PRINCE OF PERSIA 2008 (Pre-play Review)

Ubisoft are bringing us yet another awesome looking game in the time tested (no pun intended) and highly successful Prince of Persia franchise. The game which was originally developed by Brøderbund and published by them and Konami way back in 1989 for the PC, has seen several transformations in its time as it successfully made the transition from the old platform model to the new age 3d environments of the modern era of gaming, while maintaining the tradition of being available to fans of the franchise on both PC and Game console platforms.
Later editions of the game included: Prince of Persia 2(1994): The Shadow and the Flame, also developed and published by Brøderbund.
Prince of Persia 3D(1999) : which as the title suggests was the first 3d version of the game and was developed by Red Orb entertainment and published by The Learning Company. (Though in 2000, a version of the game was published by Avalanche software and published by Mattel for the now defunct Dreamcast.)
Prince of Persia "The Sands of Time Trilogy": Which included Prince of Persia(2003): The Sands of Time, Prince of Persia(2004): Warrior Within and Prince of Persia(2005): The Two Thrones, all developed and published by Ubisoft (Montreal).
The game also had several remakes with versions made for portable gaming with: Battles of Prince Of Persia(2005) for the Nintendo DS, Prince of Persia Classic(2007) which was released on XBOX live arcade, the Playstation network and was also available on Mobile phones, and the upcoming Prince of Persia: The Fallen King(2008) which is the Nintendo DS counterpart to the upcoming Prince of Persia(2008) game that is set to be released anlongside it this december.
I always loved this series and it has proven to have one of the few (if not the only) characters from the stoneage of gaming that has successfully made the often difficult transition to the present era. The success of the Prince of Persia series has also resulted in the Guinness World Records awarding the series 6 world records in its "Gamer's Edition of 2008", with records including "First Motion-Capture Animation in a Video Game" and the highest rated platformer ever on the PS2 and Xbox. Which no doubt, led to the making of the live action movie starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Gemma Arteton, Ben Kingsley and Alfred Molina set to be released on the 28th of May 2010 entitled Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.
So look out for the newest installment in the series coming out this December (if you can get your hands on it) and prep yourself for another exciting adventure in the Prince of Persia saga, because if the history of this game is anything to go by, then we're all in for one hell of a time!

Here's a rather interesting video review on the game from GameTrailers.com

Mobile Phone Game Development

I realise that I haven't made that many game development-related posts in a while so here's one.

According to wikipedia there are about 3.3 billion mobile phone subscriptions in the world. Of course there are people with multiple subscriptions, just like in our wonderful country where people have up to four or five lines, but even if half of that figure is the real number of handsets in the world, that is still 1/6th of the world's population. That's a number that cannot be ignored. Now, of course, I am only advocating that we should start developing for a subset of that group. Mainly, the group that has iPhones, and the group that has and will have phones powered by the Google Android OS like the T-Mobile G1.

The sales of powerful, media savvy phones has risen tremendously in the last couple of years. Just recently the Apple iPhone overtook sales of RIMs blackberry with a total of 6.9 million phones sold this year and I am sure that that number will increase. The G1 also saw pre-sale figures of 1.5 million and definitely that figure will rise once the phone is released around the world. All this figure crunching means is that there is a huge market out there, and with the availability of easy-to-browse application stores for both the iPhone and Android OS, there is a huge opportunity for Nigerian developers to sell their wares to the world. 

But first we have to build them, and build them well.

When I first returned to the country in 2004, I spoke with a few people who were into software development about whether or not they would be interested in developing games for consoles or the PC. Without exception, all of them told me that even though they might be interested, that they didn't feel there was a big enough market for games in Nigeria for it to be worthwhile. I tried explaining to them that they didn't have to limit themselves to only Nigerian consumers, but most of them wouldn't listen. The ones who did just thought that they didn't have the skillsets and that no publisher or investor would be interested in financing such a venture.

Well, here I am now hoping that this should be a lot easier to get into.

