Now podcasting and posting at Restore Restart Quit

Rohan Harris and I have started a new podcast called Restore, Restart, Quit, about videogaming in all its glorious forms.

The first episode, with special guest Joab Gilroy from GameArena, is here.

I’ve written a new post on the subject of preserving older games from the ravages of extreme copyright laws, as well.

I’ll be posting on gaming subjects there for the foreseeable future. Please update your links.

Working together

You know those DS/Wii “Trauma Center” games, where you pretend to be a doctor and perform operations on pretend patients by applying antibiotic gel, cutting them open with a scalpel, using an ultrasound to find a tumour, make an incision, take it out with the tweezers, seal it up with an artificial membrane, secure it with antibiotic gel, drain some blood from the incision, suture it up, apply more antibioticgelandsecurethebandagequicklybeforetimerunsout?

Aaagh! The pressure!

You wouldn’t think they’d work all that well as a co-operative game.

But they do. Very well indeed.

Picture it – you and your significant other, desperately fighting against the clock and having to work together to keep the patient alive during the operation. While one of you drains the area and tries to piece the bones back together, the other is removing shards and injecting a stabilising drug. One of you drains, the other steps in quickly and sutures before it ruptures. Quick! We’re running out of time! I’ll apply the gel and you bandage! …We made it! With .56 of a second to spare!

And if you like gore in your videogames, IT DELIVERS.

You work together and it feels really good.

Trauma Center: New Blood – my new favourite couple videogame.

Do Americans just suck at COD:MW2?

Quick question: does Infinity Ward make the matchmaking system in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 dodgy and unfair for non-Americans because American players are so bad they need all the help they can get? Has the company concluded that US players have no pride, that they don’t mind that every one of their kills against an overseas adversary is cheapened when the game does everything it can to hand them a ridiculous advantage?

Do Americans really need the free lag-kills against Australians and others shoved by the faulty IW game into US-hosted matches because they can’t compete on a level playing-field? Do Americans require the US company that makes the game to give them the extra assistance of precious extra seconds in every encounter, because if they didn’t then then those US customers would abandon them for a company willing to pander to their inadequacies? Are US players really so embarrassingly shit-house that they desperately need online game developers to cripple the game for their overseas competitors?

Or are US players equally as good as players around the world, and it’s just that Infinity Ward is an incompetent developer that doesn’t give a damn about its international customers?