If you’re a student, which there’s a good chance you are, then it’s more than likely that you have heard of a game called Pro Evolution Soccer, more commonly abbreviated to PES… It seems that no matter what your football simulator of choice beforehand was, once you get to uni it becomes almost mandatory to become sufficient at PES, in fact for some courses I think it actually carries UCAS points now.

I myself had always been a FIFA faithful before my time here but I can see why students so readily make the change, the PES series runs at a much faster pace and the freedom of movement and the detailed physics makes for a unique and frankly nail biting experience everytime since the ball can slide into the goal after three or four lucky rebounds as the defending player franticly but hopelessly bashes at buttons or it can be blasted into the top corner from range following an inspired bit of build up play. For a while now PES has been the multiplayer dream.

But this is a FIFA review isn’t it? Yes it is, but the point is that recently EA have dropped the ball (pun absolutely intended) somewhat when it came to the football experience. Whilst Konami took a good hard look at the gamplay for console football and ultimately brought a much more fluent and free experience to the table, EA failed to up the ante and tended to reproduce the same old story with updated player stats. For a while then, it was understandable that PES was top of the league.

As a born FIFA fan I’m happy to report that with FIFA 08 on the PS3 this has all changed. It seems to me that Konami have made the same mistake that EA made in previous years when, despite crossing the bridge to next generations platforms, they failed to make any real improvements to the football experience with Pro Evolution Soccer 2008. EA on the other hand have pulled their fingers out and taken a good hard look at what the potentials are with these new powerful machines.

Aside from the graphics, which have never been lacking in the FIFA series, EA have made crucial improvements to the overall feel and freedom of the game, clearly learning a lesson from their nearest rivals. Players now more in a more varied way, a quick flick of the analogue stick no longer causes a ninety degree pivot, Sensible Soccer style, but instead a much more useful and subtle movement to the side which can be quickly reversed again to confuse the opposition.

The same can be said for having a shot or sending a ball long, whilst previous FIFA additions seemed to be limited to the same handful of animations when it came to shooting time and time again, each goal now seems much more individual as the ball reacts differently depending on when and where it is hit and at what pace which is all down perfect timing on the controls for that perfect goal.

Now, rather than being a matter of filling the power bar to just the right level, getting the best shot out of a player is all about finding that ‘sweet spot’ in the game-play, making it all the more satisfying when you do. At the pinnacle of freedom and versatility is the new skill system based largely on the right analogue stick. This time, rather than pressing a button or using a stick to set off a pre-programmed set of animated moves it’s up to you to piece the movements together.

So now a single semi-circle flick of the right analogue stick will only provide you with a single step over, mimicking the movement you just made with you finger for example, if you want more than this then you have to move your finger more, wonderfully logical isn’t it? This seems to be a new trend in EA games since there are similar systems in both Skate and Fight Night and whilst it requires more skill to get the hang of it gives the player more control, more versatility, more room to be creative and create their own style (so a little more work pays off).

Aside from the game-play itself, EA have, in my opinion, improved the features of the FIFA series ten fold with the inclusion of the ‘Be A Pro’ mode, where you take control of a single player on the pitch and control only him for the whole match. Now, you might be thinking that this could be a little bit dull leading to long periods of inactivity whilst you watch the computer play football and you would be exactly right but strangely that’s also the brilliance of this feature.

With a dynamic camera which zooms in when you have ball and gets closer and wobblier when the pressure is on it makes you feel the pressure and the fact that you don’t have control of the ball all the time gives you the desire to make each pass and each side-step count, it makes you think like a footballer, and it’s even better online!

If I had to come up with any criticisms of FIFA 08 (and lets face it, in this line of work I do) then I’d say that there are times when it still feels a tad slow, especially when your trying to sprint past the back line on the counter attack, some of the players just don’t get the speed I’d like. Having said this, I do find PES far too fast and FIFA’s pace makes for a much more realistic and strategic game which is one of passing and moving rather than through balls and sprinting, tactics which are never used on the real pitches because quite frankly if your players can keep doing that for ninety minutes then your drug tests aren’t thorough enough.

