The hidden hardcoreness of casual games.

Farmville. Mafia Wars. Even if you've never played them, you've surely been annoyed by those incessant updates and notifications – it's like you're the only one among all your friends who isn't playing at least one of these games on facebook. They're taking the world by storm, and converting millions of people who don't normally play computer games into complete addicts.

At first glance, you'd probably be quick to identify this as a 'casual game' revolution, and assume that these games are successful because they're very different from the more traditional 'hardcore' games that none of your Farmville-playing friends would ever play. There are hardcore games and casual games, right? Hardcore gamers don't play casual games, and vice-versa, right?

A closer examination actually shows that this may not be completely true, after all. Take a long, hard look at Farmville and Mafia Wars – they both take core gameplay concepts from established games and genres in the hardcore space, and adapt them to appeal to casual gamers. Welcome to the new 'gaming', folks, where the lines between hardcore and casual are getting blurrier, and everyone has more fun.

Both Farmville and Civilization are games where you use up resources to improve tiles, which in turn generate better resources for further improvements, in an endlessly fun loop.

Take Farmville, for instance. You start off with a small patch of land. You keep improving it. As you improve it, you get more resources, which can then be used to build better improvements, which lead to more resources, and so on. Sounds familiar? It is – because Farmville could well be gaming heavyweight Civilization in a friendly and casual disguise. Farmville's gameplay features a neat 'subset' of the gameplay found in any tile-improvement based strategy title, the most famous of which is Civilization. Both games give you visual feedback of your progress – you see your small, empty patch of land grow into a nice, lush, thriving farm (or a sprawling global civilization). Yes, Civilization is far deeper and more complex than Farmville, but yet, at their core, they are both very similar games, demanding similar skills and being fun for similar reasons.

Mafia Wars borrows its core gaming system from another hugely successful, and possibly most hardcore genre of them all, the role playing game. Think about it – Mafia Wars essentially consists of levelling up your stats and becoming more powerful, gaining cool new equipment as you progress, getting more loot to buy more powerful items, and fighting enemies. Exactly like a traditional hack and slash RPG, such as Diablo, Wizardry, or any Dungeons and Dragons based game. Even the combat is almost exactly similar – victory or defeat is decided in terms of mathematical calculations based on the various attributes of the two combatants. Sure, Mafia Wars doesn't play nice animations when you fight an opponent, but that's just fluff. Any true RPG fan knows that it's the number crunching that counts. Again, it's clear that it's a simplified and more accessible version, but it's undoubtedly a role-playing system that appeals to its fans for the exact same reasons that Diablo does.

The designers of these games have simply taken great, proven gameplay models and given them a shiny new coat of fun, friendly paint – making the games easy and accessible in terms of subject matter. But it's undeniable that, at their core, these new wave casual games have truly hardcore gaming DNA.

It's actually easier to understand this phenomenon if we take a short trip down memory lane, and look at the evolution of gaming into 'hardcore' and 'casual' streams. When computer games first started seeing commercial success, the concept of a 'hardcore' game didn't exist. The early games from Sierra, Infocom, Origin and Microprose were just that – games. The people who bought and played these titles with so much enthusiasm wouldn't fit today's definition of hardcore gamers – most of them were playing and falling in love with games for the first time. Games like Civilization and Ultima were among the most successful of the time, and people didn't complain that they were too 'hardcore'. First time gamers simply adored the gameplay, just like they now adore Farmville and Mafia Wars. See a pattern emerging?

As the gaming industry grew, game developers started making games harder and more complicated, packing in more features and complex control schemes and harder difficulty levels. This suited long-time fans looking for more from sequels to their favourite franchises, but before long, the trend distanced first-time gamers who were put off by the overwhelming complexity, confusing controls and high difficulty. The 'hardcore' game was thus born.

And when people stopped buying games because they were too hardcore, the industry, instead of looking to the past for lessons, decided to create a completely new category they called 'casual' games, which mostly consisted of pattern matching, puzzles, and simple reflex based gameplay.

The two streams thus caused a completely needless divergence, and created an artificial divide among gamers – the hardcore would scoff at the casual, and the casual would ignore the hardcore. Of course, a few classics like Tetris and Peggle managed to appeal equally to both segments, but by and large, both segments of gamers missed out on the joys offered by the opposite side.

