[Today’s posting is a rant. I just have to get it off my chest]

I have two gaming T-shirts that I wear quite a bit.

One of them has the images of four game controllers (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC mouse and Wii-mote) accompanied with the words: “Contrary to popular opinion, these do not make me a killer (Well maybe the Wii-mote, that thing is dangerous)”

It’s my “I like to play video games T-shirt, get used to it” T-shirt and nine times out of 10 when I wear it someone will give me a strange look. In fact, a week or so ago when we were staying at a remote location in the Marlborough Sounds I wore it into the camp shop/diary to get milk and a paper. The woman behind the counter sort of looked strange when she saw it.

I mention my T-shirt because if there’s one thing really grinds my gears it’s people who  criticise people who play video games. That’s why I like wearing that T-shirt (it came from Insert Coin clothing in the UK): it makes it known to people that I play video games and, contrary to what they believe, years of playing games haven’t made me a killer. I don’t go out at night, like Dexter Morgan in the TV show Dexter does, prowling for evil doers.

I’m raising this topic because today someone who has hardly played video games at all criticised why I played video games.  I don’t understand why people do that: why criticise someone just because it’s something you don’t like?

Sorry, but I just don’t understand it. I think it’s because they don’t understand video games or the technology behind them. That’s the only answer I can give. Seriously. Or they’ve watched a mainstream news story about “video game nasties” and based their opinion on that.

I’m not making people who don’t like video games play them so why do they criticise them? “Oh, why do you waste your time playing that when you could be outside, in the sun, riding a bike, or doing something with nature?” is a common comment I get on another blog from people who have no understanding of the industry or video games. I don’t like hunting but it would be like me visiting a hunting forum then telling hunters to give it a rest and start taking up crochet or something.

What these people who tell me to “go outside in the sun instead of playing video games” don’t seem to realise is that I actually am able to play video games and go outside and spent time with Mother Nature, on my bike and with my family. It’s called a balanced lifestyle and I have one. I ride my bike, I spend time with my family, I go out in the boat, I go fishing. I also play video games.

Anyway, sorry for the rant. Sometimes small things get my back up, especially when people slag off something that I enjoy just because they don’t understand it. Let us play video games: we’re not hurting anyone.

Promise I won’t moan again in future. Much.

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 4,200 times in 2011. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 4 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

It’s time to pack away the controllers, turn off the game consoles and get the sunscreen out: it’s time for the annual Game Junkie family Christmas  holiday.

We’re taking the new boat up to the Marlborough Sounds this year (it’ll be nice to get away from the earthquakes that seem to be keen to hang around: there was a string of large ones on Friday), so will be boating, skiing and generally relaxing for a couple of weeks with friends, which will be nice after a busy year.

There will be minimal gaming, though, but there will be some gaming: I’m taking my Nintendo 3DS so I can play a bit of Mario Kart 7 and Super Mario 3D Land at night, plus I’ ve got my tablet so I can play some games on that (GTA3: Anniversary edition, World of Goo). It won’t be completely game free but it’s won’t be gaming every night for a few hours.

The blog will be back sometime late January. Have a great and safe New Year and let’s do it again in 2012!

It’s almost Christmas, which is supposed to be a period of relaxing with a big glass of something,  and we’ve just been hit by two massive earthquakes again today, which is not what we need two nights before Christmas. There might not be much sleep done tonight.

Anyway, over the past few weeks the digital editor at work and I have been working on doing regular video interviews: it’s been something we’ve been talking about for a while but never really did anything about it. The first video we did two weeks ago was a video of Batman Arkham City, my Game of the Year, and it was purely game footage. All good so far.

The following week the digital editor told me we should do a video review but with me talking camera, which I was a little hesitant about. I’m fine when it comes to writing stories and stuff but I don’t really do “to-camera” stuff. I don’t think I have the face for it. Eventually he persuaded me to do and we decided on Nintendo Wii game Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword.