Overall FIFA may not be the best football game to sit around with your mates at 3:30 in the morning with a kebab and blurred vision but it’s the best football simulation out there at the moment.

9/10

By Tom Pakinkis

By Peter Gothard

Ironically one of the main factors in the decline of PC gaming is closely linked to the very thing that has made it so attractive for so long, the pace of hardware and software innovation. Commercial exploitation of these innovations is what made the games and hardware of today possible, but shortsighted and exploitative business practices may be seriously threatening their future. The current situation really began in 1996 with the release of GL Quake, a port of iD software’s hugely successful FPS, which introduced support for dedicated 3D accelerators like the 3Dfx Voodoo. GL Quake completely blew away games on pretty much every other platform in terms of graphical quality but no longer could you just sneak into your Dad’s study to play it because you needed a Pentium processor and an outrageously expensive 3D graphics card. Up until this point a good gaming machine wasn’t anything more than a high specification generic computer and so could be seen as a good general investment. Of course the Pentium processor wasn’t just good for games, it made Windows 3.1 pretend to multitask a lot more convincingly; and you could just about watch porn if you had a fast internet connection. But, excluding a handful of people, most of whom probably worked for George Lucas, a 3D graphics card was at this point only of any use for playing the new 3D games.

This wasn’t actually that much of a problem, those short on funds or long on common  sense could just run the original [software rendered] version of Quake on very basic machines and it still looked great, not 3Dfx glide great, but pretty damn good. However, after the success of GL Quake and cards like the Voodoo, hardware manufacturers began to realize that there might be a significant number of people who were prepared to spend vast amounts of money turning their fancy word processors into dedicated gaming machines and this would have serious consequences for the future. Where the hardware went, the software followed, and although the cutting edge titles of the next few years like Quake 2 and Half-life were still quite capable of running on low specification computers, they looked stunning enough on the new high end hardware that the games and the gaming press began to act as the unofficial marketing department for the hardware vendors. In 1999 Quake 3 was released, and in addition to being phenomenally popular it became the first major PC game to require a 3D accelerator. This was completely unnecessary from a technical viewpoint, as Unreal Tournament 2004 proved some four years later, but what was important was that it was possible at all. Quake 3 marked a major shift from gamers wanting 3D hardware to make games look prettier to their accepting that they would need it in order to be able to play at all.

Over the next few years 3D accelerators became the norm and the increasingly programmable hardware became adapted to perform various non-gaming functions, such as video decoding. This gave consumers a few more legitimate reasons to purchase the things, but usually the cheap 3D graphics chips being integrated into motherboards were more than sufficient. These were just about adequate for basic gaming and their rapidly falling prices made them very attractive to OEMs and consumers alike. But while the integrated 3D chipsets were becoming ever more affordable, the top end hardware was growing steadily more expensive: On its release in 1998 the Voodoo 2 was the most expensive consumer 3D card available, costing £250. Roughly three years later the groundbreaking Nvidia Geforce 3 cost in the region of £400, and more recently the Geforce 8800 Ultra launched at a stunning £600. One has to draw a line between the innovative, the exploitative, and those products dreamed up under the influence of crack. It is to be expected that any high end or luxury computer product will be overpriced, but for a company to seek short-term profit at the cost of alienating their customers is madness. If the graphics card manufacturers began this trend then there are others prepared to take it even further. Ageia, a recent startup, have developed an add-in card which realistically (if rather slowly) simulates the interactions of objects in a game according to real world physics.
At the moment all it really has to offer are slightly more realistic rubble and explosions for a cost of £150.
The danger is that if game physics simulations were to become as detailed as Ageia promises, then it would likely exclude anybody who did not have Ageia hardware from participating at all. There would be no option of software rendered physics for those with older machines; they would be cut out completely. Some may relish the though of PC gaming becoming an exclusive pastime, but the more people that are prevented from participating, the less publishers will bother to release any games at all.

