I may be excited now to buy a new release or console, but there is something a little soulless about it.  As a child, savouring the wait, watching time slowly eat the calendar, and smoothing the wrapping paper for a hint of what lay beneath were all part of it – they all counted towards the moment when you got to play the game or fire up the console (after your dad had rigged it all up).  It was like powering up a special move before unleashing it.  Now, I’m just mashing buttons and hoping something happens.
 
Game purchases were neither common or cheap back then, meaning there were less of them, so they had to be good to make it count.  Strict instructions were issued months in advance, catalogues left open at the requisite pages with the chosen things heavily ringed in case my parents had suddenly developed myopia, and studying the game in the shop whenever one of them was looking were all vital.  Looking back, it was all fuel for the slow burn up to the frenzy of Christmas Day.

As an adult, part of me still yearns for the euphoric delight that Christmas used to mean for my hobby.  When I’m standing browsing the shelves or importing an overpriced limited DS, the thought of what I am doing and what I no longer have, gives me pause.  I may be better off than a ten year old, with the freedom to buy what I want, when I want, but I feel that it has come a price.  That may be non-existent to others and most of the time I can even ignore it, but as the months creep on and I look through my dusty collection of consoles past, I feel a twinge of sadness for the way it is now.

Having everything on demand as much as my creaking credit cards will allow, has robbed the build up until all that is left is a brief burst of pleasure followed by a metaphorical cigarette as you put it aside to go and make dinner or bicker over the last strawberry Quality Street.  The foreplay of anticipation is all but gone, and I suppose no one is to blame but me.  If I didn’t have to get myself everything because it is out now, if I just waited, let it build toe curlingly slowly, perhaps that old lightning could be re-captured in a small way.  Perhaps then, the sad clanking chains of that Original Game Boy among others, wouldn’t make sigh rather than smile when I switch the tree lights on this year.

Christmas time...

Suddenly, the patching wouldn’t work and the most recent and much needed one was throwing up an invalid file error.  After using the Delphy log checker recommended by several forums, I found the name of the rogue file, replaced it with the fresh one from the Sims 3 disk and sat back with fingers crossed and apoplexy held on a loose rein.  Nope, the patch still threw up the same error about the same file.  So I replaced it again.  And again.  And again.  Nothing.  After scouring more forums and finding folk crying over their keyboards about the same thing, it seems that my only option (since clearing the cache files didn’t solve it), was to MANUALLY uninstall and then reinstall.  A  manual uninstall, are you fucking serious?!  Picking through the registry files and goodness knows what to comb my system like a squirming five year old’s nit infested scalp…joy.

...but EA support are all too fucking serious, unfortunately

Why did this happen?  I can’t perhaps lay the blame firmly at the door of the game as much as I want to.  Indeed, if I had done nothing wrong, these errors would be more worrying,  however, as it is, I suspect that shamefully, some of the fault lies with me.  You see, Sims 3 doesn’t like mods apparently.  If you have any installed when it comes time to run a patch and update it, it can throw a stealthy tantrum, discreetly knackering your efforts in any number of areas that it chooses.  Or not, such is the temperament of this creature.

When I installed Sims 3 World Adventures recently, the game asked if I wanted to update and so, without thinking, I accepted.  Only then, as the progress bar swelled like a teenager in Chobot’s presence, did I remember my recent raft of saucy mods, cocks, see-thru undies, and sundry items.  Bugger.  I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best and to its credit, the game ran fine, but for one annoying glitch where one character couldn’t access the grocery shop.

So, if the game runs fine, why the problem ?  Well, my launcher, as already mentioned won’t update the game due to its eye-rolling insistence that I have no memory left on my vast and funnily enough, vacant drive.  So my only option is to download patches and manually install.  Which I now can’t do because of this file error.  So the upshot is that I have reached endgame now and can’t update the game at all from this point.  Not a great state of affairs with a game as notoriously buggy as Sims 3.  With each expansion will come many updates, so if I want to continue my Sim gaming and give Devon fodder for his evil intentions, I have little choice.  However, this time, I should pay attention and do the ‘fiddly as arse’ manual uninstall as recommended by EA.  I feel another weekend is about to be lost to a mist of anger, obscenities, and PC rage.  It is the little things in life that make it an excruciating pleasure really.

