I am a Gamer
Posted on Friday, March 2 2012 @ 22:35:17 Eastern

  I'm 28 years old, I've been playing video games since I was 6. I started on the Atari, then a Nintendo, and it went on from there. Do you know what I've done in my time? Let me tell you.

  I've saved Kingdoms, I've battled dragons, I've brought down evil tyrants, I've flown through the galaxy in a myriad of badass ships. I've shot weapons that haven't been built, I've cut monsters spawned from the underground with chainsaw bayonets. I've slept with possibly hundreds of men, women, and perhaps an alien or two. I've swung swords, I've smashed boulders with hammers, I've collected Rupees, and assembled the Tri-Force. I've solved mysteries, I've traveled in time, I've seen dinosaurs and I've seen ninjas, sometimes at the same time. I've been a Ninja, I've eaten Power Pellets, I've jumped over pits, I've raced cars across tabletops while dodging apples and coffee cups. I've been to Rome, I've delved the genetic memories of my Ancestors, and I've even gotten to talk to famous inventors and philosophers.

  I've gotten to pilot Mecha, I've saved the galaxy from a race of religious aliens. I've wandered the wastelands of DC, I've shot mutants, and high-tech soldiers. I've saved the Princess; I've been friends with a little dude wearing a mushroom hat. I've defeated Kefka, and I've brought down Sephiroth. I've been a lone soldier on a snowy island, I watched as a towel was laid across the face of a female sniper, I shed tears as the wolves howled their beautiful song. I've been The Batman; I've sailed across rooftops, and beat up 30 thugs at once.

  I've participated in tournaments, where I’ve ripped off heads and torn out hearts. I’ve seen Wolverine face off against Ryu. I’ve been to Japan, I’ve been to Tokyo. I’ve been to Russia, England and France. I’ve survived the zombie apocalypse, I’ve survived the super virus, I’ve fought bandits with make-shift weaponry. I’ve battled zombies on an island, in a mall, and a dozen other locations. I’ve seen mutants, I’ve seen demons. I’ve been a Mutant, and a demon. I’ve been a pirate, I’ve sank ships from the East India Trading Company. I’ve traversed beautiful alien worlds, and saw sights you wouldn’t believe. I've walked through breath-taking underwater cities, battled with hulking humanoids in diving suits, and rescued little girls, I've got plasmids, so back off, would you kindly?

I’m the Dovakhiin, and the Nerevarine.

Hell, I’ve even owned a Lemonade Stand.

I am a gamer, and this is my world.

[ 7 Comments ]        [ Post a Comment ]

Letting go of your childhood
Posted on Wednesday, October 26 2011 @ 13:19:31 Eastern

  I'm going to assume anyone who reads Game Revolution plays video games, I'm also going to assume some of you are either teenagers, or younger, as well as adults of all ages. This particular blog however targets the adults, as those of you who are younger have done no wrong. It's us, it's the adults, the big ones... we're the ones dragging down innovation, and clinging hopelessly to dead memories of games that we played 'back in the good old days.' Interestingly enough, I've discovered the good old days weren't so good after all. This blog will talk about several subjects, and all of them can be traced back to one idea: Let go of your childhood. Things we'll discuss: The myth of originality, innovation, and re-makes.

  Originality... what makes something original? Does it have to be completely original, bursting at the seams with original ideas? Some of you seem to think so... but I ask, why? You know that originality is a myth? Whatever is done, has already been done. Originality died out a long time ago, it isn't going to come back, and I would argue, it never existed. It was a niche, a word to attach to someone who came up with the basic idea 'first.' I could stand here, and accuse Starcraft of ripping off Warhammer 40,000, or accuse Gears of War for doing the same. I could rant that Warcraft is a rip-off of Warhammer, or that Wolfenstein 3D was a re-textured Catacombs 3D with some extra bells and whistles and a new texture-pack and sounds. I could point out that in gaming past, originality wasn't really original, that ideas were copy and pasted worse than they are today. Doom II looks, and plays exactly like Doom I, with a few extra weapons and bosses, as well as some gameplay tweaks. Fallout 2 looks exactly like Fallout 1, graphically (excluding new models) it is the same game. Yet, we can't see that, we keep trying to search for originality where it doesn't exist in modern games, and my advice is to stop looking for it, you'll only find disappointment.

