I just celebrated another birthday, but it didn't hit me until I was sitting across the table from one of EA's senior engine programmers just how far removed I've become from my younger self. It's not the years, it's the content in them that's changed, and with all the shifts in my life from "young gamer" to "college grad" I thought it'd be worthwhile to share the truths I've gleamed.

I won't waste your time with straight "advice" - but as someone whose worked in, and with, the gaming industry, I have to say - it might be worth your time to take a break from arguing about the latest Marios and give it a whirl.

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Authority

There is no false authority in the universe... because there is no authority. In my youth I believed the "adults" and "experts" out there at least knew something. The further I've gotten into the industry, the more I've come to see that they simply don't. There's no special "magical solution" lobe that grows on your brain the moment you turn thirty.

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Authority doesn't exist outside of what credence we give it, and it never will. Kingdoms crumble, presidents are replaced and senators die of heart attacks. I don't mean that you should have disrespect for people in high places, but you should carry a healthy degree of skepticism.

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I became "known" on GameSpot for having a rebellious attitude towards the "establishment" of review media on the web. To this day, I'm happy to prove exactly why MetaCritic, VGchartz, and friends are the worst thing to happen to gaming since the Virtual Boy. In fact, much like the Virtual Boy, they provide a fuzzy, monochromatic view of gaming that benefits no one.

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Trust yourself, the older I've gotten the more I've found that the only authority on my enjoyment is myself. It seems so obvious, but in a gaming universe dominated by social pressures and big names, it's easy to miss the forest for the trees. As odd as it sounds, the only games I remember, the only games I feel retain impact all these years later, are those weird little games that no one played... the games that felt like they were made just for me.

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Pass the message along - "authority flop confirmed" - think for yourself and you'll be far better off.

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You Heroes are Ordinary People

This is a hard one, because in the gaming world we have egomaniacs like Peter Molyneux who would like you to think otherwise, but you need to know that your heroes are normal people. I know them, I've met them, I know many of the staff of EA Games on a first name basis, and they're simply no different from any of you. They get up, pay the bills, go to work, go to school - just like anyone else.

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The people who think otherwise are intolerable. I warn you of this not simply because it will screw up your career advancement (no one is going to keep an uppity intern) but because it will make you a miserable person. Working in the gaming industry doesn't make you better than anyone else, and people who are down to earth and accessible are FAR more popular than the jerks out there. You may never be as wealthy as Bob Kotick, but you'll have friends you can trust and genuine loved ones at your funeral.

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For those of you trying to get in to the gaming industry, I wish you the best of luck, but I want you to know you shouldn't be unhappy just because you "don't make it". You don't have to be a game programmer to have a less-than-ordinary life, the same ambition and creativity that drive you to build new worlds will serve you well no matter where you work. You have a gift in your intellect that no one can take away - don't let money or employment come between you and your happiness.

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In the immortal words of the Rolling Stones "you can't always get what you wanna... but if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need". The father of gaming, the Mario man himself, Shigeru Miyamoto, is always smiling, and is renowned for his simple life of gardening, gaming, and caring for his family.

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You Only Get Tired of the Bull

I suppose I'm part of the generation that never stopped gaming. Unlike my parents, who put down the joystick as they got older, I've found that gaming has become more a part of my life the older I've gotten. Graduating from college has given me the free time (not to mention financial resources) to finally live some of my dreams. From owning the giant TV I'd always wanted growing up, to competing in Magic: the Gathering tournaments against globally recognized Pro Tour champions, I've only found my love of gaming to increase with age.

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While my love of gaming has aged like a fine wine, my tolerance for the stupidity in the industry hasn't. When I first ventured onto the internet at the age of thirteen, the average message board was a stomping ground for intellectual discovery. By my early twenties the internet chatter was getting tiresome, and now I find it downright annoying. It's not that it's pointless, it's simply that it takes too much effort to change someone's mind over the internet.

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With the duties of work, family, and Modern Warfare taking up much of my free time, the value of someone's opinion on the internet has reached roughly zero. Don't take that the wrong way - I'm still fan of reading reviews, watching funny videos and that "sha-bang" - it's just the days of caring about trolls on a message board are long past. Take it from me, the older you get, the less time you have to waste on stupidity.

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Summing it Up

So what's it all mean to you? Well, take it for what it is - trust yourself, remember that your heroes are no different than you, and don't waste your time with the trolls. If you love gaming, you'll be doing it the rest of your life - and you'll be better off avoiding the people who want to steal your enjoyment. Oh, and eat some vegetables! Yeah, old people are always saying that...

stolen from Other People's Business- it's the best neutral take on MW2 thus far.

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I'll be returning to regular posting on December 7th.

Linked

For those of you who complain I don't post enough in SW anymore

It's weird to start an editorial off sounding like He-Man, but every now and then we need a reminder that we, as consumers, hold the ultimate power in the gaming industry.

