English Redneck's Rants & Reviews

Saturday, November 19, 2005

My Moment At The Top

Ever since XBox Live took off, I've never reached the top of a scoreboard. Fact is, the Brits (and Europeans) don't really stand much of a chance in such an accomplishment. Because the Americans are so much better at games ? Far from it, they can cheat and talk shit in a different league, but most of the best players I've encountered are Brits. No, the reason why this becomes mission impossible is because of the headstart American gamers get thanks to the difference in release dates. That was, until recently, with the arrival of Star Wars Battlefront 2.

The original Battlefront game had no scoreboards, but I loved playing the game online - especially as a co-op game with friends where we could have a good laugh with no "I wasn't breast fed as a baby" trash talking twat to spoil the atmosphere.

Battlefront 2 was one of those rare occasions where we actually got the game at the same time as the Americans, but to be honest, I wasn't thinking too much about the newly added scoreboards. My friends picked the game up too and we picked up where we left off with the last game. A bunch of competitive games and a nice helping of co-op that we always enjoyed. Of course with a new game comes new features which we were eager to try out - especially the different hero characters.

After a couple of days of playing and loving every moment of it, I decided to take a look at the scoreboards and see where I and all my friends were. I was happy to find that I was actually first on the main board !

I was quite happy cause it was like my shining moment where I was actually ranked top on a game I loved playing. I decided not to post on the forums I go on about it and boast, but it wasn't long before the guys started noticing and I got a few pats on the back for it. Which was cool cause like I said, its always usually so hard to do.

I continued playing and found that some guys were catching up pretty fast - which pushed me to play even more. But over the following week, the whole achievement just went from being pretty chuffed with myself, to just not being bothered anymore. Why ? Because in the space of a week, my gamertag seemed to have become the most hated name ever. I was looking across forums and people were accusing me of cheating (which is real rich coming from Americans) and generally giving me abuse.

I didn't bother registering and replying, because I know I would have just ended up spending most hours of the day, jumping from retarded forum to retarded forum, defending myself and no doubt have a friends list full of friend requests from complete wankers desperately wanting to challenge me with their clan of super nerds. I had a few threats telling me I was going to be hunted down online until I was beaten and one American geek even threatened to fly over here and hit me (sure you know where England even is on the map you stupid cunt ?)

In the end, I just wasn't enjoying the game anymore and it was just easier to let the fuckin idiots get to the top of their precious board. But for any of you fuckin tossers that were born as a result of a session of drunken animal anal sex, I'll play the game exactly how I want and if thats mostly co-op with my friends and not fuckin pathetic "we're lords of the universe" nerd clan matches, well tough shit !

Thank Christ for the gamer points idea on the XBox 360 when it comes out. A nice way to compete with friends and not have every 40 year old virgin geek and 14 year old spotty nerd threatening to wear their Yoda costume and then come and use the Force on me. Twats.

posted @ 5:38 pm
1 comments

Tuesday, November 15, 2005
Memory Lane

Some of my best gaming memories are when I owned Nintendo systems. I loved my NES and SNES.

Probably have a whole bunch of people wondering what the hell I'm on about, but it was like Nintendo's best years, where graphics, hi def and surround sound didn't matter. I hardly ever got any magazines - buying new games was like a great day out - I'd look at all the boxes in Toys R Us (well, the plastic strips that showed a pic of the front and back of the boxes) and pick what one I thought was best.

I didn't get introduced to the likes of Castlevania, Zelda and Probotector (Contra) from magazines raving about how everyone has to buy them and reveal about 3/4 of the content of the games. Everything I got was a gamble from liking stuff like the characters on the boxes or what I read on the back. It all had that exciting moment about it where I knew nothing of how it played or what I'd encounter in the game. There was nobody saying "that games crap cause its graphics are poor", because back then any good graphics were like some special bonus. I'm not ashamed to say as a kid, I was really in awe when I saw the waterfall on the Zelda title screen and the still pic of Gizmo early on in the Gremlins 2 game. When writing up my Christmas list, I would goto shops like Toys R Us, look at the boxes and write down a bunch of titles I liked the look of. The only game I ever got which I didn't like on my NES (which I didn't really choose) was Marble Madness. Then the SNES came out and for the first year, I was still pretty much going on my own gut instincts when picking new games - which is how I was introduced to F-Zero. Then more magazines started to pop up and I started to get one or two with my pocket money. From there, mags started to dictate my game choices and although the SNES remained great for me, with later consoles, the whole excitement shopping for new games drifted off, cause I already knew how everything was going to play, what bosses to expect, etc.

The only time I really seem to get excited when actually going out to buy new games and stuff now is when its a console launch. The XBox has given me loads of games to enjoy, but no matter what system I buy, nothing will ever compare to the years I was playing my NES and SNES. Mags, big graphic enhancements and the internet have taken away the excitement of it all. I've had to force myself away from most XBox 360 pages on sites cause they seem hell bent on ruining every surprise in every game before anythings released. "OMG !!!111!!! A Halo character in DOA4 !!!111!!!" - I don't want to bloody know ! "Heres every level in Kameo, watch this movie as one of our staff completes the whole game and shows you every character". Just doesn't compare to the situation of seeing it on the shelves and thinking "Kameo... looks interesting, I'll give it a look" - and then seeing everything for the first time from your own experiences - from the controls to the credits at the end.

Oh to be a kid again.

posted @ 2:40 pm
1 comments