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.
Showing posts with label computer games. Show all posts
Showing posts with label computer games. Show all posts
Thursday, 23 February 2012
Tuesday, 3 January 2012
Games Computer Games : The Christmas Reportage
Well, unfortunately I still don't get to game much...
The kids have been pretty ill most of Christmas and I've had a few days of sickness too. I did get a couple of games though - so I've been taking a break from Left 4 Dead 2 to try out something a little fresher.
First up is Gears of War 3, probably something everyone else has already played and finished - but that is not possible for dual children spawning 35 year old gaming veterans, certainly not this one :(
So far I'm as far through the campaign as the [*SPOILER WARNING*]
[Human Lambent appearing, which is something I predicted would happen.]
[*END SPOILER*]
I am enjoying the story, it's a really polished game and the story is well written. The new weapons are great and add some real variety.
I'll be back to comment more once I've played more of it.
Second up is Forza 4, which I sort of have mixed feelings about. On the one hand it's great, seems a really polished game, plays well, handles well, looks beautiful - but at the same time it's hard to pinpoint what it offers over Forza 3, the obvious thing is the Top Gear content is the obvious - but is it worth buying a new game to hear Televisions most contraversial irritator 'Clarkson' carrying on about cars? If you want to do that you can always turn on Dave!
Of course there is the Top Gear Test Track, which is sort of fun - you can even do it in the reasonably priced car (I got an uncertified 1:39 something) But there isn't really a game mode I can see whereby you set a lap in the same way as the TV show which is dissapointing. You can compete for a flying lap time which is all very nice, but it would have been nicer to be able to compete in a specific standing lap race.
I've yet to get deep into the new career mode, but I will... I still love playing Forza, it's still a great game, but I question how important it is to play Forza 4 over Forza 3? I might even venture that unless you are huge fan of the worlds most irritating motoring journalist 'Clarkson' you might be wasting your money.
I've report back if my opinion on this changes.
The kids have been pretty ill most of Christmas and I've had a few days of sickness too. I did get a couple of games though - so I've been taking a break from Left 4 Dead 2 to try out something a little fresher.
First up is Gears of War 3, probably something everyone else has already played and finished - but that is not possible for dual children spawning 35 year old gaming veterans, certainly not this one :(
So far I'm as far through the campaign as the [*SPOILER WARNING*]
[Human Lambent appearing, which is something I predicted would happen.]
[*END SPOILER*]
I am enjoying the story, it's a really polished game and the story is well written. The new weapons are great and add some real variety.
I'll be back to comment more once I've played more of it.
Second up is Forza 4, which I sort of have mixed feelings about. On the one hand it's great, seems a really polished game, plays well, handles well, looks beautiful - but at the same time it's hard to pinpoint what it offers over Forza 3, the obvious thing is the Top Gear content is the obvious - but is it worth buying a new game to hear Televisions most contraversial irritator 'Clarkson' carrying on about cars? If you want to do that you can always turn on Dave!
Of course there is the Top Gear Test Track, which is sort of fun - you can even do it in the reasonably priced car (I got an uncertified 1:39 something) But there isn't really a game mode I can see whereby you set a lap in the same way as the TV show which is dissapointing. You can compete for a flying lap time which is all very nice, but it would have been nicer to be able to compete in a specific standing lap race.
I've yet to get deep into the new career mode, but I will... I still love playing Forza, it's still a great game, but I question how important it is to play Forza 4 over Forza 3? I might even venture that unless you are huge fan of the worlds most irritating motoring journalist 'Clarkson' you might be wasting your money.
I've report back if my opinion on this changes.
Saturday, 17 September 2011
Gaming as a 'sport' week 2 Reportage.
Last post, I said I was going to treat Friday night as 'Scavenger night' and play Left 4 Dead 2 Scavenger mode with the mindset that it was my 'weekly sport'. Well I played last night with that mindset...
Does it work?
Um, well sort of... Firstly there's the issue of getting client disconnects at inappropriate times. Which is sort of annoying, and I don't really know what the 'sporting' equivalent of this would be - maybe a sudden downpour whilst playing 5 a side football? Maybe your squash racket snapping in two and not having a spare? I suppose it would have to be seen as something like that.
Secondly I didn't really have what I perceived as being as successful a night, the previous week I was storming - I felt unstoppable. You get those moments in sport of course - you're good days. I recall years and years ago competing in a boxing ring fight taekwondo match and on one occasion really trouncing someone who was actually much better than me - I just had a night when everything went right... I felt unstoppable then too!
The thing is - I also drank 3 cans of Abbot Ale last night - the previous week I only had two, the questions is did poor game performance encourage me to drink 3 cans of strong ale, or did drinking 3 cans of strong ale impede my game performance? Maybe a mixture of both?