It's no secret that Activision has become the new devil in our play. In the gaming world - on forums, on YouTube, on blogs, and in person - the hate has been flowing towards the biggest, and purportedly "most evil", company in gaming. A lot of the hatred comes down to remarks coming from this man

Bob Kotick.

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I must confess to being just as angry as the next guy at some of Kotick's comments. To paraphrase "$60 isn't enough for Modern Warfare" and "we turn a $50 purchase into a $500 purchase"... comments that are more than just PR snafus. From $150 Modern Warfare collector's editions, to expensive music games, to $50 Starcraft II expansions, Kotick has a list of "sins" on his head in our world.

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But there's a catch to all of this - a loophole, if you will - Kotick can't make you buy his games - he can't swipe your credit card, or take the cash from your wallet - that's something you do. Activision doesn't have the power to force you to buy their products.

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We, as consumers, have the ultimate power to decide what stays and goes in the gaming industry. As much as Activision touts their large size and stable of games, it's up to us to keep them in business. And as much fun as it may be to whine about the pricing, it's what we do with our wallets that really makes the decision.

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We don't have to buy Modern Warfare 2. We don't have to buy Guitar Hero 5. We don't have to buy Starcraft II. These are popular games - but they are only three games in a year filled with hundreds of titles. If we don't like what Activision is doing, why not support another developer? Why not buy one of the dozens of other FPS, RTS, or music games? Change comes from us - from our demands - and no matter how big the company, it's up to gamers to decide what stays, and what goes.

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Companies go from products we don't want...

to products they hope we'll like...

based on our demands.

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Sure, it's easy to whine: it takes no effort to complain, but what we do as consumers, with our software purchases, makes the ultimate decision. If we're okay with paying more for Activision titles, if they really are providing the high-quality product that we want, then why can't they charge more? If Activision is failing to deliver, if we're tired of paying a premium for their products, then why continue to buy? We, as individual consumers, decide what's right for us, and we, as individual consumers, hold sway over the entire gaming industry.

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It may be a quaint point to make in a forum so often given to emotional outbursts and bouts of anti-business sentiments - but every now and then, we all need a reminder that we decide what games go in our systems, not the publishing companies.

Wooo... E3 is over, and with it my embargo on discussing the complex world of being a gamer. It goes without saying that there are dozens of topics I'd love to cover, but given your limited patience and my limited time, I'd like to hit on just two - Prototype and Milo.

Wolverine Origins has never looked better... oh wait...

I wish I could tell you that Prototype is a polished, sophisticated experience, brimming with technical wizardry and guaranteed to silence the forum-haters. I can't - the game is full of little quirks, like the ability to push cop cars around by walking into them, or how no one seems phased when you "stealth kill" someone by ripping them in half. What I can tell you is that none of that matters - Prototype is one of the most fun games you'll play all year. Everything feels right, flying through the city, smashing the ground, leaping off of buildings, skewering people as you run past them, throwing taxis into helicopters - the game is amazingly fun, and what's more, the story is strange enough to keep you through the missions.

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Believe me when I say, you don't want me to spoil it for you - like an episode of Lost, you're left confused but insatiably curious.

The original Internet Hate Machine

Unfortunately, the gaming world is full of hate - (thankfully) this time not from the reviewers, but from the forums. Despite being a multiplat, Prototype became viewed as a rival to Infamous, and fans of the both games took up arms in yet another "Xbox 360 vs. PS3" showdown. I'll leave the details of the conflict to those more "qualified" than I to comment, but suffice it to say, the argument is stupid, and both games are fun.

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The situation surrounding Prototype heavily parallels the growing controversy surrounding this E3's biggest announcement: Project Natal. Microsoft certainly drew a target on themselves. With all three companies now sporting motion controllers, claims of "ripoff" have been flying, with the latest gossip claiming Milo, a Natal showcase game, is fake.

Microsoft staking the future of their company on a little boy? Another Nintendo ripoff!

In the post-E3 commotion, I was asked a fellow System Warrior my thoughts on the whole "Milo-thing".

I'll take my $50 million in cash please Microsoft.

Death star, black car, shoots up the ***** bar. Unapologetic gangsters, ranters; teenagers. Blame it on the government - case illegit, judge acquits, so back on the pavement. Money spent - popping pills, seeking thrills. They blame it on the white man, sun tan, the dead man with no plan. It's an economic wasteland - America, land of opportunity, lied to me. Who we are, what we be, what we should - trying to be a man, walking fast, can't do what we can.

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All around us sits an infinite opportunity for greatness - which we sacrifice daily for mundane victories. Socio-Capitalism is a system whereby our deepest wants are satisifed by our most base realities - the cost of all progress, therefore, is always our souls.

