Ahhh multiplayer video games, how I love thee. I've been playing multiplayer games for, well a long time. I remember playing DOOM over LAN which means I've been playing for at least 16 or 17 years. A long time. The first time I remember playing team deathmatch is with TFC in 1999 so I've been playing team deathmatch for over a decade now. However, If you've played an online game for more then ten minutes you've probably heard this term before: kill stealer.
So what is a kill stealer? Well that's pretty easy to figure out, someone who steals your kill. If you and another person are shooting at the same target? Well whoever started shooting second is the kill stealer. At least according to the people on the internet. Hell, sometimes it doesn't even work that way. Sometimes if the person who started shooting second perceives that he may have done most of the damage and you just happened to get the lucky last shot in, you are still in fact the kill stealer. Basically depending on how big of a dick the other person is you are always the kill stealer. No matter what.
Lately I haven't been playing multiplayer games as much. Mostly I just do the single player campaigns in games. Why you ask? Well because 90% of the people in any sort of gaming community are complete dicks. That's really not fair though, it's actually more like 10% of the gaming community... but they're the most vocal. They're the kind of people who made your life a living hell in junior high. They're the kind of people who are still making someone's life a living hell in junior high because they tend to be about 15. If I wanted to be berated by a 15 year old about how much I suck I would just ride the school bus more. But now that I'm pushing 30, I don't really want to put up with that kind of shit. I mostly just want to chill out and play video games and not be called a fag by someone who just barely finished puberty.
Then along came Call of Duty: Black Ops. I love the Call of Duty games, and I've been a huge fan of their multiplayer since Call of Duty: World at War. The Call of Duty games are the one time I'll forget about my no multiplayer rule and go online to be harassed. Usually I just hop into a game, mute every single person with a mic and go about my killing day. "Why mute everyone?" You ask, "what if someone has to tell you important tactical information like where a bad guy is!?" Let me tell you, in the entire time I've been playing the Call of Duty games I believe I've played in one single game where a person was trying to rally the team together, giving useful information, trying to get the team to capture certain spots... you know the things we should be trying to do. Well he was ridiculed, harassed, and ignored until he eventually left. He must have been new to the game because he should have known that you should only use the mic to talk about how high/drunk you are or if you are going to question someone's sexuality.
Team killer. It's a phrase I've heard thousands of times. It's a phrase that I've grown to hate. It's phrase that really makes no sense.
Yesterday I was playing Call of Duty: Black Ops and had mistakenly forgotten to mute everyone on my team. I saw someone on the opposite team coming through the door I was about five feet from. I open fire and so does the guy behind me. I get the kill, he gets the assist. About a second later another bad guy comes through the same door, again both him and I open fire, I get the kill he gets the assist. Then comes the verbal tirade. I was a kill stealer. He had been waiting for someone to come through that very door and here I come waltzing in stealing his kills. That was the gist of what he was yelling at me for, mixed in with a lot of "fucker", "homo", and "fag" liberally spread throughout. Ahhh multiplayer gaming community, how I've missed you.
Instead of presenting a well thought out argument I just muted him and went on with my life, but it got me thinking about kill stealing... and mostly how it's complete and total bullshit.
So I'm just going to say it. There is no such thing as kill stealing in a team game. Every kill is helpful to making it towards the teams goal. It doesn't matter if person A gets the kill or person B gets the kill because it helped the team which both person A and B are a part of. That's a very broad argument though that doesn't factor in the fact that a lot of people in multiplayer games are assholes. You always have to factor in the assholes. Sure it's a team game, but did you see my kill death ratio? Sure, that guy secured 6 flags and defended 4, but I want 30 and 2!
Kill death ratio is important in some modes of play, in Call of Duty: Black Ops Team Deathmatch you get 100 points for a kill, first team to 10000 wins. You want more kills and less deaths... but again, it doesn't matter who on the team got that kill. If person A got the kill it counts as 100 points just like if person B got the kill. No matter who go the kill your team still gets that 100 points and therefor it is helpful to your team.
Team games aren't about teams anymore though. If it's six on six I can almost guarantee there are six I's to a team. Have you ever played against a clan in a game before? You, a ragtag group against people who aren't any better than you on an individual level but worked well as a team? Let me guess, you absolutely go slaughtered. There's a reason for that. No matter how good you are as an individual if you're looking down the barrel of six guns you're probably not going to win. Bet you wish there were five guys behind you backing you up. How's your kill to death ratio now, asshole?
There is no such thing as a kill stealer in a team game, and you know why? There's absolutely no way to stop someone from "stealing your kills". If I walk into a room and there's two guys on my team shooting at one guy on the other team, I'm sure as hell going to make it three guys on our team shooting one guy on their team. You know why? Because let's say I go on my merry way leaving you two to kill this person because I don't want to be a kill stealer... what happens if he kills both of you? Should I wait and not fire until you're both dead just so I don't steal that kill? Hell no, for one I'm pretty sure you don't want to be dead and two I don't want to be dead either. Anyone on the other team is a target, I don't care how many people are shooting at him. For all I know he's going to see me and start shooting at me next. I need him dead so I don't become dead, and at the end of the day? It's helping the team.
People need to learn that when playing a team game they need to act as a team. Their teammates are not their enemies, they are their teammates. Some of the most fun I've had in team deathmatch games is when you have two evenly balanced teams, working together against each other, fighting for supremacy. If you really want to play a me, me, me game just go play deathmath or just go play single player. Because I want to play as a team.
Squid.
Friday, December 10, 2010
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
On the subject of rape...
There's an attention grabber for you.
I hadn't planned on writing a blog post about this. It just kind of pisses me off... and frankly I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because I think people are way too sensitive in these hyper-politically correct days, or maybe it's the attack on one of my favorite comics. Either way I just kind of want to vent.
So last week Penny Arcade ran this comic. I read it, laughed and went on with my life. I found it funny because it's true. In World of Warcraft there were several quests where I had to free X amount of people from some horrific situation. You're tasked to free five slaves from some horrible slave master... but there's always more than five of them. So essentially you're freeing five people from this horrible life, but leaving the rest of the people to suffer after you leave. That's the joke. That's why it's funny.
Well not to everyone I guess. Apparently there's a small group of people out there that think this is some sort of horrible joke about rape. Somehow.
Let me be the first to say that I think rape is a bad thing. I doubt there are many people out there who think rape is a good thing. Rape is an awful crime that should never be tolerated or advocated.
Penny Arcade responded with this comic the following day. As well as a blog post responding to some of the critics of the comic.
I think Gabe summed it up best with this:
For the most part I think that people are perfectly happy to laugh at offensive jokes until the joke offends them. Then it’s not funny anymore. There is no way we can know what each and every person who reads the comic has decided to find offensive.
I think he pretty much summed up my feelings on that. I thought that would be the end of that... until there was this. This is a guy selling a bunch of his Penny Arcade merchandise... not because of the dickwolf comic, but because he seems to feel that the following comic and the blog posts were a "...big fuck you out to all concerned and compared victims of rape to fruit." Which Gabe didn't, he stated that they had a rapist character, Fruit Fucker, which rapes fruit. He didn't really compare the fruit to the victims. Though if you want to get technical this comic insinuates (at least to me) that he might have raped Brenna's ear, so he is perhaps a human rapist as well.
Penny Arcade deals with all sorts of subjects that may offend. If you read the comic at all you would know this. Except this one gravely offended people... why? Hell, it's not even a comic about rape. It's a comic that mentions rape, and frankly mentions rape as a horrific thing. He doesn't want to leave because the dickwolf gives him candy and sings him to bed each night.
Though what really angered me was a blog post that was linked off of that eBay sale. This is it.
Right off the bat they got things wrong. They keep calling it a rape joke. It's not. As I said, it's a comic that mentions rape, but the punchline nor the focus is on rape. If I say "What's the difference between a dead baby and a BMW... I don't have a BMW in my garage!" would you say you heard a BMW joke? Nope, that's a dead baby joke right there. If I said "What's the difference between a BMW and a Porcupine? When it comes to a BMW, the prick is on the inside." That's a BMW joke. Both of them have BMW in it, but only one is a BMW joke. Just because this comic mentions rape, does not make it a rape comic.
Their criticism is that "rape jokes are triggers for survivors of sexual violence (and/or attempted sexual violence)" and that "Rape jokes contribute to a rape culture in which rape is normalized." I'll get to the first one in a moment, but for now lets focus on the second.
"Rape jokes contribute to a rape culture in which rape is normalized." On the website they have a blog post titled Rape Culture 101 which explains more about what rape culture is. Their examples range from sad, and truly something that we should strive to stop to absolutely fucking ludicrous. At the end of the day is the Penny Arcade comic (which isn't about rape, only mentions it) contributing to the downfall of society and making people think that rape is okay? No. I'm sorry, but just no. If I read a comic like this every day, while watching violent porn and playing RapeLay on my computer would I think rape is okay or normal? No. Of course not. Rape is never okay. Rape is never normal. Rape is horrible, and no matter how many things I saw or heard that contributed to "rape culture" I still wouldn't think it's okay. Something tells me I'm part of the majority on this as well.
To me this reminds me of the violence in video games and violence in the media argument. People when playing violent video games, or watching violent movies, etc. will become violent. Are there people out there that play violent video games and become violent? I'm sure there are. Are there millions of other people out there that play the exact same game who don't become violent? Yep.
When rape becomes normal to a society it's generally due to major changes like wars, civil wars, or a group wanting to show their dominance over another group. Rape does not become normal because it is mentioned more in movies, or is used in a joke.
"Rape jokes are triggers for survivors of sexual violence (and/or attempted sexual violence)." You know what, I agree with this. There are triggers. Not just rape jokes, but many other things. A smell, a texture, there are numerous things that trigger memories. And that is why rape is awful, it is something that will affect you for the rest of your life.
The first thing I will point out again is that they were not making a rape joke. They were making a joke about World of Warcraft that happened to mention rape. Should we not be allowed to mention rape?
I hate to say this because it will make me sound like a huge asshole, but I have to. I say it meaning no offense towards anyone. I'm going to use "raped" as an example but it applies to many different things: I'm sorry you were raped, it's horrible. But the world and other people cannot revolve around you. At some point you will have to realize that you experienced something that others may not understand. They may say or do things that trigger feelings in you, but that they do not get. There will be times when you are right in situations, there will be times when you are wrong and there will be times when neither is right or wrong. I am not saying it is no big deal and I'm definitely not saying get over it. What I am saying is that if we took everything that might offend someone and weren't allowed to say it we would live in awful, boring, censored world.
Bear with me while I explain.
Rape is awful. I've been over this. Should we censor certain mediums that may contain rape? What should we do with movies that contain rape? Or books, or TV shows, or news reports? Any one of these could have the same trigger as a rape joke. All of them are for entertainment. Are they any less better or worse then the joke? The joke is a joke about possibly the worst time in your life, something that will haunt you forever. On the the other hand is the TV show any better? Is trying to pull in viewers or sell movie tickets for a story about rape any better? The most horrible moment in certain peoples life used as compelling TV?
What about murder? Another awful crime. Another thing that will stick with victims forever. The person may be dead, but what about the family? If a son is beaten to death with a baseball bat do you think the mother is going to want to sit down and watch Casino? If someone is killed by a drunk driver do you think the family of the deceased is not going to have memories triggered by scenes of this season of Rescue Me? Should World Trade Center or Flight 93 not have been made?
What about war? Are soldiers coming home gong to want to turn on the TV and see Iraq all over CNN, MSN, and Fox News? Are they going to want to sit down and watch Black Hawk Down or countless other modern day war movies? Some survivors of D Day reportedly had to walk out of Saving Private Ryan because it brought back such haunting memories. Should they have pulled it from the theater? Should Schindler's List have been made? Should Band of Brothers have been written? What about fictional stories set in real life wars? Your selling death and destruction for entertainment purposes.
