GW just went on my fantasy dinner party guest list 😀

Have you spoken to your mate Elf? If you are a true friend you really should be letting him know how worthless his hobbies are. Perhaps you could help him to become awesome like you? He’d appreciate it I am sure 😉

I have told him. He told me to get on my bike. 😀

deadlydarcy – Member
I have a new HD TV and an XBox360. How much do I need to spend and on what type of cable in order to enjoy my games in better definition? When I’m not out riding, running, rowing, walking the dog or climbing like…

Any HDMI lead will do – don’t get sucked into buying the expensive MS one, or any expensive one for that matter.

Mine has gold connectors and was £7 from Tesco

Ok, cheers. Thought a cheapie weapie would do the job. Tesco tomorrow then. 🙂

Used to be quite heavily into gaming but I find it a bit boring now – most games I’ve played I get bored of within about half an hour-hour max. The only one thats managed to keep me interested recently has been Portal, can’t wait for Portal 2 😀

can anyone recommend a game for me? previously I’ve enjoyed sin city, civilisation, the sims and so on.

oh, DonS – the “… it’s probably the only exercise that these console addicted people get.” was a tad Daily Mail

Only if that’s how you want to interpet it.

He owns a Staffie. What did you expect?

Has a Nº1 crop and tattoos, does that help the stereotype further?
😆

How much do I need to spend and on what type of cable in order to enjoy my games in better definition?

I’m not sure about the cables, but I do believe that you will need to put egg boxes on the wall to achieve the true hi-fidelity sound quality. The correct speaker placement will also also enhance your gaming eperience. 😉

I like gaming, and fortunately I seem to have a boredom threshold of about 20-30 mins so I don’t spend all day on them. Not got any consoles at the moment due to having no cash so I just have a few first person shooters on the pc

How awfully rude of me dd, how’s Molly?

never owned a console, never been interested. probably spent a total of 45 mins of my life playing games. Spent a year working with a games studio on a fitness product and found the creative process pretty cool.

Spent a year working with a games studio on a fitness product and found the creative process pretty cool.

yeah, that feeling wears off pretty quickly.

I only went in there one afternoon a week and got to play with what they’d spent the rest of the time on….. they did look a bit ‘upset’ when I asked for amendments……..

Exercise and consoles? Try this…
[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQ2rYnfhpL8[/video]

Elf you spend so much time on here when you could be out peddaling your bike 😉

I seem to have a boredom threshold of about 20-30 mins so I don’t spend all day on them

Me too.

Over the years I’ve had,

A pong-style TV game; ZX Spectrum 48K; Atari 512 STM; Atari 1040 STe; Atari 2600 VCS; Commodore Amiga A500; Sony Playstation; Sega Dreamcast; Nintendo Gamecube; Sony PS2; Xbox 360; and several PCs.

I find it quite interesting that the people who say that console gaming is pointless and ‘has no end product’ (whatever that even means) are the same people who by their own admission have never really played anything. Different strokes for different folks, of course, one man’s meat is another man’s pornography and all that. But who’s best qualified to comment, do you think?

I think I’ll go and create a “bikes, they’re crap aren’t they” thread.

Oh, and,

Despite being such an evident slave to the idiot box, I’ve somehow managed to have hobbies including MTBing, running, fell walking, camping, rock-climbing, parachuting, model rocketry, power-kite flying, festival-going…

I have an x-box and the wife has a wii (for the whole wii-fit thing) I dip in and out of games, Call of Duty and Halo being favourites, don’t play online and lucky if I buy 5 games a year. the wife likes her wii-fit because she hates gyms.

Nothing wrong with video games, but like everything it needs to be in moderation otherwise it becomes quite unhealthy…….but then they said that about TV

…….but then they said that about TV

The same was also said about books…..

And in reading of many books is distraction.

