Fanboy Rehab 101: How I learned to love Halo

Halo:  You love it, or you hate it.  I used to hate it.  I hated it with an unfounded passion.  To me Halo was a figurehead of everything bad in the computer/gaming industry.  Halo was the game that fat-cat Microsoft stole from underdog Apple back in the days when no-one knew what an iPod was, when Steve Jobs was known more for being kicked out from Apple, and iMacs looked like fruit.  Yes, I was a "Mac guy."  Microsoft was the big evil Monopoly back then.  They screwed Netscape.  They ripped people off with new versions of Office and Windows that were no better, but required you to buy yet another computer.  Bill Gates was the richest man in the world, and I was not.  Microsoft was even going to try to monopolize the gaming console industry with the Xbox.  The Xbox was evil, and Halo was it's heavy hitter.  Supporting Halo was supporting Microsoft, which was just making the rich richer, and pushing the "little guys" out.  In hindsight, I did not really hate Halo, I hated Microsoft.

Fast Forward about 10 or so years.

As a long time a PC/PlayStation gamer, I finally got a 360 for Forza 3 (I had played GT3/4/Prologue to death, and the inclusion of Porsche in Forza 3 made it an easy sell).  One day last Fall, I was in my local games store, browsing for deals.  Halo 3: Limited edition for 19.99$ used.  SOLD!  "Lets see what all the hype is about" I thought.  I figured Halo was a game for pre-teens.  Childs play.  So I started the first level on Heroic (as intended...) and clearly remembered getting my asshole handed to me.  Somehow I found myself stuck behind a tree with a plasma pistol (where did I get that???) and I was trying to hold off snipers with it.  I was owned; or you could say pwned if that term was still hip.  After figuring out the controls, and learning how to manage my shields, I began to have fun, a lot of fun.  I went online and watched some videos to get caught up in the back-story, and before you know it, I was buying ODST.  To me ODST is the black sheep of the franchise, but dripped atmosphere, and was a double-playthrough for me (a rarity for me in any game).  Reach was phenomenal, and multiplayer still has me hooked.  I have even started playing through Combat Evolved and have my eye out for a copy of Halo 2.

Long story short, I ended up loving Halo.  It was no perfect game, but it was fun.  It was accessible, while still providing depth.  There are games with better graphics, and there are shooters that have surpassed Halo in popularity, but no matter how I looked at it, Halo was a great franchise, and I had a good time.

So what is my point here?  Well, to be honest it is not to throw praise on Halo.  You don't, and should not need my opinion to make your own decision on that one.  Love it or hate it, I don't really care either.  My point is that I missed out on what ended up being a great game because of my own Fanboyism over the years.  I never gave Halo a chance, and until I did, it was my loss.  Fanboyism did nothing for me.  My message is for the subset of gamers that find they take sides and shun all that is not their console of choice.  Be open, try new things.  Forget review scores.  Forget Lens of Truth. Forget PS3 vs 360.  In this world there are good games, and there are bad games.  Only you can decide which are which.  Don't let console wars keep you from great games like Forza, GT, Halo, Killzone, Uncharted, etc.  Remember, when you are being a Fanboy, you are only hurting your own gaming experience and enjoyment.

PC Gaming: The Truth

After reading countless articles and comments on this site that spread lies and misinformation about this platform I decided to share my thoughts on the matter without screaming “PC gaming is better” or “Consolez FTW”. I am biased towards PC gaming as I am a PC gamer and own neither console. However I used too and gamed on the consoles for years so I believe I have a fair insight on both sides. This is not an article to start a flame war in the comments about which platform you prefer, everyone has their opinion and I advise you not to post why your system is the best. It’s all preference.
This Blog is only here to throw away the big lies about PC gaming which I spread out into three topics.

[Price]

A lot of arguing goes on about this topic. You have the “uninformed” console gamer who believes that a PC costs around £2000 however I am going to ignore this because it’s just plain stupidity. Then you get to the real argument PC’s are a big investment, you are likely to pay triple the price of a console to get a good gaming rig that will last you a while. However console games generally cost around £10 more than a PC game at launch and drop in price a lot quicker. Then there is the factor of upgrading your PC which is not normally necessary to keep playing games which brings me to the second big lie about PC Gaming, people who say that you have to worry about upgrading your parts for every new game that releases. If you invested in a good system at launch there is no reason why it can’t still play games 4-6 years down the line. Due to most games only running DX9 because of the consoles however of course you will need to upgrade your computer if you want to run DX11 and bought a DX9 graphics card however this is not a necessity.

TL;DR PC gaming is a massive investment at first however If you buy a lot of games it will probably end up being cheaper.

