Photography in gaming | GTA 5

Grand Theft Auto (the game, not the crime) has come along was since its first incarnation where a tiny couple of ginger-haired pixels ran around jacking car-shaped oblongs.

At the time, GTA looked stunning though, especially as all I had to compare it to was the dot matrix Game Boy screen I stared myopically at, twiddling the contrast dial until all six dots of Mario were half-visible.

Nowadays, all computer games look ridiculously film-like, to the point where the Hollywood actor's union must be thinking of registering a protest, before they all become little more than voice-over artists.

My copy of GTA 5 is on the PS3, so doesn't look quite as polished as it could; however, Mat's coverage of Curtis McNally's photography from the game inspired me to take some shots of my own. Well, what else is there to do on a dreary Friday evening when everyone else is busy / has lives?

That's the odd beauty of this game. Put down the rifle, get out of the car, have a walk, and stuff just happens around you.

Firing up the Hipstamatic, I snapped away at a Porsche driver stopping to buy road-side fruit (I stole the car), joggers on the beach, a guy chilling on a wall (who then tried to shoot me), orange-glow sunsets, and trendy kids queuing for a club.

It's all happening in Los Santos! And with the camera app registered to Playstation Store and nothing to do on a Friday night, you can capture just a tiny amount of it.

Retro gaming | Streets of Rage

When I was a kid, I played Streets of Rage relentlessly. An arcade game transported straight to the Sega Mega Drive, it was short, tough, and simple. You scrolled through each level, killing enemies along the way until you reached the final boss.

At the time, I’d not been to America. I’d like to think that the Japanese designers of Streets of Rage hadn’t either.

This was a game built massive on stereotypes - the black guy jumped higher than the white guy, and both punched harder than the girl - and a very well tried-and-tested story.

A ‘crime boss’ had the city (whichever that was) in his grip and the police were powerless to move against him. Three cops had each given up their badge to fight this evil, working their way through his gang from the streets to the top - literally, as the last level takes place in his penthouse.

Of course, everyone you fought was ‘bad’ and deserved to die - be it being beaten to death, stabbed, hit with a baseball bat, or napalmed by the police, who were no longer on ‘your side’, but were always willing to lend a friend a helping hand.

It was such a simpler time back in the 90s! And this is exactly what I thought America was like. Dark grimy streets, no sunlight, endless waves of no good street punks on every avenue, and a knife hidden beneath every bin.

The guys in the game had style though. Not the punks - they wore brightly coloured boiler suits, studded with chains - but the cops. Axel, the lead man, wore white trainers, stonewash denim, and a white t-shirt. He was basically a kickass tough version of Marty McFly. The other guy, Adam, wore a yellow vest, skintight black jeans, nondescript shoes, and knee pads - important to keep safe when smashing people’s heads in.

Blaze wore a red mini-skirt - makes total sense.

Playing it again on the iPad (it’s only 79p!), I realised that as a kid I thought nothing of the discrepancy between this game and reality.

Three cops who throw in their badges and takes to the streets in order to murder everyone within a crime syndicate? Police armed with napalm launchers who’ll fire indiscriminately at civilians at the request of their former colleagues? And let’s not forget the 8 foot tall, 8 foot wide, fat men who breathe fire and chase you across the screen...

Maybe this opens me up to the debate on children playing violent computer games. I don’t know, I haven’t suplexed anyone in the street yet or thrown a knife at a woman clad in red leather carrying a whip. It’s still early days! (joke)

Streets of Rage is available from the Apple iStore. Download it now!

Images: Pinterest.

Geek Hour | Hitman Go

Computer games are always about killing something. Soldiers, dragons, egg-thieving pigs, the list goes on. But they're not always so blood thirsty as to involve Mortal Kombat style red paint, splattered across the screen. Not every time anyway.

Soldiers can fade away, dragons can disappear in a bolt of lightening, pigs in a puff of smoke, and rather than screaming in agony as they are mercilessly garrotted, the enemies in Hitman Go tumble down like chess pieces.

