Living With a Gamer

Hi there. You may have noticed by now that I’m a bit of a gamer. Now I wont make any wild claims like I’m the greatest gamer, that I pwn on more games than anyone I know. I don’t. In fact, I’m a pretty good gamer, and I know my limits. But gaming is a huge part of my life, a part that provides me with my little piece of me time.

My wife understands this in abundance, and is always more than happy for me to spend my evenings on the computer having a wind-down chill-out gaming session, after a long days work. I love that girl.

But it does make me think (and from thinking, I write these things) about the foibles of gamers be it big things or little things, and it’s those foibles – mostly my own – that I thought I’d happily share with you today.

Just one more level/mission/level up/etc…

This one must be something that is more widespread than just in my own head. I’ve truly lost count of the amount of times that the midnight oil has been burning, the kids are all asleep, I know that in a few hours I must get up for work but there I am slogging away through whatever game I’m playing at the time.

          “Are you coming to bed yeah?” Carriecakes would ask.

          “Yeah, yeah…just let me finish this side mission.” Toolbox 24 would reply.

But of course it’s not just me, it can’t be! And it wont just be those with partners, it’ll be any gamer who knows that they should stop playing because it’s late.

          “I should really come off now, it’s getting late and I have to be up early to get to work/school on time.” Thinks Joe EveryGamer. “Oh fuck it, I only need an hour’s kip to see me through!!”

I’m sure this trait isn't limited to gamers alone, there must be people out there who stay up late watching their favourite TV show, movie or reading their favourite books – the latter I cannot understand though, when I start reading, it sends me to sleep.

I think this is why cans Relentless and Monster are usually to hand for most gamers…

Oh my god you’ve got to see this…

 I am so guilty of this. So guilty it’s untrue.

With most games, if there are cool bits, or funny glitches or you’ve done something you think is spectacular. You want to share this with people. Unfortunately for my betrothed, my go-to guy is her.

I even did this last night playing FIFA 12, a random glitch meant that Stephen Crainey of Blackpool ended up – very roughly – face fucking El Hadji Diouf. That’s really the only way I can put it…I actually wish I had saved the video, uploaded it to Youtube then I could prove this trait by showing it here and now. Suffice to say, I chuckled, paused my game, went into the instant replay bit, changed the angle and like a child, asked Carriecakes to stop what she was doing to witness the hilarity.

Now whether it’s just her politeness in not wanting to make me feel stupid or whether she genuinely doesn’t mind…I’m still not sure. I do know that I’ll keep doing it whatever the case may be.

But then of course that’s something on a minor scale. I’ll show her bits on Mass Effect, GTA, The Sims or Unchartered for example because she really enjoys them herself. But then I wont show her bits on Dragon Age, because – well quite frankly I’m still quite green on that one myself (have started again on it after a 2 year hiatus), and I’m pretty sure she isn’t over-struck on that whole LoTR-esque action. I may be wrong though.

The bigger scale, are the people who do what I suggested I could have done earlier. Those people with such a blatant need to show the world, even their most minor exploits in a game, as much as possible – via YouTube. Now it’s a legitimate tool, and a great way for sharing videos that you’ve made with friends and other people, but it’s when you see snippet videos of people scoring normal goals in FIFA, or doing unremarkable things in Skyrim that makes you think – why is this wasting space online?

The only awesome fan things to look for are video game fails. Good times.

Grumpy Grumperson

That’s right, this jovial bundle of gaming awesomeness can be a bit of a grumpersaurus. A grumpersaurus rex.

And usually it’ll be something gaming related. Something like not getting my evening dose of game time, or something going wrong with a game that I’m playing or finishing a game through to the end…and then being in that weird little haze when there’s nothing I can think of for a couple of hours to a couple of days, to play – so I end up playing something mindless and repetitive. I end up playing FIFA.

I then proceed to slouch about a bit. Sighing a fair bit more than usual. Having more toilet breaks, and being generally quiet. This grumpy version of myself usually dies a quiet death once I’ve figured out what I’m in the mood for.

MY GAME!!!!! NYAAAAH

Maybe not such a surprise but I get a deep sense of “MY GAME” Syndrome. My games are my games, they’re my things and they’re mine.

Not yours. Not his. Not hers. Mine.

But being a father does not lend itself so easily to the role of “selfish gamer”. Not easily at all.

For example. A couple of months ago, I was progressing nicely through Bully. Evening after evening, class after class, my little Jimmy Hopkins was slowly climbing the high school ranks and doing it with aplomb. Then one evening, before I’d had the chance to play…one of…them…(the kids) comes in…

          “Have you got Bully? I really want to play that this evening!” he asked. Now of course I had Bully, it was in the Xbox as he asked, I wasn’t going to be on the computer for about an hour after I did my stuff…

          “Yeah, it’s in the Xbox.” I said with a slight exhale, small enough to hide the anguish I was feeling inside. He then took the game away…and I haven’t seen it since. Now this was in like October / November last year. I got yanked out of my zone, and to this day, really don’t want to play Bully. I’m just not in the mood for it, and most likely wont be for a good few months yet.

