The BBC is running an editorial piece on five of the best games this year. Five different experts have picked five different games and we’re asking for your opinion on the choices.

It’s not been a bad year for games but I have the feeling it’s not been a great year either. Have we had any big releases this year - prior to December’s launch of the Wii and Emergence Day in November I can’t remember anything, nothing has stuck with me at all.

So it comes to be that three of the picks are very recent titles. Final Fantasy XII isn’t even released in Europe yet. It has however won rave reviews during the build up to release in the UK. It was called “
Beautiful, engrossing and impeccably polished. A work of progressive genius” by Edge Magazine who had already awarded it Best Game of the Year.

Rockstar presents Table Tennis was released in May 2006 and entered the market at a budget title price of £19.99. It’s a fun game with great visuals. Value wise it’s fantastic, one of the best games ever.

Wii Sports is a very new title and is possibly in its place only because of the unique control method employed by the Wii console? Is this being unfair? Not sure really. Graphically wise the Wii is on a par with the initial Xbox so no game from the console is going to win any visual awards. It’s the gameplay more than anything I think. For the first time in years it seems that the Wii is allowing the industry to return to the initial formula of what made games fun - gameplay. Something us gamers have been trying to tell the industry for years.
Zelda’s latest, The Twilight Princess, is again possibly only there because of the swordplay. Again though, the gameplay allows the game to gain its place in the final five. The Wii is onto a winner with it’s exciting new way of playing games. For far too long we’ve been stuck with gamepads and mushrooms, d-pads and cables.

Gears of War was possibly the most hyped game of 2006. Thankfully in part it managed to live upto its hype. Graphically it is fantastic. Gameplay wise it’s a tad short. With its cover and shoot ideals it moves itself out of the usual first-person shooter genre into a whole new land of its own.
Hopefully 2007 will be a lot brighter than the small choice offered to us for 2006’s choices. We’ve got Lost Planet coming up in January, and then there’s a small matter of a certain Master Cheif popping up to say hello. Possibly follow that up with Virtua Fighter 5 heading over to the 360 as Sony’s loses yet another exclusive deal. Coming in after that is possibly Grand Theft Auto IV.

Fingers crossed 2007 will be a little better. Fingers crossed that Halo 3 is the perfect LIVE game. Toes crossed also for the hope that a Nintendo Wii appears in my house sometime soon. Also I hope that the Sony Playstation 3 is something of a moderate success.

So anyhow, back to the original story. Of the five games picked by the BBC’s “experts” which of them do you feel should be crowned Game of the Year. No need to tell us why, just vote!

Browsing the Xbox 360 forums these days throws up a suprisingly common thread. Could it be that the 360’s killer app is actually having a big issue with the Xbox 360?

I have a first-gen 360 - bought on launch night at GAME, Oxford Street, London. This trusty faithfull friend has never complained of a GoW disc being unreadable. A good friend of mine is on his second 360 after the first lasted a fortnight. He’s only been a 360 player for about a month! He’s on his second GoW disc. The first was irreparably scratched by something (no, he didn’t turn his 360 whilst playing).

His second disc is now getting lightly scratched with every mark made in a circular fashion. His console has now started complaining of an unreadable disc. The disc hasn’t left the 360 drive. Is there something about GoW and the 360? Well, possibly, at least I think there is.

We all know that GoW is a very graphically polished game. It looks very nice. It’s also got a lot of audio on it - lots of it. Getting all this on a DVD would mean a lot of data and a lot of data means a lot of working by the 360 to pull the data off the disc quick enough to convert it and display it on screen. This means that for nearly the entire game the disc is spinning continuously at high speed. As the lens moves from one part of the disc to another it will create different air flows which will affect the balance of the disc.

It would be fair to say that over the past year and a bit there will have been various different models of the Xbox 360. It could be that the launch model was far less susceptable to air flow fluctuation or maybe the casing around the lens in the drive was farther away from the disc. Maybe, in the latest generation of 360’s the metal casing of the lens is just a little bit closer and the airflow fluctuation is greater. This could cause the DVD to wobble a touch, thus lightly striking the metal casing of the lens.
This is all just my own personal speculation. However, one thing you have to admit is that the 360 has a problem with Gears of War and vice versa. A simple search on google and a quick read of an article on the 1UP.com website reveals there is a lot of smoke here. Whether anything is done about it is a matter for Microsoft.