  So why doesn't originality exist? Simple, we as consumers don't want it. We've proven that by throwing our money at them, and that isn't a bad thing. We buy what is familiar, we have a tendency to relate one thing to another, and only show our interest if it hits that sweet spot in our mind, that spot that says, 'Hey, Gears looks like Space Marines, neat, I'll have to give it a go.' It happens, even if you don't realize it does. Why did you buy Batman: AC? Or even Asylum? Because it had Batman, it had Mark H. as the Joker, and other nice touches, it was familiar. If you had seen a title sitting there on the store shelves with some jackass in a costume that looks vaguely like a Bat, would you have bought it? I think not, no matter how good the game is. To prove a point, let's use Bulletstorm, an original (as in, the first game in a theoretical series, not that the game is entirely original) game that while it was a great ride, did poorly in sales. Why is that? You could say lack of multiplayer, but look at Elder Scrolls, or Mass Effect or any of the other primarily Single-Player games out there, and they did fine. Sure, it honestly could be for any reason at all, but I'd be willing to bet its because it had nothing to compare it against. Yes, you could argue here that games like Bioshock where original and did well, but they weren't, they're very similar to System Shock. I won't spend all day pointing out that System Shock used a similar narrative structure of isolating you from the people around you, or that it had vaguely similar level-up mechanics and gameplay, but suffice to say, it wasn't original either. Call of Duty (before modern warfare) was a spin-off inspired by Medal of Honor, created by a studio which if I recall had worked on Medal of Honor, no originality there either. I'm sure Medal of Honor has an inspiration somewhere... and someone took it, changed it some, improved upon it, and sold it which brings me to my next phase in getting you to let go of your childhood... innovation.

  Innovation, a word that almost means an original idea, or at least the introduction of something new. However, it has a more common meaning in todays world, it means taking something, improving it, and seeing if it will work, and yet for all we throw our money at un-original titles (again not a bad thing), we despise innovation. We want change, yet we ***** about it when it happens. Let us examine a prime canditate for this arguement, Fallout. Ah, Fallout, most people enjoy the title, some don't. Fallout 1 and 2 were amazing titles, and between the two games, showed little graphical or conceptual change. The humor was the same, the icons for the most part, and what happened... it died, didn't it? Fallout vanished, and what came after were titles that tried to do the formula differently, because Fallout sales were dying after Fallout 2, due to, you guessed it, lack of innovation. They tried to make it a Tactics game, a sort of take on tactical combat by exploiting the fairly interesting turn-based combat system. This produced Fallout: Tactics. Then, they tried (and succesfully, at least, as far as enjoyment goes) to make it into a top-down loot-fest game, Brotherhood of Steel. So the series stagnated, and instead of letting it die, Bethesda bought the Fallout license, and decided to make a new game. "BLASPHEMY!" we yell almost immediately, suspecting an Oblivion with guns. We didn't wait for the previews, we didn't want for screenshots or information, instead of waiting to play the game, we lunged at them, and said some very not nice things... Websites like No Mutants Allowed, actively tried to dissuade people from buying the game, despite having no experience with the game. They lashed out, tooth and nail, before it even released. I'm not going to go into detail here, and explain what happened after release (suffice to say they still hate it anyway), but they were against it from the beginning, as were other fans.

  It just seems as if they didn't want Fallout 3 to change what Fallout 1 and 2 had established, they wanted it to stagnate, and cling to old childhood memories of "What was fun." Look, perspective is everything, time changes perspective. Back in the day, playing baseball was the ****, as was simple wooden dolls to play with. Now, we think that kind of stuff it boring, sure there are always exceptions to everything, some might still enjoy that stuff, but we as a society and a subculture have moved on. We're not that interested, despite what you may claim, in turn-based top-down isometric games set in a post-1950s universe. It would not have done well, it would have been a game we've all played before but with 3D graphics (Though, if those clinging to their memories would have their way, it would have been 2D again). I'm sorry, but there isn't a market for those, and frankly, I don't -want- to see the return of things like that. The market for those kind of games are downloadable games for handheld systems or xbox arcade titles. I do want to see series moving forward, and breaking free of their manacles, and shattering expectations. I want to play the new Syndicate, I want to check out Mass Effect's multiplayer, I want to see the upcoming X-Com, oh and don't get me started on the X-Com fans. Things need to move forward, or they die.

  Re-makes, good old re-makes, how we love them, because we do, you know that right? We love the familiar, as I pointed out earlier. We are driven to enjoy that with which we have a comparison. A re-make in game-terms is often a re-imaginging of the game while it tries to keep to the 'core' gameplay. I'll use X-Com as an example. The old game had saturday morning cartoon purple aliens who looked absolutely childish, blowing away futuristic soldiers who also looked like saturday morning cartoon villians. It had character progression in the form of leveling up your squad, it had items, squad-loadouts, and research, as well as a turn-based system. Alright, so, fast forward to the modern era. Honestly, do you -want- them to make a top-down isometric game with purple-skinned aliens still? I think not, sure there are exceptions, some people might want that for some unknown reason, but most don't, including me. It isn't relavent anymore, we aren't watching saturday morning cartoons anymore, we aren't watching Prime kick Megatron in the head, with cheesy dialogue. We aren't watching the Turtles fight ludicrous villians, and kick back to some pizza... and that means we don't want villians in our games that look straight out of a childrens cartoon. What are the center of most of todays alien races in both Hollywood, novels and comics? Machine-men, living robots, and guess what the enemy is in the newest X-Com? Just pointing out that games follow popular opinion, as an another example, just when you, as gamers, cried out that games were becoming sterile and very samey(sic), the boom of indie-titles surfaced, just check PSN or X-Box live arcade, all kinds of indie-titles are there.

