Top Ten Games 2004

Well they’re coming thick and fast now aren’t they! The Top 10 Games for 2004 are here, although it’s not a stellar year looking back it still boasts some top quality games that are still played thoroughly today.

As is the norm, I must emphasise that the list is based on games and platforms that had their release date in the EU in 2004. Not the US, Australia or Japan. The EU. Got it?

That is why one of the games on here, that was released in other areas in 2003 is on this list, and why another game from this year that was released in North America in 2004 will not make this years list, but next years. Anyway, I digress…

7 of the games in the top ten were available to buy and play on the PC, while there were 2 each for the XBOX and PS2 and 1 for the GBA. There were none for the GameCube and you can tell that this year and 2005 were transition years for the console world due to the impending release of the Xbox 360, PS3 and Nintendo Piss. Also the Nintendo DS was released in North America in November 2004, meaning that the GBA probably makes it final showing in these lists.

2004 was a year for shooting things with guns, as 5 of the top ten games were FPS games and September through to November was the popular period, with 6 of the 10 games being released in this timeframe.

Without further ado, I introduce game No. 10 on our list. It’s a PC game, it’s a First Person Shooter and from 2004 this game broke boundaries in gameplay and graphics that could possibly be seen as the first in a new wave of graphical wonder games…

10. Far Cry – FPS – PC (Mar 04)

Developer: Crytek

Publisher: Ubisoft

Developer Crytek, who you will know more for the Crysis series of games comes their first full game – Far Cry. As you can expect, it was a graphical marvel, paving the way for the next generation of FPS games that played smoothly, had alternate ways of being approached and looked graphically incredible. It’s arguable that without the advances that Far Cry introduced, that games like CoD and Battlefield would not be quite the games they are today.

Following the tried and tested route of being stranded on a strange and unchartered island, with lots of bad guys and some other things Far Cry isn’t the greatest game so far as story goes, but it’s gameplay mechanics and graphical advances more than deservedly places this game in 2004’s Top Ten.

Next we go from being in a strange island to being sent to Paragon City, where Superman can kiss my arse and Spider-Man is a pussy…

9. City of Heroes – MMORPG – PC (Apr 04)

Developer: Cryptic Studios

Publisher: NC Soft

City of Heroes – still going strong today, with its latest update coming in March 2012, this has always been a fascinating game, and with it’s regular updates has kept die-hard fans hooked for over 8 years. Being able to decide on your archetype, primary and secondary powers, your superhero name, your battle-cry and maybe most importantly how you look baby are all fun and creative ways to start your superhero career. You fight through different zones, levelling up and fighting harder and harder enemies, culminating in some mega bastards in alternate dimensions. Definitely worthy of a Top 10 place, and still a popular game today.

As we leave Paragon City we travel to Elibe, where a demanding quest awaits the stars of…

8. Fire Emblem – RPG / Turn Based Strategy – GBA (Jul 04)

Developer: Intelligent Systems

Publisher: Nintendo

Many an addictive hour has been spent playing Fire Emblem, and for me personally the Red Hot Chili Peppers By The Way album became my personal soundtrack to the game. Strangely addictive game play, taking you back to an age when gameplay and story meant more than graphics (before No. 10 came along to blow that theory out of the water!)

With a story driven quest, this game (which is the first of the series released outside Japan) makes you think about each move, think about defence, attack and strategy with each level. Throwing different obstacles and powerful foes in your way as you attempt to traverse to continent of Elibe to prevent the Black Fang from plunging the world into conflict and dooooooom!

Staying in the fantasy genre, we go from a Japanese constructed RPG/TBS to a thoroughly British RPG with massive elements of Open World structure thrown in…

7. Fable – RPG / Open World – XBOX (Oct 04)

Developer: Big Blue Box

Publisher: Microsoft Games Studios

Yes that’s right, Big Blue Box bring you gallivanting into Fable. It’s a big open world RPG game, from the mind of British gaming guru – Peter Molyneux.