Damn you to hell! You and your “lets get this product activated before you can use it properly”.

As you all know, I’m a geek. So much so, that I saw fit to buy a copy of Microsoft’s Flight Simulator X. Ah, but not any old version. The Deluxe version! Woo! Major geekdom, here I come! I bought this on it’s day of release and was quite excited to get home and try it out. I even upgraded the graphics card and RAM beforehand (which, by the way, still runs like crap).

After installation, which took like an hour or so, I had to activate the product by connecting to the net and giving them an activation code. Done! I can now start flying! Yay! *makes flying noises*

But here’s my problem. The game came out in the middle of October and I’ve had no problem using the software. Unitl now. The games just decides completely out the blue, that my copy of FSX is validated no more. Yeah, what an absolute load of bollocks.

So now I have to remove the program from my PC, then re-install the bloody thing to see if that works. If it does, bonus. If not…

Well, I’m sure we’ll find out in about an hour or so…

—UPDATE—

It just ended up getting worse and worse. I tried to re-install FSX and it just messed up. Big time. As did everyother program I tried to run. So drastic measures were taken upon. Format the HDD and reinstall XP from scratch. Took all bloody night. And the number of updates? About 80! Seriously! 80 bloody updates for that bag of crap piece of software!

The good news is that FSX now works. For the moment.

Now all I need to do is find the drivers for the on-board sound card and DVD drive…

Thank God for the Mac!

Finally, I managed to finish Gears of War last night on the Hardcore difficulty on my own.  I should be elated at the knowledge I’ve beaten my first game for some months, but I’m not.

It’s great finishing a game don’t get me wrong but the end is just disappointing.  Now I’m not gonna spoil it for anybody who hasn’t seen the ending yet, but if you have hopefulyl you’ll know what I mean.  It was just weak.  Ok so GoW was never going to be about the fantastic intriguing story or three dimesional characters (most the time that Dom was taken down temporarily it became a matter of inconvenience than emotion at a Brother in Arms being shot down) but it just felt like a short sell to give Epic the excuse to play out the trilogy.

Suddenly I’m thinking ‘Halo’ all over again!  Maybe Epic are the new Bungie for the 360 era, and if so I sincerely hope they don’t get pretentious because of it.  I want a decent boss fight followed by a strong ending after slogging through that thing on Hardcore, repeating I don’t know how many stages numerous times to get them right (which could be a comment of my gaming skill, or lack of, than anything else).

Having said that I did enjoy the whole thing enough to go back and find the COG tags, but this time I’m shoving it on Casual to have a bit of fun and make it a bit easier to find the tags.  I’m not daft enough to try it on Insane on my own, not unless I suddenly get a need to destroy some pads and lose the remaining hair on my noggin.  So if anybody is up for Co-op on Insane difficulty, drop me a comment below.

As for Zelda, well I know I said I was going to offer a bit of a write up on it this weekend, and seeing as it’s now Monday I’ve missed that window. Trouble is I’m only about 15 hours in, yeah only, and don’t think I’ve seen enough to really give a good feedback piece on the game.  Safe to say, I’m loving every minute of it, as it’s one the most naturally compelling titles I’ve played for years; it makes you want to keep exploring, to find that next hidden area or clear out the next dungeon.

Just a quick note to my fellow blogger on GBS, Paul, seriously dude, you have to at least try it!  I’ve been trying to convince him to pick it up since he got his Xmas pressie early.  In other words he bribed his wife to give him his Wii early, as he’s an impatient get!  :p

2006 has been a bit of a funny year for the gaming industry. It’s own rise of fame and expansion into the loves of many has continued at great pace but it feels as though the entire industry has somehow shifted.

Last Christmas the rush was on to get Xbox 360’s into shops. This year it’s the turn of the Nintendo Wii and all over again we’re seeing the same shortage problems. What will we have next year?? Isn’t that the million dollar question. The PS3 will hopefully hit our shores in Spring of 2007 but with all three major players having just stepped up a generation what will we have to look forward to next year?

