Gaming Market Trends

As most people know and do these days when u find something good on the market you go ahead and flog it for all its worth

In the gaming market the latest trend to be flogged or rather the latest trend that is in the process of being flogged is strategy games genre. In the past strategy games were reserved solely for the PC market and rightly so as well.

Theme of the month

So I thought after searching through the many themes available on Xbox live that it is such a huge task to find a decent looking free theme. So why not provide the community with a little help by providing a Best Free theme of the month. If you dont agree with me please post a comment or send me a mail as I always welcome suggestions.

Inter competition

The debate rages on daily if not hourly somewhere in this world and I’m pretty sure at this very second you will start the very same debate. What is the best gaming platform ?

While the short answer is that it comes down to personal choice, Microsoft has stepped up to the challenge and provided the means to put this to an end. They recently announced that Games For Windows Live would be free to all PC users and that they would be able to challenge gamers on the 360. While this is not a new feature, the cost that was attached to owning a Games for windows Live Gold account has been dropped.

Coupled with this, they have now announced that gamers on the XBOX360 with silver accounts (the ones that can’t play multiplayer but can do everything else) can play certain games that have been released on the games for windows live platform. This means that there’s no reason for all XBOX and PC gamers to not step up to the challenge and beat the living daylights out of each other.

While it must be stressed that this was announced as a time limited offer (so make the most of it), I am very sure that we will be seeing this kind of service from Microsoft in the next few months leading up to the release of their new dashboard for the 360.

As always Iam up for the challenge. If you have a games for windows live account or a live account, my gamer tag is humanstalker. Send me an invite and we can game some time.

‘Nuff said

CAD-comic

Just plug it into the back of my head

I love tactical shooter games, the more real, the better.

In the online PC version of COD4, on a full-ish SGS server your life expectancy is insane, some people stop playing online because most of the time, you don’t survive the duration of a single clip. Ja, that would happen in real life as well if you’d run in the in the middle of the street, spraying-&-praying. A lota players are playing a semi-realistic game, arcade style…

I’ve dreamt of a FPS where it’s as close to real life as possible. Things like taking a chest shot and dropping, loosing ability to walk, realistic firing accuracy, getting tired, using your body as a human shield, forcing players to go from cover to cover, covering team mates, etc.

Would it really be fun? A lot of people will probably get annoyed, but i think all the milsim fans out there will just love it. Some game developers have sorta tried it, take for example Flashpoint, they pulled off some realism, while still keeping it fun. Flashpoint 2 and the Source realism mods I’d say is your best bet for the ‘most’ realistic gaming, but nobody has gone all the way, guns blazing…

I’d love to see someone try and cut away all possible arcade from a FPS war title and attempt maximum realism, is that so hard to ask?

[Francois]

Blow My Mind …. then let it drip away

Microsoft has just blown my mind with regards to the amount of features they have added to the XBOX360 over the past year or so. But all those features are small in comparison to the features announced in the E3 press conference.

Sucker For Punishment

Perseverance is a quality not present in many gamers and it just goes to show the ones that do persevere are just suckers for punishment.

Take for example the XBOX360 achievement points. While many people complain that this is just an ego tool that gamers use for boasting, it should rather be used to measure a person’s perseverance.

Recently Ninja Gaiden 2 was released for the XBOX360 and the achievement list really pushes the game to the max. At a total of 60 achievements, it’s not the easiest set of achievements by far. Nor is it the longest. The difficult part to achieving all these achievements is that you have to complete the game using a single weapon only, multiple times and on all difficulties.

Based on the number of weapons and difficulty settings, the shortest number of times to complete the game is 10 times at least (3 x Difficulty + 7 x Weapons ). Any gamer that can play a game that many times deserves my respect. But on the higher difficulties I would even give up out of sheer frustration as this game is know for its brutal difficulty.

Using the achievements in this way, game designers allow a game to be played to its max. It also allows a gamer to appreciate all the small details that they might have missed on the first rush through the game. But is it fair to the average gamer these days to punish them in this way by making the game so difficult, that the only way they will finish it or try to get all the achievements is more of a punishment than victory. Granted that once you have finished all of those impossible tasks other games will end up feeling too easy to the gamer.

I guess this is how hardcore gamers are born. But if the only thing game designers are trying to do is breed hardcore gamers, I think we need to change this trend since most people these days are playing games for shorter periods over a longer period of time e.g. I play a games for an hour every 2 days over a 2 month period instead of 6 hours straight in one day.

Another game that they try to punish the gamer to get all the achievements is Half Life – Orange Box Episode 2. The single most difficult achievement is carrying the garden gnome from the start of the game till the end of the game and launching him in a rocket. While this is one of the coolest achievements I have ever seen, it’s as hard as nails.

Now back to finishing COD 4 on veteran. Keep the punishment coming.

~Jameel

What on earth is that…

Dear boys, girls, gamers and gamelessness people.

You might be wondering what you’ve stumbled upon when dragging your eyes over this blog. The answer to that question lies with each and every one of us individually. This might be a blog that you can read and point and laugh at the authors because you’re in a different mindset and you think we’re total noobs. Or it could be your very own corner of awesomeness that you look forward to whilst browsing the net.

Be your reason as it may, we’re simply three avid gamers, here to attempt to provide you with up to date information on games, latest gaming news and maybe help you in choosing the next title you will honour by allowing it to spin in your platform of choice. To help you separate the “buys” from the “stay-aways”. The “awe-inspiring” from the “not so awe-inspiring”. The “impressive” from the “unimpressive”.

So join us on our journey of pixels, frags and characters wearing silly hats. Maybe you read something of value to you or maybe you’ll simply enjoy the blog. But come one, come all. Move up a smidgen closer to the fire and let us tell you stories of far-away civilizations, vehicles moving at break-neck speeds and plumbers with big moustaches.