However, luckily for us, the division couldn't be kept up for too long. Casual gamers started discovering old classics like Pac-Man and Defender which are among the most hardcore games ever made. The hardcore set was charmed by the genius of developers like PopCap, and began demanding minigames and such diversions in their gaming diet. Nintendo pitched in happily, with the DS and the Wii cheerfully breaking down all manner of barriers. Hardcore driving games such as Forza Motorsport added features that made it fun even for the most casual of players. And social networks have given games like Farmville the chance to recreate gaming's happy history all over again.

Which just goes to show that great gameplay is great gameplay – whatever the audience. The only barriers to a fundamentally good game appealing to a player (whether hardcore or casual) are difficulty and accessibility. A game like Farmville worked with the casual crowd because you were improving a farm, not a space colony like in Alpha Centauri. Tell the hardcore set that, in Bejwelled, you're actually trying to unlock a secret gem puzzle code that contains an ancient secret, throw in the words 'rune', 'dragons' and 'quest', and they'll be playing for hours together. Once you have the gameplay, the packaging decides who your audience is.

This happy convergence of hardcore and casual games will hopefully lead to a significant migration of players in both directions, encouraging more people to try and buy games in greater varieties and numbers, creating a truly mass market for videogames. And then, the fun can begin in right earnest.

Beating The Mythology Hangover : My talk at the NASSCOM Game Developer Summit

As promised - here are the slides I presented during my talk entitled 'Beating The Mythology Hangover' at the NASSCOM Indian Game developer Summit on November 7th at Hyderabad.

Beating the Mythology Hangover - Anand Ramachandran

For those of you interested in more details, Gaming Xpress has the full details here. The reporter has taken a few liberties with interpreting exactly what I said, but it's mostly accurate and fairly comprehensive, if not always grammatically immaculate  :)

I was also on the Jury for the gaming super pitch. Gaming Xpress covers it pretty well, so I won't go into the details of the event.

Do feel free to get in touch if you'd like any more details on the presentation, or couldn't catch up with me at NASSCOM.

Bossfight at NASSCOM Game Developer Summit !

I've been invited to speak at NASSCOM's Game Developer Summit, which is a part of NASSCOM Animation and Gaming Summit 2009. I've attended the event for the past three years, but this is the first time I'll be speaking. (the thought of me speaking at the same event as Ernest Adams is truly amusing, but hey, I'll take it ;)

My talk will be on the creative aspects of game development - and will look at possible ways for Indian game developers to create cool, original game content that has the potential to find global success.

Should be fun. I'll keep posting stuff on this blog as I collect info and feedback from you guys for brain-fuel.

And do let me know if any of you are going to be there in Hyderabad for the summit.

A reckless disregard for gravity.

Among the many delightful independent games available on Steam, Valve's online game distribution service, comes one that is undoubtedly the most imaginatively named titles in recent memory. It's called AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! - A Reckless Disregard for Gravity, and , at less than eight hundred rupees, it's one of the best value for money games you can buy this year.

Developed and published by Dejobaan Games (an impossibly serious voice announces “bringing you quality videogames for over seventy-five years” during the game's intro video), Aaaaa! is everything videogames should be – amusing, original, innovative and heaps of fun. To get an idea of the sense of irreverent humour that Dejobaan has brought to this title, just visit their web site and see for yourself.

Basically, this is a game about jumping off extremely tall buildings, hurtling towards your tiny landing pad target, opening your chute in time, and land without any broken bones. It's played in first-person, so you'll basically be looking down as you free-fall through the skyscrapers that make up the game's levels, trying to hit targets, collect points, annoy spectators by showing them the finger (really) and open your parachute as late as possible for maximum points. Falling close to building surfaces, and even brushing them, get you additional score bonuses. But get it wrong, and you'll painfully bounce from wall to ledge to overhang, and break a lot of bones on your way down.

It's a game played almost completely at breakneck speed. You begin each level standing on the rooftop of a building, walking around and looking down for the best possible route to the landing. But at some point, you have to jump off. And then, the game becomes magical – you will hurtle towards the ground at blinding speed, accelerating all the time. The walls of buildings, beams, ledges, neon signs, roofs and spectators whiz by in a blur – you'll have to make split second decisions and choose your path – or wind up as street pizza. It's a bona-fide adrenaline rush.

Adding to the game's already high WTF quotient are special items – an espresso shot that will slow down your surroundings, a glove that will help you flip off spectators, a spray can that helps you paint grafiiti on the walls as you zoom past them. It's all quite completely insane, and a blast to play.

