Video games have come a long way since founding classics such as “Tennis for Two” and “SpaceWar!” but now the gaming experience has been taken to a whole new level. “Foster’s Ride the Scuba” actually enables players to remotely control a real scuba machine. Users get two minutes to rack up the highest score by bursting the most bubbles and showing off their best underwater manoeuvres.

Unlike other games however there is more at stake here than the simple glory of victory. Whoever tops the leader-board by 30 June will win a scuba diving trip for two to Australia. There’s no limit to the number of times users can register to ride the Foster’s Scuba, so the more times you play, the bigger chance you have of winning the grand prize.

We are hosting a live webchat with Matt Gorzkowski, managing director of the game’s developers, Play, and games’ journalist Leon Poultney. They’re going to be explaining what the game is like and how it differs from other games already available online.

Be the first to find out about this exciting new game and submit all your questions to our experts by logging on to our live web chat.

Gaming experts Leon Poultney and Matt Gorzkowski, Managing Director of Play, join us live online on Tuesday 24th of June at 4pm to discuss an exciting new scuba game.

H: Yemi, host
L: Leon Poultney, features editor, Monkey Magazine
M: Matt Gorzkowski, Play

H: Hello my name's Yemi and welcome to the Entertainment Show. Now video games have come a long way since founding classics such as "Tennis for Two" and "SpaceWar!" but the gaming experience has been taken to a whole new level. "Foster's Ride the Scuba" enables players to remotely control a real scuba machine with the help of the internet and some of the latest technology around. Users get two minutes to rack up the highest score they can by bursting the most bubbles and showing off their very best underwater manoeuvres.  Now unlike other games however there is more than the glory of winning at stake. Whoever tops the leader-board by 30 June will win an amazing scuba diving trip for two to Australia – how good would that be? Here to tell us more about this game and discuss the future and possible past of gaming, I'm delighted to be joined by the features editor of Monkey magazine, Leon Poultney, Leon how are you doing sir?

L: Fine thank you

H: And Matt Gorzkowski from Play, Matt, how are you doing sir?

M: Fine thank you

H: Thank you both for joining us today. Now Leon, you're obviously in association features editor of Monkeymag.co.uk – tell my why would your audience be interested in this sort of game?

L: Our audience are exactly the right age group

H: Yes

L: I would hope they're interested in beer, I'm sure they are sorry – and they obviously like interactive products because we're the first sort of interactive men's magazine on the market, so for them to be able to go on to a brand that they like and interact with this new scuba game for a chance to win a holiday, it's a match made in heaven really

H: Yes absolutely.  And aren't you the fastest growing men's magazine?

L: Yes the fastest growing men's magazine because it's completely free, and all you have to do is sign up, you know you just go onto the website and put your email address in, you'll get it every single Wednesday and that's how it's sort of got bigger and bigger over the –

H: I shall be doing that after the show

L: Good!

H: Now Matt, obviously you're from Play and you helped – well you were the developer of the game engine itself from scratch basically. How did that idea come about?

M: It came out simply just as a literal translation of what the In-Can Scuba device does

H: Yes

M: And we want to mimic that by creating the real version of it

H: How did that work as a project, was it really troublesome, many problems there or –

M: Any time we do something that's never been done before you're always going to have lots of different things that are going to come up that no one else has come up against

H: Yes

M: But overall I think it was a great project to do

H: Yes

M: And it was a – you know even talking to people in Russia about scubas

H: Sure. Because what I really want to get across, and I don't know if it did or we have yet is that it is an actual scuba machine in an actual huge tank in Plymouth is it?

M: Yes, it's a 100,000 litre tank filled with amber liquid

H: Yes yes yes

M: Which –

H: Cool

M: Hopefully just like the beer

L: So it's not beer then?

M: Not allowed to.  And then it's just a water device that's like a scuba submarine that's remotely controlled so it was very difficult to connect it to the actual keyboard and be able to control it

H: Sure. Now you've got a good creative team at play and everything. How did you actually come up with the idea, the actual first idea to have a real tank with a real scuba machine which people like myself and Leon could use from our laptops – how did that –

M: Quite literal translation of what the In-Can Scuba device does in the can

H: Right I see

M: So that bursts bubbles so we thought what else can burst bubbles? Well why not just create the scuba thing that actually bursts real bubbles to give people the experience of what it's like to be kind of in the can

H: Yes. Sure. Now Leon I've been on to your website, monkeymag.co.uk and it was pretty much fantastic

L: Thank you

H: But what I want to know, they seem like a real match made in heaven, Fosters and monkeymag.co.uk, that whole thing seems like a real good blend there

L: Yes it is I would say a good percentage of our readers probably drink Fosters and we are probably the world's first interactive magazine or men's magazine online. You can go on you can watch videos you can play little games. Fosters are the first people to do this, the first interactive video game that you have got here.

