It's PSP launch day and the sky can't make up its mind which face to put on. Both game shops are pulling punters in to promote what they have to, and with the cramped sweaty mall in my thoughts, I decide not to join in the fun.
I've still to pick up Mercury and the port of Virtua Tennis, though they can wait.
During the summer months... those lingering moments where little of importance occurs on the gaming landscape, it's hard not to be cynical of the desperation that the likes of GAME and GameStation arrive at in order to incite activity. The PSP's European launch will no doubt have come at a time they're thankful of, but I do wonder how hard pushing its promotion will hit their sales in the latter half of the year. I suspect 2005 may be when the UK is stretched too thinly with the host of launches there already has been, and of course, with what's still to come. In a time of uncertainty for an industry facing that next-generation shadow, the last thing domestic gaming needs is for the market to half-collapse under its own weight. I'd like to see the audience broaden and move beyond the ?next-best-thing' spin which seemingly exists to continue the march forward.
If truth be told, the barren times of the year are when videgaming's audience is perhaps at its most diverse, revealing little ticks in the spectrum which often go unnoticed. This is something which becomes one of the few good things about the hibernation taking place... mothers, fathers, aging grandparents, bored middle-aged men looking for a new hobby to try, scrawny kids, 20-something gadget lovers (such as myself) and more are all in evidence as they take advantage of the sales and second-hand bargains. Although I'm by no means in love with the state of conservatism found in the charts, it's always reassuring to know that day by day, week by week, gaming's demographic is continuing to grow and bring in people from all walks of life. Compared to the winter audience, this broader and more eclectic range shoots down the likes of Jack Thompson who express views that gaming comprises itself of walking death-machines-to-be. Slipping into a gaming store and waiting in line to buy something can easily develop into a voyeuristic who's-bought-what mini-game, hoping as I do, that I'll see a title I hope isn't shovelware.
When I think this, I know full well that it's a reflection of the insular elitism which to an extent is within us all. After all, what we consume is evidence of our tastes, and it's these tastes usually with which we measure others by. To use a laboured clich?, gaming is in my blood... it's basically a part of who I am. I've tried before when the chips have been down to walk away during the stretches which don't offer anything up. Disillusionment sets in, and you start to think to yourself...
Why did I fall in love with gaming in the first place? Is it having promotions foisted on you when you just want to quietly buy a game you've forgotten about? Is it the pile of disowned tat lining the shelves which no one wants to buy? Or what about the high quality retro releases the people around you completely ignore as they look towards the all-consuming future?
At times during the mad dash of the winter shopping season, the relative calm of summer turns into fondly remembered memory. Those people weren't buying Medal of Honour or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory like you recall... No - in their hands were pristine copies of ICO, Resident Evil 4 and Viewtiful Joe.
Not being an online gamer and failing to live around people as passionately subscribed to the medium as often shown here at NTSC-uk, there comes periods when the oft-mentioned 'social' aspect of gaming really does force a Kojima-like question mark over your head. You fail to comprehend that there is a world where people are debating, arguing and discussing the welfare of gaming with each other. Essentially, where the care and passion for quality is present in more than just words on a screen. The culture of videogaming develops into different parts... two extremes where discussing it intently with a relative clique meshes with the somewhat empty, everyday atmosphere that pervades the high street.
At this point, when faced without an answer as to how to disentangle the disillusionment, apathy sets in. A familiar feeling... where the hours and days stretch by without you having picked up a joypad, wondering what on Earth is going to trigger the need to do so again. Yet, the wonderful thing about videogaming is that it only takes one special moment. A brief flash to ignite that interest and enthusiasm which keeps interest in the medium alive, despite how buried you might feel it is.
Unlike the way I generally take in film, music or literature... replaying a game and coming back to it with fresh eyes to rediscover what it meant can create that instantaneous click. Everything will be brought into contrast, and I?ll think back to those absurd moments when I doubted gaming and wonder what the **** I was on.
Although I enjoyed the likes of Wipeout Pure, Darwinia and God of War this year, it was Killer7 which slapped me up the side of the head and brought me back to my senses. It delivered an imaginative, unhinged slice of escapism, which as the best fiction does in my opinion, stuck two fingers up at reality and brought an experience I hadn't encountered before. Such desirable shades of grey aren't built out of the constant need to taste the 'new', but of the hunger to be screamed at by a vision for why you should return.
A result of this was to give me the desire to engage in other games which I recall falling in love with. Playing Shenmue and Shenmue II back-to-back delivered to me a world where I could become another body in a faceless crowd, and that sense of scale and adventure made me want to return to San Andreas. Last year, Valve's Half-Life 2 dominated my drive and anticipation... it was in a sense the beacon which I could hook on in order to feel in touch with gaming again. Although the final product was fantastically engaging, 2004 was probably defined by Rockstar North's maturing of Grand Theft Auto's conceptual ideals. In the run up to Half-Life 2, I played San Andreas for over 100 hours over a two week spell, and it engaged in a way few other games ever have.
