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

RIP Robin Sachs

It is with great sadness that I learnt today of the passing of Robin Sachs, 61.

The English actor has appeared mostly in TV Series in the US, most notably in the 90's remake of Babylon 5 and as Ethan Rayne in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

His mention on this blog however is due to his immaculate voice work in video games, most notably in BioWare titles such as Mass Effect, Dragon Age and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.

His iconic, gruff voice was perfect for voice acting, and he managed to bring a level of reality to his characters, maybe most notably, and affectionately as Zaeed Massani in Mass Effect 2 and 3. Here is a compilation of Zaeed's stories which gained some cult like notoriety, and led to many people making up more wild and inventive stories for him...usually where everyone but Zaeed died.

Well...he is a goddamn hero.

RIP Mr Sachs. An underrated talent if ever there was one.

Mass Effect for the Ladies

Listen Sweetheart, Put Your Knickers On and Throw Out A Singularity

Alright there’s a slight change of tactic for this blog post. Basically if you’ve got a a lil’ sumsin sumsin swinging between your legs…or just tucked up there like a scared dormouse, then thank you very much for coming, but I need your Wives or Girlfriends. And they’re gonna be all like “Oh Toolbox, you’re so handsome! Thank you for doing this for us!” And you boys…are gonna be jealous, and full of hate for me.

But I don’t care.

I love da ladies.

My Shepard's motto thanks to MANS1AY3R on YouTube (Mass Effect Poop)

Right before I crack on, I must stress that this blog post was suggested by my lovely wife, Mrs Toolbox 24 (Carriecakes), because I keep going on at her about it and she thinks that my persuasive argument could be turned onto the interweb for other lovely ladies to enjoy.

But I warn you now, it’s about Mass Effect.

That’s right it is another Mass Effect post, but with a slight difference. Anybody who has read these blogs in detail will know that I’m quite in love with the BioWare trilogy for the Xbox 360, PC and now PS3. And something that I’ve been going on at my Carriecakes for about a year now, is: “Why don’t you play once I’ve finished my current play-through?”

Now my Carriecakes loves a good game, she’s pretty good as well, kicking some serious arse in Bully, Left 4 Dead and GTA:IV, but I said to her that if she really wants a game she can sink her teeth into, then she should look no further than Commander Shepard.

You see I think what a lot of ladies don’t quite realise (Carriecakes included) is that Mass Effect is not just a space shoot ‘em up. Yes it’s a sci-fi, but it isn’t like Star Wars or Star Trek which were good but come on, pretty campy space operas! This is more gritty, feels more normal (they even take the piss out of the clichéd “What is this strange human emotion you call…love?”) the aliens in the game are a bit strange at first, but then after a while you look at them like they’re normal people – because that’s what the game tries to convey. Yes they’re aliens, but in the words of Kaiden Alenko (potential love interest for both female and male players) “They're not different or special, they're jerks or saints. Just like us. I mean, if one ass was enough to judge a whole race. I'd hate humans too."

Anyway enough of this, read on for some reasons why ladies, you should be kicking your other half off the computer for a while and indulging yourself in the best thing to happen to video games since Shigeru Miyamoto thought “I’m going to create a game, with a tubby, Italian plumber as the main character…”

Story

Right, firstly if you want some kind of in-depth thing, there is another blog post with it all in. But this is merely to let you know not just a brief synopsis of the story, but also what else it can offer you.

Firstly I’ll get it out of the way, the best way to give you a short n sweet taste of the story is to first, give you the opening scrawl from Mass Effect.

In the year 2148, explorers on Mars discovered the remains of an ancient spacefaring civilization. In the decades that followed, these mysterious artifacts revealed startling new technologies, enabling travel to the furthest stars. The basis for this incredible technology was a force that controlled the very fabric of space and time.

They called it the greatest discovery in human history.

The civilizations of the galaxy call it... MASS EFFECT.

So in a short little space of text, you have the basic setting for the game. And before you even start playing, think to yourself, do you want to be a heroine or a bitch?

Because as well as shaping your story through the game you can shape your story pre-game by changing how you were brought up and changing your career history. Being a Spaceborn with the War Hero career gives you extra points in the paragon route, whereas being an Earthborn with the Ruthless career history gives you more renegade points. There’s a middle option as well of being a Colony born Shepard who was the Sole Survivor of a terrible incident. But you can mix and match these things as well.

I’m rambling. The point is, before you even start playing, you can get a feel for how your Shepard will be.

Oh yeah and as you can see, you can customise how your Shepard looks...

There is a bit of an epic main storyline, but there are a number of rich and full characters who you can interact with, and even romance as the game goes on. The first game is quite limited for its romance options, which is fine – but you have even more in ME2 and potential awkward situations in ME3. I wont spill too much, but just know that there are good options for FemShep (female Shepherd!) ((you’ll soon love your FemShep)) to romance from brooding humans, to a super-awesome alien sharpshooter to a gravel voiced alien assassin. Don’t worry though, it doesn’t get all…tentacle-y, it’s all done very organically and you don’t even think anything of it.

