Though immensily sad (and I CANNOT stress how emotional it is, see for yourself.) it did make the game one of my most memorable and I will treasure this game for as long as I can due to the way it touched me on a level I was unsure games could. I'd cries while watching films before, and music has inspired similar emotions, but this was something new.

Another excellent example was provided by Half Life 2: Episode Two. After hours of escaping the citadel and driving to White Forest, after hunter ambushes and strider attacks I had the joy of watching a father and daughter be reunited. Suddenly all the respawns, all the anger over difficult puzzles and all the time spent seemed worth it. To then have this tarnished had me gasping defiance. Eli Vance's death had me white knuckling my desk; how could this be happening? How had the combine gotten so close to the fortress? This man can't die the resistance needs him! And speaking of which where the hell are they? Eli Vance CANNOT DIE!

Gripping stuff, but at this moment in time, with the death so tragically recent I almost feel a loathing towards Valve. Was this the only way? Now I feel anything but excitement over Episode Three. Fate of the Earth aside, I don't know if I can handle seeing my Alyx in tears over her fathers death. I say my ALyx because over the course of my travels, from her saving me from Combine arse-rape to her care-free flirting, I've come to love this woman. As the screen blackened I could still hear her cry, sobbing over her fathers body. It struck a chord with me, and now my only reasons to play Ep3 are these, fulfill the dying wish of Eli Vance to Find Judith, and to avenge his death, for him and for his daughter. The combine shall feel my wrath for this injustice.

Rant aside, I do believe that the manipulation of the players emotions are a key aspect of future game development, my experiences have shown me that If anything it makes a game memorable, and a release that no one should not play.

In conclusion, attention games...

Games have always been sold on the success' of their graphics, sound, storyline or gameplay. These are the pigeonholes developers hope to fill when making the games we love. But in he past few months of being glued to my PC I've come to notice a recurring pattern. DirectX 10 graphics, gripping story and the like have been replaced. Rather than looking inside the game and its components, developers are, so to speak, breaking what I believe is the fifth wall. This fifth wall lies between the characters in the game world, and our emotions.

Though not a new feature, emotions have been previously used effectively in games such as Final Fantasy VII (Aeris' death) or Ico, but in todays generation of graphics and advanced gameplay these minor touches seem almost obsolete.

My interest in this subject was originally peaked upon my completion of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare left me gripping my mouse with fury and tears hanging precariously behind my eyes. For those of you who do not wish to have the plot ruined should stop reading now.

Gaz's death at the hands of Zakhaev killed a part of me inside. After fighting through numerous different countries and fighting many battles with the man I simply refused to believe he could be killed by this pompous asshole. And yet I was FORCED to watch the gun be placed to his head and the trigger pulled. Gaz, my invincible ally, who I'd seen take countless bullets in our previous engagements, was dead. Placing the bullets in his back was some relief, until I saw my leader, no, my idol Captain Price on the floor, his name no longer appearing on the HUD as I stare, heart-racing, as he is unable to be resuscitated.

Though the campaign mode was, for me, a huge success, this anti-climactic end put a downer on the whole scenario. Yes we'd stopped the nukes hitting America (though would that have really been so bad?) and YES I'd killed the terrorist leader and countless of his minions, I felt more defeated than victorious.

Whaatever happened to the good old days of patching games? You'd turn your computer on, load your favourite game, download a small file when prompted, install the thing and you'd be away, life was golden. Not anymore it seems.

Take battlefield 2142 for example. A cracking game in my opinion, but i don't want to have to download a 350mb patch before I can blow shit up, thats not cool EA! In fact it was this patch that prompted this blog entry. I understand that with new, bigger app's coming onto the market, more changes means more data to download, but surely theres a better way? World of Warcraft is another prime example, upon buying a trial of the game i was ready to play, i had the game installed, and as soon as I try and log in, wallop (wallop being the standard sound one hears when one realises that all is not right.) a 500mb download. So i think to myself, ok thats fine, its a big game and its worth the wait. So I start the download, go flip the kettle on and watch some tv.

About an hour later i return to my computer to my excitement that the patch was downloaded and installed, Huzzah! Excitement levels at maximum, i log on to find not the MMO i do so wish to play, but lo and behold, another patch! Grumbling to myself, I accept that such a big game must require another equally sized patch, returning to the kettle and thus the setee for more tv.

Again i return to the computer to find again, that the patch has completed its download and has self installed. Consolling myself on the fact that surely this must be the end to my update nightmare, i happily log in to find another patch: Much shouting followed. Now well into the early hours of the morning, i stomped back to my setee, cup of tea held firmly in hand and awaited the patch to finish.

As 5AM aproached the patch was completed, I logged on to find not one, but two more patches to download, though much to Blizzard's luck (The angy mob was ready I swear to god) these were small in comparison to their large predecessors.

Thus, after waiting for...