#oneaday Day 865: All Change on Squad Mountain

Those of you who follow what I do over at the Squadron of Shame may have already noticed that some changes have been going on recently.

First up, longtime mainstay hosts of our podcast Chris Whittington and Jeff Parsons have moved on from their presenting duties to host their own show. Too Old For This… is a show for ageing, busy geeks who still like to keep up to date with the latest happenings in comics, games, movies, music and beer (lots of beer), and it's a great listen. Chris and Jeff have a great dynamic together and their show deserves your support.

With Chris and Jeff out of the podcasting picture over at the Squad, we're going to be doing a lot more in the way of our traditional "mission" podcasts whereby we investigate a "shameworthy" game thoroughly and then discuss it at great length. This decision came about partly due to the success of our show on Katawa Shoujo, which attracted a bunch of new listeners and community members, but also because it's something we've always done well — and something which is still very distinctive in the crowded world of gaming podcasts. That's not to say we won't be doing any more "topic" shows or "genre primers" — but a bunch of listeners have been clamouring for more "missions" for a while now, so it's time to give them what they want.

The long-term goal for the Squadron of Shame has always been to be a place for mature, wordy, niche-loving geeks to call home. The "Squawkbox", our freeform discussion board which I set up temporarily several years ago using WordPress. has been a good start to that, but I figured it was time we took it to the next level. We have a number of talented writers among our ranks, so I thought we should showcase that fact a little better. And those who don't want to write will certainly appreciate some interesting things to read and comment on.

Enter our new experimental Articles section, in which long-form articles can be presented, featured and archived separately from the main Squawkbox discussion. They still appear in the main feed, but have their own dedicated sections now. Over time, this part of the site will hopefully become populated with numerous long-form pieces from our members (and guests) about things they think are truly "Shameworthy". The categories I've put in place so far are largely games-focused, but there's no reason this can't expand to other media over time — the joy of using WordPress is that it's easy to tweak, poke and rejig everything as the need presents itself.

I'm excited about what the future might hold for our little site, and this is the first step towards that bright future. Be sure to drop by, join the conversation and let us know what you think.

#oneaday Day 864: Spore-adic

On a whim, I started playing Spore again recently, this time with the Galactic Adventures expansion installed, which I never got around to trying previously. I still haven't got far enough in my new game to come across any of the aforementioned Galactic Adventures, but I thought I'd revisit my thoughts on the original game, as I last contemplated it way back in 2008.

Spore caught some flak on its original release for a number of reasons — mainly dodgy DRM with very strict activation limits and early online connectivity issues (some things never change, huh?) — but also attracted criticism for not living up to its hype. Originally dubbed SimEverything, the game was supposed to be Will "SimCity" Wright's last great masterpiece, simulating the entirety of life right from single-celled primordial soup up to space exploration. A lofty goal, for sure. But how well did it manage, really?

Beginning as a single-celled organism that is either carnivorous or herbivorous, you're thrown into the primordial soup and tasked with surviving. Carnivores must eat little red chunks, herbivores must eat little green chunks. Both can be found just floating in the water, but carnivores can help the process along by killing other organisms. Herbivores, conversely, spend a lot of time running away to begin with.

As you eat, you gain DNA points which can be spent on improving your creature with various parts. In order to evolve your creature, you must mate with another of your kind, which pops up the creature editor and allows said parts to be bolted on. These range from various fins and tentacles that improve speed and agility, to spiky things, poison-spitters and other defensive measures. It's even possible, with enough available points, to replace the creature's mouth to turn it from a herbivore into a carnivore — or even to give it two mouths, allowing it to eat everything.

This process continues for a while, with your creature regularly expanding in size until once screen-filling enemies become tiny little minnows in the background, until you eventually fill the progress bar at the bottom of the screen and evolve a brain. At this point, it's possible to continue swimming around in the soup to gain further points and collect any parts you missed, but the game nudges you in the direction of the next stage, which focuses on your creature's life.

After climbing out of the ocean and evolving legs (which you attach yourself as you see fit), you then get to explore the surface of the randomly-generated world your game takes place on. At this point, progress mostly comes about through either befriending or destroying other species. New creature parts can be found on long-dead skeletons on the planet, and the player's creature evolved with these parts, each of which offer various bonuses to either social or combat abilities.

Upon confronting another creature and choosing whether to befriend or kill it, a little minigame occurs. Combat is rather MMO-ish, with a small hotbar of up to four different abilities available. Socialisation, meanwhile, involves watching what the rival creatures do and copying their moves. As this phase progresses, the player's creature gains the ability to bring along a "pack" of other creatures — either of their own species or allied organisms — which makes both socialisation and combat easier.

To make life a bit more interesting, certain species are naturally aggressive and will attack anything on sight, and there are a few "epic" creatures wandering around who are considerably larger than everything else on the planet. These can be defeated in combat with a bit of care, but for the most part they're something to avoid and admire from afar.

Once the Creature phase is over, the Tribe phase begins. Here, the player is no longer in control of a single member of their species, but instead takes on a more "overseer" role, controlling their tribe like an RTS. Progression through this phase is determined by either befriending or destroying rival tribes.

You begin this stage with a small, simple village and the ability to construct a few "tools". Food must be gathered to feed the tribe and is also used as currency to purchase tools and create new tribe members. Tools fall into two main categories, as with creature parts: social and combat. Social tools take the form of musical instruments, while combat tools are weapons and a healing ability.

Upon meeting another tribe, like in the Creature phase, players must choose what stance to approach them in. If approaching in social stance, both tribes will line up in front of each other and one will "perform" for the other. The "audience" tribe will call out different instruments that they want to hear, and the player must quickly activate their instruments to please them before the audience gets bored. Combat is simple point-and-click RTS-style, though there is also a hotbar of special abilities according to what weapons the tribe has equipped at the time.

Following this point, the game enters the Civilization stage, where the player must conquer the planet they are on by taking over, buying or destroying all the rival cities. The game becomes more complex at this point, with a lot more building, trading and military conquest — though as with the previous components of the game, this phase can be passed through peacefully with a bit of effort.

Following this, the Space phase begins, and some would argue this is where the game begins proper — indeed, this is the phase that the Galactic Adventures expansion concentrates entirely on. Players must explore the galaxy in their custom-designed ship, fly down to planets, collect items, terraform, secure "spice" mines, trade with other species, complete missions, defeat enemies and, eventually, if you want to "finish" the game, build yourself up enough to take a lengthy expedition to the centre of the galaxy — a risky prospect, since this is where the Borg-like Grox, the main antagonists of the game, live.