If comedian makes a joke about a horrible tragedy, should it be taken differently then a comedian telling a joke about rape? Should comedians never cross the line of decency? If we did we would have very boring comedies and comedians. Many very good movies, TV series, and books could not be written with out being offensive to someone.
On the Shakesville blog they talk about The Invention of Lying and it's "rape joke" (honestly, I didn't see it as one). What should be done about that? Should we take it out of the movie? I found it to be one of the funniest scenes in a already hilarious movie. Also the movie is very funny but also has some very strong athiest tones to it. I'm sure there are a lot of religious people who would find it horribly offensive... what should be done? Should we not show this movie? What about The Last Temptation of Christ? It also offended a great deal of people.
Let's talk about the movie Irreversible. Irreversible is probably one of the most powerful movies I've ever seen. At it's heart it is about a brutal rape and the revenge, anger, emotions and everything else that follows. It features a several minute long very realistic, brutal rape scene. If you could walk away from that movie and still think that rape was normal or anything but horrific I question your state of mind. If you want to talk about things that could trigger emotions, this would be the movie. At the end of the day though it's purpose is to sell tickets, and is entertainment featuring rape and revenge. Should we allow that?
What I'm really getting at is: At what point do we have to realize that if we have at any point suffered some sort of tragedy there are going to be things that will bring back a surge of feelings and emotions we felt when that tragedy happened to us. At what point do we have to realize that not everyone has the same experiences that we do and that things that might be perfectly okay to that person may affect us differently.
Gabe was very much correct when he said that we laugh until something offends us, then it's not funny anymore. Let's go to the top of my post where I made a dead baby joke. Do I find it offensive? Not really. In fact I may have chuckled the first time I heard it. Would someone who's baby just died or who just had a miscarriage find it funny? Nope, probably not. Should I have not have used it as an example? At the end of the day I didn't find it offensive, I could see how someone could, but I didn't. There are others who probably found it incredibly offensive. There's others who probably found it funny. I'm not going to take it out just because it might offend someone, sorry.
Should a comedian take a rape joke out of his routine because it might offend someone or bring back horrible memories? It's their choice to make that call. I wouldn't blame them if they did and I wouldn't blame them if they didn't. It's also your choice to walk out and never see that comedian again if you were offended. It's your choice to not see or do something that offends you, it is not your choice to not let me see, say or do something because it offends you.
When I read the Penny Arcade comic did I laugh? You bet I did. I thought it was hilarious, as I said I ran into that situation many times in WoW. I've also read comments by people who were the victims of rape/sexual assault who said they laughed as well. There were also people who were offended. What should we do? Should the guys at Penny Arcade take it down? I don't think so. I thought it was hilarious comic, and in fact still do. I also think their rebuttal is funny and as well as makes a point.
After reading more of Shakesville blog I think I've found what set me off the most on this subject. It's that everything in that blog feels like an attack. It feels angry. It feels pretentious, it feels like they are right and you are wrong, it feels like if you disagree with them you're helping cultivate this rape culture they talk so much about. It's trying to tell me how I should feel and that if I laugh at a comic that mentions rape I'm helping build a rape culture where rape is normal.
Well go fuck yourselves because I still think it's funny and I still think rape is horrible.
Squid.
I hadn't planned on writing a blog post about this. It just kind of pisses me off... and frankly I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because I think people are way too sensitive in these hyper-politically correct days, or maybe it's the attack on one of my favorite comics. Either way I just kind of want to vent.
So last week Penny Arcade ran this comic. I read it, laughed and went on with my life. I found it funny because it's true. In World of Warcraft there were several quests where I had to free X amount of people from some horrific situation. You're tasked to free five slaves from some horrible slave master... but there's always more than five of them. So essentially you're freeing five people from this horrible life, but leaving the rest of the people to suffer after you leave. That's the joke. That's why it's funny.
Well not to everyone I guess. Apparently there's a small group of people out there that think this is some sort of horrible joke about rape. Somehow.
Let me be the first to say that I think rape is a bad thing. I doubt there are many people out there who think rape is a good thing. Rape is an awful crime that should never be tolerated or advocated.
Penny Arcade responded with this comic the following day. As well as a blog post responding to some of the critics of the comic.
I think Gabe summed it up best with this:
For the most part I think that people are perfectly happy to laugh at offensive jokes until the joke offends them. Then it’s not funny anymore. There is no way we can know what each and every person who reads the comic has decided to find offensive.
I think he pretty much summed up my feelings on that. I thought that would be the end of that... until there was this. This is a guy selling a bunch of his Penny Arcade merchandise... not because of the dickwolf comic, but because he seems to feel that the following comic and the blog posts were a "...big fuck you out to all concerned and compared victims of rape to fruit." Which Gabe didn't, he stated that they had a rapist character, Fruit Fucker, which rapes fruit. He didn't really compare the fruit to the victims. Though if you want to get technical this comic insinuates (at least to me) that he might have raped Brenna's ear, so he is perhaps a human rapist as well.
Penny Arcade deals with all sorts of subjects that may offend. If you read the comic at all you would know this. Except this one gravely offended people... why? Hell, it's not even a comic about rape. It's a comic that mentions rape, and frankly mentions rape as a horrific thing. He doesn't want to leave because the dickwolf gives him candy and sings him to bed each night.
Though what really angered me was a blog post that was linked off of that eBay sale. This is it.
Right off the bat they got things wrong. They keep calling it a rape joke. It's not. As I said, it's a comic that mentions rape, but the punchline nor the focus is on rape. If I say "What's the difference between a dead baby and a BMW... I don't have a BMW in my garage!" would you say you heard a BMW joke? Nope, that's a dead baby joke right there. If I said "What's the difference between a BMW and a Porcupine? When it comes to a BMW, the prick is on the inside." That's a BMW joke. Both of them have BMW in it, but only one is a BMW joke. Just because this comic mentions rape, does not make it a rape comic.
Their criticism is that "rape jokes are triggers for survivors of sexual violence (and/or attempted sexual violence)" and that "Rape jokes contribute to a rape culture in which rape is normalized." I'll get to the first one in a moment, but for now lets focus on the second.
"Rape jokes contribute to a rape culture in which rape is normalized." On the website they have a blog post titled Rape Culture 101 which explains more about what rape culture is. Their examples range from sad, and truly something that we should strive to stop to absolutely fucking ludicrous. At the end of the day is the Penny Arcade comic (which isn't about rape, only mentions it) contributing to the downfall of society and making people think that rape is okay? No. I'm sorry, but just no. If I read a comic like this every day, while watching violent porn and playing RapeLay on my computer would I think rape is okay or normal? No. Of course not. Rape is never okay. Rape is never normal. Rape is horrible, and no matter how many things I saw or heard that contributed to "rape culture" I still wouldn't think it's okay. Something tells me I'm part of the majority on this as well.
To me this reminds me of the violence in video games and violence in the media argument. People when playing violent video games, or watching violent movies, etc. will become violent. Are there people out there that play violent video games and become violent? I'm sure there are. Are there millions of other people out there that play the exact same game who don't become violent? Yep.
When rape becomes normal to a society it's generally due to major changes like wars, civil wars, or a group wanting to show their dominance over another group. Rape does not become normal because it is mentioned more in movies, or is used in a joke.
"Rape jokes are triggers for survivors of sexual violence (and/or attempted sexual violence)." You know what, I agree with this. There are triggers. Not just rape jokes, but many other things. A smell, a texture, there are numerous things that trigger memories. And that is why rape is awful, it is something that will affect you for the rest of your life.
The first thing I will point out again is that they were not making a rape joke. They were making a joke about World of Warcraft that happened to mention rape. Should we not be allowed to mention rape?
I hate to say this because it will make me sound like a huge asshole, but I have to. I say it meaning no offense towards anyone. I'm going to use "raped" as an example but it applies to many different things: I'm sorry you were raped, it's horrible. But the world and other people cannot revolve around you. At some point you will have to realize that you experienced something that others may not understand. They may say or do things that trigger feelings in you, but that they do not get. There will be times when you are right in situations, there will be times when you are wrong and there will be times when neither is right or wrong. I am not saying it is no big deal and I'm definitely not saying get over it. What I am saying is that if we took everything that might offend someone and weren't allowed to say it we would live in awful, boring, censored world.
Bear with me while I explain.
Rape is awful. I've been over this. Should we censor certain mediums that may contain rape? What should we do with movies that contain rape? Or books, or TV shows, or news reports? Any one of these could have the same trigger as a rape joke. All of them are for entertainment. Are they any less better or worse then the joke? The joke is a joke about possibly the worst time in your life, something that will haunt you forever. On the the other hand is the TV show any better? Is trying to pull in viewers or sell movie tickets for a story about rape any better? The most horrible moment in certain peoples life used as compelling TV?
What about murder? Another awful crime. Another thing that will stick with victims forever. The person may be dead, but what about the family? If a son is beaten to death with a baseball bat do you think the mother is going to want to sit down and watch Casino? If someone is killed by a drunk driver do you think the family of the deceased is not going to have memories triggered by scenes of this season of Rescue Me? Should World Trade Center or Flight 93 not have been made?
What about war? Are soldiers coming home gong to want to turn on the TV and see Iraq all over CNN, MSN, and Fox News? Are they going to want to sit down and watch Black Hawk Down or countless other modern day war movies? Some survivors of D Day reportedly had to walk out of Saving Private Ryan because it brought back such haunting memories. Should they have pulled it from the theater? Should Schindler's List have been made? Should Band of Brothers have been written? What about fictional stories set in real life wars? Your selling death and destruction for entertainment purposes.
If comedian makes a joke about a horrible tragedy, should it be taken differently then a comedian telling a joke about rape? Should comedians never cross the line of decency? If we did we would have very boring comedies and comedians. Many very good movies, TV series, and books could not be written with out being offensive to someone.
On the Shakesville blog they talk about The Invention of Lying and it's "rape joke" (honestly, I didn't see it as one). What should be done about that? Should we take it out of the movie? I found it to be one of the funniest scenes in a already hilarious movie. Also the movie is very funny but also has some very strong athiest tones to it. I'm sure there are a lot of religious people who would find it horribly offensive... what should be done? Should we not show this movie? What about The Last Temptation of Christ? It also offended a great deal of people.
Let's talk about the movie Irreversible. Irreversible is probably one of the most powerful movies I've ever seen. At it's heart it is about a brutal rape and the revenge, anger, emotions and everything else that follows. It features a several minute long very realistic, brutal rape scene. If you could walk away from that movie and still think that rape was normal or anything but horrific I question your state of mind. If you want to talk about things that could trigger emotions, this would be the movie. At the end of the day though it's purpose is to sell tickets, and is entertainment featuring rape and revenge. Should we allow that?
What I'm really getting at is: At what point do we have to realize that if we have at any point suffered some sort of tragedy there are going to be things that will bring back a surge of feelings and emotions we felt when that tragedy happened to us. At what point do we have to realize that not everyone has the same experiences that we do and that things that might be perfectly okay to that person may affect us differently.
Gabe was very much correct when he said that we laugh until something offends us, then it's not funny anymore. Let's go to the top of my post where I made a dead baby joke. Do I find it offensive? Not really. In fact I may have chuckled the first time I heard it. Would someone who's baby just died or who just had a miscarriage find it funny? Nope, probably not. Should I have not have used it as an example? At the end of the day I didn't find it offensive, I could see how someone could, but I didn't. There are others who probably found it incredibly offensive. There's others who probably found it funny. I'm not going to take it out just because it might offend someone, sorry.
