The "C-Word" of Gaming

We South African gamers live blessed lives: the country’s gaming industry is growing faster than a mushroom-eating Mario; we have our own gaming expo (rAge); we have representation and healthy markets for all the major consoles; and more and more shops are dedicating larger floor space to gaming departments. In short: things are looking good.

God, I can hear you already; you really are a whiny bunch aren’t you? “There’s no official Xbox Live in South Africa! The Internet speeds in the country are terrible! My pre-order has been delayed!” To you, my whiny gaming fellows I say: shut it. But I will also forgive you because you cannot have been gaming for very long. Anybody who has been gaming in South Africa for longer than twenty years will be able to tell you that the current state of our brilliant past-time is infinitely better than it was during the late eighties and most of the nineties.

Many SA gamers look with envious eyes across the vast oceans at our gaming buddies in the USA, UK, Europe, Japan, Australia etc and all wish that our industry could be more like the ones that are thriving “over there”. Yes they have official Xbox Live representation; yes they often get games a week or two earlier than we do (although that is changing quite rapidly); and yes their Internet is faster and in all likelihood uncapped. But they also have one more thing that we don’t have in this country, and I pray it stays that way for as long as I can hold a controller: censorship... I go cold just thinking about it; it’s like the “c-word” of gaming.

Countries have various bodies set up in order to rate games before they go on sale in that particular country. We in South Africa have the Films Publication Board (or FPB), Europe has PEGI, Canada and North America have ESRB and the UK uses BBFC. If any of these bodies consider a game to be too violent/sexual/insert-moral-fibre-destroying-adjective-here then they simply deny it classification and any game that is not classified is illegal to sell in that country.

Australia seems to be the country that has its panties in a bunch the most when it comes to classifying games and denying ratings. Fallout 3 was changed to appease Australia’s OFLC (Office of Film and Literature Classification) due to its drug references. In the end, however, the wallabies and koalas were not the only ones to skip across the post-apocalyptic American wasteland drug-free; we all had to as Fallout 3 was altered across all region releases. An equally anticipated release, GTA IV, was also toned down for the Australians; fortunately the rest of the world was free to wreak havoc across Liberty City without a forced, kangaroo-conscience looking over their shoulder. Of course, the irony of the Australian GTA IV censorship debacle is that a few months later the un-censored PC version of the game was given the same rating as the censored console versions. Confused? Yeah, me too.

There are many instances of other games being denied classification in other countries: big titles such as Gears of War 2, Silent Hill: Homecoming and F.E.A.R.2 have had censorship hiccups as well. To my knowledge, however, our good old FPB has yet to deny any game a classification for our country. What’s that? We have a perk that other gaming territories don’t have? See, I told you our industry was doing well.

We don’t have to worry about overly-zealous classification boards that seem to think an entire country’s morality is somehow delicately poised upon their decisions in classifying digital entertainment media. We don’t have to worry about stuffy old blokes deciding which games we get to buy. So take heart my South African gamers: it seems our FPB likes to believe that we are all old enough to make informed decisions about which games we want to subject ourselves to.

I do have one tiny, little, niggling concern though: I’m not sure about the rest of you, but I am a tad worried about what our FPB is going to think of Resident Evil 5. We all know the controversy the trailers and previews caused and how most of it has been laid to rest, but I have the unnerving feeling that this is going to be the title that grabs our FPB’s attention. I hope I am wrong, and I hope that they will use the same rationality that they have been in the past: the rationality that led them to classifying games that were refused classification in other territories. After all, nobody seemed to flinch when we were all running around the savannah shooting Afrikaners in Far Cry 2... did they?  

