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.

There have been countless Bible – inspired Christian ‘em ups over the last few decades. The problem is that they’re either misedutainment titles, or unlicensed; and therefore buggy, boring, and technically inept. Christianity is on the decline worldwide; I asked a priest why, and he said ‘Buggered if I know’. Not sure which one of us he was referring to at the beginning of that sentence.

Anyway, I want to help! I have here outlined the first part of my plans for the perfect videogame adaptation of the Bible. Catholic, Quaker, Protestant, Baptist; any denomination is welcome to approach me for the rights to The Bible: The Official Videogame. Be quick though, as it’s first come first served. Okay, here we go:

In the beginning, darkness was upon the face of the deep. And so the Lord God Spake unto the void, ‘Blimey, it’s dark in here. Let there be light’. And lo, a 40W desk lamp did come into being and show Him the way.

The game begins very much like LittleBigPlanet with the player, as God, creating… well, everything. Tutorials are narrated by the disembodied voice of Stephen Fry. Connect a headset or microphone, and earn bonus points by commenting on the irony of a gay atheist telling God what to do. Fry helps God along His way by issuing ten commandments of his own:

“Thou shalt make the corners and edges first.”

“Thou shalt not shape continents after the image of thy penis.”

“Thou shalt create dinosaurs, so that creationists may be antagonised.”

“Thou shalt award thy son one continue.”

“Thou shalt give England crappy weather as punishment for cricket.”

“Thou shalt make grass green, so that people know where the sky stops.”

“Thou shalt not fix the infinitely spawning loaves and fishes glitch.”

“Thou shalt allow men and women to have Plug & Play functionality.”

“Thou shalt allow homosexuals to improvise.”

“Thou shalt not release a patch later.”

Squint, and you can see there's historical proof.

And the Lord God looked upon what He had created, and spake ‘Yeah, that’ll do’. Then he did make a wondrous garden, and he did call this land of plenty Eden. He made a creature after his image to live there, and this creature was Man. He did copy and paste this creature and lo, he pushed the dangly bit inside and verily, he rolled up two leftover bits and stuck one on the front and one on the back; then He decided this looked silly and stuck them side by side on the chest; and this creature he did call Woman. He created a wondrous device called Television, and a device more wondrous still called The Remote Control; but woe upon the land of Eden, for this caused many bitter arguments. So it came to pass that Television was banned for thousands of years, and the Man who was Adam and the Woman who was Eve had naught but the spectator sport of star jumps to pass the time.

This section of the game plays in a similar vein to Viva Piñata; keep your humans well fed and happy. Watch out for Solid Snake, who creeps around Eden with a banana plucked from the Tree of Life. Should Adam spot the sneaky satanic agent a giant red exclamation mark appears above his head, which you can use to batter Snake unconscious. After 100 levels however Snake sneaks past no matter what you do, and Adam and Eve both take a bite from the Banana of Knowledge.

And so it came to pass that the Man Adam and the Woman Eve had Knowledge, and saw that they were naked. The Lord God spake ‘I know what you’re thinking, you dirty tinkers. Get out of my garden’.

Yea verily, much time passed. The Lord God looked upon what he had created, and spake unto Noah ‘Take your family, and two of each animal. Make you two arks, for I shall bring a great flood upon the world to extinguish all life from the earth’. And Noah did say ‘Um, two arks, my lord?’. And the Lord God spake unto Noah ‘Verily, two arks. One for you, your wife and the animals, and another to fill with poo. There will be an abundance of poo, my son’. Said Noah to the Lord, ‘Lord, if you wish to extinguish all life, should it truly be a flood? For will not the fish, and the birds which feed upon the fish, survive such a judgement upon the earth?’. And the Lord God spake ‘Just build the fucking arks’.

The first part of this section will be a Diner Dash clone where the player, as Noah, undergoes stressful resource management to keep all of the animals fed (and poo thrown to Ark II). The second part will concentrate on the rare moments of respite Noah enjoys, where he rides a dolphin around the flooded lands. Think Wave Race, but with no other racers.

The proud and arrogant people of Babylon built a great tower, so that they might reach heaven and win audience with the Lord. The Lord God looked upon the tower and was not pleased, for the plebs would surely lower the house prices. So He did decide to smite the tower and those who built it, and lay waste to the city of Babylon. For He was God, and could do whatever He bloody well wanted.