Should a comedian take a rape joke out of his routine because it might offend someone or bring back horrible memories? It's their choice to make that call. I wouldn't blame them if they did and I wouldn't blame them if they didn't. It's also your choice to walk out and never see that comedian again if you were offended. It's your choice to not see or do something that offends you, it is not your choice to not let me see, say or do something because it offends you.
When I read the Penny Arcade comic did I laugh? You bet I did. I thought it was hilarious, as I said I ran into that situation many times in WoW. I've also read comments by people who were the victims of rape/sexual assault who said they laughed as well. There were also people who were offended. What should we do? Should the guys at Penny Arcade take it down? I don't think so. I thought it was hilarious comic, and in fact still do. I also think their rebuttal is funny and as well as makes a point.
After reading more of Shakesville blog I think I've found what set me off the most on this subject. It's that everything in that blog feels like an attack. It feels angry. It feels pretentious, it feels like they are right and you are wrong, it feels like if you disagree with them you're helping cultivate this rape culture they talk so much about. It's trying to tell me how I should feel and that if I laugh at a comic that mentions rape I'm helping build a rape culture where rape is normal.
Well go fuck yourselves because I still think it's funny and I still think rape is horrible.
Squid.
Friday, July 2, 2010
Know Your Roots
In my review for Mission Impossible on Blowin' Out the Cartridge I mentioned that 3D games on the Nintendo 64, or from any console of the generation didn't age well. It's true they didn't, but I thought about it for a while. Why single out that generation of consoles? Did SNES games age any better? What about NES? Are Xbox or Playstation 2 games still looking good? I know when I played Pirates - The Legend of Black Kat on Xbox I remember thinking how poorly some of the graphics had aged, it's not as bad as some of the earlier systems... but give it five years and it might be.
But surely graphics aren't what makes a game great. To make a game great takes many things: story, graphics, character development, there's a wide variety of things that have to come together to make a truly great game. Graphics are just one part of that.
But they're also an important part. If they released Mass Effect on Xbox360 as well as Nintendo 64, the same game but with the graphical capability that each could handle which would you play? They have the exact same story, the exact same characters... one just looks awful. Of course you're going to play the one that looks the best. It would be stupid not to. But would it hurt the story to play it on something with the graphics of the N64? I would think so. We're very visual animals, there are little nuances that we may not notice with bad graphics. The raising of an eyebrow, a slight change in demeanor, a glance of the eyes, things that can all mean something that just can't be shown on the Nintendo 64.
So where does that leave SNES, NES, Genesis, Etc.? Pretty much in the same boat... though I will say slightly better off for one reason, for me at least. They're different then what we see now. On the 32bit, 64 bit and beyond consoles you pretty much had the same games we're playing now. Sure there's been some big leaps and bounds but games are essentially similar. We have very few true 2D games now (except on things like Xbox Arcade) so games on 8 bit and 16 bit games are visually different. I don't look at an SNES game and think how horrible the graphics look, because I have nothing to compare them to currently. On the other hand I look at 3D first person shooter on the Nintendo 64 and compare it any number of first person shooters on any of the current systems... they can't even begin to hold up. Though that may just be me. Part of that may be nostalgia talking, but I honestly think there's at least some truth to it as well.
I've played a lot of video games in my life. I'm twenty eight years old and I would say I've been playing video games for at least twenty three years of those. Everything from the Commodore 64 to the Sega Game Gear to the Xbox360. Different genres, different consoles, different games. I've spent countless hours playing games, but one thing I've come to realize is that generally, newer is better. It doesn't mean old is bad, it just means that we're making leaps in bounds in technology and what we can do in video games. And that's a good thing.
If I had to come up with ten of my favorite games my guess would be that it would be split with about 70% being new games and 30% being old games. There are some great old games, but there's some phenomenal games that came out in the last three or four years... and even more games to look forward to in the future.
So what am I getting at here? Well as the blog title says, know your roots.
A few years back you saw this slogan on t-shirts and hats, usually with an NES controller.
I liked it, but I didn't think it applied to me. To me it was meant for the kids who you usually saw wearing it. The kids who were about ten years younger then me, the ones who might have caught the tail end of the SNES but most likely their first system was probably the N64 or the PS1. To me they weren't really my roots though. They were what I grew up playing. My roots were things like Pong and other very early video games, games I didn't really have a chance to play growing up.
Know your roots. I thought it was cool. We had kids who were going back and playing games that were made before they were born. Awesome games that I grew up playing... but is it necessary to know your roots? I know my roots. They're boring. I bought an Atari TV plug-in console a while back. Sure the games are fun... for about ten minutes. Then you move on to the next one. Asteroid can only be so entertaining. It's not something I'm going to spend the entire day playing.
So why should it be different for younger gamers. Should it be?
Sure, NES and SNES games might be more entertaining then Asteroid, but can they compare to games now... especially if you're looking at them with fresh eyes. We're not talking about nostalgia here. We're talking about games that these people have never played and have no connection to. We're talking about the difference between Legend of Zelda and Twilight Princess. It's a huge difference. Can you compare them?
I wouldn't think so.
In playing all the video games I own I've come across a few games that are considered classics, but that I've never played or haven't played in years and don't remember. Generally, I think they're pretty average, if not bad. Phantasy Star may have been the greatest game ever for you when you were young and playing it on your Sega Master System... but now its age and flaws shine through. I never played it as a kid. It's just another RPG to me. One that I didn't feel was very good. Though I'm sure there are tons of people who would argue with me.
Give a kid who has never played Legend of Zelda a Link to the Past that game. Do you think he's going to have the same feelings that I have for it? I rank it as one of my favorite games of all time. I remember where I was the first time I played it. I remember being in awe watching the three gold triangles come in from the corners of the screen to form the triforce. I remember that was the first time I had seen anything that looked that good and cool. And the rain at the first! The rain and the thunder! It was so immersive! It was so amazing!
Think that kid is going to feel the same way? Nope. He's not. Hell, he might not even like the game. Maybe he just got done with Twilight Princess. This is going to look archaic to him. Why isn't link in 3D riding a horse.
And frankly I couldn't blame him. At the end of the day it's a good possibility that Twilight Princess is a better game than Link to the Past. I don't see it because it's hard to look past how much I love Link to the Past.
I follow quite a few video game forums, because I'm a huge video game nerd. People remember consoles and games with heavy nostalgia... generally the console and games you first played, or the consoles and games you grew up with. There's people who are probably eight or ten years younger than me who remember the Nintendo 64 as the greatest console ever. I owned one, I used to love playing it but I don't look at it with the same fondness as I do the NES or SNES. Those were my first consoles. Those were the golden days for me. And there's kids now who will probably look at the Wii with the fondness that I look at the NES. It's all generational.
Should that kid with the Wii play the NES to try and get what I'm talking about? Is there a reason to? Why should he? At twelve I didn't run out and buy Pong so I could get to know my roots, and if I had I probably would have thought it was boring. Why should these kids run out and buy an NES?
I've heard it hundreds of times. The NES was amazing! It had so many great games! The SNES was great, remember all the phenomenal games it had? You know what you never hear? The NES was amazing! It had quite a few games I really remember enjoying and hundreds of really crappy games I never played or don't remember.
I'll give you hint, most major systems had quite a few really awesome games... but the rest, the majority, were either average or horrible. For every Legend of Zelda there was a Yo! Noid!. For every Final Fantasy III there was Shaq-Fu. Trust me, there's a lot more average or bad games for your favorite system then there are good ones. Unless your favorite system is the Jaguar 64, then your favorite system just has all awful games... but I guarantee that someone out there loves the Jaguar because they remember loving Iron Soldier as a kid.
I'm all for kids trying out games from my childhood. If they like them, great. If not, I can totally understand. But this bullshit nostalgia of "Oh my God, games were so much better when I was a kid!" is just that, bullshit nostalgia.
I've learned that in replaying my collection for Blowin' Out the Cartridge. A lot of the games I loved just didn't hold up... but up until I played them again I would have said the complete opposite. If you had asked me April 7th, 2010 what I thought of Goldeneye I would have told how fun it was, how I remember playing with all my friends, how fondly I remember it.... and I still would. All those are true. It was really fun and I do remember playing it split screen with all my friends. Now there's just a footnote. It's aged horribly, it controls like crap, I didn't have fun replaying it, and in games nowadays I often don't have to think in my head "Is that a wall or a bad guy... I can't tell."
Play the games you enjoy. Try new things if you want, if you enjoy them great, if not keep trying or go back to what you know you enjoy. Video games are meant for your enjoyment. They're meant for YOUR enjoyment. Play what you like, not what you think you should have to play as some sort of bullshit right of passage.
Squid.
But surely graphics aren't what makes a game great. To make a game great takes many things: story, graphics, character development, there's a wide variety of things that have to come together to make a truly great game. Graphics are just one part of that.
But they're also an important part. If they released Mass Effect on Xbox360 as well as Nintendo 64, the same game but with the graphical capability that each could handle which would you play? They have the exact same story, the exact same characters... one just looks awful. Of course you're going to play the one that looks the best. It would be stupid not to. But would it hurt the story to play it on something with the graphics of the N64? I would think so. We're very visual animals, there are little nuances that we may not notice with bad graphics. The raising of an eyebrow, a slight change in demeanor, a glance of the eyes, things that can all mean something that just can't be shown on the Nintendo 64.
So where does that leave SNES, NES, Genesis, Etc.? Pretty much in the same boat... though I will say slightly better off for one reason, for me at least. They're different then what we see now. On the 32bit, 64 bit and beyond consoles you pretty much had the same games we're playing now. Sure there's been some big leaps and bounds but games are essentially similar. We have very few true 2D games now (except on things like Xbox Arcade) so games on 8 bit and 16 bit games are visually different. I don't look at an SNES game and think how horrible the graphics look, because I have nothing to compare them to currently. On the other hand I look at 3D first person shooter on the Nintendo 64 and compare it any number of first person shooters on any of the current systems... they can't even begin to hold up. Though that may just be me. Part of that may be nostalgia talking, but I honestly think there's at least some truth to it as well.
I've played a lot of video games in my life. I'm twenty eight years old and I would say I've been playing video games for at least twenty three years of those. Everything from the Commodore 64 to the Sega Game Gear to the Xbox360. Different genres, different consoles, different games. I've spent countless hours playing games, but one thing I've come to realize is that generally, newer is better. It doesn't mean old is bad, it just means that we're making leaps in bounds in technology and what we can do in video games. And that's a good thing.
If I had to come up with ten of my favorite games my guess would be that it would be split with about 70% being new games and 30% being old games. There are some great old games, but there's some phenomenal games that came out in the last three or four years... and even more games to look forward to in the future.
So what am I getting at here? Well as the blog title says, know your roots.
A few years back you saw this slogan on t-shirts and hats, usually with an NES controller.
I liked it, but I didn't think it applied to me. To me it was meant for the kids who you usually saw wearing it. The kids who were about ten years younger then me, the ones who might have caught the tail end of the SNES but most likely their first system was probably the N64 or the PS1. To me they weren't really my roots though. They were what I grew up playing. My roots were things like Pong and other very early video games, games I didn't really have a chance to play growing up.
Know your roots. I thought it was cool. We had kids who were going back and playing games that were made before they were born. Awesome games that I grew up playing... but is it necessary to know your roots? I know my roots. They're boring. I bought an Atari TV plug-in console a while back. Sure the games are fun... for about ten minutes. Then you move on to the next one. Asteroid can only be so entertaining. It's not something I'm going to spend the entire day playing.
So why should it be different for younger gamers. Should it be?