The sporting equivalent for this scenario is hard to pin down, I've rarely got drunk then tried to compete at sport. I remember a night years ago when I was going training in Buxton, Taekwondo, and because of time-constraints instead of the usual 'after training pint' my friend Joe and I decided we would go for a 'pre-training pint' of Guiness.... It was actually squad training that night and involved a fitness test... Not fun...
Then I recall gatting heroically drunk and wandering off to the park to play football in the middle of summers evening... Again, sort of fun, but hmmm.... Alcohol and sport don't seem to mix.
The trouble is, Left 4 Dead 2 is a game which sort of feels right with pint in your hand - more so than say, Forza Motorsport or somethign serious...
I think my next experiment should be to try and treat it as a more serious competitive event and abstain from drinking alcohol pre and during playing and see how effects the experience...
Does it work?
Um, well sort of... Firstly there's the issue of getting client disconnects at inappropriate times. Which is sort of annoying, and I don't really know what the 'sporting' equivalent of this would be - maybe a sudden downpour whilst playing 5 a side football? Maybe your squash racket snapping in two and not having a spare? I suppose it would have to be seen as something like that.
Secondly I didn't really have what I perceived as being as successful a night, the previous week I was storming - I felt unstoppable. You get those moments in sport of course - you're good days. I recall years and years ago competing in a boxing ring fight taekwondo match and on one occasion really trouncing someone who was actually much better than me - I just had a night when everything went right... I felt unstoppable then too!
The thing is - I also drank 3 cans of Abbot Ale last night - the previous week I only had two, the questions is did poor game performance encourage me to drink 3 cans of strong ale, or did drinking 3 cans of strong ale impede my game performance? Maybe a mixture of both?
The sporting equivalent for this scenario is hard to pin down, I've rarely got drunk then tried to compete at sport. I remember a night years ago when I was going training in Buxton, Taekwondo, and because of time-constraints instead of the usual 'after training pint' my friend Joe and I decided we would go for a 'pre-training pint' of Guiness.... It was actually squad training that night and involved a fitness test... Not fun...
Then I recall gatting heroically drunk and wandering off to the park to play football in the middle of summers evening... Again, sort of fun, but hmmm.... Alcohol and sport don't seem to mix.
The trouble is, Left 4 Dead 2 is a game which sort of feels right with pint in your hand - more so than say, Forza Motorsport or somethign serious...
I think my next experiment should be to try and treat it as a more serious competitive event and abstain from drinking alcohol pre and during playing and see how effects the experience...
Monday, 12 September 2011
The Migration of a Video Games Blog - getting my gaming back.
First of all, why start this blog? Particularly as I've been writing a video games blgo on GiantBomb for what seems like an eternity? Well to lay it straight, on GiantBomb, soooooooo many times I make a blog post - puclish it to the forum - and get lots of folks whining about how it's more than two paragraphs and they can't be bothered to read it. So - I will write my thoughts on a topic here, then summarize on my GiantBomb Blog
That should keep the fickled 'GiantBomb Users' happy and allow me to ramble on in my usual way without people getting irrate at me.
Lately I've been complaining of losing my love of gaming a little. I've had a bit of a break from the hobby, been trying other things. I have discovered Lego Design by Me and constructed several large virtual Lego sets, one of which I even ordered and built... I'm writing about that experience on me Lego Design by Me Blog I've been getting more into the Star Wars Roleplaying Board a bit more and had some great fun doing collaborative writing.
There's always been something missing though. I like a game, I've always liked a game since I was six.
Sometimes it's surprising where you can find your enjoyment, but I had the most fun in recent memory gaming on Friday night. Wife had gone to bed tired, I cracked open a couple of beers and had a dig through my collection for something 'nostalgic' to play.
After some deliberation I blew the dust off my copy of Left 4 Dead 2 and threw it in the drive. I didn't really feel like a long game, so I decided to play a bit of scavenge. Scavenge is a versus mode whereby the two teams take it in turns to collect gas cans as the survivors - while the other team tries to stop them as the infected.
It's a manic game mode, but the game is so slick, despite being a bit long in the tooth it really embarresses Duke Nukem Forever, I think it embarresses many games for the sheer fun factor. I 100% had 100% of gaming joy back and genuinely could've stayed up all night if not for the fact that my wife would stop speaking to me.
On Saturday night I had another crack at Expert Realism, and got in a great team. We got through most of Dark Carnival, but I was running out of time. It was great fun again, but more time consuming, we had three restarts in the tunnel of love after each time the last man getting incapped at the point where you switch the roller coaster off.