The Android OS is java based and I believe that most Nigerian developers picked up java at some point, and the SDK and in fact the entire OS are available for download from the Android Homepage. There are also loads of tutorials with advice and techniques for building Android apps, and more pertinently, there are quite a few forums springing up for Android game development.

Making games for the iPhone is a bit more difficult, but the rewards are potentially a lot greater as the phone has a huge fan base at the moment and has success stories for games that can be used to sway potential investors. I believe you need to work on a Mac, and you have to program in Objective C which is developed by Apple and used on the Mac OS X. There are loads of tutorials on the net for learning it though, and from what I understand, if you know C, it is not much of a leap to learn it. Once you can overcome these hurdles you can then get to the hard work of making a game and ensuring that it sells. You can get Apple Macs in Lagos at very good prices from Superior Equipment and they offer a full bevy of services to go with that as they are an official Apple reseller.

Of course, this is not to say that once you choose your platform or even decide to code for both that your game will automatically be successful. A whole slew of challenges await you. Assuming you have a kickass game on your hands and there are no bugs at all, it will still have to find the audience. You have to remember that there are loads of people from all over the world jumping on these platforms, so it is important to be able to market your game effectively over the internet via gaming sites, and so on. There is also the problem of actually being from Nigeria which could make it difficult to collect payments and so on, but I am sure that all these things are surmountable. 

So, go out and make some games so that we can get on the map for something other than the usual. I would do it myself, but for now I am too busy working on PC games via Game Maker 7 and Inform 7 and writing comic books!

Helpful Links -

Android homepage

Android Notes - General resource for google android developers

iPhone Developer Site

Android Game Development Forum

Objective C Resource on Cult of iPhone

Guide to getting started in Android game development

Gamesalad video clip - Possible game creator for the iPhone

iPhone SDK development forum

A developers experiences publishing an iPhone game

Ars Technica article on the joys and pains of developing games for the iPhone

Online Gaming in Nigeria

I was talking to a friend the other day about what games we were interested in this Christmas, and I mentioned Left 4 Dead . He then proceeded to ask me whether I was planning to try and play L4D online with our terrible internet connections. Now, even though I am primarily getting Left 4 Dead for system link fun (hopefully I will be able to convince everyone in our 360 LAN circle to pick it up as well), it did get me thinking about what games we can play online from Nigeria.

One game that came to mind was FFXI . Now, even though you will probably lag like hell, it would be playable and you would be able to get a lot out of it. I remember that when I first moved back to Nigeria, I was able to play it over a 56K connection and it was okay. The main problem of course would be how to pay for your subscription. It would be worth investigating to see whether they accept Nigerian credit cards. I guess the same would go for World of Warcraft although if you can actually figure out a means of paying, by all means give those two a try. They work quite well on our connections.

So, I have decided to make a short list of good games that I feel are quite easy to get and play online. This list is of course by no means definitive, but I hope it will be able to introduce more people to the joys of multiplayer gaming.

For this list, an ideal online game that would be suitable to playing from Nigeria would have the following characteristics:

1. Be playable over a slow connection and not be too dependent on having low latency, low ping connections. So that rules out the majority of first person shooters and some RTS games.

2. Not require a subscription fee. With all the hullabaloo of Nigeria being the king of credit card fraud, most companies are unwilling to accept any of our bank issued VISA or Mastercard credit cards even if we are willing to send proof of identity and ownership. So, this is of course going to be a factor. In the case of games that accept our credit cards, I will make a note of that in the short write-up describing it.

3. Not require system specifications that are too high. This is mostly related to PC/Mac gaming. This is because high-end systems are quite hard to come by in Nigeria from my experience with shop owners going wide-eyed when you request a system with more than 2GB of RAM onboard and no clue what video cards are. Any game on this list will be playable with a very basic system. By basic system I mean a computer that has at least a pentium III (or equivalent processor), at least 512MB of RAM, and a graphics card with at least 64MB of RAM onboard.

The List - 

1. Lusternia (or anything else by Iron Realms ). Lusternia is a text-based MUD (multi user dungeon) that is part of a group of text-based games from a company called Iron Realms. They are known for creating games of quite a bit of depth with rewarding gameplay and social systems. Wait! Come back! Just because there are no graphics does not mean that it is not fun! Honest, I promise!