Sure, NES and SNES games might be more entertaining then Asteroid, but can they compare to games now... especially if you're looking at them with fresh eyes. We're not talking about nostalgia here. We're talking about games that these people have never played and have no connection to. We're talking about the difference between Legend of Zelda and Twilight Princess. It's a huge difference. Can you compare them?
I wouldn't think so.
In playing all the video games I own I've come across a few games that are considered classics, but that I've never played or haven't played in years and don't remember. Generally, I think they're pretty average, if not bad. Phantasy Star may have been the greatest game ever for you when you were young and playing it on your Sega Master System... but now its age and flaws shine through. I never played it as a kid. It's just another RPG to me. One that I didn't feel was very good. Though I'm sure there are tons of people who would argue with me.
Give a kid who has never played Legend of Zelda a Link to the Past that game. Do you think he's going to have the same feelings that I have for it? I rank it as one of my favorite games of all time. I remember where I was the first time I played it. I remember being in awe watching the three gold triangles come in from the corners of the screen to form the triforce. I remember that was the first time I had seen anything that looked that good and cool. And the rain at the first! The rain and the thunder! It was so immersive! It was so amazing!
Think that kid is going to feel the same way? Nope. He's not. Hell, he might not even like the game. Maybe he just got done with Twilight Princess. This is going to look archaic to him. Why isn't link in 3D riding a horse.
And frankly I couldn't blame him. At the end of the day it's a good possibility that Twilight Princess is a better game than Link to the Past. I don't see it because it's hard to look past how much I love Link to the Past.
I follow quite a few video game forums, because I'm a huge video game nerd. People remember consoles and games with heavy nostalgia... generally the console and games you first played, or the consoles and games you grew up with. There's people who are probably eight or ten years younger than me who remember the Nintendo 64 as the greatest console ever. I owned one, I used to love playing it but I don't look at it with the same fondness as I do the NES or SNES. Those were my first consoles. Those were the golden days for me. And there's kids now who will probably look at the Wii with the fondness that I look at the NES. It's all generational.
Should that kid with the Wii play the NES to try and get what I'm talking about? Is there a reason to? Why should he? At twelve I didn't run out and buy Pong so I could get to know my roots, and if I had I probably would have thought it was boring. Why should these kids run out and buy an NES?
I've heard it hundreds of times. The NES was amazing! It had so many great games! The SNES was great, remember all the phenomenal games it had? You know what you never hear? The NES was amazing! It had quite a few games I really remember enjoying and hundreds of really crappy games I never played or don't remember.
I'll give you hint, most major systems had quite a few really awesome games... but the rest, the majority, were either average or horrible. For every Legend of Zelda there was a Yo! Noid!. For every Final Fantasy III there was Shaq-Fu. Trust me, there's a lot more average or bad games for your favorite system then there are good ones. Unless your favorite system is the Jaguar 64, then your favorite system just has all awful games... but I guarantee that someone out there loves the Jaguar because they remember loving Iron Soldier as a kid.
I'm all for kids trying out games from my childhood. If they like them, great. If not, I can totally understand. But this bullshit nostalgia of "Oh my God, games were so much better when I was a kid!" is just that, bullshit nostalgia.
I've learned that in replaying my collection for Blowin' Out the Cartridge. A lot of the games I loved just didn't hold up... but up until I played them again I would have said the complete opposite. If you had asked me April 7th, 2010 what I thought of Goldeneye I would have told how fun it was, how I remember playing with all my friends, how fondly I remember it.... and I still would. All those are true. It was really fun and I do remember playing it split screen with all my friends. Now there's just a footnote. It's aged horribly, it controls like crap, I didn't have fun replaying it, and in games nowadays I often don't have to think in my head "Is that a wall or a bad guy... I can't tell."
Play the games you enjoy. Try new things if you want, if you enjoy them great, if not keep trying or go back to what you know you enjoy. Video games are meant for your enjoyment. They're meant for YOUR enjoyment. Play what you like, not what you think you should have to play as some sort of bullshit right of passage.
Squid.
Monday, May 24, 2010
Pirates of the Carribean
I have a confession. I was a pirate. Yarr. No, I didn't sail the seven seas plundering ships and digging up hidden treasure. It was actually a lot more boring. I used to pirate games... constantly.
From the time it was possible to pirate games up until about 2004 I pirated and played countless numbers of games. Torrents, Warez, direct downloads, borrowing from friends... if there was a way to get a game without paying for it, I did. I played some of the biggest name titles of the time, and all without paying a penny.
Sure, I realized it was wrong but I always managed to justify it in my head. I know it's wrong but they already make a ton of money off of the games anyway. I know it's wrong but I just kind of want to see how the game is. I know it's wrong but if the game is good I'll go out and buy it. I know it's wrong but this game totally isn't worth $50. I know it's wrong but it's not like the PC gaming industry will be hurt by piracy... woops.
I think the interesting thing is that I almost always seemed to blame the video game manufacturer for why I was pirating their games. Where really a lot of blame lies directly on me, and frankly, us as video gamers. All of the excuses for the most part are just that, excuses. I look back at all of the ways I use to justify my stealing of video games and pretty much all of them are crap.
I know it's wrong but they already make a ton of money off of the games anyways. I guess that's true sometimes, certain games are just always going to make money. When you have something like Half Life, there's almost no way that Half Life 2 isn't going to sell well. Even though you know it's going to make money doesn't mean that it's okay to pirate it though. I know that if I steal a box of Lucky Charms, General Mills isn't going to post a loss... but what if we all start stealing Lucky Charms?
I know it's wrong but I just kind of want to see how the game is. I used this one a lot. And occasionally it was somewhat true. If I couldn't get a demo I would sometimes just download it to see how it was... which leads to the next one:
I know it's wrong but if the game is good I'll go out and buy it. You know, I don't think that ever happened. I pirated FEAR, which was one of my favorite first person shooters of all times... played it and its expansions at least two or three times... and never bought it. Same with Dungeon Siege, same with a whole list of other games. The truth is that even if they were good I rarely went out and bought them. I already had them. Not until recently have I purchased things like FEAR or Max Payne or many other games I pirated when they first came out. I'm guessing that the makers of Max Payne are appreciative of the fact that I picked up their game for $5 off of Steam, but I'll bet they'd have liked it even more if I had picked it up for $40 when it was released instead of just pirating it.
I know it's wrong but this game totally isn't worth $50. And you know what? I was right occasionally. There are a lot of games out there that aren't necessarily worth $50. So I pirated them... but if I had waited two months or for a sale, maybe I could have bought those games for $30 or $20. There's a lot of games that aren't worth $50 that are certainly worth $30.
I know it's wrong but it's not like the PC gaming industry will be hurt by piracy. Again, I was wrong. Like I said, some of the blame lies on the video game industry and some of it lies on us. When Ubisoft announced their crazy DRM for Assassin's Creed II people were pissed. And rightfully so, the DRM was just stupid... but I understood why they were doing it. It was in an attempt to stop piracy. Would it work? God no. DRM is never going to stop piracy, and in a perfect world would just be gotten rid of. You have to understand something though, Ubisoft is a company. Ubisoft has investors. Those investors want the best ROI that they can get. So of course they're going to want to protect their product as much as possible from piracy, even if that means crazy DRM. Because I'm sure in their minds they would much rather hear that Ubisoft is implementing crazy DRM to try and protect their product from piracy rather then Ubisoft is doing absolutely nothing to stop piracy because it doesn't matter in the end.
If you don't want crazy DRM there's one solution. Don't buy the product. Simple enough... but you know what I heard the most after they announced the DRM? "If they're going to have the DRM then I'm just going to pirate it." But you know what? That solves nothing, that just means that your cementing in the future even more crazy DRM. If you don't buy the product it sends a loud and clear message that as long as there's this crazy DRM you're not going to make money from me. If you pirate it, they just point to the fact that they need the DRM to stop the rampant piracy. But you have to be willing to buy their games if they take the DRM off. You can't protest the DRM and then when they remove it, still pirate the games. You have to purchase the games for it to work. Though gaming industry? You have to be willing to take off DRM if a good majority of us are purchasing your product. It works both ways.
Listen, I'm certainly not saying that this is all us gamers fault. Trust me, the game industry has a ton of blame in this as well. I'm just saying that we as gamers have to take some of the blame as well, it's not all the evil, greedy corporations fault.
Recently the makers of Alan Wake announced that they wouldn't be making the game for PC. There were a lot of people speculating that it was because, hell, why bother putting it on a system where everyone is just going to pirate it anyway. Which makes sense. If I owned two hot dog stands and in the area that one of them was in only 15% of people payed and the other 85% just stole my hot dogs and kicked me in the shins you would believe I would move that hot dog stand to the place where 85% of people payed and the other 15% stole my hot dogs but were occasionally banned from my hot dog stand. God that was a tortured metaphor. I think you get my point though.
The PC gaming industry is bleeding, and instead of putting band aids on it we're stabbing it some more. Well people, at some point the PC gaming industry will die if we don't stop.
I recently wrote a post about my conversion over to a console gamer, and some of it was so I didn't have to deal with some of the PC gaming industry bullshit, but still I don't want to see it dead. It has a purpose. And if we keep stomping on the flower we won't get to see its full potential.
What brought this up this post is a Cracked.com article this morning. It was 5 Reasons It's Still Not Cool to Admit You're a Gamer, it was funny as usual but one of the points they brought up was number one on their list. It was that we have some serious entitlement issues (scroll down to read it). It's all true. We think that if it's not directly tailored 100% to our liking we have the right to go out and get it for free. And then we piss and moan when they take measures to try and stop us.
But there's hope. I mentioned that I stopped pirating in 2004... want to know how I know that? Because that was the year that I got Steam. Steam made it so I didn't have to pirate games. I want a game right now? Done. I just go to steam, pay for it, download it and I can play it. Want to know if there's crazy DRM? Steam will tell me and I just don't buy it. Not sure you want to pay $50 for that game? I can check the metacritic score and go look at reviews. Still not sure? I can wait, Steam has some of the best sales around. Older games I can't find in stores, well I guess I'll just pirate them, it's not like the company is making any money off of them... wait, Steam has a ton of old games for usually under $10. It's convenient and a great service. Sure, it doesn't have every game made on it... yet. This is the flower I'm talking about. Maybe if we all stop pirating and actually buying games, companies will actually start listening to us. Maybe Steam is the savior of PC gaming... and a model how we can do console games in the future, but if we continue the way we're going we may never find out.
And if you're a console gamer, there's Gamefly. The Netflix of the gaming world. It costs $15, which frankly is dirt goddamn cheap. Want to play a game without plopping down $60? Why not give Gamefly a try. If you check out one video game every four months it's still cheaper then buying one full price game. Why not try that instead of modding your Xbox so you can get your free games? Why not at least try and give back to an industry that is trying to give you a little bit of enjoyment... just a thought.
So what's my point? Nothing in life is free, and you're not entitled to it either. If you don't like the DRM, don't buy the game. Try and curb your pirating appetite. Video games are a big part of my life, and were killing the industry. Do I think we'll ever completely kill the gaming industry? No, but we're going to put it in a wheelchair where it eats from a tube. I want to see it at it's full potential, and we can't do that if we continue the way we're going.
And video game industry? If we try you have to try as well.
Squid.
From the time it was possible to pirate games up until about 2004 I pirated and played countless numbers of games. Torrents, Warez, direct downloads, borrowing from friends... if there was a way to get a game without paying for it, I did. I played some of the biggest name titles of the time, and all without paying a penny.
