A few years on and we now have Guitar Hero, Rock Band, Band Hero, DJ Hero, Singstar, and a wealth of others. With most of these titles now leaking onto portables and DLC being released at up to weekly intervals you really have to ask yourself if it’s time to give up and move on.

As far as I can see it’s exploitation. The producers of these games wrote some clever coding, yes, but with so many sequels and expensive DLC they are milking the cash cow dry before looking at other options. You really have to question whether half the games released are even sequels; in many they seem to have solely run some new songs through their software and regurgitated potential DLC as a retail game. With the DLC on these games being hideously overpriced in most circumstances and not providing new achievements/trophies you have to be a immense fan of that star to buy it. This leads to retail games stacking up because people are more willing to pay for a full game.

I browse through my games news at least once a week. I was horrified to find Guitar Hero DLC (for both consoles and the iPhone), Rock Band DLC, Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock and DJ Hero 2 all stealing headline space in one week. This was not in any way a special week for rhythm games and yet such a limited genre has managed to obtain that much coverage. It is impressive, but is it deserved? It really made it apparent how much this area of gaming has expanded without ever having to stop for much “development time”.

Obviously, for gamers new to the genre it’s great that they have a wide choice. However, if you mastered the skills long ago and are just farming these games for the points then please stop and think if your cash could be better spent, even if it’s for the sake of your own enjoyment! If we want to get the developers back to the drawing board and coming out with new and fresh ideas then this constant churning out of essentially the same game needs to stop, and that starts with us.

By now most of you would have heard of Final Fantasy Versus XIII, now confirmed as multi-platform on PS3 and 360. Although set in the same universe and with the same basic mythology the story takes place at a different time and setting to that of the original game. This means taking it along the lines of the FFVII spin-offs rather than the slated FFX-2. As it is a free standing game with neither sequel nor prequel status, this does lead to questions of what the similarities will be. Are SquareEnix simply planning to spurt out average games under the successful umbrella of the FFXIII name? With claims that this may be the darkest Final Fantasy game yet and a more action orientated demeanour I must say that this looks like a fabulous addition to the series but fingers crossed.

Unfortunately, the current area of debate surrounds the third title, Final Fantasy Agito XIII. With a vast story and a large array of characters rumoured, this game could be big… or could go nowhere. Since it’s announcement in 2006 it has been planned as a mobile phone game, a PSP, and now a PS3 exclusive. The problem with all of these options is the limited fan base. A lot of fans who have loyally followed Sony for the games have moved on to the 360. The third instalment being on a different platform could cause major troubles, and I certainly can’t see 360 owners switching to PS3 for just the one game. It seems to me that anything related to FFXIII is now essentially stuck being multi-platform and if SquareEnix can’t produce this then there may be some very unhappy customers down the line. With the series finally looking like it’s back on track we can only hope that the right decisions are made to keep the fans wanting more.

The trilogy will be known collectively as Fabula Nova Crystallis – Final Fantasy XIII.

Guys treating girls differently, letting them win, trying to talk to them, or becoming friends with them just doesn’t have a place in gaming. Seriously, guys hitting on girls via Xbox Live (Or Playstation Network for that matter), haven’t you heard about freaking dating sites? Just write that you want a girl who likes video games in your dating profile. Girls are much more open to talk to new people on dating sites rather than while they game.

On the other hand, there are users who deliberately downtalk and verbally attack girls when it comes to their attention there’s a girl in the lobby or game. Well, the author of this article “excused” this behavior as being competitive and hyping about the game. I can understand this for popular shooter games, as they are getting very competitive and people try to provoke people or bring down their self esteem this way.
However, girls aren’t the only ones who are being attacked verbally in the online gaming experience – or just online in general. There is racism out there, and people are mocking each other for their accent or anything that is against their own values (you can alter this obviously, but you get where this edit is going). The online gaming experience might be worse though, because there is the competitive nature on top of the mountain.
I still do think there’s way too much trashtalk on Xbox LIVE when I join games with randoms. There’s really many immature players, being it for their personality, their background, or the most simple: young age. Many parents – and many stores(maybe I should say sales representatives here) for that matter – doesn’t think twice about the recommended age rating on games (in Europe called PEGI rating and in US called ESRB) and since these immature people are the ones that are vociferous, people tend to remember them.