Being God is FUN!

Two games in one here. Play as God, it’s the Blast Corps sequel that never was; play as the Babylonians, it’s a tower defence game.

Next to suffer the wrath of God was to be Sodom and Gomorrah, for the Lord God was still bitter at being ordered around by Stephen Fry. Abraham did say ‘Lord, though you are as wise as you are powerful, would you truly destroy the righteous with the wicked?’. And the Lord God spake unto Abraham ‘Um… maybe’. So Abraham did say ‘Were there fifty innocent souls in Sodom, would they too die in the fires of your wrath?’ to which God replied ‘I would spare Sodom and Gomorrah for fifty righteous’. ‘If the cities were just five short, and forty five righteous were there to be found?’. ‘For forty five I would stay my wrath’ spake the Lord. ‘Forty?’ said Abraham. ‘Look, I’m not bloody haggling’ spake the Lord God.

I’m not making this up, by the way. Well, not entirely. Genesis 18:23 – 18:32.

‘Thirty? Twenty? Ten?’ asked Abraham. ‘Yes, yes, yes. That’s enough, sod off before I give you leprosy.’ spake the Lord God.

Another Blast Corps – style section here. More headset/microphone bonus points to be won, again for commenting on irony. Had Abraham haggled God down just a little more, Sodom and Gomorrah would have been saved, for there were six innocents; three men and three women. The head of the family was called Lot, but six was not a ‘lot’ of righteous in God’s eyes. Ha! Haha! I made a joke.

Perhaps just five righteous; Lot’s wife was turned into a pile of salt as punishment for rubbernecking.

Wearing nothing but a flower in her hair. Phwoar, eh lads?

Cutscene: The Lord God spake unto Abraham ‘Take your son, your only son whom you love so much and is called Isaac, to the top of the mountain, and there kill him for my amusement’. And Abraham did say ‘Of course Lord, that seems perfectly reasonable. You truly are a wise and just god, whom only damned infidels would dare to question’. And so Abraham took his only son Isaac to the top of the mountain, and Isaac did say ‘Please daddy, I love you, please don’t, daddy, I love you daddy, daddy no, please, please daddy, why, why, why daddy, I still love you even though you do this thing I wish you were not doing daddy’. And Abraham did reach the appointed place, and he did lift his arm to the sky with a freshly sharpened blade in his hand, and the Lord God spake ‘I was only joking’ and everybody laughed.

The Sims is one of the most popular, most profitable franchises videogaming has ever seen – so of course, I shall be ripping it off for this game.

The Lord God saw that the man Job was one of the most righteous and devoted people on His earth, and so chose to make his life a misery. ‘He’s got three thousand camels. What the heck does one man need three thousand camels for?’ spake the Lord (Job 1:3). ‘I shall teach him the error of his camel fancying ways’. And so it came to pass that the Lord God killed Job’s children and lo, Job was unhappy (but now rich). ‘Why, Lord, why?’ spake Job unto himself. ‘Think of the camels’ thought the Lord God. Satan saw what had come to pass, and spake unto the Lord ‘He still sings your praises, but should you do more to him he would surely curse you’ to which the Lord God replied ‘You ain’t seen nothing yet Lucy’. And so Job’s life became a whirlpool of pain, misery and torment; though in the end he was given some new children and not three, but six thousand camels (Job 42:12). So that’s okay then.

This final Sims-style section will also contain elements of Eyepet; if you want a break from torturing Job by laying waste to his health, family and possessions, you can dress him up in a variety of cute jumpers and amusing hats. Job will resonate with the hardcore gaming audience, as he was surely the first blind faith fanboy.

Right, that’s the Old Testament done. Didn’t miss anything, did I? Oh, in case you were wondering where Moses and the trials of the Jews are, those levels will be included in the Jerusalem map pack to be released in the next financial quarter.

Anything in particular from the New Testament you’d like to see in part two? Let me know…

If I were to suggest that the Wii is the best console for hardcore gamers, I would be laughed off the face of the planet via ‘teh internetz’. As I have no desire to ride a wave of bad spelling, questionable grammar and derogatory comments about my mother into the ether, I shall take a different tack. First of all, I’d like you to ask yourselves a question; that is, those of you who have played the Wii little or not at all and dismiss it out of hand.