Basically, it follows your kinda typical RPG game – you perform quests, side-quests, chat to people, level up and advance the story. But following on from 2003’s MonkeyBoxGaming GotY – Knights of the Old Republic, it’s not as cut and dried as that. You can choose whether to be nice as pie, or a complete arsehole. The choice is yours, and depending on your alignment your ending will be different. The gameplay is easy, meaning there’s no long learning curve with playing it and the dialogue and script of the game is very British. With a good bit of British humour and a well written story, Fable is a good game to represent the quality of gaming from these fair isles.

From Fable and its lovable characters and chucklesome dialogue, to Mars…and some scary shit to boot…

6. Doom 3 – FPS / Survival Horror – PC (Aug 04)

Developer: id Software

Publisher: Activision

If you consider yourself a gamer, and you’ve not (at the very fucking least ) heard of Doom then go back to knitting you prat. The Doom franchise is one of the most influential and popular in gaming history, from the masters of the FPS – id Software – the 3^rd incarnation of Doom comes with more scary moments than the majority of horror films ever released. Obviously much more graphically advanced than the original 2 games, and with that extra amount of amazing graphics comes with it the ability not just to use them, but in a way not to use them. Large parts of the game are entirely pitch black, with the player relying on his flashlight to traverse the level and find the nasty enemies. Fair enough I suppose, makes it a bit more real…oh yeah while your flashlight is equipped, your gun is holstered.

This part of the gameplay alone adds an extra dimension of shit your pants panic that cements Doom in the 21^st Century as a horror game as much as it is a FPS.

As we enter the top 5 of 2004, have a bit of a think. Think of games you played, or play now that you’ve been playing for years from 2004 – there really can only be 5 choices and I hope you agree…

From one FPS by the innovators and inventors of the genre to another by giants of the genre, who don’t need to re-release the same tat year on year to prove anything to those who know…

5. Counter-Strike: Source – FPS – PC (Nov 04)

Developer: Valve

Publisher: Valve

The remake of MonkeyBoxGaming’s 2000 GotY, Counter-Strike, Counter-Strike Source or CSS is a fantastic game, and can be seen on such sites as Pure Pwnage – awesome web-series…BOOOM HEADSHOT!!! The gameplay is pretty similar as the original and the goals are the same – Terrorists vs Counter-Terrorists in deathmatch, diffuse the bomb etc. Purely about the multiplayer the way only Valve can do, CSS is a brilliantly social game, and can create and also destroy friendships…or so I’m led to believe!

CSS is well worthy of it’s top 5 place if only for this actual fact. As of the time of writing, which is 20:56 on Saturday 28/07/12, CSS has just under 11,000 more gamers on Steam than CoD MW 3. 10,990 to be exact. Still massively popular, consistently fun, and enjoying a huge cult following, CSS deserves at least it’s No. 5 spot on this list. FYI the original CS has 8,130 more gamers online at this moment than CSS, meaning it has 19,120 more players than the latest Call of Duty: Modern Warfare game.

We move from Valve’s CSS to another FPS that doubles as a Third Person Shooter. And it’s sometimes so hard to get away from that Galaxy, far, far away…

4. Star Wars: Battlefront – FPS / 3^rd Person Shooter – PC/PS2/XBOX (Sep 04)

Developer: Pandemic Studios

Publisher: Lucasarts

That’s right, in at No. 4 we have Star Wars Battlefront. Yes it’s another FPS, and yes it’s another Star Wars game, but hell well Star Wars games are good they’re great, and when they’re bad, they’re fucking awful.

SWBF is similar to EA’s Battlefield game where you are a soldier (one of 4 classes: infantry, heavy, pilot or sniper) battles the forces of evil, or good depending on your allegiance. The game doesn’t really follow a proper narrative, just that it lets you get involved in some of the battles of the Star Wars universe from the perspective of a foot soldier, instead of the usual big character or ace pilot - which is refreshing in itself.

