Gaming is becoming a serious affair here in India. Come June 15 and the winning team of the gaming tournament 'Vixture', organized by Zero Friction in association with publishing giant Electronic Arts, stands to get a hefty sum of INR 2 million. Whew! Now I seriously didn't see THAT happening in THIS century! Or atleast this decade............
But behind the huge wads of cash and corporate sponsorship are the things that actually drive such tourneys: The Games! And with all due respect to ZFriction for their valiant venture, the games, overall, are not really up to the mark. In fact, leave out Crysis, and the rest of the games on offer (FIFA Soccer 08, Cricket 07, Fight Night Round 3 and NFS Pro Street) have either been done to death in other competitions or aren't the quality material that you'd expect to see in a competition with such high stakes.
Don't get me wrong here. The organizers have done a fabulous job by including one of last year's most popular, fun, stunning and critically acclaimed games: Crysis. But that was not a good enough reason to associate with EA and fill the entire game list with the rest of their assembly-line, sports-oriented titles. Then there's the fact that the games are gonna be played on different platforms and that there's a pretty vague team-play concept involved in the format as well. With all of this in play, the quality of the competition stands to be sacrificed. Allow me to ramble on and explain why..........FIFA Soccer 08 is a decent game. And EA Sports has done a good job of constantly upgrading the gameplay, graphics and library of its FIFA franchise year after year after year; to the point that its a mainstay in several popular gaming tourneys like the World Cyber Games. So why showcase it in another one?? NFS: Pro Street, on the other hand, is not even a half-decent game! With the developers focusing a little too much on realism lately, the franchise has lost some of the fun-factor and sheen that made it popular AND acclaimed. As of now, its just popular, industrial-made crap.
Including Cricket 07 in a cricket obsessed nation like ours may seem like a wise choice. But the gameplay (so far the best in the series) remains ordinary and gets very repetitive and tedious very soon. Maybe thats the reason the organizers decided to limit the number of overs to 5 per side. Just FIVE. How, pray tell, is that even Cricket?? Then there is Fight Night Round 3. A very good game in its own right but the combination of 4 sports titles in a single tourney kinda kills the individual flavor the game possesses.
As with any other tournament, the format is crucial. This includes everything from the individual event rules, the elimination style, team rules and platforms. As an event meant for Indians, Vixture has really screwed up here. The ONLY game that will be played on the PC platform is Crysis. ALL the other games are set to be played on consoles. FIFA and NFS will be played on the Xbox 360. Now these are two games in which Indians have done well at the international level. Counter Strike may well be the #1 online game here but even the top clans get reduced to the status of noobs at the international stage. Thats not the case with NFS and especially not with FIFA.Just last year Reuben Pereira from Mumbai won the Silver Medal in FIFA 07 at WCG Asian Championships. That event had the PC platform. Now even a casual gamer would know that switching platforms can really affect your style of play and takes some getting used to, but the pros and hardcore gamers TOTALLY detest it. In fact, the very size and make of the humble mouse is enough to cause problems and fights in gaming tourneys. Its not that the games are not good on the consoles. They may even be better in some cases. But the thing is that the most prevalent platform here in India is not an X360. Even though a lot of people have got it after its official release, the PC remains the mainstay of the majority of players. Especially the pros. Why force them to change their play-styles to participate?
Probably the biggest farce is that Fight Night Round 3 is being set for the PS3. Why don't you just take out a shotgun and shoot the game then? First off, Fight Night isn't even that popular here. And THIS is one game that SHOULD have been played on the X360 or maybe even the PS2 cause the penetration of the PS3 in Indian markets is currently laughable! The only game for the PS2 is Cricket 07. A sad situation for probably the most widely owned console in India.The team concept is another hindrance. The rules state that there should be a minimum of 5 members in a team and a team will need to compete in all the games to qualify. Moreover, the Crysis format is a vague 5 vs. 5 team deathmatch! So not only does the team need to have individuals who can play the other games (all of them being sport titles) well, they all need to be good at Crysis too. Which, being a first person shooter, belongs to an entirely different genre altogether! How in the world can that be called fair?? Some of the game rules are weird as well. For instance the only teams you can select in FIFA throughout the competition are France and Italy. Now thats just brilliant isn't it? Who's the genius who came up with THAT gem of an idea??
ALL that said, any competition that values games and gamers alike takes us a bit further towards realizing an India where pro-gaming can actually be a rewarding profession. But I'd still like to see competitions taking into account the actual statistics of gaming in India before deciding formats. Moreover, I'd like to see newer games in the various covered genres replacing, or atleast complementing, the existing and more popular ones in such tourneys.
Just to cite some examples, Kane's Wrath, an expansion for Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars, is an amazing and fast paced RTS and is a part of a series that enjoys cult-popularity the world over. Then there's the economic model, exceptional macro-management aspects and the sheer scope of Age of Empires III: The Asian Dynasties which make it an online favorite in several countries. Both these games are set as official games for the World Cyber Games Final 2008. But, rather unfortunately, WCG India's RTS roster has been restricted to only Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne. While the organizers should be looking to increase their list of official games each year, the guys incharge of WCG India are happy and content to give us the same roster at every event. And that too at an amazingly inflationary entry fee (up 400% since 2005).The organization of gaming tourneys in India can only improve from here on. There are gonna be more sponsors, more participants, better formats and, hopefully, newer and better games involved in the fray. Lets just hope that the change comes sooner rather than later! That said and done though, I'll still be keeping my eyes peeled for the Vixture finals from June 13!