It is solid, dependable, and underused. Not underused for work – plenty of that gets done on it, but rather, the main purpose for which it was bought, which was gaming.  Like a toaster who toasts, therefore it is, my PC was constructed for the purposes of running the sort of games which have regular PCs slumping back onto fainting couches and fanning themselves while someone loosens their corsets. This little powerhouse was constructed to a top spec after I decided that my ageing and overrated Alienware laptop just couldn’t handle greedy games such as Sims 2 and Oblivion (and burned hotter than the centre of the sun). I was thrilled when it arrived over a year ago and I rigged it up, all shiny and virgin new.

...touched for the very first time...

For a short time, gaming was its life, doing what it was born for until slowly, that purpose faded and it became a repository for pictures, invoices, design work, pornography, and the general detritus which fills most PCs. Instead of doing what it did best, I used it as a work horse and rode it hard. As if to taunt it, while it grinds round the mill, strapped into Xara or Photoshop, shelves of games line up above it, looking down, their unwrapped bodies flirting with the plodding creature. Old games, new games, games with boxes as thick as my wrist in alluring packaging. And I never freed it from the bonds of labour and gave it its head to run, to play as it was meant to, to embrace those willing, nubile discs and spin them to climactic heights. And I think in my paranoiac fog, that it swore revenge. 

In its own way, the PC has begun to fight back. Sucking in more dust than is credible, it seems determined to kill itself to spite the work which rests in its memory banks. The groan of fans grows on a daily basis, while the unit wheezes, white dust lining every port and vent. I can only glare. It is doing it on purpose. It knows that it takes me forever to unplug everything, wrestle the side panel off without losing my fingers and then use the dregs from our last air canister to jet blast its insides. So I fold my arms. Go ahead, go on. Jump, take the pills, pull the trigger, choke yourself on dust, see if I care. But I do – my bloody book is on there along with a ton of unsaved invoices and product descriptions which will rend my soul in two and disrupt my work irreparably if they were lost. And it knows it. So I find myself on a Sunday morning, the day where I should be firing up a game (on the Xbox) and immersing myself in a far off place, blasting the blades of a dust-choked fan in between intermittent sneezing fits. It takes over twenty minutes to get the side panel back on, but at least I am rewarded with a purr as opposed to an octogenarian moan. The attention seeker got what it wanted and the Xbox is as yet, untouched.

What can a PC do though in the face of such abandonment? After all, once a prolific PC gamer, I jumped ship and took up with the Xbox, with whom the passion never seems to die. I can tell you now, as the dust bunnies hop on to burrows new what it can do. Be as bloody minded as possible. Make my jaunty intermittent return as difficult as it can.  Example: Thief – a much lauded stealth series and one which I have long planned to play. I installed it, read the manual, (natch) and told myself that I didn’t just hear a ‘yeah right, that’s what you think’ in the white noise from my battered speakers. Refused. The PC is too powerful, too fast and the game loops from the main screen back through the intro sequence in split seconds, meaning that no button press, or mouse click can save it and I have to CTL-ALT-DEL out. The disc was led on and then ultimately rejected. Hours later and my anger at a peak; my only attempt at a solution was to download DosBox, blink at it in a confused fog a few times and then turn my PC off in disgust. Point one to the metal box and comforting hugs from my sympathetic Xbox instead.

Sims 3 – The game that hates me as much as I hate it, but play it I will. Except that I won’t. After much wrestling with patches and versions (something the Xbox handles with the charm of an oiled concierge), I finally got stuck into playing. Everything was going smoothly and the PC seemed to get along fine with it. The false sense of security, as was no doubt intended, led me to neglect my saving duties and in a moment that my PC must have been looking forward to since I first shunned it, I got a blue screen. An actual fucking blue screen of death. I didn’t even think that you got those anymore. The mansion that I had spent hours meticulously constructing died before my eyes and my PC yawned and rebooted itself with a ‘What? Something amiss? You weren’t doing anything important were you?’ look on it’s gappy face. Game set and  match, smackdown, Pwned, spanked, sorted, subbed, bitch slapped, broken, defeated. I understand now.

We look at one another. I look at the shelves full of fantastic games, unexplored games, classic games, and old favourites. Why did I ever give them up? I can’t remember now. I narrowed my own gaming horizons because it was easier and when I did try to pry them back open, I paid for it. PC gaming is fraught with difficulty, patching, glitching, the interruption of Anti Virus software, and yet it has given me some of the best gaming memories and most loved games in my all time favourite list. It deserves more respect – after all, the Xbox isn’t without its own temper tantrums and issues.  So the dawn of the third age begins and this box of gently churning metal should no longer sit alone in the night. I have a lot of catching up to do and so far, the tentative ceasefire is holding.

