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

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

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

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

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

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

The Persistence Of Memory. Salvador Dali, 1931.

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

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

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

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

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

Hey look, a disclaimer just for me. Bless ‘em. So, my first article for Critical Gamer attracted a fair amount of attention, both here and at N4G. It’s nice to be noticed – even by sociopathic nerds.

That doesn’t tell the whole story, though. First of all the majority of comments that referred to me directly were somewhat negative. Secondly, most of the comments on N4G didn’t refer to me and, to be honest, most of them didn’t even acknowledge the existence of my article. I had inadvertently set off a mini fanboy war between PS3 and 360 zealots, which seems to be even easier than I had suspected. I repeat the sentiment of my previous article: people are idiots.

That said, one of the first commenters on my article here at CG actually made a good point. He said, in a nutshell, that the worthless cretins who post abusive, brainless comments on websites are the vocal minority. I’d like to believe this is true, and so choose to do so. The problem is, it doesn’t matter how delicious your bowl of divine and hideously expensive soup is. If there’s a few rat turds floating at the top, that’s what grabs your attention.

Vocal minority they may be, but there are too many thousands of these venomous shits for my liking. They defend their console/computer with more passion, I dare say, than they would defend their parents. What kind of lives do these people lead? Perhaps lives like this:

Fourteen year old Johnny Bottomfeeder loves his games machine. The games with adult ratings are the best, because they have BLOOD and TITS and LOTS OF FUCKING SWEARING and are therefore awesome. He’s an unpopular underachiever at school but that’s okay, because he’s on fourth prestige in Modern Warfare 2 multiplayer. He rocks. He absorbs all the physical and emotional abuse he receives at school like a superhero, and shoots it back out across the internet via his keyboard and headset. Love is for other people; all he needs is to pwn n00bs. He lives for his weekends, which are a hedonistic marathon of gaming and epic masturbation. He is doomed to die a lonely death in his parent’s house before his fiftieth birthday, choking on his fifth bag of Doritos whilst watching an Adam Sandler ‘comedy’.

Why are these pathetic losers allowed to scuttle around in our hobby? Why are they permitted to carry on hurling homophobic and/or racist and/or otherwise needlessly vulgar abuse at each other and the rest of us? Both PSN and Xbox Live have systems in place to report offensive behaviour. Both Sony and Microsoft have been known to ban people from their online services, either temporarily or permanently. Whenever you hear about such bans, it is virtually always for fiddling about with a console’s firmware or hardware. Okay, fine. But why are such a tiny percentage of these abusive, brainless jizzwastes punished for their behaviour? Let me provide a sound effect to give you a little clue.

Kerching!

Modders and pirates definitely are in the minority of gamers and besides, publishers and console manufacturers make little to no money from their activities. They are banned (or more accurately, their modified machines are banned) in the hope of forcing them to become paying customers. If somebody is using internet anonymity to persecute an individual because of their race or sexual orientation, why should Sony or Microsoft care? These fascists – in – waiting are paying customers. It’s all cheerily ignored. So it’s certain that nothing will be done when people try to ruin your online experience with less controversial insults and taunts.

This army of immature underachievers is here to stay, so get used to them. And if you’re one of them and you’ve got a problem with anything I’ve ever said or done – I don’t care. Your father should have emptied you into a tissue instead of into your mother.

What? I’m holding back here.

What we all need to do – and yes, I need to cut through my own apathy to take part myself too – is report these morons every single time we spot one. Whenever you hear the usual crap slithering through a headset, make a note of the ID/gamertag and report it. Though it’s less of a problem, even note the IDs with offensive clan tags and/or usernames. Somebody with a clan tag such as ‘BNP’ or ‘IRA’ or a username such as ‘i_hate_[insert race of your choice]‘ should be brought to the attention of the company hosting the online service. Hell, even report people who indulge in less vile harassment. You are after all encouraged to report anybody who intentionally, needlessly spoils your ‘online experience’. I said that this behaviour is ignored, and that’s true. If enough complaints are made about this sort of behaviour though, there’s a chance that the companies will start to get nervous about what people might do if enough of them get sick of the abusive minority. They might – good god, no – take their money elsewhere!!!!

Then again, they might simply continue to sit pretty in the knowledge that a flock of consumers will put up with anything that they’re told they have to put up with. Maybe, if, perhaps, although… it’s your call. Are you prepared to put a little effort in for a slim chance of success, or are you content to sit back and do nothing for guaranteed failure?