H: I just want to remind everyone at home that if you want to ask Leon, who is features editor of mokeymag.co.uk, any questions, drop us an email, send a message, send a question, right now on the website and it will come straight through to us. Or to Matt indeed if you have got any questions as to how he came up with these creative ideas, or perhaps you want to send a CV in. You can do that online right about now. We have had some questions in already for you guys. How is your gaming experience Leon?

L: Yeah I'll hold my hands up and say I have been playing computer games since I was about 5 or 6 or something like that.

H: Ok let's see what we have got so far. We have got a question from Nick Walker "I can still remember the day when I got thrown into the spikes by Radon in Mortal Kombat (I loved that game...awesome) or the time I completed Sonic the Hedgehog on the master system, things have come such a long way since then where can they go now?" Any ideas on that one Leon?

L: I think games are always going to go even further then they are at the moment. I reckon even something like this. Thinking that rather than controlling a scuba thing why can't you have an arena and control a tank or something like that and blow stuff up for real. You will have to probably pay for the experience because it will be quite expensive because of all the destruction you cause, but that would be a good laugh, or run some cars over or something.

H: So Matt do you think that is the way things are going to go? Because I think you have been a bit of a forerunner here, a bit of an innovator. You have probably opened the way for people to follow your lead.

M: I agree I think there will be games like that where you can race a real car, Aston Martin, choose a car and race it down a racetrack. The real thing! Obviously beyond that god who knows holograms games like that.

H: It is such a crazy game this Scuba achievement thing with Fosters. It is fantastic it's great. Get him on there and actually seeing the cameras in the tank. What you must understand is that you go online you see the tank itself. There is one tank that everyone is using and you can see them actually manoeuvring underwater in the amber liquid and it does look amazing.

M: We thought it would look good. We are pleased that different cameras give a different perspective. If you are driving you can see it from the actual perspective of the Scuba. Watching it you can watch the scuba from a third person perspective.

H: Ok let's go back and have a look at some of the questions that you guys at home have been sending in. This is from Gameteam and the question is "Do you think your game (or the game I should say really) compares favourably to casual gaming sensations?" You know thing like the Pong and the free kick game that use Flash and people can send over links and such. With that sort of addictiveness, which is free and easy to play. Is it up there with those?

M: I think the reason we purposefully didn't do that because there are just so many games out there doing that. Kind of the novelty factor was exactly what we did. That is exactly why we did something that is hyper reality in this case versus just trying to compete with another Flash game.

H: So you weren't even looking to do that. You were looking to do something completely different.

M: You know it crossed our minds and then we thought my god all you are going to do is just another game. This could be good it could be bad but it is the uniqueness. The unique nature of this game made it different and more like something that people would want to do.

H Ok I have got another one here. This is from Shaun in Wembley he says "I imagine the future of gaming is going to involve much more 3D. What are your thoughts?" Now Leon you used to play a lot of games in the past but you are not completely in to them at the moment you are more of a casual, social gamer.

L: If it involves beer and ProEvo and friends around the house. It has been a long time since I sat down by myself and played with something.

H: So how about the whole interactive aspect. With the sports games, like football and racing you can get online and do all those but do you think that is going any further?

L: Yeah I'll tell you what I did get obsessed with recently is that Rock Band

H: Oh yes

L: Where I was actually playing drums

H: Yes

L: Was probably the best thing that's ever happened to me in my life and –

H: Rock star for a night

L: And I think if there's more games involved in using things within a room of actually getting involved with the game

H: Yes, physicality

L: Physicality yes I suppose that would happen with a 3D game more

H: Yes

L: You're more likely to spend more time on the game if you're physically controlling it

H: Sure

L: And you're achieving it through your own skill really

H: Do you guys at monkeymag have any of that aspect on your website, monkeymag.co.uk as gaming –

L: No we do have little games on there, obviously really basic Flash games because our magazine would crash otherwise, but it's mainly little quizzes and things like that to unlock naked videos of girls –

H: I hate that sort of thing! Excellent stuff. Ok let's get to a question from the guys that are watching at the moment, this is from Bam Bam – "is this the next generation of online gaming? Could you see a day when we start controlling people's actions instead of machines, as in this case?" That would be cool

M: Yes

H: That would be very, very cool. Dangerous, worrying but very very cool

L: It would be like an interactive Big Brother wouldn't it?

H: Yes

L: That would be brilliant

H: Yes fantastic.  That could happen though, maybe you know if it's was sports related, so it wasn't like completely random movements, but if you had some sort of online – could that happen? Is that possible?