Next week: how my Xbox red ringed itself, green screened, and then vomited circuit boards over the carpet in temper at my epic PC gaming marathon.

Dustier than memories...

My laziness, apathy, and even depression have admittedly all played a part in eroding the relationship from the heady NES and SNES days onwards.  Certainly, I don’t have the dogged determination with games that I had as a child and I often forget that my Ninty box is there or simply come up with excuses not to spend time with it.  I feel tired somehow, despite the surface glitz and marketing drive.   I don’t want to wait a year between the few great hits that are played out as a sop to the core gamers and I’m fed up defending the company no matter what, despite it’s past treatment of the EU market, female gamers, failure to advertise properly, and blinkered attitude over online gaming, to name but a few reasons.

I don’t bother arguing anymore, instead, I find myself nodding my head sadly when people complain.  In fact, more often than not, I’m all too quick to whisper behind its back and turn the knife.  Ninty though seem to be turning things around…better colour choices on the DS, encouraging fledgling developers with easier access, advertising extensively, etc.  A new energy has evolved somewhere along the line, but sadly, it seems to have come too late for me.

Wavy remote?  Wii? Sounds stupid, I thought; they’re just desperate to get noticed again.  I felt obliged to get one anyway, after all, I’d always been faithful – Nintendo had originality, great exclusives, and ability to deliver explosive gaming memories.  Those moments where you suddenly pause your game as the realisation hits you at just what a stellar game you’re playing are keystone memories which I haven’t had with the Wii.  It isn’t a star performer - there’s not enough character to overcome its looks, and aside from a few greats and the occasional sweaty fumble, it hasn’t reignited the old passion.  So I gave in to temptation and flirted with the 360 and there was a connection.  I’m not just talking the HDMI cable.

Awkward fumbling

My Wii is still around but gets next to no attention, instead it sits perched on a shelf, slowly gathering dust.  The ratio of crap games to good is still badly skewed but it is the piss-poor storage which is perhaps the biggest problem - that and I just don’t like the controls which have opened up a frustrating gulf between us – one which doesn’t exist with other suitors.

Nintendo don’t listen, especially over the storage, but that’s nothing new.  I had always brushed that away because they compensated elsewhere.  The Wii does have flashes of brilliance (so I am told, mainly by people who have stuck in and made the difficult relationship work) and when I experience one myself, I remember why I fell in love with Nintendo in the first place, but it always fades because the foundation has eroded, leaving a wistful ‘if only’.

I was fed up from the start with the Wii and the typically sparse launch lineup, the refusal to get in shape and compete on some level rather than stubbornly doing its own thing and ignoring those who had been faithful through sickness and health.  Even the originality feels strained and contrived at times and the most seductive parts of its arsenal are rehashes of better times with its predecessor.  I found that by hanging onto a faded love, I was kidding myself.  Whatever it was – perhaps my love of the SNES which was a vibrant, great contender, almost representing my youth in a box – is gone.

It has faded into the insipid white box under my TV with too few flashes of genius and an awkwardness in our interactions.  I do enjoy its company sometimes, like an old friend who I haven’t seen in years, but it can never be the same.  I have my 360 now and that is a solid relationship which won’t end any time soon -  It will never hold the place in my heart that Nintendo once did, but it’s rewarding, open, and fun and ultimately I can’t ask for more.  I feel guilty, but sorry Nintendo, all things considered… it’s not me…it’s actually you.

One ring to rule them all

Ever since having my interest piqued at the Ready Up World record attempt back in April, I’ve sunk my time into the game, allowing it to snatch my evenings and consume my weekends while my gamerscore slowly gained a rosy glow under the drip feed of achievements.  To be honest, at first, the game was merely a taste to show support for those playing through 24 hours – after all, driving games had never interested me and cars ‘aren’t my thing’.  All talk of torque leaves me scratching my arse and wishing the Top Gear crew would skip to whatever caravan demolition derby or race that they have planned for this week.  But something strange actually happened here…Burnout Paradise sucked me in within moments and I soon realised that this ‘mere driving game’ was so much more than I had dismissively branded it.  It became indelibly stamped upon my gaming consciousness.

The free-roaming style of the gorgeous open city and surrounds absorbed me with its  events at every junction, enticing smashables, and different gameplay which, instead of having the driver loop tedious tracks, encouraged free choice, exploration, and served the city up as a playground to game or cruise in.  It rewarded the player for not only venturing off the beaten track and testing the hidden nooks and delights, but for being as anti-social as they felt like.

