Computer games have long been the whipping boy of the media. When there is a shooting, it is often not long before it “emerges” that said person played videos games. Gaming developers appear easy targets for use as a scapegoat and so are often blamed when things go wrong.

Carole Lieberman, prominent American psychologist has recently blamed computer games for an increase in rape in America. Appearing on Fox News, she linked the acting out of “scenes”, presumably sexual, as “in large part” being responsible for the increase. Coming from a well known TV psychologist this may at first appear as a rather shocking accusation, and one would expect a plethora of case studies and social statistics to back it up. There were none.

Lieberman’s comments are in light of the release of a new game, Bulletstorm, a first person shooter that goes for over the top violence. The violence is in fact so over the top, it is actually comical, and the game is more a satire of gore than attempting to be disturbing. Within the game, certain actions have pun titles. For example, cutting an enemy in half is “topless”. The sexual puns are very tongue in cheek, and the game does not appear overtly sexist as Duke Nukem or other titles would.

Many in the gaming press were left baffled by the Fox News report. Lieberman makes a flurry of specious and unfounded claims about gaming. She posits that violent video games intrinsically lead to sexual violence without actually backing it up. One of the main problems with her entire argument was that she was basing everything on children playing the game. The game has an adult rating, so depending on the region it is released, should not be played by people under the age of 17 or 18.

They neglect completely the responsibility of parents to ensure their children do not use such products. Fox News, it must be said, is regarded as a joke in Europe, and most do not take it seriously. The UK press are however, just as culpable in their highly slanted gaming witch hunt.

While the Daily Mail takes the ignoble prize as top game sensationalist, it is not the only one. My favourite Daily Mail headline “Can Online Games Be as Addictive as Heroin” is second to them comparing gamers to 1950s lab rats. Alan Titchmarsh last year made some waves by too joining in on the debate.

Titchmarsh’s show featured three guests, actress Julie Peasgood, former Sun Editor Kelvin McKenzie, and Computer and Video Game editor Tim Ingham. Mr McKenzie admitted he was not a gamer but suggested he was informed, (citing the average gamers age at 33), and gave relatively fair comments. He had little chance to speak however, as Peasgood relentlessly resorted to the pandering demagogue the audience was looking for.

Mr Ingham had very little hope defending his medium in the heavily anti gaming circumstances. Like their American counterparts, Titchmarsh and Peasgood seemed sincerely misinformed. They cited statistics that were greatly taken out of context and not wholly germane to the conversation. They also appeared to have only the vaguest of ideas about what the games they were debating were about. Despite this, they felt perfectly inclined to make sweeping generalisations.

To understand the psyche behind this phenomenon, it is prudent to look at a much older example of media sensationalism. “Mazes and Monsters”, from 1982, stars a 26 year old Tom Hanks. The straight to TV film, focuses on the role playing board game, Dungeons and Dragons. Tom Hanks character, obsessed with the game, has a psychotic break. Subsequently, believing he is in fact a mythical character, he goes around New York killing people and nearly killing himself.

Future two time Academy Awards winner Tom Hanks is comic when we watch this fear mongering tripe piece now. However, at the time it was playing on a very genuine fear of the public. The story was based on a very poorly translated real life event. A boy tried to kill himself and media frenzy put it down to Dungeons and Dragons, which he did play. James Dallas Egbert III had serious depression and a drug addiction which led to his attempt.

Where I would suggest this story and modern tales are the same is in the assumptive nature of the cases and the perceived target audience. The media saw players of the board game as social outcasts who used it to escape reality to an unhealthy extent. In the film with Hanks, the sign of maturity is seen in the players abandoning the game.

Similarly, Titchmarsh asked Tim Ingham, a professional journalist, what he “got” out of violence in video games. The question came across as highly condescending. Firstly, there is a perception that video games are inherently juvenile and once we are adults we give them up. As already stated however, the average age of the gamer is 33. Secondly, there is a huge assumption that violence is somehow the primary function of gaming. Tim Ingham might as well have been speaking to the wall when mentioning his favourite games such as Little Big Planet and Super Mario Galaxy.

