We all remember the days of heading over to a friends house, PC or console (and often in my case a TV too) in tow, LAN cables and spare controllers in a carrier bag, loose batteries rattling about in the bottom, pizza money and a copy of the latest first-person shooter or beat-em-up. Pretty much everything you could possibly need for an epic weekend of pure gaming with sessions often exceeding 15 hours at a time, little sleep and a lot of friendly ribbing. For me, the best thing about gaming was playing with friends, putting my skills to the test against other people (which sadly I was often on the losing end of) was all well and good, but there’s nothing quite like gaming with friends, either against them or as part of a team.
It was these early gaming sessions that got many of us interested in the games industry. After all, most of us ended up here because we love games. The sad truth is that 15 hour gaming marathons are a thing of the past. As most people in the games sector will agree, there just isn’t the time to sit and play on games for hours at a time anymore. So, sadly, my Xbox sits unused and unloved in the corner along with a stack of games I’d have once played until the early hours of every morning slowly gathering dust…until recently.
I was generously gifted a copy of TitanFall from my friend John, who also happens to be the CEO of Flix. I was both elated and saddened by this, as with him being my boss and an old friend whose house me and many others would head to when we were having another gaming weekend, he knew neither of us had the time (or, sadly at our age, the energy) to stay up all night gaming anymore.
After playing through the tutorial and eventually the mission section of the game, I tentatively dropped John a text message simply reading “TitanFall?” I felt almost nervous while waiting for his response. It was almost like I was 14 again and asking a girl out for the first time “what if he says no….” I thought. (Ok not quite that nervous, but there was an air of apprehension) I can’t remember his exact response but it was something about him not having time right now, but he’d try and get on a little later. I slipped my headset off, placed my black wireless controller on the desk and hit the eject button, that subtle ping seemed to echo as to almost mock me. This had become a usual response from a lot of my friends as well as the response I had often given them over the years, as we all got older and inevitably became burdened with more and more responsibility we simply didn’t have the time.
To my surprise, a little later that evening my phone lit up and buzzed across my desk. The message read “TF? -J” My response was just as short and just as to the point “YEAH”
The session that night didn’t last anywhere near as long as they had done in the past, we weren’t crowded into one living room with 6 other friends, 4 40 inch TVs, surrounded by a mountain of pizza boxes and smelling like teenage boys tended to smell, but we did manage to recapture some of the joy and excitement that we had lost over the years. TitanFall is a wonderful game, but its far from the greatest I’ve ever played. It does however have the feel of a game that may have been made with the memories of friends crowded in living rooms, playing side by side, screaming and laughing in unison fueling the creatures passion and drive.
Getting together online with John will never be as frequent as it once was, but we do try and play together for an hour or so at least a few nights a week. Then, like school kids, we huddle in the office the morning after, talking about the epic battles that had taken place the night before. It’s these newly rediscovered gaming sessions that have given me a new sense of urgency when it comes to making Eden Star the best game it can be.
I like the idea of friends sending out a text and meeting up online to play Eden Star, and to have the kind of fun I had with my friends. Maybe, like me, these experiences will encourage young gamers to get involved in the Games Industry. This is all the motivation I need.
Stay classy, Planet Earth.
– Andy Simkin – Lead Tester & Community Manager
(*all use of images and/or logos related to ‘TitanFall’ / ‘Office Space’ are sole property of their respective owners – Respawn Entertainment and Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation)