Apple disappointed the world today with its terribly named new product the iPad. With all the hype surrounding it and Apple promising that it will bring some revolutionary ways of interaction, I was expecting some Project Natal-like tech to be used in controlling this thing. But we were graced with an oversized iPod Touch and I don’t see crowds forming outside the Apple Stores nationwide for this thing. And no, I won’t tell any iPad tampon jokes since the web has exploded with them! However, I do want to touch upon an observation I made about the iPad. It’s taken me all day since its unveiling to put this to words cause it’s a bit of an abstract idea but I’ll do my best (hell, I even dictated my thoughts and recorded them to my iPhone in order to piece them all together!).

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not a hater of the iPad. It’s just not something I’d go get and not something “magical and revolutionary” as Steve Jobs proclaimed. It does however shed some light on a potential gaming revolution that could be on the horizon. Now no gamer is gonna go snag one of these because it’s a gaming machine. But one cannot help but to think of the door that this device has opened for the industry. Imagine the next generation handheld gaming devices. What do you envision?

What if Sony, Nintendo, or Microsoft jumped onto the iPad concept and took it to a whole new level when it comes to gaming. Imagine a Microsoft iPad-esque product that has a front Natal camera. Just set the device on your lap and use your hands as guns or a steerig wheel and see the results in front of you. Imagine using gestures to go between screens, similar to Minority Report or Gamer. Juice up a thing like this with the appropriate hardware and you can be looking at a whole new gaming experience. Imagine bringing the device home only to transfer what’s happening on it’s screen to your console/TV in real time!

Apple’s focus with the iPad isn’t gaming but it does help provide inspiration and innovation into what the next generation of handheld gaming devices could be like. Sort of how mini-PCs were ahead of their time yet provided the groundwork for netbooks, the Apple iPad could be laying the groundwork for the PSP 3 or the DSi 2.

This. Is. HUGE! It’s been over 10 years since I played Star Wars: Dark Forces. I remember trying to install it about 6 years ago but it wouldn’t work. Today for some weird reason I decided to see if I could successfully install it. I did a bit of research and lo and behold, I finally got it to work! I can either run it using VDM Sound or using Microsoft Virtual PC 2004. I’m gonna be up all night…..

Every gamer who has been playing one or more games for at least a year or two has had a gaming slump. You know, a time period where you’re finally burned out with the game you love and it seems that conveniently at that time no other good games are out. Boredom takes over your life in front of the monitor. You boot up your game only to find yourself mindlessly doing nothing or closing the program within five minutes. In other words, you’ve hit an all time low in your gaming career. Or did you?

I think gaming slumps are the best thing that could happen to a gamer. What’s the first thing you do after entering the slump? You try to look for a new game to compensate for the degree of fun you had with the original game. The results are that 90% of the games you end up trying will fail to capture your interest for more than a day or two. This is because you’re still longing for that original game you played. There’s that nostalgia that lingers about “them good old days.” So as you go through the list of currently popular games (mostly games you’ve heard about via word of mouth or via recommendations) you label them one by one as “sucks.”

Then something odd happens. You stumble across a random site one day and it is about a game you’ve never heard of before. None of your friends have heard of it either. One or two have, but they don’t know what it’s about. The propaganda about the game is convincing enough that you should give it a spin. Why not, you have nothing to lose, right?

Then something magnificent happens. You install the game. You start playing it. Then it hits you. That is by far one of the most amazing games you’ve ever played. How can people not know about this game, it’s so damn awesome! Upon finishing it you are left feining for more. You Google the game title, search for any additional info on it: Is there a sequel? What about a prequel? Is there another one in the works? And as you dig through that info you stumble upon an interesting fact: that game is a cult classic with a small following. It was nominated for numerous awards, and even won a few. But aside from the small group of people who played it and fell in love with it, its title and achievements remain unknown to the rest of the gaming world.

That’s the beauty of gaming slumps. We feel that all hope is lost, that all games out there suck, that we’re overcome by boredom and force ourselves in front of the screen hoping that our dwindling desire to play that original game will come back. However, accidentally and coincidentally the gaming slump leads us to discover the hidden gems of the gaming industry. We discover games we never knew existed, games that never achieved much popularity but have made their mark on the community and captured the hearts of so many gamers. It is games like Dreamfall, Grim Fandango, Perfect Dark, Road Rash, Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight, and Armada 2 that we discover and realize that although they are not new, they slipped under the radar of the gaming community almost undiscovered, but gave players some of the best adventures of their lives. We all find a different gem in our slumps. It may not even be a game that is all that great, but as long as it gives us a lasting impression and influences who we are and what we play, it will help us get out of our slump and realize how much more potential and charisma games are capable of.