Mr Ingham was certainly talking way over everyone’s heads when actually addressing the issue of violence, that it is not simply a facile matter of people relishing violence. In one game, at the time nominated for a BAFTA award, the contentious ‘airport level’ was mentioned.

In this scene from Modern Warfare 2, you are an undercover agent with a bunch of terrorists who massacre a Moscow Airport. “Remember, No Russian” is a short level where you are in the guise of Americans, and want to evoke national rage to launch a war on America. You are given the option of skipping the level completely twice during the game. Also, you yourself have to kill nobody if you so wish.

Mr Ingham suggests the game shows the complexity of modern politics in dealing with “the greater good” scenarios. The level does not glamorise in any way senseless killing. Aside from this admittedly divisive issue Titchmarsh and co. completely disregard comparisons to films or even literature which often employs similar tactics within their narratives.

Gaming, like other mediums is not blameless. There are loads of cases of games piggybacking off of media headlines and their sales sky rocketing as a result. Music has and continues to do this, as do films. Games such as Mass Effect brought the conservative press to a roar when it announced there would be a sex scene in the game. As already mentioned, Modern Warfare 2, the best selling game ever in America, used similar tactics. The airport mission caused hysteria for months about how appropriate it would be.

An article on controversy could not go without mentioning Grand Theft Auto, and it is a fitting example to compound all my previous points. From the first two-dimensional iterations of GTA, it was never one to shy away from the shocking. GTA 3, a revolutionary game, established templates in 2001 that modern sand box games still follow. It also started a flow of articles responsible for the genocide of certain forests.

Built on the ethos of go where you like, do what you like, GTA 3 was about freedom and carnage. It was abhorred by many throughout its subsequent sequels, and always brought out parental rage of how it was detrimental to their children’s mental health. Seen as glamorising drug, gun and gangster culture, GTA was synonymous with what the old guard felt was wrong with gaming.

GTA 4 released in 2008 took everybody by surprise, reaping universal critical acclaim. In this game, you still have the freedom, if you so desire, to start shoot outs with the police and other destructive distractions. However, the fundamental point of the game is a chilling narrative. A Serbian exile, you are hunting the man that betrayed you, but in between the act of surviving this becomes secondary. The moral choices asked for the most part determine not how the game ends, but rather what kind of person the player is.

In 2008 also, gaming accounted for 53% of packaged media sales making it the biggest entertainment industry in the world. It constantly expands as other shrink. Gaming is not enjoyed “for” violence, nor is to be given up as a sign of maturity. Games evolve like no other media even has the ability to if it wanted.

Games can be totally silly if they wish, like Bulletstorm. Games can go from fun and light hearted to telling stories sincerely better than most of Hollywood’s like GTA has done. Games can chronicle war, as in Modern Warfare 2. While movie and literature are long established and have fought for their right to artistic freedom, gaming must too fight.

Respect is earned, and gaming is comparatively in its infancy to its established brethren. While shrill, uninformed debate is disheartening, gaming is too big to be ignored. Games must continue to evolve and impress, and soon, the Titchmarshes of this world will be the minority, as no longer gaming will accept to be the whipping boy of the press.

Alan O’Brien

Games being difficult was previously a given. Arcade games in particular tended to ramp up the difficulty as they progressed in order to keep gamers coming back for more. For Arcade games, however, the target audience was those who had both the time and the money to keep coming back for more. As games made the transition to home based platforms, concessions were made to make them appeal to a broader audience, and difficulty began to decrease rapidly.

With increased revenue, came increased standards and as a result, games started to become more and more sophisticated, and cost far more to produce. To break even or make a profit, these games needed to reach an even broader audience again, and once more, difficulty was one of the key areas that suffered for profit.

Today, we have rushed movie tie-in games that rely entirely on their license and possibly, in my opinion anyway, the greatest gaming epidemic of the moment, countless generic FPSs that seek to exploit the Michael Bay mentality that explosions every 30 seconds can compensate for faceless characters, shallow gameplay and a throwaway plot.

Because of the astronomical cost of making a competitive game these days, it was thought to be a huge risk the make a difficult game that could potentially alienate much of the current gaming market. Demon’s Souls took that risk. And it paid off.

