With the year of 2011 (one that will not be forgotten for quite a while by us gamers) slowly drawing to the close it seems a shame now that all the greatest games were released in a short space of time. We’re finding it hard to choose what to play each day! It will be some time until we complete all the best games from this year… For now we are looking to the future. Recently there have been some awesome trailers around for movies coming out next year such as The Dark Knight Rises and The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. Could 2012 be the film equivalent that 2011 was to gaming? Of course there will be a few bad apples (Titanic 3D? Seriously Mr Cameron?) and then there will be some really rotten stinky disgusting sickening apples with a case of sexuality confusion (Twilight Breaking Dawn Part 2) but with the likes of Batman, The Avengers and The Hobbit, we may be saved! Which film are you looking forward to most apart from those top 3? For me, it is Looper, can’t wait to find out more about it. That and our very own ‘Replica’…

Thanks for reading

~Sam

I often do some research before I buy a game as, occasionally, one console port is slightly better than the other. So when I heard whispers near to the release of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, that the PS3 version had more bugs than the 360 version, so I decided to ask for the 360 edition, just to be safe (I’m getting it for Christmas, expect a review). Obviously, a bit of time has passed now since the release and I’m glad I’m getting it for the Xbox as I am hearing from multiple people that Bethesda kinda f*cked up this time. According to some experts, the frame rate lag that some Playstation users are experiencing is due to the split memory of Sony’s console, meaning that recovering the dynamic objects to place in the game takes longer, causing the legendary land of Tamriel to freeze up in a frustrating way when the player delves ever deeper into the Skyrim region. Bethesda has commented on the issues, saying that the problem is unlikely to be fixed by a patch or anything else at all. Bethesda has had some buggy games before but could this just be too unforgivable; they must have known that the PS3 version did not run properly, surely they could have delayed it to fix the problems or perhaps even cancelled it altogether instead of getting up the hopes of many Sony fanboys?

Do you think that Bethesda deserves the benefit of the doubt?

Thanks for reading

~Sam

Back in the day, there was no such thing as multiplayer. Sure, there was a competitive scoreboard on the old Pacman machine down the pub but never could we gamers imagine fighting against real people in horrifically realistic battle situations within 3D environments, or even that our team mates and enemies would be miles away across the sea, screaming and raging down a cheap Xbox or PS3 microphone, making nasty, outlandish claims concerning our beloved mothers and fathers.

I for one am extremely thankful that we have not yet (and probably never will) get to the day when all games only use multiplayer, because controversially, I believe that single player is better than multiplayer when it comes to video games. Before I’m ripped apart by angry Call of Duty fans and their attack dogs, let me explain my opinion…

Think about the differences between SP and MP. In SP you can get character, story, and unique objectives and in MP you get anonymous figures, represented by a soldier and sometimes a crackly voice and you get people raging at others wile carrying out very simple objectives. I probably sound biased but I don’t really care; I’m not trying to make you agree with me, I’m just explaining my views.

I don’t mind multiplayer being there; it certainly doesn’t damage replay value, but what shocks me is when a gamer buys a game just for the MP without taking a glance at SP. Sorry, but that disgusts me. Of course there are games that feature lazy and boring campaigns but you should at least give it a go! Even if you play it for only five minutes, it’s worth a look at especially now that new games cost around £40-£50, you want to be getting your money’s worth.

Fortunately I am pretty sure that nearly all of these MP-only zombies are strictly mainstream (the sort of people who only play gun games and car games and do it because it’s ‘cool’ (“What the hell is Portal? Screw that, I wanna play CoD…”)).

Once, I went to a friends house for their birthday and literally it was Cod, then Halo, then more CoD, then more Halo… for hours and hours. That… was torture. And I was forced to watch. I occasionally picked up a controller but the people I was playing against were too advanced so I kept dying and IT WASN’T FUN. We play games because they’re supposed to be fun! Not to be competitive, not to boost our motherf*ckingf stats!!! A true gamer plays both MP and SP but would not neglect friends for either.

The same thing almost happened again at one of my own birthday parties! Before I knew it my friends were firing up my PS3, about to play some sort of ‘tournament’ on Black Ops. Fair enough, I thought, if that’s how they have fun I’ll allow it, I don’t want to be a douche about it. But then when the candles on my cake were being lit I came to get them but none of them would move away from their Black Ops sh*t. I won’t lie, I was actually upset for a moment that it was more important to them than I was. But then I manned up, went into epic troll mode and took a deep breath. I walk in, no-one pays attention, I turn off the PS3. Mt friends: “FFFFFUUUUUUUU-”

Take from this article what you will. I just wanted to express my views and explain myself really. Of course multiplayer is not as evil as I make it out to be but I just want to make sure that we don’t forget about the often masterfully created story that single player has to offer…


Thanks for reading.
~Sam