Post-Pub Wii

I’ve always loved playing video games. I’m not a hardcore gamer who reads gaming magazines and who must have the new Call Of Duty game as soon as its released. I would rather buy it second hand a few months later. And I don’t have to have the latest games console that comes out, so I don’t have defunct consoles like the Game Cube and the Dreamcast laying about collecting dust.
The first games system I had was the Commodore 64 which at the time I thought was truly amazing. Now I have an Xbox 360 and I do believe that its truly amazing. Maybe in twenty years I will think of the Xbox 360 in the same way that I now think of the Commodore 64.
I’m guessing that the next step with gaming is 3D. This might make games consoles like Nintendo’s Wii slightly more interesting to me. But not that much more as I have no interest in the Wii. I’ve played it post-pub around a mates house a couple of times and the novelty rapidly ran thin.
“Come on its your turn to bowl.”
“Alight, how do I do it?”
“Its easy you just have to swing your hand back and up again.”
“That’s it?”
“Yeah that’s it.”
Its so easy to play and that is why I don’t like it. That and the awful early nineties Lego type character graphics. The Wii advert on the TV at the moment is an old lady playing it as its aimed at people who don’t usually play video games.
Nintendo have this market sussed. I would never have imagined that I would buy a video game for my mum but the last two Christmases I’ve bought her a Nintendo DS game. Its good as I usually struggle to think what to get her (and everybody else) for Christmas.
The Nintendo Wii is good for social gaming, its just that I prefer to sit in on my own with the curtains drawn as I lose track of time trying to get past a certain point of a game.

Fifa 11

Fifa 11 come out at the beginning of October and I had the following week off work. Which meant that all of the plans I had for the week went out the window. Be more productive than I usually am when off work, do some stuff I’ve been putting off, sort some stuff out, go out and see some stuff was the original plan. But the simple equation was week off work + new Xbox game = not getting a lot of shit done. My week went something like this. Wake up, TV, breakfast, look for something to watch on the internet, lunch, Fifa 11, dinner, pub. It was a good week off work.
A month later and I’m still playing it. Obviously not as vigorously but an hour here and there.
I’m playing in the virtual pro mode which means that you create a player. His position on the pitch, height, weight, facial features, hair. And you only control him on the pitch and over matches played you improve his ability. It might sound boring but its addictive.
My player looks as close as I can get him to me. Face, hair and the same height and weight. And the players name is the same as mine but with a Russian kind of flavour added. At times when I get drawn in I really do believe that the player I’m controlling is myself. Living out a football fantasy of curing in a 25 yard winner in the last minute.
I go through periods of playing video games every day. It engrosses me. Even when I’m not actually playing I can be in bed trying to get to sleep but running through my mind I’m planning out a strategy to use to get me past the bit in the game I’m stuck on. Run for cover, tack out the sniper in the window, throw a grenade down the alley way and take out the two of them as they run from the explosion, climb up the ladder to the roof, switch to the sniper riffle and take out all the hostiles approaching, then switch to the rocket launcher and bring down the chopper.
Then I can go weeks and weeks without switching the games console on. But I think I will never not play them completely, even when I’m an old man. In-fact when I’m retired I can spend every day like my week off work.