With the advertising budgets of the likes of Activision and EA, it’s rare that a game garners a reputation almost entirely through word of mouth. Demon’s Souls managed this and more, becoming a cult phenomenon. A massive success in Japan but rejected by Japanese publisher Sony for international release, Atlas took up the gauntlet of releasing the game in the US, and it paid dividends.The game still found itself struggling to find a European publisher despite its almost entirely positive reception, once again proving how risk-taking is a rarity in todays gaming industry.

When Demon’s Souls finally did make its way to Europe, I finally got my hands on a copy, having feverishly read all the previews and reviews months before. As a member of a generation that’s never had a quality, truly difficult game, I was, of course, intrigued. After only a couple hours of play, my intrigue was rewarded. Never before have I played a game where I’ve been truly cautious for fear of dying. That fear is the truly great thing about Demon’s Souls, it makes you care about your actions.

You can’t save seconds before launching headlong into battle, then reload when it all goes pear-shaped. When you die, the souls you earn from battle are dropped in your bloodstain, available for collection the next time you play through the level. If you die en-route to your bloodstain, the souls you dropped the 1^st time are gone forever. Harsh? Maybe. Fair? Definitely.

There is no bank for your souls, you either have them, or you spend them, and if you take the risk of saving up for that big stat boost, you run the risk of losing everything. There’s no mollycoddling here. You’re dumped into a grim, uncompromising world and told to ‘Work away’. When you die, there are no condolences, no hints, and no tips. Just a matter of fact ‘You Died’. I can honestly say, I’ve never had a more liberating gaming experience.

‘From Software’, the company behind Demon’s Souls took a risk by making a possibly prohibitive title. 2 Years on from it’s Japanese release, the sales speak for themselves, with Demon’s Souls soon to be a Platinum PS3 title. On the back of Demon’s Souls success, ‘From Software’ is already working on a spiritual sequel called Dark Souls, due for release on both the PS3 and the Xbox 360. It’s said to be “As hard, or even harder” than Demon’s Souls.

With enough sales to reach Platinum status and ‘Game of the Year’ awards from both Gamespot and IGN, the cycle of increasingly easy games may not have been broken, but at the very least, Demon’s Souls is an indication that pandering to the casual demographic isn’t the only way to succeed in today’s gaming market.

The beginning of a new year is often a time for retrospection, looking back and taking stock of everything that happened so that we can look to the future more confidently. With that in mind, I thought it would be interesting to take a moment and imagine some of the wonders, delights and disappointments the games industry might hold for us in 2011.

The first major announcement of the year is likely to come from the ailing creator of the PlayStation. As PSP software sales have been flatlining for years now, Sony will finally unveil its successor. It’ll have the much requested dual analogue sticks, a touch screen and a touch sensitive pad on the back for camera control.  Following where PSP Go led, it’ll be digital-download only.

Unfortunately, the PSP2 will struggle in the shadow of 2011’s handheld behemoth, the Nintendo 3DS. Launching in Japan in March, the 3DS will be a massive news story this year. Its genuinely innovative 3D screen will blow away pretty much everyone who tries it, but health concerns arising from its affect on young years will trouble the launch. A high price will hurt it a little too, but it should still be able to sell out.  I have a feeling that the US and European launches, also scheduled for March, will face a slight delay as Nintendo focuses on supply demand in Japan. PSP2 won’t be released until later in the year and with an underwhelming launch line-up, it’ll face a long struggle to establish itself.

Meanwhile, Microsoft, free from handheld concerns, will also be re-adjusting its focus, squarely on Kinect. It’s obvious from the meagre amount of traditional core titles on their slate for 2011 that MS is all about establishing Kinect as their new platform of choice. A few of their standard first-party titles, such as Gears of War, PGR and Fable, will still be around but these will be used simply to placate the increasingly disgruntled gamers who’ve supported the 360 so far. We’ll almost certainly get to see the fruits of the new Halo studio, 343 Industries, and I can’t wait to see if they can live up to Bungie’s standard. Bungie themselves might want to make their next move known. It’s widely rumoured to be an MMO shooter, but whether they’re ready to show it remains to be seen.

