Am I old? Disillusioned? Just a loser? D) All of the above?
I didn’t want to write this post because of being branded an arrogant purist. But then I said ‘Wait a sec! That’s a hardcore rep!’ So here we are.
Because I can’t for the life of me understand how fast we go through video games in this country. I was observing a spunky twelve year old visiting us for a couple of weeks. He went and bought 4 pirated video games. (Note: This site does not support piracy. Naughty naughty kid. Spanky spanky etc.) Now these were all ‘A’ list titles. Immense and easily with over fifty hours of game play each. Two days later he asked me to take him to a video game shop. “Why?” I asked. Wary of the assumption that I would supply the money and because I found the shocking orange, lime green and pink shirts the dude at the shop wore an affront to me in particular and to civilization in general.
There are Playstation 3’s sitting on retail shelves their cell processors gathering dust while Nintendo’s Wii’s are harder to find then true broadband connections in Pakistan. Xbox 360 is over a hundred titles and unlike those of the PSP a lot of them are actually playable. One PS3 is sold for every three Wii’s in Japan, formerly a market dominated by Sony. Japan is the second largest gaming market in the world after the US and X Box has never existed there and the 360 follows this discredited path with aplomb. More X Box Japan heads have been moved or fired then Prime Minister’s in PK-land.
Whatever happened to Shera Jutt Pakistan’s first truly original 3D game?The guys over at Trango Interactive in Islamabad are a bunch of really talented people (Check out their concept art and 3D shots here: http://www.itrango.com/portfolio.html) who actually made a small but immensely playable and enjoyable game called Shera Jutt. I remember seeing it in Beta over a year ago and despite dated graphics I thought its play on popular Punjabi culture and the sheer originality rocked. There’s actually a scene where a massive buffalo charges at you as major boss and you defend your suddenly vulnerable self with nothing more then a gandasa.Well owing to go to market or business model issues or sheer letahrgy the game was never released in Pakistan. That’s a shame. Such a collaborative original effort should atleast have seen the light of day. Hell I would have released it for free just to get some publicity (After all how much does it cost to put in a CD with each copy of The Daily Times?). I bet you just that stunt would have built a pipeline of local orders to book their developers for two years straight. If you are listening Trango dudes – You can still do it. Or just lend it to us and we will put it up for a free download on p-v-p.com.
