There was a kid in my secondary school who the teachers labelled as “eccentric”. He kept to himself and talked to no-one. He could often be seen muttering in a corner, seemingly having an in-depth discussion or philosophical argument with himself. If you approached him, or happened to come around a corner and startle him, he would run away shrieking madly. Looking back it’s obvious that he had some level of autism and should never have been in an environment that didn’t specifically cater to his needs, or protect him from the callous attitudes of ‘normal’ teenage boys. He was totally unequipped to handle that level of social interaction.
He was also insanely intelligent. He possessed a photographic memory and the ability to decipher complex problems with ease. On one occasion he held our class’s rapt attention as we quizzed him on the periodic table and he answered flawlessly from memory. People would shout random numbers and he would correctly name the element associated with that number. He did this while absentmindedly looking out of the window, eyes occasionally flickering upwards under his eyelids as he processed information, and answering in a high, flutelike voice reminiscent of the Maharajah in ‘Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom’. His computer-like brain had taken this massive jumble of words, pictures, and figures, and processed them into a manageable, understandable form.
It was as I stared at the convoluted menu screen of FIFA 12 that I wished I had this kid sitting on the sofa next to me. If anyone could translate this clutter it was him. The menu screen is an abominable mess of options, selections, numbers and acronyms. There’s no instruction booklet (for environmental reasons, apparently), there’s a weak tutorial that only really highlights this year’s new features, and an online manual which is just the aforementioned tutorial put into words. After stumbling around for what felt like ages (it was probably only about 4 or 5 minutes) I finally worked out how to start up a Premier League season, but it was clear that accessibility was not a priority for the makers of this game.
Want to know how to take a free kick, corner, or penalty? Tough. Want to know which buttons are pass, shoot and tackle? That’s up to you to go trawling through options, menus, and setup screens to find out. Eventually I found “Button Help” in the pause menu, but by then I’d already figured it out the basics by booting the ball into the crowd a lot and performing several hilarious fouls. I don’t expect to have my hand held every step of the way, but don’t punish me because I don’t buy this game every year. I just want to have fun.
And eventually, thankfully, I did! My virtual Fulham FC were soon under my admittedly poor control, and I was actually enjoying it a lot. I played the first five games of my season to get up to the same point as the real life season, and the results weren’t too bad at all. Here’re the stats so far:
My Virtual Fulham FC:
POS P W D L GD PTS
6 5 2 3 0 5 9
The real life Fulham FC:
POS P W D L GD PTS
6 5 3 0 2 5 9
So interestingly we’re both in the same position, with the same amount of points and the same goal difference. Let’s see how that changes over the course of the season. Maybe I’ll get better after doing some research on the controls. Or maybe muttering in the corner for a while will do the trick.
Battlefield 3
I played another couple of levels of this. I can’t say I’m feeling this one. I really enjoyed Battlefield: Bad Company 2, it had that cheesy action movie vibe and didn’t take itself too seriously. The environmental destruction capabilities of the Frostbite engine were great and made the game fun and frantic. This game is trying far too hard to be serious, but just ends up being unmemorable. It’s not particularly thrilling or fun. The in-game destruction in the Frostbite 2 engine just doesn’t seem as good, there doesn’t seem to be as much of the environment that’s destructible. It’s a real step backwards, in my opinion. Oh well, I’ll plough through and get it finished then move onto something more fun, hopefully.
Borderlands
Always one to buck the trend I decided to use the weekend that everyone would be embarking upon their Borderlands 2 adventure to start playing the first one! I roped in my mate Pete for this one as it’s predominantly a co-op game and everyone says that it’s just not as good in single player. We completed a few of the helpful and informative tutorial missions (take note FIFA!) to get a feel for it, and enjoyed it a lot. I can see that getting all the way through will take a fair while, it looks massive. As this is a co-op game it’ll also be dependent upon friends’ availability, so I don’t expect to finish this one in a couple of weeks, more like months.
Metal Gear Solid
Remember when you die in this game there’s the famous music cue that plays as the Game Over screen comes up, Mei Ling cries out over the radio “Snake? Snaaaaaaaaaake!!!!” which is then followed by the sound of a gunshot as you hit ‘Try Again’? I heard that so many times on Saturday night.
I’m trying to rush through this one so I can get to MGS2, and that’s just stupid, you can’t rush stealth games. Well, not unless you’re an absolute master. Or have a big bag of weed. I used to be able to play these games so much better when stoned. The patience and caution were there, the anal retentive qualities needed to succeed were heightened and honed. Well, those were the good old days. I’ll just have to try harder not to be so impatient.
I must admit I had a small panic attack on Saturday night when I looked at my pile of shame and thought “My God, there’s more games in that pile than there are options in a FIFA menu, how will I ever get through them all?!” I don’t know guys, but I’m trying. Once I get past Battlefield 3 I think all will be good. I’m a bit shootered out, so a change of pace will reinvigorate me I reckon. I’m just not sure what I should move onto next. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
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