The visuals are a neon-futuristic-techno-cyberpunk genre of classics like WipeOut XL, Rez, Geometry Wars and the old arcade classics. It's all high contrast, brightly glowing, pulsating, strobing madness, and it moves by in a whirling, twirling dance of dazzling brilliance.

A game such as this lives or dies by its level design. There are too many examples of a great concept being completely deflated by poor level design, but this isn't one such instance. You'll replay each level multiple times trying to rack up the highest possible score (or, in the game's terminology, get mazimum 'teeth'. Don't ask.) and you'll never be bored.

Most importantly, Aaaaa! is unapologetic about being what it is – a game. There's no attempt at story, or narrative, or anything more than the most wafer-thin of contexts to the gameplay. It's our art form at its purest – a harkback to the glory days of Tetris, Pac-Man and Breakout where gameplay alone decided the success of a game in the eyes of critics and fans.

Aaaaa! is an unqualified triumph of unfettered, imaginative game development. If you care about games at all, you should support developers like Dejobaan by buying it. More power.

A console-free gaming world? Just maybe.

by Anand Ramachandran. This article first appeared on my weekly Game Invader column for the New Indian Express

Predicting future trends in gaming is every videogame boffin's favourite pastime. In the future, we shall have games so realistic, we won't be able to tell them from real life. We'll have AI so advanced, it will behave exactly like humans, making mistakes, acting unpredictable, and sowing emotion. We'll have chips and nanobots embedded in our bodies. Yeah, whatever.

I'm more interested in a rather more believeable, and much more exciting trend. And it's not all that far away, either.

When a little known service called OnLive demonstrated their 'game streaming' service, observers were greatly excited with the possibilities. Basically, OnLive used a combination of a custom set-top box like device and blazing broadband speeds to deliver a service where you could play any game you want, on any platform – so long as it was there in their library.

The technology is charmingly simple – the only signals that need to travel between the server and your receiver are your controller input, and the real-time AV signal from the game. All the processing is done at the server end – and the video and audio output is streamed to your TV set. It's almost like your games are just another TV channel, which you can control.

By centralizing the processing needed for today's heavy-duty games, and depending on broadband to receive controller input and deliver the audio-visual feedback, services such as OnLive can be genuine game-changers, completely redefining the gaming industry landscape.

For one thing, hardware platforms will become irrelevant from a consumer standpoint. It could even eventually see gaming move to one convergent hardware platform – since gamers won't have to choose between platforms anymore, and it just might suit game developers and publishers to break free of the clutches of console manufacturers. The PC has always been the most open and democratic platform, and we may very well see its return, albeit in a more 'server' like avatar.

For another, it will completely eliminate the need for developers to create content for multiple hardware platforms. Whatever the platform, it won't make a difference to consumers anymore – they will be able to play games regardless of platform – since the onus of maintaining the platform will be shifted to the service provider. The console wars will no longer be a roadblock for good quality content to reach the widest possible audience – and situations like single console owners missing out on quality games like Halo, Super Mario Galaxy or Little Big Planet will be a thing of the past. Ultimately, consoles are merely a delivery mechanism – people care about games, not about hardware. If there's another viable delivery mechanism, consoles will die. And good riddance.

Think about it – a future where you will be able to play any game you choose on any internet-enabled device, whenever you want. No more pre-ordering games at exorbitant prices or standing in long queues to get your hands on a copy. No more constantly upgrading your hardware and software just to play new titles. No more missing out on annoying 'platform exclusives' just because you chose the wrong console to buy.

Admittedly, it's still some way away – the broadband speeds required for the service to be viable are way too expensive for end consumers at the moment. But cheaper broadband is something we're bound to see sooner than later.

And then, we'll be able to play Killzone 2 on our mobile phones if we so wish. Brilliant.

Bioware : more awesome than Jack Black.

>At Electronic Arts' India Showcase 2009, they previewed a number of exciting titles from their upcoming line-up : Brutal Legend, FIFA 10 , Dante's Inferno and Need for Speed:Shift.

But I mostly had eyes for only one. While the crowds, quite predictably, milled around FIFA and NFS, I joined a few other wise men to feast my eyes, ears and brains on the only game among the lot that could go on to become an all-time classic. Yep. Dragon Age : Origins was there. And, going by my first two hours with it, Bioware could just have created their finest RPG since Baldur's Gate 2.

