Some of us are lucky, and have a girl who not only knows how to use a controller, but actually enjoys gaming. Some of us are even more fortunate to have a girl who will regularly beat the living shit out of you in whatever game you two decide to play. Well, perhaps you aren’t so fortunate in that latter case. Ha!

However, for the rest of us (and by “us”, I mean “you”, as Molly enjoys the odd game, and will sometimes cheer me on), Clara Barraza at IGN Australia was kind enough to provide us (again, “you”) with some handy tips to help get your girl more involved:

10. Keep the Bouncing to a Minimum

Yeah, we get it – you like boobs. And it’s no big secret game designers like them too. But before you pull out the ol’ Dead or Alive, consider this: just how comfortable would you be sleeping on that couch? Not very? I thought not. Console games have predominately been dubbed as being ‘designed by guys, for guys’ and it doesn’t take a scientist to realise what you fellas’ like to see, but subjecting your girlfriend to an hour of ridiculously proportioned Double D’s taking up half the screen while you sit there giggling is one sure fire way to guarantee she won’t be coming near you or your joystick any time soon.

9. Make Beautiful Music Together

Guitar Hero and its oestrogen-fuelled counterpart, SingStar are is are a sure fire winner if your girlfriend looks completely and hopelessly disinterested in any other games you show her, and then at least you can argue that the Playstation 3 was a social investment, even if 99.9% of the time, your butt’s in front of it. Your girlfriend will be more than happy to challenge to you to a karaoke duel rather than sit down to a Call of Duty deathmatch (unless she’s into that – in which case grab hold of her and never, ever let go).

8. Give Her Something to Grab Onto

Games are definitely more fun when you use more than just your thumbs to play them. Once again, Nintendo has secured its position as the leader of gaming peripherals on the at home console, with their games incorporating the Wii-mote motion sensor technology. Play something a little more interactive with your girlfriend, such as Wii Sports, or a shooter with weapon peripherals like Time Crisis. Plus we all know nothing’s hotter than girls with guns.

7. Co-operation is Key

Now trust me on this one, it’s unadulterated gold. Are you ready for it? Here it comes: the reason girls will get annoyed that you’re playing games isn’t because you’re not doing housework or you appear to them to be ‘wasting your time’. It’s because you’re giving something else your complete and utter attention – and it’s not her. Even worse, you’re having fun! You’re having fun without her and she’s in the same room as you. Big no-no. Really, the only thing it comes down to is that she wants to spend time with you and she wants to have fun too. Easy as pie. So involve her. Sit down to a game with co-op, such as Lego Star Wars, and work through it together. She might not be great at it, but she’ll be happy – and isn’t that what’s most important? Oh, and she won’t be nagging you either, that’s important too.

6. Kick It Old School

I’ll wager your girlfriend has had at least some sort of contact with games when she was younger, particularly if she has a brother. Playing Golden Eye or Mario Kart on the 64, playing Tetris on a friend’s Game Boy, or giving Street Fighter a go at the local corner shop – at some point in their lives, most girls have picked up a controller and played a game. This usually means these games would bring about the nostalgia of being a kid and having that kind of innocent fun again. Invest in their old childhood console and as a bonus, seal a little bit of retro action for yourself.

5. Keep It Commitment-free

Casual jobs equal less responsibility, casual relationships equal less maintenance and casual gaming equals more fun for the ladies; it’s just the truth. Nintendo took a calculated step investing in the needs of the casual gamer, and the embarrassing amount of money they’ve made only proves they’ve tapped a market that has needed a bit of attention for a while now. Games like Wii Resort that can be picked up and played for an hour without any thought or upkeep are perfect for girl’s who find that sitting on the couch controller in hand for hours on end is not their thing.

4. Provide Some Eye-Candy

Here’s another shocker that you may already know: contrary to what us girls love to argue, we’re all a little bit superficial and your girlfriends weren’t instantly attracted to your razor-sharp wit (or lack there of). Proudly pat yourselves on the back, boys, because at some point she thought you were ‘a bit of alright’, and you can apply that to almost anything she’ll invest time and money into. Whether its bags, shoes or Prada jackets, girls will love the way something looks before even considering its functionality or cost. So tempt our eyes with some visual delights. The fun colours and cute critters in Katamari Damacy or LocoRoco will charm her into some playtime. Remember; a spoon full of sugar…

3. Check Reality at the Door

Car racing is the cornerstone of multiplayer gaming, but if your girlfriend’s anything like me, she doesn’t really want to come home from eight hours slaving away in the real word to sit on the couch and play something so life-like that it sucks the fun out of it. No one should take themselves so seriously, so if you’re thinking of breaking out some track-action for your lady friend, try and keep it light and fun. I can appreciate the sleek gameplay of Forza or Gran Turismo as much as the next person, but if fun is in the cards, opt for some Burnout or Outrun 2 where the premise is just crazy enough to make her laugh and forget all about the world outside her door.