Xbox 360 Hits First Developer Speedbump

I felt a great disturbance in the... industry... as if millions of fanboys cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced by a horrible realisation that the Xbox 360 may be on its last legs. Now before said fanboys form a lynch-mob and come gushing over the hills baying for my blood, let me tell you that I own an Xbox 360 (well I’ve owned three actually but the first two RRODed on me) and I love sinking hours into ensuring future generations of my children and their children are born with over-developed thumbs. Are we cool? Yeah thought we would be. I’ll continue:

 Sure the good old 360 still has some life in her yet what with its exclusives and price cuts and consequent sales spikes (alternatively see Gears of War 2). According to Microsoft the 360 is to last for seven years before it is succeeded with a new version, but I can’t help but get the feeling that we are rapidly approaching the time when we’ll have to take the old ‘gal out back and put a bullet in her DVD drive. I think my curiosity arose with id Software’s upcoming title Rage. For those of you who missed that death knell, I’ll recap: id Software (you know who they are, they’re the guys who made that awesome platforming series called Commander Keen!) are well into development of their new IP Rage. The game will be hitting the PC, Playstation 3 and Xbox 360. However their development hit a snag with the Xbox 360 and the amount of data it is able to store. This resulted in them having to change the narrative structure of Rage so that it could be split into two acts that are spread across two DVDs on the 360. As soon as 360 fanboy hits the end of Act 1 they’ll have to swap to disk two to continue; it’s a logical break so no harm done. However, id have also admitted that due to the limitation of data streaming from a DVD, one will be able to notice graphical differences in the Xbox 360 version when compared with those of the PC and PS3. Granted, they added that one will need to “know what they’re looking for”, but the differences will be noticeable. The obvious fix to that would be streaming from a hard drive... but that’s not an option as Microsoft chose not to make the HDD mandatory across all Xbox 360 versions, and therefore developers cannot rely on every Xbox 360 owner having a HDD.

 This is the first instance of a developer (in this current generation of consoles) having to change their game due to the hardware limitations of the Xbox 360. And it wasn’t just the 360 version; Rage had to be altered across all platforms so that the game is standardised. Considering we’re less than halfway through the Xbox 360’s supposed lifecycle, isn’t this kind of premature? Surely game developers are now going to think twice before producing ambitious titles for the 360? Or is the wide install-base of the 360 enough to ensure that any extra development costs will be eaten up by larger sales?

 It’s obvious where the PC and PS3 benefit and that’s data storage. Each has a HDD and developers can develop with that in mind. The PS3 also benefits from Blu-Ray, which negates having to spread data over multiple DVDs. The Xbox 360 has no next-gen optical device and Microsoft’s decision to support HD-DVD (by developing those obsolete HD-DVD add-on units) over Sony’s Blu-Ray was more of a corporate statement than a commitment in the battle for next-gen, optical format supremacy. You cannot blame Microsoft for not wanting to support their competition’s format, but perhaps you can blame them for not making a HDD mandatory. Peter Moore is the ex Corporate Vice-President of Microsoft and was very involved in both Xbox consoles. Since his Non-Disclosure Agreement ended he’s been letting people in on a lot of the decisions made prior to the Xbox 360’s launch, one being the choice not to make the HDD mandatory in order to cut production costs. This “cost-cutting” is cunningly disguised as a budget alternative for those wanting to get into next-gen gaming (queue the Xbox 360 Arcade; ah, the wonders of modern marketing).

This is probably the first of many instances to come where the Xbox 360’s now out-dated hardware is going to be a problem for developers. I find it disheartening to think that the next time my Xbox 360 RRODs on me, I’m going to have to think twice about replacing it simply because the console’s lifespan may be reaching a very premature end, and there may be something better just around the corner.

Digital Rights Management – Or How to Make Sure You Alienate the Very People Who Keep You in Business

Let’s take a recent example: Ah, Spore... How I looked forward to you with gleeful anticipation as I watched your slow gestation in the creative womb of Will Wright’s brain. How that anticipation faltered a little with the realisation that Electronic Arts would be responsible for holding Will’s hand and helping you into this world. And how the waning anticipation turned into bitterness when I realised that you weren’t even mine and were never going to be. Will had been cheating on me: you, Spore, belong to EA and no matter how much I pay for you, you will never belong to me.