Sure, I realized it was wrong but I always managed to justify it in my head. I know it's wrong but they already make a ton of money off of the games anyway. I know it's wrong but I just kind of want to see how the game is. I know it's wrong but if the game is good I'll go out and buy it. I know it's wrong but this game totally isn't worth $50. I know it's wrong but it's not like the PC gaming industry will be hurt by piracy... woops.
I think the interesting thing is that I almost always seemed to blame the video game manufacturer for why I was pirating their games. Where really a lot of blame lies directly on me, and frankly, us as video gamers. All of the excuses for the most part are just that, excuses. I look back at all of the ways I use to justify my stealing of video games and pretty much all of them are crap.
I know it's wrong but they already make a ton of money off of the games anyways. I guess that's true sometimes, certain games are just always going to make money. When you have something like Half Life, there's almost no way that Half Life 2 isn't going to sell well. Even though you know it's going to make money doesn't mean that it's okay to pirate it though. I know that if I steal a box of Lucky Charms, General Mills isn't going to post a loss... but what if we all start stealing Lucky Charms?
I know it's wrong but I just kind of want to see how the game is. I used this one a lot. And occasionally it was somewhat true. If I couldn't get a demo I would sometimes just download it to see how it was... which leads to the next one:
I know it's wrong but if the game is good I'll go out and buy it. You know, I don't think that ever happened. I pirated FEAR, which was one of my favorite first person shooters of all times... played it and its expansions at least two or three times... and never bought it. Same with Dungeon Siege, same with a whole list of other games. The truth is that even if they were good I rarely went out and bought them. I already had them. Not until recently have I purchased things like FEAR or Max Payne or many other games I pirated when they first came out. I'm guessing that the makers of Max Payne are appreciative of the fact that I picked up their game for $5 off of Steam, but I'll bet they'd have liked it even more if I had picked it up for $40 when it was released instead of just pirating it.
I know it's wrong but this game totally isn't worth $50. And you know what? I was right occasionally. There are a lot of games out there that aren't necessarily worth $50. So I pirated them... but if I had waited two months or for a sale, maybe I could have bought those games for $30 or $20. There's a lot of games that aren't worth $50 that are certainly worth $30.
I know it's wrong but it's not like the PC gaming industry will be hurt by piracy. Again, I was wrong. Like I said, some of the blame lies on the video game industry and some of it lies on us. When Ubisoft announced their crazy DRM for Assassin's Creed II people were pissed. And rightfully so, the DRM was just stupid... but I understood why they were doing it. It was in an attempt to stop piracy. Would it work? God no. DRM is never going to stop piracy, and in a perfect world would just be gotten rid of. You have to understand something though, Ubisoft is a company. Ubisoft has investors. Those investors want the best ROI that they can get. So of course they're going to want to protect their product as much as possible from piracy, even if that means crazy DRM. Because I'm sure in their minds they would much rather hear that Ubisoft is implementing crazy DRM to try and protect their product from piracy rather then Ubisoft is doing absolutely nothing to stop piracy because it doesn't matter in the end.
If you don't want crazy DRM there's one solution. Don't buy the product. Simple enough... but you know what I heard the most after they announced the DRM? "If they're going to have the DRM then I'm just going to pirate it." But you know what? That solves nothing, that just means that your cementing in the future even more crazy DRM. If you don't buy the product it sends a loud and clear message that as long as there's this crazy DRM you're not going to make money from me. If you pirate it, they just point to the fact that they need the DRM to stop the rampant piracy. But you have to be willing to buy their games if they take the DRM off. You can't protest the DRM and then when they remove it, still pirate the games. You have to purchase the games for it to work. Though gaming industry? You have to be willing to take off DRM if a good majority of us are purchasing your product. It works both ways.
Listen, I'm certainly not saying that this is all us gamers fault. Trust me, the game industry has a ton of blame in this as well. I'm just saying that we as gamers have to take some of the blame as well, it's not all the evil, greedy corporations fault.
Recently the makers of Alan Wake announced that they wouldn't be making the game for PC. There were a lot of people speculating that it was because, hell, why bother putting it on a system where everyone is just going to pirate it anyway. Which makes sense. If I owned two hot dog stands and in the area that one of them was in only 15% of people payed and the other 85% just stole my hot dogs and kicked me in the shins you would believe I would move that hot dog stand to the place where 85% of people payed and the other 15% stole my hot dogs but were occasionally banned from my hot dog stand. God that was a tortured metaphor. I think you get my point though.
The PC gaming industry is bleeding, and instead of putting band aids on it we're stabbing it some more. Well people, at some point the PC gaming industry will die if we don't stop.
I recently wrote a post about my conversion over to a console gamer, and some of it was so I didn't have to deal with some of the PC gaming industry bullshit, but still I don't want to see it dead. It has a purpose. And if we keep stomping on the flower we won't get to see its full potential.
What brought this up this post is a Cracked.com article this morning. It was 5 Reasons It's Still Not Cool to Admit You're a Gamer, it was funny as usual but one of the points they brought up was number one on their list. It was that we have some serious entitlement issues (scroll down to read it). It's all true. We think that if it's not directly tailored 100% to our liking we have the right to go out and get it for free. And then we piss and moan when they take measures to try and stop us.
But there's hope. I mentioned that I stopped pirating in 2004... want to know how I know that? Because that was the year that I got Steam. Steam made it so I didn't have to pirate games. I want a game right now? Done. I just go to steam, pay for it, download it and I can play it. Want to know if there's crazy DRM? Steam will tell me and I just don't buy it. Not sure you want to pay $50 for that game? I can check the metacritic score and go look at reviews. Still not sure? I can wait, Steam has some of the best sales around. Older games I can't find in stores, well I guess I'll just pirate them, it's not like the company is making any money off of them... wait, Steam has a ton of old games for usually under $10. It's convenient and a great service. Sure, it doesn't have every game made on it... yet. This is the flower I'm talking about. Maybe if we all stop pirating and actually buying games, companies will actually start listening to us. Maybe Steam is the savior of PC gaming... and a model how we can do console games in the future, but if we continue the way we're going we may never find out.
And if you're a console gamer, there's Gamefly. The Netflix of the gaming world. It costs $15, which frankly is dirt goddamn cheap. Want to play a game without plopping down $60? Why not give Gamefly a try. If you check out one video game every four months it's still cheaper then buying one full price game. Why not try that instead of modding your Xbox so you can get your free games? Why not at least try and give back to an industry that is trying to give you a little bit of enjoyment... just a thought.
So what's my point? Nothing in life is free, and you're not entitled to it either. If you don't like the DRM, don't buy the game. Try and curb your pirating appetite. Video games are a big part of my life, and were killing the industry. Do I think we'll ever completely kill the gaming industry? No, but we're going to put it in a wheelchair where it eats from a tube. I want to see it at it's full potential, and we can't do that if we continue the way we're going.
And video game industry? If we try you have to try as well.
Squid.
Sunday, May 9, 2010
10 Great Movie Commentaries
Recently I picked up Collateral on Blu-Ray, a very good movie which I thoroughly enjoy. One of the main reasons I picked it up though was that I noticed the Blu-Ray contains commentary by Michael Mann on it which my DVD version does not.
I very much enjoy commentaries on movies, they're easily one of my favorite features. A good commentary can add so much additional great information to a movie. Over the years I've listened to many good commentaries and some really awful ones. Since I haven't listened to every movie commentary, hell not even every commentary on the movies I own, I don't feel right calling this the "10 Best Commentaries" and instead I've decided to give you a list of ten really good commentaries worth listening to.
In no particular order:
First Blood
This is with David Morrell, writer of the novel that First Blood is based off of. This one is rather interesting because it's almost a look at this movie from a fresh set of eyes. Sure this is the man who wrote the novel, but he didn't appear to have a whole lot to do with the actual making of the movie. So it's almost like insider knowledge but from a different point of view, it's not a star, it's not a director, and it's not a producer but it's a man who knows a lot about Rambo. It's also interesting to hear the differences between the novel and the movie. The novel ends completely different from the movie, and hearing about it from a very interesting guy makes me want to read it that much more.
Aliens
The cast of Aliens. This is kind of a cheat, because not the entire commentary is done with the cast. There's actually three commentaries, one with James Cameron and I believe a couple other execs, the woman who played Newt and I think her real life brother who also plays her on screen brother as well, and then random cast members. They then took these three commentaries and spliced them all together to make one. The parts with James Cameron and the execs? Not all that exciting. The ones with Newt? Kind of interesting because that was her only acting job, she later went on to become a school teacher... but the cast commentary? Gold. It's like one big party with them, they're laughing they're joking and they're telling stories. Their part of the commentary is brief, I think they only have about three, five minute sections in the entire movie but even in the short time I realized that I want an entire commentary with these guys.
Citizen Kane
With Roger Ebert. I've always enjoyed Citizen Kane since the first time I saw it, but I don't think I ever really appreciated it until I listened to the commentary with Roger Ebert. Even though I don't necessarily always agree with him, I can't deny that the man knows his stuff when it comes to cinema. He talks about Citizen Kane in such a way that it made me view the movie in an entirely different way. He points out the little things in the movie that I would have never known about. Which in the end helped make the movie what it was, one of the best movies ever made.
The Usual Suspects
With director Bryan Singer and screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie. The odd thing about this is that I don't actually remember what made this commentary so good. It was one of the first commentaries that I listened to and I remember just being transfixed with what they were saying. Basically what it comes down to is that you have the minds behind one of the greatest movies of the last twenty years telling you how they did it... what's not to love?
Black Hawk Down
Special Forces Members. First off it you haven't read the book go out and do so. Mark Bowden is a phenomenal writer and Black Hawk Down remains one of my favorite books of all time. I loved the movie as well, so when they released the 3-Disc Special Edition DVD I had to have it. I believe there's three separate commentary tracks on the DVDs, but the one that stands out is the one done by the people who were there. That's right, you get to hear it straight from the horses mouth. Members of various special forces groups who were actually being portrayed in the movie. I was very glad to see that this little gem made it on to the Blu-Ray release as well.
The Thing
John Carpenter and Kurt Russel. These two seem like they're just having a lot of fun. They come off as two guys who you could sit and have a beer with while you bullshitted about the movie, and really those kind of commentaries seem to make for the most interesting ones. It's also kind of interesting in the fact that it seems in Hollywood people rarely speak ill of each other, you don't really hear people publicly saying they don't like someone. Not in this commentary. If you want to hear two people who really don't like Wilford Brimley talk about what a pain in the ass he was on the set, this commentary is for you.
Platoon
With Dale Dye. Dale Dye has a very small part in Platoon and was the military advisor for the film, you might not recognize him as Captain Harris in the movie but I guarantee you'll recognize him from one of his countless other roles. Much like the Black Hawk Down commentary it's interesting to hear someone's perspective who was actually there since both Dale Dye and Oliver Stone served in Vietnam. A lot of the commentary talks about his experiences with the movie, his experiences in Vietnam and what the movie did and didn't get right. I still haven't listened to the Oliver Stone commentary but it will be interesting to hear what he has to say about the movie as well as his experiences.
Kevin Smith Movies in General
Usually with Kevin Smith, Jason Mewes, Scott Mosier and various cast and crew. This is kind of a cheat since I didn't narrow it down to just one movie. And while I don't believe I've listened to the commentary on all of his movies, of the ones I have they're all hilarious. If you enjoy his movies and you enjoy his "Evening's With..." you'll most likely enjoy the commentaries as well.
I know I said these were in no particular order, but I've saved the best for last. These are my three favorite commentaries that I've listened to.
Heat
I've talked about this movie and the commentary in the past. All I have to say is it's absolutely amazing. Michael Mann gives you great insight into what went into making Heat such a great movie, coming in at three hours long the commentary never seems to get boring or slow down. If you're a fan of the movie this is a must listen to commentary. Actually almost all of the special features on the 2-Disc Special Edition DVD (some which are on the Blu-Ray) are all very interesting.