-Seneca

I find it quite interesting that the people who say that console gaming is pointless and ‘has no end product’ (whatever that even means) are the same people who by their own admission have never really played anything

Elfin says that there is no end product yet he says that he plays and enjoys them.
I’ve never played and am interested to see how many other people like me there are, and don’t care whether there is an end product or not, model building has an end product and I don’t do that either.

People are very defensive over playing games…

See, when I talk about an ‘end product’, I’m talking about something tangible, like the nice pics produced with photography, or the fitness produced by riding a bike, that sort of thing. I’m not saying ‘fun’ is trivial and unnecessary at all. Quite the opposite in fact.

I’m merely pointing out that some folk spend far too much time and money on playing computer games, that’s all. Of course it’s their choice, but to me it just seems a bit of a futile waste, to be immersed to such an extreme level. The same way maybe as someone who always rides their bike and never socialises or does owt else, I spose. Y’know; obsessive behaviour. I don’t see nowt wrong with having consoles speshly if you’ve got kids, play them a few hours a week or so, but much beyond that and it’s a bit unhealthy, imo.

I can play the odd game, when the fit takes me, for 2 or 3 hours or so. It’s fun, but I do tend to feel a little ‘wired’ for a bit afterwards. Dunno if others feel similar. I can see that prolonged gaming possibly isn’t all that good for my mental health. Perhaps some people don’t really consider this.

Elf you spend so much time on here when you could be out peddaling your bike

Sod that; it’s too cold and wet at the moment… 🙂

Currently have, in order of amount of use, a DS XL, a Wii, a PS2, a Gameboy Advance and a Dreamcast (waves at Cougar, the only other person in the UK to buy one!).

I’ve enjoyed video games since a mate of my dad’s gave us a Binatone ‘Pong’ game in the 70’s. I then graduated to an Atari 2600 and have owned all the Nintendo consoles since the SNES.

I’ve always bought games and consoles secondhand and traded most games when finished – works out a hell of a lot cheaper.
Tend to prefer the classic Nintendo Miyamoto stuff but the Gran Turismo and TT Superbikes series took up an awful lot of time a few years ago.

Deliberately avoiding gaming seems to me as perverse, affected an eccentric as avoiding music, literature or film – there’s a huge variation in the quality of games from dire to epic, mainstream to niche.
It’s a big world out there, but you’ll find SOMETHING you enjoy if you look hard enough.

Gaming is a mature pastime now and has been established long enough for there to recognised classics of the various game genres, but that’s a different thread entirely!

Deliberately avoiding gaming seems to me as perverse,

Who’s deliberately avoiding it? Not me. It’s difficult to make comparisons that everyone will understand and accept.

but you’ll find SOMETHING you enjoy if you look hard enough.

I’m not particulary interested in looking though. 😉

People are very defensive over playing games…

Yeah, we have been looked down on for years for it. NOT saying that’s what’s necessarily happening here of course. But it does happen, the same as if you admit to watching TV.

t to me it just seems a bit of a futile waste, to be immersed to such an extreme level

Well.. have you ever taken recreational drugs?

It might be negative to play games to the exclusion of everything else, same as it’s not great being an alcoholic. Doesn’t mean a few drinks or even the odd bender are bad.

It’s fun, but I do tend to feel a little ‘wired’ for a bit afterwards. Dunno if others feel similar.

No, I don’t feel wired at all. Perhaps that’s why you don’t game much, and it’s a fair point. It can affect us different ways.

It’s a big world out there, but you’ll find SOMETHING you enjoy if you look hard enough.

Sure but there’s no real need to is there? 🙂

I’ve been into computer games ever since I was a kid and have gotten a great deal of enjoyment out of them (and now they pay the mortgage, so it’s not entirely wasted). Some people like them, some don’t, doesn’t bother me, just irritating when you get idiots like Keith Vaz running around trying to get them banned. Though I guess it’s just like rock & roll, films and books in the past, I’m surprised there’s any society left to destroy after all those 😉

Dreamcast – in my defence, I bought it after it’d died the death, for about ten quid.