...and a predatory metallic black by night

Online play has typically been something that I have also avoided, muttering endlessly about ‘online achievements’ and ‘unnecessary multiplayer modes’, but again, this game forced me out of my shell of hermitude and into endless online freeburns where challenges were knocked down and the general chaos of the squealing metal free-for-all smashes were the order of the day…and night, and weekend, and holiday until it was all I played, talked about, and saw every time I closed my eyes.

Paradise City began to enslave my soul, haunting my dreams with angry boost bars, tumbling smash gates, and endless, winding tarmac.  Every night, I prowled the foggy streets like a killer with a steel chassis as my frock coat and four Criterion tyres as my tools of evisceration.  Innocent gates cowered beneath my beams and fell even swifter beneath my wheels, while I surveyed the rising body count with twisted euphoria.  Blue jump lights drew my obsessive attention, luring me into alleys and onto dimly lit boardwalks with the promise of orgasmic heights and I was never disappointed…they too succumbed to my urge to claim and collect, the lights laying haphazardly at the scene of the crime while the city swallowed my fleeing predator.

'scuse me love, have you seen a billboard around here?

One of those rare moments was forming where that elusive alchemy between game and achievements was discovered, as progress was rewarded without the game becoming a chore.  It was as well balanced as the tyres on my rebellious Dodge Charger…sorry…’Bootlegger’.  And that’s something else that began to warp and change…words began tumbling from my mouth like a sorcerer’s ribbons…I began bitching about ‘oversteer’, ‘cornering’, and ‘how tight’ something handles.  As the Burning Routes began too, to fall like dominos beneath my relentless determination, I sampled more and more vehicles and the complaints began to come thick and fast… one particularly shitty vehicle ‘handling like a morgue on wheels’ and another committing the crime of being ‘as responsive as a decomposed corpse.’  All this from a darkly dreaming gamer who for months couldn’t even work out how to get onto the damned I88.

Jack and Rosco, the last of the trio who helped me become 'Elite'

Fellow carnage creators and hunters often kept pace with me during those evenings, weekends, and marathon sessions, ripping up the streets, working on achievements and challenges, all the while taunting, laughing, crashing.  Every player seemed to have their favoured tool of choice…The Rook with his Carbon GT Concept leading the way to every challenge like Gandalf for the rest of our questing pack or Libitina’s lethal Peggles…a sadistic pink wrecking ball from hell that shunted many a fearful vehicle into the jaws of oblivion.  That was until Arkham Asylum’s eerie corridors lured them away and the streets of Paradise were lost…and with the lone game as complete as it could be with the reward of my Criterion Elite license, I felt the same way.

A recent visit re-confirmed the odd feeling.  With the smashes gone, the billboards wrecked, and the roads ruled, coupled with the natural migration of fellow gamers and the last proud achievement tucked away, Paradise City is slightly emptier now. Slightly sadder.  For a game that truly captured my time and enthusiasm enough for me to sink endless hours, week after week into it, in a genre that I had never looked twice at, it is quite an achievement that I feel mournful as much as elated…and for all 60 of those achievements, that bauble-less one is perhaps the most impressive.

After muttering darkly for several days and spending another weekend trawling for advice, I was no further forward.  Not even the forum threads (now full of people with the same problem) were any comfort.  And the worst thing?  Despite my initial reactions to the game, I actually wanted to play it. A character was stamping his feet in the back of my mind, ready to spring to life in the form of the Evil Sim diaries, so I needed the damn thing to work, otherwise he would be bursting forth like Athena to wage war upon Sunset Valley by himself.

So I gave in and grudgingly re-installed, allowing the game it’s own stroppy way, primping and huffing into the C Drive, stamping up the stairs into ‘Program Files’, and petulantly slamming the door.  “Fine”, I shout, “…but you will work.”  Except that it didn’t.  Same problem.  ‘PC drive full’.  Bollocks.  You utter shit.  Uninstall, re-install, and try again.  Nope.  The game sits there with it’s headphones on while I shout up the stairs, puce with rage.  Nothing.  By this time I felt like Wile E Coyote weeping tears of frustration as the Road Runner ‘peep peeps’ from across another bottomless chasm.