 Spore is the latest AAA title to be shackled with ineffectual DRM methods that fail to prevent piracy. What this means is that before you can wrench your newly created beasties from their oozy origins and hurl them into the blackness of space, you need to activate your game online. You take your product key and dangle it in front of the Electronic Arts DRM servers; they get to see that you aren’t a filthy pirate; your license key gets tied to a Spore user account; and before you know it your digital denizens are imposing their beliefs on their neighbours or blowing them up for resisting.

 It sounds absolutely fine.

 A number of games have done this in the past and not many of them have been particularly successful in that the piracy was not prevented and the paying customers felt cheated. But there are a number of different DRM mechanics out there and a lot of them aren’t too obtrusive. Far Cry 2 immediately springs to mind: yes you have to activate it online before you can play, but this only happens once. Secondly you can install the game up to five times and on three different machines at the same time. Once you uninstall the game you get an “install token” (for want of a better term) back assuming you’re online when you do uninstall. Half-Life 2 got it right as well, as did a number of MMOs that incorporate similar DRM mechanics. I have no problem with these at all, but none of them managed to prevent the piracy; on the bright side though they didn’t hamper paying customers’ experience.

 Spore is quite different in that once you use up your five installs (be it through PC upgrading or Windows crashes) then that’s it: buy another copy of the game or let the resentment eat you up inside and turn you into an embittered and disillusioned soul who then considers stealing the game out of spite (the latter of course being precisely what they don’t want, so then why make it the easier of the two options?). The fact that there is no inherent way to gain that install back is disconcerting and the fact that EA are “looking into” a deactivation mechanic is even more so. “Looking into”? Why isn’t it there in the first place? Even 2K had to add this feature months after Bioshock was released, so surely EA could have learnt from their mistake? Or does the saying “those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it” mean nothing to some?

 DRM as an unobtrusive copy protection mechanic is broken; I’ve spent the last few weeks wracking my brains trying to channel this bitter taste in the right direction. I can’t blame software publishers for the DRM; I can blame them for making it stupid but the root of the problem is where the blame should lie: piracy. Let me make my stance absolutely clear: Pirates... I hate you. You are ruining what is for me the greatest industry on the planet and I eternally wish all manner of ghastly virus on both you and your rigs.

A Long Overdue Update

Spare-Time Gamer has been going for about a year now and practically nobody has read it - weak! It's been about seven months (holy crap!) since I last posted anything, but there is a good reason for that. I submitted the article "Blessed Are the Fanboys" to NAG magazine as a letter; it obviously worked because it won the "Letter of the Moment" for the October 2008 edition. In addition to winning some games I got offered a monthly column (holy crap!). 

 The hidden purpose of this blog was for me to get together a sort of "online portfolio" for me to use when applying for dream jobs like gaming journalism. Once I was offered the column with NAG I threw all my writing energy into putting together preliminary columns for the editor (you can read three of them above this entry); nothing was set in stone so I had to do some additional proving. 

 After five gut-wrenchingly anxious months everything was finalised and my first column will appear in the April 2009 edition (which hits on 26 March 2009). This means that if you've been neglecting your SA Gamer patriotic duty of reading NAG, then now has never been a better time to start... because I'm awesome. So subscribe to the magazine already or subscribe to the digital version! Alternatively, scuttle down to whichever newsagent you want and start buying NAG! Maybe I should start advertising for them too... 

Blessed are the Fanboys

For they shall inherit the forums - once everyone else has grown bored of their incessant ranting and gone off to play some games

The word “fanboy” was, a few months ago, officially added to the English language. Merriam-Webster hauled the word out of the dust and deluge of forum flamewars, cleaned it up, reminded it that it had actually been around since 1919 (wait, what?) and then thrust it out onto the stage of the English Language for all the world to gawk at. While gawking I got thinking, not about the word but about those the word represents.

One of the best parts of the current-gen console wars for me has been the overtly fanatical preaching of the fanboys across forums, magazine letters and those little comment blocks at the end of website articles. Perhaps it is the fact that gaming has rocketed in popularity, or that the competition between Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft has been unwaveringly publicised, but there seems to be a more enraged and militant breed of fanboy out there these days. For years fanboys were locked in a PC versus Console war, each side vehemently defending their platform of choice’s supremacy as a gaming machine. This time around, however, a civil war has erupted amongst the console fanboys, as console brethren (once united against PC gamers) have turned on each other.

