why don’t you just learn the guitar, hero?

despite my urgent warnings to proscribe guitar hero from my sister, my parents nevertheless decided to buy it for her and now the villainous game is in my house, decaying the creative potential of my family. i say family because i caught my dad playing it today. it was weird. i can appreciate the pure technical prowess required to faithfully replicate button sequences at high speeds, but it makes me wonder why someone who can perform the feat featured above, doesn’t just learn to play a real guitar. it’s clear that he has the mental focus and digital dexterity to coordinate a flurry of motions that undoubtedly resembles an epileptic spider. why not use that talent on the real deal? i think what people really want is to be graded on their performances. that’s what makes these guitar games so fun. they grade you so that you know there is always room for improvement. someone needs to create a program that listens to actual guitar playing and then grades the performance. maybe then more people will learn to play the actual instrument. i wouldn’t mind going around telling people how much they suck while they play their favorite rock songs on a real six-string but there’s only so much of me to go around. shame.

the long winding road to fast cars

recently, i lost my one and only copy of call of duty 4 to an act of violence unparalleled in modern history. i cannot think of a single moment, let alone a stretch of time within the past two centuries in which more violations to human rights were committed than in the single instance my dad scratched up my cod4 disc. surely forced relocation and non-consensual euthanasia pale in comparison to the atrocity of losing the best online multiplayer game in recent years. it was also like $50 when i got it. needless to say, i’ve been forced to revisit my games of yore, sometimes reaching back as far as a year. talk about retro gaming. anyway, i’ve taken up relearning the joys of kissing the apex and tuning gear ratios with a fun little game called forza 2 motorsport.

during a particularly tedious run of the nürburgring nordschleife track (not nearly as fun as pronouncing the name), my mind began wandering off as i grew weary of the monotonous forests of germany (this explains my traffic record). soon i was pondering how best to answer a question that’s been popping up occasionally among the girls i know. “why do they advertise 0-60 in car commercials?” or the declarative variant, “i hate when they advertise 0-60 in car commercials.”

the argument goes that it’s needless to purchase a car for its acceleration or performance because it is so rare that one can truly enjoy the g’s when driving during the typical excursion. nor is it rational to purchase a car with racing credentials when you are clearly not a professional race car driver. while i am quick to cede the argument that performance cars are not rational purchases, i find it ironic to hear women preaching the virtues of rational spending.

to put it in the simplest terms, performance sports cars are luxury items. they fall into the same category as designer shoes. clearly, you don’t need 20 pairs of shoes to get by, nor do you need one that’s worth over $500. you’re never going to use them, just like the 500 ft lbs of torque we will never use on the road. it’s not a matter of practicality, it’s a matter of luxury. you’d be hard pressed to find a person who doesn’t dream of indulging in some needless expenditures, whether it be a 6 bath mansion, a $3,000 guitar, or even a 52″ plasma. it’s just that simple. in america, we value luxury. if you want a no-frills lifestyle, i suggest moving to guatemala; and unless you’re prepared to swear off all the frivolous crap you enjoy, i would suggest you stop asking why 0-60 is a legitimate concern to some people.

hey sarge, where are we?

like many a trigger happy youths, i have recently taken to playing call of duty 4: modern warfare with a zeal normally reserved only for the most vital of functions, like breathing or using the bathroom. indeed, the game is a masterpiece within the fps genre. however, as anyone who’s played through the campaign knows, the backdrop of the story is somewhat vague, particularly the segments unfolding in the middle east. if you have politically invested friends like me, you will inevitably have heard one ask, “what country is this in?” to which you answer in one of two ways. first, as an ignorant american you might be inclined to say, “iraq, duh”. you’d be wrong…sorta. a more appropriate answer would be, various undisclosed middle eastern regions. to better educate the public and make it more clear as to which nations this video game has deemed imminent threats to american safety, i have taken the liberty of comparing the mapped locations indicated in the loading sequences with an actual political map to finally settle once and for all where cod4 is taking place. the results are as follows.

the coup/the bog/war pig: saudi arabia

charlie don’t surf: kuwait

shock and awe: iraq/iran (border)

so there you have it. saudi arabia, kuwait, iraq, and iran will all soon be diversionary theaters of war to mask an ultranationalist russian plot to reclaim the motherland. now when your friends ask where the game is taking place, you can start rehearsing the state dept. travel warning list. then, when they ask how it is that all these countries are under one rule, you can tell them its just a game. a blood-soaked, ultra-violent, arab-massacring game. hoorah!

gg mang

oghc – overlord

proving that no one is immune to the vulgar language that all video games invariably bring forth from the vile and filthy pits of your stomachs to the tips of your tongues.

you can read more about grandma and her gaming insights, exploits, and adventures at old grandma hardcore.

kaz hirai is a man’s man

in case you don’t know who kaz hirai is, and i don’t really expect you to unless your name is adam, he’s the president and coo of sony computer entertainment (sce). that means he’s pretty much in charge of the playstation 3 and everything related to it. here’s why he’s a man’s man.

what a pro.

