The Crow Road (Iain Banks). I just finished reading this. The ending nicely tied up the story, and it was a great read. I think for me one of the signs of a great writer is that Banks was able to throw up thoughts and concepts along the way that most would consider are thought-provoking enough that they could be expanded into more depth, but rather than dwell, he is able to leave them behind, to keep on going with the story onto yet more ideas to tease the mind with. And all wrapped up in an intriguing and fun plot.

I gather the Marita and Justine Reading Advisory Committee already have something else lined up for my next read.

Futurama… I caught an episode or two of this when it originally aired, before Channel 7 played shuffle the programme schedules with it, and it disappeared into late-night purgatory. Now you can pick it up on DVD for $33 a season, so I bought the first one and started watching it with the kids. Like its stablemate The Simpsons, it’s funny stuff, all sorts of little things you might not notice if you don’t watch carefully.

Then of course, you get little moments like when Bender says “I’m going to start my own amusement park. With beer. And hookers”.

And sure enough your nine-year-old pipes up “Dad, what’s a hooker?”

I stammered a cop-out “it’s a long story” response, and we got back to watching the show. Will have to think carefully about that one, and any reasonable response may eventually expand into The Talk. Still, that’s why it’s PG. Parental Guidance is not just about deciding if the kids can watch it, it’s also about watching it with them and providing guidance and answers to their questions about the content. (Umm. Which I didn’t. But I will. Eventually.)

Halo (XBox) and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (XBox). I’ve bitched before about modern video games, but these are both great. The craft has obviously been honed in the last few years, with developers concentrating on usability as well as those eye-dazzling 3D graphics and sound.

What these two games have in common is that like a movie, they have a plot worked out, and the first parts of the storyline ease you into the game, get you accustomed to the controls, characters and surroundings. It really works well — you can take your first steps around at your own pace, and linger in one location if you like, before moving onto the next stage. The stage transition is less obvious in Halo, but both share the idea of changing objectives (for instance Halo’s find the survivors on the mountain vs Harry’s find Ginny’s stuff in Diagon Alley) and mini-games. Like getting to the top of a screen in Donkey Kong, complete the objective and you’ll move on through to the next part of the plot.

Another big factor is the behaviour of the computerised characters. In Harry Potter, most of them do bugger all, many just standing about. In Halo the marines run around, helping you help them, saying different things, and though there’s a fixed storyline, the aliens’ behaviour varies a fair bit too. Both games have other characters who direct you to things, or tell you what needs to happen next.

I’ve only gone a little way into these two games (no, I didn’t play them all day when I was sick at home on Tuesday), and there’s a lot more to explore. But both very enjoyable so far.

Do I walk a bit funny or something? The heels of the two pairs of shoes I most commonly wear (the Monday to Friday work shoes) are wearing away on the outside edges. Further, one pair is re-developing the same hole which I thought was comprehensively eliminated a year ago. And in the same position of the same shoe. Strange, since the repair bloke fully redeemed it and gave it an entirely new soul.

Since the end of financial year stocktake sales started yesterday, maybe it’s time to go on a shopping spree. Stock up on the stuff I need now at sale prices, rather than later at full price. Off the top of my head, I could do with buying:

• New pair of work shoes and a new pair of runners, which are also aging. I’m a shocking shoe shopper, racked with indecision. For the love of God, if you know me, don’t volunteer to come along.
• Something in the casual winter wear department. Maybe a nice shirt and a jumper or two — I’m not quite as bad at clothes shopping as I am at shoe shopping.
• Perhaps some new work shirts, as some of my old ones will start to self-destruct before too long.
• A couple of nice new ties. Certainly at least one to replace the nice blue tie I had that got splattered with something very messy (but very delicious) one dinnertime, and I foolishly thought I could try and clean myself, thus avoiding drycleaning. Nuh uh. In fact the eventual dryclean got rid of the original stain, leaving signs of my cleaning attempts. Sigh. Don’t even try.
• A dressing-gown, for use in preventing freezing my arse off when moving around the house after getting up. My existing gown is unfortunately deficient in this respect, as it has developed a hole in precisely that location. Apart from the temperature factor, not very dignified when going out onto the driveway to get the newspaper.
• Perhaps look out for something in advance for the kids for their July allotted XBox game.
• I’m not totally against the idea of, at some stage, obtaining a frying pan which has a matching lid, rather than a mismatched one from a different, long since disposed of, pan.
• My cordless phone has gone ga-ga, so it’s probably time for a replacement, so I am no longer tethered to the kitchen counter to make untimed phone calls.
• Might be time to pick up a drill too, for those occasional… uhhh… drilling forays. And lazy screwdrivering.
• Need a new couch, but will probably wait until I get into a new house. Umm. Whenever that happens.

Yesterday I ventured into Myer briefly, and fought through the crowds to obtain (at 25% off) the XBox game Halo for a bit of grown up MA blast-the-shit-out-of-aliens action. It got incredibly good reviews: the all-time highest rated game on Metacritic. Had a quick go of it last night, and it appears to live up to the hype. More on that later.

