UK cyber hacking at an end?

Picture the scene: you've just had a few days away from your console and your thumbs are itching to provide some online carnage.

You've got all your snacks for the between-game breaks all within arms reach. Your seat- a gaming throne- is comfortably puffed up with the nearby phone unplugged (who wants that annoying buzz-buzz-ring-ring whilst your on a killing spree?).

You switch on your console of choice and log into your account. The TV's turned up to that perfect deep, bassey level and you're seated comfortably. 

You're in your zone, dominating all of your opponents left right and centre when all the sudden your game freezes and you get that dreaded black screen. "Lag," you think to yourself. "It's bound to pass in a few minutes time."


It doesn't. After five minutes your screen abruptly lights back up into normality and... you've lost. Badly.

How is this possible you find yourself thinking. The Cyber Face will tell you how this is possible- hackers.



Inconsiderate, more often than not, pubescent gamers that can't be bothered to level up in the traditional fashion. They use malicious, home-grown programmes to delay the online game lobbies that they enter- but that's only for the other players, not themselves. 



This leaves them free to roam through the game and boosting their level, at the detriment to all the other players.




There are many differnt kinds of mods on the market theses days,
some less harmful than others

 Sadly, problems like this are all too common in the online gaming sphere. Such hackers, or mod-ers, have been around for a while now and most gamers just take it as part of the gaming culture. Something that you tolerate, not through choice, but through lack of alternative options.

HOWEVER this could be due to change very soon.

The UK arrested a teen living in Manchester yesterday for just such a crime. The unnamed youth was arrested after Call of Duty publishers, Activision, reported a server hacking in September.

FINALLY! 

The youth is suspected of using a programme called Phenom Booter which attacked the Activision site and supposedly affected thousands of gamers. It's malicious hacking like this that is a blight on the online community.



Although not all hacking is bad. Lets make it clear that The Cyber Face doesn't condone any form of hacking online, malicious or not. But some hacking can be genuinely amusing.

Some of the gamers mod games not just for their own pleasures, but for those of others also. You only need to look as far as The GMOD Idiot Box on YouTube to see examples of such modding.

CLICK HERE TO WATCH A SAMPLE EPISODE OF GMOD!



Indeed there have been examples of gamers showing their protests for certain online players, in particular games, by hacking their account and creating a horde of flying penises that bombarded the player's gaming screen.

Nevertheless, hacking still remains a problem. But perhaps this is the beginning of the end for it. This trial is most certainly one to watch!



Top dog FarmVille now has competition...

When was the last time you were on Facebook? A couple of days ago? Unlikely. How about this morning? Looking more plausibile. What about a few minutes ago? Bingo! We have a wiener!

The Cyber Face would be willing to bet that, for a vast majority of you, the last time you were on Facebook was perhaps, at most, a few minutes ago. It has become an essential part of our cyber-based society, seemingly overnight. Can any of you remember what social networking was like... before Facebook (quiet mutterings of Myspace and Bebo whisper in your ear)?

As corny as this will sound, it is almost as important as the air that we breathe (albeit in a virtual format). Facebook is an all encompassing, all knowing machine. In many respects one could argue that it has overtaken the phone as the most dominant way to communicate with people. We know so much about one another it's, at times, crazy.

It will come as no surprise then to hear that over 200 million people use Facebook worldwide. It will also come as no surprise when you hear that games desingers take full advantage of the huge audience figures.

One name that will have some gravitas with all you casual, I'm-bored-at-work-and-I-need-something-to-do-gamers out there: FarmVille.
 Yes. It's a game that those from The Cyber Face have refused to play (unless under duress from... well, women). But you can't over look the games outrageous popularity. With approximately 32million daily users and 110million downloads the game is, with these figures, a complete blockbuster! Its figures obliterate all of the most popular (and more expensive) console games ones.


Many can spends days whittling away on their farms
to get it just right.

FarmVille is a gargantuan of a game. But it is only one in a string of 'ville' games that have been released.

Last week saw the introduction of a brand new ville game to the Facebook market, CityVille. The game, although only out for a week, has already smashed all previous ville game records, by a whopping margin.



In its first day alone, the game managed to pull in over 290,000 people- compared to just 116,000 people when FrontierVille was released.

The new game sees players construct their own, living breathing city (very similar to the SimCity franchise), with roads, skyscrappers and even bakeries!

Watch a video of CityVille here!

• After a week of play, more than 2.7 million CityVille homes have been built.
• Around 500,000 bakeries are cooking up fresh mince pies as you read.
• A staggering five million sections of road have been constructed!
• It is reported that there are now 1.2 million users

So with all the impressive figures, the jury is still out as to whether this new ville game can topple the giant that is FarmVille. Will people choose to move into the city from the country? We'll just have to wait and see. But what ever happens, developers Zynga have got to be laughing all the way to the bank... even if it is in one of the newly constructed, cyber cities.

Should gamers go COD turkey?

For those of you that missed BBC 1's Panorama investigation into gaming addiction, The Cyber Face will sum it up for you in a few words: online gaming can lead to serious addiction, health problems and even death!

Call of Duty- COD. Global living room warfare
at its best.

That all sounds very morbid and foreboding, but sadly it's true- to a certain point. Since 2005, 12 gaming-related deaths have been reported worldwide. But is this really a statistic that gamers should be worried about?