Sony will face a more practical challenge this year, protecting their systems from increasingly powerful hackers. Recently the PS3’s once-thought-impenetrable security was blown open, making cripplingly widespread piracy a very real concern. Despite the risks, it could also make the PS3 more capable than ever with working emulators for a range of systems from the SNES to classic arcade games already available.

Rockstar will start building hype for the inevitable GTA5 this year. Expect a trailer in March or April to reveal the west coast-bound next instalment in the massive franchise. LA Noire will be disappointing. Deus Ex 3 will emerge in the latter part of the year and will almost certainly fail to live up to the expectations of gamers fondly remembering the iconic original. Final Fantasy Versus XIII just might make it out in Japan this year, but we’ll have to wait until 2012 to see what Nomura’s been brewing. I’d bet my diamond-encrusted Games Editor crown that it’ll be appearing on 360, too. A PlayStation Phone will finally hit the market, and no one will care. Valve might talk about Episode 3 but they’ll probably be too busy organising Steam Sales and counting their money.

The rising cost of development will force every publisher to cut back on Triple-A releases and result in an increasing emphasis on DLC and smaller downloadable titles.  More Japanese developers will follow Square-Enix’s lead in looking for western publishers to merge with in order to increase their presence in the European and North American markets. Capcom is a prime candidate for this. Oh and maybe, just maybe, Activision will grace us with another Call of Duty.

Gamers are often accused of perhaps not being the most progressive, all-encompassing folks. A few minutes on Xbox Live is probably sufficient research to write an encyclopaedia of offensive phrases and probably discover some new ones too. But that’s only part of the story;recent years have seen some pretty cool examples of game developers incorporating people from all walks of life into their works. In honour of Rainbow Week, we’ve decided to take a look at the state of LGBT representation in games.

In the 1980’s Nintendo had a strict policy of requiring developers to remove any profanity, alcohol or sexual content from games before they could get released on their systems. This forced modifications to many games at the time, including Dragon Quest II, which had originally included a gay bar. By the late 90s Nintendo has eased off these restrictions and the original version of the game was released for the Game Boy.

Legendary game designer Hideo Kojima has always led the way when it comes to creating complex characters drawn from all walks of life and Metal Gear Solid in particular deserves to be applauded for it’s inclusion of gay and bisexual characters. Vamp, the seemingly immortal, blood-drinking mercenary who has proved to be one of the most enduring villains of the series was originally driven to dissidence in MGS2 following the death of his partner Scott Dolph, and is described as being bisexual. In Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, the only time we see a more human side to the cruel General Volgin, is in his time with his male lover, Raidenovich. In fact, wearing a mask modelled on Raidenovich’s face during your final battles with Volgin is enough to slow his relentless assault.

Microsoft’s Fable 3 was widely praised for including gay marriage and adoption last year. Serial boundary-pushers Rockstar earned some of their most vitriolic hate for the PS2.Wii/Xbox title Bully, which controversially allowed the player’s schoolboy character to kiss one of his male classmates. Rockstar went on to make a gay character the star of their latest GTAIV expansion, The Ballad of Gay Tony.

Lesbians are of, course, always popular with the male-dominated games market as the Fear Effect series effectively exploited with promises of lascivious girl-on-girl action between it’s two female stars, Hana and Rain. While Fear Effect 2 was a good game, Eidos’ questionable marketing tactics left a sour taste squandering a great opportunity for a more mature use of lesbian relations.

One of the key appeals of RPG gaming is the ability for players to immerse themselves in another world. For gamers to full fully engaged it’s essential that they feel able to create characters that they can identify with, and sexuality undeniably plays a huge part in that. The original Mass Effect courted controversy from many mainstream commentators for allowing players to engage in same-sex relationships. Both male and female versions of Commander Shepherd could be paired up a range of human or alien partners of both genders, depending on the preference of the player.  Unfortunately, Mass Effect 2 dropped the option for same-sex relationships citing a desire to keep the rating down at a family-friendly PG-13.  Other BioWare games, like Dragon Age, have still allowed gamers to choose to be gay, and it’ll be interesting to see what romantic options will be possible in the upcoming Dragon Age II.

