My very first experience with online gaming was with Duke Nukem 3D, I really loved that game and at the time BT had a good fast server with Wireplay. I played it and got killed in seconds and frankly I hated it. The truth is of course that some people spend there whole lives playing online and they know where new players respawn and so they wait there and kill you and therein lies the greatest problem with online gaming but we will come back to that as I am getting ahead of myself. I was flicking through the forums and stumbled upon a guy who said that if Gamecube does not have online capabilities then he would not get a Gamecube. That is shocking.

I firmly believe that going online for Nintendo would be a bad move indeed. Nintendo have in fact been very very clever indeed by not including a modem in the cube. You would have had to pay extra. This has been said by many including Nintendo many many times before. Until BT get there act together ASDL will just be for the few. However there is a far more glaring issue than this. I surf the net a fair bit and I play games a lot. This to many will make me sad, if I told you that I used to play on Everquest a fair bit well many would think I was even sadder. The point of it is that Nintendo games are all about being fun. Nintendo games are supposed to appeal to all and yet online gaming is most definitely a very unfriendly world. There is one game and one game only that has any chance of becoming a big hit with ordinary folk and that is the Sims online. Forget Counter strike, forget Final Fantasy 11 it’s the Sims that will kick them all. I have a love hate relationship with the Sims but I am quite interested in the Sims online myself.

The big big problem is that Counter Strike, Everquest and all the others are not fun at all or at least not Nintendo style fun. Shigsy himself said he was not a fan of online gaming because it detracts from the single player game and I agree with that big time. While I can enjoy a game of Everquest online I much much prefer playing Final Fantasy 6. While playing Counter Strike has its moments nothing beats playing Golden eye with your mates. Nintendo are in fact true experts at making games fun for a group of 4 to play around 1 TV. If the truth be told I am not altogether commutable with consoles going online. I think that PC’s are far more suited to the role. Yet there is more and more pressure being applied by people for online gaming. Luckily Shig agrees with me and if Shig agrees with me then you know Nintendo won’t be going online anytime soon.

For all my complaints Internet connectivity has it’s plus points. Mainly the fact that you can get new levels and stuff for your games, again however this is not really suited to Console gaming and even less so to Nintendo gaming and more to the point why make levels available for free when you can sell it? I have no doubt that one day when phone companies in Europe make broadband gaming a reality for most, more and more we will see online gaming become important but for now leave me alone while I can still play wonderfully written epics and classy games with the single player in mind. Oh and to the fool that said he wouldn’t buy a cube because there is no Internet connection out of the box all I can say is that you will miss out my friend.

Gary Samaden

NOTE
Please don’t think that I hate online gaming because I don’t it’s just it’s really not the be all and end all and it is fraught with many hurdles.