So Spore certainly does follow life from its humble beginnings up to the space age, and it's very satisfying to look at the comprehensive "history" screen in the game and see how your creature has evolved over time. The main criticisms that were levelled at the game on its original release, however, were more to do with the fact that none of the game's phases had a lot of depth to them — it wanted to be "five games in one" but didn't really pull it off as well as some people wanted.

It doesn't really matter, though. Revisiting it now has reminded me that Spore is a very entertaining game — sure, it's pretty lightweight compared to some heavy hitters in the strategy and god game genres, but that only serves to make the game accessible to all. I'm actually rather glad about this, since I find a lot of strategy games rather heavy going and consequently find myself trounced by computer or human players on a regular basis. I can succeed in Spore while still feeling like I've been challenged somewhat, and simply enjoy the sense of progression, discovery and ever-expanding scale that the game offers — not to mention its wry sense of humour and wonderfully self-referential nature. The game even plays music from M.U.L.E. at certain points, for pity's sake.

And I haven't even mentioned what was one of the main draws of the game on its original release: its focus on user-generated content. All through the game, your galaxy is populated by creations from other players. With the Galactic Adventures expansion, this user-generated content goes far beyond player-made creatures, buildings and vehicles — there are full missions designed by players. It's impressive that it all works as well as it does — content simply "invades" your game seamlessly, and built-in community features allow you to rate, comment on or, if necessary, ban content without leaving the game.

I haven't yet touched the Galactic Adventures content since my current save has only just advanced to the Civilization stage, but I'm looking forward to investigating it. Further thoughts will follow when I've had time to check it out. In the meantime, if you get the chance to grab a cheap copy of Spore, it's well worth a shot.

#oneaday Day 863: Trash-Talkin'

It's not often I feel able to say this and mean it, but there's a piece over on Kotaku right now that is an excellent read. Go check it out, then come back to me.

I can't comment on being a rape survivor or anything like that, but I think that article sums up why I feel deeply uncomfortable with the idea of playing online with strangers in competitive games. I hate abuse, particularly pointless, rage-filled, deliberately offensive abuse designed to provoke an intensely emotional reaction out of the victim — and competitive online gaming seems to pride itself on this so-called "trash talking".

In my own case in the past (and not in games, in the "real world") abuse I have received has been in the form of hurtful comments about my appearance and my weight. I can't begin to fathom what must have gone through the minds of the bullies in question as they said those words that lashed at me like a cat o' nine tails, but they hurt. They perhaps weren't intended to hurt quite as much as they did — "I was only having a laugh" is seen as a valid defence by many these days — but the fact is that they utterly ruined my day when they burst into my ears, regardless of intention.

If I feel that shitty after some stranger makes some low jab at my appearance, I can only imagine how awful it must feel to be a rape survivor and hear how freely the word "rape" is bandied about to mean "beat" or "defeated". I feel uncomfortable using the word, given that I know at least a couple of survivors (to my knowledge), so picturing how it must feel to have such an awful thing trivialised by, say, Gears of War players is disturbing, to say the least. Like the behaviour of the bullies I described above, the intention may not necessarily have been to offend or upset, but there are plenty of people for whom such comments could completely ruin an otherwise fun experience — and, really, let's face it, there's no need for it, is there?

Lest you think me some sort of prude, I will point out at this juncture that I'm certainly not above light-hearted insults with my friends, which often skate into sexist, racist, homophobic and other generally offensive territory. But that's something that we do among ourselves in private — we've set the boundaries as to what is "acceptable" in our group, we stick to it and, crucially, we don't do it in public where anyone might misinterpret our words as genuine sexism, racism, homophobia or any other form of misanthropy. Not one of us would even contemplate the prospect of telling a complete stranger that they'd "raped" them — or indeed hurl any other sort of abuse at them, whether or not there was social "context" for such behaviour.

An example springs readily to mind. I was playing the then-new Dungeons and Dragons Online MMORPG, and I was doing my first run through one of the game's cooperative dungeons with a "pick-up group" of random players. All had been going well until we got to the end and there was an unnecessarily difficult platforming section. The platforming controls in D&D Online were not very good, to say the least, so it took me a good few minutes to get through the bit that the other (evidently more experienced) players had passed with ease. I apologised and made light of it, hoping that they'd do the same. Instead, I was confronted with a torrent of abuse through the private chat channels. I turned the game off at that point and never played it again.

The unnecessary, unprovoked wrath of a complete stranger had ruined the game for me. Whether or not they had intended to upset me that much was irrelevant. It had happened. I grant that I am the sort of person who is very easily upset even by heated arguments, debates and disagreements, let alone abusive words, but being sensitive about such things shouldn't preclude you from taking part in certain activities. Something like an online computer or console game — regardless of whether it's cooperative or competitive — should bring people together, not leave them feeling marginalised, or that their own anxieties, issues and mental scars are somehow trivial. There's no excuse for it, and it's something which gaming culture really needs to clean up if we want our hobby to be inclusive to all.

Therein lies part of the problem, I think, though; some people don't want that inclusiveness. Some people want to feel powerful, to be the top of that little clique, to feel like they have achieved something important and are therefore "better" than others. And they go about that by lashing out at the weak spots, triggers and hot buttons of others. Anything goes in the quest to make them feel like The Big Man. (Or Woman. But let's face it, it's significantly more likely to be a male person.)

It feels like such a futile question at times, but why can't everyone just, you know, get along?

#oneaday Day 860: Kairobot

Have you played any of the games by Kairosoft on iOS and Android devices? If not, you really should. They're quite remarkable little experiences, all the more noteworthy for fitting surprisingly deep gameplay into less than 10MB in most cases. This is a big benefit for those of you who habitually fill your phone and/or tablet device with all manner of crap games that you never play.

Kairosoft's games are business sims/strategy games at heart. All of them feature adorable pixel art and dreadful MIDI music. Most of them involve attempting to make as much money as possible over the course of a fixed period of time which varies depending on the title. Some are almost identical to one another, others take slightly different approaches.

All are utterly bewildering the first time you play them.