This is all just too similar to something else for me to pass up the opportunity for an analogy: throughout history mankind has been slaughtering one another because of one group’s conviction that their religion is superior to that of another’s. Does this blind fanaticism sound familiar? This time, crusaders fanboys defend their religion consoles, be it the Xbox 360, Wii or Playstation 3. All it takes is to have done a little bit of theology to see that this analogy can be extended even further: Christianity, Islam and Judaism (or the monotheistic religions) all worship the same God, but they just go about it differently. The same could apply for the consoles; all three consoles exist for the same reason: gaming. And this is where being a latitudinarian (look it up) with some disposable income helps.

Personally I love the fanboys because they remind me of how superior and seemingly rich I am. Invariably the most avid fanboys of any of the three consoles are the ones that are either too poor to afford to buy them all, or are the ones too young and dependant on their parents to buy one for them. Therefore, these disproportionately self-opinionated and enraged individuals have no alternative other than to defend their choice of console to the death regardless of whether it was the right one to choose.

Personally, I’ve found the best cure for “fanboyism” is to own all of the platforms, PC included. In doing so you reach some sort of gaming nirvana or transcendental state whereby you simply get to play whatever game comes out no matter what the platform. In this state you rise above the blinkered, fanboy existence and become one with gaming in its entirety, no longer fearful of those “console exclusive” titles and safe in the certainty that you can play everything that gets released, and laugh at those who can’t.

Assassin’s Creed – Or How I Lost My Faith in Big-Name Reviewers

Ubisoft Montreal’s Assassin’s Creed is one of those games that I feel really sorry for: it had more hype than a hyper-active toddler on a cocktail of acid and Redbull; enough media coverage to make sure that everyone with a set of over-developed, opposable thumbs was foaming at the mouth; and was preceded by a plethora of tear-inducing, gorgeous screenshots and video diaries from developers. Then came the very mixed reviews and Assassin's Creed bashing in forums all over the Internet.

IGN gave Assassin's Creed a 7.7 and accused it of “sitting destitute on the tarmac, frantically revving its engine”. 1Up gave it a B- and called it repetitive and disappointing. But Gamespot gave it 9.0 out of 10 and garnered it with an “Editor’s Choice” badge. Confusing? I think so... three very big gaming websites with some very big discrepancies. Conclusion: yeah Assassin's Creed isn’t for everyone but heck it has some brilliant offerings.

You take on the role of a medieval assassin called Altair (“Al-tie-ear”) who is tasked with taking out a number of prominent figures throughout the three historical cities found in the game: Damascus, Jerusalem and Acre. At your disposal are a number of weapons including throwing knives, short swords, hidden blades etc.

Central to the game’s premise is the fact that you play in the medieval period as well as in the not-too-distant future. Unfortunately the latter sees you play as a wimpy descendant of Altair’s who is being held captive and forced to use a device in order to “sync” into his ancestor’s memory; zero combat, zero assassinations, tonnes of boring dialogue which stands inbetween you and all-out fun assassinations in the medieval period. The whole sci-fi bit is hinged on the idea that memories are genetic and that somehow it is possible to access your ancestors’ memories... queue expensive looking, mind altering machine known as the Animus. This was Ubisoft Montreal’s “big secret” which unfortunately gets revealed three seconds into the game... bummer.

This allows the developers to weave an INSANELY confusing story, full of barely-convincing intrigue, betrayal, re-betrayal, blah blah blah.... ok I admit the story in Assassin's Creed sucks and is the only part of the game I really didn’t engage with. It is more convoluted and difficult to figure out than which body part belongs to whom in a ten-strong orgy, but at this point in my gaming life my hunger for fantastic storyline has been satiated by Bioshock. To tell you the truth, I have no idea what happened in the storyline of Assassin's Creed, something that Ubisoft Montreal could have avoided if they’d given the characters easier names to remember... like “Bob” or "Derrick". But, never ones to sacrifice authenticity for an easier plot, Ubisoft Montreal instead dishes out steaming-hot bowls of confusion and monologues from freshly assassinated targets. Yawn.

