NATION
THE BAT TALI
Sci|Tech
The Battalion
Page 6A • Tuesday, September 16,200]
Online gaming comes to College Station
PlayStation 2 and Xbox’s live services pull Internet gaming out of the world of PCs
By George Deutsch
THE BATTALION
Since the dawn of video gaming
in the 1970s, game developers have
dictated the evolution of game play
through not only technology, but
innovation. The technology of
today allows home video game
consoles to do things unheard of in
the days of the Atari 2600, and one
of the most recent innovations in
console video gaming is found
online.
Of the three major home con
soles — the Xbox, PlayStation 2
and GameCube — the Xbox and
PlayStation 2 offer gamers the
ability to play others from across
the country via a modem and
Internet connection. And whether
online gaming is time well spent
or merely time away from class, it
seems to be catching on in
College Station.
Senior information and opera
tions management major Justin
Stafford has been playing his
PlayStation 2 online for about a
year. For Stafford, playing games
online allows him to find a level of
competitiveness he normally
couldn’t amongst his in-town
friends.
“People here (in College
Station) suck,” Stafford said. “You
can’t really get competition here.”
For Stafford, the online
PlayStation 2 arena is a good test of
skills. It is such a good test, in fact,
that some PlayStation 2 and Xbox
games even offer gamers, such as
Stafford, statistics tracking and an
online national ranking system.
Thousands compete with each
other everyday, with win/loss
records and game scores helping to
determine a player’s numerical
ranking. Stafford, for example, is
currently ranked No. 44 in the
nation on EA Sports’s NCAA
College Football 2003.
Stafford plays his PlayStation 2
online under the name
JJSAggie2003, but gamers’ online
names range from the bizarre to the
obscene. A gamer’s online name
can reveal a lot about the person
playing under it. Stafford’s online
name has actually drawn criticism
from other online gamers, as it
reveals his Aggie status.
Cussing happens a lot
on here, and people are
real aggressive. People...
say things they wouldn't
in person.
— Justin Stafford
senior information and
operations management major
“I played this guy from Texas
Tech,” Stafford said. “He saw I was
an Aggie and immediately started
saying A&M was inferior in foot
ball. It’s like he had a vendetta
against me.”
The online world is not without
its problems, and in some cases,
more grudges are formed than
resolved. As the Official Xbox
Magazine reports, cussing is still a
problem online for some gamers,
as many take winning and losing
very seriously.
And since an online voice com
municator is stan
dard with a
PlayStation 2 or
Xbox online mem
bership, opposing
players can poten
tially hear every
word said and vice
versa. Fortunately,
both systems offer a
mute feature.
“Cussing happens
a lot on here,”
Stafford said, “and
people are real
aggressive. It’s just
like the Internet.
People have the guts
to say things they
wouldn’t in person.
Some people rub it in.”
In the end, it is up
to the individual gamer
to decide whether live game play is
worth it. Xbox owners looking to
experience Microsoft’s live arena,
Xbox live, need only pur
chase a subscription,
which is about $50 a
year, but they must
have a broadband
Internet connection
PlayStation 2 owners
must purchase a network
adapter for about $40, but
they don't have to pay an
annual membership fee,
according to the Official U.S
PlayStation Magazine.
Whether an Xbox
PlayStation 2 enthusiast, the era of
online gaming has begun.
As Stafford said after beating a
younger gamer this weekend, "This
guy just called me ‘sir.’ He said,
‘Good game, sir.’ Here, it’s like I’m
a legend.”
The PlayStation 2 network adaptor (pictured at top) enables
online play and costs about $40. It attaches to the back of the
PlayStation 2 (above). Microsoft's voice communicator accom
panies the Xbox Live starter kit (right) and attaches through the
controller's memory unit slot, enabling verbal communication.
—
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