   The new X-Com has a lot more in common with the old series than you give it credit for, I've seen the gameplay videos. Theres squad-management, research, side-missions, hotspots, and even a Fallout-style active pause, with the action points of the old game replaced by Time Units. So, what isn't X-Com about it? It's an FPS now? So what? Good on them I say, for trying something new, but haters are going to hate, no matter what.

  In closing, I'd like to urge you to let go of your childhood memories. That's all they are, memories, they are stopping you from experiencing some great innovations in the industry. They're turning you into the very old bastards we used to mock as children. Those adults who couldn't keep up with the times, we insulted them when we were young... and now, you're one of them. Just play video games, man, and enjoy 'em for all they're worth. As my favorite gunslinger says, "Peace and love!" So peace out, buddies, and lets look forward to the next big thing!


[ 8 Comments ]        [ Post a Comment ]

Piracy... It's for Freedom! ... Not really.
Posted on Wednesday, October 19 2011 @ 12:15:57 Eastern

  Software piracy is a large debate these days, discussed in blogs all over the internet.. the shocking thing is, most of these blogs are in support of it. This leaves me scratching my head in confusion, as I thought the basic idea is that you pay for something, and then you use it... I mean, the world still works like that, right? Or did I miss the memo that says, 'We are owed luxury items because we're entitled brats'?
 
   There is no excuse for piracy, none at all. Don't try to argue for it, just... quit. It's stupid, and annoying to hear software pirates, music pirates and whatnot puke out their pathetic excuses. "It's about freedom!" Is a big one... another one is "I don't like DRM", yet another is, "I can't afford it". You know the interesting thing? I don't mind pirates, at least the ones who own up to just wanting something for free, instead of trying to glorify it. I repeat, there is no excuse.
 
   I'll address each issue in turn, first up, "It's about freedom!". Really? What the **** does it have to do with freedom? You're stealing something... you aren't fighting the good fight against an evil dictator who is holding all of the food or preventing you to vote, ***hole, you're just stealing something. You aren't Robin Hood, you aren't a freedom fighter, you're a ****ing pirate, and a thief. Look at the latest news, Battlefield 3 is ripped off BEFORE IT RELEASES. What for? Because people wanted to play the SP for free. Oh, they wanted to 'preview' it, right? To make sure it didn't suck? That's what sites like Game Revolution are for, to see if the game sucks, moron. So, no excuses here, just another way for pirates to feel good about themselves.
 
Ah, here's a popular one. "I don't like DRM, so I have to pirate it because its necessary." Necessary, ***hole? Since when did it become necessary to play a game? It's a ****ing luxury item, you don't 'need' to play it, and if you do, you need to figure out your life. You aren't 'teaching' them a lesson by stealing it, you're just making sure those who pay for the game legitly are having a harder time of it. That's it, thief, you're making MY life more difficult, because every time you ***holes pirate a game, they put more DRM in it to STOP YOU, not me, the legit buyer. No, they won't stop putting DRM in it until the pirates stop, which the freeloaders won't, so I keep getting screwed. **** me, pirates are real pieces of work these days. Also, those who pirate games to circumvent the DRM are perpetuating the cycle, just don't  buy the ****ing game, that'll hurt them more than pirating it.
 
   "I can't afford it, so it is necessary to pirate it." Really? You 'need' it? See the above rant, you don't need it. It isn't bread, it isn't water, it isn't oxygen, it's a luxury item. Now, those who pirate games and do so "Because I want something free" I'm not going to rant about too much, because at least they are being honest. So, this one is short here, moving on.
 
   Now I'm sure someone will come along, and give another reason or just to justify it. **** you, theres no excuse. Quit reaching for justification, quit trying to be a **** and make up a reason why. Go ahead, go pirate PC games, honestly, but quit being a self-righteous *** about it, it's giving me a headache.

   Also, on the DRM, that is the worst excuse that is used. Let's take GOG for example, an amazing site with some of the best classics, DRM free, and super-cheap.. so that must mean nobody pirates those! Because DRM is the reason we pirate games, right? Oh wait, no... browsing Demonoid and Pirate Bay, I see GOG games everywhere with plenty of seeders and leechers, hmmm.. well **** me, there goes that theory. It must mean something, oh wait.. I know what it means! It means that pirates are just THIEVES! *GASP!* Imagine that? Pirates are thieves... huh, I never would have thought that people who want something for nothing are thieves, I always thought they were daring freedom fighters, and rogue-ish swashbucklers.
  
 

[ 11 Comments ]        [ Post a Comment ]