No. Not really. In the UK alone, it is reported that around 24 million people regularly play computer games. So in the long run, 12 deaths in five years, out of 24 million people is no more significant than a baby's fart in a methane plant.


But the programme did raise some interesting and genuinely valid questions. Are games addictive? And should we be concerned at the rising levels of young people choosing to spend hours in front of a computer/television screen instead of outside? Perhaps.


 In the UK, 66% of 5-16 year olds have ther own console (source- Childwise: The Monitor Report 2009-10). A vast majority of these consoles also have online capabilities. They aren't like the Playstation 1's of yesteryear, where if you wanted to play against a person, they had to be physically beside you.


Could games really be as addictive as drugs?



Now you could be playing against (or with) someone on the other side of the world. Indeed with the introduction and increasing adoption of broadband, many games now have the ability to build an entire world populated by gamers.

One game in particular cannot be overlooked. Blizzard Entertainments' World of Warcraft, or as fans call it, WOW. With a population larger than most small countries, the last count being over 12 million online players, WOW is a true online juggernaut.

It has it's own economy (which interestingly enough hasn't been affected by the recession), it's own countries and realms, even it's own WOW language- which we wont go into as that is more than likely an entire blog in itself!


The game is effectively a self-contained universe (or microverse, depending on which scientific theory you believe in). This inevitably leads to gamers becoming engrossed in the unfolding events and playing the game. Alot.


Indeed The Cyber Face knows of many people that have spent nearly 12 hours, practically non-stop trying to level up their Druids, Warlocks, Hunters or Mages to level 80. Some of these people are barely into puberty but choose to spend more hours on their character than outside, in the real world. This isn't a criticism, because we too at The Cyber Face have been guilty of similar habits.

WOW and anger management video here!

It's understandable where these sorts of gaming traits and habits come from. Everyone wants their player to look as bitchin' as possible (and when you look at those level 80's that have dedicated, literally days to their account, you can see why).


But this is where the addiction becomes a real issue. Gamers are given so many options and incentives to boost their characters to the best possible level and state of dress. They're given added rewards and in-game extras if they show that sort of dedication. To this effect, the game draws these gamers into a vicious cylce of addiction.


However, we must stress that this is only reported in a minority of cases and that just because you play a few hours of WOW or Call of Duty (COD) every so often, it doesn't mean you're an addict!

Korean's don't get the concept of bed side gaming.

Indeed, when you look at one of the world's most internet-savy countries- South Korea, only 2% of the nation's young people are said to be potentially at risk from internet addiction. Interesting the country's government has set up gaming addiction boot camps, very similar to those 'fat camps' in place in the USA, to try and combat the situation.


Many Koreans play MMORPGs (massively-multiplayer-online-role-playing-games. Basically really big, online games) in local internet bars, as opposed to the comfort of their own home. Indeed there was a case earlier this year in which a South Korean couple were so engrossed in the online gaming that they let their own baby die of starvation!


However all this said and done, gaming addiction is a very rare beast indeed and shouldn't be worried about too much. Most that become 'addicted' to games (interestingly there is no actual definition to gaming addiction perscribed in medical journals) already possess an addictive personality, so chances are they're already addicted to something else already.


But no doubt as the new WOW, Cataclysm, hits our shelves at the stroke of midnight tonight, The Cyber Face is sure that this arguement, will no doubt once again, rear it's ugly head. Although will the gamers care? Hell no, they'll be too busy playing to gives a monkey's left nut.




  

Blizzard Entertainment's new installement of the WOW franchise,
 that is available tonight



"We're living on the edge!"

You wouldn't want him near your Guitar
Hero mic!

Aerosmith's undeniably epic 1992 anthem to which everybody, regardless of race; age; social background- and all that stuff- should try and live their life to. Yes, this one song. It's completely rubbish, with the non-sensical lyrics that are screeched out of Steven Tyler's ridiculously humongous, cosmos-consuming mouth. But if you look past all this, there is something real to what is being said. It's the desire to live life to its absolute maximum.

Well here at The Cyber Face we follow this doctrine, in our own, special way. Through the social medium of gaming! Everything from MMOs to RPGs, FPSs to RTSs (there will be a lot of these sorts of acronyms and gaming slag in this blog, so try your best to stay zoned in. If however it gets too much, why not take a break on Facebook, or watch some of the YouTube videos at the top of this blog page ^^^), we're passionate for it all.

So the edge that Tyler so avidly squeals about has two meanings for us:

1) A very literal 'edge.' Sitting on the edge of a sofa, bed or (if lacking the necessary monetary funds for traditional furniture) a plank of wood.




The action-packed Call of Duty: Black Ops
shows what the 'edge' really is.



2) The exhilaration of the Virtual World. Possibly lying prone in a pixelated and smokey landscape, rifle gripped in your digitally manifested fingers, waiting for that lonely straggler to unwittingly meander his way into your crosshairs. Or it could be the satisfaction of reaching that elusive level 80 after literally days of gameplay and countless packets of Walkers cheese and onion crisps (or for you Americans out there- chips).

For those here at The Cyber Face- this is what the edge truly means. None of this skydiving malark, or reckless speeding. It's pushing ourselves to the limit, in a safe and comfortable environment. God bless arm chairs!