Most players' first experience with this little Japanese software company's work tends to be with their breakout hit Game Dev Story which, as the title suggests, sees the player running a fledgling game development company over the course of twenty in-game years. As the game progresses, players develop their staff, produce new games, try to woo the public and even have the opportunity to develop their own game console. Throughout, knowing tips of the hat are given to the games industry with pun-based names and not-quite-real game systems coming on to the market and acting much like their real-life counterparts. Develop for the Game Boy equivalent, for example, and you'll be on to a winner. Decide to support the Virtual Boy equivalent and you may find that your sales aren't quite what you expect.

Basic gameplay in Game Dev Story is pretty straightforward. Through a series of simple menus, you tell your minions what to do and keep a careful eye on your finances. What's interesting about it (and all Kairosoft's other titles, for that matter) is how much is going on beneath the surface. Markets are being simulated; seasonal growth and decline is taken into account; real-world trends form a key part of the game. On your first run-through, you may not discover everything the game has to offer. On each subsequent runthrough, you find out more until you're making ridiculous amounts of money with each one of your blockbusters.

The most recent Kairosoft title I've tried is an Android title known as Cafeteria Nipponica. This, as the name suggests, is a restaurant management game where it's up to the player to take between one and three restaurants to the very top of their game. This is achieved by hiring staff, levelling them up, researching new dishes and, occasionally, sending staff members out into the fields to look for ingredients and "treasure". I haven't got my head around everything the game is doing at the moment, but if nothing else, seeing little pixel people running around making a restaurant work is most entertaining. Like most of the company's other titles, a lot of concepts are treated in a rather "abstract" manner, and so long as you don't go in expecting a literal simulation of how a restaurant actually works, you'll have a blast.

If you've read my previous post How to Play Pocket Academy, you'll know that success in these games is sometimes quite hard to come by, and it's quite easy to mess things up beyond all recognition. That's okay, though, because the game remains so unerringly polite about the whole thing throughout that you can't feel too bad even as your money spirals into the red more and more with each passing month.

In short, then, if you're looking for something to occupy your time on the toilet/bus that isn't Angry Birds, then almost anything by our Japanese friends here is certainly worth a look. While they may not be the cheapest mobile games out there, that's not necessarily a bad thing. They'll provide you with a ton of entertainment for about the price of a single Starbucks coffee. And you can't complain at that, really. That's just good business.

#oneaday Day 858: Pete Achieved [Blog-Rollin']

Time to take a break from the creative writing on here for a little while (though I will try and continue doing it behind the scenes) and talk a little bit about the current hotness that is Diablo III. Now the furore over its botched launch has somewhat subsided and at least a few people are starting to realise that "online game" and "persistent online DRM" are two completely different things, we can take stock of the things that the game does extremely well.

I wanted to focus on one in particular, because it's something I think Blizzard handles extremely well, and it's also something which divides opinion about modern gaming immensely.

Achievements.

I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with Achievements. On the one hand, if used well, they can encourage you to try playing a game in lots of different ways — Crackdown springs immediately to mind here, with its quirky challenges such as playing tennis with a car and rocket launchers, sticking things together, climbing up to the top of the highest building and leaping off without dying. On the other, you get shit like you see in Call of Duty, which gives you an Achievement for starting the single-player campaign.

Some people actively pursue Achievements (or Sony's synonymous Trophies), even going so far as to play a game well beyond its enjoyment event horizon just so they can say they have "1000G-ed" or "Platinumed" it. There's often a lot of "filler" Achievements in there, making this an unnecessary slog at times. On other occasions, it can ruin the experience of playing a game by directing the experience too much — I "1000G-ed" The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and walked away from the game realising that I had still missed at least half of the game's content — and had no motivation or incentive to seek it out after that. The Elder Scrolls series is supposed to be about freeform, open-world exploration, and the Achievements (tied to various quest lines) completely spoiled that for me by shunting me down specific quest paths.

So back to Blizzard, and Diablo III specifically. Diablo III features a wide range of Achievements for all sorts of things. There are Achievements for reaching significant milestones in the game's story — beating bosses, completing Acts, that sort of thing. There are Achievements rewarding those who explore thoroughly and delve into the surprisingly deep lore. There are Achievements for completing special challenges, encouraging players to play more skilfully. There are class-specific Achievements, nudging players in the direction of a good way to play said classes. And there are plenty more besides. There are hundreds of them, as they are not limited by Microsoft and Sony's arbitrary limits, and chasing them is an immensely addictive experience.

One key thing about the whole system uses Diablo III's persistently-online nature to great effect. As soon as someone on your friends list attains an Achievement, you're notified. This helps to encourage communication between people and also lets players see at a glance how their friends are doing. It's even possible for players to browse each others' profiles and check out what Achievements they've managed to snag, providing incentive for a little good-natured competition when, say, one sees that the other has somehow killed the Skeleton King in less than 20 seconds. In short, it helps make Diablo III into a more social game, which is exactly what it's been designed to be. Where its predecessors had discrete, segregated "single player" and "multiplayer" components, Diablo III blends this all together into a seamless online experience that encourages communication, competition and cooperation, where players can feel like they're making progress even when playing by themselves, and continue making progress when they want to play with friends. It's a good fit for the series' gameplay, though it makes the ludonarrative dissonance between the ridiculous on-screen action (punching people's skeletons out!) and the rather serious fire-and-brimstone plot seem all the more silly.

If you haven't given Diablo III a shot yet, it's well worth it. Over 6 million people can't be wrong. Although if you value your sanity I wouldn't advise looking at Blizzard's forums. Ever.

(I think I still have a Starter Edition code knocking around somewhere, so if anyone wants to give it a go for free, get in touch and I can give you the code. First come, first served.)

#oneaday Day 852: Carmageddon Reincarnation

I absolutely loved the original Carmageddon. Like, way too much.

I remember discovering it. I was hanging out with my school bud Andrew, and we'd just grabbed the latest PC Zone with its demo disc. Said disc carried a demo of Carmageddon, and we fired it up out of curiosity, as a lot of the press we'd seen about the game (this was pre-Internet for the most part) had been overwhelmingly positive.

The demo in question carried a single level from Carmageddon, time limited to about five minutes in total, if I remember rightly. That may not sound like much, but a single level in Carmageddon was, in fact, a vast open-world environment in which the race circuit with checkpoints was a relatively minor and inconsequential detail. As such, pretty much every playthrough of the demo we had was totally different — though when we discovered that flinging the player car off the top of the tallest building on the map tended to do utterly hilarious things with the game's damage model, our sessions turned to being races to said building and seeing how many times we could throw ourselves into oblivion before the car became undriveable.

