How to Pick a Game When You Dont Know What to Play
Recently, several non-techy friends have sidled up to me and asked, in hushful conspiratorial tones: "Keith, should I be playing video games?"
Information technology'due south an interesting question for two reasons. Kickoff, I write about video games for a living; that's my chore. So what did they call back I was going to say? "No, they're a massive waste of time"? Secondly, a few years agone, people my age were feeling guilty about playing video games, now there are people feeling guilty that they're non. This is progress.
So for all the potential gamers out there who are thinking nigh taking up a joypad only don't know where to beginning, or which games to endeavor, or what a joypad looks like, hither is a quick guide:
And so should you lot play video games?
Yeah! The medium has matured hugely over the last five years, and in that location is a vast range of experiences available, from large blockbusting open-globe adventures about marauding gangsters, to teeny, highly personal indie games about coming out. Games are respected enough for Bafta to take them into its remit, enough for Moma to put a range of titles into its permanent collection, and enough for major fine art spaces like the Barbican and the M Palais museum in Paris to run exhibitions.
Games have been shown to improve hand-eye coordination, cerebral flexibility, decision making, even vision. Despite popular stereotypes, games are sociable and inclusive, with large, supportive communities and some vivid events. Basically, if you're happy to sentinel TV for three hours a 24-hour interval or continually peruse celebrity gossip websites and social media streams, you cannot – with any degree of self-awareness – call video games a waste of time.
What y'all need to play video games
Smartphone/tablet
If y'all already have a smartphone or tablet, and so nifty, you've got a games automobile. The latest Apple, Android and Windows handsets feature powerful processors, large displays and vast app stores crammed with games (you'll have more choice if your telephone is the latest model and your operating organisation is upward to date). If you're looking for a new handset, the latest iPhone and Android models are the best (Windows is not and then well supported past game developers): the Samsung Galaxy Annotation iv, Sony Xperia Z3 and LG G3 are all keen options for gaming. Budget models like the Motorola Moto G and older iPhone models are fine for less demanding 'casual' titles.
PC
If you're looking for the almost advanced gaming experience with the all-time visuals, you lot'll need to buy a PC (you can play games on Apple Macs likewise, but there are fewer titles available – unless you dual-boot, but we are not going there). Running the latest large upkeep action games at the absolute tiptop of their abilities – and ensuring you lot tin can do and so for 2 or 3 more years – will require something in the region of an Intel i7 4790 processor, an Nvidia GTX 980 graphics card and possibly 16GB of arrangement memory (though 8GB is currently fine for games). It would be best to have a newish Windows install likewise, although enough of games support the open up source culling, Linux.
However, you don't have to spend big on a top-of-the-range mega beast: if you're happy to plow some of the graphics settings down, £500-600 will get yous a decent machine with an Intel i5 processor, AMD R9 280 graphics card and 8GB of memory. Even an old laptop with Windows XP and 512MB of ram will let you lot play a diversity of smaller indie games and older titles. Archetype bespeak-and-click adventures, strategy titles and vintage shooters are cheap and easily bachelor online (Good Erstwhile Games has hundreds of them), and don't require state-of-the-art hardware.
If your eyes glazed over at all that talk of processors and graphics cards, that's fine: become to a good PC seller like PCSpecialist, Overclockers or Chillblast, give them your budget and allow them build a system that fits it. You will demand to develop some cognition of computers and operating systems, though, peculiarly if you plan to upgrade your graphics card or memory at some signal. Nosotros take an article on building a gaming PC – it's a footling dated on the specifics but still sound on the types of things you accept to call back about.
Console
For most people, a console is a adept alternative to the PC. They're cheaper, they're set up to play right out of the box, and you don't have to worry about lots of hardware compatibility issues and graphics settings. The Xbox One and PlayStation 4 are the latest models (both retailing at around £350), and technically they're extremely similar. At the moment, the PS4 is selling better and developers seem to be getting more out of it in terms of graphics performance, but it's close – and y'all should check which one your friends have, just in case you desire to play online with them.
