Fraggin' at E-magix
by M.B.Reyes


Tired of playing solo? Bots get you down?
Plunge into the world of multiplayer gaming.


While today's games have more compelling plots and better artificial intelligence than those of years past, they are not perfect. Computer-controlled opponents are predictable, and despite the longs hours spent by developers programming its AI -- they still do a lot of dumb things. Needless to say, they become easy targets if you play the game long enough. The story maybe involving for the first few hours but it rapidly becomes old, and lonely. Nothing compares to the highs, quirks and unpredictability of a human opponent.

 Almost everyone knows that games like Half-life and Quake can be
 played with two or more people duking it out on-line. In other parts of
 the world, multiplayer games are played on the Internet. But as anyone
 who's actually tried playing over the Net knows,it's far from enjoyable.
 Lag often makes gameplay frustrating. Hopefully, this will change when
 broadband access enters the mainstream.

 For now multiplayer games are best enjoyed over local area networks
(LAN) -- a network of computers confined in a relatively small area, like inside one building. You find them in most offices. But offices are hardly the place for good-hearted fraggin' (not unless you want to get fired). You can go to a game café, where games are played over a LAN. There are number of them in the Metro.

One of them is e-magix, a really cool place that's quietly tucked away inside the Rod Taylor Compound in Quezon City. Lying beside a golf practice range, its four walls contain the cacophony of gunfire and explosions set off by players of Counterstrike, a popular Half-life mod. The place was already rocking with furious activity when we arrived - a number of players were desperately trying to reduce each other to bloody, lifeless polygons. Amid the simulated chaos, we enjoyed a couple of minutes face time with
Myki Cantero, e-magix's president.

E-Scape: e-magix is just a few months old. What's the concept behind it?

e-magix: We set-up a gaming place in Virra Mall two years ago and it did pretty well, so now, we wanted to take it to higher ground by investing in high-powered PCs and fast Internet connections.

E-Scape: This is a cool looking place. Who comes to e-magix?

e-magix: We're now targetting families. They can come and enjoy themselves together, browse the Net, talk to their families abroad, in the U.S. for example. We're slowly becoming the alternative means of recreation for college students, or for yuppies instead of hanging out in bars. They come here to play the games and for hearty conversation over cups of coffee.

E-Scape: Most of today's games have multiplayer capability. What are the fave
games here?

e-magix: It has to be Half-life and mods like Counterstrike.

E-Scape: What about the Playstation2 and the upcoming X-Box? These consoles have connectivity capabilities that allow for multiplayer gameplay over a network. Will the new generation of game consoles have an impact on your business?

e-magix: The PS2 will threaten PC game in some ways. Its graphics is nearly at par with a PC running on GeForce video cards. I would say that once the PS2's prices go down, we'll see gaming centers having them. Even if the consoles are on the Internet, they'd still be playing multiplayer games in their respective homes. It is not the same as playing with people in the same room and seeing the expressions on their faces after you just fragged them.

Counterpoint

We checked out what's under the hood of one of e-magix's PCs and walked away quite impressed. They ran the games at max settings on Pentium-500s with 128MB memories and fast GeForce video accelerators. The 17-inch monitors they used only added to the excitement and immersive environment that the players experience. According to Myki, they wanted to be a couple of steps farther than the current technology used by the day's games.

If you're young and you're looking for some fun with the barkada, the games at e-magix is a whole lot better (and a lot cheaper too) than guzzling gallons of booze. Yuppies looking for some relief from mile-long traffic along Libis will discover that sitting in front of a 'puter fraggin someone to bloody pulp is a better diversion than sitting in your car and listening to CDs you've heard for the n^th time. We're quite sure of that.