To the internet I trudged once more.  Patches, patches…and suddenly, the clouds parted and a chorus of flabby arsed angels creaked into life to declare success.  www.simprograms.com, I could have wept.  Clear, concise, well presented and designed and best of all, every released Sims 3 patch in every version – versions being something I was unaware of up until now.  The game isn’t just the game…it has a string of numbers which denote the version/ region…1, 2, etc (e.g 1.4.6.00002) and the versions of the patches are specific to these regions which is why the ones I was randomly pulling off the net refused to install. 

Shakily I downloaded the first one and it installed fine.  A flutter of excitement stirred in my soul, but I have reached this stage before.  Patch two… 1.3.24.00002…installed.  For the first time in relation to this game, I actually smiled.  And then there was the third and final one.  Finally, I’m done.  My character stretches and yawns, close to being freed, my sanity returns, looking slightly haggard and minus it’s underwear, and I can breathe out.  I’ve caught the Road Runner, beaten his brains out with an ACME hammer, and done obscene things to the corpse.

Unfortunately the hour is late and my Sim-to-be will have to wait another day to come out and start his evil machinations, but until then, I am finally happy.  To simprograms.com, thank you.  Without you, my forty odd pounds would have met a very unpleasant end on the BBQ.  And now…to take over the world, one pool ladder at a time.

Sims 3 comes with a nifty ‘Launcher’ which is supposed to act as a hub, allowing you to start the game, update with the latest (and this being Sims – copious amounts of) patches, download goodies for your game, and upload snaps and creations to share with the rest of the community.  Of course, the more cynical would say that it is also a fab way for them to advertise their latest wares too.

If the launcher actually did the job it was designed for, then I wouldn’t have so much of an issue.  But it doesn’t.  Oh, it still manages to show my what I can spend my ’sims points’ on in the online store, but will it update?  Will it buggery.  As with every Sims release, the patches come thick and fast and not wanting my game to be crippled by one of the many reported bugs, I hastened to my launcher as soon as the first patch was announced (despite hardly touching the game after losing my temper with…well, most of it).  It refused to update, telling me that my drive was full and to clear some space and try again.  What drive?  This drive?  This mahoosive one here?  This drive which at the time of writing reads 343gb remaining?  That one?  Ah, okay.

Close launcher, re-open and repeat.  Nope.  Open Crap Cleaner and clear cookies, cache, and temp internet files.  Nothing.  You’re taking the piss now, but fine.  Onto the Sims 3 official site to search for the patches to download and manually install, just like I used to do for Sims 2…nice and easy.  Too easy.  They are nowhere to be found.  As far as I am aware after much diligent searching, the patches aren’t available on the site unless my PC is sadistically refusing to show them.  Well, thanks a lot.  With the updater refusing to do it’s job, this rather leaves me up shit creek without either a paddle, an AtoZ, or a packed lunch.

Onward to Google and hours later…a handful of sites that don’t try and download viruses, pop up stupid windows full of gaudy emoticons fail to help.  They have patches, but they won’t install.  I can update with the first patch, no problem, but the next patch release refuses to install.  The same thing happens when I get it from another site.  And another, with all either quitting out claiming an incompatible language or some paltry error message that I was too livid to note down.

So do I play this wretched game un-patched and essentially hold a loaded plumbob to my carefully created characters’ heads?  Or do I wait and see if the patches appear in any working form elsewhere?  After trawling the net to see if anyone else  either a, hates this game as much as I do right now (for reasons including but not limited to the monotonous speed of the ‘top speed’ setting, lack of anything to do, and the inability to do basics easily such as simply switch families), and b, is having this problem.  Hours later again and nothing is resolved.   I’m left sulking and shutting down, cursing Sims 3, and slinking back to my sniggering Xbox with a contrite look on my face to beg for forgiveness.

EyePet is a new virtual pet game for the Playstation 3, offering a true next-gen pet experience which the whole family can enjoy.  Developed by SCEE London Studio for a release this October, I was lucky enough to get some face time with producer and EyePet extraordinaire, Nicolas Doucet who explained the concept and took me through the many features.  While the mere mention of the phrases ‘casual’ or ‘pet game’ may have more seasoned gamers screaming for the hills and the comfort of their Lancer, there is more here than first meets the eye.

Utilising the Playstation Eye camera and an innovative new control device called a ‘Magic Pad’, your new pet comes to life before you, allowing you to feed, clean, play with, and customise him to your heart’s content.  Interaction is very much the name of the game and you are encouraged to fuss over and tease your pet, utilising either the range of toys provided or drawing new ones which come to life, spawning a variety of amusing reactions and mini games.