Ok, settled in?

I chose Lusternia to highlight their stable of games, even though all of them are definitely worth at least trying, because it is the setting I liked the most. The dark, almost faerie-like setting with trees being places of power and bards that destroy things just by strumming a string on their harps is quite absorbing and a little bit different from the standard Tolkeinesque fare that most other text-

based MUDs bring to the table. You can play any of these games using the standard windows/mac terminal which allows you to connect to their server and play the game, and all of the Iron Realms games have a java applet that can be launched from the various game websites, but if you want a bit more customisation and cotrol over your play experience, then you can get one of the dedicated software solutions for playing these games. zMUD , GMUD , MUSHClient , all these and more allow you to interface with the games at a level that the java client or windows/mac terminal cannot even offer.

There are a few problems though. With our high latency connections, combat at the higher levels can become very troublesome to get right, where timing and making decisions based on what you see on the screen and with our connections, if you get hit by lag, it could easily result in death. However, it is possible to pay cash in order to advance if combat proves too difficult, and I believe they accept Nigerian credit cards.

So, if you are interested in playing in fantasy worlds with hundreds and even thousands of other players politicking and fighting with the best of them, you should try out Lusternia or at least one of the Iron Realms games. I am sure you will find something you like. And if you don't care for fantasy, there are loads of sci-fi, horror and urban themed MUDs that are also a lot of fun. You can find them at the MUD Connector or Top MUD Sites .

2. Dofus . Dofus is a graphical mmorpg (massively multiplayer online roleplaying game) made by a French company called Ankama Games. It was built completely in Flash and is quite beautiful. The reason I put it here is that the combat is turn-based and so is not explicitly dependent on quick inputs and the client itself is quite lightweight at 150MB compared to the monsters of World of Warcraft or Final Fantasy XI which are both close to or above 1GB. I did download and try out this game but didn't get very far in it. There is a block on the amount of content you can access if you don't pay a subscription, but I will check and see if they accept Nigerian credit cards. They are also working on another game called Wakfu which is based in the same universe, as well as a TV series.

It is quite a successful game with about 10 million players on different servers. Whichever way you slice it, that is huge and speaks to the popularity of the game.

So, even if you can't go past the beginner stages due to credit card payment trouble, you can still enjoy a part of the game.

3. Kingdom of Loathing . Kingdom of Loathing is a browser-based morpg (multiplayer roleplaying game) run by Asymmetric Publications. This is a very funny game typified by its use of stick figures and humorous writing. You take on the role of an adventurer, just like in the previous games mentioned here, and you fight monsters and get treasure all while cracking up at the silly writing and situations. You are allocated a set amount of adventures a day which can be augmented by various items with the number being reset at 2pm GMT. Each adventure allows you to battle a monster or do some other activities. This helps limit your play time as one can only do so much in any given day and can be of huge benefit to those who might get addicted and not do any work at all.

It is quite interesting and although I only dabbled in it, it was actually quite interesting.

4. Trackmania Nations Forever . Okay, though not strictly an online gaming experience, it is enhanced tremendously by having other players to compete with, either by racing directly against them, or indirectly by trying to beat their lap and track times. It's hiscore table is collated from all over the world allowing you to play offline and do time trials and then upload your scores and see how you did.

Trackmania Nations is a racing game focused around the art of time trials (racing on a particular track with the aim of getting the fastest lap and/or track time). It is such an addictive game and it scales very readily to very slow systems. As long as you have a suitable graphics card to show it, it will gladly run at a smooth, crisp state for your entire play time.

It was one of the games that we tried to participate in for the World Cyber Games 2008 that I wrote about in a previous article and in fact this is more of a reason for us to play it more. As at the last time I checked, we had 80+ players from Nigeria on Trackmania Nations Forever. I hope we can get more and even get on the global rankings board.

Oh, did I mention that it had a track editor allowing you to create awesome, zany tracks for both you and your friends to try out?