Again, I’m getting a bit off topic. Let me just tell you that there are hundreds of little tales within Mass Effect, from tales of love, revenge, sorrow, anger and even some good old face-palming comedy. Each of these little side stories can help shape your Shepard, like the waves of the sea shape the stones on the shore…you like that?

Anyway, the point being that you could play it for an hour or have a nice few hours to get into it, and not be thinking “Yawn, this is just a load of tosh.” And depending on the ways you approach the game, the way the game plays out will be different as well with each play though. For example, one key decision in the first game will affect the way humans are looked at in the second game.

The Role of Women

I’m gonna be real careful now…

Women play a massive part in the Mass Effect universe, especially since for the first real time in a game or story ever, you can play the entire game as either a male or female Shepard. You never hear their first name, so you can call them what you want, it has no effect whatsoever. You could keep the default John/Jane or name them what you want – oh actually if, or indeed, when you want to play through the game again (all three games of course) you should change their names each time, simply so when you transfer from Mass Effect to Mass Effect 2 then 3, you know which Shepard to move over (if you have 3 Jane Shepard’s, it can make things confusing!).

Anyway, the women of Mass Effect. Firstly as I say, you can play through the whole game, as either male or female Shepard, referred to as either Shepard or FemShep in the online world. Which when you think about the amount of dialogue in the entire game, from chatting to random people you walk past, to having the big conversations with big characters – is no mean feat . Considering Mass Effect 2 has a total of about 30,000 lines of dialogue, to have 2 actors playing the main character is some feat and a sign of their commitment to making the game appealing to the fairer sex as well as women! (HAHAHA)

Not only that, but there is a general consensus around the various online communities that Jennifer Hale does a much better job as FemShep than Mark Meer does as Shep – one that I would agree with. But anyway…

Looking at the game in detail, I’ll delve into the history of the Mass Effect universe a smidge. In the game, the most established, technically advanced and influential race in the galaxy is the Asari – an all-female race. Not only that, but they are ageless and live for around 1000 years. Neat huh?

Top Row From Left: Jack, Ashley, Miranda and Tali.
Bottom Row From Left: Liara and Kelly. 

 The first human ambassador to the council was Anita Goyle, and one of the key people in the beginning of the game is a young quarian female called Tali’Zorah nar Rayya  - and she becomes a key member of your squad potentially, for all 3 games.

In fact, some of the strongest, if not THE strongest, characters in the game are women. From Ashley Williams, a marine who’s harder than your average structural girder to Miranda Lawson, a genetically perfect human who is headstrong and confident but shows her sensitive side after a bit of digging (actually, certain camera angles are just for the men…you’ll see why).

Anyway there’s more to wanting to play than just a “hurrah!” to girl power! Of course there is!

Friends…And More?  

Now, your Shepard is gonna be a hard bitch. Whether she’s nice or nasty, after a while you won’t be able to deny that your Shep kicks arse and takes names in her sleep – especially once your fingers and thumbs are in perfect rhythm for doing it!!

But a hard bitch cannot always do things on her own, which is why she needs some very capable people by her side. But not just that, because anyone that can shoot straight and do some damage can be capable, but that doesn’t exactly mean that you believe they’ve got your back when you’re marching into hell. Which is why those capable men and women you fight with, need to be your friends as well as anything else!

So do it, in between the fire-fights and the various tasks and missions you do, get to know your squad. Ask them about anything and everything, and pretty soon they’ll be opening up to you. Not only that, but the more you do it with some people, the more likely it is that they and maybe you, will want to be more than just good friends.

Establishing romances with squad-mates is a great little diversion from the main story arc, and can make the game feel that little bit more important. And because it’s up to you who you go for, it’s more than just reading a relationship evolve in a book, or watching it blossom in a movie – you’re the driving force behind it all. And hey, if you don’t like someone, be a twat to them. They’ll still have your back…won’t they?

Immersion and Emotion

Easy for me to say as a Mass Effect stalwart, but I can – without a shadow of a doubt – say that the Mass Effect trilogy is the most immersive entertainment vehicle I’ve ever experienced. As good as some books can be, as good as some TV shows or films are, none of them suck you in quite like Mass Effect. The whole universe, from the background details and information to the graphical background, immersion is what this game is about.

I can, of an evening, forget everything. From any important but worrying issues going on in my life, to work, to the boring things like what chores need to be done in the morning, they all just disappear while I don’t just play as Commander Shepard…I am Commander Shepard.

Commander Shepard...Toolbox 24 Style

And emotion, I cannot leave out the emotions that the trilogy will evoke in you. From anxiety, to happiness, sadness and even a little fear here and there, this game will touch each of them and more. Hmmm…

Sci-Fi?

Well yes, I suppose that the main genre you could stick onto it is Science Fiction. But for a game series that from start to finish will take well in excess of 100 hours to complete, you have to know that the trilogy is more than just a sci-fi. It’s a drama, it has lots of comedy intertwined into it, there are parts that are really horrific, some bits that are melancholy, it’s a thriller and obviously as well, it’s got a ton of action. Not the Transformers style of “let’s just blow everything up for the duration of the whole thing in the hopes that people will like it”. There are action sequences, and rightly so, considering what goes on, but it all feels right.