As soon as I got the chance, I grabbed my chair, put on the headphones, and shut out everything else – the other games, the lunch buffet, the air-conditioning, the scantily-clad girls (okay okay, I'm lying about the last bit). I had been waiting more than a year for this, a chance to test drive what promises to be a role-playing experience to please the most hardcore Dungeons and Dragons fans.

I'm pleased to report that it's an absolute classic waiting to happen.

From the first moment, you can see that this is the game Bioware has been waiting years to make. This is Baldur's Gate on steroids. This is the game Neverwinter Nights could have been. This is the game that will wipe away the softcore hangover from Jade Empire and Mass Effect. It looks simply beautiful – the environments are flawless and the characters are top-notch.

The writing – storyline, dialogues, descriptions – is vintage Bioware. And the storytelling feature that gives the game the tag 'Origins' is something that could redefine the much-vaunted 'replayability' that RPG developers bandy about so recklessly. Essentially, depending on the race and class you choose for your character, you will begin the game in one of six completely different locations. I played two origin stories – the human wizard and the dwarv commoner, and it was like playing two entirely different games based on the same engine. And, through a number of subtle visual, audio and environmental clues, the coherence of the universe is beautifully conveyed. WHen I was playing the second time as the dwarf, I noticed many references that overlapped with the happenings from my earlier play session – looking at the same world through a different perspective. It's absolutely brilliant, and every serious gamer will want to play every origin story at least once.

Bioware has abandoned the Dungeons and Dragons ruleset this time, and gone with a completely original role-playing system. Though it undoubtedly remains rooted in D and D basics, this is a slightly simplified, more intuitive and streamlined system that will please number-crunchers and newbies alike.

The combat, likewise, is a delightful mix of features from earlier Bioware classics. The tactical, top-down view from BG2 and NWN meet the pausable, queueable commands from KOTOR, and then some. Spells and special skills now have a recharge period, and can be cast again when fully charged. This adds a great layer to combat tactics, as you carefully juggle your command queue to outwit your foes.

Just listen to me rambling.

Don't get me wrong, the other games were great, too. In any other circumstances, I'd be raving about how much fun it is being Jack Black, armed with a demonic guitar, getting medieval on a range of hellspawn in Brutal Legend..

But damn. Dragon Age : Origins was so good, it completely distracted me from the other stuff. Sorry EA. I tried.

The King of Fighters? Don't think so.

It's been an incredible year for 2D fighting games. Street Fighter IV announced itself as perhaps the finest the genre has ever seen – featuring gameplay that walked the fine balance between pick-up-and-play and truly hardcore, a superb online experience and great visuals. Marvel vs Capcom 2 was a great revival of an old favourite franchise, with one of the largest and most interesting rosters of all time. BlazBlue was a breath of fresh air to the genre, and created what could turn out to be a blockbuster franchise in the years to come.

KOF XII wouldn't last a single round with Street Fighter IV or BlazBlue

Amidst all this excitement, it's hard to understand why anyone would bother with a thoroughly mediocre title like the King of Fighters XII. The latest in the venerable franchise is a classic example of what not to do with a sequel – a laundry list of game design don'ts.

In case you get the wrong idea – let's make it clear that the basic fighting system in KOF XII is as solid and sophisticated as ever. All the classic 3-on-3 team fighting mechanics that made it a much loved title on the Neo-Geo platform return in the latest version, with some small tweaks and additions. There are improved knockdown attacks and juggles that open up new offensive possibilities. There's a new critical counter system that, if timed perfectly, stuns your opponent and renders them vulnerable to offensive chains. It's a system that has stood the test of time, offering equal opportunities to offensive and defensive players – but it's really a no-brainer for the development team, who were working with gameplay that has been honed over fifteen years.

They've got almost everything else wrong.

The visuals are fairly decent, but given the achievements of Street Fighter IV and BlazBlue, they don't really hold up. The backgrounds are decent but not spectacular. The sprites are animated fairly well, but still have a jaggy, retro look. While this is fine for a truly retro title like MVC 2, they don't quite cut it in a full price game. But it's fine, really. The visuals would be tolerable if the rest of the game wasn't so broken.