Nintendo DS – forgot that, got one of those too.

some folk spend far too much time and money on playing computer games, that’s all.

That’s all very objective though, isn’t it. How much is too much? How do you quantify that against other hobbies? I put in over fifty hours in total in Final Fantasy XIII last year – over an extended period of time I grant you, several months – is that excessive compared to, say, spending the same time watching a couple of seasons of the Sopranos, buying a Blackburn Rovers season ticket, or going to the pub and getting trousered once a week?

I take your point, I think anyway; some people do obsess about it. I’ve mates who’ve been on raiding teams in World of Warcraft and, because you’ve then got two dozen people depending on you, it becomes a permanent fixture in your life. You end up having to play, for several hours a night, several nights a week. To me that’s excessive (and why I never raided other than as a stand-in back when I played WoW).

However, I really don’t see why games get singled out here (apart from the archetypal whipping-boy WoW anyway). I don’t see obsession as a ‘feature’ of gamers, any more than it’s a feature of football fans, sci-fi geeks, mountain bikers, Team Edward or any other hobbyist demographic. I think it’s unfair to suggest that games = obsession, it’s implying a cause-and-effect connection that simply isn’t true.

I do see, though, why people get defensive about it. It’s been a niche hobby that most people know nothing about, and it’s only really now reaching mainstream. Case in point, a guy I work with arranged an online game session with a colleague as they were both leaving the other day; I then sat and listened as the women on the contact centre desk opposite spent the next ten minutes ripping the urine out of them behind their backs. Grown men playing computer games? On their own? But on the Internet? With headsets, talking to each other? Oh my god, how desperately sad and pathetic.

It’s just a product of its time though. Watching a movie at the cinema? Grown adults, sitting in the dark with a bunch of strangers, ignoring each other and staring at a screen for hours, how sad. Telephone? Wow, who wants to talk to someone who isn’t there?

Video gaming’s moved on since the 1980s, it’s come of age. Saying you don’t like computer games is like saying you don’t like books, or don’t like films. Which is fine, of course, point is that it’s not the exclusive domain of the 14-year old schoolboy any more.

It was a only a simple question. 😕

I bought a Dreamcast on the day it came out. That’s how shrewd I am.

Since the old C64 (with Vic 1541 disc drive 8)) I have owned and loved…

NES
SNES
Gameboy Advanced
N64
Dreamcast
Gameboy SP
GameCube
PS2
PS3

plus a load of old Nintendo Game & Watch type things. Gaming is ace.

Do you not read the OPs? I asked how many people DON’T have consoles and computer games!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
🙄 😀

My OH doesn’t, they’re all mine.

Uh, apart from her DS. And her iPhone I guess. Damn. My mum?

How much is too much?

As much as I say it is. 🙄

Jeeze, all I said was ‘that bit of halibut was good enough for Jehovah’….

Cougar – model rocketry

Photo required surely

Oof. I might have something kicking about, might take a bit of finding though.

I think anyway; some people do obsess about it.

As anything else. There are people who obsess about riding bikes to the detriment of everything else in their lives, and we follow them as sporting heroes.

Mrs Grips does own and play games. I love Mrs Grips 🙂

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKIiUsbOO24[/video]

Are they any less productive than spending hours posting crap on a forum?

i have a ps2 and a wii dont use either of them – can i post on your thread Don? The kids play the wii whilst i post up gibbeirsh on a forum whilst telling them they are awesome.

Are they any less productive than spending hours posting crap on a forum?

I did wonder when someone would point out the elephant in the room.

i have a ps2 and a wii dont use either of them – can i post on your thread Don?

Of course you can, luvvy, as long as you promise to play nicely :D.

Are they any less productive than spending hours posting crap on a forum?

May I be bold enough to mention that now might be a good time to stop posting crap and start posting something useful and constructive. 😈