Showing posts with label Evan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Evan. Show all posts

Some Random Shit Happened at PAX

The good news is that I have not been stricken with the Swine Flu that reared its ugly head in Seattle over the weekend (my conscience is clear, Jeff Green!). The bad news is that I have a pretty bad cold and feel like almost, but not quite, complete shit. So rather than do a proper post where I talk about something and have, like, an opinion, here's a list of random crap I saw and did at the convention.

1.) I was standing outside of the hotel and Tim Schafer was coming down the sidewalk. Random nerds were coming the other way. When they passed, the random nerds went, in this really high-pitched and jokey voice, "Ohmigodit'sTimSchafer!" Without missing a beat, and in the same voice, Schafer went, "Ohmigodit'syouguys!" and everyone just kept walking.

2.) We were crossing the street in a big group, with me on the outside edge, and someone was crossing the other way. My first thought was, "I am probably going to shoulder-check that guy." Then we got a little closer and my second thought was, "That guy is Wil Wheaton." So my third thought, following very closely after my second thought, was, "I am probably going to shoulder-check Wil Wheaton." But luckily I missed.

3.) I spent maybe twenty minutes at the MySims Agents kiosk talking to Jeff Green about adventure games and Beatles Rock Band. This was unspeakably awesome, although I'm pretty sure he was ready for me to leave after a while.

4.) The woman dressed as The Prince at the Katamari Forever demo posed for a picture in which she pretended to kick a guy in the balls. Sadly, we did not get that picture.

5.) Saturday night, I was trying to find someone to give my concert wristband (guaranteeing access) to, and I saw a guy coming towards me (it was not Wil Wheaton this time). I was about to ask if he wanted the wristband, but then I saw that it was MC Frontalot. And I'm pretty sure he could get into the concert if he wanted to.

There was more, but I think I'm going to go sleep now. My head feels like it's full of pudding.

-Evan
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Too Little, Too Late

I am at PAX.

PAX is fucking awesome.

See you next week.
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BYU Study: Gaming Will Make You A Loser

I was listening to the radio in the car on the way home and all of a sudden, John Tesh was talking about this study from Brigham Young University that links video games to poor relationships with friends and family. According to John Tesh, the study says that a group of 813 students from six different universities answered questions about their gaming habits and the qualities of their relationships with friends and family. The study goes on to say that--

What? Why was I listening to John Tesh? We're not talking about me, okay? We need to focus.

The study (if you want to read the whole thing, it's available online) makes the following connections, among others:

1.) Playing video games, especially violent ones, is "negatively related" to relationships with parents and friends.

2.) The more young women play video games, the lower their self-esteem gets.

3.) People who play games are more likely to be involved in "risky behaviors" like binge drinking, drug abuse, and sexual promiscuity.

If you read that article I linked to above, you'll see that the researchers themselves say that the connection is "modest."

So what's the big deal?

I think it's a bit more telling that they were surveying 20-year-old students; you could just as easily make a connection between preference in ice cream flavors and "risky behaviors" because at the end of the day, they are twenty-year-old college students.

Do you know what I think causes people to have low self-esteem, fights with their parents, and a need to drink vast quantities of alcohol? Being in college. According to the study, 90% of the students surveyed lived away from their parents, which means that it is a hell of a lot easier for them to go out drinking or bring somebody home or, heaven forbid, stay up all night playing video games.

Why do they do this? Because they can.

Laura Walker, the co-author of the study, concludes, "It may be that young adults remove themselves from important social settings to play video games, or that people who already struggle with relationships are trying to find other ways to spend their time...[m]y guess is that it’s some of both and becomes circular." This makes sense at first, maybe, but it completely ignores the element of responsibility.

Let's say, for example, that you stayed up all night playing video games, so you slept during the day and missed class. You do this a number of times throughout the semester. When you receive your grades, you find that you have not performed particularly well.

Congratulations, says the study. Your video game habit has affected your academic performance, just like I said it would.

Now let's say that you stay up all night watching MacGyver. You miss class, you come home, you spend the next night watching Star Trek, and so on. You get your grades and they're terrible. Why are the grades bad? Because of TV Land? Or because you failed to get your shit together?

I'm thinking it's the latter, and it should be no different for video games. The fact is that people who neglect one part of their lives to indulge another will see a decrease in quality in the neglected area. And a big part of what people learn in college is how to prioritize, how to set goals, and how to balance work and fun. In other words, college is where many people learn to be adults. But it is also where many people drink and have a lot of sex, because that's pretty much what young people will do, if given half a chance.

-Evan

*Bonus Strangeness: The article refers to "Project READY", and the study contains a link to www.projectready.net. But if you click on that link, it's an ad portal. I'm not shouting conspiracy or anything; that's just kind of weird. Oh, and there's only one mention of Project READY on the Internet, and its goal is not to examine the transition of young people to adulthood, but rather to help non-traditional Iowa students earn a high-school diploma. Make of this information what you will.

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Alarming Findings

Report: Game Reviews Create Bias

LOS ANGELES -- The act of playing a video game, and then writing down one's opinions to be read by others, creates unfair biases against games the reviewer did not like, according to a report released today by independent advocacy group People Looking at Games Under Extreme Scrutiny (PLaGUES).

The report -- Game Played: How Unfavorable Press Coverage Affects Sales -- documents the connection between game reviewers who speak poorly about certain games and public reluctance to pay money for them, concluding that negative reviews create a bias which results in poor sales for games that do not review well.

"It's about time these game reviewers got taken to task for their unfair swaying of public opinion," said Randy Dibswillow, President of developer Crackup Games. Crackup's latest release, Let's Wank for the Nintendo Wii, currently has a 5% review average on Metacritic and has sold fewer than 300 copies.

"We spent weeks, if not months, on that game, and that's not including the days of testing," Dibswillow said. "We really wanted to nail the controls. But reviewers don't care about all that work; they just want to be funny. A few people worked several hours on Let's Wank, and that game deserves to be played."

"It's a game about wanking," said Jack "Bucky" McIntosh, Reviews Editor at popular game site Insert Coin. "Like, that's all you do. You make wanking motions with the Wii Remote and it gives you a score...somehow. How can you charge money for that?"

