The Indoor War Association!

Every boy and man seems to have some unhealthy obsession with warfare, whether it's wanting to join the forces, or playing video games. Myself, I have no interest in warfare as such, in fact I think it's pointless and brutal. But that's not to say that there wasn't a time when war was actually necessary and the strategy of war was an art form. Of course, modern warfare is fought against invisible enemies, with no clearly defined outcome or objectives, fought in lands far removed from our own. It used to be the case, that you would go and fight becasue the enemy was at the gates, it was clear cut.

I would be lying if I said I wasn't a fan of "Medal Of Honour" and "Call Of Duty" and the "Total War" series. It's easy to villify the Germans in video games, because they were clearly the bad guys, same with Napoleon and his armies. All the great generals are remembered because of their famous victories, and yet they all died rather ignominiously; Hitler, Napoleon, Alexander, Genghis Khan. Apart from Genghis, they weren't very good breeders either, now I come to think of it.

Anyhow, to the point. As, I'm shortly due to become wireless and will effectively have a LAN in the household for the first time, I'm going to have a great time playing all of the aforementioned games against my son. He's way too good for most games as it is, so it will be a pleasure indeed for me to play Wellington to his Napoleon, Monty to his Rommel etc. So tell me again, how do you set up a wireless network?

Let's Negotiate With Reptilian Hominids!

I hear that Halo 3 is released today and everyone's talking about it, much as they were about Bioshock a few weeks back, and yet I am unmoved. To be honest, I don't see what appeal those types of game have. Shooting aliens, zombies, whatever, can only hold someone's attention for a very limited time I would have thought, or am I missing something? I find it quite disturbing, how kids can get so much enjoyment out of virtual killing. Medal Of Honour, now that's a differnet story, the killing is justified. I've yet to meet an alien or zombie that was anything other than amicable and courteous.

I may have mentioned it before, but I've been playing Final Fantasy XII for a while now, on and off. It's a fairly massive game and a certain level of character development is required before more difficult areas can be completed. Also, much time has to be spent in combat, in order to acquire items which can then be traded for weapons, armour, spells or potions etc.

I think I've covered the decline of gaming in general here before, so I won't mention it again, only to say, I wish the developers would put a bit more need for thinking in there. Killing all the aliens won't bring about universal peace, we need to get them round the table and analyse their thirst for human blood. For instance, would some sort of plasma substitute provide enough succour for them, or could we broker some sort of deal where we exchange vagrants for technology? There may be other options, but simply obliterating every reptilian hominid with a raygun, obviously isn't the answer is it? And, they shoot back with more accuracy in real-life! On account of the multiplicity of eyes that they have developed!