Talking Gaming with Periphery's Tom Murphy
Feature
Before the US metal band Periphery embark on their next big tour, the band's biggest gamer, Tom Murphy, found time to have a chat with us about his views on gaming and its impact on his life.
Periphery have become well-known amongst fans of theirs and the genre, as being big time gamers. With the band being dubbed “nerds” they are known to take a Gamecube on tour with them with which they challenge fans to various versus modes. We managed to have an interesting chat and interview with the band's biggest gamer, Tom Murphy.
Hooked Gamers: Hi Tom, great to be speaking with you today, thank you for joining me. Let us get started straight away then! What are the types of games you play yourself? Are there any games that you play on a regular basis such as the ever-popular Call of Duty or MMOs such as World of Warcraft?
Tom Murphy: Yes, I generally like western role-playing games and strategy games. Both RTS (real time strategy) and turn-based are fun to play. I also like really high budget FPS’ - I don't really play online too much, but I do enjoy playing single-player campaigns. I am not really into MMOs. I don't really have the money for subscriptions. But I am looking forward to the new Star Wars: The Old Republic MMO, it looks really good. I don't really like grinding but they seem to have some interesting game mechanics and the story looks good too.
I like Bioware a lot so I trust them to do well. I enjoy their titles and Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age 2 were great. I do think Bioware need to improve on the facial animations though and use technology like L.A Noire’s, that is the future. And they need to bring big movie directors to integrate cinematography with the gameplay. High production games need to integrate this; the new Tomb Raider looks to have it. Engrossing gameplay is always great but combining that and facial animations like L.A Noire would be amazing.
Hooked Gamers: I can imagine being in a band such as Periphery leaves you little time to actually sit down and game. Do you make attempts to have time to yourself to play? Whether at home or on tour?
Tom Murphy: When I am home, I get up early and take my wife to work and then I come home and play games with my cup of coffee. I enjoy it a lot. Its very much like escapism. I am awake before anybody, especially in the music industry. I have a pretty interesting life, but its nice to escape the bullshit and video games keep me entertained. Video games are like having your own little worlds to escape in, and it has always felt like a nice place to go, just to hide and play games.
Hooked Gamers: What games are you currently playing then? Or have recently completed?
Tom Murphy: The Deus Ex preview leak, I shouldn’t be haha, but it couldn't be helped. But I am enjoying that a lot, I have also been playing Starcraft II and The Witcher 2. I only just finished The Witcher 2, it is so long! The second chapter is completely different because of the choices you make in the first chapter. Which meant I had to play through it again, just to see the alternative options. It is great to see a game coming from developers in an eastern European country, it kind of makes me proud of them. My wife is from Bulgaria, and there was a game from there that I was interested in along time ago, there were screenshots, but I don't know what happened to it. My wife was a friend of a guy who made a lot of money making free internet games and he was from Bulgaria, so it is great to see developers from less-known countries.
I do try and finish games that are out if people are talking about them. But I find it hard to afford many titles. I play a lot of PC games, but I do play console games too. I recently played Final Fantasy XIII, and I really think Square Enix dropped the ball with it. I don't know how, it’s bizarre because they used to be so good. They just need to aim towards the western market more like other Japanese developers have been doing, because it is such a big market.