Now I could have said, “Yeah, but I’m going to be playing that in a short while so you can’t have it.” Or “Yeah, but I want to keep playing it myself, so you can take it for a while but give it back when you’re done.” Or simply “no” but I find that I’m soft like that…well I am with the boys, but not with my girls. Or girl I should say, my youngest is too young to give a shit about anything more than her Mickey Mouse toys. Nah my eldest girl will come down while I’m playing and she’ll want to watch me, even though it’s a good deal past her bedtime. Most times I’ll let her sit and watch me, but then a lot of the time…I’ll just tell her that I’m not playing until she’s gone to bed.

After all…it’s MY GAME!!!!

You’ll Love it…trust me! Really you will!!

No this isn’t the slightly awkward part of the conversation where I ask the Mrs if I can do…“that”…

Think of my last point - MY GAME!!! – and turn it on it’s head. When I get close to finishing a game, I always start to think the same thing. “I loved this game so much…Carriecakes would love it too!!” even though I know she has her evening things much like I have my gaming, and that she doesn’t mind listening to what I’m doing or indeed watching from time to time…she just hasn’t got the time to play like I do…not with the amount of comping she does!!

But I still have that insistence in my mind, that if I love a game, then everyone I know, and everyone on Earth must love it too. As you can probably tell by my insistence that Mass Effect is mentioned if not in every post, then every other post, and to a large degree!

But then, that’s the point of this blog – MonkeyBoxGaming: Where games go to be loved up and down. I don’t want to talk about games I think are shit. What’s the point? It’s a waste of my time, and it’ll be a waste of your time. I just want to talk about games I think are good, and that you’d like…in fact this blog shows what I mean in this point. (For the most part)

I’m sure there are more things as well, but for now I cannot think of them. There is work and play to be done. And I am a master of both…ish.

Toolbox 24

It’s Better on PC Apparently

Hello.

My last blog post was about what kind of gamer I am and to possibly think about what kind of gamer you are. Just as an extension on that, I concluded that I am in a strange genre I liked to call Casual Hardcore.

I used to be properly Hardcore once. Playing games online all night like Halo, the original CoD, and even in my pre-broadband years – Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight. Oh the evenings spent on MSN, timing it all just right “Right my IP address is…..” then having to quickly disconnect, then reconnect because back in those days of dial-up, after you’d been online for 2 hours you were mercilessly cut off.

I was a hardcore PC gamer. Playing online games a lot, especially Guild Wars. Man that game rocked. But since I left home, started a family and started working for the Ministry of Defence…my time and spare cash got pretty low. I’m not saying I couldn’t pay for things, god no. I had to prioritise my cash, like I said in the previous blog. And back in the day, when I could go to work, come home, shower, change, eat then just play games to my hearts content I now have other things that need doing. I still play on a daily basis – I’m currently reliving my youth somewhat by pumping some hours into Civilisation II (of which you can read my review to further down on this blog). But I digress. Massively.

This blog states – It’s better on PC. What is? Online gaming? Sometimes. FPS games? Definitely. Sports games? Not a chance. But these inane objective questions aside what exactly do I mean?

Well I’ll tell you. Officially, graphics and performance. With the recent release of Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 680 card being shown off royally at E3 using the Unreal 4 engine, and with the soon to come GeForce GTX 690 card being TWICE as powerful. PC gaming is about to turn a corner which the Xbox 360, PS3 and to a much lesser non-gaming extent Nintendo Wii cannot catch them on. Yeah you might be able to have Kinect on the Xbox or the Move on the PS3, but they’re operating on graphics cards and processors that are years old now.

Nvidia GeForce GTX 690 - It looks awesome!!

Anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of how computers work, how they evolve and how quickly that happens; knows that a computer even a year old is considered out of date. And they’re right. Computer technology is advancing at it’s fastest rate ever, and consoles get left behind. They are made, they excel and spank everything else – then they get caught up, overtaken, left behind and eventually they become relics. Technologically frozen in time like a cowering resident of Pompeii, cowering in awe at the technologically unstoppable freight train known as the Desktop Personal Computer.

Nvidia engineer Simon Green told New Scientist that graphics on PC’s are now about 24 times better than on consoles. Right, let’s not kid ourselves though. An Xbox 360 console, from somewhere like Game online (cos who am I kidding, are there any left on Highstreets anymore?) with a 250gb HDD, and Kinect ready will cost you about £150. A top of the range ready made PC will cost you in the region of about £1500-£3000 – depending on whether you buy like an Alienware computer, or make one yourself.