And finally…

Controversy

You may or may not have seen or heard the amount of stink that was kicked up in 2012 after the games release of the final game in the trilogy, Mass Effect 3. But let me reassure you. When you get ME3, there is a free piece of Download Content called “Extended Cut” (which I believe is only free until midway through 2014) get it before doing anything.

The original endings to ME3 were…lacklustre. As if they had been rushed in half an afternoon the day before the game was released. And I must admit, they left me feeling as though I would never want to touch any of the games again. But with the EC, the ultimate ending to the trilogy is far more tasty, far more fitting and really does give a good sense of closure to the story arc.

The controversy that came about was labelled as “entitled gamers” or a “spoilt kid” attitude to the world. An “I WANT!!!!” culture. But the reality couldn’t be further from the truth. The truth was that the majority of the people who supported BioWare (ME developers) felt as though the game was rushed through, and pre-release promises were abandoned. BioWare however pulled it off though, and through the free release of the Extended Cut, rebuilt a lot of bridges.

Right…well that’s about it really, I didn’t want to say too much with any spoilers, because the first time you play it through should be as pure as it was for me. If you don’t like it, that’s just fine, but if you give it a go, and think “Hey…I can really get into this!” then I’ll feel mighty vindicated that I wrote this post.

Once you've played it...this is what you'll all be like when you see me.

Thanks for reading, I’ll see you soon!

Toolbox 24

Video Game Addiction?

Are Some Games (COUGH EA COUGH) Promoting an Addictive Culture Among Kids?

That’s right, I’m going from my last post which was very staunch in its defence of video games in the wake of the Sandy Hook School shooting, to what might come as a surprise but a blog warning of the addictive nature of some games.

Addictions come in many forms. The more recognisable addictions like smoking, alcohol and drugs are common place in the world, and other addictions like gambling, junk-food and shopping are also fairly common in the world, even if they are not thought of in quite the same class as the former examples.

I’m going to generalise somewhat, considering that for example I’m not a drug addict or alcoholic.

It seems that people latch onto things like booze, junk-food, cigarettes or drugs to escape – even for 5 minutes – from the stresses of everyday life. Mild addictions such as someone saying they need their morning coffee to function for the day, aren’t usually thought of as an addiction, but quite clearly is – even if it is quite mild. Some people need that glass of wine at the end of the day, and some people need to walk away from things just for that 5 minute nicotine fix.

That's no cigar...it's a SPACE STATION...of meth.

Some of these addictions are quite harmless and just thought of as a part and parcel of day-to-day modern life. I’m guilty of falling into this category as well – just ask my wife.

I’ll give you my own personal example – video games. After being at work all day, I walk the couple of miles home, stopping off at the shop to top up on milk and bread, and then when I get home I either help Mrs Toolbox make the dinner, or enjoy the meal that’s waiting for me. Eventually the kids get sent up to bed, and after settling them in and making my way downstairs (for once the kids are up to bed, our sitting room becomes our bedroom) the wife gets into entering her competitions, and I pull out my gaming chair, flick on the Xbox or PS3 sit back and escape. You may know from previous blogs my penchant for Mass Effect, but games like that, GTA, Red Dead Redemption, Gears of War, Unchartered etc all fall into the same kind of category for me. To escape the crappy country the British Government is determined to make for us all (apart from the rich) I indulge myself in my games, becoming Nico Bellic or Commander Shepard or Nathan Drake for a couple of hours before getting into bed, watching something funny and going to sleep to start another day again.

If for whatever reason, I can’t get my fix of game playing, I do become more ratty, more irritable and less like the cheery person I usually am from day to day.

My wife knows this all too well. J

But it wasn’t me that I was thinking of when I thought of writing this blog. It was our eldest son.

For his birthday, he got FIFA 13 – not unusual, he plays football for the local youth team, he watches Sky Sports News religiously, scans the internet for football news regularly and is a keen Football Manager and FIFA fan. He plays them both…almost addictively. But not quite. You see, yes he’s a typical gaming teenager, but he does well at school, he’s got a good network of friends, is active and has gone through girls in his year like people go through underwear. Not what most people probably think of when they think of teenagers who play copious amounts of video games. But there is a twist in this particular tale…

As I mentioned, we got him FIFA 13 for his birthday as we do every year for either his birthday or Christmas, and things were normal – at first. He has been playing online more with his mate who, admittedly comes from a more affluent family ours. And this time around, the main thing with FIFA hasn’t been playing the occasional online game while focussing on playing careers offline. Oh no. It’s been playing FIFA Ultimate Team.

O FIFA...y u want moar muni?

And the hatred for EA Games will begin. You see, EA Sports have always had this particular motto which is probably familiar to most people – “It’s in the game.” which is just a shortened version of its original motto “If it’s in the game, it’s in the game.” basically showing off their expertise at being able to replicate its aim of making sports games as true to life as possible. And with the birth of the Ultimate Team in FIFA 09 it’s become a monster with FIFA 13 and the introduction of FIFA Points, designed to make purchasing packs (spit spit spit) easier.