Many, many, happy hours spent playing SWBF yielded some great fun and the want to go back for more. So many cups of coffee, gone cold by being ignored in favour of shooting up some stormtroopers, but that’s ok…I like cold coffee. Also this is a good crossover game from the 2 trilogies, incorporating the big battles of the original trilogy (Galactic Civil War: Galactic Empire vs Rebel Alliance) and the prequel trilogy (Seperatist Crisis/Clone Wars: Galactic Republic vs Confederacy of Independent Systems).

Unfortunately the game was released a year before Episode III came out, so the prequel battles end with the Battle of Kashyyyk (Wookiee Homeworld), so the prequel battles aren’t as much to do with the Clone Wars and more the Seperatists…anyway I could go on about the game and Star Wars history but I’ve got a top ten list to finish, and speaking of finishing we come to our Bronze Medal Winner.

From Star Wars to one of the most heavily decorated games of all time, unfortunately for me personally, it’s still up there but pipped at the post by 2 others from this year which spank it completely…anyway where’s my crowbar?

3. Half-Life 2 – FPS – PC (Nov 04)

Developer: Valve

Publisher: Valve / Sierra

That’s right, we go to the world of Black Mesa and Gordon Freeman with his lovely crowbar. Following on a good 20 years (in game) after Half-Life was released, Half-Life 2 is an absolutely phenomenal game, well worthy of it’s 39 GoTY awards, and several Game of the Decade awards. To be honest this game would have been number one on my list if the current occupants of 2 and 1 were released any other year…but then I suppose that’s obvious…

Gordon returns in HL2 for an amazing FPS which breaks the mould and delivers an amazing story which stands up today as one of the best games ever made. After the events of Half-Life in which Black Mesa accidentally opened like a massive vortex that started a little incident which Gordon ended, it all went a bit bigger and kinda ruined the world. The enigmatic G-Man   is evident in and around the game, and the gameplay is exceptional, resulting in an amazing experience and resulting in something very special, not just a critical and commercial success, but an instant cult classic.

From Gordon’s crowbar wielding, rollercoaster experience to something a bit more mundane, a bit more normal, a bit more like life…

2. The Sims 2 – Life Simulation – PC (Sep 04)

Developer: Maxis

Publisher: Electronic Arts

That’s right, you can pretty much guarantee any year that has a new Sims release will have it included into the vast majority of Top Ten Games lists around the world. A lot has changed from The Sims to its second incarnation, and it proved such a successful formula that it is the most commercially successful PC game of all time, reportedly selling over 20 million copies. That is pretty special.

From trying to make ends meet, and actually feeling that pang of “Oh shit” when something goes wrong, knowing that it’s gonna be a tight few weeks, to just saying “SCREW THIS!” and using one of the many cheats to turn it into a sandbox game where you can design and fill your dream home. The game as a stand-alone is pretty fantastic and utterly addictive, proving to still be one of the most amazing games of the last year – even with The Sims 3 coming in 2009. If you haven’t played or heard of this game then you’re likely to not be reading this blog at all, and probably live in some kind of cave. Either that, or you’re just some kind of cretin, with an annoying, whingey voice, who can’t stop shouting, and moans at everything like a complete twat.

Ah-hem, so The Sims 2 grabs our Silver Medal, an a worthy Silver it is too, however to get to the obvious choice for Gold, you need to leave Pleasantview and head west to Los Santos…

1. GTA: San Andreas – Action/Adventure / Open World – PS2 (Oct 04)

Developer: Rockstar North

Publisher: Rockstar Studios

Of course it is, come on let’s be serious for a minute, Half-Life 2 is ground shattering, The Sims 2 is one of the bestselling games ever, and other games from this year are brilliantly addictive and fun. But one game from 2004 destroys them all, it’s a tour de force piece of gaming that is still as fun (if now graphically a little dated) as it ever was.

