DISPATCHES FEBRUARY

Song for junior

He many only be 15 months old, but I’m already thinking about how best to educate my son in the world of videogames. He’s already shown an interest in electronic entertainment having developed an unnatural ability to locate any electronic device in the room, no matter how well hidden, and I feel that I somehow need to cultivate this.

Our early interests are influenced by our parents’ own hobbies until we are old enough to develop our own opinions. This is why, like my dad, I loved Manchester United (despite being from Somerset) and, for a while at least, thought Bon Jovi were the best band in the world. However, my dad was not a gamer so was not able to impart any wisdom in this area. I was left to find my own way.

I asked for a Master System for my sixth birthday and from then on became an ardent Sega fanboy, refusing to touch anything from the old enemy Nintendo. Whilst I had a great time playing games on Sega consoles, I have missed out on some exceptional gaming experiences during my life, that I might not have done with a little guidance. I don’t want my son to make the same mistakes that I did so that he can get the most out of hobby that I love.

It seems that most Edge readers and staff are now parents and I wondered how everyone else goes about introducing their children to their hobby. Where do I start? Should I dig out my old game collections or buy all the ‘classic’ mini consoles to give him an appreciation of gaming’s past? Should I get him to read through all my back issues of Edge so he can develop a more educated opinion? Or should I just let him play whatever he wants and every so often say, ‘Why don’t you try this?’. Whatever I do he’ll probably just spend all his time playing bloody Fortnite. Alex Evans

A quick straw poll yields the following: Mario Kart 8 Deluxe with a steering wheel; Toy Story 3’ s stress-free Toy Box mode; an unplugged SNES, a random cartridge of a game you don’t mind losing, and a pot of strawberry jam; something using your new PS Plus subscription; and Bloodborne. Though as one wise fellow once told us, be careful what you wish for. Once you get ’em into it, you’ll never get ’em out of it.

Sabotage

I recently made the slightly regrettable decision to get up at 1:30am and watch The Game Awards, the “biggest night in gaming” according to host Geoff Keighley.

After dipping in and out of the award show in previous years, I half-expected the same experience here. A three-hourlong advert for new games and well-received ones, with hopefully just the right amount of awkward. Always made for a fun time on Twitter at least.

Pleasantly, I was wrong about the awkwardness. But I wasn’t wrong about the marketing. For the most part, it was a genuinely entertaining event. Unlike the Oscars (which they inevitably want to be compared to), the Game Awards seemed to have a televised audience in mind. There was even a mildly amusing section with a Muppet taking the piss out of the Fortnite streamer, Ninja.

Alongside this, seeing the western heads of Nintendo, Xbox and PlayStation (Reggie Fils-Aimé, Phil Spencer and Shawn Layden respectively) all on a stage together set a great tone. This genuinely was a celebration of all games, a ceasefire on the console wars.

However, it was all nearly ruined when, whilst announcing the winner of the Sports and Racing category, a pretty drab advert for a new Mortal Kombat game ‘hacked’ the screen, delaying the award and stealing the thunder from its winner, Forza Horizon 4.

“Our early interests are influenced by our parents’ hobbies until we develop our own”

Suddenly, all pretence of actual integrity in the awards was gone. Don’t forget, everyone, we are here to sell, sell, sell.

I ranted about it on Twitter, but one commenter replied that it was ‘only the Sports category though, so no big deal’. In the grand context of the night, they were probably right, but I wonder when games will be appreciated enough for that to be seen as crass? Or has that ship sailed? Conor Clarke

Events like these always fall apart a bit when they show a little too plainly who’s paying for it all. Yet we can’t blame Geoff Keighley too much for any of it: it’s the price you pay for putting on something of that scale off your own back, with no support from a traditional broadcaster. That said, those anti-vaping adverts were a bit weird.

High plains drifter

That’s the way it is… The ceremony of The Game Awards crowned God Of War as the GOTY this year. Cory Barlog and his team should be proud of the game they created, an outstanding piece of entertainment driven by a superb narrative and spectacular production values.