pure pwnage

like, rly, i just got introduced to the most pwning online satire ever. it’s about this pro named jeremy and how he pretty much pwns n00bs. cuz n00bs are like everywhere and somebody has to pwn them, cuz they’re n00bs right, and so jeremy like, goes around just pwning all the n00bs and like, his buddy kyle films it so that other ppl can see him pwning and realize how pro he is when it comes to pwning all the n00bs. also like, there’s all these awesome friends that he has. some of them are n00bs that he pwns, and some of them are also pros that pwn n00bs, and they like hang out and stuff. it’s totally l337. you have to check it out, cuz it’s sooo funny. it’s like pro-funny and if you don’t watch it, you’re pretty much the biggest n00b evr. lol, n00b fag, rolf. also, hopefully they accept my t-shirt designs so i can get like $100 gift card for their noobstore. that would be so pro.

here’s, like, the link to episode 1. cuz if u wanna be a pro, u gotta like start at the beginning

Pure Pwnage: Episode 1 – The Life of a Pro Gamer

here’re, like, my t-shirt designs. they’re totally pro.

why the wii is de-evolving the gaming industry

since the launch of the nintendo wii, i have been a staunch opponent to its wild and wacky philosophy towards gaming. i was happily content with leaving the wrist flicking to the homosexual community, but nintendo thought it worthwhile to introduce it to the gaming community. sounds like you’ve got some ulterior motives, shigeru; care to share? now, maybe it’s because i never grew up with classic nintendo platformers like mario and donkey kong, so i never developed the fanatic sense of loyalty to nintendo that comes about from years of substituted parenting, but i find the entire idea behind the wii remote to be childish, immature, and superficial. gaming can be much more than cheap fun that lasts a week before becoming a tedious chore, but nintendo insists on keeping the industry an insubstantial novelty, instead of expanding it into the influential medium for art and media that it could be.

the reason a video game is fun comes from the imaginative way it is able to detail a virtual world for us to interact with. it is a world where you can act in ways unthinkable within the realm of reality. you can be anything, do anything. a good game should have amazingly beautiful graphics, employ innovative game engines, and maintain an engrossing story. games like grand theft auto 3, knights of the old republic, and half-life 2 all exemplify these qualities, placing the gamer into an engrossing world where anything is possible. these qualities only increase as video game hardware and technology progresses and expands, allowing for more stunning graphics, more involved game design, more expansive settings, more complex engines, etc. nintendo however has taken a cheap sidestep to the evolution of gaming and decided to instead focus on user input. instead of the aforementioned qualities, nintendo substitutes a more extensive user input system that gives cheap thrills and distracts from the utterly disappointing games they offer. have you seen call of duty 3 for the wii? it’s like watching a gif animation made with ms paint.

the most disappointing aspect is that nintendo is succeeding with the wii. this sends a message out to the industry that complex games are not what people want, but rather childish gimmicks that fail to advanced the software side of gaming. one of my favorite things in an fps is seeing how accurate the physics engine can be. watching the rag doll animations of lifeless enemies as you desecrate their bodies with explosives has become a pleasing hobby for many gamers, the more realistic the flailing, the better it is. however, the realism is dictated by the complexity of the engine, which is limited by the power of the system. i’ve played red steel on the wii, and i can say that it is a very disappointing and unsatisfying feeling when your enemies all drop in the same repetitive patterns. this, compared to a game like f.e.a.r. which employs a very fun physics engine, or the new lucas arts games like star wars: force unleashed, indiana jones 4, and fracture which use the euphoria physics engine; these are games which give the gamer that visceral feel they want when they blow an enemy combatant 10 feet into the air and watch the body free fall like the meat bag it is.

furthermore, while graphics don’t mean everything, they do enhance the gaming experience a lot. nothing is more engrossing than a believable environment with believable looking characters. the wii just doesn’t have the capacity to bring you the dramatic and breathtaking world of assassin’s creed or mass effect. it can never pull you in with the kind of realism that next-gen games should possess. while the other games pull far ahead with life like character models and photo realistic race tracks and awesome lighting effects, the wii offers a remote control. while other games make you believe you’re actually there, looking for buried treasure on an island full of pirates or fighting for your life in the heated battles of front line combat, the wii sticks with muddled graphics that remind you of the virtual nature of the game or cartoonish characters that don’t require detail or definition. maybe you like that kiddie crap, but it’s a stale and timid step for an industry with so much possibility. not everyone appreciates cell shaded elves, but i’m positive that everyone, save carol the goggle-snubbing chem student, will appreciate the beauty that true next-gen graphics are fully capable of.

the bottom line is that the wii only improves how you interact with the game, while next-gen gaming should be about how you interact within the game. the amazing virtual world that video games create needs to be built upon, to make them more impressive on every side. the wii is actually taking us a step back by reaffirming how detached we are from that virtual reality. it reminds us of our physical boundaries and the restrictions of the real world, preventing the gamer from becoming fully immersed in the fantastic worlds where they choose to play out a fictional life they can adopt for an hour or two as their own. i own an xbox 360, my roommate, adam, owns a playstation 3, and though these two consoles are viciously struggling to compete against one another, i can appreciate both of them and couldn’t care less who comes out on top, so long as they keep pushing the game envelope. however, it irritates me that the wii can sell so well when it really offers so little. i watched the nintendo e3 media event, and i heard reggie say that the wii wasn’t a fad, but i can only hope that for the future of the industry, he is dead wrong.

call of duty 3 (playstation 3)

call of duty 3 (wii)

nba live ‘08 (playstation 3)

nba live ‘08 (wii)

here are some examples of what we need more of in the gaming world

assassin’s creed

killzone 2

mass effect