Boring bits over, onto the good stuff: Assassin's Creed is probably the most fun I’ve had with a title for a while. Where games like Bioshock intrigued me enough to want to play it non-stop, Assassin's Creed made me want to play it non-stop because it was just ridiculous amounts of fun. The sword fighting mechanic is the best I’ve ever played; it has a relatively steep learning curve but once you’ve mastered it (a feat that takes some time) you become a certified bad-ass. Once I had gotten the hang of it I started running into Templar camps to get as many guards as possible chasing me; then I’d turn on them and take on 30 plus bad guys at once... and slaughter them all using my superior swordsmanship and awesomeness. I swear my gaming cojones had trippled in size by the time I'd finished Assassin's Creed.

The “free-running” mechanic is also brilliantly implemented and becomes second-nature very quickly. The controls are unique and work well and in no time you’ll be helping Altair scramble up pretty much any surface in the game. Which leads me to my next point: detail.

Assassin's Creed is highly detailed in many aspects: the buildings are meticulously designed so that each little crack, support beam, façade and decoration is there for use as a foothold or grip to a higher point; Altair makes quick work of even the most daunting building or tower.

The assassination missions are a lot of fun and while the prelude to each is the same, the actual assassinations all play out in a unique way and in a unique situation. However, the collection of research missions you need to perform before being granted access to your assigned target is where most reviewers and forum trolls found fault with Assassin's Creed.Your research requires you to either: interrogate somebody with your fists; help a fellow assassin's guild member finish off his assigned targets; collect some flags in a timed race around the various cities; pickpocket some valuable information; or eavesdrop on some unsuspecting people embroiled in a highly secretive yet informative conversation. Each of the nine characters you need to assassinate have a set of these research missions prior to them. Each, however, yields unique information and maps. A lot of people hated this repetitiveness but I couldn't help but get sucked into it; not for want of learning more about the story or my targets, but simply because doing each mission was a lot of fun. Perhaps Assassin's Creed appealed to my inner OCD sufferer but I found myself doing every research mission before attempting a target.

Speaking of OCD-like qualities, Assassin's Creed includes a lot of little extras to get you side-tracked, like flag collecting and scaling every view point in the game (all of which yield achievements for your Xbox 360 gamer tag). There are also 60 Templar knights to assassinate at various points throughout the three cities and the expansive Kingdom area that connects these three cities. I found myself obsessed with taking all of them out and they always put up a much bigger fight than the normal guards ever did. All of these little elements (the extras like flag collecting and Templar hunting as well as the pre-assassination, research missions and viewpoint scaling) add up to create a great package and one that you can progress in even in a brief ten minute play session... which is great from the Spare-Time Gaming perspective.

Yes Assassin's Creed has repetitive gameplay mechanics but so do gems like Half-life 2: walk around corner; cap head crab in the face before it hits you; walk around next corner; have extended fire-fight with umpteen Combine soldiers; solve some physics-related puzzle; drive buggy; repeat. I’m not picking on Half-life 2 at all, it's on my Top-Five-Best-Games-Of-All-Time list, but where it achieves in hiding its repetitiveness, Assassin's Creed lets it hang out for all to see like a flasher in a park. Essentially it’s the same thing from Half-life 2 to Episode 2, they just gift wrap it differently. Assassin's Creed takes no such precautions and you’ll find each of your gameplay pressies wrapped up in the same wrapping paper. Problem? Not if the presents inside are totally awesome... and fortunately Assassin's Creed read my Christmas list.

Spare-Time Gamer's Totally Objective Verdict: it's Hitman meets Prince of Persia with enough action, sword fights, assassinations and STUNNING cities to keep even the most... ah whatever, just play it, it rocks.