You see, the essential problem with KOF XII is that there's nothing to do. Offline, there's a basic single player mode, a versus more, a training mode, and some unlockable art. That's it. No challenges, no story mode, no survival, nothing. In this day and age, for a full-price game, that's simply unacceptable. The single player arcade mode is essentially a time trial – there is no boss character to play, and no reason to play repeatedly. This game is only fun when you're playing it with a buddy on the same console.

The online experience could have perhaps justified the price, but it's simply awful. The lag is terrible – a deal breaker for a fighting game where timing is everything. You can't find players with decent connections. You can't quit out of spectator mode until the bout is over.

Better learn to love this menu - because you can't quit out of it.

Even more unforgivable – the game's offline and online menus appear to have been designed by either incompetents or sadists. For instance, you can't quit from the character selection screen to the main menu – you have to first start a match, and then quit to the main menu. This deserves a resounding WTF? It's ridiculous that a game this broken made it to retail.

KOF XII's lack of features and bad design combine to catapult it into 'disaster' territory. Avoid this, and spend your money on Street Fighter IV or BlazBlue.

Online distribution enables great, affordable games.

It's interesting to see that several of the best releases (in what has been a rather weak year for gaming so far) are actually 2-D games, available for less than full-price on digital distribution channels.

Thanks to the CD / DVD based retail distribution that has been the norm for gaming over the past decade and more, gaming has been surely and steadily moving towards the blockbuster culture seen in films and books – the focus has been on high-budget, high-technology and high-profile products that will prove to be worldwide hits and generate millions of dollars in revenue in order to justify their production and marketing costs. This meant that there was hardly any place for good quality but low-budget games that didn't fit in to the scheme of things simply because they weren't suitable for mass retail distribution. Think small, independent films that don't make it to big screens because of distribution bottlenecks that have no room for low-cost, low-risk and low-profit products.

Thankfully, thanks to digital distribution channels like Steam, XBOX Live and PlayStation Store, that seems to be changing, if the recent success of titles like Trine, Shadow Complex and Plants vs. Zombies is any indication.

Shadow Complex is a 2D platform shooter in the best traditions of the genre. The developers have admitted to being greatly inspired by Metroid, and I couldn't help seeing traces of the classic 2D shooter Abuse when playing it. Importantly, Shadow Complex uses the Unreal 3 engine – resulting in a 2D game that has state-of-the-art 3D graphics. It features proven, timeless gameplay, a few interesting new features, and current-gen presentation – a mix that has proved to be a hit with gamers worldwide. Sure, it's short. Sure, it's 2D. But that hasn't mattered to hundreds of thousands of people who have paid for and downloaded the game on XBOX live, primarily because it doesn't cost as much as a full-retail boxed release. So the gamers get a great game for a good price, the publisher makes a decent profit since they don't have to incur huge marketing, packaging and distribution costs, and everyone's happy.

The excellent Trine is another example of a 3D engine being used to deliver amazing gameplay on a classical 2D platform plane. While the gameplay remains firmly in the Super Mario / Prince of Persia / Metroid genre, the lighting, textures, animation and environments have a completely modern 3D feel to them. It's a delightful, refreshing and altogether amazing game.

The same goes for games such as Plants vs. Zombies (the latest from those peddlers of addiction, Popcap), and older classics such as Braid, World of Goo and Portal. These games don't cost too much to develop, especially when compared to blockbusters like Killzone or Halo or Need for Speed. And they'd be profitable even without selling a gazillion copies priced at Rs. 2499/- or thereabouts. Now, thanks to internet based distribution, they can sell enough copies to keep the developers in business, without needing to be juggernauts.

This is important because it gives us a much wider range of choices – lots of great games that would otherwise never make it to store shelves are suddenly available for us to play and enjoy. This makes for a much healthier, vibrant gaming ecosystem.

I'm all for this trend – more power to smaller, independent developers who build quality games at reasonable budgets. Do support them by buying these games from XBOX Live, Steam or PSN. It means we'll have lots more great games to choose from.

The Alien has landed.

The world's most powerful gaming laptop comes to India.

by Anand Ramachandran. This article first appeared in Gadgets and Gizmos magazine.

Alienware. The mere mention of the name is enough to draw gasps of admiration, looks of envy, whoops of delight and other extreme reactions from gamers worldwide. Since 1996, the Alienware brand has been synonymous with top-of-the-line PC gaming all over the world. If you weren't playing on Alienware, you weren't a part of gaming's elite, the select few who could experience PC gaming in all its high-resolution, light blooming, anti-aliased glory.