The article also did moan a lot about girls expecting to be treated differently. Surely, I agree on this in all aspects of what this article described. However, I believe that she did moan too much. Yeah, sure, there’s girls out there who just plain suck at games. So what? There’s guys out there who are just as bad. They might not have played the game that much, so they aren’t used to it and therefore make mistakes or are slow. The problem here is – just like regular driving in the real world – is that people tend to blame the bad performance on the gender, when it’s only a few people giving the rest of us a bad reputation. In my eyes, this is very wrong.

Girls asking to be treated differently was also mentioned, asking to be allowed to progress in the game, but I believe this is more of asking for help in the game rather than making use of the guys excitement that he has contact to a girl.
Girls talking about “girly” stuff like shampoo, make up, and clothes, is just like guys talking about sailboating, tools or cars. Quit jabbering already, there will always be gender-populated interests, which include gaming. There’s a reason why girls are a minority in the gaming world – counting out the games on Facebook that our mothers play!

The part of the article which I disagreed with the most was her trashing “girly” websites and girls, who bring attention to their gender by adding themselves to gaming communities for girls. However, most are joining these communities to find other gamers with their gender, who want to share thoughts and experiences, just as we would in the real world with co-workers or schoolmates. Why would I hide my gender?
It’s not like it’s the first thing I yell about in a gaming lobby or for that matter, on a forum. I actually tend to mute myself and turn down the volume to avoid hearing the other players when I play with randoms.
But if people refer to me as male, is there ANY reason not to tell them and make them aware that they should refer to me as female? This still happens, in spite of having a female avatar and most of my colors being red, pink, rose and purple, which are girly colors.
Counting out the WoW reference in my gamertag, it’s pretty girly too! (and no, I’m not playing WoW, just in case people should ask).

People told me I was one of these girls who wanted attention or special treatment because of my gender. I can’t see why I should want this. Apart from boosting, it’s not fun to win a game because the other participants let you win. I mentioned my gender in my profile description on some website, and people almost called me an attention whore for this, more or less based on the article that made me write this article.

I would say if anyone wanted to be an attention whore, it must be the author of the article that made me write this one. She moaned about girls wanting the attention, while she herself writes the article, and doesn’t exactly hide her gender either. She uses a girl avatar, has a girly gamertag and games. That’s exactly what I do, only I don’t hate myself! I’m convinced she wants to be a guy, as she really did come across as hating being lumped in with the rest of us.

When working their way through a Bowser level in Super Mario Bros, a gamer’s thought process goes something like this:

“Crap crap crap crap crap JUMP wait wait wait JUMP run run crap crap crap run CRAP DODGE THE FIREBALL crap crap crap haha take that you stupid Koopa King woo this is awesome I get to meet the Princess HEY WHAT THE HELL.”

I’m getting sentimental here, but who isn’t sometimes? I think of some of my first games from time time, especially the ones that made an impact on me in some way, or that I just utterly loved, and love. And oh, I will ad a little video to make other players’ day! It goes with the quote. Remember to have your sound on, don’t miss out.

Admitted. The day I heard Sony had the Ps3 on it’s way, I was tempted to pre-order one. One thing stopped me – the price. Not that I didn’t understand the price – the machine was the cutting edge technology, topping the Xbox360 by miles, if you compared the hardware – counting in the Blu Ray player, that at the time beeing, did cost about the same as the Ps3 itself. Compared to that, the Ps3 was actually cheap, and Sony lost money at each sold console.

Then, GTA IV was released and I had to figure out a solution because I had waited so long for it after San Andreas. A friend of mine had won the console in a giveaway, but she wasn’t a gamer. She needed a new cell phone, so I gave her my old phone, and I got the Xbox. We both knew it was an oblique deal, bot we both got what we wished for. Deal sealed. Purchased the GTA IV game and a few games more.

One and a half year after getting the box, I finally got the money to buy a Ps3 – and for a price I really wanted to use on it. For about one year I’ve had put 200 DKKR (use a currency site of your choice to know how much it is) aside each month, and it occured to me quite suddenly that there were money enough! (Next; 37″-47″ Flatscreen TV) I started the hunting for a cheap Ps3 console – because I knew the price did (and do) vary a bit, even in a little country as denmark. After comparing prices on well-known sites, I decided to give an online auction a chance. I ended up saving about 200 DKKR compared to the cheapest price I could digg up – the hardest part was actually the waiting – I was almost in agony. When receiving my console, it confirmed my theory of the seller’s little deal. Sell a bunch of consoles with long time delivery, when you have money for about 10 Ps3, 50 Nintendo DS’s (and further more), you’ll make a deal with a big website, who sells this stuff, and you end up earning money by beeing middleman/seller!