The innovations that the game brought with it in this GTA were astounding. From simple things like riding a push-bike, to flying fast jets, and going the step further than Vice City from just being able to change your outfit, to completely customising your outfit from all of the clothes shops, and changing whether you had a shaved head or a massive ‘fro. Not forgetting, your CJ Johnson could be a porky fucker from too many Cluckin’ Bells or a buff goliath of a man because of your trips to the gym.

The coup of having Samuel L Jackson voice Officer Tenpenny was a well welcome addition to the game, and the sheer vastness of the game meant that you could get lost – literally lost – in the game needing to continually consult your in-game map. You could get lost in the game in the other sense of the phrase, I personally enjoyed driving out to the middle of nowhere, wait at the side of the road, and try to get the 1-shot kills as cars drove past. Not by shooting the drivers of course, but when you shot the gas tank the cars would just explode, like a self-destruct button of doom. Amazingness. And that’s just my own personal enjoyment.

The story focusses around CJ Johnson, who returns to the San Andreas city of Los Santos, where his mother has recently died. Bad times. You find that shit gets from bad to worse generally after that, and then things get a little better, then worse again, then really worse, and finally kinda better as you go from a gangsta from da hood, cycling around with your mates, going for some chicken, to a complete fucking mogul. With cameos from Vice City and GTA III coming into play as well San Andreas is one of the best games ever made, and still keeps people captivated today.

Well that was the Top Ten Games 2004 list, with another GTA game coming top of the pile. The mid-naughties were rife with some classic games, but also rife with some tat as we moved away from the XBOX/PS2 generation and entered our current gen of the Xbox 360 and PS3. 2004 believe it or not was also the year Nintendo introduced the world to the DS, yes the DS is 8 years old this year.

Keep checking back on the site for more Top Ten Lists, the next one being 2005’s list and also I’m currently ploughing through Knights of the Old Republic on the Xbox 360, even though it’s better now by a mile on the PC (playing it on the 360 is very buggy and very glitchy) which will result in a full review of the game – and as my story driven gaming personality dictates, I will be playing KotOR 2 straight after, and now that The Exile in number 2 has a canon name (Meetra Surik, Female) it’s going to make the playthrough for me a little bit better.

Happy Gaming!

Toolbox 24

Mass Effect Races 3

THERE MAY BE SPOILERS AHEAD... BUT CAN IT WAIT FOR A BIT? I'M IN THE MIDDLE OF SOME CALIBRATIONS...

PART 3: TURIANS

Hello again, Toolbox 24 here. It's nigh time I posted a 3rd blog about the races of Mass Effect. The reason I'm continually posting these blogs is for those Mass Effect fans who might just want a run-down of the various ins and outs of this particular universe, and also for anyone who has heard of the games, seen how obsessed fans of the series seem to be (such as myself), and basically to show these people how deep, varied and detailed Mass Effect is.

Thinking that the games have only been out for 5 years, but have been in development for more like 7 or 8 it's still a very short time for the amount of history that there is. There are several books, comics, an anime film due out within a year and supposedly a live action feature film in development (rights to Mass Effect have been bought by Legendary Pictures, the company that has brought us the new Batman films with Christian Bale and also Inception.)

I digress, this blog is primarily about the race of super-cool aliens called the turians.

Turians

Turian

The turians are again, another absolutely fascinating race in Mass Effect, with a rich history and many, many intriguing and full characters in the games. The turians are (originally) one of 3 Citadel Council races alongside the asari and salarians, after events of the first game, humans also become a council race, stepping up from being a citadel race.

Enough about us though, the turians were the first alien race encountered by us humans in 2157. Us gung-ho humans, liking our lovely new technology a little bit too much kept finding and activating new Mass Relays to new and unchartered areas of space.

Thinking, possibly rightly so, that we could be the first species to use this new mysterious technology, we didn't know that the government of the galaxy had, since the year 300 (our calender), strictly prohibited the activation of dormant relays.