But I'll back up a moment for those who, for whatever reason, are unaware of Carmageddon.

Carmageddon was a series of PC games (later ported to consoles… badly) that were ostensibly racing games but were, in fact, automotive playgrounds that were absolute joys to tool around in. They were also some of the most unabashedly offensive games of all time, though the whole thing was suffused with such a ridiculous, over the top sense of humour that it was pretty much impossible to be upset by the splattering innards that made a regular appearance. You try not to giggle with glee when your car is pinging around a cramped city block like a pinball (complete with PINGPINGPINGPINGPING noises) and electrocuting passers-by with its "Pedestrian Electro-Bastard Ray".

Victory in a Carmageddon level could be achieved in three ways. First, you could actually complete the race by going through all the checkpoints in the right order. This was often referred to as "the boring way", though the later tracks were actually pretty challenging.

Second, you could wreck all of the other racers. This was rather challenging, especially early in the game when your car was a bit crap and couldn't hope to stand up to the might of a huge bulldozer. But it was immensely satisfying when you pulled it off — particularly when you successfully recreated David and Goliath with an appropriately ill-matched pair of vehicles.

Thirdly, you could run over every pedestrian wandering around the map. This was no small feat, given that most maps had anywhere between 500 and 1,000 pedestrians shambling around, going about their business. The best thing about taking this approach is that it forced you to explore the map fully to figure out where they were all hiding. Most maps included a powerup that showed where they all were on the map.

It wasn't just mindless carnage, though. You had to strategise somewhat, since there was a constantly-ticking timer putting paid to your best-laid plans. Doing damage to other racers, mowing down pedestrians and collecting certain powerups extended the timer well beyond its starting value, so an early priority when going for the more challenging victory conditions was getting the timer up to a level where you had a bit of breathing room.

It was, in short, a great game, and one of the earliest "sandbox" games that I can think of. I also have fond memories of the game due to the fact I spent a worthwhile and profitable summer playing it to death and writing a tips book which initially was provided free with an issue of PC Zone, and which was later thrown in for free with Virgin Megastores' special edition version of the game (that came in an absolutely massive box) one Christmas.

Basically, I would love to play a new, up-to-date version with, say, online multiplayer and all manner of other goodies.

And what do you know? Original developer Stainless Games has acquired the rights to the Carmageddon name and is — hopefully, anyway — going to make a new entry in the series. This is possibly the most exciting gaming news I have heard for years. The prospect of a new Carmageddon game on modern hardware with online play is an immensely enticing one. The original games had multiplayer, sure, but they were released at a time where playing online was something reserved for those who knew what an IPX network was. In other words, they were best played at LAN parties or with workmates in the office. Living out in the sticks at the time, I had precisely zero opportunities to do this, so you can imagine my excitement at the idea of being able to crash, bash and splatter friends over my windscreen.

If you, too, have fond memories of Carmageddon — or would just like an immensely fun, irreverent sandbox driving-and-chaos experience — get thee over to Kickstarter and back the new project. With 18 days to go, the project is already nearly three-quarters funded, and there are some pretty sweet rewards on offer for backers, depending on how much you pledge.

Stainless reckons the new game will be with us around February of next year. In the meantime, they're apparently looking into what it would take to get the first two games (the third had nothing to do with them) released on services such as GOG.com and Steam.

#oneaday Day 851: Some iOS Games You Should Try

I know at least a few of my regular readers sport iOS devices, so I thought I'd take the opportunity to share a few titles I've downloaded and actually wanted to keep recently. Since my day job sees me downloading and reviewing a metric fuckton of iOS and Android games (all right… five) every week, I get exposed to a lot of great stuff… and a lot of crap, too, but we'll leave that to one side for the moment.

Without further ado, then, here are a few iOS games that you may wish to check out if you have the chance.

Rebuild

Rebuild is a game about zombies. But wait! Don't dismiss it just yet. While the whole "zombie" thing is incredibly played out now, a few games recently have provided a pleasingly different take on surviving the undead/infected hordes. One of these is Facebook game The Last Stand: Dead Zone, which is a surprisingly deep RTS/RPG that is worth taking a look at even if you typically hate Facebook games. But we won't get into that now, as we're talking about iOS games.

The other is Rebuild. As the name suggests, the game is about, well, rebuilding. Beginning with a custom character and a small cadre of survivors (all of whom can be renamed) it's up to the player to recapture a town (which can also be renamed) from the groaning, brain-obsessed ones. This is achieved in a turn-based manner, with each turn representing a day.

Each day, you can assign survivors to locations that surround captured territory and give them a job to do according to where their skills lie. You might want them to scavenge for food on a farm, or search for survivors in an apartment building. Killing zombies clears the way for building specialists to capture territory, and once captured the survivors gain the benefit from whatever building the captured territory contained. Survivors can also be equipped with items (including dogs) in order to boost their stats and make them better at their jobs, and the zombies will occasionally attack the main hideout, meaning you'd better have left some people behind on defence duty.

Rebuild is a simple but deep turn-based strategy game that is in the remarkable position of being a zombie game that is actually both original and worth playing. It's easy to understand but also easy to mess up, meaning it will take time to figure out and determine the perfect strategy. Each game is randomly generated and may take place on one of several different map sizes at several different difficulty levels, so there's plenty of replay value here, too.

Grab it here.

Necronomicon

H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos makes for great games, whether they're of the board, card or video variety. Necronomicon is no exception.

Necronomicon is a solitaire card game that pits players against the deck. The game takes place on two rows of five spaces: the top five belong to the forces of darkness, while the bottom five belong to the ever-present "investigators" — humans from disparate walks of life who are thrown into conflict against the Old Ones.

The basic mechanic of Necronomicon is in battling these cards by placing them in adjacent spaces — forces of darkness at the top, plucky humans on the bottom. Each monster and investigator card has a Defense and a Sanity rating. If one card has both Defense and Sanity higher than the other, it defeats its opponent immediately, scoring points for the player if the investigator won, losing points if the monster won.

If one or both of the stats are tied, however, an element of luck comes into play. Both sides make an attack roll, with the highest roll defeating their opponent. These attack rolls may be modified by playing additional cards onto the investigators and monsters — these cards may also be placed on spaces before investigators or monsters show up, allowing you to set up battlegrounds that benefit the investigators and hamper the monsters. Thematically, these extra cards represent weapons, allies, magic spells, potions, curses and all manner of other goodness.