Over in console land, publishers had always managed to sell more games than their PC counterparts; Super Mario Brothers alone managed to shift over 40 million copies during the lifetime of the NES. But due to their long product lifecycles console technology tended to lag far behind that of gaming PCs. Additionally, beyond a few ‘in house’ releases most of the cutting edge 3D titles which did make it onto consoles were poor conversions of PC games like as Doom. With the Nintendo 64 and Sony Playstation things began to change, titles such as Goldeneye, Metal Gear Solid and Medal of Honor appeared, and they provided a comparable if slightly less polished experience to the 3D action titles on PC.

If the Nintendo 64 and Playstation had shown that consoles could do 3D action, then the Xbox and Playstation 2 showed that they could do it every bit as well as the PC. Halo and Grand Theft Auto 3 (on the Xbox and Playstation respectively) stunned gamers who had been expecting both to appear on PC first, something which had been the norm since the mid nineties. Months later, when the much anticipated PC versions finally came out, they offered little more than a few more control options and slightly crisper graphics. The perfect match for Halo was Xbox Live! It was the first really successful online gaming service for consoles and a major coup for Microsoft both because it helped to further popularize many Xbox games and because they were managing to charge a significant amount of money for something which PC owners could already do for free.

Halo and Grand Theft Auto 3 were not alone and most studios began to focus increasingly on console exclusives and cross platform games. The attitude of many developers seemed to shift from something along the lines of ‘let’s take advantage of the newest hardware’ to ‘let’s take advantage of the newest hardware - to make up for our badly optimized code’. These days the scalability of Half-life and Quake 2 is almost forgotten, and many recent PC games such as S.T.A.L.K.E.R and Bioshock will simply not run on the majority of new computers. I am not accusing the developers of laziness; these are obviously economic rather than creative decisions. Games are becoming ever more complex and expensive to develop, and the increased focus on consoles has come about because they are the most profitable platform. However the lack of focus on PC titles, both a failure to release enough new and interesting games, and not optimizing those that are released well enough to run on older hardware is only going to perpetuate the problem.

Looking to the future things certainly seem rather bleak, between them the Xbox 360 and PS3 now offer RTS games, patches and updates, the ability to run Linux, and even the promise of mod support; In other words they are capable of doing almost anything which a gaming PC can. PC owners may retort that their machines offers a good deal of non gaming functionality, but this is missing the point than one can purchase an Xbox 360 and a good quality office machine for much less than the cheapest models in Dell’s Alienware range.

The one area of PC game development that stands out is the ever more successful independent developers. Due to the extortionate publishing fees levied by console manufacturers independent games development has never really been feasible on them, but things are somewhat different on PC. In fact very few independently developed PC games have ever met with much commercial success, but this may be beginning to change. With the launch of Steam, Valve Software’s online distribution platform and the flagship independent titles Uplink, Darwinia and DEFCON, independent PC game development has of late been enjoying a limited renaissance. While the success of these titles is nowhere near that of the Halo franchise, it appears to be gathering momentum. What makes them particularly interesting is that due to the financial constraints of the developers, these titles do not even attempt to compete with the latest high tech action titles. Instead, they tend to be much more creative and unusual, often appealing to more mature gamers and crucially, having only very moderate hardware requirements.

Finally, I think there is something that bears the consideration of every dedicated PC gamer. It is an inescapable fact that the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 already offer 90% of what you might call the gaming functionality of a PC. They are both big, hot, and noisy, the hallmarks of every high performance
computer, and one can even hook them up to a computer monitor and play [at least some] games with a keyboard and mouse. In taking over much of the PC gaming market, consoles have become ever more ‘PC like’ and even the geeks amongst us may begin to wonder whether the death of the gaming PC would even be important at all.