What is it about the console that you hate so?

Many would immediately answer ‘the lack of decent games’ or ‘it only does casual games’. To this dear friends I reply pish and, dare I say it, pshaw also. Mind you, I’m not going to stick my fingers in my ears and ‘la la la’ all day when it comes to the sheer volume of ‘casual’ games released for the console. If you laid one copy of every casual Wii title end to end it would stretch… well… a jolly long way. But what would you have achieved by doing so? Really? You’d just end up feeling silly, surely.

Anyhoo, people who concentrate on the tsunami of fluffy mass market titles seem to forget that the PS2 suffered from the exact same problem. No, it didn’t? Yes it bloody well did. How many Spongebob, Barbie and Buzz titles do you need me to slap you with before you admit I’m right? Yes, the PS2 ended up with a much larger number of core titles, but the fact remains that it had more casual games released for it than the Wii ever will. I’ve alluded to the fact that the PS2 enjoyed a huge number of hardcore releases throughout its lifecycle. Why isn’t this happening with Nintendo’s latest console?

I imagine it’s in part due to the hideous costs of making videogames nowadays. Wii games may be cheaper to make, but developing for the Wii will ultimately result in a much lower return. Multiformat titles are the way to go for third parties so far as maximum profit is concerned; is it any wonder that the Wii is usually left out of such releases? The market has now reached the point where pretty much everybody assumes that a core game will sell poorly on the Wii but even putting that to one side for a moment, there are the technological limitations to consider. Use the Wii as the lead format, and you’re forced to ignore the processing power of the other machines; use anything else as the lead format, and you’re then faced with the problem of how to downgrade it for the Little White Wonder and still provide a decent game.

There’s another factor, I think, which nobody seems to be considering. It’s important to remember that the vast majority of developers are hardcore gamers themselves – and that includes the Creative Directors and CEOs who make the big decisions (usually in conjunction with publishers, of course). A great many hardcore gamers don’t give the Wii a second thought, and I can think of several developers I’ve met who fall into that category. So if the people making the games have no interest in the Wii…

He's still got it.

Nonetheless, there are many great games available for the console which started the whole motion control malarkey. Okay, some of them are last-gen games with motion control tacked on, such as Resident Evil 4 and Okami. Even Twilight Princess saw a simultaneous release on the Gamecube. They’re still fantastic games though, and there are plenty of other titles exclusive to the console well worth getting, often at a bargain price. Mario Kart Wii, for example. Only FIFA and Call of Duty are as addictive and rude word–inducing online.

It should surely go without saying (which, er, is why I’m saying it) that the two Mario Galaxy games are essential purchases. If you’re a fan of lightgun games, I find it impossible to imagine you being disappointed with Ghost Squad; if you don’t have a PC or 360, you can get season one of the new Sam & Max games. WiiWare carries, among many other gems, the two sublime LostWinds games from David Braben’s Frontier Developments; Sonic creator Yuji Naka’s latest game Ivy the Kiwi? is well worth a shot; plus, each and every Gamecube game for your Wii’s region is fully compatible (although you’ll need a Gamecube controller to play, and a Gamecube memory card to save).

This brings me neatly to the thrust of my argument. It was a struggle, but Sony and Microsoft eventually managed to convince many of us that backwards compatibility doesn’t matter. Remember the early years of the current generation of consoles? Sony messed things up globally by ensuring that the 60gb version of the PS3 was fully compatible with PS2 and PS1 games… well, in the US. In the EU backwards compatibility was produced via software emulation, resulting in some games being incompatible and many featuring bugs that ranged from the hardly noticeable to the gamebreaking. Then of course they developed several new models, almost none of which offered backwards compatibility at all.

Microsoft did little better. Their backwards compatibility was also via emulation, but the games chosen to be included in the list seemed at times almost random. There was even an eventually successful campaign to get Psychonauts on said list. The updates stopped after a while, as Microsoft realised they could make money by offering Xbox games on demand via Live.