The game's end is determined by an evil portal thing in the corner of the screen. If the monster row is full and the player draws a monster card, the portal takes damage. If it takes three points of damage, the game ends in a loss for the player. However, if the investigators row is full and the player draws another investigator, the portal heals a point of damage. If the portal is undamaged and gets healed, it is sealed and the player wins.

Necronomicon is quite difficult to describe and even the in-game instructions don't do a terribly clear job of explaining how to play. But after a couple of games, it becomes quick and simple to play, and a great little solitaire card game that doesn't take long to get through a session of.

Grab it here.

DOOORS/100 Floors

I'm lumping these together because although they're developed by completely different people/teams, they're almost identical in concept.

The two games are "room escape" games, an offshoot of the adventure game genre that has no plot and simply requires that the player find their way out of a series of rooms via increasingly-esoteric means. Both games make full use of the iPhone's multitouch screen and accelerometer, and both give you absolutely no help whatsoever, which will ensure you get infuriated as you poke, prod and pinch at the screen, tilt the phone side to side and shake it just to see if anything happens.

While sometimes the solutions are irritatingly obtuse, successfully figuring out the correct way to achieve something is immensely satisfying.

To say much more about these games would be to spoil the infuriating puzzle-solving therein, so I shall leave it at that.

Grab DOOORS here, and 100 Floors here.

#oneaday Day 850: Diablolical

My friends and I wasted many, many hours on both Diablo and its sequel over the years. We picked up cheap copies of the original game when we were in our first year of university and quickly figured out how to take advantage of our free phone calls between rooms to network our computers and play multiplayer. Later, we found ourselves enjoying the sequel a great deal — though I must confess, despite enjoying it a great deal, I only ever beat it once.

Fast forward a large number of years and we come to Diablo III. Does it still have the magic of its predecessors?

Simple answer? Yes.

Oh, you want a little more than that? All right.

First up, let's address the Big Issue that people have been ranting and raving about: the supposed "DRM" that requires a persistent Internet connection. If you spend any time actually playing Diablo III, you'll likely come to the same surprising realisation that I have, and that is this:

Diablo III is an MMO.

It's not an MMO in the same way that its stablemate World of Warcraft is — there's no open world and you don't randomly bump into other players wandering around — but it is a game designed to be played online, and it is a game where hundreds, thousands, millions of people all log in at the same time and are able to communicate and play with one another. There is a persistent chat interface allowing conversation with both friends and strangers even if you're not in the same game session with them, a persistent friends list (albeit one that isn't cross-region, annoyingly) and the ability to sneak a peek at your friends' equipment, achievements and other data. There is an auction house, allowing you to make some money (currently only in-game currency — the controversial "real money auction house" is due to launch later in the month) from those awesome items that your current characters can't use. Your characters are saved "in the cloud", allowing you to log in on any computer and pick up where you left off.

Most notably, there is the ability to immediately, instantly and seamlessly drop in and out of players' games. Friends who are playing are shown on the main menu, and joining their game is a simple case of clicking their name. Joining a public game (or opening your own session up to the public) is just as straightforward. The only thing that would make it easier to play with friends would be Steamworks compatibility, but this is Blizzard; that ain't going to happen.

Yes, you can play the game solo, but you can still chat to people while doing so. You can lock people out from auto-joining your game so you may only play solo if you want to, but you're still soloing online like any other MMO. You have the option to invite people or open your session up at any time without having to come out of your game or make a character specifically to play online with.

In short, the "always-online" thing is actually a key part of the game's design, and in execution really rather cool. While it may be frustrating to not be able to play "single player" offline, and the early server issues were a pain in the arse for a day (a single day, maybe two at a push — the game is running perfectly now) the fact that the game is, in fact, clearly an MMO makes it clear why this is the case. The entire game's infrastructure is designed around playing online.

But let's leave that aside for the moment, as it's a concept you'll either be on board with or you won't. What about the actual game itself?

Diablo III has undergone some significant changes from its predecessors. Gone is Diablo I and II's progression system, which allowed you to distribute stat points on every level up as you pleased, replaced with predefined stat increases. Gone is the "skill tree" system from Diablo II, which allowed you to "build" a character to your own specifications (or create a completely unworkable mess), replaced with a system where you unlock skills at predefined level boundaries and can only equip a limited number at once.

It takes some adjusting to, but Diablo III's way of doing things is streamlined and efficient without taking away the element of player choice. Everyone always levelled up their stats the same way in Diablo and its sequel anyway, and despite the illusion of complete freedom of choice that the skill trees offered, it was all too easy to create an underpowered character that wasn't particularly good at anything. What Diablo III lets you do is customise your character to work the way you want it to in any given situation, and then tweak it at any time. What you can't do, however, is hot-swap skills while you're in the middle of combat. You have to make some choices as to what skills you're going to use before wading into the fray, and reevaluate your decisions after various demon hordes have stopped having their wicked way with you.

The presentation is good, though not stellar. The in-game visuals work well but seem to have surprisingly demanding system specifications for their quality. In-engine cutscenes are a bit crap and look like something out of a game made in the late '90s. The special effects are great, however, with some wonderful physical modelling on bodies and objects around the game's environments, and spell effects are appropriately ridiculous, particularly when you're playing with several people all flinging pyrotechnics around the screen.

Sound design — always a strong point in Blizzard titles — is great, with some excellent voice actors and quality background music. Plus someone on the Diablo team has finally got wise to the fact that boss battles are infinitely more exciting with some boss music rather than the understated ambient rumbling of the previous games.

As with the rest of the series, it's the gameplay where Diablo III shines. There's a decent narrative running throughout the game, but the Diablo series has always been far more about killing thousands of monsters and stealing their stuff rather than paying much attention to the (surprisingly deep, if a bit po-faced) lore. And in that department it delivers in spades. Combat is straightforward, addictive and fun — particularly with friends. There is a huge variety of loot to collect, equip, sell, disenchant and craft. And a well-implemented achievement system actually makes you want to achievement whore because going after the challenges in question is so fun and satisfying.

I get the impression Diablo III is going to grow and change over time, too. We already know that a player-vs-player competitive element is coming, as is the real money auction house. But what then? Expansion packs? Content updates? New character classes? There are a ton of possibilities that Blizzard could incorporate into the game, and they could even use the patch process as a means of incorporating features which some are a little disappointed at the current lack of — things like voice chat. (Personally, I can take or leave voice chat — I suffer from telephobia when talking to people on the Internet almost as much as when I'm using the phone — but I accept that a lot of people expect it nowadays.)