In 2006, PC manufacturing major Dell bought the Florida based company, and made Alienware their premier gaming line, replacing their own XPS range. Three years later, the M17x, the 'most powerful gaming laptop in the universe' was launched as the first Dell-Alienware branded product. It was the ultimate in indulgence – a laptop that destroyed most desktops in terms of sheer gaming firepower. A rich kids' toy. A needlessly expensive and excessive white elephant. The hummer among laptops. Which is why everyone, openly or secretly, wanted one. It was the sexiest thing ever.

And now, it's in India. And we got a chance to take it for a spin, lucky us. Here's what we found.

Lust at first sight

The Alienware M17x absolutely dwarfs my beloved Dell XPS M1330. It's a behemoth in every possible way.

One look at the M17x, and even the casual observer will instantly know that this is no ordinary laptop. In fact, calling it a laptop is a little misleading. Unless you're Dolph Lundgren (or at least Sunjay Dutt), there's no way you can keep this 5.5 kg monster on your lap for anything more than a few minutes. This is firmly in 'desktop replacement' category. It's also fairly massive – measuring 16 inches by 12.5 inches, with a thickness of two whole inches. It's big and intimidating and will get you envious stares. Guaranteed sex appeal max (in a male way, though).

Don't like the eighties Kamal hassan movie disco colours? A few tweaks in the control panel , and . . .

. . . everything is now a nice, alien green.

The anodized aluminium exterior, in sleek, shiny black (silver is also an option) contrasts almost eerily with the glowing backlit keyboard, front and sides. And of course, the famous alien-head logo on the top cover. This thing comes with a software control panel that lets you pick the glow colours for each individual part of the laptop. It's insanely cool. But it's not that important. What's important is . . .

What's under the hood

Make no mistake – this laptop packs some serious hardware. Our review piece was running on Intel Core2 Quad Q900 with a 6MB Cache and a 1066MHz FSB, but you could also go with the Core2 Extreme Quad for even greater power. We had 4GB of DDR3 (optional 8GB available) and a 320 GB HDD at 7200 rpm. As you may have guessed by now, it's nicely set up for some deliciously extreme gaming. Now, if only there was a half-decent graphics card.

Too bad the graphics capability on this is disappointing. Heh – gotcha! Jokes aside, the M17x packs nothing short of the most awesome graphics ever seen on a laptop, period. Our review piece was running dual nVidia GeForce GTX 260 1 GB GDDR3 cards on SLI, but the true hardcore can upgrade to the GTX 280. You can wipe your drool off the page now, and continue reading.

The M17x actually has an integrated 9400M graphics chip that you can switch to when doing wimpy things like surfing the net or looking at pictures of your loved ones, to save power. Folks, the integrated graphics card on this machine is better than that you find on most laptops today. It's THAT awesome.

All this graphics muscle comes to life on the brilliant 17-inch Wide UXGA 1920 x 1200 display. It's pretty much a visual treat. Our advice? Don't waste this on kid stuff you can do on wimpier laptops, such as watching movies or working on Photoshop. This is a rig for gamers. Nuff said. And, speaking of which . . .

And the games?

Okay, here's the part of the review that most of you probably skipped to. It runs Crysis at almost maxed-out detail and anti-aliasing, at 1680 by 1050, at 60 fps. So you can stop reading now.

Master Chief admires the settings at which the M17x can run Crysis, and turns green with envy. What's that? He was already green? Oh.

Or you can choose to continue and learn that we also tested Dawn of War 2, Supreme Commander and STALKER. All these games ran on full detail at 1920 by 1200, without breaking a sweat. The RTS titles, when zoomed in, look like battle scenes from animation films. It's truly jaw-dropping stuff. In fact, after a few hours with the M17x, my PS3 games started looking like Nintendo64 titles.

After trying unsuccessfully to stomp on the M17x like a Koopa Troopa . . .

. . . Mario decides to take in the awesome splendour of Dawn of War 2 on full detail.

With lower-end and mid-range machines, it would make sense to go into great detail over gaming performance – discussing options, frame rates and resolutions, but with the M17x there's really no point. It will run all your games maxed out, at least for another two or three years. Simple. Now run along and play. We're done with this part.

Wait, there's more.