Every Wii in the world is fully backwards compatible. Cynics may sneer that this is because the Wii is little more than a Gamecube in a different case and, comparing the graphics of the two machines, it’s hard to argue against this. Nonetheless backwards compatibility is an important issue for the hardcore – at least, it certainly used to be – and this is one issue where Nintendo wins hands down..

David Braben supports the Wii. Don't you?

Retro games are also a core concern, with a great many of today’s gamers looking back at the titles of yesterday with rose tinted specs superglued to their wrinkled old faces. Again, Nintendo has pretty much no competition here. The Virtual Console offers hundreds of retro games at (usually) reasonable prices, including a few that never made it to your region originally. Formats featured include not only the NES, SNES and N64, but also Megadrive, PC Engine, and NEOGEO. If this were available on the PS3 or 360, zealots of that format would wave it around in forums in misspelled triumph.

In fact, let’s have a bit of a ‘What If’. What If the 360 and PS3 both featured armies of retro titles to download, full backwards compatibility, only one version each, and an innovative control system from launch. The Wii on the other hand has been plagued by a high failure rate from the beginning, has almost no retro titles available for download, has had six different SKUs released (the main difference being hard drive size), launched at a high price thanks to the blu-ray drive, and was late to the motion control party. What would be the reasons for the hardcore dismissing it out of hand now?

I know what you’re thinking (I’m going all Derren Brown on yo’ ass). What am I trying to say? Is the Wii under some kind of curse? Well although I have evidence to support that theory, I’m not ready to go public yet. What I’ll say instead is that Nintendo have brought this upon themselves. The Wii as a whole was a gamble that could have brought them down to a software–only company a la Sega. They decided to concentrate on the mass market, and it paid off big time – initially. The downside to this was that they alienated a huge chunk of the traditional market, and there are now signs that this may hurt them in the long term (insofar as the Wii is concerned). Whether or not that is the case, only time will tell.

Still, the Wii introduced videogames to a wider audience and made them more acceptable to mass media in a way that hadn’t been achieved since the release of the PSOne. As so many used to dismiss videogames as childish and unworthy of discussion (and some still do), some gamers are dismissing the Wii in exactly the same way. Don’t mimic this attitude. The Wii does have many excellent games, both old and new. Move and Kinect prove that Sony and Microsoft were suffering severe IWITOTS (I Wish I’d Thought Of That Syndrome) when they saw the Wii remote for the first time. The fact that there are still plenty of developers and publishers willing to support the Wii with ‘proper’ games – such as Black Ops – is evidence that the industry itself is far from giving up on the console. So I ask you again: Are you hardcore enough to defend the Wii?

As a thank you to the positive reaction from their fans, Cosmonaut Games, the studio behind WiiWare title Dive: The Medes Island Secret, have released the original soundtrack for download.

The pack contains 11 remastered songs from the game, as well as bonus tracks that have never been heard before.

You can find the link to download the songs in Cosmonaut Games blog post here.

Aquariums are usually incredibly boring things that get shoved underneath the stairs and filled with fish that look to be harbouring suicidal thoughts, offering no way to wirelessly interact with them that isn’t borderline animal abuse. Well Hudson Soft is really making waves within the virtual fish market as My Aquarium 2 gets released on WiiWare today.

Exploring the relatively untapped ‘relaxation’ genre in gaming, My Aquarium 2 lets you build up a fish tank with several features and helps you enjoy virtual fish at your own pace. With eight different tank options and 60 underwater creatures including loveable critters such as the Japanese spider crab and mikado jellyfish, there’s plenty of stuff to fill your pretend fish tank with.

What would it take to make you think about the fact that your gaming hobby might be contributing to real world suffering? An anonymous claim that the factory workers who make your discs are criminally underpaid? Reports of iphone factory – style suicides? Or how about this one, which there is reason to believe may be true: That your gaming consoles contain minerals mined to fund the devastating Congo war?

I’m not going to elaborate on the link between gaming and the Congo conflict here. I was reminded of it by an article from Brian Crecente, editor at Kotaku, and I advise you to read it too. The article links out to further information which is well worth investigating. In fact if you don’t already know much about the issue, I would urge you to read Crecente’s article before continuing with mine.