The pet itself is the most important part of the game and so the look and feel had to be just right.  While it appears kitten-esque in its movement, with an almost simian look to it’s face, it is purely a fantasy pet.  According to Nicolas, “Realistic and believable are two different things.”, and while they wanted to avoid the creature looking too real (and therefore veered away from the traditional puppy or kitten template) the team took great pains to create a fantasy creature which was still ultimately believable.

At the start of the game you begin with an egg which serves as a tutorial of sorts to allow the player to acclimatise to the controls.  The moment in which your EyePet finally hatches was very much a labour of love for Nicolas and his team who wanted “… a real Bambi moment.”  The emotional scene is closely guarded and wasn’t on show at the event in order to preserve the surprise and the emotional connection that the team want the player to forge with their newborn pet.

As is often the case with such games, regular tasks such as care and feeding can become tedious, causing people to lose interest.  To avoid the ‘chore bore’ syndrome, tasks such as feeding have been turned into a mini game and benefit from a more open structure.  For example, your pet can be fed from a bowl or you can shower his treats over him, making him jump and play for them.

Nicolas was keen to reinforce the idea that “We are not making a sim, we are making a pet game.”  So the player will thankfully find no stat managing or dry chores here as the last thing that the developers wanted was the player getting bogged down.  With a game such as this, it has to be easy so that anyone, regardless of age can embrace the gameplay without getting tripped up with any complexities.

Realtime progress works in a similar way to that other time swallowing game, Animal Crossing…if you don’t switch your PS3 on for a few days or opt to neglect your pet, then there will be consequences.  No death, don’t panic – Sony have wisely avoided the risk of devastated youngsters writing tear soaked letters after they get back from their holiday at Nan’s to find a fly ridden pet corpse.  So instead, you will be met with a sulky, hungry, grubby pet whom you will need to coax back to happiness with many noms and some attention.  When it comes to your pet’s health, rather than dull stats and the usual meters and gauges, you simply hold up the Magic Pad and scan your pet, producing an X-ray which shows his health and needs.  It was a great touch and strengthens the appreciation of the effort that the developers have made to enliven otherwise tedious tasks and interfaces.

The game’s control is half the fun with EyePet and most of the time, simply involves the Playstation Eye camera and the ‘Magic Pad’.  This special pad (which somewhat resembles a beer mat) calibrates itself to your floor and is the key to your whole EyePet experience.  While menus can be accessed via the controller if you wish,  the idea is to manipulate the virtual menu using your hands to swipe through the options.  While in reality you are groping at thin air, on screen, your hands are deftly manipulating the menu system in a very space-age manner.

For Nicolas though, the controls were more about considering their audience.   “We had to think like someone who has never touched a game…we had to step back and completely rethink everything.” – meaning simple but comprehensive controls were the order of the day.

Other games and toys include bowling where your pet amusingly becomes the ball which you have to line up and release, a game of snap, and a treadmill among other things.  I only got to play around with the trampoline and the bowling but they were entertaining enough, especially with the little squeaks and actions.

While the level of interaction with the Magic Pad and camera are impressive, the game goes a stage further – thanks to the mic, the pet also reacts to sound, so when he is dozing, he can be woken up by loud noises.  Sound can also be used to control him – clapping your hands for example can make him jump – something which has been neatly incorporated into the treadmill toy to get him to leap hurdles.

Where other games allow you to choose your breed of cat or dog, the benefit of a fantasy pet is that customisation comes very much barging to the fore, with EyePet laying on a raft of options.  The player can airbrush colours directly onto their pet and choose the fur length and the pleasant colour palette will satisfy even the most wild tastes.

The clothing options are legion – everything from cowboy costumes to space suits are present, giving players a fantastic chance to really go to town and make their pet individual.  Clothing and gear can be unlocked by playing the game and Nicolas intimated that more would be available at a later date via the Playstation store at prices which reflect the young target audience.

Customisation doesn’t just stop at your pet though – several of the toys can be made your own.  Simply hold up a photo or image to the camera and scan it in and the picture will appear on the target.  I was told that it is possible to make a ball pond of balls with your own choice of image on…so for the depraved, you can have a ball pond full orbs bearing the likeness of David Beckham, your backside (same difference perhaps), or a picture of your favourite game character or logo.  No doubt this feature will be used to great affect as people fill up ball ponds with pictures of their bare arse, boobs, or anything else they can whip out in front of the camera, but for big kids everywhere, I suspect that this will be half the fun.