That's because Hitman Go is a puzzle game, not a relentless blood and guts fest. Essentially, in true Pac-Man style, the goal is to work a playing piece through a maze, collecting certain things, avoiding others, and dispatching other pieces that get in your way.

It's a proper time killer of a game. The early rounds are easy, the later ones much much harder and to collect everything along the way requires a lot of skill (or endless trial and error).

Hitman looks good too. The levels are bright and the characters well crafted. There's also a good level of detail in the surroundings. Models laze by the pool while you knock-over a playboy musician. Airport announcements sound as you dodge another barking dog.

Yep, that's right. A barking dog. See, it has everything! What's not to like.

Hitman Go costs £3.99 on the App Store. Download it now!

Geek Hour | Dancing with Gorbachov: In pursuit of graphics

Homer: 'How can you love a box or a toy or graphics? You're a grown man.'

- The Simpsons, 4F11: Homer's Phobia

When I went back home for Christmas, I had a chance encounter with my old Nintendo N64. It reminded me of the hours spent playing computer games as a kid, why I did it then, and why I do far less of it now.

Okay. I lied. It wasn't so much of a chance encounter, rather I searched the draws, wardrobes, and boxes until I found the thing. I also did the same for the Nintendo Gamecube, so my sister and I could keep up the Christmas ritual of a tense shouting session playing Mario Kart: Double Dash.

Damn those blue shells. Damn them all to hell.

Hey, this blog is entitled 'Geek Hour', you really can't complain if you're still reading.

The reason I really don't play computer games now is one of time and (strangely) a lack of patience.

Being self-employed, my time really is my money and some small voice always reminds me that spending the former on computer games won't result in the latter (he says, writing a blog on the very same subject).

I don't have the patience either. Honestly, I can't spend longer than ten or twenty minutes on any game before I get bored. My flatmate has a brand new PS4. When he went out, I picked up the controller, turned it on, watched the intro, and turned it off.

Maybe the internet has damaged my attention span to the point where thirty seconds spent watching a loading screen is still too long.

Or, perhaps, it's not a lack of patience at all. Perhaps, instead, computer games don't offer what they previously did.

When I was a child, I lived in a village. It was a fairly dull village (as all villages are for a kid) and computer games were one of the only escapes from reality available, especially when the damp dreary weather prevented us from playing in drainage ditches.

Now, I live in London. I'm an adult. There's plenty to do and, if there's not, I can always go to the pub.

There's also the issue of graphics.

Computer games are fast becoming photo realistic. Literally, moving images, where rain bounces off road surfaces, grass is blown by the breeze, and blood spurts from an enemies torso, coating the wall in a different pattern every time.

It's boring. It really is.

I remember those first computer games. Far from realistic. Never realistic. Not even an attempt. Sonic is an electric blue hedgehog in red trainers. Mario is a short Italian plumber who collects mushrooms and fights toadstools. What were they smoking?!

But, with every new console and every passing year, graphics crept ever closer to something that could be called 'realism'.

And we were spellbound. Revelling in the technological advances of the growing bits and appreciating the subtle differences between one game and the one that preceded it.

Roaring with Ryu and dancing with Gorbachov. Feeling the rush of the wind as we plunged towards the Arkhangelsk Chemical Weapons Facility. Wincing as King broke another arm, shedding tears as troops drowned storming the beach at Omaha.

I did warn you this was geek hour.

But now the realism is there each and every time. It's a given. Nothing to get excited about. The only thing left to do is add a faster car, a bigger gun, sign-up the image rights of another Premier League player, or see how many sequels you can squeeze out of a title until people get bored.

If I bought computer games now, they just wouldn't have the same appeal - the race to see the graphics that the first cut-scene had to offer.

I played Monument Valley on the iPad recently - a series of ludicrously addictive puzzles. As I downloaded the app and clicked play, my first thought was, 'wow, look at the graphics!'.

Fortunately for me, that was a thought no-one else on the Northern Line heard.