Sunday Supplement – 19th February

Comic courtesy of Fat Gamers.

Note to game industry – keep up the good work!

It has been a funny week. The game industry has succeeded in pissing almost everyone off. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Some might say it should do more in the pissing off area. Certainly, music and film are slacking here. When James Blunt wins a Brit and Munich might get Steven Spielberg an Oscar, it’s up to games to start shaking things up a bit. I’m not saying it gets it right every time. I’m just saying it’s healthy to push the boundaries every now and again.

Gay World of Warcraft gamers were pissed off…

And rightly so. In January Sara Andrews (Shimmre on Shadow Moon) put a shout out looking for members for her guild, Oz, which is gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender friendly. Then some n00b of a GM threatened to ban her for breaking WoWs terms of service. Instead of buckling, Andrews stuck up for her rights and challenged the warning. She claimed homophobic language was already in use in WOW chat channels and it went unpunished. Andrews hit the forums and gathered support amongst the community, as well as publicity on game websites and some mainstream publications like BBC News.

This week Blizzard caved. If they hadn’t they might have faced an in-game riot. Senior customer service manager Thor Biafore (what a name!) sent an apologetic email to Andrews. Not only that, but Blizzard promised to train their 1000 or so GMs so they are more sensitive to issues like gay rights. And, WoW players now have the prospect of another chat channel to ignore – one just for guild recruitment.

What are we to make of all this? It’s obviously naïve for a publisher to even attempt to prevent real life stuff from creeping into their virtual worlds. After all, behind every avatar is a real person. The question is what do we want from our escapist fantasy worlds? Do we want to escape real life? Should real life stuff be completely banned from virtual worlds? Don’t we get enough of that crap at work, in the common room and in pubs and clubs? Isn’t it part of the bargain Blizzard is obliged to meet?

Millions of people play online games and the numbers are growing. It’s impossible for real life not to infiltrate virtual life. But there should be a limit. When I log off from work and log on to fun, I should be protected from any kind of agenda being forced down my throat. Ideally, there shouldn’t be a need for a gay friendly guild, since all guilds should be gay, Martian or amoeba friendly. But until real life is like that, how can we expect our virtual worlds to be?

The thing is, an MMO is more than just a videogame. MMOs are the new pubs – players get together to talk about all manner of stuff. So publishers have different considerations and responsibilities to contend with. Perhaps, then, we can’t expect the same things from our MMOs as, say, a new Mario game.

For me, the question isn’t whether Andrews should be allowed to recruit to her gay friendly guild. The answer is so obvious – just like Russians actively recruit for Russian only guilds on English speaking servers. The interesting question is, how much real life do we want in our virtual worlds?

I would suggest that a dash of real life on evenings and weekends makes our virtual lives even more special than they really are. Let me give you an example. While farming some flowers in World of Warcraft’s Eastern Plaguelands area with my Night Elf priest, I managed to aggro about five extremely angry mobs. I was heading for a quick trip to the Spirit Guide, but then, out of nowhere, my knight in shining armour appeared on the horizon, striding manfully to my rescue. I say manfully. He was, actually, an orc.

Expecting him to stab me in the back for a quick dose of Honour points, I /waved. Instead; he did something I wasn’t expecting. He beat off my attackers and saved my Night Elf ass. Now, I know the worst thing that would have happened if I had died is that I would have spent five minutes as a wisp returning to my corpse, but this isn’t the point. The point is, he saved me.

This week on Pro-G

It’s been a mixture of the sublime and the downright poor this week, with reviews of two potential game of the year candidates (yes, even though it’s only February) and reviews for a couple of less than spectacular efforts from Sega. We rounded things off with a look at Painkiller Hell Wars on the Xbox, suggesting that Xbox owners still something worth looking forward to in 2006.

Reviews

Psychonauts (Xbox, PS2, PC)

The Rub Rabbits! (DS)

Sega Classics Collection (PS2)

Shadow of the Colossus (PS2)

Preview

Painkiller: Hell Wars (Xbox)

This week’s new releases

Stop what you’re doing now and head in to town to buy Shadow of the Colossus. If you don’t own a PlayStation 2, buy one of those too. It’s quite incredible that a game not without its fair share of problems is so utterly thrilling to play. If you’ve still got a few pennies left over, why not gorge on another PlayStation 2 classic in the shape of the re-released ICO. Those two combined should be more than enough to convince cynical gamers that the industry is still going places.

The big sellers of the week will probably end up being Marc Ecko’s Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure from Atari and Star Wars: Empire at War from LucasArts. Both games have been well received in the US and that should translate to strong sales in the UK too. Big releases next week should include EA and Criterion’s much anticipated Black on PlayStation 2 and Xbox, TOCA Race Driver 3 on PC, Xbox and PlayStation 2, and Crashday on PC.

• Marc Ecko’s Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure (PS2, Xbox, PC)
• BloodRayne 2 (PS2, Xbox, PC)
• ICO (PS2)
• Shadow of the Colossus (PS2)
• Advent Rising (Xbox, PC)
• Star Wars: Empire At War (PC)
• Stubbs the Zombie in Rebel Without a Pulse (PC)
• Command & Conquer: The First Decade (PC)
• Rainbow Six 4: Lockdown (PC)
• Raze’s Hell (Xbox)
• The Regiment (PC)
• Frogger: Helmet Chaos (PSP)
• Super Monkey Ball: Touch & Roll (DS)
• Lunar Genesis (DS)
• Castlevania Double Pack (GBA)

Coming soon

Some big things are happening at Pro-G. The next few weeks are certainly going to be pretty exciting, but something that is happening right now is the sign-up for our forthcoming Halo 2 tournament. On the weekend of the 18-19 March players will be battling each other online to win some great prizes. If you fancy yourself as a good Halo 2 player, head over to the registration page to sign up before it’s too late.

In other news, Pro-G as you know it is changing very soon. I can’t say any more, but keep your eyes peeled for the big reveal, plus a monster-sized competition that will see numerous people receiving some pretty cool prizes.