This image has threatened traditional gaming since around November 2006.

It’s been a year of worry for the traditional gamer. Whilst gaming might seem to be an ever growing past-time, some of the traditional elements which make up the industry have seemed fragile. Publishers have been busy shutting down traditional developers, especially those famed for 3D racers, but beyond too.

We have seen shops such as Gamestop starting to seriously invest in alternative delivery platforms such as their own tablet and streaming services, fearing a fast-arriving dead end to their current business model. Indeed in the UK, where GAME have been less aggressive in moving into new areas of the business, we are witnessing the start of what will be a contraction of its street presence over the next five years. HMV, too, are struggling and are being quite open about the idea that they might not be around in the next 2-5 years in any shape or form.

Alongside this we have seen traditional hardware providers, such as Microsoft and Sony, in effect pour cold water on the idea of an early start to the ‘next generation’ as it is only really now that they are generating real profit dollars from their investment in current hardware and software. Whilst they might feel the urge to produce something new in the face of the soon to be released Wii U, both companies will resist in the knowledge that they have healthy, steadily improving install bases and technology which still won’t look outdated, even compared to the Wii U. I suspect they have noticed that the current generation of hardware is actually perceived to be cutting edge by many consumers today, despite being very behind suped up PCs. Hence there is little demand to bring a new, expensive console solution to the market in these difficult economic times.

Look, look I got some new plastic! But no games or applications to use with it!

Nintendo’s own year has been a difficult one, until the final quarter came around with the upturn witnessed in the holiday season. The launch of the 3DS was undermined by a range of mistakes. A high price, which did not actually put off day one early adoption but which did kill day two, three and further afield purchases. This drop in sales and consumer relevance was then compounded by the device having no actual new software (quality or otherwise) for months after release! It was almost as if Nintendo itself was surprised by the release of the console. One suspects that this observation might be closer to the truth than some might realise. Could it be that Iwata suddenly panicked when he saw the drop off in DS hardware and software sales in late 2010 and early 2011, and thought a hardware launch, which was due for November 2011, should be brought forward? Could it be that he actioned this change of timeline, forgetting that the software development teams couldn’t speed up, pro-rata?

This would explain the lack of software, both in terms of game titles and the also slightly unfinished operating system, which is still having parts of its online functionality added by firmware to this day; but which the software team have admitted were due to be there from day one.

Indeed Nintendo have taken a bashing on behalf of traditional gamers everywhere. Analysts the world over have decided that Nintendo could be the RIM (the makers of Blackberry products) of the games industry. Everyone likes to be the one who can call the end of the world (just ask the Mayans) and analysts are as human as the next guy (really they are) and Nintendo was their punching bag in 2011. The narrative went like this – people are moving from dedicated gaming devices to iPads and smartphones. Why spend £30 on a game, when you can get freeware or £1 software? The logic was sound, but too simple. People will always buy something they want, you just need to give them something they actually want, and come the end of the year Nintendo seemed to be achieving this. The 3DS sales are now running ahead of all predictions and confidence is not only building in the platform, but in the traditional games market in general. What started as a bad story for Nintendo and the industry as a whole has started to evolve into a success story.

Of course the area of growth which has probably received the most headlines, is the continued march of the social and casual gaming market. This encompasses everything from the Just Dance franchise, to the exponential growth of the Farmville type experience. There is no question that the online ‘Sim’ style of gameplay is not only hugely compelling but ideal for multi-platform, cloud play. Users can switch from the PC to their tablets, and in theory continue on the Sony Vita, as many of these games start being released in the platform agnostic HTML5 coding language. Indeed as televisions become ‘smarter’ with their own implementation of Kinect-like experiences, merged with an appstore, we can expect to see continued growth in the use of such genres. For hardcore gamers, this can be seen as a threat, as it potentially pulls funding from the type of projects they would traditionally welcome. Indeed if one looks, as an example, at Disney Interactive, it is moving evermore into this social and casual space and further away from traditional AAA game titles.

Should we as traditional gamers be worried by this? Probably not. Firstly the world is not black and white (even though according to my dad, when he was a boy it used to be – just look at old films back from when he was a youngster he tells me) and hence some of us also play those social games (maybe less so the dance titles). After all they are really very similar to RPGs, but often the character is the ‘farm’ or ‘restaurant’. However it also means that those AAA titles that are released get an increase in funding, and hence we should see an ongoing rise in production values and overall quality. The end of year titles released in 2011 are probably the best evidence for this. The range of software in your local GAME or Gamestop is reducing, but who can dispute the quality of Batman Arkham City, Skyrim, Uncharted 3 and the top shooters, MW3 and BF3?

Let us not forget the great games that have come out on XBLA, PSN, Android/iOS and recently on the 3DS, which is starting to have some quality digital titles. If you are a dedicated gamer, and not just someone who dives in to kill some time, you have never really had it so good.

What will 2012 bring to the story? For sure, we will see the ongoing decline of brick and mortar shops. Boxed product will still exist, and we will probably continue to see the ongoing investment into ‘limited edition’ versions which will help to prolong the life of this boxed product. However for many they will only order via online, postal only services. Shops will simply start to close or become trading and part exchange locations.

Game of the Year 2012?

The year ahead, when it comes to software, is going to be a very exciting year. Max Payne 3, Grand Theft Auto 5, MW3 map packs and BioShock Infinite (have Take 2 already sewn up 2012?) are already in our consciousness. The 3DS has some superb first and third party exclusives arriving in early 2012 too, and the industry will have the US and European launch of the Vita to look forward to.

The Wii U will release. Nintendo will see this as a slow burner, as the Wii at its new price is still selling strongly. However for those wanting to upgrade it could spoil the party for the current levels of PS3 growth and Xbox steady sale projections. Why? Because for those who already have a Wii (and only a Wii) and are considering what to step up to then if the Wii U ticks a number of boxes, it’ll be the natural platform to choose. What are those boxes?

• If the Wii U has the same range of ‘adult’ software as the 360 and PS3 in addition to being 100% backwards compatible with all their Wii content.
• If it allows them to play all the new Mario titles, along with new Nintendo only IP. Expect Nintendo to make a push to position the Wii U as the first console to take MMOs seriously with a controller designed for them.

The ultimate home based tablet and server solution?

If the above happens, then who would not buy the Wii U over one of its HD counterparts? Those of us already with a Wii and 360, or PS3 will probably fail to become early adopters. That’ll be fine by Nintendo though, as once the new inevitable Mario games and Pikmin are released, and once the hardware does eventually drop in price, they know we will still invest.

What Nintendo decides to do with its online provision for the Wii U though is very exciting. Nothing is really known, but all the rumours suggest a very open online service, perhaps with multiple portals such as EA’s Origin and Steam. However, if they could be linked with a single Wii U identity (not a friend code!) it suggests a range of delivery services, offers and perhaps even streaming services being offered through the platform, alongside its own propriety content.

2012 could be Take 2's year, at least when it comes to Metacritic scores. Sales will surely follow.

As the economy continues to stumble, the games industry will clearly find that growth and expansion is stunted by the social and economic factors around them. Yet if any leisure industry will succeed in these tough times, it’ll be ours; and 2012 will be another step forward.

Kenn Hoekstra during his previous job at Pi Studios

Kenn Hoekstra, formerly an executive producer at Pi Studios and now president of Category 6 studios, jumped into the game industry after attaining a Bachelor’s degree in English with a minor in History, after which he moved on to become a restaurant manager. Hoekstra shares his stories about how he found his way into the industry, working at Raven Software, getting out of his comfort zone, leaving behind the three year death march of AAA development,  his views on the future of casual games and talks a bit about the newly established Category 6 Studios.