 Dave Muhl-Richardson

With the recent release of Flatout: Ultimate Carnage on Xbox 360 and PC, it is
understandable that readers may be interested in getting themselves a slice of
the ‘carnage’. What is also understandable is the disgust that readers will
feel when they discover that yet again, publishers are charging the best part
of 25 pints of lager for their new release. Well, dear readers, fear not, for
there is a budget option at hand.

While it may not have all the knobs and whistles that Ultimate Carnage has to
offer, Flatout 2 for the PC is still a viable option for car-destroying
enthusiasts. The basic formula behind the Flatout games is a series of races,
where taking down fences, lamp-posts, old barns, diggers, telegraph poles,
piles of logs and other competitors earns nitro which can be used to help you
take the lead.

However, landing yourself, or a rival driver in the path of a solid object will
lead to ejection of the unfortunate driver, the rag doll body of which will
shoot head long into said solid object. The game designers have taken this
concept to new heights with new mini games – these include not just the high
jump, long jump and target practice of the original, but also Ring of Fire,
American Football Tackle, and Bowling, along with a few others. These work by
firing your driver from his automobile at a time of your choosing to achieve
the intended aim.

In practice, the concepts work a lot better than they sound. Races are frantic,
with intelligent and at times, violent, competitors racing against you as best
they can, while jumps, obstacles and shortcuts litter the varying tracks
invoking mass destruction along the way. Mini-games are multiplayer, and are
more about skill than speed, which contrasts nicely with the main element of
the game.

Graphics are extremely detailed, though this will depend to some extent on your
PC (Minimum spec is a 2GHz processor, with 256MB ram and a 64MB graphics card
from Nvidia/ATI). The non-presence of licensed cars allows that crashes have a
visible effect on your motor, ranging from a slight dent to two missing wheels
and a burning engine. Crashes also have an expected effect on the handling of
the cars, which is appreciated, being something that not all driving games
insist upon.

And it is not only post-crash handling which is accurate. While the cars do not
drive as realistically as those of Forza Motorsport, they are a lot more
tactile than those of, say, Grand Theft Auto, although this is somewhat
expected given the differing nature of the game.

So, given the destruction in the game, is this what our parents have been
campaigning against since the dawn of the first Grand Theft Auto? This gamer
says no – people seem not to die in this game and there is no blood. That is
not to say that the game isn’t violent – it is. Buildings, farms and airports
are trashed, drivers are left in the most excruciating positions after ejection
from their cars, and screams can be heard as you hurtle past your
disaster-struck competitors. This is still no match, however for the likes of
Carmageddon, or any modern first person shooter for that matter.

Is this a game set to go down history as one of the great driving games of the
naughties? Well, no, given the distinct lack of press it was given, and the
fact that no multiplayer racing mode has been included. Nonetheless, given the
current budget selling price of £4.99, it is well worth a look for those with a
destructive edge to their personality.

7½  out of 10

Jake Andrews

Released: 26^th September (2007)

Players: 1-4 (2 – 16 online)

Price: £39.99

Genre: First-Person Shooter

It’s Time to Finish the Fight 

I have a small confession to make. Until Halo 3 was released back at the end of September, I had barely touched any of the games in the Halo series; in fact my total Halo experience was the first level of the original. Yet such was the expectation, I knew this was a game that I just had to own. The big question is does it live up to the hype surrounding it? Let’s find out… 

An important aspect to any game is the content. What are you getting for your hard earned £40?  

First off, there is the main campaign that completes the Halo story. The player resumes control of Master Chief, the main protagonist of the Halo universe. The campaign features nine decently sized levels that vary from luscious jungles to dark and mysterious covenant space craft. Visually, they look stunning. Admittedly, I do have a high definition VGA set up, but things still look pretty neat and tidy even on my ageing fourteen inch CRT. A big plus is the repeatedly recycled areas that plagued Halo 2 appears to almost completely gone, albeit with one exception - the penultimate level felt very repetitive and tiresome when I ran through it.  