Dibswillow has gained support in the game industry, including an endorsement from That Giant Video Game Company President Maximillian Kaust. That Giant Video Game Company's Space Marine 5 also drew the ire of game journalists when it shipped with only half of the game on the disc.

"First of all, the claims that we shipped half a game are just wrong," Kaust said. "We at That Giant Video Game Company believe, first and foremost, in quality, and those three levels are the best you're going to find anywhere. We were looking forward to extending the experience of Space Marine 5 through three brand-new levels available as for-pay downloadable content, but I don't know that that's going to happen now. Thanks a lot, game reviewers. I hope you're happy."

PLaGUES spokesperson Janet Hobson-Dibswillow expanded on the group's findings, saying, "It's really shocking what the media is doing to these companies. These are good people who work hard for their creative visions. Back before the Internet, we didn't have all these smartass kids bending the public to their wills, and companies like Crackup and That Giant Video Game Company could release shitty games and they sold great. Wait...did I say 'shitty games'? I meant 'games.'"

When asked if PLaGUES would be running a study to examine the effects of positive reviews on public opinion, Hobson-Dibswillow responded, "I don't really see the value in that."
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Thoughts on the 360 Summer Update

The 360 Dashboard Update on Tuesday added several new features to the interface. After a few days with it, here are my initial impressions, in convenient bulleted-list form.

The Good

* Party Watch: My friend and I watched some Classic Doctor Who on what translates proportionally to an approximately 378-inch television. There is no universe in which that is not badass. And all the while we were chatting over our headsets, making jokes, and offering comments. The opportunities for MST3K-style antics are inspiring.

* It is incredibly easy and fast to add things to the Netflix Instant Queue from the Dashboard.

The Bad

* Avatar Marketplace: To be fair, I don't think I'm the target audience for this, as I'm either too old or too cheap. My avatar hasn't changed since I made it; it looks and dresses like me. I am that boring. Still, I can kind of see the appeal of giving him a lightsaber to further prove to the world what a giant fucking nerd I am. But I can't see the appeal of paying 5 bucks for it. These Geek Taxes gotta end.

* It is incredibly easy and fast to add things to the Netflix Instant Queue from the Dashboard. My Queue runneth over as it is, and I just added entire seasons of "Californication" and "Man vs. Food". Heaven help me when they add the ability to browse everything on Netflix.


The Ambivalent

* When a person is about to get booted from XBox Live while in a Party Watch session, their avatar will actually get up and leave the room. This is actually pretty cool, as far as visual representations of tech problems go, but it also led to me screaming, "No! Sit down! Please don't leave me!" at my television. It was like watching the last episode of "Cheers" all over again.

* I don't have a lot of friends on XBox Live, so I don't know how useful the extra sort options are. I can see the benefits of alphabetizing, though, if someone has a hundred people on that list; it's just never occurred to me that the Friends List view needed any updating.

* Still waiting to see how Avatar Awards works out, since I have yet to earn any. Of course, given my history with achievements, this could go into the "Bad" category real fast.


The "Whuh?"

* Richard Linklater's Slacker appears under the "Classics" heading of Netflix browsing, right between Hitchcock's Dial 'M' For Murder and Peter Medak's The Ruling Class. I have no comments here; that just struck me as odd.
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Three Shortcuts Game Designers Should Stop Taking

Everyone who creates something wants to make it the best they can. But sometimes, whether due to limitations in time or resources or plain laziness, shortcuts must be taken. In the case of video games, most shortcuts go unnoticed, and sometimes they even work out for the best, as in the case of Silent Hill’s iconic, draw-distance-concealing fog. But for every over-wise teenager trying to get home before his parents, there is an unscrupulous electrical engineer creating a recipe for disaster.

Here are three shortcuts game designers take that they really shouldn’t, and what they might try instead.


1. Bosses So Nice You Fight ‘Em Twice

I haven’t actually seen this one in a while, but it still bears repeating, and anyone who went through the uncompromising gauntlet at the end of Viewtiful Joe knows what I mean. Not satisfied with your ability to defeat these bosses once, the creators of that game made you fight them all again. Right in a row. Without letting you save between them. It’s enough to make a person rage-quit. Which I did, after my seventeenth failure, and now that’s the only thing I remember about the game.

It’s not just Viewtiful Joe, of course. Hell, even The Wind Waker fell victim to the Siren Song of Do-It-Again. I suppose the point might be to build up some tension leading up to the final boss fight, but isn’t that kind of what the rest of the game is supposed to be about? Then again, it might also be about artificially adding length and difficulty to a game considered to be too short, but that’s like putting extra potatoes in a breakfast burrito: it is bland, tasteless filler that only causes one to get fed up more quickly.

What they might try instead: Make the final boss harder. Or add one more boss before the final boss. Or hey, just cut out the rehash. It’s simpler, cheaper, faster, and nobody will miss it.


2. George Lucas Morality

Obi-Wan Kenobi once said that “Only a Sith deals in absolutes.” Well, not really; one of the cornerstones of the Star Wars series is that the Jedi are totally good and the Sith are pure dag-nasty evil. Light Side, Dark Side. There is no Gray Side.

And so it is in games, as well. This has actually been discussed a lot lately, with the release of games like Infamous and the upcoming release of Mass Effect 2, and people seem to be in agreement: there are more nuanced ways to handle morality than making gamers choose between taking a box full of kittens to an orphanage for blind children, and eating the kittens, then burning down the orphanage and salting the earth so that nothing will grow there again.

What they might try instead: The consensus seems to be to make morality more fluid, and less stark. Give players choices with actual consequences, both good and bad, that may not be immediately apparent. But also, let’s not forget about the object that has single-handedly kept realistic moral choices at bay: the Morality Meter.

Every game that employs morality as a play mechanic, at least in recent years, has had some kind of Morality Meter that reduces player choices to numbers on a scale. Did you give some money to a homeless person? The Morality Meter goes up three points. Did you explode a busload of nuns? The Morality Meter goes down two points. Not only does a Morality Meter oversimplify complex actions, it also ensures that each choice a player makes occurs in a vacuum, in which one’s decision to stab an old lady can be “cancelled out” if followed immediately by a trip to the park to feed the ducks. At the park, nobody is saying, “Isn’t that the guy who just stabbed your grandma? What does he want with those ducks?” They’re saying, “Aww…he loves those ducks so much.” Kill a hundred innocent people in Fable 2, then give a million gold to a beggar and you’ll see what I mean.