Starting out

The Raven design team from back in 1998

Hoekstra ended up in the game industry by taking a leap of faith, and trade in his management position in a restaurant for a junior position in design. “When I was managing that restaurant I had a graduate student working for me. His name was Jeff and he and I got along pretty well. He was older than most of my other employees so we had more in common. The more we talked the more he said, ‘You know, you should really meet my brother. I think you and he would get along really well.’ He introduced me to his brother who was a lead designer at Raven and we started playing [games like] DeadLands and Dungeon & Dragons on the weekends. We really did hit it off.”

This friendship soon inspired Hoekstra to get involved professionally with games. “There was a design position open at Raven and it was a very junior position,” he recalls. “They didn’t have a lot of money. This was before the Activision buyout. So I actually took a pay cut from my restaurant management position of a couple thousand dollars to go take basically a glorified internship at Raven. So they basically said here is a chair, here is your computer, here is your design lead, start learning. It just kind of went from there. That was back in the days before there were a lot of game schools and there really wasn’t a clearly defined path to getting into the industry. So in my case it really was being in the right place at the right time and meeting the right people. It is kind of strange when I think back how very lucky I was to break in that way because I don’t think there [are a lot of] people who can do it that way nowadays.”

Moving up and moving on

The Soldier of Fortune team at the Raven headquarters in 2000

Although he gave up a managerial position to become a designer, the management spirit in Kenn Hoekstra hadn’t left him. “As a designer I was pretty good at being a builder,” he explains. “I loved the level geometry construction and layout and that sort of thing. But when we got into Soldier of Fortune, the lead programmer had written a scripting language to script the game with and, I don’t know, mentally I could just not Grokk it at all. I was very frustrated with it and I just wasn’t very good at it. Unfortunately at the same time my father passed away and I missed a bunch of work while everyone else was training, so I fell behind.”

“I was working with a little bit of everything which was appealing because no two days were ever alike.“
Hoekstra was happy to later see the position of project administrator become available. “I wasn’t really enjoying design at that point because I just wasn’t feeling like I was pulling my weight,” he admits. “So I got the position and it just sort of took off from there. The position appealed to me because it had a little more freedom to decide what things needed to be done. It allowed me to interact with the public more, marketing, support, and things like that and I actually trained to be IT and technical support.”

Taking on a job with a broader range of responsibilities, Hoekstra learned more and more. “It became a pretty broad scoped job. I was working with a little bit of everything which was appealing because no two days were ever alike. [At some point] I just really had to move on. I was there a really good seven years. Basically, I got to a point in my position where I had done all that I could do. I was looking for a promotion or another internal move. And I kinda got the ‘you’re really valuable in your position’ and ‘we need you to just stay where you are’ and I had just reached the point where it felt like I had to leave to try something new ‘cause I had pretty much done all I could do.”

Yet again, Hoekstra decided to take a leap and make a change. Although it might sound as though this is something that came easy for him, it never really was. “In the case of Raven specifically it was very difficult for me to leave because from a geographical standpoint Raven was pretty much the only game in town. So it wasn’t like it was in Dallas or Austin or Los Angeles where I could just leave and find another job. It really did take a lot for me to leave. But, in the end, it felt like, you know, I didn’t want my health to suffer, [and] I didn’t feel like I had learned everything I needed to know by the age of 30. And I think that, you know, people get comfortable. They get complacent with where they are and I’m sure they [have a lot of] pressures. I was married at one point during that ten years and I understand that you have friends and people [who] naturally fear change, but there comes a point where you really have to say, ‘you know my health and my well-being and my mental [state] needs to be challenged and I need to be in a position where I can be comfortable’. At some point you have to just move on.”

Being an executive producer at Pi Studios

Hoekstra at one of the Pi Studios parties

Hoekstra’s journey eventually took him to Pi Studios. There he was an executive producer, where he dealt mostly with contract work. The advantage of this kind of work was something he thoroughly enjoyed; every day seemed like a different day. “Nobody likes being stuck on a project for like 2, 3, 4 years at a time. It’s draining. I think [Pi Studios's] philosophy for a company is such that you’re constantly growing and trying new things. People want to change up the game once in a while.”

“As a Producer I enjoy working on a variety of things myself. I’m fortunate to be able to work on more than one project at once. The aspect of my job I value most is that everyday it’s something different. I’m not stuck in a rinse-repeat position. Every day, I don’t know what’s going to happen. Well, I have some idea what’s going to happen. (laughter) There’s a new challenge everyday and it’s still a strain. That’s one of the most amazing things about this industry. Every single day there’s some new technology or some new technique to learn and it’s a challenge to stay on top of all that.”

No more three year death march

Hoekstra and Bruce Campbell fighting over the Necronomicon

Hoekstra worked on quite a few AAA titles, including Mercenaries, Call of Duty 3 and Call of Duty: World at War. Working on these kinds of titles always brings about problems during the production process. When describing the production process of games in general, Hoekstra mentions that “as much as the industry has grown and changed and as much as technology has improved, crunch is still a reality on most games and at most companies. There are always missteps in scheduling and management of products. There’s always going to be pressure, there’s always going to be long hours and weekends and things like that and I think that that’s one of the reasons that Facebook games and mobile games and flash games and other small scope projects are becoming more popular and generating more revenue. Because as discussed earlier, no one wants to be on a three year death march on a product, where there’s no end in sight. When making a little iPhone app or Android app or putting together a Facebook game, you’re constantly turning out products. You’re always doing something new. To be honest I haven’t worked on enough mobile and Facebook games to know firsthand, but I would imagine even they have some kind of crunch. But I would imagine that it’s not anywhere near [the crunch of] a 60 dollar box retail game.”

This shift of interest from big AAA productions to smaller projects can be seen, according to Hoekstra, by looking at the budgets games used to have. “Industry-wide there’s been a kind of a bursting of the bubble in the sense that -the other day I was doing some research and I read that Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 was a 200 million dollar project. And there just aren’t that many publishers left that can invest that kind of money and that kind of time into making a product like that. I think in a way the industry reached a peak wherein a bunch of people realized that we can’t keep spending money at this rate, because the risk is too great if we – much like Hollywood – put all our money into a product and it doesn’t sell. Then we’ve just bankrupted the company.”

Casual is here to stay

Back in 2002 Hoekstra and a couple of his colleagues inside Raven even had a band that would play at the studio's social events

When it comes to personal taste, Hoekstra enjoys the smaller projects as well. “I enjoy my work at Pi and I’ll work on whatever they want me to work on next, but personally I find the Iphone, Android and the Facebook games fascinating. I would like to work on them at some point because they’re interesting to me as a gamer. I play Facebook games, I play games on my phone, and I like the “pick up whenever” games that you can put down. I’m at the point where I’m not going to stay up 36 hours to try and finish a game. I’m evolving myself as a person who’s getting older and has more plans in his life. I want to be able to game here and there for 15 minutes. Being a Producer I would love to try making some of the smaller stuff too.”

Hoekstra doesn’t see casual games going away any time soon. “Casual games are here to stay,” he says. “It’s partly because of their increasing popularity and partly because the industry is changing. The days of the 200 million dollar projects are winding down and the casual market doesn’t quite have the umph to pick up all of that demand. There has to be some kind of middle ground there, something on the horizon that hasn’t quite happened yet.”

BLACKOUT

Hoekstra and some other Pi studios members recently left to start their own company called Category 6 studios and are already working on their first game, an original title called BLACKOUT.  “I’m afraid I can’t really talk much about BLACKOUT yet as it is still in the very early stages of development,” he says. “The announcement was a bit premature. My departure from Pi Studios and the formation of Category 6 Studios all happened so quickly that letting the cat out of the bag was kind of an accident. I can say that we’re prototyping the game internally and shopping it around to publishers while we do some mobile development and look for other work for the studio. I’m excited about the concept and I’m excited about the team. It’s been a heck of a ride so far.”