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Yesterday a good man hung himself, he worked for a bad bank, government's man breathing down his neck like the fires of Lucficer - and all of America blaming him for the world. We're all hopped up like jackals, little wind up bunnies with mallets ready to burst. Half-mad folks ready to start nailin' to walls. Don't tell me about the economy news-man, shut up your self-righteous rating humping. The whole dam feels like its going to burst - every day cryin' on the edge - give me my fellow man over your Wall Street tango and political yack-box... I'm tired of caring about the imaginary.

Impressive. It could easily be the best game of 1980. Photoshop "skillz" (the 'z' is intended to express youthful coolness... oh the youngsters). Represent.

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P.S. Happy belated April Fools Day

Math makes games possible, and those math-heavy Finance, Engineering, Computer Science and IT degrees can land you lucrative jobs - but there are some places where our "numerical wizardry" need to butt out. When it comes time to sit down and play games with friends, math should be left in the classroom and the textbooks.

TruSkill

The goal of TruSkill ranking is simple - better matchmaking through closer matches. The math behind the TruSkill ranking system is designed to "hone in" on your, well, "True Skill level" - after a few dozen matches, it should find a number that lets the computer pit you against players of similar ability. In theory it works great - in practice, too many game designers have tied achievements, ranks, and badges to TruSkill, and given incentives for boosting, cheating, and general poor sportsmanship.

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There's nothing wrong with TruSkill being used in the background to help match players of similar skill. I'm all for it - after all, there's no satisfaction in just steam-rolling the competition, or getting blown away. However, the ranking systems in games should be based on play-time, good sportsmanship (such as remaining in the match to the bitter end), and personal improvement. While rewarding a solid performance is okay - players shouldn't feel like they're "getting nowhere". Because the TruSkill rating is designed to only improve slowly, that's exactly what players of games like Gears of War have found.

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Luckily, game designers are listening - and learning. Halo 3's "playlist rank", Call of Duty's "level up" system, Halo Wars "score accumulation", and Gears of War 2's new revised ranking system all give players incentive to do well within the matches, stick it out to the bitter end (with exp penalties or "finishing the game" bonuses), and work with their teams. It's a step in the right direction. After all, it's the player who puts in 1000 matches with their friends who deserves a shiny medal, not the guy who boosts his TruSkill rating.

Review Scores

Review scores are another item in gaming that started with a good "in theory" notion. Place games along a numbered scale so that players can compare them and know which games to buy. In practice, this "math system" has become a nightmare, one that even aggregating sites like MetaCritic can't solve. The problem with numerical reviews is simple - they're too one dimensional. With a written or video review, players can hear the strengths and weakness of a game, and find out what's right for them. Is the game only five hours long? That might be a big "not buying it" for some players, but for others it might be a non-issue. Is the game too violent? Again, a personal judgement that can't be summed up with just a simple number.

When reviewers point out the faults, and perks, of a game, they're simply "reviewing" - they're doing their job, and providing helpful insights into a title. When a reviewer takes those comments and generates a review score, however, their opinions are now all melded together into something that's only useful to people who share that reviewer's exact perspective on gaming.

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Newer sites, such a GiantBomb, have gotten away from the "100 point review" (or 1 ~ 10 scale ) of the olden days. New commenters, such as Zero Punctuation and AVGN have ditched the scale entirely in favor of providing some simple entertainment and insight. Even GameSpot went from decimal reviewing to a " point five" scale. Still, any math can be "bad math", and arguments over the numerical value take away from what the reviewer has to actually say. Hopefully, in gaming's future, we can see more focus on the content, and less discussion of one-dimensional numbers.

Release Dates

Gamers in the UK and AU are most apt to agree with this one, but it's about time we saw an end to staggered releases. While this generation has seen a huge improvement in getting games out everywhere at the same time, we're still left waiting far too long on titles like Final Fantasy XIII, game systems like the DSi, and content updates. Let's face it, there's no unsolvable reason that a game can't come out everywhere at the same time.

If a game is going to be released in multiple languages anyway, why not have the translators working with the writers during game development? It would improve the translations, and ensure that gamers worldwide were enjoying the same meaningful experience. If a game has to be region-coded anyway, or adjustments made on certain content (for example - removing skeletons for the Chinese market, nuclear weapons for Japan,or covering breasts in America ) then why not do it on the design table?

When something gets changed in a game, due to the cultural norms of the market it is being released in, it would be best for the designers to be there to put in something equivalent (yet appropriate ) so that the scene is not lost. Fallout 3 in Japan does not feature the option to nuke Megaton - arguably the largest moral decision in the first half of the game - but could it have featured another moral choice? Replace the nuke with, say, a deadly virus, and you have acceptable content, yet still leave the moral decision.