As for the award for Best Hardware 2006 it’s difficult to chose between Microsoft with their Xbox 360 console and the all new Nintendo Wii. Both consoles have hit strongly but the Wii seems to be doing something most analysts maybe didn’t expect. It’s being successful but not for the reasons it should. Simply put, those people in the world who “don’t game” now find themselves drawn to the little nintendo external CD-drive (come on - it looks like a USB CD drive!) Whereas the 360 just continues to go from strength to strength.

On the software side it’s not a difficult choice really. Blockbuster gaming titles have been hard to come by and only one really stands out for me - Gears of War. It really is showing what the 360 can do and I’m excited by that. If Gears of War had been a launch title on the 360 then the console would’ve sold double what it did. It’s an amazing game and one that won’t be leaving my drive for a very long time.

What I’m interested in is apart from the usual categories - Best Company, Best Hardware and Best Software, as well as Best RPG, Best MMORPG, what strange categories would you have in an awards ceremony and who would get the big gold joypad?

After many requests to actually get this written, and the odd call of ‘Are you actually gonna DO any work or just play that sodding console?’ I decided to drop my first impressions of Nintendos new baby down on here for y’all.

At the risk of sounding like a fanboy let me start with a simple phrase:

Wii rocks, end of! Get one as soon as you can!

I could just leave it there and go back to Hyrule now, but hey I’m a dedicated blogger……….nah I didn’t believe it when I thought of that line. With the help of some photos and some rambling from yours truly, I’ll try to enlighten you in the ways of the Wii.

Fact is, if you have one already, you’ll be playing it now instead of reading this. If you haven’t been lucky enough to get one, are on the fence for the moment, or your wife won’t let you have yours yet then hopefully this will help wet your appetite a little. Oh and also I’d like to apologise for the slightly blurry nature of a couple of the photos you’ll see; blame my cat which kept running across everything making me take the pics quickly before the next attack.

Let’s start at the beginning.

As well as the console itself, I picked up a copy of Wii Play (mainly for the extra Remote), a Nunchuk (to go with that extra Remote) and a copy of Zelda: Twilight Princess.

What follows here is a little photo story of what you get when you open up each piece of kit, all bar Zelda, because well…….it’s a game box with a disc, and piccies of the Zelda disc are all over the ‘net. Then I’ll get into the ‘meat and potatoes’ of it all.

So, the console first. Crack open that nice white box and you are greeted with two trays which contain all you cables, stands, power supply and the console itself.

Pull it all out, remove the mountain of plastic bags that would be enough to suffocate a small army of toy soldiers, and you get this:

Starting top left you have the stand (which comes with a clear round plastic add on to steady the base. I did show it here because it wouldn’t show up.); the Wii itself; Scart adaptor; AV cable; Wii Remote (which includes batteries, nice one Ninty!); the Nunchuk; yes that is a power brick; and centre is the sensor bar. You do also get of course Wii Sports. What you don’t get from this pic above is the an idea of how small the console is, which is the first thing to hit you as you pull it out. Luckily I still had my GameCube to hand so did a couple of comparison pics as well:

The Wii itself just feels more compact, sturdy if you like. It just has it’s own cute factor but without being twee. At the same time it feels more like a serious piece of hardware this time with sharp lines and contours. You’d be forgiven for mistaking it for an in-car, Apple designed stereo system at a glance.

At the front you have small buttons for power and reset, as well as a larger eject button on the far right. Behind a neat front flip down/sideways (depending which way you store the machine) is the sync button (used in conjunction with the corresponding button on each new remote to allow them to ‘talk’ to each other) and the SD card slot.

With the machine laid down as seen above, on the left hand side, another drop down cover exposes four GameCube controller ports with a second cover hiding two GC Memory Card slots. Whilst on the rear you have the obvious multi-out and power sockets, along with the sensor bar socket and two USB ports.

Hardware set up is a piece of the proverbial, with the hardest two things being where to store the wires out of the way (seriously, you should see behind my TV. The Fire Brigade would kill me!) and where to put the sensor bar.