Previously, our resident teenager was happy playing FIFA without the UT, however this year things have changed. Suffice to say, that shortly after his birthday, for Christmas we bought him some MS Points so he could play the UT with his friend. Harmless enough we thought, and we thought that would be that. I mean come on, A premium gold pack, costs about 100 FIFA Points, which costs 80 MS Points, which costs about 62p. Not much harm to be done there no? Uhhh, ya think?

You see as an adult, I understand the concept of patience, if I were to indulge in the FIFA UT, I would play the game to raise in-game credits, to then buy the packs for free. As a teenager with all the patience of a fruit fly, this would take far too long, and require a bit of commitment.

So he used all of his MS Points to buy FIFA Points, to buy gold pack, after gold pack, after gold pack. Then all would be good, he’d come downstairs with grand proclamations of his now amazing team, one that is predominantly Spanish, and one that is pretty awesome. Cool.

Then it happened. The addiction to opening these packs began. He would get itchy. He would get bored. He would get the urge to get more packs. So he’d sell his entire team, to get in game credits, to spend on more packs, then when he found that he had no players left he’d look at his wad of cash. He got quite a bit of cash for his birthday from various family members you see. And what at first was going to be so he could go into town with his mates, or treat himself to some treats, become something far more insidious.

“Mum, can you buy me some more MS Points for the Xbox, I need them for my Ultimate Team?” he’d enquire.

“But you already had a load of points, and what happened to your Spanish-y team?” she would enquire back. “You were only talking about how glad you were yesterday!”

“Yeah, I sold them to get more packs, I wanted a change.” He’d reply, quite bluntly.

“Are you sure this is how you want to spend your birthday money?” she probed, trying to make sure that it was definitely what was wanted.

“Yeah, it’s only a bit though, I mean I still got loads to go to town with!” he’d answer, immediately, he’d obviously thought it all through.

“Ok then, how much do you want to spend?” she’d ask…

It would continue. We thought, sod it, it’s close to Christmas, and his prezzie pile is looking quite small, let’s get him some points for Christmas as well! Oh how we regret that decision, and regret the initial decision to help him get his first pack.

You see, just after Christmas he basically did exactly what he did before Christmas – but with a Spanish team. And then he found out that there was an Ultimate Team “Happy Hour” where packs were cheaper or some shit. And the tell-tale signs of addiction game to the fore. He’d gone through his points like a hot knife through butter, and then had sold off all his players in a bid to get more packs. And when we told him that, no we wouldn’t let him spend his money on such a load of old bollocks the withdrawal symptoms began.

The sad face. The sulky posture. The zombie-like shuffling. The groans. The slumping. And the flopping. To anyone who didn’t know, they’d have thought his puppy had just been hit by a car. To us, we knew it was for one thing and one thing only.

We succumbed. L

OK FINE! If you want to waste your money on these bloody packs, then do it. And he did, and he did. Until enough was enough.

A few days later and after having spent the equivalent of about £100 in game on fucking packs we stopped it all. Cut him off cold turkey from the fucking packs. And it started all over again. The sad face. The sulky posture. The zombie-like shuffling. The groans. The slumping. And the flopping. Only this time we persevered. 

Apt.

Then we had the ultimate stereotypical addict catch-phrase. “I know that if I get one more lot of points, it’ll be different this time.” How that sentence alone inspired me to write this you’ll never know. It rings of “I just need one more fix/drink/cigarette/snort/etc and then I’ll sort myself out.”

But we persevered. And the reaction from the boy was most telling. Not even a month after being given the game for his birthday, he told us he wants to sell it. In previous years, many a happy hour had been spent plying his trade, becoming a formidable FIFA player, enjoying playing the game, navigating the transfer windows, overcoming challenges of playing higher division clubs, playing the game for what it always was. And now, he feels that he needs to get rid of the game to avoid the temptation of the packs. The normal game offers no replay value for him anymore, and he’s now trying to get into other games…but things just don’t quite seem right with him still.

(As a side point, check out almost any EA Game now, almost all of them have little micro-transactions in them, from FIFA to The Sims 3 to Mass Effect to Star Wars: The Old Republic.)

So let me sum up. Basically, the example above of the boy who zombiefied himself due to not being able to get his “fix” of FIFA Points, is quite extreme. Look at myself as an example instead. I’m in my mid-twenties, I love to game and I get a bit shitty if I don’t sometimes. BUT I’m a father of 4, I’m in full-time work as a Civil Servant in the MoD and I’m part of a happy family. I’m not a recluse, I’m not massively overweight (OK I’m a bit chunky but not that bad!), I don’t have awkward social skills and I do have friends that don’t just exist on the screen in-front of me. Basically, let your kids play, let them have their fun, because God knows that if I knew that by my mid-twenties I’d be in the position I’m in now, I’d have made the most of every minute of gaming that wasn’t interrupted by a crying toddler or a moody-hungry teenager.

I just hope that in 16 years time (when my youngest will be old enough to go to University or work or whatever) I’ll still be a happy gamer with more actual time to game. Either that, or I’ll be in my 40’s enjoying things like Midsomer Murders and waiting to die.

TTFN!

Toolbox 24

Blind Ignorance Follows Tragedy Almost Everytime

Hello.