As we’ve seen there is increasingly more example of gamers embracing characters from every orientation. As the medium continues to mature and evolve it’s certain that we’ll see more developers and designers move away from stereotypical representations of homosexuality to more developed characters for whom orientations is merely a single facet of their personality, and hopefully that will lead to more LGBT community members playing and creating games in the future.

Call of Duty: Black Ops was released recently to rave reviews and millions of sales worldwide within hours of release. I personally love it so far, although I have yet to really sink my teeth into zombies or single player modes. My main interest in Black Ops lies in the online multiplayer feature. With that in mind I’m not going to give you a review but rather some tips which I found useful and will hopefully give you a head start on some of your friends in the vicious theatre of CoD online.

To start, let talk about perks. There are three tiers of perks, each with Pro versions and some are more useful than others. When you start playing Black Ops and find yourself racking up the CoD points you need to buy the ‘Ghost’ perk ASAP. Given the infancy of the game, no one will be instantly familiar with the maps and will rely heavily on using radar and spy planes. So using ‘Ghost’ and a suppressor on your weapons will give you an incredible advantage on the competition. For the second perk tier I would recommend buying ‘Steady Aim’ first because the hip fire accuracy when using steady aim is much better in this game than in previous CoD titles, but to a lesser extent the other tier 2 perks aren’t that useful. If you’re not bothered with hip firing then throw on ‘Warlord’ and try the AK47u with rapid fire and a suppressor, it’s a beast. For the third and final perk tier ‘Ninja’ is the only real stand out perk. It gives you silent footsteps and the pro version once unlocked makes enemy footsteps louder. When you don’t make noise and your enemies do, you can really take advantage when using a good set of headphones.

In terms of weapons etc., you’ll only be able to use the default classes. I recommend the default M16 class until you have theoption to create custom class setups. Buy the famas and the AK47u as soon as you have them unlocked. They are the best guns available early in the game. The options are quite limited in terms of secondary weapons. I tend to stick with pistols as launchers and the ballistic knife or the crossbow are rarely more useful than a pistol. As for which pistol, there’s not a huge difference in terms of stats so I generally go with the python because it looks more badass than the others and resembles a .44 magnum.

With all that said, here are two class setups that you might find useful. I use these two classes myself and love them so I hope they help you too.

Adam El Araby

©xbox-kinect-xbox-360

It’s hard to watch TV, read a magazine or even browse the web at the moment without being subjected to the ridiculous sight someone flailing their arms manically, jogging on the spot or rolling around the ground like a dog. What’s the cause of all this extraneous exertion? None other than the herculean marketing machine behind the launch of Xbox 360 Kinect, Microsoft’s foray into the motion-controlled gaming depths so thoroughly plumbed by the Wii Remote and Playstation Move.  But is it worth the hype? Don’t be silly, of course it isn’t but it might be some day.

The first thing you’ll notice about the device is just how large it is. It’s long and deep and comes in the same glossy black that the new slimmer Xbox 360 uses. Unless you’re rockin’ a widescreen CRT TV, you probably won’t be able to stand this thing on top of it easily.  Luckily for you, MS are kindly offering a Kinect stand for a mere €30. How thoughtful of them.

There’s a heft to it that reveals the amount of technology that’s been packed in here. It combines an infrared laser with two cameras to enable it to track your body’s movements in 3D in almost any lightning condition. It also has a built-in microphone that can be used for video chats or in place of headset on Xbox Live.

Once you have it placed under or over your TV you’re going to have to contend with the greatest challenge of the Kinect experience. Setting up a suitable space for it to work its magic. In order to function correctly, the Kinect requires that there are no obstructions between you and the device and the player should be at least six feet away. A tall order if you want to set this up in a small bedroom or student accommodation. Just to make it work I found it necessary to move around most of my living room to satisfy its imperialistic desire to exert control over my home.

Microsoft offer a whole host of hints and tips about how to make it work optimally including everything from changing your clothes to buying a new house with more even lighting but most of the time it picks up your movements fairly reliably, if you have the room. Once your redecorations are complete and the builders have gone home it’s time to turn on your 360 and set the bad boy up. You’ll be taken through a series of simple tests designed to make sure it can see and hear you clearly. Kinect is mounted on a motorised pivot that nods up and down when the system boots, which when combined with its two large eye-like cameras, makes it look not entirely unlike a miniature Johnny 5.