Futurama
The cast and crew of Futurama. One word for you: hilarious. What do you get when you get a bunch of a great comedy writers as well as some very funny voice acting talent together in a room to do commentary? A commentary that's just as funny and interesting as the episodes that they're talking about. Four seasons with commentary on every episode. I highly suggest the Bend Her episode in Season 4 just so you can hear the story of "Gay Guy and the Ghost."
The Simpsons
I have a confession to make, I'm not sure how many times I've actually listened to the commentaries on The Simpsons. They're just that good. Because they've released 13 Seasons on DVD (so far) you have many different members of cast and crew across those seasons, and they're all extremely funny and informative. If you like The Simpsons (and how couldn't you?) these are something you absolutely have to listen to. Let's put it this way, they just released Season 20 on blu-ray to coincide with the 20th Anniversary of the show and you could tell it was rushed out. None of the special features that all of the other seasons have, and that includes commentary. If they ever release it again and the new version does have the special features/commentary I will double dip in a heart beat and not feel at all bad about it. The commentaries are just that good.
So there you have it, 10 really good commentaries. If you're a movie fan or are just looking for some good commentaries I highly suggest you start out with some of these movies. They're all very good commentaries and really what commentaries should be.
I very much enjoy commentaries on movies, they're easily one of my favorite features. A good commentary can add so much additional great information to a movie. Over the years I've listened to many good commentaries and some really awful ones. Since I haven't listened to every movie commentary, hell not even every commentary on the movies I own, I don't feel right calling this the "10 Best Commentaries" and instead I've decided to give you a list of ten really good commentaries worth listening to.
In no particular order:
First Blood
This is with David Morrell, writer of the novel that First Blood is based off of. This one is rather interesting because it's almost a look at this movie from a fresh set of eyes. Sure this is the man who wrote the novel, but he didn't appear to have a whole lot to do with the actual making of the movie. So it's almost like insider knowledge but from a different point of view, it's not a star, it's not a director, and it's not a producer but it's a man who knows a lot about Rambo. It's also interesting to hear the differences between the novel and the movie. The novel ends completely different from the movie, and hearing about it from a very interesting guy makes me want to read it that much more.
Aliens
The cast of Aliens. This is kind of a cheat, because not the entire commentary is done with the cast. There's actually three commentaries, one with James Cameron and I believe a couple other execs, the woman who played Newt and I think her real life brother who also plays her on screen brother as well, and then random cast members. They then took these three commentaries and spliced them all together to make one. The parts with James Cameron and the execs? Not all that exciting. The ones with Newt? Kind of interesting because that was her only acting job, she later went on to become a school teacher... but the cast commentary? Gold. It's like one big party with them, they're laughing they're joking and they're telling stories. Their part of the commentary is brief, I think they only have about three, five minute sections in the entire movie but even in the short time I realized that I want an entire commentary with these guys.
Citizen Kane
With Roger Ebert. I've always enjoyed Citizen Kane since the first time I saw it, but I don't think I ever really appreciated it until I listened to the commentary with Roger Ebert. Even though I don't necessarily always agree with him, I can't deny that the man knows his stuff when it comes to cinema. He talks about Citizen Kane in such a way that it made me view the movie in an entirely different way. He points out the little things in the movie that I would have never known about. Which in the end helped make the movie what it was, one of the best movies ever made.
The Usual Suspects
With director Bryan Singer and screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie. The odd thing about this is that I don't actually remember what made this commentary so good. It was one of the first commentaries that I listened to and I remember just being transfixed with what they were saying. Basically what it comes down to is that you have the minds behind one of the greatest movies of the last twenty years telling you how they did it... what's not to love?
Black Hawk Down
Special Forces Members. First off it you haven't read the book go out and do so. Mark Bowden is a phenomenal writer and Black Hawk Down remains one of my favorite books of all time. I loved the movie as well, so when they released the 3-Disc Special Edition DVD I had to have it. I believe there's three separate commentary tracks on the DVDs, but the one that stands out is the one done by the people who were there. That's right, you get to hear it straight from the horses mouth. Members of various special forces groups who were actually being portrayed in the movie. I was very glad to see that this little gem made it on to the Blu-Ray release as well.
The Thing
John Carpenter and Kurt Russel. These two seem like they're just having a lot of fun. They come off as two guys who you could sit and have a beer with while you bullshitted about the movie, and really those kind of commentaries seem to make for the most interesting ones. It's also kind of interesting in the fact that it seems in Hollywood people rarely speak ill of each other, you don't really hear people publicly saying they don't like someone. Not in this commentary. If you want to hear two people who really don't like Wilford Brimley talk about what a pain in the ass he was on the set, this commentary is for you.
Platoon
With Dale Dye. Dale Dye has a very small part in Platoon and was the military advisor for the film, you might not recognize him as Captain Harris in the movie but I guarantee you'll recognize him from one of his countless other roles. Much like the Black Hawk Down commentary it's interesting to hear someone's perspective who was actually there since both Dale Dye and Oliver Stone served in Vietnam. A lot of the commentary talks about his experiences with the movie, his experiences in Vietnam and what the movie did and didn't get right. I still haven't listened to the Oliver Stone commentary but it will be interesting to hear what he has to say about the movie as well as his experiences.
Kevin Smith Movies in General
Usually with Kevin Smith, Jason Mewes, Scott Mosier and various cast and crew. This is kind of a cheat since I didn't narrow it down to just one movie. And while I don't believe I've listened to the commentary on all of his movies, of the ones I have they're all hilarious. If you enjoy his movies and you enjoy his "Evening's With..." you'll most likely enjoy the commentaries as well.
I know I said these were in no particular order, but I've saved the best for last. These are my three favorite commentaries that I've listened to.
Heat
I've talked about this movie and the commentary in the past. All I have to say is it's absolutely amazing. Michael Mann gives you great insight into what went into making Heat such a great movie, coming in at three hours long the commentary never seems to get boring or slow down. If you're a fan of the movie this is a must listen to commentary. Actually almost all of the special features on the 2-Disc Special Edition DVD (some which are on the Blu-Ray) are all very interesting.
Futurama
The cast and crew of Futurama. One word for you: hilarious. What do you get when you get a bunch of a great comedy writers as well as some very funny voice acting talent together in a room to do commentary? A commentary that's just as funny and interesting as the episodes that they're talking about. Four seasons with commentary on every episode. I highly suggest the Bend Her episode in Season 4 just so you can hear the story of "Gay Guy and the Ghost."
The Simpsons
I have a confession to make, I'm not sure how many times I've actually listened to the commentaries on The Simpsons. They're just that good. Because they've released 13 Seasons on DVD (so far) you have many different members of cast and crew across those seasons, and they're all extremely funny and informative. If you like The Simpsons (and how couldn't you?) these are something you absolutely have to listen to. Let's put it this way, they just released Season 20 on blu-ray to coincide with the 20th Anniversary of the show and you could tell it was rushed out. None of the special features that all of the other seasons have, and that includes commentary. If they ever release it again and the new version does have the special features/commentary I will double dip in a heart beat and not feel at all bad about it. The commentaries are just that good.
So there you have it, 10 really good commentaries. If you're a movie fan or are just looking for some good commentaries I highly suggest you start out with some of these movies. They're all very good commentaries and really what commentaries should be.
Saturday, May 1, 2010
KontrolFreek's FPS Freek Review
When I first saw the FPS Freek I kind of laughed at the idea. I don't know how many of these types of things I have seen throughout my gaming days. Devices that promise to make you better than you were before. Better, stronger, faster. And for the most part, I ignore them and pity the people who put down potentially hundreds of dollars on what I consider the snake oil of the gaming world.
My dad recently bought an Xbox 360, and the first game he decided to play was Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. He really enjoyed the game but had one problem, he just couldn't aim as quickly as he needed to be able to play online.
That's when I had my "Ah ha!" moment. I had seen the FPS Freek and remember them claiming that they would help just that. And yet I was still dubious of their claims, as was my dad... he didn't really want to put down the $10 plus $5 shipping and handling. And I understood why, at the time there were nine reviews on their site and only three on Amazon. They were all positive, but still that was only twelve people.
Yet for some reason I was intrigued. Nine reviews that were all positive seemed kind of rare for a product like this. So I decided to take a leap of faith and actually purchase a pair. I found them on Amazon for $10 plus $2 shipping, $12 didn't seem all that bad and if they didn't work I guess I was only out $12.
They came a couple days later and I decided to give them a try. I popped in Modern Warfare 2 and was ready to kick some ass... but I didn't really notice much of a difference. Perhaps a little, but not this huge boost that I had been expecting. Still, I decided to keep them on my controller and continue using them.
I played a little bit of Modern Warfare 2, followed by Mass Effect. And after a few days I really did start noticing a difference, sure it wasn't a huge difference but it was a difference nonetheless.
Aiming seemed to be a bit smoother, a bit easier, a bit faster, and honestly the controller just felt a bit more normal. The control sticks being raised made the controller feel normal in my hands. Once I had got used to the FPS Freek's they really did start to help.
I told my dad about this and he decided to purchase a pair as well, and after using them for a few days he agreed. He also started noticing that his kill to death ratio was going up.
This is all just my opinion, I have no hard scientific facts to back up my claims and for all I know it's completely in my head. To me though, there is no doubt that they work. Every time I pick up a controller that doesn't have them the controller just feels foreign to me.
The bottom line is, they cost about $14. That's really not all that much, and I'm guessing you will see a difference in your gaming. Right now there's 294 positive reviews on the KontrolFreek site and it has 4 1/2 stars on Amazon with 76 reviews. That's pretty damn good. It's not just me who thinks that these are a good product.
Does that mean that I've changed my cynical ways when it comes to these kind of peripheral devices? Not really. I still think that for most part a lot of these devices don't work and merely pray on people who will buy anything that even offers a hope of working. I do however think that in the future I won't be as quick to decide that these products don't work at all.
Buy the FPS Freek from KontrolFreek here.
Squid.
My dad recently bought an Xbox 360, and the first game he decided to play was Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. He really enjoyed the game but had one problem, he just couldn't aim as quickly as he needed to be able to play online.
That's when I had my "Ah ha!" moment. I had seen the FPS Freek and remember them claiming that they would help just that. And yet I was still dubious of their claims, as was my dad... he didn't really want to put down the $10 plus $5 shipping and handling. And I understood why, at the time there were nine reviews on their site and only three on Amazon. They were all positive, but still that was only twelve people.
Yet for some reason I was intrigued. Nine reviews that were all positive seemed kind of rare for a product like this. So I decided to take a leap of faith and actually purchase a pair. I found them on Amazon for $10 plus $2 shipping, $12 didn't seem all that bad and if they didn't work I guess I was only out $12.
They came a couple days later and I decided to give them a try. I popped in Modern Warfare 2 and was ready to kick some ass... but I didn't really notice much of a difference. Perhaps a little, but not this huge boost that I had been expecting. Still, I decided to keep them on my controller and continue using them.
I played a little bit of Modern Warfare 2, followed by Mass Effect. And after a few days I really did start noticing a difference, sure it wasn't a huge difference but it was a difference nonetheless.
Aiming seemed to be a bit smoother, a bit easier, a bit faster, and honestly the controller just felt a bit more normal. The control sticks being raised made the controller feel normal in my hands. Once I had got used to the FPS Freek's they really did start to help.
I told my dad about this and he decided to purchase a pair as well, and after using them for a few days he agreed. He also started noticing that his kill to death ratio was going up.
