Posts Tagged Games
Peace, Love, and Wireless Controllers
Posted by Ben in General Thoughts, Microsoft, New Technologies, Xbox on March 6, 2010
What do 500 gamers, a popular web comic, and the first US state to declare independence from British rule have in common?
Well, unless your guess included dodge ball, lasers, crazy costumes and a huge amount of socialising, you weren’t at all close.
Dispelling the Myth
I’ve written before about how communities of tech enthusiasts can come together and do great things, and I’ve tried to challenge the stereotype of the typical über geek on many occasions. This weekend, I’m in Providence, Rhode Island, for Digital Overload – one of the hottest video game events of the year.
I’m well aware of the sigma that surrounds ‘gamers’. There isn’t a person reading this blog that won’t have an opinion around whether video games make people violent serial killers or tree-hugging pacifists.
It’s with that thought that I write this post. As I sit here in this impressively large conference hall – at one of the most anticipated independent community run events of the gaming calendar – I started to look back over my love affair with video entertainment over the years, and how it had effected my development.
One Man’s Journey
I’ve always loved video games – from the first ever games I played on our old Amstrad PC and SEGA Master System, right through to the current titles I have on my 360. What’s more rare is that I came from a family of gamers – my Mum would always get ‘first dibs’ on any new RPG we’d get – spending hours hand-drawing maps of dungeons, working through the puzzles she encountered, and setting the controller down only once she was done.
When I start to think of the strengths I have as an adult, it’s quite easy to map these things back to the games I used to love playing. Having always been a role playing game (RPG) fan, I got used to both solving complex problems, and making sense of complex storylines.
Cut to the present day, in my adult working life. I find myself constantly telling stories, whenever I talk about digital identity and social media; and solving complex problems, when I work on cloud services deployments for Microsoft. The skills I gained by playing those games as a child had a measurably positive impact.
Digital Overload
The really amazing thing, being here in a hall full of gamers, is how easy it is to spot both the good that gaming can do, and the myths that are being disproven.
Everyone here is really friendly – I can walk up to someone and not only will they say hi, but they’ll take the time to explain what they’re doing (when they realise I have no idea what game they’re playing) or offer you a turn on their computer or console – kit that doesn’t come cheap.
The weekend isn’t just about console and PC gaming – there are tabletop games, poker tournaments, costume competitions and even a huge game of dodge ball! Anyone that arrived at the event thinking that gamers were lazy, stupid and lacking in social skills would have had their mind changed pretty quickly!
The event was put together by Tim Buckley, author of the extremely popular comic ctrl+alt+del. The comic follows the lives of two best friends, their love of video games, and their eventual love lives, trials and tribulations, and killer robots. Tim even drew one instalment of the comic there and then (and I managed to grab a photo of him doing so) – showing off how he does it, and answering questions from the crowd.
The Power of Community. Again.
It’s a real shame that so many people see ‘gamers’ in a really different light to that of reality. From personal experience, some of the nicest and most tolerant people I’ve met were from the gamer community – all of whom show real tolerance of people from any ethnic background, gender, sexuality or religion.
If you ever pass a video game convention, you should stick your head around the door and see for yourself – no doubt someone there will say hi, and you’ll have the chance to experience once again the power of technology communities that I talk so much about!
Thy name be Elite…
Posted by Ben in General Thoughts, Xbox on January 4, 2008
Happy New Year! Well, the moment I’ve been anticipating for the last week has finally arrived- and not even a hangover from hell this morning (moral of the story: Imagine Cup team socials hurt) could stop me from getting excited when the delivery man showed up.
Five minutes later, I was blubbering like a school girl. The reason?
My Xbox 360 Elite has arrived! Thanks have to go to the Microsoft UK Academic Team in fairness – I wouldn’t have been able to afford an elite had I not won the Ultimate Steal competition and received a voucher that covered most of the cost! I’m looking forward to finally having a console to play with XNA and use my Creators Club membership on! Not forgetting, given as this is the first new console I’ve had since my SEGA, I’m looking forward to the games, and the online aspect of the console. And so the conclusion of this somewhat selfish and braggy post – Xbox Live! If any reader wants to catch me online for a game or add me on Xbox Live then drop me a message on there. Here’s my gamercard:
Video Games Live
On Monday of this week I was lucky enough to be at Video Games Live, a huge multi-national sell-out event that kicked off the London Games Festival. Not only did I go along, but thanks to Microsoft I got the chance to have a chat with the event’s creators – two legends of both the video game and the music world with a string of titles including Myst, Splinter Cell and Mass Effect under their belts.