As the year filtered out and Resident Evil 4 saw an end to a mammoth few months, I drifted away from the ways in which I had initially been gripped. It was the rejuvenation brought about by Killer7 and later Shenmue which provided a path way to the true scale and beauty that San Andreas provides. The game can be so many things to so many states of mind. If I want to dip in and cruise around, parachute over the desert, be a valet, binge eat, steal or become a racer all in the space of an hour, I'm offered the chance to do so. These aspects are able to be condensed together to create a very succinct and liberating form of pacing. Cram as much or as little as you want in, and sure enough, the game will let you? base jumping off Mount Chiliad upon the sunset and over to a remote low-lying town, the subtlety of San Andrea's depth started to make itself properly known with regards to this, and the intricacy of its mechanics set in.
From a pure conceptual and design point of view, they entice the player to a level of intimacy with the atmosphere, where it?s possible to feel as though it's your world alone, and that's incredibly difficult to do without being overly interfering. A whole host of different atmospheric shades are offered without resorting to tactics which recall that you're only a passing visitor to the environment... and the choice set, customisation, and the way in which the world reacts to your decisions, is highly seductive and protectionist in terms of depth. These realisations are nothing new of course, but returning to San Andreas acted to remind me why there?s still so much to admire in modern day gaming.
To put it bluntly, the systems and processes churning beneath the surface converge in a way that offers variety, but not at the cost of highlighting the outlines of the structures quietly set in place. Having already wasted 230 hours, I simply find it a pleasure to casually explore or walk about its surroundings, and if a game can make you look forward to losing yourself inside it without actually 'accomplishing' anything, it must be doing something right. Needless to say, Liberty City Stories, and the possibility of being able to carry such a universe around to dip into at my discretion, is a bit of an appealing prospect. Just a bit.
This is why I feel gaming stays with the people who it infects, because there's always a route back in. During those moments and periods where it's hard to properly feel connected with the medium, cracks in the armour appear to link one re-awakened enthusiasm to the next. That desire and need to dive within intriguing and gripping worlds never really goes away once it's seeped in, and during a time when the hype machine is in full crank once again, I find it's an encouraging thought to have. Videogaming is breaking up into ever more expansive forms and that's something I'm both apprehensive and welcome of.
So long as the talent is there to break though the disillusionment such disconnections can create, my hunger will keep knocking at the door.
I've still to pick up Mercury and the port of Virtua Tennis, though they can wait.
During the summer months... those lingering moments where little of importance occurs on the gaming landscape, it's hard not to be cynical of the desperation that the likes of GAME and GameStation arrive at in order to incite activity. The PSP's European launch will no doubt have come at a time they're thankful of, but I do wonder how hard pushing its promotion will hit their sales in the latter half of the year. I suspect 2005 may be when the UK is stretched too thinly with the host of launches there already has been, and of course, with what's still to come. In a time of uncertainty for an industry facing that next-generation shadow, the last thing domestic gaming needs is for the market to half-collapse under its own weight. I'd like to see the audience broaden and move beyond the ?next-best-thing' spin which seemingly exists to continue the march forward.
If truth be told, the barren times of the year are when videgaming's audience is perhaps at its most diverse, revealing little ticks in the spectrum which often go unnoticed. This is something which becomes one of the few good things about the hibernation taking place... mothers, fathers, aging grandparents, bored middle-aged men looking for a new hobby to try, scrawny kids, 20-something gadget lovers (such as myself) and more are all in evidence as they take advantage of the sales and second-hand bargains. Although I'm by no means in love with the state of conservatism found in the charts, it's always reassuring to know that day by day, week by week, gaming's demographic is continuing to grow and bring in people from all walks of life. Compared to the winter audience, this broader and more eclectic range shoots down the likes of Jack Thompson who express views that gaming comprises itself of walking death-machines-to-be. Slipping into a gaming store and waiting in line to buy something can easily develop into a voyeuristic who's-bought-what mini-game, hoping as I do, that I'll see a title I hope isn't shovelware.
When I think this, I know full well that it's a reflection of the insular elitism which to an extent is within us all. After all, what we consume is evidence of our tastes, and it's these tastes usually with which we measure others by. To use a laboured clich?, gaming is in my blood... it's basically a part of who I am. I've tried before when the chips have been down to walk away during the stretches which don't offer anything up. Disillusionment sets in, and you start to think to yourself...
Why did I fall in love with gaming in the first place? Is it having promotions foisted on you when you just want to quietly buy a game you've forgotten about? Is it the pile of disowned tat lining the shelves which no one wants to buy? Or what about the high quality retro releases the people around you completely ignore as they look towards the all-consuming future?