PSN user complaint form

What to report on Xbox Live, and how to report it

• Format: PS3 (version reviewed), 360, PC
  
• Unleashed: Out Now
• Publisher: Eidos Interactive
• Developer: Pivotal Games
• Players: 1 – 2
• Site: http://www.conflictdeniedops.com/

This is not a new game; far from it. Released in early 2008, this title has been largely forgotten. This is both a good and a bad thing. Consider this review to be a public service announcement, on the grounds that it has a chance to prevent at least one poor soul from buying it at a ‘bargain’ price. The only current gen game known to be worse than Conflict: Denied Ops is Two Worlds. Yup, it’s that bad.

There’s no point wasting anybody’s time trying to describe or justify the gung – ho, jingoistic, simultaneously tired and ludicrous plot. All you really need to know is that you take charge of two Americans who spend the entire game wreaking havoc and shooting foreigners in the face. Now, get your eyes ready for a good rolling: one character carries a machine gun and favours all – out combat, and is also harder to kill. The second unlikeable protagonist is a sniper with less health, who is apparently ‘stealthy’ and prefers to take out enemies from a distance.

Oh, and how’s this for a neat twist? One guy is white, but the other guy is black! If this isn’t obvious to you from their skin colours (possible, thanks to the PSOne quality graphics) then the scriptwriters help you out by having the black guy call the white guy ‘bro’ throughout the game, as well as hilariously inventive honorifics such as ‘whiteboy’. Two so very different people! Chalk and cheese, but – here’s the twist in the tale – they work together great.

Well, they do in the context of the ‘plot’. If you slit the throats of newborn babies in a previous life and find yourself playing this game, they don’t work together very well at all. Rather than Artificial Intelligence, this game seems to use Artificial Stupidity across the board. You can swap between the two characters at any time, but AS is always in charge of whichever one you’re currently not fighting the game for control of. How, when, and why your partner helps you out in a firefight seems to be decided entirely at random. Matters certainly aren’t helped by the fact that the friendly AS seems determined to stay as far away from you as possible, which is most apparent when one of you needs to be revived.

Isn't it beautiful?

A body full of bullets does not mean death, of course not! If you or your partner take too much damage, you writhe around on the floor like a child who’s eaten too many Mars bars and wait for the other to come over and ‘revive’ you. When you fall you need to press a button to tell your buddy to get his arse in gear and come over to help. More often than not, you’ll find that he’s for some reason about half a mile behind you (often where there are no enemies whatsoever) and takes a leisurely stroll in your direction when he feels like it. When the AS needs reviving, it’ll usually be because it’s decided to run ahead straight into the line of fire of at least four automatic weapons.

The AS shows little more competence when telling those dastardly not – Americans what to do. It’s sometimes possible to run straight up to an enemy and shoot them at point – blank range in their poorly rendered face. This is just as well because even on the easiest difficulty, enemies tend to soak up bullets like a cheap whore soaks up broken dreams.

Don’t expect to show much more competence yourself. This has nothing to do with your lack of skill; blame that for your poor performance in a decent FPS. Here you can blame the shoddily indistinct graphics, epileptic – threatening frame rate, depressingly inaccurate weapons, poorly designed controls, and frustrating AS of your team mate. You can get a friend to play the game with you online or off if you wish, but that’s a good way to lose a great deal of respect.

It looks more fun than it is. Much, much, much, much, much more fun. And it looks boring.

These two highly – trained CIA operatives don’t actually seem to be that highly trained at all, as they don’t seem to know how to operate any firearms apart from the ones they start and finish the game with. Either that, or they’re afraid to touch the weapons of dead enemies for fear of germs. Whatever the reason, picking up new weapons is a big no – no. On top of that, the console versions can sometimes refuse to produce any sound when shooting certain weapons. Amusingly, the PC version is incompatible with a huge number of sound cards, meaning that most PC gamers who buy the title won’t have a technically inept title devoid of fun – they’ll have a technically inept title devoid of fun and sound.

It scrapes together a few marks for itself. Thanks to being an FPS, you can pretend that the people you’re shooting are the people who convinced you this was worth any amount of money; it looks kind of cool when enemy soldiers hop over low walls; and given enough time and the correct tools, the disc can be made into a reasonable facsimile of the Predator’s glaive.

2/10

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

So, Microsoft will soon be increasing the prices of Xbox Live Gold subscriptions. Isn’t that terrible? Doesn’t it make you angry? I bet if you’re a Gold subscriber you’re going to do something about it, aren’t you? E mail Microsoft and detail exactly why you think the price rise is unjustified. Or perhaps you’ll ring Xbox customer support, and demand to speak to somebody with some authority so they can explain it to you directly over the phone. No, no, I know; you and a group of friends will start an internet campaign to boycott Xbox Live until the price rises are cancelled. Perhaps you’ll go a stage further and hold out for prices more reasonable than the current ones.