I’m approaching this issue from a completely different angle. When I started reading the comments Crecente’s article attracted, I became more and more furious until I had to stop reading them. I was so angry, I could just as easily have screamed as cried. Whilst the comments posted on Kotaku itself are generally calm in tone, those posted on N4G featured predictably naked insecurity and vitriol.

First thing’s first: Nobody is saying that you are knowingly supporting the war in the Congo. Nobody’s saying you knew where the components came from when you bought your PS3/PC/360/Wii/whatever. Nobody’s saying you are directly responsible for the pain and suffering, nobody’s saying the war would stop if nobody played videogames, and nobody’s saying there aren’t a hundred thousand other products that contribute to the conflict (and many others).

Let’s look this ugly issue right in the face, shall we? Most of the ‘why should I care’ comments mask an attitude of ‘This is happening to a bunch of black kids in a far away place, not me or my neighbours, so why should I give a shit? I’m not giving up my games for anybody’. If you found that a percentage (however small) from the sale of your favourite games machine went to fund violence and rape on your doorstep, you’d care then, wouldn’t you? I hope for the sake of us all that you would.

Photo: AP

Saying ‘other products and hobbies fund war atrocities too’ isn’t an argument – it’s a cowardly get – out clause. If you discovered people on your street were kidnapping and raping children, would you report them – or would you shrug your shoulders and join in?

Oh I’m sorry, was that last paragraph shocking? Unnecessary? The sad truth is that proposing an extreme theoretical situation like that is going to connect with you emotionally much more than detailing the real life suffering happening right now to human beings you’ll never meet. The point is, you should have left the ‘well they’re doing it’ argument at nursery school.

It’s important to remember that comments – both positive and negative – are only left on websites by a vocal minority, so it’s difficult to gauge just how many readers of that article took such a callous view of the situation. Nonetheless some certainly did, and some even take the issue lightly enough to make poor jokes about it. Why? Well I’ve already hinted at the possibility that some simply hate the idea of being told to stop playing their games, and that others wrongly assumed they were being accused of knowingly contributing to the conflict. The bottom line is however, many people (to one degree or another) find it difficult to empathise with people unless they’re standing in front of them.

“So what do you expect me to do?” I hear you cry. A fair question. I’m not going to tell you to destroy your consoles – I don’t want to do that either. In theory, what I want you to do is simple; tell Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft (incidentally, the only company to indicate they try to avoid sourcing materials from conflict zones) that you do not want to buy machines made with conflict minerals. The best way of doing this will probably be an online petition, so I ask you: do you know of an already established one we can help to promote? If so then please leave a link, along with any other ideas, via a comment below.

If you don’t think complaining or protesting will make a difference, you’re wrong. If the big three see that the issue is widely known – and most importantly of all, that people care about it – they will issue public statements. If they officially declare that they will do their best to ensure that no conflict minerals are used in their machines then no, you and I have no way of checking this; but there are official bodies who can and will. That’s how the issue was discovered in the first place.

Rising Star Games proudly announced today that they will publish the new game from Yuji Naka, former head of Sonic Team. The new game features the slightly bizarre title of ‘Ivy the Kiwi?’ complete with question mark at no extra cost.

Ivy the Kiwi? places players in the role of a lonely baby bird in search of her mother. The game spans over 100 stages across a variety of 2D landscapes filled with various obstacles to overcome and will be available for both Nintendo Wii and DS. There will also be ‘mini’ versions of the game released via DSiWare and WiiWare comprised of 50 stages each.

Martin Defries, managing director of Rising Star Games, commented: “We’re elated to work on a game that’s so closely associated with Yuji Naka. I’m delighted we’ve managed to scoop the European rights. We hope to see Ivy the Kiwi? reach out to fans the way a little blue hedgehog did all those years ago.”

Ivy the Kiwi? will be released throughout Europe this autumn.

• Format: WiiWare (version reviewed), PSN, XBLA, iPhone, iPod Touch, PC, PSP, DS
  
• Unleashed: Out Now
• Publisher: Hudson
  
• Developer: PlayFirst
• Players: 1 – 2
• Site: http://www.playfirst.com/game/dinerdash

Our regular readers may realise that this is, in fact, the third time we’ve reviewed Diner Dash. This is not because we suffer from severe memory loss; nor is it because we suffer from severe memory loss. Every time the lovely people at Hudson publish it on a new format, they send us code to review. So here we go again…

Each of the many home versions of Diner Dash suffers from one simple yet slightly embarrassing problem; you can play the original online version for free on your PC on a ten day trial. This is a problem because ten days is more than enough to finish the career; and not everybody will want to go back once they’ve done that. Just thought we ought to get that out in the open straight away.