BLACKOUT  is being developed as a survival horror themed first person shooter for the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 using the Unreal engine.

As anybody who owns all three machines knows, Sony’s PS3 DualShock – while a perfectly good joypad – is a few small steps behind the Xbox 360 and Wii controllers in terms of precision. This is only really noticeable when playing FPS games, and as such, various companies offer FPS-specific alternatives. Joe’s already given you the lowdown on the Eagle Eye mouse & keyboard adapter; who’s next?

Wave coyly in greeting at Gioteck’s HF-1 controller for PS3.

Many gamers will fall in love with the HF-1 before they’ve even tried using it. It’s Bluetooth (though you can use it as a wired controller should you so desire)? Ace! Triggers for L2 and R2? A ‘flip switch’ that gives you the option of swapping the L1 & R1 functions with those of L2 & R2 (thereby making the triggers the default fire & aim buttons for most games)? Proper analogue sticks? Oh look, the tops are even shaped like aiming reticules, bless! And it’s been given a lick of camouflage paint. Hmm, the sticks are positioned differently; you know, it kind of looks like…

Yes, the military flavoured elephant in the room here is that the HF-1 seems to have been modelled on the official 360 controller. The fact is however that Gioteck are happy to admit this, as they know full well that even diehard PS3 fans (so long as they aren’t disturbingly zealous) grudgingly admit that the 360 has the better joypad, especially for shooters. However, while the HF-1 certainly looks like a 360 controller – despite the ‘turbo’ button guiltily lurking between Start and Select – it doesn’t feel like one.

Flipswitch; the switch that flips.

Gioteck’s offering is slightly bigger, for one; chunkier than either the official Microsoft or Sony options. If you have freakishly large hands, then a) send us a photo, and b) you’ll find that the HF-1 is more comfortable to hold than the DualShock. It’s been lovingly curved in such a way, however, that it’s still comfortable for those who have no trouble with the standard option. Unfortunately, it’s not quite all smiles and sunshine in terms of comfort.

Looking at the indents on top of the analogue sticks, you’d expect them to soothingly cup the ends of your digits like some kind of thumb bra, wouldn’t you? Okay, so you probably wouldn’t use the thumb bra simile, but anyway. If you have impressively manly thumbs like me, you’ll find that in actual fact, the small nubs that give the reticule appearance to the sticks press into your thumbs most of the time you play. Surprisingly perhaps, this isn’t usually a problem; but if you hold down either L3 or R3 while moving (most likely by running in Call of Duty), it can soon start to become uncomfortable.

I for one was willing to forgive this, because the sticks are otherwise better than those on the DualShock. While not quite as lovely as the 360 pad, the dead zones and general ‘tightness’ of the sticks are noticeably superior to those of Sony’s controller. In fact, such was the difference, I felt confident enough to significantly increase the stick sensitivity for Battlefield: Bad Company 2 from that which I’d settled on since release.

There is, however, a slight issue with the face buttons; which require a little more ‘oomf’ than those on the DualShock. Ninety nine times out of a hundred there’s no problem, as you hit the buttons harder than you might think in the heat of the action anyway. That one time in a hundred however – when you hit the button a millisecond too quickly and/or apply 99.9% of the required pressure – is frustrating. This is most likely to happen for actions where a quick tap is all that’s normally required, for example reloading. You do adapt to this, but you shouldn’t really have to.

You naughty, naughty thing.

Of more concern are the shoulder buttons (L1 and R1 by default, but the flip switch changes that). The angle that they’re set at, and the way that they slope, mean that you need to press them at the outer edges (where they’re raised from the body of the controller the most) to guarantee that your input is registered. In short, they don’t always work, and you can’t just let your finger naturally slide straight back in a straight line and press down as you can with the DualShock.

Now, if you’ve researched the HF-1 elsewhere, you may well have come across a veritable legion of criticism; mostly from consumers, sometimes from site reviewers as well. The vast majority of this criticism is centred on the dead zones and laggy input. After testing the HF-1 at length, I don’t doubt that these people are telling the truth; but I suspect that most – possibly all – of them relied on Black Ops to test the controller.

Black Ops was in fact the first game I tested the HF-1 with. All was fine and dandy to begin with; but after 30-40 minutes, the analogue sticks suddenly decided that they found me terribly boring, and wanted to do their own thing. Input lagged terribly, or didn’t seem to correspond with what I was telling the controller to do. My only choices were to a) turn the controller off then on again to reset the sticks, b) use it as a wired controller, which seems to eradicate the problem, or c) switch back to the DualShock. I encountered this issue every time I played, both online and offline.

I have a 60gb PS3 and so, curious at this bizarre software compatibility issue, I tried a PS2 FPS (No One Lives Forever). Same problem; everything fine for about half an hour, then both analogue sticks became mischievous little scamps.

Just in case you didn't know how a USB cable works.

A few hours after writing what I thought was the final draft of this piece, I experienced exactly the same problems in Modern Warfare 2 – despite several lengthy play sessions where the controller worked perfectly. It would seem that in order to guarantee consistent performance across all games, you’ll need to resign yourself to a USB lead – rendering the wireless option somewhat pointless. Presumably, it’s the fact that the HF-1 uses bluetooth rather than infra-red that’s causing the problems.

Finally, it’s important to note that the HF-1 does not feature sixaxis control, making it unsuitable as a permanent replacement controller for all games. There are thankfully few FPS games at time of writing that force you to make use of sixaxis, and certainly none that I’d urge you to run out and buy. The only two I can think of that I’ve played are Killzone 2 (sorry, I just find the Killzone games boring) and Resistance: Fall of Man, which told me to shake my controller like an angry child when my character was set on fire.

If the DualShock is a dowdy yet reliable & ever-loving lady/man, then the HF-1 is their sexy, flirty sibling. You’ll want to get hands-on with HF-1 as soon as you see it/him/her; but be prepared for this dirty flirt to slap you often – and not always in a nice way.

The HF-1 was tested with PS3 firmware version 3.60. It requires two AA batteries (not included) for wireless play; two mid-range alkaline batteries will last roughly half as long as a fully charged DualShock.

There have been so many videogames set during the second world war, it’s quite likely that you’ve played at least one or two. Thanks to the painstaking attention to detail and hunger for historical accuracy, you may even have learned something new about the conflict without realising; the weapons used, the important battles fought, the dates of important events. Be thankful that our children do not rely solely on videogames for their education on such matters for if they did, they would be completely unaware of the Holocaust.

Approximately six million men, women and children were murdered – often literally worked to death – simply because they were Jewish. Millions more were persecuted and killed by the Nazis including (though not limited to) homosexuals, Romani, people of various faiths, and the disabled. A horrific systematic slaughter on an unimaginable scale, it was arguably the most important event of the twentieth century in terms of influence on social and political development. The word ‘genocide’ was not even in use until 1944 (though its author first coined the word in 1943), when the Polish-Jewish legal scholar Raphael Lemkin named and defined it (“the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group”) in his published work ‘Axis Rule in Occupied Europe’. The human race being what it is, genocide has been perpetrated time and again in places such as Bosnia and Darfur; but the horror of the Holocaust has served to increase worldwide disgust at, and determination to punish and prevent, such actions further than ever.

Though the full extent of Nazi persecution of the Jews was not made clear until the end of hostilities, more than enough was known about this (in addition to Hitler’s megalomania, of course) during the war to mark the fascist Nazi party out as a force that must be stopped at all costs. With the benefit of hindsight, the people of today are able to pore over every last detail, which makes the second world war that rarest of things in our eyes – an undeniably necessary conflict.

So why do few – if any – videogames set during this war mention or in some way refer to the Holocaust?