2. Don’t Hover, Just Let It Happen

Girls have already been given a hard time about playing games; that we’re either not good at them or not interested – this is truly a load of boloney. However, because of this dark cloud over us, most girls will try to avoid gaming with their boyfriends out of fear that they’ll only perpetuate the stereotype or fail to impress. Give her some alone time with a particular game she wants to try and don’t be a backseat gamer.

1. Give Her a Little Credit

Finally; be careful not to sell her short. Nothing annoys girls more than assuming they’re awful at something just because they’re female. Despite what you might think your girlfriend will or won’t play, great storytelling transcends any form of entertainment – and games are no exception. Give her a great story and it will reel her in for you. Try any of the Silent Hill series, Metal Gear Solid, ICO or Shadow of the Colossus; they all won me over. You might be surprised at what tickles her fancy.

- source -

Molly does have her games that she will regularly destroy me in, namely bowling for Wii Sports. She’s also a force to be reckoned with in Little Big Planet, and it’s quite amusing to watch her play N+.

I think my happiest gaming moment was when she was watching me play GTA IV online a few months ago and was encouraging me to keep on killing this annoying brat in the game I was playing. Thanks babe!  

http://toucharcade.com/2009/07/16/poppi-a-melodic-matching-game/

All too often, I am seeing new games come out for the iPhone that solely use the accelerometer, which is cool and all, but there is only so much you can do with that before it gets repetitive or silly, and besides, playing an accelerometer game on the bus SUCKS. Other games lately have been coming out with a control pad on the screen that obscures the playing area, and I also find it hard to hold the iPhone and also use the controls as well. I’m not a big fan of racing games, or sports games, or one of the BILLIONS of number brain games available, so I was glad to see this little gem.

Basically, it’s a physics game (my favourite genre), and the point is to match up the falling pieces together to clear them out. You get three lives, and should one of the falling pieces hit the bottom of the screen, or you hit one of the various obstacles (such as a bomb or a spiky thing) you lose a life. It’s a very simple game, and personally I found it quite fun.

Here’s a link to the YouTube video in the review if you want to check it out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yd6PSeVITTw

Fast forward to this morning, I decided to do something about it, and called their support line. They gave me some ports to open on the router, which didn’t make sense to me as I tried to connect with DMZ enabled, but lo and behold, the opened ports fixed the issue, and I was able to connect again. So, naturally, I decided to load up GTA IV, and find some people to play against, hoping that I’d come across a whiny foul-mouthed brat to select as my target.

Didn’t take long at all.

In GTA IV, my favourite gaming mode is “free mode”, as you can do whatever the hell you want. No missions, no story, just you, vehicles, weapons, and a bunch of other like-minded individuals running around and fucking things up. Great fun. However, there are times when you have some jackasses that like to screw around with other people, yet if you pick on them they complain. The main issue I have with the Xbox Live service is that there is NO WAY to turn off the voice chat by default. Personally, I’d rather not hear them at all, and it’s too much of a pain in the ass to mute everyone. So, I tend to seek out the loudest and foul-mouthed brat in the game session, and only blow the shit out of him.

Today, my target was a little snot called “DOA by HiKoO”. His voice sounded familiar (and by “familiar” I mean shrill and one possibly belonging to a fat kid), and the language coming from this dude was amazing. Within two minutes of joining, he was calling someone a “n*gger”, which is usually an indication of two things to me:

1. He is located in the United States, as that seems to be the most popular curse word to call someone. Never mind calling someone an “asshole” or “fucktard”… he went straight for the race card.
2. He will whine if I target only him, as his only skill is cursing.