M:  I'm sure if you wire someone up properly and say look, lift your arm, run, do this – I'm sure you could do that

H: Yes

M: I'm not sure if I'd want to be the test dummy for that but –

H: But that would be fantastic, I mean the mind boggles really, because you wouldn't have thought 3, 4 years ago – probably even that long ago – that you could sit at home and control an underwater device from your lap top and stuff, so we'll see where that goes anyway. This is for you Liam I'm going to ask you this one – "what are my chances of winning the Scuba Challenge, and what score do I need to be up there?"

L: Is that for me?

H: Actually maybe you got the score up to 200 was it you said?

L: No I've got about 2000, I don't know what the highest score is but I was nowhere near the top

M: I think you need about 740 or 750,000

H: Yes

M: In order to be at the top of the list

H: Quite a high score

M: It's a pretty tough score

H: That was from Tom, he said - Tommy keep trying

M: Yes keep trying, absolutely, absolutely

H: But it's a trip for two to Australia isn't it?

M: The thing is he can practice as much as you want, there are two minute windows so there's lots of opportunities to practice and get in there and tell your friends and if you know a friend that can do it better than you then he'll take you for a trip to Australia – can't be too bad

H: Yes and also it's worth pointing out that the controls are really easy

M: Yes

H: It's arrows and up and down isn't it?

M: Yes, you've got 6 keys basically which I'm assured by now in gaming people are used to having 25 different things to do, so up and down, left and right and that's it

H: Yes

M: Back and – forward and back

H: Yes now we've got a question from Skid who asked "what's your favourite game of all time?" Now I'm going to ask that first because one of my favourites is Sonic and I remember a long time ago having Sonic on the master system, the original Sonic the Hedgehog, and I loved it, played it to death with my brother, and then just a few months ago, few weeks ago sorry, I downloaded it and now I've got it on my iPod which is amazing, it just makes every train journey easy and every boring situation fun. But do you have a personal favourite in terms of –

L: I think one that stands out in my mind is probably Goldeneye on the N64 because -

H: I've just changed my mind

L: It's the first time you could get four people together

H: Yes

L: It's probably about the time I discovered

H: It's a split screen wasn't it?

L: Cider as well and it was one of those things where you just look yourself away in a room somewhere and –

H: Yes yes yes

L: And shoot people

H: That was outstanding that game

L: Amazing. You can actually get it on the X Box now which we discovered, you download –

H: What the original version, the same as –

L: Yes I think so, I'm pretty sure that you download them

H: Really

L: That's going to have to be a thing for tonight actually I've just –

H: Yes, I completely forgot about Goldeneye, excellent. I've changed my mind, it was Sonic it's now Goldeneye. Anyway what about yourself mate, any –

M: I'll show my age, it think it was Pac Man

H: Yes yes for sure, the simple things work

M: It's simple – what a piece of kit you know?

H: Yes simple things work, simple things work. Ok we've got a kind of a sports-related, football-related question to which there is only one answer to be fair, DGL asked the question "Fifa 99 or Pro Evo?" To be honest it's a shame you had to ask that question, it's obviously Pro Evo –

L: A million percent Pro Evo

M: Probably go Pro Evo

H: Unanimous. DGL I hope that answered your question. If you do have a Fifa game, do feel free to throw it away! What else have we got here, we've got a question from Barry from Brixton – "consoles have come a long way" – where did that go? "Consoles have come a long way from the early days. Can you predict what will happen in the future?" I think this is a similar question to we're getting from a lot of other viewers at the moment

M: Yes

H: Because I think what's happening is people are seeing what you've done, not simply because it wasn't simple, but it can be done

M: Of course, yes

H: So if you've done it, if you've managed to do this, then what next?

M: Yes I mean I think you know the budgets are endless for some of these games, the companies are going to find ways to entertain people, whether it's through what we as creating – is the – the average age is going higher and higher as far as gaming

H: Right

M: Just because people are being more engaging, doing things that maybe they used to do in real life –

H: That's the thing

M: Bowl, play tennis, exercise

H: It's true yes, because it was, primarily, back in the day mostly teenagers getting in to their gaming but like you said now, we were mentioning before, there's a physical aspect to gaming now which means that everybody of every age, even the old age pensioners and younger kids can get into gaming, so there's probably some way of exploiting all of that isn't there with the future of gaming I suppose?

M: Absolutely

H: Do you know what guys, unfortunately we haven't got any more time for any more questions, but we do have just enough time to show everyone at home some footage of what the game in question actually looks like, take a look at this

Video footage

H: That looks awesome, that looks so good. It's simple, clear, beautiful and it looks like beer as well which is fantastic.  Anyway that's about it from us today, I want to say thank you to Matt for coming in

M: Thank you

H: And to you Leon, thanks very much sir

L: No problems

H: If you do want to join in and basically get involved with that competition, it's Fosters.co.uk/scuba, but that's it from us, thank you very much for joining us, my name's Yemi, till next time, bye bye

Still got a question or comment?

Name

Your question Question