It’s easy to turn to dark and overly cynical theories, but the truth is most likely that developers are simply scared. They won’t go anywhere near the subject for fear of causing offence, knowing full well that just one mistake could trigger a global outrage. If this is the case, then it’s definitely an attitude I can understand and sympathise with – but not one that I can condone.

Even the surprisingly thoughtful Brothers in Arms games avoid the subject.

I haven’t played every single videogame set during the second world war, so there are perhaps a few that explicitly refer to the Holocaust. If so, they are undeniably in the minority. It should be noted however that there was one game which aimed to tackle the issue head on in an educational, tasteful way – and got shot down in flames before securing a release.

The title I am referring to is ‘Imagination Is The Only Escape’, a DS game that British developer Luc Bernard had developed and was hoping to have hit the shelves. The game was to combine a game world based on the fantasy world of the main character (a Jewish boy living in Nazi occupied France) with educational, historically accurate text. However, it seems that both Nintendo of America and Nintendo of Europe refused to allow the game a release – without even seeing it. Despite scouring the internet I was unable to find any information on this title dated after late 2008, so it seems that it will never see the light of day.

What little was known of this game was intriguing, and it seems to be a real shame that Nintendo killed it off. The false start of Bernard’s title is no excuse for others however, as (a) WWII games were being developed long before 2008, and (b) in all honesty, it would have been more surprising if the family oriented Nintendo did approve a game that directly addresses the Holocaust, especially one for the DS.

If you think that games are art – and if you’re a developer, you probably do – then you shouldn’t for a second be thinking ‘games should stay away from the issue of the Holocaust’. I’m not saying that there should be a game about the Holocaust (though I believe this is possible), but the world of videogames has a duty to at least recognise the fact it happened. There are countless examples of other forms of entertainment handling the subject. For example, the story of Oskar Schindler – the German industrialist who went to great pains to protect his Jewish workers, who numbered well over 1,000 – has been adapted into a novel (Schindler’s Ark) and a film (Schindler’s List). Staying with cinema, we should look to a more recent release for a glimpse of how a videogame acknowledging the issue could successfully be made.

Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Inglourious Basterds’ does not deal directly with the Holocaust itself. The beating heart of the film is Nazi persecution of the Jews however, which drives every moment of the movie. The rage and lust for revenge which fuels the Basterds leads them to kill and torture with gusto, visibly enjoying every moment. In fact, as the film progresses, the viewer may well start to question just how much higher on the moral ground the Basterds are than the Nazis whom they hunt.

As anybody who has seen the film will know, this shot captures perfectly what Inglourious Basterds is all about.

During one brilliant and extremely tense sequence, we are teased with finding out whether or not the leader of the Basterds will keep his word and show mercy to a young, solitary Nazi soldier. When the moment of truth arrives… well, you’ll have to watch the movie to find out.

The point is this: Inglourious Basterds is identifiably a Tarantino movie, and one that you can ‘enjoy’. There are traditional action sequences, and a dark humour runs throughout the entire experience. This is all wrapped up in stylish direction and glossy production values. Does this sound a million miles away from the basic premise of several action games released over the last few years? All that’s missing is one thing; the skilful integration of Nazi persecution of the Jews.

There is of course one very important factor which distinguishes videogames from books, movies, plays etc. which I have yet to acknowledge – interactivity. Yet this is a strength to be played to, not a weakness to fall back on. Games including (though certainly not limited to) Bioshock, Okami, Flower and GTA have shown us very different ways in which videogames can offer a compelling, utterly unique experience. Why not use this vision and skill to handle a serious and important subject that must never, ever be forgotten?

I was going to detail The Milgram experiment here, but instead urge you to investigate the matter yourself. Please do – it is fascinating, and disturbing, in and of itself. You will see why I encourage you to research it in relation to this article.

How best to introduce the Holocaust and/or Nazi persecution of the Jews into the world of videogames? Unfortunately for me, I have neither the skill set nor the experience of a videogame developer. If pushed however I (and many others) could easily come up with rough ideas for those who do. What might they achieve on their own, if only they would try?

I believe that videogames not only could, but should make a concerted effort to look this subject straight in the eyes. There is no precedent – but just because something has not been done before, that is not to say that it can not be done at all.

The Image Says "This Date Matters to the World"

Have you carried out your duty and bought CoD: Black Ops? I ask as it seems that as gamers, and as consumers, we are now expected by everyone, from Activision Blizzard to the world’s media, to go and automatically purchase the latest game. So I ask again, have you gone, taken out a pre-order or filed into your local supermarket and bought it on impulse with the sense that it’s what is expected of you? Do you feel you won’t be able to look other serious gamers in the eye knowing you don’t have the latest version of the FPS bible?

I’m not here to review the game, not least because I haven’t played it. I’ve seen the reviews and they are all saying that its good, but not a 10/10. Whatever; instead I’m concerned with the power this franchise now has over the entire industry.

Of course, before I get on my high horse (before?!) this isn’t a new situation. Years ago, and still to an extent today, people would automatically go out and buy the latest FIFA like a pack of sheep, resulting in the gameplay becoming stagnant. Eventually consumers started to get wise to the  ‘drug’ they had become addicted to and moved to sticking with the version they had or moving to alternative yearly upgrades. The result of this was a slowing of the FIFA franchise in terms of numbers sold, and a renewed effort by EA to revitalise the game. Recent years have shown a huge return both for publisher and consumer as the title has had a couple of major overhauls, resulting in better core gameplay and many more modes within the traditional FIFA offering.

Despite all the hype around the latest Call of Duty, and despite the sales figure for Black Ops being an almost certain success, it is possible that this version of the game is going to be the franchise’s peak. I have said that I haven’t played the game, but I have watched it on various websites showing the first ‘x’ amount of footage. It looks great, great in the same way MW2 looked great. However I do feel I’ve seen and experienced it all before as its the same performance in slightly different clothing and staging. Perhaps I am the only one, but I’m guessing a number of potential purchasers and those who have already purchased the game will feel the same, resulting in next year’s installment holding steady in terms of sales – if not actually seeing those sales decline.

It's ironic that both 'World at War' and 'Black Ops' have zombie modes, as most of its consumers have acted liked Zombies when it comes to buying it. Is the joke on us?

That is, of course, only if CoD doesn’t get a major overhaul. What improvements could be made? Less scripting, and much better AI is a must. There is a clear split between the way Halo plays and the CoD games. However, now might be the time that they start to come together and cross fertilise each other’s franchise. In fact you could argue that Halo Reach has already started to do this. Halo has excelled with having pretty amazing AI, but less set pieces. Halo Reach improved the AI, added more enemies on screen at once, and increased the number of set pieces. The game also incorporated some of the ‘fighting with your comrades’ experience traditionally experienced in the CoD games.

It is clear that the CoD games need to improve the AI. For those of you who have not played Halo Reach, I am not overstating how great the AI is. It’s not perfect, for sure. But being chased by an enemy who then backs off and then takes stock is thrilling, and when victorious very satisfying. Imagine a CoD set in the ‘real world’ (rather than the world of Halo), with the traditional size and execution of the set pieces alongside well executed AI routines. That would be worth getting.

This cross fertilisation of ideas is ironically what has happened in the football game market, as PES and FIFA have both been forced to drastically change to keep the demand for such games alive. It’s also clear who has ‘got’ the need for this process more, with FIFA winning both the consumer’s mind and the critic’s.

The other problem I have with the rollout of this all consuming franchise is it encourages players to start over in the multiplayer world. I’m only level 33 or thereabouts on MW2, having spent quite a lot of money on the download packs. I’m certainly not going to ‘upgrade’ to the new game which will undoubtedly pull me from the MW2 experience. There is only so much time in a day, week or year, and there are other games to play! Really, there are. Yet, what makes the CoD games great are their multiplayer which is fast, intelligent and imaginative. Black Ops adds some great new features, including wagers on experience points, which I’m all for. However, not enough to make me want to start from scratch, and in effect abandon my investment in MW2.

