EL33TONLINE: News tag archive: questionoftheweek
Every year since 2003, the ‘Spike Video Game Awards’ show has been hosted by the Spike TV cable channel in the US to recognise and acknowledge the very best achievements and experiences that the videogame world has to offer.
These ceremonies are always presented with much pomp and circumstance, accompanied by live music performances and appearances by celebrities of all varieties. In the past, hosts have included Jack Black, Snoop Dogg, David Spade and Samuel L. Jackson.
During the event, awards for ‘Best Game of the Year,’ ‘Best Platform Game of the Year,’ ‘Best Soundtrack of the Year’ and more are handed out to games and their creators, as voted on by the public and nominated by a panel of judges, while trailers and reveals of highly anticipated titles are also shown and teased further.
How do you play your games?
I’ve been playing games for over three quarters of my life, and this is a question that still plagues me. How do other people play videogames? How do other gamers wring the most enjoyment out of their play experiences?
And with El33tonline’s Xbox 360 ‘Ultimate Achievement Grinder’ competition currently on-the-go, this question has once again bubbled to the surface!
The advent of Xbox 360 Achievements, PlayStation 3 Trophies and hundreds of little rewards and challenges now included in games has rapidly (and artificially) had a very real affect on the way gamers experience and enjoy their time spent sat in front of a TV or monitor, while also giving us extra incentives to finish those titles.
So, how do you play your games?
The end of the year is generally a rough time for all kinds of reasons, but for gamers, the last few months of the calendar are traditionally the worst time of the year, not because there’s nothing to do, but because there’s too much.
Just in the last two months, we’ve seen the release of:
UFC Undisputed 2010, Halo: Reach, the PlayStation Move Motion Controller (and all of that peripheral’s games!), Sid Meier’s Civilization V, Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock, Dead Rising 2, F1 2010, FIFA 11, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, Pro Evolution Soccer 2011, Medal of Honor, Super Scribblenauts, DJ Hero 2, EA Sports MMA, Fallout: New Vegas, Vanquish…
That’s not even mentioning all the amazing downloadable titles available on Xbox LIVE Marketplace and the PlayStation Network!
Tomorrow, on November 4th, Microsoft’s controller-free gaming device for Xbox 360, Kinect, will be released in the United States, and with the launch, an entirely new way to play and experience the world of videogames will open up.
Microsoft is referring to Kinect as a platform launch in and of itself, basically on the scale of the company’s Xbox and Xbox 360 launches before it, and it’s no wonder!
With a price of $149.99/£129.99/€149.99 (and R1999 in South Africa), this is no simple peripheral or wimpy extra – the launch of Kinect is akin to the release of one of those whacky console add-ons that seemed like such a good idea in the 90s, only this is much more important than SEGA’s 32X could ever be.
And Kinect isn’t whacky at all. But it is an investment in your future gaming sessions, as well as an investment in the future of gaming.
Is it a future worth investing in?
It’s no secret that the music game genre is a little… crowded these days, as Activision Blizzard continues to release at least one Guitar Hero game every year, which is now accompanied by what will be annual entries into the DJ Hero franchise. Harmonix, too, has its Rock Band franchise spilling out all over the place, with no less than five series entries to date, with a sixth releasing this past week.
With all of this choice and a resultant market deluge, sales of titles in the music game genre have been on the decline for a while, with a string of less than stellar Guitar Hero games, worse than expected retail performance by The Beatles: Rock Band (and the invisible releases of Green Day: Rock Band and LEGO Rock Band), as well as underwhelming initial sales numbers for the original DJ Hero.
The console wars have long been fought and fuelled by the passion and indignant rage of millions of gamers around the world, all arguing, taunting and braying on message boards and in comments sections about which console is ‘better’ and which hardware manufacturer cares for its fans the most.
Every time these rabid console admirers try to bring hard, conclusive evidence to the table in order to convince others of their delusions, however, they come up empty.
Just because one console can claim 10 exclusive titles over the other doesn’t make it better than the rest. Just because a particular hardware manufacturer has a larger install-base doesn’t make a console better. And even though one piece of hardware has more gigaflops of transistor radio gizmo gadgetry, it doesn’t mean this super-powered beast of a machine is better than any other similar offering. These value judgements are all subjective.