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Ultimately, designers should realize they're making "global games" at this point. Our dated notion of releasing in one area first, then translating months later for different regions, needs to go. I play with gamers around the world - on LIVE, on STEAM, on PSN, on DS / Wii - I want to know that my friends across the Atlantic and Pacific are lined up for the newest release on the same day I am.

Is a world where TruSkill takes a backseat to friendly competition, review scores are replaced with intelligent discussion, and everyone can pick up the latest game on the same day possible? Maybe - but the nice thing is, we don't have to get there overnight. Even small improvements in release times, the reviews process, and matchmaking can bring us greater enjoyment.

That is all

Coming soon to an internets near you.

Happy New Years GameSpot!

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You know your fireworks show is awesome when the cops show up

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We'll be seeing you - game on in 2009.

Before we begin, it is be best to state my purpose - it's oft misunderstood. What is my goal? Destruction? Anarchy? To cackle madly while society burns? No. "I told you so" is bittersweet, no gamer wants to see a developer fail. Ultimately, I'm here to ask for integrity. As the battle between reviewer and fanboy unfolds, it's important that the bigger picture is not lost.

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The die is cast - 3.5. While I believe numerical scoring of games is a graduated, soulless rat race, the message sent by such a score is not far from the truth. Is GameSpot being inconsistent and harsh? Absolutely. So long as games like Kung-Fu panda are handed 6s and 7s, it's difficult to take a review score seriously. However, the reviews themselves are spot on. IGN, Destructoid, 1up, Gamespot - take your pick, the criticisms are the same, and, unfortunately, honest.

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Sonic fans are loath to see the words "subrosian" and "sonic" in the same sentence. Perhaps it's a bad omen, SEGA's guiding hand falters upon my voice, the wool is never pulled, and reality glares through. Or perhaps it is my intolerance, my refusal to forgive; my mind's inability to forget.

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But the details, the purpose - these are trivial things in the face of results. The facts, laid bare, show that SEGA once again printed mediocrity in hopes of Christmas cash. After apologizing publicly two years ago for rushing Sonic 2006, after swearing never again to allow production to compromise quality, after delaying the game in Japan to improve, SEGA released Sonic Unleashed for American and European audiences.

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My rage is dwarfed by the magnitude of their failure - the game may not be the worst Sonic game, but their betrayal sets a new standard for the industry. Sonic Unleashed isn't the game we were promised, it isn't the game we deserve. Children, unwrapping this game on Christmas morning, deserve better. Our childhood nostalgia deserved better. Our fellow gamer, the casual gamer, the loyal Sonic fan, and the SEGA followers, they deserved better.

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I would rather have understanding than purpose. Academics never stop running - the race to read it all before they die... my own foil. I have read, and it is sameness. My jaded eye takes only two joys - those ideas so great they cannot be reconstituted, and those so ephemeral that they must.

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The good moments in Sonic are one such ephemeral joy. Sonic's greatness was always fleeting, but in the past, and in the current handheld iterations, the flame burned truer. Sonic Unleashed snuffs the candle and knocks over the stick, leaving sputtering embers and melted wax at the player's feet. Sonic is a caricature of himself, five seconds from anthrocon, ten minutes from a t-shirt. The veil between art and commercialism is pierced, and into the divide plunges the soul of a once-great franchise. The gamer pays to pick through a garbage can, longing for discarded french fries; finding them to be covered in flies.

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Sonic Unleashed is an extreme, the videos, the voicework, the characters - it reaches a level of shoddiness not unlike a found-film art show on the indie circuit. A polite reviewer would simply state that the propriety of Sonic is lost in the folds of the inter-level and the banal of the lycanthropic sidequest.

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An honest reviewer might say that SEGA has made a delicious sundae, upon which it has taken a gigantic crap.

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What is most painful about Sonic Unleashed are its strengths. High production values and technically sound audio set the stage for what could have been. SEGA had the potential for an excellent Sonic game. The Sonic stages are some of the best we've seen (in 3D anway) in years, and the controls, while broken, are at least manageable.

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Unfortunately the goodness of the game is spread too thin, tedious hub towns, annoying "werehog" sequences, and teeth-grating storytelling fill far too much of the game. Even SEGA seems to recognize the failure of the day / night mechanic, if only after the fact. The XBOX LIVE demo released on December 8 includes none of the werehog segments, despite their prominence in the retail game. The squandered potential feels somehow worse than when they simply released an unfinished game in 2006 - it lends hopes in the same moment that it dashes them.

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If only I could borrow the TARDIS, and flit back in time to the moment SEGA lost sight of what made the Sonic series appealing. In my world, Sonic is an over-caffeinated rodent covered in razorblades. When we're talking about a game where your prime objective is to hold right on the D-Pad, a story is a liability. SEGA's attempts at pseudo-realism, storytelling and new mechanics break flow and believability.