Remember this game? It was great. Lets play it again, but this time set in the 1800s with muskets....

What is the solution? Well some kind of CoD ‘career mode’ would be great where I can build up an online profile and have a consistent career rank. Basic multiplayer with any CoD title would be free, but a CoD Plus account would allow me to pool my XP; a service with a price that’s worth paying for. Over time that profile could be carried into other possible areas of CoD such as a persistent war type game, like MAG, if they ever make one.

So before the fanboys attack me, let’s go over my position on the CoD franchise. Am I a fan? For sure, I own more than one title in the franchise, and even have the limited edition MW2 console. Do I think the basic gameplay has tired and needs refreshing? You bet. Am I starting to get annoyed with the lack of continuity in the multiplayer, when it’s clear that each version is an upgrade on the previous build? Yes, affirmative.

What would I pay for this CoD Plus? £5-£15 a year along with some other freebies, perhaps. Beta trials, some exclusive weapons and maybe a discount on map packs.

My question to you is this; how much duty do you really have to CoD and would you be willing to make the investment if called upon?

• Format: PS3 (version reviewed), 360, PC, Wii, DS
• Unleashed: Out Now
• Publisher: Activision
• Developer: Treyarch
• Players: 1-4 (offline), 2-18 (online, including splitscreen)
• Site: http://www.callofduty.com/hub

World at War was a bit of a mess. Offline, grenade spamming; online, the unwise inclusion of tanks and a few unpopular maps – all wrapped up in an over-familiar WWII dressing. Can Treyarch really have done much better with Black Ops?

What must be said before anything else is that, in all fairness, the developers have put some real effort into giving you value for money. The campaign could last you up to twice as long as that of Modern Warfare 2; Zombies make a welcome return; there are two hidden games (twin stick shooter Dead Ops Arcade and text adventure Zork); and joining the CoD classics such as Team Deathmatch, Search & Destroy and Free for All are brand new online modes with some great ideas. Unfortunately, the fresh new ideas seen both online and off are in the clutches of stale old problems.

The solo campaign is presented for the most part as a series of flashbacks. Kudos to Treyarch for capitalising on the opportunity to give the player a decent variety of environments and missions; yes, you’ll be running down streets, through corridors, and across battlefields with a gun in your hand. But you’ll also be piloting various vehicles, taking part in semi-interactive cutscenes, playing stealth sections that are actually fun to play, and more often than not working closely with allies rather than acting as a one man army. There are even a few historical figures thrown into the mix. At its best, the Black Ops campaign gives you a feeling of being in the middle of a big-budget movie (albeit a dumb yet fun one which makes little sense if you stop to examine it). Sadly, the highs are outnumbered by the lows.

In a bid to emphasise this Hollywood atmosphere, your character has been given a voice and a large chunk of the script. However, all the American characters’ voices and personalities instantly meld into one homogeneous blob, making it almost impossible to tell who’s saying what without the (error littered) subtitles. Of more concern is the AI – or rather, lack thereof. Friend and foe alike are completely unable to cope with unscripted behaviour. Allies will often lean into your line of sight, and keeping your distance in the interests of a better shot can lead to comical situations; enemies will sometimes rush forward to get closer to you. On rare occasions an enemy and an ally can be taking cover around the same object, firing their guns in opposite directions without being aware of one another.

Challenge Anneka goes hardcore for the 21st century.

Grenade spamming is not an issue, but the equally undesirable boil of infinite enemy spawning is. Only a handful of such instances exist in the game, but these instances will sometimes force you to run forward into enemy fire. On Veteran difficulty, where two shots or sometimes just one can kill you, this is completely unacceptable. It’s a cheap and lazy way to lengthen the experience that we shouldn’t be seeing in 2010. On a related note, the invisible tripwires that activate finite spawn points are sometimes poorly placed. On three separate occasions, we saw enemies pop into existence before our very eyes – twice just a few feet away. Perhaps there are details of a molecular transporter hidden somewhere in the intel…

Of course the majority of players will spend most of their time with the multiplayer modes and again, it’s a mixed bag. CoD staples, deathmatches et al, don’t make the transition all that smoothly. The gameplay is still recognisably and immediately CoD, but the guns don’t feel as varied as those in both Modern Warfares, nor do any of them feel like they pack the same punch.

Worse still are the graphics. They’re noticeably inferior to MW2 and while this shouldn’t matter, it does. Firstly, the lack of sharpness makes spotting enemies from a distance harder than it should be. Secondly, the dull and limited palette shared amongst player models and environments can often make stationary adversaries (i.e. campers) difficult to see immediately. When you combine that with the fact that each map is crammed full of corners and hidey holes, we can imagine Black Ops deathmatches becoming as much about camping as a Graham Norton simulator would be.

Hope is promised in the overhaul given to the online modes in other areas. The ‘CoD Points’ which you earn alongside, and in a much lower proportion to XP are used to ‘buy’ weapons (as usual, unlocked as you level up), attachments and perks (all immediately available for purchase once you’ve unlocked Create a Class). They also buy ‘Challenges’ which can earn you more if, for example, you get a certain number of kills with a specific attachment within a limited amount of accumulated playtime. These points are also used to buy your way into ‘Wager Matches’, which is where the biggest changes are apparent.

Tag, you're i - er, woops.

The basic premise is: six player deathmatch – the top three players get winnings, the bottom three nothing. The game modes here are completely new, our personal favourites being Sharpshooter and One in the Chamber. Sharpshooter gives everybody the same weapons, which are changed every 45 seconds (weapons in each match are random). In One in the Chamber players are given a pistol, a knife, one–hit kills and just three lives. You only have one bullet per life, but one kill means one more bullet. These brand new modes are more than welcome, and great fun – but just six players? Free for All only?

As for the playercards (customised by spending CoD points) which represent players in lobbies…ugh. Even the best ones look like something a small child cobbled together with a cheap Crayola set from Poundland.

Black Ops is not a bad game by any means. It’s a good game. However, when the inevitable comparisons with Modern Warfare 2 are made, this falls just a little short in almost every way.

Are you one of the millions of people looking forward to Call of Duty: Black Ops? If so, just how excited are you? Two people were looking forward to it so much, they were prepared to pay over £200 each to get a copy just a few days early – as these pictures prove.

Somehow, one UK gamer managed to get hold of not just one but two copies of Black Ops for the Xbox 360 to sell on ebay. We’ve hidden his/her ebay ID here, but it will be easy enough for anybody – including Activision – to discover it by searching Completed Listings.

Both copies sold for £200 each and, amusingly (to us at least), £2 postage.

Over four times the RRP to get the game just three or four days before the official release date? They must need the practice for multiplayer, n00bs (please note: this n00bs comment is a joke).

EDITOR’S NOTE: I’d like to remind our readers that Tarquin’s opinions do not necessarily coincide with those of anybody else at Critical Gamer. Tarquin’s views are only guaranteed to represent the views of Tarquin.

You’ve seen the movie Snakes On A Plane, right? No, me neither. It is by all accounts a terrible film however, that only got made due to internet hype that never translated into ticket sales. A shoddy unprofessional effort, that somehow snagged Samuel L. Jackson so it had a professional, talented face to show to the world. This reminds me of the games industry, and its laughable attempts to convince governments and mainstream media that it mass produces valid art.