[Ease of use and reliability]

Well a lot of people want their gaming platform to be simple and easy to use and in this field consoles trump PC however the jump is not as big as people think and you will actually learn something useful if you learn how to build and maintain a PC. Thinking of building a PC sounds a lot scarier than it really is, I learnt how to build a computer after watching 4 short youtube videos and glancing over my motherboards instructions. Yet it is completely understandable If someone does not wish to do this and consoles are definitely the better choice for ease of use.

A lot of gamers see PC’s as something that never works how you want it too and you need to install drivers and all of these things. However I disagree windows 7 takes care of 99.9% of driver installs automatically. The problems that do occur with my PC can normally be fixed after a quick google search or patch. Consoles on the other hand are not very reliable, The problems that occur with consoles are more likely to require you to return the console unless you have a very good technical understanding.

[Games]

“But the PC has no games” As a PC gamer I hear this a lot. However this is not true at all PC has way more games than both consoles combined. It is fully backwards compatible and with services such as GOG.com really old games are being brought back to life. PC games normally address the PC Gamer crowd. They are often less casual and more strategic. PC gamers love strategy games and so we have big series such as Starcraft and Total War, two games that also hold their own against console top sellers. PC is also the “true” home of indie games and innovation, It offers developers a complete freedom so that they do not have to abide by the rules of Sony or Microsoft which has allowed for some great titles such as Minecraft, Mount and Blade and terraria. Three games that would never have passed approval by Sony and Microsoft due to buying unfinished games and the way they evolve. Then there is Mods, a lot of console gamers see mods as something that adds a new skin or enhances a games graphics however their have been some pretty impressive mods. For example: Team Fortress, Counter Strike, Nehrim, The cube and much more. There are also mods that fix problems in games such as The Unofficial Oblivion Patch that fixes 800 bugs in the game. And of course graphics mods which seem to be getting the most publicity at the moment.

Then there is F2P games. These are regarded by most gamers as cheap and trash however some of these games are pretty good. Recent ones include KAG2D and Team Fortress 2. However I agree that most past F2P games have been plagued by pay to win and all sorts of issues. Developers seem to have noticed this and there are some promising F2P titles such as End of Nations and Firefall which both do something new and great.
So I think that throws out the no games argument.

In conclusion game on what you want to game on. PC gaming is not better than console gaming and console gaming is not better than PC gaming, they both suit different kinds of people. Gaming is primarily about fun after all.

Working with Pirates

Last week an Indie company made the headlines on a gaming websites because they chose a different type of advertising for their game. A special build of the game was released on a torrent site for free.

Before the morale debate starts I would like to state that I downloaded games illegally before(like most of you) and to some point I understand why some people do it regularly.

For 18 years I lived in Lima: the capital of Peru (South America if some of you don’t know); unlike the UK, US, EU(Developed countries), getting, I mean buying games it is much harder.

First of all not all the games are available, the release dates are different (months after released in USA), but more importantly the prices at retail are the same or very close to the ones in America.

In Peru the minimum wage is 200$ dollars a month, where a game retail price is around 40-60$, making buying videogames a banality. I’m not here to debate why is ok to get games without paying for them, we know they are not a necessity, just hear me out. I know what is it to be a teenager and the only way to get your games is to get pirated versions of them.

Here are some ideas in how we can “work” with pirates.

1) Engage the pirates: Don’t threat pirates as your enemies or loss revenue, but instead as potential customers who haven’t been reached yet. Indie Developer tinyBuild released a special build of their latest game No Time to Explain! on a torrent site for free.

The developer told Gamasutra: “Basically, on release day, we rushed to make a version of the game that is actually all about pirates”, “People were going to pirate it anyway, so we figured if we make something funny out of it (give everyone pirate hats in a pirated version of the game), gamers would appreciate that and start talking about it”

“Plus, we think it’s a great distribution channel that just hasn’t been monetized properly yet”

2) Reward Customers: DRM is not the way to stop piracy. If you are a customer it feels like you are being treated like a criminal and being kicked in the crotch.

Don’t assume all your customers are potential criminals. Imagine you go to shop to buy some clothes, and while doing so a security guard follows you all the time; that is like DRM, it doesn’t think you are a criminal but is there just in case you might end up doing something funny.

Give customers incentive for buying from you, even coffee shops give me a stamp for each coffee I buy. Why not after 3 new videogames I buy you give me 50% discount on the next DLC?

I’m sure there are a number of ways to reward customers for choosing to buy new games, giving incentives instead of punishing them for doing so.

3) Create a community: Give your customers a place where they can meet and play like-minded people. Games like FIFA give you the chance to connect with football fans around the world, create avatars, watch videos, join leagues and much more.

4) Lower prices: The current prices in the UK for a new game are between 35 £ and 45 £. I personally don’t buy games at released dates because I found it ridiculous to pay that amount for a videogame.

I Wait till the game price goes down or becomes platinum (in case of the ps3), and buy for a reasonable price. I’m pretty sure the publishers will sell more games if they sell them at 20-25 £ than at 45£.