So please…get rid of the Morality Meter. Give us something real.


3. Hobbit Game Design

Also known as "There-and-Back-Again" Design, in Hobbit games it is not enough to go from Point A to Point B to Point C and then done; instead, the game takes players from A to C, then back to B to pick up anything they might have missed, and then returns them to C to deal with the trouble there, and then, seemingly for the hell of it, sends them all the way back to A to open that Mysterious Door they walked by during the tutorial. But only after a quick stop at the hitherto unmentioned Point D to pick up the key.

This is not much of a problem in open-world games, which are all about exploring and becoming familiar with a persistent and well-trod environment, but some of the most beloved games in recent memory have succumbed to Running Out of Levels Syndrome.

Halo has a lot going for it, but there is no denying that at a certain point in the game, it forces players to turn around and go back from whence they came until they end up pretty much exactly where they started. Sure, there was some stuff on fire on the way back that was not on fire on the way out, but they were the same areas, leading to the same places. For all their innovation, the makers of Halo only made half a map.

Metroid Prime 3 almost get a pass here because it is a fairly open experience, but it is a bit much near the end when the proceedings grind to a halt while the player revisits every planet to collect hidden fuel cells. This is, in fact, not much different from having to fight all of the bosses again, except that it takes quite a bit longer and is, in several important ways, less fun.

What they might try instead: Trim the fat. There is nothing wrong with making a short, linear game if what is in there is worth playing. If the world is small, fill the space between Points A and B with fun things to do, but keep it moving forward. Likewise, if a game is more open, let it feel that way. Don’t make gamers return to places because they have to; let them return because they want to.

Thoughts? Additions? I’d love to hear them.

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Ripped From Tomorrow's Headlines

First a note:

In addition to my regular Friday posts on this blog, I will also start contributing to Bitmob in the future. Those posts will probably be less regular (or maybe just less predictable) than these, and I may engage in reposting if I write something here that I am particularly proud of, or if I run out of ideas. But basically I'll still be here, but you can check me out there too. And if I haven't posted anything, there's plenty of other good stuff to read.

And now, on with the show.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Nintendo Announces Next Console
Company promises "First gaming experience for absolutely everyone"

KYOTO, Japan - Videogame giant Nintendo, manufacturers of the immensely popular Wii console, shocked the industry this week by announcing that it was nearing completion of an entirely new platform. Known internally as "Excalibur," the new hardware was unveiled Thursday morning amidst fanfare, hooplah, and stunned silence.

"I am pleased to announce the next revolution in videogames," said Nintendo president Satoru Iwata, once the dozens of white doves released at his entrance were rounded up. "With this console, we have finally realized our goal of creating a game experience with no obstacles, no barriers to entry. This is truly the first gaming experience for absolutely everyone."

To demonstrate his point, Iwata then lifted a white sheet covering the table beside him to reveal the hardware itself, which looks like a large single-slot toaster with an enormous red button on it.

"The Wii allowed us to create game experiences that brought people together like never before," Iwata continued. "But it wasn't perfect. Some people were still turned off by complicated motion controls and difficult objectives. This new system has neither. In fact, it has no controller at all. The days of having to hold something in your hand to have a meaningful entertainment experience are over. All you have to do is place the software into the console, press the button, and watch the game play itself. No pressure. No need to think. Just you."

Iwata then concluded, saying, "Please allow me to introduce you to the Nintendo Yoo."

In the Q&A that followed, Iwata explained the console's unconventional name (which, in a step up from the name of the current Nintendo console, is pronounced exactly as it is spelled): "Yoo is the next step in entertainment for everyone. Yoo will provide experiences that anyone, regardless of age, gender, physical ability, or vitality, can enjoy. Wii accomplished a lot, but now it's all about Yoo."

Nintendo also announced several dozen titles for the Yoo, all of which will be available at launch. Among them were Thimble Adventures, Book of Poko: The Movie: The Game, and Ninjabread Man 2: The Breadening. However, the biggest shock of the day came when Iwata announced that Nintendo had just signed a deal with Kojima Productions to bring a new version of last year's blockbuster Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots exclusively to the Yoo.

Metal Gear Solid 4: Superfluous will feature dozens of hours of increasingly ridiculous cutscenes and absolutely no gameplay. Hideo Kojima joined Iwata onstage to present the game.

"The future has become the present, and will soon be the past," Kojima said. "It is time for all of us to create a new future, before the old future becomes the new present. This game will do that. Also, it will grant wishes to the pure of heart."

Kojima concluded, "Yoo who? Yoo. That's who," before leaping twenty feet into the air and disappearing behind a roof beam.

We contacted top names in the gaming industry for their thoughts on Nintendo's announcement.

Justin McElroy, Joystiq: "First Demo Play, now this. Nintendo's an effing joke. Why didn't they just make a DVD player? Oh, wait. They did."

Mark Rein, Epic Games: "Fuck this casual shit. Epic is never making games for that system...what do you mean, nobody asked us to?"

Tim Schafer, Double Fine: "Who gave you this number?"

John Davison, What They Play: "My kids think this is the stupidest thing they've ever seen. And they've played Wii Music."

Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime could not be reached for comment, possibly because he could not hear us asking for his thoughts from atop his enormous pile of money.

Representatives from industry rivals Microsoft and Sony held a joint press conference Thursday afternoon, at which they said that they "Wish Nintendo luck in their new venture." They then stood silently on stage for several seconds before bursting into laughter and enthusiastically high-fiving each other.
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In the Beginning...

...I purchased a subscription to the Official US Playstation Magazine. And it was good. But then there came a time when OPM was no more, and so my subscription was transferred to Electronic Gaming Monthly.

And it was also good.

But lo, time passed, and I found my subscription was about to lapse, so I went online and filled out a renewal. And I thought it was good.

And then the magazine shut down.

Then came much wailing and gnashing of teeth, and questions about what exactly was going to happen to my twenty dollars, which EGM had already charged to my credit card though there were but few days between my renewal and the announcement of the UGO buyout. But those questions went unanswered, and the twenty dollars were feared to be lost forever.