I left the rest of the merchandise in Myer and DJs to the hardcore nutter shoppers. But when I have time in the next day or two, further bargain-hunting will commence.

Plan A for Sunday: Take the kids to the footy, meet up with Tony, Rae and Phoebe and watch the Cats lose.

Plan B for Sunday: Walk down to Dick Smith Powerhouse, buy an XBox game, come home, play it. Maybe have a bounce on the trampoline at some stage.

When these two plans were proferred to the kids, they voted unanimously for Plan B. The footy would have to wait. (And yet the Cats didn’t lose. I know I tipped them, but I wasn’t that confident.)

So, plan B then. First time for a quick bounce on the trampoline. Maybe some children are pack animals. That would explain why they won’t go into the back yard on their own for a bounce, but if I have to go out to hang up some laundry, they follow promptly and end up squabbling for a turn.

Then we headed out down the street, with nary a complaint about the walking. Good exercise, and all part of the learning experience for when the offspring eventually venture out on their own: crossing streets and railway lines, posting letters (thank you to the Australian Electoral Commission for confirming my address, and good luck to you in finding the previous tenant), watching out for cyclists, reading signs along the way, navigating the neighbourhood, all that good stuff.

We got to Dick Smith. A couple of nicotine addicts were standing by the door, dragging the last out of their cigarettes before going in, the lady’s rather pregnant stomach on view to the world below her cropped Madonna-style t-shirt. Poor kid. We dodged the smoke and they stumbled in after us, speech slurred, eyes tired.

The video games are just inside the door. Very cunning marketing. You can picture a parent taking their kids along to buy a diode or a resistor or a metre of wire or something, and being talked into getting Simpsons Hit And Run (RRP $99.95 — argh) as well. But I’d already worked out what we were buying: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Got good reviews, nice movie tie-in, and RRP of $49.95. Not excessively exhorbitant, though as Mr Nicotene remarked as he passed me, “Mate, get yourself a mod-chip. Then the games are only 10 bucks each.”

Uh huh. That may be true, but as someone who writes for fun, and writes software for a living, I’m getting less and less comfortable with the whole intellectual property theft thing. And $10 for a pirated game?… sounds like he’s getting ripped off. But anyway…

Dick Smith’s price for our coveted game? $46.93. With the $5 voucher I got from redeeming bottle rings from juice we would have drunk anyway? $41.93. You beauty. Cheap video games from drinking fruit juice. You can’t beat it.

Oh yes you can. Took it to the check-out, and the lady scanned it. $29.84. What? Yup, $29.84, less the $5, making $24.84. Jeremy, eagle-eyed, exclaimed “I thought it was $46!” Now, I wasn’t about to get into an argument with a Woolworths Corporation drone about the price. It definitely scanned as the right game. So I replied to Jeremy, “maybe it’s on sale?” The checkout chick didn’t seem to care anyway, and happily took my $24.84. Computer error or impromptu discount, whatever it was, it seems us consumers won this time.

We took the game home, via Brumbies and their mini choc-chip muffins. And played for a while. Despite my previous ranting about modern video games, this one is a winner. Gorgeous graphics and fun gameplay. Fun fun fun.

Call me an old fuddy duddy if you like, but for the most part I still like the video and computer games of olde a bit better. Though graphics and sound have leapt forward over the past couple of decades, the quality of gameplay is the subject of some debate.

How playable is a game if you have to read the manual for ten minutes before you can figure out what you have to do? In the glory days of the arcade, it was as simple as: shoot the aliens; climb to the top of the girders; get the frog across the road and river. They needed to get you hooked in the first game, to keep you pumping those 20 cent coins in.

Nowadays they’re all so complicated. Video game pioneer Nolan Bushnell lamented that the designers came up with games that were so complicated they required all your concentration to play — when the reality is, in a bar or arcade, while you’re playing, you’re probably sipping on a drink and chatting to friends too.

He also points out that because striving for technological complexity has driven development costs through the roof, a lot of the innovation has vanished from the games industry, with most new ones being first-person shooting games or driving games.

…if you really look at the games that have been developed for the arcade business in the last five years, you see driving games and you see shooting games, and very little else. With the driving games, sometimes you’re driving a car, sometimes a bike, sometimes a truck, or a snowmobile, but they’re still damn driving games.
- Nolan Bushnell, Edge magazine’s retro gaming special 2002

The controls are more complex these days. Back in the olden days it was a single joystick and a button. Maybe two if pressed (Robotron excepted). The standard controller on the XBox has no less than three joysticks, and a multitude of buttons on it. This seems overly complex to me. What game would require me to go in three different directions at once anyway?

That said, the XBox is a heap of fun to play. Midtown Madness 3 is a lot of fun. Some spectacular graphics, and the freedom to cruise around like a maniac, or drive in races like a maniac. Hell, you can even do an Henri Paul and go zooming through the tunnels of Paris weaving around at a stupid rate of knots before hitting a wall, with the only result being some wobbles from the force feedback on the controller.

