This weekend we were invited down to Birmingham to experience a brand new concept in First Person Shooters. If you’d like to read the vaguely coherent hungover ramblings of two drunk idiots way out of their depth, click the title above and read on.
It’s worth pointing out before I start that I have no plans to edit, proof-read or even think too hard about this, my head is pounding and I still feel really sick, but it’s my duty to spread the word about Kwari because once we understood the point, it really does make sense and it’s actually a pretty damned good idea. If there’s any apostrophes in the wrong place chances are Michael will ninja edit the piece and it’ll all read perfectly in the morning.
But let’s backtrack, because we arrived in Birmingham at about 3pm, and the Kwari thing didn’t start until 7, so once checked in to the splendour of the Ibis, we decided to talk a quick walk into ‘town’ to find a cash machine, once we’d made sure the beer at the hotel bar was suitably quaffable. It was. Sadly, our hotel wasn’t in Birmingham centre, it was out a bit, and there really wasn’t much around apart from Birmingham Fried Chicken, Favourite Chicken and a Greggs. There was also a cash machine, but that part of the story isn’t remotely interesting. The Greggs was rubbish, though – the carrots in the pastie were made of brick and everything else was cold.
But we couldn’t stand around picking up our teeth, we had a job to do and I’d forgotten not only my notes on Kwari but also my show-stealing questions for the developers of the game and anyone else that would listen to us. Sensing just a tiny bit of dread, we returned to the hotel bar, grabbed a pen and started to work our magic. It’s probably quite hard to read, but those questions include ‘how do you stand on gibbons’ and ‘my favourite word is tangarine, what’s yours?’. You’ll also see the initial stages of another question which was something about the practicality of swans breaking a human arm, but that one just wasn’t working so we left it.
Things weren’t going too well, I’d only read a wee bit about Kwari and my photographer buddy here didn’t have a clue. He’d also forgotten the camera, so it was down to the Nokia to deliver the goods visually for the report – you can see how well that worked out. Thankfully someone else joined us at the bar (to protect his identity we’ll call him Bave) who’d been playing the beta for months, so we were brought up to speed in a flash, disregarding our questions (but kept the paper, it was doubling as a hand fashioned map of Birmingham) and using our remaining time wisely by having a few more beers.
At 6.30 a stretch limo (taxi) magically appeared and whisked us completely the wrong way, despite my furious map-pointing from the back seat. Only when we renamed ‘Omega Sektor’ as ‘The Old Virgin Shop’ did the driver finally believe us and go the other way. We were met inside by Andrea (we are not a blog!) who offered me the choice of two Alex’s to pick from at reception. I opted for my real name in case the proper Alex McTavish was some kind of SAS warrior. The place is swanky, it’s actually really well done and looked reasonably busy with kids of all ages playing all sorts of games. We were led into the VIP lounge which was dark and filled with lots of PCs with some kind of menu screen glaring out.
This screen turned out to be what we’d be staring at for about half an hour, because the event wasn’t quite ready and there was a camera crew doing something for some site beginning with X. It’ll come to me. The person they were interviewing looked vaguely familiar – someone from a TV show a few years back, and not Violet Berlin. Regardless, there was now food and free beer, so we got stuck in waiting for the screen to change so we could actually play the game. That time didn’t come for ages, so we got bored, left the VIP lounge and went to play on Guitar Hero III that was in the main hall of the center.
Whilst generating quite a crowd (my skills on She Bangs The Drums are legendary) a couple of guys from the Kwari team were chatting to us, equally confused at the delay but by no means upset about it. Like a giant black joint the guitar was passed amongst the waiting and this continued for some time. Occasionally we went back into the VIP room to check we weren’t missing something, and managed to get the PCs to do useful things like check TSA or Facebook. We also broke one, but that seemed like it would only be a temporary problem for someone with skill, and it wasn’t the PC we should have been sat at anyway, so we just left it.
And then we played Kwari. Everyone got $100 to play with (which we couldn’t spend on ice-cream, sadly) which translated into a massive amount of bullets (the only thing you actually pay money for in Kwari – even the game itself is a free download) and then we tried desperately to play it like a normal FPS and got absolutely pissed off with how broken the whole thing was. It didn’t tell you who shot you, who you killed or even who’s winning. Our bank balance was going up and down like crazy and we had no idea why. 10 minutes later and I’d given up leaving Lewis the sole TheSixthAxis representative playing. Badly.
It was only after speaking to a woman called Lizzy (who will be handling community) that everything started to make some kind of sense. You see, you can’t play Kwari like a normal shooter, because it wasn’t designed to be played like that. There’s a reason the bullets don’t seem to do much damage and that’s because each shot you land nets you a few cents, but getting yourself killed is bad news. And the reason the game makes you anonymous is because there’s $15,000 at skate and if someone steals the win from you with seconds to go you’ll want to hunt them down and kill them for real. Despite all the bunny-hopping and frantic shootouts, Kwari is actually a considered game and the more you think about your actions the more money you’ll make essentially. Regardless, we still got hammered, but despite Lewis spending his entire $100 and me leaving my screen for a while, but still getting shot and respawning, we didn’t come last. Magic. We asked about a PS3 port – it’s not gonna happen.
Then we played more Guitar Hero, heading back to the hotel with everyone, and did drinking. Despite the stingy bar closing at midnight some enterprising young chaps had won Champagne from the game, and a few more were clearly forward thinking and were equipped with wine and vodka. Whoever spilt the rose on the carpet needn’t worry, you couldn’t really see it once we’d rubbed it around a bit. It was great fun. We’d also like to thank the very patient bloke at 118 118 who couldn’t quite grasp why we’d need a 24-hour beer delivery service, but cheers for trying.
So, I’m now nur
sing a cracking headache and haven’t eaten since three bites of a McDonalds muffin thing at 8.30 this morning. But we’d like to thank everyone that gave us the chance to play the game – all the guys at Kwari we wish you well – Andrea for constantly filling up the beer fridge – the great staff at Omega Sektor (especially the guy that turned Guitar Hero up full so it drowned out the Kwari music) and all the people we met from all the different sectors we call the gaming industry. And Wil the snowboarder with a taste for (real) sniper rifles – we don’t know why you were there either mate, but we’re glad you were. Right, off to bed.
Monday edit: the TV show was Sky’s XLeague, and the presenter might have been Emily Booth. Maybe.