Perhaps the most appealing aspect of the campaign mode is the ability to play up to four player co-op, either on the same machine split screen or via the Xbox live service. The second player takes control of the Arbiter, and additional players take on the roles of two new elite characters, each with their own back story. The game retains the difficulty levels of easy, normal, heroic and the fiendishly difficult legendary modes found in the previous instalments, and also adds an additional campaign scoring to the co-op play whereby players are awarded points by defeating enemies, achieving certain goals or finding items hidden throughout the levels. Likewise, players are penalised for dying, thus creating a more competitive experience. 

This all sounds very good, but it should be said Halo 3 is not without its problems. Despite the decent size of the levels, the campaign still feels far too short for my liking, especially on the easier difficulties, although at least the variation and size of the levels go some way to countering this. The A.I is also somewhat questionable at times, with some enemies just running around in circles, and computer controlled team mates are just plain idiotic, firing rockets launchers a little too close for comfort at times. On the whole though, the single player is a very pleasant experience, and leaves you with a very accomplished feeling when completed on the harder difficulties.  

Despite the shortness of the single player, Halo 3’s multiplayer mode is where most players will no doubt spend most of their playing time. Halo 3 brings back the match making system, whereby players are able to create a party or group of friends and are matched with players of a similar skill and experience who are searching for similar game scenarios. Personally, I’m not a big of fan of this. I much prefer to create my own party and then choose manually which game I want to play, especially as the match making process can take the best part of minute at times to locate games, although in all credit to it, I’ve had no other problems with it yet. Up to sixteen players can play in one match, with up to four players on one console using one Xbox Live account. So how does it play? The simple answer is very nicely indeed. Gone is the hideous bullet lag that has plagued other 360 titles. That’s dedicated game servers for you. A nice twist to the multiplayer is the large array of vehicles available for use. Players can jump on quad bikes with a buddy on the back, go solo with several different flying machines, or take to the trusty jeeps (see picture). And yes, running someone over will well and truly ruin their day. Perhaps the greatest aspect of the multiplayer though is the vast quantities of scenarios to choose from. First you have the standard free for all, team battles and team doubles. Then you have the team objective mode, which includes sub categories of capture the flag, deliver the bomb, team onslaught and base onslaught, where players must capture various parts of the map, similar to king of the hill, but with five hills at once. And yes, king of the hill is in there as well. 

Halo 3 also brings in several new features. These include an interesting game type new to the Halo series called Forge. Here players can edit the contents of a map, for example adding extra vehicles or weapons and altering ammo supply and weapon spawn times. The big difference is, this can actually be done during a match, which can make for a very interesting game. Interestingly for a first-person shooter, Halo 3 includes replays! If you are particularly satisfied with a multiplayer rampage or you’ve got some comical kills, then you can save a video of your match and watch it back to your hearts content. In addition to this, the videos can be shared amongst other Xbox Live users, so you can send it to your friends for them to watch and learn.  

My overall impression of Halo 3 is it is a very good game, with a fun and solid, albeit short single player and a very strong multiplayer that will keep most players entertained for months. I think the game suffers however from the weight of expectation on its shoulders. In many quarters it has been dubbed “The game of the decade”, which I’m afraid I find to be somewhat unjust at this time. This could be that I’m just not engrossed enough in the Halo series yet but it feels like it has something missing and doesn’t really add anything new to the genre. However, there is no doubt the game is very good, it seems to do most things right and I would definitely recommend it anyone who had enjoyed either of the previous Halo instalments or is a fan of first-person shooter in general. 

Overall: 8.5/10 

Chris Savoury

Delusional acid-fuelled fantasy aside, he could well have been describing the curious tale of Andrew Ryan – millionaire genius/madman, and creator of his own subaquatic bourgeois republic!

Tired of the meddling interference of the world’s pesky politics, taxes and, most of all, troublesome standards of moral fibre, Ryan shipped out to build his perfect society – the city of Rapture - deep beneath the ocean.