That said, we live in a cruel, cruel world where we are forced to pick between Sony Santa Monica’s game and a bunch of outlaws from the west. Kratos’ tale was a hell of a ride, a memorable experience, yet not comparable to what the mere existence of Red Dead Redemption 2 means for videogames as a whole.

You probably disagree – I see the fire in your eyes – and I’d like to explain myself, may I? Rockstar’s creation goes beyond the limits of my conception of what playing a videogame feels like. Never in my life empathised with a main character and his gang on such a deep level. Never before was I surrounded by a world breathing by itself, letting me find and discover things to do in such a natural and organic way. Never in my life was it so hard for me to think about something outperforming what I was experiencing with a pad in my hands.

Red Dead Redemption 2 should be considered aside any other videogame this year for a simple reason: it smashes the concept of what a videogame is supposed to be, opening a door to the future of this entertainment that will benefit everyone in this industry by demonstrating that the revolution that the virtual worlds we love needed to evolve and expand its boundaries was possible. I just finished this wild ride and I am still pursued by a memory: my life as an outlaw paid off. Jose Carlos Sevilla

Well, we’re glad you’re feeling the love –it’s been a while since an Edge 10 has proven so divisive among readers. At least, if nothing else, you’ll all have something to argue about on forums the next time we give out the big one. A side note to the rest of you: Jose’s letter is actually peppered with song titles from the

Red Dead Redemption 2 soundtrack, which would have been very clever indeed had he not submitted them all in tell-tale italics.

Rhymin’ and stealin’

Is Ashen perhaps the long awaited antiRockstar game I’ve been craving? A game where I can be a benevolent übermensch?

I’ll be honest, I too have found myself ploughing through pedestrians in Grand Theft

Auto. Would I, a feminist, have punched a suffragette in the face for the lulz? Maybe (but I wouldn’t have put it on YouTube). What’s so exhilarating about videogames is that I get to break rules. Give me a society that says I have to act a certain way, and I guarantee you I will do everything I can to deviate. To me, that’s player agency in a nutshell.

But despite decades of gaming, I’ve mostly been rather unsatisfied in my ability to be both a deviant and a hero in games. Acting as a good person in a game is usually just being an errand-boy. On the other hand, doing something authentic usually led to me breaking things. Two of my favourite moments in gaming were in Journey and in Dark Souls, where players could spend some extra effort to unconditionally help another player. But these moments were limited, nor did they give me the powerful feeling I’ve felt in Rockstar games.

So what about this Ashen game? I’ve heard there’s more focus on helping other players. And you apparently slowly build up a community of folks that are grateful for your exertion. Sounds like my kind of power fantasy. Here’s hoping to your crew reviewing the game by the time I clean up my backlog. And if it’s not a good game, let me know when Doshin

The Giant finally gets the sequel it deserves. Robert August de Meijer

This is precisely the reason that product design by Venn diagram is so effective: kids love potatoes and kids love waffles, so kids will love potato waffles. (And quite right too, they’re delicious.) It’s that same philosophy that has given us what in a more literal world would have been called Dark Souls X Journey. Sure,

Ashen’s nice enough, but is a dilution of its all-too-obvious influences, rather than an improvement of them. We hope this reply reaches you before you get your wallet out.

Live at PJ’s

This coming Friday 14th December, Danny Patton & Pat Nearney bring you an evening of jokes and songs and other things too numerous to mention all for free starting at 7.30 (doors open 7pm).

Free finger buffet, raffle, bring your own booze (fruit juice/mineral water with the buffet). As you are on our mailing list you do not need to have a ticket.

Whatever you did on December 14 is now old-fashioned, out of date, unsophisticated, unsociable, uninteresting, unprepossessing, and unseasonable, so come to the Hall. Slim Wilkinson

Slim! Lovely to hear from you as always, but if we’ve told you once about our lead times, we’ve told you… okay, three times. Still, thanks for the reminder. We’ve added ‘sort out that spam filter’ to our list of new year’s resolutions.