This is all just my opinion, I have no hard scientific facts to back up my claims and for all I know it's completely in my head. To me though, there is no doubt that they work. Every time I pick up a controller that doesn't have them the controller just feels foreign to me.
The bottom line is, they cost about $14. That's really not all that much, and I'm guessing you will see a difference in your gaming. Right now there's 294 positive reviews on the KontrolFreek site and it has 4 1/2 stars on Amazon with 76 reviews. That's pretty damn good. It's not just me who thinks that these are a good product.
Does that mean that I've changed my cynical ways when it comes to these kind of peripheral devices? Not really. I still think that for most part a lot of these devices don't work and merely pray on people who will buy anything that even offers a hope of working. I do however think that in the future I won't be as quick to decide that these products don't work at all.
Buy the FPS Freek from KontrolFreek here.
Squid.
Friday, April 30, 2010
Welcome to the Dark Side
Five years ago if you had asked me what type of gamer I was I would have told you without a doubt that I was a PC gamer. Always have been and always will be. My first introduction to video games was through the Commodore 64. I still remember playing games like Space Taxi, Beach Head, GI Joe, and oddly enough Links. My house was also very early on in getting a home computer. It seems odd that computer which is commonplace in houses now was a rarity when I was growing up. But we had one, and my god did I game on it.
Sure, I had an NES and I had SNES and pretty much every other console that was released while I was growing up, but at heart I was a PC gamer. I grew up playing Wolfenstein, Doom, Doom 2, LucasArts games, and anything else I could get my hands on. From the age of fifteen to twenty-five I would say that even though I had almost every major console that came out, I gamed pretty much exclusively on a PC.
You just couldn't get the same experience on a console as you could on a PC. Back in the day I loved Team Fortress Classic. Loved probably isn't a strong enough word for it, I was obsessed with TFC. There were days where I would sit down and play for ten hours straight. Then I moved on to Counter-Strike, another amazing game that I played for God knows how many hours. On the console they had no rival. In 1997 Goldeneye for the Nintendo 64 was released, just a year later the PC got Half Life. Try comparing those those two. I'll admit that Goldeneye was a good console shooter, but it couldn't hold a candle to Half Life.
Then came a little game called Halo. An amazing game that was the best console FPS since Goldeneye had been released four years earlier. Everyone thought it was amazing... everyone but me. I had been playing first persons shooters since Wolfenstein, while there had been two great first person shooters on the console I had so many amazing ones to choose from on the PC. Wolfenstein, Doom, Doom 2, Duke Nukem, Quake, Quake 2, Unreal Tournament, Strife, Deus Ex, Half Life, tons of Half Life Mods... the list could go on and on. So when Halo came out I looked at it with different eyes than many other, I thought it was a good... for a console game. But really it was nothing new to me. Halo offered me nothing that hadn't already been done in another game, and in some cases done better. I just continued on with my PC games.
Then it happened. PC gaming changed for me. I kept having to upgrade my hardware to run the newest games... and yet it still wasn't enough. Technology in games seemed to be making such huge leaps and bounds that I couldn't financially keep up. I was having to buy new video cards, more RAM and eventually new computers. And then it seemed a lot of the games being released were nothing more then tech demos. Games that needed high end rigs to actually run and look even somewhat decent. So it was better video cards and more RAM and eventually new computers. Then another thing happened. All of the sudden the minimum and recommended requirements just didn't seem right. I played many games where I easily exceeded the minimum requirements to play the game and fell just short of the recommended requirements... and yet the game barely ran. So it was more RAM, better video cards, whatever you needed to get that game to run. One game in particular that I remember was the Bioshock demo. I really wanted to play that game, it looked amazing. I met all the requirements and yet... I couldn't get video. Oh the game was playing, I could hear the sound, but no video. Turns out the game didn't support my video card. Should I go out and buy a video card just to play one game? I decided against that. But next time I was over at my brother's house I decided to try it on his computer. So I got the demo and everything played great, except I didn't get sound. Apparently his sound card wasn't compatible with the game. So you did what you had to do, you went out and got more RAM and a new video card and...
I was through. I had had enough. I just couldn't keep spending money for upgrades to a computer that still may or may not run the game I wanted to play. I was sick and tired of playing the game (no pun intended). So I played games that I had played before that I knew would run and looked for alternatives. At about that time my brother was coming to the same conclusion.
A week before my brother went on vacation he bought an Xbox 360. I was going to be house sitting for him so this would give me a chance to test it out, see if this would work for me. The only problem was is the only games he had were the bundle that came with it, Kung Fu Panda and Lego Indiana Jones. I really wanted to try something else, a different genre of game.
I went to my local Gamestop to see what they had, at this point in time I really had no idea what I wanted to play. I didn't really want to buy a $50 game for a system I didn't own so I looked through the used games. That's when I saw Condemned: Criminal Origins. It looked interesting, it looked fun, but it was basically a first person shooter. I hadn't really had a great history with console first person shooters, but I decided to give it a chance anyway.
And in a silly kind of way, Condemned: Criminal Origins changed my life. No, I'm not talking in any sort of meaningful way, I'm talking that it was the game that somewhat converted me to console gaming. This was a great game. It was fun and it wasn't really like any other game I had ever played. I've played a ton of first person shooters throughout my lifetime but never have I played one that consisted almost entirely of melee weapons. It was something new, and it worked. And it felt so natural. Even though I had spent most my life using a keyboard and mouse to control my character there wasn't really a learning curve to switching over to a controller. I was hooked. I beat Condemned in about four days and thought it was awesome. So the next day I went out and bought Assassin's Creed. Bear in mind I had now bought two games for a system I didn't even own. I played Assassin's Creed for a day or so but I ran into a problem. My brother had a standard definition TV. I was having a hard time reading the text of the tutorials the game was giving me.
So that day I went out and bought an Xbox 360 and an HDTV for myself. I had switched to console gaming in a big way. I was hooked. I remember the first time I watched the Assassin's Creed opening movie in HD, I was blown away. It was amazing. The Xbox 360 in HD was absolutely stunning. It was great playing PC games on my 19" monitor, but it was nothing compared to an Xbox 360 on a 32" HDTV.
I've had my Xbox 360 for a little over a year now. I also added a PS3 to the collection as well. I'll also be the first to say that now, I consider myself a console gamer. Sure I'll play games on my PC from time to time, but not even close to as often as I play games on my Xbox 360.
It breaks down like this. I have an Xbox 360, it cost me $275. I never have to put in more RAM or a better video card. The next upgrade I'll have to buy for it is a entirely new system whenever they get around to releasing it. I don't have to worry that my Xbox 360 won't run a game that I put in the drive. I know that any game I put in that DVD drive is going to run on my system. All this for $275. It plays all of the newest games I want to play with no hassle, no need to upgrade, and without having to do things like run it at the lowest graphic settings. I can't say the same thing about my computer.
Are there things I miss about PC gaming? Very little. The only thing that comes to mind are mods. I miss mods on games. I recently saw someone playing Fallout 3 on PC with mods and wished that I could. Sure I had played and beaten Fallout 3 on Xbox 360, but some of these mods looked awesome... then I remembered what happened when I tried playing Fallout 3 on my PC. I bought the game because everything said I could run it, I met the requirements and everything. Except it ran like hell on my computer. Awful slowdown unless I ran it at the lowest possible graphic settings. Then I remembered playing with mods on Morrowind... and how often it would crash because of the mods conflicting with each other. Then I realized that I didn't miss mods all that much and didn't mind playing Fallout 3 on my Xbox 360.
So now I'm avdirty console peasant. And I regret nothing about my decision.
Recently my Dad wanted to get back into video games so I suggested Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. It ranks as easily one of my favorite games of all time and I knew his PC would run it. So I installed it for him and showed him how to play it. That's when I discovered something. After decades of being a PC gamer, the keyboard felt foreign to me, I wondered why I needed to stretch a finger to hit V to reload. On my Xbox controller all I had to do was hold down B. No muss, no fuss.
The conversion was complete.
To me this is the first generation of gaming where this is actually possible. Up until the Xbox 360/PS3 this just couldn't have happened. Before this consoles had very little to offer me that the PC couldn't also offer me as well as much more. Now I would say that there's very little that the PC can offer me that the Xbox 360/PS3 can't offer me, but do it cheaper, without the hassle, and without putting me in debt ever two or three years.
And I, for one, welcome our new gaming overlords.
Squid.
Sure, I had an NES and I had SNES and pretty much every other console that was released while I was growing up, but at heart I was a PC gamer. I grew up playing Wolfenstein, Doom, Doom 2, LucasArts games, and anything else I could get my hands on. From the age of fifteen to twenty-five I would say that even though I had almost every major console that came out, I gamed pretty much exclusively on a PC.
You just couldn't get the same experience on a console as you could on a PC. Back in the day I loved Team Fortress Classic. Loved probably isn't a strong enough word for it, I was obsessed with TFC. There were days where I would sit down and play for ten hours straight. Then I moved on to Counter-Strike, another amazing game that I played for God knows how many hours. On the console they had no rival. In 1997 Goldeneye for the Nintendo 64 was released, just a year later the PC got Half Life. Try comparing those those two. I'll admit that Goldeneye was a good console shooter, but it couldn't hold a candle to Half Life.
Then came a little game called Halo. An amazing game that was the best console FPS since Goldeneye had been released four years earlier. Everyone thought it was amazing... everyone but me. I had been playing first persons shooters since Wolfenstein, while there had been two great first person shooters on the console I had so many amazing ones to choose from on the PC. Wolfenstein, Doom, Doom 2, Duke Nukem, Quake, Quake 2, Unreal Tournament, Strife, Deus Ex, Half Life, tons of Half Life Mods... the list could go on and on. So when Halo came out I looked at it with different eyes than many other, I thought it was a good... for a console game. But really it was nothing new to me. Halo offered me nothing that hadn't already been done in another game, and in some cases done better. I just continued on with my PC games.
Then it happened. PC gaming changed for me. I kept having to upgrade my hardware to run the newest games... and yet it still wasn't enough. Technology in games seemed to be making such huge leaps and bounds that I couldn't financially keep up. I was having to buy new video cards, more RAM and eventually new computers. And then it seemed a lot of the games being released were nothing more then tech demos. Games that needed high end rigs to actually run and look even somewhat decent. So it was better video cards and more RAM and eventually new computers. Then another thing happened. All of the sudden the minimum and recommended requirements just didn't seem right. I played many games where I easily exceeded the minimum requirements to play the game and fell just short of the recommended requirements... and yet the game barely ran. So it was more RAM, better video cards, whatever you needed to get that game to run. One game in particular that I remember was the Bioshock demo. I really wanted to play that game, it looked amazing. I met all the requirements and yet... I couldn't get video. Oh the game was playing, I could hear the sound, but no video. Turns out the game didn't support my video card. Should I go out and buy a video card just to play one game? I decided against that. But next time I was over at my brother's house I decided to try it on his computer. So I got the demo and everything played great, except I didn't get sound. Apparently his sound card wasn't compatible with the game. So you did what you had to do, you went out and got more RAM and a new video card and...
I was through. I had had enough. I just couldn't keep spending money for upgrades to a computer that still may or may not run the game I wanted to play. I was sick and tired of playing the game (no pun intended). So I played games that I had played before that I knew would run and looked for alternatives. At about that time my brother was coming to the same conclusion.
A week before my brother went on vacation he bought an Xbox 360. I was going to be house sitting for him so this would give me a chance to test it out, see if this would work for me. The only problem was is the only games he had were the bundle that came with it, Kung Fu Panda and Lego Indiana Jones. I really wanted to try something else, a different genre of game.