In short, the future looks very bright for Blizzard's latest title, and if the amount of support Diablo II got — even once World of Warcraft arrived on the scene — is anything to go by, then players can likely look forward to a game that will last them for years.

#oneaday Day 849: Jud's Handy Guide to Video Game Terminology [UPDATED!]

This post is aimed at anyone who doesn't know what all that crazy terminology we game geeks fling about actually means. Like any hobby, there's a ton of specialist words, abbreviations and acronyms in there, and some are a little ambiguous, just to confuse matters.

So, then, here are some definitions, some of which you may know, some of which you may not.

2D — Usually used to refer to games in which the screen has no "depth". Players can move up, down, left and right on screen, but not "in" and "out". Also used to refer to visuals that are constructed using pixels (q.v.) rather than polygons (q.v.)

3D — Usually used to refer to games in which the player may move in a full three dimensions — up, down, left, right, in and out. Typically used to refer to games whose visuals are constructed using polygons. Nowadays also used to refer to games that use 3D technology to give visuals genuine, proper depth using either 3D glasses or glasses-free technology such as that seen on the Nintendo 3DS handheld (q.v.).

8-bit — Term usually used incorrectly to refer to pixel-art graphics designed to resemble those seen on older computers and consoles (q.v.), particularly from the "8-bit" era (NES, Master System, Commodore 64 etc.) Actually refers to either 256-colour graphics ("8-bit colour depth") or a computer processor which can access 8 bits of data in a single instruction.

Achievement — An arbitrary objective set outside of the main structure of the game (in most cases) that rewards players with a virtual "award" saying they accomplished said arbitrary objective. Seen in Xbox 360, PC, mobile and social games. See also: Trophy (capital T), Achievement whore.

Achievement whore — A person who plays games specifically to get Achievements (or Trophies) rather than focusing on the game's own inherent reward mechanisms.

Adventure game — A story-focused style of game in which the main barrier to progress is usually some form of puzzle integrated into the game world. These vary from "use x on y" object manipulation puzzles to more elaborate chains of events. Examples include the King's Quest series, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis and Time Gentlemen, Please! Hidden Object games (q.v.) are a modern offshoot of the adventure genre.

Brawler — A game in which between one and four players cooperate to battle enemies. Often takes place in "urban" environments, and is usually presented from a 2 dimensional side-on perspective. Examples include Double Dragon, Streets of Rage and The Simpsons Arcade.

Bullet hell — (also: danmaku) A subgenre of shmup (q.v.) that involves avoiding intricate patterns of enemy fire as much as it does spraying the screen with hot laser death. In bullet hell games, the player's hitbox (q.v.) is usually very tiny, meaning they can navigate through incredibly tight-looking bullet formations. Examples include DoDonPachi Resurrection, Jamestown and Deathsmiles.

Character action game — Any game in which the player controls a single, often visually distinctive character and battles their way through hordes of enemies and gigantic, physically improbable bosses. Has much in common with the brawler genre (q.v.). Examples include Devil May Cry, Bayonetta and God of War.

Computer — An electronic device onto which you can install software, connect peripherals, customise your experience and play games. The most common computers these days are Windows-based PCs and Apple's Mac series, though you find the odd geek using Linux just to be different. Games that are specifically designed for computer alone tend to be referred to as "PC games" or "computer games".

Console — An electronic entertainment device that is not a computer and is specifically designed for playing games (and, increasingly, consuming other digital media such as music and movies). Current-generation consoles include the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Wii. Games specifically designed for consoles tend to be referred to as "video games".

Developer — Collective term for whoever actually creates the game. May be an individual person or a gigantic company.

Digital distribution — Term used to describe when you pay for something online and download it straight to your computer, console, mobile phone or other device without involving a physical product at any point in the process.

DLC — DownLoadable Content. Additional content which may be added to a game, usually for a fee. "Day-One DLC" is DLC which is available the same day the game is released. "On-Disc DLC" is DLC for which the actual content is stored on the game disc, with the only thing that gets downloaded being an "unlock code" to allow access to it. Neither are popular approaches, and often seen as a means of publishers trying to squeeze more money out of consumers. Good DLC does exist, however — good examples include the expansion packs for Borderlands and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, both of which added significant amounts of content to the game for reasonable prices. See also: Game of the Year Edition.

Driving game — A subdivision of the racing game (q.v.) genre that involves driving realistic vehicles. Examples include Gran Turismo, Forza Motorsport and Project Gotham Racing.

DRM — Digital Rights Management. An anti-piracy technology intended to ensure that customers are using legitimate copies of their entertainment. Often very intrusive and usually easily circumvented by pirates, leading many to claim that games sporting DRM are punishing legitimate consumers more than pirates. Developers, publishers and digital distribution (q.v.) outlets who release titles that are "DRM-free" are often very popular.

Fighting game — A competitive game genre that usually involves one-on-one combat between two characters attacking each other with a variety of unlikely and/or physically improbable "special moves" until one or the other's life bar is depleted. Known for its fiercely competitive community, gorgeous female characters and high barrier of entry. Not to be confused with the brawler genre (q.v.). Examples include the Street Fighter series, Marvel vs. Capcom and Soul Calibur. Sorry, Soulcalibur.

First-person perspective — Any game which unfolds from the perspective of the main character(s) viewpoints.

fps (lower case) — Frames Per Second. The number of times the screen updates every second. Higher numbers make movement look smoother. Film typically runs about 24fps. Anything higher than 60fps can't really be distinguished, so 60fps is often seen as the "gold standard" — anything consistently running at 60fps moves incredibly smoothly. A higher fps is often the result of either more powerful hardware or more efficient programming. PC gamers get rather obsessive about this figure, particularly when buying a new system.

FPS (upper case) — First-person shooter. A game where the player's perspective is from inside the head of the main character(s) and their main means of interacting with the world is by shooting seven shades of crap out of it with a variety of weaponry.

Free-to-play — A game which is free to download and play, but which requires the player to pay real money in order to access certain items. (This is known as "microtransactions".) This may be additional game content, visual customisation options for the player's character or timesaving "boost" items. Free-to-play games are often either MMOs (q.v.) or social games (q.v.). Contrast: freeware.

