Casual Gaming

So, over the past few weeks there have doubtless been a huge amount of important steps forwards in the world of gaming, some good games released, and doubtless some exciting news or other.

I however have been privy to absolutely none of this.

Any why is that you ask? Should you not be scouring all manner of game newspapers and websites for inspiration for this very column?

And the answer of course is a hearty yes. Read More  »

With the news that the Wii has now infiltrated one in four British households, the press is getting itself in a lather about our little island turning into a nation of gamers. But let's just all hang on a minute. If we're talking about using an interactive electronic device to simulate a sport or scenario then yes, we are all becoming gamers. But doesn't being a gamer mean more than that?
 
I don't want to get all precious about it, like a film fan who doubts the movie-loving credentials of a person who claims Titanic as their favourite cinematic experience, or a music lover who won't have a discussion with you if you don't know the lyrics to Pink Floyd's The Wall. But I grew up in an era when to be a gamer meant spending a large amount of time getting intimately acquainted with the latest pixel adventure. It meant getting in from school, bolting your tea and then missing out on day turning to night turning back to day, just so you could go to school the next day and tell your mates you'd unlocked the Nismo GT-R LM after finishing one of Gran Turismo's endurance races.
 
That technology has reached a point where we can get electronic devices to simulate just about whatever we want is awesome. So too is the fact that Nintendo has finally cracked what it seems to have wanted for years; that is a system which is based for the most part around good, clean family fun, rather than a fist fight with the young pretenders Sony and Microsoft over who can shift the most polygons.
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Got a few thousand Wii Points to spend? It’s worth investing them in the enchantingly odd (and odd-titled) Strong Bad’s Cool Game For Attractive People. The first two episodes of the game series that defines acronymic awkwardness are now available on WiiWare, and provide welcome resuscitation for the sporadically dead genre of yore: the Point and Click Adventure.

Based on the long running online animated cartoon Homestar Runner, S.B’s.C.G.F.A.P focuses on the Macho Libre figure of Strong Bad and his frequent attempts to make Homestar’s life a misery. The first episode sees him, among other things, ruining Homestar’s attempt to win The Free Country Tri-Annual Race to the End of the Race, using a metal detector to find buried treasure, and chain-sawing bushes to death in order to gather their precious branches. It’s all madly surreal stuff, brilliantly written and spoken in wonderfully self-mocking internet idiom. And it might remind you of such classics as…such classics as…DAY OF THE TENTACLE! Read More  »

Over the last few weeks I have been thoroughly hooked on ‘Brain Training' type games. My favourite of which has been the newly released ‘Brain Challenge' on Nintendo Wii. This 1000 point WiiWare title has plenty of give with its five categories of puzzles: Logic, Math, Memory, Visual and Focus, and 43 different mini-games which include;
‘Balance' where different objects are shown on scales and the player must determine which is the heaviest object.
‘Trout Route' where the player must follow a path based on the progressive numerical relationship given (ie. +2, -3, etc.)
‘Travelling' requires the player to memorize a route of arrows.
‘Bouncing Ball' has the player determining which ball bounces highest.
Of course all of these have to be played as quick as possible to receive the highest score. Your score then gets turned into a percentage of brain power, and with the game starting with a quote "They say humans only use 10% of their brains..." don't expect to see huge numbers.
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It was bound to happen one day. As the little black (or white) games box moved from kids' bedrooms to the living room and got everyone from your gran to the cat involved, sales of videogames were always going to grow. And quickly. But a report by the group Verdict Research predicts videogame sales will outstrip those of music and movies this year for the first time ever.

Estimates suggest revenue from videogames for 2008 will reach a whopping £4.6billion, up 42 per cent in the past year, compared to £4.5billion for video and music sales combined.

The results come on the back of a massive year for games, with stellar titles such as Grand Theft Auto IV and Wii Fit revitalising the market. But the shift does mark a growing trend in the popularity of games. And it seems the oncoming recession has done little to dampen people's buying habits when it comes to their consoles. When a CD or DVD offers only an hour or two's worth of entertainment, people are prepared to splash out that little bit more on a game which they know will last weeks. Retailers are noticing the trend and devoting more space in their stores to games and less to music.

Some experts blame piracy for the decline in music sales, but the growth in downloads - which gives consumers the chance to buy a single track for pennies as opposed to a whole album for pounds - must have something to do with lost revenue. Meanwhile, in the DVD sector, it seems while actual numbers of DVDs sold continues to grow, discounting and competition between retailers is causing the profits to stagnate.