It's been a while yes. But there's been things happening between now and my last post. I went to Barcelona which was awesome. I had lots of studying for my Health and Safety exams - yes...I'm a gamer, who blogs, is addicted to a sci-fi franchise AND I work in Health and Safety - super nerd. Super married nerd with 4 kids though baby. Awwww yeah.

Anyway. Onto the crux of this post. I wish my first blog back would have been something more jovial, something more jolly, something more festive considering the time of year. But alas, as with some things in life, the dice just didn't roll that way. This is of little to no significance however compared to recent events which have shocked the decent world.

Columbine. Waco. Virgina Tech. Utoya Island. Places of pretty much zero world-wide interest or attention before the tragic events that took place there. We now have the unfortunate requirement to add the name of Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newton to that rather macabre list.

Being a gaming blog however, it may or may not come as a surprise that this event would be mentioned. Some of the tragedies mentioned above were politically motivated, Waco and the events in Oslo and Utoya Island for example, but as with most of these events the conservative media and the over-reactive elements of society will find a scapegoat. Things seem so much simpler when you can point an angry finger of blame at something or someone and unfortunately video games have bore the brunt of that angry finger for many a year now.

Violent video games will take the main hit obviously, I mean you're not likely to get angry people blaming games like FIFA or Viva Pinata for gun-slinging massacres are you? No.

People will point at video games for many a year to come still, but I feel that not enough is really done in the media to defend them from what is mostly ill-educated, angry and very ignorant people.

Let me take a step back in time to start this lecture. 20th April, 1999, Columbine High School, Columbine, Colorado. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold gunned down 12 students and 1 teacher, injured over 20 more and then shot themselves - not before trying to blow up the school with home-made explosives. It's clear that they were something of a pair of social outcasts, but that they had a variety of mental disorders, Harris was a clinical psychopath with a messianic-level superiority complex and Klebold was a depressive who was a follower. Harris masterminded the killings, but thankfully didn't mastermind the bomb building or the death-toll would have been much, much higher.

However, apart from famously blaming Marilyn Manson, the other channel of blame was aimed at iD Software, more specifically Doom and to a lesser extent Wolf 3D.

Wolf 3D and Doom

The first kings of the shoot em up, FPS genre - Wolf 3D and Doom are etched in my soul as such sublime pieces of gaming, yet I (along with millions of other gamers who have indulged in them) have never played the game and thought "Hey, that looks like fun. I'm gonna go to school or work and do some of this!". Firstly, Wolf 3D for those who don't know is about a POW being held in Castle Wolfenstein, who fights his way out and needs to fight through the Nazi hoards of the castle to escape. Doom is a sci-fi FPS, which revolves around a lone space marine, battling the forces of Hell who have escaped hell through a portal on one of the moons of Mars.

The games, Doom more so, were targeted by an angry society as one of the key reasons why Harris and Klebold committed their terrible acts. Forget the psychological problems involved, forget the social problems involved, they did what they did because they played Doom and wanted to emulate it. Morons.

Let's move on in this grim tour. Let's move forward 12 years to 2011, I'm going to skip the Virgina Tech massacre, simply because I don't know all of the ins and outs and don't want to feed you with misinformation. All I know is that the amazing Counter-Strike was scapegoated for a while. (A Multiplayer game which pits Terrorists against Counter-Terrorists).

In 2011 we saw 2 shootings, firstly one that I mentioned on here a while back - the HMS Astute murder and secondly Anders Breivik's "lone wolf" terror attacks in Norway. Now I mentioned the murder of Lieutenant Commander Ian Molyneux, and how the British newspapers blamed Grand Theft Auto for the actions of Able Seaman Ryan Donovan - I went into quite some detail, go back and read if you want.

I'll go into the actions of Anders Breivik shall I? He set a car bomb in Oslo, then went to Utoya Island and killed 69 people. An awful, horrible man (loosest meaning of the word) who doesn't even deserve death, someone like that deserves to be kept alive as long as possible, and to live in a state of perpetual anguish for the heinous crimes he's committed. Him and every paedophile out there. Anyway, going back to the topic this one is slightly more controversial a choice to try and defend. I'll explain.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare

Actually I'll let this extract from The Guardian website explain: Anders Behring Breivik has described how he "trained" for the attacks he carried out in Norway last summer using the computer game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare.

The 33-year-old said he practised his shot using a "holographic aiming device" on the war simulation game, which he said is used by armies around the world for training.

"You develop target acquisition," he said. He used a similar device during the shooting attacks that left 69 dead at a political youth camp on the island of Utøya on 22 July.

Describing the game, he said: "It consists of many hundreds of different tasks and some of these tasks can be compared with an attack, for real. That's why it's used by many armies throughout the world. It's very good for acquiring experience related to sights systems."

Basically, Breivik used CoD:MW to practice his aim and happily stated as much in court. This led to people blaming CoD:MW for the entire massacre, even though the guy was determined enough to set up fake businesses and plan the fucking thing for 5 years, it was all because he practiced on CoD that he managed to do what he did. It couldn't have been his political beliefs or his clearly disturbed mind that led to the killings, no it was because he could use pixels for target practice that on CoD:MW that it all happened. Forget the whole determination thing I mentioned before, forget that if he was THAT determined, that if he didn't use CoD he would have no doubt found another way to practice. Forget that CoD IS actually used by various military's around the world due to it's realism for trained soldiers to protect civilians, so it's probably contributed to saving more lives than ending them...I'll move on.