I’m passionate about videogames, but that doesn’t mean that I have to consider them an art form. I love my nan, but that doesn’t change the fact that she stinks of piss. Sure, conceptually you could convincingly argue that games such as Flower, Limbo, Bioshock and Everyday Shooter are art. Aesthetically you could waffle on about games like Okami, Valkyria Chronicles, LittleBigPlanet, Wind Waker, and MadWorld. Nonetheless, the vast majority of videogames are uninspired and uninspiring – 99% of games are to art what shit is to haute cuisine.

Let’s look at what you might first think of when you hear the word ‘art’; paintings, statues, fuzzy felt, that kind of thing. Traditional art is primarily about manipulating emotions, and innovation. This is often (though admittedly not always) why great artists prosper and piss poor ones dissolve into obscurity. Innovation is an unexploded bomb waiting to go off at any second, unfortunately, and is not always a good thing. That’s why modern art has evolved into something that could reward you with the Turner prize for recording a wet fart in a darkened room.

All publishers want to manipulate is your bank account, and innovation? Innovation in the games industry? Hah! I’ll gladly admit that things are slowly getting better, but not by much. Just look at Sony and Microsoft copying Nintendo with their latest motion sensing input devices (kudos to Microsoft for simultaneously copying Sony). Games themselves fare no better at all. The industry is constantly recycling the same five games:

• Run and gun shooter with musclebound oiks and dynamic cover (Gears of War)
• Open – world platformer/shooter, with vehicles to steal or free running to indulge in (GTA/Assassins Creed)
• FPS with regenerating health, black and white simple good guys/bad guys, heavily scripted set pieces, lots of foreigners/aliens to shoot, and/or instant melee kills (XP obsessed online multiplayer compulsory) (Call of Duty/Halo)
• Racer that combines real world cars with arcade elements (MSR [AKA Project Gotham])
• Dull minigame compilation (for the sake of argument, Mario Party)

In addition, true art now and again makes a real effort to make an important point or achieve an ambitious goal. Surrealism was about more than painting badgers shitting pianos; it was a concerted effort by a group of artists, encompassing several different mediums, to undermine society through the power of their art. Leader of the movement, André Breton, even wrote a manifesto.

The Persistence Of Memory. Salvador Dali, 1931.

Another important thing to remember is that art lasts. Many classic movies from the first half of the 20^th century can be easily found and purchased for home viewing, and are often shown on television. Some highly revered pieces of music and traditional art have been preserved and appreciated for centuries. If the games industry is serious about presenting its output as art, it needs to stop relying so heavily on the advancement of technology and discontinuation of formats. For example, Super Mario Land on the Gameboy was released in 1989, and went on to sell 14 million units worldwide. Today however – just over 20 years later – both it and its host console are out of production, with no way of easily and legally playing it.

If the industry can’t show any respect for itself, how does it expect anybody else to show any?

The industry and the games it pumps out do not, as a rule, have any ideals higher than making a quick buck. Derivative and unimaginative shit make up the bulk of what sits on shop shelves – even the games that are fun to play. The videogames market today is a whirlpool of short – lived extremes; depressingly shallow family – friendly mini games jostle for sales alongside games that throw misguided street talk, pixellated gore, and blocky tits in your face. There are still of course intelligent games in there – somewhere.

Publishers and console manufacturers are trying to force feed the world at large Snakes On A Plain Biscuit (see, the title wasn’t just a half arsed play on words). A harmless luxury enjoyed by millions completely hidden by poisonous, homogeneous, sinister looking things that make people keep their distance. And this is supposed to be art? The worst thing is, many people believe that it is.

It’s an emotionally disturbing tragedy, the likes of which hasn’t been seen since Oedipus first attempted re – entry.

I’ve recently started allowing my five year old daughter to play Red Dead Redemption.

Okay, I’ve immediately left myself wide open to accusations of bad parenting, but please; let me explain. She sees none of the sex (of which there is practically zero anyway), none of the violence, none of the blood, and none of the bad language. She saw me start to play it one night just before she went to bed, and loved it. She’s currently into the whole cowboy thing thanks to Woody from the Toy Story movies. A dream come true for her!

So now, after school, she’ll sometimes play a bit of Red Dead for ten or twenty minutes. Yes, it carries an 18 certificate; but all she does is ride around town and the countryside on the horsie, sometimes jumping off for a wander around before climbing back on again just because she can. She’s taking a wonderful, innocent pleasure in the experience of being a cowboy on the TV screen. Isn’t that what a lot of us do when playing Red Dead at times? Oh we’re, uh, not supposed to admit that to other adults, are we?

The point, I realised after I’d started typing this sentence, is that the fundamentals of how and why we enjoy gaming are much simpler than we may suspect. Staying with Red Dead Redemption for a moment; it’s a great story, some of the moral choices are interesting, and there are so many set objectives both big and small, it’ll take you dozens of hours to do everything. Not to mention the multiplayer modes. But come on; are you telling me you didn’t buy that game because you get to be a cowboy? Not at all? You get a horse and a lasso and everything!!

I have played, do play, and will play dozens and dozens (and dozens) of games online. The only ones in recent years that consistently get me swearing like a trooper when I’m losing are Call of Duty games, FIFA games, and Mario Kart Wii. Three very different online experiences, but they all share one common factor. What is it?

They all allow me to pit my skills against other players, but so does pretty much every other game I’ve ever played online. The difference is that these are all games I enjoy immensely and crucially, games that I feel I not only could but should dominate. Call of Duty, because I’ve always enjoyed FPS games and tend to progress through the singleplayer modes with little to no difficulty; Mario Kart, because I’ve loved the games since the first SNES title and am familiar with every facet of the franchise; and FIFA, because I’m English and therefore must have some congenital magical power that makes me a footballing god in every context.

BOOOOOOOOO!!!

The fundamental here is proving to myself that I am in some way more skilled than my fellow man or, if you prefer, electronic willy waving.

Back in the nineties, the phrase ‘Nintendo Magic’ was very popular amongst game journos. It was used in an attempt to define the undefinable; that ineffable something that Nintendo somehow wove their very best games from, particularly Super Mario titles. The first steps of the Wii seemed to threaten the death of this but, thankfully, Nintendo can still now and again pull a timeless classic out of nowhere. The two best examples on the Wii are the Super Mario Galaxy games.

If you dismiss these titles as childish and/or unworthy of your time, then you certainly can’t have played them. Either that, or you have no soul. Ironically however, the word ‘childish’ which is sometimes used to criticise Mario games perhaps epitomises everything that is wonderful about them. There’s no point denying that the visuals of a typical Mario game have childhood qualities. Bright colours, big chunky backgrounds, relatively simple character designs. The soundtracks, too; bright cheery tunes punctuated by sparkly sound effects and the occasional ‘woo hoo!’ from Mario himself. And, despite having much more depth than critics give them credit for, Super Mario games are always built around a simple yet versatile control system. Easy to learn, difficult to master has never been more appropriate.

Both consciously and subconsciously Super Mario games epitomise and are evocative of childhood; a simple world, a fun world, a world that’s easy to understand and even easier to enjoy yourself in. This is why children love them and adults love them even more. Videogames, after all, are all about escape from the prosaic nightmare of adulthood for many.

Play it; it'll remind you why you started playing videogames in the first place.

Rather than tackle the impossible task of detailing the most basic appeal of every popular game I can think of, I’d like to think that I’ve planted a seed in the minds of at least a few of you. When you’ve got a spare minute or two, think about your most loved games, past or present. Can you reduce the pleasure you get from them to the most basic fundamentals, fundamentals that could apply to a child just as easily as they apply to you? I’m sure you can, no matter what the game, no matter what the age certificate.

Give it a try.

This article represents my personal views, which do not necessarily coincide with those of anybody else at Critical Gamer. Readers should also note that this article contains spoilers regarding the ending of God of War III.