Alternatively, you could purchase a Wii U (cheap and interesting with 3 or four amazing titles that are cracking for families) or step a generation back with a PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360. They both have hundreds of games available and at around £150 each are a cheaper starting indicate. Even picking upwardly an former PlayStation 1 or Dreamcast and a bunch of games at your local machine boot auction will give yous an idea or whether y'all like gaming or not.
Where should I buy games?
Smartphone/tablet
All you take to practice is visit the online app store supported by your device by clicking on the icon on your dwelling screen. If you have a Windows phone it's Windows Store, on Android it'due south Google Play and on Apple phones it's the App Store. You've probably already done this to download something like Candy Crush Saga or Angry Birds (which are both great games), but at that place are more complex options out there too. We'll get to that tomorrow.
PC
If y'all want to play games on a PC or Mac, yous should probably sign upwardly for Steam. This is finer a vast online store, like the Apple tree App Shop, where you lot buy games and then download them straight to your computer – y'all never demand to ain a boxed copy. Steam sells most of the latest blockbuster hits, but also has a vast range of interesting contained games (made past smaller studios) and a back catalogue of archetype titles. There are regular sales too.
Like Netflix or Amazon, Steam volition likewise suggest games based on your previous purchases, and there'due south a social element, so you can connect with friends and find out what they recommend.
There are alternative digital shops (try Good Quondam Games, Green Man Gaming or EA'southward ain Origin store), simply Steam dominates the market place.
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For boxed games, supermarkets and major online stores like Amazon volition get you the cheapest deals on the big new titles. There are a few high street retailers hanging on in in that location for beloved life: HMV however sells games, and Game has had a resurgence over the last two years – information technology'south great for pre-endemic titles (as are smaller bondage similar Planet Games and CEX).
PlayStation, Xbox and Wii as well have their own online stores, allowing y'all to download both major new titles and smaller indie titles – the prices for large releases tin can be expensive though, and they take upward lots of space on your hard bulldoze. With both Xbox One and PlayStation four, if you pay for a subscription to their online gaming services (Xbox Live and PlayStation Network), you also get to download free games every calendar month, and you lot proceed these for every bit long every bit yous're a subscriber.
What else do I need?
PC
For PC gaming, you'll demand a decent flatscreen monitor. I'd go for at least a 27-inch Total Hard disk display, at 120Hz (though 60Hz is fine), with as low a response time (measured in milliseconds) as possible. There's a great PC Magazine guide to all the more complicated things you should wait for.
Most games are fine with mouse and keyboard control, but you tin besides buy a joypad for activeness games (the Xbox 360 wired controller is perfect). If you get into flying or space sims a specialist joystick similar the Saitek X52 or Thrustmaster T.Flight Hotas X may somewhen be a good idea.
Console
If you have a new panel, a full high-definition (1080p) flatscreen Boob tube is the thought option, though an older 720p 'Hd Set up' set is fine – simply something with an HDMI port in the back. I'd say yous need at least a 40-inch display to get the all-time out of the visuals, merely others disagree (and equally commenters are pointing out beneath, it depends on the size of your room). These days y'all can get a adept quality, decent-sized LED television for less than £500. LG, Panasonic, Sony and Samsung are good brands to expect for. Yous need a television with the lowest possible "input lag" (the time information technology takes for the screen to reply to joypad movements), which can be an effect with TVs that use lots of high-tech picture processing technologies. Some take special Game Modes which tweak settings for speed and motion blur.
You could cheque out Displaylag.com, which lets yous know about the input lag on about major new screens, or HDTVTest which rates and reviews TVs in a lot of detail and usually mentions how good they are for gaming.
What about 4K, the new generation of TVs which offer four times the visual clarity of current Hard disk drive sets? They're still a chip pricey and none of the consoles support them notwithstanding and then it maybe a bit early to jump on that bandwagon.
