Casual gaming - is it a myth?

Excellent article at Eurogamer.

Personally, I think there's no such thing as casual or hardcore gaming - I'm a fan of stuff like Galaxian, which due to it's difficulty would be classed as hardcore, but accessibility-wise it's more casual. I suppose it's how you define the term.

So-called 'hardcore' gamers get my goat. Games should be for everyone. Even my nan!

I love Wii Sports, Wii Play and now Guitar Hero, as I'm basically a hiscore gamer - I'll spend forever trying to improve my scores, which I think comes down to being brought up on 80s arcade games.

IMO they're not casual at all - they may be accessible in that they're easy to play, but they take ages to master (GH3 in particular - I'm getting mauled on that at the mo).

I'd rather not have the endless raft of rubbish minigames that have followed Wii Sports, but I really think gaming is in a golden age - never before have we had such diversity.

The bottom line is that games should be fun. Whether you're swinging a tennis racquet or ordering a tank battalion to outflank your enemy, if you're having fun that's all that matters.

Bye for now,

Stephen

BSF Bolts

Bolt and Nuts - Google to the rescue!

Needed some old BSF and BSW bolts today, so I rang a few places that used to stock them to no avail - they're definitely much harder to find these days.

I checked Google and Thomas Smith Fasteners in Wigan came up. I was unable to find the ones I needed so I rang them.

Apparently they are one of only a few firms in the UK who still manufacture British Standard threadforms - and the chap on the phone said they used to supply a hero of mine - Fred Dibnah!

Bolts duly ordered, should be here in a few days. The guy on the phone was nice so I'll give them a nice free plug!

Their site is really interesting - check it out.

BSF and BSW Bolts

Tired...

I made the mistake of buying Guitar Hero for the Wii yesterday.

Switched it on at 7PM, thinking I'd have a quick blast with the kids.

Ha. Can you spot the deliberate mistake, alert readers?

Got to bed at 3AM (up for work at 6:45, Gnngh) - only after Lisa, Ben and I had consumed many beers and completed Easy mode, and dipped our toes into the unrelenting pit of fiery hell that is Medium.

So here I am - barely awake, with 70s rock tunes reverberating around my head, and yet I'm still eagerly counting the seconds until I can forcibly remove a Guitar-shaped plastic controller away from my kids and pretend to be a rock god.

This fact alone, in my humble opinion, makes Guitar Hero 3 the greatest videogame since Galaxian (especially for hiscore junkies - I spent a fair amount of time on Quick Play trying to better my own scores).

Garton International - B8 Studbolts