5. Evernight: The Reign of Darkness . I actually used to play this a couple of years back and I am quite pleased that it is still available to play and going strong. It is a browser based turn-based strategy game where you take control of an army/nation and proceed to battle/negotiate with other players for supremacy. Every day you are given a set number of turns in which to accomplish various things. You get one turn every ten minutes and you can make a move as often as that or even once a week if you prefer and all from the comfort of your browser window!

Definitely give this a try.

That's it for now. I will probably be adding to this list in the coming months and of course, if you have any suggestions do leave them in the comments section.

Oh! Internet

I decided to go online in order to see if anyone else was writing about the Nigerian gaming scene and I found a couple of articles written by Mayowa Tomori on the Nigerians going to the World Cyber Gaming Tournament this year. The article shed some more light on three of the contestants and he was quite supportive of our going at all. They are definitely worth a read and I am going to be following up on the company that is organising the whole thing, La Kraft Entertainment.

All that was quite inspirational and it made me feel good to be a gamer, and a Nigerian gamer at that until I decided to have a look at the comments on this one in particular.

Wow. The degree of stupidity and quite frankly, ignorance on display was quite disheartening. Usually, I get annoyed by most internet comments pages, but this was just outright reprehensible.

To think that people who are supposed to be in a land that grants them exposure, education, opportunities and infrastructure that one would think would allow them to develop in a better way are just wasting all their opportunities away. And the worst part is, I can see how it can happen. When you're in a culture that can afford to support, and in fact actively encourages individualism and freedom of thought, most people will probably go for the meanest and laziest path available to them.

It scares me sometimes as we rush headlong into a democratic and 'developed' society. Is that what is waiting for us? A new generation of internet idiots waiting to suck at the teat of a fibre optic cable with no sense of propriety? It is no wonder that the majority of gamers who were commenting on various blogs and sites during the whole Resident Evil 5 racism wahala were completely oblivious to how imagery in the game could even be construed as racist. I remember watching the video, and I would be the first to admit that it didn't make me think 'racism' the minute I saw it, but after a bit of thought it did come off a bit indelicate. Not racist so much as using racist stereotyping.

All that most of them saw was a black man saying that blacks should never be zombies.

Well, I guess this is even more of a reason for more Africans to get into the game development/playing scene. The more these net kiddies see real Africans and African inspired games the more used to our culture they could get. Instead of getting it all from news reports about wars, killings, and from Black Hawk Down on blu ray.

Halo 3 All-nighter

I just had my first Halo 3 all-nighter. It was quite an impromptu affair. Last Friday was my friend's birthday and we were all too tired (and BROKE!) to go to a bar or club so we decided to play a bit of Halo 3.

I had just finished the campaign on Heroic and was in the mood for some fragging. So, we got another one of my friend's involved and the birthday boy's cousin in order to have a full set of four. I also had an extra copy of Halo 3 (long story, don't ask) lying around, so I decided that we could try 4-player co-op first.

After messing about with the router for a while, we were able to set up a game and we started on Legendary. We were just beginning to get into a groove, me and my friend's cousin (from now on known as El Cij) made a very nice team, when suddenly the game seemed to freeze and we heard loud groans from the next room. My friend's power box had given up the ghost. Apparently, because his 360 is an NTSC one, the guys he bought it from had supplied him with a custom power box that automatically stepped down the voltage so that it would work here without the need for an external step down adapter. It would come back on in an hour or so, but he couldn't guarantee it would last any longer.

We then began discussing how this was actually his second power box. The one he had used previously had been blown by a power surge in their house (oh the perils of not having a stabiliser!).

We then decided to make some coffee, get a bottle of white wine and settle in to some Slayer. El Cij went to bed about 1am and left the three of us to play. We decided to use the opportunity to put in some practice on the levels and learn the new weapon dynamics before we have the halo gaming day where we will hopefully have up to 16 guys and 4 consoles. Most of the people we are inviting have played and owned Halo 3 since last year. We didn't want to go into that with absolutely no preparation at all!

It went pretty well actually. We came across this really cool combination of shotguns and graviton hammer. That made for some really enjoyable games. Maybe by the 1st of October we will be able to put up a fight.