So what should I play?
Ah, this is the big question. There is a dizzying array of video game genres, some of them are self-explanatory (driving sims, flight sims, fighting games, puzzle games), some of them not so much. Here's a quick guide:
First-person shooter (FPS): a shooting game in which you view the environs through the eyes of the lead protagonist. The aim will unremarkably be to run through a series of linear environments shooting people/aliens/things.
Current examples: Halo, Call of Duty, Battlefield
Third-person shooter/brawler: like the above except the lead character is visible onscreen, and in that location is oftentimes an emphasis on melee combat as well as shooting stuff. Current examples: Bayonetta, Metal Gear Solid, Uncharted
Function-playing game (RPG): an adventure game, normally ready in a fantasy or science fiction environment, where the histrion graphic symbol gains new abilities, spells and weapons by fighting enemies and discovering treasure. This is a process known as collection experience points (XP) and "levelling up".
Current examples: Last Fantasy, Dragon Age, Dark Souls, Witcher
Massively multiplayer online game (MMORPG): Equally above, but played in an online surroundings where hundreds of other gamers are also co-operating and competing. Fans usually join guilds (gaming teams) and attempt missions together.
Electric current examples: World of Warcraft, Guild Wars 2, Eve Online
Existent-time strategy game (RTS): A battle strategy title in which players control an ground forces of different vehicles (units) and must direct them against an opponent'due south forces. Usually, players have to mine for resources in order to build units before putting them into boxing. Both competitors movement and control their armies at the aforementioned time, unlike plow-based strategy games like Civilisation and XCOM.
Current examples: Starcraft 2: Rome: Total War, Company of Heroes
Multiplayer online battle loonshit (MOBA): A comparatively new genre, in which 2 minor teams of warriors battle each other on small-scale-scale environments using an array of weapons and spells. The aim is to destroy the opponent'south base structure. This is a team-based genre, with each warrior controlled by a different player.
Current examples: League of Legends, Dota 2, Smite
Open-world shooter: an activeness run a risk game in which the actor has free access to a large surroundings, often a fantasy realm or a mod urban center, and can freely explore. At that place is frequently a serial of narrative missions which movement the story along, but the world volition also comprise an array of optional side-quests and tasks, which provide different experiences and allow the player to "level up" with new items and abilities.
Current examples: Yard Theft Motorcar, Far Cry, Assassin's Creed, Tomb Raider
How do I play online?
You'll need a broadband cyberspace connection and a router. When y'all're looking for a provider, you lot need one that offers fast download and upload speeds, and a stable connectedness with less jitter (fluctuating performance) and latency (delays in getting information to and from the net). If you're planning to download a lot of games, you should become for a service that offers unlimited data downloads. Also, find out if the service prioritises gaming traffic: some providers employ traffic management to stabilise the service at peak times, just this can really impact gaming operation. Generally, Virgin Media, Heaven and BT are all okay, but specialist broadband providers like PlusNet and Zen are pulling in increasingly skillful reviews.
One time you're gear up, you can either plug your console or PC directly into the router via an ethernet cable, or you can connect wirelessly via Wi-Fi (if you have a PC you lot may need to purchase a Wi-Fi dongle for this). Generally, you'll get a faster more stable gaming experience with a wired connectedness. If your games automobile is in a dissimilar room to your router, you could try a power line adaptor – this uses your domicile's electric wiring as a network.
Nearly games make it really easy to play against other people online. At that place will probably be a "Multiplayer" choice on the chief carte: just click on that and follow the instructions. You lot may get a choice of playing "co-op" (with your friends confronting estimator-controlled enemies) or "competitive" (playing against other people). If you lot don't want to play against strangers, PlayStation, Xbox, Wii U and Steam all let you create friend lists of players you know, and yous'll be able to see when your pals are online.
Come up back tomorrow for our list of the pinnacle 20 games for beginners...
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/feb/18/how-do-i-start-playing-video-games-a-beginners-guide
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