And there came a time when I went unto my mailbox, to discover what it had for me, and behold! it had a copy of Maxim. And I asked my mailbox Why do you give me this? And the mailbox was silent, because silence is its wisdom.

So I looked at the cover of Maxim, which featured boobies, and it was revealed unto me that my magazine subscription had been transferred once more, and I thought briefly that there must certainly be some very pissed-off female gamers standing at their mailboxes just that moment. And I felt a great sadness.

And so I knew that I had been visited by a great Evil, and that I must cast it hence, and so I went inside and attempted to locate a toll-free number inside the magazine, which featured even more boobies. And hark! the number was found, and so I took up my phone and I dialed the one, and the eight, and the zero, and the second zero, and all the numbers that followed, and spoke with a representative in Subscription Services.

And I explained unto her that I had subscribed to EGM, and had then been subscribed to Maxim, and that I did not want to be subscribed to Maxim, and she said We will mail you a refund, and I said Thank you, and then I cast the unwanted magazine down to live amongst the rest of the recycling, until such time as I would take it up and go down the street and place it in the appropriate bin for collection.

More time passed, and one day I went unto my mailbox again to discover what it had for me, and behold! it had a check for twenty-four dollars.

And there was much rejoicing.
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Gaming Maladies, Part Three: Save-itis


Save-itis (n.) - Mental inflammation caused by exposure to games with faulty save systems. Carriers of Save-itis are usually identified by the following symptoms:
1.) Excessive distance between save points.
2.) Long levels with no checkpoints.
3.) Lack of autosave.
4.) Refusal to let the player save whenever he or she damn well wants to.

Provided Save-itis is diagnosed quickly and all blunt/sharp objects are removed from the patient's vicinity, the disease is quite treatable, and has a nearly 95% survival rate. Effective treatments include meditation, software transfusions, and going outside.

Modern science has identified three types of Save-itis:

Type A: Software-Driven Save-itis (aka "Effing Bullcrap!" Save-itis)

Type-A Save-itis occurs after a gamer is exposed to software exhibiting any combination of the characteristics listed above. These are games that, through incompetence of design or overconfidence in the abilities of their players, either fill the spaces between save points with tasks of varying degrees of impossibility, or make these spaces so wide that a player cannot successfully navigate them without a good night's sleep, a case of energy drinks, and a colostomy.

Other carriers of Type-A Save-itis force players to go so far out of their way to save their progress that the act of saving becomes inconvenient, and players are forced to either play the same portion of the game over and over, or yo-yo back and forth between missions and save points. When made to pick between these two options, many players choose to play a different game.

Side effects include paranoia, swearing, fidgeting, and keeping multiple save files "just in case".

Known carriers of Type-A Save-itis include: Dark Cloud 2, the Final Fantasy series, Gears of War.

Type B: Peripheral-Driven Save-itis (aka "I Just Cleared Space a Month Ago" Save-itis)

The advent of the removable memory unit created an altogether new strain of Save-itis which rose up due to the variable requirements of software upon these cards. Perhaps the most tragic type of Save-itis due to its ease of prevention, Type-B Save-itis rears its ugly head when a gamer realizes, whether though ignorance or temporary stupidity, that there is not enough space on his or her memory card.

Occurrences of this kind of Save-itis may strike at any time, and are often terrifying. Fortunately, this type has been mostly eradicated by the introduction of external disk drives.

Type C: User-Driven Save-itis ("What Time is It?" Save-itis)

Simultaneously the most irritating and educational form of Save-itis, Type-C Save-itis occurs when a gamer, through no fault of either the game or its memory requirements, simply neglects to save for hours at a time, and then gets their character killed. Completely preventable, Type-C Save-itis says to reckless gamers that life is as fleeting and insubstantial as the wind; that every moment is precious; and that one's triumphs and failures should be commemorated and celebrated for they combine, like Voltron, to constitute the entire substance of their beings.

It also says, "Save your game, dipshit."
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Gaming Maladies, Part Two: Plot Apathy


In this installment of Gaming Maladies, I'm going to examine a phenomenon that has resulted in me putting down far too many games, never to return: simply not giving a shit.

And by "not giving a shit," I don't mean that I don't care if I win or lose, or that I don't care enough to put the time into the game to get better if I get stuck on a difficult part. I mean, more specifically, that I find the characters or plot (or both) so boring, annoying, or completely average that I literally don't care what happens. If every major character suddenly burst into flames, and the in-game world was revealed to be made entirely of cheese curdled from the fetid milk of Yog-Sothoth (is Yog-Sothoth milkable? Does it matter?), I would be no more interested than I was before I put down the controller. Mainly because I totally saw that coming.

So what I'm saying is that I have stopped playing games for the same reason other people stop reading books. Obviously this does not enter in when I'm playing something like Tetris or Peggle (what is the unicorn's motivation, anyway?!), but if a game wants me to "inhabit" a "character", while he or she does "stuff", then either the character or the stuff needs to be interesting. I prefer both, but I am realistic. I have forgiven shoddy gameplay in the interests of plot (Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth), and I have sat through mind-leakingly bad plots because the game was fun (just about everything Capcom releases). But I have occasionally encountered plots so bad or boring that it didn't matter how fun the game was, I just had to walk away. These include, but are not limited to:

1.) The Darkness - I knew there was going to be trouble the first time I saw and heard the main character at the same time. If you've never played this game, the guy looks like Bradford Tatum in The Stoned Age, but sounds like Michael Madsen doing an impression of Joe Mantegna. These two things do not go together. Now the gameplay in The Darkness is not bad, by any means (although I have a bit of a soft spot for games in which your character has tentacles, and I think this will be reflected in the game I am currently developing, Cosmic Squid vs. The Octopods), but the plot did not grab me. I'd try to describe it, but the only thing I remember is that Hell is World War I. It's a pretty bad sign for a game when I realize that I'd rather just go back and watch the rest of To Kill a Mockingbird.

2.) Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots - I did finish MGS4, but this is one of the few games I actually regret finishing because the payoff was so small (hi, Jak and Daxter). By the second or third ending I was wishing everyone would die, and I'm pretty sure that's not what Hideo Kojima was going for (or was he?! Actually, no, it isn't; he only wants you to think he's a postmodern genius. It turns out he's just a Butt Guy). Honestly, I was hoping that everyone would die in the first ending, both because that would have kept the next five endings from happening and because that would have been a pretty effective way to end the series. But sadly, Kojima loves his characters too much to let them die. So much, in fact, that he renders Meryl and Akiba essentially bulletproof. Seriously, they get shot like forty times each and live. That's bullshit.

