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Aki: You know in the original Sims, whenever you went to the bathroom it used to blur your private parts. But then you can get the patch that undoes the blurring so I'm sure that in no time at all somebody will bring some sort of addition to this so that you can actually see them bonking away in the beds. But it's good fun and if you're out of touch with dating and that sort of thing, this is a good one.
Malcolm: Aki I have to ask what the prognosis is for games? Are we getting new channels of distribution back into the country because I confess that I've been to a couple of the big outlets and I've seen nothing there. And the games that are there I just don't recognise at all.
Aki: Well there has been a lot of rubbish on the shelves and a lot of old stuff out on the shelves this December. If you go to Amazon.com or any of the software distributors around the world, you must see some of the amazing titles that we have. There's a distributor called Idos and they had so many fantastic games like the new version of Commandos. I spoke to a couple of guys who went in a few of the CNA Interactive stores and they said that they're all busy tying up new distributorships with various dealers. But the problem is that with such a big organisation like Workgroup that had the rights to all of these games, the liquidators came in and froze anything and nobody can do anything until the situation gets resolved. So I really do hope that they do something pretty soon because it's really destroying the gaming market on many, many sides.
Rian: I think the problem is two-fold. Firstly Siltek went down, which is a big distributor and the other thing is that pirating plays a big role. The guys bring in the games - they'll bring in 100 but they'll sell 10 and there will be 100 000 people playing the games out there.
Malcolm: Sure.
Aki: Look piracy is a big problem and at the moment piracy is sitting at about 70% to 80%. It's very, very high amongst the game market but the software distributors are also getting smart. But I think it's a South African thing as well that when you go to a flea market and you see a guy selling a game at a ridiculous price like say six games on a CD for R150 - when you see that then you shouldn't support these guys. It's a problem that will never be eradicated and it's always going to be there in the software market. But when you look at Playstation and the other side of gaming, that's going to grow in leaps and bounds. The X-Box is being launched worldwide and we should get it around October/November in this country. But certainly Playstation 2 has dominated that market and continues to do so and they've brought out some fantastic titles and that's going to keep the market going. It's going to be an interesting year and you're going to see a lot of games coming out with a lot more artificial intelligence that makes the games more realistic.
Malcolm: Is DVD ideal for games as well?
Rian: Well with the Playstation 2 it runs off DVD. So your games are on DVD and obviously instead of having three or four CDs you can have them all on one.
Aki: I must say that I really experimented with it this December and I played quite a few DVDs and found it really good.
Malcolm: All right. Let's have a quick whip around seeing as we missed the last programme of last year and ask you to name the best game of 2001.
Aki: I enjoy the sporting games so I would say that it would be a close one between FIFA 2002 and Microsoft Flight Simulator 2002. It's interesting because I just got an email from Microsoft on Monday saying that they're releasing the sequel to Age of Kings. There's a new one that's coming out in September and I saw some of the screen shots and it looks really amazing. So I'm looking forward to that one this year.
Malcolm: Harry, what's your choice?
Harry: I actually had a look at the World Rally Championship Driver and it was really good. But you need a seriously fast machine for it and preferably a steering wheel and foot pedals.
Malcolm: Yes, the whole thing.
Harry: A mate of mine is crazy about them and I think he spent R8000 just on the control panel, boxes and foot pedals.
Malcolm: That's this year - what's it going to cost next year!
Harry: Well get second-hand stuff - it's cheaper.
Malcolm: What about you Rian?
Rian: The Return of Castle Wolfenstein.
Malcolm: Oh yes, this is the new update. I haven't seen that but I'm looking forward to it. I have to say that from my side, I've been very boring this year and last year and I'm still playing Starcraft 98.
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