If you consider yourself to be a follower of a religion, have you ever thought about how your gaming hobby might clash with the teachings of your prophet/s or god/s? If you’re an atheist, has it ever occurred to you that perhaps turning your back on all such belief systems has allowed you to sidestep a potential moral minefield when playing videogames?

I’m not thinking of the limited moral choices offered in games such as Bioshock, GTA and Red Dead Redemption – though this is an issue I will return to. If the issue of religion and morality in relation to videogames is ever to be discussed however, now is surely the time. Not only are moral choices offered in games such as those mentioned above, but graphics and sound are almost unbelievably realistic compared to the games of just twenty years ago. Furthermore, there is now a real push to immerse the player in the gaming experience more than ever. 3D visuals, whilst still not nearly as appealing to the general public as many in the industry would wish, will doubtless get a huge boost with the release of the 3DS. Sony and Microsoft have finally relented and are following in Nintendo’s footsteps with gusto, regarding motion control. Sony’s Move claims the most accurate motion sensing yet and Kinect, of course, goes one step further – allowing, encouraging, demanding that the player act out on – screen actions with their whole body. By the end of the year, all three home consoles will allow the player to put real physical effort into playing their games.

Is there any precedent for religious followers or leaders showing concern over the content of videogames? There are, of course, several. Surprisingly perhaps, none – at least, none of the high profile ones – have suggested that the teachings of religion ever clash with the idea of gaming in general.

Most of you will probably be familiar with the LittleBigPlanet controversy. Just a few weeks before the game was due to be released in most territories (it had already hit the shelves in a few minor ones), Sony recalled all physical copies that had been pressed and issued a worldwide patch – to replace one song on the soundtrack. This was because of a post made by one person on the official Sony forums. I shan’t link to it here, as I’m sure he’s already suffered a flood of hate mail from racist idiots, and I have no desire to start a second round. I will, however, reproduce the post in its entirety excluding identifying personal information:

very urgent about little big planet lbp

16-10-2008 08:35 AM

To: Sony Computer Entertainment & Media Molecule

While playing your latest game, “LittleBigPlanet” in the first level of the third world in the game (titled “Swinging Safari”), I have noticed something strange in the lyrics of the music track of the level. When I listened carefully, I was surprised to hear some very familiar Arabic words from the Quran. You can listen to part of the track here:

mt14.quickshareit.com/share/p…lip22503c0.wav

The words are:

1- In the 18th second: “كل نفس ذائقة الموت” (“kollo nafsin tha’iqatol mawt”, literally: ‘Every soul shall have the taste of death’).

2- Almost immediately after, in the 27th second: “كل من عليها فان” (“kollo man alaiha fan”, literally: ‘All that is on earth will perish’).

I asked many of my friends online and offline and they heard the exact same thing that I heard easily when I played that part of the track. Certain Arabic hardcore gaming forums are already discussing this, so we decided to take action by emailing you before this spreads to mainstream attention.

We Muslims consider the mixing of music and words from our Holy Quran deeply offending. We hope you would remove that track from the game immediately via an online patch, and make sure that all future shipments of the game disk do not contain it.

We would also like to mention that this isn’t the first time something like this happened in videogames. Nintendo’s 1998 hit “Zelda: Ocarina of Time” contained a musical track with islamic phrases, but it was removed in later shipments of the game after Nintendo was contacted by Muslim organizations. Last year, Capcom’s “Zack & Wiki” and Activision’s “Call of Duty 4″ also contained objectionable material offensive to Muslims that was spotted before the release of the final games, and both companies thankfully removed the content.

We hope you act immediately to avoid any confusion and unnecessary controversy, and we thank you for making such an amazing game.

The song in question is performed by Toumani Diabate, who is a devout Muslim himself (and in fact, the song was widely available for about two years before this post was made). Asserting that the song is offensive to all Muslims is clearly erroneous. As politely as the above message is written, there seems to be a thinly veiled threat of a public protest if the song is not removed.

Toumani Diabate

Although the forum post refers repeatedly to ‘we’, it can only be proven that one person was offended at the time, and felt the need to protest to Sony. On the other hand, the American Islamic Forum for Democracy actually publicly condemned Sony’s decision to recall and censor the game. M. Zuhdi Jasser M.D. issued a long statement to Edge at the time on behalf of the organisation. He cited the example of Mohammed defending “the rights of his enemies to critique him in any way even if it was offensive to his own Islamic sensibilities or respect for Koranic scripture” and Jasser also pointed out that “Muslims cannot benefit from freedom of expression and religion and then turn around and ask that anytime their sensibilities are offended that the freedom of others be restricted”.

The previous year (2007), Resistance: Fall of Man briefly found itself in the crosshairs of the Church of England, thanks to its brief inclusion of Manchester Cathedral during gameplay. The Dean of Manchester Cathedral, the Very Reverend Rogers Govender, said:

“We are shocked to see a place of learning, prayer and heritage being presented to the youth market as a location where guns can be fired.”

What he failed to add, of course, is that a) Resistance carries a 15 certificate in the UK, and b) Manchester Cathedral is only presented as a location where guns can be fired because it is, in the context of the game, full of hostile alien monsters. The only human being in any danger there is your character.

These two recent examples, as I have said, do not (strictly speaking) propose a conflict between religious beliefs and the actions possible in a videogame. So what, exactly, was behind these protests?

In the forum post regarding LittleBigPlanet, the author at one point boasts of how Muslim protests previously effected changes in Ocarina of Time and Call of Duty 4. This clearly indicates that this individual believes his religion has the power and the right to edit, censor, and shape entertainment publicly available to people of any, all, or no religious beliefs. Before Christians start to feel superior (as they are wont to do), they would do well to remember that people from their many denominations have protested against various forms of entertainment more than people from any other religion in the world.

The example of Sony vs the CofE is actually slightly bizarre. If the Church had won (hilariously, they wanted the game banned; as it was, they had to settle for metaphorically sulking in the corner), the results would actually have been counterproductive for them. Is it entirely ridiculous to believe that people with no previous knowledge of, or interest in, Manchester Cathedral would have visited the building after seeing it in the game – if only to see how accurately it had been reproduced? The case is reminiscent of Polaroid’s brief demand that Outkast remove the line ‘shake it like a Polaroid picture’ from the song ‘Hey Ya’ (shaking a polaroid picture doesn’t speed the development along, and can actually damage the final image). They soon gave up the protest when they realised that, basically, they were getting free advertising courtesy of one of the biggest bands in the world.

Manchester Cathedral in Resistance: Fall of Man

One major religion I had enormous trouble finding articles regarding, when it comes to protests against videogames, was Judaism. In fact, I couldn’t find anything (though this is not to say that there is nothing to find). Actually when it comes to protests against films, music or any other kind of entertainment, the Jews are very rarely to be seen. Certainly not in proportion to Christianity and Islam. Why is this? Well thanks to my Christian education, I am largely ignorant of other religions – despite spending an extra two years studying philosophy. I’ve done my best to rectify this since leaving school twelve years ago, but I still have a long way to go. Nonetheless, I feel confident in saying this much:

Theoretically speaking, Jewish people should be easier to offend than the followers of any other religion. Judaism is a belief system – it’s possible to convert to and from it – but generally speaking, being Jewish is an inseparable mix of belonging to a religion, and belonging to a people. Those outside this worldwide community may, therefore, believe that they are a people quick to be offended; religiously, nationally, or both at the same time. This quite simply doesn’t seem to be the case, however. Perhaps this is because the Jews are able to do what no other religious grouping seems able to do; laugh at themselves.