Prior to Kinect’s launch, one of the main areas of concern was whether or not it would work while sitting. Early reports indicated that the system was incapable of properly recognising a seated body but Microsoft managed to sort it out in time so now even the hopelessly lazy will be able to get in on the fun and control the dashboard with just a wave of their hands. One of Kinect’s other main features is its extensive suite of voice commands, sadly and irritatingly, these would be supported for people in Ireland until sometime next year. But having tried them, I can say that they work well.

Kinect requires more power than standard 360s are able to provide via USB, so it will require an extra free plug, unless you have one of the new 360 S units, which have been designed with Kinect’s requirements in mind.

The most worrying technical issue with Kinect at the moment is the noticeable lag between your actions and when they’re picked up in the game.  It can be quite jarring at first to adapt to the delay and it makes the overall experience feel less immersive. Rather than being in the moment of the action on screen, it often feels more like you have to predict what will happen in advance to account for the Kinect’s lag.

With Kinect Microsoft promised an innovative new way to interact with games that would open up exciting for opportunities for the medium. But the launch titles have largely failed to offer anything new.  With a steep price of €150, it’s hard to recommend Kinect to all but the staunchest early adopters. There is hope however, in the form of exciting titles like Child of Eden. It’s clear that, whatever happens, Kinect is a major part of their future strategy for the Xbox and it’ll be very interesting to see what impact it’ll have on the industry.

Top 5 Kinect Launch Titles

So you’ve decided you want to jump into the world of controller-free gaming, but of the 16 launch titles, which are the best? We’ve gone through them all to give you an idea of which ones pick up first.

5. Sonic Free Riders

Sega’s blue mascot didn’t waste any time getting onto Kinect. Less casual-orientated than most of Kinect’s early fare, Free Riders offers a surprising challenge as you pretend to be racing on a hoverboard. Overly awkward controls and clunky menus mar the experience slightly but there’s plenty of content here for Sonic fans to enjoy, including single-player and online modes.

Hidden behind Sonic’s usual bright graphical style is an in-depth racer that takes quite a bit of skill to master. The campaign is a lengthy series of races and as you progress new boards and bikes can be purchased to upgrade your performance.

4. Your Shape: Fitness Evolved

We’ve seen fitness games perform extremely well on the Wii and it’s a no-brainer that Kinect’s controller-free interface would make it perfectly suited for exercising at home. Ubisoft’s Your Shape: Fitness Evolved is the first such game to make it out. If you’re interested in using your Kinect to get a work out, Fitness Evolved is the way to go.

It shows off the power of Kinect by putting a surprisingly well-rendered image of your body on the screen and will get your heart pumping with a range of exercises including squats and boxing. Finally, when you’re ready to relax, Tai Chi and Yoga are included too.

3. Kinectimals

Although I am undoubtedly an incredibly manly man in all respects, I couldn’t help but be won over by the incredibly cute feline cubs offered by Kinectimals.

The story is pretty basic; you’ve landed on a mysterious island where you’ve been informed treasure is hidden. How do you find this treasure? By playing with the kitties. Wonderful. You can teach your animal friends a wide range of tricks or play with balls, Frisbees and RC cars.

The animal AI is adaptive and endearing at all times. Kinectimals is an impressive display of what Kinect is capable of and surprisingly enjoyable despite its cute exterior.

2. Kinect Sports

We’ve all probably had enough of sports theme minigame collections over the last few years but the Kinect technology allows Kinect Sports to feel different to the rest. Arguably the most impressive display of what Kinect can do, it uses full-body motion tracking to get you involved in the on-screen activities in ways that Wii or Playstation Move cannot.

There are six main games included in the package, Table Tennis, Boxing, Beach Volleyball, Soccer Bowling and a collection of Track and Field sports including javelin, discus, hurdle, sprint and long jump. Multiplayer supports two players at once.

