Become a Games Tester!

I use to really want to be a games tester.

I still do sometimes think it'd be an interesting profession to take up, even though spending hours doing structured testing and writing bug-reports maybe isn't that apealing...

Having a small voice in the gaming industry, it's still something people ask me on a regular basis - how do I become a games tester? I really want to be a games tester!

The thing is, despite being low pay, long hours and potentially boring, a games tester is a rock-star job. Everyone and his best mate wants to be a games tester, every gamer you speak to talks about becoming a games tester...

I suppose it makes sense, smoeone who spends 6 hours a day gaming, realising they could get paid to what they do already, and get games for free and get to play games before they come out!

Of course - I don't want to allude that it's really like that, sitting in an officer trying to find walls you can walk through in a graphically unfinished glitchy game, then writing a detailed bug report afterwards is more 'interesting' than fun, and probably not that interesting anyway...

Of course there will be times when being a games tester IS all it's cracked up to be, when you're asked to play the latest game and just give an opinion on it... I guess you can take the rough with the smooth...

If you are serious about becoming a games tester, if games testing seems like the career for you and you're prepared to put the work in to be a games tester, then I strongly recommend you read this.

World of Warcraft.... To play or not to play?

I am frankly amazed that I still see so much media about World of Warcraft so long after release. They say subscribers are falling, but it's certainly not down to some new MMORPG coming in to steal the show.

I did play the free-trial for a bit, and then I played solo using Mangos for a while...

I could just never get into it though. I think part of the problem, is that something which on the face of it so simple, to play properly is quite challenging. Starting at level 1 with zero gold, the mountain ahead of you to climb is massive and playing casually, just doing what you feel and enjoying the environment is going to mean it takes years to get to the good content.

It struck me that it might be worth buying a decent World of Warcraft Guide so you could speed up the process. Time is such an important commodity in WoW, particularly during the earlier levels, that anything which can speed up the process of levelling and farming has to be worth having a look at.

Even if it's quite expensive, if it cuts the time to get to a level where you can actually start playing properly rather than just grinding and farming.... Well, it can then work out to be cheaper!

Let's say it normally takes 2 years to get to a level of XP and gear to do certain raids? And a World of Warcraft Guide can reduce that by 6 months? That saves 6 months subs, so the guide is worth at least 6 x monthly sub.

Something to think about...

Flight Simulators...

It's been a long time since I've played a Flight Simulator... I'm trying to think back now, Warbirds on the PC was one, that was good actually...

And an Atari ST game which had you flying an F-29 I think, I liked that game... Hmmm, what was it called? Falcon! Falcon F-29 Retaliator!

Brilliant... Except I could never land, I'd shoot down a few bogey's bomb some targets - then crash in a ball of flame as I tried futily to land.

I never really got into the non-combative sims. The funny thing is though gaming is all about challenge, and any Sim I've played - the challenge is in landing the damn thing!

I saw this Flight Simulator the other day and I was really tempted, I just want to see if I can land a plane in a flight-sim. Over 30 years of gaming under the belt, I've slain demons, dragons, zombies, vampires, destroyed all manner of starships and bases and killer robots...

I've managed to set insane records in digital sports - my Track & Field PS1 100 metres of 7.09 seconds was a definite 'drugs test' run...

Yet I've never landed a digital plane successfully... I'm itching to try now!