The console versions haven’t strayed from the game’s simple origins, and the Wii version is no different in that respect. The basic premise is that as resteraunter/waitress Flo, you need to deal with the customers that come into your Diner as quickly and effectively as possible. The process for dealing with a customer is as follows: seat them, take their order, deliver their order to the chef, take the food to their table, give them the bill, clear the table. Despite this Operation Flashpoint level of realism, things aren’t quite as straightforward as that.

You have to wait for customers to finish one stage of the process (i.e. eating their meal) before you can move on to the next. While you’re waiting, you’ll find that another set of customers is ready to give their order; or that the queue of customers waiting to be seated has steadily increased; and so on. The pressure comes from the line of hearts above each set of customers, which indicates their satisfaction. Ignore them when they need seeing to for too long, and the hearts decrease. If the hearts disappear altogether the customers leave, incurring a hefty cash penalty.

Sadly, the three elderly gentlemen on the left are not about to start breakdancing.

On top of that, there are different types of customer (incidentally, seating the colourful customers at similarly coloured seats earns bonuses). You’ll soon be dealing with normal customers that wait and tip normally, businesswomen that tip well but are impatient, and ‘senior citizens’ that are patient but don’t tip great. Intentionally or not, this encourages you to think and act like a real waitress – give the most attention to people who clearly have money, see to impatient customers as quickly as you can, and ignore the pensioners unless you have nothing better to do.

Each stage has a cash target to earn and, as you progress, you’ll earn respect for the ‘casual gamers’ who make up the majority of the Diner Dash fanbase. The only way to meet the targets in later stages is to chain actions together so that, for example, you take four orders in a row without interrupting them by clearing a table or delivering a meal. Doing so risks people becoming impatient to the point of leaving, which will cost you money that almost certainly means you won’t finish the stage. Hearts can be replenished by time – consuming tasks such as providing coffee or waiting at a queue’s podium. It’s a fine balance you need to strike.

Your restaurant will look different as you progress, but the gameplay remains the same.

We found it impossible to find anybody who wanted to play online – but there is an offline 2 player mode too. This and the self explanatory ‘endless’ mode potentially offer replay value – so long as you don’t mind juggling tasks and looking for raised hands like an actual waitress.

3/5

• Format: WiiWare (version reviewed), PSN, XBLA
  
• Unleashed: Out Now
• Publisher: Hudson Soft
• Developer: Backbone Entertainment
• Players: 1-4
• Site: http://www.hudson.co.jp/index_e.html

Our British readers will be delighted to hear that this game allows you to kill Kilroy. Before you rush out to download this promising sounding game however, we must shatter your dreams and tell you that Kilroy is merely the name of an infantry unit, which can also be on your side. Mind you, another is called Ramsey; so we suppose if you squint a bit and use your imagination, you can show these charmless TV celebs what you really think of them.

The Military Madness games are turn – based strategies and the most recent, Nectaris, has finally made the leap from the HD consoles to the Wii. If you’re not familiar with the genre then, well, it’s basically chess with various spins on the rules and more limited movement. Chess with orcs and/or swords and/or magic and/or guns and/or tanks and/or robots, but chess nonetheless. The biggest difference (despite what die – hard strategy fans may tell you) is that one unit (e.g. piece) can rarely defeat another in just one move.

Wipe butter all over your screen and hey presto: a screenshot of the WiiWare version.

If you’re a strategy veteran then you’ll be immediately familiar with the mechanics of Nectaris, and you’ll slide into it with as much ease as James Bond sliding into a woman’s, er, confidence. If you’re a newcomer to the genre however, you’ll find it to be immediately frustrating and unfriendly. There is no tutorial of any kind whatsoever. Progress will be slow as trial and error gradually, painfully, shows you what to do and how to do it. Percentages and numbers are displayed with no explanation, and new units are introduced with no hint as to what they can and can not do. There are over a dozen pages in the ‘detailed instructions’ on the Wii Shopping Channel, but they’re not quite as clear as they should be – and besides, don’t quite cover everything.