Fame at last!

So I wrote a letter to NAG magazine a while back and they decided to publish it as the "letter of the moment" in the May 2008 edition. This is what I wrote:

After reading your January 2008 edition and the preview article on Tomb Raider: Underworld I was left thinking to myself: What did this article tell me about this game that I already didn't know? I spend a lot of time browsing a lot of gaming websites, and consequently by the time the new NAG comes out there really isn't much in it that I haven't already read some incarnation of elsewhere. So why, then, do I continue to buy your magazine? I have been doing so for about ten years now and all it boils down to is the desire to contribute towards the gaming industry within South Africa. There is no doubt that NAG is the forerunner for South African gaming journalism and therefore an essential device for promoting the industry; and my monthly R39.00 in some way makes sure that the industry I love continues to flourish in SA. There, I said it.

I was fortunate enough to have spent 2006 living in the UK; a country which can be seen as a gaming Mecca (by SA standards at least). While there I picked up the tail-end of the advertising hype for Oblivion; nearly every London bus had a Tamriel knight plastered to the side of it. My TV viewing was frequently peppered with adverts for Gears of War, GTA Vice City Stories, etc. I became an avid reader of PC Gamer, which was a great magazine that had a cover DVD (big deal for me because at the time of leaving SA, NAG still had cover CDs), and I used to spend a hell of a lot money in the franchised Game stores that were literally everywhere (not to mention Virgin Megastores and HMVs). I had free, blisteringly fast ADSL that was uncapped, which allowed me to play all sorts of MMOs that were not available back home. What was also great was that the XBOX 360 was very much available and the only thing that prevented me from buying one while in the UK was the knowledge that I would be going back to SA where, in all likelihood, there would be no XBOX 360 at all seeing as how we never even got the original XBOX console in the first place.

But a lot changes in a year, especially in this industry and (as I was ecstatic to realise) SA had not been sleeping on the job while I was away.

I returned home only to be greeted at the airport by a massive advert for XBOX 360; NAG had started putting DVDs on their covers (dual-layered – better than PC Gamer's 4.5gig DVD offerings); and best of all a South African gaming company had mushroomed franchises all over the country (I am of course referring to BT Games). On top of this, Telkom had begun advertising broadband for gaming purposes (I am not rooting for them, I still hate Telkom but at least they are getting involved in the industry).

It seemed that while I spent a year frolicking in a country where gaming is firmly entrenched within the lifestyles of its citizens, South Africa was quietly shaping its own, similar (yet fledgling by comparison) gaming scene. I could not believe the difference that one year made. The Gaming Industry is very much alive and kicking in this country compared to years gone by (way back when Incredible Connection had one tiny little shop in Sandton City and their logo was a cutesy red kangaroo) and I only hope that dedicated groups such as NAG and BT Games continue to lead the way.

Of course, this new-found gaming patriotism of mine has made me a firm advocator of anti-piracy; the way I see it: the more of my money I put into the industry, the bigger it will get. So that is why I willingly spend R39.00 on NAG every month even though a large part of the content is stuff that I’ve already read online. Thanks for a great magazine and above all being the mouthpiece for our SA gaming industry. And no, I don’t work for BT Games.

So that's it! Insert HUGE smiley face here--------> :)

26 Aug 2008 - Update

So I finally found the edition of NAG in which this letter was published, so here's the Ed's reply:

Well you hit the nail right on the head, so much so that your letter defies shortening or editing for space. South Africa has a thriving gaming industry that's growing all the time and there isn't much out there that you cannot buy on a shelf here. Bandwidth is still a tripping point but that will eventually be resolved, and as the industry grows you'll start seeing more television adverts, billboards and probably another proper gaming magazine popping up eventually. In reply to your first point: yes, if you spend a lot of time Internet surfing, you're going to find out a lot about the same games we cover in the magazine. NAG provides a condensed version of all the information and thanks to the amount of research we do, our articles are somewhat more detailed and informative than many Websites some of the time. Because we have plenty of contacts overseas, we often get what the industry calls "print exclusive" artwork or material that's often under embargo until a specific date. Part of the success of the industry is thanks to what we do at the magazine and with rAge and naturally we couldn't do any of this if it wasn't for all the support the industry and our readers gives us. Ed