The list of Jewish comedians seems endless; Woody Allen, the Marx brothers, Sacha Baron Cohen, Mel Brooks, Marty Feldman, and Jerry Lewis to name just a few. Often, this comedy will centre on Jewish stereotypes and the preconceptions non – Jews have of them. Sacha Baron Cohen’s character Borat is actually an anti – semite, a fact he plays on several times during the Borat movie and the short – lived Ali G USA TV series (where Bruno also made his first appearance). Rather than becoming angered at imagined slights, it seems that the Jews generally tend to tackle real hatred head – on, often through the medium of comedy.

But I digress. There is one final point I would like to make regarding the matter of religious protest, and that is that the businesses under fire often – if not always – actually welcome such protests. The decision to commission a game based on the first part of an epic fourteenth century poem was odd, to say the least. When approving Dante’s Inferno, were EA hoping for some free publicity courtesy of religious groups outraged at the idea of a videogame that takes place in Hell? The fact that they resorted to faking a religious protest against the game outside last year’s E3 suggests so.

The fake protest against Dante's Inferno outside E3 2009.

Nonetheless, developers tend to shy away from the subject of religion. The Assassin’s Creed scriptwriters had a wealth of rich material at their hands, especially with the first game; the history of Islam, Judaism and Christianity, what they have in common (not least highly revered holy sites), and how and why conflicts have previously erupted between them. Terrified of offending somebody somewhere however, this has been all but ignored in the games available at time of writing.

Darksiders is (very) loosely based on the end of the world as prophesied in the Bible. The game’s creative director Joe Madureira told IGN: “We did play down the religious aspects as much as we could, just because we wanted it to appeal to as many people as we could, regardless of what religion you are”. In other words, Vigil Games shied away from exploring the religious narrative for fear of alienating or angering people solely on religious grounds.

But is there perhaps something in the fundamentals of many videogames that should disturb the religious – but doesn’t? After 14 years of Catholic education, I’m now going to write the rest of this article with Christianity first and foremost in mind; though some or all of it will apply to other religions, too (particularly Jewish beliefs, due to the cross pollination between Christianity and Judaism). First of all, we need to consider one of the Ten Commandments:

‘You shall not covet your neighbour’s house; you shall not covet your neighbour’s wife, nor his male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbour’

God has ordered His people through Moses (Exodus) and directly Himself (Deuteronomy) to never have feelings of jealousy. In addition, envy is now traditionally considered to be one of the ‘seven deadly sins’. Feelings of jealousy are strictly forbidden by Christian doctrine. Stop to think about that: God has declared that a feeling is forbidden.

An emotion. An often uncontrollable emotion, that could damn you to eternal torment.

Why? It could be argued that envy could conceivably lead to other, more serious sins; theft, murder, rape. This idea is never even hinted at in the Bible, however. Jealousy/envy is condemned in and of itself. To understand why, we should perhaps look at the issue of the soul.

Every religion believes in the existence of the soul, or a close approximation of it. What, exactly, is the soul? The soul is the ‘true’ you, the you that survives the death of your physical body. The you that, according to some religious beliefs, existed before your physical body was even born. The soul is what you truly are, more than your body could ever hope to be; your constant, immovable presence in existence. Therefore, because your soul is you and you are your soul, it must be possible to in some ways sin without your physical body committing the sin with you. This idea is certainly supported by the strong condemnation of envy (a purely emotional experience) directly from God and, arguably, by the concept of your soul being punished for eternity once it’s left the body behind. Indeed, also by the concept of Lucifer the fallen angel.

If this is the case, then those who believe in the soul should perhaps think carefully about what their actions in videogames mean in regard to their religious beliefs. No holy book in existence deals with the idea of exploring and taking part in virtual worlds, as most of them were written thousands of years before videogames were even possible. If they did however… what would they have to say?

I’m sure that in just sixty seconds, you could name a few dozen games that require you to kill in order to progress. Your body is doing very little; but your mind, your imagination, the you inside the body, your soul – is on a rampage. Kill after kill after kill. And as I said at the start of this article it may become a holistic experience, with new controllers and control methods allowing you to physically act out the on – screen actions closer to the real thing than ever.

But in the here and now, and for decades, to put it bluntly: videogames have allowed people to theoretically kill via their souls. Murder is forbidden by any religion worth its salt; an easily identifiable sin. When a game such as Red Dead Redemption comes along that complicates matters further, by offering the player choices such as whether or not to kill a certain character at a certain point, and allowing them to go on a murderous rampage whenever they wish. In fact, in Grand Theft Auto IV, you could probably commit every sin explicitly forbidden within the space of five minutes. Not in the physical world, of course – but in your head, on the inside. Where you’re taught the soul resides; what you’re taught the soul is.

Two arguments could be made which could be seen as bringing the above talk of ‘sinning via the soul’ crashing to the ground. Firstly, it could be quite reasonably argued that murder, for example, isn’t a sin if it isn’t committed in the physical world. Secondly, it is surely impossible to sin against computer algorithms. The little people on your TV screen or monitor are not real, and therefore can not be sinned against. Allow me, therefore, to bring the discussion to the online arena.

A theoretical example, now. I’ve been in similar situations myself before, and I’m sure you have too. Imagine: you’re playing your favourite online shooter against other people. Let’s say for the sake of argument it’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. You’ve made a good start to the match, reaped a few impressive kills without dying; and then you’re killed yourself. Shortly after respawning you are killed again, by the same player. You respawn again; the same player kills you again, before you manage to get any more kills yourself. You seek him out in revenge; he kills you again. Now, you’re furious. You charge to his last known position, taking less care than usual, concerning yourself only with reaching him and taking revenge.

What is going through your mind in such a situation? Very little, except thoughts of hatred and revenge. Somewhere in the world, there is another human being you are directing these feelings of fury and demands for retribution towards. In the context of this game how, exactly, do you intend to set things to rights?

By killing him.

Should you succeed you will not have taken a life, and he will not die. You are theoretically interacting soul to soul, however. You have both automatically reduced your peripheral vision to the confines of the game screen; you have both thrown your concentration and passion into the game; you are both doing very little with your bodies, while the ‘inside’ you – the soul – is alert and entirely active. Is this really a million miles away from, and worse than, what is surely the more innocent feeling of envy?

Speaking of which, if you’ve ever looked at another player’s stats/awards and been jealous – you’ve undeniably sinned.

I’d like to finish by explaining how one of the most successful games of this year has proven to be the most brazen champion of atheism the industry has ever seen, and yet the fact has (so far as I can tell) gone unrecognised and unreported, thereby proving gaming to be a pursuit that fundamentally bypasses religious sensibilities. The game in question is God of War III.

For the most part, God of War III is simply an action game that draws inspiration from Greek mythology (sometimes confusing it with Roman mythology). The last leg of the experience, however, is a drawn out allegory of man’s fight against and liberation from religion. The stylised sequence in the dark wasn’t done that way simply to look good; it was to emphasise the message that Zeus’s power over Kratos (the power of religion over men) was darkness. Darkness clearly represents uncertainty and fear, exemplified by the guilt Kratos is forced to face in his journey through the dark. It is repeatedly stated in the game that Pandora’s Box contains ‘the power to kill a god’. Not the power to kill Zeus; the power to kill any god. The power is eventually revealed to be light – the light of hope and confidence to dispel the darkness of fear and uncertainty.

After exiting the darkness, the player is unexpectedly given a first person view to kill Zeus. The kill when it finally happens is drawn out, violent and bloody. With no on – screen avatar and extreme violence, the player is as involved in the kill as possible. In fact the screen slowly fills with blood until nothing can be seen, and does not clear until the player stops hitting the buttons on the controller. A very clever touch.

The player has killed the god, and almost certainly with more violence than was necessary.

With a trail of dead gods behind him, Kratos takes control of his life in the most definitive way possible; he chooses how, when and where to die by killing himself, or at least trying to.

And they all lived nihilistically ever after.