3.) Jade Empire - I only remember two things about Jade Empire: there were demons that looked like horses but walked like men, and there were no lightsabers. Other than that, I'm going to go way out on a limb and guess that you were trying to save the world.

What I'm getting at with all of this is that plot is becoming a more important component of videogames, and it's gotten so that we can discuss games like we used to discuss books or movies, but with more dead hookers. Or fewer, depending on what you read. But I think that we've reached a point at which plot is at least as crucial for certain genres as controls and handling, and I think developers would be stupid not to devote equal attention to both. For every Uncharted, there are five Gears of Wars (Gearses of War? That's tricky), and I hope one day it becomes the rule that gameplay and graphics are nothing without a meaningful context.

But I am realistic.

Next week: Save-itis.
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Gaming Maladies, Part One: Open-World Paralysis

My Pile of Shame these days is not as bad as it has been in the past, but that might be because I have arbitrarily removed all last-gen games from it and moved them into a new pile, which I will call my Pile of Let Us Never Speak of This Again.

Recently I've been playing Far Cry 2, and because part of me really hates the other part I've been trying to do as much as humanly possible with it. That means finding all of the suitcases with diamonds, completing all cell tower missions, destroying all weapon convoys, rescuing all buddies, unlocking all safe houses, scouting all guard posts, and, when I have time for it, completing all story missions. But really, who has time for that? You know, doing the part of the game that is necessary to completion.

What has curbed my progress in Far Cry 2 more than anything is the knowledge that once I wring all content out of the nine square kilometers of beautiful hi-def Africa in which I am currently operating, there is another nine square kilometers of beautiful hi-def Africa yet to come. And then this whole sick dance starts all over.

It's not that I don't enjoy the game; it's just that there's so much of it. And for some reason when I have too much I can do, I end up not doing anything at all. This is one way that open-world games result in paralysis. The other way is through the fear that despite all of my hours of toil, no matter how many maps I print out and mark with elaborate runes, no matter how painstaking my notes and methods and reading of FAQs gets, I will miss something. Something small. And then I will have to start all over again. I will become Sisyphus, except without all the exercise.

I could move on to one of the other games in my Pile, but guess what they are? GTA4 and Mass Effect. And they come with exactly the same problems. And hey, guess what? I'm planning on getting the Game of the Year Edition of Fallout 3. Why do I do this?

Because I enjoy it, that's why. I don't know if I have OCD or just straight-up hate myself, but I actually like games that demand so much of my attention and require me to do the same thing over and over for 100% completion. If you look at my Gamercard (MUEvan), this point is proven again and again:

1.) All achievements in Bully, even after I spent three days riding around on my go-kart trying to activate errands before I realized that I needed to go and spend fifteen minutes doing boxing matches.

2.) All achievements in LEGO Indiana Jones; LEGO games are the epitome of lather, rinse, repeat.

3.) 100% completion in LEGO Star Wars; see above.

4.) Found all 300 flags in Assassin's Creed.

5.) Found all 1001 Light Seeds in Prince of Persia, AND fought the same guy five times in a row to unlock all of the combos.

6.) Unlocked all combat-based achievements in The Force Unleashed; this involved, among other things, Force-Choking Wookiee after Wookiee for upwards of thirty-five minutes, and then switching to Saber Throws. And then Force Pushes. And so on.

7.) Completed the "Little Rocket Man" achievement in The Orange Box, which involves playing through almost all of Half-Life 2: Episode 2 carrying around a garden gnome without losing it. And, like the One Ring, the little bastard wants to be lost.

I share these things not to impress anyone (because they won't), but because they illustrate half of my problem: the half in which I feel compelled to do these things. The other half is that I don't want to, and I think this is where the Paralysis sets in; it is a mechanism through which I attempt to keep myself from spending my life hunting down Agility Orbs.

And of course, it doesn't work all the time. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go play Far Cry 2.
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Sing Along If You Know It.


Come gather 'round gamers, whatever you own
Because pretty soon Nintendo will not be alone
This motion-control thing's a bit overblown
And your arms are gonna be wavin'.
So you better start flailin' or you're gonna get pwned
For the games, they are a-changin'.

Come fanboys on forums who bitch, moan, and blame
Get up off your sofas; it won't be the same.
But don't post too soon, we've not seen many games
And you've got to know who you are flamin'.
So get out your thesauri and flip 'em to "lame"
For the games, they are a-changin'.

Draw a picture for Milo who lives in your tube
Then make awkward gestures and feel like a rube
Or a loser, a jackass, a spazz, or a boob
Your dignity, it ain't worth savin'
And teh l33tz0r now will be later the n00b
For the games, they are a-changin'.

Come Alpha Moms and grandmas who didn't use to play
And pay no attention to what those kids say
For the future is wagglin' and casual's okay
And controllers can be so restrainin'.
But Molyneux says that the pad's in the way
So the games, they are a-changin'.

The demos are shown, the pods they are cast
The quarterly goals will soon be surpassed
And the current-gen will later be last-
While the hardcore will just go on ragin'
'Cause soon you'll have minigames coming out your ass
For the games, they are a-changin'.
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Repeating Myself.


Unfortunately, it has been one of those weeks, so the following is a touched-up reprint of something from my long-neglected Live Journal. Hopefully next week will be better.

As a giant nerd, I can't help but notice how often Pandora's Box has appeared in videogames recently. I also can't help but notice how much the myth has to be changed, if not wholesale ignored, in order to cram the thing into a game. So to start out, here's the original story.

After Prometheus created mankind and taught them long division, Hephaestus created Pandora as part of Zeus' overly-elaborate scheme to punish mankind. A less passive-aggressive god might have sent an earthquake or a plague or a tidal wave, but Zeus realized that jacking up our species now and forever "take-a panache". He therefore set the following events into motion:

1.) Hephaestus creates Pandora.