Freeware — A game that is completely free and features no microtransactions.

Friend-gating — A technique used in social games (q.v.) to encourage players to invite their friends to play. Progress is halted until the player convinces a certain number of friends to start playing the game, or pays money to bypass the restriction. A form of viral marketing (q.v.).

GameFAQs — The website gamefaqs.com, which includes an enormous repository of guides to almost every game you can possibly imagine. Used by people who can't be bothered to figure things out for themselves, or those who simply want more information about a game. The "FAQs" part of the name comes from Internet slang acronym "FAQ", meaning "Frequently Asked Questions".

Games industry — Collective term used to refer to specialist press (online or print) about games, game developers and game publishers.

Game of the Year Edition — (also GotY Edition) A rerelease of a game that includes all (or most) of its DLC (q.v.). Usually has different packaging to the original release. No-one is quite sure where the "Game of the Year" bit comes from, but it's usually something that only happens for popular games with a lot of DLC.

Gen4 — A term coined by Electronic Arts on its 2012 earnings call to refer to the upcoming new generation of consoles (q.v.) including Nintendo's Wii U system and new, unannounced offerings from Sony and Microsoft. An inaccurate term, since we are actually currently on the seventh generation of hardware, not the third.

Handheld — A portable console (q.v.) that plays games. Current examples include the Nintendo 3DS and Sony PlayStation Vita. Some people get snobby if you throw smartphones (q.v.) into this category.

HD — High Definition. Used to describe televisions that run at a resolution (q.v.) of either 1024×720 pixels (aka 720p) or 1920×1080 (aka 1080i/1080p, but we won't get into that now). HD displays provide clearer, crisper images than their SD (q.v.) cousins. Also used incorrectly by almost everyone in the world, particularly iPad developers.

Hitbox — The area of a player which detects collisions with other objects, usually bullets. In bullet hell (q.v.) games, the hitbox is considerably smaller than the player's ship/character, meaning it's possible to navigate through seemingly-impossible hails of incoming enemy fire.

HOG — Hidden Object Game. Used to refer to an offshoot of the adventure game genre (q.v.) that is usually story-focused, and in which the main barrier to progress is being confronted with an unnaturally untidy room and a laundry list of things to find as quickly as possible. A popular genre of social game (q.v.). Examples include Hidden Chronicles, Gardens of Time and anything on Facebook with the words "Hidden", "Mysteries" or "Adventures" in its title.

Indie — Short for "independent", and the opposite of "triple-A" (q.v.). Usually used to describe small developers that make more niche games and often aren't attached to a particular publisher. There is some disagreement over the exact definition of the term among the community. Is Minecraft, an independently-developed game that has been a runaway, multi-million seller, truly still "indie"?

MMO — Massively Multiplayer Online. Catch-all term to describe games that hundreds, thousands or even millions of players can play online at the same time. The most common variant is the MMORPG, an RPG (q.v.) in which it's possible to meet other players wandering around the same world and team up with or compete against them. Examples include World of Warcraft, Star Trek Online and Rusty Hearts.

Multiplayer — A game or mode you play with other people. Subdivided into local and online multiplayer, with the former being a game you play in the same room as other people (usually using multiple controllers) and the latter being a game you play via the Internet. Further subdivided into cooperative and competitive variants, which are hopefully self-explanatory.

Origin — A digital distribution (q.v.) platform run by Electronic Arts, notorious for not being very good yet still being forced upon PC and mobile gamers by EA.

Patch — A downloadable update to a game that adds features, fixes problems or sometimes both.

Pay to win — Pejorative term used in reference to free-to-play (q.v.) titles that include the option for players to pay real money for a significant in-game advantage.

Pixel — A tiny, single-coloured square that makes up the image you see on a monitor or TV.

Polygon — A closed, flat shape consisting of straight lines. Hundreds, thousands, millions of these may be connected together to construct three-dimensional models.

Premium currency — A virtual currency used in a game (usually a free-to-play (q.v.) title) that may not usually be earned through normal play, and usually requires the expenditure of real money to acquire. Used as a means of masking the true cost of microtransactions.

Publisher — The company who gets the game onto store shelves or digital distribution (q.v.) sites. The people who handle the money. Not necessarily the same company as the developer (q.v.).

Racing game — A genre of games that involves participating in vehicle races. Often used interchangeably with "driving game" (q.v.) but tends to refer to non-realistic games such as Mario Kart, or futuristic titles such as WipeOut and F-Zero.

Resolution — The number of pixels (q.v.) that make up the complete image on a screen, expressed as the number of pixels across by the number of pixels down, with the origin in the top left corner.

RPG — Role-Playing Game. A genre in which players control one or more characters who grow in strength over the course of the game. Variants include "action RPG", in which players spend most of their time killing things, "open world RPG", in which players have a large world to explore however they please, and "JRPG", which is an RPG produced by or in the style of Far East-Asian developers. Often story-heavy. Examples include Xenoblade Chronicles, the Final Fantasy series and Diablo III.

RTS — Real-Time Strategy game. A genre of game in which players take on the role of an omniscient commander who commands their troops to (usually) wage war. The "real time" part comes from the fact that the game does not stop while the player makes their decisions — they must effectively prioritise and respond to situations in order to be successful. Examples include the Command & Conquer series and StarCraft.

SD — Standard Definition. A display technology for televisions in which the image is displayed at a resolution (q.v.) of (usually) 640×480 for NTSC-based televisions (seen in America and Japan) and 720×576 for PAL-based televisions (seen in Europe and Australia).

Share — A social networking term used to refer to making a post on a social network. In the case of games, this is usually some form of "brag" post boasting of a new high score. In actuality, it is usually a form of viral marketing (q.v.).

Shmup — Short for "shoot 'em up", a term usually used to describe 2-dimensional games that involve shooting things. Most commonly used today to refer to the "bullet hell" genre (q.v.). FPS (q.v.) games are not shmups.

Single player — A game you play by yourself while you are not connected to the Internet.

Smartphone — A mobile phone (cellphone) which is more like a miniature computer. Usually has a touchscreen, the ability to connect to the Internet and the facility to install "apps" to extend its functionality, including games. Several types are available, including the iPhone series, Android phones, Windows Phones and BlackBerrys [sic]. The iPhone and Android ranges are the most popular and consequently have the most apps available.