I went to my local Gamestop to see what they had, at this point in time I really had no idea what I wanted to play. I didn't really want to buy a $50 game for a system I didn't own so I looked through the used games. That's when I saw Condemned: Criminal Origins. It looked interesting, it looked fun, but it was basically a first person shooter. I hadn't really had a great history with console first person shooters, but I decided to give it a chance anyway.
And in a silly kind of way, Condemned: Criminal Origins changed my life. No, I'm not talking in any sort of meaningful way, I'm talking that it was the game that somewhat converted me to console gaming. This was a great game. It was fun and it wasn't really like any other game I had ever played. I've played a ton of first person shooters throughout my lifetime but never have I played one that consisted almost entirely of melee weapons. It was something new, and it worked. And it felt so natural. Even though I had spent most my life using a keyboard and mouse to control my character there wasn't really a learning curve to switching over to a controller. I was hooked. I beat Condemned in about four days and thought it was awesome. So the next day I went out and bought Assassin's Creed. Bear in mind I had now bought two games for a system I didn't even own. I played Assassin's Creed for a day or so but I ran into a problem. My brother had a standard definition TV. I was having a hard time reading the text of the tutorials the game was giving me.
So that day I went out and bought an Xbox 360 and an HDTV for myself. I had switched to console gaming in a big way. I was hooked. I remember the first time I watched the Assassin's Creed opening movie in HD, I was blown away. It was amazing. The Xbox 360 in HD was absolutely stunning. It was great playing PC games on my 19" monitor, but it was nothing compared to an Xbox 360 on a 32" HDTV.
I've had my Xbox 360 for a little over a year now. I also added a PS3 to the collection as well. I'll also be the first to say that now, I consider myself a console gamer. Sure I'll play games on my PC from time to time, but not even close to as often as I play games on my Xbox 360.
It breaks down like this. I have an Xbox 360, it cost me $275. I never have to put in more RAM or a better video card. The next upgrade I'll have to buy for it is a entirely new system whenever they get around to releasing it. I don't have to worry that my Xbox 360 won't run a game that I put in the drive. I know that any game I put in that DVD drive is going to run on my system. All this for $275. It plays all of the newest games I want to play with no hassle, no need to upgrade, and without having to do things like run it at the lowest graphic settings. I can't say the same thing about my computer.
Are there things I miss about PC gaming? Very little. The only thing that comes to mind are mods. I miss mods on games. I recently saw someone playing Fallout 3 on PC with mods and wished that I could. Sure I had played and beaten Fallout 3 on Xbox 360, but some of these mods looked awesome... then I remembered what happened when I tried playing Fallout 3 on my PC. I bought the game because everything said I could run it, I met the requirements and everything. Except it ran like hell on my computer. Awful slowdown unless I ran it at the lowest possible graphic settings. Then I remembered playing with mods on Morrowind... and how often it would crash because of the mods conflicting with each other. Then I realized that I didn't miss mods all that much and didn't mind playing Fallout 3 on my Xbox 360.
So now I'm avdirty console peasant. And I regret nothing about my decision.
Recently my Dad wanted to get back into video games so I suggested Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. It ranks as easily one of my favorite games of all time and I knew his PC would run it. So I installed it for him and showed him how to play it. That's when I discovered something. After decades of being a PC gamer, the keyboard felt foreign to me, I wondered why I needed to stretch a finger to hit V to reload. On my Xbox controller all I had to do was hold down B. No muss, no fuss.
The conversion was complete.
To me this is the first generation of gaming where this is actually possible. Up until the Xbox 360/PS3 this just couldn't have happened. Before this consoles had very little to offer me that the PC couldn't also offer me as well as much more. Now I would say that there's very little that the PC can offer me that the Xbox 360/PS3 can't offer me, but do it cheaper, without the hassle, and without putting me in debt ever two or three years.
And I, for one, welcome our new gaming overlords.
Squid.
My Favorite Movies
Recently my cousin posted a list of his top 100 favorite movies. I found it kind of interesting because the literally night before I had tried to figure out my top 10 favorite movies, and had come up empty handed. I've always had a list of my top 3 favorite movies that has changed very little over the past few years, but pushing it past three has always been trouble for me.
First I'm going to go into my top three favorite movies.
Heat
Heat has stood at the top of my list for a very long time now. I find almost everything about this movie to be perfect. The pairing of Al Pacino and Robert De Niro is amazing, the supporting cast is phenomenal, and the story couldn't be better. If you have the chance, listen to Michael Mann's audio commentary on the special edition DVD or the Blu-Ray. It's a three hour movie and he does commentary on it by himself. It's difficult to be interesting for that long but he manages to do it. He explains the little details he did everywhere in this movie that in my opinion make it great. Plus the bank robbery scene is absolutely amazing.
The Godfather
Nothing I can say about this movie hasn't been said a thousand times before. It's constantly on top 10 lists by everyone from critics to normal folks like you and I. It's an amazing movie, and the ending baptism scene is probably one of the greatest scenes in movie history.
The Star Wars Trilogy
Yes, I know this is three movies. No, I don't care. I'm counting it as one giant movie. Any of the three movies on their own are amazing, but when you put all three movies together you have a masterpiece. Easily some of the best movies ever made.
And that's where that trail goes cold. Sure, I can think of probably 500 other movies that I very much enjoy, but I'm just not sure I can put those in a numerical order of how much I enjoyed them. Plus there's the fact that the list constantly fluctuates. I don't know how many times I haven't seen a movie in years that I'll re-watch and think "Wow, that was absolutely amazing!" Two movies that come to mind are Vanilla Sky and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.
Vanilla Sky
I've seen Vanilla Sky several times, but recently watched it again after not having seen it for a couple years. I forgot how much I enjoyed this movie. The music, the scenery, the actors, the plot... there's just so much about this movie I enjoy. I listed music first because I think this was the first movie where I really noticed how well the music was used, every little piece of music is used perfectly and seems to fit flawlessly with the scene. I know a lot of people didn't like this movie, but to me there was just so much that was great about it. Everything just seemed to click.
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Probably one of if not my favorite westerns (it has to go head to head with Tombstone which is an amazing movie.) This is a movie that I wish more people had the chance to see. It had a rather small budget movie and a limited release, and it's a shame because it's a spectacular movie with phenomenal cinematography some amazing performances. Remember when Brad Pitt was just another pretty face and no male really wanted to pay attention to him, but every one of their wives and girlfriends did? Oh how times have changed, and this movie really showcases his acting ability. He is amazing as Jesse James, playing him as manic and crazy but also making him personable. And Casey Affleck gives what could be the best role of his lifetime in this movie. This is a role that he was born to play, he is spectacular as Robert Ford and in my opinion should have won the best supporting Oscar. The last half hour or so of the movie is acting at it's best, leading up to an absolutely amazing ending all while showing just how great an actor Casey Affleck is.
But here's the problem... where do I rank those movies? I think they're both amazing movies, but are they in my top ten? Maybe, I'm not really sure. Would I rather watch The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford over say Citizen Kane? Well that would certainly depend on the day and my mood. Do I think The Assassination of Jesse Jame by the Coward Robert Ford is a better movie than Citizen Kane? I'm not really sure. I enjoy them both greatly and for probably completely different reasons. So how do I rank one over the other?
And that's how my mind works every time I try to make a top 10 or a top 100 list. I'm just not exactly sure how to rank the movies that I enjoy. I enjoy so many different movies across so many different genres for so many different reasons it makes it hard for me to give a concrete "These are my favorite movies."
Movies are a huge part of my life. There's very little that I enjoy more then sitting down and watching a movie. It doesn't matter if it's a movie I've seen a hundred times or a movie I've never seen before in my life. I just enjoy the experience that movies bring to me.
So instead of a top 100 favorite movies, I've decided in the next little bit to write a "Top 3 movies with 97ish movies I greatly enjoy" list. Nothing but the top 3 will be in any particular order. Just movies that I've watched and enjoyed, as simple as that.
Squid.
First I'm going to go into my top three favorite movies.
Heat
Heat has stood at the top of my list for a very long time now. I find almost everything about this movie to be perfect. The pairing of Al Pacino and Robert De Niro is amazing, the supporting cast is phenomenal, and the story couldn't be better. If you have the chance, listen to Michael Mann's audio commentary on the special edition DVD or the Blu-Ray. It's a three hour movie and he does commentary on it by himself. It's difficult to be interesting for that long but he manages to do it. He explains the little details he did everywhere in this movie that in my opinion make it great. Plus the bank robbery scene is absolutely amazing.
The Godfather
Nothing I can say about this movie hasn't been said a thousand times before. It's constantly on top 10 lists by everyone from critics to normal folks like you and I. It's an amazing movie, and the ending baptism scene is probably one of the greatest scenes in movie history.
The Star Wars Trilogy
Yes, I know this is three movies. No, I don't care. I'm counting it as one giant movie. Any of the three movies on their own are amazing, but when you put all three movies together you have a masterpiece. Easily some of the best movies ever made.
And that's where that trail goes cold. Sure, I can think of probably 500 other movies that I very much enjoy, but I'm just not sure I can put those in a numerical order of how much I enjoyed them. Plus there's the fact that the list constantly fluctuates. I don't know how many times I haven't seen a movie in years that I'll re-watch and think "Wow, that was absolutely amazing!" Two movies that come to mind are Vanilla Sky and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.
Vanilla Sky
I've seen Vanilla Sky several times, but recently watched it again after not having seen it for a couple years. I forgot how much I enjoyed this movie. The music, the scenery, the actors, the plot... there's just so much about this movie I enjoy. I listed music first because I think this was the first movie where I really noticed how well the music was used, every little piece of music is used perfectly and seems to fit flawlessly with the scene. I know a lot of people didn't like this movie, but to me there was just so much that was great about it. Everything just seemed to click.
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Probably one of if not my favorite westerns (it has to go head to head with Tombstone which is an amazing movie.) This is a movie that I wish more people had the chance to see. It had a rather small budget movie and a limited release, and it's a shame because it's a spectacular movie with phenomenal cinematography some amazing performances. Remember when Brad Pitt was just another pretty face and no male really wanted to pay attention to him, but every one of their wives and girlfriends did? Oh how times have changed, and this movie really showcases his acting ability. He is amazing as Jesse James, playing him as manic and crazy but also making him personable. And Casey Affleck gives what could be the best role of his lifetime in this movie. This is a role that he was born to play, he is spectacular as Robert Ford and in my opinion should have won the best supporting Oscar. The last half hour or so of the movie is acting at it's best, leading up to an absolutely amazing ending all while showing just how great an actor Casey Affleck is.
But here's the problem... where do I rank those movies? I think they're both amazing movies, but are they in my top ten? Maybe, I'm not really sure. Would I rather watch The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford over say Citizen Kane? Well that would certainly depend on the day and my mood. Do I think The Assassination of Jesse Jame by the Coward Robert Ford is a better movie than Citizen Kane? I'm not really sure. I enjoy them both greatly and for probably completely different reasons. So how do I rank one over the other?
And that's how my mind works every time I try to make a top 10 or a top 100 list. I'm just not exactly sure how to rank the movies that I enjoy. I enjoy so many different movies across so many different genres for so many different reasons it makes it hard for me to give a concrete "These are my favorite movies."
Movies are a huge part of my life. There's very little that I enjoy more then sitting down and watching a movie. It doesn't matter if it's a movie I've seen a hundred times or a movie I've never seen before in my life. I just enjoy the experience that movies bring to me.
So instead of a top 100 favorite movies, I've decided in the next little bit to write a "Top 3 movies with 97ish movies I greatly enjoy" list. Nothing but the top 3 will be in any particular order. Just movies that I've watched and enjoyed, as simple as that.
Squid.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