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I'm willing to accept that Sonic is a chili-dog delivery boy waging a war against a mad scientist. That doesn't mean I'm willing to accept a world where people spill their life story to a humanoid hedgehog.

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The path to improving Sonic Unleashed is obvious. Remove the city-hub sections, make the brawl sections far shorter, simplify the punishing nighttime platforming, and swap out dialogue for animated sequences. Place this all within a seamless progression, with a few more Sonic levels, and trim everything else. You'd be left with a game similar to Sonic CD - a few animated sequences, a mechanic that's useful but not overused, and plenty of creative levels and bosses.

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Instead we're given a blended Sonic, one where the good bits are folded into a rancid gravy of mediocrity.

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So what is sonic Unleashed? A reminder - a testament to how far SEGA has fallen - another gravestone on the promised "return to canon Sonic glory". What remains are our memories, the fleeting joy of what once was, and peeking out from the ashes - the future. Can Sonic return? Can a dark knight offer Sonic a worthy adventure? When Pandora's box was opened what remained was hope - is ours misplaced?

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I cannot say with certainty that Sonic will never return to his former glory - each game is an opportunity, after all, but it's becoming unlikely. Through it all though, I cannot escape the feeling that the Sonic fan is simply being too forgiving. We excuse the mess that comprises the majority of the game, with an outcry of "but it has its moments!".

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The same could be said of Kung-Fu Panda, Phantasy Star Universe or Barbie's Adventure. Every game has its moments, but those moments don't excuse the whole of the game. We approach Sonic with a tolerance and patience we wouldn't give any other game.

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I cannot recommend Sonic Unleashed to anyone, even the most diehard of Sonic fans. Playing this game does the series a disservice, Sonic deserves to be cast in a better light. Is a 3.5 fair? Perhaps not, but SEGA has failed with an intensity and focus usually reserved for successes. The review score doesn't matter, at the end of the day we deserved better.

Over the years I've been emailed a fair share of both compliments and complaints. The one that has always made me smirk is the suggestion that I should "write about something that matters", stuff like "politics". The idea that politics (which makes me miserable) is more important than gaming (which makes me happy) is laughable. But hey, maybe as a writer it's my job to make you happy, and with Carlin dead I suppose someone has to comment on the bull. So, consider this an early Christmas present (sorry, sorry, "non-denominational holiday gift") for those who want me to "be series (sic)".

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The political state in America can best be described as one of frustration. McCain and Obama empty the time they speak, rather than fill it, the Fed continues to bail out the wealthy with the tax dollars of the working class, and our trade regulations and tax system destroy the very jobs they were meant to preserve. It's a world of stay-cations, double taxation, outsourcing, down-sizing, growing waistlines, shrinking credit and troubling subsidies. In short we have an inept, bumbling federal government that masks itself behind a swirl of party politics, media controversy and ineffectual outrage.

The average American is just upset enough to vote, an action that has become largely meaningless. Vanilla or chocolate? Doesn't matter, either way you're getting ice cream. In a country filled with illness, homelessness and joblessness the election has provided a tasty All-American distraction. So eat up, but just remember: the plastic spoon you're using was made in China.

The world's a screwy place where, at times, nothing feels certain, and hope itself can be extinguished by the grim realities of necessity. Even in countries where we should feel blessed with wealth, something as trivial as a parking ticket can take us down a notch, and big scary things loom in the distance - illness, financial peril, unemployment. Perhaps that's why gaming, now, more than ever, brings us comfort.

Publishers have taken to calling gaming "recession proof" - but for us, it's more than that, it's bleak proof. When Wall Street took a tumble yesterday, it was not a hard fall for me. The realities of the global credit situation have been carved in the numbers crammed down the throat of every business student for some time - few digested them for anything more than spewing out good grades on tests, but I, as a confessed poor student, was forced to chew them for quite a bit longer. Failures are carved more prominently than successes in the frown lines of memory - so in many ways I am best at what I do worst. In that way, I have been forced to see a great deal of sadness in life.

A significant person to me, a woman (though that in anything other than a physical sense is meaningless) if you must know, recently left the hospital after spending a summer in surgeries. Spending three months visiting intensive care, seeing the mechanization of human suffering, changes how you view the world. I lost fear - both of death, and of loneliness. I began to realize the pleasanter meaning of "do not resuscitate" - and in time the selfishness of such a gesture. Death is an inherently selfish act - perhaps even to this day this is why the permanent death of a player controlled character remains such a rarity.

In all of those months, I never stopped gaming. I would give up an hour or two of sleep, and of course time with her came before electronic past times, as did work and school, but gaming was the glue that helped hold together a tilted world. Even now, if game sales are any indication, families continue to buy games, gamers are going online to visit their friends, and the trips to a virtual fantasy world have not stopped.