Inviting the world’s finest scientists, artists and thinkers to colonise his new world, it wasn’t long before Ryan’s dream became a nightmare. Freed from the confines of ethics, the barriers of technological development were swiftly broken, and the inhabitants of Rapture began to resemble creatures who were far more, but paradoxically much, much less, than human.

It’s a few years down the line that you, the sole survivor of an oceanic plane crash, stumble into Rapture.

A derelict husk of its former self, the setting of Bioshock is a gigantic, broken behemoth of a place. Trapped in a 1940’s timewarp of mouldering velvet curtains, flickering musical theatre signs and rusting dancehall balconies, Rapture’s fractured infrastructure also leaks sea water at a constant rate, with beautifully rendered rivulets running down the girders, and glistening streams washing down its discoloured walkways. Its remaining inhabitants, mutated beyond belief by their own experiments, stalk its corridors muttering obscenities and killing remorselessly.

The setting is, without a doubt, utterly breathtaking. But what’s it like to interact with?

A first person shooter in the classic sense, Bioshock contains, on the surface, the usual staples of the genre. Pistols, shotguns and machine guns all make their predictable appearance, but it’s not long before your character discovers that Rapture’s arcane technologies can be used for your own benefit, too.

Plasmids – think of them as DNA upgrades to the human body, making possible such wonders as telekinesis, invisibility or even the ability to shoot liquid fire from your fists. Finding, buying or earning large syringes (which you gruesomely shove into your own wrist to “install”) will unlock the above skills and many, many more. These biological weapons add an almost infinite versatility to your playing style as you begin discovering more and more unhinged ways to plan the downfall of Rapture’s crazy remaining citizens.

For example, in one scenario, you’re battling a Big Daddy (a giant diving-suit clad monstrosity) while another enemy hurls grenades at you from a high balcony. All the while, a wall-mounted sensor unleashes flying sentry drones on you. You could just gun the whole lot of them down with your rocket launcher. Or, more interestingly, you could use your telekinesis Plasmid to catch the grenades, enabling you to hurl a steady stream of pineapples at the Big Daddy and the sentries. You could even use your “Security Bullseye” Plasmid to set all the drones on both the other enemies, while you take cover and wait for the dust to settle. The possibilities are seemingly endless.

The enemies, however, aren’t quite so varied in their nature, and this is my first major criticism of Bioshock – there are only around five or six clearly defined types of foe. The AI they display is also of a lower standard than, say, the good old US marines in Half-Life, with most of these guys just rushing towards you in shrieking insanity, seemingly ready to be shot/burned/frozen/stung by killer bees (yes, really). While some will climb across the ceiling or teleport around in a cloud of red smoke, they all seem to value little more than a direct approach in combat. It’s a shame, as the massive range of abilities you’re blessed with feel like they’re going somewhat to waste once you’ve sussed the quickest and easiest ways to plough through the steady streams of suicidal minions (which is usually bludgeoning them a few times with your wrench).

There is, however, one standout foe in the game, and this is the much-vaunted Big Daddy, as mentioned above. Spun as Bioshock’s poster boy for much of its PR campaign (and available as a small statue in preorder packs), they don’t quite live up to the hype somehow, but are still a force to be reckoned with and often great fun to battle.

As protectors of the Little Sisters - the carriers of ADAM, which is basically the currency you need to purchase your Plasmids - they are a sight to behold as they lumber gamely alongside their child-like wards. Simply attempting to approach a Little Sister will result in you being shoved forcefully away by the protective hulk. Try to attack her, and the lights behind the Big Daddy’s helmet turn bright red, and he’ll lunge at you, firing grenades or simply shoving his massive drill-tipped hand through your face. Stylish. Big Daddies are also deceptively agile for their size – they’ll chase you down in no time if you try and outrun him.