At times during the mad dash of the winter shopping season, the relative calm of summer turns into fondly remembered memory. Those people weren't buying Medal of Honour or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory like you recall... No - in their hands were pristine copies of ICO, Resident Evil 4 and Viewtiful Joe.
Not being an online gamer and failing to live around people as passionately subscribed to the medium as often shown here at NTSC-uk, there comes periods when the oft-mentioned 'social' aspect of gaming really does force a Kojima-like question mark over your head. You fail to comprehend that there is a world where people are debating, arguing and discussing the welfare of gaming with each other. Essentially, where the care and passion for quality is present in more than just words on a screen. The culture of videogaming develops into different parts... two extremes where discussing it intently with a relative clique meshes with the somewhat empty, everyday atmosphere that pervades the high street.
At this point, when faced without an answer as to how to disentangle the disillusionment, apathy sets in. A familiar feeling... where the hours and days stretch by without you having picked up a joypad, wondering what on Earth is going to trigger the need to do so again. Yet, the wonderful thing about videogaming is that it only takes one special moment. A brief flash to ignite that interest and enthusiasm which keeps interest in the medium alive, despite how buried you might feel it is.
Unlike the way I generally take in film, music or literature... replaying a game and coming back to it with fresh eyes to rediscover what it meant can create that instantaneous click. Everything will be brought into contrast, and I?ll think back to those absurd moments when I doubted gaming and wonder what the **** I was on.
Although I enjoyed the likes of Wipeout Pure, Darwinia and God of War this year, it was Killer7 which slapped me up the side of the head and brought me back to my senses. It delivered an imaginative, unhinged slice of escapism, which as the best fiction does in my opinion, stuck two fingers up at reality and brought an experience I hadn't encountered before. Such desirable shades of grey aren't built out of the constant need to taste the 'new', but of the hunger to be screamed at by a vision for why you should return.
A result of this was to give me the desire to engage in other games which I recall falling in love with. Playing Shenmue and Shenmue II back-to-back delivered to me a world where I could become another body in a faceless crowd, and that sense of scale and adventure made me want to return to San Andreas. Last year, Valve's Half-Life 2 dominated my drive and anticipation... it was in a sense the beacon which I could hook on in order to feel in touch with gaming again. Although the final product was fantastically engaging, 2004 was probably defined by Rockstar North's maturing of Grand Theft Auto's conceptual ideals. In the run up to Half-Life 2, I played San Andreas for over 100 hours over a two week spell, and it engaged in a way few other games ever have.
As the year filtered out and Resident Evil 4 saw an end to a mammoth few months, I drifted away from the ways in which I had initially been gripped. It was the rejuvenation brought about by Killer7 and later Shenmue which provided a path way to the true scale and beauty that San Andreas provides. The game can be so many things to so many states of mind. If I want to dip in and cruise around, parachute over the desert, be a valet, binge eat, steal or become a racer all in the space of an hour, I'm offered the chance to do so. These aspects are able to be condensed together to create a very succinct and liberating form of pacing. Cram as much or as little as you want in, and sure enough, the game will let you? base jumping off Mount Chiliad upon the sunset and over to a remote low-lying town, the subtlety of San Andrea's depth started to make itself properly known with regards to this, and the intricacy of its mechanics set in.
From a pure conceptual and design point of view, they entice the player to a level of intimacy with the atmosphere, where it?s possible to feel as though it's your world alone, and that's incredibly difficult to do without being overly interfering. A whole host of different atmospheric shades are offered without resorting to tactics which recall that you're only a passing visitor to the environment... and the choice set, customisation, and the way in which the world reacts to your decisions, is highly seductive and protectionist in terms of depth. These realisations are nothing new of course, but returning to San Andreas acted to remind me why there?s still so much to admire in modern day gaming.
To put it bluntly, the systems and processes churning beneath the surface converge in a way that offers variety, but not at the cost of highlighting the outlines of the structures quietly set in place. Having already wasted 230 hours, I simply find it a pleasure to casually explore or walk about its surroundings, and if a game can make you look forward to losing yourself inside it without actually 'accomplishing' anything, it must be doing something right. Needless to say, Liberty City Stories, and the possibility of being able to carry such a universe around to dip into at my discretion, is a bit of an appealing prospect. Just a bit.
This is why I feel gaming stays with the people who it infects, because there's always a route back in. During those moments and periods where it's hard to properly feel connected with the medium, cracks in the armour appear to link one re-awakened enthusiasm to the next. That desire and need to dive within intriguing and gripping worlds never really goes away once it's seeped in, and during a time when the hype machine is in full crank once again, I find it's an encouraging thought to have. Videogaming is breaking up into ever more expansive forms and that's something I'm both apprehensive and welcome of.
So long as the talent is there to break though the disillusionment such disconnections can create, my hunger will keep knocking at the door.