I’m rationing my game purchases to one per month, which gives me plenty of time to read the reviews and work out what’s good value for money. Next in the queue is Harry Potter/Chamber of Secrets, which looks good. I’ve thought about buying Elder Scrolls 3 (for myself, not the kids, since it’s M rated), but I’m hesitant because it looks rather too addictive, promising to suck away time I don’t have.

So far the only other release I’ve bought is Midway Arcade Treasures, 20 classic games on a disc. Thankfully Midway are happy just to be game authors; alas Nintendo want to be in the console market too, which means barring getting MAME running on it, I will never play Donkey Kong on my Xbox.

Arcade Treasures is something of a mixed bag, and it probably comes down to the fact that some of the games are suited to different types of controls. Robotron, Paperboy and Gauntlet work well. Marble Madness would be better with its original trackball. Joust is hopeless - you need a button you can continually whack to flap your bird’s wings without getting RSI.

But in the comfort of my own lounge room, it’s as good as it’s going to get for now.

…

Since Tony mentioned Elite, here’s my top ten games of yesteryear, in alphabetical order:

Donkey Kong Junior (arcade). The platform game after the one that started it all, with Mario turned badguy. The Game And Watch versions of these games were also great. Hands up who managed to get past 999 points and “clock” them.

Elite (BBC micro). The legendary space trading/flying/piracy/dogfight/exploration game. You have a Cobra Mk3 spacecraft, and eight galaxies to explore. Go do your own thing. Breaking the rules about simple controls, but the concept and freedom within the game was breathtaking. I never did reach Elite status, but I did get to Deadly both on the C64 and the superior (faster) Beeb version.

Gauntlet (arcade). A kind of dungeons and dragons-themed multiplayer game, best experienced (at least for me) in the Fun Factory with three mates, feeding in the 20 cent coins and co-ordinating our efforts battling the ghosts, wizards, Deaths and what appeared to be little kids lobbing rocks over the walls.

Gyruss (arcade). The circular movement of your spacecraft was obviously different, but the frenetic pace, great graphics and sound made this a winner. “3 warps to Neptune”. I managed to get through to Earth on the C64 version.

Impossible Mission (Commdore 64). “Stay a while! Stay… forever!” Brilliance in platform games. Some C64s (including mine) would generate the same map and puzzle every time on initial load, making it easy to finish the game.

Joust (arcade). Flying your buzzard around, jumping on the others. Perhaps the first and only game ever that didn’t have up/down directional controls, but a flap button instead.

Lode Runner (Apple II). Platform game with a massive number of screens, and instead of jumping over your enemies, you dug holes to trap them which magically filled up after a few seconds. And included a revolutionary idea: design your own levels, something later done on such games as Magic Mushrooms on the Beeb.

Monty Mole (Commdore 64). A very cutesy scrolling platform game, with Arthur Scargill and other Brit coalmining strike references. Another one of Tony Crowther’s masterpieces, and one I managed to finish. Other platform games worth of mention include Jumpman, Jumpman Junior, Blagger, Popeye and Thing on a Spring. Undoubtedly 2D platform games were my favourites.

Sim City (PC). The original city designer game, and though less complex and realistic than its sequels, seemed more addictive. Also inspired other related games such as Traffic Giant.

Ultima 4 (Commdore 64). There were many Ultima games, roleplaying obviously inspired by Dungeons and Dragons, but this one had me hooked for many weeks. Wandering around the countryside fighting monsters, finding sailing ships to explore the oceans, through towns and villages and castles trading and talking to people. I wasn’t so keen on the dungeon fighting, personally.

There have been many other brilliant games, of course, including many I’ve probably forgotten and will wish later I’d included.

What are your favourites of all time?

Recently I’ve been reading some of Jeff “Yak” Minter’s nostalgic look back at how he got into writing computer games in the 1980s, and it’s got me thinking about those days, and how it’s shaped my life — or at least, my professional working life. It’s something I have written about briefly before, but I thought I might re-visit it in epic format. (Yes, I fully realise this might bore some people to tears.)

Early 80s

In the early 1980s, personal computers started to come onto the home market. Not the multibox PCs you see nowadays of course, and certainly not limited to the big 3 formats (Windows, Linux, Mac) that you see now. No, there were dozens of different types of computers, usually a single keyboard box, often using cassettes for storage and generally plugged into a TV. (Nowadays they’re trying to get computers off desks and into the livingroom, as a centrepiece of home entertainment, plugged into a TV again.)

I was vaguely interested in technology in primary school, but there were no computers there. I was intrigued by a passing reference to a homemade computer in one of the Mad Scientist Club books, and a diet of television scifi also sparked the imagination.

It was my friend Merlin who first got a computer. He and his dad had been into electronics for some time, and when Dick Smith started marketing a computer called the Wizzard (most appropriate, har har) they bought one. It was a video game console with a bunch of clones of well-known games on it (Donkey Kong became Police Jump), and also had a module you could plug-in to do some BASIC programming. (more…)