Serious Sam games in your library, it’s another 10% off. As Croteam themselves said, “Serious Sam 3: BFE will launch at a seriously awesome price so you can punk your friends that pay $60 for a FPS where you duck behind walls half the time.”
As you’ve probably noticed, most of my points are related to nostalgia from playing the original games. But why shouldn’t they be? The original Serious Sam games were f**king awesome, and there’s no reason why this sequel won’t be.
Why I Think Steve Jobs Really Quit
And then there’s Steve Jobs and Apple.
They released the iPhone and the world went crazy. A week later, they announced the iPhone 2. The world went crazy. The iPhone 5 is due out soon, and the world is still going crazy.
Allow me to re-phrase all of that in a more meaningful way: Apple constantly gives consumers the middle finger, and get worshipped for it.
Their supporters will buy their products and the announcement of the next version of that product is a grand old “fuck you!” from the company, each and every time.
How are Microsoft so hated and Apple still so adored, when such things, pretty much crimes really, occur like this?
Steve Jobs didn’t quit for any other reason than this: his conscience finally caught up with him.
The Nerd Stereotype — Enough Is Enough
Granted, there may have been some exaggeration and dramatic hyperbole in the above paragraph, but the crux of the issue I’m poking at remains the same:
Haven’t we as gamers, as nerds, endured enough by now?
In an age where society is finally starting to view gaming as a mainstream, generally accepted pastime, where the nonsense attacks on gaming in general which I’ve been talking about in my columns for the past few weeks are finally being treated the way they ought to be (which is to say, with a firm, heavy-handed pimp-slap), one would think we could put all of this nonsense around the stereotype of ‘nerd’ behind us.
Make no mistake, I’m not taking this as an opportunity to cry because people call me a nerd — I welcome and flaunt the title, flying our nerd flag as high as humanly possible, with great gusto and aplomb — but what I do want to do is take this opportunity to comment on just how pointless and unnecessary I find it.
And that, my dear reader (I think I named you Martin in an earlier column — yo Cavie! It’s the benefits of gaming one!), is simply not cool.
An example which illustrates the flaw in this sort of mentality quite nicely comes, ironically, from a recent LAN competition in America – MLG Anaheim.
During the awards ceremony for the Halo Championship, the winning clan (whose name eludes me) was booed off the stage while receiving their awards. By the StarCraft 2 fans. Purely on the surface, that sounds like a blatantly immature and stupid act, which would only serve to create divisions instead of unity in the gaming community. But that isn’t even taking into account how damn well Halo clan Whatsitsface did at the tournament — I can’t give you exact stats, but I’m pretty damn sure they won every single map they played. And they only lost one at the previous tournament as well.
In the Halo community, that’s freaking unheard of.
And these gods-incarnate of the Halo world, who have risen beyond the heights of all the mortal men who have dared to go before them, get booed off the stage? That is just not right.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if instead of people bashing other people’s interests because they aren’t in line with their own, we could engage positively over our interests with one another — letting the jock explain to you why he loves getting up at five o’clock every morning to go and train for his ‘polo (bru), and then him listening to you while you explain why so few experiences in the world can match the sheer epicosity (now officially trademarked as a Duncanism) of blowing a zombie’s face off with a double-barrelled shotgun.
I suppose what I’m trying to say here is that if we could swallow our pride and stick our prejudices where the sun don’t shine (an airlocked chest, or the Mariana Trench, or whatever), then maybe existence could be more pleasant for all parties involved.
Man, I took my hippie pills this morning. No euphemism intended.
Name: Caveshen Rajman
Location: Durban
Position: Former Managing Editor
- CyniKill
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