MR BIFFO PLAYS... Halo 5 Guardians Multiplayer for the Xbox One

MR BIFFO PLAYS... Halo 5: Guardians Multiplayer

29/10/2015

You've seen the campaign footage and read the review - now watch Mr Biffo get killed repeatedly in Halo 5's new Warzone mode.

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2 Comments

Steve McExclusive

30/10/2015 12:00:06 am

I see what you mean about the way games are marketed being reliant on a set of existing consumed being "in the know" already, but since this is competitive multiplayer, and not something trying to tell a story, I'm not sure that being a little bit hard to get into is the worst thing.

True, online games are not really welcoming to the uninitiated, but (ignoring the army of shrieking teens fuelled by a cocktail of Mountain Dew, hormones, and adolescent rage) that's just a function of having situations where people of all skill levels compete without anything to mitigate their abilities.

I don't really play online multiplayer games because ultimately I'm not willing to put enough of my life into them to get good. That doesn't mean they're bad, just that much like sports, if I am not willing to practice a lot, I will never be good enough to really enjoy myself and actually win competitions. I'll also never be in the Premier League, but I'm not going to complain that isn't accessible enough.

And that's fine. I have other hobbies, and other types of game to be playing. That AAA online multiplayer aren't for me isn't something I think of as a major problem.

Going a bit broader, and off multiplayer, I've said it elsewhere, but games do involve an element of skill that other mediums don't, and that does mean there will naturally be a "hardcore" element of the player-base. And those people are likely to be the sort for whom gaming is a bigger part of their identities (and who are any of us to say what people can reasonably consider their own identity to consist of?). It seems to me that we're desperate to pretend there isn't really a legitimate "hardcore gamer" demographic in a bid for gaming to be seen as a legitimate artistic medium as accessible as film and literature. But the game element means that it's actually a very different beast, somewhere between a movie and a (non-physical) sport. Begging for mainstream acceptance seems a bit like admitting that gaming is somehow a lesser medium. Or maybe -to play devil's advocate, since I don't really like this thought- it actually inherently is, since games mechanics and themes/characterisation are so often totally at odds?

Gosh that got long and rambling. Basically: online games can be hard for newcomers to get into, but that's not necessarily bad. Also games aren't exactly comparable to other forms of media, and maybe they can't ever be totally accessible to everyone without compromising on the very mechanics that make them unique.

Steve McTedious

30/10/2015 12:29:20 am

Slight addendum to the above: I'm not saying that getting into gaming should be survival of the fittest. With a couple of very tech-savvy generations alive at the moment, and the market opened up by the Wii and the iPad, I can't help but feel that on the whole gaming in various forms might actually be the most accessible it's ever been, which is a good thing.

MR BIFFO PLAYS... Halo 5: Guardians Multiplayer

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