We now move onto what I feel is the most ridiculous of all the video game blame namby pamby's out there. A few short days ago, Adam Lanza killed his mother, went to Sandy Hook Elementary School, and killed 27 people, 20 of which were children all aged 6 and 7 before killing himself. Whenever things like this happen, I try and distance myself while watching the news, however watching Barack Obama fighting tears while addressing America, brought a tear to my eye, thinking about the words he said as they resonated with me, especially with me as a father of a child almost the same age as the victims.

Then I read something. Obviously as with most of these shootings and massacres, the blame game takes place. This time that angry finger pointed at my all time favourite game series - Mass Effect. This was for me, the straw that broke the camel's back. Anyone who has played Mass Effect will know that the game's underlying theme throughout is that of hope, the game is more about character development and building relationships while trying to defend not just your country, or your planet/species, but to save the entire galaxy. For anyone who's been on here a few times should be aware of my love and admiration for the ME Series.

Considering what happened and the main age group of victims let me let you in on something that happens to the main protagonist in the third game - Commander Shepard (you) have to escape Earth from an ancient race of sentient bio-synthetic machines, in doing so you see a small child who you had previously try to help, die in an explosion caused by one of these machines and the guilt of not being able to help him consumes Shepard throughout the game.

Shepard with the child in one of his nightmares

Well here's why it's ridiculous. Even though the game does involve combat with guns, the main crux of the games is what I've already mentioned, it's emotional, it's thought-provoking, it's inspirational the blame of this game isn't what is ridiculous, it's the way it all went down. Angry finger pointers looked up the suspected murderer on Facebook and found who they suspected was the murderer and saw that he "liked" Mass Effect on his profile. Commence the blame. The following are actual real quotes from the Official Mass Effect page on Facebook, steady yourself for some hate:

"Good job guys. You have blood on your hands that wont wash off"

"BAN THIS GAME"

"Ban this game and the people who created such sickness"

"Burn in hell!!!"

"I'm sure none of these precious children had this game on their Santa list...God help protect us from all the evil our society promotes"

"This is EXACTLY why i do not let my children play MOST video games...i do not want to destroy their innocence with this bulls--t"

And lastly

"Ryan Lanza, the 24 yr old that has killed 18 kindergarten children, 8 adults and his own mother, was a fan of Mass Effect. What are you and other games of your ilk doing to our society? Think on it."

Hang on..."Ryan Lanza"? Ryan Lanza, the older brother of Adam Lanza the ACTUAL murderer? Oh HE liked Mass Effect? Not Adam? Oh.

Before getting the facts and before even knowing the actual numbers of victims, the angry finger pointers had already leapt onto the angry bandwagon of hatred and misinformed ignorance to spew their misguided judgement onto a game that had nothing to do with the ACUAL MURDERER! Amazing.

As I said, for anyone who actually knows these games, knows that it's not a mindless hack and slash or shoot em up, it's a tactical third person sci-fi shooter, with it's main emphasis being on story, characters, relationships. It isn't sickness, any more than Jules Verne's War of the Worlds is sickness, any more than Star Wars is sickness. Evil? Innocence destroying? No.

It then led me to this painfully obvious thought: do these people think that if there were no video games then murder, mass murder and massacres wouldn't take place? Like these things are a symptom of video games that were non-existent in the harmonious "before-time".

Bonnie and Clyde? The Moors Murderers? Jack the Ripper? Albert Fish? Pol Pot? The Zodiac Killer? Many, many more on top of those as well, what video games were they playing to inspire them?

I for one cannot wait for games to finally be accepted by the masses as just another entertainment medium, not as a wrongly perceived way for innocent people to be turned into murdering psychopathic maniacs.

And on that note, despite all of this, the world is generally a decent place, don't forget that! And if I don't do anything on here between now and the 25th December: Have a Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year.

Toolbox24

The Walking Dead

Evening all.

As a gamer (in my spare time between working in the MoD and being a dad) I find that sometimes you just feel like a complete change. Sometimes you might want to read, listen to music, scan YouTube for hilarious videos of people eating ghost chilli peppers and other such ventures in your free time.

A couple of years ago I had the misfortune to contract pneumonia, bad times indeed but it did give me a ton of time to lay back on the sofa and rest...albeit whilst struggling to breath without pain, but still beggars can't be choosers.

Anyway, one thing that got me through that shitty ailment was a little something called The Walking Dead. I don't mean the tv show that's returning to our screens later this month, I mean the comics that the series is loosely based on. I say loosely because if it followed everything in the comics tv audiences would be a bit more shocked than they alread are. However, I digress.

I read through volume after volume of the comics reaching a point where the events of Hershel's farm in season 2 seems like very old news to me. He'll even the discovery of the prison that is going to dominate season 3 seems like a distant memory.

