I find myself increasingly un-impressed with the countless sequels and developers wringing out the last drops of life from dishevelled franchises and so I pose the question to you, what lies in store for the future of gaming? What is the next big revolution we are going to see?

Personally, I think that the way forward is to utilise the human body more effectively in games and I don't just mean "Wii wand waving". A full on sensory onslaught, with innovative peripherals that utilise every human sense, whether this be done via brainwave manipulation, or some other sci-fi esq method, I hope this is what we will see in the next generation of computer games.

This of course has been the aim of developers and researchers for years, but only now are we at a point where it is really needed to shake up an industry that is milking its cash cow with the same old games just tweaked in some way.

So please leave comments with some ideas, for both new types of games and also new peripherals.

I'll kick it off - I wanna see a sensor that can read nerve impulses send down the spinal column and use these to recreate movement in a game accurately. I have no idea if this is even anatomically accurate but seems good to me!

Normally, I like shooters. I’m not too fussy about the story or why exactly I should care about these Alien MonstrositiesTM (Gears of War, I’m looking at you). This stems from a history of playing Duke Nukem (which I regularly confused with Doom) and just loving the running about blowing stuff up. Flash forward to Halo, which was the first proper shooter I played. I dunno how, but somehow I skipped right past the Quake and Unreal Tournament phases. So yeah, while my gaming pedigree might not be as extensive as some, I know what I like and what I like is guns. Big guns, little guns, laser (pew pew!) rifles, sniper rifles, shotguns, pistols... yeah. Mario is all well and good but I always figured the guy needed to be packing some serious heat. He was fighting dragons, y’know? Even in Age of Empires, I found a cheat that gave you a supercar armed with a rocket launcher. Considering that the most advanced units in the game were Hoplites for the infantry and Cataphracts for the calvary, you can guess the results yourself.

Except, these days I’m starting to like RPGs. It started with Fable on the Xbox, and progressed with Mass Effect. I really like the idea of making a character your own; customising everything from clothing to behaviour. Fable was a pretty good intro to this sort of thing. A lot of people found it to be limited, and not as expansive as was promised. Me, I just loved it for what it was because I never believe the hype. Now Fable 2’s coming out, along with Fallout 3, and I’m actually looking forward to playing those games. I recently started playing Mass Effect again, just to remember what RPGs usually involve: Lots of dialogue, lots of exploration, lots of patience. I’m particularly looking forward to Fallout, because it manages to combine my predilection for shooting stuff, with lots of stuff to uncover, and a character you can make unique. This is part of why I like Mass Effect, despite the slightly predictable story and extremely tedious gameplay. It’s not just that I get to shoot all my baddies the attraction is that despite there being a colossal amount of ways to dispatch them, I’m doing it MY way.

Fable 2: October 21 2008

Fallout 3: October 28 2008

Gears Of War 2: November 7 2008

Let me be the first to say, i suck at football. There i said it. Both the videogames and the real thing. I'm just not athletic enough for the real thing, and for some reason i can't seem to get my head around the electronic one.

Having said that though, i AM substantially better at the electronic footie games. Simply handicap the computer, and BAM! Instant superstar. It seems like EA will never end their yearly installment of sports games, seeing as Fifa 09's out now. I got the demo earlier in the week, loved it. I found it significantly better than Fifa 08, and coming from me, that's saying something. Note that i don't necessarily mean easier, i just found it a better experience than the last edition. Fifa for life, yo.

So Slash said to me, you gotten the PES demo yet? and i thought, meh, let's give it a try, couldn't hurt, love the free stuff, etc etc. As an aside, if Apple offered me a free Macbook, just to try it out, i wouldn't say no either. Microsoft for life is one thing, but free stuff is another story entirely. So i queue up the download, turn off my xbox so it can download in the background (and hence not be paused because i decided to play grifball on halo).

Fast forward to several hours later, i turn on the console to play, and it's freezing. I'm thinking, aww hell naw. My bad boy's less than a year old and while it still shows signs of microsofty craziness (which they really should patent) like randomly freeing in the middle of gameplay, it's never frozen on start up before. Naturally, i employ the one universal solution to problems like this: I turn it off, and then back on again. No joy, repeat: No joy. I'm getting worried now, because i'm afraid of the ring of doom showing up. But i can't do anything with a catatonic console, so i turn it off again and search the intarwebs. Google points me to microsoft (well duh), who then tell me to either wait for it to cool down, or clear the cache, or both. Neither works. Then i notice it's only freezing after i sign into xbl, so i disconnect the wireless bridge and hey presto, it's working now. Then i first turn off background downloads so it won't try any funny business when i turn it off, then i check my downloads to see what's up.

The PES demo hasn't been downloaded. After several hours. Hours, because i had 4 other items in the queue and they should all have been done by now. So then i cancel the demo, then clear the cache, then plug in the wireless bridge, and the next item starts downloading as soon as i'm signed into xbl. I'm relieved but i don't dare turn off my console in case it doesn't start up again. Yeah, i'm paranoid like that. I spend the whole time playing Mass Effect, and as soon as the downloads are done i quit the game, turn on backgroud downloads, and switch off.

Do you see now? I'll take dodgy looking players over console destroying demos any day. And yeah sure it might not have been the PES demo, it might have been my connection, etc etc. Seeing as xbl and the marketplace have never given me any trouble with downloads, and the only problem my connection gives me is lag, i think i'm justified in blaming it all on the demo.

I'm not touching that demo, let alone the game, with a 10ft pole and neither should you. FIFAAAAAAAAA for life, yo