So, I proceeded to do just that. I went to the airport, got a chopper, and as soon as I saw him running around, I landed on him, naturally killing him. My assumptions were right, as he went on a HUGE rant of how I was a n*gger, and that everyone should kick me out of the game. This didn’t stop me, as I kept up the abuse, blowing him up (when you’re in the chopper, you get an unlimited supply of rocket ammo), and even another dude called “xCCWx BATISTA” joined in on the fun. Within five minutes of me picking on “DOA by HiKoO”, he left the game. I played a little bit longer in that game session, but then decided to go follow my new “friend”. 

During the signing in process of a game, the voice chat usually starts up about 10 seconds before the game, and he was already saying “Fuck you, Dysantic, you n*gger! Go away!”. Awwww… the love. Making me want to “play” even more. Molly came into the room at that point wondering what the noise was about, so I filled her in, and she sat down to watch for a bit. During that little match, I ran him over, and then also got a chopper to start blowing him up again, but some of his other pals decided to band together, and instead of battling me, they kicked me from the game. I couldn’t stop laughing.

So, “DOA by HiKoO”, you are my new “friend” on Xbox Live. I can’t wait to battle against you again… even if it is a one-sided battle. Your cursing is an indication of your ignorance, and if nothing else, that is the message I hope to hammer home to you. Besides, I’m bored, and I need a hobby. You should feel honoured!  

http://toucharcade.com/2009/04/16/saucelifter-hovers-into-the-app-store/

Basically, it is a variation of the classic game “Choplifter“, which back in the day was one of my favourite games. The vector graphics in Saucelifter are simplistic, yet very detailed, which is why I love games that use vector graphic engines (“Out Of This World” and “Flashback” are other games that come to mind). The controls take a bit of getting used to, and it certainly isn’t a game to be played while on the bus or any other moving vehicle due to the use of the accelerometer to control your spaceship, but overall it is quickly becoming one of my favourite games on the iPhone.

Here’s a link to the YouTube video of the gameplay if you want to check it out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Se9gSyqBYCs

Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the whole point of GTA IV multiplayer, especially in free mode, to go around and blast the shit out of people? You have the option of loading up your own online game with private slots if you want to explore the city and find different ways to reach the roof tops, but don’t get angry at me if I decide to lend you a helping hand by firing a rocket at your feet and propelling you into orbit.

Well, apparently there were some people who chose to get angry with me, and even went so far as to kick me from the online game. Three separate occasions, no less. I tell ya, there are some g-r-u-m-p-y people on Xbox Live. Thank goodness I wasn’t subjected to the shrill voices of the many prepubescent players that seem to thrive on Xbox Live… if only there was a way to disable the chat feature for kids of certain ages. My ears. Dammit.

Anyway, after being booted three times, I finally ended up in an online battle that seemed to be a lot of fun. I initially started racing around the airport with one of the players (the name escapes me now), and then it ended up being an endless battle with this dude with the handle “MTLSmokinBarrel”. I forget how it started, but I blew him up with a rocket, and no matter what, he would chase me down and try to take me out. It was frikkin’ hilarious. At one point, I lured him to behind the airport control tower, and waited for him to zip past me, and he crashed into the wall just behind, which gave me the split second needed to blast his car (and him) to pieces with a rocket. I even crashed a helicopter into the ocean and spent two minutes swimming to shore, only to stand up on a sandbank, and blast him as he drove towards my position, intent on finally getting revenge. I couldn’t stop laughing.

Eventually, almost everyone left the game except for MTLSmokinBarrel and this other dude who went by “DARK518″, but this guy spent most of his time taking advantage of glitches and hiding in buildings that he shouldn’t have been able to get into, and shooting us from within them. Basically, he would be able to shoot us, and we couldn’t shoot him. Fun for about -5 seconds. I killed him once before logging off when he came out for a short period, which was all I felt I needed to do.

Tonight was a good bout of GTA IV, and I hope to play some of the dudes I’ve met online again soon. It’s rare that I look forward to playing against the same people, but I guess it was bound to happen as soon as I started playing against people who enjoy the game as much as I do, and provide a bit more of an intelligent battle… which is more than I can say for the average player with a voice that sounds like Alvin from the Chipmunks.

It took a bit, but a company called Rare, best known for it’s “Donkey Kong Country” games, not only blew past “Mario 64″ with it’s game entitled “Banjo-Kazooie“, but in my mind they created the best 3D platforming game ever, which has yet to meet it’s match. I played that game for hours upon hours, perhaps a total of many days or even weeks. The graphics (for it’s time) were phenominal, the gameplay was awesome, and the challenges were addictive. Rare released a second game of “Banjo-Tooie“, which was fun, but wasn’t quite as fun as the first one, IMHO.