But why? Are we all addicts? Do we plug in to a cheap crack, one we can buy a few times a year and ingest obsessively? Perhaps a small margin are - but for the rest of us, what is the appeal? Why do we keep playing Mario? Why are we logged on LIVE? Why does the World of Warcraft offer more comfort that the real world?

They are simpler worlds, smaller worlds, where much is familiar, we have more control, our friends are there, and our access is controlled. The idea has been suggested that the world is changing faster than ever. For me, I think, the reality is simply that information is spreading faster than ever. And there is a difference. Are our worries any different than those of a world hundreds of years ago? War, hunger, illness, employment, morality, love? No - they were same - simply the scope of troubles we have encountered has grown. If a tree falls in Denmark, it make a sound heard 'round the world, and yet our sense of agitation and fear remains the same as always - one not built to handle the rigors of bearing the hardship of a world.

We have been asked by reality to become gods - to accept a near omnipotence in terms of global awareness, in exchange for nothing. In the world of gaming, however, we gain the ability to solve those problems. We are given tools to communicate with our friends. We are given world populated with people who want to help us, problems can be solved, doors open, and answers remain. In the real world where we are given filled in maps, books of known species, and an ever-shifting Wikipedia answer to every question, the gaming world hands us a galaxy and says "explore and enjoy".

We live in strange times, a time when higher education no longer means "study free from the consequences of practicality" but instead "study under the guidance of standards and practices". We are no longer free to learn in the institutions designed for the task - instead we must grind for grades, accumulating the "As" or "1s" or "5.0s" (whatever your institution may be) that mean promotion and (so we are taught) eventual employment. We spend the ages of 5 to 22 under the thumb of educators more concerned about our well-scoring than our well-being, and life after that lost in some fog where we are supposed to be the saviours of the old generation - the scientists, doctors, and engineers who will apply band-aids to their mistakes.

Is it any wonder that Mario is so successful? Not simply for the simplicity, but for the simple joy. Mario is an everyman, a plumber, who joyfully takes to his task of exploring a strange world to rescue his beloved. His optimism towards his lot in life, and his joy at exploring the unknown hearken back to a time when there were woods left to explore, and when we felt like it was worthwhile doing so.

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At heart, I speculate this is the joy of child bearing, to see the world through the eyes of someone who has not grown jaded towards it. A child lets us once again experience the wonder of an unexplored field.

The appeal of gaming has been dissected before, and to be honest, perhaps it is intentional. Perhaps Cliff creates a game to capture the rugged manhood he can never act out in the modern world. Pokemon is known to be a replacement for the bug-filled forests the creators enjoyed in their childhoods - now replaced with sprawling Japanese cities filled with more dangers than wonders. The critics may say "there are too many of them" - but that to is the appeal. No matter how many years go by, there will always be Pokemon, there will always be Pikachu.

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But what does it all mean? Nothing, perhaps, or maybe everything. Is gaming the glue that can reconstruct our shattered world? Can videogames be enough to bring us together, to build the new standard? I would like that to be so, but they are just glue - we must choose what we build with it. But... what remains is hope. No matter how bad things are, no matter how scary the world becomes - there is a constant, there is a chance, and so long as imagination is alive, we can build something new.

The storytellers of the electronic age have become the bards of the Middle Age, providing not escape, but wonder. And that it why gaming is a recession proof industry. Not because we consume, but because we dream.

I'm a beer snob - I have been for years, since I started proper drinking, and as time has gone on, the symptoms have become worse. I've found myself having hour long discussions on the trappist beers, the merits of lambics, and the use of fruit adjuncts in fermentation.

I've long accepted that it's simply a pity that for most places "100 beers on tap" really means "which re-branding of Bud Light would you like?" - a damn shame we've accepted that reality in the USA, and I'm glad to be beyond it. I'm thankful, grateful, that I understand what Belgium and Germany are so excited about - why the Japanese praise this "beer" thing, what a real beverage tastes like - but really - my beer needs to tone it down.

Today, getting off work, I opened my fridge, grabbed the first beer I saw, and poured it into the nearest pint glass - an amber ale into a pub glass - just a lucky grab really, it could have just as easily wound up in a narrow flute, and wouldn't that have been a damn shame (beer advocate says yes). I sat down at my computer to quaff the drink and rather than sit there and be drunk, like a lifeless pale lager, it fought back. The beer balked at the prospect of being forgetable - a wreath of lace head burst on my lips as a silky beverage exploding with hoppy bitter high-notes and a semi-sweet malt undertone played across my palette.

"God damnit", I explaimed, "don't I have any crappy beer?"

Apparently not - Chateau Jihau, Lindeman's Kriek Lambic, a genuine doppleback, and a Russian imperial stout starred back. From the crisper drawer, a handful of IPAs varying from excellent to incredible in quality burst forth, hidden for weeks from any hop-destroying ultraviolet lights.