Oh, did I say that the multiplayer is really, really good and better than Halo 2's? Well, it is. And the Spartan Laser is sexy.

The Internet Luxury.

Spore is finally out! Spoke to my brother in England about it yesterday and he was saying that it was all over the place. It was at that precise moment that I realised that I wasn't all that interested in Spore.

This is not because I think it is going to be crap or that Will Wright sucks or anything like that, I generally am not really a sandbox type of player and so have missed a lot of his games. In this case though, I think it is more the fact that it seems a majority of the game experience is directly related to trading and seeing other peoples' spore creations is quite a deal breaker for me.

I mean, forget the DRM. Who cares that the game is going to allow you to install the game three times before you have to call them up and get more installs? I can see it being a problem, and on principle I don't like it, but for me, the main thing is the dependency on internet.

I could have maybe bought it on a whim (and maybe I still will), but the reliance on internet is quite depressing. It seems like a lot of games, and more particularly, single player games, are beginning to require the internet in some way shape or form.

I remember installing Half Life 2 on my PC then having to reformat it. Re-activating it on Steam on a rubbish connection like the one I have in the office is not fun at all. I don't want a game that people are saying a lot of the fun is going to come from seeing and experiencing other people's creations! To be fair, I don't know whether this is true or not, but I honestly just feel that if you are making a sigle player experience, the addition of downloadable elements and so on should enhance instead of complete.

Spore is even not that bad, at least you can buy it for the PC. What about games that are only available on a console internet store? Rez HD? Tried to get it and guess what? Xbox LIVE doesn't accept Nigerian post codes as legit. Pixeljunk Eden? Same thing. I am not even going to think about Bionic Commando or Braid or Castle Crashers or Ikaruga or...the list goes on and on. And this is when I can even get the console online at an acceptable speed.

So much gaming and I have been cut off from it not because I can't afford the games, or because I don't want to play them, but because of where I live. At least with boxed games I can pick some up whenever I travel, but these will just sit and exist for me on youtube and desktop wallpapers from the internet. I see people on various blogs talking about how annoyed they are with Spore and its DRM, but of course nobody even bats and eyelash at the fact that one of the major unique selling points of the game is linked directly to availablity of relatively fast broadband internet. Why should they? They seem to take it for granted.

How I wish that we in Nigeria had the luxury to complain about having only 3 installs on a game that we can get full mileage out of. Or even hell, having the luxury to even play one of these download-only games.

Looks like I might have to start travelling with my consoles if I want to get some of the good downloadable games out of them. I might also have to try and get a foreign credit card in order to buy and play the majority of them.

Michael Abbot of the Brainy Gamer was rejoicing in one of his posts about the increasing quality and availability of online games, and how mazing it would be for a plastic free future. I dunno whether a download-only future for games is one that I am really looking forward to. Well, that is if our government and the various companies that provide internet to us here at ridiculous prices will ever begin to take getting us as a country connected seriously at all.

Of course, this is not to say that the rest of the world should wait for us to catch up, but it would be nice to know that we were even thought about at all when they are making these decisions. After all, do they really think that just because they do not officially distribute here that no one is playing video games?

Finishing the Fight

 

I finally got my mitts on Halo 3! Yes, yes, I know this is probably old news for most people with 360s, but it is still quite an achievement for me, and getting it was almost as interesting as playing the game itself.

Basically, I went to every department store and electronics shop on the Island in Lagos asking about it, and like I detailed in an earlier post, most people don't even seem to stock 360 games, let alone having Halo 3. I was about to give up and look to the internet and my hit or miss credit card to help me get it when I went to the NuMetro Media store in the Palms shopping mall. By this time, I had given up on getting Halo 3 in any of these stores and was just looking for a control pad (they didn't have any by the way) when one of their sales reps came up to me and asked what I was looking for. I told him that I was looking for an xbox 360 pad. He looked thoughtful for a second or two and then told me to wait for him. He looked like he was going to the back of the store and so I just said in passing that if they also happened to have a hidden copy of Halo 3 somewhere in there, I would want to get that as well.