2.) Gods shower Pandora with extravagant gifts, spoiling her stupid. Included in these is a box (okay, Wikipedia douche, it was a jar. But the important bit is that it was a thing that holds stuff) into which each of them has placed something horrible; it was kind of like in movies when a kitchen crew spits on a steak before sending it back out to the customer who complained about it. Anyway, Zeus tells her never to open it.

3.) Prometheus warns his brother Epimetheus not to accept any gifts from Zeus.

4.) Zeus sends Pandora and her Cursed Thing of Holding to Epimetheus, kind of like a gift.

5.) Epimetheus goes, "Oh, hell yeah!" and marries Pandora.

6.) Pandora gets curious about the Cursed Thing of Holding and opens it, releasing Greed, Vanity, Slander, Lying, Envy, and Pining into the world. Luckily she manages to get the lid back on before Hope gets out. Whew! That was close.

7.) Hilarity ensues.

With plans like that, Zeus may have been the first Bond villain, as well as the only successful one. Pandora's Box, like my high school yearbooks, is best left unopened. However, it has already been opened. Logically, it can cause no more harm to us, other than possibly getting Hope all over the place.

"Not so," say the makers of videogames. "We can milk that bitch out."

So we have this:


According to God of War, opening Pandora's Box turns you into a giant. And then you fight Ares, who has inexplicably grown back-spinies which shoot fireballs. But the important thing is that it makes you bigger. Why does the Ark of Misery do this? Who the hell knows? But we must remember that this is a game in which there are waaaaaaay more than three Gorgons and Satyrs are masters of the bo staff.

What's next? Madness!


Devil May Cry 4 contains a weapon called "Pandora" which features 666 different shit-stomping configurations of increasingly implausible bad-assitude. The game also settles that whole box-vs.-jar debate once and for all by making Pandora a suitcase. And, simultaneously, a can.

Granted, this is not the literal Cursed Thing of Holding; it's more of a tribute. Surely, if in the myth Pandora had taken the lid off and been blasted in the face by a Neon Death Ray, the story would lose all meaning but become about a thousand times more awesome.

This brings me to my final, most recent example of what happens when videogame developers can't leave Pandora's Box alone (funny how many levels that works on): Legendary.


According to this game, Pandora's Box contains legions of werewolves, gryphons, and minotaurs, all of which are begging for a shotgun blast to the face. I don't know what else to say about that, other than "Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?!" It also bears mentioning that at the beginning of the game, Pandora's Box is in a museum.

My point with all of this is not that these are bad games, or that the ideas are stupid (except for the whole Pandora's-Box-in-a-museum-thing; that's downright criminal). I'm just wondering why Pandora's Box is showing up so often and doing so many different things, especially considering that the original myth is about as boring as they get. It would be like if they decided to start making games about Thor's codpiece (but not Thor), in which the codpiece can fire lasers, grant wishes, and be removed to open doors by reflecting light into crystals. Or if the Sword of Damocles was a lightsaber.

Game developers don't read this blog, do they? I may have just unleashed great evils upon the world. Kind of fitting, in a way.

-Evan

**EDIT: I have replaced the non-working videos with working ones.
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For Reals This Time

Listeners of the Joystiq Podcast may have heard them read my e-mail congratulating JC Fletcher for receiving an E3 Award.  So thanks be to Joystiq for rewarding shameless pluggery with a quick site mention.  I guess I'm actually going to have to buy someone a beer now.

The title of my post this week is "What Hollywood Doesn't Know About Videogames Could Fill the Grand Effing Canyon," and all evidence to this point is contained within a single movie trailer.



 Since it's not entirely fair to judge a film based solely on its trailer (although that did keep me from seeing the Silent Hill movie), I will not be making any guesses as to the quality of Gamer.  However, having watched that trailer, I feel confident in declaring that the following two points constitute what Hollywood thinks it knows about videogames:

1.)  Videogames are exclusively about shootin' and killin', and gamers will eventually become the New Gladiators.

2.)  Videogames blur the lines between fantasy and reality, until eventually we will not know what is real and what is not, and it will be like totally crazy, man.

In fact, the plot of Gamer sounds like it came from the head of someone who faded in and out of consciousness while drinking cough syrup and watching a movie marathon on the SciFi Channel.  It is equal parts eXistenZ, The Running Man,, and this Onion article.

Granted, a film based on, say, Noby Noby Boy, would be very difficult to make, and may even qualify as a hate crime.  But who says that actiony, shooty games are the only ones that make sense for TV and movies?

And sometimes they don't even make sense.  Remember that episode of "The X-Files" where the kid who played Donkeylips on "Salute Your Shorts" and his testosterone-laden buddies go into the virtual-reality first-person shooter game and get killed by the cyber-dominatrix who was programmed by the shy nerd woman to exact revenge upon her male coworkers for appreciating neither her talent nor her mousy not-hot hotness?

Seriously.  That's what happened.

There has to be a middle ground between Tetris:  The Movie and Let's Go Kill Some Dudes, right?  Because there are games that exist between those two extremes.  Hollywood's treatment of videogames as a plot element seems limited to either "Videogames will ruin everything," or "Videogames are for lazy boy-men."  And the only thing that determines which of these will be used is whether or not the movie is a comedy.

In fact, I can only think of one film that has handled videogames in a fair, non-violent, and realistic way, and features gameplay that accurately represents what we see in our own homes, and not some pixelated, blocky-gon crap cooked up by an underpaid, overworked special effects team.  Only one film has captured both the positive and negative effects of gaming on people of all ages.  This film is smart enough, sure enough, and brave enough to declare that people from all walks of life, all genders and backgrounds, can come together under this hobby we love so much.  It puts its foot down and says, "No!  Videogames are not just for boys and men with no necks!  Videogames are fun!  Videogames are for everyone!  And yes...videogames can capture your heart and mind while crippling your hands.  And you know what else?  They may just save your damn family, too."

Here's the bad news:  that film was a hundred-minute-long commercial for Nintendo.

All I'm saying is that I think we can do better than The Wizard.  I don't think that's too much to ask.

-Evan
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Pardon My Mess...

I'm sure that all of you just leapt from your beds and bounded over to your respective computers, anxious to see what kind of random bullshit I'd come up with this week, but I have some bad news:

Nothing I've started writing tonight has been any good.