If and when you finally down a Big Daddy, you’ll be presented with something of a moral quandary as well. Do you murder this doe-eyed little girl, sobbing over the charred corpse of her minder (“Mr Bubbles…please wake up…”), and steal all her ADAM? Or should you “harvest” her – taking a lesser amount of ADAM but freeing her of her slavery to Rapture and leaving with a clean conscience to boot? The choice is yours, and, limited as it is, it’s quite a novel feature to see in a videogame of this type; you almost feel like you’re taking an active part in openly defying the monstrous ethics on which Rapture is founded.

There’s not an awful lot more to say about Bioshock. It looks great, it feels wonderful. Hell, it almost smells fantastic – at its best, this game simply oozes atmosphere. But it just doesn’t seem to have the consistent gameplaying Ambrosia of a title such as Half-Life 2. This could very well be due to it falling back all too often on rather bland corridor wandering, with backtracking aplenty. Half-Life 2’s developers, Valve, have an innate skill for peppering their FPSs with sumptuously designed setpieces, having the enthralled player lurch from each carefully choreographed encounter to the next. While Bioshock may be trying to shuck this philosophy in favour of a more open-plan ideal of “go anywhere do anything”, it unfortunately results in far too many quiet moments where you’re ambling along the same old tunnel as hordes identical, randomly-spawned ugly flappers jump at you with flick-knives. While I’m not suggesting everyone should copy Half-Life (the FPS market is currently stagnant enough as it is, thanks), I do think that Bioshock could, with improved AI and a bit more variety, have become another true classic. As it is, it’s still a great adventure, and well worth anybody’s time and money. When the atmosphere’s there, it’s a pretty much unrivalled experience, and the game is also an excellent showcase for a dual core system with a decent graphics card (both essential to get the best out of the game though – be warned).

Meanwhile, with a sequel recently announced, one hopes 2K have already set to work fixing those leaks in the hull before Bioshock’s next journey into the deep. Full speed ahead, Mr Boatswain…

Peter Gothard

Whilst you can never complete Wow in order to give it a replay-ability rating, to be honest, replay-ability technically runs out once you have completed your first quest. True, it can get quite exciting when there are rumblings that an Orc has made it onto the human island and everyone legs it to the keep to defend queen and country but this rarely happens. In fact, upon hearing that there was an Orc island, I was actually quite determined to go over there, kick some arse and come home a hero. So after, miles of walking (having to take the long way around in order to avoid level 20 creatures that I clearly wasn’t ready for at level 5) I reached the sea and started to swim.

After about half an hour of pressing forward, my finger began to lose its feeling and so I set up a complex weighted system that would keep the button suppressed and went to get a sandwich and some water (the doctor said I had to drink more water). I came back to find that once you are far out enough at sea tiredness becomes a factor and my warrior guy had drowned. I wasn’t going to walk all that way to try again.

So I find these RPG games somewhat lacklustre in some pretty vital areas, but that’s not to say there isn’t potential. There is an absolutely huge amount of potential, especially with the evolution of online gaming on our next gen consoles.

I firmly believe that we will soon be playing in online worlds as vast as the World of Warcraft with characters that have as much dynamic ability as Sam Fisher or Solid Snake. And that may not be all: Of course to have a truly interactive online world we need a wide range of people logging in to do a wide range of things rather than each playing as essentially the same protagonist in the same game.

What if we didn’t have a separate online world for each game, but rather one world for all games? Picture it; a multitude of gaming engines all in one online sphere, where people take a bus to the football stadium to play FIFA or walk to the gym to play Fight Night. ‘Who’s that shifty looking guy down in the subway?’ they might think whilst eyeing up a guy in a trench coat nursing a gun, “Perhaps he’s playing the latest ‘stealth-em up’’, better make sure I don’t get in his line of fire if something goes off.

It’s a crazy thought I know, but what an experience, and the way things are looking at the moment, we may well be on the right path.

By Tom Pakinkis

Ross Price