Whether you get there by trial and error or previous experience, there is an undeniable satisfaction in taking full advantage of the strategy element and winning a stage by careful planning and observation. Surround an infantry unit with tanks and pummel it into submission; sneak your own infantry into the enemy base, winning the stage instantly; move two or three different unit types together to make a formidable whole; and so on. The problem however is that this satisfaction is the bare bones of all strategy titles, and this doesn’t add much in the way of playable meat. There’s the obligatory online mode, but we were never able to find anybody to play with. A quick look at the online leaderboard revealed why. The top player had played and won just six games; and there were only twenty nine people on said leaderboard. Perhaps only the top 29 players are shown for some bizarre reason, but still…

Only slightly more exciting than it looks.

Up to four people can play offline if you have nothing better to do – but you will. Why make three of your friends play this bland and unambitious strategy when you could be playing Mario Kart? Or Wii Sports? Or doing the ironing?

This port reeks of laziness. Insultingly poor graphics, no attempt to use the Wii remote’s pointer, a laughable attempt at story, and basically nothing you haven’t seen done elsewhere much better. The final kick in the teeth is the 1000 points price point. You’re better off spending the extra 200 points for Ogre Battle 64.

2/5

The one and only David Braben.

Yes indeed, the might David Braben talks to your favourite gaming blog (no, us, you cheeky git). While we were waiting for the answers, his PR lady told us he was ‘travelling’; which we took to mean he was exploring deep space, trading and killing as he pleased.

CG: When you created your first starfield, did that ignite your imagination for the beginnings of Elite?

David Braben: Partly – but in some senses it was the other way around. I was excited about doing a game set in space, as there is no ground to draw, and the starfield was effectively the alternative – to give a sense of movement and speed. As I’ve said elsewhere, my first starfield was a huge disappointment – written in BASIC, it took an appallingly long time to draw and then undraw the stars, so it was the trigger to learning machine code.

CG: When you and Bell took Elite to your first publisher, what kind of response did you expect… and what did you get?

David Braben: Before I met Ian, I had had a discussion with Thorn EMI, who offered me a job when I showed them the 3D code I had written, running – but it would have meant not going to university, and I already had a place at Cambridge at that time, so in a sense when we later took “Elite” to them, it was a second visit – they had even seen ‘Ship 1, 2 and 3’ – which later became the ‘Cobra MkIII’, the ‘Python’, and the ‘Sidewinder’.

The response was very strange. About half a dozen people saw it, and clearly some were very impressed, others were marketing people… In summary, they said that what we had was amazing, but an amazing demo of tech, and that no one would want to buy it as a game. We’d need to get rid of the saved positions, bring in a score, make it so you could ‘beat the game’ in around ten minutes, and we should have multiple lives. They were worried that it would take hours to make any progress, and of course they were right!

CG: It’s known that after Elite sold 100,000 copies, the story was covered by the news. How did you feel when you saw this?

David Braben: We were approached by John Taplin, the Editor of Channel 4 News, when most of the people in his newsroom were playing “Elite” (It is an interesting thing that they were using a network of BBC Micros in order to write their news pieces – how times change!). Both Ian and I were interviewed by them, as was Peter Warlock the editor of “PCN” – a news magazine about games. So when we saw the piece on TV, alongside interviews with Arthur Scargill, coverage of the miner’s strike, and a strike at British Leyland, it wasn’t a surprise, but I got a real ‘buzz’ from it. I was even stopped in the street and in college about it.

CG: Although Frontier (Elite2) took around five years to make, if you had been given more time to work on it, would you have spent longer on it?

David Braben: I would have liked more testing, but to be honest I would have gone mad, I think (or is that even more mad), as five years is a long time to work on something!

CG: You’re one of only a handful of figures in the industry recognised by fans worldwide. How does that make you feel? Why do you think so few individuals stand out in this way in the world of videogames?

David Braben: It is great, but it is also a sign of the at times corporate nature of our industry. These days, games are made by large teams, so perhaps that is an inevitable consequence, but I expect we will see more figures coming to the fore as games become more of a creative medium, like cinema, than a technological tour de force, as is currently often the case.