The event was held at the newly refurbished Royal Festival Hall, on London’s scenic Southbank. The sun was… well… shining somewhere, the birds were… Ok, just take it from me that there was a pretty good atmosphere around the venue – even at 3pm, four and a half hours before the event was due to start. I went to go and get a coffee and a little girl ran in front of me dressed in a Princess Peach outfit. I started looking around and realised that on almost every table I could see someone sat wearing a T-shirt bearing either a game logo, or something game related. At one large table, a group of students were playing DS on wireless linkup… Heck, if I didn’t have stuff to do I’d have planted a flag right there on Southbank and re-named it ‘Gametopia’.
So, a caramel latte and a press pass later, I was in the “games room” waiting for my interview slot to arrive. I don’t have an Xbox at home – I’m waiting to get an Elite and a nice HDTV at the same time – and so I was literally drooling with a combination of jealousy and excitement at the Xbox-lined walls. Microsoft were running a Guitar Hero play-off, with a 360 Elite as the main prize – the queue was almost on the story below with many a gamer trying their hardest to mash-out Sweet Child ‘o Mine better than the last guy. Halo 3 was also a popular choice, in spite of there being no prizes on offer for playing it. There was one player who was maybe a little too into Halo, but hey.
Imagine if it was live and you could experience it with the video and the lights and the sound” said Tommy Tallarico – founder of the event and industry veteran – after I caught up with him backstage. “”I like to say that Video Games Live is the power and motion of a symphony orchestra combined with the excitement and energy of a rock concert, mixed in with the cutting edge visuals, technology, interactivity and fun that video games provide… Or something like that”. “Madness” was the only thing co-founder Jack Wall had to add to the question.
After we settled down into the shiny new autitorium and the last few revellers had settled into their seats the orchestra took up their instruments and gave us… pong. The first part of the show was an accolade to the games of yore, with classics ranging from Space Invaders to Sonic the Hedgehog. Having grown up in a gaming household in the late 80s, there was something magical about hearing the Green Hill Zone music played by an orchestra.
It’s not like it was all orchestra and video playback though – after a short time a member of the audience was picked out to go up on stage and play Space Invaders – motion tracked in sync with the screen and music provided live by the orchestra! Similarly, two lucky members of the crowd got to go head to head in a game of Frogger – all for wonderful Xbox related prizes!
“It’s one of the reasons we created the show the way we did,” said Tommy. “With the synchronised video, with the synchronised lighting, with the interactivity… We created this so that non-gamers out there could follow along and enjoy it just as much as the hardcore gamers – and that’s one thing that differentiates what we’re doing from anyone else in the world trying to do game concerts.”
There were plenty of treats for the hardcore gaming community though, and the most anticipated soundtrack – the music from Halo 3 – was saved till last. With the orchestra filing off the stage and a contented crowd piling back into the foyer, I managed to catch up with a few of the concert-goers to see what they thought of the event. One lady wearing a “+15 fire resistance” baseball cap simply told me “The best night of my life. Amazing.”. It was a similar story from many, even those not into hardcore gaming. “I never knew that games had that kind of music” said one. “I can see why people get really into games”.
I can’t help but agree with them. Having grown up in a gaming family, and having been pretty musical, this event really married two of the things I love (and have studied to some degree) with lights, sound and some really great audience participation. If you missed it, you really missed out – but don’t worry. Tommy promised that they’d be back for years to come though – “.It took Cirque du Soleil 7 years to get to where it was. We’re in year 2 and a half, so imagine where we’ll be in seven years from now. Selling out Wembley 2010! Come see the show!”.
If you want some more info, check out the Video Games Live website. Also, check out Jack and Tommy’s other major project, the Game Audio Network Guild. Don’t forget that if you’re around London at all over the next couple of weeks, the London Games Festival will be in full swing, so check out what’s happening and join in some of the great events going on!
The full interview with Video Games Live creators Tommy Tallarico & Jack Wall will be published in the November issue of the Microsoft StudentZine.
Keep checking back for the audio podcast!