As such, when a turian patrol happened upon these strange aliens activating a dormant relay, they responded with absolute force, decimating the few human ships that were tinkering away activating it. All but 1 ship was destroyed, and that sole ship retreated to the human colony of Shanxi (shan-shee). The turians swiftly followed this sole survivor and proceeded to spank us humans and take over Shanxi. What followed was a massive counter-attack by the humans to retake our colony. The turians wrongly assumed that Shanxi was our only planet, and that if there was a retaliation it would be more than manageable. What followed was the forceful eviction of the turians from our little colony. Yay humans!

Turians however are a highly militant and mighty race, and were just about to prepare for a full scale war, "total war" if you will - (Side Note: Since reading World War Z, I hate the term "Total War" - it's just not possible!!!) - when the asari and salarians intervened, stopping the conflict before it got out of hand. This event would be known as the First Contact War to us, and the Relay 314 Incident by the turians.

Since then, there has been a lingering animosity between the 2 races, which appears to have gone for the most part, especially with the development of the SSV Normandy, co-designed, developed and built by the 2 races.

That, I feel, was a nice little introduction to the turians. However if you're still reading this, I'm going to throw some more information and history your way.

Turian - Unzipped

Originally from the planet Palaven, adult turians are usually over 6ft tall, and have 2 long thick fingers with an opposable thumb on each hand, each tipped with talons. They also have a set of mandibles around their mouths. One of the most notable features of the turian's biology is their metallic carapace, which is a direct result of thir evolution. Because Palaven has a metal-poor core, their planet has a very weak magnetic field letting in a lot more solar radiation, as a result most of the species of Palaven have developed a metal-like exo-skeleton.

Turians appear to have quite similar features to birds, and look like avian-humanoids...apart from the lack of wings. However when I play the game, I can't help but think that facially they, facially, look a bit like cats. They also have a similar lifespan to humans.

The last thing I'll mention about the turian biology is their awesome voices, that all have a distinct flanging effect, some more than others definitely, but it's always there.

Turian culture is heavily focussed on public service, with all turians having to serve the state from the age of 15-30, from anything from being a soldier to an sanitation worker. Because of their heavy leanings towards public service and strong sense of self-sacrifice, because of this, they're not the best entrepreneurs. Because of this, they have a special relationship with the volus who offer their financial, entrepreneurial talents in exchange for the turian military protection.


Turians follow a strict social code, they are highly focused and have a very high work ethic. They are always willing to do whatever it takes to get the job done and always deliver. Despite their military ethos that is seemingly "all or nothing", they are not really prone to violence. Due to their massive military, they tend to defeat their enemies with nothing but overwhelming force, leaving them so weak and powerless that they have no option but to surrender and become a colony of the turians - a fate that would no doubt have happened to the humans had the Citadel Council not intervened in the First Contact War.


The turian military is not just a standard military like you would expect from our own armed forces, but it is a total public works organisation. Their military police, fire and medical services also serve the civilian population. Their engineers don't just build military facilities, but also schools, sanitation services, power stations and libraries.


I feel I've rambled on a bit about the turians, so before I leave, here are a few notable turians in the Mass Effect universe.