Or perhaps you’ll just whinge and whine on internet forums and in the comment boxes of articles. Perhaps you’ll complain loudly without hesitating to pull your trousers down as Bill Gates approaches, a smile on his face and a sharpened vibrator in his hand.

You PS3 fanboys can stop smirking, too. How many of you bought your console on the day of release, while it was carrying that preposterous price tag? Here in the UK, thousands of morons flocked to the shops to pay £425 for a console with one controller and no games. Idiots.

Oh yes, people moaned and people cried. People roared in disgust at such an outrageous RRP. Most of the same people were fighting to be first in line on day one, however. This is because, generally speaking, people are stupid. As individuals, human beings are far more shrewd and complex than marketing executives (a whole other species) give them credit for. Put people in some sort of large group, however – ‘gamers’, for example – and their IQs will tend to plummet to Big Brother contestant levels.

I bet you’ve forgotten about the Modern Warfare 2 debacle already, haven’t you? Allow me to kickstart your fickle little brains. It was announced, with plenty of notice, that the RRP would be significantly more than most gamers tend to pay for their new releases (£15 more in the UK and before anybody says, yes I know the RRP was technically only £5 more than normal, so fuck off). Within seconds of the announcement, forum crawlers and other internerds were inexpertly bashing their keyboards with rage, telling each other how angry they were and completely failing to use correct spelling and grammar whilst doing so. Very few people informed the game’s publisher, Activision, of their displeasure.

The game managed to break various sale records even before release, and still more a few short weeks after.

To recap: if you complained about Modern Warfare 2′s pricing and paid so much as a single penny more than you usually would upon release, you’re stupid. If you complained about the PS3′s release price but still paid it, you’re stupid. If you’re complaining about the Xbox Live Gold price hikes but have already resigned yourself to paying them, you’re stupid. If none of this applies to you, don’t worry. I do not doubt for a second that I could find several examples in your purchase history that would emphatically prove to my satisfaction that you are stupid.

With me so far?

Xbox Live Gold subscription fees to increase. Xbox 360 owners impotently mumbling amongst themselves about it. PS3 online features remain free, with an optional subscription service that offers certain extra benefits. What’s missing from this picture?

Please, stop your slack – jaw dribbling whilst scratching yourselves. I’ll tell you what’s missing. Sony taking advantage of this discontent, that’s what’s missing. I only know a little about the world of marketing and PR (thank god) but surely this is a golden opportunity for Sony to scream from the proverbial rooftops about their free online play, chat, and messaging? Why is this not happening? I’ve had a bit of a think about the situation, and these seem to be the three most likely explanations:

1. Everybody who works for Sony in every country in the world is unaware of the confirmed Xbox Live price rises.
2. All of the Sony PR and marketing employees are having a holiday on the Isle of Wight, listening to old Eddie Cochran records and enjoying a range of interesting cheeses.
3. Sony are waiting to see how easily Microsoft get away with the price increases for future reference.

In one of his interviews with Critical Gamer, Michael Pachter gives a bit of a wake up call. He points out that maintaining an online service is a lot of work with a lot of money involved, and Sony “isn’t so profitable that it can afford to be magnanimous forever”. This was shortly before the official announcement of PlayStation Plus; but with a seemingly small proportion of PSN users opting in to the service, and with so many paying so much for Xbox Live Gold, do you honestly believe that Sony would never consider making the subscription fee compulsory?

If that ever happened, the overwhelming majority of PSN users would pay it. I know it, Sony know it, and you know it whether you’re prepared to admit it or not. There would be a hurricane of criticism and protest to begin with, oh yes. There would be a veritable army of friendless geeks with nothing more important in their worthless, empty lives that would spend every day for a month telling everybody who’ll listen (and many who won’t) that they’ll boycott PSN if the fee becomes compulsory. Sony will apologise profusely yet stand firm; the day will come when the fee becomes compulsory; and those who complained the loudest will pay at the last minute, realising that without their online interactions they will have no way of pretending they’re worth something to the world and would therefore be morally obligated to commit suicide.

I suppose that deep down, such people liken these financial shaftings to being raped by an elderly relative whilst visiting them on holiday. It’s a nasty, traumatic experience; but one that they manage to resign themselves to by suppressing the memory until the next year.

What do I suggest to remedy the situation? Nothing. I can’t do anything. You’re all fucking idiots.

Thanks for reading!