While I don’t think it’s a bad first effort there are definite areas I can improve on: shifting my eyes every time someone came into the room where we were filming is one of them. Secondly, I could just be a bit more relaxed and not try so hard. I just look nervous (and a fair bit was cut out as it was too bad to use).

Anyway, here’s the link for the video. If you like looking at comedy, have a gander. Leave a comment, too, if you like.

You’ll also find our other video there as well (Batman Arkham City).

Let’s hope tonight is a quite night and the ground decides to stay calm. Stay strong, Christchurch.

I often tell people that for me as a journalist the week before Christmas is like the final 10 metres of a 100 metre sprint: the finish is almost in sight but it’s the point in the race where you really have to dig deep and give it all you’ve got.

I mention this because a few days after Christmas is when I tend to pack up the family (not literally) and we head out of Christchurch for a family holiday – but in the week leading up to that glorious day I have to write up enough gaming and technology stories and other stories for the sections of the newspaper I write for to cover my absence. So it often means late nights and early mornings, scrabbling together reviews for not-so crucial games that can run over that holiday season.

While a family holiday means time away from game consoles and big budget games (which, just between you and me, will be something of a blessing as I’m pretty burned out after a rather packed gaming year) it does, however, mean more time with mobile gaming platforms: read Nintendo 3DS and my Samsung Galaxy 10.1 tablet. I’m sure I can get away with taking those platforms away with me this year, besides I need the tablet to check those all-important emails.

So this week is also about loading up my tablet with games that will keep me busy during the quiet time: I’ve just bought GTA3 Anniversary edition and recently added Sprinkle and World of Goo to my collection. I’m gutted, though, that I missed some good games in the Android Marketplace’s 10c sale. Apparently GameDevStory was on offer for the princely sum of 10c. How could I have missed that?

The holiday period is also when, obviously, the blog goes into summer hiatus – at least for a couple of weeks: but it’ll come back in the new year refreshed and revitalised, ready to go.

Right, time to start pre-loading some games onto my tablet and start looking for the 3DS titles that are worthy of my time. My two favourites on 3DS at the moment are Super Mario 3D Land and Mario Kart 7. Feel free to recommend some others.

For as long as I’ve been involved in game writing in some form or another – 10 years maybe – I’ve always used some sort of numerical scoring for game reviews: be it out of five stars or out of 10. That’s how I’ve always done it – but I’m starting to questions that style now, to the point of actually seeing if I can do away with “number” scores all together in my reviews.

What has bought about this contemplative reassessment of scores in my review? My Assassin’s Creed Revelations review, that’s what. The review ran in The Press’ hardcopy technology/TV tabloid last month but I laboured over the score right up until deadline.

I liked the game but didn’t think it was the best in the series, yet I to and fro-ed about the score right up until before the pages were ready to go to print. “Do I give it 3.5 out of 5 or 4 out of 5 stars?,” I continually asked myself as the deadline for the pages loomed. I ended up giving it four out of five – right at the last minute – but already I’m not sure I did the right thing. Revelations certainly wasn’t a five but it felt better than a three – and that’s the problem that out of five scores presents for a game that doesn’t suck but isn’t the greatest around (I wish I could take  back the four out of five I gave Assassin’s Creed Revelations but I can’t).

To be honest, I’ve been thinking about dropping scores from my reviews for some time but have never found a reason to do it, after all, the bulk of review sites and reviewers use some form of points system for their reviews, be it numbers, stars, symbols or letters – but the longer I do this job the more I get convinced that I could do a better job of conveying my thoughts on a game without the need for a numerical score at the end. I can give my reasons for liking and disliking a game without the need to pigeon hole it at the end with a numerical score.

Besides, how many times have we read a review then read the score at the bottom and thought “Oh, that read like a 7”. I know I have and I know I’ve written reviews that I’ve read the next day in print and thought “Hell, that didn’t read like a four out of five”. Part of me believes that avoiding giving a game a numerical score will avoid confusion: the words will be enough to let readers know.

I’m hoping to starting writing reviews with no score next year, when I’m back from my summer holiday. Hopefully the editor of the game section at The Press’ Box tabloid agrees with me.