So you get this.  Later on today I'll try to have something more substantial, but in the meantime here's my favorite trailer from E3.  Enjoy.

-Evan

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E3 Awards 2009 (or, I'm Lazy, So Here's a List)

1.) The Giant Blue Ball Award (best game not out until 2010) - God of War 3
The thing about God of War's "hero" Kratos is that he's an a-hole.  Not the kind of a-hole who will make fun of your favorite shirt and then buy you a beer to show that he's "only kidding," but a real a-hole.  He's the kind of guy who will make fun of your favorite shirt and then murder you, but not before he murders your entire family and eats your dog, all the while complaining about how much he has been wronged.

Still, though...did you see that gameplay footage?  I never realized how much I've wanted to stab something with its own horns.

2.) The "oz-WEE-pay" Johnson Award (most unfortunately-titled game) - Women's Murder Club

It's probably best if I don't go into what kind of images the title of this game conjured in my sick, sick mind, especially once I learned that it's coming out on the DS.  Needless to say, though, they were pretty jacked up.

3.) The "Brandon from College" Award (game I really just want to go away) - Bayonetta

In the past, I have described certain Japanese franchises as "gleefully sexist."  Anyone who is not sure about what I mean by that has never seen this trailer, which features the eponymous angel-slayer...and her crotch.

We're looking at three more months of footage like that before the game comes out, and then I'm sure we'll be getting some TV ads like the one for DoA:  Xtreme Beach Volleyball.  You remember it...the one where the guys can't even be in the same room as the game without holding pillows over their laps.  I'd have posted a link to that monstrosity, but I think my computer refuses to play it.  At this point, it doesn't even matter if Bayonetta is a good game or not; I can't think about it without remembering the look the cashier at Kay-Bee gave me when I bought my Sniper Wolf action figure.

4.) The Coupon for One Free Beer Award (sickest burn by a videogame writer covering E3) - JC Fletcher, Joystiq

"If we were wearing a Wii Vitality Sensor right now, would Nintendo sense that we'd fallen asleep?"

5.) The "We Had a Fantastic Second Quarter" Award (greatest accomplishment I can't make myself care about) - Motion controllers

Yeah, yeah...Sony has a wand, and Microsoft has a creepy British kid.  Maybe there's something wrong with me, but I have a hard time getting too worked up over tech demos.  Remember that one for the PS3 where they rendered a whole lot of rubber ducks being poured into a bathtub in real time?  All I could think was, "Yep...that sure is a whole lot of rubber ducks.  Clearly the PS3 is leaps ahead of the PS2...in terms of ducks."

My mantra, when faced with tech demos, is this:  "Where are the games?"  Granted, I tend to only believe one out of every four words that come out of Peter Molyneux's oddly-shaped head.  And if the Sony Wand had turned into, say, a lightsaber, instead of an MS-Paint-style blocky gun, then maybe I could have mustered up some enthusiasm.  And if you really want to show how "Milo" reacts to random input, then don't show him talking about fish and then getting a sheet of paper with a fish drawn on it.  Show him talking about fish and then draw something else.  Then see what he does.  That could be some next-level stuff.

Oh, and Motion Plus is coming out, too?  Are you sure?  Okay, then.

6.) The "Holy Shit, Metroid!" Award (best game that is Metroid) - Metroid: Other M

I wasn't expecting this at all.  And I definitely wasn't expecting the next Metroid game to be mostly third-person.  This is awesome; I can't wait to see what Team Ninja does with the franchise.

Wait a minute...

Didn't Team Ninja do DoA:  Xtreme Beach Volleyball?

Shit.

Honestly, though, it looks pretty good.

-Evan
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The Masters of Gao Jin Yoo.

My issues with the Wii are a matter of public record, so it should come as no surprise that I have slight misgivings about the games recently released under Nintendo's New Play Control! banner.  For those who don't know, and did not click on that link, New Play Control! ("NPC!") is a collection of GameCube games that have been ported to the Wii.  The games feature new waggle-based controls, widescreen support, and, in some cases, new levels, but they're essentially the same game.

Does this sound familiar?

Are you sure?

Of course, the porting of older games to newer consoles is nothing new.  How many versions of Street Fighter 2 do we need, anyway?  That question is not rhetorical, by the way; the answer is about twenty-five.  But NPC! thrusts the marketing technique known as "Buy It Yet Again To Complete Happiness" into the realm of art.

Of course, being GameCube games, these titles are already playable on the Wii, provided you bought a copy last generation or, barring that, can find a used copy now.  This is probably not all that difficult.  In fact, let's take speculation out of this:

1.)  Donkey Kong Jungle Beat - Available, though you might have some trouble finding the bongos.  Oh...wait.

2.)  Pikmin - Available

3.)  Mario Power Tennis - Available

Note:  these links were current as of May 28.

And this is just a quick search on Google Shopping.  I didn't even go to eBay or call around to any of my local used-game sellers.  The fact is that these games are out there, pretty readily available, and you don't have to pay thirty dollars to look slightly stupider playing them.  There is, of course, a gray zone around Jungle Beat; your options are to play the game by hitting stupid plastic bongos, or to play the game by pretending to hit stupid plastic bongos.  I think the NPC! version may be one of the few console-to-console ports less immersive than the original.  But the issue of greatest concern to me is the fact that these (old) games cost thirty dollars.  Check those links again and do some math.  I'll wait.

Done?  Moving on.

So far, Nintendo's handling of NPC! has been tentative, at best; they have not released any real must-have titles, so it's hard to tell if this line is working.  The real test will come in August with the release of the Metroid Prime Trilogy, which collects all three games (the third one, of course, was developed for the Wii) on a single disc for fifty bucks.  But that's probably how they should have been doing this all along; if they're going to be selling updated versions of last-gen games, they'd be a lot better off bundling them up, especially if they're all first-party titles and there are no licensing issues to work out.

Although the math doesn't quite agree with me, the prospect of buying both Pikmin games for fifty dollars feels better than buying them separately for thirty.  And why sell Mario Power Tennis separately when it could be bundled with Toadstool Tour and Strikers?  Remember that Limited Edition Zelda disc they threw in with GameCubes that had three really good games AND The Adventure of Link?  If I saw that on a shelf today, I'd buy it.