And there and then I had it - every beer in my house demands appreciation, each one is a fine example of its variety, the standard to which one could judge. Even the lone macrobrew - a Guiness Extra Stout - was a fine beer - certainly nothing to scoff at. And yet - none of them could just shut up and be a beverage - all of them, all of them have to be ****ing amazing, show-stopping, memorable and exciting life moments.

Ah well, screw it... I think I'll have a soda.

Everything... apparently. Sony's titular Fat Princess has the internet up in arms, as the knee-jerk blogosphere once again demonstrates that it has absolutely no sense of humor. The internet is serious business! Curious if I had somehow missed the sinister agenda behind this game, I dug deep into Kotaku and Joystiq's coverage of the outcry, and came back more confused than ever. Just to be clear, at this point, we're talking about this game shown below:

This "wicked" game revolves around players working as a team to rescue a chunky princess, while the opposing team may stuff her with more tasty treats to weigh her down, and make it harder on the rescuers. The positively adorable animations belay inquiry into its dark agenda - as this title (apparently) promotes homophobia, negative stereotypes of obesity, and sexism! Oh my! I took another look, having previously overlooked the dastardly agenda of evil that is Fat Princess.

Feminist gamer writes that Fat Princess will "reinforce nasty stereotypes about women and the obese", while Melissa McEwan writes on blogspot that Fat Princess will create a "new generation of fat-hating, heteronormative ********" Wow! The detractors of this game have all guns blazing based on a few minutes of promo footage! I suppose then, that I'm forced to retort, with a simple question:

"Do you think people are so stupid that they get their views on life from videogames?".

No, really, let's answer that. Melissa, darling your weight doesn't make you ugly to me - holding up your middle finger at a *cartoon* is what makes you unattractive. It's what's inside that counts, after all, right? And what's at the root of this debate is the troubling implication that gamers are somehow stupid, easily influenced, hate-filled human beings who, upon seeing a game with a big beautiful princess, start chucking rocks at the nearest buxom lady.

Gamers aren't stupid, immoral jerks - we're a mixed bag, just like the rest of society. Straight, gay fat, thin, tall, short, male, female, and everything inbetween. Now, that's not to say that there aren't closed-minded gamers, just as there are closed-minded people who aren't gamers - but let's not blame the games. After all, I spent most of my childhood playing Sonic and Mario, and I've yet to have any desire to become a plumber, take up marathon running, or force my girlfriend to put on pink dresses and hide in castles. What's at the heart of this debate is the idea that society sends a negative image of the obese, and I'm not one to contest that - what I do contest is that this game is to blame.

A few years ago, a study was undertaken in which men were asked to select the most attractive woman out of a variety of pictures. The photos covered women of all shapes and sizes, from anorexic-thin to heavyset. Then, a group of women were shown the same pictures, and asked to select the one they felt would be most attractive to men. The women, on average, selected thinner women than the men did. In fact, the men largely selected women on the upper-normal end of a "normal weight" BMI. What does this tell us? Well - society is sending a negative body image to women, but men seem to largely find all shapes and sizes attractive. Interesting, it shows we have a problem, but who is to blame?

A quick google search for "Fat Princess" lead me to all sorts of interesting sites (turn on Safe Search for your own safety here!) and to finding that plenty of men wanted a princess with more meat on her bones. Hmm, well, Princess Peach *was* always a little too willowy. What's the harm, and where's the blame? Well, apparently, Fat Princess. Forget books, magazines, over-pushy soccer moms telling their daughters that the must fit in a size 4 dress or little boys being told they mustn't date that "fat Suzy Jenkins", no, clearly an unpublished videogame is at fault!

The concern here seems to be yet another bad case of "let's blame games for everything", and it has backfired on a genuinely cute, playful, fun little title. After all, what's wrong with the princess being fat? Would it be better if she were skinny? Would it be less offensive if you tied rocks to her to weight her down? The implication here is that there's something wrong with a portly princess, that she should somehow be ashamed. Should the knights not be rescuing her? They seem eager and dedicated to the task of rescuing their fair lady - why would a game that supposedly encourages me to hate fat people make rescuing the heavyset princess such a joyous occasion?

Perhaps, in reality, the blogosphere simply looks to react negatively to anything in gaming - hoping to place blame for greater social ills on a harmless amusement. But, at a certain point, it's simple ridiculous. It's utterly nonsensical to throw out terms like "heteronormative" in regard to a simplistic cartoon game - would a prince rescuing his life partner make for a more edifying game? Wouldn't that then leave out female relationships altogether? In a world without common sense, that would be a tragedy, but really, I doubt the clas sic "prince charming" fairy tale rescue is to blame for homophobia, and it's a bit silly to turn to a *videogame* to teach a new generation of children about sexuality.