CG: What influenced the original Elite? Did you have any idea that it might still have such a huge fanbase twenty five years later?

David Braben: George Lucas’s first Star Wars film was probably the biggest influence on me, as were the numerous science fiction books that I read. I didn’t really think as far forward as 25 years, but I did hope that it would have a big fanbase.

CG: How do you feel when looking at successful games such as Eve Online, that are often seen as heavily influenced by Elite? Does it make you swell with pride that something you created twenty five years ago still has such a profound effect on the industry?

David Braben: Yes – I am proud of the effect it has had.

CG: Has the rise of the so called ‘casual gamer’ made you think that a new Elite will need more mass appeal…as some would say, dumbing down?

David Braben: The ‘casual gamer’ is merely a whole new group of people that have come to games. All games don’t have to appeal to all people, just as all films don’t appeal to everyone.

It is also a dangerous assumption that casual games are ‘dumbed down’ in the first place. Many of these so called casual gamers are smart; they simply are not part of all the knowledge that has been built up over the years by hardened gamers like us. Remember the criticism of (for example) the excellent “GoldenEye” game on Nintendo 64. People said it was too confusing/too difficult to control – but with time it established probably our most popular genre, with much the same control scheme. To a casual gamer, an FPS’s controls are still complex – it is simply they haven’t yet been drawn in by them.

CG: How and why did the sublime Lostwinds come to be made?

David Braben: It was the first game to come through our “Game of the Week” process – essentially a set of internal forums where people can pitch ideas, and see whether others rip them apart, suggest improvements, or simply demand they be made. Game ideas that can survive this process are generally pretty strong – our MD David Walsh likened it to dipping a leg of lamb into a piranha-filled river – only the toughest bits survive.

The opportunity for a small number of people to work on a project for a short time arose, and LostWinds was the obvious choice.

CG: What influenced that game? The art and music seem to show strong Eastern influences.

David Braben: It was more of a case of taking inspiration from ‘windy’ places – a mix of Incan, Mayan, Tibetan designs, and getting a consistent look that meshed with them. This, and the creative talent of particularly Chris Symonds and Steve Burgess amalgamated them into a stylish whole, with music from Alistair Lindsay.

CG: What have you kept, and what have you changed, for the sequel? Did fan feedback play a part at all?

David Braben: We have improved on just about every aspect of the first game – there are major new gameplay mechanics (such as season switching) as well as most of those from the previous game, there are of course all-new larger environments, a strong story element and greater interaction with NPC’s, and the game looks even better than the first. We actually had an unprecedented amount of fan feedback from the first game, but they were mainly general expressions of joy about the game rather than specific ideas.

CG: Freedom seems to be at the core of a lot of your work in games, do you feel that gaming’s future lies down a non-linear storytelling path, that can help distinguish it from other media such as film or television?

David Braben: Games don’t need to have distinguishing features shoe-horned into them. Frankly they already stand apart. It is more that there is more of an opportunity, that is often missed, to craft an experience for the player, where they play a far bigger part. We are seeing this increasingly now in games, and it is a very good thing.

CG: Do you think that there is a tendency towards simplicity in game storytelling, that focuses on basic concepts such as good and evil or right and wrong? Is the industry finally beginning to mature and offer a more realistic and ambiguous approach to writing?

David Braben:The industry is continually maturing. Much as cinema started with essentially black and white characters (both literally and morally), it gradually introduced subtlety, much as we are doing now in games. To establish a concept, often it is easiest and clearest to do it in its purest form, but now we are starting to introduce those subtleties, doubts, ambiguities too.

CG: You recently said that the games industry has “arrived financially”, but still has a long way to go in other areas. What needs to be done, and what are you doing in your games in general to help?

David Braben: Games have arrived in many respects, but there are sectors in society that haven’t noticed our proverbial tank parked on their lawn. There is an older generation (and MPs are good examples of this sector) that still regard games as variants of the first Mario Brothers game or Space Invaders. The industry (myself included) has been spending time with government ministers, and I think that is making a big difference to perceptions of our industry.

CG: If we introduce this interview by saying ‘David Braben begged us to interview him for weeks, and we finally caved in’, will you kill us?

David Braben: Yes!