All hooked up, and the power goes on for the first time. That Ninty charm is instantly recognisable as you hit the front end where all the Channels are displayed. Everything is very big and bold, almost Early Learning Centre type with massive icons. Sounds daft I know, but remember you have to point at these things to activate them. Having tiny boxes and lots on screen would make it hard to operate so I think Nintendo have got it right!

At this point, there are only four, as the Weather and News Channels aren’t yet active at the time of writing. More channels are added the more VC games you buy or extra services you download.

As you’d expect from a system built around a 3D motion enabled remote, the interface is all point and click from the very first moment. If like me you’ve been playing games longer than you should have been, this will intially throw you out. Give it a few minutes however, along with a few tweaks of the console settings, and it all becomes very simple and second nature. Just how a good control system should be, plus it’s got enough settings to play with to keep the most ardent tech head happy. Yet here’s a piece of advice; make sure you think about where the sensor bar goes. Get it wrong and you’ll be taking a while to get used to where to point the remote to get the pointer on screen. I found out the hard way!

Everything just makes sense. There’s no other way to put it. Sure sometimes you’ll need to refer to one of the two manuals, but it’s all explained as straightforward as possible. It’s so easy you’ll want to go and play around with all the options before you even insert a game disc. Even the WiiConnect24 option is a matter of a few buttons clicked, making sure your router (assuming it’s wireless) accepts this new signal, download an update (which the console does automatically once a connection is established) and you’re away.

Setting up your on Mii avatar is also quite fun. The design options aren’t exhaustive but would allow most people to design a similar looking Wii-fied self to add into games. Unless of course you have a really shaped head and twenty eyes! Once created you can then alow your Mii to travel to other peoples consoles via WiiConnect 24 or send them to friends on your list (the list can hold 100 altogether). You can send text messages to other Mii’s be they on your own consoles or those of friends elsewhere in the Wii community. Aside from that I haven’t had much call to try other options on the Message Board but it’s again a simple enough system to use.
Like most Wii owners, the first thing I did after playing with the options of the console (god it’s fun being a launch day geek sometimes!) was shove in Wii Sports. The game discs this time round are normal size DVD/CD size in surface, but the machine also takes GC discs via it’s push-load slot drive. Bonus too is that the drive is quiet, very quiet. So much so that you sometimes think that it isn’t working. Compared to the 360 for drive noise it’s like a Hummingbird versus a Monster Truck. Okay, so that’s hardly a fair comparison given the different nature of the drives but it was a nice surprise after being used to high background noise from Microsoft’s Next-Gen effort.

Wii Sports is really a mixture of showing off what the system can do with the new control method, as well as providing instantly accessable gameplay for all who pick up a Remote. The exception is boxing, which to me felt a little clumsy. Maybe it’s because it has a steeper learning curve using Nunchuk and Remote whereas the other four need just a Remote. None of these games are easy though, and do take a lot of learning and practice to become genuinely good at, showing a hidden depth to those willing to find it. Therefore it’s an excellent addition to the hardware pack and one to pull out at Christmas and Parties to show off what the Wii is about.

Wii Play however is a different kettle of fish. A collection of nine mini games, it’s more used to train the newbie in the ways of using a Remote and does offer a good few smiles but it’s longevity once the shine has worn off is debatable. So much so that I’m surprised this wasn’t also packaged with the console. But maybe packaging it with an Extra Remote is Nintendo’s way of making that second Remote more enticing, and it works. Why spend £30 on just a Remote when for £5 more you could get it with some extra games.

The Nunchuk is a neat little thing as well, fitting nicely into the hand and weighing very little for it’s size helping keep long session tiredness to a minimum.

So in closing, Nintendo have got it right and have ticked all the boxes for me. Given it’s price and unique selling points, it’s a superb investment for any gamer, whether you liked Nintendo in the past or not. It may not be as Next-Gen as 360 or PS3, but frankly who cares. Nintendo have tried to bring something new to the table and I think they just have done it by not competing with the big two and creating their own market place. Just pick it up and try it as I’d be amazed if you were so disappointed that you stop playing before an hour is up; after that you’re hooked!

Join me next weekend as I take some time going through Zelda: Twilight Princess. Hey I’m not going to finish it by then, jez I’m not that good, or have that much free time!

No, really!

Check out the FCC ID code on the remote in this article…

lol, Har de har, snigger etc…