OS wars

OK, you’re a computer literate type. How many of these OS have you heard of?

Heroes or Heroines?

Games like Mass Effect, Fable and Dragon Age give you an option of playing as a male or a female lead character but it’s still unusual for a game to be built around a female hero.
Do you think it should be a male (character) dominated world? Or do we need more kick-ass girls in the lead role?

Romantic type?

OK, making friends with people you meet while gaming is common, but how about romance? Are you on the look out for some other sort of action when you are playing online? Have you tried flirting with some one? Chatted someone up? (US English translation = hit on someone) or been chatted up by a fellow player? Have you got your game on when you were getting your game on?

Big screen or little screen gamer?

Work’s really busy at the moment so I get less time with my Xbox and more time commuting with my iphone for company. That means I mostly now play games on the small screen and have a whole different experience of gaming because of it. There’s lots of talk about gaming devices in general but this has made me realise that screens tend to be left out of the debate a little. Some people love gaming using projectors and screens while for others it’s all about HD TVs. On top of that, 3D screens are being introduced into homes – it seems consoles have less impact these days and it’s now more about how screens will change how you play and what you play…
So what’s the main screen for your gaming?

and what is your ideal screen for gaming?

solo or team player?

I thought I preferred single-player modes but recently I’ve been seduced by team games where cooperation helps you win, games like Left 4 Dead or the team multi-player online games in Modern Warfare. What sort of gamer are you? The team player or the lone wolf?

Are you a specialist or a generalist?

I’m a die-hard fan of shooters – if a game has shooting in it, I’m already interested. I do play other types of games (I can’t stop playing Angry Birds) but really, it’s all about shooters for me. A lot of my friends have their own favourite game type while some will happily play any genre of game. So, are you a specialist or a generalist? And does being male or female make a difference to that or the types of games you play?

Fancy a fight on the holodeck?

With Xbox Kinect, holograms and 3D TVs we’re edging closer to that ultimate gaming goal, the holodeck. But if the future is a holodeck-style gaming experience how should in-game violence be handled? I love a good headshot splatter in-game but would action and FPS games be as much fun if you could see the results of your actions in 3D ultra graphic detail? Or if your victims look like real people in realistic distress? Would stabbing someone to death in an ultra realistic game environment feel exhilarating or horrifying?

Griefing, anyone?

Online multiplayer games offer all sorts of social experiences and griefing is one of them. Griefing is when a player acts in a deliberately antisocial way, for example, shooting team mates, sending offensive messages to other players or going out of their way to make life difficult for new players. Griefing can range from an incidental nuisance to destructive bullying campaigns and around 25% of calls to online game complaint lines are about griefing.

So, are you a griefer or have you been griefed? Or both perhaps?

More about griefing in this Guardian article.

How are your morals?

Do you play games with a moral system (e.g. Mass Effect, GTA, Red Dead Redemption, Fallout 3) and if so, do you find yourself choosing one particular path more than another?

Bonus Question!

If you played the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 campaign
[Spoiler Alert for those 3 people in the world who haven't played it yet and have read no hype whatsoever about it]
what did you do when you got to the Airport Level?

What’s your playing style?

How do you play games? What sort of decisions do you make when you’re playing a game? There’s a theory that there are 3 types of playing style;
Gamist play where you make decisions that are going to help you win, or score the most points – sometimes even exploiting glitches or cheats to do so
Narrativist play where you play in a way that builds a story or theme for you within the game and allows you to explore consequences and moral dilemmas
Simulationist play where you play to explore the world and enjoy its depth and detail.

So, do you find yourself using one style of play over the other? (As I think this might vary between games and anyone might use a mix of these styles you can pick your top 2 options).

A proper, grown up account of GNS theory can be found at The Forge, a site about role playing games.