1. Dance Central

If you can only get one game to show off your Kinect, make it Dance Central. From Rock Band developers, Harmonix, Dance Central sees the player dancing along to on-screen prompts while Kinect watches your moves to make sure you stay accurate. It also cleverly avoids lag issues by not showing your dancing on-screen.

It’s tough and tiring but always great fun. The tracklist has something for everyone with artists from Lady Gaga to Beastie Boys included. Just like in Rock Band there is a range of difficulty levels to suit everyone from dance pros to complete beginners.  If you have even the slightest interest in dancing, you will probably love this. It’s excellent for parties too.

Originally published in the 23/11/2010 edition of the UCC Express

With the recent news that Viacom are looking to sell Harmonix, the originators of the Guitar Hero series and current developers of Rock Band, it seems that the end may be coming for the Playing-Along-To-Music-With-Plastic-Instruments genre of games. For years it has filled out hears and our storage space with unwieldy boxes and allowed us to live out our most garish rockstar dreams in safety of our own homes. They liberated the art of being a legend of rock from time consuming things like actually learning to play an instrument or figure out all those strange squiggly things musicians write. But the dream couldn’t last forever and lately we’ve started to see signs that the cracks were forming.

The decline really began when Red Octane, who had made the peripherals for the original Guitar Hero, were bought by Activision and subsequently parted ways with Harmonix, presumably citing musical differences. Activision, in their unmistakable style, set about battery farming the Hero titles, pumping out several each year. They made so many that even they realised that no one wanted them and eventually wound up giving hundreds of thousands of copies of Guitar Hero: Van Halen away for free with Guitar Hero 4. Van Halen, seriously.

Aerosmith and Metallica were also treated to their own Guitar Hero titles while Green Day, AC/DC and most deservingly of all, The Beatles, were given a similar honour by Rock Band. This oversaturation rapidly began to fatigue gamers who quickly became desensitised to the constant stream of new games. Rock Band attempted to mitigate this by treating the game as a platform in and of itself and shifting the focus to regularly delivering new tracks via their online store. But Rock Band, despite its noble goals, never managed to make a profit or catch up to the monstrously popular Guitar Hero. Activision has expanded laterally by creating the surprisingly entertaining DJ Hero, which has sold quite well on the back of a new turntable peripheral.

While Guitar Hero rested on its laurels and made only incremental improvements to its formula, Harmonix regularly tried to make substantial changes to its gameplay by adding big new features. The original Rock Band was the first to introduce vocals and drums to the equation. Later instalments added the Rock Band Network, which allowed anyone to release their own music to play in the game. The recently released Rock Band 3 took things to the next level with the introduction of Keyboards and the Pro mode, which introduces new instruments that are exact recreations of real guitars and could serve as an excellent way to learn to play a real instrument. Sadly, with the sale of Harmonix, the fate of these new toys, due for release next year, is now in some doubt.

The final blow came in September when Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock launched with a mere 86,000 copies sold, compared to 1.4million sold by Guitar Hero 3 in its first week. Rock band 3 didn’t fare any better, failing to crack the charts in its first month in the US and selling less than 8,000 in its first week in the UK.

Is there any hope for this once-booming genre? DLC seems like a promising option. It offers a regular, reliable stream of revenue without the major expense of developing a new disc release. But Harmonix have seen that between the cost of preparing these new tracks and licensing fees there isn’t much left over. Perhaps the future lies in games that allow gamers to interact with music in ways other than simply playing along. Games like Vib Ribbon, Rez, Lumines and Electroplankton all use music in different ways and hopefully we’ll continue to see music play a key part in gaming in the future.

Call of Duty is the Goliath of the video game world. The series has sold millions of copies and catapulted itself from a solid World War II shooter to the sprawling multiplayer playground and Hollywood-style campaign that we know today. Call of Duty: Black Ops takes much of what made Modern Warfare 2 great and slightly expands and modifies it. That’s not to say that there aren’t mistakes to be found within Black Ops, but I think Call of Duty fans are going to be happy with Treyarch’s latest effort.

