Yes, yes, I turned 29 last Friday. I won’t bore you (more than usual) with in-depth analyses of the weekend and surrounding events, but I will offer snack-sized morsels to give you the gist. Oh, and I should thank those kind souls who sent their electronic well-wishes. Your sentiments were very well received indeed.

• Thursday night Nik, Lister, Whimsy, HB, Gin and I went to see the San Jose Sharks trounce the Columbus Blue Jackets. It was the first game I’d seen live since a playoff contest in (I think) 2000. The score was 6-3 (most of the Blue Jackets’ competitiveness was supplied by the brain dead refs and Vesa Toskala) with Jonathan Cheechoo scoring a hat trick. Since I missed his first hat trick this year die to a TiVo gaff, I like to think he made the repeat performance just for me. Also, Whimsy and Lister arranged to have the light board flash “Happy 29th Birthday Paul Hamilton” between the first and second periods. It was a very happy evening.
• Friday I took the day off of work and spent it attending to a variety of business. After an exhausting day I decided to just relax that night, postponing any celebratory activities until the next night.
• Saturday we went to Red Lobster and HB and Gin bought me a wonderful dinner and followed us back home where HB whipped us all at Settlers of Catan (again).
• Sunday afternoon we met up with Lister and Whimsy for more gaming action, playing Seafarers of Catan, an expanded variant of Settlers plus we got a chance to test out Lister’s Christmas present, Ticket to Ride Europe. Both games were very enjoyable, even to the extent that Nik went and bought the original Ticket to Ride this afternoon. If you like elegant games with light strategy and lots of variation from session to session, I’d strongly recommend either of these titles (and their variants).

Graphics Gap

I was reading an article in Electronic Gaming Monthly earlier where they were interviewing Peter Moore from Microsoft. The primary thrust of much of the article seemed to be “Why are the XBox 360’s graphics so anticlimactic?”

Now I certainly don’t want to be labeled a Microsoft defender but I have to say that coming down on the 360 for lack of jaw-dropping graphical prowess seems to indicate a serious lack of overall clarity in terms of expectations for video games in today’s market.

Lemme ‘splain.

A big “ooohh, buuuurn!” moment in the article was where the interviewer pointed out that the magnitude leap between Playstation 1 and Dreamcast was simply astounding. Where was the similar leap this time round? The comparison was Soul Calibur (PS1) to Soul Calibur II (Dreamcast) and yes, the differences there are astounding.

But what’s missing is the comparison no from one console to another but rather from the newest console to the very best graphics available. And that benchmark has shifted: Back in the NES days, you couldn’t get more impressive graphics than in an arcade. Now arcade games almost lag behind consoles… sometimes last gen consoles. In terms of technology, arcades are maybe third tier. For the last few generations of consoles the top marks have gone to the PC platform (granted, a very expensively endowed PC). What has happened though is that slowly the consoles have begun to shorten their generational timeframes (think about how long the NES or Playstation were tops and compare that to how long this last generation lasted… maybe four years compared to seven or more) and in the process they have started gaining ground, graphically speaking, on the top of the line PC games.

So thinking about it that way, XBox (not 360) games were pretty darn close to PC caliber—excepting maybe a few recent PC games which came out toward the Xbox’s end of cycle like Doom 3 or Half-Life 2. Now, PCs will always have an edge because they aren’t tied to the cycle of dedicated hardware: As soon as something beefier comes out, some manufacturer will ship it because they can and leave it up to the consumers to figure out how to afford it and install it into something that will work for them.

I look at it this way: When you compare Call of Duty 2 on the PC to the XBox 360 version, there is very little difference. CoD2 may not be the most impressive PC game (graphically speaking) but as long as the 360 isn’t slouching on current PC games and its full potential hasn’t been tapped, I think it’s fair to say that buying a next gen console is probably getting you as good as graphics can be right now.

The question should be whether the Playstation 3 will be able to surpass or keep up with the advances of PC graphic cards for longer than the 360. This remains to be seen, but flogging the new ‘Box over some lack of shock and awe is pretty bad form on EGMs part.