runeScape, First Impressions

RuneScape is a free Massively Multi-player RPG that I started to play off of the AddictingGames home page today. This British produced, Java based game plays very well on my New iMac. Considered to be the most popular MMORPG in the world, this title has been around a LONG time, but I just have now begun to try it out. I don't have much time for non-stop gaming, so I am unsure how much I will be able to get into the game, but it has been interesting so far.

After creating my free account, and dressing my character as an Abel Xavier clone, I set off to learn the basic tutorial skills that are necessary to survive in the RuneScape world. These included chopping trees, lighting fires, collecting shrimp and cooking up a lovely meal. After about 15 minutes of doing that and watching others, I graduated to the next tutorial level, Making Bread! Anyway, I usually want my games to be filled with quick action, but this is more of a Sims in the old world rather than a hack and slash Phanstsie fest.  Once you progress in the game, there are battles and quests and all that cool zarjaz, but at the beginning, you have to learn the necessary skills to survive...

i know I'm not the first person to mention this (I saw link from another blog that puts the idea of Spore and Midcore in the same sentence), but I just want to reiterate just how much SPORE seems fits the idea of "Midcore".

I'm currently playing Spore on my new iMac and it runs beautifully.   My two older girls and I have been building creatures, buildings and vehicles for the past two days.  The builder alone is worth the price of the software.   In the past two days I have heard my daughter say the following:

since September is just starting and many Midcore/Casual gamers and gamer-parents are gearing up for what is really the new year (new schools and/or classes, new and returning tv shows, NHL,NBA,NFL, world Futbol leagues restarting, etc) we've decided to buck the trends and make this our month to make yearly predictions for the Midcore/Casual/Retro game industry. Some of these are more wishful thinking than others. See if you can spot them. Here you go!

10. Mac gaming will rise to new heights. Publishers will convert PC games to the Mac using next-generation Intel hardware conversion utilities. They will find that testing games for the relatively small number of Mac hardware variations makes their job much easier. IGN will re-launch mac.ign.com. Also, bucking the recent trends, a Mac-gaming-centric print magazine will launch...and the initial issues will sell very well.

9. FMAME (the Flash version of MAME) will be embraced by many unscrupulous game portals. Other Flash-based emulators will follow. Small Flash game developers will have their games squeezed out of portals and will have to work much harder to make games that will get published. At the same time, an I.P. incident similar to the Facebook "Scrabulous" issue will rock the viral, Flash game world. It will force many domestic U.S./Europe portals to screen games more closely, and start licensing classic game ROMs for use on their sites, further squeezing indie game developers.

pro Evolution Soccer 2008 for the Wii offers the type of innovative controls and game play that I expected from the Wii in 2006, but slogged through 2007 without finding. I'm happy to see that in 2008 developers are finally finding ways to move Wii's unique control scheme away from hand flipping mini-game gimmicks, and towards new and innovative methods to control and immerse the player into games that I once (mistakenly) thought had reached their apex.

midcoregamer.com has been scouring the web for the past few weeks to locate blogs that are relevant to the Midcore audience. We found an increasing number of homegrown bloggers that have taken the concept of the "midcore gamer" (as well has other like designations) to heart and have decided to collect their respective RSS feeds on our home page. Now you can find out the current state of the "Midcore World" with one look at http://www.midcoregamer.com. Some of the blogs we are now featuring include:

a week or so back I wrote a pissed-off blog entry about how it was to find Pinball Hall Of Fame Williams Collection for the Wii out in the wild. That has not changed, and I still have not heard or found any real explanation for it. I ordered my copy from Amazon.com, and it arrived in 2 days, which seemed reasonable, and I've been playing the game ever since. If I was bewildered about the lack of availability, promotion, etc. for Pinball Hall Of Fame Williams Collection before I played it, I'm simply astonished over it now that I own it. This game is by far, the best simulation of pinball ever created for a home console or computer.

i'm a pinball fan. there, I've said. I love playing actual pinball tables, and I love playing simulated pinball on computers and consoles. My wife and I spent the first two years dating in the early 90s playing a Williams machine named Machine Bride Of Pinbot at the local Pizza Hut. I used to rack up high scores for hours using the bonus/nudge trick on the Atari VCS version of Video Pinball. One of my favorite Atari 800 games was Bill Budge's Pinball Construction Set (which just might be the greatest 8-bit game ever made). One of my favorite early 90's PC games was Tristan Pinball. Heck, I even own the Lynx cartridge with the Elivra pinball game on it. A couple years back I bought the the first Pinball Hall Of Fame Gottleib Collection for the PS2 and was very pleased.

jim Sterling over at Destructoid has written a very insightful blog about The Myth Of Casual Gaming .  Jim writes:

The truth of the matter is that the hardcore/casual divide is little more than a myth, and the companies that are so desperate to secure themselves a casual demographic are doing little else than chasing rainbows.

Jim seems to be covering some of the same ground that Jeff covered in his original blog about Midcore gamers. 

as the usage of the term "Mid-core Gamer" continues to spread across the web, we will periodically update you on its impact. Here is a list of interesting stories and links to internet chatter about "Mid-core Gamers"

The most interesting find this week was at the 2PStart Comic Strip Podcast.

in the past few weeks after our Mid-Core Gamer ideas filtered out on to the interbaun, I have seen a question pop-up many times: What about retro games? There are many "retro gamers" out there that fit the mold of Mid-Core, but but might not identify with the idea because they simply don't play many new games. Some of them want to know if they might fit into this new idea of the Mid-Core Gamer. The short answer is. "yes", in most cases playing "retro games" is a definitely a Mid-Core activity.