Heavenly Sword - Or a Lesson in Impeccable Game Development

When I first clapped eyes on this game I had to fight the urge to sell my younger sister to get the cash needed for a PS3. For the weeks running up to the game's eventual launch, Ninja Theory posted two sets of videos on their website for Heavenly Sword: a collection of "Making Of" documentaries as well as a series of Anime-influenced 5 minute cartoons detailing the back-story for the game's plot. Add in two parts drool-inducing screen shots and ten parts media frenzy, you had enough hype for this game to result in it being dubbed the "must have killer app for any PS3 owner" before it was even released.

For some reason, many game review websites didn't love what Ninja Theory had given us, and most reviews gave it mediocre ratings. I for one think this game is totally bitchin' and if future games had half the amount of production effort then gamers would be in for a treat for the rest of their short, pimply lives.

First off, the character design in Heavenly Sword is possibly some of the best out there. Everything from the way each character walks, stands, looks and talks has been meticulously created so as to portray the most believable characters in any game I've ever played (including Half-Life 2 and Mass Effect). One particular moment stands out the most: a cutscene when Kai is talking through an old fashioned intercom to a guard at the door of King Bohan's armoury; the voice acting is impeccable and facial expressions and body language convey the most endearing virtual performance in recent memory. Each of the game's main characters have been given a stunning amount of attention and each feels unique and intriguing.
Once you've watched the "Making of" documentaries (which are also unlockable in the game itself) you'll realise the ridiculous amount of effort that went into creating these characters.

Heavenly Sword is combat heavy, with a nice amount of puzzle-solving thrown in to keep things varied and interesting. You have three stances to play around with: ranged, fast and strong. Simply holding down specific trigger buttons on the controller switches Nariko into the assigned stance; it's quick, intuitive and very smooth in transition. A number of reviews have moaned about a lack of block button, but I for one wasn't too bothered at all and found that the auto-block that Nariko performed was adequate. The fun part is quickly putting Nariko into the correct stance so as to block an enemy's ranged, strong or fast attack as only ranged stance will block a ranged attack etc etc.

To add more variety to gameplay, you occasionally play as the aforementioned Kai (Nariko's friend who is the last surviving member of a clan that King Bohan wiped out). Kai's only means of attacking is with a crossbow (or "twing-twang"... insert dodgy sexual pun here) which is great because it contrasts so well with Nariko's hand-to-hand combat sections. The best part about Kai's levels is that you get to guide each bolt after you've shot it, using the sixaxis feature of the PS3 controller. It takes a while to get used to but once you do it is loads of fun and you'll find yourself deftly guiding bolts into the eye-sockets of your enemies (which results in the most vomit-inducing sound effect ever... niiiice!).

As it seems to be the current fad with all action games on consoles these days, Heavenly Sword incorporates those timed-corresponding-button-mash-sequences in a few of its boss fights and level areas. This, coupled with the style of gameplay and swords on chains being used to slice through hordes of bad guys, resulted in Heavenly Sword being branded a God of War clone. This is fine and the designers even admit to it openly: there is a section in one of Kai's missions where you can find the Swords of Chaos and Kratos's armour hanging on a wall.

Heavenly Sword is a great game and one that really shows what the PS3 hardware is capable of. The levels are beautiful and truly epic at times, and the overall design and effort that Ninja Theory put into the game is mind-bogglingly brilliant. I thoroughly recommend it to anyone who has a PS3. My only complaint about the game is that it is pretty short; I finished it in less than a week... which by Spare-Time Gaming's point of view is ball-breakingly quick!

Spare-Time Gamer's Totally Objective Verdict: two enthusiastic thumbs up; quality sword slashing fun which is over a little too quickly.

Bioshock - Holy. Freakin'. Poop.