Social game — A game designed to be played on a social network such as Facebook. Usually free-to-play (q.v.) and monetized through sales of premium currency (q.v.). Often accused of being "pay to win" (q.v.), using "friend gating" (q.v.) excessively or constantly bugging players to "share" (q.v.) everything.

Special move — A combination of button and directional presses that causes something awesome to happen, most commonly seen in fighting games (q.v.).

Steam — Arguably the most popular digital distribution (q.v.) store for PC and Mac games there is, run by Valve Corporation, developers of the popular Half-Life, Left 4 Dead and Portal series.

TBS — Turn-Based Strategy. A strategy game in which players can spend as long as they like thinking about the commands they would like to give their units under their control. Often compared to board games, and typically less combat-centric than RTS (q.v.) titles — though military conflict often plays a part. Examples include the Civilization series and Endless Space.

Third-person perspective — Any game where you can see the character that you are controlling. Most commonly used to specifically refer to games where the "camera" floats behind the character or is positioned just behind one of their shoulders.

Third-person shooter — A game that unfolds from a third-person perspective (q.v.) in which the player's main means of interacting with the world is by shooting seven shades of crap out of it with a variety of weaponry. Examples include Gears of War and Binary Domain.

Triple-A — A big budget game, usually published by Electronic Arts, Ubisoft or Activision. Tends to have excellent graphics, famous voice actors and a marketing plan that will make you sick of it months before it's even released. Just being published by one of these companies doesn't necessarily make a game "triple-A" — rather, it is to do with the overall budget and marketing spend. Gaming's equivalent of the "summer blockbuster".

Trophy — The PlayStation 3's equivalent of Achievements (q.v.). Trophies come in Bronze, Silver, Gold or Platinum variants to reflect their difficulty. Platinum Trophies are usually awarded simply for accomplishing all of the other Trophy requirements.

Viral marketing — A means of subtly promoting something by using people's inherently social nature. In video games, this is usually achieved by allowing players to post things on their Facebook Timeline from within the game, thereby allowing the player to boast of their achievements and conveniently promote the game in the process.

At over 2,000 words, I think that's enough for now. Feel free to post in the comments if I missed any "q.v."s or if there are any things you still don't know.

#oneaday Day 848: I Can't Get Angry About Diablo III

I know I have a track record of Getting Angry About Shit, particularly when it comes to things like DLC, DRM and other three-letter acronyms. But I'm finding it rather difficult to get riled up over the issues surrounding Diablo III.

For the uninitiated, Diablo III is the latest game from World of Warcraft creators Blizzard, who are part of Activision. Activision used to be gaming's resident Empire Of Evil, but that mantle has since passed to EA, and Activision are now simply Those Guys Who Killed Bizarre Creations, Pump Out Call Of Duty Every Year And Have Something To Do With Blizzard. But that's beside the point.

The point is that Diablo III was always going to be a massive seller and an immensely popular title. It's the long-anticipated third entry in a series with a long history, and one which a lot of players have been looking forward to for a long time.

It's also one which a lot of people are getting extremely angry about, largely due to what they describe as its "always-on Internet DRM". Said "DRM" has had difficulties today due to overloading, leaving many players unable to log in and play the game.

Here's how the system works. To play Diablo III, you have to log in to Blizzard's online service Battle.net. Once logged in, you can then play the game. You have to stay connected in order to play, even if you're playing solo. The benefits of playing in this kind of "always on" environment include the fact you can always see when your Diablo-playing friends are online, that you can jump in and out of each other's cooperative multiplayer games, and that you can make use of the game's auction house facility to trade items.

Some people are getting very upset about this — particularly the fact that you can't play single player offline. And while that may seem a bit silly, I can't help but thinking a lot of people are looking at this from the wrong angle — the "gamers are getting screwed" angle. This is perhaps understandable, given the amount of time gamers spend getting screwed nowadays, but I really find it difficult to agree with the people getting riled about this.

Here's the thing, though: Diablo has pretty much always been designed as an online game to play with either friends or random strangers online. The classes are designed in such a way that it's both desirable and fun to group up with other people and tackle the game's challenges cooperatively. You can play solo, sure, but the game has always been designed with online in mind. With this latest iteration, including the auction house and other mechanics, Diablo is now closer in execution to a massively-multiplayer online title than a single-player dungeon crawler like Torchlight. Sure, it doesn't charge a subscription fee or feature a truly massively-multiplayer open world to explore, but the game has been designed specifically to be an online title. People don't complain about World of Warcraft, Guild Wars or the like having to be always online — what, really, is different here?

I think the issue is that Blizzard hasn't appropriately set people's expectations for the game being an online-only title. We have no problem with games like the aforementioned requiring us to stay online in order to play, despite the fact you can play them solo. (In the case of Guild Wars, you can even team up with computer-controlled partner characters if you really can't stomach playing with real people.) So what, really, is different about Diablo III? Is it simply that the previous games had a discrete "Single Player" option that didn't require you to be online? (I haven't finished installing the new game yet so at the time of writing don't know if this is still the case.)

The other issue is that people believe Blizzard, being the company who runs the world's biggest massively-multiplayer online game, World of Warcraft, should have anticipated demand and made sure their servers were up to the job of dealing with the thousands (millions?) of people who were likely to be wanting to log in at the same time. This I sort of agree with, though there is no genuinely reliable way of predicting quite how much demand there is going to be for any given title. Blizzard underestimated demand, and it's caused problems — much like has happened with the launch of many other online-only games. That doesn't make this a "disaster" or a "debacle" or anything like that; it makes it an occurrence that we've seen before. An occurrence we should have figured out a solution for by now, yes, but one we shouldn't really be surprised about any more.

Within a matter of days, the whole issue will be completely forgotten about as everyone starts playing and enjoying the game, which kind of makes the whole RAGE!!! thing seem rather pointless, really.

But I guess you could say the same thing about any sort of "controversy" — including the Mass Effect 3 issues I wrote about a while back.

The fact is, though, this is an issue I find it very difficult to get riled up and upset about. So far as I'm concerned, Diablo III is an online game, almost an MMO, therefore I accept the fact that an unavoidable part of its existence is downtime, during which you cannot play. It's not as if I'm short of other stuff to try when that happens — and getting angry really won't solve anything. I accept that others' views may differ on this subject if Twitter today is anything to go by, but that's how I feel personally.

If you're getting upset, go play something else. Or, in the words of my good friend Jeff, GO OUTSIDE.