Even when Xbox’s were new, I think I got mine for about £270 with a massive 12gb HDD. Being an Argos worker, I got mine the day before release because I reserved one and told my boss I was at college all day the next day. So I got mine early. Got an iPod Nano when they first came out the same way. Heh.

So look at the price differences. If you bought a ready made PC today, even for £270 – it would probably be alright, but nothing ground breaking. In fact, it’d be cheap shite. A large portion of that £270 would have gone towards Windows 7.

So in consoles, you’re getting a bargain in reality. A bargain and a gaming investment. I bought my PC in February 2009, and it still performs quite admirably. It cost about £800 and was ready made. However I’m getting itchy, and my wife can tell. I’m looking at building my own computer in the second half of the year, and I’d be able to build a pretty good future proofed machine for about £800. For the same specs, I’d be looking at spending at least about £2000 from somewhere like Alienware, PC Specialist or CyberPowerSystem. Whereas when the PS4 and Xbox YZ* is released be it late this year, 2013 or as some analysts in Tokyo think in 2014 – they’ll cost what? £300? £400? This generation of console had already been out for 7 years (Xbox) and 6 years (PlayStation), which is widely thought to be well past their “Best Before” dates. But they’re still holding up very nicely. Just play some Mass Effect 3 or Black Ops or Skyrim and you’ll see how crisp the images are and how smooth the gameplay is.

I admit though…there is 1 sticking point. I’m on my 3^rd Xbox. So my almost 7 year love affair with this console has seen 2 resurrections. Bringing the total cost to about £550. Still a bargain though. My PC as I mentioned cost £800, and that was 3 ½ years ago, and I want to upgrade. Let me tell you what that means in a money / time scale. All workings out are approximate.

Xbox: money / time

(£)550 / (days)2465.5 = £0.22 per day. The cost of my 3 Xbox’s have been 22p a day. That obviously isn’t including games, or DLC just the cost of the machine. 22p a day for endless hours of entertainment? Yes please.

Let me do the same analysis on my PC. Again I can’t remember exact amounts or dates so it’s approximate.

PC: money / time

(£)800 / (days)1278 = £0.63 per day. Cheap right! Gaming is the way forward obviously, but it’s still about 3 times more costly than console gaming and doesn’t last anywhere near as long – unless you get it right. If I still had my working Xbox from day 1, the figure above would be minute. It’d be about 11p per day. Amazing right?

Which is were I come to the crux of my entire blog post here. Yes top of the line PC’s are awesome, they’re amazing, they’re brilliant, they’re better than consoles. But nowhere near as cost effective. Not in the slightest. And you’ll find yourself wanting to upgrade when you see adverts for new graphics cards and processors. Something you don’t really get with consoles. You buy a console, you play on it, and only years down the line when the next gen comes out do you start getting itchy. My PC is great. I love it. It’s so awesome, but I can’t help but want more from it. It’s better than my kids PC by a country mile, which is where she’d end up going, giving them a computer that actually works (they have Vista…say no more**). The problem with my PC as well though is that it’s rigid. It’s a Zoostorm PC, and I’ve gotta say, they made a fucking great computer there. But it’s not really my computer. It’s a Zoostorm computer that I own. I want my OWN computer. I want to create her, raise her, and watch her tentatively take her first steps into Windows 7. I want to smile as she logs onto the internet for the first time and I want to beam with pride as she downloads my Steam Library games, and rocks the shit out of them. The other thing is that I thought, maybe I could just upgrade my current PC, throw in some extra RAM, a new processor. Nope. Pre-made PC’s are generally engineered to be non-upgradable in any physical way. The motherboard won’t cope with more RAM, the graphics card is as big as I can put onto it and when I discovered this. I started looking at her differently.

She’d changed.

Which is why I’m going to be laying subtle hints that probably next year, around my birthday, when the kids are at school I’m taking a couple of days leave…and my own creation will become a reality. When that happens. You will know about it.

So yeah, PC’s are better graphically. Who knew?! But consoles are better generally. Unless you future-proof your PC and allow for expansion – then the world is your oyster.

*There is a general acceptance that the PlayStation will continue its numerical continuation, whereas there is no news on what Microsoft plans to call their next machine. Most sites seem content and certain that it'll be the Xbox 720, but I’m going for Xbox YZ “XYZ”

LITTLE FACT: Microsoft called their 2^nd gen console the Xbox 360, as opposed to the Xbox 2 because the Xbox 2 would be competing with the PS3 and they felt that the appearance of a 2 being lower than a 3 would give Sony a psychological edge. Hence the 360 was born.

**I wrote this blog a couple of weeks ago, and it’s been waiting to go onto the site, since then I’ve upgraded their computer to Win7. It’s pretty darn good now.

Toolbox 24