Sunday, June 20, 2004

Game on!

I was very excited to discover a cheats page for 'Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets' on PS2. Now I agree that cheating is not a Righteous Thing, but in this instance, the balance goes towards looking up a walk through and not towards throwing my valued birthday present out of the window. Or lets be realistic, asking someone else to do it for me. I still think it says something about my personality that The Doctor bought me my playstation for my 30th birthday two weeks before we got married.

I do love my PS2. I do so think its the finest mental health management tool there is. Now I'm a positive person but when the balls get dropped I can relate to getting the blues. A few hours on the ol' playstation though, and I'm mesmerised, and the cycle of panic is gone. Hoorah!

I've always been a game playing fan - I started with my spectrum 48k and good old Atic Atac. I might have been quite good at that, had I been allowed to play it no a TV with colour. Bit tricky matching up keys, doors and so on which are colour coded in black and white.

My teenage years were somewhat barren - all girls public schools do not a gaming environment make. And while we're on the subject, I didn't mean to go to an independent school - it was an accident. Its what happens when you are thrown out of your comprehensive school for being unable to climb stairs, your parents say no to segregated schooling and its all the local education authority can offer. A few hand held pacman type games had to keep me going.

By the time I got to University I had my own computer again and was back into games, famously getting a dreadful case of Tetris Wrist just before my final exams, which lasted all summer. I actually heard the muscle tearing - I can't look at a falling block without wincing. I was a Mac person in those days and a poor student, so freeware was the extent of my indulgence, it wasn't until I joined the PC using brigade that I started getting a taste for them.

Of course, the issues for a computer game loving woman with an ethical bent are many and complex. I'm afraid I don't try to pick one manufacturer over the other, I just would end up with nothing (although the house is still a Disney free zone). I get round - or try to get round - the consumerism issue by just not buying too many, and swapping games with friends. Actually, that would be friend - most of my friends have grown out of computer games now.

So my criteria for choosing a computer game has to be:

a) not requiring too rapid finger movements
b) not too short
c) not specifically about war or fighting
d) no unfeasibly large breasted scantily clad women who are pointlessly part of the game. I can't think of an example of a game which would have an unfeasibly large breasted scantily clad woman who had an active role to play..... oh really behave.
e) not dungeons and dragons. Nothing specifically against them, but as I haven't spent the last 15 years honing my skills, and don't have enough time to develop the skills required.

Which leaves me with platform games - which I like, and recommendations would be gratefully received, or god games, like Sim City. Which I have enough of really, and also The Sims, which I love, even though I accidentally installed it twice on my laptop, so can't run it til I'm prepared to reinstall the OS....

A new laptop may happen sooner. All game recommendations gratefully received. I'm hoping for the CSI game for my birthday. The first one, that is. The second requires the computing power of the Pentagon, as far as I can see.

What I really need, is a website which guides you through game choices, making suggestions such as if you liked X you might like Y. Such a site must be out there somewhere!
Who Links Here