The books captivated me, and for the times when I was reading them, the pain seemed to fade for a while. So, good times yes? Yes. Well when the tv show came out they originally had this little online game you could play which looked a bit poor if I'm honest, so I never indulged in it. Earlier this year however TellTale games brought us The Walking Dead Season 1, done much like their Back To The Future games. And that is well.

The games are riveting, immersive and so fun it feels much like the comics and the tv show, while creating a new story arc, and every couple of months they have released a new episode, with ep4 due to come out this month, and the season finale due in December along with a boxed retail version of the game.

Well that's all great, and what's even more great is that apparently TellTale have been commissioned to make Season 2, eps 6-10 in 2013. Excellent news ja?

Not just that but The Walking Dead fever doesn't stop there, nosirree bob. Coming soon will also be a TWD FPS game featuring tv show characters Daryl and Merl Dixon in a story set before the tv show started. Not too bad, but me? I dunno, it looks good but you gotta understand, I'm a TWD purist, and I hate to tell you but Daryl and Merl are characters that are only in the tv show, they don't appear at all in the comics, so for me, they shouldn't be there. And to have a game that is based around them seems a bit weird.

Now the TellTale games story and (almost) all new characters feel great be ause they aren't a part of Ricks group, they are a different set of people following a different course. And I like that. I think the potential is there in TWD universe to create something like a great RPG or even MMORPG, too many zombie games take the "BLAST THEM ALL TO SHIT" route, which admittedly is something that happens a fair bit, but it's the survival aspect, the people, the food shortages, the looking for shelter that is what a zombie survival game should be about. Christ even a Sims mod could work.

In fact an RTS TWD game could work as well...that's usually about resource gathering, keeping your base or "safe zone" well...safe. There's an awful lot of scope for TWD but predictably, they're going down the FPS route. Oh well.

Anyway, I've written this blog over 2 nights because of various technical reasons, and the flow I had when I started has gone a bit really. So I'll leave it there.

Basically the outcome of this blog is that TellTale games TWD Season 1 has episode 4 coming out this month with episode 5 coming around Christmas with an expected Season 2, Eps 6-10 coming out in 2013. Not just that but The Walking Dead Video Game is coming out focusing on the Dixon brothers before they joined the group outside Atlanta in the TV show. But you know all this. You've just read my blog.

TTFN

Toolbox 24

Yes...more Mass Effect stuff..but this is BIG

POTENTIAL SPOILERS Y'ALL

Hello.

You'd be forgiven for thinking this blog is actually solely for Mass Effect and my views etc on the games. Well there's the occasional other post, but fuck it, I love Mass Effect and while I'm doing this blog, for now while Mass Effect is the apple of my eye (my glowing red Renegade eye) more Mass Effect stuff you'll get.

Right well the last post told you about the Leviathans. The ancient (and by ancient I mean roughly 1 million years) race of huge cuttlefish type guys, who basically - through their lack of programming skills - created the AI we know as The Catalyst or StarBrat, who's only function was to preserve all life in the galaxy whatever the cost. Basically the AI took it's function too literally (well it is an AI with 1 function...) and ended up creating the Reapers in order to preserve life across the galaxy through brutal means of harvesting the spacefaring races and creating new Reapers in the Leviathans cuttlefish form. I could go on, but I wont. This post is about more Mass Effect as confirmed by BioWare General Manager, Aaron Flynn.

Firstly, he announced the news that BioWare founders Dr's Greg Zeschuk and Ray Muzyka are retiring from the gaming industry after 17 years. The Docs have a fascinating back story. After graduating from Med School in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, the 2 friends thought "Hey, after all that hard work, how about we get out a C$100,000 loan and start a computer games company?" well they did and BioWare was born.

But again, this isn't the point of this post. I wiggle and waggle around. Like a puppies tail on the arrival of his master from a long day of work. Nice huh? The point of this post is, MORE MASS EFFECT STUFF.

Basically since ME3 was released, everyone who has played the game (and played ME2) fully expected one of the DLC packs to be based around Omega. For reference, Omega is a space station in the Terminous Systems that is a haven for the criminal scum of the galaxy - imagine Mos Eisley Spaceport from Star Wars in space. And that actually feels dark and threatening. Basically the space station is near the famed Omega-4 Relay, the unpassable relay to the home of the Collectors. After the events of ME2 enables the Normandy and then Cerberus access through the relay to all that lovely technology, Cerberus think "Hey, let's take over that criminal space station so that we have a lovely huge space station home near all our new technology."

There's a lot of "Hey let's do this..." thinking at BioWare - FACT.

For further reference, "Omega has no titled ruler and only one rule...don't...fuck with Aria."

That's Aria T'Loak the "boss, CEO, Queen if you're being dramatic" of said space station. She's sitting pretty in ME3 on the Citadel, telling Shepard that The Illusive Man (Cerberus leader) right at the top of her shit list and that she's going to take back Omega. And then we never talk to her again. That is until the Omega DLC comes out in the next couple of months, as officially announced in the recent blog from Mr Flynn the GM of BioWare.

Awesome, I'm still yet to play Leviathan to be perfectly honest. I've just started my evil Shepard playthrough of ME3 and am close to being able to activate the mission so I'll be able to give a proper insight and review of it soon.