He then asked me whether I wanted a PAL or NTSC one and I told him either. He went away and left me with my hopes actually raised and when he came back with both his hands empty I was disappointed. He then told me to come back at 1pm. I looked at my watch and saw that the time was 12.30pm, so I told him this and said that I would just wait. He then told me to give him my number and that he would call me when the stuff was there. So I did so, asking him when he thought they would be available, and he said the next day.

And so, I left.

I went back about the same time the next day (Saturday) and I saw him. He told me that they still weren't there, but that he would definitely call me once they were available. So, I went back home again, getting ready to attempt the internet purchase option. On Sunday morning I got a phone call from a number I didn't recognise and it was the guy from the store! He told me that he had the goods and that I could pick them up that day. Thinking that all I would have to do is drive down to the store and go get them, he then confused me by asking where I lived. I answered automatically and told him that I lived near the mall at Lekki Phase One then he told me that he could bring it to me. At this point it dawned on me that when he told me that they would be getting the Halo 3 and the control pad soon, he was talking about himself and his side-business (or PP - Private Practice as they say). Well, Halo is Halo and so I got in my car and met him at the entrance to the estate. I parked on the side of the road and he got into the car with a black polyethene bag. I thought for a moment at how this must look like such a shady deal being executed. Anyways, he brought out the Halo (which looked to me almost like it had been hastily re-shrink wrapped by Alaba boys), paid him N13,500 ($114) with a big sigh and drove off. I had already picked up a game pad from another store and did not have enough money to buy one more. I am planning to pick up two more pads from a store near my office. They are offering them for about N6,000-N8,000 ($50-$67) which is still a damn sight better than the N10,500 they are asking for in the department stores.

Anyways, long story short, I got my game, and I have been playing for two days now on Heroic. Africa has been glassed and I am on my way to kick the ass of the people who made it necessary. The Flood. The game looks really nice, and I prefer its visual aesthetic to Gears of War which I also finished recently. Halo's art design is a bit subtle in that it appears to be really just generic space marine tosh, but on closer inspection, there really is a lot of work and artistry put into it. And at least I can tell the difference between a Brute, Elite, Grunt, and marine at a glance unlike in Gears of War where everybody looks like they are on the same steroid regime.

The game is also quite nice too so far. :-)

World Cyber Games Championships...

And Nigeria is participating! How this flew under my radar I have no idea. I think I remember reading about a competition, but since it didn't involve any games I play or am interested in, I just didn't pay too much attention. Guessing that that is what it was.

I am quite pleased at this development, although I wonder how well we will actually do given our track record for assuming we are GREAT at something only to find out that we are only wonderful relative to the others around our neighbourhood. Will still be an interesting experience however. Wish I had the time/excess funds to go to Germany as my visa is still valid.

According to the official Nigerian World Cyber Games (Wow! I don't believe I just typed that) website, the games available for representation by us are - Need for Speed, Age of Empires, Warcraft and Fifa 08. If I had seen anything on Halo 2/3, I might have actually considered going on a training regime with a team in order to see about participating. Even if we get our asses handed to us over there (which is most likely), it would have been very fun.

The Lagos Gaming Scene

I realise that I haven't really gone into what the gaming scene is like in Nigeria at all. Beyond a bit of a rant regarding prices of software over here, nothing else has been highlighted. I am going to attempt to address that in a series of posts.

Most of the gamers I know can be split up into two groups. The current-gen gamers and the last-gen gamers.

The current-gen gamers I interact with regularly own Xbox 360s. If anything, I would say that it is their console of choice for all things game related. Very few of them have ps3s and even fewer have Wiis.

Oddly enough, most of the media/general stores here stock PS3 and Wii games and very few Xbox 360 games. The playstation and Nintendo brand names are really stuck in the heads of most of the buyers for these stores, and they do not really consider the 360 relevant as such. Most of them do not even realise that the 360 can also play dvds and act as a media center. It is just in some limbo space as far as they are concerned. A strictly gaming machine with games they do not understand. The playstation has grand theft auto and pro evolution. Even though these games are also available on the 360 they do not really register this as far as being a reason to buy more 360 games. Why would anyone want to buy a 360 anyway? The PS3 is obviously better.