Notable Turians

Garrus Vakarian - Absolute legend. If I were to list out my favourite video game side-kicks/team-mates then Garrus would top the tree. He's funny, he's hard as nails, he's got your back. And if you're a lady, he'll no doubt spoon afterwards baby. The first time you'll encounter Garrus is on the Citadel, working for C-Sec investigating the Spectre, Saren. You get a feeling from the first time you meet him that he's a man on the edge - not of sanity but just of leaving C-Sec, frustrated and angry that he's being held back and stifled. So you help him. Through thick and thin he's at your side, taking notes on how to be the ultimate bad-ass along the way from his new mentor (Shepard). And in ME2 he uses those skills to become the leader of a vigilante group in the most dangerous and crime ridden place in the galaxy - Omega. You find him again taking on the 3 main crime syndicates in the galaxy - single handed, with a sniper rifle. And even then the crime bosses don't think it's a fair fight, so you can imagine their fate when the biggest bad-ass in the universe teams up with your Commander Shepard. After the events of ME2, you catch up with Garrus on Menae, the biggest moon of the turian homeworld of Palaven. He's basically the turian hierarchy's chief advisor on all things "Reaper", something that he is very modest about stating that he's just an ex-cop and vigilante. Garrus - from the looks of things - has the biggest female following in the ME universe, and it's not hard to see why when his personality is just...well it's just aces!! And even I, as a straight man, find his voice very attractive...smooth like chocolate, knocked back with a cool glass of creamy milk. View the video above to see him talking shit with ME3's James Vega (voiced by Freddie Prinze Jr).

Saren Arterius - Another legend. Albeit a meanie! His dislike, disdain and disgust for humanity goes back to the First Contact War when his brother, Desolas, was killed by humans. He is the main antagonist in Mass Effect and an all round badass as well. He is seen as a prophet of the "old machines" (Reapers) to the geth, which is why they follow him devotedly. He is totally focused and will not let little things like innocent people get in the way of him getting his job done. He is one of the first people in the Galaxy who is notably indoctrinated by the Reapers, and uses his position as a Council Spectre to get a head start on Shepard n Co in the search for the illusive Conduit. He ultimately meets his end in the Citadel a mere moments before the Reapers would have poured through to start the next cycle of harvesting.


Adrien Victus - Although he only appears in ME3, he is one of the most influential people in the game. He starts the game as General Victus of the turian army, but because of the Reaper invasion becomes the new Primarch of the turian hierarchy through succession. He is a soldier to the core, and is obviously uncomfortable leaving Palaven's moon of Menae to talk diplomacy with the salarians and krogan. But he does it anyway and pulls off what he needs to with aplomb. We see him last before the final push on Earth to the Conduit MkII, where he is ready to fight, showing that he really is a soldier first and a politician second.


Right, that was the turian entry for my Mass Effect Races post. However, I'm thinking I might concentrate more on other things in gaming as opposed to the races of a single game franchise. It's quite time consuming and it's nothing that you can't find out by playing the game or going to the Mass Effect Wiki.


If there's another entry it'll be either salarian, krogan, geth, Reapers or humans. But I just don't know. I really don't. See you later.


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

My Type of Gamer

Hello there.

I’m still working on the Turian entry for the Mass Effect Races series that I’m doing at the moment, but little life events like getting married kind of put the brakes on that for now.

Just so you know, I am still here and I do still have plans to continue blogging on computer games, gaming in general, gaming in the news, and when I can more blogs on upcoming games, hardware and events.

But today I got to thinking. What kind of gamer am I?

Well I’m an avid gamer and I feel the need to write about it as much as I can whenever I can. Obviously, the things I write are my own interpretations and my own opinions – whether you agree with them or not is beside the point. This blog is here for me to vent my spleen about gaming. Yeah I’ll post the things I’m sick off, like kids in multiplayer or the media lampooning games because of a nut case who shot a couple of guys. But as far as games go, I just want to write about the games I love, and why I love them. You may have noticed this with Mass Effect.

So am I an “Intelligent Gamer”? I say “intelligent” not in an elitist, “I’m better than you” way – but in that I play games for more than their Michael Bay Stylings. A lot of people will play a lot of CoD or BF and that’s just fine, they do it because they like the challenge, the bright explosions and the Rambo in them wanting to burst out in some form – that’s fine. I play games because I want to be captivated by the gameplay, the story and how tuned out of the real world I can feel. That’s why I have such an affinity for the Mass Effect Series. It’s why I love Red Dead Redemption. It’s why I was so dumbfounded and completely deflated by the ending to LA Noire.