One feature that caught my attention was the dreams.  Emotional moments in your pet’s life are recorded as 5 or 6 second clips and saved as memories, so that when he finally drifts off to sleep, he dreams these events and you get to see them being played back.  The record facility has other uses and you can opt to record a short video of your pet which can be uploaded and shared, meaning that those amusing, weird, or poignant moments can form a record of his life.

The versatile little creature can also be taught to sing by humming a tune into the mic, whereupon he will sing the melody back to you.  Unfortunately, due to the noise in the hall, I wasn’t able to see this demoed, but it is one of the features that I am very keen to play with and I can guarantee that my pet to be, Loki, will be warbling House of the Rising Sun before the discarded packaging has had time to settle beneath the coffee table on Christmas Day.

One of the most innovative features by far though, was the sketchbook.  By drawing a toy such as a plane or boat either whole or in it’s component parts and scanning it, the pet will take out his crayon and pad and copy your creation.  The pieces pop out, become 3d, and slot together to form something he can play with.

The design of the vehicle toys is entirely up to you, so if you don’t want propellers on your plane or only want three wheels on your car, it’s your call – the developers were keen to make it so that there is no ‘wrong way’ of creating anything – the player isn’t here to be punished.  Due to the creative nature of this element, like the scanning of pictures to customise items, uploaded user created clips will be moderated, presumably to prevent the plethora of flying cocks which will no doubt be created within hours of the game hitting the shelves.

A trail of gaming corpses stretches back into the mists of my personal history – the sad plastic remains of games that might have been.  Some are classics, others cult favourites, mainstream mashes, and general detritus which at the time made my eyes shine as I devoured the boxart and blurbs, absorbed reviews, weighed up my feelings and gave in to my want.  They still remain – sad, dusty grave markers lined on my shelves like preserved mummies in some Bradburyesque catacomb.

Every now and then I trail my idle fingers over them and feel the want to play them struggle inside.  I feel the potential enjoyment, imagine the playing in my head, and then I step back.  They won’t live tonight.  The tools for their reactivation lay within reach – console paddles to fire a charge through these waiting wonders to let them breath at last.  But I sit back and merely content myself with how they look, captive on my shelves.  At last count there are over 67 PC games alone, some of which were started but never finished.  Retro games such as SNES, N64, and Game Cube are legion and DS and Gameboy games lurk in every drawer, shelf and cabinet like a serial apathy-gamer’s macabre collection of trophies.  The desire to possess was never as strong as the desire to play once apathy had washed over everything and any hint of depression, distraction, or pure laziness was enough to derail the best of intentions until the piles mounted and the body count click, click, clicked out of control.

Now the off putting thing is the sheer weight of gaming history now staring accusingly back at me – the lost hours and frittered weeks, months, and years can never be recaptured and there are just too many now.  Where would I start?… the fruitless exercise of even trying feeds into this poison.  I’ve even forgotten where some of the bodies lay now, while others are simply too old to be successfully reanimated – their OS window of life having long faded.  So with this ridiculous weight now built up, I have another reason to remain in my chair, fading under this more evolved strain of apathy.  So many of these games I know I would love.  Six 360 games alone are vying for first place in my must play/can’t wait to play list, but always I will busy myself with nothing – watching sand slip between my fingers while they too, slowly age like so many victims before.

Occasionally…just occasionally, a pin prick of light stirs the dust and I lift my weary head and take note.  No longer is mere apathy loosed upon my world…and what rough beast, it’s hour come round at last, slouches towards the dashboard to be reborn.  A game from a long time past, from more pro-active gaming times when Workbench and Directory Opus reigned, emerges.  I found myself switching on my Xbox with greater purpose and this phase, this trough among the shallow peaks of my gaming activity began to warp and change and splutter to a halt.  The game was over too soon, and when the socket clicked off and the screen darkened, I had to take stock.  Do I let the feeling slip away again, or do I let this sudden clarity hold sway against the poison?  Do I play on, do I continue?  Can I face the insurmountable task of catching up on the havoc that apathy has wreaked on my gaming life all these years?  Dare I?