You begin the game as Alex Mason, a soldier being interrogated for information that he can’t remember. You play through Mason’s memories in search for information. Each memory he recalls plays out as a mission. The levels in campaign mode are quite broad and take you to Russia, Vietnam, Cuba and beyond. The gameplay in the campaign is much the same as Modern Warfare 2 where the lazy amongst us (me included) take great advantage of the auto-aim features to deal with the hundreds of faceless enemies just to get through the various checkpoints that progress the story.

Where Black Ops overtakes Modern Warfare 2’s campaign is in the larger amount of opportunities to use vehicles. You can pilot a helicopter gunship raining down bullets and missiles on a Vietnam village. I’m personally not a huge fan of campaign mode in the Call of Duty games because I believe once you get a taste of killing human enemies in the online multiplayer mode, killing said faceless AI enemies just doesn’t cut the mustard.

It is the multiplayer feature that, in my opinion, gives this game unlimited replay value. At its core, this is the familiar top-notch Call of Duty action that players have been enjoying for years. You earn experience for doing well in battle and, as you level up, you gain access to new and powerful ways to customize your loadouts. New weapons and maps freshen things up, and one of the new Killstreak rewards—a remote-control car packed with explosives, provided me with great kicks; it’s a deadly device that embodies the frantic, slightly goofy side of virtual online combat.

The key new element, however, is currency. In addition to earning experience for your battlefield performance, you earn Call of Duty points, which you can then spend in a variety of ways. Most perks, weapon attachments, Killstreaks, and equipment items are available early on, providing you shell out the points to equip them. Guns are still unlocked as you level up, but again, you have to spend the points to put one in your classes.

The new maps are quite good, based on the fact that I find myself less frequently being killed by some douchebag sitting in a corner with a shotgun, as was the trend in MW2. It seems to me that the maps in Black Ops were tested extensively with things like campers and chokepoints in mind, which to a regular online gamer like myself is extremely refreshing.

Money also allows for the clever new Wager Matches that have everyone anteing up some CoD points and divvying them up among the top three players. Sticks and Stones was probably our favorite in the group of people I played with – it gives you a crossbow (with a sticky explosive bolt) and a tomahawk that bankrupts anyone you hit it with. One in the Chamber was another favorite, giving everyone one bullet in a gun, leaving you to use your knife if you miss that first shot.

Now, if the bog standard military shoot’em up doesn’t appeal to you, I only have one word… ZOMBIES! Yeah I said it. The third game mode in Black Ops is a survival horror mode where you can join up with friends to tackle hoards of Nazi zombies (did I forget to mention they’re also Nazis?). Just incase you felt bad shooting Zombies, the Nazi part should remove any last shred of guilt. Between the campaign, multiplayer and zombie modes, I think Black Ops has something to offer every type of first-person shooter fan. Given the improved multiplayer gameplay and the addition of the new wager matches, Treyarch have done quite well with the task of following Infinity Ward’s Modern Warfare 2.

A recent study at the University of Rochester has shown that people who regularly play first-person shooter video games have sharper decision making skills, quicker reaction times and better hand eye co-ordination than those who play more laid back games like World of Warcraft, The Sims, or those who don’t play games at all.

The benefits lend themselves to the real world too, according to researchers. FPS gamers gain general skills that are useful in everyday life such as multitasking, driving, reading small print, keeping track of friends or family in a crowd, and navigating around town.

My hope is that this study encourages more people to give the FPS genre a try. If you’re reading this and thinking about getting into the action but don’t know where to start, I’ve picked four games, any of which would be a great way to begin…

Half-Life/Half-Life 2

The original Half-Life was dubbed by many as one of the greatest PC games of all time. It paved the way for many more FPS games which followed.

Team Fortress 2

TF2 is one of the more light-hearted shooters. Set in a world of cartoon style graphics, players choose to play as one of nine different classes, each with different strengths and weaknesses.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

Amassing over $1 billion in sales and over 25 million players online, MW2 is top dog at the moment in the FPS world. It is a more traditional military style shooter whose main value lies in the online multiplayer content.

Left 4 Dead 2

Probably the most hectic game in this list, L4D2 pits four survivors tackling hoards of zombies using weapons like chainsaws and axes alongside more traditional weapons. Teamwork is vital in order to survive.