But then I got to thinking more practically. You may have noticed that this isn’t a gaming blog in the normal mould of a gaming blog. Most gaming sites you’d come across would have loads of information about the latest games, the latest trailers, the latest updated, DLC, patches, hardware etc etc, but here on MBG, we don’t. Because instead of “intelligent gamer” I’m starting to think of myself as a casual hardcore gamer.

Toolbox24 - Casual Hardcore

Casual Hardcore? An oxymoron? A contradiction in terms? Well on the face of it yes, but digging deeper – no. I’m not thick. I’m not going to turn around and say “Well I’m kinda skinnily fat.” “I’m shortly tall” No. I’m hardcore in that gaming (apart from my wife and kids) is my whole life. But because of the whole family thing I’ve got going, I cannot let gaming be my whole life. It’s my whole life, when I let it be. When I get stuck into a game, I’m there. I AM John Marston, trekking through the wild west in search of zombies (Undead Nightmare DLC). I AM Commander Shepherd, and you know what? This IS my favourite store on the Citadel. I AM Richard Thompson – Leeds United striker, top goal scorer and all round fans favourite. I am these people, and it’s amazing. BUT when my daughter starts crying because she needs a nappy change, or my lad comes down wanting to show off some of his art work – the games pause and I’m Dad. My wife wants a cup of tea and to have a little break and a chat in the garden – the game pauses and I’m husband.

I’m hardcore in that I do think about gaming an awful lot, I do play as much as I can and to me there is no better entertainment medium.

I’m casual in that I realise that spending £40 on a new game is a bit daft, when that £40 could be spent on groceries or paying for new school uniforms. It’s why I’m not always on the ball so far as new releases go. I’m casual in that I don’t feel like I have a genre that defines me. Some hardcore gamers only play FPS games like CoD, BF, Team Fortress etc other just racing games like Need for Speed, Forza, Gran Turismo and others only play games like World of Warcraft. All hardcore in their own right, but incredibly narrow minded when it comes to playing other games. Some filter through, like Hardcore FPS gamers could have a soft spot for the odd racing game, or sports game for example.

I don’t feel like there is a genre that defines me as a gamer. I love playing RPG games for their story element, and how much more immersive they are. I also love playing management sims like Football Manager or Sim Tower (blast from the past). I love playing FIFA games, and the occasional racer. I love playing RTS games like Command and Conquer or the Age of Empires games. I love playing Turn Based Strategy games like Civilisation and I love playing reality games like The Sims. I love mobile games like Stupid Zombies or Temple Run, and I love all kinds of games which makes me feel like I can write more objectively about any game I play.

A hardcore CoD gamer could play Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and think it’s a load of shit and should be set on fire. Because they detest RPGs. A hardcore sports gamer could play Halo and think it’s a crock of shit and should be set on fire because they detest FPS games. I however could sit playing FIFA for hours, write a review about it’s pro’s and cons, then sit playing Dragon Age for hours and write a similar review. 2 completely different types of game yet fairly easy for me to love them both.

Now I’m not saying I’m a rare breed. I think that most gamers would probably fall into the same or similar category of a lover of many genres. That’s why I hope this blog will appeal to more than just those who like to point and shoot.

In the coming weeks, I’m going to try and post more blogs, thick and fast and attempt to get the website registered onto NewsNow.co.uk. A news sourcing website that I use daily to look up Leeds United news.

If I succeed, then who knows where this blog could go.

That was a fairly pointless blog I think, but I’d like to think that everyone knows what kind of game they like, and if they like multiple genres to be flexible enough to say as much. I know that some people might just like casual games like Farmville or Diner Dash – but that’s alright. Someone made the game, someone thought up the concept and created the game. It’s only right that it’s found a niche with those who might not do “proper” gaming. Just remember: Minesweeper is a game as well.

Coming up on the MonkeyBox – Mass Effect Races: Turians, Batman: Arkham Asylum, Plants vs Zombies, XBOX 720(?) and more.

Toolbox 24