Okay, I got so excited about the core stuff that I almost forgot that the laptop has a slot-loading Blu-Ray combo drive, HDMI and video out, four hi-speed USB ports, an eSATA port, separate subwoofer and central speaker audio jacks, and a rear surround audio out port. The two built-in speakers on the front side deliver more than adequate sound for a laptop, but you're going to want to hook up a surround system or hi-end headphones for your gaming fix. The integrated Gigabit Ethernet RJ-45 (1000 Mbps) and high speed MIMO capable WLAN make it sweet for multiplayer as well.

Is it all good then ?

All that power means that your battery life is much lower than what you'd expect from a laptop. We got about two and a half hours from the 9-cell Lithium Ion battery in power-saver mode, running integrated graphics and performing regular non-gaming tasks. But in high-performance mode playing games, it drained out in a little over half an hour. But the point is mostly moot, since this heavyweight laptop isn't something you're really going to be lugging around on a daily basis. Portable, but not mobile, as they say.

Oh – and it runs Windows Vista (you can choose your flavour, but we recommend Ultimate) , which isn't everyone's favourite OS, but is pretty much the only viable one for gamers.

Verdict

The Alienware M17x is unquestionably a luxury product. It's not something you buy for value (you could build a comparable desktop for less than half the price) , it's something you buy for sheer indulgence. It's that sexy SUV that you know you can't afford (unless your name is Ambani) but are sorely tempted to save up for and buy just to impress the ladies.

If you're looking for the ultimate gaming experience on a laptop, and don't mind dropping Rs. 1.38 lakhs or more, look no further. The rest of us can hope that Dell introduces the Alienware desktops in India sooner than later.

What's with the overly generous review scores ?

by Anand Ramachandran. This article first appeared in my weekly 'Game Invader' column for the New Indian Express



I'm surprised at how easily high scores are doled out at gaming review sites these days.


A close look at the popular review aggregator site metacritic.com throws up some interesting information. While the scores on a specific review site are susceptible to factors such as reviewer bias, the scores on an aggregator are usually good indications of its general critical success. In the interests of focus, we'll stick to the PC platform for this analysis, though console platforms do seem to show a similar trend.


On metacritic.com, the 2007 classic Bioshock sits alongside Half Life and its arguably better sequel at 96 points. This puts it above Baldur's Gate 2, Grim Fandango and Diablo. To anyone who has even a cursory understanding of the history of PC gaming, this is plainly ridiculous. Bioshock was a fantastic title, but it did very little that hadn't been done before. The role-playing elements were a dumbed-down version of the ones found in System Shock 2. Sorytelling in FPS games was done equally well, if not better in a number of games, notably in the Half-Life series. The only area where it was unparalleled for its time was in the audio-visual presentation. But if graphics were the benchmark, then Crysis would be the best game of all time.


BG2, Grim and Diablo were games that pushed at the very boundaries of game creation – either creating new genres or taking existing ones to unheard-of levels. Each game, even today, sits at the pinnacle of its genre. Not true of Bioshock, which is surpassed for greatness by Half-Life, System Shock 2, and even the original Doom.


A little further down the scale, we see a distinctly mediocre game like Mass Effect scoring above classics such as Starcraft, Myth II, Serious Sam and Icewind Dale. This is even more patently absurd. At least Bioshock was truly a great game that paled only in comparison with all-time classics – Mass Effect was ordinary even by the standards of its day.


Further down the scale, things get even murkier, with many of today's rather good-but-not-great games (Dead Space, Ghostbusters) sitting alongside classics from the past (Arcanum, Curse of Monkey Island).


I remember, back in the nineties, a score of seven or above generally meant that a game was good enough to buy. Above eight was a guarantee of a great game, and nine or higher was an absolute classic. While the grading remains reasonably consistent at the higher levels, the lower scores have become something of a free-for-all. Today's gamers will not even look at a game that scores a seven . My questions to game reviewers is this – why isn't the average score five, as common sense would dictate? A seventy percent score indicates to me that a game gets more things right than wrong. So why dole out such a score to a game you say is not worth my money? It's counter-intuitive, and misleading.


In fact, I believe that the whole score / star based rating system is a lazy cop-out for people who can't be bothered to read the review text. My advice to game-buyers is this : read the review, don't depend on the score. Reviewers usually get it right in their text – discussing the finer points of all aspects of the game, but their review scores are often completely incongruous with the content of the review. It's often along the lines of “Gee, this game completely sucks. Let me give it a 6.5”.


Go figure.