So much to do and increasingly very little time.  But these worlds and their whispering grow stronger now, my new purpose catching their slumbering attention and they won’t be let slip into the night.  Shadow of the Colossus, Beyond Good and Evil, Pikmin 2, Age of Empires, GTA, Tomb Raider, Phoenix Wright, Tekken, Ocarina of Time, Resident Evil 4, Fahrenheit, you shall live and you’re just the start.  But first…this guiding light from the past which has driven back the fog needs to be honoured with just one more play.  And suddenly, the weight lifts.  Whether I make this my last remains to be seen.  It would be such a waste – I can salvage something from this wreckage of a gaming life…they can’t all be saved and played, but enough can to ensure that this second coming of my gaming focus is here to stay.

Naughty corner is merely the beginning...

Guides have been a part of the industry for many years now, slipping from the tips pages of gaming magazines and onto the shelves, but in an interesting turn, guides themselves are becoming collectable in their own right, often being presented as ‘Limited Edition’ or ‘Collectible’.  Matt-encapsulated, foil embossed, or spot varnished covers delight, seducing you past their price tag with their looks, while textured paper, in-theme styling, extensive backgrounds, maps, and concept art are all must haves with an increasing number of guides offering more than just dry lists and blurry maps.

Sadly, not all that glitters is gold and while some of them look the part, often they disappoint or don’t go as far as they could do – regular guides in designer clothing if you like.  Mirror’s Edge, for example, led me on.  I sympathise that it isn’t the easiest game to write a guide about, especially when it comes to the tricksey time trials, but still, it was messy.  Sadly, due to the frenetic pace and style of the game, the advice it gives often just boils down to:  go left down there and jump over that thing in front of you…no, no, the other one – there that’s it, now head for the building with the blue stripe under the thing with the orange sign bit there…no, the other one…oops, you died.  Not ideal.  I managed to glean exactly ONE piece of useful shortcut advice from the poorly laid out mash, so aside from the (beautiful) concept art and the interesting behind the scenes pieces, it is little more than shelf candy.  A trophy guide if you like.

Practically pretty in every way...almost

Others, such as the Fable 2 Limited Edition Guide also suffer from beauty over brain syndrome at times and while it comes paired with a stunningly beautiful art book, the main guide, (while indeed very useful), is slightly flawed.  At least one silver key is marked down in the wrong location (a true crime for a collectible item relating to an achievement) and the maps are occasionally tricky to follow.  Fallout 3’s meaty tome suffers from no real index and has a rather cluttered feel, but this arguably suits the style of the game as it is almost presented like someone slipped a mine into a guide’s pocket and caught the resulting explosion in a hardback notebook (earning Psychotic Prankster 10g on the way).  Perhaps I just need to come to terms with it and not expect so much from special or limited editions.  After all, if I can import a DVD or game that I can’t play on a PAL machine just because it is a limited edition, why shouldn’t guides be the same?

So is it worth getting a collectible guide when a normal one would suffice?  Collectability aside, surely a regular one would do the job and do it well?  Not always.  Some guides, while doing the job of being useful and nothing more, can still prove problematic, with tiny greyscale maps and advice which doesn’t bear out under playing.  It has come to the point where I have actually re-written guides – scoring out inaccurate (or in my opinion), flawed advice and writing in my own.

With a red biro, you can change the world

Other regular guides serve another purpose and while not collectible or overly useful, are still worth picking up.  The Sims (2 and 3) guides are more like reference books with lists, general gameplay hints which act as more of an extension of the inadequate manual.  Pokemon is the same, presenting a sort of catalogue of the game’s wares for you to browse and compare before you set off with a knapsack full of Pokeballs.

Aside from getting stuck, I mostly use guides for collectible items (such as the last teasing few in the Lego games) or for following quests that I know damn well I will never revisit and want to get everything picked up the first time…i.e the gargoyles and keys during Fable 2’s Wraithmarsh quests.  Practical use aside though, it’s always nice to have something a little more collectible to perhaps justify the clutter but now it has bred a certain expectation – thanks to the efforts of the few, I have an almost indignant expectation for the many to fall into line and make an effort with something more special.  I always get a tad disappointed when a game which would suit a fancy guide (and not all of them do) doesn’t bother.  RPGs, adventures, and games which either ooze character or make a song and dance about their stories would do well to make a decent stab at a special or limited edition guide.

The few that do step up are the guiding light for this unfurling niche and long may it continue…because when Elder Scrolls 5 (if ever) finally arrives, I want a leather bound, parchment stuffed tome so heavy that I could use it to beat planets to death before placing it in a glass display case beside Fable 3’s Normanomicon, Tomb Raider: Afterlife’s suede journal guide, and Bully: The College Years’ school dossier style book.  Hope is a fine thing.