Fast forward 10 years, and Rare has now released the latest in the series: “Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts“. At first, I didn’t know what to think about such a game… the platforming had taken a back seat, and the focus was now on building vehicles to assist you with accomplishing a variety of tasks in the game. It wasn’t until I got my hands on the game a few days ago (which thus confirms that yes, I did receive a replacement Xbox 360!!) that I realised that yet again, Rare has created a game that I can sit back and play for hours.

Let me be brief: my gaming tastes are very unlike the majority of gamers. I don’t like sports games, or in-depth RPGs, and I hate first-person shooters on consoles. In the end, that doesn’t leave me with many games to enjoy. Thankfully, the games that I do enjoy, while rare (huh huh), are usually very deep, have a lot of freedom to do what you want, and will take forever to finish… that is, if I ever get around to it. For example, after a time of playing each and every GTA game, I lose interest in the story, and just go on rampages within the virtual world.

Anyway, back to “Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts”. It’s not for everyone. Unless you like a LOT of dialogue in a game, then you will hate it. The characters don’t have voices, aside from mumbling, so you have to read everything they say… and they don’t shut up. Also, if you want to have a pick-up-and-play game, then you won’t like this either. For me, as I **LOVED** playing with Lego as a child (and still do; take that as you wish), this game has appealed to me in a way that no other has. I can build my vehicle how I want, with the parts available, and as long as it would work within the confines of some loose physics (the game uses the Havok engine, which frikkin’ rocks), the contraption should do what I planned. That being said, sometimes it’s fun to mess with physics, and create something that shouldn’t work at all, and watch how the game shows you why. 

I’m not very far along in the game, as I just figured out how to use my personally-designed vehicles within the game worlds and outside of the missions, so I’ve been creating flying machines to explore the worlds and collect notes (used as the currency within the game) and crates that contain parts to be used in the vehicle workshop. I’ve spent hours so far just creating vehicles instead of playing the game.

One other cool feature of the game is that you can upload pictures to the “banjo-kazooie.com” site. They can be pictures of anything in the game, not just of your contraptions, and you can pause the game at any time to take a snapshot, name it, and upload it. I decided to take some snapshots of the two vehicles I created that I’ve been playing with:

This one is a “flying taxi”. When you have empty seats in your vehicle, inflatable passengers appear so they’re always occupied. The same occurs when Banjo jumps out of the driver’s / pilot’s seat to walk around.

This is a monstrosity I call “land sea air”… for obvious reasons: it has wheels, wings, and inflatable rafts. It also has been designed to carry items in the center of the vehicle.

So, there we have it. I love this game, and I expect to lose may hours to it. I’m sure Molly will let me know when I’ve been playing too much… I just hope she’s kind when she snaps me back to reality!!

Here I was, minding my own business, dishing out death and destruction to those who richly deserved it… when all of a sudden my speakers emitted a short one second glitch of a sound, and my game froze. I was playing GTA IV online, and I was in the middle of getting into a stolen car to make my getaway, and nothing was moving.

“What the hell…?” I wondered aloud, as I got up off my couch, not 10 minutes after planting my butt upon it for some gaming that should have been hours long. I walked over, turned the Xbox 360 off, turned it back on, checked the disc, all looked well, and so I loaded up GTA IV again, sat down on the couch, and started to join a game online again. My character appeared in the game world next to some unsuspecting sap, and so I dropped him. As I started to run away from the scene of the crime, the game froze once more, but this time with a weird transparent-blue checkerboard overlay.

This continued a few more times before I gave up for the night thinking that my Xbox 360 was possessed, and would try it again the next night. Sure enough, the same thing happened whenever I tried to play any game for more than a few minutes. This went on until last Friday when the Xbox 360 didn’t even boot up to the interface anymore… and then I saw it… something I’d heard about on the internet that plagued Xbox 360s around the planet… finally, mine had succumbed to the same unfortunate fate…

…flashing upon the front of the console was… the red… ring… of DEATH.

Seeing as how I bought my Xbox 360 off a friend, I wondered how I would go about trying to get this fixed. I didn’t have the receipt for the original purchase, and even if I did, it was well outside of the one year warranty most pieces of technology have these days. Looking on the back of the console, it was manufactured on November 26th, 2006. Almost two years. Damn. Gentlemen, please remove your hats.

