Digital Date Night

Date night is a night most girls love because, it’s a great occasion to get dressed up, go out to the movies and dinner to spend time with their special person. But, as much as I love going out with my boyfriend, I don’t like doing it frequently. It’s expensive and labour intensive. I mean, there is a process. Shower, make-up, hair, dress, shoes. It can take 30 minutes, or 2 hours depending on who you are.

Date night in my eyes is staying inside, get into some comfy PJ’s and pick up a controller and play games with my Yoshi. (That’s right, my boyfriend has a gaming nickname.) We get the same satisfaction out of playing games together, even if he does have a horrible taste in first person shooters and it’s far less expensive because we can eat in, we save gas because only one of us has to drive to the others house, and we don’t spend $20 on movie tickets. Still, I’m a little worried. It sounds romantic in some ways, if you strip it down it starts sounding like we’re just two mates hanging out. People who don’t really know us have pointed it out. But because of our financial situation, we’re doing the best we can -- we love our digital date night.

Which zombie is worth more?

I’m in for a long weekend...

On Thursday 22nd, Valve released new DLC for Left 4 Dead 2 known as The Passing. This includes a new campaign which is hard as concrete, an in-game blog and a new game type called “Mutation.” Mutation cycles different game types such as realism verses which combines the difficulty of realism with the interesting concept of Verses (which I’m still not sold on) or Chainsaw Massacre where you just run around with chainsaws.

This new DLC irritates me a little bit. While I’m a great fan of the original Left 4 Dead, and still believe that Left 4 Dead 2 probably could have just been added as DLC to L4D, I’m wondering just what Valve are doing at their development studios. Portal 2 is set to release very soon, all new DLC for a game that was released a year after the original (it shows in the feel of the game) but the game a lot of people have been waiting for isn’t set to be released this year or anytime in the future. The game I’m talking about is Half Life 2: Episode 3.

I thought the idea of episodic gaming was to get games released quicker. But Valve seems to subscribe to the well known Valve Time timetable and that doesn’t sit well with Valve supporters. I would rather be fighting Headcrab zombies than Boomers, Smokers and Jockey’s right about now.

My friend steals my xbox, and then becomes a convert.

"Addie, you love me right?"
"May be, why?"
"Can I borrow the Sexbawks for a little while?"
"Why?"
"'cause..."

This is a conversation with my friend, who I’ll call Jerkface to protect his identity. He is on school holidays and has decided this week would be the week that he’d steal my beloved Xbox and play Assassin’s Creed 2.

What’s interesting about this is he’s a PC gamer, and by rights would be my enemy if the platform wars ever decided to break free of the internet. Also, I know he’s got money to buy the game. You know, he probably would if Ubisoft didn’t have that silly “Permanent connection to internet” DRM that’s been rubbing people the wrong way.

Anyway, I think I’m starting to slowly turn him towards way of thinking about console! He even thought about buying an Elite. Not that he’ll ever admit it. If he keeps following my lead, he’ll be swooning like a lady whenever Nathan Fillon is on Castle.

But our princess is in another castle!

This week I started Pokémon Heart Gold a re-release of what is said to be one of the best Pokémon games. This got me thinking about Nintendo and the company. Even more than that, it got me asking myself, “Where did the Nintendo ingenuity that made them a household name go?”

Nintendo has released a new coloured Wii to attract a different demographic, Super Mario Brother Wii is almost the same as other Super Mario games, the new DS XL, which is the 4th redesign of the DS and the re-release of Heart Gold and Soul Silver.

What troubles me about Nintendo’s new design philosophy is that I haven’t noticed any new series’ that are worth the money it cost to develop them. Anecdotal evidence suggests that even though the Wii is winning the pissing contest between Sony and Microsoft, people buy the Wii and soon move on from the novelty of motion control and the gimmicks wear off quite soon after. And the DS isn’t much better. With games varying from Barbie Fashion Show to Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare – Mobilised, the handheld device can’t decide if it wants to accessorise humanity or blast it to hell.

I’m starting to think that if Nintendo can’t release anything that isn’t in the same league as games from the glory days of the late eighties and early nineties, they might be looking at the beginning of the end and in ten or so years, Nintendo might only be a memory.

A Step in the Right Direction.

Australian gamers may very soon have the rating that they’ve been crying out for for years. Last month, South Australian Attorney-General Michael Atkinson retired from the position. He’ll be on the back bench of politics for another four years, which means he’s basically not participating in politics much any more.

The change of heart could be caused by several things: Increased pressure from gamers, his desire to be with his family, or (and more likely) recent political blunders such as trying to get internet blogs censored. Whatever the reason is, it’s good news for gamers. New Attorney-General John Rau is in favour for an adult rating for videogames. Although, Atkinson said that he wasn’t the only Attorney-General s who didn’t support the idea of an R18+ rating. Why didn’t they ever speak up when Atkinson was copping the brunt of criticism for brick walling the rating?

I wonder if this means that censored games like Left 4 Dead 2 (Valve) will be re-released for Australian gamers who were forced to buy the censored, Australian version. I, like many Australians, don’t care since we got a mate to gift us a copy. Will the shift in policy affect game sales in Australia? Stay tuned!