Red and Dead

I'm noticing something of a crescendo building in the specialist press on the issue of Xbox 360 reliability. Pieces on Eurogamer as well as other industry sites are really starting to pick up on this issue. There was the lamentable interview which was frankly embarrasing for all concerned, this guy could clearly get a job as a Labour government minister. He's clearly in a difficult position in that he can't admit any liability lest the litigious hordes descend upon his Redmond masters, but really...MS need to get on top of this issue. Sony sooner or later are going to stop tripping up on their own shoelaces, and the 360 really needs to have an unassailable lead at that point.

I've heard all sorts of (anecdotal) stories about horrendous failure rates. I'm personally on my 3rd, so I need little convincing. But stories abound of game studios experiencing 50% failure rates on their internal kit, retailers dealing with huge numbers of returns.

I'm a big MS fan. I loved my Xbox, as a developer I'm a massive fan of their developer-orientated approach to gaming, and I love XNA, but one thing is for sure - the failure rate on these things is hugely over the industry average.

The Magic of Zelda

Having lent my Wii to a friend for a while, I've recently just got it back and have begun to really get into Twilight Princess. As has been said by many, it's a fabulously designed game and a testament to the fact that Nintendo really do know how to 'play the ball' rather than the man. Their entire strategy of recent years has been a case of cutting the Gordian Knot - if you don't like the way the game is going, the best strategy is to change the rules of the game.

In a way, I'm a little disappointed that Microsoft haven't entirely dominated the market with the 360 (although it's certainly been successful), because as a lifelong gamer, the 360 ticks every one of my boxes. It's a console for gamers, with quality genre staples in abundant supply. With the success of the Wii, all the industry players have become acutely aware of the potential of the segments of the market that have before now been largely ignored, and as a red-blooded FPS-lovin', RPG-goblin-slayin' traditionalist just very occasionally wishes that the types of games I love (beardy RPGs and immersive Deus Ex/Looking Glass-style thrillers) were more prevalent. It's not unlike the arrogant film critic who laments the unwashed masses love of the latest Holywood blockbuster, but at least I know it's elitist bollocks.

But getting back to Zelda, it's amazing how a game that, on the surface, looks as though it shouldn't be played by anyone older than 12 years old can be so strongly engaging -especially when it lacks many of the things that we seem to think make a game thus. It has no orchestral soundtrack (being resolutely MIDI), there's no voice acting, the artistic style is still firmly Nintendo, and the plot is, well, exactly the same as every other Zelda game. But I still find myself drawn into this daft little world.

Part of, certainly, is how strongly TP resonates with my memories of Link to the Past and Ocarina of Time. At times, it practically seems like a remake of OoT - it was clearly an intention on the developers part. It could be something of a reactionary response to some of the criticism Windwaker faced, which I'm ill-placed to comment on having never played it. But still, TP is a brilliant game, and I really do admire Nintendo's approach to the current generation.

I am not prepared.

I have succumbed, I had wrenched myself free of it, but thanks to the wiles of still-addicted friends I have been summoned back to the world of Azeroth, in all its imperfect glory. After spending about 2 days downloading gigabytes of patches and the expansion, I'm finally in.

I plan things to be different, this time. I will never, ever join a guild, unless I have personally met each and every member in the flesh and verified them to be a non-chump. My last guild almost drove me out of the game, with their sheer mediocrity. There's something about group behaviour where, in the absence of half-decent leadership, people seem to boil down to this lowest-common-denominator, wishy washy semi-communist bullshit, where everybody seems to be permanently thinking about how to avoid getting fucked by the rest of the guild, and so starts the frenzy of pre-emptive fucking. Who can be arsed?

Not me, I've decided guilds are for chumps. Except in the following circumstances:

- small guilds made of real life friends, because you know where they live if a beating needs to be administered.
- Gnome-only guilds. I've yet to meet a bad gnome player. It's as though the sort of player who wants to play a gnome is by his very nature a good human being, and this goodness shines through to their style of play. Healing could be a problem, so one or two dwarves could be admitted, but no damn elves.

I realise, somewhat wistfully, that I'll never get to see most of the super-high end content. It's not that I begrudge people who like to eat, sleep and bathe WoW their fun, rather, I wish (selfishly) that Blizzard spent a little more of their time and considerable resources on small group or solo/couple content. It still remains the case that the most enjoyable times I've had playing WoW have been spent in a pair. Why are there no dungeons designed for a duo?

Still, Outlands looks very nice and my gear is so shit that every piece of tin falling off a ragged orc is a huge upgrade, so it ain't all bad. I plan to amble my way up to 70, do very little group content and then park the character until Blizzard release the next expansion, which I calculate to have a 0.5% chance of being solo/casual focused. I'll take those odds.