And that's simply the point of it all - who'sm really to blame for social ills? Parents? Teachers? Traditional Media? Generations of stereotypes and sexism? Maybe all of the above - but the hunt to point fingers has seemingly led us off the deep end, when we start pointing fingers at a cutesy bubbling princess as the source of all ills. Now really, having dug deep, scoured the arguement of all meat, and starred at the bright-eyed royal rescue that is Fat Princess, there's really nothing left to say but "give me a break!"

I don't know about you, but I look forward to hauling a hefty princess home to my PS3 as soon as possible. I guess I'll just have to live with the terrible implications if Fat Princess should convince me big women are just more fun to be around.

Defusing the Bomb

I have written one, and only one blog post on the subject of GiantBomb. It's frankly not a subject I want to return to, as the difference in quality between any professional site and this startup is more than obvious.I personally believe most intelligent people who were excited about the possibility are now feeling the sting. That isn't to say the internet can't have more than one site, that you shouldn't enjoy as many sites as you feel are worth your time, or anything along those lines, simply that I found the experience on GiantBomb to be intellectually stiffling, because the site's community management needs months, if not years, before it will be ready to house the quality of poster that I know you all to be:

x-posted from GiantBomb, note "here" and "this site" below refer to GiantBomb:

If you want to talk to me, see my posts, see my blogs, etc - they're not going to be here. I'll pause for a second to let that soak in ... yes, not here. Now, why would I say something like that? Well, because frankly GiantBomb is unfinished - it's like they took the tools for Wikia, and the tools for a pre-packaged forum, put them on the same server, added some Jeff G reviews, and said "done!". Some of you may like that, but the community that has formed around that frankly sucks.

The good people here? The same ones that I already knew from GameSpot, 1up, and IGN. The bad people on here (who *far* outnumber the good)? The same ones that were bannedfrom GameSpot, 1up, and IGN.
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I gave the site an opportunity to address my concerns, wrote the staff politely and said "hey, what's up?" and asked the mod-team how they were planning to address their age-cist policies, and the response I received publicly was underwhelming (or non-existent, in the case of staff). The response I received privately was disparaging. Digging deeper into the nooks and crannies, the original posts used to test the experience by the admins can still be found, and their immaturity is frankly reflective of a "site running out of some kid's garage." For something that is someone's livelyhood, it is as though no management is involved - the garage band of sites if you will.

For some of you, I'm sure that's quite an endorsement - those of you who believe in a world of conspiracy theories, biases, and buyouts. That's fair - but just be aware, it is the small sites who cannot afford to isolate themselves from the publisher spoon-feeding. In reality, as I care little about the so-called professional reviewer (a laughable idea to the rational mind at best, that one review score could ever reflect the technical, artistic, and personal merits of a game for every gamer - the average person isn't, Q.E.D.) I don't see the appeal in what has been done here.

So, to the banned-persons of the world, to the anonymous jerks of the Internet, I bid you a good night. I shall keep an eye on GiantBomb, and at the time they develop the sense to respond to intelligent queries, and the lowest-common-denominator has been removed out of necessity, I may return to become a contributor. Until such a day, I can be found on GameSpot, on my IRC (accessirc.net, #avant-game), and elsewhere on the Internet. However, as intelligence quite literally cannot survive in this place, I must depart.

For those who doubt the effect an unmitigated stream of trolls, and the wikification of reality via the user contribution system will have on the site, I cannot say anything other than "time will demonstrate". I hope, for the sake of GiantBomb, that my concerns are unfounded, but I know that not to be the case. Best of luck to Jeff and friends in their future endeavours - if my assistance is needed as part of the bomb cleanup team - you know where I can be found.

If you agree fine, if you don't, you're entitled to your opinion. The bottom line is, I'm here to stay.

Updates

I know some people have felt GS is a bit light on content lately - in that regard I plan to contribute by announcing weekly postings, coming up in the near future from myself:

• Reviewing the Modern Game (this weekend)
  
• Living in Real Time (~1.5 weeks)
  
• Gods and Men (~3 weeks)
  
• Girls Got Game (~4.5 weeks)

I also have some plans in the works that will be announced with Avant-Game to attempt collective, semi-live community coverage of the launch of upcoming titles - thus far Too Human, Mirror's Edge, Fallout 3, Little Big Planet, and Gears of War 2 are slated, but this could change. I apologize for the delay in the latest soapbox, long-term illness in the family has placed some limits on my free time lately, however I should be returning to that this weekend - see you then.

After unlocking the Defender in the demo, I recorded some footage of one of the arena battles. The pace of combat in Too Human is quite brisk, I've completed the demo three times now, and I've enjoyed it thoroughly. Has anyone tried any other c1asses besides Defender and Champion?