So that means that additions to ME3 include From Ashes - Introducing us to Javik the Prothean; The Extended Cut - making the abrupt shitting endings PDG (Pretty Darn Good); Leviathan - showing the origins of the Reapers and now Omega - taking the space station back from Cerberus and probably getting some tasty War Assets as well, and hopefully some more extensions on the ending.

BUT THAT'S NOT THE BIG NEWS!!!!!!!

NO WAY FUCKERS!!! NOT IN THE SLIGHTEST!!! Instead of me mincing any words read this lovely following quote from the blog that I've mentioned a couple of times already. I'll help you out by highlighting the most important sentance in the paragraph.

"MASS EFFECT – Executive Producer Casey Hudson and his team are coming off an amazing eight-year run with the Mass Effect trilogy. But they’re not done yet. We are releasing more multiplayer content and we have more single-player stories coming throughout the next six months, including Omega which is coming in the Fall. But the Mass Effect universe is vast, and Casey and our teams have plans for another full game. “Where to go next?” with such a project has been a question a lot of us have been asking, and we’d all love to hear your ideas."

That's right. There will be a 4th Mass Effect game. At the moment, that confirmation is enough. It's obviously still in it's preliminary stages, hence the "Where to go next?" question tacked onto it, and if you scour the BSN forums you'll no doubt find an awful lot of suggestions, one of my favourites being the now infamous Dinosaur DLC - the theory that Dinosaurs weren't just wild big reptiles that acted like wild big reptiles, but that they were sentient, that they were advanced and that they traveled between the stars - only to be wiped out by the Reapers - not ended by a big arsed asteroid.

But seriously how to go on? A prequel would be alright, but has been met with a lot of negativity from the fans - mainly due to the almost pointlessness of it. Yeah it would be cool to play as John Grissom or even David Anderson and play through a game that helps set the scene for ME1, but that would be a better area for another medium - books most likely.

Some have suggested that yes a game set after the climax of ME3 would be awesome, but make it thousands of years after so that you could iron out the effects of Control, Synthesis, Destroy or Refuse into a new storyline, but doing anything set too far off wouldn't appeal because quite frankly the technology is already massively advanced from what we have now, setting it even further ahead of time might make things a smidge ridiculous, and you wont feel like what happened in ME3 had any real effect.

For me, there is only 1 option. And that is to first look back at ME2. They gave you the option to play the game in such a way that when you destroyed the Human-Reaper embryo, Shepard then died. They said that this ending would be the end of YOUR Commander Shepard, and that that story-arch would end there and any playthrough of ME3 would be a stand-alone experience detached from the first 2 games. However, if you played ME2 and your Shep survived, then you could import him/her into ME3 and continue that story.

Therefore, to continue YOUR Shepards story, you need to pick Destroy. Destroy is the only ending of ME3 that provides a "Shepard Lives" cutscene at the end (providing you have a sufficient EMS) and it would provide a perfect platform for a new ME game set maybe still a few decades after ME3 (so Shepard could be a "Anderson" character as opposed to the protagonist) and set just far enough off to show that the relays had been repaired and also the newly placed Citadel could still be a "hub".

Basically the other 3 endings just don't leave a lot to be desired so far as a 4th game goes. 1st - Refuse. Everybody's dead Dave and it's up to the next cycle to finish what the Protheans and the Human Cycle started - to kick the Reapers arse to such a degree that they end up eradicated. So it would involve a whole new set of races, and no humans. Nothing familar in the slightest, apart from the relays and the Citadel. So no thank you.

2nd - Control. Control was the option of choice for The Illusive Man, who was clearly indoctrinated and it would also result in Shepard being dissolved into the Reaper consciousness and using them to fix the galaxy and protect everyone - so kinda pointless to have a game where Shepard is knocking about in the Reapers heads stopping anything shit happening for all of time. 

3rd - Synthesis. Just no. It's stupid. It's shite. It's also kinda what Saren wanted. Well kinda. Ish. He talks about forging alliances between Organics and Machines, and also about the joining of the 2, the advantages of both, the weaknesses of neither. It does tend to lean to the thought that if Saren was stood with StarBrat on the Citadel he'd have leapt into the Crucible Beam without hesitation. This ending as well would result in Shepard dissolving and everyone in the galaxy sharing some lovely DNA. No thanks, it doesn't really give you much scope to create bad guys in way. Everyone is fairly much the same, even the geth and EDI, everyone I would assume have the same strengths and weaknesses - even squirrels. So no.

So I think that they say this - The only way to continue your story from your ME3 save-game, is to choose Destroy with a high EMS. If you choose the other 3 endings then that's perfectly valid, but that would result in the end of YOUR Mass Effect playthrough. This is why I think they are giving us more War Assets for the DLCs (Eden Prime Resistence Movement and the Leviathans to name a couple) and it's why they changed the amount of EMS that you need to get the "Shepard Lives" ending to be more attainable with the normal 50% Galactic Readiness.

Mark my words. THIS.

Anyway, it's late and I need to go off and play....Football Manager. Happy Hunting.

Toolbox 24

EDIT: PS Here is a LINK to the blog post from Aaron Flynn that sparked this post.