It got me thinking anyway - why do we all plug away trying to buy the latest game and play it? Some of us don't I suppose, but part of being ' a gamer ' is about being up to date with current games and the direction the platform and technology is moving. You can watch 'The Blurb' on a Saturday night, Challenge TV if you like, a short programme made be Ginx, a Uk gaming based tv channel (To my friends at Ginx - I'm still with you in spirit, even if my participation is down at the moment - maybe this explains why?) but that only leaves you with the desire to 'try' more games? Buy the latest games?
It struck me, playing Left 4 Dead 2 multiplayer, that in some respects games are a bit like armchair sports. Most of us though, are essentially changing sport every six months or less! If you decided to play sports like people play games, you'd never really get anywhere with anything, 3 months you're playing football like a nutter, then rugby, six months later La Cross, then Tennis, Badminton, Squash, Cricket...
You'd get very good at playing general sports in general but you'd be a master of none - although very fit!
We don't do this as gamers though? Is it because Video Games don't have the depth? Is it because they are seen as a hobby which should involve constantly changing games?
As something of a psychological experiment I'm going to test this out. At the moment I expect to get around 3 gaming sessions per week in. I will always dedicate one of these sessions to Left 4 Dead versus Multiplayer. And report back on the experience. Friday night I think will be the night, and come what may - I will play Left 4 Dead 2 versus Multiplayer in some form or other EVERY Friday night, as if it was my regular chosen 'sport'. I used to Tae Kwon Do, even have a website about Taekwondo tul and I went once a week at least for years. I won't get fit playing Left 4 Dead 2, but will I be content to treat it like the regular sport and dedicate Friday nights session to it?
Time will tell, progress and thoughts will be posted here.
That should keep the fickled 'GiantBomb Users' happy and allow me to ramble on in my usual way without people getting irrate at me.
Lately I've been complaining of losing my love of gaming a little. I've had a bit of a break from the hobby, been trying other things. I have discovered Lego Design by Me and constructed several large virtual Lego sets, one of which I even ordered and built... I'm writing about that experience on me Lego Design by Me Blog I've been getting more into the Star Wars Roleplaying Board a bit more and had some great fun doing collaborative writing.
There's always been something missing though. I like a game, I've always liked a game since I was six.
Sometimes it's surprising where you can find your enjoyment, but I had the most fun in recent memory gaming on Friday night. Wife had gone to bed tired, I cracked open a couple of beers and had a dig through my collection for something 'nostalgic' to play.
After some deliberation I blew the dust off my copy of Left 4 Dead 2 and threw it in the drive. I didn't really feel like a long game, so I decided to play a bit of scavenge. Scavenge is a versus mode whereby the two teams take it in turns to collect gas cans as the survivors - while the other team tries to stop them as the infected.
It's a manic game mode, but the game is so slick, despite being a bit long in the tooth it really embarresses Duke Nukem Forever, I think it embarresses many games for the sheer fun factor. I 100% had 100% of gaming joy back and genuinely could've stayed up all night if not for the fact that my wife would stop speaking to me.
On Saturday night I had another crack at Expert Realism, and got in a great team. We got through most of Dark Carnival, but I was running out of time. It was great fun again, but more time consuming, we had three restarts in the tunnel of love after each time the last man getting incapped at the point where you switch the roller coaster off.
It got me thinking anyway - why do we all plug away trying to buy the latest game and play it? Some of us don't I suppose, but part of being ' a gamer ' is about being up to date with current games and the direction the platform and technology is moving. You can watch 'The Blurb' on a Saturday night, Challenge TV if you like, a short programme made be Ginx, a Uk gaming based tv channel (To my friends at Ginx - I'm still with you in spirit, even if my participation is down at the moment - maybe this explains why?) but that only leaves you with the desire to 'try' more games? Buy the latest games?
It struck me, playing Left 4 Dead 2 multiplayer, that in some respects games are a bit like armchair sports. Most of us though, are essentially changing sport every six months or less! If you decided to play sports like people play games, you'd never really get anywhere with anything, 3 months you're playing football like a nutter, then rugby, six months later La Cross, then Tennis, Badminton, Squash, Cricket...
You'd get very good at playing general sports in general but you'd be a master of none - although very fit!
We don't do this as gamers though? Is it because Video Games don't have the depth? Is it because they are seen as a hobby which should involve constantly changing games?
As something of a psychological experiment I'm going to test this out. At the moment I expect to get around 3 gaming sessions per week in. I will always dedicate one of these sessions to Left 4 Dead versus Multiplayer. And report back on the experience. Friday night I think will be the night, and come what may - I will play Left 4 Dead 2 versus Multiplayer in some form or other EVERY Friday night, as if it was my regular chosen 'sport'. I used to Tae Kwon Do, even have a website about Taekwondo tul and I went once a week at least for years. I won't get fit playing Left 4 Dead 2, but will I be content to treat it like the regular sport and dedicate Friday nights session to it?
Time will tell, progress and thoughts will be posted here.
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