But, when these brand-loyal fans get hold of solid, tangible console sales data, all hell breaks loose! Sales data is objective! When one console outsells the other by a margin of a few hundred thousand units, there’s nothing subjective about that!
Xbox 360 South Africa announced some extremely exciting news today for the region’s community of gamers, by revealing official launch date and pricing details for Microsoft’s Xbox LIVE online gaming and digital distribution service in the country.
Why is this exciting news? Only because South African Xbox 360 gamers have been waiting for official Xbox LIVE support since the console was released in the country at the tail-end of 2006, and only now at the tail-end of 2010 - and four years later – will South Africa officially be able to ‘Jump In’ to the full experience that the Xbox 360 promises.
For four years, Xbox 360 gamers in the country haven’t had official access to online gaming and the Xbox LIVE Marketplace through Xbox LIVE, which means that a good deal of the full experience has been lost on the South African audience. Of course, there are ways to access Xbox LIVE through unofficial means, but these methods are highly discouraged (and in some cases illegal) with resultant experiences that are completely unsupported by Microsoft proper. So what’s an Xbox 360 gamer to do?
Wait four years, that’s what!
This week on El33tonline, we’ve got a pair of questions for our South African readers who may have had the opportunity to attend rAge 2010 over the weekend, the annual gaming and technology expo held in Johannesburg.
We would like to know if you managed to hoof it on over to the Coca-Cola Dome from October 1st to the 3rd to attend the event, and if you did, what was your favourite attraction at the show?
Below, we’ve included a megaton of photos from the event to help jog your memory, and perhaps coax those of you who didn’t go this year to make plans for next year:
In just a few days time, South Africa’s biggest gaming, technology and geek culture event of the year will kick off in Johannesburg and continue on for three days to celebrate unique hobbies, explosive entertainment and future innovations.
This is rAge 2010, now in its eighth year of operation – an incredible achievement!
From October 1st through the 3rd, you’ll be able to visit the Coca Cola Dome in Johannesburg to get hands-on time with the latest games as well as unreleased titles, peep hectic PC hardware, peripherals, consoles and new games at the myriad of retail exhibitors (and perhaps make a purchase or two), and look on in amazement as ‘geek culture’ surrounds you.
Additionally, if you managed to snatch one of 2080 tickets for this year’s NAG LAN @ rAge, your nose will be glued to a monitor for 53 hours (!) as you compete for personal satisfaction and glory on virtual battlefields of all varieties.
Leading up to the release of Halo: Reach on September 14th, Microsoft executives began talking up the launch of the title saying that not is Halo the biggest game series of all time, but that the fifth entry to this legendary franchise would outsell Activision’s forthcoming blockbuster game, Call of Duty: Black Ops.
Following the release of Halo: Reach, Microsoft released official day one sales figures for the game, announcing during Tokyo Game Show 2010 that it had managed to generate $200 million in sales during its first 24 hours of availability - highly impressive, especially considering the game only released on one platform, and according to Microsoft, Halo: Reach represents the most successful launch of an entertainment product this year.
What’s more, Halo: Reach broke the record for the most simultaneous Xbox LIVE users on day one. Microsoft and Bungie must be smiling.
Let’s start by saying that the PlayStation Move has a lot riding on its shoulders. As you know the Wii was released with motion sensing capabilities back in 2006 and Nintendo has since dominated the current-generation of consoles, arguably because of this innovation. But that looks set to change with both Sony and Microsoft entering the motion gaming arena this year. Sony’s up first with the PlayStation Move, followed by Microsoft with Kinect.
This past week, an amazing piece of news emerged: The long-suffering, oft-delayed, 12-years in the making first-person shooter Duke Nukem Forever will in fact see the light of day thanks to Gearbox Software (Borderlands, Brothers in Arms).
The studio struck a deal with Duke Nukem franchise creators and developers 3D Realms and has not only picked up where that company left off on Duke Nukem Forever, aiming to deliver a completed game sometime in 2011, but Gearbox has also acquired the intellectual property rights to the brand as well.
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