BUT! All was not lost!

Apparently, this is a VERY common thing to occur to Xbox 360s, and while that may initially seem to be a bad thing, it turns out it was a very GOOD thing that my console started to display the red ring of death. Microsoft has been hit by so many complaints about this issue that a year and a half ago they increased the standard one year warranty for the Xbox 360 to three years, specifically for this error, and will repair the console at no charge! I’m not lying! It’s true!

Microsoft Expands Xbox 360 Warranty Coverage

REDMOND, Wash. — July 5, 2007 — Microsoft Corp. today announced that it will expand its global Xbox 360™ warranty coverage. Any Xbox 360 customer who experiences a general hardware failure indicated by three flashing red lights will now be covered by a three year warranty from date of purchase.  All other existing Xbox 360 warranty policies remain in place.

- source -

Not too shabby at all! One of my co-workers had the same thing happen to him in the last few weeks, and he shipped it back and got a new Xbox 360 (not just refurbished, but NEW) shipped back to him, all on Microsoft’s dime. I must say, while I’m somewhat irritated that there is this problem with the Xbox 360s to begin with, I’m quite impressed that Microsoft will replace the console with a new one and pay for the shipping. Sure, from a customer relations standpoint they should be doing something like this to quell a potential nightmare, but rarely do you see a company this large do the right thing and go that extra mile for the customer.

Still, I have yet to receive my requested shipping box so I can start the process… so we’ll see how that goes!

The problem? After a while, fancy 3D graphics, 20 buttons, and 5000 combos gets a little too much. One starts longing for the good ol’ days where you’d have two or three buttons to mash with a seemingly unending horde of bad guys coming your way to do you harm.

Enter “Castle Crashers“.

Put together by the guys who brought us “Alien Hominid” (known as “The Behemoth“), this game features some slick 2D graphics, amazing animation, twisted humour, and it’s a TON of fun. Basically, you’re a knight, and some bastard stole your King’s giant crystal, and kidnapped four princesses. As well, your kingdom is being ravaged by a variety of bad guys, and it’s up to you to vanquish them. Along the way, you’ll level up your character, giving him more strength, magic, health, and agility. You’ll also be able to use certain weapons, such as arrows, and even bombs. Oh, and did I mention that four players can battle alongside each other? Even over Xbox Live? Yeah. Wikkid.   

I think another aspect that makes this game so appealing is that it’s just simple button mashing, killing enemy after enemy, which makes it easy to pick up and play at any time. The fact that Molly even likes playing it is awesome, as that means I’ll have someone to fight along side with, and even battle with at the end of the level to see who will give the princess you saved a kiss. We’ve only saved one princess so far, but Molly kicked the crap out of me before I could attempt to do the same to her. We’ll see how it goes with the other princesses!!!

However, before I found that helpful little tidbit, I came across this on Yahoo Answers:

For those who don’t know, Yahoo Answers is a place where someone can post a question, and those who frequent the site can collaboratively provide a number of answers to said question. This works… in theory. Obviously, the above didn’t help the dude asking the question (or me, for that matter), but it provided a good laugh.

I had the game on auto-save, and had been playing out the story for two hours this afternoon when I decided to lay waste to Rockstar’s version of Manhattan. Seeing as how my game had been saved automatically, I figured that I would manually save later, so I gave myself everything, and set to work. I was blowing up cars, bringing down helicopters, and generally raining down pure Armageddon for about an hour, and was going to quit, when I remembered that as I was in a cop car, I could partake in vigilante mode. I selected a crook, and then chased after him as he sped off for his life, and finally brought him down.

As soon as he died, the game auto-saved again.

Two hours of actual story progression, gone.

Fuck.

It’s not really surprising that the game would automatically save after a mini-mission like that, but still, after having cheats enabled, you’d think that Rockstar would have programmed GTA IV to put up a warning stating that the game was about to save and give you the option of not overwriting your previous auto-save which DIDN’T have cheats enabled. Seeing it from the other side, I guess I could have turned off auto-save prior to going on a killing spree, but it just didn’t occur to me.

Ah well. I’ll remember that for next time. It just means that I’ll be playing parts of the story over, and perhaps I’ll do better this time round. Still, that’s pretty fucking irritating.