So right now, I'm not impressed.  But to be honest, New Play Control! is not a bad idea.  It is, however, the most recent example of Nintendo's uncanny ability to make pretty good ideas look like really bad ones.

-Evan
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Dispatch from Albion

Gamertag used by permission of the holder.  Also, terribly-typed messages are included here as I received/wrote them.

Having completed the main storyline and unlocked all of the achievements from Fable 2, including all of the ones from the downloadable content, I wasn't sure how much more entertainment I could get from the game.  And then I remembered that there is always something happening in Albion, provided one is feeling particularly brave, and has prepared for a double-barreled blast of ignorance and hostility.

Having readied myself, I went into the Game Options Screen and set my Online Orbs to "Everyone."

There are usually plenty of people in Bowerstone's Town Square, but I wasn't seeing any.  I figured what I needed to do was move around a bit, so I went and got a Bounty Hunter mission and headed off to the Bower Lake Camp to kill some Hobbes.

On the way back to Bowerstone I began to see orbs, and I was so glad that my experiment (and Internet) was working that I went up to the first one I saw and gave him 50 gold.  I passed another orb on the road and gave that person some Freshly-Picked Flowers.  I didn't offer any explanation to either of these people, and they didn't say anything.  I was very aware that what I was doing looked, to use a clinical term, balls-out crazy, but that's pretty much why I had to do it.

When I returned to Bowerstone Market, there were orbs everywhere.  I gave the first one a Teddy Bear.  The second one I noticed was a girl and, to avoid her thinking I was some kind of creep, I gave her some Crisp Celery.  Both useful and completely devoid of romantic sentiment, it seemed like the proper gift for a strange hovering orb representing a girl I would never meet.

I gave the next orb a Toy Horse.

"A Toy Horse," my beneficiary said, chuckling.

I clicked off my Mute switch.

"Yep," I said.  "And I have four more where that one came from."

The guy told me that he'd lost his save game when he downloaded the See the Future Content Pack, and now he had to start over with no money and no supplies.  It was the sort of story one might hear from any panhandler, except this particular panhandler looked like a little ball with a picture of 50 Cent in it.  I would have given him some money, but he floated away.

Another guy showed up asking for money, and so, to prove I wasn't heartless (although to whom I was trying to prove this I have no idea), I gave him 100,000 gold.

"Thanks...Moo-Even," he said, completely butchering my Gamertag.

"I hope that will tide you over," I replied, and, like Fitty before him, he darted away like one of those killer balls from Phantasm.

The market was getting pretty busy now; people were talking over each other trying to get dolls or legendary weapons or what they called "spare gold."  Somebody started screaming obscenities, but nobody knew who it was, or what exactly he was so mad at.  Walking around, I saw a guy whose Gamertag contained a racial slur, so I reported him.  Then I gave him a Ragdoll, to show that there were no hard feelings.

Suddenly, someone was singing "Mr. Roboto" by Styx.  Then, just as suddenly (but no less mysteriously), he stopped.  Perhaps someone had murdered him; we'll never know.

Negotiations were taking place; deals were being closed.  Someone said, "If you're gonna rape me, please use a condom."  He received no response.  There was an orb over in the corner by the bar, and it had been in the same place since I'd arrived.  I sent it a Rusty Necklace and ran away.

I came to a stop in front of an orb representing someone whose Gamertag was MidnightTotoro.  This struck me as incredibly cute, so I gave the orb a million gold.  Immediately afterwards, I received a message from someone asking if I had a Maelstrom (which is a rare sword).  I told him I did.  Then I got a message from MidnightTotoro, thanking me for the gold.  I responded saying she was very welcome, but I may have just made her game too easy.

The Sword Guy (I will not be using his Gamertag for several reasons, not the least of which being that it uses numbers for letters, and I'd feel stupid just typing that) sent me an offer of 500,000 gold for the sword.

"Meh," I replied.

I got a message from MidnightTotoro saying that she appreciated the help and that it was "sweet" of me.  So suck on that, last three girlfriends.

A few minutes later Sword Guy responded.

"a mil then?"

"No Temple of Shadows in your game?" I replied.  Then I told MidnightTotoro to go buy herself a castle or something.

Sword Guy came back:  "no im good...ill trade u the enforcer for it"

"Have Enforcer," I said.  "Give 500k to MidnightTotoro and it's yours."

MidnightTotoro sent me a message that yes, she would go buy a castle.

"Hang on," I replied.  "More money for you."

Sword Guy went off trying to find MidnightTotoro (I like to think he was searching frantically, but I have no evidence of that), and I occupied myself by turning the safety off and sniping townspeople.  A while later I noticed Sword Guy's orb darting around, and it finally stopped next to me.  We stayed there for a minute, man and orb, looking like we were awkwardly trying to avoid eye contact while waiting for a bus.  Finally, he just gave me the money.

"can u just give it to them" he said.

I gave him the sword.  I didn't really want to, considering how much trouble this had been, and how many of my virtual wives I'd incinerated to get the thing, but the sword I had equipped was much better anyway.  Also, I was getting kind of tired of talking to that guy.

I received a message from MidnightTotoro saying that, despite the fact that she was standing about two feet from where I was, she couldn't see me.

After I joined her game, and she joined my game, and I got kicked off of XBox Live, and got back in, and then left Bowerstone Market and came back, I was finally able to get her the money.  In the meantime, we talked about how awkward Sword Guy was (his profile says only "BOOBIEZ!!!!"), and she informed me that the Catbus in My Neighbor Totoro has testicles.  I'm going to let that last bit sink in, because if you've seen that movie and didn't notice those nuts, you're sure as hell going to catch them the next time.

And isn't all of this what we love and hate about XBox Live?  It's a place in which people trade imaginary money for imaginary items.  A place where men, fully-grown, will say things like, "Does anybody want to trade?  I'm missing some dolls."

Sure, there are people shouting for no discernible reason, and people whose spelling makes us want to punch a kitten.  But at the end of the day we're all just a bunch of nerds hanging out.  We're on XBox Live because we love videogames and, in many cases, because we lack the social skills to strike up conversations in the real world.  And yes, sometimes talk turns to the genitalia of animated, bus-sized cats.  But that's okay, because I'd rather talk about cat-monster junk than football.

And that's what diversity means to me.

-Evan
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