This makes gamers resort to a place called Alaba Market, an area in Lagos that is known as the center of Igbo traders in the state and also the HQ of anything to do with electronics.


These guys get everything, and if they haven't gotten it yet, they can get it for you. Plasma/LCD High Definition TVs at the cheapest price you are likely to get in the country as well as all sorts of gadgets, music etc. They are also the center of the pirating scene for videogames, music and movies. But, anyway, even though Alaba Market has a lot more choice for the 360 and any other system owner, it is still quite limited.

I just recently got on the current-gen train so I am still wading through all the options available to me in Lagos, but from what I gather from them, it is essentially a sort of pot luck for games, and most people simply wait until a friend of theirs, or they are travelling abroad and get their games that way.

Apart from the current-gen gamers, there are the last-gen gamers who mainly play on the ps2 and xbox. Most of their games are pirated. A pirated game for either of these consoles goes for as little as N1500 (roughly $12) if you are in the right place, and I have never heard of them passing N3000 (roughly $25). This is well within the budget of most people who are still in university or secondary school. It also makes them focus on a few games at a time in order to eke out as much as possible from it. Most of the people that are in this group almost never buy original games. In the stores here, an original Playstation 2 game goes for about N9,000 (about $75) a pop, and the choice is still quite limited. Mainly football and AAA titles like GTA, Pro Evolution, FIFA and Tomb Raider. You occasionally find non-big name titles like Rez or Panzer Dragoon Orta for relatively cheaper (N6000 which is about $50), but these are very few and far between.

Personally, I have never bought a pirated game before, and I don't think I ever will, but it is not hard to understand why most gamers in this country do buy them. There is no official distribution network for our country and no support for any of our consoles or games, so we are very easy prey for the sharks that travel to the states or the uk, pick up games at retail price (most likely bargain bins) and bring them back with their profit, flight ticket, and other expenses tacked on to them. They buy a brand new PS2 game for at worst $40 and sell it to us for $75. What can one do about that? If there was a way for them to buy the games at the dealer prices, we would have a much better deal and it would hopefully give people more of an incentive to pick up original titles. I am not going to hold my breath for that to happen though.

Another thing that struck me when I came back was how much stuff you have to get in order to support your console lifestyle. A stabiliser is a must as is a UPS if you don't want our beloved PHCN (Power Holding Company Nigeria Limited) to mess you up in the middle of a dungeon or mission. I still haven't gotten a UPS for my consoles and I feel the pinch every time I have to replay an entire section because the the 'light went'. It's made me hate games with poorly placed save- and checkpoints even more now, and I really do appreciate my DS.

Actually, this brings me to another topic, that of portable gaming. You would think that in a country with an unstable power supply, over-priced games and not much disposable income that portable gaming would have taken off dramatically. Unfortunately, this doesn;t seem to be the case, admittedly this is based purely on my own limited experience, but I rarely meet people outside the current-gen set that own portable consoles, and even when they do, it is a PSP and it is being used as a very big iPod and storage device. Odd that. I think this has to do with the perception that portable gaming isn't as good as home console/PC gaming simply because the graphics they are capable of are not that great compared to the home consoles, and they are mainly filled with 'kiddy' games like pokemon and patapon. Then again, it could also be because getting pirated games onto a PSP is a lot easier than doing the same with a DS. Hell, I once went into a game store in the complex where my office is and saw a friend of mine downloading games from the store's laptop onto his memory stick for his PSP. I do not know whether they were charging for this service or they were just giving him free games though.

I am hoping to help try and change the perception of portable gaming being limited by organising some gaming get-togethers focused around more than just home console gaming. Will update on the site once I see how that goes.

This brings me neatly to the end of this topic. Hopefully, I will be able to write about our Halo gaming days. I will also try and take some pictures of the next one (if it happens) and if we play some Halo 3, maybe even some videos!

EDIT: Made some grammatical changes and tweaks here and there.