Bioshock has been touted as the "spiritual successor" to Looking Glass Studio's System Shock series. If you are anything like me then this little bit of information will leave you saying "who the hell cares" because Bioshock could be the "spiritual successor" to Hitler and it would still rock so much that it would stop Mother Teresa in her tracks so that she could give it the thumbs up and say, "Holy. Freakin'. Poop."

You could approach the game as another bog-standard FPS foray as you constantly smash away genetically modified bad guys using a wrench or your newly acquired plasmid death-dealer; that or you could approach the game as it deserves to be and treat it as the new Messiah of the FPS genre complete with glowing halo, open arms and creepy, ethereal, cherub choir holding a breathy chord in the cloudy background.

The game is set in an underwater city called Rapture, where the denizens have gotten way too unruly as a result of highly addictive gene splicing thingies called plasmids. The result is that there is no longer anybody left in the once proud utopia that doesn't have the strength, speed or balls to take down three bull elephants before breakfast. There are a bunch of variations to the cannon fodder you are charged with dispatching to hell, but all of them really seem like stocking-filler to keep you interested until you encounter the next Big Daddy.

Ah yes, the Big Daddy. These enemies are without a doubt the meanest and most wildly rousing you'll come across in any FPS. Ever. They are awe-inspiring to say the least and every single time you pick a fight with one the chaos that ensues leaves your sphincter just that much tighter. Big Daddies are the guardians of the Little Sisters: little girls who are under control to collect a substance called Adam which is necessary for anybody to gain access to the highly addictive plasmids (queue collapse of civil society within Rapture here). And this is where things get ridiculously interesting. The game grabs you by your naughty bits and forces you to make insanely unnerving decisions based on some dodgy morality that sails very closely to something resembling infanticide. That being said, you will experience some of the most emotionally charged moments in gaming since... well since ever really.

With regard to the storyline there is quite a bit to ruin so I won't go into it that much. Suffice it to say that the story is great and actually integral to the game's progression as a whole, which in the FPS genre has been practically unheard of since Deus Ex. The game literally oozes atmosphere and the water effects are superb as it leaks into the halls of Rapture, a constant reminder that you are in a fragile environment on the brink of complete collapse.

Bioshock is great, in fact it is monumentally great but let's face it: it would be just another bog-standard FPS were it not for the fantastic, symbiotic relationship between Big Daddies and Little Sisters, which the game forces you to destroy. It's powerful stuff and I don't think that any FPS will have the ability to do similar for a very long time.

From a Spare-Time gaming point of view this game is not ideal because you could easily spend hours playing it. It is not the kind of game that you would want to pick up and play for thirty minutes or so because anything less than two hours with this game will leave you in a state, rocking in the corner of your room covered in your own crap and salivating from withdrawal. Alternatively if you don't mind the prospect of losing your job, the destruction of your sex life or the complete deterioration of your relationships with other people, then Bioshock is ready and waiting. Just don't say I didn't warn you.

Spare Time Gamer's Totally Objective Verdict: absolutely bitchin'. An essential game to have in your collection.

First post and explanations

Right, here we go...

I was getting tired of trawling endless gaming websites that are pock-marked with INSANELY biased reviews with subjective numerical scores tacked on. So, I thought that instead of opting for the tried and tested South African mannerism of "moan but do nothing about it", I would set up my own "gaming website"/blog so I too can pock-mark it with INSANELY biased reviews, sans numerical score however (mainly because I suck at math and couldn't be bothered to really figure out some scoring system).

So... what to expect: first of all, as the name of the blog hints at, there will be primarily reviews aimed at those people who do as much gaming as they can in their spare time (clever huh?); ie those people who don't have hours on end to get their pixel fix and therefore want to be able to sit down and play something great.
As far as what I will review goes, it will be a collection of PC, XBOX 360, PS3 and PSP games, or at least those that I have managed to recently get my hands on. Expect some fairly "oldish" games too as there are a lot I've always wanted to voice my opinion about.

There will also be the odd bit of commentary about the Gaming Industry as a whole.

That's all for now.